Warrior: En Garde (The Warrior Trilogy, Book One): BattleTech Legends, #57

by Michael A. Stackpole

  After a moment’s respite, he crossed back to the lacquered cases. Gently folding his coat and boots, he fitted them carefully into the now-empty first case. After closing it, Ishiyama slid the case just enough out of the way so that it would still be visible. His guest would see it, and surely wonder what secrets it contained.

  Chapter 16

  ECHO V

  PESHT MILITARY DISTRICT

  DRACONIS COMBINE

  1 JANUARY 3027

  Jiro Ishiyama, tea master for the cha-no-yu, opened the second case and pulled a small gong and hammer from it. After carrying it to his place at the table, he set it where his body would shield it from the guest’s view. Returning to the case, Ishiyama removed the kimono he wore and pulled on the black one that lay like a congealed shadow at the bottom of the case. Then he also drew from the case a black hood with a mesh front to hide his face, yet allow him to see what he needed to do.

  After folding his kimono and laying it in the case, Ishiyama pushed the case back alongside its companion. He left it open so that the white interior—not unlike an alligator’s mouth—yawned open to invite trust and the contemplation of a journey.

  Ishiyama crossed to his position and pulled on the black hood. Using a fir twig that he had carried within his kimono, he reached up to place it into the fire urn. The twig immediately burst into flame, filling the room with the scent the Coordinator so admired. Ishiyama breathed it in deeply and settled back to enter a more contemplative frame of mind.

  The peace he sought eluded him, dancing like a butterfly just out of reach. Instead, his mind bubbled with images from the many stories he had heard about Yorinaga-ji over the years.

  A distant cousin of the Coordinator, Yorinaga had been a fierce MechWarrior, one of the few men to match Takashi in kendo, the art of the sword. Three years after being credited with Prince Ian Davion’s death on Mallory’s World in 3013, Yorinaga had been given the honor of leading the Second Sword of Light in an attempt to take that same world. Ishiyama recalled, too, the news reports of Yorinaga in action that he had seen as a child. He even remembered the pride that had swelled in his young heart, for he had idolized Yorinaga. The bitter taste of bile rose to his throat as he once again relived his hero’s downfall.

  The story, as Ishiyama had heard it many times, was one of honor, and it should have ended with Yorinaga slaying his enemy in grand style. The Second Sword of Light had surrounded the Kell Hounds’ First ’Mech Battalion on Mallory’s World and was advancing to destroy them when Colonel Morgan Kell marched his Archer out to the head of his force. In Japanese fashion, he suddenly began to announce his lineage and all the bold things his line had done.

  Yorinaga, out of respect and honor for his foe, marched his own Warhammer to the forefront of the gathered Kurita troops and broadcast his own lineage and their accomplishments. All the MechWarriors watching the confrontation knew that the battle would be decided between their commanders. Ishiyama had often heard the jest that the tension was so thick that Lyran traders might have to come in to export it.

  Kell’s Archer, armed with long-range missiles and four medium lasers, conceded much to Yorinaga’s ’Mech. The Warhammer’s main armaments were its two medium lasers and twin particle projection cannons, known commonly as PPCs. In a close battle, the Warhammer’s short-range missiles and two small lasers made it even deadlier. Everyone knew that the Archer would die, and they hoped its pilot would die with honor.

  By all accounts, the battle had pitted two master MechWarriors against each other. Kell did not retreat to a range where his LRMs would give him an advantage. Instead, he used his incredible agility to make his ’Mech a nearly impossible target, while using his fore and aft lasers to score random hits on his foe.

  Yorinaga, as always, fought a self-possessed battle. He tried to concentrate his fire, as was his custom, on one part of his foe’s ’Mech, but Kell’s twisting and dodging made that difficult. Yorinaga used his medium and small lasers to keep Kell at bay while his PPCs cooled, and he staggered their use so that Kell could not advance while the Warhammer ran hot.

  Some observers had described the fight in terms of a martial arts match, while others had regarded it more as an odd dance of death. Ishiyama had tracked down all the accounts of the battle, which had so melded in his mind that he felt a perfect understanding of each move and its complicated nuances. It disturbed him deeply to understand the battle so well, yet not be able to understand how his idol could have met such disgrace.

  Finally, when Kell’s medium lasers seemed to have knocked out the Warhammer’s right PPC, he sailed in at Yorinaga. To meet him, Yorinaga’s right PPC came up and loosed a bolt of argent electricity. The energy slashed into the Archer’s right shoulder, searing completely through it. Within a heartbeat, Yorinaga’s shot dropped the Archer’s melted right arm to the ground, and the maimed ’Mech stumbled to its knees. Kell was finished.

  Yorinaga’s Warhammer, barely thirty meters distant, leveled both PPCs at the stricken Kell Hound. Silver-blue energy erupted from both weapons, but the bolts missed their intended target and instead melted sand into glass beyond Kell. Morgan Kell, in desperation, had triggered two flights of LRMs, which sent forty missiles flying from his ’Mech’s torso against Yorinaga’s Warhammer.

  Though the flight was too short to arm the warheads, the missiles slammed into the Warhammer and battered it savagely. Some propellant tanks exploded and washed the Kurita ’Mech in sheets of golden-red fire. Other missiles smashed and dented armor plates, or crushed heat sinks and shattered joints. Yorinaga’s Warhammer, though it remained standing throughout the onslaught, might have been a toy abused by a hateful child.

  Yorinaga trained all his operable weapons systems on the Archer as it rose to its feet, but could not score a hit. It seemed as though Yorinaga’s Warhammer refused to acknowledge the target’s existence. Ishiyama had even heard the stories of MechWarriors present at the battle who said that Kell’s dead ’Mech vanished like a ghost from their instrument readings. While lasers flashed and PPC lightning burned the air into ozone around his machine, Morgan Kell did only one thing. His ’Mech, though not built for it, bowed as best it could toward Yorinaga.

  Ishiyama remembered the shock in the voices of MechWarriors who had witnessed the barbarian mimicking their traditions. They waited for Yorinaga to destroy him, then to give them the command to destroy the rest of the Kell Hounds.

  Instead, when Yorinaga’s voice filled their ears, they heard a simple haiku:

  “Yellow bird I see

  The gray dragon hides wisely

  Honor is duty”

  Some believed the enemy’s missiles had injured Yorinaga, and that this was his death haiku, but it was soon followed by his order that the regiment withdraw. One chu-i, a lieutenant recently attached to the unit, protested that the tai-sa must be injured and out of his mind. At that, Yorinaga turned both PPCs on the chu-i and melted his Panther in a hellish whirlwind of lightning. All understood, then and there, that Yorinaga had some reason for his actions, and so they obeyed him absolutely.

  Up to that point, Ishiyama could accept all that Yorinaga had done, for he had acted honorably. He did not surrender. As his men withdrew, all that Lord Kurita would have lost was a Panther and the chance to take the world. But, so the whispered stories went, Yorinaga cracked his ’Mech’s canopy and tossed out both of his swords to where Morgan Kell could retrieve them.

  After the battle on Mallory’s World, Yorinaga had traveled to Luthien to report in secret to the Coordinator. It was said that he asked for leave to commit seppuku, but that the Coordinator denied him the honor. Instead, Yorinaga was exiled to the monastery on Echo V, and had been there ever since. Aside from this visit by Ishiyama, the only contact with the outside world had by Kurita Yorinaga-ji—the ji appended to his name to signify entry into the monastery—was his annual request that the Coordinator permit him to commit seppuku.

  Ishiyama reached over and picked up the small hammer. He struck th
e gong softly, but with enough power for the sound to penetrate the paper walls. Again he struck it, again and again until five distinct tones rang out, each one filling the dying echo of its predecessor. After the fifth blow, Ishiyama replaced the hammer, lowered his head and waited.

  Slowly, as befitting its great antiquity, the door slid back. Even through the hood of his visitor, Ishiyama could recognize the face. The glittering dark eyes and the long, thin nose lent Yorinaga-ji a noble aspect many men would have killed to possess. Yet Ishiyama could see from the deep creases around Yorinaga-ji’s eyes that exile had not been kind to this man.

  Yorinaga-ji, moving with the fluid grace natural to a superior MechWarrior, squatted inside the tea chamber and slid the door shut. He turned slowly, but Ishiyama knew, despite the respectful inclination of the man’s head, that Yorinaga-ji studied the room the way a field commander might survey a battlefield. Though Ishiyama had expected some hesitation when his visitor saw the red mat on the other side of the table, Yorinaga-ji gave no sign that he noticed.

  The MechWarrior-monk crossed to his position at the table and knelt on the rose pink tatami. He never looked in Ishiyama’s direction. Instead, he bowed deeply toward the Coordinator’s empty position, holding the bent-over position for longer than most men could have tolerated. Then, slowly, he straightened up.

  Ishiyama, distracted by the crest worn over Yorinaga-ji’s chest, and on the sleeves and back of his kimono, hesitated and almost spoiled the whole cha-no-yu. The crest, showing a fierce yellow bird reflected in the eye of a dragon, had been born in the first line of Yorinaga-ji’s haiku, and formed an image of his disgrace. All Draconians knew that the Yellow Bird was the Dragon’s only enemy, and Yorinaga-ji had retreated from his chance to kill the Yellow Bird when he saw it.

  Ishiyama salvaged the ceremony by bowing deeply to the Coordinator’s position and holding the bow for even longer than Yorinaga-ji had. He then bowed to Yorinaga-ji, and held that bow for nearly as long as his bow to the Coordinator.

  “The Coordinator says Komban-wa, Kurita Yorinaga-ji.” Ishiyama’s voice, barely more than a whisper through his mask, came almost as an echo of words from the absent Coordinator’s throat.

  Yorinaga-ji bowed, but made no reply.

  Ishiyama lifted the blue tea bowl up onto the lacquered table. Using Urizen’s ladle, he dipped steaming water from the tea urn and brought it down slowly enough for the steam to form a thick white curtain between the urn and the table. In three fluid motions, he filled the bowl with water, releasing a cloud of steam with each move.

  As the steam dissipated, Ishiyama again whispered. “The Coordinator says he wishes to apologize for not replying to your annual request to commit seppuku. He admits that his own weakness has kept him from contemplating this life without you. He says that he has never replied because he could only deny your requests, and that denial would bring you pain.”

  Again, silently, Yorinaga-ji inclined his head toward the invisible Coordinator. He paid no conscious attention to the man acting as the Coordinator’s surrogate because, as long as the other man wore the black costume, he did not exist. Yet, the tea master’s skill was such that, as he added crushed tea leaves to the water and mixed them with so dexterous and easy a motion of the whisk, Yorinaga-ji unconsciously relaxed for the barest of moments.

  Ishiyama, his senses almost supernaturally alert during the cha-no-yu, sensed Yorinaga-ji’s momentary relaxation, and his heart leaped up. Ishiyama immediately gained control of himself and set the whisk down on the table. He cupped the bowl of tea in his hands, utterly ignoring the heat, and placed it before the Coordinator’s position.

  “The Coordinator says he has found a way to grant the release you desire, while also allowing you to fulfill your duty to him and preserving him from grief for your death.” Ishiyama reached out for the tea bowl, rotated it 180 degrees with slow precision, and lifted it across the table. Without a sound, and without a ripple breaking across the top of the tea, he placed the bowl before Yorinaga-ji.

  “The Coordinator says that he will form an elite unit around you. They will become the Genyosha—the Black Ocean—and you will be their leader. You will train them and pass on the knowledge and skill for which you are so well known. You will be able to select fifty men, one for each year of your age, from all the forces in the Combine. Then, aside from an ISF liaison officer, you will have no superior but the Coordinator.”

  Ishiyama lowered his head. “You will be iemoto of the Genyosha, for once you have given them all that you are, they will train fifty men, and those fifty will train fifty, until all our forces have your heart and mind.”

  Ishiyama waited, but Yorinaga-ji did not move. Ishiyama knew he had presented the other man with his deepest desire. He suppressed the desire to smile nervously, but he did marvel at how well the Coordinator knew this man who had been in exile for eleven years.

  Ishiyama’s voice again filled the room with sounds less substantial than the steam curling up from the tea before Yorinaga-ji. “The Coordinator asked me to mention, as a small item of interest, that plans have already begun for the utter destruction of the Kell Hounds.”

  Yorinaga-ji inclined his head ever so briefly. Some emotion that Ishiyama could not identify strobed across his face, but was swallowed in the self-control fortified by his exile.

  Without looking down, Yorinaga-ji unerringly cupped the tea bowl in his hands and raised it to his lips.

  PART TWO

  Chapter 17

  SOLARIS VII

  RAHNESHIRE

  LYRAN COMMONWEALTH

  20 FEBRUARY 3027

  “Zao, Fuh Teng.”

  Justin Xiang’s greeting startled the MechWarrior. Fuh Teng half-turned to see who had crept up on him so quietly, and his movement caused a piece of equipment to shift. Teng’s tech, half-hidden inside the Vindicator’s PPC assembly, cursed loudly.

  Fuh Teng narrowed his eyes. He did not like the looks of the man who had spoken, but could not identify him. He bowed his head slightly and returned Justin’s greeting. “Hello. Is there something I can do for you? You should not be in here, you know.”

  Justin nodded and thrust his hands even deeper into the pockets of his leather jacket. “So they tried to tell me at the gates. I am Justin Xiang, and I want to fight for you.”

  Teng frowned. “I need no pilots. I cannot afford them.” He looked up at the Vindicator looming above them in the darkened warehouse. “I exhausted my resources piecing this ’Mech together from what remnants I could salvage of my last ’Mech and the ’Mech my brother died in.”

  Justin nodded. The tech, Tung Yuan, appeared from inside the PPC, and the glare of his arc-welder bleached the color from Teng’s face while sinking his eyes into deep shadows. The tech snapped an order in Capellan. Before Teng, hampered by the brace stiffening his right knee, could move to comply, Justin responded. Easing his duffle bag from his right shoulder, he crossed to the crate that the tech had indicated and plucked a silver cylinder half a meter long and half that wide from the plastic foam inside the box.

  He held it up toward the tech, saying, “This is an R-4721 PPC inhibitor.” Justin frowned at Teng. “If you put this in the PPC, you’ll get all the flash with none of the punch.”

  Teng snatched the cylinder from Justin and handed it up to the tech. “Yes, Xiang, that is true. But it is also true that I do not want the punch.”

  Justin shook his head. “But if you win the match in Steiner Stadium tonight, you’ll have enough money to refurbish your Vindicator from top to bottom, and to hire a half-dozen pilots to work for you. With a few well-placed bets, you could even win enough to buy another ’Mech and start a stable.”

  Teng behaved as though he’d heard none of Justin’s words. “Xiang, Xiang…” he mused, then suddenly smiled tensely. “Oh yes, you’re the MechWarrior Hanse Davion banished to our little world. Well, you may have been special where you came from, Justin Xiang, but without a ’Mech, you’re nothing here.” He shrugged, then
smiled again weakly. “Understand. I do not mean to be harsh, but there are certain rules here on the Game World.”

  Justin narrowed his eyes. “You mean you’ve been ordered to lose the fight.”

  Teng smiled and the lines around his eyes betrayed his age. “I know survival is the key, and I feel more vulnerable out in Cathay than I do in any of the stadiums. The local odds makers have connections within the tongs, and are willing to use them to protect their profits.” He shrugged philosophically. “I will be given another chance to win a large purse when it suits the purposes of the planet’s masters.”

  Justin nodded solemnly. “So, in this case, your advice to a warrior without a ’Mech is that he should bet on your opponent?”

  Teng nodded. “Your age belies your wisdom.”

  Justin smiled and bowed. Teng, knowing the interview had ended, turned back to supervising the repair of his ’Mech. He never saw Justin’s gloved left fist arc out and crash into his head. With a quiet gasp, Teng sank into a heap on the floor, and the tool he’d been holding clattered beside him on the ferrocrete.

  When Tung Yuan poked his head back out of the PPC, his eyes popped open wide at the sight of his fallen employer. Justin merely smiled up at him. “Switch that inhibitor out of the PPC and blank the recognition system so I can link up with the machine.”

  Grinning broadly, the tech nodded assent. Justin winked at him and added, “Then we’ll tie up Teng here, and find someone willing to take a very specific bet on this fight at nice, long odds.”

  Tung Yuan ducked back into the Vindicator’s PPC housing. Though he never saw the grim smile take hold of Justin’s face, he heard him mutter, “Now, Hanse Davion, I begin to take my revenge. You will long remember this day.”