by Victor Milán
"Be right down," Cassie called. She clambered down the ladder like a lithe brown monkey.
* * *
"I wouldn't have believed it," Archie Westin said, "but you Southwesterners still manage to amaze me."
The tables in the commissary had been covered with padding to serve as makeshift hospital beds for bandaged civilians from the housing complex. Mothers tried to comfort wailing children. Seriously injured patients moaned and tossed on the tables, prevented from falling off by straps or sometimes just duct tape. Dr. Sondra Ten Bears, la Curandera, the Seventeenth's chief medical officer, moved among them, examining them.
"What's eating you now, Arch?" called Cowboy, parking a dolly laden with boxes of painkiller syrettes by the wall.
The reporter gestured around the ward. The tall, heavily built Curandera was only one of many mercenaries aiding the HTE med staff.
"You're as proud a lot of MechWarriors as any I've encountered," he said, "and I've covered the Crucis Lancers and the Lyran Guards, as well as the Kell Hounds and Wolf's Dragoons. Yet here you are, playing nurse for civilians—civilians who were your mortal enemies not so many years ago."
Chuy Montoya, a Wasp driver from Cochise and no relation to Father Montoya, stopped and wiped a handkerchief across his forehead. He was helping to manhandle wounded and the dead onto stretchers, the living to be transferred to one of Masamori's hospitals and the rest to be laid out under tarps beside the building.
"We got families ourselves, carnal, you know?" he said.
John Amos Ames and his wife Raven came in. Ames was looking a little dazed. The 'Mech pilots broke off playing medical orderly to applaud him. He winced. Raven smiled her cool smile.
"Congratulations, Captain," Ten Bears said.
Ames shook his head. He was medium height, with long dark-blond hair, black eyebrows, and melancholy brown hound-dog eyes that belied his reputation for revelry. He waved his hands as if trying to bat the clapping away.
"Thanks, I guess," he said. "If I had my druthers, I sure wouldn't have got my second stripe this way." He had been promoted to succeed Don Coyote in command of Adelante.
"If he had his druthers," Raven said coolly, "he wouldn't have gotten the promotion at all. It might mean he has to take some responsibility."
FrenchFry folded his hands over his heart. "Sierra Foxtrot, honey, go easy on me. I didn't get me much sleep last night."
"So what else is new?" his wife asked.
Archie looked at Cowboy, who had stopped for a breather, leaning against a table on which a mountainously fat woman with both arms splinted lay snoring. "I never have figured out what 'Sierra Foxtrot' means."
"Santa Fe," Raven said. Sierra's capital city had come to epitomize the way outsiders saw the "Southwestern" worlds, the way its namesake had epitomized the American Southwest for gringos centuries before. Like their ancestors before them, the rural Caballeros were loudly contemptuous of Santa Fe and all it stood for.
"Shoot, Raven," Cowboy said, "It don't exactly mean that."
"It's close enough for Mr. Westin's viewers back in the Federated Commonwealth," Raven said. "FCNS is a family network."
"Zuma and Diana tell me he give 'em an eyeful last night when the bad guys tried to take the kids hostage," Cowboy said. "His little pal Savage got it all on disk."
He gave Westin a huge, folksy grin. "I guess they train you Stealthy Fox boys right, back in New Avalon."
26
Imperial City, Luthien
Pesht District, Draconis Combine
16 October 3056
Sitting in his garden in his powered chair, the light of Luthien's sun dappling him with welcome warmth through the branches of the young plum trees, the old man clutched the flimsy slip of yellow paper in a liver-spotted hand and felt an emotion almost alien to him in all his long years of life: fear for himself.
He felt a measure of fear for the Combine as well. If Chandrasekhar Kurita was truly treating with the Clans, the consequences could be almost incalculable. Yet should the knowledge that a member of the Coordinator's family was suspected of treason on a cosmic scale become public, the results might actually be worse.
But that was familiar fear. Subhash Indrahar had devoted most of his nearly ninety years of life to serving the Combine. His loyalty to House Kurita transcended even loyalty to any individual Kurita, as his long-time friend Takashi had learned when Subhash and his adoptive son had attempted to kill him. Most of his passions were reserved for the Dragon.
But now ... he could not restrain the stirrings of purely selfish fear within his shrunken breast.
Even that in a way was for the Dragon, or so he told himself. His body had once been that of an athlete, lithe and strong. But he had outlived its power. For the past several years all that had kept him alive was the sheer indomitable force of his will.
He feared, yes. He feared the Clans. He feared the chaos that threatened to overwhelm the Inner Sphere, after a fleeting period of unity in the face of the Clan juggernaut invading from beyond the Periphery. He feared that the seeds of anarchy might have already been sown within the Draconis Combine. Theodore's liberalization had been forced by sheer necessity; the Combine was nearly out of resources, and its attempts to regiment the lives of its citizens ever more stringently had begun to increase entropy, not reverse it. Yet Subhash did not know whether the reforms would halt the process of decay, or accelerate it.
But of one thing he was certain: now more than ever the Dragon relied on the strength and wisdom and self-sacrificing courage of its Sons: the Internal Security Force.
For the greater part of a century Subhash Indrahar had been the ISF. Yet not even the Smiling One could continue to carry that burden much longer.
He yearned to be able to pass it on with an easy heart. Once before, he thought he had found a worthy successor. But Nakina Grandy, his chosen heir, had failed in a task, and taken his own life in expiation.
Now he had another heir, a successor who was even more worthy, if the rough edges could be sanded off Ninyu Kerai. But here was Ninyu confronting apparent failure. He might even now be contemplating the wakizashi with which he'd rip his guts out.
That was Subhash's fear. He had no more time to search for a new successor. And to leave the ISF without a strong leader would be to leave the ship of the Combine rudderless in the face of myriad storms.
It was not that Subhash lacked faith in Theodore. Many— most notably Theodore's father, then-Coordinator Takashi— had sold the younger Kurita short, doubting his ability and strength of character. They had all been wrong. To Subhash's mind, Theodore Kurita was as great a leader as House Kurita had ever produced.
But if the Coordinator was the captain, Internal Security was the helm. Without it, the Coordinator would lack the means to guide the state.
The Smiling One was not longing for a chance to retire. He longed to be able to die.
A curl of combustion-smell. Subhash let go the flimsy paper. The chemical reaction initiated when the printer ink came into contact with the special paper had run its course, culminating in flame. The message slip's mayfly span had ended in self-destruction.
It did not matter. The Smiling One had committed it contents to memory with a single glance.
Now he must compose a reply. The fate of the Draconis Combine—and perhaps the whole of the Inner Sphere—was riding on it.
* * *
"How you holding up, girl?"
Cassie walked with her hands stuck in the pockets of her baggy khaki trousers. She was kind of dancing around in her black sneakers, ostensibly in order to keep up with the taller MechWarrior's longer strides. She shook herself slightly, looked up.
"Fine. Just fine. I was helping Diana with the little ones— they're still pretty shook up by what happened last night. Captain Vásquez told me to knock off and get some rest. But I don't feel like resting right now."
"Still jazzed, are you?" Lady K asked. She was dressed in her usual off-duty garb of jeans, and a man's shir
t with the tails tied up. Her blonde hair was clamped any which way on top of her head, a lank strand escaped and hung like a tentacle in her eyes. The blue eyes had dark circles under them, and there was a smudge on one cheek. Cassie felt a certain perverse satisfaction at seeing her glamorous new friend looking like something the cat dragged in.
"I don't know," Cassie said, wondering yet again why she felt the compulsion to be candid with this damned woman. "I feel incomplete. As if things're only half-finished somehow."
Lady K's brows drew together. "You're not feeling twitchy because you didn't actually get to kill anybody last night?"
"What the hell's that supposed to mean?" Cassie shouted. Rage spiked in her like a plasma jet.
"Pretty much what I said," Lady K replied calmly, "as usual."
"Are you trying to tell me how to do my job?"
"Wouldn't dream of it. I just want you to kind of think about things."
"I do my part."
"Nobody does more for the Regiment than you do, hon, and everybody knows it. But your job is to gather information. Killing people's secondary."
"It has to be done, sometimes. We're warriors, in case you're forgetting."
"I'm not. My job is killing people. But I worry about you."
Cassie had paced a few steps ahead of her. She turned now to face the taller woman. "Why?"
"You really want to get a taste for it?"
For a moment Cassie stood, face frozen in an angry mask. The rage seethed inside her like a storm on the surface of Hachiman's orange sun.
"What are you trying to do to me? Weaken me? Take away my edge?"
Lady K shook her head. "No, hon. Just trying to make sure you stay human."
Cassie spun away and hugged herself tightly beneath her small breasts. "Thank you too much."
She felt Lady K come up behind her, tensed, afraid the other world try to touch her. She didn't want anyone near her now.
But Lady K did not touch her. She merely stood, not quite close enough to crowd.
"What do you want, anyway?" Cassie demanded. To her surprise, the catch in her voice told that she was close to tears. Her eyes began to sting with the realization. "Why all this interest in me, anyway? What do you want with me?"
"To be your friend."
Cassie spun. "Why?" she almost screamed. Tears poured freely down her cheeks now. "Do you want to go to bed with me? Do you think it's a good idea to cozy up to me 'cause I'm such a Sierra Hotel scout? Why the hell do you want to get next to me?"
"Purely because of who you are."
Cassie glared wildly at her. Her eyes were almost the same pale blue as the sky. "Why? Who am I?"
"Somebody I'm proud to call my friend."
Cassie drew in a deep breath, a huge breath, a breath almost bigger than her whole skinny body. She was about to blast it right back at MacDougall, call her a liar to her fashion-model face. Instead she just swallowed it, turned around and stood there.
"Why do you find it so hard to believe somebody could like you just for you?" Lady K asked.
"Because I'm not worth it," Cassie said stiffly. "I'm street trash, a cheap little slut. A wanton killer."
"You're none of those things. But you could turn into them if you don't take a good look at yourself and make some choices. If we try to fight our nightmares too long, we turn into something straight out of them."
"Yeah," Cassie sneered, turning to face the MechWarrior. "I'm gonna metamorphose into a ten-meter war machine. Any goddamn minute now."
"You've wasted more 'Mechs than half our MechWarriors," Lady K said, "so I don't know as how that's so farfetched. What you're really runnin' the risk of is turning into a killing machine, pure and simple. Instead of a woman who can be deadly when she needs—when she chooses to be."
Cassie stood with the sun hot on her face and her fists balled so tight the tendons of her forearms ached. After a moment Lady K let loose a quiet laugh.
"You can stand there and hate me if you want, baby doll," she said, "but I'm gonna hunt up some of the gang and hoist a few tall cool ones."
* * *
Archie's jaw dropped. In the sudden booming silence Caballero heads turned. Toward Cowboy. The lanky 'Mech pilot glanced around the half-circle of his comrades, then back at Westin. The reporter's handsome young face had gone a most unflattering shade of pale green beneath his freckles.
"I guess I went and stepped in it," Cowboy said in a small voice.
"That's a fair assessment," Raven said. Westin drew in a shaky breath. "I think I need a drink," he said.
"Here come Cass and Lady K," Raven said. "Let's take a break and sort things out."
* * *
"When did you make me?" Archie asked. They were sitting in a rec hall with no locals about. The reporter was on his second Borstal Boy from the dispenser. He'd already been through the usual round of denials, which his companions had met with what for them was polite skepticism.
"First time I laid eyes on you," said Cassie with waspish relish. She seemed to be in an angry mood. Westin had never seen her like this, and wasn't enjoying it now. "You had spy written all over you."
"It's not really that bad, Arch," Lady K said. "Think about it: You got mercenary MechWarrior regiments going missin' by the job lot during the Clan War. One of 'em happens to be the Seventeenth. Your Inner Sphere intelligence services wondered what they hey happened to them. Then we turn back up—on a JumpShip bound for the heart of the Draconis Combine."
She shrugged. "And next you turn up the minute we break the jump point in-system, saying you want to cover us for your news service. And you stick with us for weeks."
"But your story is quite compelling—"
"Sure." she reached out and patted his hand. "But nobody gives a pinch of sour owl crap, hon, because we're not a glamorous outfit like the Dragoons."
"Nobody ever heard of us," Chuy said, "except the people who hire us."
"And the people whose butts they hired us to kick," Cowboy added.
"But I really am a journalist for the Federated Commonwealth News Service."
"Sure," Cassie said. "And your FedCom news services are notorious for rolling over when somebody with Davion or Steiner in their last names asks them nice."
Archie winced. "That's harsh. You make us sound as if we're puppets, like—like the Combine media."
Lady K shook her head. "Nope. There's a difference between a subservient but free press and an out-and-out puppet. We all used to be up on that kind of thing, back when the Free in Free Worlds League meant somethin' other than freedom to be Tommy Marik's personal play-toys."
Westin raised his beer, then lowered it again. His expression suggested it smelled like it had spoiled.
"So you've all been stringing me along, to, these many weeks."
"Arch," Lady K said, "we like you. We really do."
"And we don't mind getting a little favorable publicity, now and then," Raven added.
"What—what about Father Garcia?" The Jesuit had taken some EMT course along the way, and was off picking through the ruins of the housing complex, tending to survivors of the terrorist attack and the CGC "rescue." There was a certain potential for tension in letting a Catholic priest loose on the streets of a city in the Combine, where any Christianity other than dour Rasalhaguian Lutheranism was officially proscribed. But Father Bob was not exactly the proselytizing type, and generally wore a black turtleneck instead of a dog collar—and anyway, it wasn't reckoned anybody would be too eager to hassle a man with fifty friendly BattleMechs in whistling distance.
"He was spying on me, wasn't he?"
"He was just tryin' to keep you outta trouble, cousin," the new Captain Ames said.
"He really does like you," Raven said. "You're a refreshing change for him—a real live sophisticated F-C kinda guy, in contrast to all us scrubby provincial coyotes he's gotta live with."
Archie scowled. He had gotten no more sleep than the mercs had, which was none, and even a beer and a half were having
an effect on him with his defenses down. He stood, swaying slightly.
"You have all been quite disingenuous in your dealings with me," he said.
"Hey, now, Arch, no need to go talkin' dirty in front of the ladies," Cowboy said. "Sierra Foxtrot, it's not like we wanta get rid of you. Davion might turn around and stick somebody on us we couldn't spot so easy."
Kali MacDougall lowered her forehead to the tabletop. Westin glared at Cowboy wildly and stomped out. Cowboy blinked around at his comrades.
"What'd I say? What'd I say?"
Raven put her sharp chin on her hands and looked at him with a marveling expression. "Cowboy," she said, "are you just naturally that big a butthead, or did you have to go to school to learn it?"
* * *
The room overlooked a twilight Shakudo Sea through a transpex wall. The floor was green marble, with an ornate Arkab carpet laid over it. The furniture was spare, with that understated elegance that made no compromise with the human form. Ninyu Kerai Indrahar, equally oblivious to either comfort or elegance, stood in the center of the room watching the dance of holographic puppets on the stage in the corner.
An earnest, clean-cut young reporter was standing in front of an apartment block, one of whose whitewashed walls had slumped into the street, exposing beams like twisted skeleton fingers. Smoke poured from the ruin. A squad of firemen played the stream from a hose into it.
"Terrorism and disorder," the young man was saying. "The twin scourges of the Inner Sphere have now disturbed the placid sanctity of the Dragon's realm ..."
"Of course, my Lord observes how we turn the story to our advantage," said Enrico Katsuyama, who stood slightly behind Ninyu. That in itself was irritating, but Ninyu would not show his discomfort by moving back to bring the obsequious little toad into his field of vision. "Shortly they will cut away to scenes of the current nationalist unrest in the Federated Commonwealth, establishing how very much more common this sort of commotion is there."
