Warrior: Riposte (The Warrior Trilogy, Book Two): BattleTech Legends, #58

by Michael A. Stackpole

  Shifting the sword around to his belly, he then lowered himself feet first into the diagonally set shaft. Though more narrow and confining than a ’Mech cockpit, it held no terrors for Akira. With this tight a fit, I can easily climb back up. He lifted the grate back into place, then slid down into the darkness.

  At a depth of about seven meters, his shaft intersected another tunnel of roughly double its diameter. Akira dropped into it and crouched. Taking a small piece of chalk from his pocket, he marked his tunnel with a triangle pointing toward the surface. Then he looked both up and back along the tunnel, before choosing to head south toward the ocean.

  Akira moved carefully on through the ventilation tunnel, using the flashlight only when absolutely necessary. When he did, he kept the burst of light short so that it would not interfere with his night vision. Twelve meters in, the main shaft began to slant down at a sharp angle, with another shaft moving laterally off to the west.

  Akira stopped. The air’s moister coming from down there. Apparently, the ComStar training facility does extend beneath the ocean. Reluctant to head down the shaft for fear it might become too steep or slick for him to climb back out, Akira cut west along the tunnel he visualized as running roughly parallel to the cliff face.

  Ten meters in, he saw light pouring from a vent. His heart pounded as he forced himself to inch down the tunnel. Straining to hear the sounds coming from below, he soon identified voices, whose words he valiantly tried to discern and their meaning decipher. Then he reached the vent itself.

  Akira’s heart leaped to his throat. I’ve died and gone to Valhalla. Dumbfounded, he stared at the scene below. By the Dragon’s blood! It’s either Valhalla or the universe’s own hell…

  Stretching back through the cavernous chamber below him, rank after rank of BattleMechs confronted Akira. Grouped by weight, with the lightest ’Mechs nearest the walls and working inward to the titanic assault ’Mechs in the center, the war machines stood in neat, orderly lines like soldiers at attention. Dwarfed by their charges, techs and astechs in yellow acolyte robes moved repair and maintenance equipment over and around the ’Mechs.

  Akira tried to wet his lips, but his mouth had gone utterly dry. The long lines of ’Mechs receded so deeply into the room that he could barely make out the back rows. Each machine gleamed white except for the ComStar logo emblazoned in gold on its chest.

  Akira rubbed his eyes in disbelief, but he could not deny the reality of this legion of BattleMechs under ComStar’s arms. His heart sank. My father may believe he saw the Yellow Bird when he fought Morgan Kell, but he was mistaken. It’s this—this horde of ’Mechs that will be the Dragon’s death. Staring at the nearest machines, he saw that these were not even battlefield salvage. If any of these ’Mechs have ever seen battle, I’ll gladly defend the Lyran border all by myself.

  Badly shaken, Akira crawled back through the tunnels to the vent shaft, erasing his chalk marks as he went. Wedging his knees, elbows, and back against the tunnel walls, letting the sword hang across his chest again, he slowly nudged his way up to the surface. At the exit, Akira moved the grate off the tunnel and lowered it to the ground. He uncoiled himself from the cramped shaft, then straightened up to stretch his weary muscles.

  The garrote dropped around Akira’s throat and jerked him backward as his assailant tried to pull it tight. Because it caught on the sword’s hilt, the garrote failed to crush Akira’s windpipe cleanly, giving him a chance to react to the ambush. The MechWarrior clawed at the wire with his right hand as he drove his left elbow back into his assailant’s chest. Akira heard ribs pop with the second blow. As the garrote slackened slightly, he grabbed it in both hands and pulled. Ducking quickly then, he bent forward and flipped his attacker over his head.

  Even before his assailant hit the ground, Akira had wrapped his left hand around the sword’s sheath and pulled it free of his body. Though his attention was focused on the person lying before him, he caught a flash of something moving on his left as he started to draw the blade. Emerging from the brush, another attacker lunged forward with a metallic truncheon just shorter than the sword. Pivoting to the left, Akira made a weak attempt at parrying the blow with his half-drawn blade, but utterly failed to stop the attack.

  The truncheon jabbed him in the left armpit, exploding fiery agony through every nerve on that side of his body. The electric jolt threw Akira halfway across the small clearing like a toy discarded by an angry child. The MechWarrior rolled to a stop in a crumpled heap, his sword lost somewhere in the underbrush.

  Stun-stick. Feels like half my body is on fire. He lay on his back gasping for air as a third individual joined the first two. Each wore a helmet with full, dark visor that gave no clue to the wearer’s identity. Their dark uniforms had padding at the elbows and knees but no rank or branch insignia that Akira could make out as they swam into focus. Because all three were tall and powerfully built, he had first assumed they were all male. Without seeing their faces or some other clue, he realized that there was really no way to determine any of their sex.

  His first attacker rewound the garrote around gloved hands. When he turned to speak to the latest arrival, his voice buzzed like an insect’s because of computer modulation. “He is mine to kill, Captain.”

  The figure with the stun-stick shook his head. “No.” He pointed the stun-stick at Akira. “I struck. I hit. The kill is mine.”

  The garroter hugged his left elbow to his broken ribs. “But he laid hands upon my person.”

  The captain nodded to the man with the garrote. As that one moved to finish the job he’d begun earlier, Akira kicked up with his right foot. He dealt the garroter a crushing blow to the groin, then struck again, propelling his attacker aside into the dark brush. The modulator translated the man’s screams into harsh, flat croaks as he stumbled around in the undergrowth. There followed the sound of a great crash, and then the croaking ceased.

  Akira, half-paralyzed, glared at the remaining pair of guards. “I will not die easily.”

  “Suit yourself, infidel.” As the man with the stun-stick started toward Akira, another shadow figure detached itself from the night-darkened undergrowth. He locked one hand on the ComStar guard’s chin and the other on the back of his helmet. Yanking back and twisting savagely, the shadowman jerked the guard off his feet, snapping the man’s neck like a dry twig.

  The ComStar captain turned toward the shadowman, drawing a neural whip and telescoping its blade out to full length. The lean shadowman dropped into a low crouch as the whip’s electric hum sliced through the night. Using the whip blade like a fencing foil, the captain feinted twice at his victim and Akira could feel the ComStar man’s confidence growing.

  Then a smaller man appeared at the Captain’s back. “No way, Morgan. You had the other one.” Cracking his knuckles, the new man laughed easily. “This one is mine… Let’s see what he’s got.”

  The captain whirled in an instant, slashing wildly at the man behind him. The small man dropped beneath the cut, then swept his legs through the captain’s. The ComStar captain crashed to his back, raising his hands to defend himself, but the small man did not press his attack.

  Shaking his head, the smaller figure stood up, brushing dirt from his hands. “Slow, very slow,” he said, looking down at the captain and waving him forward. “Come on. Get up.”

  The captain scrambled to his feet and brandished the neural whip. In full control of his movements, he inched forward like a fencer. He kept the blade’s tip moving in small circles as he worked his way in. When he felt the gap had closed enough between himself and his target, he lunged.

  The small man sidestepped, then ducked under the recovery slash. As the captain retreated and fought to regain his balance, the small man swept in. He lashed out with a roundhouse kick that snapped the captain’s head back, blasting him to the ground.

  The shadowman shook his head. “Do it, Jaime. We don’t have that much time.”

  Wolf nodded and pulled a glove from his belt an
d onto his left hand. The captain regained his feet, but before he could set himself to attack, Wolf had closed with him. The captain slashed at him, but Wolf caught the blade’s forte in his left hand.

  “Insulation, friend, makes your fancy toy worthless,” Wolf said. Stiffening the fingers of his right hand, he stabbed them into the captain’s throat. The ComStar guard collapsed at Wolf’s feet.

  Yorinaga Kurita emerged from the brush and knelt beside his son. “Can you move?”

  Akira nodded painfully. “Hai, sosen. The stun-stick got me on the left side. What isn’t numb hurts pretty bad.”

  Wolf looked over at Yorinaga. “Can you get him back by yourself?”

  “Hai.”

  “Good. Morgan and I will clean up here. Kid, did you bring anything with you besides yourself?”

  Akira nodded as his father helped him to his feet. “Sword…” Yorinaga draped Akira’s left arm over his shoulder. “It’s back in the brush…in the other one.”

  Morgan Kell nodded. “We’ll bring it to you. But you better hurry. The next sweep is due in five minutes.”

  Yorinaga guided his son into the woods. The older man picked his path with great care to avoid low branches or jarring drops. As sensation slowly began to work its way back into Akira’s body, he became able to move more freely, and the journey went faster.

  “Father…”

  Yorinaga, his face hidden in shadow, shook his head. “Save your breath.”

  Akira grabbed his father’s shoulder. “How did you know where to find me?”

  “Your map. You left it on your bed.” Yorinaga glanced back over his shoulder. “Wolf and Kell saw me on the way here—how, I do not know—and offered to help search for you.”

  Akira managed a weak smile. Thank the Dragon, that for once, a mistake did not prove fatal. Then he remembered the nightmare of the ComStar ’Mech legions, and it made him stumble.

  Yorinaga caught his son before he could hit the ground. “Akira,” he whispered hoarsely. “What is it?”

  “Down there, I got a look beneath ComStar’s façade.” He shook his head slowly, remembering what he had seen and for the first time realizing how much it had struck fear in him. “The Word of Blake is bound with steel…”

  Chapter 31

  COMSTAR FIRST CIRCUIT COMPOUND

  HILTON HEAD ISLAND

  NORTH AMERICA, TERRA

  19 AUGUST 3028

  Primus Julian Tiepolo stared at the three unwavering images holographically suspended in the center of his private audience chamber. How can this be happening? He shifted his gaze from the projection of the corpses to the room’s only other occupant. “Yes, Jarlath. I do find this most disturbing. How were they killed?”

  The ROM chief pointed to the top picture. “Bruises on his body indicate he was kicked and punched in the front of the body. Then, as you can see from the narrow incision in his chest, a blade of indeterminate length was shoved through his chest.” Jarlath licked his lips. “We found the spot where he died. The blade had penetrated the ground to a depth of fifteen centimeters.”

  Jarlath indicated the second body. “His neck was broken. Whoever killed him is enormously strong, and I would suppose, very quick.”

  Tiepolo closed his eyes and massaged his temples to forestall a headache. There were hundreds among the wedding guests who could fit that description… “And the third?”

  Jarlath swallowed hard. “The captain actually drowned, Primus. A blow to his throat fractured his hyoid bone and crushed his windpipe, but it did not kill him instantly. When his assailants tossed him and the other two into the ocean, he drowned. We know this because we found salt water in his lungs, which was not true of the others. His assailant must have been very quick because the captain’s neural whip was still fastened to his wrist by a martingale.”

  The Primus shook his head. “The same man did not kill all three?”

  Jarlath shook his head. “From footprints at the scene, we estimate that there were at least two attackers, and quite possibly four to six more. From the angle of the bone break in the case of the captain, we know his attacker was shorter than him.”

  Tiepolo waved his left hand at the pictures. “Images off.” At his command, the pictures dissolved. “This disturbs me, Jarlath. Why was no alarm raised? Why weren’t more ROM agents there to capture these individuals?”

  Jarlath cleared his voice. “Primus, our ROM agents have been trained to operate as individuals because so many of their missions demand that they work alone. As you are aware, we recruit them from among some of the most notorious sociopaths in the known universe precisely because they do not quibble at possible violence and because few would be missed if they fail. We also encourage competition among them. I assume that this patrol did not call for help because they felt they could handle the situation.”

  Anger contorted the Primus’s face. “They clearly did not handle it.”

  Jarlath shook his head. “I would beg to differ with you, Primus. Though you accurately note we lost three people, we can detect no sign of a security breach. The vent grating was welded shut. In addition, I hasten to point out the information any uninvited visitor to our facility would bring out would certainly have caused quite a stir and a commotion by now.”

  The Primus exhaled slowly. Could we have been that fortunate? “Your point has merit.” He narrowed his eyes. “You do realize, of course, that if any word of this gets out, you will be removed.” I don’t need Precentor Dieron in an uproar about this, too.

  The ROM chief nodded courteously. “Our patrol found the bodies before dawn. We are reasonably certain that they had been in the water for under ten hours, so we assume that the only people outside ComStar who know of the murders are the culprits themselves.”

  A dull ache pulsed up from the Primus’s neck into his brain. “Very well, keep this quiet. Report on it only to me.”

  Jarlath bowed. “As you direct, Primus.”

  Tiepolo ground his teeth. “And double security, Jarlath. With the Blessed Blake as my witness, I will have no more incidents like this to ruin the culmination of our plans…”

  Chapter 32

  COMSTAR FIRST CIRCUIT COMPOUND

  HILTON HEAD ISLAND

  NORTH AMERICA, TERRA

  19 AUGUST 3028

  Chu-sa Akira Brahe bowed his head as he broke into the small circle of people at the Archon’s reception. “Excuse me, please.”

  Riva’s face brightened immediately. “Hello, Akira.”

  Akira smiled, despite the scowl on the face of Riva’s brother. “Good evening, Miss Allard.” Akira looked over toward where Colonels Wolf and Kell stood with Daniel Allard and Ardan Sortek. “Colonel Wolf…Colonel Kell? Tai-sa Yorinaga Kurita has asked to speak with you out on the balcony.”

  Dan Allard stiffened, but Morgan nodded easily. “Lead the way, Chu-sa.” He handed Dan his mug of stout. “Watch this for me, please, Dan. Everything’s fine.”

  Akira bowed his head again. “Please forgive my rudeness.” He smiled at Ardan and the two Allards. “I will return them very soon.”

  The look on Riva’s face told him he’d be welcome. He winked at her, then escorted the two mercenary leaders back through a glass doorway to the darkened balcony. He closed the door behind them, then looked toward the man gazing out at the ocean. His father looked so tired…

  Yorinaga Kurita turned slowly from the railing. His face an impassive mask, he executed a deep, respectful bow. Moonlight washed his black silk kimono with silver highlights and the ocean breeze tugged at the ends of the sash, but somehow Yorinaga seemed beyond the effects of nature.

  Akira watched with his heart in his throat. The honor he shows them is unnatural—as unnatural as their helping an enemy save his son.

  The mercenaries imitated Yorinaga’s gesture with equal care and precision. As all three men straightened up, no one smiled, but Akira felt that in that instant, the three men shared a unity and sense of well being.

  Yorinaga chose his words c
arefully. “I am indebted to you for Chu-sa Brahe’s life. His loss would have been a great blow.”

  Jaime Wolf nodded slowly. “You honored us by accepting our help.”

  Yorinaga received Wolf’s remark with a graceful nod. “Do you know what he found in ComStar’s heart?”

  “We did not have time to explore ourselves, but we have an idea,” said Morgan Kell. “One of the guards had a tattoo on his forehead that marked him as a former member of a band of Periphery pirates. Hiring a man like him means ComStar has something it desperately wants to hide.”

  Wolf smiled cynically. “Such as a storehouse of lostech.”

  Yorinaga invited Akira forward with a nod. “Tell them.”

  Akira looked apprehensively at the two mercenaries. These words should be for the Dragon’s ears only, but my Father is right. These men have earned the right to hear. As he began to speak, his voice betrayed a slight nervous tremor. “Down inside the ComStar facility, I saw a warehouse of BattleMechs. From what little I could make out, all appeared to be in perfect condition. I saw no indication that they’d ever seen combat.”

  Something cold and dreadful flashed through Wolf’s gray eyes. “Think back. Did you see any ’Mechs of the Hatchetman design?”

  Akira chewed his lower lip and closed his eyes. He summoned back the picture of all those many ’Mechs and searched through it for the unique model Wolf had inquired about. Opening his eyes, Akira shook his head. “I do not recall seeing that model, but I believe I understand the purpose of your inquiry. All the ’Mechs I saw seemed, from external appearances, to have been built along the lines of Star League originals.”

  Wolf’s frown revealed his distrust of Akira’s analysis, but the younger MechWarrior held his right hand up to forestall any comment. “Colonel, I know I do not have your vast experience, but I learned to pilot a ’Mech in the Alshain factory. Engineers used to regale us with stories about the original designs for the ’Mechs they worked on. It’s true that their purpose was to show how their work had improved on the original design, but they taught me enough to make this report with certainty.”