[Ranma/Battletech][FanFic] Battletech: The Saotome Gambit Part 9

[Jamie and Bridget Wilde]

In keeping with the technological dark age of the Inner Sphere, the
fuze of a Long Range Missile is a simple mechanism, reliable and cheaply
mass-produced by unskilled labor. Two spinning flyweights linked to springs
hold a striker away from a percussion cap acting as the detonator. As the
missile flies through its ballistic arc to the target, the spin imparted
by the rifled launch tube acts as a stabilizer and sets the flyweights in
motion. When the missile hits something, the force of the impact overcomes
the spring tension, driving the striker into the percussion cap, and
starting the explosive train of detonator, booster charge, and finally,
the bursting charge.
This process takes less than a tenth of a second, and ends the lives
of the three people who happen to be sleeping in the apartment of the four-
story building where the missile hits.

___________________________________________________________________________
J. Austin Wilde and Fission Park Press proudly present:

BATTLETECH: THE SAOTOME GAMBIT
PART NINE

by J. Austin Wilde
Safety Control Rod Axe Man,
Fission Park Press
wild...@psn.net
http://www.psn.net/~wildeman/

The characters and situations of Ranma 1/2 are the
creation and property of Rumiko Takahashi and
Shogakukan/KITTY/Viz Video. Battletech and its
related materials are the property of FASA, inc.
No infringement of copyright is intended nor
should be inferred by this work of fanfiction.
___________________________________________________________________________

Chapter One

Spearhead Element,
The Black Rose Terror Regiment
Approaching the Heart of Capra City
15 March 3025

Kodachi spared little time for the apartment building that collapsed
into a roiling cloud of smoke, dust, and flames before her Marauder. The
Bombardment Group to her rear was doing an admirable job of walking its
fire just ahead of her advance, ensuring that little remained standing
in her path, and that no ambush could be sprung that would slow her down.
Their rate of fire was slowing down though, she noted, as individual
'mechs walked back to the rear of the advance to reload their launchers.
Soon their effectiveness as a massed artillery force would be at an end.
It was important that they continue to cover the advance all the way to
the Police Headquarters.
If necessary, she could call off the attack on the starport and pull
those 'mechs into a reserve for the main thrust, but it would take them
some time to change positions. She decided to pull them back now rather
than later.
As she was giving the order, the sight of a battlemech moving through
the smoke and fire beyond caught her eye. Her Marauder's Dalban HiRez
tracking system locked on to the war machine, a garrison Shadow Hawk that
had somehow slipped away from the attack on the fort, and past her Recon
Lance.
The others in her Command Lance had not noticed the Shadow Hawk, which
now knelt behind a pile of rubble and took aim with its medium laser and
Armstrong 90mm autocannon to shoot across a ruined plaza at her Support
Lance.
Kodachi put a burning but still erect building between her and the
Shadow Hawk as it prepared for its ambush. She waited until it fired,
which did not take long, and then charged around the building towards it.
The Shadow Hawk was busy ducking the return fire from its targets, and
did not notice her Marauder coming up on its left flank.
She squeezed both weapon triggers, and twin beams of laser fire
slashed into the Shadow Hawk's arm and torso just before both PPC bolts
struck. The 55-ton battlemech reeled with the impact of the bolts, and
staggered to its feet still wreathed in static lightning.
Kodachi felt the heat bloom of her full barrage moments later. It was
an exciting sensation, full of fury and bloodlust, and not a little personal
risk. The Marauder tensed to spring at the Shadow Hawk in reaction to her
cry of delight, heat pouring from its glowing radiators. The Support Lance
held its fire as they realized their mistress had taken the enemy 'mech to
task.
The mercenary battlemech stumbled backwards as she charged at it. It
was a foolish thing for a Marauder pilot to charge an enemy who was already
at close range, as the main armament of Particle Projection Cannons had
minimum range targeting difficulties that would leave only its medium
lasers and dorsal-mounted General Motors Whirlwind autocannon as effective
weapons. Kodachi did not concern herself with tactical convention this
time, nor had she ever.
The autocannon hammered over her head at the Shadow Hawk, bright
green tracers slamming into the aligned crystal steel and bursting with
strobes of white flame and brilliant motes of melted armor. Kodachi kept
her thumb clamped down on the autocannon trigger, hosing shell after
shell of rapid fire into the 'mech and laughing maniacally over the
external speakers.
The rookie Shadow Hawk pilot flailed its arms up in defense against
her continous burst. Shells ripped the limbs to pieces, and strands of
myomer bundle musculature under tension began to snap and whip around the
battlemech in bright pink filaments. The forearm mounted medium laser
exploded an instant later into a violet cloud of gas as shells detonated
the pulse-capacitors.
Kodachi watched the Shadow Hawk fly apart piece by piece under the
buzzsaw roar of her autocannon assault. The Ammunition Remaining indicator
flashed in her HUD the dwindling reserves of shells as they were expended
into the unfortunate battlemech. When the counter at last read '000,' the
gun went silent, and the shattered Shadow Hawk fell back into a nearby
building, trailing streamers of grey gunsmoke.
Satisfied with her first kill of the day, Kodachi stomped on towards
the Police Headquarters.

* * *

Mousse angrily swatted aside a garrison Whitworth, leaving the
fallen 'mech for the rest of the Recon Lance to finish off. The mercenary
garrison's cohesion had been thrown into total collapse from the start,
with individual 'mechs running helter skelter, and firing at anything
that moved. More than once Mousse had seen a battlemech exterminate its
own battalion's infantry or armor in the confusion.
His path across the wide boulevard from the starport to the city
center was open, but the advancing missile bombardment would make crossing
the road a dicey proposition. The thunder of particle beams and autocannon
fire told him that the invaders were well into the city.
His lancemates stood the best chance, as they were small and fast.
His own Crusader, 65 tons of armor and heavy missile launchers, was not
as fortunate. Cursing his luck, he threw the battlemech forward, knowing
that while the other Commonwealth 'mechs could get across the killing
field quickly, without him they would be unable to fight off the Combine
heavy 'mechs on the other side.
He kept the mech's arms crossed on high to protect his vulnerable
cockpit. Missiles and autocannon shells screamed down at him, bursting
against his armor and peppering the surrounding buildings with shrapnel.
Any glass left intact by this point was now shattered, scattering brilliant
shards across the pavement, and crunching under metalshod heel.
The barrage slowed halfway across, allowing him to take cover against
an office building and catch his bearings. The two Stingers and the Valkyrie
of his Recon Lance had survived as expected, and crept down a sheltering
alleyway towards the government buildings. Mousse watched them break from
cover to dash across another wide boulevard, only to run into a withering
barrage of laser, autocannon, and Short Range Missile fire.
The first Stinger had made it across safely, but the second was cut
down in seconds and tumbled to the pavement engulfed in flames. The Valkyrie
was driven back into cover - minus a left arm. Twin jets of silver plasma
fountained from the 20-ton Stinger's back, the sign of a breached reactor
vessel. The pilot within was probably dead, if not from a direct hit to
the cockpit, then from the heat and searing radiation from the breached
fusion reactor.
Mousse could not see their attackers, but the shuddering pavement told
him they were heavies. If he didn't take action, the rest of his lance would
be slaughtered. His Crusader peeled off the cheap facing of a building, and
crashed through to the other side.
The Zeus and the Dragon on the other side of the building were taken
by surprise by his brutal flanking manuever. Mousse triggered his hip-
mounted SRM racks point blank at the Zeus, striking the mech low on the
torso and right arm with thunderous effect. His forearm mounted lasers and
twin machineguns blazed forth streams of lead and light, tearing apart the
exposed arm and setting off the reloaded Long Range Missile launcher.
The explosion blew the battlemech's arm clean off at the elbow, and
sent Mousse flying back through the ruined building. He fought his controls,
trying to stand up before he was immolated by the Dragon. The shots did not
come.
The Dragon was occupied with the surviving Stinger and Valkyrie, who
took well-aimed shots with their lasers from the cover of the surrounding
buildings. Mousse lurched his Crusader upright through the twisted debris
of the structure, and launched another volley of twelve Short Range Missiles
at the Zeus's flayed open right torso to finish it off.
He was rewarded with the sight of the assault 'mech shivering with
his missile hits and tumbling down to crater the pavement. The Dragon, now
caught in a crossfire, began backing up - while laying down a suppressing
barrage of autocannon fire. Beyond the Dragon, Mousse could see not one but
*two* Warhammers struggling for a shot through the melee with their particle
cannons.
Discretion was the better part of valor, Mousse agreed, but these
heavies were keeping him from Shampoo. He stomped on his foot pedals,
goosing his reactor to full combat power. The myomer bundles in his legs
groaned with the strain as he sprinted for the retreating Dragon.
Autocannon shells spanged off his armor, gouging shallow craters in
the polished white surface. He ignored the barrage, running for a low-tackle
at the 60-ton Combine 'mech, and slamming full force into the squat torso.
Steel screamed and sparks fountained from the impact as his Crusader seized
the Dragon up into its arms and, carried along by his tremendous momentum,
threw the battlemech backwards at the Warhammers.
The two Combine 'mechs flailed in desperation at the flying Dragon,
trying to deflect it away from them, but to no avail. One Warhammer was
hurled to the pavement, while the other one lost its left PPC arm at the
shoulder and was knocked off balance. Mousse followed through with his
charge, SRMs blowtorching off his hip racks and slamming home into the
maimed Warhammer's center torso. His lasers slashed deep into Combine
armor, and his machineguns' ceaseless chattering dug ragged swaths into
the battlemech.
The Combine mechwarrior switched to his gunclusters in a panic,
hosing laser and machinegun fire into the Commonwealth Crusader's
midsection. Mousse watched as angry red damage lights flicked on in his
cockpit and sirens wailed. His fury swelled within him.
"<I WILL NOT LOSE SHAMPOO!>" he cried over the tac-net.
The Crusader's massive fist slammed into the Warhammer's polished
visor, splintering the armor, and rocking the battlemech back. Mousse
launched a second punch, a wild haymaker that crashed through the ragged
torso armor and threw up a flurry of orange sparks. The violent effect of
his blows drove him into a berserker rage, and he slammed fist after metal-
shod fist into the stricken Warhammer until his battlemech's arms were
slick with grease and spilled hydraulic fluids up to the elbow actuators.
The Warhammer, driven to its knees by the ferocity of his blows, fell
forward with a tooth-jarring crash into the shattered street.
Regaining some of his composure, his breathing heavy and deep as a
winded quarter-horse, Mousse turned his Crusader around to face his
surviving lance mates. Bright red fluids dripped from the scored metal
fists and arms to pool at the Crusader's feet. The once pristine white
and grey finish was ragged and scorched, and spattered with more of the
red hydraulic fluid. The Crusader's visor glowed hellishly in the
firelight as he addressed them.
"<Form up on me,>" he said coldly.
The Stinger and Valkyrie pilots complied. By their cautious advance
it was clear that they held fear for him deep within their hearts. Never
even in their worst battles had they borne witness to such mechanized
savagery.
They did not notice the other Warhammer rise slowly to its knees
from where the Dragon had felled it - until it was too late.
A direct hit from a particle cannon lanced through the upper left
torso and shoulder of Mousse's Crusader. The hit itself was superficial,
but through the ragged tear in the armor and structure spilled dozens of
Long Range Missiles. The solid-fueled projectiles clattered to the pavement
behind the 'mech and began to explode.
The missile explosions came as fast as firecrackers, though their
fifty kilo RDX warheads were far more destructive. Gouts of flame and
smoke spurted skywards, obscuring the Crusader from sight in a firestorm.

Chapter Two

Capra City Jail
Special Prisoner Holding Cells
15 March 3025

"<What's taking them so long?>" Kima asked aloud. The sounds of
explosions and weapon fire were much louder now, and punctuated with the
rhythmic vibrations of battlemech feet.
"<Should I take a look?>" Shampoo asked.
Kima thought about it. Shampoo was a formidable fighter, but armed
only with her dagger and her mace-like _bon bori._ It would take but
one well-placed shot with a rifle to end Shampoo's life, and that would
leave only her.
"<No. Stay here,>" she ordered the mechwarrior. "<I'll need you close
at hand when we move the prisoners.>"
Shampoo nodded in reply. The one called Tarou had been eyeing them
closely since Kima's return. It was the look of someone who wanted
desperately to kill you, sizing you up for the chance.
The sound of footsteps down the hall brought them both to rapt
attention. Was it warriors from the _Jade Lotus,_ or was it the enemy?
The term 'enemy' had broadened significantly in light of the attack.
Argust had sent his personal goon-squad down to the jail to take the
prisoners to the mansion. Their bodies were presently cooling off to
ambient temperature in a far corner of the holding area. Apparently the
League Governor thought the attack on the city was something of an
elaborate doublecross on their part, and the Commonwealth was no longer
welcome.
It was a stupid notion, and reflected only the Governor's own
mendacity, but it was too late for apologies.
Kima stood ready with a 10mm submachinegun plucked out of the still-
warm hand of one of the League goons. The fully automatic weapon was
murderously effective in a tight and narrow space like the hallway leading
to the holding area, as several policemen had discovered too late. The rest
of the cops had either fled the building or cowered somewhere on the floors
above.
"<Who's there?>" Kima demanded of the approaching footsteps. As the
query was in the Joketsuzoku's own particular dialect of Chinese, it was
not likely that an imposter could understand it, much less give a convincing
reply.
"<Your loyal driver, honored Commander,>" the young female voice
responded.
Relief was bright on Kima's face. "<We're down here, Joyful Cloud!>"
She turned to Shampoo. "<Release the prisoners and form them up in a line.
Take a machinegun before you do it, and shoot anyone who doesn't cooperate
in the slightest.>"
Shampoo saluted and pawed over the dead goons for a machinegun and
several magazines of ammunition. Once armed, she threw the keys to Ryouga.
"Open cell and come out," she ordered him. "Then hand keys to next
cell. Keep hands on top of head, and no make Shampoo angry, or you fall
dead." She jerked the charging handle on her weapon, chambering a round,
to emphasize this point.
Ryouga did as he was told.
Tarou came out next. His eyes gleamed spitefully at Shampoo, but he
remained at a distance from her, with his hands planted on the top of his
head, playing the good little boy.
Akane and Doctor Tofu followed, as did Ranma and Genma. They remained
silent and still under Shampoo's gun.

Ryouga looked once at Ranma and then turned his eyes away. Only as he
looked away did he see the sympathetic look from Akane. By the gods, she
was so beautiful, he thought to himself. Only an angel could have been so
pure and lovely.
Another thought crossed his mind. What was someone as perfect as her
doing in the company of the cursed Saotomes? Especially Ranma!

"Move out!" Kima ordered them suddenly. "Shampoo, cover them from the
rear."

They began to file out one at a time through the door, slowing only
enough to step over the shredded bodies of the two dead police in the
hall. Joyful Cloud and Kima waited for them at the end of the hall, Kima's
machinegun in front and Shampoo's weapon behind keeping them honest.
The sounds of battle were amplified in the brick and cement parking
garage. The Commonwealth truck, its windshield crazed by shrapnel, and
several bullet holes prominent in the sides, waited for them with the
engine running.
"In the back," Kima ordered her prisoners. Ranma lowered the tailgate
and jumped in back. He looked from side to side for a chance to bolt, but
with both Kima and Shampoo armed and wary, did not like his chances.
Tarou was the last to board. He gave Shampoo a dirty look as he did
so, and she contemplated shooting him down as an example to the rest of
them.
"<Shampoo, you ride in back and cover the prisoners. Don't hesistate
to shoot if you have to,>" Kima ordered. She slapped the dash of the truck.
"<Let's go!>"
Shampoo climbed in back with the others, her machinegun aimed directly
at Tarou's chest. If anything happened, she wanted him dead first no matter
what, and then she'd deal with the others as necessary.
Joyful Cloud put the truck in gear, and climbed up the exit ramp to
the street level. A spray of heavy machinegun fire greeted them as they
cleared the ramp, the shells shattering the windshield and ripping apart
the hood. The truck lurched to an abrupt halt before a giant black
battlemech.

"OH-HO-HO-HO-HO-HO!" Kodachi Kuno cackled her trademark laughter over
her external speakers. The Black Rose's Marauder towered over the truck,
its cloven hoofed feet blocking the road left and right. The Warhammer that
fired the machinegun burst stood close by with the rest of the company.

Kima wiped blood out of her eyes and brushed the fragments of broken
glass off her face. She looked to her left and saw that Joyful Cloud was
dead. A single 20mm machinegun round had caved in her entire face with the
force of the impact, and exploded out the back of her neck to pass through
the cab of the truck behind her. There was surprisingly little of her blood
in the cab. Kima's first instinct was to shoot back at their assailants,
but her submachinegun was useless against a Marauder.

"Going somewhere, my dears?" Kodachi asked them over the speakers
with another laugh. "I think not."
She opened the hatch on her Marauder, and slipped lithely through to
stand upon the smooth black armored deck. The sky was beginning to lighten
with the approaching dawn, making her a dark and slender silhouette.
"Step away from the truck," she commanded them over the speakers
through the microphone in her helmet. "My men won't hesitate to kill you
if you refuse me."

Ranma was the first to appear.
"What do you want from us?" he demanded. "We ain't done nothing."
He looked around to size up the situation. Twelve heavy battlemechs did
not make for good odds.
"Who dares presume to question the Black Rose of the Furinkan Combine?"
she replied haughtily.
"Ranma Saotome dares," he called back.
Kodachi found herself smiling in spite of his impertinence.
"THE Ranma Saotome?" she asked him in a sacharrine voice. "The fiance
of Akane Tendo?" She chuckled loudly at this. "What absolutely splendid
news! Why, I travelled all this way just to meet Akane Tendo face to face."

"Way to go, Ranma," Akane growled at him from the truck. Ranma paled
at his mistake.
"Who?" Ranma asked Kodachi lamely. "*That* Ranma Saotome? You made a
mistake, lady. It's all a big misunderstanding. I never heard of Akane
Tendo before."

"Nice try," Kodachi said tersely. "But I'm afraid I don't believe you.
In fact I have it on very good authority that Akane Tendo is being held in
this jail." She motioned for the Warhammer which stood next to her Marauder.
"I'm offering just three seconds for everyone to back away from that truck
before I have it stepped on."
The giant battlemech stomped closer to the truck.
"Three..." Kodachi intoned. "Two..."
Shampoo jumped out first, followed by the rest. Kima stepped out of the
shattered cab, her machinegun loose in her hand.
"Excellent," Kodachi purred. "I can see that you're all smarter than
you look." She looked down at them. There were two Joketsuzoku, their
uniforms and their weapons made it clear who they were. The rest were
a token assortment of fools. Finally, her eyes fell upon Akane Tendo. Her
hair was much shorter than it used to be, but she wasn't going to be so
easily fooled by her nemesis.
"So, Akane Tendo, I presume?" she called to them from above, her
finger pointing squarely at the Confederation Heir.
Akane looked up slowly at Kodachi.
"I'm right here," she replied scornfully.
Kodachi chuckled to herself. This was delicious! "I had hoped to have
had the opportunity of killing you in battle," she began. "To make up for
my defeat at Port Said. Then I planned on killing you here and now..."
"No way, lady!" Ranma shouted, jumping in front of Akane. "I ain't
gonna let ya!"
"Ranma, you idiot!" she cried, and pushed him away. "I can face her
myself!"
"How sweet!" the Black Rose gushed. "Futile, but terribly sweet. As
I was saying, that was my plan..." Distant explosions now sounded from the
south. "But unfortunately, my dear brother has made that option untenable.
In fact, we'll all have to run along to my DropShips before he can catch
us."
She narrowed her eyes at them.
"Correction. *Akane Tendo* and I will have to run along now. The rest
of you can die where you stand."
"Hey! Waitaminute!" Ranma cried. "Don't we get a last request or
something?" It was a desperate stalling tactic, but they were fresh out
of options.
Kodachi laughed. "Now why on earth would I want to do that? The lives
of peasants mean nothing to me."
"How about last words?"
She regarded him for a moment. His poor breeding was plainly evident,
but he was insanely brave and, she realized, devilishly handsome. It would
be a pity to kill him, but she did have a reputation to uphold.
"Such as?" she asked him sardonically.
Ranma looked slowly from side to side, taking in the eyes of his
companions. There was fear and apprehension there, but also a grim
determination.
"Well, for one thing..." he began. Then he thrust his finger to the
sky. "EVERYONE: SCATTER!"

Ranma grabbed Akane on the run, followed closely by Genma and Doctor
Tofu. Kima fired a burst of machinegun rounds at Kodachi, then dove for
cover. Ryouga sprinted in the opposite direction as Ranma and the others,
while Tarou decked Shampoo with a surprise left hook.

Kodachi cringed as Kima's burst spanged around her. She felt a bullet
ricochet through her cooling vest, and ice cold water doused her legs. A
moment later the shrill of fusion scramjets filled her ears with dread.

The 7th Heavy Attack Squadron of the famed Blue Thunder Regiment
screamed overhead at low altitude. Bombs fell from wing-mounted hardpoints
into the midst of the Black Rose's personal guards. Massive explosions
shook the ground and filled the air with the whine of shrapnel. Mortally
wounded battlemechs toppled to the pavement, or careened drunkenly through
wrecked buildings. As quickly as they had appeared, the fighters were gone.

Ranma and Akane tumbled in each other's arms as the concussions flung
them through the air to land in the short stiff grass of the city's only
park. Chunks of pavement rained down around them as they lay moaning on
the ground, Ranma shielding her with his body.
"W-What?" Akane asked through a haze of pain.
"Airstrike," Ranma supplied for her. He saw his father and Doctor
Tofu pull themselves upright several meters away. Beyond them he could see
that the fighters' bombs had largely overshot the target, killing only three
of the Black Rose's guards, but shaking them up enough to permit escape.
The survivors were busy scanning the sky for another attack. He could not
see what had happened to the Black Rose.
Akane pushed herself up, and he moved off of her.
"How did you know?" she asked.
"I saw 'em circling overhead at high altitude," Ranma replied. "I
figured there was no way they could pass up a fat target like a company
of 'mechs all bunched up in one place."
"Come on, boy," Genma called to them. "We have to get out of here."
"No shit," Ranma spat. "Any bright ideas on how we do that?"
"I don't think they took the truck when they arrested us," Genma
answered his son. "We parked it across the street, remember?"
"Yeah. I guess it's worth a shot."
Akane spied Ryouga wandering in a daze through the smoke and fire
of the destroyed Police Headquarters. Kodachi's black Marauder loomed
motionless over him.
"Ryouga!" she called to him.
He looked up as if hearing voices in his head.
"Ryouga!" she cried again.
He turned and spotted them, puzzlement clear on his bloodied face.
"What's the big idea?" Ranma asked her.
"We can't just leave him here," she retorted.
Ranma shook his head. He didn't really have anything against his one-
time rival. "I guess not."
Ryouga started their way. He had a nasty cut on his scalp that dripped
blood down the left side of his face. Doctor Tofu met him halfway to look
at the wound, but without any medical supplies, there was little he could
do.
"What is it?" Ryouga asked her.
"You're coming with us," Akane said to him.
Ryouga's heart leaped.
"R-Really? You w-want me t-to...?"
"Of course!" Akane said with a grin. "We can't leave you to the Black
Rose or those Amazons."
"Speaking of which," Ranma interrupted. "Why don't we talk about this
somewhere else? Before the Black Rose or those crazy Amazons come after us
again."
Ryouga shook his head. "I have to get my battlemech," he told them.
"I can't leave it behind."
"Great. Where and what is it?" Ranma asked, wondering not only if they
would have enough time to get it, but whether or not they would be able to
squeeze it into the _Palomino._ The Leopard Class was famous for its ability
to surpass its load limit and still make it into orbit, but there was only
so much it could do.
"It's at the fort," Ryouga said, pointing in the wrong direction.
Ranma steered him towards the south, and the pillars of smoke and flame
that rose from the heaviest fighting.
"You mean over there?" Ranma asked. "In the middle of Hell?"
"I won't leave it behind," Ryouga snarled. "That BattleMaster has been
in the Hibiki Family for over a hundred years!"
"BattleMaster?" Ranma gaped. No wonder Ryouga was so reluctant to give
it up. Not only was the 85-ton battlemech one of the most fearsome in the
Inner Sphere, it was also one of the rarest. "Why didn't you say so sooner?"
Ryouga's face darkened. "You wouldn't give me a chance!"
Ranma patted him on the shoulder. "Don't sweat it, Ryouga. Let's go."
He turned to his father. "Pop, me and Ryouga are gonna go get his 'mech."
Genma didn't look very thrilled by this, but grudgingly assented.
"Don't take too long, boy," he told him. "We'll wait for you on the
west side of town near the highway."
Ranma nodded. The west side of Capra City was about the only part that
hadn't been flattened by the Black Rose's Terror Regiment.
"Gotcha. Come on, Ryouga!"
Ranma started off down the ruined street with Ryouga following
close behind. Their eyes darted furtively between the fallen Black Rose
battlemechs, which remained motionless. Their pilots were either dead or
stunned from the bombing attack. The others were still watching the sky,
and paid no attention to the two mechwarriors as they darted between
piles of rubble.
Akane watched the two of them go. The jerk had been so excited about
Ryouga's BattleMaster that he hadn't even bothered to say good-bye.

Ranma and Ryouga passed by the wrecked Joketsuzoku truck. Joyful Cloud
sat still and dead within the cab. Kima and Shampoo were nowhere to be seen,
and neither was Tarou.
The Black Rose was also nowhere to be found, though her Marauder stood
silent and motionless above them. Ranma didn't think it was too much to ask
that she had been killed in the bombing attack. Talk about a scary chick.
Anyone who attacked a planet just to settle a score was some kind of sicko.
"So how'd you end up in a dump like this?" he whispered to Ryouga as
they turned from the street that led to the Police Headquarters and started
for the fort. The city echoed with weapon fire and explosions, some distant,
others unsettlingly close.
"It's a long story," Ryouga replied.
"I'll bet."
A stray missile dropped to the street close enough to feel the heat
from the blast. The two dove for the cover of a parked car in case more
missiles fell. Two Combine Slayers screamed overhead a moment later, their
heavy autocannons hammering some unknown target, and then they climbed
almost vertical for the morning sky.
"Why are you helping me, Ranma?" Ryouga asked as they waited for the
fighting to pass.
"I always wanted to see a BattleMaster," the pig-tailed mechwarrior
replied. "I've never seen one up close."
Ryouga grunted. "Now tell me why you're really helping me."
"Oh come on, Ryouga, it's obvious. We both know about your direction
sense."
Ryouga lowered his eyes. "There is that..."
"Plus I've always wanted to see a BattleMaster up close," Ranma added.
"That part was true."
Ryouga stood, and started down the street at a run.
"Then come on, Ranma."
"It would help if you started running in the right direction, dork!"
Ranma retorted. "You're heading back the way we came!"
Ryouga froze in place, shame burning upon his face as brightly as the
flames of the city.
Ranma laughed at him. "Gotcha! You were going the right way all along."
The fanged mercenary strongly considered beating Ranma senseless and
leaving him in the street.

* * *

Kima shook herself back to alertness with the sound of the bombs still
ringing in her ears. She had taken cover underneath the truck when the
fighter-bombers struck, and had been spared the carnage delivered to the
Black Rose's guards. She could not see Shampoo - or anyone else for that
matter.
The pavement beneath her was wet with antifreeze from the truck's
shattered radiator, and with blood that dripped through the jagged hole in
the back of the cab where Joyful Cloud sat. She pulled herself free of the
truck's undercarriage and groped for her submachinegun.
A foot came down on her hand, crushing it against the hard cold metal
of the weapon. She yelped in pain, forgetting herself as one of the great
Joketsuzoku.
She looked up to see Pansuto Tarou grinning down at her.
"You won't be needing that," he told her.
His _bishonen_ features were smeared with blood and smoke from the
bombs. How he had survived, she did not know. She did know that it was a
very bad thing for her that he had.
"It's everyone for themselves," Kima told him. He put a little more
weight down on her hand. "There's no need to continue this," she said
between clenched teeth. "Just go! I don't care if I ever see you again!"
Tarou eased up on the pressure, though not enough to let her hand
free.
"I have a problem," he told her.
"Maybe I can help?" Kima asked.
"You can."
Tarou lifted his foot to strike her across the nose. Kima's head
rocked to the side, blood streaming freely from what was now a broken
and rapidly swelling nose.
"You see, my problem is with all of you goddamned Amazons," he
explained to her. His foot in her stomach accentuated the point he was
trying to make. "You ruined my life with your Jusenkyo experiments!"
Kima coughed violently, not knowing if the sticky blood that smeared
her hands was from her nose, or from deep inside her.
Tarou pushed her down to the pavement with his foot.
"You turned me into a monster."
She looked up at him through the swirling motes of pain that swam
before her eyes.
"I'm not to blame for what happened to you," she croaked.
"Aren't you?" Tarou accused. He kicked her down again. "You're all
to blame for this. If you had left those damn pools alone, none of this
would have happened to me!"
Satisfied that Kima wasn't going anywhere for the moment, he stalked
over to the corner of the street, and the fire hydrant that stood there on
the concrete sidewalk.
"It took me awhile to come to grips with what I am," he told her.
"I can see now that what you've given me is more of a gift than a curse,
but damn you for not giving me a choice!"
He lashed out with a vicious kick that ripped the hydrant from the
flange it was bolted to underneath the concrete. Water geysered into the
air and drenched him into his monstrous Jusenkyo body. He stood under the
spray for some time, lost in rapture.
Kima was too horrified and too hurt to do anything but stare at the
thing Tarou had become.
His hellish eyes opened and fixed upon her. He started towards her,
his soggy fur dripping water in puddles behind him. The eerie tentacles
across his back whipped and swayed menacingly in the hot breeze. The water
from the ruptured hydrant began to stream towards her as he approached.
She expected him to say something, but his monster form was incapable
of making any sounds other than guttural grunts and howls. She groped once
again for the submachinegun. If she didn't kill him now, she wouldn't live
to see the next sunrise. She caught the weapon up in her hand and sprang
with desperate energy to her feet.
Her gorgeous white wings unfurled behind her as the cloak fell away.
She leaped for the air, leveling the weapon at Tarou's face as one of his
grossly long ape-arms grabbed her by the throat.
She squeezed the trigger, eager to watch his hideous face explode in
a spray of blood and bone, and heard only the hollow sound of the firing
pin falling on an empty chamber.
Tarou's laughless eyes blinked twice in surprise at this fateful turn
of fortune, and then he began to crush her throat. He increased his grip
slowly, so that she could have some sense of appreciation for her impending
death. Kima thrashed in his monstrous grip, her legs flailing and the spent
machinegun battering his arm to no effect.
Finally, he felt the cervical bones in her neck give way with a
sickening crunch, and she went suddenly limp, as if turned off by a
switch. He regarded her for a moment, and found that her wings and her
bird-of-prey countenance were beautiful to behold.
With a grunt of satisfaction he tossed her aside. Her limp body,
still hanging on to the grey fringes of life, fell into the streaming
water from the broken hydrant. The Jusenkyo Effect worked its impossible
magic one final time upon her, and Kima died not as a Joketsuzoku, but
as Akane Tendo's doppleganger.
It was only then that Pansuto Tarou felt any twinge of regret for
what he had done, for it became clear that she had been as much of a pawn
and a victim of Joketsuzoku ambition as himself.
He turned his attention back to the burning city. The Black Rose's
guards fired wildly into the morning sky as Combine fighters darted to
and fro overhead. The Black Rose herself was obviously a casualty, as her
Marauder remained motionless in the midst of the onslaught.
The purple-haired Shampoo was nowhere in sight, he realized. Perhaps
she had been blown to bits in the airstrike. There wasn't time to confirm
this however, as he had to get to the fort to reclaim his Hunchback. Once
mounted, he'd kill the rest of the Amazons on Capra.

Chapter Three

Nerima Confederation DropShip _Palomino_
40 kilometers west of Capra City
Planet Capra, Capra System
The League of Five Nails
15 March 3025

Tatewaki Kuno had chosen the area near the _Palomino_ for his drop
zones, a fact that was noticed immediately by the stalwart crew of the
Confederation DropShip. Combine Pathfinders roamed the surrounding desert
with their luminescent panels and marking strobes, but had avoided the
depression of the wadi for obvious reasons. They needed a broad stretch
of flat ground to land so many ships.
Happousai listened to the sounds of aerospace fighters racing overhead
from the highest inhabited point on the _Palomino,_ a dorsal hatch through
the pressure hull aft of the flight deck. The camouflage tarps fluttered
in the rising pre-dawn breeze over his head, restricting his view of the
sky. From the number of fighters he heard, there was no doubt about the
size of the approaching force.
The cover of darkness would spare them from observation, but darkness
was going away in under twenty minutes. After that, there was no hope of
remaining undetected for long. The tarps and the wadi were meant to conceal
from a distance, not right under your nose.
What had that fool Genma done now? he wondered idly.
He considered taking his Locust out to investigate the situation more
closely. There was definitely fighting in the city, and who knew what had
landed close by. It didn't look like a good idea, but he was feeling
restless.
He dropped down through the hatch and confronted the DropShip Captain.
"I'm going to go take a look-see," he told the Confederation officer.
"Be careful," the Captain admonished.
Happousai cackled.
"Careful is my middle name," he retorted. "But for your sakes, I'd
have those scrumptious little girl pilots of yours ready to fly on a
moment's notice. You might need to make a fast getaway."
"We will not leave Lady Akane behind," the Captain protested.
Happousai regarded him for a moment.
"Don't say I didn't warn you."

His Locust powered up. That long-haired fox, Akari, had really put
the fire back into his battlemech. Then again, that hot tamale in tech's
overalls could probably put the fire back into a lot of things... He'd
have to thank her in his own special way when he returned.
The 'Mech Bay door opened, and he stepped out into the wadi. There
was little room to maneuver between the DropShip and the sides of the wadi,
and he had to take his time getting clear.
Once he was clear, he ran at a full tilt up the slope and onto the
expanse of desert pavement the Combine had chosen for its Drop Zones. The
winking of landing strobes was distant, barely on the horizon. That was
a relief. At least they wouldn't have any Combine DropShips landing next
door.
Brilliant lances of plasma fire from descent engines lit up the desert
as the first DropShips set down. He counted at least three Overlords, plus
a swarm of Union and lesser ships. That kind of firepower was reserved for
major campaigns, not a jerkwater planet like Capra.
He tried to scratch his head in contemplation, forgetting about the
neurohelmet that rested upon his aged head.
What in blazes was going on?
There was only one way to find out.
The Locust stomped towards the Drop Zone. It didn't take long for the
speedy chicken-walker to reach the Combine pickets. He did the smart thing
and held his fire, trusting to the initial confusion of the drop and the
efforts at forming up units to keep the pickets from realizing that
something was wrong and sounding the alert.
He slowed down to a reasonable pace and tromped past the pickets while
flashing his running lights twice in salute. The Pathfinders in their all-
terrain jeep gave hesitant waves and watched him go. Suckers...
He was deep within Combine lines now, and though he drew looks from
some of the troops he passed, the fact that he was not shooting, and that
no one was shooting at him, was enough to convince them that nothing was
wrong.
There was no doubt about the forces. They were Furinkan Combine
troops. The large green and brown pineapples stenciled upon the surfaces
of DropShips, battlemechs, and vehicles made that clear. He spied several
ships with the distinctive logo of the Blue Thunder Regiment, and started
towards them.
So, he thought to himself. Tatewaki Kuno is here. There was only one
reason why that pompous buffoon would even bother with a planet like Capra,
and that fact meant that Happousai wasn't the only spy within the Tendo
household.
It intrigued him, but as two Centurions were now challenging him over
the radio, he had other problems. There was no sense in continuing the
charade, so he kicked his throttle fully open and made a dash for the
open desert. Long Range Missiles pelted around him as he weaved between
DropShips and other transports. Nearby battlemechs began to turn in his
direction with surprise as the alert went up.

Tatewaki Kuno walked his Thunderbolt clear of the _Oda Nobunaga._
The sky was getting brighter, and promised good hunting weather. His
troops were forming up around him, and there were already encouraging
reports from the aerospace fighters that engaged his sister's forces in
the city.
It was then that he saw the Locust ducking and weaving around his
ships with over a company of 'mechs in pursuit. Frowning, he switched
over to the Guard channel and was stricken by the cacophony of shouts and
curses from the Locust's pursuers.
"What is the meaning of this?" he demanded over the commo. How had
one of his enemies penetrated his lines so effortlessly?
"Gang way!" a wizened voice cackled in reply. The Locust was running
straight for him.
Tatewaki Kuno seethed with anger, and drew his Thunderbolt's katana.
"Hold, villain!" he called to the charging Locust. "Dost thou not
realize that thy foe is none other than the future First Lord of the Star
League; the mighty heir to the immortal samurai traditions of Musashi and
Tokugawa? It is I, the great Prince Tatewaki Kuno, the Blue Thunder of the
Furinkan Combine!"
"I don't care if you're Jean Harlow doing a striptease in a feather
boa!" Happousai shot back. "Move it or lose it!"
The Locust leaped into the air, its long legs stretched out fore
and aft like an olympic sprinter. Tatewaki raised his katana in defense,
but not in time to stop Happousai. The Locust planted one of its bird-like
feet firmly atop the Thunderbolt's cockpit and vaulted over the 65-ton
'mech. Tatewaki toppled over to crater the hard desert pavement of the
ground below.
His troops scrambled to pull the battlemech upright, as others watched
the Locust bound for freedom unopposed. Tatewaki Kuno shrugged off his
minions, and watched angrily through his telescopic bifocal unit as the
cursed foe escaped. His Thunderbolt's head bore the distinctive mark of
the Locust's foot in chipped paint and creased armor.
"Fools!" he berated his men. "Why art thou not in pursuit?!"
His troops scrambled to comply, leaving him burning with a shame
that only the capture of his sister and the rescue of the lovely Akane
Tendo could assuage.

* * *

Fort Dettmering had taken a heavy pounding from the missiles and cannon
shells of the Black Rose Regiment. The battlemech hangar itself was scored
with over a hundred hits, and Ryouga feared the worst. He and Ranma picked
their way through a massive hole blasted through the outer wall. The razor
wire had been neatly cleared by the explosion, and coiled angrily in a
tangled mass of steel to either side of them.
"I hope there's something left," Ranma muttered to him as they passed
by the shredded bodies of the mercenary garrison's infantry. A Phoenix Hawk
lay smashed through the barracks building, its rear center torso burned and
blackened by what looked to be multiple particle beam hits. The footprints
of other battlemechs were everywhere on the parade ground, as were bits
of armor, and severed limbs from several different machines. An entire
corner of the far retaining wall was gone, the edges smooth and glassy,
and a column of steam rose from the center of what was apparently a fatal
reactor crash-out.
The fighting had moved on from the fort, it seemed. With Combine
fighters hunting for Kodachi's troops (exactly why this was happening,
Ranma had no clue), the Black Rose Regiment was withdrawing from the city.
Even the nearby starport was now quiet, though black smoke obscured most
of it from view.
"I have to see for myself," Ryouga replied. These people who lay dead
around them had been his comrades, even for only a short time, and anger
swelled within him, crying out for revenge.
The hangar was as still and quiet as the rest of the fort. If there
was anyone left alive, they were doing a good job of remaining unnoticed.
Ranma noted that chunks of concrete and brick facing trickled down the
sides of the mammoth building. An entire side could come down at any
moment.
"Let's make this quick," he said nervously.
They had to force open a personnel door - it had hung up on its bent
frame - to get inside. The 'Mech Bay doors all required electrical power
that no longer seemed to be present. It was a quick walk through a hallway
before they entered the interior of the hangar.
Ryouga's BattleMaster and Tarou's Hunchback stood apparently unharmed
within their revetments. They were dusted with plaster and bits of cement,
but it was clear that for all of the exterior damage, the interior had not
been breached. Pale emergency lights cast long shadows around them.
"Whoa..." Ranma said in awe for the BattleMaster. While not the
heaviest 'mech ever built, it was one of the tallest. Only the four-legged
Goliath and the massive 100-ton Atlas were taller.
"It's still here," Ryouga gushed with relief. "Come on, we don't have
time to gawk."
The BattleMaster had two seats. One was for the mechwarrior, the other,
which sat above and behind the pilot, was for an observer of some sort or a
field commander. Ryouga dusted off his neurohelmet and put it on. Ranma
took his place in the upper seat, noting that the controls for the two aft-
mounted medium lasers were available if Ryouga was otherwise occupied.
As Ryouga powered up, he spied Tarou scrambling up the gantry for his
hunchback in his monster form. On the one hand he was glad that Tarou had
survived, but on the other hand he didn't like the idea of Monster-boy
coming with them. He watched in silence as the Hunchback powered up.
"Hey, isn't that the other guy's 'mech?" Ranma asked him. He had
been studying the laser controls, and had not seen Tarou in his monster
form.
"Yeah," Ryouga replied. "Lucky him, he made it."
"Well, let's go get him. Two 'mechs have a better chance of fighting
their way out of here than one."
There, Ryouga thought. Ranma said it first. It's not on my head.
"Okay."
The BattleMaster waved its arm to the Hunchback, and Tarou, now human
thanks to a flask of hot water he kept in his cockpit's food server,
appeared on the display.
"What is it?" he asked tersely.
"Good to see you too," Ryouga returned. "We've got a way off this
planet. Are you with us?"
Tarou paused. It was clear that he had other ideas in mind.
"Yes," he told them. "But first I need to go to the starport."
"Huh?" Ranma interjected. "There's no time for that. You heard Kodachi,
her psycho brother is on the way. We've gotta bag ass now while the getting
is good!"
"Then leave me," Tarou grunted.
Ryouga started the BattleMaster out of the revetment. He had no desire
to argue with that statement.
"Okay, man," Ranma said, stunned by this refusal. "If you hurry though,
you might still be able to catch us. We'll be taking the road heading west
out of town. Look for us there."
"Don't wait for me," Tarou told him grimly.
Ryouga walked the BattleMaster to the only Mech Bay door that wasn't
closed. It was blasted open from the outside. Piecing the battle together,
he realized that the rest of the company had been able to clear the hangar,
and that the ground crew must have shut the doors just before power was
lost.
He crunched through the twisted debris that blocked his path. The
giant battlemech snapped steel girders across its stout torso like twigs.
Ranma felt a little jealous. His LAM was pretty cool, but did not compare
to the sheer power of a BattleMaster.
Tarou's Hunchback followed behind them, peeling off for the starport
as they turned west and toward the center of town. The firing was more
distant now. It was clear that the Black Rose Terror Regiment was in full
retreat from Tatewaki Kuno's forces.
They stomped along ruined boulevards, taking cover from the occasional
Air Lance that streaked overhead looking for targets. Ryouga wisely held
his fire, not wanting to draw attention to himself. As he crouched his
BattleMaster behind a burned out building, he saw his favorite Japanese
hole-in-the-wall below. A missile strike had gutted it, and he wondered if
the couple who owned the place were all right. Perhaps the gods had been
kind and spared them - while destroying the karaoke machine.
They skirted the government buildings rather than face the Black Rose's
guards. This brought them into the open, and a pair of Hellcats dove on
them from above. Lasers burned around them, melting streaks in the blacktop
at their feet.
"Heads up, Ryouga!" Ranma called.
"I see them."
The BattleMaster raised its hand-held Donal PPC and fired. The four
torso mounted medium lasers the Battlemaster carried in front were well
suited towards anti-aircraft purposes, and began blazing streams of white-
hot light at the two fighters. As they passed overhead, Ranma got into the
act with the rear-firing lasers, finishing a Hellcat that Ryouga had
crippled. The fighter tumbled towards the ground trailing smoke to crash
in a huge fireball of plasma. An olive colored parachute above told them
that the pilot had managed to eject.
"Got him!" Ranma crowed.
"I got him first!" Ryouga growled.
"No time to argue! Here comes the other one!"
The surviving Hellcat looped around for another attack. Its lasers
burned into their formidable torso armor, scoring it with black streaks,
but not penetrating. Ryouga let go with another burst of PPC and laser
fire that blew out the nose and sent the Hellcat flying apart in midair.
The flaming debris rained down around them, and Ryouga started the
BattleMaster off at a trot before any more fighters could investigate.
They were too easy to spot from above in broad daylight, even with the
copious amount of smoke that was in the air.
"Hey, not bad!" Ranma said with a grin. "We aren't a bad team."
Ryouga frowned.
"We are not a team," he insisted.
It was Ranma's turn to frown. "Jeez... Calm down, Ryouga. You'll
live longer."
Ryouga didn't take the bait. Silence filled the cockpit, and Ranma
returned to watching their back. As they cleared the open area without
further attack, Ranma spied a curious sight in the rear-mounted gun cameras.
The Black Rose's guard was on the move at the extreme limits of his
lasers. In the center of the retreating column was a Black Rose Victor
that shouldered a weighty burden - that of a certain black Marauder. The
mech's limbs hung limply over the Victor's shoulders, and its cloven-hoofed
feet dragged on the broken pavement.
It was an oddly touching sight, and Ranma let them go without so much
as a potshot at Kodachi. She deserved to die for wanting to have them all
killed, and the Inner Sphere would definitely be a better place without
her. It would be easy to squeeze off at least two double laser blasts into
the Marauder's cockpit before her guards got wise to them, but Ranma simply
couldn't bring himself to shoot.
He decided not to mention it to Ryouga.

Chapter Four

Capra City Center
Ten minutes after sunrise
15 March 3025

Shampoo awoke to great pain. She pulled herself upright, feeling the
swelling in her jaw and spitting out blobs of clotted blood. She was not
looking her usual best. She remembered being knocked unconscious by a
blow from Pansuto Tarou. After that she had no idea what had happened.
Somehow she had ended up at the bottom of the parking garage ramp.
Kodachi's 'mechs were gone when she cautiously scaled the ramp. The
sun was low on the horizon, and the sounds of fighters screaming overhead
made her wary of exposing herself to their potential fire. The truck was
still there, and Joyful Cloud, all of sixteen years old, was still dead
within.
She searched about for some sign of Kima, and shuddered when she saw
the dead body of Akane Tendo lying in a pool of water in the street. The
water main pressure had subsided in the interim of her period of
unconsciousness, and merely gurgled from the fractured flange.
Looking closer at the body, she nearly fainted. Akane was dressed in
Kima's uniform, and several white feathers floated on the breeze about her
still form. Even stranger, Akane had long blue-black hair...
Oh gods, Shampoo thought, her throat clenching tight in horror.
Kima...
She now understood the significance of her mission to Lightoller, of
the body she had watched the two lab attendents stow in the ship's morgue.
Kima had been exposed to the Jusenkyo Effect, in a pool that somehow made
its victims take on the appearance of the Tendo girl. She remembered Gaido
once telling her about how some of the pools had no 'assignments.' They
must have found a way to give them one.
Horror gave way to sorrow, and then to anger. From the massive bruise
marks on Kima's throat, she had been throttled to death rather than shot
or stabbed. Taking care to avoid the water that would affect her own
Jusenkyo transformation, she gingerly lifted Kima's body out of the puddle.
Her head hung at a grotesque angle, and made a terrible grinding noise as
it did so. Her neck had not just been snapped, it had been crushed.
The only people she could imagine having the brute strength capable of
doing such a thing were Ryouga Hibiki and, in his suspected Jusenkyo form,
Pansuto Tarou. She put her money on Tarou. That bastard could not hope to
fathom the pain that he would suffer at her hands before the end.
She took Kima's body in a fireman's carry and started for the starport.
If the gods were kind, the _Jade Lotus_ would still be there, waiting for
her.
The way was hard. Kima's dead weight would not have posed a problem to
Shampoo had she been healthy, but her muscles ached and her body trembled
with the pain of her fall down the ramp.
There was little fighting now. Except for the occasional air attack,
most of it was distant and to the east.
She picked her way over the ruins of a mangled Dragon and came upon a
terrible vista of destruction. A Warhammer, missing a PPC arm and looking
as if it had been smashed down with a club, lay splayed and silent beyond
the Dragon. A second Warhammer was charred and blackened. The pavement
around the 'mech was completely gone, replaced with a jagged crater that
exposed power and sewage lines below.
Beyond the second Warhammer was a Crusader. She could tell by the few
spots of unblemished white paint on the legs that it had belonged to Mousse.
It was wracked with a dozen grievous wounds, the paint blistered and cracked
by an intense heat. A jagged scar ran along the left shoulder, exposing the
reloading mechanism for the LRM rack.
She felt her knees go weak, and she set Kima's body down before she
dropped her. Even Mousse was dead. There was no hope.
Shampoo sunk down to her knees and wept. It was not like her to feel
so emotional in a time of crisis, but the pain and the hardship had come
too hard and too fast. She tried to will the tears away, that she was a
Joketsuzoku of the finest blood, and that she was stronger than that.
It didn't help. Her weakness in the face of adversity only made her
cry harder. Kima was dead. Mousse was dead. Little Joyful Cloud, a girl
on her first mission for the clan, dead without a chance to even defend
herself. The rest of her clanswomen were probably dead as well. What
difference did it make if she died too?

"<Shampoo?>"

She turned, startled, at the sound of the voice.
Mousse stood some distance from her. His bare chest was cut and
bruised, and his trouser legs soaked with blood. He limped towards her,
his long hair trailing over his shoulder in the hot desert breeze. She
could see that his glasses were shattered, with one lens actually falling
out in pieces as he moved.
"<Mousse?>" she called to him. She wasn't sure if she was seeing some
apparition instead of the young mechwarrior.
"<It's me, Shampoo,>" he replied. "<Are you hurt? I can't see you
very well.>"
She looked down at Kima. Dead Kima with the face of Akane Tendo.
"<I'll be all right,>" she said softly to him. "<But Kima is dead.>"
"<Commander Kima?>" Mousse cried in disbelief. He tried adjusting his
glasses, which only made the other lens fall out.
Shampoo stood up. The wind carried with it the stench of cordite and
death, and she flinched at the smell.
"<What happened here?>" she asked him after a moment's disgust.
Mousse tried to smile.
"<I came to save you,>" he replied sadly. "<I guess I ran into a
little more trouble than I could handle.>"
She took a quick inventory. A Dragon and two Warhammers. Then she
saw the Combine Zeus that lay shattered through the side of a building,
and the half-melted ruin of her sister Recon Lance pilot's Stinger. Three
heavies and one assault 'mech, all wiped out at the cost of a Crusader
and a Stinger.
"<You destroyed all these battlemechs?>"
Mousse nodded, his sad blue eyes shining with grief that way she had
seen them before she left Lightoller. "<It wasn't enough... I failed you.
I failed Commander Kima.>"
There would be no convincing him otherwise, so she changed the subject.
"<What about the rest of the company?>"
Mousse shook his head. "<I don't know. The rest of the Recon Lance
must have thought I died in the explosions. I saw them heading back to the
DropShip before I blacked out. I sent the Fire and Command Lances to defend
the _Jade Lotus_ until we could return, but I don't know if there even is a
ship left to come home to.>"
"<We have to find out,>" she replied. Her courage had returned to her
because of him. "<I don't hear any fighting from the starport, so that
means only one of two things.>"
She picked up Kima's body once more. "<We have nothing to lose by
trying, Mousse.>"
Mousse managed to smile. "<I'll follow you anywhere, Shampoo.>"

* * *

Pansuto Tarou could see the wary forms of Commonwealth battlemechs
moving through the smoke. They had fought a hard battle against Combine
skirmishers from the Black Rose Terror Regiment, and endured a punishing
bombardment that included aerospace fighters. Though they had been
victorious, they were hurting.
A single Hunchback in pristine condition could do a lot of damage.
He checked his ammunition status. His primary weapon was a monstrous
Tomodzuru Type 20, a short-barrelled 210mm autocannon designed to smash
armor and fortifications at close range. He carried just ten shells for
it, but those ten shells could tear ten wounded battlemechs to pieces.
Just one shell in a vital place would blast the DropShip's plasma drive
to smithereens, stranding the Amazons on the planet and leaving them to
their fate at the hands of the Combine.
He pondered this for a moment, judging whether it was worthy of his
hunger for revenge against the Joketsuzoku to let Tatewaki Kuno do all the
dirty work.
Tarou decided it was not. He carefully sighted in on his first target
optically, not daring to use his radar and give them any warning before
the shot came. When he judged the range and set his weapon, he breathed a
curse for them and squeezed the trigger.
The massive autocannon belched a cloud of black smoke, launching over
one hundred kilos of discarding sabot tungsten-carbide penetrator dart
downrange. The fin-stabilized dart was a meter long and 100mm in diameter,
and traveling at just under three kilometers per second. It smashed into
the target Wolverine's chest, puncturing the damaged armor and sending a
rolling shockwave through it that spalled off the aligned crystal steel
in huge shards. It penetrated further, deep into the 'mech's internal
structure, snapping through supports, severing control cables, and
puncturing the Wolverine's pectoral myomers before punching cleanly
through the reactor vessel.
The dart managed to overpenetrate through the rear armor and continue
downrange for fifty meters before ricocheting off the battered hull of the
_Jade Lotus._ This went unnoticed, however, as the Wolverine suddenly
exploded into a blindingly bright ball of silver fusion plasma.
Even before the hot ball of ionized gas could expand into nothingness
and fade away, the Commonwealth 'mechs and the DropShip itself began
unloading a merciless fire in Tarou's direction. Wildly aimed laser and
particle beam fire slashed through his armor and annihilated his covering
pile of rubble. The beams came with murderous intensity, forcing him back
in shock.
He fired again, taking a Jenner's leg off at the hip and spinning
the 'mech to the tarmac. Despite this loss, the Commonwealth fought back
with savage intensity. Their beams cut deeply into his left arm and torso,
melting the myomer bundles and exploding the elbow actuator.
Tarou had not expected such a massive and single-minded response, and
particularly not from the DropShip's weapons. He swore at them through his
crazed visor display and retreated at a run. His Hunchback had taken enough
damage in mere seconds to make him reconsider another attack.
His vengeance was not a suicidal drive within him, but something
focused and purposeful. There was nothing to be gained by dying in this
manner. Another chance to punish the Joketsuzoku would come, and he would
be ready for it.
Now it was time to take up the foolish Ranma Saotome on his offer of
escape.

Pink watched the mercenary Hunchback flee, biting her lip in barely-
contained wrath. She wanted to pursue, but her place was close to the
DropShip, protecting it until Kima could return. The loss of her battle-
sister Pekoe and her Wolverine would go unavenged.
Her twin sister Link broke cover, having obviously lost a similar
battle with her conscience. The Dervish leaped over a gutted quonset hut,
its jump jets flaring bright blue against the smoke.
Pink threw her own Dervish into action, its jump jets roaring at
maximum output. She watched her own battlemech clear her sister's to
set down just in front of Link.
"<Stop!>" she ordered her sister. The Fire Lance commander had been
one of the fallen, and she had taken command of the company. Her Dervish's
paddle-like hands thrust out to restrain the renegade 'mech.
Link's anguished face appeared on her display.
"<Pekoe's death, unavenged, stains our honor! Let me kill that League
backbiter!>"
The jab pierced, for it echoed her own feelings of shame and remorse.
"<No, sister. Our orders are clear. You stain your own honor to put
your desires before the good of the clan.>"
Link swore, and signed off. Her Dervish returned to its position.
Pink, now acting commander of the company, decided she was too young
for the job. When would Kima return?

* * *

Ranma breathed a sigh of relief when he spotted the truck with his
father and Akane waiting for them near the highway entrance. Most of the
fighting had left the city as Kuno's Blue Thunder Regiment pursued the
fleeing Black Rose. They had their chance to slip away.
"Pull over next to them, Ryouga," he called to the fanged mechwarrior.
"What do I look like, a taxi?" Ryouga called over his shoulder.
The BattleMaster came to a halt next to the truck, and Ranma released
the canopy to clamber down the side of the massive war machine. He leaped
the last five meters to the ground and landed in the bed of the truck.
"Ranma!" Doctor Tofu said happily. "We were getting worried."
"Ah, it was no big deal," Ranma returned. He looked at his father.
"I see the truck was still there."
"Bloody amateurs," Genma grunted. "Are you ready to go?"
"One second." He picked Akane up out of the shotgun seat and set her
in the bed of the truck. "Akane, go up and keep Ryouga company."
"What's the big idea?!" she said angrily. "If you wanted to sit there,
you could have just asked."
"Fine!" he cried. Women! "Akane, would you PLEASE go up and keep
Ryouga company? I need to talk to Pop, and there isn't time to sit here
and discuss this."
She looked him over. Why had she even bothered to worry about him?
"As a matter of fact, I'd love to talk to Ryouga. Unlike SOME people
I could mention, Ryouga seems like a sweet, polite, and considerate man
who would never treat his fiancee like trash!"
She slapped him hard across the face in conclusion.

He watched her climb up the side of the BattleMaster, rubbing the
blazing red palm print on his cheek as he did so.
"You ready, boy?" Genma asked.
Ranma plopped down in the shotgun seat sullenly.
"Yeah, whatever. The sooner we're out of here, the better."
Genma put the truck in gear. "You know, son... You'll get more flies
with honey than with vinegar."
"What the hell is that supposed to mean?" Ranma groused, still rubbing
his cheek. "And what do I want flies for anyway?"
Genma shook his head. In spite of Ranma's surliness and his unrealistic
sense of values, he was rather proud of the way he had raised him to be a
man. Except for the part concerning women. "Never mind."

"H-Hello, Akane," Ryouga said shyly as she threw her leg over the
side of the cockpit and climbed into the rear seat of the BattleMaster.
"Hi, Ryouga," she returned. Her smile seemed a little forced.
He lowered the canopy and sealed it. The battlemech began walking
as he focused his attention on where he was going. Displays to the side
of the cockpit began to indicate his agitated mental state.
"Um, Akane?" he asked at length.
"What is it, Ryouga?"
"It's, ah, it's none of my business, but I couldn't help but notice
you and Ranma getting into a fight down there in the truck."
"No surprise there," she replied. "The jerk always starts something."
Ryouga nodded, then offered a silent prayer.
"So there's, um... There's nothing between you then?"
Akane did not notice the sudden hopeful tone in Ryouga's voice, as she
was deeply involved with an internal inventory of her feelings for Ranma.
"He's my fiance," she said, deciding that the term for him was the
only way she could describe him without opening herself to questions that
she wasn't prepared to ask.
Ryouga's heart sank. Fiance!
"Oh."
"It wasn't our idea," she said, wondering what rock he had been hiding
under for the last month and a half. Then she realized that the rock he had
been hiding under was the same rock that they strode across at sixty-five
kilometers per hour. "It was our fathers who decided."
A ray of hope began to shine once again within him.
"So it isn't like you love each other then," he observed.
Akane didn't answer, and in the silence that followed he decided not
to ask again.
Finally, Akane looked up from her seat.
"Ryouga, it just occured to me that you don't even know who I am."
"Uh, what's there to know?" he asked.
She took a deep breath and decided to spill it. Ryouga seemed like
a guy who could be trusted with her secret.
"I'm the daughter of Grand Duke Soun Tendo of the Nerima Confederation.
You deserve to know at least that much if you're coming with us."
Ryouga was floored.
"You're the Heir to the Confederation?"
"Umm-hmmm."
"Here? In *my* battlemech?"
"Yep."
He didn't know what to say. Should he bow? Could he bow, given that
he was strapped to his ejector seat, and tied in with various cables and
cooling hoses? Why hadn't he remembered to clean the cockpit? There was
trash and dust everywhere!
She could see his distress at this.
"Don't worry, silly! Just call me Akane, okay? We're supposed to be
traveling incognito on this expedition anyway."
"Uh. Okay." He was trying to keep his heart from exploding with delight
at being called 'silly' by her. She liked him! She had to like him!

Chapter Five

Jusenkyo Commonwealth DropShip _Jade Lotus_
Capra City Starport, Capra City
Forty-five minutes after sunrise
15 March 3025

Pink didn't know whether to be relieved or horrified by what she
saw below. Shampoo and Mousse were staggering from the ruins of the city,
and Shampoo carried a limp Kima over her shoulders.
She adjusted her telescopic zoom to get a better look, and gasped.
The woman Shampoo carried was dressed in Commander Kima's ornately
embroidered Commonwealth Ambassador's uniform cheongsam, but it was not
her. Whoever she was, she was obviously dead. Where was the commander?
Mousse apparently had not died in battle, in contradiction of the
testimony of the two survivors of the Recon lance that had accompanied
him. She wondered how much of their haste to abandon Mousse was because
he was a male who did not know his place among the clan rather than the
amount of damage his 'mech had suffered in combat.
She ordered the DropShip to send medics out to assist them. Then she
flicked her mic over to the external speakers.
"<Where is Commander Kima?>" she asked fearfully.
Shampoo looked up to face her young cousin. Tears made her violet
eyes shine in the early morning light.
"<Commander Kima is dead. There are no Joketsuzoku left in the city.
I am taking command of the mission. Order the surviving members of the
company to return to the _Jade Lotus_ and prepare for emergency liftoff.>"
What Pink had feared was true. Kima was dead, and the mission had
failed miserably.
She had her orders, and though there might be some question of
Shampoo's fitness for command, at least someone was taking charge. She
ordered the battered survivors of her company to withdraw by lance and
board the DropShip.
Pink was the last to come aboard. Her battle-scarred Dervish was
craned into its protective cocoon by the noisy hangar gantry, leaving
her with one final look at the starport before the 'Mech Bay door closed
and locked shut. They had fought an incredible holding action, but had
lost several of their comrades doing it.
It was a bittersweet feeling when the _Jade Lotus'_ main drive fired,
forcing mechwarrior and crew alike down into their seats with five gees of
acceleration. They were leaving Capra, a world Pink hoped she would never
visit again - even as a conquerer. They would have to sustain this punishing
climb long after they had left Capra's gravity well if they wanted to escape
the swarms of Combine fighters that might rush up in pursuit. Their only
chance lay in their vast reserves of reaction mass fuel, allowing them to
sustain high levels of thrust for far longer than any fighter.

* * *

Tatewaki Kuno took the situation report from his 5th Sword of Thunder
Regiment's Operations Officer from inside his Thunderbolt. The 5th had
turned a Black Rose counterattack, and pursued them all the way to their
drop zones - before running into a concentrated barrage of fire from
Kodachi's well-trained armored cavalry units. The attack had stalled,
allowing more than a battalion of her 'mech forces and some mixed units
to escape. Those DropShips were being pursued, but it took away from his
available close air support.
The escape of those renegades was infuriating to him. Who knew if they
had Akane Tendo in their clutches? He had to trust to the gods of battle
and the opinions of his Intelligence staff that she wasn't.
Meanwhile, his company of battlemechs continued to pursue the cursed
Locust that had infiltrated his Drop Zones. The damnable mechwarrior had
dogged his advance towards the city with pathological determination,
approaching, firing at them, and then leading them on a merry chase before
escaping from sight. He had lost several reconnaissance 'mechs in the
process of running him down, and he knew that this foe was formidable.
His own Blue Thunder Regiment had better news to give, if ill-timed.
They had routed his sister's forces in the city after heavy fighting, and
one of his Air Lances had reported sighting her personal guards. They were
even now in pursuit, while he was an hour or better from the city. It would
be up to his troops to deal with her until he could arrive.
He wondered what she would do if she was cornered - which, with his
regiment circling the ruins of the city in a cordon of steel, was about to
happen. Would she fight?
Though she was his flesh and blood, he vowed that he or his forces
would shoot her down if she did. Her bloody rampage across the Inner Sphere
had run unchecked for too long, and it was time to end it. He would be First
Lord of a united Star League, and it would not do to have old wounds by her
hand festering in the new era of glory and enlightenment he had planned.
If she surrendered, it would be in the knowledge that Father would
intervene on her behalf - as he had done many times before. Tatewaki knew
that he must tread softly in this regard. Kodachi must be sequestered out
of the public eye, and above all, Father must not know of it. Once he had
her in custody he would send her to the Periphery. She was too dangerous
any closer to him.
"My lord Prince," his Mifune Toshiro Company Commander called to him
over the tac-net. "We have isolated the renegade guard forces of Princess
Kodachi at map reference Lima-One-XRay by Mike-Five-Oscar."
"Doth my sister make claim to have the fair Akane Tendo in her
clutches? ...Is there no appeal for pardon and safe passage?"
"No, my lord Prince," the Battlemech Captain replied. "Princess
Kodachi has not answered our calls for surrender."
Tatewaki wondered at this. Surely she would not hesitate to play the
lovely Akane Tendo off as hostage for safe passage to her ships? It seemed
that the gods smiled upon him indeed, for she did not have Akane Tendo! He
did not entertain thoughts that she might have already dispatched his fair
goddess, for such was unthinkable to him.
"Excellent work, man!" Tatewaki exclaimed. He keyed his command
channel mic. "Alert Miyamoto Musashi and Wakayama Tomisaburo Companies
to converge on point Lima-One-XRay by Mike-Five-Oscar. Make haste with
thee!"
He called up the map reference on a secondary display, complete with
the latest intelligence data, and studied it.
The designated area was a ruined high school and a dense residential
district, according to his photo reconnaissance. Rubble from the buildings
had piled up into veritable drifts of debris, forming a narrow lane that
screened them from direct flanking attacks. A jump-capable 'mech could top
the debris for a shot at them, or to escape the defile, but the rubble was
unstable, and any footholds tenuous. His forces had bottled up his sister
within, and more and more Blue Thunder 'mechs arrived with each moment to
reinforce the positions.
He had her!
It was now simply a matter of how she would submit. Would she fight,
or would she surrender?
His presence could not guarantee one result or another, and he was
too far away from the action to make a difference. They might be able to
keep her bottled up without incident until he could reach the city, but
she might well try to fight her way out first. He had the feeling that if
she were going to surrender, it would have to be to him, and him alone.
"Company, come about right," he ordered his personal guard. "To the
city, and a curse upon that infernal Locust which snaps at our heels!"
He walked his Thunderbolt to the southern end of the defile, and
headed west towards the city.

Happousai frowned. That dunderhead Kuno was running the other way,
back to the city, and opposite the direction that Genma and his motley
crew would be taking to return to the ship. That is, IF they were returning
to the ship. There had been no word from them since they left the previous
day.
His game of hit and run was getting tiresome, and for little apparent
result. If the mission was already compromised, there was nothing he could
do about it. The hard part would be convincing that stubborn DropShip pilot
to leave. He didn't put much faith in being able to do that.
As much as it pained him, he realized that he would have to make a
run through the city to see if he could find them. It was possible that
they were holed up somewhere until the fighting was over. Actually, given
Genma's penchant for self-preservation, it was *likely* they were in
hiding.
If he was going to do it, he might as well have some fun in the
process.
He throttled up to maximum, and the Locust stretched out its long
legs across the expanse of desert. A ridge of sandstone in the distance
marked the steady downward grade beyond, to the valley where the city lay,
and he'd really make good time then. The line of Kuno's battlemechs were
an obstacle to his progress, though not a very effective one.
They were watching for him, which he was expecting, and a full lance
stopped and turned to face him. He cut across at an angle to them, keeping
out of range from their array of medium lasers - the mainstay of a 'mech's
armament. Long Range Missiles flared up at him, as did a few beams of blue
and yellow light from heavy lasers.
The beams sizzled around the Locust, utterly failing to connect, and
the first volleys of missile fire exploded impotently at his heels. The
Combine 'mechs began to move now, realizing that he was in a position to
outflank them if they didn't.
He watched them through his canopy as he continued his headlong
charge forward and to the right of their positions. When he judged the
moment had come, he cut his turn sharply to the left, and pivoted on the
springy sand with a remarkable agility. The abrupt turn threw off the range
estimates of the Combine 'mechs, and their next missile volleys fell long.
The Locust skittered across the sandy ground past the left anchor
'mech of the Fire Lance. Happousai held his fire, knowing that a medium
laser and a pair of SRM twin-racks wasn't much against an Archer. The
heavy missile 'mech tried catching him with its own laser array, but the
beams crazed only the empty air around him.
He was in the middle of the company now, and quickly spied his target.
He cut right once again, avoiding a salvo of Short Range Missiles that
threw enough sand and smoke into the air to obscure any further attempts
to spot and destroy him before he could accomplish his objective. Mass
confusion reigned as the remainder of the Combine 'mechs halted their
advance to deal with him.
The Locust sprang into the air once again, landing upon the Thunderbolt
of the ineffable Tatewaki Kuno, would-be First Lord of the Star League. The
heavy battlemech once again toppled over into the sand, and Happousai sailed
on to dart away unscathed. Fellow Blue Thunder Regiment pilots swore that
they heard a cackling sound emanating from the Locust's external speakers
as it dashed off towards the sandstone ridge.

Tatewaki Kuno noted the fine grains of sand displayed in his visor
while suspended nearly upside-down in his ejector seat straps. The local
equivalent of an ant lion angrily burrowed itself out of the sand before
his cockpit, and sprayed the visor with an obscenely green fluid. Tatewaki
sighed to himself, wondering if General Kerensky had ever faced such
ignominious circumstances on his path to victory against Amaris the Usurper.

"Mukashi yori [From olden times]
tada ayaniku no [only misfortunes have befallen]
koi no michi [those on the road of love]
wasuraregataki [how can one put from the mind]
yo sae urameshi [the world of love with all its pains?]"

* * *

"Hey, Pop, we've got company ahead," Ranma called to his father.
Genma squinted at the rough sandstone ridge. There was movement, but
whatever it was, it was well camouflaged to the local color scheme.
"Better prepare the welcoming commitee," he told his son.
"Gotcha."
Ranma reached behind him into the bed of the open-topped truck.
Concealed beneath a few ratty old blankets was a plastic crate. Doctor
Tofu helped him pull the blankets off, allowing him to draw a shoulder-
launched SRM twin-rack from within.
He made a quick check of the weapon's batteries, and pulled the safety
ring from the trigger mechanism before propping the launcher into position
on his shoulder. The boresight glowed green in his eye, and the targeting
sensor's chin rest vibrated a soft high-pitched tone through his jawbone
to his eardrums.
"One persuasive argument, ready to go."
They could now see that it was a Locust, moving fast through the
canyon cut into the sandstone ridge for the highway. It was headed
straight for them.
Ryouga's BattleMaster flashed its running lights twice, letting them
know that he had seen the Locust as well. Ranma did not expect the small
chicken-walker to put up a fight. The smart thing for it to do would be
to run like hell.
The SRM launcher's chin-rest began to warble in his ears as the
sensor fixed on the heat pouring out of the Locust's radiators. The tone
became steady and low when he was in range to shoot.
"Say the word, Pop," he said to his father. The missiles wouldn't
stop the battlemech in one salvo, but were enough to give any light 'mech
pause before deciding to attack.
"Hold your fire, Ranma," Genma replied. "It's the Master's Locust."
Ranma's finger tensed ever so slightly on the trigger before he lowered
the weapon.
"Whatever you say." He turned to instruct Ryouga not to shoot. "Hey
Ryouga! Don't shoot, okay?"

Ryouga Hibiki zoomed in on the approaching Locust with his telescopic
unit. Ranma was waving his arms below and yelling something, but it was
difficult to hear him over the sounds of both 'mech and truck moving along
the broken pavement.
"What's Ranma saying?" Akane asked. She held half of a headset up to
her ear that was tied into the external microphones.
"I think he's telling us not to shoot," Ryouga replied. "Do you know
this Locust pilot?"
Akane put the headset down. "Unfortunately, yes, I *do* know Master
Happousai."
Ryouga made a noise that sounded rather like being strangled.
"D-Did you just say: H-Hap-Hap-Happousai?"
"Why, do you know him?" she asked innocently.
Ryouga clenched down on his controls.
"THAT RAT BASTARD!!!"
The BattleMaster fired a blast from its Donal PPC. The bolt of charged
particle fury leaped across the empty space that separated the two bitterest
of enemies with a deafening thunderclap. Ranma fell down in surprise and
shock in the truck bed below.
"Ryouga!?" Akane cried in surprise. "I thought you just said Ranma
told us not to fire?"
"That... That... Oooooo," Ryouga snarled, oblivious to Akane's cries.
"I'M GOING TO KILL YOU NOW, HAPPOUSAI!!!"

Happousai felt the bolt slam into his Locust's right torso, instantly
annihilating the armor and blasting deep inside the 'mech. Damage lights
flicked on, and a litany of computer warnings filled his headset. The
Locust careened out of control for a moment as he rubbed at the spots in
his vision caused by the blinding particle beam.
"What's the meaning of this?" he demanded. Then he finally recognized
the BattleMaster that trailed behind Genma's truck. Ryouga's hate-filled
voice rang in his ears over the radio a moment later, confirming his dire
suspicions.
"Idiots!" he called to them, putting his 'mech into a full evasive
zig-zag run away from them. "Here I am, trying to warn you about Kuno, and
THIS is how you repay me!"

"What the hell is going on back there?" Genma demanded.
"That's what I'd like to know!" Ranma replied. "Ryouga's blown a
fuse or something!"
They watched the Locust run away to the south, trailing smoke and
sparks from the particle cannon hit. More bolts of lightning followed the
'mech as Ryouga's BattleMaster lurched off the highway in pursuit.
"Still, I wouldn't lose any sleep over the Master's death," Genma
observed.
"Me neither," Ranma agreed. "But this ain't the time or place for it."
He picked up their small field radio set and turned it on. They had been
under a strict policy of radio silence thus far, but this ugly situation
demanded immediate clarification. "Hey, Akane! Would you mind talking some
sense into that lame-brained idiot up there? I told you guys not to shoot
at the Locust!"
"I'm trying, Ranma, but he won't listen!" she responded. He could hear
Ryouga's growling curses in the background.
"Keep trying!" Ranma said lamely. There was nothing else he could say.

"Ryouga!" Akane cried at the top of her lungs. "Stop shooting this
instant! Do you hear me?!"
Ryouga abruptly let off on the weapon trigger. He turned around as
if coming out of a trance.
"Did you say something, Akane?"
She gave him a flustered look. "I've only been yelling at you for the
past minute. What's with you, Ryouga? Ranma told you not to shoot."
Ryouga brought the BattleMaster to a halt, and watched the smoking
Locust flee out of range.
"I'm sorry, Akane," he said to her softly. "I don't know what came
over me. When I realized that it was Happousai I just..." his voice
trailed off, and he looked at his trigger finger as if for the first time.
Her expression softened into pity. "I don't blame you for not liking
Happousai," she said to him consolingly. "No one else does, but since he
is the Master of the Anything Goes School of Martial Arts, we just have to
tolerate him, okay?"
Ryouga looked down at his lap in shame.
"For you, Akane."
"Hmmm?" she asked in puzzlement.
"For you, I will try to control my temper. It won't be easy. Because
of Happousai, I've looked into the abyss of Hell itself, and that abyss
has looked back at me ever since."
He started the BattleMaster up again to rejoin the truck on the
highway, leaving Akane hushed and still with wonder over just what
Happousai had done to the poor dear.

"I don't hear any more shooting," Ranma observed. He looked back to
Doctor Tofu. "See anything, Doc?"
Tofu scanned the desert with a pair of magnigoggles.
"They've stopped shooting," he said. "There, they've turned around.
It looks like they're coming back. I don't see Happousai anymore. He must
have got away."
Two sets of fingers snapped in regret. Father and son looked at
each other for a moment, then began to laugh at their unspoken show of
solidarity.
"Better luck next time, I guess," Genma chuckled, looking behind to
the desert in the east and the pall of smoke on the horizon that marked
Capra City.
"You said it. You know what, Pop? I'm liking Ryouga more and more,
even if he IS a blockhead."

It was at that point that Genma had to throw the truck into a hard
swerve to avoid the towering battlemechs of Tatewaki Kuno and his guards.
The truck sideswiped the sandstone cliff at the edge of the highway and
bounced back into the center lane. Ranma, Genma, and Doctor Tofu were
stunned by the impact with the cliff. The two mechwarriors in the front
seats were secured by their lap belts, whereas the good doctor was thrown
against the side of the bed with a yelp of pain.
The truck came to a shaky halt in front of Kuno's Thunderbolt as the
engine stalled.
Ranma regained his senses as the dust cleared, just in time to face
the razor sharp tip of an enormous katana pointed between his eyes. The
sword was held in both hands of the Thunderbolt in the manner of a samurai
from late in the Period of Warring States.
"So," an amplified voice declared from the Thunderbolt. "Thou art the
Ranma Saotome I have been told of?"
Ranma edged away from the diamond-hard tip of the battlemech-sized
katana. Tatewaki moved it close again, to the point where Ranma didn't
have any further room to squirm away from it.
"Uh, yeah, that'd be me," he replied.
"Silence, wretch!" Tatewaki cried over the speakers. "Know thy place,
callow cur, and speak only when spoken to!"
"But you just asked me a question!" Ranma protested.
"Simpleton!" Tatewaki thundered. "Even a child could have determined
that my question was in fact rhetorical!"
Beads of sweat began to form on Ranma's brow as the tip of the sword
moved ever closer to him, until it was just touching the end of his nose.
He felt a tiny bead of blood well at the spot, to dribble down his lip and
into his mouth.
"In truth thou art far more pathetic than I imagined," Tatewaki
announced from on high. "To think that Akane Tendo should be shackled to
such a low-born and as base a cretin as you. It wounds me to the quick."
"Come down outta that 'mech, and I'll wound you to the quick..."
Ranma growled quietly.

Ryouga's BattleMaster stomped around the curve of the highway in
that moment, to face an angry array of weapons from Tatewaki's guards.
He came to an abrupt halt, his handheld PPC at the ready.
"What should I do?" Ryouga asked Akane. There were at least three
heavy battlemechs that could shoot at him without hitting their peers,
and another nine behind them waiting for their chance.
The only thing Akane saw was the huge sword of Tatewaki Kuno pointed
right at Ranma's head. At their height and distance from the truck, she
could not be sure if he wasn't already skewered.
"P-Put the gun down," she said, barely able to speak.
He let out a deep sigh, and lowered the PPC.

* * *

Tatewaki Kuno was a man well pleased with himself. Ranma Saotome and
his detestable father were his prisoners. Akane Tendo, so fair and noble,
was finally his. He had just received word that his sister was in the
custody of his troops. All the failures and setbacks he had suffered in
getting to this great moment were put well behind him.
For some peculiar reason, Akane Tendo had chosen to stand with the
prisoners rather than take her rightful place by his side. It defied
explanation, other than through some foul act of mind-control, or even
sorcery, on the part of the cursed Saotomes. He was confident that once
she was removed from their fell grip, she would come around to her better
sense.
They had a good twenty minutes before a flight of helicopters from
the Drop Zones could arrive to take the prisoners away to detention, and
his lovely bride to the chambers aboard the _Oda Nobunaga_ that had been
prepared for her. Tatewaki saw this as an opportunity to lord his greatness
over them.
He started with Ryouga, as Doctor Tofu had a broken ankle from the
crash, and was unable to stand with the rest of the prisoners.
"It pains me to know that a mongrel mercenary such as yourself has
been placed in a position to look after the fair Akane Tendo in these
troubled times."
Ryouga's face twisted into an angry snarl, but he held his tongue.
Tatewaki sneered at him and turned to Ranma, his enemy of enemies. The
fool would indeed make for a splendid trophy when mounted upon the prow
of the _Imperator._ After he had been suitably broken, of course...
"Tell me, O hated foe; what brings thee to this wretched place?" he
asked Ranma.
The pig-tailed mechwarrior, securely bound with nylon ropes and facing
certain death under the guns of battlemechs if he tried anything uppity,
stared straight ahead, ignoring him.
Tatewaki snorted his contempt and moved on to Genma.
"And you, O corpulent one. Didst thou believe that the Blue Thunder
wouldst allow thy roguish machinations to succeed? For it is written in the
stars themselves that the bride of Tatewaki Kuno wouldst be none other than
Akane Tendo, and together with their superior progeny, they wouldst rule
with a firm yet benevolent hand over the Inner Sphere as First Lord and
Lady of the Star League."
Genma said nothing at this bit of fantasy. Akane made a retching noise
that pained Tatewaki considerably to hear from her.
He faced her next. She would not make eye contact with him.
"Ah, my fair and lovely flower, yet so like a tigress! It will
please you to know that my twisted sister will never again bring woe to
your people, for I have captured her this day, and shall put her away in
a place where she can do no harm."
She looked up at him, her face tearstained and clouded with both
despair and contempt. "You or Kodachi... What difference does it make?"
He flinched at her words.
"Speak not these things to the man who loves you," he begged her
softly.
"What do you know about love?" she replied bitterly.
"I know that it drives me in all things," he said to her. His face
became haughty again. "All that I do is for thee, my love. If I could not
rule the Inner Sphere with thee at my side, then I would wish for none of
it!"
She regarded him for a moment, an idea forming in her head.
"If you love me, Kuno, you'll let these people go."
Tatewaki'e eyes bulged.
"Akane Tendo! You ask the impossible of me!"
She turned on him. "What's so impossible about letting them go? You
hold all the cards, Kuno! All you have to do is say to your men, 'release
them,' and they'll do it."
"They are enemies of the Furinkan Combine," he declared. "I cannot."
She closed her eyes and looked away. "Then I can never love you,"
she told him. "You might as well kill me now, because if you won't, then
I'll do it myself the first chance I get."
"Akane Tendo!" Tatewaki exclaimed in horror. "Say it not!"
"Stop telling me what to say and what not to say!" she cried. "I'm
not some animal you can train to do tricks, and I won't let you dictate
how I should feel!"
Tatewaki lurched away from her, his heart nearly shattered by her
protestations. Ranma and the others looked on in uneasy silence.
"Of course. Thy words ring true," he said to her at length. "I could
never hope to contain the burning flames of thy passion, nor would I,
knowing that thy fiery spirit is at the crux of why I love thee so."
The chop of rotor blades echoed in the distance.
Tatewaki turned to one of his dismounted mechwarriors. "See her aboard
the first helicopter. These others are to go in the second."
The mechwarrior saluted. "As you command, my lord Prince."
"Hey!" Ranma protested.
Tatewaki turned to strike him across the face.
"Did I not tell thee to know thy place?" he roared.
"There ain't no way I'm gonna let you take Akane away from here!"
Ranma shot back. A trickle of blood ran down the corner of his mouth where
Tatewaki had struck him.
"What makes thee believe that thou hast any right to make such bold
and yet hollow ultimatums?" the Blue Thunder demanded of him.
Ranma's eyes darkened with animus.
"Let me spell it out for you, since you're such a moron," he began.
"Akane Tendo is MY FIANCEE, got it?! If you lay one hand on her, I swear
that I will hunt you down - even if I have to search the entire goddamned
universe to find you - and then I'll kill you! Do you savvy me, you stupid
dipshit?"
Tatewaki Kuno's blood pressure spiked a full forty points above normal.
His face swelled red with anger, and his body tensed with such a wrath as
he had never before felt in his life. Akane's gasp of surprise at Ranma's
declaration went unnoticed in the passion of the moment.
"THY FATE IS SEALED!" Tatewaki bellowed, drawing his personal sword
and preparing to cut Ranma down where he stood. Ranma looked on defiantly,
knowing he was going to die and suddenly not caring. He was not going to
end his life begging for mercy that Kuno would not give.
"Kuno, NO!" Akane screamed as he drew back the sword. "I'll marry you,
I swear! Please don't kill Ranma!"
Even Ryouga started at her plea. Why was she doing this for him?
Tatewaki paused. This was music to his ears.
"You don't know what you're saying, you stupid tomboy!" Ranma said
angrily. "You actually want to marry this creep?!"
"So that a thoughtless jerk like you won't die, yes!" Akane shouted,
her eyes wet with unshed tears.
The Blue Thunder raised the sword again. "'Tis the last time thou'lt
ever speak to the fair Akane Tendo with such disrespect!"
"KUNO!" Akane screamed once again.
He held his blade back a second time. The sound of the helicopter was
closer now, giving him the opportunity to send her away first. If the
cretinous Ranma Saotome should choose to insult him once more after that,
there would be no plaintive cry to spare his life. O how the black sorcery
of Ranma Saotome had enspelled poor Akane Tendo! Killing him could be the
only possible release for her, Tatewaki was now certain of it.

END OF PART NINE

I really didn't mean for this arc of the story to continue like this. I
thought I could get it done by the end of Part 8! And no, I'm NOT trying
to borrow a page from the Krista Perry School of Anything Goes Cliffhangers!