The seemingly unflappable Demi-Precentor looked at the two hard men before him and then at their sidearms. He wordlessly stood up and ushered them into the sending room. Five minutes later the message was on its way.
"Now what?" asked Bell.
"Now we wait for a reply." Rose looked toward the silent Demi-Precentor, who nodded. Evidently he was not a Preservationist.
It took more than six hours to receive a reply, time which the Black Thorns passed looking over their gun sights and preparing a defense against any counterattack by the Clans. Esmeralda moved inside the compound, but Ajax continued to prowl the streets searching for signs of the Jade Falcons. Dawn was just breaking when the Demi-Precentor handed Rose a message. He read it once, then sprinted into the courtyard.
"The cavalry is on the way," he shouted at the top of his lungs.
Bell looked at him as if annoyed. "Who needs them?"
"We do, unless you want another night like the last one. A regiment's on the way."
"I'm not sure that will be necessary," Antioch said. "The spaceport reports that the Clan DropShip blasted into orbit ten minutes ago. They seem to be heading back to their JumpShip." Antioch let Rose stand there for a few seconds with his mouth open before continuing.
"It's over. We won," Bell said, and relief washed over Rose like a warm wave. A grin spread over his face, which Bell returned in kind.
"Councilwoman de Vilbis is calling the Clan arrival an invasion and the Preservationists a terrorist organization. Rianna called for the police to pick up the prisoners.
"We did it, Jeremiah. We beat the Clans."
Then Rose's smile began to drain away as though someone had pulled the plug. "You're right, Antioch. We beat them, but at what cost? The price for this planet was just too high."
"Captain, this is Command Two. I have an emergency call from the Mother of Mercy hospital. Captain McCloud requests your immediate presence."
Rose felt his eyes fill with tears as he listened to Rianna over the Phoenix Hawk'sexternal speakers. Bell's smile was back in full force and Rose couldn't help but mirror it.
Perhaps, he thought, the price hadn't been so high after all.
Glossary
POLITICAL TERMS
After the fall of the Star League General Aleksandr Kerensky, commander of the Regular Star League army, led his forces out of the Inner Sphere in what is known as the first Exodus. After making their way beyond the Periphery, more than 1,300 light years away from Terra, Kerensky and his followers settled in a group of marginally habitable star systems near a large globular cluster that hid them from the Inner Sphere. Within fifteen years, Civil War erupted among these exiles, threatening to destroy everything they had worked so hard to build. In a second Exodus, Nicholas Kerensky, son of Aleksandr, led his followers Jo one of the worlds of the globular cluster to escape the new war. It was there on Strana Mechty that Kerensky first conceived and organized the system that would one day become known as the Clans.
Though Wolfs Dragoons originated among the Clans, they have repudiated their allegiance to the Wolf Clan. Nevertheless many Clan traditions, concepts, and customs still prevail among the Dragoons.
CLANS
Out of the ashes of the civilization that Kerensky's forces tried to create rose the Clans. The Clans are a warrior society that is rigidly divided into castes, with the warriors as the elite. To create this warrior caste the Clans use genetic engineering, using the genes of prestigious living and dead warriors to produce potential new ones.
COMSTAR
ComStar, the interstellar communications network, was the brainchild of Jerome Blake, Minister of Communications during the latter years of the Star League. After the League's fall, Blake seized Terra and reorganized what was left of the League's communications network into a private organization that sold its services to the five Successor Houses for a profit. Since that time, ComStar has also developed into a powerful secret society steeped in mysticism and ritual. Initiates to the quasi-religious ComStar Order commit themselves to lifelong service. After the climactic battle between ComStar and the Clans on Tukayyid, ComStar splintered into two factions: the reformed ComStar and the arch-conservative Word of Blake.
INNER SPHERE
The Inner Sphere was the term originally applied to the star empires that joined together to form the Star League in the mid-2700s. The term currently applies to human-occupied space within the bounds of the Periphery.
PERIPHERY
Beyond the borders of the Inner Sphere lies the Periphery, the vast domain of known and unknown worlds stretching endlessly into interstellar night. Once populated by colonies from Terra, the worlds of the Periphery were devastated technologically, politically, and economically by the fall of the Star League. At present, the Periphery is the refuge of piratical Bandit Kings, privateers, and outcasts from the Inner Sphere.
STAR LEAGUE
The Star League was formed in 2571 in an attempt to peacefully ally the major star systems inhabited by the human race after it had taken to the stars. The League prospered for almost 200 years, until civil war broke out in 2751. The League was eventually destroyed when the ruling body, known as the High Council, disbanded in the midst of a struggle for power. Each of the royal House rulers then declared him or herself First Lord of the Star League, and within months, war had engulfed the Inner Sphere. This conflict continued for almost three centuries. This era of continuous war is now known simply as the Succession Wars.
SUCCESSOR LORDS
Each of the five Successor States is ruled by a family descended from one of the original Council Lords of the old Star League. All five royal House Lords claim the title of First Lord of the Star League, and they have been at each other's throats since the beginning of the Succession Wars in 2786. Their battleground is the vast Inner Sphere, which is composed of all the star systems once occupied by the Star League's member-states.
SUCCESSOR STATES
After the fall of the Star League, the remaining members of the High Council each asserted his or her right to become First Lord of the Star League. Their star empires became known as the Successor States and the rulers as the Successor Lords. Five ruling Houses make up the Successor States: House Kurita, House Liao, House Steiner, House Marik, and House Davion. The Clan invasion has temporarily interrupted the centuries of war—the Succession Wars—that first began in 2786. The battleground of these wars is the vast Inner Sphere, which is composed of all the star systems once occupied by the Star League's member-states. The Successor Lords have temporarily put aside their differences in order to meet the threat of a common foe, the Clans.
TRUCE OF TUKAYYID
The Truce of Tukayyid establishes a fifteen-year ceasefire between the Clans and the Inner Sphere. Khan Ulric Kerensky, ilKhan of the Clans, made a bargain with Com-Star's Precentor Martial, Anastasius Focht, to fight a battle on the planet Tukayyid. If the Clans won, ComStar would hand Terra over to them; if the Com Guards won, the Clans would agree to a fifteen-year truce. Signed by the Clans and ComStar after the Com Guards won an overwhelming victory against the Clans on Tukayyid, the truce establishes a boundary marking the front line of the Clan incursion into Inner Sphere space. The treaty forbids the Clans to advance beyond this boundary for a period of fifteen years.