BattleTech: The Quest for Jardine (A Forgotten Worlds Collection): BattleTech

By Herbert A. Beas II

LOST IN THE FIRES OF WAR…

Freelance explorer Dr. Brooklyn Stevens made her career finding lost artifacts from Inner Sphere history, but a job offered by the academic organization known as Interstellar Expeditions gives her a chance at the find of a lifetime: a missing planet, one lost in the ravages of the brutal Succession Wars.

But the world of Jardine did not die in planet-scouring fire…it was entirely erased from stellar maps—and Brooke's employer wants to know why. But someone wants this planet to remain hidden—and will go to any length to ensure that Brooke's quest ends in tragedy.

SHROUDED IN SECRETS…

But when she finds the long-lost planet of Jardine, Brooklyn finds more than she bargained for—a lot more. She and her partner soon find themselves between two very different groups: one whose members are an unholy amalgamation of man and machine, the other a hardy village of natives that live off the land. Both groups are soon after Stevens and her knowledge of Jardine—one side to protect the planet from those that seeking to reclaim it, the other intent on killing anyone who knows of its existence. Caught between both factions, Brooklyn must uncover the mysteries of Jardine…and stay alive long enough to tell the universe about it…

• Language: English
• Publisher: Catalyst Game Labs
• Release date: Feb 21, 2024
• ISBN: 9798224937257

Book preview

BattleTech: The Quest for Jardine

BATTLETECH: THE QUEST FOR JARDINE

A FORGOTTEN WORLDS COLLECTION

HERBERT A. BEAS II

Catalyst Game Labs

CONTENTS

Foreword

The Hunt for Jardine

Prologue

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Finding Jardine

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Escape from Jardine

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Epilogue

Notable BattleMechs

More BattleTech Fiction by Herbert A. Beas II

BattleTech Eras

The BattleTech Fiction Series

BattleTech Fiction Ad

FOREWORD

Serendipity is often a wonderful thing. When I was younger, I tended chalk up beneficial events that seemed to happen by chance as random coincidences. Now that I’m a bit older, I know that while many events are not predestined, a lot times things fall into place that we don’t realize were set up to happen from the start until we look back on them.

Take this collection, for example. Back with BattleTech was in the Jihad Era, there was very little fiction of that era published at that time, other than what appeared in various sourcebooks. The simple reason for this was that there was no Catalyst fiction department at that time; short fiction was assigned as part of the sourcebook program, and that’s practically all there was. I’m sure there was the occasional Jihad Era short story that appeared on BattleCorps, but my point is there was no official fiction program for that era.

Fast forward to today, and I’m pleased to report BattleTech fiction is alive and well, with original novels, novellas, and short stories published across every era, from the Age of War (just a tiny bit right now, but with plans to grow) to our current IlClan Era. And yes, there has been the occasional Jihad Era story appearing in Shrapnel and elsewhere (one of the most recent being Craig A. Reed’s excellent novella Blood Rage). However, for the most part, these stories have used the era as their setting, but haven’t really delved into the true essence of the Jihad.

Which brings us to the collection you’re holding right now. Written by Herb Beas, former BattleTech Line Developer and the architect of the Jihad Era, no one knows more about this time period than the person charged with creating it. As such, it made perfect sense for him to write what is essentially a three-part novel about what should be a simple search for a planet that fell off the interstellar maps that turns into the discovery of a massive conspiracy to conceal an impending galaxy-wide operation that will change the whole of the BattleTech universe forever.

And what a story it is! Told through the eyes of Brooklyn Stevens, a character who might not normally be a protagonist in a novel-length BattleTech story, but I can’t think of anyone else who could be at the heart of this tale and take us on her journey, experiencing the trials she does, and discovering this vast secret along the way.

Of course, every hero needs a menacing villain, and Precentor Omicron Apollyon is one of the most terrifying ones we’ve seen in a long time. A true believer in his mission to carry out what he believes is the mission charged to the Word of Blake by ComStar’s founder, Jerome Blake, to bring their beliefs to the rest of the Inner Sphere…by any means necessary. But the interloper Dr. Stevens has discovered the secret of Jardine, and she now threatens everything he holds dear.

And what a secret it is! If you’re coming to this collection for the first time, and haven’t read these three independently published stories before now, then I won’t say much more other than you’re in for a treat, a tale that answers several questions about the beginning of the Jihad, but also raises several more. And if you’ve already read the ebook stories and perhaps picked up this volume in a paperback edition for your BattleTech collection, thank you, and I hope you enjoy re-reading these tales again.

Finally, I’m pleased to announce that this volume is the first in a line of forthcoming Jihad-Era fiction Catalyst will be producing. Right now, we are creating a program to explore this era through more original fiction, expanding on the wealth of information, reports, rumors, and legends that run rampant about one of the bloodiest eras in the history of the Inner Sphere. So if you enjoy Dr. Stevens’ adventures in The Quest for Jardine, I hope you’ll come back to read more forthcoming fiction about the Jihad.

—John Helfers, Executive Editor

Catalyst Game Labs

PROLOGUE

My dearest Tyler,

Well, we’re here at last! I’m sure by now you’ve been getting bored with the usual in-transit messages, but I also know how much you worry during these field missions. What can I say but the usual assurances that I’m fine, I still love you, I miss you very, very much, and I hope to be home in just another few months?

It’s a shame you couldn’t come, by the way. From orbit, Rocky seems quite fascinating. Trouble says the scans he’s getting so far reveal the planet slid back into an ice age, probably thanks to the nuclear winter from that last battle down there between the Davions and Steiners. Radiation levels now are fairly tolerable, of course—survivable, even without protection.

Better still, we think all that environmental damage played havoc with ocean currents after all these years; the Annie M is now beached on the Obsidian Coast. I won’t even need full arctic diving gear or the DrillerMech to get at the target.

So it looks like everything on this job is working out right (for a change!). But don’t worry, honey. I’ll bundle up nice and warm in the heavy envirosuit, just for you.

And I’ll play it safe, as always.

Love!

—Brooke

RSS ANNIE M

OBSIDIAN COAST

ROCKY

LYRAN ALLIANCE

13 FEBRUARY 3067

Brooke, you better get your ass out of there!

Its sound muffled only slightly through the insulation of her sealed helmet, a powerful blast emphasized the words barked in Brooke Stevens’ ears. Shuddering the length of the ancient cargo ship, the explosion set free a brief cascade of long-dead barnacles, centuries-old stalactites of ice, and decayed minerals from the ceiling and walls around her. More powerful than the first explosion, this one shook the bowed, age-worn deck grates so violently that she had to reach out with her free hand, grasping at a corroded rail along the starboard bulkhead.

Not unexpectedly, the rail snapped free, denying any support—real or imagined—and leaving Brooke to fight a losing battle with gravity. Flailing, she fell back and knew an exquisite pain that shot along her left leg when it twisted almost completely out of joint. The heavy satchel, still clutched in her right hand, bounced against the grates with a muted clatter of metal on metal. Instinctively, she tightened her grip on its carrying strap, holding on for dear life even as her other hand let go of the useless rail fragment.

The shock of pain forced a short yelp from Brooke’s lips that momentarily fogged the polarized faceplate of her heavy helmet and reflected back the stale stench of the mystery meat hash she’d had for breakfast this morning. She coughed as much from the odor as from the pain.

Brooke? Though robbed of emotion through the transmission, Marissa Boerefijn’s voice nevertheless betrayed her worry.

"I heard you, Marie!" Brooke spat back, then bit her lip as she forced her left leg back underneath her.

Are you okay?

Ask a stupid question, she hissed.

Another explosion shook the derelict vessel, and icy debris peppered her thick suit. Brooke pulled herself upright, sucking in a lungful of filtered air through grinding teeth as her leg screamed back in pain. Just ahead, barely illuminated by the (remaining) headlamps of her envirosuit helmet, the topside hatch was an oblong pool of blackness against the mottled gray and streaking shadows of the aft bulkhead. Burned away barely half an hour ago, the heavy door lay flat before the opening, an awkward step to the chamber beyond.

Still clutching the satchel, Brooke moved again, breathing heavily into her faceplate with each laborious, pain-wracked step…

It was all supposed to be so easy, she reminded herself again.

After all, the Annie M had rested on the bottom of Rocky’s Obsidian Sea for the better part of three hundred years, survived a nuclear war, shifted shoreward by gross changes in local currents, and undergone a deep freeze as the planet’s ice age plunged the average surface temperatures to -20 centigrade and below. Surely time and the elements would have rendered useless any of the booby traps left behind by the Rim Worlders who originally scuttled their secret prize for later retrieval.

That was what Brooke and her team had decided, anyway. Seemed reasonable enough—until she found those cargo holds piled high with ancient munitions. Chemical sensors linked to her suit fed data to Marissa, who enjoyed the relative comfort of the McKenna. The modified AstroLux star yacht remained parked somewhere just beyond the beaches-turned-tundra of the Obsidian Coast, a few kilometers northwest of here.

The data—and Tibor Trouble Mitternacht’s lightning-fast analysis of it from his own post on the McKenna—quickly revealed the presence of chemical propellants and warhead leakage. Only semi-frozen on the flooring, where it all had spent the last century or so pooling up, the chemical cocktail was unstable in the extreme, a literal powder keg awaiting a match.

Fortunately, the cargo hold that was Brooke’s destination was separated from the munitions holds by several badly rusted bulkheads and one deck encrusted with dead, frosted barnacles and other curious mineral remains.

Unfortunately, the hold—and the heavy stainless-steel safes within holding the real prize—lay just beneath the waterline, trapped in ice requiring a handful of incendiary charges to flash-melt.

Compared to other jobs Brooke had taken, dunking herself into a murky slush to blindly cut away corroded safe latches with a pocket plasma torch was a piece of cake, as was groping about to withdraw items by touch alone. But somewhere in all that effort, some spark or vibration she hadn’t accounted for must have happened. Perhaps even a bit of a functional and ancient mechanical booby trap was to blame.

Whatever the cause, the result was a chain reaction that even now slowly ignited the Annie M’s explosive cargo, warhead by tri-centenarian warhead…

Brooke!

A thunderous blast followed Brooke as she hobble-ducked through another open hatchway and into a narrow spiral stairwell heavily cluttered with debris and remains. Half an hour ago, she had descended these very stairs slowly enough, mindful of the mummified ruins that might once have been living, breathing crewmen over three hundred years ago. Now, she raced, forcing pain-wracked legs—weighed down by an extra few kilograms of unidentified treasures and a partially frozen envirosuit—to pound the ancient metal steps, kicking up bits of ice, ancient metal, and perhaps even fragments of long-dead corpses.

Brooke! Marissa shouted again.

"I know! I know!"

As the blast all but tore open the deck below her, Brooke clutched the stair rail tightly, thanked the fates for its support, and made her way to the upper deck, catching a glimpse of dim daylight somewhere beyond the open hatch above.

Then the world spun at the sound of groaning metal, sending her sprawling back several steps to crash shoulder first onto the landing. The satchel, following her fall, slammed back and landed full on her chest. Another yelp of pain escaped through clenched teeth. Stars swam before her as she forced herself to roll back to her feet, all while dimly aware the ship itself continued to lurch and shift.

Marie! she snarled.

She’s capsizing, Brooke! Marissa came back in a rush.

"We’re beached, for Bast’s sa⁠—!"

"The bow was on the ice shelf, dummkopf! Tibor’s harsher voice cut in suddenly. That last blast looks like it ruptured the outer hull, and you’re on the half that doesn’t have the support!"

"Oh, terrific!" Brooke spat. Hauling herself upward again, satchel in hand, she made for the upper decks, watching the gray shaft of daylight as it gradually, shakingly turned away. Each step became a challenge of balance—and pain management—as the Annie M’s aft continued to list, and it was onto a deck now half-sunken in partially frozen seawater slush that she finally emerged agonizing seconds later.

As ancient, oceangoing cargo vessels went, the 30,000-ton Annie M was a small beast, her length only about two hundred meters from bow to stern. Though technically beached, her final resting place after centuries of drift amounted to little more than a mere twenty meters of ruined bow settled into a beach of frozen, debris-flocked sediment. This left her wide aft section—including the decrepit superstructure from which Brooke just emerged—hanging in the water, only partially submerged.

That the ship never rested wholly on the bottom of the seabed only attested to the expert efforts of her engineers and—Brooke presumed—the equally stunning incompetence of her last occupants in failing to scuttle her properly.

But now, the aft quarter shook violently as the latest explosion rocked the ship once more. With a powerful lurch, ancient deck plates blasted skyward, and the forward-port cargo boom—the last survivor of five such booms once boasted by the venerable ship—toppled over the side.

The blast also drew Brooke’s attention to the real problem. The Annie M’s fractured hull was now listing deeper to starboard, its aft section literally twisting away from the grounded fore…

…with Brooke still on it.

Another explosion, more powerful than the last dozen or so, blew apart the warped upper decks of the ancient cargo ship in a flash of golden fire. Tearing a neat line across the hull dead amidships, the blast rippled the surviving deck plates on both ends and scattered a spray of ice and debris in all directions. The shockwave hit Brooke instantly, tossing her against the superstructure walls and threatening to spill her back inside the ruins as the stern accelerated its lazy spin toward a final sideways rest in the shallow, murky seabed.

"Scheiße!"

Shit, indeed, Tibor echoed in her ears. I could see that blast from shore. Are you all right?

Brooke suddenly found the need to suppress a laugh, despite the pain throbbing in her side and legs, and hooked her free arm around a twisted superstructure beam as the slope of the deck deepened. A lock of auburn hair, finally free of the tight bun she kept it in under the helmet, chose that moment to tumble across her left eye. She tried to blow it away and only succeeded in fogging up the faceplate again. I’m all mixed up here, guys, she said instead. Where’s my damn skimmer?

Go left, Marissa told her.

Brooke looked left and sighed. The Annie M’s death roll forced that side of the ship higher and higher as Brooke’s side spun lazily toward the sea. Getting to the skimmer meant climbing that rising slope while holding onto her satchel and accounting for any further explosions threatening to blow what remained of the ship into a cloud of rusted metal and dead sea life.

Hell with that! she shouted, and turned.

"Your other left!" Tibor yelled over the din of groaning metal and rumbling blasts.

Ignoring him, Brooke slung the satchel over one shoulder, grasped the strap with both hands, and lunged over the starboard rails. Eyes closed and tensed for the shock, she plunged into the murky, icy slush of the Obsidian Sea, just two meters below the sinking deck of the Annie M…

SHUTTLE MCKENNA

OUTBOUND TRAJECTORY

ROCKY

LYRAN ALLIANCE

Brooke loudly drew in a lungful of air through her nose and bit her lip as Marissa gently prodded her with thin, nervous fingers. In the mirror bolted to the bulkhead before them, Brooke could see the massive bruise that outlined every rib along her left side, vanishing under her sports bra. An even uglier blotch of black and blue peeked up from the preserving sleeve that now encased her left knee, revealing a nastier injury there that had already swollen her left ankle to twice its normal size, and gave the lower half of her leg an unhealthy purple cast.

Christ, Brooke, Marissa muttered under her breath. You’re lucky that suit was padded…

Brooke chewed her bottom lip as Marissa’s pale fingers—a sharp contrast to the light bronze of her own skin—groped at her wounds, probing for broken bones. Though the cabin was heated to a comfortable 22 Celsius, sitting on the thin foam-lined table nearly naked, she felt chills with every gentle poke. A rash of gooseflesh spread along her arms and legs, and she shuddered involuntarily.

Marissa’s chocolate brown eyes, framed by a pair of classic, brass-rimmed bifocals, widened slightly as they met hers. Though Marissa hadn’t been in the field with her, her long locks of dirty-blond hair looked tousled and matted, and there were visible bags under her eyes. Brooke could easily guess why. As the team’s researcher and a longtime spacer, Marissa rarely traveled to the mission sites any more; she had insisted this time, however, because she had grown to miss field operations.

And—as always—something had happened to nearly deprive the team of its leader. Looking into Marissa’s startled and weary eyes, Brooke recognized an all-too-familiar concern.

Well, consider yourself lucky, Marissa said. Damned lucky, in fact, that you didn’t dislocate or break something down there. If Tyler knew about this, you’d be grounded for sure.

Oh, come on, Marie, Brooke said, shrugging on the loose-fitting T-shirt Marissa offered. I’ve been through worse.

Yeah, but jogging around under thirty meters of slush while a burning ship falls down around your head had to be the dumbest move I’ve ever witnessed from you in recent memory, and Tibor agrees.

Oh, come on! Brooke scoffed. What about Svalstad?

Marissa paused for a moment in thought. "Okay, since Svalstad, then."

Hah!

Of course, as I recall, Tibor and Tyler were plenty fumed at you then, too.

Well, what Ty doesn’t know won’t hurt, now will it?

Marissa finally met Brooke’s gaze again and smiled crookedly. That still leaves you with Trouble.

He’s just broken up because we lost the skimmer, Brooke said with a wink.

"Maybe. It was a very nice skimmer. And do you realize how hard it is to adapt a B-90 for subarctic work? I had to listen to him complain about how that cost ‘over a hundred man-hours and maybe an easy five grand in parts,’ you know…"

And it worked beautifully when I drove it there, Brooke admitted with a smirk.

Marissa matched her expression for a moment and shook her head. You still could’ve gotten yourself killed out there. We said ‘left,’ you know.

Blake’s blood, Marie! ‘Left’ was a forty-degree slope by then! And in case you missed it, I was a little hard-pressed to make that jump.

Bending her left leg as much as the sleeve would allow just for emphasis, Brooke instantly paid for the act with a sharp, stabbing pain shooting up her thigh and numbing her toes.

Marissa’s tired eyes narrowed slightly.

Yeah, yeah, Brooke said with a roll of her eyes. Looking at the cabin floor, she pondered jumping down, but decided she’d better stay off the leg a little while longer. Even in the half gravity currently produced by the yacht’s acceleration, a hard landing could further inflame the torn ligaments. Instead, she met the younger woman’s gaze again and gave her a wolfish grin. But the haul still ain’t half bad, is it?

Marissa finally smiled, with a real gleam in her eyes.

"Tibor’s still scanning the bonus prizes for integrity and contamination, but I can’t wait to see them up close and personal when we get back to the Sacajawea. It looks to be a small fortune, all right—even if your acrobatics banged up a few pieces a little."

Hell, in that muck, I couldn’t see what I was grabbing. How do we know those dents weren’t there already? Brooke winked, then added, Of course, the big prize came through intact, didn’t it?

"That is where you got lucky, I’ll admit." Marissa smiled. Turning away again, she retrieved a compad from the counter behind her, tapped the keys, and called up the image of an exquisite vessel of fine gold and platinum, bearing the clearly enameled crest of House Cameron, ringed with six brightly colored gemstones. The timestamp that scrolled across the bottom of the slowly rotating flatscreen image certified it had been scanned in a mere two hours ago.

If that bloody chalice had been in another safe, Marissa told her, or maybe stuffed deeper in the corner of the one it was in, you probably never would’ve found it before those bombs went off.

Brooke nodded sagely and used the keys to slowly rotate the chalice’s image, watching as blue-green light reflected off the broad handle along one side of the artifact. Curiously asymmetrical in design, the cup easily could have been mistaken for the hilt of a nobleman’s rapier from a certain angle—exactly as its crafter had likely intended.

A relic of a bygone era, but worth millions—perhaps even tens of millions—in kroner, if one knew the right museum or private collector to sell to.

And, of course, Brooklyn Stevens knew all the right ones.

It’s magnificent, Marissa breathed when Brooke handed the compad back to her. A pity there are no DeKirks left to inherit it. Just doesn’t seem right to hand it off to a man like Duke Robert.

Now, now, Marie, Brooke said with a wink. That’s our employer you’re talking about. You’re starting to get as cynical as Trouble.

Perish the thought! Marissa winked back at her. I just want to be sure that when you risk your neck like that, the payoff’s worth it.

CHAPTER

ONE

Dearest Tyler,

It’s times like these I really wish you weren’t so deathly afraid of space travel. It’s bad enough I have to miss having you with me on missions, or that I had to worry about you through all that shooting back home. But you just haven’t seen a high-class party like the ones they throw on Skye.

Oh sure, now that the war’s over, I’m sure you can waltz up the mountain back home and find a friend willing to get you into the really big spectacles at the Triad, where everyone and their brother is just dying to catch our soon-to-be Archon’s eye. But because of all that politicking and deal-making, you just see so many stuffed suits, royal seals, and overinflated egos you have to know, deep down, that you aren’t seeing anything but masks.

On Skye, it’s almost like those masks come off. Sure, Duke Robert and his pet, Colonel Dundee, are all smiles and pro-Alliance on the outside, but everyone knows they’re up to something, and half the courtiers here aren’t afraid to voice something positively scandalous about it.

Better still, they’ll find almost any excuse to party, and this time around, yours truly happens to have made the Guests of Honor list…all for a little trinket!

Missing you deeply! (And sorry; it seems Duchess Aten/Kelswa-Steiner is actually in your neck of the woods on some kind of business, so I won’t be getting her autograph for you on this trip…)

Love!

—Brooke

NEW GLASGOW

SKYE

SKYE PROVINCE

LYRAN ALLIANCE

24 APRIL 3067

—And so, without further ado, allow me to present our lady of the hour, Dr. Brooklyn Stevens.

The grand ballroom in Duke Robert Kelswa-Steiner’s estate was maybe half the size of the Royal Court on Tharkad—at least as far as Brooke could recall—but it shared many of the same medieval European features as that far distant palace serving as the seat of all Lyran government. The smaller area, however, made for a more intimate feeling, a closeness with the audience gathered beneath the soft, golden glow of almost a dozen crystal chandeliers.

The crowd was a mix of men and women of various ages ranging from twenty-something to the upper seventies, Brooke guessed. Their collective attire featured far less Steiner blue than a Royal Court gathering. Instead, more colorful tartans (and the occasional matching kilt) blended with a darker selection of tuxedos and evening gowns. Incidental flickers of light came from wall sconces, designed to mimic ancient torches for more of the classic feel while simultaneously drawing nearby eyes to the Scottish-style tapestries and beautifully executed holo-paintings of past members of Skye’s upper nobility—all of which lined the walls between large oaken doors and cathedral windows.

Thunderous applause virtually deafened Brooke as she stepped behind the tartan-draped podium before the gathered Skye elite. Duke Robert’s guest list claimed over three hundred of the province’s most illustrious men and women, both noble born and otherwise, and his house staff added perhaps another hundred to the attendance figures for this latest soirée in the ducal palace. How some of them made the trip so quickly, with the war only days over, completely eluded Brooke.

But now, with all of their eyes focused on her, she simply hoped she was projecting the image they expected—that of a tall woman with elegance and poise…and a confident stride that defied the dull ache of her eight-centimeter heels.

Even as she quickly crossed the small stage to embrace her host for the benefit of the audience and the media cameras, Brooke made a mental note to ask Marissa why these shoes were supposed to be such a good idea when her feet were barely visible beneath the hem of her black-satin evening dress.

Beside the podium, a black silk sheet—strangely enough, matching the color and sheen of Brooke’s dress—was draped across a rectangular glass case. Within sat the Chalice of Uston DeKirk, restored to its full glory and awaiting the light of a thousand stares. Were it not for that hidden treasure, Brooke knew full well she would hardly have merited an invitation to a gathering like this—physical charms and PhD in archaeology notwithstanding.

Her eyes flicked nervously across the audience and found Tibor Mitternacht. Watching her from the western bar, the rail-thin man with greasy black hair and mismatched eyes—one emerald and one jade—tried to look as casual as possible in his black Nehru-style tuxedo. To Brooke, he looked more like a cat ready to pounce and run. She threw him a reassuring smile, gently pulled her long auburn braid back over her right shoulder, and mouthed a thank-you to the audience as their applause died down.

Folding her hands out of sight on the podium, Brooke absentmindedly twisted the ring on her left hand and drew in a deep breath, filling her nostrils with the competing scents of several exotic perfumes, colognes, and cigars. Trying not to cough, she cleared her throat.

Thank you, Your Grace, she finally began with a nod to Duke Robert Kelswa-Steiner. The words, picked up by wire-thin microphones sprouting up almost invisibly from the sides of the podium, were amplified across the room, yet left no echo in their wake. It is indeed an honor to be here today.

Just within her peripheral vision, the Duke of Skye (by grace of his marriage to Duchess Hermione Aten, only surviving member of Skye’s Aten family), Tamar (by virtue of his own mother’s claim to the now Clan-held world), and Porrima (by his own father’s blood claim to that Steiner holding) nodded pleasantly back at her. His black, slicked-back hair caught the light like polished steel, and his easy smile seemed both confident and fatherly. Although he wore the uniform of the Lyran Alliance Armed Forces, it eschewed all Steiner insignia. Instead, a green and blue tartan sash with hints of white crossed his broad chest and ended in a knot at the left side of his trim waist.

Dressing down for the occasion, no doubt, Brooke told herself.

Um, forgive me, she said to the audience with a sheepish smile. I usually give these kinds of speeches for museum staff and university students, so if I start sounding like a teacher, just bear with me for a few moments, and I’ll try to make it all as painless as possible…

Polite chuckles answered as she paused for breath, set her mind into neutral, surreptitiously licked some moisture back into her crimson-painted lips, and finally began describing the origins of the chalice that remained hidden beneath the black cloak beside her.

The Cameron family, she began, particularly its latter rulers in First Lord Simon Cameron and his son, Richard, put great stock in the heroic and chivalric ideals of those like the legendary King Arthur. But it was a host of so-called Modern Chivalrist writers, such as Uston DeKirk and Bonnie Cracken, who many historians believe truly inspired these men—contemporaries who brought these images back to life in vivid new terms during the late twenty-seventh to middle twenty-eighth centuries…

Brooke hated giving lectures. Not because of the large crowds or the possibility of embarrassment and media misquotes. It was actually because of the tedium of it all, and the general apathy of her typical audience. Every time she stood before a group to explain her latest find or to make her latest sale of recovered artifacts from some forgotten world, the knowledge that—deep down—few of the people listening truly cared about what she was saying simply robbed the find of its thrill. It was like a mythology professor trying to brag to a bunch of corporate executives about some interesting new combination of fables they’d discovered from long ago, or the proverbial fisher’s tale told to someone with no interest in the sport. The entire exercise was…anticlimactic.

That these thoughts crossed her mind at all annoyed Brooke, however. If there was one thing she couldn’t stand, it was a snob, and here she was, underscoring how much she thought like those she hated. Still, none of that changed the fact that only a born-and-bred explorer—a problem solver of the most dedicated sort—could understand why talking about the discovery of such rare antiquities as this three-hundred-plus-year-old chalice would be so marvelous. And Brooke could see in this audience’s eyes that any kindred spirits—as always—were few and far between.

Which was why, halfway through her lecture, she suddenly became aware of one pair of eyes—other than Tibor’s—hanging on her every word, . Matching the man’s stare for a moment, she took in his features. Pastel-blue eyes, a broad, almost flat face, fair skin, blond hair cut so short it almost disguised the fact that he was prematurely balding. Even before she finished explaining the origins of the chalice—how Uston DeKirk had personally received it from First Lord Simon Cameron during the waning years of the original Star League—Brooke found she recognized the man who gazed so intently at her. Seeing that recognition on her face, he smiled and nodded.

Henry Croft.

Brooke’s stomach dropped, and a warm flush came to her face as she wrapped up her introduction. As suggested by her employer, she closed with a remark that the DeKirk family had carried on their famous luminary’s commitment to honorable ideals ever since—seen today (of course) in the likes of Duke Robert’s right-hand military aide, Colonel John Claverhouse Dundee. With that, she nodded slightly to the pageboy next to the stage. The young man pulled on a golden braided cord, lifting away the cloak at last so the assembled masses could ooh and ah over the giant, jewel-encrusted goblet she had brought back from Rocky.

Applause again filled the room as Duke Kelswa-Steiner and Colonel Dundee himself stepped beside Brooke, thanked her, and shook her hand, each in turn. The duke then reclaimed the limelight as Brooke smiled and stepped back with a feeling of sudden relief.

Looking out over the crowd, she found Croft again, still watching as she resumed her seat at the tables reserved behind the podium for Duke Robert’s guests of honor.

And what brings you here, I wonder?

Great speech, Tibor remarked with a dry smile as Brooke finally made her way to the bar for a fresh flute of Glengarry Rosé. A slight batting of her lashes at the bartender guaranteed she did not wait long, and she gave him a grateful wink and a smile as payment for the courtesy.

Horseshit, she muttered back, just loud enough for Tibor to hear over the din of partygoers. But thanks for the compliment.

Well, I think it was that patented glazed look in your eyes that gave away your total disinterest, Tibor said, swirling the golden, foamy brew in his own glass. The odor of some cheap Skye-made knockoff of Timbiqui Light assailed Brooke’s nostrils. That is, of course, until you noticed your admirer.

You saw him too, then?

These eyes don’t miss much. Tibor nodded, giving Brooke a moment to draw a quick sip of bittersweet zinfandel