The Federated Commonwealth Civil War had wrecked New Avalon, untouched by war for so many centuries.

Its industry, once the equivalent of any five worlds, was in ruins. Its farmlands, once verdant and bountiful, were churned swamps by the massed movement of battlemech regiments. Its cities, once standing proud against the sky, smashed into rubble.

Even a year after Katrina’s surrender, the signs of conflict were still very much in evidence when I returned.

-The Word of Blake Contagion, Frank Meronac

 

Lucien Davion Starport,

Avalon City, New Avalon,

Crucis March, Federated Suns

9^th August 3068

 

“Where the heck is the transport truck? Or do we have to drag our stuff all the way to the immigration counter?” Frank Meronac yelled at the spaceport attendant who had just lowered one of the dropship ramps.

“Sorry, sir, we’re short on manpower, so you’ll have to bring all your stuff yourself to the arrival building.” The woman said in a rehearsed voice and shrugged at the same time, like she was used to such complaints. Obviously, Frank was not the only one who was surprised at the lack of service.

Frank looked up in dismay at the arrival hall building, more than 800 meters away. He sighed heavily in resignation before grabbing up his wheeled suitcase and a large luggage bag. At least he did not have to carry the really heavy stuff.

Lorik walked up beside him, one of his massive arms wrapped around another big rucksack. The other arm dragged along a hefty plastic crate with wheels. The giant physicist did not seem hindered by his load.

“Ah, Frank, having some problem with your luggage?” The elemental smiled with a familiar glint in his eyes.

Frank rolled his eyes as he knew what was coming. “Oh please, spare me another one of your training day stories.” The trip to New Avalon with Lorik had either been one vociferous scientific argument after another, spiced up by occasional anecdotes from Lorik’s days as an elemental warrior trainee, or long sessions in the small gaming/practice arcade the dropship operators had setup in a cargo bay.

It had been interesting, to say the least.

Lorik plowed on nevertheless. “Back in the training facility, we had to carry large sandbags on our backs, as well as one over each shoulder. That was really heavy!” The two walked on slowly to the arrival building.

They made a contrasting pair, the two scientists, to the rest of the passengers leaving the dropship. Frank was a bit worried about Lorik’s status as a clansman in the heart of the Federated Suns.

Never mind, it’s all for the sake of scientific advancement, right? He told himself. Besides, it’s not as if MIIO can grab him in the middle of the night and interrogate him. It’s a good thing Katrina Steiner’s no longer in charge.

On the other hand, Frank was still dubious about Yvonne Davion’s regency. He could not forget that it was Yvonne who had given away the Federated Suns to Katrina, and even his personal acquaintance with her in the NAIS could not remove the pain of the civil war for which she was also partly responsible.

The scars of the civil war were evident from the laser scorch marks on some of the buildings, and the pock marks on the tarmac of the dropship landing pads. The ugliness of war stood in contrast to the beautiful blue sky, causing Frank to recall some of his terrible memories of the final campaign on New Avalon.

When they finally reached the security and immigration counters, the spaceport officers there had to take several long looks at Lorik and his load before they allowed him to pass. 2.5 meter tall giants were not exactly common in the Inner Sphere.

Frank was sure, however, that those same officers would have sent a special signal to the local MIIO station at the spaceport to keep tabs on Lorik and his cargo. In fact, he was counting on it.

“Are we going straight to your fabled NAIS?” Lorik asked as they trudged out the last gate to the large arrival hall. The hall was poorly lit, with throngs of people walking around. The spaceport was one of the busiest in the Federated Suns, with a dropship lifting off every two hours with agricultural products, military supplies, or landing with raw material for the factories on world.

“No. I arranged for a friend to pick us up first.” Frank said as he turned his head, looking around the hall. “He should be here now.”

“Of course I’m here!” A loud voice barked out from behind them. “How could I miss my best friend coming back to New Avalon after making his fortune as a merc!”

Frank spun around to greet a black man in the uniform of the Federated Suns with a comradely hug and a wide grin on his face.

Frank disengaged from the hug, and introduced his friends to each other. “Eddie, this is Scientist Lorik, of Clan Goliath Scorpion.”

Eddie stared at the elemental for a second, before shaking the giant’s hand. “Holy shit, you weren’t joking when you said you’ll be bringing a clanner along.”

“Yeah, and Lorik, this is Captain Eddie Tyler of the AFFS, and one of the best mech jocks on New Avalon.”

The black man coughed lightly. “Ahem, I’m no longer a captain.”

Frank arched an eyebrow. “Got demoted again?”

Eddie laughed. “No! I just got bumped up to Major, and I also got transferred to the 1^st Davion Guards,” he said smugly.

“Woah, congratulations, Eddie!” Frank was impressed, and slapped Eddie on his back. A mechwarrior officer in the AFFC could expect to reach his majority only after about 12 years of good service, while Eddie had only graduated just before the Civil War, and thus served only 6 years so far. And the 1^st Davion Guards was a plum assignment for any young aspiring officer, even if they were still rebuilding after their decimation at the very start of the civil war.

Of course, Frank tried not to dwell on the fact that it was most probably due to the age old tradition of officers stepping into the shoes of dead men that allowed Eddie to reach his current post so quickly.

“Where’s Clarice? You know, I half expected her to be here.” Frank asked, looking around some more.

Eddie shrugged. “Sorry, she wanted to come along, but they needed her at the hospital. I think she and Sophia will be just finished with their work at the NAIS when we get there.”

Sophia Langford was another classmate of Frank’s, and Eddie’s current squeeze, according to Clarice’s letters to him over the last few months.

“So we are going to the NAIS, quiaff?” Lorik shifted the load on his shoulder, and for a moment Frank was afraid the elemental would drop the sack on him.

“Err, aff,” Eddie started to walk towards one of the huge exits. “You know, Frank, you never told me why you really came back, and with a clanner with you besides.”

“Sorry, Eddie,” Frank shook his head and smiled thinly, “can’t tell you.”

“Wouldn’t it have to do with some hullabaloo tech find over in the Periphery a few months ago, would it?” Eddie looked closely at Frank for a reaction, and evidently found it. “Gotcha, buddy. You did have something to do with it, right?”

“Well,” Frank winked, “I could tell you, but then Lorik here would have to snap your neck. Or I could stomp on you with my ride.”

“Oh yeah, like you would really do that.” A thought suddenly seemed to occur to Eddie. “Hey, did that mean you actually learnt to jockey a mech?”

Frank could not hold in his grin. His cutting edge Night Gyr was actually sitting within one of the mech bays of the dropship, and he intended it to be a nasty surprise for Eddie when the time was right. Preferably during a mech training run session.

“Yeah, I did. A lot of it was on the job. It was pretty tough.” That was an understatement, considering that he fought against either highly skilled clan warriors or overwhelming numbers of combat drones during that brutal campaign on Einstein. He shuddered at the memory.

“You gotta tell me what went on out there.” Eddie led them to a nondescript black car. “And then maybe I’ll take you out to one of our training grounds.” Eddie laughed as he opened the boot of the car. “I want to see how good you are.”

“Definitely not as good as you, Eddie.” Frank was being perfectly honest. Eddie had more than twenty kills to his name with the 2^nd Davion Guards during the vicious civil war, on Sirdar, Salem, and the final bloodbath on New Avalon.

Eddie snorted. “You sure? If it wasn’t for your ‘Hail Mary’ attack on Sirdar when we were on the ropes, we might not have made it here at all.”

Frank dismissed that thought with a wave of his hand. “Pure, utter luck. The Armored Cavalry would have taken the world regardless.” He dumped his load into the boot with visible effort. “Sometimes, I still have nightmares about the men I killed.”

Eddie nodded as he got into the driver’s seat. “I know. It wasn’t easy at all, no matter how much any of us tried to pretend it was. There are still times when a trooper would just walk up and spit in front of me, just because I fought for the Prince.”

“When will the scars leave us?” Frank wondered.

“I dunno. How long did it take for Alexander Davion to truly unite his people?”

“A long time, I guess. And he needed a long period of relative calm to do that.”

“Which we have now. The Star League may be gone, god knows it was all a ruse anyway, but I think everybody’s sick of war now.”

Frank thought of the letter in the locker on Outreach, Jaime Wolf’s unease, and the mercs’ discovery of terrible forces lying beyond the depths of space. He decided not to say anything.

“Get in, guys.” Eddie started the engine of the car as Lorik managed to squeeze in the last of their gear into the boot. “Next stop, NAIS!”

They had some trouble pushing Lorik into the vehicle, but eventually the big man lounged in the back seats while Frank sat shotgun. Frank knew they were a funny sight as they rumbled out of the space port’s car park, the car having a bit of a problem with the giant in the backseat and the baggage in the boot.

The spaceport was sited just outside the city, but the New Avalon Institute of Science was 30 kilometers south of it, accessible on the ground only by underground subways. And with heavily armed checkpoints with enough firepower to take out an Atlas.

“I hope you guys have your passes ready.” Eddie said as the car chugged down the highway. “Them security types are getting a bit antsy recently, with Prince Victor back and all.”

“Prince Victor is back?” Frank, like almost everyone else who had heard the Prince’s last speech before he left New Avalon, had thought the former ruler would never be returning to the capital world of the Federated Suns. “Wasn’t he supposed to be on Tukayyid commanding the Com Guards?”

The end of the Civil War had heralded the end of the Federated Commonwealth. Victor Davion had gone back to his prewar role of guarding the Inner Sphere as Comstar Precentor Martial, leaving the Federated Suns to his sister Yvonne Davion and the Lyran Commonwealth to his brother Peter Steiner, who had emerged from his self-imposed exile on Zaniah to retake Tharkad. Katrina Steiner, by all accounts, had been whisked away by Khan Vladimir Ward of Clan Wolf.

Eddie was saying, “Well, Princess-Regent Yvonne Davion and Duke Tancred Sandoval are getting married just next week, so of course they had invite the family of the bride over. The Archon was unable to come because he says he’s still too busy, but apparently Victor didn’t have the same problem. He’s staying over at the NAIS, because he did not want any problems from staying at the Royal Palace.”

“I see.” Frank pursed his lips. “So are people getting anxious?”

“Not that I can see. Still, you never know.”

“You people are sure strange.” Lorik spoke up. “Skilled warriors like Victor Davion should be praised and raised to positions of higher responsibility, yet all I hear since arriving in the Inner Sphere was one complaint after another about how poor he was as a ruler.”

“Uh, Lorik, we all say that because it’s true.” Frank was not blind to the former Prince’s faults, for all of Davion’s success as a military commander.

Eddie explained, “In the clans, you guys settle who’s the top dog by conflict, but we work differently over here. What makes a warrior successful in battle doesn’t always apply to other areas.”

“I think I understand. Because of your different social conventions, what works for us does not work for you.”

“Yup.” The two Inner Sphere freebirths answered.

“So, Frank, how are we going to explain my presence to the guards?”

“Simple. We tell them the truth.” Frank smiled. “All in the name of progress. Doc Banzai managed to get me a verigraph just after the war which would give me access to most unrestricted areas of the NAIS. I could also use that verigraph to get you in. It’s not as if we’re going to sneak around stealing state secrets, eh?”

“No.” Lorik said slowly. “We are just going to walk in and announce that whoever wants to learn advanced technology can follow us to Einstein.”

Frank winced at Lorik’s choice of words. “Do we sound like loons?”

“Most importantly, Frank, do you guys have evidence?” Eddie turned the car around a bend. “I know you’re pretty respected at the NAIS, Frank, but talk’s not going to do much.”

“Don’t worry, we have some stuff with us.” Frank pointed his thumb towards the loaded boot of the car. “Why do you think we’re carrying so much baggage?”

 

“Ah, Clarice, it’ll be good to see Frank again, wouldn’t it?” The white haired man beside Clarice Ferguson mused. He wore a typical lab coat over a standard jumpsuit, which in turn covered a body scarred by countless battles.

“Yes, definitely, Doctor Banzai.” Clarice smiled. Doctor Buckaroo Banzai was a living legend in the NAIS, and much beloved by the students and alumni. The chance to work under him was often highly sought, and fought over, by undergraduates, since it often led to plum assignments after academic life.

“In fact, I think it might be them now.” The doctor said as they stared out from the reception area of the research hospital at the car now approaching the front porch. His keen eyes missed very little, and were as alert as they had been in his youth.

Clarice could barely hide her excitement at seeing Frank again after their separation of more than a year. It had been a forced separation, since her father had Frank literally held at gun point before he was taken away by her father’s bodyguards. At least he didn’t have Frank beaten up.

And it was a good thing her father was not around, though she was sure his spies were.

Clarice sighed. Her father had no real business poking into her personal life like that, and poor Frank had been forced to leave his well paying job with a local pharmaceutical company to go to Outreach to learn to be a mechwarrior, since he had determined that the fastest way to nobility was through battlefield glory.

Clarice thought it was a miracle that he wasn’t killed in his first assignment. When he sent word that he was heading out to the Periphery, she had almost fainted on the spot. The Periphery was not exactly known as a safe place for anyone to ply their trade, mechs or no mechs.

Since his return to the Inner Sphere, and the relatively more civilized environs of Outreach, Mercenary Star though it was, she had calmed down a lot more. But Clarice could never forget the moment when she had received word that he had been badly injured on Sirdar during the civil war back in late May 3063. She had been both worried about his condition, and furious that he had virtually volunteered for a suicide mission.

If she could, she would tie him up and never let him go again.

But she also knew Frank was never the domestic type. He had a stubborn streak of idealism that often pulled him towards action and adventure, which was also why he had agreed to the billet with the 2^nd Davion Guards in the first place, and later to be a mercenary. It was also part of the reason why she loved him so much, why she could never pin him in any one place for long.

Clarice knew she was certainly attractive, with no shortage of admirers among the male population. She had shoulder length reddish-brown hair, set around an oval face. According to many of her friends, her blue eyes radiated intelligence and compassion in equal amounts.

She had been approached many times by other men during the last few years, but she had remained faithful to Frank throughout. They shared the dream of going to some secluded planet where they could both practice medicine in peace.

Frank’s last transmission to her had carried hints of the remarkable discoveries the mercenaries had made in the Periphery, as well as his instructions to have Doctor Banzai present when he returned.

The car stopped in the porch as Clarice and Doctor Banzai walked out of the lobby, but Clarice had only eyes for the man sitting beside Eddie.

Even before the car had stopped, Frank had jumped out of the car and ran towards her. The two lovers took each other into a tight embrace. Their mouths met in a kiss.

Then she discovered he had tears in his eyes. Their lips parted. He moved his face beside hers.

“I thought I was never coming back,” Frank whispered into her ear as he held her tight, “god, I thought I wasn’t going to make it.”

What exactly happened out there? Clarice was worried for Frank, but she continued embracing him, trying to channel her own warmth and strength into his trembling body.

“Ahem,” a cloud suddenly seemed to block out the sun as it floated over them. “Frank, could you please introduce me to your friends?”

Clarice stared up in amazement at the big, no, humongous man staring down at them. A pair of spectacles hung incongruously above his nose, while his bald head seemed to shimmer in the sunlight.

They broke their embrace. Frank coughed once, probably to compose himself, then said, “Uh, Lorik, this lady here is Clarice Ferguson, my fiancée. And this man in the white coat, he gestured to Doc Banzai with a wave of his hand, “is Doctor B. Banzai, founder of Team Banzai, and the man largely responsible for deciphering the Star League memory core. Doc, Clarice, this is Scientist Lorik, of Clan Goliath Scorpion.”

Frank waited as Doc Banzai and Clarice shook hands with the huge man. Clarice saw her hand swallowed up in Lorik’s huge fist. She shuddered inwardly as she realized Lorik could break her in half with zero effort.

“Frank, you’re looking good.“ Doc Banzai looked over Frank appraisingly. “You also seemed to have bulked up a bit.”

Clarice looked at Frank more carefully, and she saw that he was different from the last time she saw him. He was more muscular, and there were a few faint scars on his arms. His eyes were harder and sadder than they were before. But there also lurked behind them a strange fire that was never there before. She shivered as she realized that he looked a bit like one of those burnt out warriors after the civil war.

“Doc,” Frank told Doc Banzai excitedly, “you’re not going to believe what we found out there. There’s a great deal of advanced technology that will benefit mankind.”

“But there’s a catch, is there?” Doc Banzai said with a tight grin. “Oh, MIIO came to me last month about your profile, since they wanted to try to get a handle on how to get you to divulge all the tech your new merc unit found in the Periphery. Without the Fed Suns spending too much money.”

Frank’s face fell. “You knew about that already? Damn.”

“I can even guess at why you came here!” Banzai started walking back to the lobby. “You want me and Team Banzai to leave the NAIS and go to your little fiefdom, right?”

Frank held up his hands in surrender, “Okay, okay, looks like I can’t really hide anything from you. Yeah, I was really hoping to get you over to our side to do research. After all, we don’t have enough scientists, while the NAIS is a bit stingy on funds after the war. I thought you would be jumping at the chance to come over.”

“And who said I wouldn’t be?” Frank did a double take at Banzai’s words. The mercurial and brilliant scientist was as eccentric and unpredictable as ever. Clarice smiled at Frank’s confusion.

“But I thought…”

“Come on in! Bring all the stuff you brought here along too! I can see Major Tyler’s poor car sagging under their weight!”

 

Precentor Martial Victor Steiner-Davion stared out the window of his room at the NAIS. He had been of two minds to come back to New Avalon for Yvonne’s wedding to Tancred, but it was Isis who had convinced him to go back to New Avalon while she traveled to Luthien to inquire about his child.

My child… Victor did not know how to react to that news, coming as it was on the heels of Khan Vladimir Ward’s demand for Katherine, his treacherous sister. Then had come the bombshell announcement at the Star League conference in November.

The Star League would be dissolved, as the various House Lords had finally given up on making it work. All of them were reluctant to let the dream go, but the hard facts had offered them no other choice. Conflict after conflict, exploitation by one first Lord after another, had disillusioned everybody.

The fact that it had been formed in the first place to counter the clans no longer mattered, nor did the fact that its dissolution might free the clans from the results of the Great Refusal.

Politics was ever his bane, and Victor knew it. It was politics which had robbed him of his mother, his brother Arthur, and his nation. And now it had robbed humanity of its crowning achievement.

Thomas Marik had been sadder than most when the inevitable happened, and he had made a heartfelt speech during the closing ceremony, that he hoped that even without a Star League, humanity would be able to coexist in peace.

Of course, that did not prevent Thomas from ordering Isis to stay away from Victor at the conference, and disallowing Isis from seeing Victor again without his permission.

Victor smiled humorlessly as he remembered Thomas’ warning about taking advantage of Isis. They had been growing closer since Omi’s death, but Victor could still feel Omi’s shadow over their relationship. Not to mention the fact that Thomas Marik was an imposter.

Victor had struggled with himself when they had parted. For a moment, he had been tempted to blurb out Marik’s secret, just to keep Isis with him. But then he had remembered the likely result, that of renewed war in the Free Worlds League, and so he had kept his peace.

Even if she could not stay with him, Isis had agreed to help him by going to the Draconis Combine to look for Omi’s child, who should be about 10 years old now. Theodore and Hohiro had been extremely close lipped about it, since Omi’s death still hurt. But they had agreed to let Isis travel with them.

There was no way he could go to the Draconis Combine personally. The assault by the Draconis March on the Combine during the civil war still rankled with the population, and a resurgence in the popularity of the Black Dragon society meant that his safety could not be assured. Theodore was having his own problems domestically, and Victor knew it would take every bit of his friends’ acumen to regain their nation’s trust.

So he had come here to New Avalon, where the scars of the war were still fresh. He spent his time giving guest lectures to the cadets at the NAIS, or training in the simulators with the cadets and the rebuilding Royal Brigade of Guards. He kept himself abreast of the reports now streaming in on the movements of the Word of Blake, which seemed to be building up to something ominous for the future.

Then Victor saw Doctor Banzai waiting with a female at the porch of the hospital entrance. It took him a while to recognize the woman as Clarice Ferguson, the daughter of Duke Ferguson, the ruler of Lackland. Duke Ferguson had been one of his supporters during the civil war, but Victor knew a lot of that was due to the Duke’s embezzlement of funds, and the pardon that he had promised to nobles who had opposed Katherine.

A black car slowly pulled into the porch, and Victor watched as a man flung himself at the Duke’s daughter. He felt a deep pang of pain as he watched the obvious pair of lovers embrace each other.

Then Victor was taken aback as he saw an elemental leave the car, followed by Major Eddie Tyler of the 1^st Davion Guards.

What the… Victor did not know what was going on, but he intended to find out. He walked over to his room communicator, picked up the handset, and keyed in several numbers. He waited for the Royal Consort to pick up the phone.

“Tancred? This is Victor. I know you’re busy, but I just saw something very strange…”