Telos IV
“Sold?”
Duke Kaba nodded convulsively, almost jelly-like in his abject misery.
“Sold?” The Tai-sa was running a comb obsessively over his head, attempting to restore his pompadour to something of its former glory. “Sold?”
“Could you stop saying that?” Kaba moaned. “Yes, sold. Don’t look at me like that. Cherenkoff and Samsonov had no intention of ever shipping any of it to the Dragoons. It’d just go to waste otherwise.”
“Sold to who?” The comb made another pass, then another. A sprig of hair stood rebelliously up from the man’s crown.
Kaba gave a pudding shrug, a sort of semi-liquid shake. “People. I don’t know their names, I don’t know them personally. People. You know. Contractors, fixers, middle-men, yakuza.”
Fukuyama sighed, a sound full of woe, and disappointment with the frailty of one’s fellow men. He put down the comb. “It is not the act that troubles me, dear Duke, it’s that you did it without telling me,” he said. “I assume you had help from one or more of my people. Give me their names, and a percentage, and I may forget the whole incident.”
“But what about Lady Kurita?”
Another sigh. “She isn’t going to personally check every crate herself, you know.”
“You sure about that?”
The car halted and was waved through a checkpoint, then was briefly dipped in darkness as it entered the ramp to the command center’s underground parking garage. The cabin was filled with harsh blue-white light from overhead illumination bars once they were inside. The driver slowed to a stop in front of the commander’s personal elevator.
Fukuyama reached forward, and tapped the driver on the shoulder. “Wait outside for us, for a moment.”
“Yessir,” the man said, opened and closed the door, and stood nervously beside the elevator controls.
Fukuyama turned to Kaba, and laid a firm, reassuring hand on the other man’s shoulder. “Now, Duke Kaba, we have been fortunate. It seems all we need to do is buy a little time, make a show of fulfilling Lady Kurita’s demands. We make the list, as requested. Doesn’t matter if everything on the list is actually in the warehouses or not. Shift some of the impounded material to another location—not to worry, it can all be moved back. She’s a woman, you know what they’re like, butterfly minds. Once we show her we aren’t planning sedition or rebellion, she’ll lose interest and won’t stay here for long, and this whole incident will be just a minor, territorial squabble between the O5P and DCMS. At least, that’s the best-case scenario.”
Kaba, who had been nodding encouragingly through Fukuyama’s speech, stopped mid-agreement. “And … the worst-case?”
“Women can also be vindictive,” Fukuyama said gravely. “She may seek to make an example of either one of us. Or both.” The friendly hand on Kaba’s shoulder turned hard. “In which case, My Lord, I would like to know that you stand ready to do what is necessary.”
Kaba’s eyes twitched from the hand clamped on his shoulder, to Fukuyama’s face. “Necessary?” he echoed.
“I will not have my career ruined because some … woman … suddenly decided to meddle in military affairs. Ammunition dumps are dangerous things, My Lord,” Fukuyama said somberly. “Accidents can happen.”
“Dangerous,” Kaba repeated. “Accidents.”
Fukuyama’s hand relaxed, and gave the Duke a reassuring pat. “Just so. But, let us pray it does not come to that. Now, how about a cup of tea? Or something stronger? We need to decide how much to tell Lady Kurita, and what to do about her … explosive allegations.”
#
“What do you make of them, Ishikawa-san?” Constance Kurita watched the tail-lights of the ground car disappear, swallowed by the insatiable rain. Did it ever stop on this miserable planet?
As if in answer, lightning sheeted and rumbled across the sky.
At her side, the gaunt monk half-closed his eyes a moment in thought. “Alone, either man would be nothing, inconsequential, my lady,” he said at last. “Together, they could be dangerous. The Duke is greedy, but indolent, lazy, a coward. The Tai-sa is ambitious, proud and unbending, but lacks imagination. I fear the Duke’s greed may put the commander in a position from which he cannot back down.”
The Keeper of the House Honor sighed, patted her hair, gave it up for a lost cause. She’d thought, on becoming an adult, that things would be different, but no: everyone still acted like teenagers, 30, 40 or 50-year-old teenagers, the stars were filled with teenager cliques still sniping at each other for the pettiest, stupidest shit they could imagine. The galaxy was a high school. “Maitta naa. Their story, about Tai-sho Cherenkoff-san and Tai-sho Samsonov? And yes, my father. Do you believe that?”
The monk, Ishikawa, nodded almost reluctantly. “As I said, Tai-sa Fukuyama lacks imagination—I doubt he would concoct a plan to steal supplies, much less create a cover story to hide it.”
Constance closed her eyes and rubbed her temples. “Yappari ne. What I was afraid of,” she muttered. “Fighting among ourselves while our enemies grow closer together. The last person to try something like this with the Dragoons had an entire building dropped on top of them. So, Cherenkoff-san and Samsonov-san are in on this. And my uncle?”
Ishikawa’s smile was apologetic. “I find it hard to believe that the Coordinator is completely ignorant of these developments, my lady.”
“So do I.” She looked glumly up at the stacks of crates towering over them. “So do I.”
Another rumble shook the building, spilling a powdery shower of dust from the rafters.
“So, close our eyes and pretend we saw nothing, or act to save the Dragon from its own foolishness?” Constance chewed her lip. “Perhaps I can convince the oyaji to at least remove Samsonov. And the two cretins here.”
Ishikawa said nothing, distracted by something outside the warehouse.
Another rumble, producing a thicker rain of dust. The ground trembled a little, and one of the lighter, smaller crates shifted a little on its perch atop a stack of larger ones.
“Bikkurishita ne. Jishin ka to omotte ita. That was close, wasn’t it, Ishikawa-san? Ishikawa-san? Ishikawa-san?”
The monk’s eyes were glued to the horizon.
#
Tai-sa Fukuyama was shuffling through a sheaf of papers, shaking his head in mock-wonder. “Almost a quarter of the stores are missing, My Lord. You have been busy. You must be paying off virtually every man in the garrison.”
Duke Kaba stood at the window, although there was little to see but near-solid sheets of rain, lit by the occasional strobe as sheets of lightning flickered among the clouds, keeping up a constant rumbling atmospheric percussion. In his hands, he held a long thimble of clear nihonshu liquor—even as provincial as he was, he was not so gauche as to call it ‘sake’ or drink it warm—and lifted it to his lips before answering. “The Dragon rewards its servants with loyalty and honor, not K-Bills,” he said, licking his lips. “Every man needs to make a living.”
Behind Kaba’s back, Fukuyama held up a sheet of paper and flicked it with one index finger. “Well, it’s going to make it hard to pull the wool over Lady Kurita’s eyes.” He put the paper down. “An accident is beginning to look more and more attractive, don’t you—careful, you clumsy fool!”
The thin glass slipped from Kaba’s fingers, shattering on the floor, just as another loud percussion—much louder, actually, much closer—blatted into the room. Kaba wasn’t looking at Fukuyama, however, he was staring out the window. Heedless of the sweet-smelling drink pooling at his feet.
Fukuyama rose to stand next to the Duke, peering through the window. “What the—”
The blue-grey skyline was broken by a swirling, roiling ball of red-black flame and smoke ballooning into the sky. A moment later the windows rattled at the blast wave blew over the headquarters.
An intercom light on Fukuyama’s desk was blinking frantically. He charged back to it, slamming his hand down on the button. “What was that?”
“Tai-sa Fukuyama!” replied Fukuyama’s aide on the intercom. “We are under attack! BattleMechs, our outer perimeter is being overrun!”
“Scramble the garrison! Get me eyes on the enemy, I want a full sitrep in 15 minutes. I’ll be at the CP, have all battalion commanders meet me there.”
#
The ground seemed to lurch under Constance’s feet. A spray of water was thrown in her face, blown by a racing wall of hot air that raced through the warehouse. Outside, a red and black mushroom rose like a demon jellyfish in the liquid air.
“Bakudan? An explosion?” she gasped. “Kaba? Fukuyama?”
“Nigenai to. My lady, we must get you out of here,” the monk Ishikawa insisted, grabbing her arm, pulling her towards the warehouse doorway. “Worry about it later. There’s enough TNT here to level half the city.”
The security detachment of O5P paramilitaries crouched on either side of the doorway, the stunsticks, sonic stunners and tranq guns they clutched in their hands looking small and useless. The adept in charge was shouting into a radio, seemingly carrying on a conversation with a cloud of digital static. At the adept’s signal, the security detachment formed a double circle around Constance, but she felt far from reassured.
Slow-moving shadows lumbered through the rain. Human-shaped, but impossibly large. The grinding crunch of their footfalls was audible even over the drumming rain. Constance shivered.
From between the long lines of warehouses, a bobbling line of twin headlights raced towards Constance and the others.
“Hold tight, my lady. We’ll have you out of here soon,” Ishikawa said, nodding towards the approaching vehicles.
“Korosareru zo. Tell them to turn off their headlights,” she shouted at the adept, ignoring Ishikawa.
“What?”
“Headlights. Off.” Even as she shouted she knew it was too late, had probably been too late the moment those vehicles came into view.
Twin beams of brilliant, angry red light came stabbing through the gloom, and tore apart the lead vehicle in a shower of molten metal fragments. The others behind it squealed to a stop on the wet asphalt, some swerving or colliding, forming an immobile, impossible-to-miss morass.
The killing light flared again, and reduced the convoy to charred metal and burning rubber.
Constance Kurita found herself face-down on the ground, Ishikawa crouched over her, shielding her as glowing shrapnel rained down on them. Angrily she shoved him away, finding her feet.
“My lady, we must flee!”
“No,” she shook her head. “I have a better idea.”
#
The map room in the headquarters’ reinforced bunker of a basement was crowded with men by the time Tai-sa Fukuyama arrived, all gathered in a football huddle around a map of Triumph City pinned to the wall. A laminated overlay had been used to hastily scrawl green arrows of movement, blue blobs of men and machines, red dots of enemy forces.
“What do we have, gentlemen?” Fukuyama asked as he strode in.
A Sho-sa saluted. “Sir, about a battalion of BattleMechs, unsupported as far as we can tell, approaching in an arrowhead formation from the east. They’ve overrun a number of minor outposts at the city outskirts. We now have the 441st ‘Hayate’ hovertank battalion harassing their flanks. The 506th ‘Adachi’ and 509th ‘Kurumaya’ motorized infantry are moving into position, but frankly sir, they don’t have the firepower to be more than a nuisance.”
“Their DropShips?”
The Sho-sa shook his head. “Unknown, sir. In this weather, they could have come down anywhere and we wouldn’t know until they were right on top of us.”
“Well, find them. Get the 77th interceptor squadron airborne and looking for those ships. Now, what are those bastards after?”
“They appear to be heading straight for the warehouse district, Tai-sa.”
“Sir! Lady Constance Kurita is in that area now. She must be evacuated!”
“The warehouse district.” Tai-sa Fukuyama shared a long, meaningful look with Duke Kaba. “Of course,” he said absently. “Evacuated, yes of course. Yes. I will see to it personally. My own security detachment. Or better yet, perhaps Duke Kaba would be kind enough to lend us some of his men, as well? My Lord?”
Duke Kaba blinked, then nodded slowly. “Yes … yes, certainly. It would be our pleasure and honor. As many as you like, Tai-sa.”
“Excellent. A company ought to do, eh? You have my complete faith, My Lord. I shall consider it done.” Fukuyama clasped his hands behind his back, staring down at the map. “What is the status of the 99th artillery battery?”
“On station, sir. Twelve tubes, 120mm. Do they have a target, sir?”
Fukuyama smiled, nodded. “They do. We know where the enemy is headed—let us allow him to get there. Once we get the all-clear that Lady Kurita is safely away,” he paused, glancing at Duke Kaba again, “Have the 4-4-1 fall back, let the enemy claim their prize. Then, I want every tube to fire on the warehouse district—specifically, target the O5P warehouses on the eastern end.”
There was a shocked silence. Several of the men gathered around the map glanced sideways at each other. “Yes?” demanded Fukuyama. “Is there a problem?”
“Sir, as you know sir, munitions are currently being stored in those warehouses…” one man began hesitantly.
“Sir,” said another. “It’d be like Krakatoa if we hit anything.”
“Well, yes,” Fukuyama nodded. “That’s the idea.”
