Assumption of risk

  The dark-haired man shook his head. "No, my lord. Cox's media exposure comes in both news and entertainment coverage. In a number of markets the programs about him and Victor have been counterbroadcast against shows about you. Granting that the holodramas about your days as a fighter pilot are dated now, the shows featuring Cox are twice as popular. In addition, because the dramas feature Victor, news programs often place little promotional bits in with the advertisements, touting items about Victor, Katrina, Peter, or even about Kai Allard-Liao's latest fight. It's hard to say if this is a coordinated effort against you, my lord, but I would be negligent in not pointing out that Katrina's aptitude for media manipulation may have rubbed off on Victor and even Peter."

  Hanau looked down. "As their numbers rise, so do Victor's, while yours decline."

  Ryan smiled at the touch of panic elevating the pitch of Hanau's voice. "Well, then, it seems we'll have to work at severing that connection between Victor and the others." The duke smiled carefully. "Mr. Hanau, you will begin placing the rumor that the rift between Katrina and Victor over the disposition of their mother's body has never truly healed. Cox, in attempting to reconcile the two, has become a close personal friend of Katrina. Hint at intimacy, but back away from any confirmation of it. As a result of this, Victor has become disgusted with Cox, and that is the reason Cox was sent off with Katrina. It is not that Victor trusts the man, but that he does not trust him, and for that reason sent him away."

  Newmark smiled appreciatively. "If we promote Galen Cox as a loyal son of Skye and heighten the rumors of Victor's rejection of him ..."

  "Exactly, we use Galen's rising popularity to force a wedge between Victor and Skye." Ryan nodded his congratulations to the blond man. "Any attempts by Victor or Galen to deny this rumor can be construed as their effort to cover up public knowledge of how bad things are going."

  The duke looked at Hanau as the man tapped away on the keyboard of his comp pad. "Your point about my dramas being out-of-date is well taken. I need to expand my profile to get coverage in more areas. Your mention of Kai Allard-Liao also reminds me that I invested in a stable of fighters on Solaris some time back."

  Newmark nodded. "Oonthrax Stables. Vito Oonthrax's wife is a distant cousin of your wife. Her family had a claim to the ownership of Laurent, and he needed money to rebuild his stable. The initial return on your investment—ownership of fifteen percent of the stable—was good, but has fallen in the last few years."

  Ryan waved a hand through the financial data that suddenly appeared before him. "It was never about money, that deal, but politics. Laurent is gone—the Wolf Clan took it, and good riddance to it. Buy the stables outright. Fire Vito and put someone else in his place. Change the name to Skye Tigers and announce that I have become the owner. I will be traveling there in time for Kai Allard-Liao's next defense of his title. It's not against one of my fighters, is it?"

  Hanau shook his head. "No, he'll be fighting Wu Deng Tang, one of Tandrek Stables' rising stars. It's being billed as a war for the Liao throne, since Ling is a Liao fighter."

  "Good, that should attract plenty of attention." Ryan smiled. "Being there will garner me a fair share of it."

  Newmark frowned. "Backing up for a moment, what do you think Katrina will do in response to our attempt to drive a wedge between Prince Victor and Galen Cox?"

  "Nothing." Ryan interlaced his fingers and let his hands rest on the desk. "Katrina and I understand each other. She will undermine neither Victor nor me. To undermine her brother would be foolish because he could isolate her. To go against me, well, that would be equally foolish."

  The Rasalhague expatriate nodded. "I see. What about Peter?"

  "Peter's greatest weakness is his temper. He is on his way to conquering it, but he has still not done so. We must test him, to see how stable he really is." The duke closed his eyes for a moment. "The militia is the only armed force on Lyons, correct?"

  "Yes, my lord," Hanau replied quickly.

  "Good. Tell our people there we want an increase in political unrest. Just civil disobedience at this point. Anti-Davion rallies focusing on the refugee problem and the general sluggishness of the economy. Also have them establish connections with any pro-violence anarchist cells."

  Hanau looked up, surprise spreading over his face. "Those groups hate you as much as they hate the Davions."

  "True, but they can and do have their uses." Ryan took comfort in Hanau's shudder. "If it's true that Peter is learning to control himself, one of those fanatics could be just what we need to eliminate him altogether."

  5

  DropShip Zhangshi, Jump Orbit L3

  Tetersen, District of Donegal Federated Commonwealth

  25 December 3055

  Kai Allard-Liao bowed deeply as Omi Kurita stepped into the dining salon of his DropShip. "I am glad you were able to join me on such short notice."

  She nodded to him. "And I am glad of the invitation to come here." Her long black hair, which she wore loose, hung down over the shoulders of her silken dress. Though the garment resembled the chic style seen on countless worlds of the Federated Commonwealth, Kai could tell from the subtle pattern of threads woven through the sky blue fabric that the dress had been manufactured in the Draconis Combine. If they go so far as to provide Omi with a FedCom wardrobe for visiting a FedCom world, her mission must be vital indeed.

  Omi looked distractedly around the room. Its deep mahogany paneling and brightly polished brass fittings contrasted with the ferrosteel and ceramics of the ship's construction. The room's furnishings were also in a style more suited to a splendor of ages long past, as if this were a cabin on the kind of luxury liner that used to ply terrestrial oceans more than a millennium ago.

  Her face brightened as she crossed to the small artificial evergreen tree set up in the corner and strung with lights. "A Christmas tree? I have heard of such things, but never actually seen one."

  Kai shrugged. "I'm afraid this one is very poorly appointed. Normally we would have tinsel and ornaments, but with our occasional drops to zero gravity, the tinsel would be a tangle and the ornaments would float off and smash when we started moving again."

  The Coordinator's daughter laughed softly. "And that is the reason why you have no mistletoe hanging from the ceiling?"

  Kai blushed, the reaction surprising him. "Ah, I'm afraid I've no one I want to kiss."

  Omi raised an eyebrow. "No one?"

  He hesitated, betraying himself, then laughed. "Aboard the Zhangshi, no." Nor elsewhere either. Kai did not let his heartache show on his face. "I am currently, as is said in polite company, unattached."

  "I understand."

  Kai arched an eyebrow. "You know, Victor could have asked me that question himself. I would have answered him."

  Color rose to Omi's cheeks as she sat down on the leather couch beside the small tree. "Denial would be fruitless and would devalue the concern he feels for you. It was not lurid curiosity that prompted the question. Victor respects you and only wishes to know whether you are happy."

  "I appreciate that more than you know. And I appreciate your willingness to act as a go-between for us. I owe you for yet one more thing than the ceremony yesterday. That was exquisite." Kai sat down in a chair across from her, tugging at the creases in his black trousers as he did so. "I'm glad you two manage to exchange messages. We send things back and forth, too, but Victor is very busy."

  "True, though he very much values the fights you dedicate to him. He often tells me of them and your great skill." Omi sat back on the couch. "Of course, I recall the simulator battle in which you and Phelan Ward killed each other. You are very skilled—as evidenced by your holding the title."

  "I am very lucky." He looked up at her. "I will grant your request to be in my box during the defense of my title, of course. However, I am not anxious to play any part in your destruction."

  Kai picked up a small plastic box from the table beside his chair and pushed a red button on it. The button glowed with
a red light that did not waver. "The room is now secure. What we say to each other will not go beyond these four walls. Why are you being sent to Solaris? Given the Combine's cultural bias against Solaris and anything associated with it, it's political suicide."

  "I know, Kai, from what you have just said, and what you have left unsaid, that you understand the situation very well. My father, even before he became the Coordinator of the Draconis Combine, had introduced reforms into the military. Those reforms encouraged flexibility and a loosening of the stiff codes that bound the military and the whole culture together. The feudal ideal of placing all trust in one's superior worked well while the world was still a primitive place where only the nobles had the education sufficient to make decisions."

  The MechWarrior nodded. "Terra outgrew that sort of government in the twentieth century, but lapsed back into it as the vast distances and harsh conditions involved in the colonization of space required local authority with strong ties to the worlds left behind. Even so, most of the Inner Sphere nations have liberalized their governments to allow for increasing growth and development.

  "All except for us. Four and a half centuries ago, Urizen Kurita, my ancestor, reinstituted the code of bushido." She smiled in an almost embarrassed way. "He kept our culture strong and used it to bind us together. It was this that allowed the Draconis Combine to survive the centuries of Succession Wars after the collapse of the Star League. It would have stood us in very good stead had men of vision like Hanse Davion not come along.

  "In the War of Thirty Twenty-eight his strategies showed us our weaknesses. By thirty thirty-nine my father had changed enough things to be able to strike back and show Hanse Davion that we were capable of new tactics, too. Then the Clans came and we discovered that our tactics were not new or innovative enough. We needed to do more, and that meant more change."

  Omi had a gift for understatement. The Clans—super warriors in superior BattleMechs—had carved great chunks from the Federated Commonwealth and Draconis Combine, as well as all but totally swallowing up the Free Rasalhague Republic. The Combine, being smaller than the Federated Commonwealth, had taken a severe beating that included the near loss of its capital world of Luthien. Units fighting in the traditional methods of the Combine had been slaughtered, while newer units had adapted much more readily to fighting the Clans.

  Omi chewed her lower lip before continuing. "The people of the Combine are proud and, because of past policies, insulated and isolated from the harsher realities of life within the Inner Sphere. Your propagandists say that is the price of not having a free press, but we would like to think that saving our people from the scourge of scandal vids is worth the selective news policy we employ."

  "I have no problem with the ban on scandal vids, but I cannot sanction having a misinformed public."

  "Not misinformed, Kai, but underinformed. They know what they need to know, but events have outstripped our constraints. We could not isolate them from news of the Clan conquests. Because our people have for so long been suckled by stories of our military invincibility, this comes as a great blow." Omi glanced at the evergreen beside her. "It is akin to being told there is no Santa Claus."

  "There isn't?" Kai allowed himself to look stricken, then softened his face with a smile. "Sorry, old joke. You were saying ..."

  'The blow to the Combine's morale is worse than you could ever imagine. Our military tradition, the way of the warrior, is the foundation for our society. Defeat calls all that we are into question. If we are not invincible, one must wonder how we will know if we are honorable, how we will know if we are civilized, and how we will know if we are true to all that has gone before."

  Kai nodded. "On Alyina, during my time there, I felt an earthquake. It wasn't much of one, maybe a five on the Richter scale, but the ground actually moved. I'd never experienced that before, and it made me realize that I took for granted that the earth would always remain solid and stable under my feet. The fact that it didn't still wakes me in a cold sweat from time to time."

  "Yes, it is a fundamental betrayal of trust. In your case it was reality betraying you. In the Combine the people wonder if their culture has betrayed them. It is very unsettling."

  "I can imagine."

  "My father knows that more changes must be made in the Combine. We cannot and will not abandon bushido, because it forms the ligaments and tendons that bind our society together. This is a difficult decision to make because the samurai who help define the whole system have been discredited. And if not for help from the mercenary Wolf's Dragoons and Kell Hounds, we would have lost Luthien. Because our culture holds mercenaries in such low regard, that was an even greater blow to our honor—despite the rescue of Luthien."

  Kai smiled as he began to realize where she was headed. "The ronin on Solaris have not been discredited in any substantial way. The bootleg copies of their fights have made them heroes among your people. They are like outlaws who refuse to conform within a society that demands conformity, and watching them is a safe form of rebellion in a community that badly needs a safety valve to relieve pressure."

  "It is believed we can use them and their exploits to introduce to our people the idea of surviving defeat to fight yet again. The Draconis Combine Mustered Soldiery will still be the pinnacle of bushido in our country, but the ronin will allow people to have heroes akin to your Robin Hood. This is actually in keeping with some of our heroic legends, and can be used to provide confidence and even distraction as we prepare for the resumption of the Clan war."

  Kai found himself marveling at Omi and her command of the situation within her nation. The Combine rarely permitted its women anything beyond traditional, domestic roles as career choices. Though he knew nothing could ever have kept Omi so confined, her traveling to worlds outside the Combine was largely unprecedented in Kurita history. He had no doubt that the plan to use Solaris as a tool for rebuilding her nation originated with her, and that her willingness to act on it and risk everything showed the depth of her commitment.

  From Victor he had heard the story of how the Tenth Lyran Guards had been given the assignment of rescuing Hohiro Kurita, Omi's brother and heir to the throne of the Dragon, from the Clan-occupied world of Teniente. Omi had proposed asking Victor's unit to make the rescue and her father had permitted her to do so, but only on the condition that she agree to sever all contact with Victor after her request was sent. She agreed to the condition and informed Victor of it in the message asking his help for Hohiro. As much as it pained her, she kept her part of the bargain until Takashi Kurita, her grandfather and the Coordinator before her father, released her from it in gratitude for Hohiro's rescue.

  "Bringing the battles from Solaris to your nation is a bold gamble, Omi. They may bring with them more than stories to fire the imagination of your people."

  Her head came up serenely. "Yes?"

  Kai nodded. "I have no doubt that your father will welcome the fact that Solaris fights generally feature a wide range of unorthodox—at least to Kurita traditionalists— tactics and plans. Allowing people to learn to take pride in initiative will promote the flexibility he needs in his troops if they are to defeat the Clans.

  "More important, though, your people will no longer be isolated from the rest of the Inner Sphere. Even if you screened all fights and showed only those in which one of your ronin won in an honorable and overwhelming manner, people would begin to be curious about other fighters. You are opening a Pandora's box that will give your people a clue to where they stand in the universe."

  "We will not be editing fights." Omi kept her voice flat. "Our people will see what can be seen in the St. Ives Compact or the Federated Commonwealth."

  "Including advertisements?"

  "No government would refuse lucrative payments such as are offered for their broadcast."

  A shiver worked its way up Kai's spine. "Ah, I begin to see the problem. The flexibility, the de-emphasizing of the rigid military, the promotion of contacts, and the introduction
of advertisements for commercial products, all these things can help your father and his drive to reform the Combine. In the eyes of the hard-line traditionalists, however, this is very dangerous."

  "Yet because I propose it and execute it, they see it as merely the fantasy of a woman. In their eyes that means it is doomed to failure, so they take no steps to prevent its success."

  "And if it fails, it was the fantasy of a woman." Kai shook his head. "You are already questionable in their eyes because of your relationship with Victor, and they believe you can be sacrificed with no political cost to your father or brother. Still, your celebrity status in the eyes of the people gives your enterprise a good chance of taking root before forces move to destroy it."

  "You are wasted as a fighter on Solaris, Kai Allard-Liao. Your grasp of the political is instinctive and correct."

  Kai held up a hand. "Politics is one thing I want to avoid at all costs. To escape politics is exactly the reason I went to Solaris." He saw something flash through her eyes, but any words she meant to speak were cut off by a mechanical tone echoing through the DropShip.

  Kai reached down into the padding of the chair and came up with the two ends of a safety harness. He belted it across his lap, while Omi did the same with the restraining belt built into the couch. He leaned back in his chair, letting his hands rest on the padded arms.

  The tone sounded again as the JumpShip prepared to leave Tetersen. In the blink of an eye the Kearny-Fuchida jump drive created a displacement field around the JumpShip and all the DropShips attached to its docking arms. When the field reached stability, the ship was instantaneously transported a distance of up to thirty light years.

  At least Kai had been told the jump was instantaneous. His subjective observations were of no help in the matter because, to him, the world slowed to the point in which each of his thoughts took a lifetime to develop. The Christmas tree seemed to grow out of all control, piercing the bubble of reality defined by the salon's walls. It vanished into the hole it had opened in the ceiling, then everything else in the room stretched out and followed the tree, including Kai himself.