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

by Michael A. Stackpole

  “Sumimasen, Kurita Yorinaga-sama.” Sho-sa Tarukito Niiro stood respectfully back and away from his master. The major, one of the first staff officers Yorinaga had honored with acceptance into the Genyosha, bowed deeply. He straightened up again when Yorinaga graced him with a nod.

  “Forgive me, Tai-sa,” Tarukito begged, honoring Yorinaga with the Japanese form of his title, “but the taishi requests your presence.” Taishi meant “ambassador,” and was the name the staff officers had given to the local liaison officer for the Draconis Combine’s Internal Security Forces.

  Yorinaga bowed his head. Though no sign, no flicker of emotion, passed over Yorinaga’s face, Tarukito Niiro knew that he comprehended all that had been said and all that had been left unspoken. Yorinaga understands, from the way I worded my message, that the taishi actually demanded the tai-sa’s presence. He must know that I would sooner commit seppuku than deliver such a harsh message. Tarukito allowed himself to hope that Yorinaga would realize that the ISF man, Shinzei Abe, was forcing his officers to act as a buffer, thereby reminding them that he, the taishi, controlled their fates.

  Yorinaga nodded slightly as Tarukito moved from his path. Yorinaga passed his right hand through the gray hair that had grown out in his months away from the monastery. Tarukito Niiro, already stationed on Nashira when the call for volunteers had gone out, had applied immediately for a staff position. He gladly took a reduction in grade from chu-sa to sho-sa to serve in the Genyosha with Yorinaga.

  Yorinaga strode through the corridors with strong, sure strides. Only the gray hair and the crest staring at Tarukito from Yorinaga’s back reminded him of the MechWarrior’s age and long history. Only his silence reminds me that he was disgraced. Tarukito paused at the door to Yorinaga’s office to remove his boots, as Yorinaga had done. Then they both entered to face Shinzei Abe.

  “Konnichi-wa, Kurita Yorinaga-san,” Shinzei intoned respectfully. He executed his bow with the correct sincerity, but its depth and swiftness mocked the gesture. The ISF liaison officer straightened up before Yorinaga had a chance to return the bow. His anger and contempt showed plainly on his broad moon-face.

  Yorinaga ignored Abe and knelt behind his low desk. When he looked up, Tarukito noted Yorinaga’s frown at seeing that Shinzei Abe had not removed his boots before entering the room. Yorinaga’s shock increased as he saw the source of Shinzei’s insult. He stiffened, then bowed.

  The prisoner—for a man in such rough shape and bonds could be nothing less—knelt opposite the tai-sa. The welts on his body must have caused him pain, but he bowed deeply. Though he nearly fell over as he tried to straighten up, the man gritted his teeth and controlled his body with an iron will. Bringing his bruised and battered body erect, the prisoner said smoothly, “Konnichi wa, Kurita Yorinaga-sama.”

  Shinzei Abe lashed out with his left hand and smashed the man in the face. The blow snapped the prisoner’s head back, but even Tarukito saw that the man had moved with the blow, aborting its full effect. Tarukito half-rose from his knees, but Shinzei Abe dropped a hand to the neural whip at his belt. Tarukito glanced at Yorinaga, but the tai-sa signaled him back to his place by the door.

  Yorinaga looked at Shinzei Abe and mutely invited him to kneel. Tarukito watched the simple motion of Yorinaga’s right hand. It floated like a leaf falling from a tree, but it brought Shinzei to his knees like an avalanche. Yorinaga nodded slightly, then narrowed his eyes and wordlessly demanded an explanation from the ISF officer.

  Shinzei smiled coldly. “You have doubtless recognized this traitor, Yorinaga-san. Narimasa Asano, as you will recall, served with you eleven years ago in the Second Sword of Light Regiment. He traveled here to join the Genyosha without orders or permission. He traveled here even though the invitation to join the Genyosha was specifically not extended to officers who had served with you in the past.”

  Yorinaga nodded slowly, but the intensity never left his expression. He stared at Shinzei Abe, and after a moment, the ISF officer felt compelled to offer further explanation.

  “Because he abandoned his command and proceeded, illegally, to travel two hundred and thirty light years to this place, I assumed, naturally, that he is an agent of House Davion or House Steiner.”

  Yorinaga cocked his head ever so slightly to show puzzlement. “No,” Shinzei Abe answered the unvoiced question. “He has not revealed the identity of his masters under torture. I bring him to you because only the garrison commander can grant me the permission needed to execute him.”

  Tarukito watched distaste flash across Shinzei Abe’s face. Tarukito himself had transmitted the order that placed a limit on the ISF liaison’s powers. He remembered, with relish, relaying the Coordinator’s answer to Abe: “Yorinaga is the master of the Genyosha. Life and death are his to give or take. His men are to be as devoted to him as he is to me. You are not to interfere with him. Security is your only concern.”

  Yorinaga flicked his gaze from Shinzei Abe to Narimasa. Life seemed to flow from Yorinaga’s eyes into Narimasa’s body. With a slight inclination of his head, Yorinaga invited Narimasa to explain himself.

  Narimasa again bowed deeply to the tai-sa. “It is as Shinzei Abe has told you, Yorinaga-sama. No invitation to apply to your command was given to me, but I learned of the Genyosha from other sources. As soon as I heard that you had come forth, I knew that I must serve with you again. Since the time I served in your command, no other superior officer has inspired such deep respect. I knew, though I risked death, that I must, at least, try.”

  Narimasa licked his swollen, cracked lips. “I traveled aboard DropShips by disguising myself as a common laborer. No one watched me or cared where I went as long as I helped get work done on time and well. In some places, I traveled among the yakuza and shipped aboard their private craft. Finally, after a journey of more than two hundred light years, I arrived here. I reported to your staff two days ago, and since that time, Shinzei Abe has been my host.”

  Yorinaga glanced at Tarukito. The sho-sa in turn regarded the taishi. “Why did you not inform Yorinaga-sama of Narimasa Asano’s arrival? Why did he not appear in the daily arrival lists?”

  Shinzei Abe lifted his head and stared down his narrow nose at Tarukito. “I decided that his accomplices might inadvertently reveal themselves if he seemed to be overdue. That he is guilty of many crimes against the Dragon is not in question. Preventing the discovery of the Genyosha is. Even you, Major, will recall that the Coordinator made security my responsibility.”

  Tarukito Niiro straightened up and graced Shinzei Abe with a look of pure poison. “You recall but one line from a message you should have memorized in its entirety. The Coordinator reminded you that all the Genyosha officers and men are to be as devoted to Yorinaga-sama as the tai-sa is himself devoted to the Coordinator.”

  Tarukito glanced at Yorinaga. He accepted Yorinaga’s nod as permission to continue, then waded in against Shinzei again. “Narimasa Asano is obviously such a man. Forget that he threw a career away to travel here. Forget that he was willing to forfeit his life to travel here. Examine only the action of traveling here. Months on worlds working at tasks far beneath him in order to reach this world. Not only is this man devoted to Yorinaga-sama, but he is resourceful and does not surrender. What better recruit could we ask for?”

  Shinzei Abe snorted derisively. “You could ask for a recruit who follows orders.”

  Tarukito narrowed his eyes. “Precisely why you are only a liaison officer, Shinzei Abe, and nothing more.” He turned to Yorinaga. “Permission to show Narimasa Asano to proper quarters, sir?”

  Yorinaga bowed his head. Lifting it again, he reached out his hand for a small lacquered box on his desk. From it, he withdrew a brush and small jar of black ink. After drawing a sheet of paper from one corner of his desk, Yorinaga dipped his brush into the ink. With bold strokes, he defined several characters. Setting the brush down, he reached into the box again and pressed his personal seal to the bottom of the paper.

  Tarukito t
ook it from Yorinaga’s outstretched hand, and regarded it dispassionately. When he noticed Shinzei Abe’s interest, he smiled. “As you have ordered, Tai-sa, I will conduct Chu-sa Narimasa Asano to the suite next to yours.”

  “Domo arigato, Niiro Tarukito-san.” Narimasa Asano bowed from the waist. “You have been most kind to me, Sho-sa.”

  “Iie, it was nothing.” Tarukito returned the bow. “I am more than happy to help a fellow officer, especially if it displeases the taishi. The uniform fits you well, Chu-sa.”

  “Hai! Your quartermaster did exceedingly well in fitting me.” Narimasa glanced at his reflection in the mirror on the wall of his living room. The room, which was l-shaped, bent around the cleaner and kitchenette from the front door to the bedroom. The straw tatami and two brush-painting landscapes alone decorated the apartment.

  Narimasa sighed. “It has been a long time since I wore the green ni.” He rubbed his hand over the symbol for “two” on his shoulder. “For this alone, I would have braved many of the perils I faced coming here.”

  “Forgive me for asking, Chu-sa, but you were a chu-sa in the Second Sword of Light, were you not?” Tarukito, being well bred, did not look Narimasa in the face as he asked the question, the better to avoid their mutual embarrassment.

  Narimasa Asano nodded his head slowly. “The Dragon’s memory is long and unshakable. After the disgrace on Mallory’s World, the Coordinator broke up the command lance and sent us to different places. I believe that they thought what we had witnessed in the battle between Yorinaga and Morgan Kell had shattered our spirits.”

  “Sumimasen, Narimasa-san, but I do not follow what you are saying. What could have been so horrible?”

  The elder MechWarrior shook his head. “At times, I recall it as a nightmare. I watched Kell’s Archer—plainly visible through my Marauder’s canopy—vanish from my tactical displays. I shifted through all the scanner modes, but it would not register. Though I could see the Archer with my eyes, my weapons refused to acknowledge it.”

  Tarukito shivered. This is every MechWarrior’s nightmare. The foe that cannot be destroyed.

  Narimasa nodded as though he’d read Tarukito’s thoughts. “After we were scattered through the Combine, I became a chu-i and once again commanded a single lance, as I had done in the early days out of Sun Zhang.”

  He suffered a reduction from lieutenant colonel to lieutenant! Tarukito shook his head. “Forgive me the inquiry.”

  Narimasa smiled easily. “Iie. I have endured much, Tarukito-kun, but I never abandoned my duty during that time. I must admit, however, that I might one day have committed seppuku if this chance had not revived my hopes of honor.”

  Tarukito frowned. “Why would you do that, Chu-sa?”

  Narimasa’s eyes narrowed to slits. “I was almost assigned to Duke Ricol’s service.”

  Tarukito blanched, then caught himself. “Surely you would have been able to deal with the Gray Death Legion, Narimasa-san.”

  The elder MechWarrior nodded slowly. “Perhaps, but not as the leader of a Panther lance. That is all they would have let me do. Fortunately, I learned of this assignment and began my journey.” Narimasa’s head came up and he looked hard at Tarukito. “Be wary, Tarukito-kun, for the Gray Death Legion is not that far behind Wolf’s Dragoons or the Kell Hounds in deadliness.”

  “But Chu-sa, Wolf’s Dragoons now work for the Dragon, and the Kell Hounds will soon be destroyed.” Narimasa Asano stiffened suddenly, but it was not because of Tarukito’s words. Feeling a shadowy presence behind him, Tarukito whirled to see what it was. Then, like the chu-sa, he bowed to Yorinaga.

  Yorinaga returned their bows as best his kendo armor would allow. He carried the helmet under his left arm and his wooden, sword-like shinai in his left hand. He quickly glanced at Narimasa and the uniform, then allowed himself a small smile and nodded his head. Tarukito saw that the two men shared something more—a look, nothing else—before they bowed to one another.

  Narimasa turned to Tarukito. “Please remember, Sho-sa, that the Kell Hounds escaped death once before, years ago, and even the first half of the operation set into place on Pacifica went less well then planned.”

  Yorinaga withdrew a folded sheet of paper from his chest armor and extended it to Tarukito. Opening it carefully, the sho-sa read it with an expression that seemed to mix horror and relief. “This is horrible, Tai-sa! For Shinzei Abe to die in a kendo accident. To have his windpipe crushed by a strike.” Tarukito shivered. “Shouldn’t I transmit this message immediately?”

  Yorinaga shook his head slightly, then turned as Shinzei Abe, similarly attired in kendo armor, came up to where they stood. The ISF liaison officer stopped before Yorinaga, and glared at the two junior officers. “Well, Yorinaga-san, shall we? I have meetings this afternoon and,” he added, staring at Narimasa, “investigations to complete.”

  Chapter 29

  PACIFICA (CHARA III)

  ISLE OF SKYE

  LYRAN COMMONWEALTH

  15 APRIL 3027

  Damn! That Victor runs cool. Seated in the cockpit of his Valkyrie, Daniel Allard adjusted his infrared scanner to a finer gradation of heat. The display immediately redrew the Victor in shades of red and blue. Also within the scan zone, the other ’Mechs in his lance brought the flickering of color to the edges of his scanner.

  Over the land connection, Dan called to Salome Ward. “He’s coming our way, Major. We expect contact in fifteen seconds.”

  “Luck, Dan. Don’t let the fox bite the hounds.” Her calm reply brought a smile to Dan’s face. Looking at his heat scanner again, he brought the crosshairs for his LRMs into line with the Victor’s heat shadow. Three, two, one. “Flight away!”

  Computer-projected trajectories scored red paths for his missiles across his combat monitor, but the Victor suddenly hit its jump jets. The sudden burst of heat released by the ion jets overloaded Dan’s screen and bathed his cockpit in white fire. Alarms screamed in his ears as his sensors reported heavy scanning and a preliminary lock onto his Valkyrie.

  “Punch it, now, Scout Lance! I’m marked!” Dan wheeled his Valkyrie blindly amid the jungle and smashed into a tall tree. He rebounded, then punched his jump jets and flew straight up through the tree’s branches. I hope I can see to come down.

  “Move it, Baker!” Austin Brand’s voice knifed into his ears.

  “Damn! Victor came down on top of him and used the AC on his head. Baker’s gone!”

  “Flight away!” Meg Lang said calmly, and Dan visualized her systematically coaxing data up on her monitors as she sent two SRMs at the Victor. “No hits for the LRMs, but Brand’s SRM salvo hit seven out of ten in center torso. Damn! I only hit a leg.”

  Dan squinted, and his control panel swam into view. He saw the opening in the jungle where the Victor had come down on top of Baker’s Jenner. Turning the Valkyrie, he jetted toward the opening on another ion cloud. Come in behind and POW! His finger caressed the fire button and another flight of LRMs coursed toward the Victor.

  Suddenly the Victor rose up through the canopy and hung suspended on a jet of ion flame. As the autocannon that was the enemy ’Mech’s right forearm came up, alarms again wailed in Dan’s ears. Stabbing a button, he abruptly cut his jump jets. The Valkyrie started to fall as the Victor’s autocannon rose into line, but the surprise move did not save him.

  Lights exploded across his control panel. The computers told him that the autocannon’s stream of slugs had peeled his Valkyrie’s chest armor like an orange, and had juiced the center of his ’Mech to boot. Warning lights flashed to tell him that the fusion engine’s shielding had been chipped away. The internal heat monitor readouts spiked into the critical red band. In a slow voice that mocked the urgency, his computer suggested, “Evacuation would be prudent.”

  The Valkyrie was dropping like a rock. The trees in Pacifica’s jungle might have broken the ’Mech’s fall, but the Valkyrie’s landing snapped off branches and crushed whole trunks. As his ’Mech came down finally, Dan
smashed back against the rear wall of the cockpit so hard that it stunned him. Helpless as a turtle on its back, Dan lay sprawled out, and his ’Mech faithfully imitated his nerveless body.

  Through the Valkyrie’s faceplate and the branches strewn over it, he watched the Victor descend. The assault ’Mech straddled its smaller cousin, its head tipped down so that the pilot could watch his victim. The Victor’s autocannon swung into line with the Valkyrie’s head, but Dan could do nothing as alarms screamed around him.

  Suddenly, the computer screens reported a monstrous cloud of LRMs arcing in at the Victor. Sixty of them! That’s the Catapult and the Trebuchet! The computer also reported heavy laser fire blasting into the Victor. The missile impacts blotted out the enemy ’Mech’s outline on the scanner screen in a fiery tornado. When it outline appeared again, it was dotted with impact sites like spots on a chiroptopard’s pelt.

  The Victor hung its head. “OK, troops, the computer shows the Victor fifty percent stripped of armor and the head utterly gone. Nice hit with the large lasers, Diane.”

  “Roger, Colonel Kell. Thanks.” Sergeant McWilliams, the Rifleman pilot from Ward’s Assault Lance, sounded pleased with her performance. “You shouldn’t have gone after Captain Allard. That was the only predictable move you made.”

  Dan laughed. “Roger that. Damn it, Patrick, you never told us you were checked out on a Victor.”

  The Victor reached down and helped Dan get his Valkyrie back on its feet. “The Nagelring likes its graduates to survive. My cadet company rebuilt a Victor captured from Kurita. Handle really well, don’t they?”

  Salome’s answer struck home with both lances. “Well enough to crush a scout lance, to be sure. But not enough to take on a company by itself. Let’s remember that, people. The bigger the ’Mech, the more people gunning for it.”