[Ranma][FanFic] Battletech: The Saotome Gambit Part 7

[Jamie and Bridget Wilde]

Chapter One

Nerima Confederation JumpShip _Dragonfly_
Capra System Zenith Jump Point
Capra System, the League of Five Nails
8 March 3025

NCJS _Dragonfly_ winked into existence in a flash of cerenkov gammas
and short lived exotic particles, to appear high above the Capra primary's
zenith rotational pole. The Invader Class JumpShip fired its maneuver drive
in fitful spurts, rolling and turning to set its relative velocity so as
to keep a stable orbit above the star - in accordance with its new position
in space-time. It was the most dangerous time for a JumpShip, as the
velocity vectors that had held it in the proper position for Jump from
the originating star were never the same as those required at the
destination.
This was particularly the case when the two stars were of different
spectral classes. Capra was much less massive than Capella, and its streams
of solar wind less intense. It was also slightly closer to the galactic
core (and the center of rotation about the Milky Way), which made the
star's relative velocity different from Capella's by several dozen
kilometers per second. _Dragonfly_ would have to make up this difference
quickly and efficiently; otherwise it could find itself hurtling off on
some undesirable vector - such as directly towards the star, or out into
empty interstellar space.
Captain Hinako Ninomiya directed her crew with just such speed and
efficiency. Or at least with speed. Her management style tended towards
the manic in these moments, and only a crew well accustomed to her rapidly
flailing limbs could have survived this dangerous transition from Jump.
_Dragonfly_ was stable and secure in its orbit within ten minutes.
The massive JumpSail was unfurled, allowing the starship to tack against
Capra's solar wind and keep the ship in position indefinitely without
expending excessive reaction mass. The kilometer-diameter sail itself
was embedded with billions of photovoltaic elements that channeled energy
into the ship's Jump Batteries to recharge them.
When she was satisfied with her starship's orbit, Hinako ordered the
grav-deck brought up to speed. The main habitat for the JumpShip began to
rotate about the central core to provide a comfortable eight-tenths of a
gravity for the crew's health. The Invader Class was a good ship for its
passengers and crew, having a decent-sized grav-deck and two large garden
domes to help purify and oxygenate the air, as well as provide fresh
produce to eat and a little green to look at.
"Grav-deck rotation nominal," the Chief of the Watch announced.
"Very well," Hinako nodded. "Sound 'Clear to Stations' on the 1MC."
"Sound 'Clear to Stations' on the 1MC, aye."
The Chief of the Watch reached over his panel to a handheld microphone
and clicked it twice for attention. An electronic bosun's whistle shrilled
over the ship's general announcement intercom speakers.
"Clear to Stations! Set the Station-Keeping Watch; Section One provide.
Section Three, eat and relieve the watch!"
Several stations upon the bridge changed hands, an event that took
place on the other decks as well. Crew stowed damage control equipment that
had been readied for the brief but potentially dangerous transition through
hyperspace, and hurried for the mess deck to eat a quick meal and relieve
their comrades. Those members of the crew neither on watch, nor expected
to relieve, made a beeline for the berthing spaces.
Once the _Dragonfly_ was in order, Hinako ordered her Sensory Section
to take a look about the system. The ship's primary synthetic-aperture
radar array began to probe the void, and two 1.5 meter telescopes scanned
for signs of the distant planet of Capra within the expected orbit.
"Captain Ninomiya?" her radar operator called.
She flitted over to the Sensory Section.
"What is it?"
"Take a look at the radar display, ma'am."
Hinako leaned over the sensory operator's shoulder as Ranma, Genma,
and Akane made their way up from the passenger compartment. The three
seemed a little disoriented from the Jump, and the free-fall conditions
of the bridge did not help. She took note of them and then returned her
attention to the puzzling information on the radar display.
"That's very odd," she remarked to the operator in her sultry voice.
"Have you checked for damage to the array?"
"Yes, Captain. The array checks out."
Hinako folded her arms across her breasts.
"Interferance from the Jump?"
The operator shrugged. "It's nothing I've ever encountered before,
ma'am."

Genma and Ranma floated over to the sensory section, leaving Akane
to peer out into the darkness of space.
"What seems to be the trouble?" Genma asked Hinako. Ranma could
see his father's eyes wandering towards her chest more often than they
should have.
"I'm not absolutely certain that there *is* any trouble," Hinako
replied, her voice low and breathy as always. It was obvious from her
look of distaste that she knew exactly where Genma's attention was
focused.
"Why not check out the display instead, Pop," Ranma said tersely.
Genma flushed red. "O-Of course," he stammered.
The two mechwarriors studied the curious radar returns on the display.
It was odd, but as they had little experience with a starship's sensors,
they were reluctant to put their opinions forward just yet.
"It almost looks like chaff," Ranma remarked after a bit of strained
silence. He referred to the practice of scattering strips of radar
reflective aluminum to confuse hostile radar operators. "A whole bunch
of it."
"Get a grip, boy," Genma countered. "Who would scatter so much chaff
out in the middle of nowhere, and why?"
Ranma shrugged his shoulders. "Beats me. But you gotta admit, that's
what it looks like."
The radar operator nodded his head in agreement to Genma. "He has a
point, Commander. It doesn't make much sense, but it's the only logical
explanation."
"I don't like it," Hinako grumbled. She seemed very young and petulant
in that moment, rather like a six-year-old. "Keep scanning until you find
something."
"Aye aye, ma'am."
Ranma turned to his father. "So. We gonna get a move on or what?"
Genma watched Hinako float away from them and towards the astrogator's
station. The view was quite inspiring given the Captain's extremely short
miniskirt, and he realized at last what the _Dragonfly's_ crew had meant by
their daily announcements of 'the Color of the Day.'
"You were saying something, boy?" he muttered.
Ranma slugged him on the arm. "You pig."
"What?" Genma replied indignantly.
"You're married, you know," Ranma pointed out. "Remember Mom?"
"A man can look, boy, even if he can't touch," Genma harrumphed in
reply.
Ranma rolled his eyes in disgust. "Try to remember that, old man."

* * *

Hikaru Gosunkugi looked with interest at his Sensory Section's update
on the new arrival. His own JumpShip, a massive Starlord Class known as the
_Impaler,_ watched the unknown starship with passive sensors.
"Your thoughts?" Hikaru asked his Admiral, a competent but dour fellow
of ancient Scotch descent named Colin Ian Morag, who often bemoaned the
domination of Inner Sphere military operations by mechwarriors. Like most
Navy men, he was sick of the Army seeing the naval components as little
more than truck drivers, and the aerospace units as nothing more than close
air support. The man was one of the few of his senior commanders who had
been in favor of his latest campaign. That was no surprise, Hikaru supposed,
considering that most of the glory would belong to Morag and the League
Navy should it succeed.
"It's possibly a Combine Pathfinder ship," he replied. "Until its
intentions are better defined, however, we'll have to play this encounter
very cautiously."
Hikaru nodded slightly. His bout with Jump Sickness was not yet over,
and he liked to keep as still as possible in free-fall. Only the arrival
of this mystery ship had been enough to pry him from the relative comfort
of the Starlord's grav-deck.
"I agree," he managed queasily. "Continue to monitor it passively,
and inform me of any changes in its condition, or if it releases any
fighters or DropShips."
"At once, my lord," Admiral Morag said, and saluted crisply.
Hikaru made his way carefully to the elevator and punched for the
grav-deck.
The descending elevator granted him some small measure of gravity
as it approached the farthest point of the rotating habitat from the core.
He hated space travel, and he hated others seeing how poorly he handled it.
It was bad enough that the League's barons were ever-fractious and itching
for an opportunity to secede, but for so many in his command to see their
Gosunkugi overlord debilitated by a single Jump was practically dangerous.
At least the Navy was with him on this operation. For a chance to
outshine their mechwarrior cousins, they would do almost anything for him.
It didn't matter who they would face, but to have a chance to stick it to
the Furinkan Combine, and Prince Kuno specifically, only heightened their
morale.

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

BATTLETECH: THE SAOTOME GAMBIT
PART SEVEN

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 Two

Nerima Confederation DropShip _Palomino_
Approaching the Planet Capra,
Capra System, the League of Five Nails
10 March 3025

"This is the deal, Ranma," Happousai said to him as they faced off in
the Number Four 'Mech Bay. The 20-ton Locust stood in its transit cocoon
behind the elder martial artist as he continued his spiel. "Every time I
defeat you, you have to change into a girl, got it?" He pointed to several
pails of water staged for this purpose.
"So what if I defeat *you?*" Ranma returned.
"Don't concern yourself with something that will never happen," he
cackled in response.
"That does it!"
Ranma leaped at the wizened martial artist, who easily avoided his
attack and clouted him on the head with his pipe. The blow wasn't painful,
but it stung Ranma's pride well enough.
"Is that all you've got?" Happousai mocked. "I expected better of
you."
"I'm just warming up!"
His next advance was more cautious than before, yet it was equally
ineffective. Happousai was too slippery for him to get hold of. The fight
ended with him being sent flying into the outboard bulkhead, which was
fortunately padded with insulation against the frigid void of space.
"Quit jumping around, you little freak!" he cried angrily as he
picked himself up off the deck.
Happousai laughed.
"You might have thought you were fast, but to me you're standing
still!"
Ranma brushed himself off and dropped into a fighting stance.
"We'll see about that."
He charged again, throwing a blinding series of punches that were
dodged with little effort by Happousai. Ranma then rolled into an aerobatic
volley of kicks, chops, and elbow strikes that failed miserably to land.
All he was getting for his troubles was tired.
Happousai sprang out of range to land upon the chassis of his Locust,
and looked down on him with pitying eyes.
"You ain't half bad, Ranma m'boy, but you ain't half good either.
My grandmother throws a roundhouse faster than you do!"
Ranma flushed crimson. "Bite me!"
"He's just trying to rile you up, you know," Akane observed suddenly.
Ranma had missed her arrival in the melee with Happousai.
He turned to her. "So, you're speaking to me again, huh?"
She brushed his comment aside with a laugh. "It looks like you need
all the help you can get."
"What's so funny?" he demanded of her.
"I think it's hilarious to see you fighting someone you can't beat,"
she replied. "You finally get to see how the rest of us mortals feel."
"Hah!" Ranma countered. "This ain't over yet."
Happousai, who had been watching this brief interaction between the
two young mechwarriors, chose this moment to intervene.
"It is now," he cried, and leaped down to the deck to face Ranma once
again. "Come and get me, boy! I promise I won't jump around this time."
Ranma looked stunned. "You mean it?"
"Of course I do!"
"All right!" Ranma cheered. He charged straight at Happousai, who
deftly redirected his energy into the air, flinging him straight up with
a yelp of surprise, and dropping him to the hard steel deck with a heavy
thud.
"Ranma!" Akane cried. He wasn't moving on the deck, and his eyes
were closed.
Happousai produced a pail of water and flung it on Ranma with a cry of
"Hit the showers, punk!"
Ranma spluttered back into consciousness and bolted upright.
"W-What the hell happened?" she rambled.
"You lost," Akane observed dryly, though it was clear that she was
relieved to see that he was okay.
"To think that a student of the Anything Goes Style of Martial Arts
would fail to appreciate such a basic principle as force redirection..."
Happousai tsk'ed. "I can see that this will be more difficult than I
thought." He gave Ranma an appreciative stare, as her flimsy and
waterlogged tank top afforded quite an eyeful to him. "But at least I
can enjoy the scenery in the meantime!"

* * *

Ranma pulled herself wearily up the ladder to the Lower Deck. She was
battered and bruised and utterly disappointed with her performance against
Happousai. There had to be a way of beating the old goat!
The guy's only weakness seemed to be his libido, but exploiting it
wasn't always palatable. Flashing him was an easy way to distract the old
fart, but it almost always led to getting glomped by him before Ranma
could land the knockout blow. That was also assuming, of course, that he
wasn't too overcome with disgust from the glomp to strike.
No, there had to be a better way. If nothing else, he would train
extra hard to improve his speed. That was a good start. If he didn't put
Happousai in his place, then the next few months (or even years!) were
going to be painful beyond his endurance.
Ranma put those thoughts aside and decided that a hot shower was what
he really needed. Not just a hot shower, but a Hollywood shower! Like most
DropShips, _Palomino_ was on strict water rationing, as the recycling units
often broke down in transit. Showers were thus taken under a very specific
procedure.
As in: turn the water on long enough to get wet. Turn the water off.
Lather up, shampoo your hair, and shave if you want to. Turn the water on
long enough to rinse. Turn the water off. You're done. If you followed the
procedure correctly, the longest total time you spent under running water
was about a minute.
A Hollywood shower on the other hand was one with the water running
the whole time. Ranma had no idea where the term had come from, only that
it went back a long long time in history. Hollywood showers were often
given as rewards for performance, but considering his hopeless defeat by
Happousai, he'd have to settle for some consolation instead.
Ranma made a quick stop through Berthing first, brushing past the
black curtain that hung across the passageway to keep out the compartment
lighting. The only time the lights came on in Berthing was when the ship
was in some kind of emergency condition. She padded across the food cans
that lay spread out on the deck, mindful of her step, moving by the
dim red fire lights that were spaced two meters apart at deck level.
The soft sighs and snores of people sleeping in their bunks rose only
just above the level of the engines. Leopard Class ships had little room
for their crews in comparison with the larger DropShips, and as such
everyone, officers included, bunked in the same place. _Palomino_ in
particular, with its complement of technicians, was especially crowded.
Only Akari got a bunk; the rest of her crew slept on cots in the Tech Shop
down below.
Ranma reached into her bunk and pulled out her towel and bathing
sundries. It was easier to strip down in the narrow Berthing passageway
than to try and maneuver in the even narrower space between the toilet
stalls and the showers in the Head, and so she peeled off her tank top
and shorts, and wrapped her towel around her waist. Lastly she slipped
into her cheap plastic shower shoes, which were a necessary precaution
against athlete's foot and other fungal infections found in such communal
sanitary facilities as a DropShip.
The ship's Head was only big enough to accommodate two toilets, two
sinks, and two showers. Stuffed into a tiny alcove on the other side of the
shower stalls was a tiny ship's laundry with one washer and one dryer. The
drone of the washer competed with the rumble of the DropShip's main drives
at it decelerated towards its destination.
Ranma heard voices in the laundry as she stepped into the Head. Her
shower shoes slapped against the gritty terrazo of the deck, which must
have alerted whoever was in the laundry. So much for the Hollywood shower.
She set her towel on the rack and slipped into the stall. The water was
immediately hot, and he nearly cried out in pain. All that the people
in the laundry heard was a sharp hiss, but this was enough to set them
snickering.
His face was red with embarrassment. There was definitely no chance
of taking a Hollywood shower now. All he wanted to do was get clean and
leave. They would be hitting Capra the next day, and being well rested for
it was the best thing he could do to prepare.
He did his business quickly, though the periods of no running water
made it easy for him to overhear the conversation in the nearby laundry
room.
"I feel so bad for Akane," said the first voice, which he imagined
must belong to the Air Lance pilot, Yuka.
"I know," concurred her wingmate, Sayuri.
"To think that she was pulled from command of the 1st Nerima to come
along on this mission," Yuka continued.
"And us," added Sayuri. "Not that I mind. I'm in no hurry to die
fighting the Furinkan Combine."
There was a pause, prompting Ranma to make some bathing noises lest
he be suspected of eavesdropping.
"So what do you think of this Ranma guy?" Yuka asked.
This had Ranma's attention.
"I don't know..." Sayuri replied. "He seems like such a creep to
Akane. It's no wonder she gives him the cold shoulder all the time."
Ranma flinched. He was a creep? Since when?
"Still," Yuka said. "Even though we've only been in space for six
days, it's pretty clear that she likes him."
Huh? Since when?
"I guess so," Sayuri admitted. "Why else would she even bother with
him. But that just makes it worse when he acts like a creep around her."
"Yeah..." Yuka agreed mournfully. "You think he'd get a clue or
something."
Ranma clenched his fists. I have a clue, dammit!
"Well, when you consider what a creep his father is, can you really
be surprised? I'm not saying Commander Saotome is a bad leader or anything,
but you know how he checks us out sometimes when he thinks we won't
notice..."
"I hear you," Yuka agreed with a shudder.
"Well, with Ranma it's just the opposite. He just looks right through
you. The only time he pays attention to Akane is when he's cutting her
down. The guy's so arrogant."
Ranma flinched again.
"You said it, girl. That boy needs an attitude adjustment. He's cute
and all, but I think I'd want to slash my wrists if I had him for a fiance."
"Well..." Sayuri hedged. "I don't know if I'd go quite that far, but
yeah, it would be pretty harsh..."
Ranma turned the water back on, not caring that it was practically
scalding, and rinsed himself off. He stepped out of the shower just in time
to see Akane stripping off her towel to step into the second stall.
Their eyes locked for a moment, before Ranma's drifted down Akane's
body just far enough to get him in trouble. When he looked back up at her
face, she was steaming mad.
"...Seen enough...?" she growled, now clutching her towel protectively
to her body.
He fiddled with his own towel for a few moments, wishing he had
chosen the other stall so he wouldn't have to get past her to escape.
"Um, sorry?" he managed.
She closed her eyes in an attempt to keep her cool, and stepped aside.
"Just go, Ranma. Go."
He slipped past her, eyes straight ahead, and ignored the fact that
their bodies had to rub uncomfortably close together through their towels
for him to get by. He ducked into Berthing and dove into his rack, knowing
full well that he was going to have a hard time getting to sleep now.

Akane Tendo was no prude. That was impossible for someone who prided
herself on being a mechwarrior. Cramped DropShips and shared facilities
came with the territory, since there was no practical way to segregate a
shower when every last cubic meter of a ship's internal volume counted.
If it had been anyone else but Ranma, she wouldn't have batted an
eye. It would have been uncomfortable, but she wasn't going to let anyone
see it and possibly judge her as unworthy of her position. No way. As the
Grand Duke's daughter she had to work harder and look tougher than any
three mechwarriors combined.
She shouldn't have made a big deal about it, she reflected, but when
she watched his eyes drift down her body, she nearly flinched out of
self-consciousness. It was ridiculous, since she was at the peak of her
physical condition, but there she was, embarrassed to get the once-over
from a man. That feeling of vulnerability had ballooned into anger out
of sheer self-defense.
Perhaps it was because Ranma had looked that she had felt so
vulnerable. Since when had Ranma shown any interest in her? He might
have felt an obligation to protect her, as he had done against the
assassin in the garden, but that was merely because he was now her
fiance. It wasn't like he was in love with her or anything.
She heard Yuka and Sayuri gossiping in the laundry as she stepped
into the shower. The two Air Lance pilots had been with her in training
since they were kids, separating only when the two became aerospace pilots
instead of mechwarriors, and transferred to flight school. Judging from
their hushed tone, they were probably talking about her and Ranma.
The water was hot, but was nothing compared to the heat in her face.
Let them talk...

* * *

The _Palomino_ was on the nightside of Capra, nearing the thin fringes
of its atmosphere in preparation for a high-speed, low-profile entry. They
were going to treat the landing as a combat drop, with the crew at their
battlestations and the pilots in their mecha, ready to deploy. Their
intentions were to land well beyond sight and scanning range of Capra
City, and then work their way in with low-level flight to a position about
forty kilometers away.
The League of Five Nails offered prospectors the ability to file
mining claims on many of its worlds in exchange for a ten-percent cut of
the take, and Capra was no exception. That would be their cover story if
they had to explain themselves. The battlemechs were merely a source of
heavy labor and insurance against well armed claim jumpers. The last bit
was somewhat of a stretch, but considering that Capra was supposed to be
able to field a mixed-forces mercenary battalion with a full company of
'mechs, one lance of strangers wasn't all that threatening.
Genma had been tight-lipped about why they had chosen Capra as their
first destination. Only Soun knew the whole story. Ranma, never very
interested in the hunt before, had never bothered to look into it.
Now, as they neared the planet, Genma Saotome was ready to show
some of his hand. He stood at the forward end of the mess decks to
address those members of the expedition entrusted with its true purpose:
Ranma, Akane, Senior Technician Unryuu, and Doctor Ono. Happousai, of
course, invited himself, and Genma raised no objections to this.
"As some of you may know, Ranma and I have been in search of
Ryuugenzawa for over three years now."
Ranma looked around the compartment. "Pop, I think everyone here
knows that by now."
Genma continued, ignoring his son. "What may not be clear is how
we've been guided on this search."
"Now that's something I'd like to know," Ranma cracked.
"Quiet, boy," Genma growled. "It was shortly after we became
Dispossessed that we stumbled across these notebooks." He showed them
several battered file folders, data discs, and spiral bound notebooks
that were layed out before him.
"Although the boy and I didn't know it at the time, the Scout who
owned them was on his deathbed, and he begged us to buy them off him. At
first I thought he was crazy, and balked at spending so much money for
what little he seemed to offer."
He paused for effect.
"Then, without warning, he up and died on us."
Akane immediately cast a skeptical eye towards Ranma, who returned
with a shrug that said Genma was more or less telling it like it was.
"As far as I knew he might have had Nevermore Fever," Genma continued.
"And that he was a drifter with no friends or family. I know this sounds
callous, but after we called the authorities to come and take care of him,
we claimed the material he had tried to sell us."
There was a bit of strained silence at this, and Genma continued
uncomfortably.
"It turns out that the search for Ryuugenzawa was the life's work of
the Scout. He had compiled an incredible amount of information, and his
journals tell of visits to many old Star League facilities that confirm
the authenticity of the documents he had collected. The ill-fated trip
the boy and I took to Lightoller was to confirm the existence of the
Jusenkyo Labs, a facility that was only a rumor to the Inner Sphere, and
not a genuine legend like Ryuugenzawa."
"So what are we doing here, Mister Saotome?" Akane asked. "I understand
the rest of what you said, but does this mean that this Scout didn't know
where Ryuugenzawa was?"
Genma nodded.
"Unfortunately, he did not know its exact location. But he did know
enough to put us on the right track. Anyone could continue the search if
they had all of his research materials. The reason we're going to Capra is
that this Scout was being followed by a gang of pirates and criminals, a
group he rarely speaks of in his journals, but when he does, you can feel
his fear. In order to keep what he had discovered secret from them, he
intentionally concealed important pieces of the puzzle throughout his
wanderings across the Inner Sphere." He looked at Ranma. "The boy and I
have found most of his clues in the last three years, and now we go to
collect one of the most important ones."
"So this is some kind of treasure hunt?" Akane asked him.
Genma cleared his throat uncomfortably.
"Essentially."
He thumbed through several notebooks until he found what he was
looking for. He held up a rough sketch of some sort of computer device,
along with several bits of electronic schematics.
"This is a RADIANT-SIX quantum-interference cypher machine," he
announced to them. "It was a standard encryption device for the Star League
Defense Force. Most of them were carried off with General Kerensky at the
end of the Star League, and of the remainder, only a handful still work.
These units were state of the art back then, and nothing we can produce
today can even come close to their power. With the Grand Duke's assistance,
I was able to procure one of these working units.
"From what I've been able to learn about the RADIANT-SIX is that it
requires three to six quantum-interference-encoded 'keys' in order to
decrypt a message, and that each key must be inserted into the proper port.
The quantum nature of the unit makes it nearly impossible to decrypt a
message without the keys, even if you had access to a quantum computer
- which, I might add, the Inner Sphere hasn't seen in over a century."
Genma then reached into his white dogi and pulled out four small
colored plaques on a chain about his neck. Each was about the size and
shape of a domino.
"The Scout had all six of the necessary keys at one time or another.
He hid five of them, and lost possession of the sixth. I've got four of
them now, and we'll search for number five on Capra." He opened up a small
strongbox and retrieved a data disc to show them. "Once we have all six,
we can finally decode the data on this disc, data which the Scout was
convinced contained the location and layout of Ryuugenzawa, as well as
other Star League facilities in the sector."
Doctor Ono raised his hand.
"Do you actually know that for certain?" he asked.
Genma was prepared for this.
"I am," he said confidently. "Serial numbers on the data disc conform
to astrogational library data found in the cargo manifests of Star League
ships that visited the system. Ryuugenzawa's location was a secret even in
that time, which is why the place has never been plundered or taken over
like other Star League facilities."
He held up the disc for them again.
"Star League ships that wanted to go to Ryuugenzawa needed a disc like
this one, and they needed the decryption keys and cypher machine to unlock
its secrets. Otherwise they were out of luck. Control of these materials
was handled with the same custody procedures as Star League nuclear weapons.
It was only in the chaos of Kerensky's Exodus and the subsequent Fall of
the Star League that these objects were to become available."
Genma looked around the room. "Who knows how long the keepers of
these materials held on to their secrets, fearful of Kerensky's return,
and passing custody along to their heirs until at last the secrets were
forgotten and the keys lost?"
"Okay, Okay," Happousai said. "Stop being so dramatic. So where's
the sixth key? The one this clown lost."
Genma grimaced. It was a question he wasn't eager to address. "Well,
for one thing, the Scout failed to obtain all of the keys at once. He had
a key and then lost possession of it before he could put all six together
and decrypt the astrogational disc."
"So you don't know where it is," Tofu observed.
"I do, actually," Genma said uneasily. "The Scout's journals told me
where it is. Unfortunately, it's a little hard to get to at the moment."
Ranma's ears perked up. This was news to him.
"Oh yeah, Pop? Where would that be?"
Genma cast his son a withering look. "It's better that we concentrate
on finding number five before we go after number six."
The General Alarm sounded then, cutting off any further inquiry into
the location of the sixth key. It was time to enter Capra's atmosphere.
As the assembled group started for their battlestations, Ranma couldn't
help but wonder if his father had somehow timed the briefing with the
_Palomino's_ mission timetable in order to avoid this very discussion.
He doubted it, though; his father simply wasn't that together.
He followed Akane down the ladder to the Lower Deck, and from there
down a long and narrow passageway, through a set of airtight doors, and
finally to another passageway that linked each of the 'Mech Bays. Just
before the passageway was a small alcove lined with pressure suits and
survival gear for the pilots. For Ranma, suiting up would be a complicated
process of stripping out of his clothes, donning the sensor-studded 'long
johns' undergarment, then pulling on his pressure suit and life-support
pack, firing everything up, and then checking to make certain that it
worked. For the regular mechwarriors like Akane and Genma, it was simply
a matter of stripping down to their underwear, pulling on cooling vests
to protect them against the tremendous heat of piloting a battlemech, and
grabbing a kit bag of survival gear.
Yuka and Sayuri were already finished and on their way to their
aerospace fighters as Ranma grabbed his helmet, and he glumly recalled
their conversation the previous night. He pulled on his gear as fast as
he could, not bothering with the system checks, and ran to catch up with
Akane. For no reason he could easily discern, he tapped Akane on the
shoulder as she leaned over to open the airtight hatch that led to her
Warhammer's bay.
"What is it, Ranma?" she asked tersely. The tension of the drop was
already showing.
Ranma found himself at a loss for words.
"I uh, I just wanted to..."
"Come on, Ranma. We need to get our 'mechs warmed up and ready for
drop. I don't have time for this."
Ranma stood for a moment in silence, prompting Akane to blow her bangs
up out of her eyes in frustration, and then start down the ladder to Mech
Bay #3.
"Akane!" he finally called out to her.
"What?!" she demanded from halfway down the ladder.
He steeled himself. "Be careful, willya?"
She looked up at him in silence for a moment before giving him a smile.
"I will. Thanks."
Ranma felt some sort of relief at this, and proceeded to his own 'Mech
Bay. The Phoenix Hawk LAM stood in Battlemech Mode below him. He undogged
the armored hatch to the cockpit and pulled himself through.
The _Palomino_ began to shake as it struck thicker air. Ranma could
hear the thin scream of superheated gasses passing over the heavily armored
hull from within his LAM. It wouldn't be long before they were within the
planet's troposphere.
He plugged his suit's umbilicals into the Phoenix Hawk's life-support
connections. Then his neurohelmet feeds. The DropShip bucked violently as
it hit a pocket of denser air, reminding him to strap himself into his
cockpit. He reached over to the main computer terminal and flipped a bank
of switches that brought the LAM to standby power.
He could feel the subtle tingle of his neurohelmet against his scalp,
telling him that it was now receiving input from his brain. As he punched
in the start commands to the computer, he projected the password sequence
through his helmet. The Phoenix Hawk responded immediately with a sharp
*crack* from the igniting Allied 250 fusion engine. The turbines began to
spool up in warmup mode, and the battlemech's myomer groups flexed and
and relaxed in their proper preflight sequence.
His preparations turned out to be unnecessary. Word was passed over
the intraship commo that they had not been detected, and were about to set
down in a concealed position. Battlemechs would not be required for the
ship's security as far as Genma was concerned.

Chapter Three

Primary Continent, Planet Capra
Capra System, the League of Five Nails
11 March 3025

The _Palomino_ sat within the confines of a narrow wadi within forty
kilometers of Capra City. Its two CSR-V8 Corsair fighters sat fore and
aft of the giant vessel, ready to lift into the air with only a few
minutes warning. Genma's Griffin and Ranma's Phoenix Hawk had set a
series of camouflage tarps over the Leopard Class DropShip and the
fighters to conceal them from the air, and the wadi itself would screen
them from patrols on the ground. Anyone who stumbled across the _Palomino_
would do so quite literally.
Genma had decided to keep the battlemechs inside the DropShip for
now, and conduct patrols in a decidedly more low-key manner. That meant
hauling out one of the two Boomerang reconnaisance planes from the hold.
The task of assembling the plane fell to Akari, who was the senior
technician, and Ranma, who would be flying it, and thus had a vested
interest in its integrity.
Akari had been a wallflower for the entire trip, never speaking
about anything other than battlemechs and their maintenance. Ranma could
not recall her ever engaging in more than inane pleasantries on the mess
decks, or in passing aboard ship. Battlemechs seemed to be her overriding
passion, and the bigger the 'mech, the more she lavished it with affection.
He had to admit though, for a girl whose overalls were always clean
and pressed, she knew how to turn a wrench. How she managed to keep neat
after putting in a sixteen hour day overhauling Happousai's filthy Locust,
he could not imagine. Assembling the Boomerang seemed almost an insult to
her skills.
The light recon plane was up in less than an hour, and as Ranma leaned
on the spars and kicked at the spindly landing gear, he knew it would
perform as advertised. He was eager to get in some hours on the Boomerang,
as it was something of a guilty pleasure for him to fly the little turboprop
plane. The last time he had done so was two years back, when they had signed
up for a brief hitch with a merc battalion in the Federated Shiratori as
scouts in order to pay the bills.
Ranma turned to his father as the Boomerang was pushed up the gentle
southern slope of the wadi and onto the hard 'desert pavement' of the
surrounding ground. The air was dry and hot, but not too hot to prevent his
plane's wings from generating lift. The wind was little more than a gentle
breeze, but it did wonders to stifle the heat.
"So, Pop. You ready to fly?"
Genma shook his head.
"I've got some planning to do, son."
Ranma was taken aback by this. They had always flown together. Genma
had taught him how to fly when he was eight years old. Not having his
father in the right-hand seat was too weird to even think about.
"Okay," he shrugged morosely, not wanting to let his disappointment
show. "I guess I'll go it alone."
"Take Akane," Genma muttered. He looked down to a topographic map of
Capra that was most likely years out of date.
"What?"
"Take Akane," Genma repeated himself. "It'll give her something to
do, and you'll need an extra pair of eyes up there."
Ranma scratched his head. "Can she even fly?"
"Beats me."
"Why don't I just borrow one of the _Palomino's_ flight crew, or even
Yuka or Sayuri, instead?"
Genma shook his head. "We'll need all of the _Palomino's_ crew on
hand in case we need to lift off in a hurry, and the girls will be our
only air support when you're not around."
Ranma pointed to Doctor Tofu, who was enjoying the fresh desert air
and stretching out his legs.
"What about the Doc?" he asked.
"And lose our only surgeon while you're gone?" Genma harrumphed. "Not
going to happen, boy. Take Akane, and get your ass in the air."
Ranma looked around. She was not in sight.
"Where is she?"
"Go find her," Genma grunted. "And stop wasting my time."
Ranma huffed to himself and started for the _Palomino._ He didn't
find her until he searched the 'Mech Bays, and sure enough, she was with
her Warhammer. Thanks to his efforts, the 70-ton death machine was painted
in a functional desert camouflage pattern. The topic of its recent change
of livery did not come up.
His plan was to ask her to come along with him on the flight. When
she refused, he would be in the clear, and could take off by himself.
He didn't count on her accepting his invitation.

The Boomerang's engine roared to life, the large prop kicking up a
cloud of surface dust from the hard ground. Ranma checked over his small
instrument cluster to make sure the engine was functioning properly. One
of the things he liked about the Boomerang was its simplicity. There were
no overly complicated instrument displays, no computer controlled systems
to malfunction and require parts that might or might not be available in
the technology starved Inner Sphere, just a pilot, with all the controls
he needed at his hands and feet.
"Do you know how to fly?" he asked Akane as the engine warmed up.
"Nope," she confessed. "I never got around to it."
"Great," he muttered to himself. "Don't touch anything."
Akane gave him a sour look. "How stupid do you think I am, Ranma? Of
course I'm not going to touch anything. Jerk."
Her words made him wince, and the conversation of Yuka and Sayuri
came back to haunt him once again. He pushed the throttle forward and let
the sound of the engine take his mind off the subject. The Boomerang stood
in place, vibrating heavily as the turboprop reached maximum output with
nowhere to channel all that power. Ranma wanted to make one final check
to see that everything would hold together, and so far everything looked
good.
"Why aren't we going yet?" Akane asked him over the noise.
Ranma gave her a smart-assed grin as his right hand set the prop
pitch, and suddenly the propeller bit into the air. The Boomerang surged
forward on its little wheels.
He needed only seventy-five meters to get off the ground, which wasn't
bad for a plane that weighed a little over five and a half tons, fully loaded
with fuel, sensors, and crew. The Boomerang sprang into the air, and once
he had reached his desired airspeed, he engaged the muffler system. It
drained him of a little horsepower, but made the aircraft virtually
silent.
Akane noticed the sudden silence and grinned with delight.
"Whew," she sighed. "I was hoping the whole trip wouldn't be so noisy."
"Don't worry about it," Ranma replied. "It's going to be nice and
quiet the rest of the flight. I won't need a lot of power to land, so we
can keep the muffler engaged."
She looked around the wide cockpit bubble at the surrounding desert.
"It looks pretty desolate out there," she remarked. "What are we looking
for?"
Ranma consulted a copy of the map his father had been studying.
"Just checking to see how out of date the map is," he replied.
"There might be settlements or maybe a mine or something out here that
isn't on the map. For obvious reasons, no one in the League is real keen
on publishing current maps of their planets for public consumption."
"It's like that in the Confederation, too," she agreed.
"We also need to find alternate routes back to the _Palomino_ from
the city in case we have to beat feet. Pop doesn't want to use the 'mechs
unless we have to, and that sounds like a good idea to me. There might be
a dirt road or maybe a dried-up river we can take that'll let us make
good time and stay out of sight."
Akane sat back in her comfy bucket seat and folded her arms behind
her head. "It seems you've got this all figured out."
"Nah, I'm just faking it as usual," Ranma admitted with a laugh.
He put on a little left yaw and rolled over into an aileron turn. The
controls felt good in his hands, a direct mechanical linkage that gave him
feedback on the plane's performance. It wasn't a fly-by-light photonic
control system, which meant there was the chance a linkage could jam or
separate, but this was an acceptable risk in Ranma's eyes. Flying like
this felt more natural, and ultimately it was more satisfying than any
computerized and soulless hypersonic aerofighter, even his LAM.
A flick of a switch brought up their twin telescopic and forward-
looking infrared video cameras. The two units were displayed on a bank
of monitors between the two sets of instrument clusters, though controls
for the cameras were located on Akane's side of the cockpit. A thin set
of crosshairs was centered in each monitor, and several columns of
alphanumerics tumbled across the sides.
Akane had only a passing knowledge of aerial reconnaissance, and though
she had called for it numerous times during training exercises and actual
combat, she had always taken the process for granted.
Ranma pointed out a small joystick for her to operate.
"That controls one of the two camera units," he told her. "You can
train it around, and when you find something you want to track, you can
press that left hand button on top of the stick. The camera will then
lock on to whatever is in the crosshairs, even the ground itself, with a
laser rangefinder, and track it no matter what the aircraft is doing."
He pointed out several other controls on the stick.
"You can even send burst transmissions to friendly forces like
artillery or close air support, and they'll know exactly where to put
their weapons. You can only track with one camera at a time though, so
once you've slaved one to the target, use the other one to continue
looking around."
"In case I find a better target?" Akane asked.
"Yeah," Ranma nodded. "But mostly in case there's someone down there
who's fixing to kill you; like Triple-A guns or SAMs, or an air-defense
'mech like the Rifleman. The Boomerang is made mostly of carbon fiber and
composites, so it doesn't have much of a radar signature. The engine is
about the only thing that'll give a return, so it's surrounded with Radar
Absorbing Material. About the only vulnerable point is the inlet duct, so
you can't approach a radar site head-on and at a low angle. The engine
exhaust itself is ported throught the prop wash, so there isn't much of
an IR sig either. Plus it's real quiet with the muffler engaged."
She gave him a look that said she was wondering when he would come
to the point of this lesson. He got the message.
"So basically, the only way to be discovered is visually," he went on.
"If you can see them, chances are pretty good that they can see you."
He put the Boomerang through another turn.
"This thing doesn't have any armor," he continued. "One guy with a
shoulder-launched SRM pack could blow us right out of the sky."
Akane hadn't realized this. She was used to the heavy wall of diamond-
hard armor plate that protected her inside her Warhammer. A feeling of
helplessness crept over her for a moment before she got a hold of herself.
Ranma spoke like he knew the job of aerial reconnaissance firsthand, and
she wanted to know how he had lived to tell about it.
"So how does one stay alive in the recon business?"
"Easy," Ranma replied. "Fly above three hundred meters if you can,
and always keep your eyes open for trouble. The second you let your guard
down is the second you die. That and don't be afraid to make a run for it."
Akane chuckled at this. "The great Ranma Saotome *runs* from trouble?"
He bristled in response. "Well, duh. This thing has no armor and
no weapons. You're literally sitting on a hundred kilos of high-octane
gasoline, so you have no chance in hell of surviving a hit long enough
to bail out. What else are you supposed to do?"
"I suppose you have a point," she conceded, though her expression
told him that she was secretly pleased at having found and pushed one of
his buttons.
They flew on in silence for awhile. Ranma kept his mind on his
flying, and Akane played with the camera units. They were easy for her
to manipulate, and she marvelled at the details they could provide. At
one point she was able to count the spots on one of the indigenous
reptiles as it sunned itself on a rock. The sensor dutifully tracked
the large lizard through a full banking turn of the aircraft.
"So," Ranma said to her all of a sudden. "Wanna fly this thing for
a bit?"
Akane looked at him with equal parts of hope and suspicion.
"What's that supposed to mean?" she asked him. "I told you I don't
know how."
Ranma rolled his shoulders to work the kinks out of them. "Heck,
Akane, even *you* could fly this thing without crashing it once I got it
up in the air for you."
"Thanks a lot," she grumped.
"Take your stick," he told her firmly. "And put your feet on the
rudder pedals just enough to make contact; don't push on them yet." She
did so reluctantly, holding the control column with a virtual death grip.
Ranma could feel it through his own controls. "Relax," he told her. "You're
gonna give yourself a cramp if you keep holding it like that."
She eased up a bit, but only slightly.
"The thing's gonna move around a little if you let it go," he soothed.
"But don't worry about it. It's just the feedback from the control surfaces.
All you need to do is keep it steady, like driving a car on the freeway.
Just put yourself into a 'cruise' mode."
Akane relaxed a bit more. Ranma could feel the tension on the control
column ease.
"Great," he said to her. "Just hold it steady for awhile, while you
get used to it."
She did so, tensing up with an audible hiss whenever a gust of wind
caught the Boomerang and the controls began to jerk in her hand. It would
take her several moments of white-knuckling the stick before she was able
to relax enough to hold it as he had instructed her.
"You're doing great, Akane," he told her. Her eyes were fixed straight
ahead, and she did not notice the fact that he was no longer holding his
own control column. The aircraft was hers.
"You can look around, you know," he said calmly. He wanted to put a
little bite into it, but held his tongue. Well, almost. "The odds of you
running into anything up here are pretty slim."
She slowly took her eyes off the windscreen and looked over at him.
Her eyes lit up when she saw that he wasn't flying the plane.
"How long have your hands been off the controls?" she asked quietly.
"A couple minutes now," he replied. "The bird's yours."
"This is a bad idea, Ranma," she returned. Her death grip was back.
"Hey, it's my life too, you know," he said to her. "If I thought you
were gonna spike us into the ground, do you think I'd let you do this?"
Her eyes fell upon her instruments. "Well... No..."
"Exactly. Now hold the stick steady and push on the right pedal a
little bit. That should move the nose of the plane to the right."
She did so. The plane began to swing hard to the right, forcing Ranma
to take back control before they went into a flat spin and crashed.
"You see," Akane said in a tiny voice. She was nearly petrified,
and the beads of sweat that ran down Ranma's face weren't helping her
confidence. "This was a bad idea."
"Man," Ranma grunted once he had control of the plane. "You don't do
anything by small measures. I said push on the pedal a little, not stomp
on it."
"I'm sorry, all right!" she cried.
"Apology accepted," he returned. "For your punishment I'm gonna make
you do it again. The right way this time. Take the controls."
She gave him a helpless look.
"Come on, Akane," he said firmly. "I learned when I was eight, and
anytime I screwed up, I got smacked by my old man just as soon as he had
the aircraft stable. You've got it easy."
His appeal to her pride worked. She took back the control column and
the pedals. The Boomerang began a gentle slip to the right.
"Hey, not bad," he said to her. "Now ease off on the right and put on
some left yaw with the left pedal."
She did so, and the plane responded as intended.
"See? What'd I tell you. You can fly this thing."
Akane smiled for him, which to Ranma seemed to raise the temperature
of the cockpit by several degrees. He talked her through the motion of the
controls and how they affected the Boomerang, and she was made to perform
each basic maneuver, such as turning and changing altitude, until she had
proven she could do it without losing control. Finally, the topic of
instruction turned towards the instruments.
"I guess you're ready for it," he replied in response to her question.
"I just wanted you to get a feel for flying the plane without them before
you started flying with them. You fly a plane like this by feel more than
you do by instruments or computer."
He began pointing out the various dials and gauges for her.
"The big things you have to keep an eye on when you're flying are
your altitude - in this case by laser altimeter - your airspeed, your
fuel gauge - which measures the kilos of fuel remaining - your compass
heading and attitude on your artificial horizon, and every now and then
check your oil pressure and temperature gauges on your engine. Those
first five things are on your HUD, so you don't have to look away from
the canopy. Everything else gets a look now and then when you aren't
busy."
"So don't worry about all this other stuff?"
"Not right now," he replied. "Get the basics down first." He looked
out at the bleak mountains of jumbled sandstone that marked one of the
places where a copper mine was located. The mine seemed abandoned, but
they'd have to take a closer look, as it was close to one of their proposed
escape routes from the city. "I get the feeling you'll have plenty of time
to learn the rest."
Akane sensed his unease.
"What's the matter?"
He returned his attention to her. "It's nothing. Really."
"Why don't I believe you?"
He frowned at this. What did she care anyway?
"I'm taking back the controls now."
Akane nodded faintly and handed them over to him. "I get the feeling
you don't exactly believe in what we're doing..." she said, and let her
words hang in the cockpit between them.
Ranma winced. Akane had the uncanny ability of hitting him where he
lived.
"I don't believe Ryuugenzawa exists," he replied. "I thought I said
that to you once."
"First I've heard of it," she remarked. "So what you're saying is that
despite all of this evidence that your father has, the place the entire
Confederation is depending on for its survival doesn't even exist?"
"That's about it," Ranma said evenly. "It probably existed at one
time, but I don't think it's gonna be there when we figure out where it's
supposed to be. What are the odds that something so important could have
survived intact for so long, when every treasure hunter and would-be
king in the Inner Sphere's been looking for it? Even if it does exist,
what are the odds that all the stories about what it contains are true,
and not just storytellers puffing up the legend with some exaggerations
of their own?"
Akane's heart sank. Ranma's arguments made a lot of sense, and that
wasn't good news for her people. "So we're really on a stupid wild goose
chase..."
"Basically, yeah."
She bit down on her lip in thought. "I refuse to accept that."
Ranma gave her an incredulous look. "Say what?"
"I refuse to accept that there isn't any hope for the Confederation,"
she replied in a steely voice. "Even if it's true, I won't just roll over
and die. Or worse, get married off to Tatewaki Kuno. I'm going to do
whatever I can. Whatever I have to do."
Ranma said nothing at this. The force of Akane's convictions made
him feel guilty about his own lack of faith. Was it so wrong to look at
things cynically when chances were that things were going to turn out
badly no matter what?
The Boomerang circled around the copper mine, the last location they
could reach before fuel considerations would force them to return to the
_Palomino._

Chapter Four

Jusenkyo Commonwealth DropShip _Jade Lotus_
Capra System Nadir Jump Point
Capra System, the League of Five Nails
11 March 3025

The _Jade Lotus_ had set a new Commonwealth record for the longest
average distance travelled per day, and the crew were exhausted reflections
of this feat. At the urging of the Elders, the ship had foregone the usual
steady one-gee transit of the Epsilon Indi system and instead opted for
a punishing two-gee transit, followed by four hours of continuous three-gee
deceleration just prior to docking with their JumpShip. Such torturous
maneuvers had required that most of the crew be sent to their racks with
a combination of drugs that dulled their senses against the pain and
stress while keeping their cardiovascular systems up to the challenge of
working under such a strain.
The Jumps themselves were a carefully orchestrated ballet of moving
from one Commonwealth recharge station to the next, covering the fifty
parsec gap from Epsilon Indi to Capra in just under eighteen hours. The
crew of _Jade Lotus_ used that time to recuperate from their heavy-gee
ordeal, though it was clear that they would need the next few days of
transit to the planet to return to their battle-ready condition. The
trip itself was rated a major success: only two members of the crew had
succumbed to the strain and perished, and they were only men - no great
loss to the Commonwealth.
Now they were in the Capra system, and things were very peculiar.
Someone, presumably the League of Five Nails Navy, had scattered a great
deal of radar-reflective chaff throughout the jump point, making it
difficult to determine if there was anything else in the vicinity. Visual
and passive EMS scans of the jump point had turned up nothing thus far,
but it was clear that something was up. It was possible that this was
merely a response to the Combine raid earlier in the year, but it seemed
a very impractical deterrent to future raids.
Kima's concern was more pragmatic. Assuming their information was
correct, the two Saotomes were somewhere on the distant planet of Capra,
a trip of several days. Further assuming that they hadn't already visited
the planet and then moved on, how was she to find them?
Capra had only one major city, and a handful of scattered settlements
comprised mostly of wildcat mining operations. It made the most sense to
cover Capra City, as it was the most likely place for them to visit, but
what of the smaller settlements? What if they had no reason at all to visit
a populated area? She simply didn't have the manpower to stake out the
entire planet.
There was more as well, for two mechwarriors reputed to be in the
Capra garrison were wanted by the Commonwealth. Not only did she have to
find the two Saotomes, but also two men by the names of Hibiki and Tarou.
They too had been at the Jusenkyo Labs during the break-in, and were
reported to have cursed alter-egos.
She reflected grimly that this was not the sort of operation she
was suited to. Her talents were far more personal, and did not involve
directing troops. She knew Shampoo was smart enough to take care of
herself, and that Mousse would do anything the purple-haired Joketsuzoku
told him to do. That left ten more mechwarriors and two aerospace pilots,
plus a platoon of Special Forces that clearly balked at the idea of being
commanded by one outside their insular community. This was without a doubt
the most difficult assignment she had ever been given.

* * *

The small mechwarriors' lounge was two decks directly below Kima.
Shampoo sat on a comfortable chair with her back to Mousse as Pink and
Link played mah-jong. She watched the twins with little interest, her
body still aching from the trip from Lightoller, and her mind clouded
with uncertainties.
Of General Herb there had been no word. He had not come to the
starport, nor had either of his two henchmen. She had been relieved of
course, but as for the reasons for Herb's absence, only Mousse was in a
position to know.
Mousse had not greeted her with the expected fanfare and annoying
declarations of love. Instead he had given her a simple nod of recognition
and steered well clear. She was both pleased and unsettled by that, which
added to her confusion. Surely the fool would have been eager to capitalize
on his sacrifice for her - right?
She turned to face him. He sat in silence, close enough to touch if
she was so inclined. His face was taut with determination, as if he was
locked in a battle with himself not to speak to her. He did not look up
from his lap when she turned her attention his way.
"Mousse?" Though her voice was quiet, the twins looked up briefly
from their game to observe.
Mousse's eyes slowly lifted to gaze upon her. His face remained taut,
though his breathing quickened.
"What is it, Shampoo?" he replied. His voice was ragged and metallic
with disuse.
She looked away. What did she really have to say to him, anyway?
"It's nothing," she replied. "Forget it."
He winced almost imperceptibly at her response. "As you wish," he
said to her, and left the lounge without another word.
Shampoo could feel the eyes of Pink and Link upon her as Mousse left.
Now *she* was acting like a fool! There were more important matters to
think about, like finding the two Saotomes.
It wasn't going to be easy. If they weren't close to the city, then it
would be almost impossible. The only advantage they had was their status as
members of the Commonwealth. The League of Five Nails extended certain
courtesies towards the Amazon Nation, so at least they could land at the
starport and walk about the city as themselves without any trouble from
the local garrison.
They were supposed to capture the information on Ryuugenzawa, but as
far as she was concerned, that was Kima's problem. Ranma was hers, and he
would pay dearly for her cursed Jusenkyo body! His father's death was only
an afterthought.
It did not matter if Ryuugenzawa even existed, which she doubted.
Only vengeance concerned her, for by killing Ranma Saotome, she erased
the stain of failure that threatened her own death in the eyes of the
Elders. Her career had not yet begun, and she was already in peril of
losing everything she had devoted her life to. She could not fail again.

Chapter Five

Furinkan Combine DropShip _Thorn,_
transitting from the Capra System Nadir Jump Point
Capra System, the League of Five Nails
11 March 3025

Colonel Princess Kodachi Kuno, known to most in the Inner Sphere as
the Black Rose of the Furinkan Combine, sat moodily upon a burgundy velvet-
upholstered chair within her private sanctum. The ship had been extensively
modified from its original configuration, cutting its battlemech complement
down to a mere twenty 'mechs, and reserving the space for her Regimental
Headquarters staff as well as her personal chambers. It was a place of
comforts unknown to other DropShips, even those of her brother.
She was of a sanguine mind, fey, and brooding with heavy-lidded eyes
through the dim lighting of the chamber at a fractal hologram of a burning
rose. She listened to the darker music of the ages - ancient composers
such as Rachmaninov, Mussorgsky, Goldenthal, Kanno, and Elfman. The fractal
rose withered and burned away into nothingness before her, each element a
smaller copy of itself, its ghostly reflections luminous within the ebon
pools of her eyes.
The large glass of Syrah at her elbow trembled with the subsonic
vibrations of the ship's main drives, the only indication in this sound-
dampened and shock-mounted compartment that they were operating. She
sipped at the wine, glad for the warmth that filled her with each drink,
and hungry for the narcotic embrace of the alcohol that would let her
sleep. She preferred alcohol over tranquilizers; preferred the fuzzy
euphoria of drunkenness to the numbing, empty darkness of Nembutal or
the dreary half-recalled nightmares of Valium.
The music swelled around her, Rachmaninov's "Isle of the Dead"
reaching its vertiginous and anti-climactic crescendo before drifting
dreamily into a languid vaporing of limpid stillness. She felt her heart
clench at the tremulous vibrato of the strings rising in counterpoint
to the crisp bray of the horns. How could any composer of music compare
with the grim despair of aristocratic Russians like poor mad Sergei?
She took another sip of the wine and reflected upon her own struggle
with life and death. This would be her one chance for revenge upon Akane
Tendo before her dear brother snatched her out of reach. Success depended
on reaching Capra first. Failure was unthinkable.
As for dear Tachi's reaction to her disobedience, she tried not to
let it concern her, but she knew her brother, and she knew that his anger
would be beyond measure once vengeance was hers. Perhaps even sufficient
to forget the ties of blood and family that bound them. Her life was too
important to be lost over such a trifle as Akane Tendo's death, and steps
had to be taken to keep what was hers.
Her ships were well concealed against the inevitable search by his
fleet, but she would have to come to a jump point sooner or later if she
was ever to leave this dreadful star system. It would prove prudent to
keep the Tendo witch alive long enough to use as a shield against Tachi's
wrath. Once she was safely within the bounds of her own fiefdom she could
murder Akane slowly and by degrees, and Daddy would once again be there
to keep Tatewaki in check.
A comtone sounded softly in the lull of the music. Kodachi's hand
lashed out into the air, silencing the next performance before it could
begin.
"Enter," she called imperiously to the darkness.
The door to her sanctum opened, and the diminutive form of Sasuke
appeared against the harsh lighting of the passageway beyond. He stepped
across the threshold silently, pausing to let the door slide shut behind
him, casting him into the chamber's darkness, before continuing his
approach.
"Ah, Sasuke," she purred to him. "I trust your intrusion bears some
merit?"
"Of course, Mistress," he demurred. "I wish to inform you of your
brother's arrival in the Capra System."
"What distasteful news," she observed, holding the glass of Syrah
up to the light of the hologram rose, and swirling the dark red liquid
thoughtfully. "I gather that he has begun the search for me?"
"Not yet, Mistress. For the moment he appears to be engaged in some
sort of difficulty at the zenith point."
Kodachi was intrigued.
"Explain," she demanded.
"I regret that the details are somewhat sketchy at this point, my
Mistress. The _Thorn_ has not yet put sufficient distance between the
nadir point and the Capra primary to receive any clear transmissions
from the fleet."
"Your regret is noted," she returned. "I expect more than mere
speculation from you, Sasuke, if you wish to intrude upon my meditation."
The ninja bowed deeply in apology.
"Of course, Mistress. I shall keep your words close at hand."
"Keep them in your head, Sasuke, or not at all."
"Yes, Mistress."
He bowed again, and turned to excuse himself.
Kodachi watched him start for the door, and waited until he was just
about to leave before halting him. "Sasuke!"
"Mistress?"
"Do you think my dear brother will have you executed?"
Sasuke looked puzzled by this.
"Mistress?"
She gave him a predatory grin. "Surely you don't think he hasn't
realized who it was that leaked the whereabouts of the Tendo girl to me,
do you? Nor the fact that you are no longer embarked aboard any of his
ships, and therefore must be in my company?"
Sasuke shook his head slowly. "It has occurred to me, Mistress."
She chuckled softly at this.
"I suppose then that you've thought of some countermeasure against
his wrath."
He bowed for her once again, and she gave him a dismissive wave in
reply.
"Go now, Sasuke."
"At once, Mistress."
His departure was as silent as his arrival. Kodachi considered putting
the music back on, but the mood was spoiled, and the wine no longer had its
usual appeal. She drained her glass absently, not bothering to savor its
vintage, and then threw it against the bulkhead with a shriek.
The glass shattered against the cherry panelling of the far bulkhead
with a crash. Kodachi Kuno sank down into her chair. Her laughter was manic
and forced, descending abruptly into deranged shrieks of fear and despair
before cascading into wet sobs of hopelessness.
She wept incoherently for some time, her eyes red and wet with frantic
tears. Her throat stung from the wracking sobs of anxiety that gripped her
soul. This was a desperate game that she played; her pathological fear of
her brother pitted against the ravenous hunger, the deep-seated exigency
for revenge against Akane Tendo, that clawed at her sense of self-worth.
In order to restore herself, she courted her own destruction.

Chapter Six

League of Five Nails JumpShip _Impaler_
orbiting the planet Capra-Beta,
two light-minutes from the system primary
The League of Five Nails
11 March 3025

Hikaru Gosunkugi watched the Tactical Display with his cousin Tetsuo.
The Furinkan Combine JumpShips were appearing out of hyperspace at the
Zenith point. Numerous passive sensors concealed within the painstakingly
sown clouds of chaff revealed each new JumpShip as it winked into existence.
There were far more ships present than Hikaru had expected.
"Kuno's really calling in the clans," Tetsuo observed.
"I guess I shouldn't be surprised," Hikaru replied. "He doesn't know
what he can expect in the Capella System, and he's probably sweating the
resistance he's getting at Calypso, Tybalt, and the other places he chose
for his feint."
"I hope we've brought enough ships."
"Any damage we inflict can only delay his attack on Capella," Hikaru
observed. "And now that we've confirmed Kuno's end-run strategy, our little
HPG message to Grand Duke Tendo warning him of what's coming can only make
it worse for the Combine."
They both laughed at this, explosive snorts and wheezes of breath
that filled the _Impaler's_ Combat Information Center. Admiral Morag was
busy directing the coming attack, and his forces would engage the fringes
of the Combine formation within minutes. So far, Kuno's fleet had deployed
only a fraction of its fighter escorts, leaving his starships to flail
the surrounding space of the jump point uselessly with their radars.
Tiny green points of light representing League Navy fighter and
GunShip squadrons closed within the projected detection zone of the
Combine fleet. Hikaru and Tetsuo both lit the candles tied to their heads
upon seeing this. Tetsuo began chanting mantras cursing the Combine fleet
with bad luck, while his cousin hammered namesake iron spikes through a
dozen straw effigies of Tatewaki Kuno. They were leaving nothing to chance
in this attack, not even divine intervention.

* * *

Tatewaki Kuno shrugged off the effect of a Jump better than most
people, a trait he used as further evidence that he was a superior human
being. While his crew shook their heads and reached for stimulant inhalers
to bring them out of their Jump-induced mental fog, he was floating towards
the viewport in search of the planet Capra.
Space itself seemed to shimmer with light, perhaps because of the
effects of so many starships appearing from Jump in such a short span of
time. Was this not an omen foretelling his victory over the Confederation?
He had his answer only moments later when a small strip of shiny
aluminum foil struck the viewport. The strip's low relative velocity
ensured that the contact was without incident, but its presence puzzled
him deeply. It was only as his sensory crews got their wits about them
that the mystery of the foil was revealed.

"Conn, Sensory; multiple paint at all bearings. We're showing very
unusual return signatures."
"Sensory, Conn; aye," the Officer of the Deck replied. "Sensory, Conn;
can you classify?"
There was a pause.
"Conn, Sensory; we have either jumped into a heavy field of radar
chaff, or one of the fleet ships has suffered a catastrophic JumpSail
malfunction."
"Engineering reports successful deployment of JumpSail," the Assistant
Engineer reported quickly from his Bridge station.
"Sensory, Conn; aye... Very well, Engineering."
The Officer of the Deck summoned his Communications section. "Contact
the ships of the fleet and request the status of their JumpSails," he
ordered.
The call went out throughout the fleet. No ships reported any problems
with their JumpSails.

Tatewaki turned at this news. Had his sister's ships run afoul of some
terrible catastrophe? His heart leapt at the thought.
"Whither my twisted sister?" he asked his Operations Officer, Captain
Lucius Kyle.
Kyle looked to the Tactical Display, but as expected, the lack of
reliable radar data offered no immediate answers to his prince's question.
The fleet ships each had a transponder signal, which made it easy to
display their locations despite the radar interference, but Princess
Kodachi wasn't foolish enough to use them after her little mutiny against
her brother.
"Unknown at this time, m'lord," Kyle offered cautiously. "Until we
can establish the cause for this radar interference, I would suggest an
elevated state of alert throughout the fleet."
"Aye," Tatewaki agreed. "This anomaly smacks of the Gosunkugis and
their League swine. Intensify our efforts with passive detection equipment,
and find my sister."
"At once, your Highness," Kyle returned crisply. "I request permission
to fully deploy our fighter assets."
"Denied," Tatewaki answered coolly. "Our ships will have enough trouble
sorting through this cursed interferance, and the fighters will only add to
the confusion. Furthermore, I am wary of a collision that may handicap us
in our ultimate goal of conquering the Capella system. Our passive sensors
will have to do for now."
Kyle nodded and turned to carry out his orders.

* * *

Hinako Ninomiya had been in rough situations before, but she had never
stared down an entire fleet. The Furinkan Combine's starships kept winking
into existence around them, and if not for the screening fields of chaff
the League had mysteriously sown, they would have been detected. They could
not hide forever, though, and she had taken steps to get them out of the
jump point as quietly as possible.
_Dragonfly's_ JumpSail was quickly stowed for starters. It was too
big and too reflective to avoid notice for long. They would also have to
make do without radar, which was just as well considering how useless
it currently was to them. After that it was a matter of pointing their
stern in a direction away from the prying passive sensors of the Combine
fleet and use their thrusters at their lowest practical outputs to creep
away.
She had been playing this game for almost an hour now, and had put
on enough delta-vee to make a modest run for the ecliptic plane. She would
keep the star between _Dragonfly_ and the Combine fleet for as long as
possible, and in the meantime she would try to think of some way to warn
the planet-bound _Palomino_ without giving away her position.

* * *

Flashes of light reached out into the darkness, signalling men and
women to prepare for war. The dot-dash prosigns stood for key words and
phrases for the attack, and took the place of radio transmissions that
would give away their presence to wary Combine sensory operators. The
message was a simple one:

"Hellcat Lead to all Hellcat flights; Engage weapon presets. Prepare
to attack."

Hellcat Lead listened to the chorus of double-clicked radio mics
over his headset that confirmed the receipt of his orders. Arrayed
behind him was an entire fighter wing of eighteen HCT-213B Hellcat II
aerospace fighters, and his wing was only one of six that the League
Navy had committed to the attack. In addition to the fighters were two
GunShip squadrons of Leopard and Union Class DropShips that exchanged
their ability to transport 'mechs for heavier armor and more firepower.
The GunShips led the attack, as they were large enough to carry the
passive detection gear necessary to locate and home on the Combine fleet
in the radar-limited environment. The fighters followed, using pencil-thin
laser beams emitted from trackers aboard the GunShips, and aimed at the
lead fighters as a guide until they closed to combat range. This was a
battle the League of Five Nails Navy had trained hard for, and one that
they had prayed would come.
Data streamed onto Hellcat Lead's HUD as the lead GunShip sighted the
Combine JumpShips on the perimeter of the formation, and passed on the news
through modulations of the laser guidebeam. To the fighter pilot, the enemy
fleet was nothing more than tiny shimmering points of light, visible only
because of their tremendous JumpSails reflecting Capra's primary. At their
considerable velocity, they would be in attack range in just over seven
minutes.
His commo crackled for attention on the tactical frequency.
"All flights, this is Hound Lead; We are compromised, I say again,
we are compromised. Commencing PsyWar-Op ALFA. Good luck and good hunting
to you all."
Hellcat Lead clicked his radio mic twice in acknowledgment, and
swallowed a gulp of oxygen streaming from his helmet facemask. The Combine
pickets had spotted their formation, as was to be expected at this close
range. From that point on, they were operating without any radio
communications.
The skirl of bagpipes and the roll of drums howled over all frequencies
and at maximum gain. It was the set known as "Nell Flaherty's Drake," and it
would serve as the timing for the League attack - while denying the Furinkan
Combine forces the use of the radio. Hellcat Lead winced at Admiral Morag's
taste in music, and hoped it would be just as annoying to the Combine. At
least the League forces had the advantage of training under the music's
effects.
The ships of his wing broke up by squadrons and slipped into their
attack formations. They would sight on his fighter for the attack, and
would attack the Combine JumpShip that he engaged. Other squadrons fanned
out into a wide skirmish line that would take half of the enemy fleet in
one point-blank pass. After that, they would mix it up down and dirty with
the Combine until their fuel status reached thirty percent, then they'd
make a break for their carriers. Hellcat Lead doubted the Combine would
attempt to chase them far, as the rendezvous orbit would take over nineteen
hours.
"Bonnie Dundee" gave way to "The Hills of Glenorchy" over the tac-net;
the sign that they would be within weapons range in mere minutes. Hellcat
Lead couldn't wait.

* * *

Tatewaki Kuno had barely taken his seat on the Executive Bridge when
all hell broke loose.

"Conn, Tactical; Pickets Charlie-Four-Kilo and Charlie-Four-Lima
report enemy spacecraft approaching on intercept with the fleet; bearing
two-two-four minus three, range nine thousand kilometers! Time to intercept
is four hundred seconds."

Captain Kyle whirled on his tactical staff as the data streamed into
_Imperator's_ battlecomp.
"Give me a raid count and classification!" he demanded.
The men and women of the Tactical station hunched over their displays
collating and classifying their targets. Angry red points of light appeared
on the main monitor as alphanumerics scrolled past them at a dizzying rate.
They were almost on top of the Combine fleet!

"Enemy Raid Count estimated at six wings of starfighters plus six
to eight DropShips. Identity is unconfirmed, but believed to be League
of Five Nails vessels."

"Sound General Quarters!" Tatewaki thundered. "Scramble the fighters
to intercept! Smite these heathen upstarts!" How dare the League meddle in
his affairs!
Alarm klaxons began to sound. The struggle of the crew on the Executive
Bridge shuffling into their pressure suits and plugging their life-support
into the ship's service connections at their stations drained the fleet of
precious reaction time. Just as they were starting to come together as a
unit again, the bagpipes struck.
"What is that infernal noise?!" Tatewaki howled over the din. Someone
at the Communications section cut out the tac-net speakers in response,
reducing the din to tinny screams from individual headsets.
"Your Highness!" the Commo Officer cried. His ears were still ringing
and his face was wracked with discomfort. "The enemy formations are
broadcasting some sort of electronic warfare on our command and tactical
frequencies."
"Drown them out!" Tatewaki demanded. "End this horrid wailing at once,
Commander!"
The Communications Officer steeled himself and answered his lord. "We
can jam their transmissions, Highness, but that will still prevent us from
communicating with our fleet ships. All we have at the moment are line-of-
sight laser comms, and those are useless for reaching our fighter escorts."
Tatewaki began to seethe. "Thy job, Commander, is to see that our
forces can communicate. If this requires thee to stand in an open airlock
with a flashlight and signal flags, then so be it, but I want these League
curs reduced to their component atoms!"
The Commo Officer's face paled.
"As you command, your Highness!"
The Blue Thunder of the Furinkan Combine turned to Captain Kyle. "Have
thy sensory section track the raiders back to their carriers. Dispatch a
GunShip squadron from the _Caledon_ to destroy them. See to it personally
if necessary, but I will have my revenge."
Kyle bowed in acknowledgement. "Of course, your Highness."
Satisfied that his Operations Officer was up to the job, Tatewaki
summoned his harried Officer of the Deck.
"Prepare to come about and engage the raiders with our full firepower,"
he ordered the man. "We shall face the foe head on, and for years hereafter
the widows of the cursed League shall gnash their teeth and wail in despair
at the great defeat Tatewaki Kuno has given them!"

* * *

Hellcat Lead was no fan of Scottish martial music, but he knew his job
depended on a keen ear. "Muckin of Geordies Byre" had given way to "The Fox
Hunters," and that meant they were committed to attack.
He sighted his target, a fat Monolith Class JumpShip loaded with
battlemech carrier DropShips. He aligned his Hellcat with the target and
strained his eyes against the darkness for the tell-tale flash of a Combine
fighter's plasma drive. There was nothing nearby, so all he had to worry
about was the starship's anti-meteor defenses.
Radar was useless in the carefully cultivated environment of confusion
they had sown, and so he selected his target tracking system to laser
designation and rangefinding. The Monolith's JumpSail made for an easy
and happily reflective target.
The range-to-target indicator ticked off the kilometers to the
Monolith on his HUD. He made fine course adjustments to put his weapons
to bear on the JumpShip's delicate tracery of cables and stays for the
massive JumpSail. It went against convention to attack an enemy's JumpShips
for fear of damaging the irreplacable jumpcores, but there was nothing
that said you couldn't attack other parts of the ship. Hikaru Gosunkugi
was playing a dangerous political game with his decision to go ahead with
this unprecedented attack, and Hellcat Lead respected him for having the
balls to do it.
The Monolith grew in size on his HUD as he screamed straight at the
massive silvery JumpSail. Bolts of particle beam fire began spitting from
the starship's point defense turrets at him. Because of the chaff and the
powerful jamming equipment carried by the GunShips, the JumpShip's gunners
were without their radars, and the wildly fired bolts streamed around him
harmlessly.
He took little notice of the incoming fire, knowing that his ship's
armor was good for a few hits, and needing all his concentration focused
on his shooting. He was trying to hit a difficult target while moving at
high relative velocity. His finger caressed the weapon trigger on his
control stick, and invisible pulses of laser light rippled out into the
darkness.
The beams splashed into the deployment booms for the Monolith's
JumpSail, tearing them apart in brilliant flashes of flame and jagged
metal. The massive disk of the sail trembled from the shock, and he could
see starlight through the rents made by the shrapnel from the booms. A
smile lit across his face at the results of his strike, and he altered
course to get one more good blow in.
He barely felt the shock of puncturing the paper-thin material of
the JumpSail as his aerofighter blasted through it. His drives flared
behind him, adding destructive heat to the damage caused by his collision.
A quick look over his shoulder allowed him the pleasure of seeing his
squadron mates finishing the job he had started. The ragged JumpSail was
cut away from the Monolith, and it streamered debris as it collapsed into
a crumpled mass of mylar and photoelectric mesh.
The sight of Combine ships meeting similar fates around him felt good.
In minutes the League Navy would render the Combine forces helpless and
impotent, something the Army had been unable to do since the fall of the
Star League. They would remember this battle for all time.

* * *

Tatewaki Kuno watched the Tactical Display grimly as the League's
fighters buzzed around his mighty fleet like angry wasps. Reports filtered
in over the laser-comm net of JumpShips suffering damage to their sails,
though for some reason the mongrel League pilots had refrained from
targeting his ships directly. He wondered at the motivation of the League
commander that would have him commit such a cowardly and disgraceful act,
and yet not have the courage to commit to a more final attack.
What he did know about the attack was that his fleet's radar-blind
point defenses were next to useless in stopping the fighters, and the
enemy's GunShips had taken little damage. The few Combine fighters
airborne at the time of the attack were badly outnumbered and ended up
getting mauled.

"Conn, Sensory; Contact Victor-Five-Golf bearing zero-zero-five plus
one-six, range nine hundred kilometers."

Tatewaki watched as the designated target, a League Union Class
GunShip, was highlighted in the display. The mighty _Imperator_ had thrown
its full weight into the battle, and though its point defense weapons
were of little effect against the fighters, the tremendously powerful gun-
directing radars of its anti-ship weapons were more than a match against
the jamming of the slower and less agile GunShips.

"Sensory, Conn; aye. Fire Control, match bearing rate and shoot."

_Imperator's_ forward mounted Naval Lasers belched forth billion-joule
beams of light that arced across the empty void of space between battleship
and League GunShip, immolating an aerofighter unlucky enough to blunder into
the barrage, and striking the intended target dead-on. The lasers lanced
into the GunShip's armor, sending coruscating motes of flame into the
darkness before piercing the spacecraft through and through. The GunShip
exploded moments later, boiling off men and machinery into a rapidly
expanding sphere of million-degree plasma.
Tatewaki Kuno watched them die over one of the telescope monitors and
nodded with detached satisfaction.

"Conn, Sensory; Contact Victor-Five-Golf destroyed. Recommend course
change to one-five-nine azimuth four-four, to bear on new target Victor-
Two-Golf."
"Sensory, Conn; aye. Helm, come left to course one-five-nine azimuth
four-four."
"Come left to course one-five-nine azimuth four-four, Helm; aye.
Officer of the Deck, Helm answers the ordered maneuver."
"Very well, Helm."

_Imperator_ pitched up and rolled against the fiery battlefield of the
Jump Point to bring its heavy weapons to bear on the next target. The enemy
GunShip realized too late that the _Imperator_ had selected it for death,
and fired its own drives in response, trying desperately to clear the
battleship's forward fire arcs before it joined its sister ship in oblivion.
Tatewaki watched the drama over the telescope monitor and tried not to
laugh at the hapless GunShip.

"Officer of the Deck, passing one-six-nine azimuth four-four; ten
degrees from ordered course."
"Very well, Helm. Fire Control, ready primary batteries for vertical
salvo; Gun Mounts Two and Four."
"Fire Control; aye. Officer of the Deck, Gun Mounts Two and Four
are ready in all respects. Target Motion Analysis is green. Gunlaying
Synchronization is green."
"Very well, Fire Control."

Tatewaki grinned. His ship was about to annihilate another hated foe.

"Officer of the Deck, Helm answers steady course one-five-nine
azimuth four-four."
"Very well, Helm. Fire Control, match bearing rate and shoot."
"Fire Control; aye."

Tatewaki watched the monitor, eagerly awaiting the flash of light that
would signal another fatal blow from his mighty warship's guns. The League
GunShip made one final evasive maneuver, but one that could not free it
from the reach of the _Imperator's_ forward mounts in time.
At that moment the second wave of the Furinkan Combine fleet winked
into existence at the Jump Point. They were the civilian-contracted cargo
ships, and operating under a schedule that had not been modified in the
wake of Kodachi's hasty mutiny. Which put them in-system twenty minutes
too soon.
The GunShip suddenly found itself occupying the same space-time
coordinates as the arriving Merchant Class JumpShip - an event which
heralded an explosion of light and heat unparalleled by anything that
had preceded it during the battle. The warp and woof of reality recoiled
violently, distorting space and time around the blast and drawing out
Tatewaki's scream of outrage and disbelief into a minute-long drone of
muted horror.
The JumpShip had been carrying his precious converted DropShips. The
ones modified into mobile charging stations. The ones that would reduce
his fleet's transit time between Capra and Capella.
The _Imperator's_ bridge displays crashed into snow and static,
cutting out the mad skirling of Admiral Morag's beloved bagpipes and
replacing it with complete pandemonium. Lights went out and alarms chirped
for attention as the starship felt the space-time backlash of the collision.
The well-ordered operation of the ship fell into disarray. Even worse, the
unexpected spatial displacement of the ship had caused their fragile laser-
comm network to lose track of the other ships in the fleet. Now they had
no communications whatsoever.
Tatewaki Kuno picked himself off the deck and swore dark oaths of
blood, fire, and vengeance upon his enemies. He would personally crucify
the Gosunkugi responsible for this; right down to driving the nails in
with his own two hands.

* * *

Hellcat Lead narrowly avoided death as the Merchant Class JumpShip
burst apart into a nimbus of chromatic fire. His instruments and controls
had an instant seizure, forcing him into dead-stick flight while his
computers attempted to reboot from their hardened backups. A piece of
debris from the explosion sizzled past his canopy, missing it by scant
centimeters.
He had never experienced anything like this before; nor had anyone
else in living memory. More JumpShips winked into existence around the
battle zone, though none with such immediately catastrophic events as
that first unfortunate starship. Instead he watched helplessly as friendly
fighters blundered into the lumbering giants, and hoped fervently that one
wouldn't materialize in front of him.
It was time to call off the attack, he realized. The odds of dying
had just reached the point of diminishing returns against what damage they
could hope to inflict by staying. There was no way to signal his comrades
in the chaos. He would have to trust in their own common sense.
His Hellcat rebooted, and the controls came alive in his hands. It
took several moments for his astrogation system to take the necessary star
sightings to fix his position, and then he punched in the course for the
rendezvous. A handful of fighters were already peeling away from the
fiery jump point as he did so, which filled him with hope.
As the aerofighter's plasma drives pushed him for home, he watched
the Furinkan Combine fleet burn in his aft-mounted telescope. What they
had started, the merchant ships had finished. JumpSail debris littered
space around the jump point, and several starships were burning from
collisions with the clumsy merchanters.
The Furinkan Combine fleet wasn't going anywhere for awhile.

Chapter Seven

FCJS _Imperator_
at the Capra System Zenith Jump Point,
Capra System, the League of Five Nails
11 March 3025

"FIRE-FIRE-FIRE! FIRE IN ATMOSPHERE CONTROL MACHINERY ROOM TWO!
CASUALTY ASSISTANCE TEAM AFT - LAY TO ACMR#2!"

Tatewaki Kuno watched angrily as his crew struggled to regain control
of his battleship. Debris from the exploding Merchant Class JumpShip had
struck _Imperator_ at several points along the 'midships hull, piercing the
armor and damaging critical equipment. Fires had broken out throughout the
ship, including the Executive Bridge, and the pall of smoke hung over the
emergency-lit compartment.
Several ships in his fleet had suffered collisions, if not from direct
contact with an arriving starship, then with debris from other encounters.
At least one of his troopships was destroyed. The entire complement was
feared dead, as the habitat was laid open to space from bow to jumpcore.
Other ships faced damage of varying severity.
The urgency of the situation had left them with no control over the
battle, letting the League raiders escape practically unchallenged. If
they had come to destroy his fleet instead of cripple it, there would
have been no stopping them.
"Status report," he demanded of his Operations Officer. His voice was
pinched and tinny through the pressure suit helmet's external speaker. The
burning electronics had introduced poisonous compounds to the atmosphere,
and until the fires aboard his ship were extinguished, there could be no
attempt to scrub the air.
Kyle was tight-lipped in his reply.
"The ship's hull integrity remains sound," he began. "There appears
to be no damage to the jumpcore, and personnel casualties are low. No
fatalities have been reported. Engineering reports that primary power
will be restored to all decks within twenty minutes, and that there remain
sufficient reserves in the ship's batteries to last another two hours under
the current electrical load.
"Furthermore, it appears that most of our fleet vessels have either
lost their JumpSails entirely, or else suffered sufficient damage to them
or their supporting systems as to render them useless. Capra has no
indigenous recharge support facility to capture, and our mobile charging
stations were destroyed in the Jump mishap. We are forced to rely on our
ships' powerplants to recharge our jump batteries, and that will take
upwards of ten days - depending on the ship."
Kuno took this in stride. At least his precious Star League battleship
had survived intact.
"I expect a full inquiry into this debacle," he menaced. "Seize
any merchanter found liable for damage caused by his ship. Execute the
Captain and take possession of the ship with a prize crew where you deem
it appropriate."
"It shall be done, m'lord."
Tatewaki now turned to the matter that burned brightest within him.
"What of the League?"
"We are unable to track them at this time, though we have verified
through visual sightings and with what little of our laser-comm network
that we have remaining with other fleet vessels, that they have withdrawn
from the battle."
"And of our pursuit?"
Kyle took his time in responding.
"Our fighters became engaged from the moment they launched. There
were heavy casualties... Our GunShips were not prepared for an engagement,
and they were unable to launch before the League withdrew."
He could see his prince begin to flush with heat.
"We are, however, about to launch a scouting force to regain contact
with the League ships, that we might execute a counterattack against their
carriers."
Tatewaki cooled slightly.
"Very well, Captain. I expect our retribution to be swift and sure."
"Of course, your Highness."
Tatewaki looked away for a moment, apparently deep in contemplation.
"It appears that our strike against Capella will have to wait," he
said at length. The statement pained him considerably. "The scoundrels
have chosen to target our means of recharging our jump batteries for the
trip to Capella, and they have succeeded beyond our worst nightmares. We
need time to lick our wounds and reorganize our fleet, and we must find
those League carriers lest we suffer another attack."
"Yes, my lord," Kyle agreed.
"I am concerned about the League's ability to ambush us so
effectively," Tatewaki went on. "They could not have had such a force
prepared against us by mere chance. Our raid of this system was small,
and was not likely to provoke such a reaction. We shall have to look
into this."
"Consider it done, your Highness."
"One more thing," Kuno said to him. "Before I depart with the landing
force for Capra, I want to know where my cursed sister's ships went. Is it
possible that they have somehow materialized at this system's nadir point?"
Kyle considered this.
"It is possible," he conceded. "But given the spatial arrangements of
Proteus and Capra, arriving at the nadir point instead of the zenith point
would prove risky to them."
"But not as risky as facing her brother's mighty fleet when they
followed them through hyperspace," Tatewaki noted.
"I see your point, Highness," Kyle conceded. "I shall dispatch a
reconnaissance-in-force to the system's nadir point to investigate."
Kyle left him to make the necessary arrangements. Tatewaki's pride
still stung at this defeat, and his capable adjutant could go a long way
towards restoring it. Until the League fleet could be located and destroyed,
his primary concern now lay with his sister, and her vow of revenge against
his beloved Akane.
Akane, fairest of the Inner Sphere, and his most treasured prize above
all else in the universe. If Nabiki was to be believed, and he had little
doubt of it, then Akane was somewhere on the planet Capra. She was also
with that bride-thief and scoundrel, Ranma Saotome.
Saotome would die, and Akane would finally become his, but there was
little time, and his sister had a strong lead. He could not afford the
luxury of careful planning; his domination of the planet had to be swift
and absolute, and his forces strong enough at every point to resist any
black deed of treason perpetrated by Kodachi. She had dug her own grave
this time. Not even Father could excuse this act of treachery and sedition.
She had to be brought to heel.
She *would* be brought to heel.

* * *

Hikaru Gosunkugi could barely contain his excitement upon receiving
news of his attack. The Furinkan Combine had been dealt a crushing blow
to their planned attack on Capella, and the League of Five Nails had done
it. Surely this would be the achievement that would keep his meddling
parents satisfied with his command and out of his hair.
He considered the prospect of sending some sort of message to Kuno
to gloat. The Combine prince was easy to provoke, and careless when he was
wroth, which might allow the League forces to get in another good blow,
perhaps even destroy them entirely. On the other hand, his own position
was weak. His fleet orbited out of sight around one of the inner planets
of the system, and the jump points he needed to escape were a good three
days transit using the weak plasma drives of his JumpShips. Aggravating
Kuno could mean an all-out hunt for his fleet, and the enraged prince
might well feel justified in reducing the League Navy to dust.
It would be best if he did his gloating while safely out of reach,
he decided. What his next move would be was not as clear to him.
Escape seemed the best option, as the nadir jump point was currently
uncontrolled by Combine forces. It would be a perilous three days to the
jump point, however, and the risk of discovery was great. He might even
have to fight his way there.
His concern for the inhabitants of the Capra system was negligible.
Capra was a minor planet with moderate resources but little water, which
along with its proximity to frequent Combine and Confederation raids
hardly made it worth defending. The mercenary unit defending it was of
course expendable. He hadn't even bothered to warn the garrison that the
Combine had arrived, lest some spy leak news of his surprise attack in
time to warn Kuno.
He had to think of the long term picture. Kuno was bloodied, but far
from beaten, and he would eventually Jump to Capella. It was vital that
the Confederation resist his attack, and hopefully the League of Five Nails
had bought them some time to prepare. Hikaru found it somewhat ironic that
he was the savior of the Nerima Confederation, but in doing so he was
preserving Akane Tendo for himself.
Perhaps he could come up with a strategic alliance with Duke Tendo
in light of his noble sacrifice and his timely warning of Kuno's attack.
With the League's resources, the Confederation's tough, battle-hardened
fighters, and possibly even the wealth of the Federated Shiratori backing
them, they could drive the Furinkan Combine into retreat! It was a heady
prospect, especially so since Akane Tendo's hand in marriage would be part
and parcel of the deal.
He was also eager to shed himself of the Jusenkyo Commonwealth's
undue influence on League affairs. An alliance would be just the thing to
do that. He didn't trust the inscrutable Amazons any farther than he could
throw them, and being a forty-five kilo weakling, that wasn't very far.
The Grand Duke would be just as wary of him as Hikaru was of the
Commonwealth, but at least a shared enemy and his acts of good faith would
do something to alleviate that. The question then became one of which
Tendo to approach. Should he deal directly with the Grand Duke, or should
he use Nabiki?
The middle daughter had clearly lost some of her cachet in the wake
of her failed bid to sell the Confederation to Kuno. Rumor and hearsay
put her on the outs with her father, but she remained within easy reach
of the castle. Would she still be willing to back the Combine even if she
knew a League-Confederation-Federated Shiratori Alliance was a possibility?
Hikaru guessed that she wouldn't. Nabiki was an opportunist, and
though she had been sideswiped by her father over the Surrender Summit,
she knew which way the wind blew. If he could convince her of the viability
of such an alliance, she would surely throw in with him. The next question
became one of her current value to such an alliance.
He did not know the extent of her falling out with the Grand Duke,
but Soun was the sort of sentimental sap who would probably fall all over
himself to make up with his disaffected daughter. If she laid it on thick
enough, and Hikaru knew that she could, the Grand Duke might well come
around to an alliance against the Combine. It would help the cause knowing
that Soun believed the Combine was responsible for the attempt to kidnap
Akane.
Hikaru's musings were interrupted by his aide.
"What is it?" he demanded. He did not like interruptions.
"My lord, we have detected a sizable Furinkan Combine force leaving
the jump point."
This concerned Hikaru greatly. Was Kuno already on the hunt for him?
"What is the nature of this force?"
"A planetary invasion force, apparently," the aide declared. "Though
Intelligence is at a loss to explain its size. The force is far too large
for dealing with the expected garrison."
"After the surprise we gave Kuno at the jump point, I wouldn't take
anything for granted, myself," Hikaru returned. "How big are we talking;
a battalion, a regiment?"
"A full battlemech division," his aide said flatly. "Plus divisional
assets and air support."
Hikaru was floored.
"A... DIVISION? Of battlemechs?"
The aide showed him long-range telescope images that clearly depicted
a swarm of Union and Overlord Class DropShips, as well as infantry and
equipment transports, and Leopard CV fighter carriers.
"What the hell is going on?" Hikaru wondered. "This is more than
just a little healthy paranoia on Kuno's part." He thought for a moment
in silence. "Even if he wanted to annihilate the colony out of spite, he
wouldn't need all that force..."
An idea occured to him, the only thing that made sense.
"Unless there was something very important on Capra that he needed..."
"My lord?"
He grabbed his aide roughly by his tunic, a gesture that would have
been comical in other circumstances when considering that the man out-massed
Hikaru by forty kilograms. "Tell my cousin that he has command of the fleet.
Then get my generals front and center in my briefing room. There isn't any
time for explanations."
"A-At once, my lord!"
The aide scrambled to comply, leaving him with his thoughts once again.
He had decided to leave the system, having inflicted what damage he could.
This breaking news had changed that. He needed to find out what was up with
Capra, and why it had suddenly become so important to Kuno. He knew in the
pit of his stomach that it would mean going there personally.
He would need some firepower on his side, but he did not have the
'mechs or the troops necessary to face an entire division in a head-on
battle. That was fine by him, he didn't like those kinds of fights anyway.
In the doctrine of warfare espoused by such masters as Sun Tzu and
Clausewitz, a general was foolish to fight a battle like that. A true
genius struck at what the ancient Prussian called 'the centers of gravity'
of his enemies.
The Combine fleet's JumpSails had been one such target, destroying
Kuno's ability to launch a surprise attack on Capella, and allowing the
Confederation time to reinforce. Now he must find Kuno's new center of
gravity, and hit it hard with what little force he had to bear.
And most importantly, he had to find out what the Blue Thunder wanted
so badly on Capra.

END OF PART SEVEN