TEXT: BattleCorps
  MEIYO
  Keith R.A. DeCandido
  
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  The samurai stood in the field of battle, his katana gripped in his 
  right fist and hanging down, angled toward the grass.
  The clip-clop of horse-hooves was barely audible at first, building 
  to a crescendo as the four bandits rode toward him. The bandits 
  shouted inarticulately, snarls of rage at this one man who dared to 
  oppose them.
  As they came within a few feet of the samurai, the bandits pulled 
  up their reins. The steady beat of the horse-hooves became a rap-
  id-fire staccato as the mounts came to a halt, their breaths coming 
  in snorts.
  The samurai did not move, did not look up at the bandits, but 
  continued to stare ahead. The katana remained in its downward 
  slant.
  For a moment there was silence, broken only by the snorting of 
  the horses. Then one of the bandits demanded to know what his 
  business was here.
  Still, the samurai neither moved nor spoke.
  Again, the bandits demanded to know why he came to this place. 
  As if their regular pillaging of the village wasn’t common knowl-
  edge. As if they could get away with coming here each year and 
  stealing crops. As if their crippling of the town’s ability to pay their 
  taxes to the shogun would go unnoticed by Edo.
  With a kick, the lead bandit started his horse toward the samurai, 
  screaming at him that he would die.
  At that, the samurai almost reacted with shock. Were these fools 
  so base as to believe that death was any kind of threat? He lived his 
  life by the code of bushido, fully prepared to die in service of his 
  master. The reality of death was always with him, a robe he wore 
  at all times. One did not live by the sword unless one expected to 
  some day die by it.
  The horse rode closer. Still, the samurai did not move, the katana 
  still hanging down.
  Raising his sword, the bandit cried as he came upon the samu-
  rai.
  Even as the bandit’s sword started its downward slash, the sam-
  urai’s katana finally moved, slicing upward through the air and into 
  the bandit’s chest, continuing through his neck, sawing through 
  
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  the clavicle. Blood flew everywhere as the bandit screamed in pain 
  and fell to the ground. The horse galloped onward even as its rider 
  fell earthward, his death mere minutes away. Ignoring him, the 
  samurai moved into a ready stance.
  For several seconds, the remaining bandits sat atop their horses, 
  dumbfounded. From what the samurai had been told, these ban-
  dits had been together for many years. No doubt they believed 
  themselves to be invincible, immortal.
  The samurai intended to prove them wrong on both counts.
  Recovering, the three bandits rode as one toward the samurai, 
  bellowing of revenge and destruction.
  Again, the samurai did not move until it was required. When the 
  second bandit—whose horse galloped at a greater rate than that 
  of his fellows—was upon him, the samurai sliced off his leg at the 
  thigh, the katana easily carving through meat and muscle and 
  bone. His katana had been forged by a master sword crafter, and 
  few were deemed worthy to carry one of his works of art. Fewer 
  still had the skill to use them properly. 
  Even as the second bandit fell to the ground, screaming in 
  agony as blood poured from the stump that his right leg had be-
  come, the samurai whirled around and struck at the third bandit. 
  This one managed to parry, but his blade was not forged by a 
  master sword crafter—the katana sliced through it as easily as 
  rice paper, the sound of metal shattering metal echoing off the 
  trees.
  While the third bandit stared dumbly at the remains of his weap-
  on, the samurai turned to parry a strike by the fourth. Rotating 
  his wrist around, his katana slid across the fourth bandit’s blade 
  and shoved it downward, forcing him to drop it. The samurai then 
  thrust the katana into the fourth bandit’s chest.
  Turning, he saw that the third bandit had decided to turn and flee, 
  rather than face the battle unarmed. The samurai was torn. On the 
  one hand, the bandit was a coward, fleeing in the middle of a fight 
  like that. On the other hand, he had shown his true face, for these 
  bandits had already proven themselves to be cowards many times 
  over. He was only being true to his nature.
  Bending down, the samurai picked up the hilt of the third bandit’s 
  broken sword, abandoned in retreat. Rearing back his right arm, 
  the samurai threw the hilt with all his might at the third bandit.
  
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  The edge of the broken blade penetrated the back of the bandit’s 
  neck. He slumped forward, even as the horse continued onward.
  Looking around, the samurai nodded his approval. The first and 
  fourth bandits were dead at his feet, and the second would be be-
  fore long. His work was done.
  He turned and started walking back toward the town. No doubt 
  the villagers would offer him gifts, or at least a meal, but he would 
  not accept. He was, after all, only doing his duty to the shogun, 
  and to accept any recompense was unseemly and dishonorable. It 
  was a long trip back to Edo, and he had a report to make.
  As he strode, he thought he heard a strange voice in the back of 
  his head saying something in a foreign tongue. “Another victory 
  for Vision of Judgment over his enemies. This is Mariko Guardado, 
  live from Silesia’s Coliseum in Solaris City, wishing you good 
  night.”
  
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  Silesia Coliseum 
  Solaris City 
  Solaris VII 
  12 February 3071
  The Word of Blake soldier in the booth with Mariko Guardado 
  had a crew cut, broad shoulders, and no discernible neck. He also 
  carried a huge gun, the size of which made Mariko wonder what 
  he was compensating for.
  The soldier, who carried the rank of acolyte, also had an expres-
  sion on his face indicating that he wouldn’t hesitate to use the gun 
  if Mariko didn’t do exactly what Word of Blake wanted.
  Not that there was any doubt that she would. Mariko had seen 
  what happened to people who went against Word of Blake. Mariko 
  had announced several of their deaths.
  Two more of them had just died, blown to smithereens by the 
  man in the white Vanquisher called Vision of Judgment, with an-
  other two on their way out. Better still, it was all being filmed live 
  and packaged for HPG distribution, to be sent out to anyone in the 
  Inner Sphere who wanted to watch a massacre.
  This isn’t what I signed on for, she thought, even as she said, 
  “Vision of Judgment’s laser makes short work of Oliver’s chest 
  armor. Looks like Oliver won’t live to regret that laser attack on 
  Vision’s flank. And now Branmet has turned and is running away.”
  Mariko spoke for the benefit of the audio receptors in the booth 
  that transmitted her vocal commentary along with the visuals of 
  the fight. She had no idea what the names that had been assigned 
  to Vision of Judgment’s foes were in reference to. They were four 
  battered Ti Ts’ang ’Mechs with reduced weaponry, probably not 
  even piloted by their original users. They were going up against a 
  single state-of-the-art Vanquisher, which some bright lad in Word 
  of Blake’s marketing department had named Vision of Judgment 
  to emphasize what was going on in the Coliseum these days. 
  It sure as hell wasn’t a game anymore.
  The Vanquisher had already blown off Sookdar’s shoulder as-
  sembly and Bruner’s leg, before it took out Oliver, and now it raised 
  its right arm toward Branment, not even giving chase. “Vision of 
  Judgment is firing its gauss gun.” The Vanquisher’s arm cannon 
  blew a round into the Ti Ts’ang’s back. “Branmet has also fallen.” 
  
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  Mariko could hear cheers that she knew were manufactured by 
  the engineers downstairs. Certainly those noises of joy weren’t 
  coming from the desultory faces of the people forced to sit in the 
  seats to give the illusion of a packed house of eager fans. The 
  lighting was arranged in such a way that no one could see their 
  faces anyway, just register that they were there and assume that 
  the cheers came from them rather than a recording.
  “The final tally,” Mariko said, trying to sound excited, “is four 
  kills. Another victory for Vision of Judgment over his enemies. 
  This is Mariko Guardado, live from Silesia’s Coliseum in Solaris 
  City, wishing you good night.”
  There was a time when she did this alongside a color commenta-
  tor, a former ’MechWarrior named Patricia Bracken. Nerve damage 
  during a campaign against some mercs about ten years back left 
  her incapable of running a ’Mech anymore, so she took a job on 
  Solaris City, providing insight into the workings of the ’Mechs for 
  the games.
  It had been an excellent arrangement. Patricia wasn’t the most 
  charismatic person in the Inner Sphere, but she knew her stuff, 
  and she and Mariko had developed a rapport over the past few 
  years, with Mariko knowing just what questions to ask to get the 
  best and most informative answers out of Patricia. Visually, they 
  were a nice contrast as well. Mariko was beautiful; modesty didn’t 
  prevent her from thinking that, as she’d paid good money for her 
  looks. Genetics helped, of course: she was born with soft Asian 
  eyes and lovely olive skin. But the lustrous black hair, with just 
  enough curl, the button nose, the warm lips, the enticing cleav-
  age—all those had been bought and paid for. Patricia, though, 
  didn’t bother with any of that. A middle-aged veteran of more 
  combat than Mariko could imagine, her face looked like it was 
  made of leather, her steel-gray hair like it was made of wirebrush, 
  her ice-blue eyes surrounded by bags. Her face was full of the very 
  same lines Mariko had paid to remove, but for Patricia, they added 
  character, showed that she knew what she was talking about when 
  she described why a ’Mech Warrior did this or that in the ring. 
  Within a year of their being paired up, Mariko and Patricia’s 
  voices and faces were known all over the Inner Sphere. True, they 
  weren’t on the same level as Julian Nero—no one was—but they 
  had a following. Between gaming seasons, they often did tours 
  together, as well as speaking engagements, interviews, and more. 
  Patricia had even hired a writer to ghost her life story, and it had 
  the second-highest read rate of any book downloaded out of 
  
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  Solaris. (The top spot, of course, was taken by Nero’s wretched, 
  fact-free autobiography, Circling the Ring.)
  Then the Word of Blake took over. 
  For a time, the Coliseum was shut down. But soon the Word of 
  Blake, communications experts that they were, realized the value 
  of good propaganda, and in turning Solaris’s best export—the 
  games—against them. What once were contests of skill now be-
  came executions, thinly disguised as the same old competitions.
  At first they had been one-sided, several white Vanquishers fight-
  ing against some hapless gladiator who’d been captured in the 
  fighting. Then, suddenly, things changed. The Vision of Judgment 
  showed up, and instead of four Word of Blake ’Mechs against one, 
  it was the other way around.
  Not that the results ever changed. The white ’Mechs always won, 
  the other ’Mechs always lost—violently.
  Mariko had no idea who was in the Vision of Judgment ’Mech. 
  She didn’t much care, either. If nothing else, whoever it was made 
  for better trivid. Beating the odds was always more fun to watch 
  than a foregone conclusion. Not that it wasn’t foregone in any 
  event, but at least the one-on-four numbers created the illusion.
  And as went the propaganda war, so went the physical one. 
  Word of Blake had won a decisive upset victory near the city of 
  Nowhere, where they had defeated a lance lead by the legend-
  ary Shihan Giuseppe Kishi. Probably the most storied Combine 
  MechWarrior on Solaris since the death of Theodore Gross, he was 
  so well regarded that he was given the title of shihan—Japanese 
  for “master”—rather than a military rank. He had won many victo-
  ries against the Word of Blake—until Nowhere, where he lost and 
  was officially listed as missing and presumed KIA. 
  Mariko had interviewed Kishi a few times in the past, before she 
  got the Silesia gig, and he had always been taciturn and self-effac-
  ing. She had always admired that quality, and had been devastated 
  to learn of his defeat. 
  With the “game” ended, Mariko got up from her seat. The Word 
  of Blake soldier pushed the button to open the door to the booth.
  This acolyte wasn’t her only escort—she had three, each of whom 
  took an eight-hour shift. She had started thinking of them as Tail, 
  Pail, and Mail, after a comedy trio that had been popular when 
  she was a girl. This one was Mail, who distinguished himself by 
  
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  having gray in the stubble of his crew cut. Tail had unusually wide 
  brown eyes, and Pail was the only one who was dark-skinned. 
  Usually, after a game, she and Patricia would chat with the engi-
  neering staff for a bit, then go out to a tavern for drinks and a late 
  dinner, sometimes chatting up their fans, sometimes sitting alone 
  in their corner booth just talking about life. Sometimes they’d go 
  back to either her place or Patricia’s, though that had lessened the 
  last year or so, as Patricia was feeling more experimental than 
  Mariko was willing to be in bed.
  When Word of Blake took over, though, Patricia had disappeared. 
  To this day, Mariko had no idea if she was dead or alive. Dead 
  seemed more likely: Solaris had a lot more corpses these days 
  than ever before.
  The tavern Mariko and Patricia used to frequent had been de-
  stroyed in the fighting—ironically, by a Combine ’Mech—and 
  fraternization among the trivid staff was no longer permitted, so 
  she went straight home, escorted by Mail. Her fame had given her 
  a few perks, though Mariko hardly considered them such, includ-
  ing permission to keep her spacious apartment. Of course, Mail 
  stayed posted outside the door at all times, to be relieved later 
  by Pail and then Tail. They never came inside—another perk, a 
  modicum of privacy—but she wasn’t aloud to walk around outside 
  unescorted by one of the three.
   At no point during the ride from the coliseum to her apart-
  ment did Mail speak. Mariko had never heard him or either of his 
  comrades speak. They all grunted a lot, and gave instructions by 
  gesturing. Mariko didn’t want to think about what would happen if 
  she misinterpreted a gesture.
  Probably something involving the big gun.
  Mariko kicked off her shoes as she entered her place, wandered 
  into the kitchen, pulled a meal out of the cooler and tossed it into 
  the oven. The boxed meals all tasted like steamed mush, regard-
  less of what it looked like—this particular one claimed to be teriyaki 
  steak with mushrooms and roasted potatoes—but all food tasted 
  like that to Mariko these days, so she didn’t see the point in spend-
  ing money on good food.
  I wish Patricia had taken her with me. She snorted at that. Right, 
  like she’d be willing to be dragged down by me. Face it, she’s a for-
  mer soldier. She’s trained for shit like this. Me? The only thing I’m 
  trained in is how not to pop my P’s. I’d be dead in an hour.
  
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  Plus, of course, there was the very real possibility that Patricia 
  was also dead.
  That would probably be an improvement, she thought sadly as 
  the cooker beeped. She took it out, sighed, and started shovel-
  ing the theoretical steak into her mouth, not even bothering to sit 
  down at the table. She just wanted to eat and go to bed. And take 
  a dream suppressant first—it was the only way to get through the 
  night anymore…
  
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  The samurai sat in wait.
  The shogun had been fulsome with praise for his work against 
  the bandits. Fulsome for the shogun, in any case—the leader of all 
  Nippon was not one to gush. But he did allow as how the samurai 
  had performed his duties with honor and with success, and that he 
  remained worthy of his title.
  The samurai was pleased with his lord’s praise.
  Now he waited in his home, the paper doors closed, kneeling in 
  sei-za position on the tatami mat. He was in a meditative trance.
  He came out of the trance when he heard the front door slide open. 
  The samurai was not expecting visitors. His katana lay sheathed at 
  his side; his right hand moved toward the top of the scabbard, his 
  thumb resting on the end of the hilt, prepared to flick the sword out 
  at a moment’s notice.
  When the door slid open to reveal a young man also kneeling in 
  sei-za, the samurai removed his hand from the katana. This was 
  the shogun’s messenger. He carried the shogun’s seal, but the 
  samurai did not require it—he knew the boy by sight. 
  “Forgive my intrusion,” the messenger said, “but I bring news 
  from our lord, the shogun.”
  “Enter and deliver your message,” the samurai said, his fists rest-
  ing on his thighs.
  The messenger rose, slid the door shut, and then knelt before the 
  samurai. “The shogun has another task for you, my lord.”
  “I live to serve our lord, the shogun. Speak, and tell me his wish-
  es.”
  In measured tones, the messenger spelled out for the samurai 
  what his next task was to be. The enemies to be killed, the honor 
  to be gained.
  Nodding, the samurai said, “I hear the message, and I obey. Do 
  you require refreshment before your journey back to the shogun’s 
  palace?”
  Shaking his head, the messenger bowed and said, as he always 
  did, “No, my lord. I must return forthwith.” With that, he rose to 
  his feet, went to the door, knelt, opened the door, went to the other 
  side, knelt again, closed it, then took his leave.
  
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  The samurai returned to his meditation. It would be a long jour-
  ney tomorrow, and he needed to be of clear mind.
  
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  Kobe District 
  Solaris City 
  Solaris VII 
  13 February 3071
  The next morning, after Mariko had slept past noon and tossed 
  her breakfast mealbox into the oven—this claimed to be fish, muf-
  fins, and sopresatta rolls—she heard a sound she’d never heard 
  before: her guard’s voice. 
  Checking the clock on the oven, she saw that it was one o’clock, 
  which was a shift change. Her guard—it would’ve been Pail being 
  relieved by Tail—was yelling at someone.
  Curious as to what was going on—this was the most active any 
  of her escorts had been—she went to the front door, ignoring the 
  beeping of the cooker indicating that her breakfast was ready.
  The door slid open to reveal an acolyte she didn’t recognize. 
  This one was female, stocky, with thick dark hair, several scars 
  on her heavily lined face, green eyes, and a large nose. She car-
  ried a gun that was even bigger than the one Mail carried. (Pail 
  and Tail had smaller weapons, which had led to Mariko’s pre-
  sumptions about Mail’s need to compensate.) She was arguing 
  with Pail.
  “I’m just going where I’m told, Acolyte.”
  Pail whirled around, his dark skin flush with anger. “Inside,” he 
  snarled at her, which were the first two coherent syllables he’d 
  ever uttered in her direction.
  “What’s going on?”
  To Mariko, the new acolyte said, “This isn’t your concern, ma’am.” 
  Then to Pail she said, “I got my orders, Acolyte. You wanna see ‘em, 
  knock yourself out.” She reached into one of the many pouches 
  that Word of Blake uniforms came equipped with and pulled out 
  a small reader.
  Snatching it angrily, Pail put his thumb on the side of the reader 
  and then gazed over the words on the display. His face went from 
  anger to disbelief to disappointment and back to anger again, all 
  in about a second-and-a-half. It was a wider range of expression 
  than Mariko had thought the man capable of.
  
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  “Fine,” Pail said as he practically shoved the reader back in the 
  woman’s face.
  With a calm that was in direct contrast to Pail’s irritation, the 
  acolyte accepted the reader, put it back in the pouch, then stood 
  at attention and saluted. “I relieve you.”
  Still slump-shouldered, Pail raised his right hand to his forehead. 
  “I stand relieved,” he said, and walked off.
  As soon as Pail disappeared into the lift, the acolyte angrily turned on 
  Mariko and pointed her gun right at her head. “Inside, bitch—now!”
  Mariko swallowed and slowly backed into her apartment. 
  “What’s goi—?”
  “Shut up!” The acolyte followed her in, the gun still pointed at 
  her head. As soon as the door slid shut behind the acolyte—both 
  were now standing in her living room—the latter reached into an-
  other pouch with her left hand, right hand still aiming the gun at 
  Mariko.
  To Mariko’s abject confusion, the device the acolyte now held 
  in her left hand was a white noise generator. Mariko used it on 
  interviews sometimes, to prevent ambient noise and signals from 
  interfering with the conversation. To her horror, she also realized 
  that it could be used to mask the sound of Mariko being killed by 
  the gun in the acolyte’s right hand from the electronic eavesdrop-
  pers she knew were present in her rooms.
  She activated the generator by pressing a control on it, causing 
  a red light to go on. As soon as it did, she lowered the gun. “It’s 
  okay, M’iko, we can talk.”
  Mariko blinked, confused. Why was this soldier calling her by a 
  nickname that had only been used by her parents, her brother, and—
  “Patricia?”
  Grinning, the acolyte grabbed her nose, and appeared to rip it 
  off—but it was just a prosthetic. She then tore off the “scarring” 
  on her face and removed her black wig to reveal a more familiar 
  buzz-cut. It was, indeed, Patricia Bracken, albeit now with green 
  eyes. Mariko supposed it was part of the disguise. 
  “Oh my God—Patricia, what—how—why—?” Unable to complete 
  a sentence—or even a thought—she instead leapt forward and 
  grabbed Patricia in a tight hug.
  
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  “It’s good to see you too, kiddo.”
  Still clutching Patricia as if for dear life, Mariko asked, “What 
  happened?”
  Pulling out of the embrace, Patricia said, “Long story, M’iko, and 
  I’ll be happy to tell you in a bit. But first, we got business to dis-
  cuss. Mind if I sit?”
  Mariko spurted out a laugh. “You’re the one holding the gun.”
  “Oh, yeah.” She looked down at the weapon as if noticing she 
  was carrying it for the first time. “Sorry ‘bout that. Had to stay in 
  character, y’know?”
  “What character? What the hell is going on, Patricia?”
  “If you’d shut the hell up for a second, I’ll tell you.” She fell more 
  than sat on Mariko’s small couch. “I’d kill for a beer. You still keep 
  some Sapporo in the house?”
  Mariko nodded and moved toward the kitchen. “I’ve only got 
  two cans left. The supply lines were cut a month ago, so there 
  hasn’t been any new beer.” She opened the cooler, ignoring the 
  display on the oven that indicated that her breakfast was done, 
  and pulled out the last two beers. Sapporo was an old Japanese 
  beer that Mariko had introduced Patricia to—it had become the 
  latter’s favorite drink, and they often had it together. Mariko hadn’t 
  been able to bear the idea of drinking them without even knowing 
  if Patricia was alive or dead.
  Taking a seat on the easy chair perpendicular to the couch, Mariko 
  handed Patricia one of the squat silver polymer cans, and pulled 
  open the lid of hers. “So what’s going on? Where’ve you been? 
  Wh—”
  Patricia held up a hand. “Hang on.” She leaned her head back and 
  took a very long drink of beer. “God, that hits the spot. I haven’t 
  had a good beer since the Weebs of Blake showed up.” She set her 
  beer down on the coffee table. “Okay, here’s the deal. I need you 
  to go to work within the next ten minutes or so.”
  Mariko frowned, still holding her beer can without drinking from 
  it. “I’m not supposed to be at the studio for another two hours.”
  “What?” Patricia leaned forward. “But what about the pregame?”
  “We don’t do that anymore. We don’t do anything anymore. I 
  show up, I call the plays, I go home. No pregame, no interviews, 
  
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  no wrapup, nothing. They only still use me because my voice is 
  associated with Silesia’s and they want to hew as close as they 
  can to the old games.”
  “So why don’t they do pregame?” Patricia knocked back some 
  more beer. “All right, forget it. We’ll come up with another excuse. 
  I might be able to forge new orders on the reader. It’s risky, though—
  Dubazana usually goes straight to the Farsi Club after his shift’s 
  over, but he might get all pissed about me replacing Osborne, so 
  he could go back to HQ, in which case we’re screwed.”
  Mariko assumed that Dubazana and Osborne were Pail and Tail. 
  “Patricia…”
  All of a sudden, Patricia bounded to her feet, the gun swinging 
  around and hitting her in the side. Mariko had never seen her part-
  ner like this—in the booth she was always calm and a little snarky, 
  but now she was a bundle of energy, looking ready to use that gun 
  at a moment’s notice. I just hope she doesn’t decide to use it on 
  me.
  “We need to get Kishi out.”
  At that, Mariko almost dropped her beer. “Kishi—Shihan Kishi?”
  “No, Private Kishi, the guy who cleans the latrines—of course 
  Shihan Kishi!”
  Mariko set her beer down on the coffee table and stood up. She 
  was half a head taller than Patricia, and she felt the need to take 
  advantage of that. “Shihan Kishi’s dead.” 
  Patricia blinked. “He was killed? Dammit, I thought his games 
  were all rigged. When did this happen, last night?”
  “He died when he lost at Nowhere. Patricia, you’re not making 
  any sense, I—”
  “I’m not making any sense? M’iko, you see Kishi every day from 
  the booth.”
  “What’re you—?” Then, all of a sudden, Mariko realized what 
  Patricia was talking about. “Oh my God. Vision of Judgment—
  that’s Kishi?”
  “You didn’t know?”
  Throwing up her hands, Mariko said, “Of course I didn’t know, 
  they don’t tell me a damn thing. I told you, I show up, I call—”
  
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  “—the plays, you go home, right. Shit.” Patricia took a breath. 
  “Well, Vision of Judgment is Kishi, and my job is to get him out—
  it’ll be a shot in the arm to the Combine—and everyone else, too, 
  I don’t doubt—and it’ll kick the Blakists’ propaganda right in the 
  balls. “
  Mariko said, “Let me guess—you escort me to work and then 
  sneak down to the barracks and get him out?”
  “Bingo.”
  “That’s insane.”
  Now it was Patricia’s turn to shrug. “Desperate times, and all 
  that. Look, you’re in the clear. It’s ‘Acolyte Yanotti’ who’ll take the 
  heat.”
  “That’s the ID you borrowed?” Mariko asked, to which Patricia 
  nodded. “And you got that where, exactly?”
  “From some people who want Kishi out, and know I’m the one 
  to do it. I know my way around Silesia’s, I’ve got combat experi-
  ence, and the Blakists haven’t captured me yet. Plus, I got an in 
  with you.”
  Mariko grabbed her beer and gulped the rest of it down. “I 
  haven’t said yes yet, Patricia.”
  Grinning, she said, “Cah-mon, M’iko, how can you say no? This 
  is a chance to reverse the biggest setback the we’ve suffered! Not 
  to mention getting in good with—with Kurita.”
  Having spent far too long choosing her words properly, not to 
  mention over a decade of interviewing people, Mariko knew a hic-
  cup when she heard it. It wasn’t Kurita she would be getting in 
  good with—or at least, not only them. “Who’re you working for, 
  Patricia?”
  Looking down, Patricia muttered, “It doesn’t matter.”
  “It for damn sure does. You only mutter like that when you’re hiding 
  something. Talk to me, Patricia, who’re you working for? Someone 
  had to give you those toys and a way to get rid of my escort.” As 
  she spoke, she saw it. “Shit, you’re in bed with the yakuza.”
  “I am not in bed with the yakuza!”
  “Oh, come off it, Patricia.” Mariko stomped into the kitchen. “The 
  yaks are helping the SHDL, too! There’s nobody else on Solaris 
  
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  with the resources to pull this off who’d have anything to gain by 
  springing Kishi. They’ll turn him over to the Combine, and they’ll 
  be sitting pretty. Now tell me I’m wrong.”
  “You’re wrong—I’m not ‘in bed’ with them, I’m just doing a job.”
  Mariko rolled her eyes. “Right, because mobsters are notorious 
  for practicing the live-and-let-live philosophy.”
  Patricia walked up to Mariko, slung her gun behind her back, and 
  put her hands on Mariko’s shoulders. “I’m telling you, M’iko, it’s 
  just a job. They need me, and I need them.”
  That didn’t sound right. “How do you need them?”
  “Never mind.”
  Shrugging off Patricia’s arms, Mariko said, “What do you mean, 
  never mind—I want to know!”
  “It’s none’a your business.”
  “Like hell it isn’t! Patricia, we’ve been partners for years, both in 
  the booth and in the bedroom—what can’t you tell me?”
  “A lot. And this ain’t your concern, all right? Just trust me.”
  “Trust you. You come in here out of nowhere after no word 
  for months, ask me to smuggle you into the stronghold of 
  Word of Blake’s propaganda machine to sneak out their great-
  est weapon on behalf of the damned mob, and you want me 
  to trust you? I don’t even want to go along with this! I could 
  get killed!”
  Snarling now, Patricia wagged her finger at Mariko. “Don’t tell 
  me about getting killed, M’iko. I spent twenty years riding a ’Mech 
  on ten different worlds, I went up against the worst the—”
  “—major Houses could throw at me and you’re still here, I’ve 
  heard the speech before, Patricia.”
  The two women stared at each other for several seconds. 
  Mariko’s arms were folded defiantly. The truth was, she wanted 
  more than anything to help Patricia, to rescue Shihan Kishi, to 
  feel like she was doing something. But she was also pissed at 
  Patricia for just assuming she’d go along with it—that Mariko 
  would follow Patricia’s lead. Without any information—no de-
  tails, no plans.
  
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  “I need to do this, M’iko,” Patricia finally said in a tight voice, 
  “and I can’t do it without you. Now will you help me—will you help 
  the cause—or not?”
  Mariko chuckled bitterly. The only cause being served here is the 
  yakuza’s. She knew that wasn’t entirely true, but it certainly felt 
  that way. She also had one final objection. “What if Kishi doesn’t 
  want to come?”
  “That’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard you say—and I’ve 
  heard you say some seriously stupid shit, M’iko. He’s a prisoner, 
  why would—”
  “He’s Vision of Judgment! I sit there in that damned booth every 
  night and I watch him blow prisoners into scrap metal! What if 
  he’s doing it willingly? What if he’s gone over to the Word?”
  “That’s not possible.” Patricia started pacing again. “He’s—he’s 
  Kishi, for Christ’s sake. We got intel that he’s been brainwashed, 
  and I’ve got a way to reverse it, if I can get close.”
  Mariko sat back down on her chair. “I hope to hell you’re right, 
  Patricia—’cause if he doesn’t want to go, they’re gonna need a 
  DNA scanner to ID the bodies when he’s done with us.”
  Eyes widening, Patricia sat on the sofa and stared at Mariko. 
  “You’ll do it?”
  Letting out a long sigh, Mariko said, “Yeah. Let’s do it.”
  
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  The ronin had been given the option of how the duel was to be 
  settled. Because the ronin was an honorable man once, the samu-
  rai granted him choice in the manner of his death.
  To the samurai’s surprise, the ronin had chosen to fight by hand. 
  The samurai wondered if the ronin kenw of the samurai’s profi-
  ciency at karate. Perhaps the ronin thought his own skills to be 
  equal to the task.
  Either way, the samurai needed to prepare. He began by doing 
  several stretching exercises to limber his muscles. 
  As he did so, he heard his name being called.
  Or, rather, not his name. He responded instinctively, even though 
  his name was not Giuseppe. It was—
  “Giuseppe! Shihan Kishi, you have to come with me!” 
  Shihan? That didn’t make any sense. The samurai was a senpai, 
  a senior student, of karate, not a master. And what kind of name 
  was Giuseppe?
  Then he saw her.
  Running only on instinct, the samurai attacked the intruder—who 
  seemed to appear out of nowhere—with a shuto strike to the fore-
  head. 
  But the intruder blocked the strike with an upper block—one that, 
  oddly, gave the samurai a prick in his hand. “Shihan Kishi, I’m here 
  to rescue you.”
   Suddenly, the samurai’s head started to hurt. His house seemed 
  to melt and change and shift. The ground hardened beneath his 
  feet, and his gi started to grow heavy.And then…
  …it all started…
  …to come back to him.
  
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  My God.
  Shihan Giuseppe Kishi sat in an unfamiliar ’Mech, a woman 
  with steel-gray hair wearing a Word of Blake uniform kneeling 
  next to him, leaning near from the ’Mech gantry. The last thing 
  he remembered was being ambushed by Word of Blake near 
  Nowhere—
  —before fighting as a samurai in feudal Japan.
  It was a fantasy of Giuseppe’s, to live in that simpler time, before 
  technology, before space travel, to serve in that earlier era the way 
  he served House Kurita now.
  Word of Blake gave that to him—and then they twisted it.
  Looking around, he saw that he was in the waiting area where 
  they kept him before he was sent out to kill his fellow gladiators. 
  At the ’Mech’s feet were a squad of Blakist infantrymen.
  They corrupted his dream. They dishonored him.
  For that, they needed to be destroyed.
  “Hey,” one of the other Word of Blake soldiers shouted, “you ain’t 
  supposed to be movin’ yet!” 
  Giuseppe raised the arm of the unfamiliar white ’Mech that they 
  called Vision of Judgment and fired the Gauss gun, ripping the 
  soldier to pieces. 
  The steel-gray-haired woman spoke with the voice of the intrud-
  er. “This way, Shihan—we can escape.”
  “No,” Giuseppe said. “We will not run away. Honor must be 
  served.”
  He activated all the armament in Vision of Judgment. The wom-
  an backed away from the ’Mech’s cockpit.
  Then he walked forward.
  * * *
  “I was barely able to make it a safe distance before the cessa-
  tion of fighting inside the Silesia Coliseum, the work of its greatest 
  fighter. Vision of Judgment—or, rather, Shihan Giuseppe Kishi 
  of House Kurita—has battered the Coliseum, killing hundreds of 
  
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  Blakists and Blakist collaborators. I don’t know who will see this 
  report, but I, for one, am glad that it will be my last tournament. 
  For the final time, this is Mariko Guardado.”
  Connor DeLon, koman of the yakuza, switched the trivid image 
  of Mariko off.
  The real Mariko sat trembling in the corner of the room.
  Patricia sighed. She had been hoping M’iko would have been 
  able to handle this better, but she was only a civilian, and very few 
  civilians—indeed, very few people—got to meet with someone as 
  high-ranking as Connor was in the yakuza.
  “You’ve done well,” Connor said.
  “I’m sorry we couldn’t get the shihan out alive.”
  Shaking his head, Connor said, “It is better this way. He died a 
  hero—he could have hoped for no better end, and no better way 
  to reclaim his honor.”
  “And y-you have some nice footage,” Mariko said hesitantly. 
  “Even have my famous face. Nice job.”
  With no obvious sincerity, Connor said, “Thank you.” He turned to 
  Patricia. “Our business is concluded. You will be paid as agreed.”
  “There’s one change—the passage applies to both of us.”
  Connor raised an eyebrow. “Our agreement was with you, 
  Sergeant Bracken. Ms. Guardado is not your concern—nor ours.”
  “She damn well is my concern—this only went down the way it 
  did because of her getting me in. Besides—I could use her help.”
  “And why should this matter to us?”
  “Because,” Mariko said, the trembling fading from her voice, 
  “I can do you more good as a fugitive than as a corpse. You toss 
  me out on my ear, then Word of Blake finds me, kills me, and 
  turns my death into restitution for Kishi. You let me go with 
  Patricia, I can do more pirate broadcasts—and not that crap that 
  Nero’s doing, I mean real underground stuff. That’ll help your 
  cause.”
  “How do we know you will have the capability of producing these 
  broadcasts?” Connor asked with a small smile.
  
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  Meiyo • Page 
  M’iko, bless her, gave him the same smile back. “Erik Gray gets 
  on the holo, doesn’t he? I’ve got my methods. Besides, you’re al-
  ready helping Patricia out—what’s adding me, in the end?”
  “Passage off-planet is difficult.” Connor rubbed his chin; Patricia 
  noted that he was missing his pinky finger. “But not impossible. 
  And removing the Vision of Judgment under the cloud of betrayal 
  has indeed been a fine victory for us, one that gives us leverage 
  with others. Your wish is granted.”
  Patricia breathed a sigh of relief. 
  Connor turned to Patricia. “If you go to Shostakovich Port in two 
  hours, and meet with a man named Nakamura, he will lead you 
  to your passage.” He pressed a button. A door slid open, and the 
  two no-necked thugs who had escorted them into Connor’s office 
  walked in. Patricia got the message right off, and after a second, 
  so did M’iko. They followed the two thugs out.
  “So,” M’iko said, “you gonna tell me what it is the yakuza gave 
  you in return?”
  “It’s good to see you too, kiddo.”
  “You’re not answering my question, Patricia.”
  “Very observant.”
  They said nothing as they left the building. M’iko did not look 
  happy.
  Well, tough. We did the job, now we finally get off this dirtball. 
  And we saved the big hero. Not bad for a day’s work.
  
SOURCE: textdata/thevault/BattleTech [multi]/EXTRA/Novels/Battlecorps Novels/Meiyo - Keith R.A. DeCandido.pdf