Blood legacy

  Galen Cox, at Victor's left hand, leaned his chair back against the wall. "What do you make of my counterpart in the Kurita camp?"

  Victor shrugged. "I don't know." He let a smile creep onto his face. "I mean, he can't be as good as you are, Galen, but he must be of some use. Theodore doesn't tolerate sycophants, so I don't imagine his son does either."

  "He's more than useful, Highness." Kai subtly pointed at the man as he raised his cup to his lips. "He's wearing his Dragoon-issue jumpsuit half unzipped, just like us, which means he's probably a MechWarrior. And if you look quickly when he turns this way, you can see that he's got tattoos."

  Victor took a second, harder look at Hohiro's dark-haired aide. As the Kurita officer adjusted his chair slightly more toward Hohiro, Victor did see a flash of black and gold from the left side of the man's chest. "That's more than just an 'I-love-Mom' tattoo there, isn't it?"

  Cassandra leaned forward. "I think my brother means that Yodama appears to be a member of the yakuza."

  "Can't be." Galen held out his left hand, then curled his little finger in toward his palm. "He's got all the joints on his fingers."

  Kai smiled warily. "That just means he's good."

  Just then, the room's double doors opened to admit Mac-Kenzie Wolf and Christian Kell. Like their young charges, the two men wore black jumpsuits with red trim. Though both were MechWarriors, they did not concede to current fashion by wearing the garment half-unzipped. Chris, clasping his hands at the small of his back, took up a position to the left of the doors while MacKenzie Wolf stood at the head of the table.

  "If the rest of you would care to join Prince Magnusson and me, we can begin," Mac said. He nodded at Ragnar, who smiled in spite of himself, then opened his hands to indicate all the vacant chairs around the table.

  As Victor shot a covert glance at Hohiro, he found the heir to the Draconis Combine returning his look. At the same moment, Sun-Tzu Liao stood and took the seat that placed him at Wolf's right hand. Realizing that both he and Hohiro had been bested in this initial exchange, Victor stood and offered Cassandra his hand as she rose from her seat. "Apris vous."

  Though she stood taller than the Prince, Cassandra accepted his hand, giving Victor a look that said she understood the game and her part in it. She also let him know, with gentle pressure on his hand, that he owed her. "Merci, my Prince."

  Victor pulled her chair out from the table and seated her, then moved down to the empty chair between Galen and Kai. This put him opposite Ragnar—who, after Victor, was the shortest person in the room. It also put Victor in a position of power that Hohiro tried to trump by seating himself at the far end of the table. Unfortunately, because he placed himself so far from Wolf and the others, he appeared to be snubbing them.

  Wolf looked over his shoulder and exchanged an amused glance with Chris Kell. Turning back, Mac shook his head slightly, then addressed them. "As you know, I am MacKenzie Wolf. The man standing behind me is Christian Kell. Chris is one of the finest Mech Warriors in the Inner Sphere, and I should know." Wolf's smile broadened. "I taught him everything he knows."

  Placing his palms flat on the desk, Wolf leaned forward. "Now the two of us will become your instructors. Some of you have already seen battle, but even with that, the total sum of experience of those seated at this table would not equal what the average Clan warrior goes through in his training. Furthermore, he has superior equipment and knows how to use it. We must attempt to narrow the gulf between you and the average Clansman."

  His smile drained away. "Whether or not we can close it is another matter entirely."

  Wolf's words took Victor back to the battles with the Clans on Trellwan and Twycross. It is true that those Clan warriors fight like the devil himself. Even if their machinery wasn't better than ours, we'd still have a hell of a fight on our hands. We outnumbered the Clans on Twycross, and still took far more damage in beating them than we have suffered in similar battles within the Inner Sphere.

  "Preparing you to fight against the Clans will not be easy," Wolf went on. "I suspect you know this, but some lessons have to be learned because they can't simply be taught. Forget everything you already know about war or even life. From this point on, you are not who you were. Now you are ours to shape and mold as we see fit. And be assured, this is not a game like picking power spots at a conference table. This is real, and if you fail, you probably will die. If not here, then out there somewhere."

  Wolf straightened up. "Your training will commence immediately. Chris and I have to attend to a couple of details, but we'll be back. Until then, get to know one another, because you'll be working together for a long time."

  MacKenzie and Chris withdrew through the doors, which shut silently behind them. With a big smile on his face, the blond, blue-eyed heir to the throne of the Free Rasalhague Republic leaned forward and extended his hand toward Victor. "Hello, I am Ragnar Magnusson. I have seen your picture before ..."

  Victor, surprised by the open-faced innocence of Ragnar's gesture, hesitated long enough to leave the boy's hand hanging in mid-air for a moment before he responded. In those milliseconds, he saw something like pain or fear flash through Ragnar's bright eyes, but pride came back as Victor accepted Ragnar's hand. "I am Victor Davion. Angenämt, Ragnar."

  The youngest of the royals smiled radiantly. "You speak Swedish?"

  Before Ragnar could launch into his native tongue, Victor held up a hand. "I'm afraid that 'I'm very pleased to meet you' just about exhausted my knowledge of your native tongue."

  "Oh." Ragnar looked a bit crestfallen, but reinforced his smile quickly enough. "I understand."

  Hohiro came around the table and offered Ragnar his hand. "Roligt att lära känna Er. Mitt namm är Kurita Hohiro. " The Prince of the Draconis Combine turned and indicated Shin with his left hand. "Får jag presentera Chu-sa Yodama Shin."

  Ragnar bowed to Shin. "Konnichi-wa, Chu-sa Yodama."

  Having seized upon the language gambit to recover the face he'd lost by being shocked at Ragnar's friendliness, Victor now saw Hohiro using it to leave him in the dust. Before he could think of a way to recover the initiative and the ground he'd lost to Hohiro, Kai rose from his chair.

  "Forgive me, please, for interrupting, but I fear neither my Swedish nor my Japanese is sufficient to offer proper introductions." Kai placed his right hand on the back of his sister's chair. "May I introduce Cassandra Allard-Liao, my sister. I am Kai."

  As Cassandra stood, Galen also rose from his chair. A moment later, Victor realized what was happening and also leaped to his feet. As Hohiro broke his polite grip on Cassandra's hand, Victor thrust his own hand forward. "Victor Davion."

  Hohiro straightened up to full height and swallowed Victor's hand in his own. "I am Hohiro. I look forward to our training together."

  If you're as good a MechWarrior as you are a liar, you won't need much training. "And I as well, Hohiro."

  With the seven of them exchanging greetings, San-Tzu's stony silence stood out in relief. As all eyes turned toward him, and Ragnar took a step to welcome him into the group, Sun-Tzu stood. He regarded them with hooded eyes, then folded his hands into the sleeves of his jumpsuit. "I am Sun-Tzu Liao, the heir to the Celestial Throne of the Capellan Confederation and all its worlds."

  Victor saw Kai stiffen and watched Cassandra's hands curl into fists. Hohiro lowered his eyes and Shin's features became an inscrutable mask. Even Ragnar's eagerness faded at the vehemence in Sun-Tzu's voice.

  Galen cleared his throat and brushed a lock of blond hair from his forehead. "With all due respect to all of you inheritors of power, I'd really appreciate it if we could avoid titles." He glanced over at Shin and received a mute nod of agreement. "First off, we've got at least five people who will answer to the title 'Prince.' And second, if I have to announce full titles every time I go to talk with one of you, how will I have time to warn you to get your head down in a firelight?"

  "I believe Victor and I will agree that titles are superfluous in t
his context." Hohiro rested a hand on Ragnar's shoulder. "If the Princes of Rasalhague, the Capellan Confederation, and the St. Ives Compact concur, we will dispense with titles."

  "Certainly," chirped Ragnar, followed a half-second later by Kai's "Agreed," which tossed the ball firmly into Sun-Tzu's lap. Venom in his eyes, Sun-Tzu stared at both his cousins, then stiffly nodded his assent. Victor suspected that had Hohiro placed the St. Ives Compact before the Capellan Confederation in his request, Sun-Tzu would sooner have died than agree to it.

  Ragnar looked over at Cassandra and started to blush. "By the way, not meaning to be forward, but the perfume you are wearing is very pleasing."

  Cassandra frowned. "But I'm not wearing any ..."

  Victor sniffed the air and immediately caught the flowery scent. He looked at Kai. "That's C-34, isn't it?"

  In an instant, Kai swept his chair back against the wall and dropped to the floor. Flipping over onto his back, he eased himself in under the table, where he found the gray packet of material stuck to the underside. "It looks like three kilos of the stuff to me. The digital timer shows ten minutes until detonation."

  Crawling down beside him, Victor nodded. "Someone from the Clans has gotten here and planted this bomb." The Prince sat upright, his hair just barely brushing the underside of the table as he grabbed the edge and pulled himself upright. "We've got a bomb. We'd best clear out and call a Dragoon detail to get rid of it. Zandra"—Victor pointed to the door—"go. Everyone, let's get out of here."

  Cassandra headed for the door, but before she could point out that it was locked, Sun-Tzu's mocking laughter rang out. "Don't bother trying to leave. We are not meant to." His voice dropped to an icy whisper. "Alive, that is."

  "What are you talking about?" Victor watched Sun-Tzu warily. Was I wrong about you, or are you as mad as your mother? "There's a bomb here."

  Sun-Tzu's eyes became jade slits. "I am not a Davion puppet to be ordered about, Victor!"

  "Answer his question, Liao!" Hohiro demanded.

  "Nor am I a vassal of yours, my Lord Kurita!" Sun-Tzu's right hand came free of his sleeve and with a wave he took in everyone in the room. "Are you all fools? Can you not see that Wolf's Dragoons are playing with you? Jaime Wolf's admitting that his orders came from the Khan of the Clans was to test us. This is most certainly another test. Perhaps it is one that will end in the destruction of the new generation of leaders of the Successor States."

  Like his father before him, Sun-Tzu wore the nails on the last three fingers of each hand fashionably long. Reinforced with carbon fibers, they were painted with intricate designs in black lacquer and gold leaf. Light flashed from the gold and shone dully from the razored edge worked onto each nail. "The door is locked and there is no other egress from this room. Even the air conditioning vent is too small for Ragnar," Sun-Tzu sneered. "Or even you, Little Prince Victor. And if the estimate of three kilograms of C-34 is half-right, this whole level of Dragoon Headquarters will be destroyed."

  Victor choked down his rage at Sun-Tzu's comment on his height. "So, give us the conclusion you draw from your observation, Celestial Wisdom, if you please."

  Sun-Tzu sat down and folded his arms across his chest. "It is obvious. If we have no escape, we are not meant to escape. We should do nothing."

  A mild thump from beneath the table made everyone jump, then Kai appeared from below, rubbing his forehead. "Sorry." He glanced over at his cousin, then turned back to the others. "Look, all I can tell you is that the C-34 looks real to me. We've got all of nine minutes to do something."

  Hohiro smiled confidently. "Look, this table is built in three sections and is fairly stout. Let's take the two end sections and use them as blast shields." He casually waved the others away from the center part of the table. "Braced diagonally in the corners of the room, each little alcove should provide shelter for three of you. Shin and I will work on disarming the bomb."

  Sun-Tzu chuckled mildly. "Brilliant. Cower in the corners. I love it."

  "Wait. It's a good idea." Galen pointed to himself and Shin. "The trick is that you royals ought to be the ones taking cover. Shin and I can monkey around with the C-34 until the deadline is up."

  Kai raised an eyebrow. "Galen, are you demolitions qualified?"

  Galen hedged on his answer. "I took the course offered at the War College on Tamar."

  "Not good enough for this thing, I'm afraid. I qualified for underwater demolitions only two years ago and C-34 is what we used." He looked up at Shin. "Do you know anything about explosives?"

  The yakuza MechWarrior smiled easily. "When I was seven, the Kuroi Kiri had me planting packets of C-34 wherever I could to harass Commonwealth troops on Marfik."

  "Nothing like on-the-job training." Kai dropped below the table's edge once again.

  Victor squatted down on his haunches as Shin joined Kai under the table. "Kai, is there anything you can do to move the bomb?"

  "I don't know. I don't think it has a mercury switch imbedded in the plastique because someone pounding a fist into the table could make a connection and set it off. Still, moving the table or the bomb might trigger it."

  Shin pointed out that the timer had been stuck into one end of the square packet of explosive. "It might be possible to trim away some explosive to lessen the force of the blast."

  Kai nodded and patted down the pockets of his jumpsuit. "We'd need a probe or a knifeblade—non-conductive only—to do the job. Highness, see if anyone has something."

  Victor stood. Ragnar and Galen had whisked the south end of the table away and turned it onto its side. They'd wedged it in a corner and set chairs in front of it. Cassandra stood at the head of the table waiting for Hohiro or Sun-Tzu to help her drag it off. "We need something sharp, but it can't be metal." Victor checked his own pockets. "I didn't bring anything with me. Anyone?"

  Hohiro checked, but came up a blank. A look of frustration knotted his features, then he turned and pointed to Sun-Tzu. "Your nails."

  Sun-Tzu stood quickly, sending his chair flying. Hohiro lunged at him, but Sun-Tzu sidestepped the attack. With a flash of gold, he raked the nails of his left hand through the flank of Hohiro's jumpsuit. Hohiro hissed with the pain, but before Sun-Tzu could slash him again, Cassandra took her cousin down with a kick to the back of his left knee. She grabbed his outstretched right hand and twisted the arm around in an arm-bar that forced Sun-Tzu's forehead to the carpet.

  "If you want a nail, I can just break one off."

  "No!" Ragnar shouted in a horrified voice.

  "What?" Victor looked from Ragnar to where Hohiro pressed his right hand to the cuts over his left flank. "He may think we don't have to do anything about this bomb, but that's a minority opinion. We need one of his nails."

  "No we don't. The gold leaf would be conductive." Ragnar grabbed the zipper tab on his jumpsuit and ripped it free of the seams. When he had freed thirty centimeters, he bit through the cloth backing and pulled it entirely away from the garment. Picking at the zipper with his fingernails, he obtained a clear piece of the zipper teeth and started to unravel it.

  "The zipper is nylon. Kai can use the nylon line the same way a potter uses a piece of string to slice a pot from the wheel." Ragnar dropped to his knees and handed the nylon strand to Kai. Standing again, he grabbed a corner of the north side of the conference table. "Well? Are you going to help?"

  Both Hohiro and Victor exchanged glances. It's so easy for you, Ragnar, because you're still just a kid, Victor thought. You don't realize all that's going on behind the scenes here. You've been included in this group to accord the Free Rasalhague Republic equal status with the other states represented. This sort of cooperation might work fine here, but this is not the real world.

  Hohiro went to the other side of the table and Victor took up a position near its head. Cassandra released Sun-Tzu as the table swept over him, and she took up part of the burden on Hohiro's side. The four of them wrestled it into place, with Cassandra and Hohiro neatly vaulting it to get ba
ck into the center of the room.

  Sun-Tzu uncoiled slowly and rubbed his right shoulder with his left hand. "If you ever touch me again, witch, it will be the last time."

  Cassandra gave him a cold stare. "Don't make any promises you can't keep, cousin!"

  Ragnar stepped in between Cassandra and Sun-Tzu. "Stop it. You shouldn't be fighting."

  Sun-Tzu pushed Ragnar aside, slashing open the right sleeve of his jumpsuit. "I don't need you to defend me, Pauper-prince. You're here in some ridiculous show of putting your father's dwindling realm on equal footing with the Great Houses of the Inner Sphere. Your presence is only barely more palatable than that of this amazon and her brother. Bandits born of a bandit realm, they have less standing than you."

  Hohiro wiped his bloody hand on the breast of his jumpsuit. "Sharp words from a bastard."

  "Oh, you wound me, sir," Sun-Tzu mocked. "Which is worse in your tradition, Lord Kurita: to be born of unwed parents, or to be born of a union for which a mythical bloodline was created and one that so shames the participants that they dare not announce it to the world until their eldest child is five years old?"

  Hohiro started to take a step forward, but Victor's hand on his arm restrained him. "Don't. He's got claws."

  Hohiro pulled his arm free and spun on the Prince of the Federated Commonwealth. He grabbed the front of Victor's jumpsuit with his right hand and pulled him up on his tiptoes. "Keep your hands off me!" He thrust his left index finger at Sun-Tzu. "That one has insulted my parents. No man may so speak and still live."

  Victor's left arm came up and around in a blow that broke Hohiro's grip. His right fist shot forward and hit home over Hohiro's slashed ribs. Hohiro's left hand shot back in an open-handed cuff that snapped Victor's head around.

  Stars exploding before his eyes, Victor reeled back against the upturned table. He regained his balance for only a second before Hohiro tackled him and they both crashed back over the table. Victor felt Hohiro's hands tighten around his throat and blood pounding in his temples, but he refused to signal any sort of surrender. Again and again, he drove his right fist into Hohiro's ribs and occasionally snaked a left hand up into the side of Hohiro's head.