The club was a brightly-lit place full of potted ferns, the smell of sweat, and frumpy people chasing after beautiful bodies. The owner, Margit Devaux, was a real fitness expert who saw it as her mission in life to help people lose those few extra pounds.
It just happened she was also a patriot.
The club was so far beyond reproach that two members of the occupation government worked out here. Ikeda and his three lieutenants had memberships, too, and the thought of the occupiers working out next to ISF always made Yamashita smile.
He did not have a membership. There was no point. The elaborate tattoos that covered his back, chest, and both arms would instantly mark him as yakuza. And from there it was a short leap to the conclusion that he’d served with the First Ghosts, the yakuza regiment that had been all but wiped out at Carlingford.
Yamashita slipped down a side hallway and tapped a six-digit access code into a keypad beside the door to the storage room. The door clicked open and Yamashita stepped inside, surprised to find himself alone with cases of power shakes and bottled water. Yamashita frowned.
Where was Ikeda?
Not one to waste an opportunity, he walked across the room and punched a second combination into another keypad, popping open Margit’s wall safe. He reached beneath the pile of contracts and cash receipts until he found a slim blue folio.
He pulled it out and flipped it open.
The ISF had broken the encryption on the black box fax machines the Federated Commonwealth used for secure comms. (The DCMS had been fortunate enough to capture one of the black boxes during the Fourth Succession War.) The folio contained the latest intercepts. Yamashita pulled the first one out.
“You’re not cleared for those,” said a gruff voice.
Yamashita flinched. To rifle through ISF secrets was to invite death. Or worse. Still, he looked up and said, “Kashira.”
Ikeda scowled as he closed the door behind him. “What?”
“’You’re not cleared for those, Kashira,” said Yamashita. “I am a Talon Sergeant of the Draconis Combine Military Service and I will thank you to address me as such.”
Ikeda grunted.
Yamashita would never get the respect he deserved from a man like Tai-sa Kazutoshi Ikeda, even though he and his brothers had paid for it with their blood. The colonel was an old-line conservative, unwilling to acknowledge the worth of a “gangster thug.”
The irony was Ikeda tolerated Yamashita for the same reason he despised him: he was yakuza. Yamashita had been born on the street and he could get anything. Ikeda was happy to rely on Yamashita’s skill, but he’d never show him any sign of respect.
It was an old issue for the yakuza, long regarded as the dregs of Combine society. The very name “yakuza” came from the Japanese words for the numbers eight, nine, and three, a losing hand in the traditional card game of Oicho-Kabu.
No one believed in yakuza.
Except Theodore Kurita. The Combine’s Gunji-no-Kanrei had given the yakuza the right to fight for their nation. And because of that, Yamashita would bear any burden, pay any price to justify the Kanrei’s faith.
“You’re late,” said Yamashita.
Ikeda stalked across the room and jerked the folio out of his hands. “Planning to sell these secrets to your friends?”
“I have no friends on Altais,” Yamashita shot back, “only loyalties.”
Ikeda shoved the folio back in the safe and slammed the door. He was a short, fireplug of a man. His iron-gray hair was cut in a military crew cut and he wore a stylish blue suit that fit him badly. He looked exactly like what he was: a military spook. It was a wonder the Lyrans hadn’t picked him up already.
“I hear you were down at the port today,” Ikeda said.
Yamashita nodded. “I saw some interesting things.”
Ikeda inclined his head.
“The rumors about the JumpShip command circuits are true. I saw them unloading military equipment from containers marked with a Lyran seal. Probably rushed here to deal with the Second Ghosts before they evacuated.”
“So?”
“Jigoku,” Yamashita snapped. “We have to do something.”
Ikeda shook his head. “The best we can do is gather information and feed it back to the DCMS.”
“Listen, Altais is the deepest penetration of the Commonwealth Thrust. They’re going to use this world as a jumping off point to attack Algedi and Rukbat, Alya and Shitara, maybe even Tsukude.”
Ikeda’s eyes narrowed. “How do you know that?”
“I can read a chart. The point is they’re going to use this world and we have to stop them.”
“What you’re talking about is suicide,” said Ikeda indignantly. “That’s why the world government surrendered. Why the Second Ghosts cut and ran. We don’t have the forces to fight them on Altais.”
There’s always a way to resist, Yamashita thought, if you’re not too stupid to see it.
“Did you see anything else?” Ikeda asked gruffly.
“They’re smuggling.”
Ikeda offered him a contemptuous smile. “A fact I’m sure you found most interesting.”
Yamashita said nothing, but he thought, You bet I did.
“I also heard you made a deal with Commissioner Drescher.”
Yamashita snorted. “Well, you don’t think I got in by politely asking for a tour, did you?”
Ikeda’s jaw set. “Hanson was just arrested. That’s why I’m late.”
Yamashita blinked. “What?” The lie was so good he almost believed it himself.
Ikeda leaned in and jabbed a thick finger into Yamashita’s chest. “If I find out you had anything to do with Hanson’s arrest, I’ll turn you into the Lyrans myself.”
And then he turned and stalked off before Yamashita could speak any of the false denials that came automatically to his lips.
• • •
Yamashita first noticed the tail when he was coming out of a meeting with an agent for an agrat farm, the taste of salty black eggs still heavy in his mouth. The agrat was a local pseudo-amphibian about the size of a monitor lizard whose eggs were supposed to
