Ten meters in, he saw light pouring from a vent. His heart pounded as he forced himself to inch down the tunnel. Straining to hear the sounds coming from below, he soon identified voices, whose words he valiantly tried to discern and their meaning decipher. Then he reached the vent itself.
Akira's heart leaped to his throat. I've died and gone to Valhalla.Dumbfounded, he stared at the scene below. By the Dragon's blood! It's either Valhalla or the Universe's own hell...
Stretching back through the cavernous chamber below him, rank after rank of BattleMechs confronted Akira. Grouped by weight, with the lightest 'Mechs nearest the walls and working inward to the titanic assault 'Mechs in the center, the war machines stood in neat, orderly lines like soldiers at attention. Dwarfed by their charges, Techs and astechs in yellow Acolyte robes moved repair and maintenance equipment over and around the 'Mechs.
Akira tried to wet his lips, but his mouth had gone utterly dry. The long lines of 'Mechs receded so deeply into the room that he could barely make out the back rows. Each machine gleamed white except for the ComStar logo emblazoned in gold upon its chest.
Akira rubbed his eyes in disbelief, but he could not deny the reality of this legion of BattleMechs under ComStar's arms. His heart sank. My father may believe he saw the Yellow Bird when he fought Morgan Kell, but he was mistaken. It's this—this horde of 'Mechs that will be the Dragon's death.Staring at the nearest machines, he saw that these were not even battlefield salvage. If any of these 'Mechs have ever seen battle, I'll gladly defend the Lyran border all by myself.
Badly shaken, Akira crawled back through the tunnels to the vent shaft, erasing his chalk marks as he went. Wedging his knees, elbows, and back against the tunnel walls, letting the sword hang across his chest again, he slowly nudged his way up to the surface. At the exit, Akira moved the grate off the tunnel and lowered it to the ground. He uncoiled himself from the cramped shaft, then straightened up to stretch his weary muscles.
The garrote dropped around Akira's throat and jerked him backward as his assailant tried to pull it tight. Because it caught on the sword's hilt, the garrote failed to crush Akira's windpipe cleanly, giving him a chance to react to the ambush. The Mech-Warrior clawed at the wire with his right hand as he drove his left elbow back into his assailant's chest. Akira heard ribs pop with the second blow. As the garrote slackened slightly, he grabbed it in both hands and pulled. Ducking quickly then, he bent forward and flipped his attacker over his head.
Even before his assailant hit the ground, Akira had wrapped his left hand around the sword's sheath and pulled it free of his body. Though his attention was focused on the person lying before him, he caught a flash of something moving on his left as he started to draw the blade. Emerging from the brush, another attacker lunged forward with a metallic truncheon just shorter than the sword. Pivoting to the left, Akira made a weak attempt at parrying the blow with his half-drawn blade, but utterly failed to stop the attack.
The truncheon jabbed him in the left armpit, exploding fiery agony through every nerve on that side of his body. The electric jolt threw Akira halfway across the small clearing like a toy discarded by an angry child. The MechWarrior rolled to a stop in a crumpled heap, his sword lost somewhere in the underbrush.
Stun-stick. Feels like half my body is on fire.He lay on his back gasping for air as a third individual joined the first two. Each wore a helmet with full, dark visor that gave no clue to the wearer's identity. Their dark uniforms had padding at the elbows and knees but no rank or branch insignia that Akira could make out as they swam into focus. Because all three were tall and powerfully built, he had first assumed they were all male. Without seeing their faces or some other clue, he realized that there was really no way to determine any of their sex.
His first attacker rewound the garrote around gloved hands. When he turned to speak to the latest arrival, his voice buzzed like an insect's because of computer modulation. "He is mine to kill, Captain."
The figure with the stun-stick shook his head. "No." He pointed the stun-stick at Akira. "I struck. I hit. The kill is mine."
The garroter hugged his left elbow to his broken ribs. "But he laid hands upon my person."
The Captain nodded to the man with the garrote. As that one moved to finish the job he'd begun earlier, Akira kicked up with his right foot. He dealt the garroter a crushing blow to the groin, then struck again, propelling his attacker aside into the dark brush. The modulator translated the man's screams into harsh, flat croaks as he stumbled around in the undergrowth. There followed the sound of a great crash and then the croaking ceased.
Akira, half-paralyzed, glared at the remaining pair of guards. "I will not die easily."
"Suit yourself, infidel." As the man with the stun-stick started toward Akira, another shadow figure detached itself from the night-darkened undergrowth. He locked one hand on the ComStar guard's chin and the other on the back of his helmet. Yanking back and twisting savagely, the shadowman jerked the guard off his feet, snapping the man's neck like a dry twig.
The ComStar Captain turned toward the shadowman, drawing a neural whip and telescoping its blade out to full length. The lean shadowman dropped into a low crouch as the whip's electric hum sliced through the night. Using the whip blade like a fencing foil, the Captain feinted twice at his victim and Akira could feel the ComStar man's confidence growing.
Then a smaller man appeared at the Captain's back. "No way, Morgan. You had the other one." Cracking his knuckles, the new man laughed easily. "This one is mine . . . Let's see what he's got."
The Captain whirled in an instant, slashing wildly at the man behind him. The small man dropped beneath the cut, then swept his legs through the Captain's. The ComStar Captain crashed to his back, raising his hands to defend himself, but the small man did not press his attack.
Shaking his head, the smaller figure stood up, brushing dirt from his hands. "Slow, very slow," he said, looking down at the Captain and waving him forward. "Come on. Get up."
The Captain scrambled to his feet and brandished the neural whip. In full control of his movements, he inched forward like a fencer. He kept the blade's tip moving in small circles as he worked his way in. When he felt the gap had closed enough between himself and his target, he lunged.
The small man sidestepped, then ducked under the recovery slash. As the Captain retreated and fought to regain his balance, the small man swept in. He lashed out with a roundhouse kick that snapped the Captain's head back, blasting him to the ground.
The shadowman shook his head. "Do it, Jaime. We don't have that much time."
Wolf nodded and pulled a glove from his belt and onto his left hand. The Captain regained his feet, but before he could set himself to attack, Wolf had closed with him. The Captain slashed at him, but Wolf caught the blade's forte in his left hand.
"Insulation, friend, makes your fancy toy worthless," Wolf said. Stiffening the fingers of his right hand, he stabbed them into the Captain's throat. The ComStar guard collapsed at Wolf's feet.
Yorinaga Kurita emerged from the brush and knelt beside his son. "Can you move?"
Akira nodded painfully. "Hai, sosen.The stun-stick got me on the left side. What isn't numb hurts pretty bad."
Wolf looked over at Yorinaga. "Can you get him back by yourself?"
"Hai."
"Good. Morgan and I will clean up here. Kid, did you bring anything with you besides yourself?"