Dragon Rising

by Ilsa J. Bick

  When several planets are left to fend for themselves, becoming pawns in a deadly game of territorial sovereignty, Katana Tormark, a warlord of Dieron, must join forces with the Combine's coordinator to gain control of these worlds and reestablish the historic Dieron Military district.

  Dragon Rising

  Dazed, every fiber in her body shrieking with pain and exhaustion, she lurched down the alley, Lance bearing the brunt of her weight. “Leave me behind!” she gasped. Each time she came down on that right leg, pain knifed her bones. She felt sick. “I’m slowing you down!”

  “Shut up,” Lance grunted. Sweat gleamed on his face and neck. “If we can get out of this alley . . .” He stiffened. “Oh, shit.”

  Viki followed his gaze. A car—black, tinted windows—skidded to a screeching stop in the mouth of the alley. All four doors popped open. She looked frantically right, left—and there! “Service door, left, left!”

  Lance kicked once, twice. The door popped. The service corridor was dark and narrow; to their right was a door that led down to a basement. Lance fried the lock and kicked the door as a diversion before taking off down the hall, hauling a limping Viki.

  Not going to make it. Any second, she expected a bullet to slam into her back or a laser to burn a hole into her spine. Then, just as they reached the connecting door to the lobby, Viki caught movement out of the corner of her left eye. Before she could shout a warning, their attacker launched a fierce turn-kick that hammered Lance’s chest. Off balance, Lance reeled as their attacker followed with a crescent kick to Lance’s face. The blow connected with a crackling sound like smashing eggshells. Blood spurted from Lance’s nose, and he caromed off of Viki. They tumbled to the floor.

  Viki came down on her right hip. She screamed, and her pistol spun away. Frantic, fighting against a sudden swell of vertigo, she fumbled for the gun—too late.

  Their attacker scooped up the pistol and jammed the weapon so close to her face that Viki smelled burnt metal and spent powder. Her eyes clicked from barrel to hand to face—and then she froze as both she and her assailant gasped.

  “Tai-shu?” Viki whispered. Then: “Katana?”

  DRAGON RISING

  A BATTLETECH NOVEL

  Ilsa J. Bick

  ROC

  Published by New American Library, a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, USA

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  Penguin Books Ltd, Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

  First published by Roc, an imprint of New American Library, a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

  First Printing, February 2007

  Copyright © WizKids, Inc., 2007

  eISBN : 978-1-429-56581-3

  All rights reserved

  REGISTERED TRADEMARK—MARCA REGISTRADA

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  PUBLISHER’S NOTE

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

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  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  Writing a book, like raising a child, takes a village.

  In mine, I am privileged to have the most supportive of editors in Sharon Turner Mulvihill, who blends intuitive insight with good, old-fashioned book sense and a continued willingness to push at the margins. For all her faith, great good humor and diligence, I am supremely grateful.

  My deepest thanks also go to:

  Kelly Bonilla, for answering more than one panicky e-mail about design specs;

  Øystein Tvedten, for always managing to turn over rocks to find answers;

  Randall Bills, for combing out all those nits and patiently replying to every inane question;

  Ben Rome, who not only suffered through my Starbucks withdrawals but was instrumental in hashing out historical particulars for some of the major characters—and who, after a mind-numbing marathon game at GenCon, also coined the following definition for “pulling an Ilsa” and thus ensured my place in GenCon apocrypha:

  ilsa (il-SA) v 1: to consistently roll one under the minimum required to-hit number, followed by selective curse words 2: to curse every die touched with poor rolls [countered by a phaedra]; i.e., “To pull an ilsa.” Ex: The Cygnus ilsaed every attack against the Jupiter, allowing the enemy forces to approach unmolested.

  For David, the wind beneath my wings

  PROLOGUE

  Aji: Future Play

  Armitage, Ancha

  Dieron Military District, Draconis Combine

  15 March 3136

  Brilliant. Just absobloodylutely brilliant. Not so bad when the johnny laughed and called her a fat black slag. Her fault, not getting the bling up front. No, what was bad was when he up and bashed her nose.

  Sweetie Pie struggled out of the Loading Dock Bar on a balloon of moist air that reeked of cigarette smoke, rancid beer and second-shift dockworkers stewed in grime and oily sweat. The wind snatched the door, clapping it shut with a boom. Bone-numbing blades of cold wind cut tears from her eyes, and her ruined nose and split lower lip throbbed to life. Shivering, she huddled in a pool of watery yellow light, her chocolate-brown skin washed to the color of muddy piss.

  Got to get home. Clean up. Do a pinch of dust, buoy the spirits.

  Sweetie Pie set off, wobbling, against the wind. Her stiletto heels ticked and cracked against the icy ferrocrete. She had to think what to do. She couldn’t pretend there hadn’t been no war what trashed the economy and let loose a flood of refugees besides, Armitage being about the only city the Dracs ain’t reduced to rubble. Maybe Halstead Station. Jobs there, with Katana Tormark moving her command kit ’n caboodle to the planet. Chances of getting off the game was better there and . . .

  Something—a premonition, maybe, a tickle at the back of her brain—spiked her awareness like a nail. Her eyes flicked left, darted right, and then she spied them: two bulky silhouettes in the semidark of a warehouse doorway.

  Oh, sweet buggery Christ. Her chest squeezed with apprehension. She stopped dead under a streetlamp. Planted her feet wide to
get her balance, wished she wasn’t in heels because she couldn’t run. Hoped the light would save her. Worried it wouldn’t.

  The men sauntered forward, the darkness peeling away. One was much bluffer and very tall, with broad shoulders and hands wide as shovels. Both wore identical black pea-coats and gray, grease-stained mechanics trousers. As they got close, the shorter one called, “Got a little time, Pie?”

  A little of the tension bled from her shoulders. “Oi, Bill, is that you?”

  “The very article,” Bill said. A black watch cap clamped his scalp, and his rough features were ruddy with cold. He squinted. “Darlin’, happened to your mug?”

  “Client. Whacked me, said I weren’t worth the price. So I’m knackered. Walking back to me flophouse for a cuppa and a kip.”

  “That so?” Bill’s smile bared the smeary orange teeth of a duster. Quick as a whip, he snagged her right forearm and reeled her in. “What say we get nice and comfy right ’ere? What ya say, darlin’?”

  Up close, his breath stank of curdled milk and sickly sweet, day-old dust. “Oi, now, Bill,” she said, fighting to keep the quaver out of her voice. “Ain’t nothing you wants I can’t do you, but I’m all banged up, and—”

  She gave a short scream as the men moved in fast, so fast she didn’t have time to react. Bill had her by the arms, and then the tall one was behind, clapping a horny palm over her mouth and ruined nose. Through a starburst of pain, she bucked as his arm snaked round her neck and squeezed. Panicked, her lungs burning, she writhed, twisting, the blood pounding in her ears, her temples.

  Then, somehow, she was on the ground. Cold palmed her back. Bill’s hands fumbled beneath her skirt, his fingers tearing at her waist, her thighs. The tall one loomed; his right hand squeezed her throat, his left pinned her wrists above her head, and she couldn’t breathe, no air. She hurt, please sweet Jesus, she couldn’t . . .

  “Hey!” A man’s voice. An arc of bright light scything the darkness. “HEY!”

  “Wuh?” Bill froze, a thin, silvery rope of drool trembling from his lower lip. Then he was reeling back, his eyes wide. “Christ, what . . . ?”

  Suddenly, the vise round her neck was gone. Her hands were free, and she reeled in air on a wheezy shriek. The cold air hacked her throat. Dimly, she heard shouts, the heavy thud of men’s boots on ferrocrete, and then a singing whine. Pushing up, she braced herself on wobbly arms. Her mouth tasted brackish, like wet metal, and she spat a foamy gob of bloody saliva.

  Then, a light played over her body. She winced, put up a hand to shield her eyes from the glare.

  “You all right?” The policeman hooked a hand round her right bicep as she swayed to her feet. He had no mittens, and his fingers were very cold.

  “I’m all right,” she lied, just wanting to get away. “Ain’t-cha going after them?”

  “They’re tagged. Let’s take care of you first,” the policeman said. His light swept her neck from side to side—and then something in his voice changed. “Nasty bruises, though they don’t show well with your coloring.”

  His tone sent prickles down the back of her neck. Smug, like he could do it better.

  “It’s all right,” she said, a little desperate now. “Just need a good bath, a coupla painkillers and I’ll be right as rain.”

  He was silent. Her heart hammered her ribs. Let me go, just let me go, please let me . . .

  “Well,” he said, finally, “if you’re sure. I’ll give you a lift.”

  It was only then that she realized he’d never released his hold, and there was something, well, off. With his hand. There was just enough light to see it. Her gaze dropped, and, then, she inhaled, short, sharp, horrified, the ball of a scream stuck in her throat—because his hand, what she saw . . .

  His hand was as white as the belly of a dead eel. His skin wrinkled, like the folds of a latex glove several sizes too large. As if his skin had drifted from its moorings of tendon and muscle.

  As if his skin was dead.

  PART ONE

  Fuseki: Let the Games Begin

  1

  Aomori Mountains, Dieron

  Former Prefecture II, Republic of the Sphere

  13 June 3136

  Okay, so call her pissy, but when the chance came to kick some serious butt, Katana jumped at it. Who wouldn’t? Brand-spanking-new Hitotsune Kozo, grab the solid weight of that joystick, and get down and dirty dealing out some fine, old-fashioned destruction and mayhem. What, she’s gonna say: Gosh, no, let’s have lunch?

  Only things weren’t turning out so well.

  High in her Hitotsune Kozo’s cockpit, Katana labored up the western wall of a canyon over the equivalent of a moonscape pocked with blast craters and studded with mounds of debris and jumbled trees hacked to kindling. Immediately to her north, a tremendous river thundered in an immense cataract. Three hundred meters below, fast-moving, silver-blue water battered massive boulders with a deep boom, like the roar of autocannons.

  Clots of dense black smoke boiled from a phalanx of wildfires all along her western flank. Some of the fires had been ignited by enemy weapons, but most, like the evergreens, had been set deliberately. A damn good tactic: The fires made hash of her sensors and the soot-choked smoke smeared fingers of thick grime over her canopy.

  She’d been maneuvering through foothills and mountains for several hours, and although her own legs didn’t feel the strain, her ’Mech’s temp was inching up, like a hiker working her way to heatstroke. She’d taken hits these past few days, too many too close for comfort on her torso. Enough to shred two-thirds of her armor, most of it dead center over her munitions store, right where it counted most.

  A man’s voice, deep and weary, on her comm: “Anything?”>

  “Nope. Where are you, Theodore?”

  “Your four o’clock, other side of the canyon,” Theodore said. Katana pivoted and then spied a soot-smeared naginata blade on its long distal tang ripping a seam in an inky curtain of smoke. Sun glare reflected by the titanium blade winked in fitful bursts, like the frantic semaphore of a ship in distress. A second later, the V-shaped hulk of Theodore Kurita’s Shiro hove into view on a lip of rock along a scalloped ridge. The sun bounced twinkling stars off the glittery gold and rich oxblood accents of his ’Mech’s kabuto, with its modified fukigayeshi wings, and do scarred gray and blackened by ash. The Shiro’s armor was scored from missile hits, a ragged gash jagging down the ’Mech’s left thigh, exposing bundles of myomer—as if a drunken surgeon had slashed through skin and flayed muscle with a blunt scalpel. Another slash, lumpier at the margins, had chewed away armor perilously close to one of the Shiro’s three right-torso missile stores. The Shiro raised in a salute the naginata blade wedded to its left fist.

  “Gotcha,” Katana said. She rested the Kozo’s left leg on a rocky shelf some hundred and twenty meters above the canyon floor. “Careful. That eastern ridge is kind of rotten, and the wall’s steeper.”

  “You’re not exactly in the most defensible position. All it’ll take are a couple good punches, and you’ll get knocked right off that slope.”

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. She backhanded sweat from her neck. When she shifted, her couch made a wet sucking sound. “I figure a traverse is better than a head-on climb. Otherwise, my autocannon’ll be punching rock. What’s your status?”

  “How many different kinds of bad are there?” Then, without waiting for her reply: “Look, this is between you and me, okay? No one else on this channel, so just listen.”

  “Listen to what?” Of course, she knew what he’d say because she knew Theodore. Their friendship had been forged in battle, and a long JumpShip trip home.

  “Katana, my weapons’ status has gone from bad to the other side of crappy. I’m out of autocannon. I’ve got two racks of LRMs left. I know you want to win—”

  “It’s not just about winning.”

  “Bull. This is about you being the new kid on the block. I’m on your side, remember? You know I won’t interfere, not when the Combine�
�s watching. But a good commander listens. She’s flexible. Now, it’s just plain suicidal for us to be out front here, with no reinforcements, and I don’t like this canyon. We should withdraw.”

  “No,” Katana said. Oh, don’t be an ass. He’s right, and you know he’s right. “This is our last chance to take him. It’s my op.”

  “I know. That’s what I said.” More silence. Katana could picture Theodore in his command couch: his tanned leathery features creased with sweat, his lips thinned to a crack above his square chin and those frosty Kurita-blue eyes set with determination . . .

  But there was something . . . wrong. Theodore’s reflexes were slower, his Shiro’s gait more herky-jerky. Yesterday, he’d made a misstep, coming down hard on his left leg before compensating with his right in a wildly exaggerated arc. And then his ’Mech froze. Right leg rigid and locked at the knee. Just for a few seconds, but she saw it.

  A sudden revelation: So maybe this is also about him saving face, not exposing weakness.

  She had to respect that. He was heir, after all. She exhaled. “Okay, we’re gone. I’ll just . . .”

  She broke off as alarms screamed. Her eyes snapped to her HUD winking to a fiery red. Incoming, but not targeting her! Targeting . . .

  “Theodore!” she screamed. “Look out!”

  Roiling emerald fire punched the Shiro so hard Theodore swayed, reeled and nearly toppled.

  “Theodore!” Katana jerked left, tracked the source and . . . there! A Zeus, high above, blasting through curtains of black smoke like a demon released from the maw of Hell.

  But I’m the one he wants! Got to get Theodore out of here before . . .

  “Theodore, back off!” Katana shouted, already pivoting left, leaning into the mountain, bringing her pulse lasers to bear. But her aim was awkward, her angle hampered by the mountain, and her shots blasted wide. Throttling up, she banged her ’Mech forward, punishing the rock, desperately wishing she had the claws of a Shockwave so she could grab hold and haul ass to the top. Her right leg jack-hammered the rock, but then she felt the shifting of rock and scree, and she slipped. Gasping, she threw her body left, a motion that translated to a swooping arc that only shoved her ’Mech off its center of gravity. As she began to fall into the rock, instinct took over. She straightened her left arm, the impact shivering all the way into the cockpit. The arm groaned as seventy-five tons of endosteel drove her pulse lasers straight into the rock, and then her left arm jammed tight.