I present to you Part 10 of the Saotome Gambit, which should (finally)
conclude the Capra story arc. As always, C&C, both public and private
is appreciated.
-- Attached file included as plaintext by Listar --
-- File: TSG-10.txt
Kodachi Kuno was adrift in an unnatural darkness.
She paled in fear with the knowledge that somewhere in that darkness
was her brother. She could hear his voice, could hear his stern words of
reproach for her. She could almost feel the sting of his hand, though he
had not yet struck her. Intense pain knifed through her then; the anguish
of imminent and unavoidable suffering.
Her cooling vest burst suddenly around her waist, drenching her legs
not in icy water, but in her own hot blood.
As she looked down at her belly with a detached sense of horror, all
she could think about was; what had she done wrong this time?
She drifted on, streaming blood from her belly through the darkness
as images of their late mother filtered past. Kodachi had never known her
mother, though numerous photos, stereographs, and paintings of the Kuno
Matriarch existed in the palace. The face in the photos seemed kind and
patient, and Kodachi missed her terribly.
Tachi was closer now. His voice was loud and imperious in the void.
Kodachi knew that no matter what she did wrong, Tachi would always
hold her responsible for one crime: the death of their mother. When he
beat her for breaking a favorite toy, or defeating him in a game of skill
or chance, he was really punishing her for killing Mother.
Why was he so mean to her?
The blood that pulsed from her turned dark and lumpy with clots.
Where was father? He would protect her. In his arms - which always
smelled faintly of pineapples, the coconut oil of sunscreen, and fresh
surfboard wax - she would be safe from Tachi. He would play his ukelele
for her and sing songs by the great bards Don Ho and Willie K., and Tachi
would flee from them while clutching his ears in pain.
Where was father? Why wasn't he around anymore? Was he tired of
always protecting her?
Tachi's voice was even louder now, even closer. She cringed in
anticipation of his wrath, for she remembered why he was mad at her this
time. She had murdered Akane Tendo, and now Tachi was going to punish
her forever for killing both Mother and the Tendo girl.
This one time she had done something for which she was truly guilty.
Would that make the blows of his hand sting any more? She was afraid that
it would, and began to tremble at the sound of Tachi's approaching
footsteps. Her wound ached, and she could feel a white hot spear of pain
under her ribcage, making it hard for her to breathe.
He appeared before her, wooden bokken in hand, and a cold and wrathful
fire lit in his eyes. When she was old enough to defend herself against his
hands, he had switched to the bokken. On those rare days when Father was
home, Tachi would wrap it in a towel first so that it would not leave any
lingering bruises on her skin.
She tried to run, but she was backed into a corner now, with nowhere
to go. Tachi loomed over her, bokken poised to strike. He would hit her
high first, on the crown of her head usually, to make her double over in
pain so that he could continue unopposed against her thighs and buttocks,
where it would really hurt. Even if he didn't connect with her head the
first time, the threat of it was enough to make her do as he wished and
double over, arms cradled protectively around her head.
Fresh spurts of arterial blood began to flow as she waited with dread.
Before he could land the blow, a flash of red and black appeared
between them. She looked up through teary eyes to see Ranma Saotome
standing over her, his arms spread wide to protect her from Tachi's
bokken, his eyes flashing with contempt for her brother.
It was foolish of him, for Tachi would merely beat him senseless and
then cast him aside, but Ranma stayed firm, and Tachi stayed his hand.
Her brother demanded that he step away from her, but Ranma refused,
saying that he would rather die than see her hurt once more. Her heart
began to burst for this brave angel of mercy and kindness, and she begged
him not to sacrifice himself. He turned to her then, taking her hands in
his, and she looked up into his clear blue-grey eyes. In that moment she
lost her soul to him. In that moment her wound closed, and the pain was
gone.
Tachi sprang at them then, but Ranma stopped the bokken without turning
away from her eyes. He wrenched the horrid thing out of Tachi's hands, then
released her with a loving look and turned to face her now disarmed brother.
Tachi quailed in panic as Ranma came at him, lashing out with the
bokken. Full many a blow landed upon her brother in the places that had
hurt her so when the pain was hers to bear. Tachi did not bear his stripes
nearly as well, wailing, and flailing his arms like a child. Ranma gave him
a final blow to contemplate, then sent him on his miserable way with a kick
to the rear.
Ranma let the bokken fall from his hand. He turned to her, eyes huge
and bright with devotion, and she rose to him. His arms were strong, his
embrace warm. The musk of his exertions thrilled her, and she kissed him
passionately. He returned her kiss with boundless ardor, and for the first
time in her adult life, Kodachi felt loved.
"...BLOOD PRESSURE NINE-ZERO OVER FOUR-ZERO AND DROPPING..."
The clatter of surgical steel echoed in the cramped operating theater
of the Blue Thunder Regimental Mobile Army Surgical Hospital as the calm,
reassuring voice of the medical computer advised the attending physician
on the appropriate indications. The theater's real-time Functional-MRI
display glowed a soft blue in his safety visor.
The grisly wound channel carved through Kodachi's flesh by Kima's
bullet showed in false color on the display, stretching from a point just
above and to the right of her navel, to the brightly glowing lump of metal
lodged in the diaphragm, and disquietingly close to a weakly pulsing
artery. The dark fibrous blotches of internal bleeding were numerous and
widespread on the display.
"...PULSE RATE DROPPING...RESPIRATION RATE DROPPING..." the automated
alarm declared. "...ABNORMAL SINUS RHYTHM... BLOOD PRESSURE EIGHT-FIVE
OVER FOUR-ZERO...10CCs EPINEPHRINE INTRACARDIAL..."
"She's dropping out," the surgeon noted grimly. The nurse anticipated
his request for the loaded syringe that he would need. "Prepare the table
to flatten her for medevac spaceside."
"We're losing her!" his assistant cried. "There isn't time."
"We're not going to lose her," the surgeon barked. He was not going to
face the wrath of Prince Kuno for failing to save his sister's life. If
only the fools in her personal guard had surrendered sooner, he would have
had a better chance of it. She had lost a lot of blood, and he had very
little in the flavor she required on hand to replace it.
___________________________________________________________________________
J. Austin Wilde and Fission Park Press proudly present:
BATTLETECH: THE SAOTOME GAMBIT
PART TEN
by J. Austin Wilde
Safety Control Rod Axe Man,
Fission Park Press
wildeman@psn.net
http://www.psn.net/~wildeman/
The characters and situations of Ranma 1/2 are the
creation and property of Rumiko Takahashi and
Shogakukan/KITTY/Viz Video. Battletech and its
related materials are the property of FASA, inc.
No infringement of copyright is intended nor
should be inferred by this work of fanfiction.
___________________________________________________________________________
Chapter One
Rural East-West Highway 1
Twenty kilometers west of Capra City
Planet Capra, Capra System
the League of Five Nails
15 March 3025
The helicopters were arriving ahead of schedule, throbbing noisily in
the dry desert air as they approached from the southwest. Tatewaki noted
their approach, though he did not take his eyes from the wretched sorceror
Ranma Saotome and his churlish companions. How he ached to cut them down,
and end at last the charade of Akane Tendo's betrothal!
His heart was close to breaking at her rejection of him. Her promises
to marry were predicated solely upon the welfare of Ranma Saotome. Only his
unshakable belief that she was the victim of some arcane spellcraft had kept
him from a nervous collapse. Though he was a man of technology, he was also
a man of deep superstition - a sentiment fostered no doubt by his equally
superstitious father.
Part of him wanted to grasp Ranma Saotome by the throat and demand
that he release his hold upon Akane Tendo. He longed to entertain that
notion, but tempered it in the knowledge that Saotome's continued defiance
was assured. Better that it came out under the most exquisite torture, and
though Tatewaki personally knew little of the procedures involved, he was
in a position to retain the best breakers of body and mind in the Inner
Sphere. The hardest part would be the wait, for he did not have them at
hand.
If the fool knew what was in store for him, Tatewaki noted ruefully,
he did an admirable job of not showing it. He had hoped for a bit of anxiety
on Saotome's part, perhaps even a plea for clemency, but it seemed that the
cretin was made of stronger stuff. No matter, he decided. Every man has his
breaking point, and the stronger a man was, the more spectacular his final
collapse would be.
Ranma Saotome could feel the hatred of Tatewaki Kuno burning into him
with each glance in his direction. It pained him to think that he had the
undying emnity of one of the most powerful men in the Inner Sphere, and he
hadn't even done anything to deserve it. Of course, as far as Tatewaki Kuno
was concerned, getting engaged to Akane was more than enough reason to hate
him.
Way to go, Pop, he sighed silently to himself. You've done it again...
What Kuno felt for him, he now reciprocated. It was nothing personal,
he would feel the same way about anyone who came twice within an instant's
pause of chopping him up into ground round. If not for Akane's stupid plea
bargain, Kuno would certainly have done it.
What was she thinking, anyway? he wondered. Who would possibly want
to marry a stuck-up idiot like Tatewaki Kuno? She had said it was for his
sake, but why?
He stole a glance in her direction. She stood face forward, with the
kind of military stoicism he had seen on many a young mechwarrior cadet
- himself included, he supposed. Her eyes were wet, however, shattering
the brave facade she meant to project for her captors. He could see that
much from the glint of the early morning sun shining on her tear-stained
cheeks.
The sight of her in tears pained him even more than the thought of
being a doomed captive of the heir to the Furinkan Combine. Why was she
crying?
It didn't make any sense. Akane didn't care about him at all beyond
the sense of obligation their engagement had fostered. She definitely
didn't like him. So what was the big deal?
It came to him then. She was worried that without him and Pop, there
would be no chance of finding Ryuugenzawa. Her tears were reserved for the
fate of her people, not him.
Fine! he thought moodily. His fists began to crackle behind his back,
and the nylon ropes strained to contain him. If that's how you feel...
Tatewaki Kuno could see and hear the helicopters approaching, and knew
that soon his time on this cursed planet would be at an end. There was but
time to taunt his hated foes once more. He stepped up to Ranma Saotome, his
face haughty and filled with triumph. He wanted the cur to remember that
look, and to remember the face of the man who would break him.
As the lead helicopter flared-out west of them on the strip of battered
highway, a cloud of dust blew over them, obscuring Saotome's face for a
moment, and nearly drowning out the cackling voice that called down to them
from the sandstone cliffs above.
It was a voice he had heard before, on the Drop Zones. It was the
voice of that thrice-damned Locust pilot, the one who had made mockery of
him!
"Heads up, Ranma m'boy!" the voice cried. The cold splatter of water
misted Kuno's face and arms through the swirl of dust. "It's up to you
now, Hot-Stuff; I'm outta here!"
When the dust cloud from the helicopter had passed, he was no longer
facing the despicable Ranma Saotome, but a vision of beauty with hair of
crimson red!
So lost in rapture at beholding this vibrant woman was he, that he did
not realize that she was making a move for his throat.
Ranma felt the water splash on top of her head and the ensuing change
before she even realized that the strange voice from above belonged to
Happousai. The next thing that she realized was that the nylon ropes that
once held her in check were now loose. She was much smaller physically in
her girl-body, and Happousai must have known that when he splashed her.
As she leaped at Tatewaki Kuno's throat, she knew that she owed the
little freak big-time for this.
Her hand locked around Kuno's throat, and she could feel his larynx in
her grasp. It would be so easy to crush his windpipe, she realized, and an
unnatural bloodlust came over her that was difficult to check. The bastard
had been ready to fillet her in the middle of the road, so why shouldn't
she return the favor?
The only thing that kept her from doing it was the fact that they
would be turned into burnt hamburger by Kuno's mechwarrior guards a few
seconds after their lord's corpse hit the pavement. Instead of killing him,
she spun the idiot around, knocking his legs out from under him with a shot
to the back of his knees, and putting him in a headlock that made it clear
to the mounted guards just how easy it would be for her to snap his neck.
"Back off!" she cried to the battlemechs, and once more to the soldiers
who jumped from the open door of the helicopter. "Any closer and your prince
turns into a frog! A DEAD frog!"
Kuno squirmed half-heartedly in her grasp, but a few more grams of
pressure on his creaking spinal column made him cease his struggles before
it became necessary to make good on her implied threat.
"Unhand me!" he spluttered weakly.
"Shut your pie-hole, jerk!" Ranma growled.
Next, she turned to the dismounted mechwarrior who had been attending
his liege. The man was clearly in shock at this sudden and inexplicable
change in their pig-tailed prisoner.
"You, cut my friends loose. Move it!"
The mechwarrior hesitated. Ranma jerked Kuno's body around like a
rag doll, the Combine prince gagging and spluttering in her choke-hold.
"Do it!" she commanded once again.
He took a step forward with his dagger, headed for Genma.
"You be real careful now," Ranma advised the man coldly. "Not a
scratch, or else..."
The man cut Genma's bonds, and was promptly body slammed face-first
to the pavement by the elder Saotome. Genma relieved him of his dagger and
began to free the others. The soldiers from the helicopter watched them
carefully over the barrels of their weapons from a distance of forty meters,
but none dared to come closer or to fire.
"Now what?" Genma asked Ranma as the remaining battlemechs with pilots
tracked them with their anti-personnel guns.
"Get the truck going, Pop," Ranma growled. "We're taking this clown
with us."
"See here, Pig-Tailed Girl!" Tatewaki said suddenly.
"What did you call me?" Ranma demanded.
Tatewaki was at a loss to explain why he had called her by such an
unflattering name, but as they had not been formally introduced...
"Release me," he said to her. "The great Tatewaki Kuno is a generous
man, and would see to it that thy life is spared in return. My quarrel is
with the cursed Ranma Saotome, and not with thee."
Ranma blinked twice in surprise. The idiot didn't realize that she
and her normal body belonged to the same person!
"Not interested," she returned, jerking him off his feet and dragging
him towards the truck. As expected, the Combine soldiers were at a loss to
do anything to free their liege. Genma had the truck started, and Ryouga
and Akane had managed to lift the injured Doctor Tofu into the truck bed.
She looked to the fanged mechwarrior. His face was a blend of shock
and relief at their sudden turn of fortune.
"Mount up," she called to him. He nodded once and started for his idle
BattleMaster. Ranma looked up at the Combine battlemechs that stood over
them, and wrenched Kuno painfully to his feet. "No one shoots at the truck
or the 'mech - or else! Got it?"
There was no reply over any external speakers. They would either honor
her demands or they'd open fire - probably against Ryouga - and the fire of
so many heavy 'mechs at such a close range would probably do him in within
moments. Ryouga had to know that when he agreed to mount up, so at least
he'd be ready take a few of them with him if it came to that.
Akane had Kuno's sword now, and she held it to the prince's throat as
he was hoisted up into the bed of the truck. Ranma eyed her for a moment,
wondering if she had the nerve to slice him open if necessary, and decided
that she did. Akane looked back with a grim nod, confirming her suspicions.
"Step on it, Pop!" she called to her father when they had Kuno secured
face down in the bed of the truck.
Genma put the truck in gear and started forward hesistantly. The
Combine battlemechs edged out of their way, keeping their guns trained
on them in the unlikely event that Kuno should somehow escape the truck
and give them a clear shot. Ryouga's BattleMaster began to thump behind
them, and they parted for him as well.
Ranma watched with relief as Ryouga's 'mech advanced unhindered. The
roar of aerospace fighters was high overhead now, and he knew they'd be
under surveillance the whole way back to the _Palomino._ Would they be
forced to keep Kuno as a hostage all the way to the Jump Point?
"What do you suppose we do with him?" Tofu asked, vocalizing the
question that already burned within Ranma.
"We keep him," Akane declared coldly. She kept the katana pressed
against the vulnerable flesh of Tatewaki's throat. "He's going to call off
his war against the Confederation, and pay reparations for all of the death
and destruction he and his sister have caused."
"That ain't a bad idea," Ranma agreed. She hadn't thought much farther
ahead than getting to the DropShip.
"I agree," Tofu added. "Well done, Akane."
"Never," Tatewaki mumbled. It was difficult to hear him when his
face was pressed down into the cracked plastic bed-liner. "Tatewaki Kuno
doth not capitulate, even to the lovely Akane Tendo! If my fate is to die,
then so be it, but never surrender!"
Akane's hands tensed on the hilt of the sword. "Don't tempt me, Kuno!"
"Easy, Akane," Ranma soothed. "We need him alive - at least for the
moment."
She took a deep cleansing breath and let it out slowly. Anger still
burned behind her reddened eyes, though her wrath was tempered for the
moment. It was one more reminder for Ranma to stay on her good side.
Genma looked over his shoulder at them as they considered Tatewaki's
fate. "Get on the radio to the _Palomino_ and tell them to prepare for
lift off."
Ranma nodded, and pulled the radio set into the bed of the truck.
"No problem, Pop," she replied.
"What about the key?" Akane asked worriedly.
"What about it?" Genma returned.
"We have to get the key before we go!" she protested. "We can't just
leave it here!"
"It ain't going nowhere," Ranma countered. "Besides, we don't know
for sure if it's even where we think it is. It might just be another clue,
and we ain't got the time right now to go looking."
"The boy's right," Genma affirmed, drawing a puzzled look from Kuno
as he lay with his nose pressed down into a depression in the bed-liner.
"Our first concern is getting off this planet and safely back to our
JumpShip. It's a stroke of luck that we have such an important hostage,
but who knows what the Combine army will be capable of once they've had
enough time to react to the situation?"
"Who knows when we'll be able to come back here!?" Akane returned.
"We can't just leave without it!"
"That's crazy, Akane!" Ranma cried. "Pop's right. Every minute we
spend on this rock is a minute that the Combine can use to come up with a
way of stopping us - royal hostage or no royal hostage."
Akane shot Ranma a look of betrayal that wounded her more than any
of her previous insults.
Ranma turned away, and spied a battered Locust approaching from their
flank. It was Happousai, back inside his 'mech after freeing them. She set
the radio to the frequency that Ryouga would be monitoring to tell him to
hold his fire. They did not need a repeat of their previous encounter.
"Hey, Ryouga," she called to him. "Don't shoot, okay? This Locust is
on our side."
"I know that," Ryouga replied, bitterness evident in his voice. "I
already promised Akane that I wouldn't shoot him."
Ranma gave Akane a puzzled look, which she pointedly ignored.
"Whatever," Ranma said at length. "How are things looking from your
end?"
"They're following us just out of weapon range," Ryouga answered.
"And I can see at least a squadron of fighters at high altitude keeping
an eye on us."
"No surprise there. I guess I better tell those jokers to leave the
DropShip alone too. If I was going to stop us from escaping, that's how
I'd do it."
She adjusted the radio to the Combine tac-net frequency and made her
demands. Several moments of silence followed before a man identifying
himself as a colonel acknowledged her, and asked for negotiations to be
held at once. Ranma knew that stalling worked in favor of the Combine, and
so ignored the officer's plea.
"You would do well to negotiate," Tatewaki muttered from the truck bed.
"And you would do well to shut your mouth," Ranma shot back. "Got it?"
"Aye..." Tatewaki replied, though by his tone it was clear that he was
not agreeing with her. "Thy tongue is sharp, so like that of my lovely Akane
Tendo, and yet so boisterous and unmaidenly."
Akane stifled a snicker at this.
"Yeah?" Ranma replied. "I'll show you unmaidenly..."
Genma slowed for the turn off the highway and onto the dirt road that
would take them close to the wadi where the _Palomino_ hopefully remained
unmolested. The ride became rough and jarring, and Akane was forced to
withdraw the sword from Tatewaki's throat before she accidentally slit
him open.
They could see more fighters overhead. So far the Combine fighters
remained out of range to attack. How the _Palomino_ would get past them
and into orbit, Ranma did not know. The Combine could reach the point of
desperation at any time.
Chapter Two
League of Five Nails DropShip _Long Lance_
In final descent towards the planet Capra,
Capra System, the League of Five Nails
15 March 3025
Hikaru Gosunkugi did not like combat drops. He did not like planning
them, and he liked participating in them even less. Kuno had forced his
hand however, and if he wished to have any chance at all of repelling his
rival from the planet, this was the time to act.
His Intelligence staff had been collecting Combine signal intelligence
for many hours now, and with the available data had painted a fascinating
picture of betrayal on the part of the Black Rose. Tatewaki had obviously
sent such a large force to Capra to deal with her. They were even now
fighting a pitched battle against each other, with several of Kodachi's
DropShips escaping into deep space.
Kodachi had lost this battle, it was clear, but she had left Tatewaki's
forces vulnerable to a surprise counter-attack. Hikaru knew that he would
not get the chance to bloody his Combine enemy again so soon, and felt
compelled to act. His own forces numbered just over a regiment, but they
would be facing a Combine army that had been weakened by fierce combat
against one of the most feared and respected regiments in the Inner Sphere.
Their numbers were hollow, the stars assured him.
"My lord," his adjutant addressed him over the command-channel. He
was currently strapped into the cockpit of his Hermes II battlemech, yet
another thing he strongly disliked, but it was safer on the ground than
in low orbit with marauding Combine fighters on the prowl.
"What is it?" he asked him.
"We have effected penetration of the Combine orbital defenses," the
adjutant declared. "Their fighters have been drawn away from a static
defense of the battlefield to pursue the fleeing Black Rose Terror Regiment
ships."
Hikaru smiled to himself. How thoughtful of Tatewaki Kuno to leave
the door wide open behind him! He began rubbing gleefully on his prayer
beads as the _Long Lance_ bucked into denser atmosphere.
* * *
The _Palomino_ was only half a kilometer away, and Ranma could see
the crew folding and stowing the camouflage tarps as they approached.
Combine aerofighters shot overhead, threatening the Confederation crew,
and practicing gun attacks for the moment when they might get their
chance.
Ranma watched the fighters peel off from their simulated low-angle
gun attacks and streak skyward, engines blazing. Bolts of incandescent
hell rained down moments later, pelting the desert with great plumes of
rock and sand, and throwing up great clouds of dust and smoke around them.
Lances of return fire from the horizon spoke of the Furinkan Combine's
counterbattery at the unseen foe.
Genma swerved to avoid a freshly smoking crater that took out half
of the dirt road they traveled upon. Clods of rock were still falling
from the sky from the impact.
"What the hell...?" Ranma gasped.
"I'm painting numerous high altitude targets," Ryouga broke in over
the radio. "They look like DropShips."
"More Black Rose ships?" Ranma asked him.
"The League?" Akane added to the speculation.
Another stray bolt screamed down at them from above like Jove's own
lightning, and blasted the roadbed into a molten mass of gravel, sand, and
virgin glass before them. There was no time to avoid the blast, and Genma
drove right through it. The truck bucked savagely as it was torn apart by
the swirling eddies of concussion and heat convection, to tumble end over
end, and throw the occupants clear.
Ranma shook herself back to coherence after what seemed like hours,
but could only have been seconds - judging by the bits of rock and dirt
that rained down around her. The truck was a ragged mass of twisted metal,
scorched and scored with shrapnel, and starting to burn. The front end
in particular was gutted. No bodies were apparent within the wreckage as
she watched it burn with ringing ears.
"Akane?" she called out to the burning wilderness. "Pop? Doctor
Tofu?"
Ryouga's BattleMaster had stopped short of the wreck, and the canopy
was coming up. Ranma painfully drew herself up and looked in the direction
of the battlemech. Akane lay there motionless in the sand at its feet.
"AKANE!"
Despite suffering what were probably a few cracked ribs and numerous
bruises and contusions, she beat Ryouga to the scene. The fanged mercenary
had a small aid-kit with him, and he opened it as she knelt over the girl.
More streaks of fire lashed the desert around them, and the thin scream of
plasma drives filled the air.
Akane's eyes fluttered open as she mustered up the courage to try and
rouse her.
"...What...?" she managed to the relief of both Ranma and Ryouga.
"Are you okay?" they both asked her.
"I... I think so," she replied.
"Can you walk?" Ranma asked.
Akane sat up, wincing with the pain of pinched nerves and pulled
muscles in her neck and shoulders. Ryouga placed a steadying hand on her,
and she smiled for him. "I think so."
Ranma ignored the look she had given Ryouga, and gazed up into the sky.
League of Five Nails DropShips descended on their plasma drives as fighters
wheeled and dove around them. The Combine, current masters of Capra, now
faced a fresh enemy, and their forces recoilled with surprise and alarm.
League battlemechs were already forming up for a drive on Kuno's Blue
Thunder Regiment Drop Zones.
"Looks like this party has some gate crashers," she observed.
"It's our cue to leave," the ragged voice of Genma Saotome declared
behind her. She spun around to see him supporting the wounded Doctor Tofu.
Getting thrown from the truck had not done his broken ankle any favors,
and his face was wracked with barely contained agony. Both bled rather
freely from cuts on their heads.
"You okay, Pop?" she asked her father.
"Remind me to stop rolling our transportation all the time," Genma
replied with the hint of a smile.
"I would," Ranma returned a grin. "But I don't think it'll help."
Happousai's Locust stomped up to them moments later, kicking up a
cloud of dust as it slid to a halt. The wizened mechwarrior's head appeared
from the top of the chassis as the dust settled.
"Everyone all right?" he asked. "Good, 'cause it's five hundred meters
to the ship."
Ranma threw a rock at him, which bounced harmlessly off the armor
plating. "Why don't ya go tell them to send us a truck or something?" she
barked. "Can't you see we're all hurt?"
Happousai made a face at her. "No appreciation for all I've done for
you," he groused. "This is going to come out of your hide later, Ranma
m'boy."
"If there IS a later, ya old fart! Go get us some help!"
Happousai ducked down into his cockpit and sealed the hatch. The
Locust stomped away from them and towards the exposed _Palomino._ Though
a battle still raged in the air around the League's Drop Zones, enemy
fighters had thus far left the ship alone.
Ranma turned to Ryouga. "Take Akane to the ship. She'll be safer up
there than trying to walk back."
"I don't need your help, Ranma," Akane protested. "I think I can
handle the risk."
Surprisingly, Genma nixed her protest. "The boy's right, Akane. It
would be better if you were in the BattleMaster."
Akane turned to Ryouga. "No offense, Ryouga, but right now, your
'mech is a walking eighty-five ton target. I'll be safer on the ground."
She started towards the _Palomino_ on foot.
"Can't say we didn't try," Ranma observed. Ryouga nodded with no small
amount of disappointment on his face, and turned back to the BattleMaster
to mount up.
"Has anyone seen Kuno?" Doctor Tofu observed as they limped after
Akane.
Ranma hadn't thought about the clown since the wreck. She looked around
the piles of rock and scrub vegetation, but there was no sign of the Combine
Heir.
"Beats me. Maybe he didn't make it." She snapped her fingers and shook
her head. "Aw, shucks. Too bad for him, I guess."
"I can tell that you're really broken up about this, boy," Genma
cracked.
"Heartbroken, Pop," she returned. "Absolutely heartbroken. It woulda
been nice to have seen that jerk sign a peace treaty with the Confederation,
though. Then we wouldn't need to continue this stupid wild goose chase."
Genma frowned. "Oh yes we would, Ranma. How long do you think someone
like Tatewaki Kuno would keep his word?"
"About as long as it took him to find a nice legal way out of it,"
she admitted.
A truck appeared for them within ten minutes, its driver and an
accompanying medic escort grimly aware of the firefight heating up only
a few kilometers away from them. The rumble of weapons and explosions
carried well in the desert air.
"Is the ship ready to go?" Genma asked the driver as they were
helped into the truck.
"We were just waiting on you, Commander," she replied. "You don't
know how relieved we were to finally hear from you."
"It was regrettable, but that's in the past."
The driver put the truck in gear, and turned around for the wadi.
Waves of heat rolled up from the Palomino as the main drives prepared to
lift the 1700 ton spacecraft into the air. The truck pulled up the ramp
to the last open hatch on the ship, where one of Akari's techs was waiting
to shut it behind them.
"We have to make room for Ryouga's BattleMaster," Akane said to the
tech as they screeched to a halt within the hold.
"A B-BattleMaster?" the tech stammered. "We could probably squeeze it
into Bay Four with the Locust, but we'll have no cocoon for it. He'll have
to stay mounted to steady the thing until we can clear the atmosphere."
"Open Bay Four door then," she ordered him.
"Yes ma'am!" He reached for a bulkhead-mounted telephone. His request
to the Captain to open the door went denied for just as long as it took
Akane to take the phone from him.
They could hear the rumble of the Bay Door opening, though it was
in a compartment well aft of the hold and could not be seen. The entire
DropShip seemed to list to port as the BattleMaster stepped inside.
"I hope we can get off the ground," Ranma remarked.
"You wanted to bring him along," Akane returned.
"No, I just wanted to see a BattleMaster up close. *You* were the
one who wanted to bring him along."
"Quit arguing and get up to your launch stations," Genma called to
them.
Ranma and Akane both stared at each other for a moment, each waiting
for the other to blink.
Finally, Akane gave way. "This is not how I wanted to leave this
planet, Ranma. We don't have the key, and we lost Kuno. We still don't
know if we can even get out of here alive."
"This ain't over yet, Akane," Ranma said to her quietly. A grim
determination seemed to light across her face. "Not yet."
She turned and started for the elevator without Akane.
* * *
The _Palomino_ rose from the shelter of the wadi on four columns of
plasma flame. The pilot was a cool hand on the stick, and turned the huge
spacecraft neatly on its axis before engaging the horizontal drive. The
ship began to accelerate forward, keeping just a hundred meters off the
ground to stay out of sight on hostile radar displays.
Ryouga's BattleMaster was less of a problem than anticipated, since
it was berthed in the same bay as Happousai's Locust. The two 'mechs barely
massed over a hundred tons, which still kept the total 'mech load under the
maximum permissible four hundred tons. The real problem lay in the volume
taken up by the assault 'mech. Bay Four was now a cramped space, with barely
enough room for Ryouga to steady the huge 'mech against the swaying motion
of the DropShip.
Genma watched from his seat on the Flight Deck as the pilot guided
the _Palomino_ over dunes and jutting slabs of sandstone and dark volcanic
basalt. They were putting as much distance between themselves and the
raging battle between the League and the Combine as practical. If everything
went well, they would be able to ascend through the atmosphere from a point
on the planet where they would not be detected until it was too late to
pursue them.
The Flight Deck crew were a tight-lipped group, speaking only when it
was necessary to give orders or to make note of something vital to the
ship's welfare. The Captain himself was nearly silent. His pilot knew
what needed to be done, and did not require much in the way of guidance.
It was going so smoothly that the sound of an alarm from the co-pilot's
station nearly startled the wits out of the elder Saotome.
"Number Two 'Mech Bay Door indicates intermediate," the co-pilot
declared, his hand sweeping over the annunciator panel to silence the
alarm.
"Check it shut," the pilot ordered. The co-pilot watched his display
as he reached for the sound-powered telephone to the lower decks.
"Number Two 'Mech Bay Door indicates open. I've got a local override
light indication on the door."
Genma leaned forward in his acceleration chair as the Captain took
interest in the situation.
"Ranma..." he muttered to himself.
"Shut Number Two 'Mech Bay Door," the Captain ordered. He picked up a
microphone from his station. "All hands re-verify spaces for Condition-Alfa
and the Rig-for-Space," he commanded over the 1MC intercom circuit.
The _Palomino_ swayed from side to side as its load was lightened by
about fifty tons.
"Number Two 'Mech Bay Door indicates intermediate," the co-pilot
declared. "Number Two 'Mech Bay Door indicates shut."
"Radar paints new contact Romeo Three-One at close range, bearing two-
four-five, and turning left at a high rate," the sensor operator followed.
"Range to target is opening to three thousand meters... Romeo Three-One
classified as a Phoenix Hawk LAM..."
"Captain," the co-pilot said, clutching the phone. "Technician Grijalva
reports from 'Mech Bay Two that Ranma Saotome's Phoenix Hawk LAM has left
the ship."
Genma closed his eyes and tried not to think about what a stupid
thing his son was doing, and all for a woman. Upon realizing the deeper
implications of this, he began to smile.
That's my son! he thought proudly.
Chapter Three
ANAMAX Corporation Red Butte Mine
Planet Capra, Capra System
The League of Five Nails
15 March 3025
The Phoenix Hawk LAM raced over the hard stone mesa towards Red Butte
Mine. Distant flashes of light and columns of black smoke filled the sky in
the direction of Capra City, and Ranma knew the battle for the planet was
not even close to being over. Warnings over the enemy tac-nets confirmed
his worst fears: that the Combine and the League were taking their slugging
match in his direction. He would not have much time to look for the key
- and that was assuming their hunch about the nameplate was correct.
He and Akane had scouted the Red Butte Mine from the Boomerang the
first day on the planet, and he remembered where the junkyard was located.
That old bastard, Chance G. King, or whatever his name really was, must
have hidden the fifth key on one of the stripped vehicles, as anywhere else
would have put it in danger of loss or discovery when the thing was moved
or stripped for parts.
He figured that at the current rate of the battle, the enemy 'mechs
would be near the mine within thirty minutes - not a lot of time to search
when he still had to get to the mine himself.
He could see it ahead in his HUD, a large open pit mine that had once
made the people of Capra wealthy and proud, and was now an eyesore and a
bitter reminder of a faded glory.
The Phoenix Hawk circled the place once to make sure there were no
enemies about. The mine was as deserted this morning as it had been the
last time he looked. His radar warning receiver chirped a few times as
stray beams of hostile microwave energy from the battle played across his
hull.
He was still wet from the change back into a man, and he hadn't had
time to don a flight suit. Akane's angry voice was still ringing in his
ears, reproaching him for being a fool for wanting to do this by himself.
When was she going to get it through her head that doing it by himself was
the way he preferred things?
The Phoenix Hawk LAM dove for the open pit copper mine, barrel-rolling
into Airmech mode and settling down upon the loose gravel floor with a
roiling cloud of dust. He raised the canopy and hopped out, noting ruefully
that the wreck of the truck had hurt him more than he was willing to admit.
He would have to get checked out just as soon as Doctor Tofu was done
patching up his own injuries.
The earthmovers and massive excavators were stripped wrecks. The only
reason they weren't rusty carcasses was because it hardly ever rained here.
He paced up and down the rows of dead machines, searching for the tag
number of the machine where the Scout had supposedly hidden his key.
The sounds of the battle were closer now. The air shook with random
explosions and sonic booms from aerofighters. He would have to cut and
run pretty soon if the stupid thing didn't turn up, but he was not going
to blow this. If the damn key was here, he was going to find it. It was
stupid and stubborn of him, but he was never the type of guy to let
something like common sense stop him from doing what he thought needed
to be done.
He almost walked past the wrecked earthmover while thinking about
how close the battle sounded. The dirty yellow machine was stripped almost
to its metal bones. How hard could it be to find something on that?
Harder than it looked, apparently.
The damn thing had more nooks and crannies than he had thought
possible, and he resigned himself to climbing inside the giant maw of
the excavation shovel to the material bin. It was dark inside, and he
cursed his lack of light. All he had to work with were the tiny pinpricks
of sunlight that shone through popped rivet holes.
He bumped against something in the darkness, and he set his hands upon
a military surplus canister of small arms ammunition. The drab olive metal
can rattled when he shook it. He worked feverishly at the catches, and
opened the lid to reveal an ancient and tattered Star League Defense Force
flag and a small velvet jeweler's box.
The flag was stuffed into his battered mandarin blouse. He took the
velvet box and opened it.
"Sonofabitch..." he murmured softly.
The fifth crypto key, a small red plaque of indeterminate material,
lay quietly upon the satin cushion of the box, as it had for years.
He closed the box carefully and stuffed it into his shirt with the
flag. It was time to bag ass and hope he could catch up with the _Palomino._
He figured they wouldn't go far once they realized he was gone, and that
probably wouldn't take long after Akane squealed on him.
He squeezed out of the earthmover's maw and stamped across the dry
desert floor of the copper mine to his Phoenix Hawk. Tracer fire arced
over the rim of the open pit, and he knew that his time had just about
run out.
The Phoenix Hawk LAM surged aloft on twin columns of blue flame.
Ranma cleared the rim of the pit with a mind to transform to fighter mode
and tear out of there at full overthrust. The sight of a BattleMaster,
a Warhammer, a Griffin, and even a battered Locust duking it out with a
company of League battlemechs left him still and speechless in his
cockpit.
Akane grit her teeth as a volley of missiles slammed into her 'mech.
She had ducked most of the barrage, but enough had connected to rattle her
in her cockpit for a moment. Her gunsight glowed red in her HUD, and she
decided to pay the offending Shadow Hawk back in kind.
Twin blasts of PPC fire caught the 'mech in the torso, and she followed
up with her six-rack SRM launcher. The missiles burst against the reeling
Shadow Hawk in bright sprays of flaming metal, pitching the hapless League
battlemech over in a plume of black smoke.
What was taking Ranma so long? she wondered impatiently.
Her Warhammer advanced into the center of the enemy company's line,
firing its PPCs in alternating blasts to keep them from overheating. It
felt good to be back in combat as a participant rather than as a hapless
victim. She only wished they had not foregone bearing the proud purple
and white fishcake device of the Confederation on their 'mechs. Wouldn't
that make a few heads swim when the League realized that even the Nerima
Confederation was fighting on Capra!
Mister Saotome's Griffin stayed at their backs, bombarding the League
troops with Long Range Missile and PPC fire. It was in keeping with the
nature of the battlemech's armament to act as a support unit, but there
was something about the man that made her wonder if he actually preferred
it that way. How he could be Ranma's father was difficult to imagine
sometimes. At least when they were away from the meal table...
Ryouga, the dear, was holding up an entire lance on his end. He was
taking fire, but his massive BattleMaster, already scarred from fighting
in the city, was still unbreached. A single barrage from his weapons array
was enough to give any mechwarrior pause.
Happousai, on the other hand, was more of an annoyance. About the only
thing he was good for was acting as a distraction. She watched him prance
about the enemy's lines of fire, daring them to shoot, but hardly bothering
to return fire. His LCT-1S variant had far more firepower than the standard
Locust, but he seemed reluctant to use it.
"Come on, Ranma," she muttered to herself. They were doing an
excellent job of keeping back the League forces from the copper pit, but
all this destruction of valuable League property was bound to attract
more attention.
A sudden chill came over her, and it was not a temperature transient
from her cooling vest. Had the League or the Combine managed to sneak up
on him from the other side of the pit while they were occupied?
"Mister Saotome!" she called over the tac-net.
His fat face, pinched by his ill-fitting neurohelmet, appeared on her
commo display
"What is it?"
"Can you see Ranma yet?" she asked him.
Genma looked away from the camera for a moment, apparently checking
his sensors.
"No. His Phoenix Hawk is still down there, but I don't see him."
"What's taking him so long?"
"Patience," Genma assured her. "This was your idea to come back for
him. The least you can do is have a little faith."
"If we hadn't come back, he would have been overrun and captured by
now, maybe even killed! You saw how those League 'mechs were headed straight
for this place!"
"True," Genma admitted. The arrival of the _Palomino_ and its 'mech
complement had probably saved his son's life. He'd be sure to remind the
boy of that later, while he was busy chewing him out.
Akane was busy with a League Ostroc then, stifling their conversation.
A timely bolt of charged particles from Mister Saotome, as well as her own
considerable firepower, helped put an end to the distraction.
"I'm going down to see what's keeping him," she declared.
"Don't be an idiot!" Genma shot back. "Your Warhammer is too important
up here on the ridge. Hold your position. The boy can take care of himself."
She switched him off and swore to herself.
"Hey, Macho Chick!"
It was Ranma's voice, and her radar confirmed an aerial target hovering
above and behind her. She panned her periscope camera around to see his
Phoenix Hawk LAM waving to her in airmech mode.
"Don't call me that!" she cried. It would figure that the first thing
he said to her would be an insult!
"What if I call you 'Tomboy' instead?" he chirped.
"What if I break your nose?" she riposted.
"That's the spirit," he said to her, appearing on her display. "Guess
what?"
"You're an idiot?" she asked him in a sweetly mocking tone.
"Close," he admitted. "You were right about the key."
"You've got it!?" she cried in amazement. "Oh, Ranma, you're absolutely
wonderful!"
Ranma actually turned red on her display for a moment.
"Uh... I am?"
"Of course you are!" she said, beaming. "Any time when you're not being
a total jerk, that is."
"Cut the chatter," Genma broke in. "Ranma, if you have what we came
here, then there's no more reason to stay on Capra... Everyone fall back to
the _Palomino._ Move it!"
The remaining League 'mechs were only too happy to see their enemies
withdraw from the field, and let them go with only a little harrassing
fire. The Palomino waited for them a kilometer away, hovering on its
plasma drives for a speedy escape from the planet.
Akane noted a strange battlemech already waiting for them in the
Number One Bay. It was a Hunchback, and it had seen better days.
"What gives?" she asked.
"It looks like Ryouga's pal was able to catch up with us after all,"
Ranma observed.
"Terrific," Ryouga groused over the tac-net.
"That wouldn't happen to be who I think it is, would it?" Happousai
asked hesitantly.
"It would," Ryouga replied, his voice dripping with an unexpected
dose of menace.
The Locust seemed to falter for a few steps before pressing on
towards the _Palomino._
"Hey, Tarou hates the old geezer too?" Ranma chirped. "Outstanding."
"I guess we could see our way towards getting this Tarou fellow off
the planet," Genma agreed.
"It would be a very bad idea," Happousai disagreed. "Genma, I'm
afraid I'm going to have to pull rank on you and order you to tell him
to take a hike."
"B-But Master... You don't have any rank."
"I'll say," Ranma piped up. His Phoenix Hawk was in battlemech mode
now. "No one invited you along on this mission in the first place."
"How dare you talk to your master that way?!"
"Enough!" Akane cried angrily. She pulled her 'mech up into the
designated Bay. "If he's Ryouga's friend, then Tarou can come with us.
The last thing we need is a riot."
* * *
Akane was waiting for the other mechwarriors as they stepped through
the airtight door to the Palomino's staging area. The first to appear was
Genma, who quickly doffed his cooling vest and helmet, and waited for
Ranma.
When Ryouga stepped through, Akane leaned up on her tiptoes and kissed
him gently on the cheek.
"Thank you for everything, Ryouga. We're in your debt," she said to
him sweetly. He burbled something incoherent about dying a happy man, and
staggered away without stowing any of his gear.
She watched him go, thinking about how thoughtful he was, before
realizing that he was headed down the wrong passageway. She decided to
let it go for the moment. It was a small ship, really, and he couldn't
get too far.
When she turned back to the door, she saw Ranma standing halfway
through, frozen in dismay.
He must have seen me kiss Ryouga, she realized. Was he actually
jealous?
"Don't mind me," he said, coming to life, and brushing past her to
drop his neurohelmet in its padded case. "Make a hole for the Dispossessed
freeloader, coming through."
"Ranma...!" she called after him. Damn him for being such a childish
jerk!
Genma stopped him at the airtight door on the opposite end of the
compartment. Ranma seemed to tense up, as if expecting the two of them to
come to blows over his treatment of her. Instead, the elder Saotome held
out his hand.
She watched Ranma relax a bit, then fish inside his ripped shirt for
a small velvet box, which he handed without comment to his father. Genma
looked at the box for a moment, grunted with satisfaction, and proceeded
to the Flight Deck. Ranma started to follow him.
"Ranma," she called to him again. "Wait."
He stopped short.
"Yeah?"
"I just wanted to say thank you," she said softly.
He turned around, his face taut with emotion. Was he angry, or hurt?
She couldn't decide.
"That's it?" he asked her tersely.
Her fists clenched at her sides. Who did this guy think he was?
"Yeah, Ranma," she replied. "That's it. Sorry to bother you."
"Whatever." He turned back to the door and stepped through it. The
soft padding of his slippers on the ladder rungs beyond the door was the
last thing she heard before a cold chill ran down her spine.
Happousai was there, clinging to her bosom.
"Poor Akane," he muttered from the depths of her cleavage. "Spurned
by an insensitive clod like Ranma... Oh, the fool! He doesn't know what
he's missing..." he looked up at her as she trembled with anger and disgust.
"Don't you worry, my dear, I'm willing to see you through this painful
moment. Forget Ranma, and think only of m--"
The sound of an old man being forcefully stuffed into the padded caddy
of a neurohelmet locker echoed throughout the ship.
* * *
By pure chance, Ryouga stepped into the _Palomino's_ Crew's Mess in
time for a quick bite to eat before they lifted off for wherever it was
that Akane and the others where going. They hadn't told him anything about
why they were here, or where their next destination was, but he didn't
care. They were leaving Capra, and they were taking him with them.
He took a few cookies from a plastic bin near the coffee mess by the
door and munched on them. Pansuto Tarou sat at one of the tables, staring
at a cup of tea. A shadow hung precipitously over his handsome features,
and Ryouga stopped short of joining him at the table.
"Glad you made it," he offered to the _bishonen_ mechwarrior. "How
did you get aboard?"
Tarou looked up at him, a thin smirk of contempt fading from his
lips as he replied. "It was luck that saw me to the ship in time to get
aboard," he began. "I told them that I was your comrade, and that Ranma
Saotome had promised me a way off the planet. That and the fact that I
wasn't shooting at them when I had the chance was good enough for the
crew."
Ryouga nodded.
"Did you do what you needed to do at the starport?"
Tarou's eyes flashed in the fluorescent light of the Crew's Mess. "No.
Not exactly." He looked away as the sounds of the ship's drives increased,
and the Captain ordered the ship's complement to their launch stations.
"But it wasn't that important anyway."
He collected his teacup as he rose, and brushed past Ryouga to dump
the contents in the scullery sink.
"It will be good to get off this stinking dustball," he remarked to
the fanged mercenary.
Ryouga nodded. A voice in the back of his mind told him the trip
would not be a pleasant one so long as Pansuto Tarou was aboard, and did
not ask him of his future plans in the hope that he would simply walk off
the ship at their destination, and never return.
"Yes it will."
He then followed Tarou to their launch station.
* * *
NCDS _Palomino_ took its leave of Capra in a rush of superheated
plasma. The ship was climbing at the maximum rate to avoid attack by
patrols of aerofighters and GunShips, which were in abundance in low
orbit. They had chosen their departure point wisely though, and were on
the far side of the planet from the scenes of battle.
They achieved planetary escape velocity and began the long transit
to the Jump Point. To avoid detection and pursuit, the Captain had opted
for a much longer course, one that would keep their thrusters pointed
away from Capra for most of the acceleration phase, and away from the
Jump Point for the majority of the deceleration phase. As long as they
could rendezvous with the _Dragonfly_ without incident, they were home
free.
Chapter Four
Near the former hiding place of
NCDS _Palomino,_ Planet Capra,
Capra System, the League of Five Nails
15 March 3025
Tatewaki Kuno awoke to find himself tangled in a mass of scrub sage
and bleeding from numerous scratches and cuts. The sounds of battle had
stirred him to wakefulness, and he pulled himself painfully from the brush
to realize that he was within a stone's throw of the League of Five Nails
outer perimeter. On top of this insult, the cretin Ranma Saotome and his
demon familiar father were gone, and they had taken Akane Tendo and the
mysterious Pig-Tailed Girl with them.
Oh, the Pig-Tailed Girl! he exclaimed in his heart. What beauty! What
ferocity! How boisterous, vigorous, and unashamed in all her glory! How he
wished he knew her name!
Where had she been hiding? he wondered to himself. Perhaps it was more
of Saotome's sorcery, and he had conjured her in his moment of need. Damn
him to the Nine Hells for enslaving not one, but *two* angels of light to
his foul cause!
The thumping gait of a battlemech dispelled his conjecture on the
origins of the Pig-Tailed Girl, and made him wary. It was a League of
Five Nails Wolverine that began to investigate the wrecked truck, curse
them all! The Gosunkugis had decided to strike him when he was unable to
defend himself, and his blood began to boil at their inexhaustable supply
of treachery.
He waited until the Wolverine had passed him by before taking his
bearings and starting for the Furinkan Combine lines. Though his course
would take him perilously close to the League Drop Zone, Tatewaki was
unafraid. A spare battlemech awaited him aboard the _Oda Nobunaga,_ and
then he would mete out swift death to the hated League.
* * *
Things were going Hikaru Gosunkugi's way so far. His troops had driven
within sight of the Combine Drop Zones, allowing him the luxury of staying
well away from the battle. His Hermes II stood silent and still over him as
he examined the latest maps of the action from a command car.
Whatever squabble had blown up between the Kuno siblings appeared
to be over now, with Tatewaki the clear winner, as 'mechs and troops from
the Blue Thunder and 5th Sword of Thunder regiments withdrew from the city
and the former Drop Zone of the Black Rose Terror Regiment. They were
pouring back towards his lines of attack against the Combine Drop Zones,
and it was the League Army's task to intercept them in transit, before
they could mass for a counterattack.
That part of the plan wasn't going as well. The Combine enjoyed a
greater number of fighters to use against him, and they were returning
from their pursuit of the Black Rose DropShips to attack him on the ground.
He was having trouble ambushing the Combine 'mechs while they were around,
and his own fighter assets were having some difficulty dealing with them.
There were also unsettling reports concerning the third regiment of
Combine battlemechs. It was believed that the seasoned 9th Sword of Thunder
was being held in reserve, and now that the League had stepped into the
fray, they were to be dropped on top of his forces in much the same way
as he had ambushed the Combine Drop Zone.
He was getting a sick feeling in his stomach that this time he had
pushed his luck too far. The auguries he had cast prior to the drop had
been unclear on this point, allowing him some leeway, he hoped, to avoid
a disaster. If the 9th Sword of Thunder showed up, escape was the only
option.
He looked around the busy command car, regretting that he had left his
stock of pigeons aboard the DropShip. A quick sacrifice and divination of
the birds' livers would tell him the best course to take. Until he could
return to the ship, the data from the battle reports and the opinions of
his staff were all he had to go on.
"My lord," his adjutant addressed him.
"What is it?" he asked, trying to sound imperious when he was really
feeling ill from the drop and the persistant smell of cordite that permeated
the car.
"We're getting reports of breakthroughs in our lines," the man said
gravely. "From elements of the 5th Sword of Thunder and the Blue Thunder
Regiments."
"How bad?"
"We will have to draw upon our reserves to plug the gaps, and that
will delay our next push up the middle."
Hikaru understood. The 5th Sword of Thunder regiment was a crack unit,
and thanks to Tatewaki Kuno, the Blue Thunder regiment was almost fanatical
in its zeal. His own troops had neither the morale nor the experience to
hold against such a superior breed of mechwarrior. It was one of the reasons
he had despised direct confrontation...
The urge to vomit became compelling to him.
He realized his error at last, and it was one of pride. He had
forsaken his own wise estimates of the League Army's fighting ability,
and had assumed that because the League Navy was hungry for victory and
had provided it, that the Army would do the same. He was a fool for
falling into the trap of overconfidence!
"Order a full retreat to the Drop Zones," he said to the man. "Notify
the DropShip Commanders and the Air Wing of our imminent withdrawal from
the planet."
"My lord?"
Hikaru tried not to get sick all over the maps. His stomach was
hurting even more. "Do it while we can still save the troops," he said
to him. "We have chosen the wrong battle to fight."
"A-At once, my lord."
Hikaru stepped out of the command car and emptied his stomach upon
the sandy ground of Capra. His parents were going to hear about this, and
demand a full explanation for his retreat. If he allowed the battle to
continue, the Combine troops would certainly rout his forces and massacre
them, but it would justify the retreat in any event. While that would take
some of the heat off him in the eyes of his parents, it would leave the
League Army even weaker than it already was.
He needed them at their best, not beaten and demoralized by a
massacre. An organized retreat now, while there was still order and
discipline, would not hurt their morale as much as a desperate pell-mell
dash for the DropShips with the Combine's forces nipping at their heels.
He could even claim a moral victory in getting the Combine to withdraw
completely from the city to deal with his attack.
He heaved once more, and nothing came up. The desire to continue
heaving was strong in him though, and he leaned against the warm armor
plating of the command car, wishing it were cool and soothing to the
touch.
He should have known never to set foot on this miserable planet.
* * *
Tatewaki Kuno watched angrily as the DropShips of the League of Five
Nails soared aloft on their plasma drives to escape his wrath. The heat
of the desert sun was nothing compared to the fierce rage that burned in
his heart. Like vipers the League had come, striking at his heels from
hiding, and then fleeing before retaliation could come.
He shook his fist at the DropShips, cursing them one and all. Though
they had left him victorious on the field of honor, he felt cheated of his
rightful triumph. His hand was stayed, and others had assumed the task of
driving out the enemy. It did not occur to him that the League's arrival
had spared him from the ignoble fate of being brought before the Grand Duke
of the Confederation as a hostage and a prisoner.
All he knew was that Akane Tendo had been in his grasp, and that the
cretinous Saotomes had been his prisoners awaiting lingering deaths. Now
they had escaped, and in the process had shamed and humiliated him. Though
Capra was his, the only victory of this day was the capture of his
traitorous sister.
Sweatdrops cascaded down his nose from his brow. The sweat was tinged
pink with blood from his injuries, which, though minor, ached for attention.
Misery swept over him, though he was a Kuno, and did not sink into the mire
of self-pity.
* * *
NCDS _Palomino_
16 March 3025
Though he would never admit it, Happousai feared only one thing in
his life, and that was Pansuto Tarou. The _bishonen_ mechwarrior was a
pansy in his human form, but in his monstrous Jusenkyo body he knew that
Tarou was not to be trifled with. His keen senses had detected this from
the very moment Tarou had revealed himself in his barracks room almost two
months previous.
His instincts had never failed him before. That was why he had run
rather than face him. It was why he was currently making every effort to
avoid the man. It was just a matter of time before the psychopath learned
of his presence on the ship, but Happousai intended to use that time to
come up with an adequate countermeasure for him.
In a way, he hoped that the eventual confrontation would be very
public. It would give him the moral support of the crew when he sent Tarou
tumbling out of an airlock. No one would question his disposal of such a
monster.
He climbed down the ladder into Number Four 'Mech Bay thinking happy
thoughts of killing Tarou. As if to remind him that the odds of being
discovered were completely stacked against him, at the bottom of the ladder
was Ryouga Hibiki.
He didn't know what to make of Ryouga. The man seemed smitten with
Akane, but who could blame him for it? While he was Tarou's companion,
there seemed to be no love lost between the two. Would he tell the guy
just to watch him explode?
The fanged mechwarrior took note of his arrival, and his face grew
taut. His promise to Akane was known to Happousai, and he planned on using
it for all it was worth.
"How's it going, Ryouga?" he asked spritely.
Ryouga ignored him.
"I said, how's it going?" he pressed.
Ryouga realized that Happousai would keep pestering him all day if he
didn't respond, and relented.
"Everything was fine until you showed up," he grumbled.
"I just want you to know that there's no hard feelings between us,"
Happousai said magnanimously. "I've put that recent incident in the desert
behind me."
"Terrific," Ryouga spat. "It's too bad that I have to live with what
you did to me for the rest of my life."
Happousai frowned. "Still harping on that Commonwealth contract, eh?
Don't waste your time. I didn't have anything to do with what happened to
you."
"That's not what I've heard," Ryouga returned. "According to Tarou,
you set us up."
Happousai snorted contempt. "And you believed him? That clown is
three cans short of a six-pack. I'm sure even *you* have noticed that by
now."
"Well..." Doubt formed in Ryouga's mind.
Happousai pressed on before Ryouga could think things through. "The
fact is that all I did was to set you up with a sweet contract with the
Commonwealth. Whatever happened to you after that was just dumb luck, not
some crazy conspiracy."
Ryouga frowned. "What about all those tests they gave us?"
"They were testing you for compatibility for a little breeding project
the Joketsuzoku Matriarch has going," Happousai supplied for him. "They
wanted some outside talent to beef up their gene pool."
"Huh?"
"Did I stutter?" Happousai carped. "They wanted to know if a little
Hibiki blood would be just the ticket towards creating a master race."
"And the Jusenkyo Labs? What were they, some kind of amusement park?"
"Calm yourself, Ryouga," Happousai replied. "That had nothing to do
with it. If you were found to be a viable candidate, they would have used
you in the traditional manner. The Jusenkyo Labs wouldn't even enter into
the picture."
Ryouga's brow furrowed.
"What do you mean, 'the traditional manner'?"
Happousai affected a dreamy look. "Why, a week or so of heaven,
Ryouga, m'boy... A new girl each night, and each one lab certified to
be fertile soil, ripe for your mighty seed."
Ryouga flushed beet red. "W-What?" he stammered. "A-Are you s-s-saying
that they would...? With me...?"
"You don't get laid much, do you, kid," Happousai observed. What was
with this younger generation? If they didn't loosen up, and soon, there
wouldn't be anyone around to replace them!
Ryouga ignored the slight, still reeling with the idea of what the
Commonwealth had planned for him, and what he had apparently missed.
"B-But why me?" he asked.
Happousai looked him up and down. "What kind of question is that? A
husky stud like you? They couldn't get enough. You'd have to beat those
Amazon girls with a stick. Literally."
Ryouga took this appraisal of his manliness in stride. It was one of
those issues that had never bothered him - mostly because he tried not to
think about sex very often. It gave him nosebleeds.
"But what happens... you know... after?"
Happousai shrugged. "You become a daddy about six or seven times over,
and when your contract expires, you go on about your merry way as if nothing
happened."
Ryouga's nose was beginning to itch with an impending nosebleed at
the prospect of impregnating six or seven different women.
"But I couldn't just leave them behind..." he said at length.
"You think those crazy Amazons will let you have anything to do with
those kids of yours?" Happousai cackled. "Ha! When I said they'd use you,
I meant that they'd *use* you. To them you were nothing but a tool for
adjusting their breeding program. The only reason they don't collect your
sperm in a more clinical manner is because getting it the other way is
supposed to make you more amenable to and less suspicious of the process."
He left Ryouga with those thoughts for several minutes.
"But talking about your prospects as a ranch stud isn't why I'm here,"
he told him. "I'm here to talk about Tarou."
Ryouga blinked twice, coming back to reality. "Don't think for a
moment that you can convince him of anything."
"I won't even bother," Happousai admitted. "All I want are assurances
from you that you won't jump in on his side if anything happens between us."
"Why shouldn't I?" Ryouga challenged.
"Because I'd like to think that you're smarter than that," Happousai
replied. He stroked at his wispy little moustache. "Tarou's a basket case.
You know it now, and I knew it before he even left for Lightoller. Pretty
soon, Akane and the others will figure it out as well." He watched Ryouga's
eyes when he said her name, and the response was as he had hoped. "Now
riddle me this, Ryouga, m'boy: whose side do you want to be on when
everyone else is against Tarou?"
Ryouga closed his eyes.
"I see your point."
"Good," Happousai purred. "I knew I could count on you to make the
right decision. Now where can I find him?"
"You don't know?"
"I've been staying out of sight so far on this trip. I'm sure you
can imagine why."
Ryouga nodded. "I guess so. All the normal bunks are taken, so they
put him in a cot in the forward storeroom. I haven't seen him since we
left, so I guess he's just sulking there or something."
"Where did they put you? The same place?"
Ryouga gestured to a folding cot set up next to the foot of his
BattleMaster. "They have me sleeping here for now."
Happousai nodded, at once spying Akari Unryuu. The young senior tech
swept back her pink-streaked black hair from her shoulders and put it up
into netting to keep it out of her work. Ryouga followed his eyes over to
her and blushed.
"I'll trade you," he offered Ryouga.
Ryouga shook his head slowly. Akari was preparing to weld something,
presumably armor plate, onto Happousai's damaged Locust. Somehow she made
the process of preheating the slabs of aligned crystal steel and preparing
them for welding look graceful.
"Uh, that's okay. I'm comfortable here," he replied.
Happousai nudged his ribs. "Good luck," he cackled, knowing that
Ryouga Hibiki would need a great deal of it concerning women. Like Ranma,
he was his own worst enemy in that regard.
Chapter Five
Furinkan Combine DropShip _Oda Nobunaga_
Transitting to the Capra System Zenith Jump Point
Capra System, the League of Five Nails
17 March 3025
The soft sigh and hiss of a respirator filled the small compartment;
the sound was an audible reminder to Tatewaki Kuno of the fragile woman who
clung to life by a thread. Kodachi had been unconscious since her capture
- one of the reasons why she and her guards had offered little resistance
once the Blue Thunder Regiment had cornered them. The ragged 10mm bullet
which punctured her cooling vest had done her one better; entering her
belly, perforating her intestines, bruising her liver, and lodging in her
diaphragm dangerously close to a major artery.
The surgeons had been able to do little for her other than stabilize
her deteriorating condition. Kodachi had expressed a recessive gene that
ran through the Kuno Family lineage, and as such possessed the rare
B-Negative blood type. What little of the stock that was on hand at the
Regimental M.A.S.H. was just enough to make up for her internal hemorrhages
and see her to the JumpShips. Of the synthetic blood that had once been the
godsend of Star League medicine, there remained only rumors and legends. If
she survived the trip, there would be sufficient reserves of the rare blood
on board the flagship to perform the life-saving surgery she so desperately
needed.
The _Oda Nobunaga's_ acceleration towards the Zenith Point was only
one-half gravity. Using any more thrust than that would run the risk of
more internal damage - likely killing her. The main engines' usual roar
was muted and distant in his ears, and felt more than heard.
Tatewaki regarded his sister in the darkness. Because of her, he was
unable to continue the pursuit of the cursed Saotomes. It did not occur to
him that he could have sent his sister to the Jump Point aboard another
ship, nor would he have permitted it if the idea had been mentioned to him.
Kodachi, though she was a traitoress and a mutineer, was still a Kuno.
She would not spend what might prove to be her final moments in the company
of the common born.
Another thought occurred to him as he watched over her. Kodachi was
helpless before him. He studied the fine tracery of sensors that studded
her naked and bandaged body, the tubes that drained the leaking blood and
fluids from her abdominal cavity, the intravenous drips in the backs of
her hands that fought to overcome those losses and maintain her blood
pressure. The respirator hissed and sighed beside her bed, breathing for
her, filling her with life-giving oxygen through the clear plastic hose,
fogged with condensation, that snaked down her throat.
It would be a simple matter for him to switch the respirator off for
a few moments. The proximity of the bullet to a major artery would prevent
the doctors on board from resuscitating her with a violent procedure like
CPR, and there wasn't enough of her rare blood on board for them to risk
cracking her chest to perform a direct massage. They would be forced to
watch, helpless, as she slipped away from them.
He leaned forward in his folding chair, eyeing the lamp that glowed
behind the red plastic jewel of the power button. The nurse had carelessly
left the master key in the unit's safety lock, allowing him to switch the
respirator off with a touch. Though none would dare presume that he had
murdered his sister in cold blood, he would claim to have brushed against
the button by accident.
His finger hovered over the button as he watched the slow rise and
fall of his sister's chest in time to the respirator's hiss. Her face was
pale yet proud in the cold glow of starlight from the bulkhead window. How
like a Kuno to carry herself with such a noble mien when so near to death,
he thought absently.
The thought of ending her life did not warm him - as he believed it
should have. Somewhere deep down within him, beyond the walls of jealousy
and resentment he had raised between them over the years, he truly loved
his sister. Though she had betrayed him and sought to murder his true love,
he could not bring himself to kill her in this fashion. If it was his
destiny to end Kodachi's life, then it would be upon the field of battle,
or not at all.
His finger came away from the power button, and he sat back in his
chair to contemplate matters. Her life was still in great peril, even if
he had curbed his fratricidal urges. If she died in transit, or in surgery,
then it was the will of the gods. He would mourn her in the proper manner,
he would even avenge her if possible, but his plans for conquest would go
forward without any more fear of her interference. If she survived, then
he would have the perfect excuse in her need for quiet recuperation for
sending her far away to a convent in the Periphery. That she would remain
in the convent long after her recovery was a foregone conclusion.
He rose from his chair, feeling at last the weariness that came with
leading the Capra campaign. Turning first to ensure that no one was there
to see it, he removed the master key from the respirator's control lock -
then leaned over his sister's pale form and tenderly kissed her brow.
He stepped out of the small room which served as the DropShip's
Intensive Care unit. The lone nurse on duty bowed deferentially to him
as he passed. He set the master key for Kodachi's life support loudly on
her desk as he did so.
There was only one thing he could do now that the League was fleeing
the system, and that was to continue with his plans to invade and conquer
the Capella System. Once he had the Grand Duke under his thumb, a great
many things became possible. Akane would be his, and the fates of the
Saotomes would be sealed. The Confederation would become the springboard
for his conquest of the League of Five Nails, and from there, the entire
Inner Sphere would be his.
A new Star League would be born, rising up from the ashes of three
centuries of nearly endless war. He and Akane would rule over hundreds
of human worlds, and a golden age of rediscovery would take place. The
lives of the peasants would no longer be short brutish affairs, allowing
the stagnant arts to flourish. Tatewaki looked forward to that boon of
conquest in particular, as he fancied himself a patron of the arts.
He felt the setbacks he had suffered on this ill-fortuned campaign
against Capra were behind him now. His most potent enemy, his sister, was
neutralized. The League had bloodied his nose with their cowardly attacks,
but had fled the field as soon as he rose up to oppose them. The fools of
Nerima would be expected to put up a fight, but Tatewaki was prepared for
that. He had braved the trials and travails of his shining path to victory,
and had not strayed.
There was only one final matter to attend to before he could focus
all of his energies towards the Nerima campaign.
A military police lieutenant colonel snapped to attention as he
entered his office near the bow of the giant Overlord Class DropShip. The
colonel was in charge of the prisoners of war they had collected on Capra,
most of whom were members of his sister's regiment. He saluted and presented
a stack of dossiers for his lord.
"The dossiers you requested, your Highness."
Tatewaki frowned. "I requested no such thing," he said to the man,
who paled. "My staff feels perhaps that I have time for such things. I
would prefer to keep the matter simple."
"What are your orders then, my lord prince?"
Tatewaki sat behind his desk and steepled his fingers together.
"As I said, they are simple. Execute all of my sister's regimental
staff officers, all surviving battalion commanders and their executive
officers, and all company commanders and their executive officers. The
rest shall be placed in correctional custody pending evaluation of their
loyalty to the Furinkan Combine. Those who fail the evaluation shall be
drummed out, those who pass shall be returned to service with no further
sanctions against their careers."
"Execute them, my lord prince?" the Lieutenant Colonel asked in a
quavering voice.
"Execute them," Tatewaki confirmed.
"I beg for your pardon, my lord prince, but are we to execute them
with no trial?"
Tatewaki's patience for the man dwindled remarkably.
"Put them to death immediately," he told him coldly. "Their hand in
my sister's treason is clear by their rank and by their failure to act
against her. I would order the entire regiment liquidated were it not for
my need for crack troops in the months ahead, and so I choose to hold
nothing against the enlisted troops and junior officers who followed, in
their ignorance, the treasonous orders of my sister and her staff. The
Black Rose Regiment is formally dissolved." He paused to let this sink
in. "Furthermore, I see no need to waste limited time and resources in
preparing for lengthy trials and appeals... I commanded thee to execute
them, Colonel. See that you do, and see that their bodies are made
available for display as an example of the price of treason."
The military police officer snapped to attention.
"As you command, your Highness!"
"Dismissed."
He left the room with as much speed and grace as was possible in
one-half gravity.
Tatewaki rubbed his chin thoughtfully as the man departed, deciding
on a stiff drink to steady his nerves and help him relax. Ordering so many
Combine officers, several of them aristocrats and one the son of a daimyo,
put to death was nearly anathema to him. Treason however, was even more
despised than the sin and waste of executing them without trial. He took
comfort in the fact that even the Tokugawa Shogunate had been forced from
time to time to execute ranking nobles and their retainers for the sake
of the Empire.
He belted down a shot of sake from a warming bottle he kept in his
desk, and poured himself another before punching a button on his desk.
"Send Sasuke in," he demanded.
"At once, my lord prince!" the voice of his secretary responded.
The door opened, and Sasuke walked in. The little ninja fell upon his
face in supplication to his lord.
"Rise, Sasuke," he commanded him.
Sasuke stood before the desk, his eyes averted.
"You ponder why it is that thou art not put to death like thy fellows,
nor that thou art set in chains?" Tatewaki asked him.
"If I am not put to death nor set in chains, it is only because my
lord has some service that is required of me before my just punishment is
handed down," Sasuke answered carefully.
"Indeed," Tatewaki replied solemnly. "Thy service to my sister is at
an end. Henceforth thou shalt serve me until such time as the price of thy
crimes against me must be paid in full."
Sasuke again fell upon his face.
"I shall."
"You may go, Sasuke," Tatewaki told him. "I have no immediate use for
you."
"At once, my lord!"
Tatewaki watched him go as well, knowing that soon he would have to
put the ninja to death. He was too beholden to Kodachi to be trusted while
she lived. Only while she remained an invalid was he of any use to him.
* * *
JCDS _Jade Lotus_
in transit to the Capra System Nadir Jump Point
Capra System, the League of Five Nails
18 March 3025
Shampoo looked down at the crisp piece of hardcopy the _Jade Lotus'_
Communications Section had just decrypted for her. It was an HPG message
from Jusenkyo, in reply to her preliminary report concerning the debacle
at Capra.
WE ACKNOWLEDGE THE DEATH OF COMMANDER KIMA IN ACTION ON THE PLANET
CAPRA IN THE CAPRA SYSTEM ON OR ABOUT THE 15TH OF MARCH, 3025.
COMMAND OF THE MISSION SHALL BE CONFERRED UPON MECHWARRIOR SHAMPOO,
WHO SHALL BE BREVETED TO THE RANK OF MECHWARRIOR MAJOR, EFFECTIVE
IMMEDIATELY UPON RECEIPT OF THIS MESSAGE.
She flushed with surprise at the news of her promotion. It was
unexpected, as was her retention of command. She sensed her great-
grandmother's hand in these affairs, and felt the weight of responsibility
settle even heavier upon her shoulders. Command was something she aspired
to, but this was too soon!
The rest of the message was for her specifically.
YOU ARE DIRECTED TO RENDEZVOUS VIA JUMPSHIP WITH COMMONWEALTH ASSETS
IN THE TAU CETI STAR SYSTEM AS SOON AS POSSIBLE FOR RESUPPLY, TRANSFER
OF COMMANDER KIMA'S REMAINS, AND FORMAL MISSION DEBRIEFING.
END MSG 2503171917Z,
MECHGEN. HERB SENDS
She didn't like the sound of the phrase 'formal mission debriefing.'
It sounded like the Elders were already pulling the plug on the mission,
and her command and brevet rank were merely formalities prior to the end.
She knew a reckoning with the Elders would follow shortly, and that the
outcome would not be in her favor. She liked the fact that it had been
sent by General Herb even less.
Was Herb going to preside over the debriefing? If so, that sounded
like the handiwork of Elder Peony or Oolong, who were both enemies of her
great-grandmother, and then her career as mission commander really would
be over.
She set the message down, knowing that the eyes of the compartment
were upon her. Her assumption of command had not gone over well among her
peers, and she had discovered enemies where she believed none had existed
before. Chief among their complaints with her was her refusal to punish
Mousse for his supposedly usurping command of the battlemech company in
Kima's name.
The only possible witnesses to Kima's act of delegating the authority
to Mousse were Mousse himself, Commander Kima, and her driver, Joyful Cloud.
Unfortunately, both Kima and Joyful Cloud were dead, and so could not be
questioned as to the validity of Mousse's claims. Shampoo had the authority
as Commander of the Mission to confer non-judicial punishment upon her
subordinates, but the truth of the matter was that she knew Kima, and she
believed Mousse.
What her battle-sisters really wanted was a salve to their female
pride. Mousse was a man, and though his authority had (allegedly) derived
from a woman, he had treated the others in the company with what they
considered disrespect. Shampoo saw no overt disrespect. As commander of
the battlemech company, Mousse was not required to bow and scrape to them,
and it was within his power as a commander during the heat of battle to
administer on the spot discipline to subordinates who failed to follow
his orders, up to and including a sentence of death.
Shampoo was no lawyer, but the arguments against Mousse seemed ground-
less. She was also beginning to realize that logic and rational thought had
little sway over minds when emotion was at work. Mousse had wounded their
pride, so Mousse must pay. Anyone who stood before that reckoning became an
enemy. She thought it was particularly mortifying that the two most vocal
of her battle-sisters howling for Mousse's head were the two Recon Lance
mechwarriors who had shamefully abandoned him to die in the city.
As she looked around the compartment at the other women, she wondered
how quickly they would sell her out to General Herb. They probably wouldn't
take very long, she decided.
She cleared her throat to speak.
"<Effective immediately, formal command of the mission has been
conferred upon me,>" she told them. A copy of the first part of the message
would be posted shortly where the crew could read it. "<As has the brevet
rank of Mechwarrior Major. Our orders are to rendezvous with the JumpShip
and then proceed to the Tau Ceti system as soon as possible.>"
She waited for one of them to demand disciplinary action against
Mousse. As an interim commander of dubious authority, she had enjoyed an
excuse to avoid action against him. Now as formal commander, she could
freely dispense the maximum justice permissable to her by clan law.
So far, none of them stepped forward. It might have meant something
that Mousse was in the compartment with them, alone and silent. Her respect
for her fellow mechwarriors was nearly gone if they were too cowardly to
speak out against him in a place where he could defend himself.
She cast her eyes to the twins, Pink and Link. They were her only
supporters, albeit lukewarm ones. The bonds of family were at least strong
enough for them to refrain from stabbing her in the back. The two Recon
Lance pilots remained silent, though she could see their hate smoldering
behind their expressionless faces, waiting for the opportunity to burst
into vengeful flame.
Chapter Six
NCDS _Palomino,_
In transit to the Capra System Zenith Jump Point
Capra System, the League of Five Nails
18 March 3025
Akane Tendo looked at the small metal plaque that was the fifth crypto
key to unlock the secrets of Ryuugenzawa. The metal was smooth and unmarred,
and it was difficult for her to imagine it being several centuries old. She
ran her fingers over it once more before handing it back to Mister Saotome,
who slipped it into the chain he wore around his neck.
They needed just one more key to decrypt the data disc with the
coordinates for Ryuugenzawa. Mister Saotome knew where the sixth key was
to be found, or at least he claimed to know. He was being very tight-lipped
about the whole affair, and would not discuss it with anyone.
His silence worried her. Was he just bluffing them about the sixth
key? Not even Ranma knew the truth.
She looked around the crowded mess deck for him, but he was nowhere
to be found. He had been avoiding her ever since their departure from the
planet. He hadn't even showed up for regular meals, apparently preferring
to filch something from the galley when no one was around.
"What is it, Akane?" Doctor Tofu asked her as she thought about it.
He was managing well on crutches, and refused to let something like a
broken ankle stop him from his rounds of the ship. "Are you looking for
Ranma?"
She looked up at his handsome face and sighed. Why couldn't her life
be a little less complicated, and a little more romantic with him?
"Have you seen him?" she asked in a quiet voice.
He almost didn't hear her over the sounds of conversation and the
noise of the _Palomino's_ main drives.
"I saw him heading aft about twenty minutes ago," Tofu replied. He
gave her a wink. "He looked a little out of sorts. Perhaps you should go
see him."
"Maybe," she replied. Tofu eased past her and took a seat near Genma,
and the _Palomino's_ captain.
She finished her tea in one gulp, and set the empty cup on the counter
of the closet-sized scullery. Ryouga watched her go, his eyes warm and
hopeful as they regarded her. She wondered how man as nice as him could
nurse such a grudge for Ranma for so long, and then realized with a brief
snort of laughter that this was Ranma she was talking about, after all.
On a Leopard Class DropShip like the _Palomino,_ the term 'aft' meant
only one thing: the engineering spaces. She couldn't imagine why he would
want to go back there, other than for privacy's sake. Only one member of
the crew spent any time back there during normal cruising, and that was
only for about ten minutes of every hour to spot-check the spaces' mostly
automated equipment.
She pulled herself through an airtight door that ran along the ship's
centerline beneath the dorsal mounted weapons and sensor bays. It was a
long, dimly lit passageway, marked only by the faded stencils of hull frame
numbers on the bulkheads, and two additional airtight doors. There was a
slight pressure differential between doors, so that each time one opened,
a cool breeze would catch in her hair and whistle past her ears. The smells
of old flaking paint and of the amine they used to scrub the carbon-dioxide
out of the atmosphere were especially strong in the passageway.
The last airtight door led into the Engineering Spaces. A faded yellow
and magenta sign over the portal warned her of the Radiation Area beyond,
and that she was required to wear personal dosimetry to enter. She had
been around nuclear reactors most of her life, and the Thermo-Luminescent
Dosimeter she wore was an old companion. Her hand came down reflexively to
the spot on her belt where it rested, and she felt the cool hard plastic
tube right where it should have been.
Engine Room Upper Level was where the ship's Engineer stood his watch
at Battlestations, and where the on-watch Rover went on his hourly rounds
to check on the systems. There was a small control room set off to the side
of the airtight door, and inside was dense bank of instrumentation. All
of the dials, meters, and displays were repeated on the Flight Deck for
redundency's sake.
There was no sign of Ranma in the Control Room.
The compartment was mostly full of electrical panels that controlled
the distribution of the ship's powerplant output to the computers, sensors,
life-support, hotel loads, and weapons that gave the _Palomino_ its life.
It was stark and clean, with everything painted haze grey or pastel green,
and the linoleum floor squeaked beneath her feet.
He wasn't on this level, and knowing him, he was probably sulking
below, where it was noisy and dark.
Akane had to search for the ladder down to Middle Level, as she spent
little time aft on a Leopard Class, and didn't remember immediately where
it could be found. She took the steeply sloping ladder facing outward, away
from the rungs, the way the ship's crew often did.
Ranma was there, sitting between two large centrifugal pumps that
circulated the ship's Air Conditioning Chilled Water. Condensed moisture
on the cold pump casings glistened under the fluorescent lights. Because
there was machinery here, the linoleum flooring had given way to rubberized
diamond-deck, which masked her approach.
She paused, close enough to reach out and touch him. His back was
turned to her, and his stillness made her wonder if he was asleep. Her
heart began to pound, and she took a moment to convince herself why she
was here.
She knew the reason, of course, but she wanted to hear the details of
it from him. Had he really meant what he said to Kuno? Had he really meant
what he said about being her fiance, and that he would hunt down anyone who
harmed her to the ends of the universe? His voice had carried with it the
timbre of a man who was deadly serious, but was that really how he felt
about her?
By any other indication, Ranma could not have cared less about her.
He was always insulting her and making her feel inferior to him. He was
arrogant and thoughtless and rude - and yet, at the same time he had been
ready on several occasions to die a horrible death for her sake. He had
risked his neck getting the fifth key for her, when he had sworn up and
down not thirty minutes before that it was suicide to make the attempt.
She watched him for a moment in troubled silence, trying desperately
to understand him. He was such a tangled mess of contradictions that she
wasn't sure she could ever find the crypto keys necessary to decipher his
feelings for her. She wanted to slap him silly sometimes for being so
aggravating, and at other times some half-realized part of her wanted to
catch him up in her arms and never let him go.
Her hand reached out to touch him, stopping just short of his shoulder
when her nerve failed her. She withdrew her hand, thinking to herself that
she had just been spared a great deal of emotional damage in doing so.
Ranma may have cared for her in his own bewildering way, but not in any way
that meant something more between them. He was her protector, though perhaps
a bit more than a formal bodyguard, and he was honor-bound to uphold the
engagement, but beyond that he was nothing more. It was foolish of her to
expect anything else from him.
She started quietly for the ladder.
"Hey, Akane," he said to her.
She nearly jumped out of her skin at the sound of his voice.
"How did you know it was me?" she managed, turning around to look at
him. He remained where he was, facing the air scrubbers, and not her.
"The rover's already been by this hour," he replied. "Who else would
it be?"
"So you've been expecting me?" She wasn't fond of the idea of being
so obvious to him.
"Not really. When I heard you coming down the ladder, I figured it
was either you or Pop. When you didn't chew my ass for leaving the ship
to go look for the crypto key, I knew it was you."
"Oh."
He turned around. "Have a seat."
She looked at him for a moment, then at her surroundings.
"Where?"
He waved his hand about. "Anywhere, I guess. The deck's cleaner than
it looks, and that chilled water pipe is insulated."
She decided to sit on the chilled water pipe. For one thing it would
put her slightly higher than him. The pipe's insulation was cool to the
touch, and she could feel the water coursing through it from the nearby
pump.
"You want to tell me what's bothering you?" she asked him.
"Something's bothering me?" he replied.
"Don't play dumb, Ranma. You've been like a ghost on this ship ever
since we left. You never eat with the rest of us, and you don't even spar
with your father like you used to."
She paused for a moment before she said what she felt was the problem.
"Is it because I gave Ryouga a peck on the cheek the other day?"
He winced slightly at this, and she knew that if it wasn't the only
reason why he was doing this, then it was a major one.
"No," he spat. "Why would I care about who you kiss?"
Her brow furrowed slightly at this. "So you weren't jealous?"
Ranma looked away. "What do I have to be jealous about?"
He was being even more impossible than she had expected! "Just forget
I mentioned it then," she told him.
"I already have."
Neither of them spoke for several minutes. The whir of the pumps and
the tinkling noises from the lithium bromide air conditioning plants were
rough counterpoints to the distant roar of the main engines pushing them
towards the jump point. Ranma seemed content to sit and stare off into
space - forever if necessary, leaving her to finally concede. She reopened
the conversation with, "I get the feeling you come here often."
He took the bait. "Pop and I used to stow away on ships a lot. The
engineering spaces are the best places to hide. No one likes to spend a
lot of time here." He looked around at the pumps and other machines for
a moment. "I guess I'm just used to the noise."
She nodded patiently at his words, though she could not easily imagine
the kind of life that he had led before coming to Nerima. Was she really
that out of touch with the rest of the Inner Sphere, or was he really that
different from her?
"I'm not sure what to say to that," she admitted to him.
"You don't have to say anything," he responded. "I can see why you
don't understand where I come from most of the time."
"It's hard sometimes," she conceded. She looked closely at him then,
and the brilliant colors of his eyes were oddly washed out by the abundance
of pastel green paint that covered the bulkheads and the piping. "I know I
didn't treat you very well when you first came to Nerima."
"That's an understatement," he snorted. "The only one who was worse
to me was Nabiki."
His words stung, but she took them in stride. Kasumi would have been
proud of her.
"I was upset about the engagement," she replied. "And I was scared."
He looked surprised by this.
"You? Scared?"
"Wouldn't you be?" she asked him. "Getting engaged to marry some
strange guy you've never met, and who happens to turn into a girl whenever
he gets wet? Wondering if he's going to take away the one thing you've
worked for since you were little?"
Ranma thought about this for a moment. "I guess so."
"I'm over the Jusenkyo thing," she went on, feeling much better about
everything between them now that she was actually talking to him about it.
"It's still pretty weird, but I know that even as a girl you're still
Ranma."
He nodded slowly. "What's the other thing?"
"Command of the 1st Nerima Guards. It's tradition that the Duke or
his heir lead the regiment. Ever since Kasumi put away her neurohelmet,
the duty has fallen to me." That was easy enough to say to him, she mused,
but now comes the hard part. "I've always wanted it, and if I... Well...
marry you... then you become the Grand Duke when Dad retires. The 1st
Nerima becomes yours if you wanted it."
"I don't want it," he said to her. "I wouldn't keep it from you,
either. I didn't want any of this marriage business, and I'm not after
your family's money or any of that other junk."
She regarded him for a moment, and knew that what he had told was
true. He would not keep something as important as that from her. He had
already demonstrated his lack of avarice by his refusal to accept the
Phoenix Hawk LAM as a gift, but rather as a loan to be returned as soon
as he was finished with it.
"You know, I really do want to get to know you better, Ranma," she
said to him at length. "But you make it so hard to get closer to you."
Her heart began to pound, and she steeled herself for what she had
to say to him. If she said nothing else to him for the rest of the trip
back to the JumpShip, this had to be it.
"Sometimes I don't know if you're just being defensive with your
insults, or if you really do hate me... One minute you're risking your
life for me, and the next you're calling me names and treating me like
I'm useless."
He turned away, perhaps from shyness, or perhaps out of guilt - she
could not tell.
"I don't hate you, Akane," he said quietly.
"Then what is it?"
He looked even more uncomfortable with the subject than her. "It's...
Well... Aw hell, Akane, I don't know... It's kinda complicated... I just
know that I don't hate you, I never have, and I never will, okay?"
"Okay," she hedged. "I think I understand."
"You don't understand!" he yelled suddenly, jumping to his feet.
His reaction was more than a shock, it was frightening. "You *can't*
understand because even *I* don't understand! Got it?"
She wanted to tell him that no, she didn't 'get it,' but held her
tongue. He was getting back into his defensive mode again. The insults
were just around the corner.
"I just want to ask you one more thing," she said calmly. Her subdued,
almost passive demeanor calmed him slightly. "You don't have to answer it
if you don't want to, and I'll leave you alone after this no matter what
you choose or don't choose to say."
He settled back down on the deck, his nostrils flaring in agitation.
"Yeah?"
She focused her reserve of inner strength first.
"I just wanted to know if what you said to Kuno out there on the
highway was true... About being my fiance and all..."
He looked away.
"According to your dad and mine, yeah, it's true."
"That's not what I meant!" she cried, her voice trembling between
anger and misery. "I should have known better than to expect a real answer
from you, Ranma Saotome, but I'm as good as my word."
She stood and jumped across the piping to the ladder, leaving a single
teardrop lost among the many beads of condensation on the chilled water pump
casing. The sounds of her racing up the ladder and out through the airtight
door above melted away into the white noise of the compartment, leaving him
as she had found him: alone.
Akane was long gone when Ranma finally realized what she had really
been asking, and now it was too late to say anything to her.
END OF PART TEN