Sword of Sedition Page 10

  “But not impossible.” Julian reached down to the chessboard, and advanced a pawn from the Liao side. He toyed with both sides of the board a moment, thinking, spreading out the pieces into classic attack and defense strategies. “Conventional strategies suggest we don’t have enough forces to hit the Capellans where they are strongest. Not without serious losses of our own. And if we do not strike them soon, we allow them to stage for new raids deep over the border into Republic territory.”

  Or deeper into the Federated Suns.

  Ortega leaned over Julian’s solo play, studying it. His dark eyes followed the rapid movements carefully. “My squad is more of a reconnaissance in force,” he said. “But it puts a few extra pieces on the board. I can turn over a Legionnaire and a strong assault lance.”

  “Not a lot of good without the manpower.” Julian put the black king into check. “Which I suppose means you are putting you and your men into the game as well?”

  “It works nicely that way.”

  Julian pulled the Davion king out of check, and studied his opponent. “What if I decide against it? You force the issue and we end up in a three-way struggle?” Check, and retreat again.

  Ortega frowned, glanced down. “Doesn’t look like this board is set up for three players. In fact, I think you are doing just fine by yourself.”

  “Still,” Torris offered, “having an extra knight could be handy.” The colonel certainly had a stake in the negotiation. After all, it would be several of his men being asked to put their lives forward.

  And Faust wanted no future troubles with The Republic. “I think we’ve come to an arrangement,” he said.

  Check, sacrifice. Check, retreat.

  Checkmate.

  Raul Ortega studied the board as Julian pulled the second black rook—an Enforcer—from the table. Reaching out, Ortega tipped the Davion king over onto its side. “Nicely won,” the knight said.

  Julian met his gaze openly. “Do you play?” he asked.

  “I think I’m about to.”

  Terra

  Republic of the Sphere

  The sun arced high overhead, looking down with favor on the German countryside and the white stone mansion. From a third-floor balcony, Conner Rhys-Monroe surveyed the wide-reaching grounds of Senator Lina Derius’ Darmstadt estate. Manicured grass. Heavy stands of cultivated mahogany and oak. A prizewinning rose garden that spread over two full acres and wafted perfumed scent across flagstone paths, and marble fountains. The trappings of the rich and the powerful.

  The kind of estate he had forever called home.

  Privilege and potential. They walk so close together, his father had always said.

  Conner was still getting used to the past tense.

  “Can I have anything else brought to you?” Lina Derius asked, stepping up behind him. She attended him with the efficiency and warmth of a well-heeled hostess.

  He was holding things up. He knew it. Conner shook his head.

  “Another drink, Conner?”

  An empty highball glass rested, abandoned, on the stone ledge near his right hand. The polished stone felt cold to the touch despite the warm spring day. But then a lot of things had felt cold to him these last few weeks. His father’s apartments in Geneva. The empty condolences from other knights. The exarch’s letter of concern and “deep regrets.”

  Did the exarch regret Gerald Monroe’s death? Or the trouble Conner had stirred up in the weeks following?

  Both, he hoped.

  “I’m fine,” he said, swearing off another drink while business was being discussed.

  He let Lina take his arm and escort him back into the mansion. Twenty years his senior, she still carried herself with a youthful energy that often made more experienced politicians underestimate her. Shimmering, bronze-colored hair and bright, clear green eyes helped reinforce that air of innocence, though Conner had seen enough evidence of her backroom deals in the last two weeks to wean him of any such illusion.

  Senators Michael Riktofven and Melanie Vladistock waited inside the third-floor library. They sat easily in opposing chairs, talking across an antique, spindle-legged table inlaid with gold and ivory. The inlay detailed a map of the Inner Sphere, with borders circa 3050. Before the Jihad. Before even the Clan invasion. Only the Five Successor States and the Free Rasalhague speed bump that later was all but consumed by Clans Wolf and Ghost Bear.

  A digital reader sat in Davion space. A scattering of data wafers littered House Kurita’s Draconis Combine and part of the Capellan Confederation. The Free Worlds League lay unblemished but ignored. House Steiner’s Lyran Commonwealth cradled the senators’ glasses.

  “Ah, Lina.” Riktofven shifted in his seat to include them in the conversation again. “You’ve brought back our wayward son.” He gestured at the reader and data wafers. “Is there anything more we can show you, Lord Monroe?” he asked.

  “I’ve seen quite enough,” Conner said.

  Millions of C-bills, kroners and Republic stones spent in the ambitious program to sponsor warriors and, later, some of the most respected knights Conner had ever known. A cascade of money, some from his father as well, paid out in many small fortunes to raise a host of “right thinking” soldiers with The Republic’s best interests at heart.

  Meaning they were willingly supportive of the nobles who had—some of them—ruled worlds and duchies in the Inner Sphere when Stone’s Republic was not yet conceived.

  Senator Vladistock smiled thinly. “ ‘Quite enough,’ you do not want to see any more? Or ‘quite enough,’ you are convinced of our policy?” Her smiles seemed incapable of reaching her dark, dark eyes. “There is a large difference.”

  “Yes. There is.”

  The three Republic senators weren’t certain what to make of that, so they played it political and said nothing. Riktofven refilled his glass from a nearby crystal decanter. The two women owned better game faces, and stared at Conner with serpents’ gazes.

  “Have we at least,” Lina finally said with strained patience, “proven your father’s level of involvement to your satisfaction?”

  Down to the last decimal place. Conner had spent several weeks digging through his father’s accounts and personal files. He knew what Gerald Monroe had mortgaged in this effort, and he had to give the trio credit that they had held nothing back. Not even when it exposed them to greater scrutiny. If he ran to Jonah Levin with what he knew now. . .

  Then again, if Levin had come to him first, or Gareth or Paladin GioAvanti, perhaps they would have been greeted with a warmer reception. And perhaps Conner’s father would still be alive.

  I do not weigh the sins of the father against the son, Exarch Levin had written.

  Except that Gerald Monroe had not accounted his actions as any kind of treason or sin. The senator had been nothing less than a patriot. The loyal opposition to the exarch and his military grip on The Republic. Conner had walked a line between both worlds for so long that he was not easily swayed by either argument, pro-exarch or pro-Senate, military or nobility. And neither was he blind to their shortcomings.

  “If Geoffrey Mallowes is involved in everything he’s accused of, then may he burn in hell. But I know my father would never have condoned such radical action, and I now know he wasn’t even inadvertently involved. Which makes his death a crime as well as a tragedy.”

  “And the armed quarantine of Senator Ptolomeny an abuse of power,” Michael Riktofven replied. He balled his hands into impotent fists.

  “Not that Exarch Levin will stand up to the same scrutiny and the new restrictions he’d like to place us under,” Lina Derius added. “But who would ever hold him accountable?”

  That was the question, wasn’t it? And everyone in the room knew the answer.

  Even Conner.

  “The Senate,” he said softly. “Only the Senate.”

  10

  What the hell does Katana Tormark think she’s doing?

  Does she want to raise the Dragon’s ire?

  �
�Commentary by Melissa Mako, Around the Sphere, Markab, 5 March 3135

  Fukuro

  Draconis Combine

  13 March 3135

  The samurai came at Yori Kurita with katana naked in his hand. He moved with short, shuffling steps. Legs bowed wide. Bare feet flat against the nonskid deck. Always keeping his center—his wa—in perfect balance.

  Not an easy task in a DropShip under thrust, where minor course corrections caused microshifts in the artificial gravity.

  Even this would not last long. Ryū Hokori, the Dragon’s Pride, was under power only long enough to complete a short transit between carrying JumpShips. A window of opportunity in which the crew should be performing maintenance tasks too complex for the weightlessness of space travel. Someone would answer for the lack of productivity. But that was later.

  Just now, Yori’s entire world focused down on the bright edge of Hatsuwe’s sword, where striations within the blade danced like pale flames under the yellowish cast of the ’Mech-bay overheads. She banished the distant blue arc of a welding torch from her mind, the acrid odor of hot metal, and the caustic scent of industrial solvent spread nearby to soak up a coolant spill. Distractions. For the same reason, she had braided back her long, luxurious fall of dark hair and stripped from her kimono down to MechWarrior togs. Shorts and halter top.

  She waited. Hand on the hilt of her own katana, leaving it in the sheath while she read his approach.

  Hatsuwe gave away very little. His wide-legged hakama draped comfortably, the way they were meant to do, hiding his step until nearly made. His upper body, stripped to bare chest and arms, remained in a rigid poise with sword held in the strong position over his right shoulder. Yori would have very little time to react.

  Only the anger smoldering in his black eyes gave her an advantage. His wa was still disturbed. And without harmony, a samurai could be led into mistakes.

  She should know.

  With a powerful yell Hatsuwe leaped forward, katana flashing in at her exposed midriff. But Yori had seen the quiver of tightening muscles along his abdomen. Her draw timed it just right, covering her entire right side with the length of her own blade.

  Steel clashed in bright, ringing tones.

  Spinning inward, she slashed at his thigh. Hatsume skipped away, beating her edge aside with another clash of blades. Chop, riposte . . . parry, slash, turn, lunge.

  He surprised her, blade driving in with the point rather than turned to use the edge. It nearly slipped her guard, close to giving Hatsuwe first blood and the honor he so desperately craved.

  She leaned away from the deadly edge at the last second, and it carved nothing but air.

  Overextended and so sure that he had had her, Hatsuwe pulled back too slow. It gave Yori the chance to slip away and come back on her own guard, waiting, while he inspected the bright edge for a trace of blood and found none.

  A fresh surge of rage building behind Hatsuwe’s eyes, the two combatants circled each other warily.

  What little work had been ongoing during the fight now sputtered to a complete halt. Two samurai—friends of Hatsuwe—watched with forced dispassion, their faces carved out of ferrosteel. The crew of the Ryū Hokori were not so well trained in hiding their emotion. Some obviously worried at the delay in their routine, taking their duties very seriously. Most, though, watched with dread fascination the skill being displayed by both samurai, and for the prospect of blood on the deck.

  And there was one other witness as well. A Nova Cat warrior who had been jogging around the cavernous ’Mech bay when the samurai entered. He stood off to one side, leaning against the feet of a BattleMaster, sweating quietly and watching with sharp, gray eyes.

  One by one Yori’s mind found and dismissed them all, again pushing her toward the trancelike state that came only with clarity of purpose. She was very aware of her own body. The cool draft pushing around the cavernous bay, puckering the skin on her arms with light gooseflesh. The aching throb of her left knee, from when she had twisted away too hard in their first exchange of cuts.

  She saw Hatsuwe reaching for that same state of mind, and failing as the woman continued to match him as an equal. To him, her name would not have mattered. She had insulted his pride, and he would have his honor back.

  First blood. That had been the agreement. But Yori wondered at the other samurai’s lack of control. The murderous gleam in his eyes.

  He held his sword back and away from her now, in the silent position. Not letting her see the strike until it was well on its way. She waited, sword held low before her. Resting.

  Hatsuwe stepped left, she countered right.

  Backing up. She followed.

  And he attacked, as she had known he would, trying to catch her in midstep.

  The katana cut the air cleanly, coming around in an overhead arc that could easily have taken off her arm had she not whipped her own blade up in time to defend. The force of the blow was impressive. Enough to jar Yori’s arm all the way up to her shoulder, and force her back a step.

  Another blow followed, coming in low and sideways. Then a desperate lunge when he thought she had committed to a strong, defensive stance.

  Yori parried each blow, relying on swiftness against Hatsuwe’s greater strength. She felt his measure now. Knew he would run her through or—better—take her head if he could. There would be many apologies to the coordinator and Warlord Toranaga, of course. All honor would be repaired. But she’d be dead. That was Hatsuwe’s goal.

  She wouldn’t allow it.

  Sweat matted a few strands of hair to her forehead. It trickled into the corners of her brown eyes, burning. Yori backed off, giving ground now as she traded time against Hatsuwe’s tiring muscles. Letting him believe that he had her cornered. Another flurry of sword strokes, more ringing tones as steel battered against steel. She slashed, looking for an opening, pulling her stroke just a bit such that she would wound, not maim.

  He batted her aside, hard. And she stumbled.

  His lunge came just as she had predicted. Trusting too much to his reach and strength of arm, as he had twice before when he thought he could gamble on a quick end to the match. Forgetting the basics, which always always demanded that a warrior remained centered and in control.

  Yori stumbled, shuffling to one side, but she kept her center—her own wa—intact.

  Turning his lunge aside with a quick brush of her own sword, she slashed up and in, resting the edge of her katana against Hatsuwe’s neck just beneath his strong chin. He froze, sword held out to his side, never flinching as she used the tip of her blade to pick him up. One little slip . . .

  Yori twisted her wrist, nicking him along the jaw. Nothing worse than a shaving cut, actually. But the bright, bright red drop of blood that christened the tip of her sword was plain enough as she held it in front of his face.

  “IIE! THAT IS ENOUGH!” The voice slammed across the bay like a PPC blast. “What goes on here?”

  Warlord Matsuhari Toranaga filled a nearby hatch-frame, the mantled shoulders of his overcoat nearly touching the metal edges. One of three warlords who assisted the coordinator in ruling the Draconis Combine, he was the only one to invite himself along on this journey to The Republic. If not the most powerful man in the realm at the moment, he was second in strength only to the Warlord of Benjamin. Excepting the coordinator, most would say.

  But for the few who quietly rated Vincent Kurita a distant third behind both men.

  Toranaga carried a sheathed katana in his right hand, as was his personal style, with only his sword of honor, the wakashiri, tucked into the cloth wrapping he used as a belt. He wore tabi socks and sandals, and stepped with a solid pigeon-toed stride that kept him perfectly strong at all times. His coarse dark hair showed touches of gray streaking back along his flattop cut. His heavy scowl threatened the entire bay.

  It was as if a switch had been thrown. The crewmen did not return to work. Instead, they brought themselves to a respectful deep bow, which they held as the Wa
rlord of New Samarkand stomped his way across the bay. All four samurai snapped to attention. Yori and Hatsuwe homed their swords with quick, efficient flourishes. The samurai bowed, not so deep as the crewmen, and each in relation to their family status within the Draconis Combine.

  Yori, of course, bowed deepest of the four.

  “I asked what goes on here,” Toranaga said again. “The Coordinator of the Draconis Combine rests on the Dragon’s Pride and no one—no one!—dies on this vessel without the express order of Vincent Kurita.”

  Hatsuwe deepened his shallow bow just a touch. “A matter of honor only, Matsuhari Toranaga-sama. A disagreement.”

  Toranaga finally nodded a curt bow, and the four samurai straightened. No one else moved in the entire bay. Except the Nova Cat warrior, Yori noticed. He had remained near the feet of the assault-class BattleMaster, and hardly at strict attention. Now he stepped forward.

  “Toranaga-sama,” the Nova Cat called out. He approached the warlord with hesitant strides, obviously involving himself unwillingly. Yori recognized him now. Kisho. The mystic traveling with them to Terra. “With your permission?” he asked.

  The warlord gave the young man a regal nod.

  “I will bear witness that the fight was conducted with due honor. There was no insult meant to the coordinator.”

  “You approved this contest?” Toranaga asked. By their position, Nova Cat mystics owned certain authority over rituals, both within their Clan and inside the Combine. A relationship that had developed over nearly a century of integration.

  “I witnessed it. This is the only reason I speak.”

  The warlord turned back to Hatsuwe. “This matter is between yourself and Yori?” Hatsuwe nodded. “Apologize,” the warlord instructed Yori, turning his glare onto her.

  “Toranaga-sama,” Yori began, “I—”

  “Apologize!”

  “Sumimasen. Gozemashite.” The words escaped Yori’s lips before she thought to argue again. “I am truly sorry for my transgression, Hatsuwe-san. Please forgive.”