Warrior: En Garde

  "Said the shark to her dinner." Dan looked at the stacks of Kroner bills piled in front of Anne, and laughed. "You'd have been happier to have me contributing to your war chest there. Right, Annie?"

  She merely smiled, but the long, lean black man on the couch sat up and spoke for her. "I do recall some discussion of your skill at leaving money on the table, Captain."

  "I should have had you sit in for me, Cat." His remark brought a strange flash to Cat's eyes, but Dan could not identify it.

  Sergeant Clarence "Cat" Wilson ran a hand back over his shaved head and laughed deeply. Of all the Kell Hounds, he was the only MechWarrior to shave to his head for better contact in the neurohelmet. "When you've played in the big leagues, you never join sandlot games."

  Patrick Kell cleared his throat. "Back to business, shall we?" A worn twenty-Kroner bill fluttered from his hand into the pile of wagers. "I call."

  Salome smiled hungrily. "Full house. Aces over Archons."

  Brand tossed his cards into the center of the table, and Kell nodded politely to Salome. "Your deal." He turned to Allard and shook his head. "So, how is your lance doing, Dan?"

  Dan cleared his throat ceremoniously. "Eddie Baker was hoping you could use your influence with your cousin, the Archon, to get us some real duty."

  Kell chuckled. "Cousin-in-law, Dan. Tell Baker I'll mention it the next time Katrina Steiner comes for a beer." Kell shook his head as Salome shuffled the cards. "What I really wanted to know was whether Lang is checking out on the Wasp."

  Dan nodded, and Kell cut the cards for Salome. "She'll be fine once she works out the differences between a Wasp and a Locust. She's game enough, though. No lingering fears because of losing her Locust. The Lieutenant and I will keep an eye on her, and I'll keep you informed on how it's going."

  Kell nodded and gathered up his cards into his strong hands. As Dan did the same, he remembered that the cards were of Lyran Commonwealth manufacture, and so he arranged them in descending order. Lacking any Aces, he put his pair of Dukes after his lone Archon. He had no 'Mechs in his hand, either, and so the numbered cards went into proper order. The four suits in the Commonwealth were Fists, Sunbursts, Dragons, and Eagles— the symbols of Houses Steiner, Davion, Kurita, and Marik. House Liao—the weakest of the Successor States—did not rate a suit.

  Anne Finn gave Dan two hundred Kroner as a stake. "Not like we're playing with real money, is it?" Dan laughed and used the money to open for ten. After the others had bet or folded and he'd indicated that he wanted three cards, Dan turned to Kell.

  "Is the Intrepid's Captain still refusing to let Jones ship out with him after he returns here on his next run?"

  Kell nodded and rearranged his cards. "We kept up a constant dialogue as his ship headed out to the jump point. He insists that we're too close to the Draconis Combine frontier for him to take a soldier on board."

  Dan shook his head. "Thirty years a Tech in the Lyran Services and due to muster out a day after the Intrepid's JumpShip leaves Pacifica. We can't ground the Intrepid, can we?"

  Salome answered while Kell studied his dwinding cash reserve. "ComStar would have our tails in a sling. Somehow that lowlife merchanter weaseled a contract to haul bulk-messages to backwaters like Pacifica, and that's made him inviolate. He's afraid, though, that shipping a Steiner Tech aboard his ship would prompt the folks we know and love as the Combine to confiscate his ship—or worse."

  Dan picked up his draw cards and managed to keep the arrival of a third Duke from showing on his face. "We can't just muster Jones out a day early?" Dan glanced up from his hand to see if anyone was watching him, but only Cat met his gaze with a satisfied grin.

  Kell shook his head. "The Lyran Commonwealth, which has more salesmen than a cur has fleas, keeps a tight rein on its money and muster-out pay. Master Sergeant Nicholas Jones has to muster out of Pacifica on the 26th of May in order to get any of the bonus pay he's entitled to. If the computer can't check him for voice, retinal patterns, and fingerprints, his bonus goes back into the general fund."

  Dan snorted. "Amen. And, in the meantime, the Intrepid jumps out of here and won't be back for another six months." Dan looked up at the windows and watched lightning sear through the near dark. "Six months in this place is like thirty years. There has to be something we can do."

  Fitzhugh laughed. "Why don't you play this hand and you can buy him a JumpShip. The bet's fifty to you."

  Ah, Mike, your impatience will cost you. Dan carelessly flipped the money out onto the table. "Call."

  Fitzhugh flashed three tens on the table, and then Dan slapped his trio of Dukes down over Fitz's cards. He waited a half-second for Kell or Salome to make a play, then raked in the H-bills toward him.

  The second knock barely sounded at the door before Cat Wilson leaped up to answer it. Opening the door a crack, he imposed his muscular body between the person in the hall and the card game. That the Colonel conducted his company staff meetings over a poker game was common knowledge among the Kell Hounds, but the outcome of the games was kept strictly confidential. The informality of the meetings could only survive if the officers knew that winning and losing did not matter. The money and bragging rights won in the weekly games remained among the deepest secrets that the Kell Hounds had.

  Cat nodded and accepted a folded note from the messenger in the hallway. He shut the door and carried it over to Colonel Kell. Dan recognized the paper as the thin stock used in the communications center and noticed ComStar's logo boldly emblazoned at the head of the message. He hoped, for the barest of moments, that the message was a transfer of the Kell Hounds to an assignment far from Pacifica. The expression on the Colonel's face quickly dashed those hopes.

  Kell looked up from the paper, which trembled violently in his hand. "Dan, I'm sorry."

  The tone of Patrick's voice set fear churning in Dan's gut. My God, did someone get to my father? He snatched the message and quickly read it once, then stood abruptly. His chair crashed to the floor as Dan swept past Cat toward the windows. He smoothed out the paper that he'd unconsciously crumpled and again read the horrible words as lightning illuminated them:

  WYATTSUPCOMHQ RELAY PRIORITY ALPHA REGULAR Origin: FEDSUNSUPCOMHQ NEW AVALON Classification: Confidential

  To: Lt. Colonel Patrick Kell//COMKELLHOUNDS To: Captain Daniel Allard//ATTACHKELLHOUNDS

  On 27 November 3026 Major Justin Allard suffered battle-related injuries. Transferred to NAIS Medical Center 15 December 3026. Extensive trauma resulted in crude amputation of left arm. Prognosis for cybernetic rehabilitation awaiting end of induced narcotic coma. Prognosis for survival: Excellent.

  Dan felt an icy claw reach into his belly and rake through his guts. He crumpled the message into a ball again and tossed it down to the floor, but none of the others made any motion to retrieve it. Dan's hands knotted into fists as his whole body quivered with rage. No! Not Justin. Not him.

  Patrick Kell stood and silently dismissed everyone except Salome and Wilson. The three of them had known Dan since the day he'd joined the Kell Hounds as part of the core of the mercenary company. Though all the Kell Hounds would be sympathetic to the sorrows of a compatriot, the three people standing behind Daniel Allard would share his pain.

  Staring out the window, Dan watched drops roll down the stormlashed pane like the tears streaming over his cheeks. How could it be? Why doesn't that message tell me what really happened? Justin's too good a warrior to get hit in a regular skirmish. It had to be an ambush or something.

  Dan swallowed, then brushed away the tears. He turned halfway and glanced back at his friends. "Let them read it, Patrick."

  Salome bent to recover the note. She pressed it smooth against her thigh, then smothered a gasp as she read. She passed the note to Wilson, but he never took it. His black eyes quickly scanned the sheet, but no emotions showed on his ebon features.

  Kell stepped forward and rested his powerful hands on Dan's shoulders. "Dan, we're all sorry."

  Dan squeezed his ey
es shut against new tears. "He lost his arm, Patrick. He'll never pilot another 'Mech. It'll kill him."

  Salome brought Dan a glass filled with three fingers of Kuritan whiskey. "You've had a shock. Drink it."

  Dan hesitated, but Cat had foreseen his wish to hide any display of personal weakness. The tall black man handed Salome and Patrick similar glasses of whiskey, and even brandished one himself. "We've all had a shock." Cat reached around and dragged a chair away from the poker table. He sat in it with his chest resting against the back of the chair.

  Salome went to sit on the sofa, and Dan wandered over to join her. Patrick Kell was now leaning against the corner of his desk. "I'm going to have the crew get the Mac ready to take you up to the Cucamulus. We'll get you back to New Avalon as fast as possible."

  Dan held up his left hand. "No, sir. Thank you, but no, sir." What had gone wrong for Justin?

  Patrick waved away Dan's protest. "Listen. There's some Kell Hound business to take care of in the Federated Suns. I'll send you to represent the battalion. It's battalion business, pure and simple."

  Dan looked up and forced a weak smile. "No, Colonel— Patrick—I appreciate the gesture. Really I do, but no matter how fast I travel, it will take me over three months to reach New Avalon. And even if I did get there sooner, what good would it do? That message took more than a month to reach us here, even traveling through ComStar's 'A' circuit. They would have brought Justin out of his coma two weeks ago." Dan gasped and slammed his left fist down on the torn arm of the battered brown sofa.

  No one spoke as he struggled to regain control of his emotions. Bitter tears streaked down his face, and he shook his head violently, flicking them off in anger. Muscles bunched at his jaws, and his face flushed scarlet. Stop it, Dan. Get hold of yourself. Justin's probably handling it better than you are.

  "Please, forgive me," he said finally, looking around at his three friends. "I hope I've not dishonored myself in your eyes."

  Cat shrugged easily. "A man loves his brother. No dishonor in that."

  Salome nodded. "You were around during the Defection, when we all went through our own private hells. You were there for us. Now it's our turn."

  The Defection. They all thought of it that way, and they all carried the scars. After a strange battle on Mallory's World with that Kurita commander—one Yorinaga Kurita—Colonel Morgan Kell had quit the unit and entered a monastery on Zaniah III. Two-thirds of the Kell Hound Regiment had left at the same time. All that had happened eleven years ago. Patrick still wondered why Morgan had not trusted him with a full regiment, and Salome still wondered why Morgan had left her. And Dan never did understand why, as soon as he joined the Kell Hounds, they had fallen apart.

  Patrick Kell nodded slowly in echo of Salome's words. "We've all been through so much together, Dan," he said, keeping his vow never to speak of the Defection. He faltered, then recovered himself. "I know what it is to have an older brother, and to lose him. But we all worked together and built up this unit into the best mercenary battalion around." Patrick nodded at Cat and Salome. "We share your pain."

  Dan smiled weakly. "I appreciate this. I just hope Justin made it through ... you know ... all in one piece mentally." He drank a slug from his glass and relished the burning in his throat. "I remember how, when we were growing up, other kids used to beat up on Justin because he was half-Capellan. I used to want to help him fight, but win or lose, he always kept me back. 'My fight, Danny,' he'd say. When I'd tell him that he was my brother and that it was our fight, he'd laugh and tell me I could have whatever he couldn't handle."

  Patrick smiled warmly and sipped his whiskey. "I've heard good things about your brother Justin. Always hoped he'd want to join the Hounds."

  Dan nodded. "Me, too. I can remember when he announced his intention to enroll in Sakhara Military Academy. He told my father he wanted to be away from New Avalon to keep from taking advantage of the Allard name, and my father took that rather well. Justin told me he wanted to become a MechWarrior because, in a BattleMech, everyone becomes equal. From that moment, I decided to become a MechWarrior, too, because I wanted to be Justin's equal."

  Salome reached out and kneaded the muscles at the back of Dan's neck with her strong, slender fingers. "I bet there's another message rattling around in some ComStar center that would tell you that Justin is doing fine. The New Avalon Institute of Science has made so many breakthroughs lately. At least your brother's getting the best possible care."

  "Dan, are you certain you don't want to head out? I'm not saying we can function without you, but the Cucamulus is yours if you want her." Patrick pointed out the window at the Manannan MacLir. "I'll have the Mac's, crew stand by, just in case."

  Dan shook his head, drained his glass, and stood. "No, but thank you. Thank all you." He smiled calmly. "I'm sure Justin will be fine. As the aerojocks like to say, 'Any wreck you walk away from is a good one.' "

  Dan's head came up and he smiled even more broadly. "I've got work to do here, and Justin would think poorly of me if I didn't accomplish it. After all, someone's got to figure out a way to get Master Sergeant Jones off Old Stormy when his time comes."

  Patrick Kell smiled. "Understood, Captain. Just remember, the door's always open."

  Daniel Allard nodded, but Kell's words barely registered with so many thoughts speeding through his own mind. I'll find out who did this to you, Justin, and I swear, his blood will be on the hands of an Allard.

  5

  Solaris VII (The Game World)

  Rahneshire, Lyran Commonwealth

  15 January 3027

  The black and blood-red groundcar sliced through the gray drizzle, cutting around piles of debris scattered over the ferrocrete street. As the car's headlights burned away the dark shadows hiding alleys and doorways from view, pedestrians scrambled back out of the light. Recognizing the car, they knew, as certain as the clouds never left Solaris VII, that to ambush that vehicle was to die.

  The groundcar crossed the burned out "no-man's-land" between Cathay and Silesia—the Capellan and Lyran quarters, respectively, of Solaris City. The tongsmen of Cathay ignored the vehicle as it left their area of influence, but the "unofficial" wardens of Silesia snapped respectful salutes at the darkened windscreen as the car sped past on a whispering cushion of air. The vehicle turned left at the first unblocked street and stopped finally before the narrow doorway of a nondescript building.

  Air hissed as the gull-wing door on the driver's side of the car swung upward. No interior light came on, for the driver refused to be silhouetted for a sniper's convenience. Stepping quickly into the rain-slicked street, he snapped the door down shut. With long-legged strides, the driver headed toward the smoked glass door.

  Once inside, the man swept off the slouch-brimmed black hat from his shaved head, and handed it and his spattered rain cloak to the checkroom attendant. He quickly followed that with a 10 C-bill tip, and smiled at her reaction. "Oh, thank you, Mr. Noton," the girl gushed in astonishment. He could tell by the look in her eyes that she could hardly believe that he'd given her a ComStar Bill. Most of her tips had to be in House Bills or, worse yet, Solaris scrip, the underground currency that paid for most of the illegal doings on this world.

  "It's real, child." His deep voice had an edge that did not quite match the warmth of his smile, but the girl never noticed. Noton turned from her, straightened his double-breasted blue satin shirt, and fastened the last two buttons at his left shoulder. Feeling how tightly his shirt stretched across his barrel chest, he knew that if he grew any stouter, he'd have to abandon the paramilitary dress that all MechWarriors favored. Noton thought better of it then, and smiled to himself. As long as I am a MechWarrior, I will continue to dress as one.

  Gray Noton straightened up to his full height and strode boldly down the dim hallway and up the half-flight of stairs against the left wall. A slender, nervous looking doorman glanced up as Noton filled the doorway, then smiled. "Welcome back to Thor's Shieldhall, Mr. Noton. There is
someone waiting for you up in Valhalla, but Mr. Shang hoped you would have a moment for him. He's down here in Midgard, back watching the matches."

  So, he's waiting for me, is he? That he knows I've returned is obvious, but did he know of my other meeting? And, if so, how? Noton smiled easily. "Thank you, Roger." He deposited a 20 C-bill on Roger's desk. "Mr. Shang does not know that I am meeting someone else here?"

  Roger laid a long-fingered hand over the C-bill, which vanished as though absorbed straight into the man himself. "I certainly did not tell him, sir, but he is resourceful, as you well know." Roger stopped for a moment and absently tapped nicotine-stained teeth with a finger while he was thinking. He narrowed his eyes. "Mr. Shang just came in and announced he'd be watching the fights in our holoroom. I offered him a private viewing room in Valhalla, but he declined."

  Noton nodded slowly. "Very well, Roger. Thank you." You must be more careful, Gray. If Shang can guess that you'd show up at Thor's Shieldhall on your first night back on the Game World, you’ve become predictable—fatally predictable.

  Turning from the doorman, Noton took one step into the darkened room and studied the crowd. Garish phosphoron designs of diverse colors and intensities decorated the U-shaped bar. He watched intently, but recognized none of the faces revealed by dazzling but tantalizingly short bursts of light. Beyond the tables and off to the right were more brilliant lights rotating above the dance floor. The harsh white illumination they splashed over the bar resembled searchlights racing along prison walls. An occasional beam would fragment into rainbows as it lanced against some patron's oversized gem, but mostly the lights served only to heighten the corpselike pallor of those destined to remain in Midgard.

  No one to fear in the land of the dead, but it's the ones you don't see that get you. Noton shook himself slightly. Ease off, Gray. You've not lost your edge. He eluded you, but you got him in due course.

  Gray blinked against a momentarily blinding spotlight, then looked around him. Thor's Shieldhall—a place so chic and popular that it needed no exterior signs—divided its clientele into two distinct classes: the masses and the privileged. If anyone of the former had enough luck or initiative to find out where Thor's was located, he was welcome to spend time and money in Midgard on overpriced drinks, loud music, and the garish ambiance. Ordinary customers actually paid for the chance to spot members of the privileged pass through Midgard on their way to Valhalla.