Fortress Republic, page 7
part #18 of BattleTech : Mechwarrior Dark Age Series
Like wolves on a wounded bear, Erik’s battle armor shifted their fire against the Hasek.
It bought them time.
Just long enough for Bravo and Charlie lances to break over the hills to the east and west, charging in at the Capellan flank in a classic pincer. A Packhunter led Erik’s eastern force, bringing in a Fulcrum heavy hover tank and two tracked Jousts. The western charge had less mobility but more raw firepower. Two JES strategic missile carriers and a Behemoth II assault tank closed the trap, parking themselves on a low ridgeline.
The Behemoth by itself could match both Haseks for particle cannons. The Jessies spread out an umbrella of eight score warheads, raining down a barrage of fire and destruction few combat vehicles could withstand.
One Demon overturned as half a hundred warheads pummeled its right side, blowing two wheels off their axles and caving in the crew compartment. Even more warheads fell over the crippled Hasek. Blossoms of fire ripped open the armor from front to rear, scraping away every last ounce of protection.
Erik divided his own fire, slashing another ruby blade across the Griffin’s chest and digging at the wounded Hasek with his autocannon.
The Hasek hadn’t enough life left to give. Erik’s autocannon slugs found the vehicle’s ammunition magazine. A side panel blew outward on a gout of fire and debris, rocking the tank up onto its side and then over in a slow, fiery death roll. The Capellans had just lost one of their hardest-hitting weapons. And if there had been armored infantry inside the carrier, they were dead now as well.
Poorly disciplined troops would never have stood up under such an assault. Erik would expect true irregulars—thrown into an impossible situation and faced with crippling losses—to break in a rout.
But not these. The Griffin staggered back under the blistering assault, but did not fall. The Hasek threw itself into reverse, crawling away slowly, slowly, but always keeping its best armor forward until it gained the cover of tall woods. The other vehicles—and now some infantry breaking cover as well—retreated in good order.
They fell back on the Griffin’s position. Rallying. Making it clear that any attempt to rush forward would be met with a strong defense.
Certainly they convinced Erik, who honored the retreat. He’d been able to pull his other two lances in, leveraging maximum force. But there were other Capellan troops out there in the Jurai Hills. It wouldn’t do to charge forward now and risk the day’s victory. One mechanized combat vehicle destroyed. The Schmitt and possibly a Demon medium tank salvageable. He’d take the trade against two crippled Scimitars, which were his worst losses for the day. Definitely a net positive result.
But he still knew less about the invading forces than he’d like. All he’d managed today was to find another question. Which meant operating in the dark, or going deeper into debt with his newfound sources for information.
Had there ever been a choice?
7
Al Na’ir has fallen! Al Na’ir has fallen! And the Combine sweeps forward! How does The Republic justify such large resources spent over the last year to defend against House Liao, while House Kurita marches on against a threadbare defense?
—Commentator Jackie Jones, News Bulletin, Saffel, 26 June 3135
Lausanne, Terra
Republic of the Sphere
27 June 3135
The gravel path turned up and around a tight corner, leading Yori Kurita and Kisho out of the secluded shade garden, back into Lausanne’s bright morning sunlight.
A hidden gem, this garden; one among many on their walk so far. She nearly stopped, thinking to enjoy the secluded glade—this one moment—without the crunch of gravel underfoot. Tall, fragrant foxglove bloomed in a wide array of velvet colors over red, white, and blue columbine. Stargazer lilies and ballerina roses nestled among shoots of fern and bushy, pale hostas.
A western garden. Grown in a chaos of fragrant perfumes and a riot of color. So unlike the much simpler, more orderly zen gardens she had enjoyed on the preserve above Ishinomaki Port. The gardens there had spoken of home, of the Draconis Combine, and lent themselves so easily to quiet contemplation. Here, the lush growth inspired one towards passion. And indulgence.
Glancing back, however, she saw how the path had turned down from an earlier view alongside Ouchy’s marina. Twisted in along the shallow hillside, it deliberately took advantage of the low light. It reminded her of the twists and turns within her own life, and how even a moment’s indulgence often had far-reaching effects.
A luxury she could hardly afford, as a samurai.
As Warlord Toranaga was often glad to remind her.
“It is allowed, you know.”
Kisho did not turn to look at her. Did not directly intrude upon her wa. The Nova Cat mystic might have been talking aloud to himself, for that matter. Yes, it would be easy enough to let it go at that, without any loss of face.
“What is allowed?” Yori asked, bending to the barest forms of courtesy. She plucked at the wide sleeve of her silk kimono, brushed flat where serpentine dragons coiled around her right arm. Showing disinterest. Allowing Kisho to continue the conversation, or decline. Again, without shame for either of them.
He looked over, his gray eyes the color of storm clouds. “To stop and smell the flowers along the path.” His mouth showed the ghost of a smile at one upturned corner. The closest thing she had seen to a smile.
Trapped. “This is what passes for mysticism in Clan Nova Cat these days? Proverbs old enough to have traveled from Terra itself?” She brushed her thick fall of dark hair back over her shoulders, enjoying the cool morning air against her throat. “You may be in need of more training, Kishosan.”
He shrugged. Nodded. “Which is what Oathmaster Kanaye said when he sent me along as part of the Coordinator’s retinue. I am to be a student of the world on this journey. And you, Kurita Yori-san, are one of my many teachers.”
Glancing over sharply, she searched for sarcasm amid his dry wit. Kisho certainly was not what she had expected in a mystic. A man who did not truly believe in his own supposed gift. Who doubted more than she did, in fact. Still, there was a vulnerability just beneath the surface. The kind that only appeared between friends—or at least between two people on the path towards becoming friends.
Yori settled her gaze on the path ahead. “I am no teacher,” she said.
“We are all teachers.” His whisper was too soft. Not necessarily meant for her.
She let it go.
Following the gravel path up and around, they broke from the tree-shaded walk out into an open park of grassy lawn and low-lying shrubs that sloped right down to the water’s edge of Lake Geneva. Now Yori Kurita did stop. The scene was breathtaking. The warm sun soaked through her kimono’s thin silk. A quaint marina peeked around a spit of tree-shaded land on their left—all they could see of Lausanne’s Ouchy resort. Deep blue waters of the lake lay sun-dappled and still. And mountains. High, snow-capped peaks that framed the lake on all sides.
Her samurai heritage nearly demanded that she create a haiku.
But the moment was stolen from her as Kisho nodded to one side. “He is there.”
She followed his gaze back away from the lake and the postcard-perfect view. An area of lawn closed in roses and a decorative marble wall. Circular, like an arena. Inside, a man in close-fitting exercise clothing spun and whirled and struck out at the air with fists and feet in a shadow-sparring workout. A long one, given the way his brown outfit was soaked dark with sweat and his long, golden hair lay matted against the back of his neck. But little exhaustion showed yet as he spun and threw himself into a new series of violent strikes and kicks, bounding forward like a savage animal fighting for his life.
There was little grace in the flow of one move into the next—none of the “art” Yori knew from her own extensive training. More of an explosion of martial prowess. And it suited him.
Star Captain Alaric Wolf.
He saw them approach in the next moment, and stopped. Cold. Like a thrown switch, he simply turned it off in the same way Yori might choose to stop walking. But to go from such a high-energy state to placid calm—she admired the level of control that required.
“Konnichi-wa, Alaric-san.” Yori paused near the edge of the grassy arena. Bowed politely. “We did not mean to interrupt your exercise.”
The Clan Wolf warrior watched them carefully, always studying. His blue eyes never blinked enough, to the point your own eyes started to water in sympathy. Young—no more than twenty-two or twenty-three by the reports Yori had been allowed to read—he carried himself as a man more advanced in his years. Heavy scar tissue marred his knuckles, and twisted in a braided rope along his right forearm. A deep, crescent-shaped scar puckered the corner of his left eye as well. The result of a hard life growing up in a Clan sibko, Yori guessed.
Alaric nodded curtly, not quite a bow, but did not otherwise complain of the interruption. “Comrades in arms can always make time for each other,” he finally said.
She felt a small measure of relief at hearing it, too. A strong part of Yori Kurita had argued against coming to Lausanne, to say her farewells to this man. Aloof to the point of being cold, Alaric was not easy to understand. There were no strong ties between them. No history. Only a training battle fought for honor, in which Yori had faced off against Julian Davion. Kisho and Alaric had fought by her side. And even if it was a simulation only, honor demanded she extend the courtesy to her temporary ally.
“I saw your name on the report for those leaving Terra this week.” Yori nodded to Kisho. “We thought to say good-bye. And to thank you for your assistance in the reenactment of the War of 3039. You handled yourself with great skill and bearing.”
The Star captain smiled, baring his teeth. “Someone needed to show that Lyran how to fight.”
Meaning Jasek Kelswa-Steiner. As Yori and Kisho charged the Davion line, Alaric had sidelined himself with the commander of the Stormhammers, chewing up Jasek’s small command with savage ferocity.
Kisho tugged at his dark uniform jacket. He had not dressed well for the day’s weather, and it had to be warm. “I hear Jasek is actually a very good MechWarrior,” he said. “Fought the Jade Falcons on Skye.”
“And lost,” Alaric reminded him. “Skye is in the talons of the Falcons now.”
Yori nodded. “You are well-informed.” Especially for a man who only recently tested out as a warrior.
“I am a Star captain of Clan Wolf.” He turned away. “It is not hard to learn what I wish to know.”
Perhaps. But there was more that Alaric was not saying. Of that, Yori felt certain.
She and Kisho followed Alaric into his arena, towards the small pack he had thrown at the base of a rose bush full of blood red blooms. He dug inside and came out with a folded terrycloth towel. Rubbed himself down. The scent of his sweat competed briefly with the nearby roses, but lost as a light breeze strolled through the park and stirred the fragrant blooms.
“You chose a picturesque dojo,” she said. Reaching for a compliment. “The distraction must be good for your wa. Your inner harmony.”
Alaric glanced around, as if noticing the lake and the mountains for the first time. He stared back at her quizzically. “I have not thought much about them. I chose this area to work on ignoring such distractions.”
An awkward moment enfolded the trio. “Your form?” Kisho then asked. “I did not recognize it at once. Kenpo?”
“Dragon style.” Alaric looked sidelong at Yori. “No offense.”
But said in such a manner as to imply insult to the name of Kurita, House of the Dragon. Or skirt it, at any measure. Yori hesitated, unsure of whether or not to take personal insult, and decided that she had no right. As Warlord Toranaga was always quick to point out, her personal honor would always be suspect. And to put it before diplomacy here, with the two of them representing different Inner Sphere powers as well as themselves, would not be prudent.
“None taken,” she said. Teeth clenched.
Alaric hesitated, then admitted, “I also glanced at the reports coming out of Genève. Coordinator Vincent Kurita left Terra over a week ago. Why are you still here?”
Careful. “Not all from the Coordinator’s retinue followed him back to the Combine. A small group stayed behind, to continue working with the exarch and his aides. To seek a diplomatic solution to the violence in Prefecture II.”
“Understandably,” Kisho said, “having Warlord Sakamoto striking deep into The Republic does not bode well for future relations.” He stared into the nearby rose bush, eyes losing focus.
Slicking his long, sweat-damp hair straight back, Alaric wrapped the towel behind his neck. “And The Republic has been painting Katana Tormark and her Dragon’s Fury faction with Kurita colors as well.” He understood the problem well enough. “They believe she is a cat’s paw, meant to incite the recent violence.”
“The Coordinator would never sanction such a strategy,” Yori said, defending Vincent Kurita by reflex.
Alaric showed his teeth in another predator’s smile. “I would have.”
“One cannot paint a Republic faction and forces from within the Draconis Combine with the same colors.”
“Though if it is to be done,” Kisho said, not addressing anyone in particular, “it may well be Yori’s hand on the brush.”
It wasn’t the first time a strange comment by Kisho had brought conversation to an awkward halt. Alaric glanced sharply between Kisho and Yori, while she waited to see what the Nova Cat mystic might make of his own strange words.
As usual, not a great deal.
“Sumimassen, Kurita Yori-san. I did not mean to be so forward as to imply you would ever work against the Coordinator’s wishes. Merely that . . . Soon you will be the only ranking samurai left in The Republic. If something is to happen, anything, it will be, of course, by your design.”
Yori wasn’t so certain. Warlord Toranaga had left her behind for a reason. Isolating her from her nation, her peers. Kisho and Alaric and Callandre Kell were no substitute for the company of like-minded samurai. Even if they were like-minded only in their distrust of Yori’s blood lineage.
“Kisho leaves as well,” Yori explained to Alaric. “End of the week. Regardless of the progress of any talks, he returns to the Combine.”
“And you? What happens to you?” Alaric asked.
She did not know. But her entire life she had lived with such uncertainty. What was an extra week, or a month, spent alone? If nothing else, she gained time to learn more of the Combine’s potential allies, and enemies. Like Alaric Wolf. Like Julian Davion.
“It shall be as fate, or the Coordinator, wills,” she finally said.
Or, Warlord Toranaga.
8
It has been weeks since the last heavy push, with violence flaring only in isolated battles on New Aragon, Hunan, and Pleione. There is little doubt that Liao is mustering its strength, but to where and for what purpose? When the Capellan Confederation decides to lash out again, what worlds will feel the bite of its bright blade?
—Jackie Blitzer, Freelance Journalist, an editorial replayed on Genoa’s “O’Hennesy Factor,” originally posted at blitzer//battlecorps.org//on 22 June 3135
Genève, Terra
Republic of the Sphere
4 July 3135
High up in Genève’s Hall of Government Julian Davion waited in the company of Héloïse Montgolfier, Exarch Levin’s chief of staff and all-around majordomo. The two of them stood quietly off to one side in a large executive office, the room warmed by pale yellow wallpaper and tight-knit carpeting of burnt gold and staffed with half a dozen executive secretaries, all of them busy confirming schedules or maintaining records or researching questions brought to them by the exarch himself. A beehive of constructive activity.
Julian approved.
There was little in the way of casual conversations, he noticed. Little of the usual office environment chitchat. When necessary, questions flew back and forth with sniper-shot accuracy, most of them directed at one silver-haired woman who looked to be in her late nineties; old enough, apparently, to have read—and remembered!—most every detail about The Republic from its formation to modern hairstyles and music.
“Ms. Lane, the gift received by the exarch at last week’s meeting with the ambassador from Tall Trees?” This from an older man with a wireless headset tucked into his ear, his hand curled around the microphone tab to prevent being overheard.
Ms. Lane barely slowed her rapid-fire input into the desk’s built-in keyboard. “Silver statuette of the plains lion, currently on the endangered species list for Tall Trees.” Now she did stop and look up. “Do you need the inscription, Michael?” She sounded like a mother offering her child a cookie.
Michael shook his head without looking back, already returned to his own conversation.
“With her around,” Julian asked, “why do you need a research staff?”
“Ms. Lane is impressive,” Héloïse agreed, sitting back casually against the edge of an empty desk. Perfectly at home.
To Julian, from the half dozen or so times he’d met with her, Héloïse Montgolfier appeared most relaxed when surrounded by purposeful activity. Empty rooms and quiet moments—these were the things that worried her. Somewhat strange, but likely a useful trait in a woman who worked in such close proximity to the exarch. With her around, nothing seemed left to chance.
She even dressed politically; in a subtle, charcoal gray dress suit and sensible shoes. The only splash of color came from the golden scarf she wore knotted about her neck. Gold with red sunbursts, he’d noticed. Very similar to the House Davion crest. To make him feel more at ease, no doubt. She wore her red hair bobbed conservatively at her ears, and simple, tasteful, golden studs for earrings. No other jewelry except for an engagement ring.
