Assumption of risk

by Michael A. Stackpole

  Resting his sheet of paper at the top of the keyboard, Sven laboriously typed each of the number sequences into the computer. The remote system accepted the input, but gave him no clue as to its disposition. When he finished the transcription, he hit the Escape key twice, then return once, then severed the connection by killing the power on his machine.

  Turning away from it, he laid the slip of paper in an ashtray and set it on fire. He watched it to make sure it burned completely, then he pulverized the ashes with one finger until they were nothing more than a smudge. Satisfied that the paper could never be reconstituted, he poured the ashes into a waste receptacle. Now he could leave his office for the day, confident the message would go out and Peter would have his surprise.

  The remote computer system took the numbers Sven had provided and broke them down into digital codes. This information was loaded into an unused, sideband track on an outgoing tape of a 'Mech match fought in one of the D league arenas on Solaris. The whole information packet was squirted over to ComStar, repackaged, and then transmitted via hyperpulse generator from Solaris to be distributed throughout the Inner Sphere.

  Three days later the fight in question was broadcast by a low-power holovision station on Lyons. The local cell leader was sleeping at the time, but her computer monitored the broadcast and picked up the coded information. When she awoke she was instructed to insert the mystery disk into her computer. After she did so, her machine carefully reconstructed the message Newmark had sent.

  She read it from the screen. "A pifiata for Peter, with pictures." She smiled slightly. "That I can do. And with great pleasure."

  20

  Solaris City, Solaris VII

  Tamarind March, Federated Commonwealth

  9 April 3056

  Kai Allard-Liao sat patiently in the combatants' waiting room far below Ishiyama as Katrina Steiner-Davion gave Galen Cox a kiss. "That's for luck," she said loud enough to be overheard, "and so you won't do anything foolish out there."

  Kai felt the last remark directed at him and he gave her a covert nod. She had spoken with him several times without Galen's knowledge, expressing concern for Galen's safety and winning Kai's promise to protect him from harm. A lucky headshot by Ryan's men or a piloting error could still get Galen killed, but Kai was confident he would be able to keep that promise.

  "Duchess, Lady Omi Kurita and Mr. DeLon are waiting for you in the DeLon Stable box." Kai smiled at her easily. "Your security detail knows the way. We will be with you shortly."

  Katrina looked at Galen. "Promise?"

  "Your wish is my duty, Duchess."

  Katrina gave him another quick kiss, then turned away. Kai couldn't see her face as she left the waiting room, but tears in her eyes wouldn't have surprised him. Does she fear losing Galen as she has already lost the other people closest to her?

  Galen shook his head as he fished his apprentice license from the breast pocket of his jumpsuit and clipped it to his lapel. "What was that all about?" he asked.

  "Kommandant, you are too bright to have missed the fact that the Duchess Katrina is enamored of you."

  The distant thunder of war machines battling over them vibrated through the room. Galen shrugged helplessly. "Wanting what you can't have isn't a pleasant way to go through life."

  "As Victor and Omi have discovered." Kai clapped his friend on the shoulder as they walked back into the South Side dressing room. "I think you understand that the situation could become rather delicate, but I wouldn't be concerned about Victor's reaction. He loves you both."

  "But is this a violation of the trust he has in me?"

  "I'm not Victor, so I can't really say, but if I'd entrusted one of my sisters to you, I'd be neither surprised nor displeased at a romance developing." Kai steered Galen over to the well-lit dressing room where two big Red Cobra tongsmen stood guard. "In fact Victor might be very pleased that after tonight a career opens up to you that could provide both plenty of money and lots of positive exposure."

  Fuh Teng waited for Kai and Galen in the dressing room along with two others he introduced as grandnephews. Laid out in readiness were a pair of body suits, which were black except for the gold stripes that ran from the underside of the wrist up to the armpit, then down the torso to the outside of the thigh. At the knee the stripe crossed over to the interior of the shin and ended at the ankle of each leg. The head piece had been chopped off above the forehead level, with a gold band running around the brow. Everything else was black, with an opening for the face.

  Galen looked around the room, then shook his head. "We get our cooling vests and neurohelmets in the cockpit?"

  "No, these do the job." Kai picked up his cowl and turned it inside out. "These silver patches are the neuroreceptors normally found on the inside of a neurohelmet. The cowl even has a throat mike and earphones built in. The interior fabric is a goretex weave that wicks sweat away from the body. The whole suit has coolant lines in it, but because it covers the entire body, the coolant lines are slimmer and decidedly less bulky than in normal cooling vests. The suit has medsensors inside too. Just connect that plug on your right hip into your command couch and you're in business."

  Galen frowned. "No neurohelmet?"

  "The helmet is a holdover from when a pilot needed it for protection in warfare outside the cockpit. We'll be wearing impact helmets, but we've eliminated the bulk and weight of the conventional neurohelmet." Kai shrugged. "Ditto the bulk of the cooling vest. We can afford to run with lighter equipment because we're much closer to help here than in a war and because things are generally much more under control."

  When Galen looked suitably impressed, Kai couldn't help a sheepish grin. "To tell the truth, though, the major reason for the switch is that this is show business and the performers look better in these snazzy outfits."

  "And here I thought the light gear was just for the simulators we've been using all week." Galen unzipped his jumpsuit and sat down on the edge of a table. One of Fuh Teng's grandnephews immediately whisked off his shoes and helped him change. Kai likewise perched on the table while the other grandnephew helped him.

  No one spoke as they worked, and Kai used the relative silence to focus his mind in preparation for the battle. The one thing he preferred in fighting on Solaris over combat in the field against an enemy was that he needn't worry about anyone else under his command. Yes, he had promised to keep Galen safe, but Galen wasn't likely to need any help taking care of himself. The simulator runs they had done to acquaint him with Ishiyama's cavernous layout had forged the pair into a team operating almost instinctively. Larry Acuff and other fighters from Cenotaph had taken the roles of Vandergriff and Edenhoffer in the simulations, but no matter how good they were, Galen and Kai were victorious every time.

  Kai's choice of Ishiyama as the venue of the fight had been something of a snap decision, but it was still a good one. Vandergriff fought in a four-legged, eighty-ton Goliath. The 'Mech had good armor and speed as far as machines of that class went, but the Goliath was designed for optimum performance in open battles where long-range combat predominated. Its Gauss rifle and machine guns would function well enough in the close quarters of Ishiyama, but its long-range missiles would be relatively useless.

  Edenhoffer's eighty-five-ton Stalker suffered similar limitations. Ishiyama's close ranges and narrow tunnels negated the advantages of the 'Mech's twin LRM canisters. The extended-range large laser would still work in Ishiyama, as would the short-range missile racks and the four medium lasers, but Edenhoffer might not be up to his usual brilliance. His record in Ishiyama was far worse than his overall record, and he had lost a number of times to underweight and under-powered enemies in the precincts of Stone Mountain.

  Galen tugged the head piece into place, then rubbed at his now-hidden ears. "So, our strategy is to keep our holographic display on infrared scan, hit hard and fast, and risk running hot to pour fire in on the other guys."

  "Right. You have to go with IR in Ishiyama because all the
stone is artificial and full of girders and rebar. Fighters who like running in magnetic resonance mode have nicknamed the place 'Iron Mountain' and one guide book even offers that as the translation for the word Ishiyama." Kai adjusted the forearm of his suit to a more comfortable position. "If you get hit before you see the other guy, fire back, break quick, and then start pounding again when he begins to broil."

  "You're the boss. I just hope my Crusader is a help."

  "The kills will be yours." Kai understood Galen's concern about the Crusader. It was a missile-boat BattleMech that normally used its high maneuverability to flank foes and generally end up where the enemy didn't want it to be. Its flamer, machine gun, two medium lasers, and twin SRM launchers gave it a better array of close-in weapons than the Goliath. But it only massed sixty-five tons, making it the most vulnerable of the 'Mechs in the contest.

  Galen shrugged. "I'm not much for having my food pre-chewed for me, but I'll gobble up anything you send my way."

  "Bon appetit!" Kai jumped down to the floor as his dresser zipped up the rear of his suit. The grandnephews opened the double doors at the back of the dressing room and bowed as the two MechWarriors passed into the 'Mech bay. Opposite the dressing room stood a huge archway that led into the vast network of tunnels that allowed BattleMechs to move from training areas and repair facilities to the various arenas where they would fight, without the need for surface transport. The tunnels had been built because the constant movement of 'Mechs on the surface of Solaris would have destroyed much of the city, not to mention that BattleMechs obviously required a much bigger right of way than the average human.

  The Ishiyama 'Mech bay itself resembled any of a thousand similar places scattered throughout the Inner Sphere, except for one thing. The Kuritans keep this place spotless! It was so clean Kai imagined he could eat off the floor without getting a speck of coolant fluid in his food, though he wasn't planning to test the theory. The myriad carts and tools needed by techs preparing 'Mechs for battle had been whisked away and hidden, so as not to disturb the thoughts of the warriors heading into combat.

  Their two 'Mechs, each painted in a black and gold pattern similar to that of their cooling suits, stood side by side on an elevator platform. Galen smiled when he saw his Crusader. "I don't know what amazes me more: that you had a Crusader I could use, or that you got your hands on one of those Penetrators to pilot."

  Kai shrugged. "Kallon Industries has been after me for a sponsorship, so they think my using a Penetrator in a fight here will help spur sales. They also make the Crusader, so it wasn't too hard coming to a mutually satisfying agreement."

  He extended his hand to Galen. "Look, these guys are good, but all they've ever done is play at war. We've been there. Let's show them what made the Clans run."

  Galen pumped Kai's hand firmly. "Hard-lock and firing, Kai."

  They parted, each to climb into the cockpit of his machine. As Kai worked his way up the gantry he allowed himself a little laugh. The Kallon Industries representative had not been as ready to give Kai one of the new Penetrators as he had led Galen to believe. It had taken Kai pointing out that the St. Ives Compact would doubtless give extra weight to any positive report he made concerning the machine when next they needed to purchase new BattleMechs. With that consideration in the picture, Kallon had suddenly become more generous with equipment and technical support.

  Politics got you this ride, so you can use it for political gain. Kai frowned as he climbed in through the open face plate on the squat, stocky BattleMech. He realized that ever since his conversation with Tormano he'd been thinking more and more about politics, and he didn't like it. He found himself going back to reexamine decisions made in the past to see whether politics might have unconsciously influenced him.

  His decision to help Galen out of an awkward spot at the party was one of those choices that made him wonder. Kai knew that Ryan had been working against Victor for a long time and probably had put Vandergriff and Edenhoffer up to provoking a fight with Galen to embarrass Victor. Holding open the jaws of Ryan's trap so Galen could escape had been an act of friendship toward both Galen and Victor, not some political ploy on Kai's part. The truth is I acted without thinking, yet people like Tormano take that as a sign of political shrewdness and cunning.

  Kai frowned. Victor must also have seen it that way, or why else would he have ordered the fight broadcast throughout the Isle of Skye as soon as it was over. Having the fight in Ishiyama also meant the battle vid would likely be circulated in the Combine. As Galen had been among those who rescued Hohiro from the Clans, the broadcast was almost guaranteed a favorable reception. Letting the people of the Combine see a friend of the next Coordinator fight in Solaris would certainly help Omi in her quest to legitimize the ronin in society. Finally, it wouldn't hurt to remind the people of Skye that the Combine still lurked too close for comfort, which ought to dampen the desire of some people to escape the Federated Commonwealth's protective umbrella.

  "No, I did not make these decisions, consciously or otherwise, for political gain." His sharp denial echoed within the close confines of the 'Mech's head. "At least, I didn't intend any gain from them."

  Enough! Kai cleared his mind for the task ahead. He pushed a big switch upward and locked it into place as the thrumming of the Vlar 300 fusion engine started from within the 'Mech's chest. The face plate slowly swung down into place, sealing the cockpit, then Kai heard a hiss and his ears popped as the cabin pressurized itself.

  He settled into the command couch and pulled the impact helmet on over his cowl. He buckled it beneath his chin, then plugged the lead from the command couch into the socket on his suit. Immediately the coolant in the suit began to chill him, a sensation he savored because he knew it would not last very long. He snapped the safety restraining straps into place, then tightened them down. "Computer on."

  The computer's artificial voice purred through his earphones with a throaty seductiveness that surprised him until he remembered old men like his uncle often made purchasing decisions for the military. "This is Penetrator 3XF32, honored to be given to Solaris Champion, Kai Allard-Liao for his ..."

  "Computer, initiate cross-check."

  "Voiceprint pattern match obtained. Proceed with crosscheck phrasing."

  Because BattleMechs were incredibly powerful machines, capable of razing a city merely by walking through it, each one was equipped with a series of security measures to prevent unauthorized use. The first was a voiceprint check of all authorized pilots in the machine's memory. Though it was possible to counterfeit that match, getting past the second security check was all but impossible for anyone not authorized to use the 'Mech. Each pilot, when first checked out on the 'Mech, programmed it with a phrase that had to be repeated exactly during the startup sequence or the machine would shut down automatically.

  "Killing a man is not easy, and never should be," Kai said softly.

  "Authorization confirmed."

  The cockpit immediately filled with light as half a dozen monitors and button arrays came to life. Kai watched as the computer cycled through a full range of diagnostics. One screen drew a picture of his blocky, chicken-legged 'Mech and pronounced all limbs fully mobile and powered. Another screen showed a list of his weapons as they came online, each of them checking out normally.

  The Penetrator had been built for combat against the Clans. The extended-range large laser in each arm gave the 'Mech the long distance firepower needed to keep shooting while the 'Mech closed with its foe. The six medium pulse lasers, three located in each breast, made the Penetrator a nasty medium-to-close range machine. The center torso-mounted antimissile system provided some protection against missile-boats, making it able to survive the process of getting close, and the jump jets gave the 'Mech the kind of mobility that had made the Crusader so feared on the battlefield.

  Kai made a quick change in the Penetrator's standard combat program. The joysticks on each arm of the command couch had a thumb-button and three trigger
switches. Kai remapped the weapons, putting all the pulse lasers on his index-finger triggers. Whenever he hit that trigger, all three pulse lasers on that side of the 'Mech would fire. In a real battle a warrior might want the ability to trigger each laser individually, but in Ishiyama Kai wanted a lot of firepower delivered all at once. He left the large lasers slaved to the joystick thumb-buttons.

  Kai keyed his throat mike. "Taph one is green."

  "Taph two is green," Galen answered. "Ready here."

  Kai smiled. "Great. Let's talk a lot up there. Locating the enemy is the first step in beating him."

  Lyons

  Isle of Skye, Federated Commonwealth

  "Say again, Angel Two." Glancing at the JagerMech's auxiliary monitor Peter Davion saw that Carson's Locust had already crested the hill and entered the Bellerive Valley, which accounted for her message breaking up. He'd already seen the flash of light from beyond the hill, so he'd come up prepared to take hostile fire. "Angels Three and Four, deploy wide and back. Dicky, you're my back door."

  At sixty-five tons, Peter's JagerMech outmassed all the other 'Mechs in his lance. The Locust and Angel Three's Commando together didn't weigh as much as his machine, but the mix of light and heavier 'Mechs made perfect sense in a militia light attack lance. The Locust and Commando could move fast and gather intelligence, while the JagerMech and Dicky's Trebuchet could provide long-range cover and fire to help extract the other two from difficult situations.

  Reaching the crest of the hill, Peter flipped his holographic display over to Starlight. The computers compressed the full three hundred-sixty degree circle around him into a one hundred-sixty degree arc that hung in front of him. A gold targeting cross hairs floated delicately through the scene, which the computer painted in blacks and greens. The designator tag for the Locust below him identified it as friendly.

  Down in the valley Peter saw exactly what he'd expected to see. The sleepy little hamlet of Bellerive clung to the wooded hills on either side of the river that cascaded down from the mountains to the north. As with many other settlements on Lyons, this one had been established by a religious community whose people wanted nothing to do with modern technology. Peter could respect that despite his particular group's denunciation of his brother as the anti-Christ. The citizens of Bellerive, whatever their view of Victor, had taken to prayer instead of violence to oppose him.