Daughter of The Dragon

by IIsa J. Bick

  “Some comfort in that,” said O’Mallory, his mind toying with the possibility that his people might have the option of sitting this one out. If Sakamoto were gunning for Vega and Katana, Al Na’ir might come out of this without a scratch, and wouldn’t that be the best of all possible worlds? He gave his visitor an intent, searching look and could find nothing in the man’s face but confidence and a total lack of guile. O’Mallory nodded to himself. That settled it then. He would support Fuchida’s request for troops, and then sit back and wait to see what happened. Yes, the best of all possible worlds.

  “Thank you for coming forward,” he said. He stood and held out his hand. “We can only hope your information is correct.”

  Smiling, Wahab Fusilli stood and grasped O’Mallory’s hand. “Legate, have I ever once let you down?”

  17

  Conqueror’s Pride, Proserpina

  Prefecture III, Republic of the Sphere

  20 March 3135

  Sully James folded his arms across his barrel chest and watched as the new cook poured a concoction of beaten eggs, sugar and soy sauce onto a hot, rectangular cast-iron omelet skillet sputtering with two, and only two, teaspoons of vegetable oil. Watch him now; the blighter’ll botch it and then won’t I be giving Kat an earful. I ain’t never asked after ’nother cook and don’t want one now.

  Except the new cook didn’t botch it, and when Sully forked a mouthful of tamago into his maw, he was forced to admit that the man knew his way around a kitchen. Sully swallowed, allowed: “You done it fair enough. Where you say you was from again?”

  “I didn’t,” said the new man in a nasal country twang. He was sixty-five if he was a day—a sparse nest of thinning white hair, rheumy blue eyes, knobby knuckles and a face that was a road map of wrinkles and folds. “Ran a little place on Galatia III; bar on the south side a town. Troopers get right powerful thirsty after a hard day’s fight.”

  “So when did you join?”

  “ ’Bout a year after the Fury come to town. Thing I like, Dragon’s Fury don’t seem too partic’lar about where a body’s from nor’n how old a feller is—just whether or not he’s willing to do what needs doing. Well, I’m old.” The new man fetched a smile. “But I can still sling a pretty mean hash. Mainly, though, joined up on account of the missus. Tai-sho Tormark’s a mighty fine woman. Makes a man proud to serve.”

  “Ain’t no one better’n me Kat, that’s a fact,” said Sully, pleased. He offered his hand. “Sully James. Everyone calls me Sully, or bastard, take your pick.”

  “Not half the bastard I am,” said the new man, taking Sully’s hand and wringing it solemnly. “But, for now, the name’s Jake.”

  “Jake, you cook as well as you talk, we’ll get along just fine, Bob’s your uncle.”

  Jake nodded. “Ye bet yer life.”

  23 March 3135

  “I’m positive.” Fusilli knocked a cigarette from a pack, screwed it into the corner of his mouth, flicked a lighter to life, inhaled. “Sakamoto will attack Proserpina,” he said, blue smoke jetting from his nostrils. He flicked ash into an empty rice bowl. “And make a push for Vega.”

  “That doesn’t make sense.” Scowling, Crawford plucked his chopsticks from the general wreckage of luncheon dishes and drummed a fretful rhythm on the low wooden table. “Two fronts? Without HPGs, coordination will be a logistical nightmare.”

  “Not if you’ve got enough JumpShips playing tag team, it’s not.” Fusilli turned his attention to Katana. “Tai-sho, I’d give my left arm to make this untrue. But Sakamoto will invade Prefecture I, and he will strike Proserpina.”

  Katana’s scowl was the mirror image of Crawford’s. “What about the coordinator?”

  “No one knows where the coordinator or his son stand.”

  Chu-sa Liz Magruder, Katana’s field commander from Sadachbia, grunted a laugh. She was a tall woman with close-cropped blond hair, and a snub nose that was too small for her height and made her always look disdainful. “No news there.”

  “We don’t know that Sakamoto hasn’t gotten the official go-ahead,” countered Wesley Parks. The field commander, a sho-sa, hailed from Sirius. He was scrappy and compact, with a black beard liberally streaked with gray and as gnarly as a briar patch, a scar that bisected his left eyebrow and a chipped front tooth, the right. When he smiled, he looked downright sinister. “If we know, you’ve got to believe the coordinator does.”

  “And doing nothing,” said Crawford. He’d progressed from drumming to rat-tat-tat-tapping his chopsticks together, ignoring the arched eyebrows from Sho-sa Ichiyo Rusch, a terminally dyspeptic man with a hatchet face who was one hell of a good MechWarrior and commanded the Dragon’s Fury contingent stationed at Irian, and Chu-sa Hampton Rhodes from Galatia III. “He’ll just look the other way, let Sakamoto do his thing then make a speech and hang a medal around the guy’s neck.”

  Presuming he still has a neck to hang something around. Katana glanced at her other guests: Sho-sa Thaddeus Hiwari from Ronel and Abeda Measho. Hiwari looked undecided, and Measho was frowning. And the Old Master’s been pretty quiet. She snuck a peek at the old man who stood sentry at the shoji, but he gave no sign and she turned back to Measho. “Well?”

  Measho hesitated and his dark eyes regarded Fusilli a moment before coming to rest on Katana. “I am not a commander, or a politician,” he said in his slow, deliberate way. “But isn’t the coordinator’s silence the reason you’ve pushed yourself and us so hard? When we began, we claimed nothing for the Combine, not a world, not a system. But now we claim for the coordinator. Perhaps the coordinator is silent because there are choices, but they are only ones that you can make and they must be of your free will, without influence. I’m sorry, but I don’t think we can help you with that.”

  Measho was right. Katana knew it. No one said anything for the space of few seconds, and then Crawford looked at Measho. “So does that mean you don’t know?”

  The rest burst out in relieved laughter. But Katana sobered quickly. “Measho’s right, as usual. But a head-to-head confrontation with Sakamoto is out of the question.”

  “Yeah, we’d get squashed into grease smears.” Parks tugged at his salt-and-pepper beard. “Why don’t we join forces?”

  Rusch screwed up his face as if he’d smelled something very bad. “Oh, I’m sure Sakamoto’d be happy to have us tag along, seeing as how he’s massing forces across our border.”

  “Okay, it doesn’t look so hot,” said Parks. “But he’s got to worry about cutting his losses same as us, and what do we have to lose? We stay out of the fight, Sakamoto chops those Republic forces into sushi, and we’ve still got those guys across the border. Now, on the other hand, if he really intended to strike at us here, then I’d lay odds he wouldn’t leave his people undermanned, not if he’s serious.”

  Rusch looked unconvinced, but Magruder slowly nodded. “Okay, I can see that.” She combed her close-cropped hair with her fingers then looked over at Fusilli. “So what about that? Those guys bait, or a warning?”

  Fusilli squinted through smoke curls. “Neither. They’re going to attack . . .”

  “Wait a sec,” said Katana, cutting him off. “Magruder’s got a point. I was stupid not to see it before. Think about it for a second. Put yourself in their place. Your commander’s just got done telling you that you’ll have one hell of a good fight and you’re so important and blah, blah, blah. But then you get stuck hell and gone, so far away that not only are you cut off from the main force, you’ve got no prospect for backup if something does happen. If they’re undermanned, then we’re more than evenly matched.”

  Fusilli sucked, then stabbed out his smoke in a rice bowl. “I hadn’t considered that. But, come to think of it, that could explain something else.”

  “And that is?”

  “The troops across our border are undermanned, yeah, but they’re also full of yakuza conscripts.”

  “Criminals?” Crawford said. Rat-tatta-tat.

  “These aren’t jus
t any old yakuza; they’re the descendants of the old Ghost Regiments, the ones the first Theodore created a century ago. The Ghost Regiments have been disbanded, of course, along with a fair number of the Combine’s regular forces. But, don’t you get it? If Sakamoto’s turning over rocks looking for troops, then he’s got to be acting without the coordinator’s consent, maybe even his knowledge. Otherwise, the coordinator would just give him troops.”

  Ratatattat-tat. “I still don’t see how this helps us.” Rat-tattatat-tat.

  “Will you quit that?” asked Parks.

  “It helps me think,” said Crawford, but he tossed his chopsticks onto the table before him. “There. Satisfied?”

  “Very.”

  “Guys, put a sock in it,” said Katana. “Go, Fusilli.”

  “Like I was saying, I think this helps us,” said Fusilli. “I heard that the guys on Homam and Matar are really pissed off. Morale’s in the toilet.”

  “So you’re saying they might be turned.” Katana smoothed her lips with her forefinger, thinking. “Interesting idea.”

  “Criminals?” said Rusch again, sounding even more disparaging than before. “Gangsters?”

  “Soldiers,” Katana corrected. “Personally, I have no objection to anyone who wants to join the party. It’s not as if we’re just overflowing with troops.”

  “So it’s an interesting idea,” said Parks. “So how do we test it?”

  “I’m not sure. In the meantime, let’s play it safe but smart. Andre, you and Magruder send what reinforcements you can to Proserpina. Don’t gut yourselves, but if Sakamoto’s men strike Proserpina, I want to have a little bit more muscle, maybe make them think twice. Your border’s been pretty quiet anyway, what with the Steel Wolves and Swordsworn having deserted Shinonoi, Deneb Algedi and Telos IV.”

  Magruder nodded, but Crawford was shaking his head again. He began twirling one of his chopsticks like a baton. “You’re banking on The Republic being deaf, dumb, blind and stupid.”

  “Well, they are,” said Parks.

  Crawford ignored him. “They could turn right around and launch a push to retake Ancha and Sadachbia. And don’t say it.” This he directed to Parks, who was eyeing the twirling chopstick. “I haven’t tapped it once.”

  “I was just making sure.”

  Katana cut in. “We’ll just have to take our chances that they don’t want to, or can’t. War’s about risk; you want something nice and safe, then you didn’t read the job description. Fusilli, I want you to go back with Magruder to Sadachbia. Our job now is to consolidate and get ready for a fight.”

  Parks’ fingers were busy in his beard. “Well, now that you mention it, Tai-sho, there’s been a lot of channel chatter down our way from Prefecture V, about action down by Poznan, even Liao. Nothing definite, you understand, but from the sounds of things, there’s thinning of Republic ranks on Liberty and Eridani. We could make a stab at those worlds, try and get them under our belt.”

  “I don’t like it,” said Crawford.

  Parks glared. “I didn’t ask you.”

  “And I still don’t like it.”

  “Andre,” said Katana, and then gave Parks a rueful shake of the head. “Nice as it sounds, no can do, Parks. We’re going to have our hands full when and if Sakamoto shows up. But if what you say is true, Parks, then Bannson’s Raiders on Saffel and Athenry might push into Prefecture X based on the same information.”

  “Meaning we get to stay put,” said Parks, and then nodded at Rusch. “You, too.”

  “Just as well.” Rusch snorted. “We’re already down a ’Mech and not a shot fired. Tai-sho, I told you the BH wasn’t reliable.”

  Crawford’s eyebrows reached for the hairline of his ruddy mane. “You mean, he’s gone?”

  “Vanished,” said Rusch. “Poof.”

  It was on the tip of her tongue to mention the Bounty Hunter’s early-morning visit to her bedroom, but Katana bit it back. What had he said? Something very odd: A lot of bad eggs floating around. A turn of a phrase she’d dismissed, but now, getting conflicting reports and confusing signals, she wasn’t at all sure that the Bounty Hunter wasn’t trying, in his own inimitable fashion, to warn her about something. A traitor, perhaps? “One MechWarrior more or less isn’t going to turn the tide of any battle, Rusch.”

  Rusch looked unconvinced, but Parks said, “So I guess I’m not going to fight. Damn, I was kind of hoping for one.”

  “You might just get your wish,” said Katana with a grim smile. “And, Parks, it’s never a good day to fight. It’s only a good day when you’ve won.”

  Katana dismissed her field commanders. “All except you, Andre,” she said, then waited until the rest filed out, Parks shooting Crawford a look: I told you to stop tapping with those damn things and now see what happens. The Old Master pulled the squalling shoji shut and returned to his post.

  Katana took a moment, debating how to begin. Crawford didn’t help her, just sat, arms folded, damn him. “So how is Toni doing?” she said, forcing a lightness into her tone that she didn’t feel.

  “She’s angry,” said Crawford. “She’s hurt. About what you’d expect.”

  Katana felt her cheeks flush. “I understand that, but what I want to know is how she’s doing, MechWarrior-wise.”

  “Ooohhhhhh. That. She’s doing much better, thanks. Not enough so I’d stake my life on it, but she’s getting there. I think she’ll be okay when the going gets tough. And speaking of going, what are you going to do next?”

  Sighing, Katana pushed to her feet and began to pace in the space backed by an elaborate tapestry: an embroidered dragon with an amethyst eye. “I don’t know. Just when I think I understand Sakamoto’s strategy, it gets away from me. You said it. It’s that damn distance between the forces.”

  “Put yourself in his shoes. It may be no more complicated than that he’s installed commanders he trusts to get the job done.”

  “Mmmm,” said Katana. “And there was something else really weird. What’s the only planet Fusilli didn’t mention? Across the border, I mean?”

  Crawford thought for a second, said, “Klathandu IV.”

  “Klathandu’s just as close. Maybe closer than Homam and Matar.”

  “And your point?”

  “Why aren’t those forces on Klathandu?”

  “Maybe there aren’t.”

  “But maybe there are. Think about it. Fusilli knows about the Ghost Regiments; he knows about the drive for Vega; he knows the names of very specific planets. So how come he doesn’t know this?”

  Crawford pushed out his lower lip. “Well, now you put it that way, okay, I see your point. Doesn’t mean his information’s wrong.”

  “But maybe he was compromised; maybe someone found out he works for us. So maybe . . .”

  Crawford’s face brightened. “Maybe information got leaked with an eye toward forcing our hand, or baiting a trap. We get all hot and bothered about Homam and Matar, and then the guys on Klathandu slip in behind and clobber the hell out of us. Or Sakamoto takes Vega while you hunker down on Proserpina. Once Vega’s in Sakamoto’s hip pocket, then Sakamoto goes back to the coordinator and says, see, here I’ve brought you all this glory and Katana’s been too chicken to join in the fun. Okay,” said Crawford, giving a slow nod. “I can buy that. Still doesn’t answer the question about Klathandu IV, though. I could go to Klathandu . . . why the hell not?”

  Katana was shaking her head. “Because I need you on Ancha. No arguments,” she said when he opened his mouth to protest. “Whoever planted this information for Fusilli to pick up aimed to have me steer away from Klathandu. Makes sense. But Klathandu is the closest and most isolated of the three planets on the border. So I’ll go there.”

  “Let me go with you.”

  “Nope. Just me and”—she glanced over her shoulder—“and the Old Master. When he speaks, they’ll listen.”

  She saw that Crawford struggled with this one; his face had turned a shade of red only slightly lighter than his m
ane of fiery hair. “I don’t think that’s wise,” he said, finally and pushed to his feet. “If the commander on Klathandu isn’t on the up and up, you’ll be in front of the coordinator in ten seconds flat and, twenty seconds later, your head will be looking at the inside of a refrigerated box. If something happens to you . . .”

  “If I’m taken, you go to the head of the class. You’re the one man I trust to do this right. I’ll give you all time to get back to your various posts. Then I’ll head for Klathandu IV and see if I can persuade their commander to see things our way.”

  “You’re assuming a hell of a lot. Look, I’d never disobey you, but I’m begging you. At least wait until we hear from Drexel and McCain. If Sakamoto’s persuaded other yakuza, maybe Drexel and McCain will . . .”

  “We can’t afford to wait, and I haven’t heard from them in months. Junction was a gamble, anyway.”

  “You should’ve let me go.”

  “McCain was . . . is best for the job, and the least conspicuous. He doesn’t look like a soldier, or a spy, and Viki blends in enough to cover his rear. After all, I’m not sure I’d want to be on the receiving end of your scalpel.” When he didn’t laugh, she said, “Look, either they haven’t sent word because there’s nothing to report, or . . .”

  “They’re dead,” said Crawford, flatly.

  Katana nodded. “Yeah.”

  In a back storeroom of the kitchens, next to the refrigerated meat locker, Jake straightened. There was a smile on Jake’s face, and that was the curious thing. Jake’s face was old, but his smile was not. After a quick glance to make sure there was no one around, Jake plucked a tiny receiver from his right ear and dropped it into a pocket of his long, white apron. Then he tugged open a sack, scooped rice into a basin and made his way back to the kitchens.