Double-Blind

by Loren L. Coleman

  Marcus nodded, but was still troubled by the way Precentor Schofield seemed to manipulate Shienzé at the reception. Marcus was only able to keep his comments to himself after Charlene finally kicked him under the table. "You have a nice world here, Baron. I hope you keep it."

  Shienzé nodded. "The Bryant Raiders or Word of Blake notwithstanding," he said, with surprising good cheer. When Marcus merely stared at him, dumbfounded, the baron laughed rich and full. "Don't let the gray hairs fool you, Commandante," he said, stumbling over the Italian. "I can recognize a hidden agenda."

  "Don't trust either of them, Baron," Marcus said quietly, resting one hand on the other man's shoulder. "Keep a firm grip on New Home and tell the rest to go to blazes."

  "A nice thought, but not practical." The baron glanced up into the sky, and Marcus wonder if he too sensed the Cheshire grinning of the two moons. "Every star up there is a reminder that there will always be others who wish to take away what we have," he murmured. "The Chaos March is aptly named, but it will not remain so forever. The Successor Houses have not forgotten us. And the Clans are still there."

  Marcus felt a slight shudder, and his eyes flicked instinctively to the heavens as if the mere mention of the word Clans might summon them.

  "Besides," the baron said, returning to his earlier point, "I prefer to get along with my neighbors."

  Noticing Charlene standing at the ramp's head, waiting to button up the DropShip, Marcus offered his hand again to the baron. "If you ever need us, you know where we'll be." The Periphery, he thought with another shudder. Not one of the places most mercenaries wanted to work, but these were hard times and he had a unit to maintain.

  "On Outreach," Baron Shienzé said kindly, clasping Marcus' hand with both of his. "I will always expect to find your Angels through the Hiring Hall on Outreach."

  Marcus saluted, then turned and moved up the ramp, grateful for the vote of confidence. The baron had an instinctive knack for handling people. He used neither cheap flattery nor condescension with those of lesser rank, but honestly sought to bolster those who also strengthened him. And that. Baron, is why men will follow you.

  From the ramp's head, Marcus glanced back to watch Shienze returning toward the gates of his stronghold. In the distance he could see the BattleMechs that had brought Precentor Schofield and her aide to the Baron's hold. The giant machines stood waiting silently outside the gates, with a squad of troops guarding the base of each. It was an ominous sight, Marcus thought—almost as if the Blakist 'Mechs stood silent vigil over their own stronghold, not that of their host.

  It was the last thing he saw before finally entering the DropShip, and Marcus told himself that he had to leave New Home's problems to the Baron and his people. The Angels had enough worries of their own.

  5

  DropShip Head of a Pin

  Nadir Recharge Station, New Home System

  Chaos March

  27 March 3058

  Marcus cursed fluently as the myomer bundle twisted in his grip, then again at Yuri Petrovka, who laughed.

  The Heaven Sent had rendezvoused with the Canopus JumpShip Bacchus three hours ago, locking into the docking collar right next to the Head of a Pin. With the Heaven Sent coming off New Home time and the rest of the DropShip-JumpShip contingent set to some Magistracy clock, Marcus suddenly found it to be four o'clock in the morning. With several hours to kill before he could meet the Canopian representative, he had grabbed his chief technician and hauled him off to the Fortress Class DropShip's Number Two 'Mech bay and Marcus' project.

  The BattleMech occupying their attention was a Caesar, a machine Marcus had been trying to restore for six months, even before the ill-fated Arboris contract. Standing on back-canted legs that ended in talon-like feet, the Caesar's relationship to the Marauder design was obvious. Its upper-torso design spoke of the 'Mech's ties to the Capellan Cataphract, with forward-thrust, wedge-shaped cockpit and a large torso-mounted weapon. But the Caesar had an air about it unlike either design, a calm but deadly attitude that stood out in its sleek silhouette.

  Currently, though, the 70-ton machine looked ravaged, its right arm still unattached and armor stripped off from head to feet to allow access at even the most remote location.

  The huge bay stood empty save for the Caesar and numerous spare BattleMech parts. The only other people around were two astechs in the adjacent 'Mech stall who labored to modify an internal chassis arm to fit Faber's damaged Marauder. Noticing the occasional hiss of a cutting torch or flash of an electric welder was as far as Marcus let his attention wander.

  Petrovka was diverting enough.

  The myomer bundle Marcus was struggling with dangled from the 'Mech's hip actuator, falling in a long, dull-gray rope that threaded its way through a maze of internal supports and other, smaller bundles. Every meter or so a thin metal ring bound the fibers together in a tight grip to prevent Marcus from fouling their weave as he wrestled the bundle into place. On the advice of Petrovka, he had also attached support wires to each ring, keeping strain off the actuator until the entire bundle was installed.

  "We have managed to repair the Jenner's gyro," Petrovka told him, referring to the one Angel 'Mech that had been crippled before the final raid on New Home. Marcus had wriggled into a small cave formed by a sheet of leg armor and some of the smaller myomer bundles, trying to wrestle the Caesar's artificial muscle into its last guide. Petrovka bent over to speak down into the tangle of metal, fibers, and Marcus. "She up and runnin' perfect wit'in a week."

  Marcus jumped as Petrovka's strong voice and sharp accent echoed inside the narrow confines of his crawl space. He misjudged the distance needed to get the bundle of fibers over the metal fork of the guide, smashing his fingers against the upright. The heavy gloves he wore prevented skinned knuckles, but his numb fingers would make another try impossible for a moment. Sliding out from the crawl space, he sat back against the Battle-Mech's ankle and gazed up at Petrovka.

  Yuri Petrovka was an older, robust-looking man from Valil'yevskly, a Free Worlds League planet originally settled by a large Russian contingent back in the early days of Terran expansion. His red-brown hair and beard were shot through with gray, and he wore both trimmed very short. His accent seemed to get worse over the years instead of better.

  "How's the JagerMech?” Marcus asked, flexing his hand to get feeling back in it.

  The elder man shrugged. "I think I bring that one back from grave as well," he said, then grimaced. "Though I not sure what to do about right arm. You ruined the thing, an' there was no replacement in warehouse."

  "Any chance on adapting one from another 'Mech?"

  "I think not." Petrovka rubbed one hand against the side of his face. "But maybe I build one from scratch."

  An electric spark left a blue-black ghost image hovering in Marcus' vision. He blinked it away as the acrid stench of hot metal drifted over to supplant the normal scent of grease. "I better try this again," he said, starting to climb back up into the space. "You think they'd have a tool to make this a bit easier."

  "They do," Petrovka said, grinning.

  Hovering at the opening, Marcus looked back at the other man. "Then how come I haven't been using one?"

  Petrovka's grin widened. "Because you might put kink in fibers unless I help, and you wanted to do all work yourself."

  Marcus made a gun with his fingers and pretended to shoot himself in the head, then dove back up into the crawlspace. He managed to get the artificial muscle into its guide on the first try this time, and then set to work fastening the bundle's end into one of the ankle supports. It took the better part of an hour, with Petrovka's running dialogue pausing only for breaths and the first warning alert that the ship was about to jump to a new star. The myomer bundle finally installed, Marcus removed the two lowermost support wires and the retaining rings.

  He hadn't really noticed Petrovka's sudden quiet, having tuned the technician out except for the occasional question, until he heard a muffled feminine v
oice ask, "Commander GioAvanti?"

  A gentle kick at his feet and a, "Hey, Marc," brought him sliding out from inside the Caesar.

  Marcus came to his feet, peeling the heavy gloves off his hands. His visitor almost matched him in height. She wore a turquoise tunic and trousers, accented by black gloves and knee-high leather boots. Silver piping chased the cuffs and down the sides of the trousers. Her dark wavy hair was pulled back tight into a ponytail that fell all the way down her back. Spiked collars fastened around her left wrist and ankle lent a menacing air to the dress uniform of the Magistracy Armed Forces, but the easy way she carried herself would have been enough to tell Marcus she was more than just a political appointee. "Commander Ryan?" he asked.

  She nodded. "Jericho Ryan, First Canopian Cuirassiers. I'm your liaison to the Magistracy."

  Torgensson's message had told Marcus that a liaison officer would join up with them—and of course a female one—though he hadn't expected it to be a Mech-Warrior. And she probably wasn't expecting to meet a grease monkey. He glanced down at his tattered coveralls, stained with the red grease myomer bundles came packed in. "Sorry I'm not really dressed to receive you, Commander."

  "Looks like you've been busy," she said, giving the Caesar an appraising glance. "And please, make it Jericho. We're going to be together for awhile."

  "Marcus then. Or Marc. This, is my chief technician, Yuri Petrovka." He nodded to the tech. "He's supervising me on this project"

  Petrovka smiled a greeting. "Looks like we won't be doin' much more right now. 'Scuse me, please, I go back to Heaven Sent." He shuffled off, gathering up the two astechs with a grunt as he passed by.

  "I came down early and your exec on the Heaven Sent said you'd been over here all night."

  Marcus smiled. "We're still on New Home time. To us, this is late afternoon."

  "I hadn't thought of that," Jericho admitted. Marcus stepped up onto a small gantry that gave him better access to the Caesar's knee and began to remove more of the temporary support wires. Jericho studied the work. "Wait a minute," she said in warning. "You've got a quarter-twist in that bundle." After a slight pause, she caught herself. "But then, you would have had to redesign the end attachment in order for it to lift, so you know that. But why?"

  "Caesars often have a slight bow-legged gait," Marcus explained through clenched teeth as he wrestled with the restraining clip. "Yuri showed me how to put the twist in there so when the myomer bundle contracts—"

  "It pulls the leg inward and gets rid of the problem," Jericho finished for him. "Slick." Another glance over the 'Mech. "Those aren't standard weapons, either," she said, fishing for information and not trying to hide it.

  "Clan tech," Marcus admitted. "Both the right-torso Gauss rifle and the hand-held PPC that will be attached along with the right arm. That gives me back four tons to play with. This 'Mech will carry an extra ton of armor when I'm done with it, an extra double heat sink, and instead of four medium pulse lasers, I can mount five. The three forward-firing are also Clan, giving me better reach."

  "You've got a lot of these Clan weapons?"

  "Not as many as you might be thinking now. A grand total of one Gauss, four PPCs, two large lasers, and maybe eight mediums. The reason so many are mounted in the Caesar is because it takes so long to adapt them to Inner Sphere designs. The Caesar is the only 'Mech that has had the downtime for experimenting."

  She nodded. "I don't remember a Caesar in the TO&E Victor Torgensson discussed with me."

  "You wouldn't. This 'Mech isn't functional." Marcus stepped back to look up at the giant machine. "It needs a General Motors 280 Extralight engine. We haven't been able to pick one up yet."

  A hint of puzzlement underlay Jericho's voice. "Torgensson mentioned the trouble you had on Arboris. If the Angels were so worried about finances, why didn't you sell it? Even three-quarters complete, that 'Mech has to be worth a tidy sum."

  Marcus turned and regarded her coolly. "Because, Commander, I had two warriors without a 'Mech after that fiasco. And the Angels take care of a Dispossessed warrior before anything else."

  "I understand," Jericho said with a nod. Her shiver at the word dispossessed told Marcus that perhaps she did. To a MechWarrior, not having a BattleMech was a worse fear than dying in battle. "With a small company, the loss of a single machine would be devastating."

  "Only partly," he explained, his voice a touch warmer. "You should have seen our unit history." At her nod, he continued. "The Angels often take in orphans from the battlefields where we've fought. When we get a new warrior, he's often dispossessed or his machine is shot up so bad he might as well be. All of us have been in that condition at one point in our lives, so we try to take care of them as soon as possible." He turned back to work. "The Angels watch out for their own."

  He pulled at the fiber bundle, trying to reach an awkwardly placed support wire, but some remaining packing grease kept making his hands slip. He hoped he hadn't spoken so sharply that he'd begun the mission by torquing off the representative of his employer. She probably thought him pompous or just plain rude.

  A single, quiet footstep on the gantry behind was all the warning Marcus got before another pair of arms joined him in the Caesar's leg. It was Jericho Ryan grasping the myomer bundle with the heavy gloves Marcus had discarded earlier. She gave the bundle an expert twist, providing him access to the wire. "Sometimes," she said through clenched teeth, "it doesn't hurt to ask for a little help."

  Marcus removed the wire and then stepped back as she released the myomer bundle. "Thanks," he said. "And I'm sorry if I sounded like I was giving you a lecture."

  "No need to apologize." Jericho removed the gloves and offered them back. "I understand. You've got to watch out for your people because no one else will. That includes my government."

  He nodded. "It does come down to that," he said carefully.

  "No one hires mercenaries and then expects their loyalty to anything but the contract." She watched him with unblinking blue eyes. "Especially when they're being hired to perform work too dangerous to risk regular forces, and probably being underpaid at that."

  Marcus couldn't help the thin smile that crept across his face. "If we were on Canopus, I'd have to say that such a blunt attitude wouldn't sit too well with your government."

  Jericho shrugged and grinned back. "Maybe that's why they sent me away, Commander."

  That brought a laugh from Marcus, and suddenly the Periphery didn't seem so far to travel after all. He glanced up at the Caesar's empty shoulder socket. "Know anything about shoulder actuators?"

  6

  Word of Blake HPG Station

  Ausapolis, Campoleone Rim Commonality

  Free Worlds League

  29 March 3058

  Precentor Demona Aziz nodded a dismissal to the white-cloaked adept who had escorted her from the spaceport straight to this private conference room in the hyperpulse generator station in the Free Worlds city of Ausapolis. With seats for eight people, the conference table was made from the beautiful black ginja wood she knew to be one of Campoleone's few exports. The lighting had been dialed up to only three-quarters intensity, muting the room to a soft glow. The holographic projection screen dominating the far wall displayed a thrust-down broadsword, its hilt decorated with the old ComStar starburst insignia now surrounded by six concentric rings. The Word of Blake logo glowed seductively in the room's muted lighting.

  Demi-Precentor St. Jamais already stood there waiting, hands tucked into the wide sleeves of his robe. He gave her a courteous bow of the head. "The peace of Blake be with you, Precentor," he said reverently. "It is good to see you again."

  She returned the greeting with solemn voice, as always drawing strength from the reminder that it was Jerome Blake's sacred vision of the future that guided her path.

  Demona moved to the chair just to the left of the table's head. "Let us be comfortable," she said, seating herself. She pushed her hood back, letting her dark hair spill down her back, then leaned
forward so that her elbows rested lightly on the table and she could clasp her hands before her in a posture of pious dignity.

  St. Jamais went to the chair directly across from her, seating himself with the slow grace Demona might expect in a more formal setting. He regarded her with impenetrable brown eyes and the barest touch of a smile.

  You did that so easily, she thought, without even the slightest glance toward the chair at the table's head. Are you as respectful of my position as you seem, St. Jamais, or is this more of your carefully calculated mask? Demona narrowed her eyes, gaze hardening, as if she would plumb the depths of his soul. How loyal are you?

  "I am moving the control of our operations from Gibson to this world," she said without further preamble, the "our" referring to the Toyama as a whole. "Precentor Blane would prefer me on the Magistracy capital of Canopus, devoting my full attention to creating an alliance between them and the Taurians. I managed to divert him from that idea with a promise to remain close by here on Campoleone so that I would be immediately available should our representative to the Magistracy request my personal aid."

  While the planet Gibson's central location in the Free Worlds League did make for better coordination of various Toyama operations, it was too far away from what was considered—at least by Blane—to be the Toyama'a chief project. But Campoleone, riding the border separating the Free Worlds League from the Periphery, was as close to this operation as Demona ever planned to get. Always leave a way out. As long as she remained within the Inner Sphere, relying on St. Jamais and his 6th of June movement, she would be isolated from blame if the operation somehow went bad. Any blame would fall squarely on St. Jamais.

  "Demi-Precentor Nicholas is one of my best operatives," St. Jamais said, his face clouding over. "She is quite capable of handling the minor affairs of a Periphery court, and ready to remove"—he stressed the word so there would be no doubt of its meaning—"Magestrix Centrella whenever we wish."