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  "Useful information, Lieutenant. I shall neutralize Kiguri myself."

  "Wait! Don't sign off! We have ... information that some of Theodore's Otomo bodyguards are going to try to kill him at the review. It's Kiguri's backup plan."

  "Otomo? Are you serious?"

  "Deadly serious."

  "I find that hard to believe."

  "Do you trust my competence? It's your call, Mr. Director."

  "Acting Director."

  That showed how shaken Ninyu actually was. For him to waste syllables like that was virtually equivalent to gibbering panic for another man.

  "Get the Coordinator off the stands and into safety. If I'm steering you wrong you can shoot me later."

  "That might prove difficult," Ninyu admitted. "We are already engaged in combat with traitors in the Palace."

  Cassie sucked in a long breath. "I'll do what I can. Suthorn out"

  Johnny was still staring at her as if she had turned into a giant varan lizard from the Nijunen Desert. Migaki kept sneaking her as many sidelong looks as he could and still drive the chopper at top speed.

  "Like I told him, I've been working with the Smiling One. It's only for this gig, O.K.?"

  Johnny sat back on his haunches, shaking his head. Cassie looked at Migaki. "Can you tune your comm unit to a standard military command channel?"

  "Anything you wish, Lieutenant Senior Grade. As I said—perqs of the position."

  "Great." She reached over and began punching buttons on his console. That earned her a raised eyebrow, and then the dapper propaganda boss slipped off his headset and handed it to her.

  "Red Witch, this is Abtakha," she said, holding one earpiece to her ear. "Abtakha calling Red Witch. Come in, please."

  * * *

  "Clear the way! Chikusho! Get off the sidewalks, you pedestrians! What the hell's the matter with you?" Onlookers gaped in amazement and then scattered for their lives as the 90-ton Mauler left the blacktopped surface of Dragon Way to go crunching at a run along sidewalks that buckled noisily at every step.

  Emotions clashed inside Tai-sa Eleanor Shimazu like a flood tide crashing against a mighty river's outflow in a booming tidal bore. She had been preparing for this moment ever since learning that her father's murderer was on Luthien. Her plan was simple: she would march her Mauler past the reviewing stands at the head of her regiment. When she reached the point where Benjamin Inagawa stood, she would stop, turn, announce her identity by external speaker, and then vaporize him with one of her large lasers. Then she would power down her 'Mech, explain her actions to the Coordinator, apologize for dishonoring him, and surrender. She would hope that in view of her loyal service Theodore Kurita would allow her to commit honorable seppuku. But if he decreed she must be disgracefully executed, she would submit without demur. Just like the 47 ronin in that historical holovid Takura was making.

  But now she was deferring all that. She had just ordered her lead company of Heruzu Enjeruzu—Hell's Angels, the Ninth Ghost Legion—to blow forward full tilt and reach the Coordinator's stands now, no matter what the cost, past battalions of BattleMechs packed into the streets like queues of Workers waiting for the tube.

  For the last couple of years she'd heard constantly from her Caballero friends that no plan survived first contact with Cassie Suthorn. During the fight the accursed higher-ups— most of whom were now dead—had forced the 'lleros and the Enjeruzu into on Hachiman, Lainie and Cassie's paths had never crossed, since the scout had been off bedeviling none other than Ninyu Kerai and his black-clad elves. So it was only now that Lainie was confronted with the truth of that Caballero aphorism.

  The red-painted head of a Hatamoto-chi, designed to resemble that of a helmeted samurai, turned toward her as she crowded past the trail elements of the Seventh Sword of Light Regiment, the Teak Dragon. Its chevron-shaped viewscreen somehow seemed to express surprise and outrage. "Ten thousand apologies," she radioed. "It's an emergency!"

  Then she switched off the general comm channel. She doubted the stiff-necked Sword of Light commanders would be in any mood to listen to reason. She knew she was in no mood to listen to their abuse.

  One thing was sure: there were going to be many devils to pay if this proved to be a wild-goose chase. Lainie "the Red Witch" Shimazu was wild-hair unorthodox even by the standards of the half-outlaw Ghost Legions, but she would have thought twice or ten times about blasting protocol this comprehensively to hell if she hadn't already been settled on suicide, hence "living as one already dead."

  She was risking more than just her career on this mad dash. MechWarriors across the Sphere were touchy as ancient samurai, who used to draw on each other and get it on with serious intent if their scabbards clashed when they passed on the street. A Sword of Light Grand Dragon, taking offense at her jostling, turned its torso to bring the Lord's Light 2 extended-range PPC in its right arm to bear on Lainie's Mauler.

  Yamabushi, the fat former monk, came trundling down the far side of Dragon Way in his Axman, and fetched the Grand Dragon a mighty whack across the back with the flat of his double-bitted axe. The Dragon, slightly lighter, somewhat top-heavy, and caught totally unawares, toppled forward. It struck the back of the mighty Grand Titan jammed in tight ahead of it and made it fall. And so it went down the line, Teak Dragon BattleMechs knocking each other down one after the other like scarlet dominoes, keeping pace with her Mauler's rather stately run until the lead machine fell onto the tail Von Luckner tank of some provincial militia unit, trapping the hapless crew but breaking the reaction chain.

  Lainie shook her head. She was still confused as to how she felt at having her meticulously plotted-out denouement derailed. Frustrated—and also relieved.

  Maybe I shouldn't be so torqued-off at Cassie, she thought with bitter humor, for delaying my getting myself killed.

  She crushed a kiosk selling gaily painted paper kites shaped like fish, and kept on running.

  * * *

  The OmniMechs of the special Otomo demonstration company came marching down Dragon Way two by two. First a pair of 25-ton RTX1-0 Raptors, back-kneed and headless. Next strode two Owens, 35 tons, which amounted to blockier flightless Jenners, followed by 40-ton Striders, which were derived from the old Cicada. After them came two of the BJ2-0 Blackjack Omni redesign, which had been exported heavily and even license-built by Irian—and, to Theodore's embarrassment, had seen service with Liao and Marik forces during their invasion of the Chaos March. Next were two Black Hawk-KU, almost exact copies of the 60-ton Clan machine. After it walked a 70-ton Avatar, Luthien Armor Work's answer to the Vulture. And last of all marched a Sunder, piloted by Tai-sa Hideyoshi himself, a 90-ton hybrid of the Clan Thor and Loki Omnis. All twelve machines were enameled gleaming white, with the red, black, and gold Kurita dragon emblem proudly painted on them.

  "Impressive machines," muttered Yoshida, who stood at Theodore's side. "Still, I wouldn't trade my Cyclops for any of them. Give me proven technology, not an imitation of engineering we halfway understand."

  Theodore nodded in qualified agreement. He had personally approved—indeed mandated—the crash Luthien Armor Works program for building OmniMech clones. He was reasonably pleased with the results. Still, many of the designs were experiencing teething problems; neither of the Firestarter II Omnis LAW had provided Otomo could be persuaded to function at all. Were he able to allow himself the indulgence of leading troops in combat again, he'd want a proven design, even one of the new Naginatas, rather than one of these bastard OmniMechs.

  When they formed a line before the jutting podium on which Theodore stood with sweat trickling down inside the standup collar of his dress uniform, the Otomo Omnis stopped. With a creaking of mechanical joints and a grinding and groaning of metal feet on cement, they turned to face the stands.

  Yoshida stiffened. "What's this?"

  "Looks as if they want to make some sort of presentation," Theodore said quietly. He noted that his cousin Chandrasekhar halted with his goblet halfway to his lips, a
nd quickly handed the drink to one of his female bodyguards.

  "People of the Draconis Combine," Hideyoshi's voice crackled from the loudspeakers of the Sunder, "a great moment has come. Now is the time when the traitor and usurper Theodore Kurita must pay for the murder of his father!"

  32

  Unity Square, Imperial City

  Luthien

  Pesht Military District, Draconis Combine

  1 July3058

  Silence fell on the vast crowd like a kilometer-square sheet of transpex from heaven. At Theodore's side, Yoshida's normally squinty eyes opened so wide they stood out of his narrow face. Theodore himself felt nothing, as if his reactions were packed away in shaved-plastic insulation. Without his family there on the dais with him, he had nothing he felt an urgent need to protect. Let someone else fight the Clans single-handed....

  "We knew that you murdered your father," the amplified voice boomed, while the great crowd muttered and jostled in consternation. "Yet you left us alive and in place, compounding our disgrace. But we have bided our time and waited, sleeping on kindling and licking gall, like the forty-seven ronin. Until our time came to strike.

  "That time is now!"

  The Sunder raised the two medium Diverse Optics pulse lasers that made up its right arm. The other OmniMechs followed suit. A collective gasp rose from the crowd like an immense flock of doves taking flight. Theodore reflected that white was the color of death.

  A rushing sound drowned out the noise of the crowd. Theodore glanced up to see a trio of painfully bright blue suns in a tight constellation, the jump jets of one of the new Stealth BattleMechs whose purchase from the Lyran Alliance he had personally approved, descending seemingly right on top of him. As he watched in amazement, the black-painted 'Mech cut loose against the rebel Omnis with lasers and shortrange missile volleys.

  By reflex the whole demonstration company cut loose on the interloper at once as it came down between them and the Coordinator. The 45-ton 'Mech was blasted literally to pieces in midair. As the Stealth's components rained down on the stands and the pavement before the would-be assassins, 'Mech-mounted weapons fire began to slash at them from their right, which was the way they and the rest of the parade had come.

  The spell was broken. Unwilling to act until now for fear of costing the Coordinator face, Yoshida shoved aside a small round red cap inset in the floor of the dais and pressed the button it had concealed with the toe of a rnirror-polished boot.

  Along with megalomania, paranoia was another distinguishing feature of the Kurita dynasty. And just as absolute rulership over billions of human beings might understandably foster a certain sense of grandeur, the Kuritas had real enemies. Not all that many Coordinators had died in bed, and not even those who had done so without assistance.

  That loyal MechWarriors might take it upon themselves to blast their beloved Coordinator into his component atoms as they passed in review had occurred to one of Theodore's ancestors long ago. Appropriate steps had been taken.

  Triggered by the defense minister, a fifteen-meter-tall shield of transpex one meter thick shot up from beneath the thin layer of pavement that had concealed it. Three-sided, so that from above it resembled a U opening toward the palace, it surrounded the podium, blocking off the assassin's fire.

  A laser beam struck the shield, filling the sudden enclosure with ruby glare. Billions of tiny reflective flakes scattered throughout the transpex deresolved the beam and rendered it harmless. Beyond the shield, BattleMechs were jumping into the air above the square while panicked onlookers fled screaming.

  "Very good," said Uncle Chandy, standing now. His words echoed slightly between the transpex walls. The sound of the 'Mech battle building beyond them was muted by the thick synthetic, rendering conversation just possible. "But it's open at the top, and won't withstand heavy fire forever. We'd best be on our way." His feminine bodyguards had produced efficient-looking laser pistols and stood coolly flanking him.

  Theodore looked to the four Otomo guardsmen who shared the podium with his personal party. Their body language and the dead-man's pallor beneath the visors of their ceremonial armor spoke eloquently.

  "W-we are loyal, lord," one said. "We had no idea."

  Theodore nodded. He had no choice but to trust them, and besides, if they'd been in on the plot, they'd had ample opportunity to shoot him in the back. Four SRMs slammed into the shield, making it vibrate and ring like a musical saw. Cracks appeared in the thick transpex.

  "Go," he said. They turned and trotted to the rear of the podium. At the back, stairs led down to a four-meter-wide swath of pavement running between the grandstand and the high Palace wall. Directly across from the steps, a concealed door hissed open as one of the Otomo guards triggered it with a remote controller.

  Reaching the inviting blackness of the doorway, the guard suddenly stopped. A handspan of steel, gleaming almost greenish in indirect sunlight, thrust out through his back.

  * * *

  "Slam 'em! Slam 'em! Slam 'em!" Lainie shouted over her commline. A company's worth of Ghost 'Mechs had reached Unity Square with her. As she had ordered, they'd winged out into the Square to take the traitor 'Mechs in the rear. Yamabushi had jumped is Axman clear down to the end of the line to fell a Raptor with a single blow of its axe to absurdly thin rear armor. The big crested 'Mech kicked its downed opponent contemptuously aside, then buried its axe to the helve in another Omni when it turned to engage. "And if you shoot toward the stands, make damn sure you hit what you're aiming at."

  "What about the spectators?" someone asked.

  "Mujo," she answered simply. "My responsibility."

  As if in direct response Ho Jung-V's 100-ton Pillager set down in the square, its HildCO Model 13 jump jets turning a dozen hapless onlookers into screaming torches before its great feet mercifully crushed them. The two Gauss rifles in its torso fired, the hypersonic rounds cracking like thunder before they slammed into the back of a Black Hawk-KU. One shot instantly locked the shoulder-actuator of its left arm, which carried a total of five medium lasers. Black smoke poured from the hole the other hit had punched in its armor.

  Two Ghost Owens and a Hitman dashed forward, interposing themselves between the Otomo weapons and the Coordinator. Lainie was walking her Mauler down the middle of Dragon Way now, wading through the hovercraft of a scout company that had been stalled by Hideyoshi's preemption. She hoped the pilots had had the sense to bail out. Flanking her were Billy Dragomil in his Marauder-derived Dragon Fire and Sari DeLeeuw in her War Dog. All three 'Mechs were concentrating heavy weapons-fire on the right side of the Sunder piloted by Hideyoshi himself.

  One of the things Lainie had been big on during the re-outfitting of Heruzu Enjeruzu that had followed their disastrous battle with the Caballeros on Hachiman was getting as many 'Mechs mounting Gauss rifles as possible. They exemplified the phrase long-range, low-heat that MechWarriors used for the best of the best. Sari's War Dog and Billy's Dragon Fire mounted them, along with an impressive assortment of other weapons. They were adding their punch to that of Lainie's two big arm-mounted lasers. The two medium pulse lasers that made up the Sunder's left arm were shattered and the big Omni's whole right side began to glow red like iron heated in a forge.

  "Taking fire from behind!" the voice of Joe Shen, bringing up the rear in a Daikyu, yelled in Lainie's headset. "I'm hit!"

  "It's First Sword of Light," called Amiko'Sturz, the company's Apollo pilot. "They think we're the traitors!"

  * * *

  The blade, which emitted a faint hum, was withdrawn from the Otomo guard's body. As he slumped to the cement the second guard raised his full-auto riot shotgun. A tall figure clad in black from sole to crown stepped from the secret door and hacked him down with a single stroke of a vibrokatana. Its -hum rose to a shriek as it cut through rigid armor and bone.

  Other figures in black poured from the doorway, spreading out rapidly to either side of the one who had killed the two Otomo guards. Each held a bared katana in
a black-gloved hand. When thirty of them stood facing the Coordinator, who was still on the podium at the top of the stairs, the central swordsman pulled off his red-visored helmet and shook back his armor-cloth cowl.

  "General Kiguri," Theodore Kurita said.

  The one-eyed man bowed. "Tono. A thousand apologies for the inconvenience, but I have come to kill you."

  "All Combine military units," Lainie Shimazu broadcast on the general-access channel. "This is Tai-sa Eleanor Shimazu of the Ninth Ghost Legion. A unit of the Otomo is attempting to kill the Coordinator. We're trying to stop them. Please, do not fire on us!"

  She didn't know whether that would do any good, but she had to try. Hideyoshi's Sunder had turned to face her and was blasting away with the medium lasers in its torso. She charged him, firing back with her big extended-range lasers.

  "Sari, Billy, keep moving," she ordered. "I'll take this one."

  * * *

  "Traitor dog!" snarled Yoshida. He drew the katana from the dai-sho sheathed behind his left shoulder as part of his dress uniform. Theodore held up a hand.

  "Hold," the Coordinator told him. Then to the renegade ISF leader, "Why do you do this?'

  The scarred lips smiled. "To counteract the decadence your reforms have brought to the combine," Kiguri said. "The picked team I sent to Cinema City failed to hijack the BattleMechs belonging to your fat cousin's gaijin hirelings. And out there—"

  He nodded past the stands, to where a brutal face-to-face 'Mech battle roared and crashed between the Ghosts and the Otomo assassins. "—Out there General Hideyoshi isn't doing a very good job of wreaking the vengeance he's plotted against you since your father's death disgraced him. So I'm left to pick up the pieces myself." He shook his head. "Nothing gets done right any more, Tono. Obviously, it's time for a change."