J. Austin Wilde and
Fission Park Press proudly present:
BATTLETECH:
THE SAFFRON AGENDA
by J. Austin Wilde
The
characters and situations of Ranma 1/2 are the
“There is nothing more difficult to take in hand, more perilous
– Machiavelli, The Prince
Chapter One Star
League High Council Chamber
Akane Tendo faced her fellow delegates to the Star League High Council across a wide circular table of polished black granite inset with all of the instrumentality they required to conduct their business. Unfortunately, all the technology the Inner Sphere had to offer was of no help to her at the moment. They faced a growing crisis in the Federated Shiratori, and it was a crisis of their own making. “The St. Ives Compact has officially declared their independence from the Federated Shiratori, and has requested admission to and protection by the Star League,” she announced to the assembled delegates. “I feel that we must act promptly on their request.” There was murmured discussion of the matter from the various delegates, advisors, observers, and representatives as she sat down in her chair. Hikaru Gosunkugi, the current First Lord of the Star League, represented the League of Five Nails. Ambassador Kima stood in for Cologne as the representative of the Jusenkyo Commonwealth. Akane herself represented her father the Grand Duke and the Nerima Confederation. The first three delegates represented the bulk of the Inner Sphere’s inhabited worlds, but there were also delegates from smaller states; the Magistracy of Canopus, the Tauran Concordiat, and now, the splinter group from the Federated Shiratori known as the St. Ives Compact. All sought full admission to the Star League, and the benefits that admission brought with them. The observer from Comstar – the enigmatic group that ruled the Sol System had declined a voting seat on the Council for their own ineffable reasons – shuffled his papers before him and piped up. “Admission would require an addendum to your service contract with Comstar,” he pointed out. “We are, however, willing to begin negotiations for such an addendum at any time.” Thank you so much, Akane growled to herself. One of the first achievements of the Second Star League was the integration of HPG service contracts throughout its member states into one single entity. Though it gave Comstar a little more leverage in the new Star League, it also justified their second measure, the direct taxation of member states to the newly created Star League treasury to pay for it. Once the money started flowing in, the Star League was no longer the monetary burden on the Confederation it had once been. “We’ll discuss that when and if the matter of admission is resolved,” Akane told him. She looked over at Hikaru Gosunkugi, the man who should have been running the meeting, but who had been oddly silent and withdrawn from the day of his arrival on Nerima. It was probably a good thing that his five year term as First Lord was about to expire – the strain of the job had obviously been too much for him. “Hikaru?” she asked him. “Your thoughts?” Gosunkugi started slightly as if he had been asleep with his eyes open. He turned to face her and smiled happily before responding. “My first thought,” he began after a moment of clear distraction. “Is whether or not we can afford to bring them in at this time.” He looked over one of the displays that served his place at the table. “The assessments of the Bank of Sol are not good. We don’t have the capital to absorb them in toto, and their own financial situation after having willfully defaulted on their credit lines with the Federated Shiratori’s central bank indicates that they aren’t capable of lending us much assistance.” Akane could see the representative from the Bank of Sol nod from his place at the edge of the chamber. The bank was necessary to their cause because they needed a common currency for exchange to replace the four or five separate currencies already in use, and because Nabiki had flatly rejected the use of Comstar’s C-Bill as the official unit of exchange as unwise. Unfortunately, until everyone got their banking and debt situations in hand for the new League Bill to be implemented, they were stuck using Comstar’s notes anyway. “That is correct, Lord,” the banker replied. “The current financial reserves of the Star League are sufficient to begin implementation of the new currency only within the Nerima Confederation, Jusenkyo Commonwealth, and the League of Five Nails on a limited basis pending the phasing out of their respective local currencies.” He inclined his head towards his counterpart from Canopus. “The Magistracy of Canopus should be ready for conversion within the next two fiscal quarters. There simply isn’t enough left over to admit the Compact at this time.” Mechwarrior General Ukyou Kuonji, the Chief of Staff for the fledgling Star League Defense Force, stood from her position behind Akane at the table. “So we’re supposed to leave them in the lurch?” she asked the assembled High Council. “They took a huge risk in defecting from the Federated Shiratori, and the Cult of Azusa is mobilizing for war against them. I’m not saying we have to drop everything and bring them in all at once, but can’t we at least throw them a bone? Admit them as provisional states like Canopus and the Concordiat, station a few battlemech regiments on the border worlds, and that should give the Cult something to think about.” Akane bit down on her lip and said nothing. The St. Ives Compact had been something of a personal crusade for Ukyou after five exhausting and unsuccessful years of trying to get Empress Azusa and her court to join the Star League. She was the one who had been pushing the rulers of the systems along the Confederation border to show support for the new Star League in order to push Azusa into coming along, and their defection was sign of how much they believed Ukyou’s promises of support. “Whose regiments would you send?” Kima asked pointedly from her position on the other side of Gosunkugi. “The Commonwealth is currently stretched to the limit facing down an openly hostile Furinkan Combine.” “That’s a bunch of crap and you know it,” Ukyou riposted. “The only reason the Combine is riled up against you is because you keep sending raids over the border. Kuno’s too busy fighting his sister and his own separatist problem to mess with the Commonwealth.” “Ukyou,” Akane cautioned her quietly. Kima gave Ukyou a scornful look, but remained silent. The Commonwealth ambassador knew the score as well as anyone. Once Hikaru’s term as First Lord was up, Cologne would become the next First Lord – though it was considered a given that one of her clan would represent her in the High Council, perhaps even Shampoo. “I’m sorry, hon’,” Ukyou whispered to Akane. “But sometimes I have to call things as I see them.” “We’ll talk about this later,” Akane suggested. She then touched her friend’s arm. “What happened over there wasn’t your fault.” “I wish I could believe that,” Ukyou replied sullenly. Hikaru cleared his throat for attention as the murmuring around the table grew. “Let us put the matter to an immediate vote,” he declared. “Those in favor of extending provisional status to the St. Ives Compact at this time?” Akane was the only ‘aye.’ Kima and the representatives from Canopus and the Concordiat voted against. Hikaru abstained. “The no’s have it,” Gosunkugi declared. There was a haunted look in his eyes as he saw how disappointed Akane was at the outcome of the vote. “However, I propose that we continue to study the matter for a final vote at a later time.” “I second that,” Akane said firmly. “Provided that the matter is resolved prior to the end of your term, milord.” Hikaru seemed to melt at being called “milord” by Akane, a fact that the heir to the Confederation was quite aware of – even if the thought of it creeped her out a little. She did not know what to think of the rumors that he had been very quietly responsible for several assassination attempts on Ranma’s life in the last few years. While Hikaru had been silent on the subject of her engagement to Ranma since Ryuugenzawa, he had not formally renounced his desire to marry her, either. She felt torn by the need to use her considerable influence on Gosunkugi while he was still First Lord, while at the same time being repulsed by the thought that he was the one trying to get the man she loved killed. “I am willing to consider the matter at a later time, once I have consulted with my government for instructions,” Kima declared coolly, very satisfied in her present position in the balance of power over the matter.
“I am amenable to that as well,” Hikaru declared. With the three
full members in agreement, it was pointless to bring the motion to a vote.
“And furthermore, I declare an adjornment for lunch. We shall reconvene
in two hours.” He tapped his gavel twice and stood up.
* * *
“What a disaster,” Ukyou declared to Akane as they retired upstairs to the personal quarters of the Tendo family. “We underestimated the Compact’s desire to get out from under Azusa,” Akane replied with a sigh. “We’re going to make mistakes like this while we figure out just what we’re doing.” “I don’t blame them for doing it. I just wish they had shown a little more patience before jumping ship like that. Heck, a little advance warning would have been nice too,” Ukyou returned. “As for Azusa, if anything, she has just gotten worse since she married Mikado.” Akane snickered at that. “I can’t imagine why.” “It’s not what you think,” Ukyou returned. “Mikado’s become her pet and nothing more. I really think the wedding reinforced her belief that she’s some fairy tale queen with a divine mandate to rule as she sees fit, and the Cult hasn’t done anything to persuade her otherwise.” “So what do you think of her ability to crush the Compact?” Ukyou shook her head. “With Mikado chained to the throne, they don’t really have any top-level leadership competent enough to organize a force to subdue the Compact intact. What worries me are the infinite number of idiots Azusa will send instead. It could turn into a real bloodbath, and the Star League will take the blame for letting it happen.” “Do you really think Azusa will send a force to recapture the Compact?” Akane asked her. All of the intelligence reports she had been reading in regards to the state of the Federated Shiratori stated that they were currently fighting off an invasion from the separatist-Combine Galedon March – who were backed by Kodachi Kuno’s Black Rose Terror Regiment – and from an insurgency movement made up of the remaining noble houses of the F-S who weren’t under the Cult’s domination. There didn’t seem to be enough troops to fight three major campaigns at once. Ukyou blew at her chestnut bangs in thought. “If Azusa has a tantrum over the St. Ives Compact, and everything I know about her says that she will, rational thought will not enter into her plans. She’ll order them brought back to heel, and her commanders will jump to comply.” She stopped abruptly, forcing Akane to do so as well to continue their conversation. “We need to do something, Akane. Once the Commonwealth takes over the First Lord position, I don’t see how we’re going to be able to do anything through the Star League to help the Compact.” “It won’t be that bad,” Akane replied soothingly. “We still control the SLDF, no matter who sits in the First Lord’s chair, and you’re Chief of Staff.” “I’m Chief of Staff over a force that barely exists,” Ukyou lamented. “The 1st Nerima Guards are currently the only battlemech regiment that has even half of its units up to Star League standards, and we have a grand total of one capital warship – and that’s being used to ferry diplomats half of the time. And don’t get me started over my command of any of the non-Confederation units that have been given over to serve as SLDF. The League units I can work with – to a point – but if push came to shove, do you really think any of those Amazons are going to take orders from me?” Akane nodded solemnly. “I know, Ukyou. I know. We’re working on that problem. It’s just that having the knowledge to build Star League technology is only half the battle. We’re building the infrastructure we need from almost zero. It might be another ten years before we can reach a point where we can construct an army and fleet big enough to keep the peace.” She took a deep breath and let it out with a long sigh. “If I had known that it was going to be this difficult to get the Star League going, I might have had second thoughts about it.” Ukyou put her arm around Akane and gave her a squeeze. “I think you were right to do this,” she told her. “I think a lot of people in the Inner Sphere want this to work, and no matter what kind of growing pains we go through, in the end it will work.” “I want to believe that,” Akane said. “But the right people have to want it to work. If all they do is pay lip service to what we’re trying to do, and instead do everything they can to advance their own agendas, the Star League is doomed. It’ll be just like the first Star League. If it wasn’t for the Camerons forcing everyone to get along by their own power and determination, there wouldn’t have been a Star League. Once they were murdered by Stephen Amaris, the fall was inevitable.” “Then it’s up to us to become the new Camerons,” Ukyou told her flatly. It was a discussion they had tussled through before, and she knew that Akane didn’t like the idea. “You know how I feel about that, Ukyou,” she said tersely. “The Camerons may have kept the peace, but they were still practically dictators while they did it. I don’t want to become a despot just to accomplish my dreams.” “Then you open yourself up to let someone else call the shots in your place,” Ukyou pointed out. They had been through this over and over again in the last five years, and she regretted even bringing it up. “I know that!” Akane cried. “It doesn’t change the fact that I think it’s wrong.” “All right,” Ukyou relented. “I’m sorry for bringing it up. Let’s try to brainstorm on what we can do to make things better instead.” “Okay,” Akane said briskly. “First of all, I’m going to move that the Star League at least formally recognize the St. Ives Compact. It’s not much, but it’s a starting place to bring them in. After that, I want to send at least two regiments of Confederation battlemechs there for ‘joint training exercises.’” Ukyou smiled at Akane’s plan. “To show our solidarity and friendship, eh?” “Exactly,” Akane replied. “It doesn’t have to be a Star League matter, just a Confederation one. Kima can bitch about it all she wants, but frankly I don’t think she’ll care one way or the other so long as it’s our troops going at our own expense.” “Sounds great,” Ukyou remarked. “So who do we send?” “I want to send the 1st Nerima Guards, but that might be pushing things. They’re too closely tied to the SLDF now, and we want to keep this a purely Confederation move.” “I can always have Colonel Mukaida paint over the Cameron Stars before they go,” Ukyou pointed out. “Everyone knows that the 1st Nerima regiment represents the Grand Duke directly in the field.” “Maybe we can have it both ways, then,” Akane returned. “We keep the SLDF colors, but since it’s the 1st Nerima Guards, we can also say that they’re there simply as a gesture of goodwill from my father. Let the Cult think about just how much the Star League really supports the Compact, then.” “I like it, but it’s risky. Kima will see right through us, and we might end up poisoning the Commonwealth against us in the Council for the next five years.” Akane was not put off. “Again, I don’t think she’ll really care as long as we play the whole thing off as a Confederation gesture and not a Star League one. All she really cares about is making certain that the Commonwealth doesn’t end up sending its troops off to pursue a matter that isn’t in their own self-interest. If we’re the ones willing to bleed for the Compact, that’s our problem.” “It’s settled, then. Who else?” “The 7th Tikonov,” Akane said without pause. “Count Thuringia still owes my father a great deal for backing Nabiki in her coup – no matter what he might have done afterwards to put things to right.”
“Consider it done,” Ukyou replied.
The
South Tower of Azure Cloud Castle
Nabiki Tendo looked up from her desk as Akane walked into the room. “I didn’t expect to see you so soon,” she observed distractedly, and tucked away some papers in an accordion file at her feet. The computer monitor on the desk displayed the empty council chamber, her only conduit to the outside world that she could control on her own. “Did you watch the whole session?” Akane asked her as she took a chair some distance away from her older sister. They were barely on speaking terms, and of that, it was all strictly business. “I did,” Nabiki replied, her voice raspy and metallic from disuse. “Though I could have told you before it started how things were going to go.” “So you knew the Commonwealth was going to vote against the Compact’s admission?” Nabiki shook her head in mild contempt. “Please, Akane. Can you honestly say you were surprised by the vote?” Akane began to redden. She usually had more tolerance for Nabiki’s animosity, but this time her sister had gotten off to a head start on the day. “You could have at least told me what you thought.” Nabiki smiled. “You didn’t bother to ask.” Akane slammed her fist down on an end-table next to her chair. “Dammit, Nabiki! I shouldn’t have to ask for something so important!” Nabiki sat back in her chair and worked the kinks out of her neck. “You’re right, sis. I should continue to bust my ass propping up your silly Star League from within while I also continue to rot in this gilded prison cell. What ever was I thinking?” Akane stood up, her fists balling tight at her sides. “And petty stunts like this are just the thing to get you out of here, aren’t they!?” “Calm yourself, Akane,” Nabiki snorted. She punched at her desk console for one of her Marine guards to bring them tea. “You learned some valuable lessons today, and it hardly cost you a thing.” Akane gave her sister a hard look. “What do you mean?” Nabiki yawned. “For one thing, you learned that self-interest still reigns supreme in the council. Oh sure, you might have believed that before today, but now you’ve seen it up close and personal. This was the first hard decision the Council has had to make after all.” She perked up as the door chime sounded, and two Marines entered the room with a silver tea service on a cart. She waited until the Marines had left the tray between them before turning her attention back to her sister. “The second thing is that you know which way the wind is blowing with the Commonwealth in the driver’s seat.” She shook her head slowly. “I expected Ambassador Kima to play her cards a little closer to the chest, though.” “And what does this do for me?” Akane wanted to know. Nabiki poured herself a cup of tea. “You learned that the important things can’t be left to a committee. Am I right in guessing that you’re going to send Confederation troops to the Compact as a goodwill gesture?” Akane nodded. “There. You did learn that lesson. It’s a valuable one, so keep it close to your heart.” Akane poured her own cup of tea. “So the secret to being a great politician is cynicism,” she observed sourly. Nabiki chuckled. “Brilliant, sis. I’m glad that you finally caught on.” “What if I don’t believe that?” “Oh, you believe it,” Nabiki replied with a sip at her cup. “You don’t like it, but deep down inside you know that’s how the universe works. Democracy is a sham, sis. It’s a mutually agreeable conceit among parties who aren’t big enough or strong enough to dominate their enemies the hard way. Your Star League works only as much as it is in everyone’s best interest to let it work, and the second you forget that, Akane, you are going to get burned.” “Ukyou says the same thing,” Akane said quietly. “She says that we have to become like the Camerons.” Nabiki nodded. “A smart girl, that Kuonji, and she’s right.” She gave her sister a penetrating look. “You want the Star League to work more than anyone, Akane. Personally, I think you’re completely misguided in your belief that the first Star League was any good for humankind, and absolutely crazy to think the second one will be any better, but you are in a unique position to actually make it work if you’re willing to give up some of your idealism.” Akane closed her eyes, aware of where Nabiki was going with this line of thought. “You mean I can make it work if I become as autocratic as the Camerons,” she said quietly. “If you have to be a despot, no one says you can’t be a benevolent one,” Nabiki pointed out. “The Camerons understood that. That’s why they ruled for so long, and why everyone today looks back on the Star League as some kind of golden age.” She took another sip of her tea, the steam swirling before her cold hazel eyes. “The ugly truth about the Star League was that it was almost as violent an era as the Age of War that preceded it. The Camerons merely redirected that violence to more positive ends.” Akane sat back in her chair, clearly uncomfortable with the moral dilemma that Nabiki had presented her. “You don’t have to do anything, Akane,” Nabiki went on. “You can keep going the way you’re going if you’re too squeamish to do what has to be done.” She finished her tea with a satisfied slurp. “But don’t be angry, hurt, or surprised when everything falls apart.” The confederation heir nibbled at her lip. “I don’t know if I can be ruthless, Nabiki,” she declared. “Not ruthless like you.” Nabiki took the slight without emotion. “Then you shouldn’t be in this business at all,” she returned evenly. “There isn’t any room for compassion for compassion’s sake here. Or kindness, or morality. If you can rule and still manage to be fair, honest, moral, and compassionate, well, that’s great. Personally I don’t see how you can be all that and still keep ahead of your fellows on the council. They all have agendas. They all have axes to grind. The Star League will only succeed so long as you recognize that and put it to work for you in any way you can.” She set her tea cup down on her desk. “There. I’m through sermonizing you. Go read The Prince or something. It’ll save me the trouble of spoon-feeding it to you every time you come up here for advice.” “’It is better for a Prince to be feared than loved,’” Akane quoted, her voice betraying a touch of veiled bitterness.
Nabiki arched an eyebrow at her sister. “That’s right,” she snapped.
“Machiavelli wasn’t writing some bland commentary on 16th century politics.
He was making some very frank observations on human nature.” It was
all she could do just to sit there and not rush over to shake some sense
into her. “Nothing has changed, Akane! Human nature has not changed!
You can either be a part of history, or you can get run over by it!”
Chapter Two Azure
Cloud Castle
The soft flicker of candlelight upon the face of Hikaru Gosunkugi exaggerated the lines of weariness and anxiety that had grown and deepened despite his youth as he hunched over the crabby handwritten notes describing his recent forays into the void. As he raised his pen to the loose sheafs of paper upon his desk, his hand began to tremble, forcing him to clench up with a hiss. The ragged scars on his wrists where Tatewaki Kuno’s men had driven cold iron spikes through them seemed to pulse and crawl in the ruddy candlelight as he brought his arms up to his chest and clutched himself tight. Despair and a cold rage fought for possession of him as he choked out a gutteral moan and rocked back and forth in his chair. To be so close to the woman he loved, and yet the tiny distance that separated them might well have been a hundred thousand parsecs for all he could capitalize on it. At the same time, he knew that the woman he despised more than any in the universe was also close at hand, and that she was no more obtainable than Akane. It was torment, twin pangs of desire and denial that knifed through him in quiet moments when the distractions of his role as First Lord of the Star League were not upon him, and silently gnawing with subtle and insatiable effect upon his mind while he was occupied. In the Beyond he was like unto a god, potent and encompassing, if wary of what else lay in those jeweled depths of the infinite, but in the stunted realm of the physical he was frail, feeble, and wracked with indecision and doubt. The new duality of his existence had presented him with a dreadful temptation. In younger days, while his cousin Tetsuo lived, he would have possessed an anchor of sense and stability against the maelstrom. But Tetsuo Gosunkugi was dead, murdered in cold blood by the agency of Nabiki Tendo to further her own treasonous ends. Hikaru had no one to turn to, having eschewed other friendships in his short life, and spurning those relatives of his that remained bound to their own petty intrigues and distractions at home. His forbidden investigations had been one way to salve the loss of his cousin and friend, and their bitter fruit now gave him another way to go on, though he was only now beginning to see an inkling of the danger which lay down that path. The powerful and not completely understood psychoactives he had begun injecting into his bloodstream had certainly broadened his perceptions, and in those fleeting moments of godhood they gave him, he had an escape as seductive as the sublime beauty of Akane Tendo herself. He feared that seduction, that it would lead him away from Akane and into madness. He put away his pen and papers for the moment, standing and turning to take in the regal guest chambers that were his quarters for the duration of the High Council’s session. With the matter of the St. Ives Compact set aside for the moment, there were no pressing reasons to continue the council meeting, though he would do what he could to remain on Nerima for as long as he dared. His term as First Lord would expire within two months, and then the Commonwealth would assume the mantle of leadership. He knew that Cologne would insist upon meeting outside the Confederation the next time the High Council was called to order. Hikaru did not mind giving up the role of First Lord, for it did not possess the kind of power it once did under the Camerons, nor would it unless some dramatic change in the balance of power in the Inner Sphere took place. That the Star League existed at all was only as a foil to the threat of Furinkan Combine domination, and now that threat was evaporating in the fires of the Combine Civil War. No, for him the Star League was only ever an excuse to get closer to Akane. Fleeting shadows at the corners of his vision gave him pause as he stepped toward the doors to his chamber. Always avoiding his direct sight, the specters danced maddeningly at the periphery, teasing and taunting him with questions of their veracity. Had his experiments in higher modalities of consciousness given him enhanced powers of sight into the beyond, or were these cryptic shades the product of a chemically damaged mind? Hikaru had enough fear of both possibilities being true to discount neither. He took the door with forced calm and stepped out into the antechamber where his security apparatus maintained their vigilant watch. The soldiers in League of Five Nails livery, used to their lord’s penchant for staying up at all hours of the night, snapped to attention as he entered the chamber, and he waved for them to be at ease as he passed nervously to the second door – the one that linked his quarters with the castle proper. A bodyguard fell in behind him at a respectful but prudent distance. He continued his walk down the gilded hall to the Grand Salon, the great chamber where he had once been paraded as a royal hostage of Tatewaki Kuno before the traitor, Nabiki Tendo. Little had changed about the place since his first visit to the castle, and he sought more comforting spaces than this one with a slight shudder and a soft gasp of dread. Eventually his wanderings through the castle brought him to the garden terrace that overlooked the fair city below. Confederation Marines with the rampant stallion of the 5th Brigade emblazoned on blue and white Ducal Guard brassards stood between him and the quiet solitude beyond.
“I’m sorry, milord,” one of them grunted. “Lady Akane is outside,
and she does not wish to be disturbed.”
“I understand,” he replied firmly. “Could you send her my regards and my wish for a pleasant evening?” It was so much easier for Hikaru to work through intermediaries or from behind the walls of Star League formality when it came to Akane, and he cursed his weakness bitterly for it. The Marine nodded and went outside to the garden. Hikaru stood for a moment, wracked with insomnia and the inability to think of what he could do about it when Akane appeared at the door. “Hikaru,” she called to him. His heart began to flutter in his chest. “I’m surprised to see you awake. You looked so tired at the council meeting.” He beamed with hope at the warmth in her voice. “I’m fine,” he assured her, his mind trying to remain in control over his body. “Please,” Akane said to him. “Come out with me to the garden. I’d like to talk with you for awhile.” He found himself nearly floating on air over to her, leaving the Marines and his bodyguard to wait by the doors in stoic silence. The garden was dark, lit only by the stars and thin crescent moon above, and the twinkling of the city below. In spite of the darkness, Akane herself seemed radiant to him, her skin delicately luminous and her eyes glittering with tiny motes of starlight. She was so impossibly beautiful to him that he found his hands moving up from his sides to take her by the shoulders and draw her tight against himself. He checked his impulse with a flush of heat and shame, hoping that she hadn’t noticed. She sighed dreamily and bade him walk with her over to the fountain pool in the center of the garden terrace. “Thank you for your help in the Council today,” she opened. “It was good to hear that there exists some support for the St. Ives Compact.” Hikaru was hoping for something other than a political discussion. He concealed his disappointment as best he could, and tried to smile. “Well, I did what I could,” he managed. “Perhaps the vote will go our way at the next session.” Akane did not call attention to or even seem to notice the way he had made her crusade for St. Ives his own great concern in spite of his abstention in the vote. She seemed both radiant and vulnerable to him in that moment, lonely and a little lost, and he at once began to speculate on the presence of Ranma Saotome. As his assassins had learned early on, the day to day whereabouts of Saotome were a closely guarded affair, and he could never be certain of the accuracy of his reports. A perverse thought welled up within him, and he found himself speaking before he could check his tongue. “Ranma hasn’t been here lately, and you miss him, don’t you?” he asked her.
Her reaction to his question confirmed his beliefs even before she spoke.
"I too have heard such rumors," he hedged uneasily. "It is to be expected when one is close to royalty." "Perhaps," she said coolly, her eyes retaining their fire. "But should anything happen to Ranma, Hikaru, I don't know how I might react." She looked away for a moment. "Badly, I suppose. I know that I would have my revenge on whoever sent the assassins." She did not say it in so many words, but the implications were clear. She suspected him of plotting to kill Saotome. His heart wrenched in his chest, for he had long feared her rebuke in the event his men succeeded in their appointed task. He loved Akane, but to have her, he must inflict great hurt upon her. He struggled with the resolve to do so, and found himself wanting once again. "If it is within my power to prevent your fianceé's death, whether on the battlefield or by an assassin's hand, Akane, I shall do it," he vowed, cursing his weakness once again that evening. He would call off his men, at least for now. There had to be a way to do in Ranma Saotome without arousing Akane's suspicions, and he would find it!
"Thank you, Hikaru," she replied, her tone softening.
Chapter Three Jusenkyo
Commonwealth DropShip Jade Lotus
The steady banter of Commonwealth battle-language chirped in Shampoo’s ears as she strapped herself into her Panther’s ejector seat and rechecked the life support connections. Though she had years of combat experience leading her battalion of raiders, her apprehension of the coming hour was as strong as it had ever been in moments like this. She busied herself with systems checks and terse last-second commo links to her subordinates to keep her mind off of the impending raid. Her JumpShip had been detected coming out of hyperspace at the Jump Point, though she had expected nothing less from the wary Furinkan Combine, and her battle plan accounted for a warm reception by the defending aerospace fighter wing. They would race towards the target planet at a very high velocity, high enough to make it difficult for the fighters to swarm her DropShips, and plunge into the upper atmosphere in an aerobraking maneuver to slow down. The pursuing fighters would be hampered enough by atmospheric entry to minimize their threat, she hoped. Though nearly every stage of the insertion was risky enough, she had decided on a high-altitude drop for her battalion rather than landing her DropShips to deploy the troops, and making them vulnerable to ground attack while they waited for the battalion to complete their assignments. A high-altitude drop was dangerous in more ways than one. If the DropShips didn’t slow down sufficiently in the atmosphere, or came in at the wrong insertion angle, the battlemechs would be ripped apart by aerodynamic forces as they left their protective cocoons. If the Drop Kits bolted onto each ‘mech failed, the pilot was doomed to die as her war machine became a sixty ton falling rock. The kind of high-speed high-altitude drop she had insisted on also ran the risk of scattering her lances across a wide area, where they could be isolated by the defending garrision and wiped out. Shampoo knew the risks involved with her plan, and she knew that her troops were sufficiently trained and self-confident enough to handle bad situations as they arose.
The last part of the raid was the most perilous. Her DropShips eventually
had to land and remain in position long enough for her ‘mechs to climb
aboard for the full-burn escape from the planet. She had planned
for the inevitable chaos and confusion by substituting one of her battalion’s
aging Union Class DropShips for three relatively agile Leopard
Class ships that could fly around in the lower atmosphere to pick up
the stragglers. Since most of her battalion consisted of medium and
light units, the Leopards could carry more than their standard four
battlemechs without too much concern of overloading them, and gave her
some breathing room in evacuating the battalion before Dermont’s garrison
could mobilize its forces to overwhelm them.
“My lord Major,” her battalion adjutant addressed her over the tac-net. “All lance commanders indicate ready for drop.” Shampoo nodded tersely in acknowledgement “Very well,” she intoned, almost as an afterthought. There was nothing more to be said, and she was not the type of commander to give pre-combat pep talks to her troops. They understood that she expected nothing less of them than to fight hard and fulfill their individual objectives. Furthermore, they also understood that after the battle, when the action reports were in and the combat flight recorders analyzed, that she would not be stingy with praise and rewards for those deserving of it. Most of her troops were between sixteen and twenty years old – though mostly on the younger side of that range – and at twenty-five and a mother, Shampoo was quietly looked upon by them as being as something slightly less than fossilized. The veneration of age that formed the backbone of Chinese culture in general and the Joketsuzoku in particular was still strong among them, but they were a young battalion, with all of the good and the bad that came with the impetuous nature of youth. They were young because raiding battalions were extremely dangerous duty, and more seasoned mechwarriors were needed in front-line combat regiments. Only the Special Forces regiments carried out such hazardous assignments while relying on older, highly disciplined mechwarriors, for they went on missions that absolutely could not fail, and thus could not be trusted to younger, less-experienced troops. Shampoo’s girls were talented, but lacked strong reputations. Her battalion gave them the opportunity to make names for themselves and earn combat distinctions that would serve them well when they rotated into safer duty assignments. While she waited for contact with the enemy, her fingertips absently caressed the stereograph of Mushan that she had taped to her cockpit console. He seemed such a grave and solemn little boy, regarding the camera that had snapped the picture of him with what could only be considered grim determination. His blue eyes smoldered behind unruly bangs of dark purple hair; the eyes of his father, Mousse. He was only five years old, and already the resemblence to his father was striking. He should have been wearing his glasses in the stereograph, for his vision was predictably poor, but where Mousse had been absentminded about his own spectacles, Shampoo detected in Mushan the surly streak of rebelliousness that could only have come from her. She loved her son with a strength and totality that often surprised her, but in the last three years she had only been a peripheral figure in his life. He was a child of the Joketsuzoku, and as such his upbringing was a collective responsibility of the clan, and of her family within that clan in particular. He was of direct lineage to the Matriarch, and that was a burden that could not be ignored. It was within her means to arbitrarily assume a duty assignment that placed her closer to her son, but she had worked dilligently to move beyond the whispers of favoritism that had once surrounded her, and to summarily cash in all of her hard-won respect was a bitter prospect for her. The decision to remain with her battalion tore at her, though, and she wished there could have been another way. Her Panther swayed in its padded cocoon as the Jade Lotus fired maneuvering jets to adjust its course for the coming atmospheric insertion. They were depending on raw velocity and the massed guns of their formation to carry them through Dermont’s fighters. Their own fighter escorts would do what they could on the way in, but their primary mission was to cover the retreat from orbit, and they would not tempt fate by descending into Dermont’s atmosphere. “Prepare for enemy contact,” the captain of Jade Lotus declared suddenly on the intercom. Shampoo could hear the warble of sensory alarms in the background. She flicked her commo suite over to the DropShip’s internal combat-net, where the unquestionably male voices of the gunners called out approaching contacts in calm but urgent barks of warning and support. Her attitude regarding men had changed with the birth of Mushan, and she found it absurd that she trusted her life to the gunners in their turret mounts, and to the engineers and techs deep within the heart of the Jade Lotus’ engineering plant, but could not openly hold them in the same high regard as the female mechwarriors, fighter pilots, and command crews. The Musk Dynasty had been crushed, but nothing had changed in Commonwealth society to address the grievances that had spawned it. She knew her great-grandmother understood that, and yet by Cologne’s own admission, she was too hide-bound to do anything about the situation.
If such a thing were ever to happen, it will be the task of the young
to make it so, she heard her old great-grandmother’s voice in her head.
Shampoo knew that the Matriarch of her people meant her great-granddaughter
specifically by that remark, but that was contingent on one day succeeding
to the position of Matriarch. She was far too young for the position,
no matter her great-grandmother’s preferences, and the only legitimate
speculation on the matter of whether or not it would come to pass stemmed
from speculation on how much longer Cologne could stay alive and strong
enough to influence the succession.
Jade Lotus lurched violently then, a telling hit had been scored upon her DropShip, and Shampoo’s fingers once again teased the tiny stereograph of her son with unease. There was nothing she could do to affect the outcome of this battle. She was a passive participant in the swirling chaos of weapon fire and silent death beyond the pressure hull of the DropShip, and her end could come swiftly and without warning. She accepted that fact with as much dignity and grace as she could manage, all the while wincing in spite of herself with each hit upon the ship. The voices of the gunners were fierce and frantic, howls of disaster as a Combine fighter evaded their weapons to lay into one of the DropShips, and barks of righteous delight as an enemy exploded under their barrage. Shampoo could not tell one way or the other how the battle was going for them save that no one had said anything about losing one of the DropShips yet. The only clear indications of what was going on were the sudden appearance of a countdown on her main console display, and the whine of hydraulics as the fragile automated ‘mech deployment system began pre-positioning her company for airborne egress from the ‘Mech Bay Doors. Gravity began tugging on Shampoo in odd vectors as the DropShip executed a hypersonic somersault just above the limits of Dermont’s atmosphere to put its aft end facing the direction of travel in preparation for the aerobraking maneuver. The countdown continued ticking away by the tenth of a second as the ship bit into uneven pockets of air and began decelerating. Free-fall gave way completely to gravity as the Jade Lotus fell through the upper atmosphere, bleeding off speed and turning it into radiant heat that sheathed the DropShip in plasma, and brought the battle to an abrupt halt. The Panther trembled in its cocoon as the ship bucked and shook with the force of entry, and Shampoo found herself staring desperately into Mushan’s intense blue eyes for comfort. As the fighting raged around her, an alarm hooted in her ears as the ‘Mech Bay’s evacuation pumps began their pounding, sucking most of the air out of the compartment to equalize the pressure with the thin ionosphere prior to opening the doors. The doors themselves opened with metallic shrieks, grating against the unevenly heated sealing surfaces as they came off their seats. Her Panther swayed ominously as the deployment system moved its cocoon from the inner race of the doughnut-shaped ‘Mech Bay to the outer bulkhead in preparation for drop. The countdown fell through double digits as the DropShip fired a final spray of stabilizing jets high in the ionosphere. The angle of attack into the planet’s atmospheric envelope was such that after each DropShip’s ‘mech deployment, the five spacecraft would accelerate just enough to fall around the planet into a highly elliptical orbit. Ninety minutes later, after firing braking thrusters to stabilize the eccentricity of their orbital motions, they would make a traditional high speed descent to the surface of the planet for dustoff. Such were matters for the DropShip crews. Shampoo could feel her Panther heave up and out as the protective cocoon withdrew from her, and at last she could see the starry twilight and the sweeping arc of Dermont outside the open door through her cockpit visor. Then the hydraulic positioning rack hauled her the last few meters towards the yawning abyss with a shrill whine that rattled her teeth through her ejector seat as the DropShip continued to bounce and shake with its passage through air. She had just a moment to make a final check of all her systems before the deployment system extended the forty-meter long telescoping pole that her Panther would ride along to keep it out of the deadly turbulent wake of the Jade Lotus’ slipstream. That moment came and went in a flash, and then she could feel only the incredible rush of moving out and down the pole. Her eyes caught a glimpse of the fire lance commander’s Dervish as it shot out of the DropShip on the second of the three deployment poles, the battlemech’s paddle-like hands rising up to the level of its head in true skydiver fashion at it went. Shampoo concentrated on her own paratroop form as the Panther caught free air at the end of the pole and began to tumble. The drop kit’s first drogue chute deployed on cue, helping her stabilize her fall. She was thirty kilometers high, and falling towards the planet in a 35-ton war machine. It was still dark below her, though she could see that the Dermont primary was already casting stark rays of light on the extended horizon. She searched for the rest of the battalion in the sky above her, but caught only vague flashes of reflected starlight that could have been anything; from droplets of thruster propellant, to bits of metal debris from the fighting, to the ‘mechs themselves. There would be no real account of how the drop went until they had touched down on the surface, and that was five minutes away. She was thankful that the heavy duty planetary defenses of the First Succession War were distant memories, as the Commonwealth’s current drop kits did not come equipped with the countermeasures and defensive systems necessary to keep her and her battalion from being obliterated in midair. Even falling at just under the speed of sound, they were essentially sitting ducks to a Star League era surface to air missile battery. As her Panther passed ten kilometers of altitude, the second drogue chute deployed with a snap that jerked her up tight against her ejector seat straps. Her velocity slowed to half the speed of sound, slow enough to deploy the larger first braking chute without tearing it apart. The rush of the wind quieted somewhat around her cockpit, giving her the chance to think clearly. The battalion’s tac-net remained silent as ordered, and she tapped at her console to bring up any Combine frequencies that she could detect. Most of what she heard was scrambled, a buzzsaw of noise and high-pitched warbling that concealed the garrison’s attempts to find and localize her ‘mechs as they descended. Those frequencies that offered something in the clear seemed to be local radio stations warning the population of the attack, along with a flurry of cellphone conversations discussing the matter with all of the wild speculation and fear that Shampoo hoped for from the people of the Combine.
Of all of the Successor States, Shampoo had grown up hating the Furinkan
Combine the most. Most of the Jusenkyo Commonwealth’s history was
seeded with a litany of horrors and atrocities commited against them by
the Combine, and even after she had grown old enough to see many of the
incidents for the propaganda they were – as well as realize that the Commonwealth
had hardly been saintly in their own actions against the Combine – the
desire to inflict suffering and destruction upon the Furinkan Combine was
deeply ingrained into her psyche. The Second Star League of Akane
Tendo frowned upon the Commonwealth’s raids into the Combine, but Shampoo
was a realist on the matter. That the Star League existed at all
was because of the need to check Tatewaki Kuno’s ambitions, and the Commonwealth’s
raids kept him from throwing all of his might against his separatist problem
and crushing them. A preoccupied Tatewaki Kuno was a Tatewaki Kuno
incapable of subjugating his neighbors.
TO BE CONTINUED
On to Part Two
|