Chi exhaled a long puff of smoke, causing eyes to water and cutting off the Kanrei's response by forcing a cough from him. "I knew that Noketsuna had an unusual past, even more so than my monkish confederate Shotugama, but he seems to have ordered his District well. I had not heard that he was a pirate. Is it true, Theodore, that you allow barbarians to run one of our important districts, instead of confining them to the ranks of the ISF?"
"You are impertinent, Tai-shuChi," Ninyu said, warning clear in his voice and tightened jaw muscles.
"Yet you prove him correct with your bad manners, Ninyu- kun," Theodore chuckled. The others followed the Kanrei's lead, pretending to find the comments humorous and thereby avoiding conflict. Dechan found the reaction very Kuritan, but he observed that Ninyu's slow-growing smile did not extend to his eyes.
"With regard to your assignment, Ninyu- kun, there is no change," Theodore said. "You'll go to Dieron because I have need of your special expertise along that front. You'll just have to get along with Tai-shuNoketsuna as best you can."
Dechan thought that he would rather be the third passenger in a Locustwith a bad gyro and a faulty leg actuator than be around those two. Ninyu had taken an instant dislike to Michi as soon as he had joined Theodore's shitenno,and Michi, though less vocal about it, had returned the sentiment. Jenette dismissed Michi's antipathy as the remnants of anger over events leading to the death of his mentor, Minobu Tetsuhara. Dechan wasn't so sure. He had known Michi longer and had a growing feeling that there was more behind his friend's reaction.
Much of that feud had spilled over onto Jenette and himself, connected as they were to Michi. Ninyu took any opportunity to ridicule them and remind anyone who would listen of their origins. The whole situation had not made their already precarious position in the Combine any easier. The years had gone by quickly, though, lost in training and tactical exercises. Dechan had discovered a liking for the job. The new recruits were eager and many showed great promise; teaching them was easy. Their belief in bushidogave them a drive Dechan had only seen previously among the Dragoons.
But despite the pleasure he found in imparting his skills, the years had been lonely ones. He and Jenette, shadowed by their association with Wolf's Dragoons, had encountered little sympathy among the often suspicious Kuritans, and they had no real friends here. Without Jenette, Dechan knew, he would never have lasted. There were few people with whom he was comfortable, beyond Kowalski the Tech, Asano, and Tetsuhara. Dechan still found it hard to believe that Fuhito was the brother of the old Iron Man himself. Theodore was cordial, but Dechan had never really warmed to him. His wife Tomoe was another story. She had been full of kindness, but they saw little of her.
Dechan searched for Michi among the dispersing officers, but he was not there. Probably already left for Dieron,Dechan thought ruefully. So much for spending some time with old friends.Since his appointment as Tai-shuof Dieron, Michi had been uncommunicative, answering their communiques with cold brevity or ignoring them entirely. Michi had abandoned them, leaving them trapped in a promise to help Theodore protect his realm. They had little choice but to follow through. Dechan had expected to be done with that promise by now.
The invasion of the Davion-Steiner alliance that Theodore had predicted should have come and gone for good or ill, but even the Kanrei's uncanny instincts had been thrown off by events in the last few years. The formation of the Free Rasalhague Republic had triggered secessionist sentiments across the Inner Sphere. The Free Worlds League had lost the powerful Duchy of Andurien, and Duncan Marik had seized the Captain-Generalcy and launched a campaign to regain Andurien. The Isle of Skye had threatened secession as well. In response, Hanse Davion had mobilized troops to hold his fledgling empire together by force. His harsh measures proved to be unnecessary when Ryan Steiner managed to bring the matter to a peaceful settlement, thereby embarrassing the Fox. Many in the Combine had expected Davion to throw those same troops into an assault against them, but it had not happened.
Kanrei Theodore had assured his commanders that Davion would not yet attack, for the Fox would wait for the Dragon to relax its vigilance. They had a reprieve, but he warned that Hanse Davion would come, lasers blazing, as soon as he believed he had the advantage.
Now that attack loomed on the horizon. The Free Worlds League was licking its wounds. Thomas Marik had picked up the pieces left behind by Duncan Marik's death in battle, and had successfully reintegrated Andurien into the League. Romano Liao's opportunistic attempt to assert herself had been slapped back. Steiner troops were massing in Skye, and several key units of the Armed Forces of the Federated Suns had vanished from their duty stations, much as they had before the outbreak of the Fourth War. Davionist sentiment was growing stronger in the worlds of the former Galtor Thumb, while Kurita's own attempts to stir nationalist sentiment in the former Tikonov Free Republic were less successful. It would not be long before Davion attacked.
"If Steiner can be intimidated, we will be able to concentrate on Davion."
The snug fit of the comment into Dechan's thoughts wrenched him back into the conversation.
"Don't speak of them so casually as separate opponents," Theodore cautioned the young aide who had spoken. "There's little to separate them now. Steiner troops are configured into the Regimental Combat Teams of the Davion AFFS. Their officers are cross-trained and some of each House's units actually contain troops of the other House. It's one army we face."
"Veneer only," Ninyu scoffed. "It's too soon for the changes to be more than cosmetic."
"What about our own troops?" Fuhito countered. "Isn't adherence to the Kanrei's new military doctrines also young? Could it also be only a veneer?"
"To a degree," Theodore admitted. "We face certain rivalries among our troops and among our officers as well. But we are bound together by our devotion to the Combine. Our enemies, in their haste to unite their realms, are blind to the depth of the differences that separate their peoples. Nor do their societies understand the necessity of order and the strength of the group. Their leaders see what they want to see: cooperation and good cheer. We'll use their blindness to our advantage."
"Such as the message you sent to the Archon Katrina Steiner," Chi inquired.
Theodore turned an evaluating gaze on the Tai-shu."Yes. That is one tool."
"But you said our enemy is a combined force," Fuhito objected. "Why do you speak to only one leader?"
"To distract them. I wish them to believe that I don't understand their organizational changes." Theodore smiled slyly. "Let them underestimate me. My message should help them do that."
Dechan spoke up. "But what is this message?"
Theodore hesitated, perhaps reluctant to reveal the information. "I simply warned the Archon to stay out of any conflict between the Draconis Combine and the Federated Suns. I pointed out that we had no interest in a conflict with the Commonwealth at this time, but told her that we would consider any intervention on her part as a violation of the conventions of civilized warfare. I warned her that such an act would mean that the Combine was no longer bound to deal with her according to those rules of war."
"You can't be serious." Jenette's expression was one of disbelief and shock. Dechan wondered if his own mirrored it. The Kuritans were infamous for atrocities, going back for centuries. Was the Kanrei preparing to live up to his ancestral heritage? Even though he and Jenette had given their word to help Theodore, he would no longer feel bound to the sacredness of a promise should the Kanrei descend into barbarism.