TEXT: BATTLECORPS
  SEVENTY
  Rhian Hunt
  
  BATTLECORPS
  Seventy • Page 2
  Eskham, Buckminster 
  Benjamin Military District 
  Draconis Combine 
  4 October 2662
  Narrow as the blade
  Is the edge which men perceive
  Between fame and death.
  Kawana Takauji watched as his sensei’s brush traced the haiku 
  poem onto the block of pale wood. The brush moved swiftly and 
  confidently over the polished surface, tracing the complex letters 
  in flourishes of dark blue ink. The hand that held it was steady, 
  despite the excitement its owner must have felt. The face above it 
  was expressionless, as calm as the shimmering dawn sky outside 
  the high window of the chamber.
  Nagamaru Okimoto set down the wooden tablet and carefully 
  laid the brush beside it. He turned his head to gaze out the window 
  in silence for a moment before he looked at Takauji.
  “How narrow indeed is the line between fame and death, Takauji,” 
  he said, his face impassive. “How many times I might have gone 
  into the grave, instead of writing that poem this day. And yet, 
  would I have written the poem any the less? My actions would 
  have written it if my hand had not lived to do so, for is it not said 
  –the Way of the Samurai is found in death?”
  “And yet, sir, you live and have triumphed,” Takauji replied re-
  spectfully. “Sixty-nine victories lie behind you. Only one more, 
  and you may found your dojo. Your name will live in the annals of 
  Kurita for a thousand years. And it is fitting that it should, for you 
  have done what few indeed achieve.”
  “Sixty-nine victories are mine, yes,” Okimoto mused. “Yet is not 
  death as likely in the seventieth duel as in the first? Are there not 
  warriors who are mightier yet than I?”
  “It is so, sir,” Takauji responded. “Yet it is also true that he who 
  has so many victories is not easily defeated. You have proven that 
  you are more likely to triumph than not, sir.”
  
  BATTLECORPS
  Seventy • Page 3
  There was a rap at the door, and both men glanced toward it.
  “Come,” Okimoto called.
  The panel swung aside, and Okimoto’s other student, Shimobu 
  Yoshitora, entered. He was a short, squat man, unlike the lean and 
  elegant Okimoto, but he too wore the ancient garb of the samurai. 
  Katana and wakizashi—the long and short swords of the samurai 
  class—were thrust through the elaborate sword knot at his belt. 
  Okimoto noted with approval that the swords had been placed at 
  the correct angle, with the curve of the blade upwards. So few of 
  the younger warriors, he thought, were careful enough to notice 
  such small but important details.
  Yoshitora bowed, his flat, wide face as impassive as his master’s.
  “Revered sensei,” he began, although Okimoto was not yet official-
  ly entitled to the honorific, “I come to report that your BattleMech 
  is fully operational again. It is ready for your next duel.”
  “Excellent,” Okimoto said, allowing a note of satisfaction and ap-
  proval to enter his voice. He liked the generally cheerful Yoshitora 
  more than the reserved and formal Takauji, although both were 
  good students whom he respected greatly. “Take a seat, Yoshitora. 
  I was musing on my mortality, as an old warrior sometimes does, 
  but we needn’t let that spoil a glad occasion like this. Takauji, is 
  there any sake left?”
  “There is some, sir, enough for perhaps two days,” Takauji re-
  sponded.
  “Then tell someone to heat it for us, and we will drink togeth-
  er to the founding of our dojo,” Okimoto said. The coming of 
  Yoshitora—who was already grinning at the prospect of a cup of 
  hot sake—had lightened his mood immediately. He laughed when 
  he saw the looks on the two younger men’s faces. “Yes, I say our 
  dojo, not mine. Without students like you, a teacher is only a prat-
  er. And this is a glad occasion. We shall have a cup of sake and 
  then go out to seek my last opponent.”
  Yoshitora sat down eagerly, while Takauji, inscrutable as ever, 
  went off to arrange for the sake to be heated. It was evident that 
  the young fellow was bursting to report some news, so Okimoto, 
  smiling tolerantly, nodded to show him that he should speak freely 
  even before the sake had been served.
  “Sensei,” Yoshitora exclaimed, “may the name of Amida Butsu 
  be praised! I think that I have found the man to be your seventi-
  
  BATTLECORPS
  Seventy • Page 4
  eth opponent. He will bring you great renown, if I may venture 
  my humble opinion in your august presence. I met him this day 
  while I was speaking with the technicians about your ’Mech. He is 
  a famous warrior of the Star League, a mid-ranking officer. If you 
  choose to defeat him, sir, it will give even more renown to your 
  dojo.”
  “Did you learn his name?” Okimoto asked. “And where he is to 
  be found? If you have not forgotten to do these things, then we 
  will go and see him after we finish our sake.”
  “His name is Hans Badeau, sensei,” Yoshitora answered. “He is 
  staying at the governor’s mansion, detached on some local duty, 
  and so it should not be difficult to find him.”
  
  BATTLECORPS
  Seventy • Page 5
  How shall any man
  Turn back the hours that move him
  To his destiny?
  Thus Okimoto wrote before he set out.
  Outside, it proved to be a fine, crisp autumn day. Okimoto and 
  his two students breathed deeply as they strode through the city’s 
  streets. The scent of leaves was in the air, for many trees were 
  planted along the avenues. There were already many people out 
  walking and driving through the city on their various errands, but 
  they kept well clear of the three armed men walking through their 
  midst. The sharp glint of their eyes, the keen swords at their belt, 
  the easy predatory confidence of their walk, told the ordinary folk 
  that here were three Kuritan warriors who were very sure of them-
  selves indeed, and correspondingly dangerous.
  Okimoto, Yoshitora, and Takauji talked easily among themselves, 
  though they were more formal than they would have been in 
  private. Okimoto gave no sign, but his heart was flaming with ea-
  gerness and excitement. He craved the crucial seventieth victory 
  as he longed for his next breath, or perhaps more. When he had 
  written his haiku that morning, it had not been so much a humble 
  declaration of mortality, but a statement of his own skill—after all, 
  he had not crossed the slender line between fame and death in 
  sixty-nine duels. The narrower that line was, the greater must be 
  the warrior who had avoided it for so long. He wondered briefly if 
  Takauji had seen beyond the apparent fatalism of the haiku to the 
  shout of triumph hidden within.
  “Here is the governor’s palace,” Yoshitora proclaimed, with as 
  much satisfaction as if he had built it all by hand himself. Here 
  was one, Okimoto thought, who would not see the veiled gloating 
  of the haiku. Perhaps that was why he preferred Yoshitora—was it 
  a weakness in himself, a flaw that would prove his downfall, if he 
  favored the student who was less able to see his faults? Like many 
  an obsessive achiever, Okimoto was gnawed by constant doubt 
  and fear of failure, despite his outward poise.
  Okimoto’s doubt increased when he saw Hans Badeau stride out 
  to see who was calling on him. His prospective opponent was the 
  same height as Okimoto, and only slightly heavier in build. He 
  had a high, beak-like nose that Okimoto found peculiarly repul-
  
  BATTLECORPS
  Seventy • Page 6
  sive, and a shock of reddish-brown hair that appeared to be in 
  a permanent state of revolt against any kind of grooming. What 
  disquieted the warrior, however, was not the ugliness of his op-
  ponent, but his self-confidence. It was not the tense, watchful, 
  self-critical belligerence which Okimoto himself felt—a gnawing 
  drive to excel fueled by the dread that someone else might sur-
  pass him or make him look a fool. It was the relaxed strength of 
  true confidence—of a sureness so deep and sound that it was not 
  even discerned by its possessor. Badeau did not even know he 
  was confident—he had achieved the perfect spiritual balance that 
  preoccupied Okimoto, but without even realizing it. Okimoto felt 
  as if he just walked against a cliff of marble.
  “Good morning, gentlemen,” Badeau said. “What may I do for 
  you?”
  Okimoto maintained his outward aplomb despite the seething 
  of doubt in his heart. The doubt made him angry, and his anger 
  made his speech curt.
  “Greetings, Badeau,” he said. “I have learned that you are a 
  skilled warrior of the Star League. I was a Chu-i in the Kuritan mili-
  tary before the Star League lessened our strength. My ancestors 
  have also served the house of Kurita honorably and followed the 
  Way of the Bow and Spear. Will you duel me?”
  The Star League warrior appeared to be somewhat amused by 
  this abrupt challenge. The corner of his mouth lifted a little, and 
  he raised an eyebrow in a gesture that Okimoto found offensively 
  flippant. For so serious a matter, the man should show the prop-
  er gravity. It was true that Okimoto’s approach had been neither 
  subtle nor very polite, but he was not in a mood to be reason-
  able. Indeed, he was already working himself into the state of cold, 
  concentrated hatred towards his enemy that he usually nurtured 
  before a duel.
  “Ah, indeed,” Badeau said. He rubbed his chin thoughtfully, and 
  pulled at the small point of beard there. “So, you are one of these 
  Kuritan fellows that we hear about, running around stirring up 
  fights so that you can found your own dojo?”
  “It is true enough,” Okimoto replied. “But I take exception to the 
  way you refer to the disciples of Bushido. We are not mere ‘fellows,’ 
  nor do we ‘run around stirring up fights.’ We issue honorable chal-
  lenges to all worthy warriors whom we encounter. In this way, our 
  skills are developed, and the shortcomings of Star League training 
  are revealed. Thus, all alike benefit from our activities.”
  
  BATTLECORPS
  Seventy • Page 7
  Badeau weighed the man before him silently for a minute. 
  The bristling Kuritan did not bother to hide his animosity, but 
  now scowled fiercely at the Star League officer. Finally, Badeau 
  laughed—a sound that stung Okimoto’s pride like nettles.
  “All right,” the Star League soldier said. “If I don’t take your chal-
  lenge, then you’ll find some poor scrub who doesn’t know any 
  better to pound on. Shall we meet tomorrow, then?”
  “I agree,” Okimoto responded. “We shall bring our ’Mechs to the 
  field three kilometers south of the airstrip, and there we will carry 
  out our honorable struggle. Let the hour be noon.”
  “That sounds good to me,” Badeau replied carelessly. “But, just 
  out of curiosity, how many duels have you won?”
  “Sixty-nine,” the samurai answered.
  “Ah, so you’re just sweating for number seventy?” Badeau que-
  ried, raising his eyebrow again. “Of course, if any trouble is made 
  about it, then your great leader will just say that you’re a ronin, 
  over whom he has no control. If you win, then you’ll get a dojo 
  from that same leader. Just as convenient as any other politics, I 
  see.”
  “I am not sweating for the contest,” Okimoto replied frostily, 
  though he knew and Badeau knew that the words were a lie. “A 
  true warrior seeks to test his mettle for the sake of the Way of the 
  Warrior. Any rewards are mere incidents to the quest for personal 
  perfection.”
  Badeau made a courtly bow in the old fashion to Okimoto, who 
  returned the gesture stiffly. His two students also bowed, al-
  though, taking their cue from their sensei, they glared at the Star 
  League officer belligerently. Okimoto turned to go, but as he did, 
  the scabard of his katana struck the scabard of Badeau’s dress 
  uniform sword. The contact was not accidental; it was one of the 
  many old Japanese challenges to mortal combat, though Badeau 
  did not know it.
  
  BATTLECORPS
  Seventy • Page 8
  A peach-blossom moon
  And yet, what secrets can hide
  Beneath the starlight?
  Okimoto sat staring at the haiku he had just written. The spare, 
  sleek lines of the poem held a wealth of hidden emotions. That 
  was the purpose of haiku, of course—to suggest, to provide the 
  seed that blossomed in the soul with many meanings, some of 
  which the original poet had not even intended. What, he won-
  dered, would a connoisseur of haiku make of his poem, if they 
  were to read only that, knowing nothing else about him? Would 
  they think that it was a love poem? Or would they guess that it was 
  the poem of a man confessing his urge to use the blackest kind of 
  duplicity to win?
  Once more, there was a rap on the door. This time Okimoto said 
  nothing, and Takauji entered anyway. The younger samurai found 
  his master sitting cross-legged on a tatami in front of the win-
  dow. One dim lamp shone in the room, while the window framed 
  a deep blue rectangle of sky in which a great golden moon shim-
  mered. Okimoto sat perfectly motionless, his hands on his knees, 
  his haiku block before him. For a moment, Takauji felt that he had 
  stepped somehow into an ancient screen-painting, not an actual 
  room with a living man in it. But his heart beat quicker as he shut 
  the door and bowed respectfully to Okimoto.
  “Takauji,” Okimoto said, “what I am about to say must go no further. 
  If you refuse it, then I will not blame you. If you do it, then I under-
  stand that you do it not for your own sake, but for the dojo’s.”
  “I understand, sensei,” Takauji responded, taking his place near 
  the door as protocol demanded. He knew that this was not an in-
  formal occasion.
  “Takauji,” the older man said slowly, “I have read much about 
  Badeau in the hours since we saw him, and I have spoken to some 
  who have known him. He is not an easy opponent to defeat.”
  “The greater the opponent, the greater the honor in his defeat,” 
  Takauji said carefully. His guess was correct, he knew, but his mas-
  tery over his voice and expression was complete.
  “He has fought ten challengers who followed the Way of the Bow 
  and Spear,” Okimoto continued in a flat, hard voice. “It is believed 
  
  BATTLECORPS
  Seventy • Page 9
  by some that he has been sent to defeat such challengers by those 
  in the Star League who think us an influence for disorder. Of the 
  ten, eight were defeated so utterly that they found it necessary to 
  commit seppuku afterwards.”
  Takauji said nothing, for no comment was needed.
  “And of those eight, seven had won either sixty-eight or sixty-
  nine duels,” Okimoto said. His right hand clenched involuntarily 
  on his knee, twisting the smoothness of his kimono into wrinkles.
  A long silence followed. The golden moon floated slowly to-
  ward the top of the window. The steady lamplight gleamed on 
  Okimoto’s cold, proud face.
  “If I fight him, then I will lose,” Okimoto said quietly. “One of the 
  men he fought defeated me long ago. And yet Badeau destroyed 
  him. I cannot withdraw my challenge—the shame would be such 
  that I would have to…atone. If I fight him, then the same will hap-
  pen. Our dojo will never be.”
  Takauji bent his head. He sensed the despair in Okimoto’s words, 
  and felt the desperation behind it—a desperation that might lead 
  to recklessness.
  “Yet, it is said,” Okimoto went on inexorably, “that where the tiger 
  is balked, the snake can find a way. Takauji, I know that you have 
  studied the ancient and forbidden arts. The samurai is not the only 
  warrior of feudal Japan who may be imitated. There is another kind, 
  who could tell the hour by the dilation of a cat’s pupils.”
  “The rappa,” Takauji said. “The grass, practitioners of ninjitsu, 
  the arts of stealth. Yes, I have studied their ways, though I am sur-
  prised that you knew of this, sir.”
  “There is a certain chemical, which, when introduced to a ’Mech’s 
  lubrication system, seeps into the machine’s myomers,” Okimoto 
  whispered. “This chemical slackens the myomers, so that the ’Mech 
  becomes slow, sluggish, hard to control. It can easily change the 
  outcome of a battle. In a few hours, it fades away, leaving no trace. 
  There is a box beside the door with a cylinder of this chemical, and 
  enough ryu to persuade a technician, if that is needed.”
  Takauji sat for a long time looking at his teacher. His face was as 
  blank and expressionless as the door behind him. Finally, he stood 
  and bowed.
  “As you will, sensei,” he said, and left.
  
  BATTLECORPS
  Seventy • Page 10
  Keen as a sword-edge
  The new day has come to the sky
  As if thirsting for blood.
  Okimoto glanced up at the slip of paper which he had attached 
  to the bottom of his cockpit hatch. The haiku did not entirely sat-
  isfy him—it was too direct and clear, lacking subtlety of meaning. 
  But it was the best that he had been able to write in his current tur-
  moil. He was sure that he would win this battle—but a new doubt 
  assailed him. Was he blackening his own honor too deeply by the 
  treachery he had planned? Or was he serving the greater good by 
  creating a dojo where his skills could be spread among the war-
  riors of Bushido? He forced the thoughts and emotions down, and 
  concentrated on the moment at hand.
  Across the wheaten-tan autumn grass of the great meadow, Hans 
  Badeau’s Black Knight BL6-KNT stood waiting. The seconds of the 
  duelists stood on a hillock far to the right, near a heap of rust-
  ing machinery that had been abandoned there long ago. Okimoto 
  glanced that way, picking out the distant figure of Takauji from 
  among the other men and women gathered there. His disciple 
  wore a red kimono today, and the spot of scarlet stood out clearly 
  amid the duller clothing of the other witnesses. If the garment’s 
  hue had some symbolic meaning, Okimoto had had neither the 
  time to guess nor the urge to ask.
  Okimoto engaged his Guillotine’s systems and felt the ’Mech 
  thrum with sudden strength around him. He sensed the condition 
  and readiness of his war machine through the bulky neurohelmet. 
  It felt like an athlete at the peak of his freshness and skill, poised 
  for any struggle or challenge, prepared for the utmost effort.
  As agreed, Badeau’s Black Knight raised its left arm, and a me-
  dium laser stabbed upwards to the sky. Okimoto responded, firing 
  a medium laser from his Guillotine to show that he, too, was ready. 
  Five seconds later, both ’Mechs sprang into action.
  Okimoto guided his ’Mech to the right, accelerating quickly while 
  twisting his torso to watch his enemy. The feeling of the ’Mech’s 
  lethal mass hurtling about him awakened the fighting-mood in his 
  mind, wiping away his doubts as if they had never been. The arena 
  of battle and his enemy were crystal-clear, filled with an intense 
  reality that made every detail seem to leap into his mind. At the 
  
  BATTLECORPS
  Seventy • Page 11
  same time, the world outside the battlefield ceased to exist. He 
  no longer noticed the patchy woodlands on the rolling hills to the 
  East, with their ragged cloak of red and yellow leaves, or the city 
  skyline to the north. His whole being was focused on the struggle 
  at hand.
  Badeau’s Black Knight charged forward, zig-zagging unpre-
  dictably as it came. The ’Mech’s right arm jerked up, and a PPC 
  shot streaked across the grassland towards Okimoto’s Guillotine. 
  Okimoto slewed his ’Mech instantly, and the shot struck its left 
  torso. The particle beam splashed away armor, and sent coruscat-
  ing patterns of energy across the tough plating around the wound. 
  Okimoto lunged his BattleMech back towards his opponent. His la-
  sers flicked out at the same moment as Badeau’s. One beam tore a 
  furrow in the earth beyond the Black Knight. Grass blazed sudden-
  ly, then went out in a splash of gray smoke. The other two stabbed 
  fiercely at the BL6-KNT’s legs, slashing away armor, gnawing the 
  ’Mech’s adamant shell with fangs of searing light. Badeau’s shots 
  also struck home, and for a moment Okimoto’s view was dimmed 
  by a cloud of vaporized armor.
  The duel was long and fiercely contested. Amid clouds of dust 
  and the smoke of burning grass, the two huge figures circled each 
  other, looming through the haze like demonic giants, gleaming 
  with armor and shimmering with heat. Okimoto had never fought 
  a foe so skillful or so perilous. Lasers stabbed like javelins back 
  and forth between the great figures, their firing carefully timed 
  so that the ’Mechs would not overheat. The pilots swerved and 
  dodged, catching the shots of their foes on undamaged parts of 
  their BattleMechs, seeking to gain the crucial vantage that could 
  decide the battle. Okimoto’s world became one of lung-choking 
  heat, the searing flash of PPCs and lasers tearing at the armored 
  bodies of the titans, the slam of mighty feet pummeling the earth, 
  the shriek of heat warnings and the buzz of damage static in his 
  neurohelmet. The world was savage, swift, and hypnotic, a fatal 
  dance of steel and energy which would slay an unprotected hu-
  man in an instant.
  Through it all, Okimoto watched the Black Knight for signs that 
  its myomers were weak and loose. The tokens were subtle—if 
  they were too apparent, then the observers would know, and the 
  trick would be easily discovered. After a time, he decided that the 
  BL6-KNT was moving more slowly than it should. The Guillotine 
  was a more agile ’Mech than its opponent, of course—mounting 
  jump jets—but Okimoto convinced himself that the Black Knight 
  was actually moving more slowly than that fact alone could ac-
  
  BATTLECORPS
  Seventy • Page 12
  count for. This gave him both confidence in his own victory and a 
  pang at the thought that such an artifice should give it to him. The 
  sight of his enemy’s pocked and ravaged ’Mech, reeling through 
  the smoke, gave him a strange feeling of sadness and disappoint-
  ment—disappointment in himself and the trick he had used.
  Finally, the critical moment came. The Black Knight’s back, al-
  ready wealed by a scourge of fire, was fully exposed to Okimoto’s 
  weaponry for an instant. Only for an instant; but in that flying gap 
  of time, the Guillotine fired all of its weapons into the scarred, torn 
  torso armor of Badeau’s ’Mech. The great machine jerked and 
  then sagged, and Okimoto knew, even as a wave of choking heat 
  rushed over him and the Guillotine’s instruments flickered and 
  dimmed, that his alpha strike had killed the other ’Mech’s engine. 
  He was the victor; the seventieth duel was his, and the dojo could 
  now be founded.
  Yet, when he left his ’Mech’s cockpit, his eyes were full of the 
  empty darkness between the stars.
  
  BATTLECORPS
  
  BATTLECORPS
  Seventy • Page 14
  Just as a little filth
  Sullies much water, so dishonor
  Befouls a man’s soul.
  Mournfully, Okimoto gazed at the haiku written on the tablet be-
  fore him. Night and silence lay upon the world outside. This time, 
  the brief verse of seventeen syllables was his final apology to the 
  world, to his ancestors, his family, and his foe. The fact of the de-
  spicable trick by which he had gained his seventieth victory stood 
  in his mind like a towering basalt obelisk, blocking out all light 
  with its overwhelming shadow. There was no exit from the laby-
  rinth of shame into which he had cast himself, save along that road 
  which traces the hair-fine edge of a wakizashi’s steel. The weapon 
  already lay before him, partially wrapped in rice paper and gleam-
  ing on a piece of sky-blue silk, and his eyes now traveled to it. The 
  stateliness of inevitable ritual filled his soul, almost blocking out 
  the human fear of pain and death. Slowly, he reached for the famil-
  iar cord-wrapped hilt. A moment later, the blade was in his hand. 
  He paused for a moment to note the beauty of its gentle curve, 
  the rippling smoothness of the hamon—or tempering-line—that 
  divided the soft steel of its back from the razor brittleness of its 
  edge. It was fitting that the instrument of his extinction, at least, 
  should be something of such delicate yet lethal beauty—a haiku of 
  steel, ready to write its tale in his guilty blood.
  The door opened suddenly and Takauji came in. He shut the door 
  and came to sit before Okimoto. If he was surprised to find his 
  sensei stripped to the waist, with the point of a short sword poised 
  a centimeter from his hard, flat stomach, he gave no sign of it. 
  Instead, he took up the brush and the block of wood. As Okimoto 
  watched—curious in spite of his despair—Takauji carefully traced 
  a poem on the wood below his own, and laid it where Okimoto 
  could read it.
  Treason is a snake
  Yet, when betrayal is betrayed
  Honor is preserved.
  
  BATTLECORPS
  Seventy • Page 15
  “It is not as good as yours, sir, for it does not boast the same 
  depth of meaning,” Takauji said. “Yet it holds the truth. Think on 
  it for a moment, and you will know that there is no reason now to 
  continue.”
  Okimoto sat and looked at the tablet for a long while, while the 
  stars wheeled overhead and, far away in the city, technicians la-
  bored to repair his ’Mech. Finally, he looked up at Takauji. For the 
  first time in six years, the younger man saw a smile of true happi-
  ness upon the face of his elder.
  “So my trick was betrayed,” Okimoto said, a tear glistening on his 
  fierce face. “You did not put the chemical into my enemy’s ’Mech 
  as I told you to. It was my own skill that defeated him, narrow 
  though the victory was—‘narrow as the blade,’ as I wrote before. 
  You have saved my honor and my life. The teacher was taught by 
  the student.”
  Takauji laughed as Okimoto bowed low before him. “No, sir, we 
  have taught each other. I have showed you that the fear of shame 
  is as deadly a foe as any laser, or deadlier. Thoughts of how the 
  world’s eye will see you can destroy you as surely as any enemy. 
  Yet I have also learned a mighty lesson. You have taught me that 
  saving the life and honor of a friend is as sweet as saving one’s 
  own life. We have both learned something that has made our spir-
  its greater. Come, sensei, shall we make a dojo whose renown 
  shall endure for ten thousand years?”
  
SOURCE: textdata/thevault/BattleTech [multi]/EXTRA/Novels/Battlecorps Novels/Seventy - Rhian Hunt.pdf