TEXT: BattleCorps
  HUNTER OF
  THE YELLOW BIRD
  Steven Mohan, Jr.
  
  BattleCorps
  Hunter of the Yellow Bird • Page 
  Paschal District, Northwest of the Palace District 
  Imperial City, Luthien 
  Pesht Military District, Draconis Combine 
  22 December 3070
  Even after all these years, Tai-i Albert Benton found waiting to 
  be the hardest thing of all. One would think that nearly a decade 
  of command would have taught him some patience. He shook his 
  head.
  How had Sorenson managed it?
  Benton sat in darkness, his Black Hawk still and silent in the 
  abandoned warehouse provided by a yakuza oyabun still loyal to 
  Theodore Kurita.
  Benton swallowed painfully.
  Still loyal to Theodore Kurita’s memory.
  He leaned forward and touched his control panel, cycling 
  through the presets. Images of intersections flashed on his main 
  screen, a parade of concrete and glass. This far north there was 
  no teak.
  Finding nothing interesting in the live feeds, he returned to the 
  tactical schematic, which showed the crimson symbols of the First 
  Genyosha deployed in a long skirmish line along Horikawa-dori 
  As Benton watched, a set of black icons threw themselves into the 
  slash of red.
  The Second Sword of Light.
  At first, the Genyosha stood up to the onslaught. But as precious 
  minutes passed the crimson line began to bend. Benton’s eyes 
  marked a lance of light machines on the Genyosha right flank that 
  had drifted a little farther back than the rest of the line. 
  The gap continued to widen.
  Benton’s gaze darted to a street map. The Genyosha lance was 
  backing down along Oike-dori The street diverged from the main 
  axis of the retreat. Unless the light machines moved left along a 
  cross street, they were exposed.
  Apparently the Sworders had figured that out, too.
  
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  Hunter of the Yellow Bird • Page 
  As Benton watched, six medium machines raced toward the gap 
  in the Genyosha line. Enough firepower to quickly crush the light 
  machines and then pivot and roll-up the Genyosha’s right flank.
  Benton punched up the presets again, stopping on camera five.
  This time he saw something interesting. An ash-gray Panther 
  backing toward the camera’s pickup. 
  A flat red Komodo driving the light ’Mech back with its lasers.
  Benton felt the rumble of the approaching machines in his 
  bones.
  He pulled up preset six.
  Nothing.
  The thunder of approaching BattleMechs grew more insistent, 
  now accompanied by the shrill whine of lasers and the rippling 
  explosions of missiles.
  The Genyosha Panther appeared on his screen. This shot was 
  a side view. Ugly black wounds scarred the ’Mech’s Maxmillian 
  42 armor. Benton saw the articulation of a titanium femur in the 
  Panther’s right leg.
  Time was running out on the light machine and its brave pilot.
  He worked through his presets again before settling back on six 
  again. The same kind of mismatch was taking place at all the in-
  tersections.
  “Sabre One, this is Sabre Two,” said Jasmine Rubach, an edge 
  in her voice. Their comms line had been hard-wired ’Mech to 
  ’Mech, same as the video pickups, so there was no need for radio 
  silence.
  “Wait for it, Chu-i,” he snapped just as the Komodo stepped into 
  the shot.
  He watched the medium ’Mech work its heat load, first hitting 
  the Panther with a quintet of medium lasers, then following with 
  the large laser in its left arm. Then taking a step forward.
  Faster, he thought. Faster, damn you.
  The Komodo took another step.
  And Benton saw a flash of the great machine’s red back.
  
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  Hunter of the Yellow Bird • Page 
  “All Sabres, Sabre One,” he roared, “ATTACK.”
  Quickly bringing his machine up to full power, he lumbered to-
  ward the warehouse wall, punching through the thin, corrugated 
  steel and emerging into bright sunlight.
  He dropped his reticle over the medium’s back. It flashed gold as 
  soon as he cleared the warehouse.
  And then his cockpit was filled with the whipcrack of particle pro-
  jection cannons. Violet lightning burned into the Sworder’s back.
  The Komodo stumbled forward, steadied itself with a step. 
  Pivoted.
  The Panther lashed into the Sworder with his own PPC, followed 
  by a flight of SRMs. Then the damaged Genyosha machine ducked 
  behind a parking garage.
  Good, thought Benton. Snipe at him from behind. 
  He hit his foot pedals, igniting his Icarus jump jets just as ruby 
  light flashed through the space Benton had occupied a second 
  before.
  He came down firing his PPCs, deliberately carving up the ar-
  mor that shielded the low, flat cockpit that extended from the 
  Komodo’s torso.
  The Panther stepped out from behind the garage and put anoth-
  er flight of missiles into the Komodo’s weakened rear armor. The 
  Sworder machine shuddered with the blow.
  The SRMs were precious, but Benton had to hand it to the 
  Panther’s pilot—he was making them count.
  The Komodo tracked his fall with its lasers, melting armor from 
  the Omni’s legs until it ran like water. Benton came down hard 
  enough to rattle his teeth in his skull and force the breath from his 
  body.
  But he did not fall.
  He dropped his reticle over the steel gray Kurita dragon right 
  above the cockpit. Two bolts of man-made lightning gouged deep 
  runnels in the already damaged armor.
  Focused on the heavy machine headhunting him from the front, 
  the Komodo pilot forgot about the light ’Mech behind him.
  
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  Hunter of the Yellow Bird • Page 
  The Panther stepped out and pounded another salvo of SRMs 
  into the Komodo’s back, followed by a blast from its PPC.
  The Sworder machine spasmed, a sure sign of gyroscope dam-
  age. The pilot punched out just before the Komodo toppled 
  forward. The forty-five-ton ’Mech hit with enough force to shake 
  the earth under the great feet of the Black Hawk.
  Benton’s temperature alarm was keening. He drew a breath of 
  superheated air and reached over, slapped the override. 
  He stalked his Black Hawk over to where the pilot lay on the 
  ground, still strapped to his command couch. Benton flicked on 
  his external speakers. “Hear my words, Steel Dragon. I have a 
  message for the Kokoryu-kai.”
  Then he raised his ’Mech’s right foot and brought it down with all 
  the force of his machine’s sixty tons.
  Benton stepped back, leaving nothing behind but the flattened 
  wreckage of mangled steel and a smear of red.
  Only when he heard the low, savage “hai,” picked up by the 
  Panther pilot’s voice activated mic, did he realize the Genyosha 
  pilot had watched the whole thing.
  Benton smiled grimly. The Black Dragons wanted a return to 
  tradition? Today they would have all of the tradition they could 
  stomach.
  Instead of outnumbering the retreating Genyosha, it was the 
  Sworders that were outnumbered better than two to one. And 
  once these traitors were disposed of, Sorenson’s Sabres would 
  pivot and attack the Sworder’s left. It would be the Black Dragons 
  that would be flanked.
  And then Benton saw a flicker of motion in his rear monitor. He 
  glanced down.
  Something moved behind him, two, three blocks down, a sleek, 
  fast design that looked a little like a carnivorous dinosaur wearing 
  wraparound sunglasses.
  And it was bone white.
  Nexus. And behind it a Blue Flame. And behind that, a Grand 
  Titan.
  Blinding Light had come to call.
  
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  Hunter of the Yellow Bird • Page 
  And just like that all the careful planning and the heartbreaking 
  courage of the retreating Genyosha lance was wasted. They had 
  the perfect opportunity to smash the Second Sword of Light.
  But Benton didn’t dare attack with Word of Blake at his back.
  He reached down and toggled his comms frequency. “All Sabres, 
  Sabre One. Fall back. Fall back, now.” He closed his eyes. “Fighting 
  withdrawal.”
  The words tasted like filth in his mouth.
  
  BattleCorps
  Hunter of the Yellow Bird • Page 
  Yaginuma Happy Sweet Warehouse Number Six 
  Imperial City, Luthien
  Benton stalked his Black Hawk toward a commercial building 
  painted scrub white. There was a logo on the side of the building: 
  a wheat-colored circle for a child’s face, a half-moon smile, eyes 
  closed in pleasure—the logo of Yaginuma Happy Sweet, the big-
  gest sugar processor in the Combine. A giant roll-up door opened 
  as Benton approached.
  What was inside had nothing to do with sweets.
  He stepped into one of the hidden Otomo armories sprinkled 
  throughout Imperial City. Their location was unknown to mem-
  bers of the regular DCMS, a precaution that Benton had always 
  thought ridiculous.
  Until recently.
  This one housed the Sabre’s command lance. He saw Grace 
  Shiro’s flat red Jenner with its silver head and Mark’s Grand Dragon. 
  Hohiro’s Hunchback was still missing. Benton felt a stab of worry.
  He stepped his Hawk into its alcove and powered down. Wearily 
  he pushed his way out of the Omni’s cockpit and took the gantry 
  elevator down.
  Kashira Karin McCarthey was waiting for him at the end of his 
  journey. She was a rail thin woman in her early forties, dressed in 
  stained blue coveralls. McCarthey had sewn a patch over the left 
  breast of the coveralls: the Sabres’ emblem: a flaming scimitar 
  over a mushroom cloud. She was a plain woman: mousy brown 
  hair cut short, a spray of freckles across her pale skin, muddy 
  brown eyes.
  She was also a genius.
  McCarthey bowed respectfully. “Good evening, Benton-sama.”
  Benton bowed in return. “McCarthey-san. How is the best tech-
  nician on Luthien this afternoon?”
  She shook her head. “I’d be better if your MechWarrior’s man-
  aged to bring my machines back. Where’s my Hunchback?”
  “I am sure Busosenshi Utsonomiya will return it to you with apol-
  ogies for the delay.”
  
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  Hunter of the Yellow Bird • Page 
  She snorted. “He’d better.” She glanced up. “It looks like you 
  didn’t treat Striker too badly. For a change.”
  Benton tasted something sour. He’d managed to pull his ma-
  chine out of the battle almost before it had begun. “Hai,” was all 
  he said.
  He glanced up at his Black Hawk with its twin PPCs. He preferred 
  to pilot the F variant, but spare parts and weapon load outs had 
  grown scarce on Luthien. Especially since LAW went up in a mush-
  room cloud in ‘68. Part of the reason his company was fielding ten 
  ’Mechs instead of twelve. And why Striker was walking around as 
  a BHKU-OA.
  “I don’t suppose there might be an opportunity to upgrade?”
  McCarthey frowned. “I’ll see what I can do.”
  Benton sighed. It was her way of saying “no.”
  It was just as well. He had no right asking for an upgrade when 
  other pilots were going out with ammunition half-loads.
  “Tai-i Benton.”
  He turned and saw Chu-sa Nathan Garner, the Genyosha com-
  mander striding toward him. Garner was a tall man with fair skin and 
  hazel eyes. Garner had always been known for his ready smile and 
  his penchant for devious practical jokes. But that had been before.
  That part of Garner had been burned away by the treacher-
  ous nuclear detonation that had taken Tai-sa Shih Chou from the 
  Genyosha. Since Garner assumed command he had grown tense 
  and angry, twisted and coiled, like a spring carrying too great a 
  load and slowly deforming under the stress.
  War was filled with all kinds of casualties, some more difficult to 
  recognize than others.
  “You failed to execute the ambush, Tai-i Benton,” Garner said 
  coldly.
  Benton shook his head. “I had Word of Blake moving in from the 
  southwest. “ 
  “You do not understand, Tai-i. We will not get this opportuni-
  ty again. This was a chance to deal a grievous blow to the Black 
  Dragon and now it is gone. Or do you imagine the Second Sword 
  of Light will fall for the same trick a second time?”
  
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  Hunter of the Yellow Bird • Page 
  “My people were trapped between hammer and anvil,” said 
  Benton quietly. He glanced at Utsonomiya’s empty alcove. “Some 
  have still not returned.”
  “You should have held,” said Garner bitterly.
  Benton came to attention. “I would have gladly spent my life and 
  the lives of my people to purchase a victory. Is the Chu-sa sug-
  gesting I should have spent those lives to bring about defeat?”
  Garner’s eyes narrowed. “A true samurai understands that hon-
  or is sacrifice.”
  Benton swallowed and drew his wakizashi He knelt on the ferro-
  crete deck and bowed his head, aware of a sudden startled silence 
  in the hangar. He placed his left hand behind his back and, grip-
  ping the blade of the knife, held it out to Garner. “I offer the Chu-sa 
  whatever sacrifice he feels is required.”
  Garner snatched the weapon from his hand.
  Benton felt light-headed. He placed his right hand in the palm of 
  his left and drew a deep breath into himself. 
  And held it.
  Waiting for the moment of incandescent pain and disgrace that 
  Bushido demanded.
  He jumped when the blade clattered to the ground. “Tai-i 
  Sorenson would not have failed me,” said Garner in a low, bitter 
  voice.
  Benton closed his eyes.
  Garner’s words cut him more deeply than the blade ever could.
  
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  Mule-Class DropShip Bigby’s Lady 
  En Route To Luthien
  Adept Rebecca Kitter shifted her weight one more time, uncom-
  fortable even under the half-gee acceleration. Bigby’s Lady was 
  the eighth ship she’d inspected this watch. She was also the rank-
  est. The ship somehow managed to smell of sweat and machine 
  oil and cow shit all at the same time. 
  The Lady was the kind of vessel that couldn’t afford to be too 
  choosy about her cargoes. This time around she was delivering 
  winter wheat from Kilmarnock. Kitter could hear the rats skittering 
  among the bags of grain. 
  She shuddered. It would have been easier to close the system 
  to all traffic.
  But Luthien had to eat.
  So officers like Kitter had to inspect DropShips to make sure no 
  contraband got in or out.
  It was an impossible task. Luthien was a world of billions of work-
  ers and zero farmers. That meant the ag shipments never stopped. 
  Word of Blake weren’t equipped to conduct a full-scale blockade. 
  The best they could do was keep out the big stuff. 
  Like BattleMechs.
  So Kitter stepped into the Mule’s cargo hold, striding down the 
  rows that separated the pallets of grain bags, her sharp eyes look-
  ing for some form of deception. 
  She found none.
  Unless the crew of the Lady had disassembled the great ma-
  chines into pieces small enough to fit into a fifty-kilo bag of grain, 
  there were no ’Mechs here.
  She reached a bulkhead and stopped, drew a deep breath. It was 
  hot in the bay, thirty-five degrees at least and it smelled bad. She 
  wiped her forearm across her eyes. Then she opened them again.
  Something felt wrong.
  She blinked. Cargo ships carried all kinds of material handling 
  equipment: tugs and forklifts all the way up through loader ’Mechs 
  on the really big vessels. During transit, such equipment had to be 
  
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  Hunter of the Yellow Bird • Page 11
  tied down. But the clamp she was looking at now was entirely too 
  big for anything the Lady might legitimately be carrying.
  It was ’Mech-sized.
  She glanced up. Seven meters off the deck was a second mas-
  sive clamp. Perfect for locking down a humanoid ’Mech. 
  The clamps were covered with a heavy coating of rust—based 
  on what she’d seen of the Lady it was possible that the clamps 
  hadn’t been used in a century. Still . . 
  Kitter stepped forward and drew the laser pistol at her hip. She 
  aimed it at the clamp and pulled the trigger.
  The screech of her weapon filled the cargo bay. Ruby fire sparked 
  off the clamp. She held the shot for a good twenty seconds un-
  til she felt the heat rolling off the metal. She drew a breath and 
  leaned forward to examine her handiwork.
  The laser had cut a three-centimeter gash in the clamp’s sur-
  face.
  Revealing more rust underneath.
  Good.
  Kitter took a few quick pictures anyway, than she strode back to 
  speak with the Lady’s first mate.
  A dozen men and women waited for her just inside the cargo 
  deck, leaning against boxes or bulkheads, a few sitting on the 
  deck. Kitter took a picture for ROM to chew on later. She was al-
  ways taking pictures.
  The first mate, whose name was Robert Gunderson, was a short 
  man with a prominent gut. He wore sky blue coveralls that had 
  never seen a spot of grease. “What was that sound?” he demand-
  ed, though his pallor told Kitter he already knew the answer to that 
  question.
  “Just a tool of the trade,” said Kitter. 
  Gunderson scowled. “Are you finished? We have deliveries to 
  make.”
  Kitter examined the faces around her. Twelve men and wom-
  en out of a crew of twenty. Between engineering and the bridge 
  there would be three or four people on watch. That meant there 
  
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  were still a few crew unaccounted for. “Where’s the rest of your 
  people?”
  Gunderson sighed. “We had a engineering casualty. Lost Number 
  Two Scrubber. The snipes are belowdecks trying to bring it back 
  up.”
  Which made sense. A bucket like this probably had round-the-
  clock problems. Kitter was behind schedule, and she was certain 
  this tub couldn’t be smuggling anything. She should move on to 
  the next dropper.
  Except…
  Except something just didn’t feel right.
  “Maybe I should speak with the captain.”
  Out of the corner of her eye Kitter saw a man and a woman share 
  a look.
  Gunderson turned red. “I really don’t see—”
  “Now,” snapped Kitter.
  Unhappily, he turned and led her to a hatch labeled: “Captain 
  Darius Bigby.”
  “Open it,” she said tightly.
  “Listen,” said Gunderson, “the Captain is the kind of man who—”
  Kitter jerked the rocker arm off the striker plate and shouldered 
  the hatch open. She stepped into a darkness only alleviated by a 
  tongue of light from the passageway behind her.
  She smelled hashish and alcohol and a funky, human smell. A 
  man and woman lay in a bed, both obviously naked. The man sat 
  up in the darkness. “What da’ hell’s goin’ on?” he asked, his voice 
  slurred.
  She turned and stepped out of the Captain’s grubby little den of 
  iniquity. Gunderson looked distinctly embarrassed.
  She happened to glance right and saw one of the engineers 
  watching her from down the passageway. He was disgusting: his 
  orange coveralls were thoroughly stained with oil, he was obese 
  (the coveralls were the size of a small tent), stubble shadowed his 
  double chin, and a smear of grease marked his face.
  
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  Demi-Precentor Hu chose that exact moment to contact her. His 
  irritated voice emerged from her comm. “Holy Blake, Kitter. Are 
  you conducting an inspection or are you trying to enlist?”
  She raised the device to her lips and pressed the send button. 
  “I’m coming, sir.” She glanced at the disgusting engineer. “There’s 
  nothing here.”
  
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  Graceful Crane Tea Room
  The Graceful Crane was an elegant name, but Benton liked the 
  teahouse for its ambience, or more correctly, it’s lack of ambience. 
  It was a hole in the wall catering to the dregs of Combine society. 
  Yakuza looked down on these people. Eta looked down on these 
  people. It was a place where citizens sold drugs or weapons or 
  themselves. Benton was probably the only customer who actually 
  came for the tea.
  He liked the Graceful Crane because here no one would recog-
  nize a soldier of the Combine, at least not one who’d traded his 
  MechWarrior togs for blue jeans and a khaki work shirt. Benton 
  always drank green tea when he came to this place, and this time 
  was no exception.
  But his hands shook when he lifted the ceramic cup to his lips.
  He closed his eyes and gently set the tea back down. He had 
  served his master as well as he was able. And when he’d failed his 
  master’s expectations, he had offered his life.
  What the hell should he have done differently?
  (What would you have done, Daniel?)
  Part of him recognized that Garner’s anger wasn’t really directed 
  at Benton, but at himself. Luthien was beset by traitors on one side 
  and invaders on the other. The Davions had attacked them and the 
  Nova Cats had abandoned them. Worlds of the Combine—whole 
  worlds—were sick and dying, infected by unknown plagues.
  Theodore Kurita was dead.
  How could one not consider these facts and a thousand more 
  just like them and not think The Dragon is dying? 
  And that was why Garner was angry. Because his thoughts 
  had turned to treason and he didn’t know how to turn them back. 
  Benton was certain this was how Garner felt.
  Because it was how he felt.
  He opened his eyes, intending a careful sip of his green tea. 
  Instead, he jumped.
  A man had slipped into the seat across from him. He looked to 
  be from Arkab, with skin the soft color of oak. His eyes were a 
  
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  brown so dark they looked black in the dim light of the teahouse 
  and they were hooded, suggesting the man was sleepy, though 
  a tingle at the back of his neck told Benton that nothing could be 
  farther from the truth. The man was old, his face well weathered 
  by the long passage of time. But there was nothing frail about 
  him.
  Nothing at all.
  Benton could feel the danger radiating off the man in waves. But 
  it wasn’t an obvious danger. It was subtle.
  That alone proved this man didn’t belong here.
  Very carefully, Benton set aside his tea.
  “I come here on behalf of the Dragon,” said the strange man.
  “Really?” said Benton. “And which coordinator would that be? 
  Hohiro? Minamoto?” He paused. “Theodore?”
  “I did not say the Coordinator,” said the man. “I said the 
  Dragon.”
  “And what would be the difference?” said Benton, a tone of men-
  ace slipping into his voice.
  “My master doesn’t care about politics,” said the man primly. 
  Benton snorted. “I didn’t know you could get to be a master 
  without caring about politics.” He took a sip of tea to show his in-
  difference, even though his muscles were stiff with tension. “What 
  does your master care about?”
  “The Yellow Bird.”
  “The Yellow Bird? And who would that be? The Black Dragons? 
  Word of Blake? Duke Sandoval? Thomas Marik? Kiyomori 
  Minamoto? Surely you have a candidate.”
  The man’s dark eyes bored into him. “You already know the an-
  swer to that question, Tai-i,” he said softly.
  He knows who I am. “Who are you?”
  The man stared at him for a long moment. “You may call me . . . 
  Peter,” he said, “if it pleases you.”
  Benton shook his head. “What kind of answer is that?”
  
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  The man smiled, a flash of white against leathery skin. “The only 
  kind you are likely to get.”
  “What do you want… Peter?”
  “My master has great respect for Sorenson’s Sabres. He wishes 
  to offer you the opportunity to destroy the Yellow Bird.”
  “I already serve the Dragon,” said Benton tightly.
  “Iie, Tai-i. You follow orders. It is not the same thing.”
  Benton opened his mouth and closed it again. “I fight the Black 
  Dragons.”
  “The Black Dragons are traitors and cowards. They are worthy 
  only of bloody, dishonorable deaths.” Peter leaned forward, his 
  black eyes blazing with fury. “But not today.”
  Benton slammed his fist on the table. “I fight for Luthien.”
  “Yes,” said the other man coldly. “But will you fight for the 
  Dragon?”
  And then he reached across the table and slapped the cup of 
  tea, sending it careening into the careless arms of gravity. It hit 
  the floor and shattered into a thousand pieces. Benton’s eyes fol-
  lowed the motion of the cup, only for a second.
  But when he looked up the strange, old man was gone.
  
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  Word of Blake Camp Alpha 
  Imperial City, Luthien
  Precentor Alice Phuong felt the reins of history slipping from her 
  grasp. Word of Blake was devoted to humanity’s salvation. Indeed, 
  they had landed on Luthien to save a loyal ally as a reward for 
  fighting to preserve the Star League.
  She closed her eyes and drew a heavy breath.
  Somehow, somehow, their devotion had been transmuted into 
  disaster. Here and across the Inner Sphere. How had the forces of 
  evil managed to portray the white hats as the bad guys?
  She opened her eyes and picked up a data chip, steeling herself 
  for another pointless task. She plugged the chip into a video dis-
  play and watched pictures flash by on her wallscreen.
  They were photos taken by the boarding parties. And what a 
  waste of time that was. She didn’t have the naval power to re-
  ally blockade this system. The best she could hope to do was try 
  to keep large forces of BattleMechs from reinforcing Luthien and 
  even then—
  She stopped the flicker of pictures and sat forward. She backed 
  up six shots until she found the face that had caught her attention. 
  The caption said the picture had been taken by an Adept Kitter 
  aboard the DropShip Bigby’s Lady.
  She pressed a button that signaled the acolyte sitting outside her 
  office. “Contact Adept Rebecca Kitter aboard Sword of Promise. I 
  wish to speak with her at once. Here.” She broke the connection 
  before the acolyte even had time to acknowledge the order.
  Her eyes fixed on the fat crewman in the background, the one 
  that looked like he’d been cleaning out a servo mechanism from 
  the inside.
  Now why the hell did he look so familiar?
  
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  Cinema City, Luthien 
  23 December 3070
  Benton stepped his Black Hawk behind a massive soundstage 
  and hit his jump jets, landing his machine just beyond the build-
  ing’s far corner. 
  He came down firing, PPCs ripping into a bone white Red Shift. 
  The light ’Mech slapped back with its twin pulse lasers, but it 
  was no match for Benton’s heavy and the Wobbie pilot knew it. He 
  darted around the building’s corner.
  The Shift was capable of speeds of 151 kph. Benton’s Black Hawk 
  was never going to run the fleet little machine down.
  A lopsided smile touched his lips. Time to rely on guile.
  He punched through building’s thin wall and crashed through 
  elaborate naval sets that celebrated some ancient war between 
  Japan and the United States of America. Benton smashed through 
  a scattering of propeller-driven aircraft painted green with a red 
  meatball on their sides, racing for the wide cargo opening at the 
  building’s north end.
  He saw the Shift stalk past the open door, silhouetted by sunlight.
  Benton pulled into his triggers.
  A double strike of man-made lightning tore off one of the light 
  ’Mech’s legs. The Shift was trying to struggle up on its one remain-
  ing leg, no doubt desperately calling for help.
  Benton didn’t give a damn. He was taking this pilot out of the 
  war. He fired again. Violet lightning melting the Shift’s Star Stab 
  armor, its head wreathed by sparks of secondary discharge. 
  The light ’Mech was on its back, desperately trying to drag itself 
  back with its arms, like a man struggling against a crocodile pull-
  ing him down into the river by his legs.
  Benton hit it again.
  The Shift collapsed backwards.
  The attack turned his cockpit into a blast furnace. Benton panted, 
  struggling to breathe the suddenly superheated air. He stalked for-
  ward, fighting the heat-induced sluggishness in his machine.
  
  BattleCorps
  Hunter of the Yellow Bird • Page 1
  He was almost on top of the crippled Word of Blake machine 
  when he heard a roar of terrible destruction and a building a hun-
  dred meters to the north came down, revealing the chickenoid 
  shape of a Raijin II.
  Benton slammed his boots down on his foot pedals and the 
  Hawk rose on a column of plasma, the Raijin’s Blankenburg PPC 
  and trio of Sunbeam lasers cutting lines of jeweled energy just 
  inside the arc of his leap.
  He came down on top of the Red Shift’s cockpit with a cruel 
  crunch.
  Benton’s Hawk stumbled forward just as a flight of Holly Streaks 
  flashed past him.
  He tore into the Raijin II with his PPCs.
  Benton liked his chances against the Wobbie machine. The Raijin 
  gave up ten tons to his Black Hawk, and although its triple strength 
  myomer made it nearly half-again as fast as Benton’s heavy, that 
  advantage was largely countered by the buildings that dotted the 
  Eiga-toshi sound lot.
  Benton stutter-stepped right, narrowly avoiding most of the 
  punch of those Sunbeam lasers, but taking a good wallop from a 
  second flight of Streaks.
  He hit back hard with his PPCs, burning through the weakened 
  armor over the left torso. There was a heartbeat of silence and 
  then the irregular firecracker pop pop pop of secondary explo-
  sions shattered that silence. CASE saved the Raijin pilot’s life, but 
  the explosion mangled his SRM launcher and took out one of the 
  Sunbeams, probably a jump jet too, not to mention forcing an en-
  gine shutdown.
  The advantage was rapidly tilting his way.
  And then he heard the titanic rumble of something approach-
  ing.
  A bone white Albatross turned the corner.
  Benton didn’t think. He pivoted and hit his jump jets, hopping 
  towards the building with the naval sets just as a monsoon of 
  laser fire swept down upon him. Over the whine of the lasers he 
  heard the roar of the missiles and the death rattle of an Oriente 
  LB 10-X.
  
  BattleCorps
  Hunter of the Yellow Bird • Page 0
  His hop screwed up the Blakist’s firing solution, taking him out 
  of the way of most of it.
  He still watched his rear armor blink from green to yellow to red 
  in the few short moments his jump jets freed him from gravity’s 
  grasp.
  Time to fall back.
  Again.
  He was tired of retreating with Word of Blake at his back.
  And then another player stepped into the picture. An Atlas. This 
  machine was painted the same flat red as Benton’s Black Hawk.
  But the steel dragon on its chest told him it was no ally.
  At that moment, Benton knew he was going to die.
  He was surprised to find the thought did not trouble him. It would 
  be a warrior’s death, his life given in service to the Dragon.
  And he knew just how he was going to spend it.
  He pivoted toward the Kokoryu-kai ’Mech and crouched, prepar-
  ing himself for a death-from-above attack.
  Except in that same moment, the Albatross turned and attacked 
  the Atlas with everything it had.
  Benton stared at the scene, his jaw hanging slackly open, his 
  mind not believing what his eyes were telling him, so surprised 
  and disgusted at the turn of events that it was a full fifteen sec-
  onds before he realized he could fall back to safety through the 
  soundstage.
  
  BattleCorps
  Hunter of the Yellow Bird • Page 1
  Word of Blake Camp Alpha 
  Imperial City, Luthien
  Rebecca Kitter stood at attention before Precentor Alice Phuong’s 
  polished granite desk, desperately pouring over everything she 
  had done in the last few days, trying to understand what she’d 
  done wrong. Precentors didn’t summon adepts down from orbit 
  for friendly chats and the elegant Asian woman’s face showed ab-
  solutely no emotion. It was obvious Kitter was guilty of a major 
  screw-up.
  She just couldn’t figure out what it was.
  “Do you remember the Bigby’s Lady?” Phuong asked in a mea-
  sured, precise voice.
  Kitter blinked, trying to place the name. Then… The pig sty. “She 
  was a Mule, Precentor. Carrying agricultural products.”
  Phuong raised one dark eyebrow. “Agricultural products?”
  Kitter opened her mouth to answer the unspoken accusation and 
  then suddenly remembered the clamps. She was suddenly very 
  cold. “The Mule had been modified to carry ’Mechs,” she said. 
  “But the clamps were rusted through. And there was no place to 
  hide a ’Mech. I didn’t think—”
  “This isn’t about the clamps,” said Phuong softly.
  Kitter shook her head in confusion. “Then I don’t—”
  “I have a joke for you, Adept. Perhaps you’ve heard it before.”
  Kitter blinked. “Ma’am?”
  “Every day a laborer crosses the border with a wheelbarrow full 
  of bricks, and every day the border guard stops him. He inspects 
  the bricks, hefting them, breaking them apart, sometimes even 
  pulling them out of the wheelbarrow, one by one. But no matter 
  how hard he looks he can never find anything wrong.
  “This happens day after day for twenty years. Finally the guard 
  retires. And because he has to know, he asks the laborer what 
  he’s been smuggling all that time. Do you know what the laborer 
  said?”
  Kitter shook her head.
  
  BattleCorps
  Hunter of the Yellow Bird • Page 
  “Wheelbarrows,” said Phuong coldly.
  She leaned across her desk and touched a button. “Meet our 
  wheelbarrow.” A picture appeared on the wall screen. It showed 
  a crewman from the Lady, fat and covered with grease. The engi-
  neer had been cropped from the original picture and blown up, so 
  his features were blurry.
  “Do you know who this man is?” Phuong asked.
  Kitter shook her head helplessly.
  “Well, fortunately ROM is somewhat more resourceful.”
  “Who is it?” Kitter asked, afraid of the answer.
  The Precentor sat back in her fine leather chair.
  And then she spoke.
  When Kitter heard the name, her legs suddenly felt shaky, and 
  she had to reach out and place a hand on that fine granite desk to 
  steady herself.
  
  BattleCorps
  Hunter of the Yellow Bird • Page 
  Sanjo-dori 
  Imperial City, Luthien
  Sanjo-dori was an industrial street. It had to be, to effectively 
  conceal the true nature of Yaginuma Happy Sweet Warehouse 
  Number Six. There had to be many businesses supporting a steady 
  flow of trucks and supplies and technical people, so when military 
  supplies trickled in it looked like business as usual.
  This late in the game, Benton doubted the warehouse location 
  was still a secret, but that was the idea.
  So when he strolled down Sanjo-dori for the pleasure of the 
  cool night air on his face, he walked by factories and warehouses. 
  There were no homes, no shops. But factories required workers.
  And so there were bars. And dark, dirty places where belong-
  ings could be traded for money. And women of the water trade.
  On this night, Benton didn’t care. He was happy for any distrac-
  tion, he told himself, and so his mind found its way back to the 
  very subject it was trying to avoid.
  He clenched his jaw. Another inconclusive battle.
  Is that really what’s making you so angry, Albert? he asked him-
  self.
  Or is that you had finally found an honorable exit from this hell 
  and Word of Blake cheated you out of it?
  He balled his hands into fists.
  And right then he felt something hard and unyielding press itself 
  into the small of his back. Something very much like the barrel of 
  a slug thrower.
  “Do you plan to merely kill me?” Benton asked in an even voice. 
  “Or are you planning to disgrace me?”
  “I hope you won’t force me to do either,” said a familiar voice. 
  “But then the choice is really up to you. Keep walking, kudasai.”
  So the man who called himself only “Peter” had turned out to 
  actually be dangerous, as well as eccentric. Benton remembered 
  his sudden disappearance in the teahouse. He didn’t believe he 
  could duck away from this man without being shot.
  
  BattleCorps
  Hunter of the Yellow Bird • Page 
  “What do you want?” Benton asked.
  “My master wishes to speak with you.”
  “And who would he be?”
  Peter said nothing.
  “Where are we going?”
  “The Lucky Green Dog,” said Peter, making his first mistake. 
  Because Benton could clearly see the neon green outline of a dog 
  flashing fifteen meters down the street. Benton was not going through 
  the door to that bar. Once he was off the street, they had him. 
  They were approaching the door to another bar. It was open to 
  allow the cool night air in. Benton could hear the laughter and the 
  clinking of glasses floating into the night. This was his moment.
  He drew a deep breath. Held it.
  And at the right moment he dove for the ground, rolled, and 
  sprang for the door.
  He was up in an instant, half turning to strike Peter as he rushed 
  through the door after him.
  Only, Peter didn’t come.
  Instead he heard the unnerving sound of a pump-action shot 
  gun’s action. The whine of a hand laser. The click of a round being 
  chambered. Benton swallowed.
  “He wasn’t really taking me to the Lucky Green Dog, was he?” he 
  said.
  He heard the sound of glorious, jovial laughter. No one could 
  hear that laughter and not believe its owner was filled with joy. 
  “No, indeed, Tai-i.”
  Benton slowly turned. A dozen men held weapons on him. At 
  their center sat a man at a table, a bottle of sake before him.
  If Adept Rebecca Kitter of the Word of Blake Militia had seen 
  this man, she would have recognized him as the engineer she’d 
  glanced as she stumbled out of Captain Bigby’s quarters. But 
  cleaned up and dressed in a kimono of fine black silk, a mischie-
  vous smile curled across his round, fat face, Benton recognized 
  this man for who he really was.
  
  BattleCorps
  Hunter of the Yellow Bird • Page 
  “Chandrasekhar Kurita,” he whispered.
  * * *
  “So good to finally meet you, my boy.” Kurita bowed from the 
  waist, a move of considerable grace for a man of his bulk.
  Benton automatically returned the bow. “You are Peter’s mas-
  ter.”
  “I am the Mirza Peter Abdulsattah’s master, hai.” The large man 
  gestured at a table. “Kudasai, my young friend, sit.”
  Benton glided forward, dazed. “What do you want with me?”
  “A great deal.” The large man poured a swallow of sake in a small 
  glass and shoved it across the table.
  Benton hesitated, then took the drink and gulped it down. It tast-
  ed like fire, but somehow it brought back to himself a little.
  “I have a mission for you, Tai-i.” 
  “So ka? A mission? For me?”
  “The Yellow Bird has come to roost,” said Kurita.
  “And the Dragon is imperiled,” said Benton. “It seems I heard 
  this speech once before.”
  Kurita shook his head. “Iie. The Dragon is merely an appetizer. 
  This birds covets the entire Inner Sphere. And it will not stop until 
  it has cracked open all our bones and feasted on the marrow.”
  Benton thought of how casually Blinding Light had stolen his 
  warrior’s death. How they’d inserted themselves into the middle 
  of the samurai’s duel for their own interests. “Word of Blake,” he 
  whispered.
  Kurita nodded. “Hai.”
  The large man drew a deep breath. “I am assembling a task force 
  of the proudest house and mercenary commands drawn from 
  across the Inner Sphere. This task force has one mission. Attack 
  Word of Blake.” Kurita leaned forward and closed his right hand 
  into a fist. His face stretched into a feral smile. “We will crush 
  them.”
  
  BattleCorps
  Hunter of the Yellow Bird • Page 
  And then the moment seemed to fade just as quickly as it had 
  come. Kurita leaned backward in his chair. “Tai-i Benton, we need 
  Sorenson’s Sabres.”
  “Is that an order?”
  Kurita licked his lips. “I am not the Coordinator. There are enough 
  applicants for that job,” he said darkly. He shook his head. “I can-
  not give you an order. Instead I implore you. Serve the Dragon not 
  just with your bravery and loyalty, but also with your insight.”
  “But the Black Dragons are—”
  Kurita snorted. “The Black Dragons.” He dismissed them with a 
  wave of his hand “They are scum. They shall pay in blood, after 
  the Yellow Bird had been brought down.”
  “But they rape Luthien,” snarled Benton.
  “Luthien,” Kurita whispered reverently. “The black pearl of 
  Combine is a world of unsurpassing beauty and history.” He 
  slammed his fist against the table and roared: “But it is not the 
  Dragon.”
  “My orders—”
  “Do not speak to me of orders, Albert Benton-san. Who is left 
  to give you orders? A military command riddled with traitors? 
  Whichever officer commands the Genyosha? Which banner do 
  you follow, Tai-i?”
  “I—”
  Kurita’s eyes narrowed. “Or is it that you have followed so long, 
  you do not know what it means to truly lead?”
  Benton opened his mouth to answer and then closed it again. “If 
  you find me unworthy, then why do you want me so badly?”
  Kurita stared at him for a long moment. Then he slowly shook 
  his head. “No man finds you unworthy, Tai-i. Except, possibly, 
  yourself.”
  “But Daniel Sorenson would never have—”
  “Daniel Sorenson is dead,” Kurita snapped. “He was a great war-
  rior, but he is gone. The ghost of Sorenson you have conjured to 
  torture yourself cannot lead men and women into battle. Only you 
  can do that.”
  
  BattleCorps
  Hunter of the Yellow Bird • Page 
  Benton shook his head. “I cannot. I cannot order the Sabres to 
  abandon this world. To abandon Luthien.”
  “Is that because you believe remaining here is in the best inter-
  est of the Combine?” asked Kurita coldly. “Or is that because you 
  don’t have the courage to make the right decision.”
  Benton suddenly found himself on his feet, his hands clenched 
  into fists. A dozen weapons came up at once, suddenly trained on 
  him.
  “Hold,” Kurita shouted. 
  Slowly his retainers lowered their weapons.
  Kurita placed a datachip in Benton’s hand. “This explains how 
  we will get you off the planet.”
  Benton shook his head. “I don’t—”
  “Keep it,” said Kurita. “If for no other reason than to persuade 
  the ISF of my treachery.”
  Benton licked his lips. “I didn’t mean that.”
  Kurita leaned in and placed his hand on Benton’s shoulder. “I 
  will not try to force your hand, Tai-i. I know your character is such 
  that you would never willingly abandon your duty. But I suggest 
  you meditate on the nature of courage. Any fool may face death. 
  The Dragon requires servants who would place their very honor at 
  risk in its service.”
  
  BattleCorps
  Hunter of the Yellow Bird • Page 
  Northern Palace District 
  Imperial City, Luthien 
  26 December 3070
  Benton stalked Striker down Shijo-dori, a main street that led to 
  the heart of the palace district.
  And the Black Dragon.
  Chu-sa Garner was feinting with the Sabres. When the Second 
  Sword bit on the feint, the Genyosha would swing in and attack 
  from the rear. But for the plan to work, Benton had to sell it.
  So he moved his people a street at a time, fast but careful, 
  as if this really were the sneak attack it was supposed to look 
  like.
  He anchored the right side of the line, with Grace’s Jenner to his 
  left. Beyond her and the rest of the command lance, the fire lance 
  held down the left end, the pursuit lance dropped back where he 
  could quickly bring them up to plug a hole.
  Benton moved toward the intersection where Gojo-dori crossed 
  Shijo.
  He leaned forward into Gojo and saw Grace’s Jenner step into 
  the intersection a block down. Nothing else moved. Large swaths 
  of the city had been abandoned, especially along the approaches 
  to the palace. 
  Fighting in Imperial City was like brawling in a church: danger-
  ous and strange and very wrong. 
  Benton looked right.
  And saw a flat red Black Hawk peeking into the intersection a 
  block over.
  For a crazy moment, he thought he was seeing his own reflec-
  tion in a glass-faced building. And then his eyes found the rearing 
  Kurita dragon painted on the Hawk’s cockpit.
  A dragon the color of burnished steel.
  Benton dropped his reticle down over the enemy machine. The 
  targeting bug flashed gold and Benton pulled into his triggers, 
  spearing the Sworder’s Ultra AC/5 with twin spikes of violet light-
  
  BattleCorps
  Hunter of the Yellow Bird • Page 
  ning, shattering armor. The Sworder machine staggered under the 
  force of the blow and then hit back with its large pulse laser.
  Benton hit his jump jets in time to avoid most of the enemy fire, 
  but he was resigned to a brutal test. The Sworder machine was 
  nearly the twin of his own, and the pilot was not unskilled.
  “Sabre One. Black Hawk Bravo.”
  “Sabre Two,” answered Chu-i Dana Utsonomiya’s calm voice. 
  “Dragon and Ninja-To.” He sounded concerned, but steady. “They’re 
  boiling out of the woodwork now, Tai-i.”
  Benton glanced left, saw Grace taking heavy fire and hitting back 
  with her PPCs. He hit his jump jets, but not before his legs took a 
  pounding from the other Hawk’s autocannon. 
  “I have a full lance of—” Utsonomiya began.
  He was cut off by Jasmine Rubach’s frantic voice. “Sabre Three. 
  Visual sighting of Blinding Light assembling on your right flank.”
  Benton swore under his breath as he paid the autocannon back 
  with his PPCs.
  “Are they attacking, Sabre Three?” he snapped.
  “Iie, Tai-i.” Jasmine sounded puzzled. “They appear to be…as-
  sembling.”
  That didn’t puzzle Benton at all.
  The Black Dragons and the loyal Combine forces were engaged 
  in a brutal slugfest, while Word of Blake waiting patiently to de-
  stroy the survivor and win Luthien.
  Win all the Inner Sphere.
  The Yellow Bird was strong, hai. But worse than that, it was clev-
  er.
  Benton’s eyes locked on the Black Hawk he faced. “Did you start 
  out as a traitor?” He whispered. “Or were you just too weak to 
  disobey orders you knew were wrong?”
  The enemy pilot offered no answer but the pounding of his auto-
  cannon and the deadly ruby stitching of his pulse laser.
  “All Sabres, Sabre One.” Benton swallowed. “Fighting withdraw-
  al.”
  
  BattleCorps
  Hunter of the Yellow Bird • Page 0
  Utsonomiya’s surprise carried over the lance leader channel. 
  “So ka?” Then the officer got himself under control. “Arigato, Tai-i. 
  But my lance can hold for another few min—”
  “You have your orders, Chu-i,” said Benton sharply.
  “But, Tai-i,” said Rubach, “the plan is to pin the Sworders in place 
  until the Genyosha can work into position.”
  Benton drew a deep breath. He was not Daniel Sorenson. He could 
  never be. He shouldn’t even try. But he would follow Sorenson’s 
  example in one manner. Daniel had always gone his own way.
  And so would Benton.
  He would begin by taking his command to Chandrasekhar 
  Kurita’s waiting DropShips.
  “Do not worry, Chu-i Rubach,” said Benton. “There is a new 
  plan.”
  
SOURCE: textdata/thevault/BattleTech [multi]/EXTRA/Novels/Battlecorps Novels/Hunter of the Yellow Bird - Steven Mohan Jr.pdf