by Ilsa J. Bick
“That’s it,” the Hunter said, his voice hitching, maybe in pain. “I’m out. No more slugs.”
Movement, and Crawford’s eyes snapped down, saw the Schmitt crashing through the fire and thundering for the cliff face. He shouted, “Buck, get your people down now, now, now!”
But finally, it seemed, their luck was turning from worse to not so bad, because the remaining fighter, a Sholagar, spun away, but slowly, almost teasingly—with Chinn moving out, trying to track the fighter for a target lock.
“Toni, let it go!” Crawford cried, but then Chinn’s voice cut in on a general frequency, and so everyone heard—and Crawford would remember it for the rest of his life.
“No choice, Andre.” Chinn’s voice was labored, but whether from pain or the heat—and, my God, it must be an inferno in that cockpit given all she’d gone through—Crawford didn’t know. “But he can’t… get away… because… they’ll know, they’ll… know… have to stop…!”
Then time slowed down, and Crawford saw everything that happened with that crystalline clarity that can only happen when a man knows that Death waits just around the bend. He saw the spear of Chinn’s laser take flight; saw the scintillating ribbon of concentrated energy tease the Sholagar’s port engine; watched the saucer tilt nearly on edge, loop and then come screaming back in a blur and with an almost maniacal joy, a pencil-thin tail of smoke diffusing behind like a gauzy black scarf, and maintain that course, on edge, presenting the least amount of surface area to its adversary.
And then time snapped back into itself, like a cable stretched to its limits, and Crawford understood the pilot’s strategy an instant too late because he had forgotten: These were warriors, too.
“CHINN!” Crawford screamed, whipping his lasers round, trying to acquire, but the Thor was in the way and he couldn’t, he couldn’t…! “Get out of the way, GET OUT OF THE WAY!”
A brilliant flare, as bright as a hundred suns, and then Crawford’s bellow of agonized fury mingled with a ball of thunder as the Sholagar smacked into the Thor’s canopy, hacking Chinn’s scream in two as the Thor broke apart in a hail of molten armor and disarticulated limbs. Another mushrooming explosion as the Thor’s missile rack detonated in a successive series of three quick bursts; the burning meadow twitched, and aftershocks rippled through the legs of his ’Mech and into Crawford’s brain. To his left, Buck’s troops staggered, some tumbling to the ground, others breaking at the knee as if in prayer.
After all that had happened, it took Crawford a few moments to realize that everything had gone deathly, absolutely… still. He heard the faint roar of the sea behind and the crackle of the fire ahead. A squalling of metal, and he turned as the Bounty Hunter slid his Marauder into position at his right hand, so close that Crawford could see the vibrant green of the Hunter’s neurohelmet through the Marauder’s ferroglass canopy.
“I want him dead.” Crawford’s voice was raw and sharp. Grief and rage lodged in his heart and squeezed. “I want him dead. You hear me? I want that son of a bitch dead.”
“Yes, of course,” said the Hunter. And then, after a pause, “Which one?”
24
Red Sands, Devil’s Lot, Klathandu IV
Benjamin Military District, Draconis Combine
5 June 3135
“Well?”
The Old Master lifted both eyebrows. He was in seiza, tucked in the far right-hand corner of their holding cell, a three-meter square titanium cage occupying the furthest third of a small prefabricated metal hut. Bars of golden light from the setting sun illuminated tiny dust motes dancing in a lazy whorl. “Well, what?”
“Aren’t you going to say anything?” Katana swept her hand in an all-inclusive gesture. The cage was bolted to the metal floor. A chemical toilet, obviously from the same manufacture that must supply the Combine’s ’Mech’s facilities, squatted in the left corner. At the opposite end of the hut there was a door, locked, and a guard beyond that. “Like, this makes about the fiftieth time I’ve tried to figure a way out of here, and so this is a waste of energy and time?”
“You already know that. But, clearly, plotting an escape gives you pleasure.”
“It’s something to do. Besides, it’s galling—my fighter practically parked close enough to touch. And for a skeleton command there are plenty of people out there.”
“Now there is something to ponder: why your intelligence was faulty.”
“I was the one who thought of Klathandu. No use worrying about that now. But why haven’t they taken us off-world? Maybe waiting for instructions,” she mused. “Even tag team JumpShips take time, and they have to go the long way around. But that’s a problem. Sakamoto micromanages, has to be in on every decision.”
“All good points and they do serve to neatly evade my comment.”
“Which was?”
“That you made connections where none existed. Perhaps that was exactly what Sakamoto was counting on.”
“He can’t know how I think.”
“On the contrary, he may know exactly how you think. It is an excellent possibility that he played on your pride. Or…” The Old Master paused then said, “You could question why you allowed yourself to be captured.”
“Wait a minute.” Katana dropped into a cross-legged anza, twitching her cloak around her body. She still wore her pilot’s jumpsuit, and they’d left her the cloak, but the temperature dropped at night and the floor was chilly. “I didn’t allow a damn thing.”
“Of course, you did. Didn’t you tell Tai-i Sagi we were his guests or prisoners?”
“That was a figure of speech.”
“Well, I guess then we’ll chalk it up to the good tai-i’s being quite literal. But you keep poking your finger in the coordinator’s eye. Up to this point, the coordinator has failed to acknowledge you. So, trying to rouse his troops to insurrection…”
“They’re Sakamoto’s men.”
“They are the Combine’s soldiers. If they defect, the coordinator can’t ignore you. That is how you task him.”
“That’s ridiculous.” An unbearable wave of heat rose in Katana’s neck. “I’m not a child anymore.”
“People’s motivations frequently appear childish, but that doesn’t make them any less valid, or important, nor are they trivial.”
“So you think this was wrong?”
“On the contrary; it’s similar to your trying to find a way to escape. You must try. It’s neither right nor wrong; it is your pattern. But escape may not be in your control, just as you fail to consider another alternative regarding the coordinator.”
“And that is?”
“Perhaps Sakamoto has gone rogue, and the coordinator waits on you.”
“Me? Absurd. I’m just… some… some…”
“Some what? Someone who fights well and matured in spite of, or perhaps because of her struggles? Your path has been one of renewal and repair; Sakamoto’s is chaos and destruction. Yet both may claim the same thing: retaking what is the Combine’s by right of conquest and history.”
But Katana was shaking her head. “I’m just not that important. If the coordinator wanted, he’d have acknowledged me by now.”
“I have already said that there are many possibilities, but you must consider them all, just as you weigh an opponent in the dojo and learn when and how to strike… and when not. Kurita is a proud name, a noble House, and if there are any who can lay claim to embodying the true heart of the samurai, it is Kurita who watches and waits, like the samurai in zanshin.”
“But this isn’t kendo kata.”
“No, it’s life. So is being samurai. It’s not something you shrug off as you do your do and men. Only the samurai who balances body, mind and sword has achieved uwate, true mastery. So, Samurai, tell me: which attack is most fierce?”
“Ki-o-korosu,” said Katana, at once. “To summon ki, and attack with force.”
“Exactly. And why?”
“Because you unbalance your opponent.”
“How?”
“By spoiling his ability to center himself.”
“Lovely book words, but what do they mean?”
Katana thought, then said, “If you attack with force, you cause fear and put your opponent on the defensive. She won’t have time to think of a counteroffensive.”
“Precisely. And this is where you find yourself. With or without the coordinator’s blessing, Sakamoto has struck with ki-o-korosu. So far, you are only reacting defensively. Even this”—he spread both hands to indicate their prison—“has you thinking only of how you will escape, not what you will do when you have. When you are free—and you will be free because you imagine it—then you must decide which counterattack makes sense. But you must strike with all your spirit and might. And if you choose for the coordinator, you must cede your impulses to his wishes and greater wisdom—even if you believe they are incorrect. Life gives you opportunities, Katana, nothing more. It’s up to you to use them wisely.”
“But how can I know the coordinator’s…?” She broke off as the hinges on the hut’s door squealed.
A shujin appeared, followed by a guard. It was the same shujin whom they’d met with Tai-i Sagi. He carried a metal tray laden with covered dishes. Katana and the Old Master watched in silence as the shujin waited for the guard to unlock the cell door and then stepped in, squaring the tray on the floor near the door. Straightening, the shujin tugged his right cuff over a tattoo of gold-link chain and then gave a respectful bow.
“Your meal, Aged Parent. And yours, Tai-sho. Please,” said the shujin as he backed out and the guard secured the cell door. “The night grows chill, the moon is new, and the meal is warm. Do not linger.” The door to the hut clicked shut.
“Linger.” Katana pushed up from the floor. She paced the perimeter of the cell like an anxious leopard. “Like we have anything else to do. You go ahead. I’m not hungry.”
She heard a scrape of metal against metal. A pause. And the Old Master said, “For this, you might develop an appetite.”
Sighing, Katana turned. “I’m not…” she began, and stopped.
There, on a plate, were two pistols. And a key.
New Mendham Nadir Jump Point
Benjamin Military District, Draconis Combine
5 June 3135
Right before he’d drifted off in a tangle of sheets and blankets, McCain thought that, yeah, Viki was right. He had been tense.
The trip had been too long already, but Kamikuro insisted they take a circuitous route back to Proserpina. Couldn’t fault the man for that. By the time they’d left Junction, word was something was going on at the border worlds of Homam and Matar, though no one knew exactly what, and Kamikuro’s legitimate freighters, the ones under his employ for his various businesses, had caught channel chatter about what sounded like activity in Prefecture II. So, after mustering their forces—’Mechs and men armed with an assortment of Gauss rifles, pistols, vibrokatanas, and lasers, plus the precious black boxes—they’d taken the long way around: Junction, to Ludwig, to Reisling’s Planet, a week to recharge, and then on to New Mendham, where they were still parked. Before making the jump to Scheat, Kamikuro sent out a DropShip that in turn popped out two aerospace fighters to make recon in New Mendham space. In the meantime, Viki had observed that McCain needed to relax—so he did.
As it happened, he was literally drifting. Viki’s suggestion; she said weightlessness inspired the imagination. She hadn’t been wrong. Now, in the middle of a deep and dreamless sleep, his intercom buzzed. McCain jerked awake, wrestled with a twist of sheet then swam over and fumbled for the kill switch. “What?”
“Chu-sa McCain, I am sorry to disturb your… rest.” Kamikuro said this with delicacy. “But we have news.”
McCain washed his face with his hands. “What, uh, what about?”
“Klathandu IV.”
“But I thought we were going to Scheat.”
“As did I.” Another pause. “It seems Tai-sho Tormark had other ideas.”
“Has something happened to her?”
“I think it best we meet on the bridge. And, uh, do inform Sho-sa Drexel.”
“On my way.” McCain clicked off, ordered lights up, then pushed off, hooked a handhold and came to a hover beside a sheet-covered lump. “We got to go.”
“Mmm-hummph.” The lump bunched, and then Viki Drexel pulled the sheet from her face, winced and groaned. “Too bright.” But when he told her, her gray eyes went wide. “That doesn’t sound good.”
They threw on clothes, brushed their teeth and headed out, pulling double-quick. Right before they darted onto the bridge, McCain held up so abruptly that Viki plowed into him and they tumbled in a triple somersault before McCain snagged a handhold with his left hand and Drexel’s waist with his right. “Oh, hell,” said McCain.
Drexel had tugged her hair into a ponytail, but the collision shook enough loose so she looked like a Medusa. “Now what?” she groused, corralling her halo of hair.
“I just realized.” McCain pulled a face. “I’m all tense again.”
Red Sands, Devil’s Lot, Klathandu IV
Benjamin Military District, Draconis Combine Midnight,
6 June 3135
Things went better than they had any right to, starting with the guard they overpowered at changeover, to liberating Katana’s swords from Sagi’s office—and hadn’t that been interesting—and on to their skirmish on the airfield. In fact, all the way up to the very moment they’d hurriedly donned their suits, strapped in and rocketed away in a whirling ball of sand, everything went exceedingly well—until Katana got a gander at the three aerospace fighters in pursuit. Then she said, “Uh, oh.”
“Yes, two Slayers and a Shilone,” said the Old Master. “An excellent strategy.”
“Yeah, they can outrun us and outgun us.” Her Lucifer was an R-20, a newer model custom-made to accommodate two people and loaded with armor, but no missiles, only seven lasers, and not a lot of kick. There was no way the Lucifer could pull max thrust beyond eight g s for long. Zippy enough and an equal match to the Shilone on their tail, but the other fighter could pull nine g s, and the Slayers went one, two, three times better: not as much armor, but more heat, scads of lasers between all three, and long-range missiles to boot… and, well, she didn’t need to be a rocket scientist to figure this one out.
The only thing in her favor? A long shot but her only chance; her DropShip, a small Fury, hanging behind Klathandu IV’s only moon. Better armored, equipped with autocannon and LRMs, the Fury could lend punch if not speed. If it’s still there. Sagi might have found and destroyed the DropShip by now.
On the other hand, Sagi would’ve boasted of that. They’d faced off in his office—hand-to-hand and then her blade against his pistol. She hadn’t beheaded him, though she had whipped her blade in a killing blow—and stopped short, just as the edge bit his neck. Enough that she’d bloodied her blade, and she said, as they trussed him to his chair, “Remember I gave you back your life.”
Sagi was purple with rage. “When we meet again, I will not return the favor. Count on it.”
No, Sagi hadn’t found the DropShip, but she’d be damned if she led his fighters to it. So we run, straight on until morning… or until they kill us. She punched her afterburners to full power. The Lucifer leapt forward, chewing up space. The center of her chest tightened; an unseen hand pushed against her chest, flattening her into her seat as she pulled seven g s. Her vision reddened; her pulse thudded in her temples; and she grunted, forcing blood to her head.
“I understand your tactic,” said the Old Master, his voice labored. He was tracking from his instruments and HUD. “However…”
But she wasn’t paying attention. On her HUD, she saw that the Slayers were dropping back… no, no, one was shedding altitude, and the other climbing. Frac! That wasn’t it either! She was a fine pilot, but a better MechWarrior, and she was used to thinking in a grounded dimension, not about when the ground had no bottom.
She figured out what
would happen an instant before it did. Suddenly her onboard computer shrilled a warning, and her eyes jerked to tactical. Target lock! Instantly, she broke right—the correct move—and lancets of port-side laser fire streamed past, wide of their target. But then Katana pushed her fighter into what would have been a dive in an atmosphere. A good move, but not when you were in space…
Her heart banged into double-time as her alarms screamed again. No, my God, what was she doing; she’d turned directly into the Slayer; it wasn’t hanging back , it was rocketing y-axis and true, an arrow aimed directly at her heart… “No!”
A volley of laser fire blasted her canopy. She instinctively flinched away from it so hard that her head slammed back into her couch then bulleted forward. Her helmet bounced off her instrument panel with a sickening thud, and her vision swam. Yanking the Lucifer hard left, she angled up and away, blinking away hot blood drizzling into her eyes from the seam split into her skin. She sent the fighter into a rolling Immelmann turn, climbing a vertical—an instinctive move because she was half-blind, her head shrieking with pain. Stars pinwheeled in a giddy, nauseating whirl, and sour bile pushed the back of her throat. The Lucifer’s instrument panel was alive with warning lights, her temperature climbing, and then the Shilone was screaming in from starboard. How had it gotten there? The last time she saw the fighter it was on her left, and there were too many of them, she couldn’t fend them off, there were too many, this was out of control and she couldn’t…
Stop! An inner voice, jabbing her brain like a hot spike. You are samurai! Think as samurai! Angry now, Katana blinked against her panic, clamping down with fierce determination on her fear. She was samurai, a Daughter of the Dragon; she was Dragon! Katana’s spirit gathered and bunched at the center of her being; her blood roared through her veins, marching to the beat of her warrior’s heart.
