He didn’t expect a problem the second time.
A strong arm slid around Aris’ chest from behind, enveloping him in a bear hug. Then another hand clamped itself over his mouth and nose, and he couldn’t breathe. Came in through the window, just as I did. The thought paraded through his mind has he struggled against the encircling grip that seemed as strong as a steel band. This hadn’t happened before. Something was very wrong here.
No one—no one not a member of House Hiritsu—should have known he was coming.
Aris’ vision began to swim, blurring his view of the office. The room dimmed but for a few hazy patches of light. His chest burned from a lack of air and he felt his muscles going numb. He tried to grab hold of the other’s hand, the one that remained pressed into the center of his chest, but had trouble getting a grip on it. Frantically, he slapped and clawed at it, trying to find some purchase. Then he was falling forward. His right shoulder was wrenched around, still in the other’s grip, but the hand did fall away from his face and he could breathe.
Barely.
Aris woke to find himself hanging from his right-side restraining straps, dangling over his cockpit controls. The view his viewscreen was pitch black. He tried to suck in a deep breath of air, and felt a burning sensation grab at his lungs. I’m in the river, he realized. And using up the last of my air.
Even though the haze that was slowly burning away but still clouded his thoughts, Aris understood what had happened. He’d been knocked unconscious when the Wraith had slammed into the Jinxiang River, and now his cockpit viewscreen was face down in the river’s muddy bottom. How long he’d been out he wasn’t sure. Long enough to use up most of my air, though, even with recyclers still scrubbing it. The air recirc system that constantly drew in fresh air from the outside—properly filtered, of course—had shut down automatically on entering the water and he hadn’t been able to activate his backup air supply.
Then the strange dream he’d had before coming to. The difficulty with breathing. And the pressure against his chest, which had been him dangling from the restraining straps. Somehow, when he’d clawed at the “hand” pressing into his chest, he must have actually hit the left-side release of his harness’ quick-release buckle. And something else… Something important that he couldn’t recall now…
Setting his feet on the edge of his control panel, Aris quickly released his right-side restraints and then unfastened his neurohelmet. With a quick pull he yanked the sensor pads away from his thighs and chest. Then he disconnected his cooling vest from its coolant supply tube and was finally able to move about freely.
With the cockpit turned on its face, so to speak, it took Aris a second to coordinate his thoughts and locate the air-supply valve. Twisting the first ball valve ninety degrees reopened the air recirc system on its underwater setting. The second valve started the fresh air bleeding into the cockpit at a controlled rate from tanks of compressed air stored in the ’Mech’s torso. Aris dialed this one up for a few minutes, flushing out the stale air of the cockpit before returning it to the constant feed-and-bleed routine that could support him for several hours if need be.
BattleMechs weren’t originally designed for underwater use, but they were designed for limited operations in vacuum and harsh atmosphere environments, and the same principles applied. A MechWarrior depended on the BattleMech’s armor to maintain air integrity, and a built-in air reserve system and the normal recyclers provided a breathable atmosphere in the cockpit. Regulated through the computer, that air could keep a warrior alive and well for some time. Also, in case a warrior wanted to don an environmental suit and venture outside, there was a built-in safety margin that would allow the cockpit to be vented to vacuum and repressurized twice.
Underwater, a warrior had a few more concerns. For one thing, loss of integrity could be a problem in any location, not just the cockpit. Aris crouched over his control panel and began to check systems. His luck held; the ’Mech had maintained complete hull integrity. Next was to decide on a course of action, which brought up a second problem with underwater operations—there was no way to tell what was going on above him.
According to the computer, he’d been on the river bottom for over three hours. Early evening. His last order to the company had been to fall back into the jungle. Terry Chan would certainly have taken control of the company soon after, but how she would have played out the situation from there was beyond Aris. He remembered the tactical situation, and felt sure that she would have withdrawn. Maybe they would have held the southern bridgehead for a few minutes, waiting for him, but certainly not for an hour. Not with the mercenary force unaccounted for and a full company of the Kaifeng SMM holding the northern bank.
That raised another question. What had happened to the Kaifeng SMM company? If they’d followed Terry Chan and the rest of his warriors, the two sides might be in the middle of a battle thirty kilometers away by now. If they hadn’t, they could be standing up on the bridge or along the riverbanks. Perhaps even searching for him. He didn’t dare try to break the surface here. He’d have to move downstream at least a half kilometer or so before trying.
Better a full kilometer.
Even better, two.
Aris put his neurohelmet back on and carefully worked his Wraith into the middle of the river where he could stand up without fear of being spotted from the bank. Strapping himself back into his command couch, he began the slow and arduous task of walking down river. Along the way he placed his air recycler under strict computer regulation.
The journey gave him time to think. Walking two kilometers through murky water—paying particular attention to staying in the deepest part of the river and moving slowly enough that he didn’t disturb the surface—took him nearly forty-five minutes. By then Aris realized his unique position. He was fit. His Wraith had suffered only light damage, the destruction of two jump jets notwithstanding. And he was behind enemy lines. It reminded him of Gei-fu, when that Stinger had positioned itself to do great harm to House Hiritsu and been stopped only by Aris’ bluff. One ’Mech showing up where the enemy least expected it could be decisive. Why hadn’t they thought of this before, walking the entire company into Tarrahause underwater?
In the end, Aris’ indecision made the difference. He couldn’t say for sure whether Ty Wu Non would want him to rejoin his company. It was just as likely that his commander might order him to maintain his position near Tarrahause. So the only answer was to secure his Wraith in a hiding place and then attempt to contact the battalion commander.
And why secure the Wraith near Tarrahause, he suddenly thought, when I can place it in Tarrahause?
13
K’ung-fu-tzu Park, Tarrahause
Tarrahause District, Kaifeng
Sarna Supremacy, Chaos March
20 July 3058
Kung-fu-tzu Park was popular in the early evening. Shaded from Kaifeng’s sun by the park’s tall, leafy trees, people lounged on the wood-slat benches or strolled along the gravel paths. Along the southern side, a two-lane road separated the park from the sandy beaches of Lake Ch’u Yuan. The crosswalks were busy with those heading lakeside for a picnic dinner and those returning from an afternoon at the beach.
Li Wynn stood near the park’s southern border, leaning up against one of the evergreens. Its rough bark scratched at the young man’s right shoulder through his light cotton shirt. He pretended to stretch and enjoy the cool breeze that blew in off the lake. Every few seconds his eyes flicked left and then right as he habitually searched for marks. And the Djing-cha, the Kaifeng police. Already it had been a profitable day: three wallets and a camera left on towels along the shore of Ch’u Yuan. Profitable enough that he’d taken time off his work to satisfy a twinge of curiosity.
Why does a man go swimming in the lake, but not bring along towel or sandals?
Li was, by nature, observant. You had to be in his line of work, unless you wanted to get pinched. He had noticed the other man stumbling from the water as if tired fro
m a long day of swimming. He looked older than Li by perhaps five years, making him twenty-four or twenty-five. Asian, and very fit. A quick shake of the head, flinging away the excess water that clung to his shoulder-length black hair, and the man strolled off the beach as if in no particular hurry. Just like any number of others. Except all he wore were shorts. Missing were the sunglasses and beach towel. No shirt or sunscreen. Not even a pair of thongs to protect his feet from the hot sand or, a few minutes later, the hot sidewalk.
Now the man rested on one of the park benches, doing a bit of girl-watching, as if nothing could be more natural. Except Li couldn’t see anyone else who strolled the gravel paths barefoot. It bothered Li, like he’d overlooked something obvious.
The man had developed an interest in a passing redhead. She too was fresh off the beach, wearing a sarong and bikini and carrying a net bag casually over her shoulder. She passed by the bench, seemingly oblivious to the man who swiveled around to follow her progress. There was a moment when Li thought the stranger might get up and go after her, followed by a pursed-lip expression that spoke of second thoughts, and finally a nod of resolution as the man rose quickly from the bench with his goal in sight.
Only to collide with another couple who by this time were passing the bench seat.
There followed an exchange that Li could only assume was the standard round of apologies. The man gestured up the path at what had been the object of his attention. Li smiled to see the quick flash of disappointment as he realized the redhead had vanished down one of the side paths. A final gesture of apology, and the man sank back down onto his seat with slumped shoulders. The couple linked arms again, the female smiling her sympathy to the seated man, and continued on their way.
The man was still shaking his head in disappointment. Then he rose again, more careful this time, and began to walk along behind the couple. A moment later he turned up a side path, a purposeful movement to his stride as if he might yet catch up to the object of his desire.
Li shrugged. There didn’t seem to be much else involved in this game. He took sunglasses out of his shirt pocket and slid them on, then shoved himself away from the tree. Gravel crunched under his sneakers—when you might have to run, better to be wearing something with a little more protection than sandals. He walked past the bench where the man had been sitting, noticing the damp mark against the wood from the other man’s wet shorts.
“Djing-cha!”
Li Wynn started at the yell, instinctively seeking the fastest path of escape and searching for the source of the call. He saw the young couple from a moment before, the man pulling his girlfriend along by the hand as he raced back along the path toward the bench. “You,” he yelled, pointing at Li. “Did you see a man sitting here? Asian? Wearing shorts?”
Li forced a calm over himself. He’d nearly bolted when pointed at. Now that people all around were beginning to take notice, the odds were better for talking his way out than for flight. “Yes,” he said. Never lie if the truth can be misleading. That was a rule you learned early on the streets. “Something wrong?”
“Stole my damn wallet,” the guy snapped back, searching around for the pickpocket. “You see which way he went?”
Li didn’t have to fake his surprise. The guy had picked a mark and executed a perfect grab right in front of him! The natural urge to cover for the other thief, to lie, rose in him and Li had to suppress it. If anyone else had noticed, being contradicted would focus attention back on himself. So tell the truth. Sort of.
“Don’t know exactly where he went,” Li said, choosing his words carefully and masking it by scratching at his jaw and pretending to concentrate. “But I recall he didn’t have no shoes. Don’t think he’d have walked far on gravel.” Li kicked at the path, scattering a few small rocks. “I’d guess he slipped back over to the beach.”
The other man looked across the road and searched what he could see of the beach. At least a dozen men of the same general build and features were within sight.
“Thanks, buddy.” Pulling his girlfriend along after him, he jaywalked the road and began looking carefully at nearby faces.
Li nodded, shrugged, and then slowly walked along the gravel path. After taking the same turn as the pickpocket had, he stepped up his pace and began his own search for the man. Curiosity drove him more than common sense. You shouldn’t pressure a thief. Things could turn ugly real fast. But the fact that the guy had been so smooth, yet so ill-prepared in his choice of dress, told Li that the man might be in trouble and in need of a little help.
Twenty meters up, another path crossed his. Now there were three directions the guy could have gone, and Li found himself trying to second-guess another professional. If it were him, he’d have gone straight ahead, putting some distance behind him. To the left would risk a run-in with the mark. To the right led back toward the grab, the area where the police would first begin a search. Then he recalled the smooth calm with which the guy had followed the mark after the grab. That took nerve, chancing that the mark wouldn’t discover the loss until after the pickpocket had turned down another path.
Li turned to the left, brushing past a hedge that grew to the right of the path. He increased his step to a brisk walk. Running might seem like he was chasing the man, not searching for him. A subtle yet important difference. He was still trying to figure out how exactly to approach when he felt a hand on his shoulder, clamping down like a vise. It spun him around. For the second time in less than five minutes, Li Wynn had been surprised.
His first thought was that he’d guessed the right path.
His second was that the pickpocket had known all along that he was being watched, and had anticipated him.
“I admire persistence,” said Aris Sung. “Unless I’m mistaken, you have a proposition for me. Yes?”
14
K’ung-fu-tzu Park, Tarrahause
Tarrahause District, Kaifeng
Sarna Supremacy, Chaos March
20 July 3058
So far, it was getting out of his BattleMech that had given Aris the most trouble.
He’d spent an hour working his way down the Jinxiang River. He only broke the surface once, and that by accident at a point where the river widened and became shallow. Fortunately it was also a remote point, and Aris had quickly resubmerged his machine only to move even slower and more carefully than before.
Changes in water temperature and the slope of the river bottom eventually told him that he’d worked his way into Lake Ch’u Yuan. From what Aris could recall from memory, the great lake was over ten kilometers across at any point and shaped rather like an inverted L. The Jinxiang fed into it at the northeastern tip, and then continued on its way from the southwest. Tarrahause framed the outside angle. If he’d wanted to, Aris could have walked his Wraith straight into the heart of the city.
But that wasn’t part of the Hiritsu plan. Not yet. First Aris had to find a way to confer with Ty Wu Non. So he’d walked his machine to where he was fairly sure he stood less than half a kilometer off Tarrahause and at a spot only fifteen to twenty meters deep.
Then came the problem of getting out of his ’Mech without flooding the cockpit.
BattleMechs could be opened to vacuum, to be sure. All that was involved was replacing the spent air. Vacuum didn’t short out electrical circuits. Water, however, was another matter, and Aris’ cockpit hatch was set into the back of the Wraith’s head. If he were to open the hatch now, the water would come pouring in.
The solution—well, part of the solution—was for Aris to lay the Wraith on the lake’s muddy bottom with his cockpit viewscreen facing up. This would put the hatch at the lowest point of the ’Mech cockpit. Then he could simply open the hatch and slip into the water. There was no path for the air to escape. So with the surface a faint rippling blue patch far above, he’d undogged the hatch and forced it open a crack against three atmospheres of water.
He had then let it close as fast as he could, the pressure difference still in his favor
. Approximately two to three gallons of water had rushed in during those first few seconds, washing over his combat boots and putting the lie to his reasoning up to that point. Aris felt like hitting something. He’d forgotten that air would compress.
And that had been the other half of the solution. Over the course of a few minutes, he pressurized his cockpit by shutting down the modified recirc system and manually adding more air from the reserve tanks. He had to guess at the pressure, but after having to equalize his sinuses four times, he figured he was close enough. This time the hatch opened easily, dropping down into the cold lake water as some of the cockpit air forced its way down through the water to bubble up around the outside of his Wraith’s head.
Compared to all that, rigging a marker seemed simple. Like most BattleMechs, the Wraith carried emergency gear. Aris tied together two 10-meter lengths of nylon cord, one end of which he fastened to the outer hatch wheel. Then he emptied two bottles of a sports drink popular with MechWarriors for replenishing electrolytes lost in the cockpit heat and tied them to the other end of the rope. Taking a deep breath, he slipped into the Ch’u Yuan’s cool embrace and pulled the marker rope with him. He fastened the hatch from outside, and swam to the surface, bottles in tow.
Treading water, Aris eyeballed a few landmarks on shore to give him a basic idea of where he’d left the Wraith, and then set out for the nearest shore. The half-kilometer swim was a fair stretch, but Aris was in good shape. He’d rested up in the park, aware all the time of the youth shadowing him, then picked up some traveling money, and moved on. He’d waited just the other side of the hedge to see how persistent, and how competent, his shadow was.
Now he sat on a slab of cool concrete in the center of the park, leaning back against the base of a statue of K’ung-fu-tzu. The great Chinese scholar-sage rose above him dressed in simple robes carved from granite. His face was wrinkled and wizened, and he seemed to be reading aloud from a book held at chest level in one hand. The other hand was raised as if to draw the masses forward to hear his oration.
Binding Force Page 12
