Loren L. Coleman - BattleTech - MechWarrior - Dark Age 16 - Daughter Of The Dragon

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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s

Imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business

establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

The Penguin Putnam Inc. World Wide Web site address is

http://www.penguinputnam.com

To all you fans out there, the men and women for whom we spin these tales. Your dreams make these

books real.

Acknowledgments

Writing this book was a team effort, and wouldn’t have happened if not for the dedication and

enthusiasm people brought to the table. My warmest thanks to:

Sharon Turner Mulvihill, for taking a chance on an MWDA wannabe;

Loren Coleman, for introducing me to the CBT and MWDA universes and putting me out there in the

first place;

Randall Bills, for patiently answering each and every panicked e-mail query about all matters, arcane and

otherwise:

Øystein Tvedten, for making sure that if Randall didn’t have an answer, he did;

Herbert Beas, for scanning in all those attachments for all that battle armor and not once getting peevish.

My thanks also go to Dean Wesley Smith for his continued support, advice and friendship—and the

occasional well-placed boot in the butt.

Finally, my gratitude and love to my husband, David, for making my writing life more than just a dream.

Buckle your seat belt, babe; you’re in for one wild ride.

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Prologue

Devil’s Rock

Prefecture VII, Republic of the Sphere

14 February 3134

Seven at night and still raining like hell in Faust City: a frigid rain, the near side of sleet, the kind that

spiked a man’s skin like an ice pick and burned like a brand. The kind of rain that made a man hope to

hell he found a cheap dive and fast: a place with foggy windows and bored women with sagging breasts

and pallid skin who bumped and ground through clouds of blue cigarette smoke swirling around their legs

like gauzy fabric; a place where a guy could toss back a couple belts of cheap whiskey raw enough to

knife his throat and explode in the pit of his stomach like napalm. A place like Lucifer’s Pit.

C sat at a small, round table tucked into the far left corner, behind a pillar and in inky shadow. Anyone

looking saw only a silhouette, but no one looked because everyone was too busy getting drunk, or

stoned, or laid, or all three. C wasn’t. He had a good view of the bar and the john was down a short hall

to his right. He’d discovered a fundamental truth: You never drank beer; you only rented it. Other than

boozy men weaving by to take a leak, no one frequented this little corner of the universe. That was fine

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because C had a man to kill and tonight was as good a night as any. In fact, tonight was more than good.

It was rainy, dark and colder than a witch’s tit. Hell, it was perfect.

C hefted his mug, sucked in what passed for coffee, forced it down. The coffee tasted like it’d simmered

since the early Pleistocene; a dank brew scummed with an amoeboid slick that shimmered suspiciously

like engine oil and was sour enough to leave his mouth tasting like burned tar. He’d have preferred

whiskey, but a good ISF agent didn’t drink on the job—not and keep a clear head. Besides, there’d be

plenty of time to celebrate when the Bounty Hunter was dead. Payback for all the Combine troops the

Bounty Hunter had killed a year ago, and a long time coming.

C looked over the rim of his mug at his target, a man who sat eight meters to the right on a diagonal, and

ringside to the runway where the dancers did their routines. The Bounty Hunter’s disguise was pretty

good: jowls, liver spots, a bottlebrush of thinning, white hair. The getup screamed civil servant slouching

toward retirement: the kind of guy who got a watch and a handshake and was forgotten the moment he

walked out the door. He wore rumpled khaki pants, a frumpish blue V-necked sweater and a pair of

owlish steel-rimmed specs with thick lenses that gleamed white as coins in the light from the runway. But

the thing that really sold the package? The limp. The Bounty Hunter lurched like an old man favoring a

bad hip he should’ve replaced ten years ago.

Only the Bounty Hunter had buried himself in the part, inhabiting his role so well he’d developed habits,

little routines more predictable than the sunrise. Like coming to the Pit every afternoon at five and staying

until eight. What the Bounty Hunter saw in the bar was a mystery. There were enough people puffing

away to fill a cancer ward. The Bounty Hunter didn’t seem to be there for the girls, either, and his tip

wasn’t anything designed to endear him to the management (a half stone—big spender, but the coffeewas

pretty lousy). No, the Bounty Hunter just drank his two cups of coffee and read the paper. Then, every

night at eight, he tucked the paper under his arm and limped out for home sweet home—a dingy

apartment in a decrepit complex of narrow warrens and dead-end alleys a klick southeast of the sulfur

refinery. Along the way he’d shell out a five-stone coin here and there and chat up one of the regulars, a

down-on-his-luck drunk who squatted at the corner of the Bounty Hunter’s apartment complex. And

bingo : The idea came for just how, exactly, C might make the universe a better, brighter place.

Still, C was uneasy. He wasn’t the first ISF agent to go after the Bounty Hunter. C was the third, and he

had no illusions about being any better than his immediate predecessor, who’d been delivered, sliced and

diced into a jigsaw, in a refrigerated box to ISF headquarters on Luthien three months ago. No one knew

exactly what had gone wrong, and the dead guy sure wasn’t talking. So C had to act on instinct, and

instinct screamed that if he was going to make a move, he’d better do it tonight.

C’s eyes dropped to his finger watch: a quarter to eight. Fifteen minutes was enough; he’d timed it that

morning. Scraping back his chair, C stood, shrugged into his raincoat, backhanded a stone as a tip, and

then wove his way toward the door and around tables, moving not too fast and not too slow and being

careful not to avoid the Bounty Hunter’s table, which lay on a direct line to the door. He passed so close,

a quick glance over the man’s shoulder let C catch a glimpse of the breathless headline: a follow-up story

about that string of murders on Kordava in the suburb of Little Luthien nine months ago. So close C felt

his pulse ramp in his temples and his stomach cramp with excitement—one shot right behind his ear

and, with the silencer, I’d get away before anyone noticed—and then the moment was gone, and C

was moving past the Bounty Hunter and pushing his way into the night.

The door clapped shut, cutting the sounds from the bar in two like a ribbon snipped by sharp scissors. C

moved quickly now, grateful that it was still winter on this godforsaken planet. Night had slammed down

hard; the rain had slacked but not ceased. The streets would be deserted, the traffic light. No witnesses.

No one likely to interrupt C’s little tête-à-tête with one very-soon-to-be-ex–Bounty Hunter.

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Fifteen minutes later he was dripping wet, the rain trickling in shivery fingers down his neck and giving

him the shakes as he turned onto the Bounty Hunter’s street. The Bounty Hunter’s apartment was in a

red brick tenement, second building down on the right. The wind was blowing in from the west, flinging

sheets of rain. The feeble glow from a solitary streetlamp threw out rain-fractured light, a wavering halo

edged with a shimmering, rainbow-colored corona. The streetlamp stood at the near corner on the

opposite side of the street: perfect, because that meant that anyone coming that way would lead with his

shadow.

C armed wet out of his eyes and blinked. No one around, the rain washing the drunks away. Fantastic.

C ducked into a narrow alley that was more pothole than asphalt. The alley was squalid with mushy

garbage that squelched beneath C’s boots and reeked enough to make him gag. But the alley was good

because it was blind and windowless and, at the end, a bonus: an assortment of dented trash cans and

one industrial-size rubbish bin.

All the better to dispose of unwanted Bounty Hunters, my dear.

If the Bounty Hunter was on schedule—and he would be on schedule—C had ten minutes. Quickly, he

stooped, ran his fingers along the slimy bricks, then smeared muck through his hair and over his face.

Then he stuck his pistol in his waistband and peeled out of his trench coat. He let the coat fall into a

water-filled pothole, stomped on it a few times, then inched his arms into the now-soggy, filthy garment.

He slipped the pistol back into the right pocket of his trench coat, cupping the stippled grip in his palm,

his right index finger in the trigger guard. Lolled back against the wall.

Ask for a handout and, while he’s digging for change, that’s when I shoot him—kill him and

dump him in one of the bins.

The sounds were so indistinct and irregular, so textured by the hiss of rain on brick, he nearly missed

them. Then his ears pricked to the hesitant tap of shoes against stone, one clap heavier than the other

because the Bounty Hunter limped. C had to admire the man. He hadn’t dropped the limp even to get in

out of the rain. Nerves tingling, C waited, mouth dry, pulse tripping in his veins. Ten steps more, then five,

and now he saw the bobbing black finger of a shadow through the fringe of his lashes.

Five steps more, then four, three . . . and as the Bounty Hunter came alongside, C hauled up his head,

just another drunk dragging himself out of a stupor. “Say, buddy,” he slurred and tottered forward a step

to close the distance. “Say, buddy, can you . . . ?”

There was the unmistakablesnick of metal against metal, and the last thing C saw was something very

bright, a steely arc. And then it didn’t matter because, by the time his brain translated—knife

—something cut across his neck, going right to left. There was a weird, pulsing, splashing sound, like

water from a fountain hitting tile. C was too surprised to feel pain and he was just reaching for his throat

when there was another flash, this time left to right, that sheared off the tips of his left fingers in the

bargain. And then pain didn’t matter because, suddenly, he couldn’t breathe.

Choking, C clawed at his neck as his knees buckled and his vision grayed. His lungs burned, and the

hiss of the rain got whispery-thin and delicate as fine mist. As C sagged, his last conscious thought was

how the smell of his blood was like this wagon he’d had as a kid: a wagon left out in the rain one too

many times, until it was pocked with rust blisters that smelled of wet copper. The smell of his blood was

like that.

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Theclick .

Theclick happened when he saw the ISF agent pretending to be a drunk pretending to hold up the wall

of his apartment building. Then—click. A switch was thrown in some deep, dark crevice of his brain,

and suddenly it was like his head had filled with helium. His mind drifted, his consciousness tethered to his

body like a kid’s balloon and he watched things unfold like a choreographed dance: the way he’d

pivoted, snapping his right wrist. The way the knife darted like the razor-sharp tongue of a chameleon,

uncoiling from its sheath beneath the cashmere sweater. The instant he’d felt that unmistakable transition

as the knife sliced first air and then flesh. The agent’s shock, then confusion and, finally, dull-eyed terror

as the second cut sliced his windpipe. And blood, lots of blood, spurting in thick ropes that splattered to

the asphalt and mingled with mud, a pulpy wad of discarded newsprint and the general garbage that

sluiced down the gutters in a good, hard rain.

Then heclicked again, his mind collapsing like a pirate’s spyglass. This was a good moment because he

needn’t hurry, and he could revel in sensation. His tongue sneaked over his lips. Something warm,

brackish. Blood. He looked down at the cashmere sweater, purple now with blood and rain. Too bad;

he’d liked the sweater. He particularly liked the way it smelled of its previous owner: pipe tobacco and

spicy aftershave. Then he flicked his wrists; the agent’s blood spun from the blades in teardrops. Another

flick and each blade whirred into its hidden sheath, secured to his forearms beneath the old man’s

sweater.

What lovely toys. Pity that he and the Bounty Hunter couldn’t have a little assassin-to-fellow-assassin

chitchat. But the last he’d seen was the man’s naked backside floating serenely downstream after he’d

shucked the Hunter out of his armor—and, lordy, lordy, if the man hadn’t been wearing a stitch except a

pair of tatty boxers. Squatting, he studied the wisps of steam curling from cooling meat, the black blood a

puddle drooling over concrete. Humming tunelessly, he withdrew a twelve-centimeter hunting knife from

a sheath strapped to the small of his back and got to work. When he was done, he held the agent’s

dripping, bug-eyed head in his left hand. The agent’s jaw was unhinged; his tongue lolled like a dead

worm. On an impulse, he pressed his mouth to the agent’s cold lips, his tongue playing over the hard,

uneven edges of the agent’s teeth, and discovered: The agent had an overbite.

“Alas, poor Yorick,” he said, with a sigh and a wink. “I hardly knew ya.”

Katana Tormark’s Journal

Early morning, 1 October 3134

When I was eight, my father killed his best friend. When I turned fifteen, my mother died, and when I

was seventeen, I told my father I never wanted to see him again. Ever. So he went away, and that was

that. Sort of. For one thing, I lied; I kind of wish he’d stuck around. My mother was a musicologist, and

after my parents separated—this was right after my father killed Uncle—we often went to the Combine. I

met one of the most important people in my life there. And I learned a lot about the Combine. Alot a lot

and I had questions for my father he could never answer.

At the same time I was, like, this poster child for The Republic: counseling little kids, getting my

citizenship ahead of schedule, saving Sir Reginald, going to Northwind, becoming duchess and then

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prefect while, at the same time, I’m studyingbushido ; I’m pretty damn good atkendo kata ; I’m a better

frigging samurai than my father and . . . you get the picture. The only thing missing is the holovid:She

fights! She conquers! She even cooks! Like I’m some kind of new appliance.

Someone once said that, deep down in my gut, I must’ve known or figured out somehow that The

Republic wasn’t really my home, or I was neverat home in The Republic in the first place; take your

pick. Probably right on both counts. I mean, think about it: You got this Republic, and we’re all

supposed to love each other and not resort to violence and stuff. But here I am, kicking some serious

butt—and getting rewarded for it. Schizophrenic, you ask me.

And here’s another thing. As soon as that network went down, I finally saw how fragile the whole thing

was. Factions and planets connected by a network of threads as insubstantial as a spider’s web. One big

blow and the web disintegrated, and all of a sudden, it’s every woman for herself.

So why am I doing this? Beats me . . . no, that’s a lie. I know why. I dream about it a lot, and

sometimes memory and dream blur: a holovid caught in a continuous loop projected onto the blackness

in my brain, and no off button.

Early summer’s what I remember: the buzz of cicadas and the crunch of their husks under my feet. I’m

eight; we’re on Ancha, where I was born. I remember, or maybe I dream it—it’s all the same—my

mother and I had eaten dinner alone that night. My father, Akira, was gone on some business or other,

and I knew that something was wrong. My mother played with her food, moving clumps of rice here and

there with the points of her chopsticks the way I did when she made something I really hated. (Broiled

squid was the worst; there was just something about those tentacles.) Afterward, she played her

shakuhachi. Even though she wasn’t a Combine citizen, my mother was crazy for all things Japanese.

She was partial to the instrument because ofhonkyoku , Zen meditation music. My mother’s been dead

for almost twenty years, but I can still conjure up her hands, the milk-chocolate cast of her skin and long,

slender fingers caressing the ancient bamboo flute. Hershakuhachi was lacquered red with urushi and

cashew, with a lion done in black brushstroke, and akanji inscribed in delicate calligraphy that translated

tolion’s heart . When my mother played, you lost track of who played whom; whether the instrument

coaxed sadness from my mother’s heart, or she simply breathed sorrow. The Zen masters say that

shakuhachi is music from the soul, and that’s what I hear in my mind’s ear: the sighing, mournful cry of a

wounded heart.

Now the next part gets tricky because now the dream takes over, and I just don’t know what’s what.

First, I’m in bed. Dream or reality: I can’t tell. My room is very dark, and I’m in the middle of that deep

and dreamless sleep of childhood when something tugs me awake, reeling me to consciousness. I hear

sounds. Quick. Angry.

Then a skip, like a faulty holovid. Now I’m moving toward a bar of yellow light cutting a diagonal into

the darkness; now I’m peering into the kitchen where my parentsaren’t speaking. It’s as if they’re frozen

in time but tiny and very far away, the way things look when you use the wrong end of a telescope. My

father, tall and proud, in a coal black skinsuit, his swords nestled in a ruby red obi, and his black eyes

glittering with determination, the strong line of his jaw firm and utterly implacable; and my mother, still as

a statue, her brown eyes smoldering, the muscles of her neck as taut as the strings of a tightly strungkoto

And then I’m outside, as silent as a shadow. I can barely make out my father; he’s like a creature

scissored out of the fabric of night, as insubstantial as air. The air is just this side of chilly, and I’m

shivering, gooseflesh stippling my arms. Gravel pricks the soles of my bare feet, and they hurt, and I wish

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I’d remembered my sandals, or even a pair of socks.

Another skip: cool, dewy grass that shushes under my feet, like slippers on carpet, and the tall, straighter

forms of trees. I’m crouching behind . . . a rock? A wall? My fingers skid over something cold and hard;

my knees are damp with dew.

Ahead, there are men: all in black skinsuits, faces obscured, each with the twin swords of the samurai. I

know my father by his silhouette: square, solid. Proud. But I also remember (dream?) two others

standing to either side of my father. I don’t know them, can’t see their faces. Yet a finger of fear pokes

my chest.

Danger!That’s what my mind screams, and then a whispered afterthought:Blood and enemies.

The circle parts the way a curtain opens, and even though it’s night, everything’s clear as day. There, in

the center, is a man in a loose white kimono. His silver hair’s done in the elaboratemitsu-ori topknot of

the ancient samurai, and I recognize him at once: Uncle Kan. Not really related, but my father’s best

friend; a man who followed Akira Tormark—O5P agent, lord, samurai—when my father left the

Combine to pursue Devlin Stone’s dream. Uncle Kan kneels on a black tatami, and he beckons the rest

to sit, sit. They kneel, and then they eat rice and pickles from ceramic bowls. I know with absolute

certainty that their chopsticks are anise, just as I know that each of the men has three slices of pickle on

his rice,mikire : three portions. Cut skin.

There’s a tray with a sake jug and one blue ceramic cup. My father carefully pours twice with his left

hand from the left, filling Uncle Kan’s cup, which Uncle drains in two sips twice done. Two plus two

makesshi . Death.

Another skip: There’s thesambo tray with Uncle Kan’skazuka , the blade wrapped in paper but leaving

the last two centimeters bare. Uncle reaches for the tray; his kimono falls open; thekazuka is in his

hand . . .

And then—he’s cutting. No, not cutting. Slashing. Ripping. Grunting with the pain, the tip of his tongue

clamped between white teeth. Left to right, unzipping his belly, and suddenly, there is black oil on his

hands, his blade, his skin, his kimono. Only it’s not oil; I know it’s not oil. I open my mouth, but nothing

comes out. I’m frozen in time, and the dream—memory?—slows to that nightmarish pace where the

monster’s right behind, and you know that it’s only a matter of time.

Somehow, Uncle’s still conscious. Not screaming. Grunting, then hissing as his blade snags. My father

stands at Uncle’s left side, as hiskaishakunin , long blade drawn. He’s waiting for something, for Uncle

to do something . . .

And then Uncle does it—jerks hiskazuka free. Long, oily tongues of blood spill from Uncle’s belly. I

see it all: pearls of sweat beading his forehead and upper lip, his face twisted in agony. But still he says

nothing. Instead, he replaces hiskazuka on thesambo tray and nods. Once.

Quick as lightning, my father brings his blade up and then down: a whip of light slashing through

darkness—and Uncle’s neck. Two dark ropes of blood pulse in arcs; Uncle’s head flops forward, lolling

on his breast the way a marionette goes limp when its strings are cut. But it doesn’t fall off. My father’s

been a superbkaishakunin , slicing through bone and muscle until Uncle’s head is, literally, hanging by a

thin flap of skin: the perfectdaki-kubi .

And now . . . I scream. Loud. Long. Terrified. The men whirl; my father, horrified, blood dripping from

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his blade, reaches for me. But I’m screaming, flinching away. “You killed Uncle Kan, you killed Uncle

Kan !”

Here’s what’s weird. One of the two men who’d flanked my father peers at me strangely, head cocked

like an inquisitive spaniel. His visored face is totally black, but I feel his eyes, hot as lasers, raking my

body. And then he asks my father, “Is that her?”

Three simple words: Is. That. Her. Question mark. But what the hell did that mean? I didn’t know then.

I don’t know now.

The rest is memory, a little hazy but real. My parents talking, clipped, terse sentences shot in rapid-fire

staccato. Mother was angry; her skin feverish and pale. But my father wasn’t. He was . . . sad. Not quite

broken, but resigned. He laid Uncle’s katana andwakazashi upon the table, and then he said something

to my mother I’ve never forgotten: “Kan chose the wrong master.”

Then my father reached down and touched my cheek; I remember that my cheek was wet with hot

tears. I felt his rough, horny thumb on my skin, and I thought:He’s going away.

And he did. I didn’t see my father again until seven years had passed, when my mother died in a

hovercar accident. By then, he was a stranger. We shared a house. I didn’t even pretend that he was

necessary; I could take care of myself, thanks. We never really talked. Instead, we argued, flinging

words that stung like the quick, lightning strikes of a perfectly honed blade. Ours was a relationship that

died from a thousand small wounds. Then, two years later, I turned the tables, andI lefthim . I didn’t care

what he did, where he went. Akira Tormark simply ceased being my concern—and now he’s gone.

Probably dead; my God, he’d be past ninety by now. So he’s just like that dream now, a tissue-thin flap

of memory like the flesh that held Uncle’s head to his lifeless body. Nearly severed, but not quite.

Okay, fine. Maybe I’m crazy. But here’s what I figured out. My father spent all his time extolling the

virtues of The Republic, but when push came to shove? He went the way of the warrior—even if he tried

to deny it with every fiber of his being.

And me? Hell, I don’t know. The Republic’s not my home, not really; and the coordinator is, what,

indifferent? Incapable? I don’t know. There’s only silence, and that silence reminds me of that icy, hard,

awful chasm between my parents, and my feeling that if I tried hard enough to please them, they’d stop,

and we’d be a family again.

Whoa. I had to stop there, look away, then read that last bit again. What, I’m some snot-nosed kid

demanding, “Notice me, notice me, I’m here?” I guess there are worse motives, but I’d kind of like to

think there’s more to it than that. But I’m on my course now, claiming worlds for the Dragon. People

might think I’m nuts, tempting a power as awesome as the coordinator’s.

And if Vincent Kurita demands my death? I’d do it. Gladly. Because then,finally , I’d belong. I’d be

someone’s daughter, not a ghost’s or a memory’s, but a real, flesh-and-blood daughter: a Daughter of

the Dragon.

Ludwig Nadir Jump Point

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Benjamin Military District, Draconis Combine

1 October 3134

Katana Tormark.

Marcus wasn’t sure what to do first: put his fist through a window, or murder his brother. Both were

impossible. For one thing, the windows (or portals, or portholes, or whatever was JumpShip-speak)

were triply-reinforced ferroglass, virtually indestructible. For another, infinitely more important reason,

Jonathan was much more likely to killhim first, not because Jonathan was necessarily stronger or more

cunning but because Jonathan had legs that worked and a lot more practice. So what Marcus did instead

was turn aside and stare out at all that deadly, silent, beautiful space.

From the outside, his personal JumpShip looked like any otherMagellan -class vessel: a stout tube with

a bulbous nose collared with six capsule-shaped fuel tanks. Nothing special. (Unless you figured in the

windows: they cost. Marcus was nearly as wealthy as Jacob Bannson, but while Bannson’s billions

funded his quest for the holy grail of respectability, Marcus bought the thing that revenge demanded:

discretion.)

Inside, theOmega screamed wealth. Besides the lack of a grav deck—something Marcus missed not at

all—and the addition of an onboard medical facility (sadly, a necessity), the ship was a lavishly appointed

home stretched end to end and all around. There were computer workstations positioned at desks along

the “floor” and illuminated by specialized full-spectrum UV-blocked lights from “above.” There were

rich, handwoven Shirara rugs on grippads; teak and cherrywood furniture bolted to the deck; beds

sheathed in satin. Marcus even had a real library: actual leather-bound books with marbled edges and gilt

lettering. Worth more than their weight in platinum, the books were held in place by specially made

retention belts, and Marcus spent hours reveling in the sensation of cool, smooth leather. And there was

ferroglass, whole sections given over to elegant, transparent curves that gleamed with a buttery yellow

incandescence, or displayed millions of hard, diamond-bright stars glittering like sequins sewn onto black

velvet.

Now Marcus stared out, and his reflection stared back. Space had been kind to him even if life had not.

At fifty-four, he still possessed a lean, wolfish face with high cheekbones and sable-colored eyes that

took off ten years. He wore his camel-colored hair military short. Weightless the majority of the time,

he’d escaped gravity’s fingers, the way they dragged through the putty of a man’s face. His shoulders

were broad, his arms bunched with cords of muscle, his abdomen washboard flat, and his hands

powerful enough to crush walnuts.

But if space had been good to Marcus, time had been better to Jonathan. Marcus’ moody gaze slid to

the reflection of his younger brother floating with infuriating nonchalance on the other side of the room.

Jonathan was more than handsome. He was beautiful. Sensuous lips, a lush mane of black hair shot

through with silver that might look ridiculous in zerog but cascaded in silken rivers under gravity, and a

pair of hooded, smoke-gray eyes that suggested the pleasures of the bedroom. Even before the accident,

Jonathan was a quarter meter taller and had a leopard’s sinewy grace.

Marcus scowled. “Why do you insist on taking risks?”

“Because I can.” Sighing, his brother unfurled like a cat working out the kinks. “Where’s the sport in a

fast kill?”

“Sport,” Marcus grunted. Pushing off from the window, he twisted left, hooked his left hand into a

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handhold strategically located just shy of the curve of the room’s “ceiling.” His scrawny, paralyzed legs

drifted behind like wind socks snatched by a weak breeze. “This isn’t a game, Jonathan. Katana

Tormark must die. Getting rid of the Bounty Hunter was a necessity; we needed to put you in her camp.

But toying with ISF agents, that business on Towne . . . “

“Notbusiness .” Jonathan peered through his lashes. “Practice.”

“Eight murders seems excessive.”

“Nine. Shu’s daughter was a bonus.”

“She wasn’t a bonus. Shu just didn’t know how to finish what he’d started.”

“Oh, don’t be such a spoilsport, Marcus. You’re just angry because you couldn’t do the little twat

yourself.”

“That’s beside the point.”

“Really,” Jonathan drawled. “So why did you insist I record them? Don’t tell me you haven’t enjoyed

those data crystals. You think you’re the only one who knows how to access a computer and see who’s

been listening to what?”

“Jonathan,” Marcus began, then stopped, mortified. What Jonathan said was true. Listening to the

women plead for their lives, promise to doanything for Jonathan, and then watching, mesmerized, as

theydid . . . even thinking about them made Marcus’ pulse jackhammer in his veins, his mouth go dry.

Marcus was fabulously wealthy, yes, but he needed his brother to be his eyes, his ears. His body and the

women . . .

“That’s not the issue,” he managed tersely. “You can’t go around . . .recruiting people on a whim, then

going on a little spree.”

“And why not? What’s a little murder between friends?”

“Shu wasn’t your friend.”

“No,” said Jonathan, frowning in mock solemnity. “You’ve got a point there. He was just in love with

me. Butwhat a stroke of luck, eh? Stumbling onto Shu and his lovely daughter during one of their naughty

little games . . . the poor girl was half-dead by the time I cut that scarf.” Grinning, he tucked, rolled, then

planted his feet against a slim bulkhead and shot across the room, sailing for a high corner. There he

wedged: a human spider at the center of an invisible web. “You know, I’m beginning to understand what

you see in zerog . Sex must be quite the experience.”

“Don’t change the subject,”

“Spoilsport.” Then Jonathan sighed. “I had to give the policesomeone, and dear little Shu was so eager.

It was like having a cocker spaniel.”

“He was inept. What about that girl he let run off?”

Jonathan tsk-tsked. “Yes, well. Everyone’s nervous the first time. But if I told him once, I told him a

thousand times: No, Shu dear, you cut out their tonguesafter they’re dead.”

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Loren L. Coleman - BattleTech - MechWarrior - Dark Age 16 - Daughter Of The Dragon

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