Warrior: Coupé (The Warrior Trilogy, Book Three): BattleTech Legends, #59

by Michael A. Stackpole

  Her fingers shifted down to knead the muscles in the back of his neck. “I think you say this to humor your little mekake, Jinjiro-sama, but you need not fear. I will not let my personal anxieties spoil this night for you. I appreciate your effort, but it is not necessary to lie to me.”

  Jinjiro shook his head. “An officer would not lie. This is the truth.” A voice inside him warned against saying anything more, but a giddy feeling overrode his caution. She knows the Coordinator’s son. “Within two months, you will find yourself deep behind the lines.”

  Caterina smiled lustily down at him. “Perhaps, Jinjiro, perhaps.” She shifted around, gently lowering his head to the quilted mattress, and stretched her naked body down next to his. “Then again, I might just follow a considerate, ambitious officer like you as far as you care to take me.”

  Caterina Enritsu looked down at the lean, sleeping form of Jinjiro Thorsen. Sleep well, lover, for it would not do for you to notice my absence. She glanced at her chronometer, then pulled on a dark sweater. She felt uneasy about leaving in the middle of a performance, but knew the drug she’d slipped into the sake would keep Jinjiro safely unconscious for the short time she was gone.

  Indeed, the drug had worked perfectly. It loosened Jinjiro’s tongue enough that he’d easily revealed the information she wanted. I knew, from the first look at that innocent face and those thick glasses, that an appeal to his protectiveness would work. I wish I could wait until tomorrow to deliver this information, but it’s too vital. The LIC needs it now. I have to risk it.

  She crossed back to the sleeping MechWarrior and kissed him on the forehead. When I get back, I’ll give you something to remember that will blur anything and everything else about this evening in your memory. She smiled. After all, all I’ve done so far has been to thank you in the name of Theodore Kurita. When I return, though, I will show you the full depth of the Lyran Intelligence Corps’s gratitude.

  Chapter 30

  SIAN

  SIAN COMMONALITY

  CAPELLAN CONFEDERATION

  3 AUGUST 3029

  Justin realized something was very wrong when he noticed members of the House Imarra battalions standing guard on either side of the briefing chamber’s portal. Where the hell are the Death Commandos? Who authorized a shift of duty for them? Remembering the urgent sound in Candace’s voice and the worried look on her face on the visiphone’s view screen, Justin answered his own question. Romano. She has to be the source of this trouble. I hope she’s done nothing I can’t fix.

  The two hulking guards did not look at Justin as the chamber door rose into the ceiling, but they moved instantly to block Alexi Malenkov’s passage. Seeing their movement out the corner of his eye, Justin spun and batted the nearest guard’s hand away from Alexi’s shoulder. “Let him go.”

  The Imarra warrior glanced over his shoulder as Romano framed herself in the doorway. “Malenkov is not allowed in here. I do not trust him.” She held her head high, and her green eyes blazed with defiance. Her black trousers and green tunic had been cut in a military style, but the way she let the blouse gap open to reveal tantalizing glimpses of her breasts mocked the crisp correctness of the guards’ uniforms.

  Justin stared at her implacably. Warlord or seductress, Romano? Which will it be today? “I do not care if you trust him or not. I do.” Justin let his voice drop so that only Romano could hear his words. “If not for him, Ling would have had me.”

  Justin’s revelation smashed Romano’s haughty façade like a sledgehammer hitting bone china. He guided Alexi through the door, then entered the chamber himself. Romano nodded reluctant permission to the guards, then turned away from the door. Despite the blow, Justin noticed that her color and confidence returned as she moved toward the head of the table and drew closer to both Maximilian Liao and Tsen Shang.

  Justin glanced at Candace, reassuring her with a smile. Her expression lightened somewhat, but she looked anxiously at her father and the holographic map suspended above the holotable. What is going on here? Candace looks as though she’s been through a month-long campaign. Max seems enthused, and Tsen is beaming like a child who’s won a contest.

  The Chancellor folded his arms across his chest. “Please, Shonso Xiang, do not feel slighted that this is the first time that I discuss this matter with you. I know you have many worries concerning the refit of the House Imarra regiment with the new myomer muscles. I wanted this to be a surprise.”

  Justin nodded. “I am honored by your concern, Supreme Counselor.” A surprise! What now?

  Maximilian smiled at Romano. “Romano, who has been as concerned as you about the recent Davion advances, has worked with Tsen Shang to come up with a way to break the back of the invasion. The interdiction has already slowed our enemies. This will stop them dead in their tracks and even force them to retreat.”

  Justin shifted his gaze to Tsen Shang and appraised him openly. The tall, slender analyst’s smile nearly died under Justin’s gaze, but a squeeze on his arm from Romano buoyed his spirits. Justin noted this new fire in Shang with a mix of amusement and fear. He’s abandoned himself to her. That will make him either useless or very dangerous.

  “What have you got, Tsen?” Justin asked.

  Smiling at Romano, Tsen disengaged his arm from hers and moved to the table. He hit a few keys, commanding the computer to redraw the map. It formed itself into the strategic display Justin had become all too used to seeing of late: red worlds denoted those taken by the Federated Suns, and green stood for those still loyal to the Chancellor. The Tikonov Free Republic, governed by a Davion-backed military council since Ridzik’s death, had been colored in with blue.

  Tsen pointed his right hand toward a world in the Capellan March of the Federated Suns. Red highlights sparkled from diamond chips mounted along the long fingernails of his last three fingers. “This is the key to the Davion war effort. If we cripple this world, we will hamstring Hanse Davion’s invasion.”

  Justin peered closely at the map, then felt his heart rise to his throat. Kathil! His head came up. “You can’t hit the shipyards at Kathil.”

  Tsen’s grin faltered momentarily, then Romano slid her left hand along over his right shoulder as she advanced to the table. “His plan is brilliant, Justin Xiang!” The map’s reflected light bathed her face in blood. “You’re just jealous because Tsen Shang found the one assault that will stop our enemies while you were out hunting down a measly scientific base.”

  Justin stared at her, his mouth hanging open in disbelief. “You can’t hit Kathil. That world is one of a dozen planets in all the Successor States that has factories capable of repairing damage to or building new JumpShips.” He looked over at Shang. “Those JumpShips are the apex of lostech. We don’t know how to build them anymore. We don’t know what makes them work. But we do know how to keep the factories running to turn them out. If you destroy those orbiting factories and dry docks, you will cripple the Federated Suns all right—and the future of mankind along with it!”

  Romano sneered. “That hardly sounds like the Justin Xiang who hates Hanse Davion enough to mount hunting expeditions into Federated Suns territory.”

  “Romano,” Candace broke in sharply, “you have forever been too stupid to look five minutes into the future. Hanse Davion did restore production of the yards just for this war, but destroy the factories capable of creating and repairing JumpShips, and you doom mankind. The JumpShips we have now will eventually wear out and fail. When the last of them does, we will be forced to remain on our worlds forever. Trade between our diverse colonies—trade that makes life in the Successor States possible—will wither and die!”

  “Stop!” Maximilian Liao’s voice, again filled with the strength of command it had lacked so often since the invasion, cut off his daughters’ bickering instantly. Candace stared savagely at her sister, but Romano smiled and turned to her father.

  The Chancellor nodded appreciatively toward Justin. “Once again, I find your concern and insight a blaze that m
arks the boundary between suitable action and recklessness.” He rested a hand on Tsen’s shoulder. “However, in all fairness to Tsen Shang, he anticipated that objection and has worked around it.”

  Justin bowed respectfully to the Chancellor and Tsen Shang. “Forgive my presumption, Citizen Shang.”

  Tsen curtly returned the bow, then poked several more keys on the table’s keypad. Portions of a holographic promotional video created by Kearny-Fuchida Yare Industries flashed up to replace the map. Shot from a small shuttle, the footage showed close-ups of an orbiting factory. Tsen froze the image when the factory’s bank of microwave collector dishes came into view.

  “I realized we did not want to destroy the factories for a number of reasons, the primary being that we might want to use them ourselves when we return to take the world.” Pointing to the microwave dishes, the analyst smiled easily. “Because the Kearny-Fuchida drive components are not shielded during the manufacturing process, radiation outputs from fusion and fission engines can damage them. For this reason, power is sent from Kathil up to the orbiting factories in the form of microwave beams.”

  Tsen moved the vid ahead to a point where it showed one of the large generating stations on the planet’s surface. A grove of smaller dishes moved along, tracking a factory until its orbit took it over the horizon, or just into another power district. “While K-F drives might be lostech, geothermal generating stations are not. If we hit the generators and destroy them, the shipyards will be out of business.”

  Justin frowned. He has a good point there. A chain is only as strong as its weakest link, and those stations are a very weak link. “The generating stations can be rebuilt.”

  Tsen smiled, then looked beyond Justin. “True, but as the figures Alexi ran for me point out, one station would take over seventy billion C-bills and two years to build. Davion could do it faster, but…”

  Justin nodded. “…But he’d be unable to continue financing his war.”

  Romano smiled sweetly in victory. “And he would face opposition at home. More and more JumpShips would have to be pulled from his consumer economy to move troops. The product shortages caused by the war’s hunger for JumpShips have already caused him some problems. He would have to withdraw his troops to bases he can support with fewer ships.”

  Justin turned to Alexi. “Comments?”

  Alexi moved forward enough to use the keyboard on that side of the table. He punched in a request for data, shifting the display to a tactical readout on Kathil. Tsen Shang smiled broadly, and Justin realized the grin came easily because spies reported Davion had only a half-strength militia unit garrisoning the world.

  Color drained from Alexi’s face. “My God, has the Fox been so stupid as to leave this world naked?”

  Romano looked down at Alexi. “Would you have expected anything less arrogant from him? He imagines us broken and defeated. He will pay for that.”

  Tsen shot Romano a quick smile, then met Justin’s hawk-gaze. “JumpShip circuits rotate troops out of Kathil on a regular basis, but a circuit got disrupted right after Ridzik’s death. It will be another six weeks before troops arrive on Kathil.”

  Justin studied the readout again. “Can you get there in time?”

  Romano usurped Tsen’s answer. “We’ve shifted and extended the command circuit you used to return from Bethel. Our troops land during the first week in September.”

  Anticipating Justin’s needs, Alexi hit a button that summoned the strategic map to the screen again. Justin mentally counted the number of jumps required for the trip. Seven jumps, with a week out of this system and a week heading to the target planet. It can be done.

  Justin nodded. “You can use the House Imarra troops, if you wish. Their ’Mechs are all refitted.”

  Romano laughed aloud. “No. They will remain here. Our troops have already left.”

  Alexi looked at Justin. “That’s why the Death Commandos aren’t around.”

  Justin straightened up. “Just one battalion? Is that enough?”

  Tsen shook his head. “The Death Commandos and the Fourth Tau Ceti Rangers headed out this morning at two-point-five Gs to the nadir jump point. That gives us two battalions to face the militia, or whatever rotates in, if the schedule is repaired somehow. Our people will travel in complete radio silence—not even ComStar will know of this mission until it is over. Davion’s only ever had a battalion on station there anyway. Like you—” Shang sneered, “—he could never believe anyone would attack the world.”

  Tsen allowed himself a loud laugh. “Even if he knew of the assault—which is impossible because ComStar is not passing information from Davion spies—he doesn’t have any troops in a position to do anything about it.”

  The Chancellor looked over at Justin. “Well, Shonso Xiang, are you surprised?”

  Justin breathed deeply, using the time to sort out his emotions. He smiled slowly, but let it widen into a grin. “Surprised, yes.” He stabbed his right hand through the holographic map, offering it to Tsen Shang. “Your plan is flawless.”

  Taking Tsen’s hand, Justin shook it heartily. “Yes, Tsen, with the success of your assault, we will finally be in a position to take back what Hanse Davion has stolen from us.”

  Justin looked up from his desk as Alexi Malenkov came through the door. “Good, Alexi. I’m glad you could get here so quickly.”

  The tall blond man smiled. “I came as soon as I heard you needed me.” Concern knitted his pale brows together. “What is it?”

  Justin waved Alexi to a chair, then walked around and sat on the front corner of his desk. “I want to ask your advice about something, and I want you to be perfectly honest with me.” The smaller man shrugged uneasily. “Seeing Tsen’s plan, and knowing how near the end is for Hanse Davion, it got me to thinking about a lot of things.”

  Justin smiled grimly. “As you know, I have suffered gross humiliation at the hands of Hanse Davion and my father. Hanse engineered a sham trial that stripped me of my rank, my name, and my honor. My father testified against me—his own flesh and blood—in that trial, then later assigned one of his spies to seduce me and watch me on Solaris. Then Hanse Davion offered a warrior a world and a ’Mech regiment of his own if he would kill me. And then the wedding…” Justin shook his head. “He declared war on us at his own wedding, making us the laughingstock of the Successor States!”

  Alexi jumped when Justin’s steel fist slammed down onto the corner of his desk and snapped a triangle of wood off. “Easy, Justin,” he said. “We’ll have the Fox soon enough.”

  Justin’s dark eyes smoldered. “Not soon enough for me.” He forced his expression to lighten. “But then, I don’t think there ever was a time that would have been soon enough, if you follow me?”

  Alexi nodded. “I understand some of what you feel. With Tikonov gone, I can never go home again.” Alexi smiled ruefully. “Hanse Davion has orphaned us both.”

  “Yes. He’s caused us much pain—pain I wish to return as soon as possible.” Justin reached back and plucked an unsealed envelope from his blotter. “I have created a verigraph I want to send to my father. In it, I tell him much of what I’ve wanted to say since he betrayed me. In very indirect terms, it will let him know that his downfall, and that of his Prince, is in the offing. I imagine they will believe I am boasting about the information we stole from Bethel, but when the raid hits Kathil, they will realize what I really meant.”

  Alexi winced. “That’s shoving the dagger in and twisting it—which is nothing less than they deserve.” His eyebrows sank into a frown. “I think it would be a great idea to send it, but ComStar won’t carry it through to your father because of the interdiction, will they?”

  Justin shrugged. “I spoke with an aide to Villius Tejh, the precentor here on Sian, and he said it might be possible. I transferred an ungodly amount of money from my Solaris accounts to ComStar, and he said that increased my chances. But he thought the First Circuit might have to discuss it first.”

  He looked Al
exi straight in the eyes. “Do you think I should indulge myself in this personal bit of revenge?”

  Alexi thought for half a second, then nodded. “Go ahead. Do it. I won’t tell anyone if you don’t.”

  “Deal.” Justin extended the envelope to Alexi. “Can you take it to the ComStar station for me? I’ve told them I was sending it along in your custody. Candace is still upset about today, and she’s flown out to the Summer Palace.” Justin glanced at his chronometer. “I’ve promised to meet her there, and I’m already late.”

  Alexi took the envelope. “They know I’m coming with it?”

  Justin nodded. “It has all been arranged.” He crossed his fingers and held up his right hand. “With any luck at all, my revenge begins now.”

  Chapter 31

  COMSTAR FIRST CIRCUIT COMPOUND

  HILTON HEAD ISLAND

  NORTH AMERICA, TERRA

  4 AUGUST 3029

  Myndo Waterly’s laughter echoed lightly through the First Circuit chamber. She shook her head slowly as she stared at the small, dark-haired precentor from Sian. “Did you honestly expect us to allow that message to pass through here without a fight, Villius? Justin Xiang’s request should be refused for no other reason than he has tried to send a message to someone in an interdicted place.” She waved Villius’s request away like a queen shooing a beggar. “Give him back his money, and tell him no.”

  Precentor Sian spitted her with a hellish stare, then shook his head in disbelief. “I would have thought you would be the last to oppose me on this subject, Precentor Dieron. You have read the text of this message, and you know that Xiang is full of himself as a result of the successful strike into the heart of the Capellan March. This message is nothing more than bragging about the effort and a hint at future problems for the Federated Suns. This should cause Hanse Davion and Quintus Allard some discomfiture—something I thought you would welcome.”