• • •
Two days after escaping from MacPhail’s safe house, Yamashita recovered enough to drag himself up the five flights of stairs that led to the top of an abandoned factory a couple klicks from the Gaines port.
Yamashita hobbled past long-silent air handlers and exhaust fans until he reached the building’s edge.
Today Big Smoker was silent and still. Yamashita hoped it was a good omen. Hoped all he’d paid had purchased the prize he sought.
He raised binoculars to his face and looked out over the port.
He was too far away to see much detail, but what he could see brought a grim smile to his lips. The Lyrans had set up a vast field of shipping containers. Box after box lined the tarmac and they were opening every single last one of them.
Even better, they had crews inspecting military equipment. Heavy tanks, APC’s, even BattleMechs were getting the once over.
No doubt looking for sabotage.
Yamashita could’ve laughed.
Until he heard the click of a round being chambered. He slowly lowered the binoculars and extended his hands so whoever was behind him could see them. Then he turned around.
This time his death was dressed up like Tai-sa Ikeda, pointing a weapon straight at his head.
So the old bastard had survived after all. Yamashita had to give the man points for that. “How’d you get out?”
“MacPhail suspected you all along. I read about it in the intercepts. I just had time to destroy them and get clear.”
Yamashita puffed a mouthful of air out past his lips.
“They found the cell through you,” said Ikeda. It wasn’t a question.
Yamashita glanced at the gun in Ikeda’s hand and then he nodded. He didn’t feel like begging for his life. He doubted it would do any good anyway.
“Yakuza scum,” Ikeda whispered. “I knew you were no good.”
Yamashita said nothing. What was there to say?
“I told you if you betrayed us, I’d give you to the Lyrans.”
Yamashita shook his head. “If you have to kill me then pull the trigger, but don’t undo my work.”
“Your work,” Ikeda sneered.
“Some men think war is a matter of honor and valor. Men like you think it’s the interplay of secrets. But what war is, the thing that’s truly at its heart, is logistics.”
“I know that,” Ikeda snapped.
“No you don’t. You just think you do.”
Ikeda scowled.
“Have you ever moved a thousand keys of heroin? A shipment of bootleg trivids? A container full of milgrade needlers?”
“Of course not,” Ikeda snarled.
Yamashita raised his left hand with its severed pinky. “The yakuza take a finger to teach a lesson, so that it’s never forgotten. Do you know what lesson I needed to learn, Tai-sa Ikeda?”
The colonel shook his head.
“I was late with a shipment.” He paused and glanced at the port. “Logistics is life, Tai-sa. If you live on the street you understand that more deeply than a man like you ever could.”
Ikeda glanced at the port. “What did you do?”
“MacPhail suspected I was a plant from the beginning. I had to give them Hanson to let me in.”
Yamashita saw Ikeda’s face tighten, saw the gun shake in his hand.
“Drescher looked the other way because I made him a lot of money, but I knew MacPhail wouldn’t let it go. I didn’t want him to. For my plan to work he had to catch me.”
“And everyone else, too.”
“Hai,” said Yamashita with real regret. “I’m sorry about that.”
“You betrayed us.”
“Not betrayed. Sacrificed. Traded their lives for victory. What DCMS commander wouldn’t do the same?”
Ikeda snorted. “Victory.”
“I told MacPhail I had committed sabotage. He believed me because he found a real resistance cell. And for another reason. Because unarmed and badly beaten I found a way to escape. He had to believe I couldn’t have done that without help.”
Ikeda’s eyes narrowed. “How did you do that?”
Yamashita remembered the mark of the tiger on the guard’s cheek. “I used a weapon only a yakuza could use,” he said softly.
“Or you’re still working with the Lyrans and all this is just an elaborate lie.”
“Look out there, Tai-sa,” Yamashita shouted, stabbing his binoculars in the port’s direction. “They are searching through every container, disassembling every weapon system, looking for sabotage that doesn’t exist. It will take them at least a week to figure it out. I, working by myself, have halted the entire FedCom advance from this world for a week, and all it cost was the lives of five operatives.”
“A week,” said Ikeda dismissively.
Yamashita said nothing. Yakuza heard many things that others did not hear and he had heard a word, a secret word.
OROCHI.
Yamashita did not know what it meant and he did not want to know. All that mattered was the Kanrei had found a way to save the Combine, if only his soldiers could buy him the time to execute his plan. The week by itself might not be enough.
But it was a start.
“So you are a hero, then.” Ikeda’s voice shook with fury. “I should let you go. You should get a medal.”
Yamashita met Ikeda’s angry gaze. “Do whatever you must,” he said calmly to his death. “I am yakuza and it is my honor to serve the Kanrei.”
Then he turned his face away and raised his eyes to the summit of the great volcano, waiting without fear for whatever would happen next.
ISOLATION’S WEIGHT
by Randall N. Bills
Jacob’s Mountain
Tortinia, Kiamba
Benjamin Military District, Draconis Combine
15 April 3067
Lieutenant Cameron Baird watched as the odious-black smoke trail dissipated on the stiff mountain winds. Burning debris rained down across several kilometers. It looked as if the sky was bleeding.
“Can you believe that?” His comm system pounced to life as James broke the silence. “Wow. Too much.”
Wow? Watching a Clan Broadsword-class Drop-Ship falling through a cobalt sky had been sobering, true. Like a flaming thunderbolt tossed by Zeus’s own hand. But Cameron read deeper. What the hell was a Ghost Bear force doing raiding Kiamba? What could be of interest to a lone DropShip on Jacob’s
