When the last screw was out, he laid it carefully with the others in the bottom of the case and flipped the hinge plate. From its hiding place between the hinge and the polybaux rim of the suitcase, Akira pulled a thin, paper-wrapped metal strip. The punctured holes down its center matched the location of the hinge screws. The bedside light flashed off the razor edge of the blackened blade as he stripped away the paper covering.
Akira refastened all but two of the screws, closed the case, and slid it back under the bed. He crossed the room to his chest of drawers, from which he pulled a thick leather belt and a clothes brush. He tossed them onto the bed beside the blade. After only a moment's hesitation, he removed his shirt and pulled on a thick black sweater over his naked torso.
Returning to the bed, Akira separated the belt buckle from the belt. An oblong oval of bronze with a lotus pattern worked in the center, the decorative buckle had been styled after a 16th-century Japanese swordguard. Akira slid it into place on the blade's tang and secured it with one of the two screws left from the suitcase.
Then he freed the wooden handle from the head of the clothes brush and screwed it into the blade's tang to form a hilt. Satisfied at last that he'd gotten it set as tightly as possible against the guard, he used the last suitcase screw to fasten it securely. Finally, Akira used the sword's keen edge to slice through the stitching holding the belt's two layers of leather together at the buckle end. The long blade slid home into its sheath without even a whisper.
After stripping the black laces from a pair of shoes, Akira studied the crudely drawn map of the ComStar training facility he'd made upon returning from the tour. As the group left the building, he'd studied the approaches and slowly worked out a plan for returning there without being seen. By soaking his black woolen sweater and pants in water, he would get a slight margin of protection from infrared scanners. Akira frowned, wondering whether it would be enough.
He traced his pencil-marked route with a slender finger. Come in from the sea on the south side and look for openings.Akira remembered the look of pride on the guide's face as he recounted the dozen construction projects undertaken in the past two centuries to expand ComStar's facilities. The accompanying slides, taken from the air, had shown the expansion and often included natural additions to the beaches surrounding the island.
Except in the area south of the training facility. There the shoreline had pushed out about fifty meters over the years, with the last big move coming when the training building was erected. But cliffs were not supposed to expand the way beaches do.
Akira shook his head as he used the shoelace to fashion a strap for the sheath. Why should I find it so difficult to believe that ComStar is training MechWarriors? The guide reminded us that Terra became ComStar's neutral headquarters after Jerome Blake planned and executed a 'Mech assault on the planet. Some even claim that he paid off the 'Mech regiments who helped him with vast amounts of spare parts, but who can say if what he gave away was only a drop in the bucket? Terra was, after all, the capital of the Star League. Who knows what ComStar actually found here?
Akira pulled his shaving kit into his lap, and lifted a small flashlight and a worn piece of chalk from it, which he shoved into his left front pocket along with the pocket knife he'd used before. Now he shut off the bedside lamp, plunging the room into darkness. After waiting with eyes closed for thirty heartbeats, he opened his eyes again, and they adjusted readily to the light cast by the white sliver of Terra's only moon.
He swung the sword onto his back—the hilt rising at his left shoulder—and walked around the bed to the arcadia doors. Using a strip of knitted black cloth that he pulled from his pocket, Akira made a mask by wrapping the strip around his face and head until only his eyes and a thin strip of flesh around them showed. Lastly, he slipped on a pair of black leather gloves, opened the door, and moved out into the shadows.
He became part of the night, slipping from inky patches of shadow to low hillsides covered with long stalks of wind-whipped sea grass. The crash of waves on the beach and the rustling of leaves swallowed what few sounds Akira actually did make during his journey. Where the entrance to a canal cut across the beach, he slipped into the water and waded through to the other side.
Moving with exaggerated caution and care, it took him half an hour to cross 500 meters of uninhabited beach, but Akira surrendered himself to his sense of the night and moved with it. He only took conscious note of things that were out of the ordinary. Other than a few guests hurrying to attend the Marik-sponsored reception, there was little to attract his attention.
Guided only by feel, Akira worked up along the rocky face forming the south shore. The climb was not difficult for him, except when he had to backtrack once after running out of handholds for pulling himself up. Compared to the cliffsides on his grandfather's estate on Rasalhague, this ten-meter edifice was nothing. After finally pulling himself up over the top, Akira lay there quietly to listen and regain his strength.
While lying there, he recalled his map. ComStar or not, when they extended this spit of land and built beneath it, they had to provide for ventilation. With luck, I can find a vent large enough to slip through. If not, I'll have to try some of the tricks I learned for getting unauthorized supplies from the Eleventh Vegan Legion's depot. If they work here on Terra, I'll be into the building's restricted areas tomorrow.
Having heard nothing suspicious while resting at the cliff-edge, Akira proceeded to work his way inland through the thick, tangled undergrowth. His desire to move as quietly as possible made it difficult going, but it was not long before he found a grate-covered cement cylinder jutting about half a meter out from a low rise.
He took a deep whiff of the moist air pouring from the opening. Mech coolant!He smiled approvingly. Vented out here, it mixes with the ocean breezes and no one can detect it. One of the MechWarriors must have had a vest leak this afternoon, or been working on his 'Mech earlier.
Cupping the flashlight in his hands to partially hide its beam, Akira peered closely at the four bolts securing the grate to the vent. He smiled and fished out his pocket knife. Salt air and warm weather had done their work on the bolts, and so Akira made short work of them with a few strong strokes of the knife's hacksaw blade.
Shifting the sword around to his belly, he then lowered himself feet first into the diagonally set shaft. Though more narrow and confining than a 'Mech cockpit, it held no terrors for Akira. With this tight a fit, I can easily climb back up.He lifted the grate back into place, then slid down into the darkness.
At a depth of about seven meters, his shaft intersected another tunnel of roughly double its diameter. Akira dropped into it and crouched. Taking a small piece of chalk from his pocket, he marked his tunnel with a triangle pointing toward the surface. Then he looked both up and back along the tunnel, before choosing to head south toward the ocean.
Akira moved carefully on through the ventilation tunnel, using the flashlight only when absolutely necessary. When he did, he kept the burst of light short so that it would not interfere with his nightvision. Twelve meters in, the main shaft began to slant down at a sharp angle, with another shaft moving laterally off to the west.
Akira stopped. The air's moister coming from down there. Apparently, the ComStar training facility does extend beneath the ocean.Reluctant to head down the shaft for fear it might become too steep or slick for him to climb back out, Akira cut west along the tunnel he visualized as running roughly parallel to the cliff face.