BattleTech Legends by Victor Milán

Author:Victor Milán
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Catalyst Game Labs
Published: 2011-04-03T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

Prince John Spaceport, Port Howard

Aquilonia Province, Towne

Draconis March, Federated Commonwealth

23 January 3058

Edwin Kimura, second in command of Dieron Prefecture’s dominant yakuza organization, stood waiting patiently for the loading ramp of the Union Class DropShip to descend. Officially his title was that of sabu, though Kimura might have been startled to learn that the word derived from the English prefix “sub.” As the ramp section broke seal and began to swing away and reveal to him the world of Towne, he was already holding his high black silk top hat in place. Kimura-

sensei was a man who worked hard to discern the shape of the future and prepare for it.

His present garb—the topper, a black and white kimono with the Kurita Dragon mon on the right breast and the black dragon rampant crest of Kokuryu-kai on the other, striped pants, spats and shoes polished to mirror finish—seemed hardly the product of foresight, given the atrocious winter weather for which this world was famous. And it wasn’t, but rather the product of ceremony. Tradition was very important to Mr. Kimura, as it was to his oyabun, Hiraoke Toyama, and indeed to the man he was about to greet and, hopefully, exercise a benign influence upon.

Upholding tradition was, indeed, what this whole martial exercise was about. Which was why Mr. Kimura was taking part, despite certain very real misgivings about the whole jarajara. Tradition and the wish of his oyabun, to whom he owed vast amounts of giri, and not a little ninyo as well.

As the DropShip door opened outward, the wind hit him in the face like a bucket of ice water—which it didn’t omit to contain, in the form of hard-driven snowflakes. Aside from a reflex narrowing of his eyes behind his thick round spectacles, Mr. Kimura showed no reaction. Small, skinny, with a thin neck and a round head that gave him an unfortunate resemblance to a turtle, Kimura knew his appearance was not physically imposing. But that mattered little. He stood on the dignity of honoring duty and pride, and that was enough.

As the ramp grounded with a crunch of hull-metal on blacktop, Kimura began to descend it, grateful for the high-traction surface that prevented him from skiing straight down in a most undignified fashion.

The man awaiting him in a swirl of snow at the ramp’s foot was physically imposing. Clad in a Mech-Warrior’s cooling vest, trunks, and gauntlets that left arms and legs mostly bare to the ice-laden wind, he carried his neurohelmet tucked under one arm, his long blond topknot whipping like a pennon. With his height of 203 centimeters and muscled like a god, Tai-sho Jeffrey Kusunoki looked, from the perspective of the diminutive Kimura, scarcely less prepossessing than the 95-ton ‘Mech, a Naginata, standing behind him.

At a precisely prescribed distance from Kusunoki, Kimura stopped. Both men bowed, Kimura fractionally further.

“Welcome to Towne, Kimura-sensei,” the Tai-sho said.

“I thank you, Kusunoki-sama. How goes the battle?”

Kusunoki gestured to a Rommel tank three hundred meters away, canted over the rim of the blast-pit.

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