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

by Michael A. Stackpole

  The Archer closed the empty missile launching pods and struggled to its feet. More gracefully and honorably than Dan could ever have imagined, the Archer executed a bow. After long moments of stunned horror, he finally looked away from the Archer toward its foe.

  Smoke seeped from the shoulders, hips, and neck of the Warhammer in black plumes that rose straight through the still desert air to the heavens. The Kurita ’Mech tried to execute a bow in return, but the motion only produced more smoke and locked the Warhammer forward, with its head bowed.

  Dan shifted his sensors over to infrared and shielded his eyes against the glare of the display. In this heat, in the desert, Yorinaga burned his Warhammer up. Dan glanced at Morgan’s Archer, comparing its relatively cool maroon outline with the Warhammer’s bright white silhouette. Did Morgan expect this?

  The Kell Hound commander’s voice crackled over the radio. “Forgive me for being such a coward, Yorinaga-sama. If we fought, I knew we would kill each other. I refuse to have your blood on my hands. I meant you no dishonor.”

  Yorinaga’s reply, full of exhaustion yet somehow more serene now, sent a shiver down Dan’s spine. “I see now what I should have seen so long ago: there is no shame in being unable to defeat a superior adversary. I was wrong to believe that to become invincible is the apex of the Way of the Sword. To do what you have done—to win while refusing to fight—this is the ultimate. My shame is that I failed to understand this reality before.”

  Chapter 51

  SIAN

  SIAN COMMONALITY

  CAPELLAN CONFEDERATION

  24 OCTOBER 3029

  “Sic semper tyrannis.”

  The words hung heavily in the air between Justin and the Marauder like the green smoke wafting through the shattered doorway. Justin shifted his gaze from the bore of the PPC leveled at his head to the polarized canopy over the ’Mech’s cockpit.

  Andrew’s hushed voice crackled through the Marauder’s external speakers. “What the hell did you say?”

  Weariness entered Justin’s voice. “I said, ‘Sic semper tyrannis.’”

  The edge returned to Andrew’s voice. “The guy on your shoulder, he’s got to be our agent. How did you get the countersign out of him?”

  Justin shook his head. “You’re right. He is one of ours.” He stared at the Marauder’s dark cockpit. “You know me, Andy. If I’d wanted to fool you, I wouldn’t have brought him along. Sic semper tyrannis—I want to go home.”

  “Jesus, Mary, and Joseph! It is you! You’re it!” Andrew’s voice echoed with joyous surprise and relief. “Thank God I didn’t pull the trigger on you without wanting to rub your face in it first. Damn…”

  Justin laughed. “I’m glad it was you that found me. Anyone else and I’d be ion vapor right now.” He motioned for Andrew to squat his ’Mech back down again. “This guy really is one of ours, and we’re going to get him out, too. Crack your hatch and pull him aboard.”

  Andrew lowered the Marauder and opened the hatch in the top of the torso. He stepped down on the ’Mech’s right arm and got his hands under Malenkov’s armpits. With Justin’s help, he pulled Alexi into the Marauder and strapped him into a jump seat behind the command couch.

  Andrew handed Justin a canvas satchel. “Everybody got one of these. We were told to give it to our agent.”

  Justin smiled and slung it over his shoulder. “Yeah. It’s got some things I can use if I have the time.” He popped his head out of the hatch and looked around for Liao infantry. “Looks safe enough for now. Spread the word. Let them know I’ll be coming out in Yen-Lo-Wang.”

  Redburn glanced at his chronometer. “You’ve got ten minutes. We’ve been down for twenty. Our window is closing.”

  Justin winked at him. “Got it.” The slender MechWarrior hoisted himself out of the Marauder, then looked back in. He extended his hand to Redburn, who shook it heartily. “Take good care of Alexi there. He saved my life, just like you did once. I owe him.”

  Redburn nodded solemnly. “Then I’m in his debt too, for saving a friend of mine. Good luck.”

  Justin slid from the Marauder’s torso and ran back into the Capellan Chancellor’s palace. Racing through the corridors, he reached the Chancellor’s throne room without incident. He cracked open the massive bronze doors just enough for him to slip into the room, then silently made his way down the length of red carpet and mounted the steps to the throne itself.

  Justin smiled as he swung the satchel around and unfastened the Velcro strips holding it shut. In addition to some standard medical gear, a Davion ID module for a ’Mech, and a replacement lasing cell for his arm, he found a holodisk with the Davion sunburst and sword crest. As he had been directed, Justin deposited the disk in the center of the throne’s seat, then turned and descended the steps.

  Her voice and the sound of a needle pistol being charged behind him stopped Justin a half-dozen steps away from the throne. “Who are you, Justin Xiang, and why are you here?”

  He turned slowly to face her, raising his weaponless hands. “Major Justin Allard, Armed Forces of the Federated Suns, currently on special assignment.”

  Candace moved forward into the muted half-light coming down from the lattice-worked balconies. The needle pistol in her right hand did not waver. “This special assignment…” Her voice trailed off as anger and other emotions strangled it to silence.

  Justin raised his head. “To convince Maximilian Liao that House Davion had perfected a new and improved myomer fiber, and to get him to equip his ’Mechs with it.”

  Candace’s gray eyes glittered coldly. “And becoming part of the crisis team?”

  Justin shrugged, “I was to suggest the formation of such a thing because Alexi would have been a logical choice to work in it. I knew he was a Davion plant, but he did not know who or what I was. No one did except my father, the Prince, and Ardan Sortek. And Sortek only learned of it because he threatened to go public with his outrage over my trial.”

  “Why did you do it?”

  Justin moistened his lips with the tip of his tongue. “Orders. I pledged my loyalty to Prince Hanse Davion, and this is what he asked me to do.”

  Her eyes narrowed to steel slivers. “And what about me? Was I something he asked you do?”

  “No.” Justin lowered his hands. “I wanted to—I really tried to—avoid you. I knew this would happen. I knew we would fall in love… And I do love you very, very much. You must believe me.”

  “What I believe, Justin Allard, is that you have proved yourself a very convincing liar in the past.”

  Justin nodded his head sadly. “Then I guess you have two choices. You can shoot me,” he said, meeting her arctic stare, “or you can come with me.”

  Her finger tightened on the trigger and her gun spat. The cloud of plastic needles it shot out passed wide of Justin, smashing Tsen Shang back into one of the bronze doors and chasing the two Maskirovka agents with him back out into the corridor.

  She triggered two more bursts at the door as Justin scrambled to cover behind the throne, then she ducked back as ruby laser bolts burned into the walls behind her. Kneeling down beside Justin, she gave him a quick smile, then poked her pistol back around the throne and fired another pair of shots.

  “Damn this pistol.” She stared at the gun as she moved the selector lever from single shot to three-shot burst. “Fine for shooting people, but the needles can’t get through the bronze doors.” She glanced over at Justin. “I’m sorry we’re both going to die here, but I can’t think of anyone else I’d rather spend the rest of my life with.”

  Justin returned her smile. “Keep them busy for a moment, if you really mean that ‘rest of your life’ remark.”

  As Candace triggered a burst that kept the guards back behind the doors, Justin ripped the left sleeve of his jacket open to the elbow. He depressed a rectangular section on top of his blackened steel forearm, then flipped it up with his thumbnail when it clicked. He twisted his left arm, dropping the burned-out lasing cell to the
throne room floor. He fished the replacement cell from his satchel and slid it into place. He snapped the coverplate back down, then worked his hand off and configured it for sighting.

  Candace stared quizzically at his left hand’s awkward position. “What in the name of…”

  Justin smiled. “I’m double-jointed. Are they behind both doors?”

  She nodded. “They’re keeping their heads down. You can see where I’ve scraped some varnish from the doors.”

  “Got it. On three.”

  Candace counted off, then triggered a long burst from the right side of the throne. Justin popped out to the left and sliced the laser’s green beam through both bronze doors about a meter above the floor. The clatter of metal hitting the ground drowned out the guards’ dying screams.

  Candace took Justin’s right hand in her left as they sprinted past Tsen Shang and into the corridor outside the throne room. They raced through the hall of portraits and into the ’Mech bay. Candace strapped herself into the jump seat on the right side of the Centurion’s cockpit while Justin closed the canopy and went through the ignition sequence.

  He pulled the Davion ID module from his satchel and inserted it into a slot beneath the command console. With it firmly in place, he flipped the ’Mech’s radio over to Davion military frequencies. “Changeling to Davion Force Commander. I’m coming out of the ’Mech bay in a Solaris-style Centurion.”

  Justin recognized Morgan Hasek-Davion’s voice. “Long way from home, aren’t you, Changeling?”

  Justin laughed and saw Candace, who had plugged an auxiliary headset into the jack near her head, smile widely. “Roger that, Commander.” Justin guided the Centurion through the ’Mech bay and out through the opening Andrew had created earlier. The mist had all but dissipated, though the thick, black smoke produced by burning myomer had replaced it.

  He saw an Atlas standing halfway between the ’Mech bay and the DropShip. The broken bodies of a half-dozen burning ’Mechs surrounded it, yet the damage done to the Atlas had barely scratched its armor. Though no moving Liao ’Mechs were visible on the field, the Atlas stood guard while the other Davion ’Mechs reboarded the DropShip.

  Justin smiled to himself. That has to be Morgan. “Going my way?”

  The Atlas waved him forward with its left hand. “Wouldn’t think of leaving without you. Next stop: home.”

  Chapter 52

  NUSAKAN

  ISLE OF SKYE

  LYRAN COMMONWEALTH

  24 OCTOBER 3029

  From his position in the front rank of the Kell Hounds, Dan Allard marveled at the peace on Yorinaga Kurita’s face. The Combine MechWarrior, flanked sides and back by a half-dozen of his Genyosha, walked around to the north side of the hastily erected platform where his son waited, and stepped up onto it. He looks more like someone heading to some pleasant social occasion than to his own death.

  Walking to the platform’s western edge, he removed the formal gray shitagi bearing the Genyosha crest on the sleeves, breasts, and back. He exchanged it for a kimono of purest white and slipped it over his bared torso. Yorinaga bowed his head to the man who assisted him in the change of clothing, then turned and crossed back to the center of the platform. There, where two white tatami mats had been laid out in a t pattern, Yorinaga knelt with his back to Akira Brahe and faced south.

  Clad in the Genyosha’s formal gray raiment, another assistant brought Yorinaga a tray bearing a sake flask and a small cup. Grasping the barrel of the flask in his left hand, Yorinaga poured the sake to the left, filling the cup in two motions. As he watched the Kurita warrior lift the cup to his lips, Dan recalled what he had been told of this portion of the ceremony. He’ll drain the cup in four swallows—two and two—because the Japanese word shi means both “four” and “death.”

  Yorinaga replaced the empty cup, and the aide whisked it away silently. He held his head high, then bared his chest and abdomen by stripping the kimono open in the front and bringing the neck of the garment to the middle of his back. He carefully folded the sleeves beneath his ankles so the kimono would prevent his body from falling backward in the moment of death.

  The elder MechWarrior looked out over the assembly of mercenaries and Combine MechWarriors. “I thank you for honoring me with your presence today.” With hands resting on his knees, he glanced to his left and nodded. Tai-sho Palmer Conti brought a white tray bearing a paper-wrapped knife onto the platform and set it down near Yorinaga’s left hand. He bowed and withdrew.

  Akira Brahe, acting as Yorinaga’s kaishaku, readied himself for his part in the ritual suicide. Also wearing a white robe, Akira rose up from his seated position to his left knee. He slid a white-hilted katana from its scabbard and raised it high over his head in his right hand. His tawny eyes measured the distance from himself to the back of his father’s neck, then his left hand closed on the hilt.

  As assistant, Akira must strike off Yorinaga’s head before Yorinaga can dishonor himself with any show of pain. Dan studied the fierce expression on Akira’s face. It’s tearing him up, but he is determined not to dishonor his father.

  Sunlight glinted sharply from the bared tip of the seppuku knife as Yorinaga grasped it in his right hand. Razored edge to the right, he plunged the blade into his belly over his left hip and drew it across to the right. Then he twisted the blade and made a jumonji—a crosswise cut coming up. His body rock-still, his control unbroken, Yorinaga withdrew the gore-streaked knife and brought his right hand to rest on his knee again.

  Akira’s sword flashed down, severing his father’s neck completely and ending the agonies Yorinaga never permitted to show on his face. The headless body wavered for a moment, then sagged forward.

  Allard, Ward, Wilson, and the rest of the Kell Hounds watched the senseless and barbaric loss of life in horror. No matter how familiar they were with the seppuku ceremony, they could not reconcile it with their values.

  From within the breast of his kimono, Akira drew a thickness of white rice paper, folded into a triangle. Using it, he grasped Yorinaga’s head by the hair and raised it up. He showed it to Chu-sa Narimasa Asano, who nodded, confirming Yorinaga’s death. Akira reverently lowered the head back beside the body, then used the paper to cleanse the blade.

  Akira backed to his earlier position and slid the katana home into its white scabbard. He bowed in the direction of his father, and according to tradition, should have withdrawn as the attendants bore the body away. Instead, he stood and looked out over the assembled Combine soldiery.

  The bronze-haired MechWarrior drew their immediate attention. “It is a minor comfort to me that, according to the laws and dictates of our nation, I am not legally the son of Yorinaga Kurita. This action I am about to undertake would bring shame upon him and his memory, which I would not do for anything. All of you who saw him here, saw how he faced death. You know this was a man who deserved more respect than what marked the later years of his life.”

  Beginning in a low whisper, his voice grew in intensity and vitality as he went on. “Yorinaga Kurita wanted only one thing: to account for what he saw as his personal shame for the last thirteen years. Two years ago, the Dragon, Takashi Kurita, offered him that release if he would create and train the Genyosha. He gave Yorinaga free rein to gather to himself the finest MechWarriors in the whole of the Combine, and through our training, he created an elite unit—one that surpasses even the vaunted Sword of Light regiments in skill and ability.”

  The scorn in Akira’s voice as he mentioned the Sword of Light regiments stung Conti, but the younger MechWarrior never gave the tai-sho the chance to respond. “What did we get in return? On Northwind, we are treated like ronin or bandits or, worse yet in the eyes of the Dragon, mercenaries. The Genyosha, the troops that prevented mercenaries from overrunning Tai-sho Conti’s headquarters, we are commanded to execute prisoners like ashigaru. We are not green warriors who should be given such menial tasks. We are samurai! We deserve to be shown more honor.”

  Akira turned and thru
st a finger at Palmer Conti. “This man brought his regiment here to steal the glory of destroying the Kell Hounds for himself. Look at him. Even now he schemes and plots. He will find a way to lay the blame for his command’s destruction at the feet of my father. He will tell the Dragon that we arrived too late, or that we refused to attack or that his people died trying to save us from the Kell Hounds. No matter how feeble the fiction he creates, it will save him.

  “It will save him because Takashi Kurita will believe anything. The Dragon is old and worried. His personal vendetta against Jaime Wolf prompted him to order all mercenaries to be killed on sight. As a pretext for this order, he reminds us that mercenaries fight for money and, therefore, have no honor. They cannot be true warriors because of this character flaw, and we should find them an affront to our sensibilities.”

  Akira looked over at Morgan Kell. “There is your honorless mercenary. My father slew Patrick Kell on Styx, but Morgan did not hate him for it. On Terra last year, Morgan Kell and Jaime Wolf, both gold-grubbing thugs in the eyes of the Dragon, joined with and helped my father win through a very dangerous situation—saving my life and probably his in the bargain. And then here, after a day’s worth of battle in this desert, Morgan Kell honored my father’s desire for a duel, yet refused to shame my father in it.”

  Akira raised his head high. “I find more honor in one mercenary colonel than I do in the Coordinator of the Draconis Combine. For this reason, I resign my position within the Genyosha and, if Morgan Kell will have me, I bind my personal honor to that of the Kell Hounds.”

  Chu-sa Narimasa Asano stood at his place on the platform’s eastern edge. He bowed respectfully to Akira, then turned to face the Genyosha. “I have listened to Akira Brahe’s words, and I find much truth in them. Yorinaga Kurita was the finest and most competent leader I have ever served within the Combine. The indignities heaped upon him, and upon the Genyosha, serve only to shame the Coordinator.”