Close quarters Read online

  "We do not customarily publicize the activities of our operators," Subhash said.

  "But why not start?" Katsuyama asked, bubbling over with enthusiasm. "These are trying times. The people need heroes. Why not the men and women of the ISF?"

  Subhash looked at him. Even he found the notion of the public's regarding his well-feared secret police as heroes to be, well, novel.

  "Besides," Katsuyama said, "this footage will certainly put the quietus on rumors that the ISF itself is behind the Black Dragons."

  Subhash exhaled a breath he didn't know he'd been holding. He cared little about the reputation of the ISF, as long as it was feared. But the ultranationalist Kokuryu-kai was already known to be taking advantage of rumors that it had allies highly placed in the Combine government. It would not do to let them draw spurious legitimacy from Internal Security.

  There was an irony here, so great Subhash almost smiled—a surprisingly rare private event for a man still called "the Smiling One" at court. Takashi Kurita had not been assassinated, as the Black Dragon orator alleged. But not for lack of trying by Subhash and his ISF.

  He nodded, the gesture all but imperceptible. Migaki, who had caught it, nodded in response and rose. Katsuyama, who hadn't, sat with hands clasped like a schoolboy, perched so far forward on his chair that he seemed in imminent danger of falling off onto his broad bottom.

  "You may do as you deem best, Mr. Katsuyama," Subhash said.

  Katsuyama bounced to his feet like a fat, floppy puppy. "Thank you, Director! I promise, you won't be disappointed."

  Of course I won't, the Director thought as Migaki herded his subordinate from the room. Subhash Indrahar was a man who made few errors, and was absolutely ruthless in correcting them when he did. I don't believe you have the courage to let me down.

  Subhash was alone. For a moment he sat, an old man with no company but his weariness. Then he blanked the holo image from the end of the room, erasing the Black Dragon Society from his mind at the same time. They were, for the moment, contained.

  It was time to turn to a more pressing matter: the mission that had sent his adoptive son and successor-designate to the nearby world of Hachiman.

  6

  Masamori, Hachiman

  Galedon District, Draconis Combine

  27 August 3056

  A festival atmosphere prevails here on the outskirts of Masamori, largest city of the Draconis Combine world of Hachiman. The ninety-plus BattleMechs of the Seventeenth Recon Regiment are arriving on-planet to take up employment with Hachiman Taro Electronics, Limited, the second-largest corporation on the planet. HTE is owned by Chandrasekhar Kurita, a distant member of the family that has ruled the Combine since its creation more than seven centuries ago.

  "Behind me you can see the DropShip debarking 'Mechs of the First Battalion of Camacho's Caballeros, as the men and women of the Seventeenth style themselves. They will be marching into the city proper to take up security duties within the mighty HTE manufacturing complex, which lies on the west bank of the Yamato River in the city's Murasaki district. The notoriously fickle populace of the Masamori has turned the occasion into one of their rowdy matsuri, or street festivals."

  The young man with the pencil-thin mustache half-turned to his left, allowing the holocamera to caress his beautifully chiseled profile as it zoomed in on a cantilever bridge spanning the Yamato River, which spread to a width of five hundred meters here as it flowed south into the metropolis. Crowds lined the approach, waving banners and bright, carp-shaped kites. Across the river, the late-afternoon light turned the skyscrapers of Masamori into towers of bronze.

  "Behind me you see the Hohiro Kurita Memorial Railway Bridge. Like most highway bridges within the Draconis Combine, those leading into Masamori are designed to permit the passage of no vehicle heavier than nineteen tons, a feature intended to prevent enemy BattleMechs from using the bridges in the event of invasion. Only a railroad bridge will support the up to one hundred-ton weight of the mercenary machines.

  "You can hear the crowd gasp as the leading BattleMech approaches the span. And well they might; perhaps not since the German Stuka of pre-spaceflight Terra has a war machine been so thoroughly identified with a mighty and implacable empire. For the 'Mech belonging to the Seventeenth's commander, Colonel Carlos Camacho, late of the Free Worlds League military, bears the unmistakable hunch-shouldered, bullet-nosed shape of a Mad Cat—the very symbol of the fearful might of the Clan invaders.

  "Striding behind the Mad Cat of his father comes the Shadow Hawk belonging to Force Commander Gavilan Camacho, his 'Mech painted front and back with the striking image of a hawk with outstretched wings and talons. Behind him the rest of First Battalion's machines take their place in line.

  "But the Mad Cat with the shark's mouth painted on its snout is not the first vehicle in line. The honor of leading the procession into Masamori has fallen to a member of the Seventeenth's Scout Platoon."

  The camera zoomed further, focusing on a solitary figure, seemingly insignificant as a bug before the terrifying bulk of Colonel Camacho's Great White. "Long and brilliant service to the Regiment has earned this distinction for Lieutenant Junior Grade Cassiopeia Suthorn. She leads this mighty procession of armor and firepower riding perhaps the humblest vehicles in all of the regiment: a thirty-speed Mikoyan Gurevich mountain bike."

  Close up on Cassie, long braid hanging down her back, her assault rifle strapped across the bars of her bicycle, pedaling vigorously away. Then the camera zoomed out again to focus on the handsome young reporter in his immaculate bush jacket.

  "Reporting from Hachiman, in Oshika Perfecture of the Galedon Military District, this is Archie Westin, FCNS."

  "Good one, Archie," his camerawoman said, letting the holocam slide off her shoulder. Archie smiled almost shyly and bobbed his wavy-haired blond head.

  "I beg your pardon, young man," came a gentle voice from behind Westin's left shoulder. The newsman turned to see a man of middle height and years approaching from where he'd been standing by at discreet distance, waiting for the shoot to end. The wind plucked at the strands of dark brown hair combed over his bald spot. He had a mustache and dark eyes with lids so full they looked almost puffy; he also wore the white collar and dark sports coat over black tunic of a modern Catholic priest. Archie nodded politely to him.

  "Might I have a few words with you, Mr. Westin?" he asked.

  "Certainly, Father."

  A shy smile. "I'm Father Roberto Garcia, Society of Jesus," the priest said. "But you can call me Bob, if you like."

  Archie grinned at that, bobbed his head. He was by nature both a polite and outgoing young man. It was a substantial asset in his lines of work—both of them.

  "What can I do for you, then, Fa—Bob?"

  "I couldn't help but overhear the reference to the Stuka. Are you by chance a historian?"

  Archie laughed. "Nothing so grand. A history buff, rather."

  The Jesuit's face lit up. "We have an interest in common then. Let's have a nice talk one of these days. What do you say?"

  "By all means." Archie glanced to where camerawoman Mariska Savage was bent over stowing her holo gear. He grinned ever so slightly at the way her khaki shorts tightened over her buttocks. She was a touch stocky for his tastes, but strikingly well put together for all that; it was the way she was built, not excess. Professional principles and common sense kept him from trying to take their relationship beyond the already close friendship of those who'd shared danger. But he could look.

  "I tell you what, Bob," Archie said, turning back to the older man. "Though I've met Colonel Camacho, and been briefed by Lieutenant Colonel Cabrera—and they've been the soul of courtesy, I must say—I don't really know anyone here yet, if you know what I mean. Since I'm assigned to cover the Seventeenth, I could really use a friend on the inside."

  Garcia nodded. "As it happens, I'm the closest thing to a public-relations officer the Caballeros have. It's one of several hats I wear—along with unit h
istorian, psychologist, and Crusader pilot."

  Westin's hazel eyes widened. "You're a Mech Warrior?"

  Garcia nodded. "I have that honor."

  "Rather unusual for a padre to be a combatant. Much less 'Mech-qualified."

  "You're not familiar with the so-called Southwestern worlds, are you?" the priest said, to which Westin shook his head. "I'm going to have a lot to teach you then, my friend. To start with, we have only one noncombatant chaplain, Father Montoya. The rest of us—pastors and rabbis too—fight alongside the rest. It's the only way to win the respect of this bunch."

  "Pastors, rabbis, and priests?" Archie asked.

  "As I say, you've much to learn about us." The priest put his hand on the younger man's shoulder—which was something of a reach, Westin being the taller by a handspan—and turned him gently to face the procession of Caballero BattleMechs across the bridge and into Masamori.

  "Now, tell me, as a student of history, does this scene remind you anything?"

  Archie briefly chewed his underlip with immaculately straight white teeth, then shrugged. "Offhand, nothing I can think of."

  "It reminds me," the priest said, "of the entry of the Catalan Grand Company in the year of Our Lord thirteen-oh-two into Constantinople."

  Archie gave a slight shake of the head. "I'm afraid I'm not familiar with the incident, padre."

  "The Ottoman Turks had recently begun to supplant the Seljuks. They were sweeping over the Byzantine Empire like a locust plague. To deal with them, the Byzantines hired in a company of Catalan almugavars, their matchless light infantry. They were the toughest mercenaries of the day, and their women were as redoubtable as the men—just as with our own Caballeros."

  "Are you saying the Seventeenth are the toughest mercs of our day, padre?" Archie asked with upraised brow.

  Garcia shook his head. "Not while Wolf's Dragoons and the Kell Hounds still live, Mr. Westin, though any Caballero would die before yielding a centimeter, even to one of them."

  "Call me Archie."

  "Archie, then. No, it is rather the contrast in image that draws me. A painting from the nineteenth century exists that depicts the Company's arrival in the Byzantine capital. There sits the Emperor on his throne, with Santa Sophia behind his right shoulder and his glittering, painted retinue surrounding him in all its splendor.

  "And before him march the Catalans: shaggy barbarians, to be frank, grubby and ferocious in their scale armor and metal caps, with their azagayas and shields slung over their backs. They look no different than their ancestors the Visigoths and wild Iberian tribesmen as they enter the greatest city then extant on Earth."

  Archie laughed. "A striking image, to be sure. But not exactly one complimentary to your comrades, it seems."

  "I am a Caballero born and bred, Archie. My family is one of the proudest of Sierra, my homeworld. But I know my people well."

  Archie jutted his chin and nodded. It was a nice chin, square without being too overt. He was proud of it.

  "How did the episode end, then?" he asked, watching the long shadows cast by the Caballero 'Mechs making their ponderous way across the shadow-bridge that lay upon the Yamato's slow water.

  Garcia sighed. "Not well. The Byzantines came to fear the Catalans' power and the ambitions of their leader, Roger de Flor. They invited Roger to a banquet in his honor, then set upon and murdered him and his retinue. At the same time they attacked the divided camps of the mercenaries, seeking to wipe them out."

  "Did they succeed?"

  "No, indeed. The Catalans not only defended themselves, but in their rage they laid waste to such of the Empire as lay outside the city walls, which they lacked the engines to breach. Then they sailed away to Greece and conquered the Morea from the Frankish knights who held it. And for centuries thereafter, a Greek who truly wanted to curse someone said to him, 'May the Catalan vengeance overtake you.' "

  For a time the only sounds were the whistle of the wind, the distant shouts and hum of hovercraft engines as work-gangs offloaded Caballero gear from the DropShip onto the grounds of the HTE-owned sports-training facility that would house the bulk of the Regiment, the low, slow thunder of the Caballero BattleMechs, walking deliberately out of step as they crossed the railroad bridge.

  "Rather a grim omen, I should say," Archie remarked at length.

  "If one believes in omens." The Jesuit clapped him on the shoulder again. "Come. I believe we and your charming young assistant might find something to drink, and then drive across into town in ample time to cover the arrival of our 'Mechs at the HTE Compound."

  7

  Masamori, Hachiman

  Galedon District, Draconis Combine

  27 August 3056

  Here came Usagi and Unagi, your classic ashigaru, inseparable as twins, pelting through the mob with bare arms and legs and straight black hair flying.

  "They're coming, Lainie," gasped Usagi, by a couple centimeters the taller. His name meant rabbit, which a glance at him showed to be appropriate. It was also ingo—underworld dialect—for petty thief. That was right too.

  "It's the strangest thing," Unagi said, addressing the red-haired woman who was a good half-meter taller than either he or Usagi. She stood on the sidewalk surrounded by a small knot of hard-faced men, and around them another invisible circle into which the putatively law-abiding citizens of Masamori did not care to intrude. Anyone giving the group only a casual glance would have surmised that this was a particularly tough street gang. He wouldn't have been far wrong.

  Unagi stood and panted for a couple of breaths as the tall woman looked down on him with folded arms. He was a lithe little man whose movements, when he wasn't running hell-bent, flowed like oil. His name meant "eel" and also the fine, soft rope favored by second-story men. Which he'd been before the Friendly Persuaders had nabbed him. He and Usagi had shared a cell on Galedon V while doing their "duty."

  "They're being led by a woman," Unagi gasped, "and you know what? She's riding a bicycle."

  Away down Yoguchi Kurita Street you could see the loom and sway of big BattleMechs on the move. The redhead glanced over her shoulder at a man even taller than she was, and as bulky as she was lithe. Some of this was fat, and some was not. He had a shaven head, round, jovial-looking cheeks, and wore the red-orange robes of an Order of the Five Pillars monk.

  The tall man stepped forward to where onlookers lined the sidewalk's edge craning for a view. He made a sound like a volcano preparing to belch. The onlookers turned around, looked at him, and did a fast fade.

  The red-haired woman took their place, her retinue flowing into position around her. The citizens duly melted back on either side like mercury from a fingertip.

  The way was decked with elaborate, colored-paper streamers, some held aloft by clumps of helium-filled balloons, with flowers real and paper, with banners making the foreigners welcome in kanji, hiragana, and katakana characters they undoubtedly could not read. Dancers in traditional costume—Japanese, Chinese, Hindu—capered all but under the metal feet of the 'Mechs. The Masakko, as the people of Hachiman's capital were known, had done themselves proud.

  Of course, HTE's public relations elves had spread some heavy jelly to guarantee a rousing welcome for the foreigners. But the street enthusiasm was perfectly sincere; Lainie could feel it beating off the crowd like heat from a paper lantern on a winter's night. The Masakko loved novelty, and giant mercenary BattleMechs striding through the middle of town were nothing if not novel. More than that, the people loved the slightest pretext to pitch a matsuri—a festival, that unique Masamori blend that was one part traditional celebration, one part street party, and one part riot.

  "The Mustache Petes must be turning blue to see this party going down for a lot of scrubby gaijin," said Shig Hofstra, a long, lean sort with sharp features and a shock of straw hair. He had been a suspected malcontent, pulling hard time in one of the Ministry of Peaceful Order and Honor's resort facilities in the Benjamin District—if they'd known he was a malcontent, t
hey would have capped him—when the Clan invasion hit. Secretly, Theodore Kurita had opened a lot of prison doors to anyone who would volunteer for near-suicide missions. Though Shig had never been in a BattleMech in his life, neither did he want to rot in teruho, so he stepped right up there and signed on the line. After a ninety-day-wonder MechWarrior course, for which he showed a surprising natural aptitude, he found himself dropping into harm's way with Heruzu Enjeruzu—the Ninth Ghost Regiment. "Not to mention the fact that they're mercs."

  Lainie chuckled. "Mustache Pete" could mean any traditionalist Kurita who was having trouble swallowing Coordinator Theodore's reforms. It specifically referred to that most conservative segment of Combine society, the oyabun, or bosses, of the yakuza crime syndicates. Like many of the non-yakuza members of the Regiment, Shig thought he really hated the "outside" yakuzas, those who were still civilian street gangsters.

  Her smile folded itself and went away. He didn't know what it meant to hate the oyabun.

  Lainie Shimazu did. She was yakuza herself.

  The Rabbit and the Eel were right, she saw. Here came the procession leader, bare brown legs stroking at an easy pace despite the slow rise of Yoguchi Kurita. She was a small brown woman with long black hair hanging in a braid down her back. She looked like a generic Asian mix, might have been from the Combine herself. There was some gaijin blood thrown in too—her eyes met the tall woman's briefly, and they were gray with a hint of blue.

  For an instant that eye contact held, and the small young woman and the tall one sized each other up. Then the rider was past, and the evil shape of a Mad Cat with a shark's gape painted on its snout was crunching by. The tall woman rubbed her chin.

  "They don't look like much to me," said the handsome young man with the purple-dyed topknot as the mercenary 'Mechs came marching north on Yoguchi Kurita Street. He was a newbie with the Ghosts, some dipswitch second-son samurai kid from Miyada who had disgraced himself knocking up some Laborer girl. He was so hungry to prove himself that he was willing to roll all the way downhill into the midst of the hodgepodge of gaijin, yakuza, and eta who made up the Ninth Ghost Regiment. There was no accounting for taste.