Lost destiny

by Michael A. Stackpole

  As Phelan hit a button on his command console, the holographic display switched over to infrared and painted a white-hot dot in the center of the Omni's chest. Yes, that got through and hit some engine shielding! He'll be running hot.

  Vlad's return shots at the longer range betrayed a weakness of his 'Mech's configuration. The Adder's large laser struck back at the Wolfhound's own left leg and sent armor shards flying on vapor jets. The autocannon blasted away sheets of armor on dinner's right leg, but Phelan successfully fought against the impact and kept his 'Mech upright.

  As his computer updated a visual of his Wolfhound and showed him the damage to its armor, he started it off in a loping run toward the northwest. That exposed more of his right side to Vlad, but also started to close the range between them. He won't expect this. I'm playing into his hands, and he'll get cocky.

  Vlad turned his Omni to keep Phelan square in his sights, but Phelan noticed the Adder moved a bit awkwardly. Could the shot to the chest have damaged the gyro, too? The sensors in the neurohelmet enabled the computer to use the pilot's own sense of balance to regulate the gyros, but if one of those had taken damage, the Adder was in serious trouble. If I got that lucky with one shot, it must be divine retribution for Conal's cheat.

  Despite his 'Mech's movement, Phelan tracked the Adder with his crosshairs as if they were painted on it. His thumb pressed down and sent the large laser's scarlet beam scything through what little armor remained on the right side of the Adder's chest. Another flash of heat told Phelan he'd nailed a heat sink, but more important, he saw bits and pieces of the Omni's internal structure spray out into the fields behind the 'Mech.

  One of the pulse lasers mounted in the Wolfhound's torso stitched a line of burning holes across the Adder's head. The other two combined to complete the ravaging of the Adder's left arm. Having evaporated the last of the armor, they went to work on the myomer muscles and endo-steel bones. They melted the artificial tissue away and heated the metal to the boiling point. Glowing white hot, the Adder's left arm dropped to the ground.

  Yet even as Phelan triggered his weapons, Vlad fired his. The large laser mounted in the left arm fused the armor on the Wolfhound's right arm before the weapon melted away. The little that remained smoked as the rest ran off like water to drip onto the ground. The right-arm autocannon peppered holes in the Wolfhound's left-flank armor, and the one of two SRM flights that hit shattered the armor around the central chest-mounted pulse laser.

  The missile impacts and the autocannon shells shook the Wolfhound and rattled Phelan's teeth. He wresded the light 'Mech upright and kept it closing as the Adder stumbled.

  Unbalanced by the loss of its arm, the other 'Mech tipped to the left and started to go down. Vlad wrenched the torso up and to the right in an attempt to keep the machine on its feet, but the weakened structure in its chest screamed and started to warp.

  The Adder sprawled forward and hit hard on its chin. The 'Mech bounced once and the viewport blew out to litter the ground with glittering glass fragments. Its feet clawed fu-tilely at the ground, but only managed to gouge up great clods of dirt and grain as the soft earth refused to hold. Cranked straight back by the fall, the 'Mech's right arm could not get enough play to come forward and help lever the machine up, though Phelan doubted the Adder's torso could have supported the effort anyway.

  He stopped his Wolfhound twenty meters off and watched as Vlad's feet sought the edge of the Adder's viewport. Like a drunk stumbling from a bar after some hard drinking, Vlad stepped from the cockpit, then started to fall back and caught himself on the viewport frame. He took one step forward, then tumbled down the dirt pile and sprawled prone on the ground.

  Phelan flipped open his external speakers. "It is over, Vlad."

  Vlad pushed himself into a sitting position and pulled off his neurohelmet. "Freebirth!"

  With deliberate precision, Phelan slid the Wolfhound's right arm over and pointed the laser's muzzle at Vlad. "Freebirth?" He shivered. "I have just blown you out of your OmniMech. You cannot believe that curse hurts me, quinegT

  Vlad stood and threw his helmet at Phelan. It glanced off the Wolfhound's muzzle and made a mild thump in the cockpit. "You are a freebirth, Phelan. Foundling. You will never be my equal."

  "That does it." Phelan hit his restraining belt release switch. He brought the Wolfhound down on one knee and planted its left hand on the ground. "I'm coming out there to settle this once and for all. We have fought in 'Mechs three times and I have won twice. We have split the two fistfights we have had. Time to decide that, too."

  He removed his neurohelmet and dropped it on the command couch. He reopened the hatch and started to walk down Grinner'% left arm. At the elbow, he paused and shook his head. "You are a fool, Vlad."

  The other MechWarrior shucked off his cooling vest. "And you are a brave man because you have a gun."

  Phelan smiled. "Couldn't expect you to forget about that, could I?" He untied the holster, unbuckled the belt, and tossed the whole thing to the ground. He leaped from the 'Mech and pulled off his own vest. "This has been a long time coming."

  Though he knew better than to underestimate Vlad, Phelan could not help but smile as they closed. Vlad hooked a right into Phelan's stomach, but that left Vlad open to a roundhouse left that snapped his head back. Phelan moved in quickly and drove a murderous jab into Vlad's midsection. That doubled the scarred man over, and another left to the side of his head dropped him to the ground.

  Phelan danced back. "Freebirth, eh? You had it right when you said I would never be your equal. I would never stoop so low!"

  A feral scream of rage burst from Vlad's throat as he scrambled up and rushed at Phelan. The younger MechWarrior drifted right as Vlad came in, and smiled as Vlad's blind charge took no notice of his shift. A jab and it's all over.

  Phelan cocked his right hand, then dropped his jaw with surprise as Vlad veered away from him. He thought Vlad had gone utterly insane, when his foe tucked his arms in and sprinted back toward the Wolfhound. He's going for the gun.

  Vlad launched himself through the air and pounced on the gunbelt. Rolling through the dust, he clutched it to his dust-caked chest. He fumbled with the holster flap for a second, then drew the pistol and eared back the hammer. Brandishing it triumphantly, he stood slowly.

  "Yes, Phelan, freebirth!" Vlad laughed mockingly. "I told you, Phelan, you were too weak to win this contest. You were a bondsman, made so when I captured you. I took this belt buckle as a trophy because the ilKhan robbed me of you! You have never been my equal, and here and now it has been proven!"

  "Only one thing has been proven here, Vlad," Phelan spat out, "and that is how unbelievably stupid you really are." Shaking his head, he started walking toward Vlad.

  Homicidal fire in his eyes, Vlad's finger tightened down on the trigger. The pistol went click.

  Phelan smiled. "Remember how supplies got a bit shy here on Tukayyid, Vlad? I gave all my side-arm ammo to Evantha."

  "No!" Vlad shrieked. He ran at Phelan, brandishing the pistol like a club.

  Phelan ducked the ill-aimed swipe, then brought his right first up and through the point of Vlad's jaw. The punch lifted the scarfaced man from his feet and his eyes rolled up into his head. When he hit the ground again, he collapsed like all his bones had been removed.

  Phelan knelt beside his foe and pried the pistol from his fingers. "Just as well I am out of bullets. I might be tempted to waste one." Reaching over, he undid Vlad's belt and slid it off. He slung it over his right shoulder and stood. As he started to back away, Vlad's groggy voice stopped him.

  "You are a Warrior. Kill me."

  "You do not get it, quiaff?" Phelan looked down at him and shook his head. "I am more than a Warrior. Maybe you will understand what that means by the time you win your Bloodname."

  44

  Unity Palace, Imperial City, Luthien

  Pesht Military District, Draconis Combine

  30 May 3052

  The brand-new
silken robe Shin Yodama had been given made him uncomfortable. He knew it was not really the fault of the garment, which had been faultlessly prepared by Imperial tailors at the express command of the Coordinator, Takashi Kurita. The black hakama felt cool and whisper-soft against his legs after the pressure suit Shin had worn for a speedy trip down to Luthien from the jump point they had used to enter the system. The green kimono with its black trim also felt good against his skin, but the crest embroidered in red silk against black on the breasts, sleeves, and back reminded him of nothing so much as a highly stylized form of the Dragon's Claws crest.

  The obi sash holding the robe closed was so finely embroidered that to consider it anything less than a work of art would be blasphemy. The stitching was in gold thread and, like the tattoo on his left arm and the left side of his torso, seemed at first to be patterned after a boiling black cloud highlighted in gold. Seen up close, however, the pattern revealed trigrams and other symbols reflecting Shin's adventures in service to House Kurita.

  He knelt self-consciously on a pink tatami mat at the left of the firepit in the center of the tea house. The location of the mat placed him far closer to the table in the middle of the tea house than he had any right to be. Though he took pride in his service to the Lords of the Draconis Combine, he had no illusions about himself. As Takashi Kurita had made quite clear during the battle for Luthien, Shin was nothing more than a yakuza. Had Theodore Kurita not enlisted the aid of bandits like him during his difficulties with his father, the chances of Shin's ever having made it to Luthien would have been nil.

  Kneeling there, alone in a tea house in the center of the gardens at the center of the palace in the center of the Imperial City, Shin knew his luck had far exceeded itself. From earning a commission in the military and being able to survive the first Clan assault to being able to defend Luthien and organize a rescue for Hohiro, Shin had gone places and done tilings that he had never dared even dream. Yet, for all that, he recalled the oyabun of the Kuroi Kiri assuring him that his fate was unbound by normal convention.

  To Shin's right, the western shoji panel slid back. Theodore Kurita bowed toward the table in the center of the room, then again to Shin. Shin returned the bow, letting his forehead press against the edge of his mat. Straightening up, he saw Omi follow her father into the small building, then Hohiro came last. Both of the younger Kuritas exchanged bows with Shin and their father, then took their places in the room. Theodore and Hohiro, as was correct, occupied the red mats yet closer to the table than Shin's mat. Omi took up a position behind the three of them on a white mat.

  Hohiro looked as ragged as Shin felt. The dark circles under Hohiro's eyes marked his lack of sleep, but Shin noticed more color in his skin and the flash of a blue drug patch on the inside of his left wrist. Clothed in a kimono identical to Shin's, Hohiro managed to kneel correctly despite his fatigue and weakness.

  Being trapped on Teniente had not been good for Hohiro, but he had survived, and had made most of his people survive. Shin had no doubt that the songs and poems and paintings depicting what was already becoming known as the Covert Exile would stress the endurance and bravery of the Prince over any other details. Shin had no quarrel with that, but having so close a vantage point to the creation of a legend awed him somewhat.

  By slightly turning his head to the left, Shin saw Omi, resplendent in a robe of white silk with red trim and crimson and gold embroidery. It took him a moment, but he recognizcd the robe as the one she had worn in the last holodisk recorded for Victor Davion—the one that had brought the Revenants to save her bother. Observing the way she had correctly arranged her robe against the mat, he knew that the symbolism inherent in her choice of attire, as with everything else in the tea house, had been engineered to produce a certain effect.

  What that effect was, he could not guess, and he was beginning to dread discovering what it was.

  Shin saw a shadow kneel at the shoji panel to the north, across the table. The panel slid back like a whisper. On his knees, Takashi Kurita entered the room. He bowed to those assembled and they returned the courtesy. Wordlessly, the old man closed the panel behind himself, then moved to the red tatami mat set only twenty centimeters from the northern edge of the table.

  Takashi's kimono of black silk with green trim instandy struck Shin as being the opposite of the garment he and Hohiro wore. The yakuza looked more closely and saw that the crests embroidered in black silk thread on red background appeared to be the same as the ones on his own robe, except in reverse colors. Even so, the design, when done in black on red, looked like the Dragon crest of the Draconis Combine.

  From just out of sight at the far edge of the table, Takashi produced five matching cerulean bowls. He set them in a line on the table, but Shin noticed it did not parallel the edge of the table. Furthermore, the third was placed a hair closer to the edge than its fellows, breaking the flow of the line.

  From the steady, purposeful nature of the Coordinator's motions, Shin realized this seeming esthetic error was deliberate. Aware only that a cha-no-yu was a ceremony with strict formalities to be observed, he realized that rigid adherence to formality could drain the ritual of individual significance. By breaking an esthetic pattern, the Coordinator called attention to esthetics and formality, reinforcing the importance of the ritual.

  The Coordinator sank an ancient bamboo ladle into a water urn hidden within the tea house's firepit. He let it sit in the urn for a moment or two longer than necessary, then pulled it out. Producing a water bowl, he slowly dribbled the water down into it, turning the bowl so the water could wash away any dirt clinging to the sides.

  As Takashi dumped the water out into the firepit and refilled it with five full ladles, Shin took a good look at the vessel. Old and battered, it looked to have been pounded out of BattleMech armor. Wasn't there a legend about Takashi making a water urn from the armor of his first 'Mech? Is this the urn?

  Takashi set the water to boil on the charcoal urn nestled down in the firepit. As if by magic, a puff of smoke rose toward the hole in the roof and the scent of fir trees filled the small room. That familiar and pleasing aroma brought a smile to Shin's face, and he saw his happiness reflected in the Coordinator's blue eyes.

  "Komban wa," the Coordinator greeted them.

  "Komban wa," his visitors replied.

  "You honor me with your presence here this night." The old man's eyes tightened around the corners. "Sixty-four years ago today, I first laid eyes on my beloved Jasmine." He lifted a tea chest from his side of the table and placed it to complete the line of the bowls. "This is the very tea chest from which I was served that night, and it is the chest from which I will serve you this night."

  Takashi glanced at the water, then back at his audience. "It is well that I serve you for it is the least I can do to repay what all of you have done for the Combine. More important, though, it reminds an old man that only through serving can one become worthy of being served."

  The trail of steam rising from the water thickened enough to satisfy Takashi. He dipped the ladle into the boiling water and let a ribbon of steam trail out as he brought it to the first bowl. He filled that bowl to the brim, then dipped a small portion of the water from it and let that splash into the other bowls in succession. The ladle then returned four more times to the urn and each of the bowls was filled. The last of the water in the ladle went into the first bowl, completing the circuit.

  Opening the tea chest with his left hand, Takashi drew some tea leaves from it with a bamboo spoon and sprinkled them into the second bowl. With the bamboo whisk in his right hand, he deftly stirred the leaves into the darkening water. Withdrawing the whisk, he gave the bowl a quarter-turn to the right and set it in front of his son.

  "Theodore, you have persevered where others would have given up or revolted. You fought against me because your eyes could see through the fog shrouding the future of the Combine. Your vision preserved us and it preserved our home here. It also forced you to make a decision co
ncerning the safety of your son that the gods should not demand of anyone."

  Takashi prepared the third cup of tea in a similar manner and placed it before his grandson. "Hohiro, you accepted the mantle of leadership and endured great hardships for the sake of your nation. You have not shrunk from your duty, nor have you lacked for compassion. The survival of so many of your people on Teniente is because you took the time to care for and about them. You have earned what your blood will thrust upon you in time."

  Shin heard the rasp and crackle of the spoon digging into the tea as Takashi scooped up the leaves for the fourth bowl. This one he worked over as diligently as the first two, then placed it between the others and a bit forward of them for Omi. "You, granddaughter, have shown a resourcefulness and clarity of purpose at which I both marvel and envy. In a House that has known internal strife in the past, your devotion to your brother promises a solid foundation for the future. Your willingness to sacrifice to rescue Hohiro is an example that I would use to chasten anyone who cries out at the hardships the war has thrust upon them, if I felt those persons were worthy of such noble direction."

  As the Coordinator swirled the whisk through the fifth cup, Shin felt his own innards begin to whirl. He bowed his head as Takashi placed the cup before him and then kept his eyes lowered so he would not stare like an ill-mannered lout.

  "And you, Shin Yodama, what am I to say about you? You are a bandit, a yakuza who has dared become a MechWarrior—a role reserved for those steeped in the ways of bushido. There are those who still maintain my son's recruitment of your people is an offense to the Dragon and that I should have slain you all to purify our forces.

  "And yet again and again you have risked your life for my grandson, my son, and even myself. You, who claim no noble blood, no formal education, have proven more worthy to be entrusted with the fate of the Combine than any ten nobles or twenty courtiers. Were you not a criminal, I would induct you into the Order of the Dragon for all you have done."