by Victor Milán
Facing a much shorter intruder who had stepped left of the door, and whose slim black-clad form was obviously feminine, Buster threw his hands up and dropped to his knees. "Don't shoot!" he pleaded. "Please!"
The goggled face turned briefly to Kali on the bed. Then it turned back to Buster. A black-gloved finger tightened on a trigger and sent six 9 mm bullets through Buster's big face.
"Clear," said the voice of Cassie Suthorn.
21
Port Howard
Aquilonia Province, Towne
Draconis March, Federated Commonwealth
9 February 3058
Howard Blaylock escaped the Caballero raiders sent to rescue Kali MacDougall by commandeering a four-wheel-drive vehicle from his security detail and busting through a back gate. A torrent of small-arms fire failed to tag him before he vanished into a stand of conifers.
Aside from liberating their captive comrades, the raiders had to settle for shooting anybody who offered resistance—which in their current frame of mind meant didn't fall face-down in surrender or run away quickly enough—and committing sundry acts of vandalism with the explosives and incendiary devices they'd brought along for the purpose.
Effective resistance by the Towne Guards who were ostensibly protecting Blaylock was in short supply. However, the strike team had not been in the Palace long before lookouts spotted a relief column coming up Isildur Way, a 65-ton JagerMech crunching in the lead. Armed with nothing heavier than their suppressed Shimatus-42 machine pistols, the rescue party was unprepared for a pitched battle with regular DCMS infantry, much less BattleMechs. Lieutenant Senior Grade Buck Evans, commanding the unit, thumbed the bug-out button on his communicator. Twenty seconds later a black-painted tilt-rotor Karnov UR transport VTOL popped up, skimmed a nearby ridge, and landed on the Palace's snow-covered front lawn. As Zuma Gallegos sprayed the Palace from the cargo bay with a GM Minigun, the liberated captives were led on board, though Kali MacDougall had to be carried by Cassie and Cowboy.
The last of the rescue party tumbled into the aircraft. At the transport's controls was Tim Moon of the Towne Air Rangers. With Zuma still firing he lifted off and plunged into the night, dodging yellow tracer-streams from the medium and light Mydron autocannons mounted in the JagerMech's arms. In seconds he had crossed the ridge northeast of the Palace and ducked down below it, out of the line of fire. The night was clear. With the light of giant Conan making the deep-drifted snow and the powder thrown up by the Karnov's outsized rotors glow as of their own light, they hugged the ground until the gates of the mountains closed protectively behind them.
* * *
Seven days later a column left Port Howard, heading south along the coastal highway. A regiment of the Towne Guard, whose numbers had been swelled enormously by recruitment since the Planetary Government surrendered, it consisted mainly of infantry packed into a weird assortment of military and civilian vehicles, including buses, cattle trucks, and even commandeered automobiles. Its main punch was provided by a short battalion of tanks, most of which had until recently belonged to the Marquis of Towne's Own Fusiliers. The conventional armor was augmented by a mixed lance of Guard BattleMechs, one of which, a Crusader, broke down even before they lost sight of Port Howard's southern suburbs and could not be coaxed back into motion.
Tai-sho Kusunoki had adamantly refused to release to the Guard any of the BattleMechs captured from the mercenaries or the Fusiliers. This sortie was intended as an opportunity for the Guards to prove themselves worthy of such enhancement. The city government of Sarnath, capital of Nemedia Province and an important seaport in its own right, was openly defying Planetary Chairman Blaylock and his offworld backers. If the Guards could bring the Sarnathians to heel, they could expect to take their reward in 'Mechs.
Fifty kilometers from Port Howard, mercenary 'Mechs ambushed the column's leading elements, destroying two Scorpion light tanks and a scout car. When the surviving Guard 'Mechs, a Whitworth, a Dervish, and a Wasp, came up, the money-troopers turned tail and fled. Morale soared in the column, and if anybody noticed that none of the Caballero machines had been destroyed, or even visibly damaged, they wisely said nothing. The Guards had developed a taste for drumhead courts-martial and summary executions in the wake of the Kusunoki invasion.
On the northern outskirts of Sarnath—Robert E. Howard had been Augustus Pons's favorite author of fantastic fiction but by no means the only one he read—the Guard encountered roadblocks apparently manned by the Popular Militia. The self-styled patriots were brushed aside with contemptuous ease. The column plunged into the city.
Like most inexperienced soldiers, the Guard 'Mech jocks and tank drivers were too impatient to wait for their infantry support to keep up. In turn the infantry in their largely unarmored transports were only too happy to hang back and let the fighting machines bear the brunt of the coming action. The column got strung out along the highway, with its tanks and 'Mechs better than half a kilometer ahead of the transports when they entered the built-up area.
That was when the hammer came down.
Armored units—hovertanks and track-layers far more than BattleMechs—are at their biggest disadvantage in urban fighting. Infantry is at its weakest in the open. Accordingly, Lieutenant Senior Grade James Kicking Bird in his heavily armed Thunderbolt led Geronimo Company's command lance, sweeping down on the infanty as Popular Militia troops popped out of concealment in ditches, culverts, and buildings alongside the highway to begin slaughtering the Guards in their thin-skinned vehicles. At the same time, the rest of Geronimo, likewise aided by militiamen and women, commenced to grind the Guard armor to pieces in the streets of the northern suburb of Yelverton.
When an 80-ton Awesome piloted by Third Battalion commander White-Nose Pony himself vaporized the Wasp with its Kreuss particle projection cannons, the other two Guard 'Mech jocks punched out without further ado. A number of tank crewmen likewise abandoned their vehicles at once. Which was wise, because under the circumstances the machines were little more than crematoria-in-waiting.
Within half an hour the Second Regiment of the Towne Guards had ceased to exist.
* * *
Back and forth across the gym's hardwood floor Tai-sho Jeffrey Kusunoki and his kendo partner, dressed in full dogu, traded blows faster than Mr. Kimura's anything-but-practiced eye could follow. Suddenly the opponent's shinai, his practice sword made of bamboo splints bound together, clacked off the left side of Kusunoki's face-protector.
"Hidari-men ari!" cried one of Kusunoki's retainers serving as informal forward judge, signifying that a clean blow had been scored to that target, one of eight permissible. Kusunoki stepped back. His shoulders heaved in a convulsive breath, and he attacked again.
The Tai-sho made an almost religious observance of exercising at precisely the appointed time each day, no matter what, short of actual emergency. This practice undoubtedly helped account for his maintaining, in his fifties, an appearance and bodily vigor a man in his twenties might envy; but it did little to encourage Mr. Kimura as to his flexibility of mind. Ah, well, he thought, mujo: life is fleeting, as the Buddhists say. Mr. Kimura's misgivings were long since beside the point; now he must put ninjo, his feelings about Kusunoki, to one side and concentrate on giri, the service he owed Toyama-rama and the Dragon. Kusunoki was the tool, and it was the only one his hand could find, no matter its limitations. He must use it to best effect.
Almost at once the opponent's shinai struck the General in the short ribs on his right. "Migi-do ari!" the judge cried, calling a point to that target. "Nihomme!" The latter meant "second point."
In a blur the shinai rose and fell spang on top of Kusunoki's head. "Men-aril Shobul!" the judge called. Point to the head and match.
Throwing his weapon aside, the Tai-sho rushed at his foe, caught him by the kote guarding his right forearm and the left side of his keikogi, or jacket, and dumped him to the floor in a very credible hip throw. He proceeded to kick his sparring partner so vigorously that he de
nted his do, his vitryl chest armor, until several of his lackeys raced forward and pulled him off.
The General stormed to where Mr. Kimura stood beneath a basketball net, tearing off his men and throwing it down. A retainer caught it before it struck the floor. Likewise his gloves and kote.
"Chikusho!" the General shouted. The word literally meant "beast" or "beasts," and was the strongest expletive used in conventional Japanese.
"Is his Excellency cursing his recent opponent," Mr. Kimura inquired politely, "or merely cursing?"
"Those gaijin money-troopers!" Kusunoki raged. "What they have done is intolerable! The blood of Towne shall flow in rivers."
"To precisely which enormity by the money-grubbing Outside Folk does his Excellency refer?"
"Their treachery at Sarnath, of course. Mattaku!" Which meant, roughly, "damn."
"But the soldiers we lost there were Towne barbarians," Mr. Kimura protested. "Our own yakuza soldiers we call teppodama, mere bullets to be expended. Surely these gaijin are so much less? And besides, your Excellency did not react so strongly when the mercenaries attacked Blaylock-san in his home and killed his bodyguards."
That wasn't all they had done, Kimura reflected. The Planetary Chairman's two chief bodyguards had been emasculated after death and the phrase, "You're next, Blaylock!" scrawled in blood on the wall of Captain MacDougall's erstwhile cell.
"The things are not at all similar! Those were Blaylock's retainers, his concern. These were soldiers of the Dragon, gaijin or not."
He unstrapped his do, threw it down with a clatter, tore off his keikogi and wrung sweat from it.
"The streets of Sarnath shall run red! I shall make of those rebel dogs a satsuriku to rival Kentares IV!" Satsuriku, from the words for "pig" and "to smite," meant massacre.
"You shall do no such thing," Mr. Kimura said with quiet emphasis.
Kusunoki froze, then turned to stare at the old man, more in astonishment than anger. In a language devoted more to accommodation and avoidance of conflict than communication per se, and from an inferior to his nominal superior, such an outright contradiction was like a closed-fist blow to the face.
"Soka?"
"Hai, Kusunoki-sama. Though we may—when truly appropriate—take reprisals, anything resembling a repeat of Lord Jinjiro's massacre is not possible."
Kimura's effrontery seemed to have drained the rage right out of kusunoki. "And why is that?" he asked mildly.
"We are acting here to take advantage of the weakness of Victor Davion, heir to the man so rightly known as the Fox. Doing anything that approaches the Kentares massacre will only strengthen him. His people will unite behind him in a mighty crusade to drive us from Towne, and even his sister will have to swallow her hatred and join him, lest her own people torn against her. Moreover, not only will our esteemed Coordinator Theodore not permit such a massacre, he would most likely send the Draconis Combine Mustered Soldiery to assist in our extermination."
Kusunoki was thunderstruck. He still believed in his hara that he and his army of invasion were serving the interests of the Coordinator, and thus of the ancient spirit of the Dragon. "Masaka!" This cannot be.
"It can be. You've read the HPG messages as closely as I have. The Coordinator will take no action against us unless provoked. But his evil advisors have turned him against our endeavor to the extent that we can expect no resupply or reinforcement from within the Combine. Nor can we rely on the seimeiyoshi-rengo's smuggling network to replenish our expendables; the other oyabun will not defy the Coordinator in this manner." Seimeiyoshi-rengo was the loose federation of yakuza gumi and kai—read, gangs—that had begun to spread beyond the Combine across the Inner Sphere, and was providing major foci for resistance on Clan-held worlds.
Kusunoki's eyes squeezed shut. Tears trailed down his beautiful cheeks. "So the rot has penetrated so close to the Dragon's heart?" he whispered in agony.
"Kimochi ga fujita." The sentiment is understood.
"Very well," the Tai-sho said, reasserting self-control. He turned to walk away; checked himself, then turned back to the old man.
"Are we permitted to put to the sword those who bear arms against us, at least?"
Mr. Kimura bowed. "Hai, Tai-sho. It was for this reason that the ceremony of surrender we arranged with Mr. Blaylock was of such paramount importance. In the eyes of the law, we are the rightful government of Towne. Those who resist us by force are guilty of rebellion, under the laws of the planet and, indeed, the Federated Commonwealth."
Kusunoki grinned like a schoolboy. "Now that's more like it," he said.
* * *
The Caballeros got lucky at Sarnath.
Not because of the way the battle turned out—that was skill, and the predictable incompetence of Mar-rou's Gourds. But because the Sarnath Popular Militia had sought legitimacy by acknowledging the authority of the city and provincial governments. And the politicians wanted to reap all credit for the one-sided victory for themselves.
Despite—or perhaps because of—his Navajo reticence, Third Battalion Commander Peter White-Nose Pony was one of the Seventeenth's more able diplomats. On Don Carlos's instructions, he had asserted the mercenaries' claim for salvage rights to the two Guard 'Mechs that had been abandoned undamaged—there wasn't enough left of the hapless little Wasp for even Zuma's wizardry to make use of—with more blunt force than necessary.
The Nemedian provincial governor's response had been to order the Caballeros out of Sarnath, and indeed Nemedia. Two days after the battle, Geronimo Company headed east toward the Gunderlands.
Four days after that, three Overlord Class DropShips fell out of heavy overcast onto Sarnath, carrying a battalion of Black Dragon BattleMechs and one each of regular Draconis Combine Mustered Soldiery armor and infantry. Strengthened by equipment captured from the Guards, the Popular Militia men and women fought well enough to bloody the regulars before they were overwhelmed.
On the other side the yakuza MechWarriors' performance brought reluctant praise from Kusunoki. In a proclamation beautifully hand-calligraphed by himself he acknowledged that they had fought to the standards of the Ghost Legions that served openly alongside the DCMS. Young Tai-i Toyama particularly distinguished himself in action, under circumstances in which there could be no suspicion that the affair had been stage-managed to make him look good, as the taking of the Palace might have been. In his QKD-5M Quickdraw he had single-handedly knocked out a lance of former Fusilier Rommel and Patton tanks that were holding up the advance into the city's center.
Planetary Chairman Blaylock himself flew down to supervise the purging of Sarnath. His enthusiasm for the task was sufficient to bring a smile of gratification to Tai-sho Kusunoki's clean-shaven lips and a worried frown to Mr. Kimura's bearded ones.
Though Desolation Angel aerospace fighters ranged far to the east of Sarnath until a fresh storm system grounded them, the mercenaries made good their escape into the southern Gunderlands. Blaylock's propaganda machine crowed over their cowardice.
Mr. Kimura only wished it were that simple. The gaijin money-soldiers were no more cowardly than the Dragon's finest. They were devilishly clever. They were extending the field of battle as far and wide as they could, stretching Kusunoki thin. It would take more than the General's machismo and Blaylock's bravado to rid the planet of them.
Mr. Kimura could only humbly beseech the Buddhas that his own cleverness would be enough. On the other hand, the oyabun hadn't drawn his name out of a hat. Drawing on all his sleights and misdirections, he set to work to manipulating his associates into defeating the Caballeros in spite of themselves.
* * *
"Gabby's still saying we should have stayed concentrated in Port Howie?" Lying propped up on pillows in a hospital bed in Athalau, a city in the southern Eiglophian Mountains, Kali MacDougall shook her head in disbelief. "He's full of Sierra, and you can drag him in by the ear so I can tell him that to his face."
After a week in bed she was champing at the bit. But Dr.
Sondra Ten Bears, the Seventeenth's Comanche head physician, had told her point-blank that if she tried getting out of bed before getting permission, the doctor would have her sedated and tied to the bed with passive restraints. A bearlike, indomitable woman, just a few centimeters shorter than Lady K and at least ten kilos heavier, Ten Bears was accustomed to Southwestern temper tantrums and, if anything, less impressed by MechWarrior status than Cassie was.
Lady K had the wisdom to recognize that which she could not change. Howard Blaylock's tender attentions had caused her worse internal injuries than even she had realized. Ten Bears—who, despite her gruff-ness, regarded the regiment's members as her own children—had told Cassie privately that Kali would probably never have survived to face the firing squad in the Palace's snow-smothered rose garden had Blaylock actually gotten that final night with her.
The psychic damage her imprisonment had done her would take longer to heal. Cassie was less concerned about that. She herself had survived similar treatment in the past—as had Lady K. In her own way she ached for her friend, but she was sure Kali would be fine once the physical trauma was past.
And maybe, Cassie knew, that was mere wishful thinking. She had to believe Kali would hold together mentally no matter what. Because the blonde Mech-Warrior's center was the rock on which Cassie felt her own stability, such as it was, was built.
Kali sat half-upright, propped on a mound of pillows with her big white teddy bear, Snowy, beside her. Though she had lost a lot of weight, and her green eyes were sunken, she looked very beautiful to Cassie. As usual she was surrounded by friends: Cassie, Raven, Misty Saavedra, and Man Mountain Carter from her own company. Raven had been bitching in more than usually acerbic tones about her own battalion commander's behavior since he'd rejoined his father.
"My friend Howie"—Kali's face contorted as she spoke the name, as if someone were twisting a knife in her vitals—"liked pillow talk. Which translates as, he bragged a lot. His friends brought six regiments with them, including the Fifth Galedon AeroSpace Wing, the ones they call the Desolation Angels. Plus the fix was in with that tramp Marrou from the git-go for the Gourds to switch sides. If we'd stayed clumped together in Port Howie when that hammer came down, the only thing we'd have managed to do is a lot of dying."
