PROLOGUE

AJI: FUTURE PLAY

ARMITAGE

ANCHA

DRACONIS COMBINE

15 MARCH 3136

Brilliant. Just abso-bloody-lutely brilliant. Not so bad when the johnny laughed and called her a fat black slag. Her fault, not getting the bling up front. No, what was bad was when he up and bashed her nose.

Sweetie Pie struggled out of the Loading Dock Bar on a balloon of moist air that reeked of cigarette smoke, rancid beer, and second-shift dockworkers stewed in grime and oily sweat. The wind snatched the door, clapping it shut with a boom. Bone-numbing blades of cold wind cut tears from her eyes, and her ruined nose and split lower lip throbbed to life. Shivering, she huddled in a pool of watery yellow light, her chocolate-brown skin washed to the color of muddy piss.

Got to get home. Clean up. Do a pinch of dust, buoy the spirits.

Sweetie Pie set off, wobbling, against the wind. Her stiletto heels ticked and cracked against the icy ferrocrete. She had to think what to do. Can’t pretend there hasn’t been no war what trashed the economy and let loose a flood of refugees besides, Armitage being about the only city the Dracs ain’t reduced to rubble. Maybe Halstead Station... Jobs there, with Katana Tormark moving her command kit ’n caboodle to the planet. Chances of getting off the game was better there and—

Something—a premonition, maybe, a tickle at the back of her brain—spiked her awareness like a nail. Her eyes flicked left, darted right, and then she spied them: two bulky silhouettes in the semidark of a warehouse doorway.

Oh, sweet buggery Christ. Her chest squeezed with apprehension. She stopped dead under a streetlamp. Planting her feet wide to get her balance, she wished she wasn’t in heels because she couldn’t run. She hoped the light would save her, but worried it wouldn’t.

The men sauntered forward, the darkness peeling away. One was much buffer and very tall, with broad shoulders and hands wide as shovels. Both wore identical black pea-coats and gray, grease-stained mechanics trousers.

As they got close, the shorter one called, Got a little time, Pie?

A little of the tension bled from her shoulders. Oi, Bill, is that you?

The very article, Bill said. A black watch cap clamped his scalp, and his rough features were ruddy with cold. He squinted. Darlin’, what happened to your mug?

Client. Whacked me, said I wasn’t worth the price. So I’m knackered. Walking back to me flophouse for a cuppa and a kip.

That so? Bill’s smile bared the smeary orange teeth of a duster. Quick as a whip, he snagged her right forearm and reeled her in. What say we get nice an’ comfy right ’ere? What ya say, darlin’?

Up close, his breath stank of curdled milk and sickly sweet, day-old dust. Oi, now, Bill, she said, fighting to keep the quaver out of her voice. Ain’t nothing you wants I can’t do you, but I’m all banged up, and—

Her short scream was cut off as the men moved in fast, so fast she didn’t have time to react. Bill had her by the arms, and then the tall one was behind, clapping a horny palm over her mouth and ruined nose. Through a starburst of pain, she bucked as his arm snaked round her neck and squeezed. Panicked, her lungs burning, she writhed, twisting, the blood pounding in her ears and temples.

Then, somehow, she was on the ground. Cold palmed her back. Bill’s hands fumbled beneath her skirt, his fingers tearing at her waist, her thighs. The tall one loomed; his right hand squeezed her throat, his left pinned her wrists above her head, and she couldn’t breathe, no air. It hurts, please sweet Jesus, I can’t—

Hey! A man’s voice. An arc of bright light scything the darkness. HEY!

Wuh? Bill froze, a thin, silvery rope of drool trembling from his lower lip. Then he was reeling back, his eyes wide. Christ, what…?

Suddenly, the vise round her neck was gone. Her hands were free, and she reeled in air on a wheezy shriek. The cold air hacked her throat. Dimly, she heard shouts, the heavy thud of men’s boots on ferrocrete, and then a singing whine. Pushing up, she braced herself on wobbly arms. Her mouth tasted brackish, like wet metal, and she spat out a foamy gob of bloody saliva.

Then, a light played over her body. She winced, put up a hand to shield her eyes from the glare.

You all right? The policeman hooked a hand around her right bicep as she swayed to her feet. He had no mittens, and his fingers were very cold.

I’m all right, she lied, just wanting to get away. Ain’t cha going after them?

They’re tagged. Let’s take care of you first, the policeman said. His light swept her neck from side to side—and then something in his voice changed. Nasty bruises, though they don’t show with your coloring.

His tone sent prickles down the back of her neck. Smug, like he could do it better.

It’s all right, she said, a little desperate now. Just need a good bath, a coupla painkillers, and I’ll be right as rain.

He was silent. Her heart hammered her ribs. Let me go, just let me go, please let me…

Well, he said finally, if you’re sure. I’ll give you a lift.

It was only then that she realized he’d never released his hold, and there was something, well, off. With his hand. There was just enough light to see it. Her gaze dropped, and, then, she inhaled, short, sharp, horrified, the ball of a scream stuck in her throat—because his hand, what she saw…

His hand was as white as the belly of a dead eel. His skin wrinkled, like the folds of a latex glove several sizes too large. As if his skin had drifted from its moorings of tendon and muscle.

As if his skin was dead…

PART ONE

FUSEKI: LET THE GAMES BEGIN

CHAPTER 1

AOMORI MOUNTAINS

DIERON

REPUBLIC OF THE SPHERE

13 JUNE 3136

Okay, so call her pissy, but when the chance came to kick some serious butt, Katana jumped at it. Who wouldn’t? Brand-spanking-new Hitotsume Kozo, grab the solid weight of that joystick, and get down and dirty dealing out some fine, old-fashioned destruction and mayhem. What’s she gonna say, "Gosh, no, let’s have lunch?"

Only things weren’t turning out so well.

High in her Hitotsume Kozo’s cockpit, Katana labored up the western wall of a canyon over the equivalent of a moonscape pocked with blast craters and studded with mounds of debris and jumbled trees hacked to kindling. Immediately to her north, a tremendous river thundered in an immense cataract. Three hundred meters below, fast-moving, silver-blue water battered massive boulders with a deep boom, like the roar of autocannons.

Clots of dense black smoke boiled from a phalanx of wildfires all along her western flank. Some of the fires had been ignited by enemy weapons, but most, like the evergreens, had been set deliberately. A damn good tactic, the fires made hash of her sensors, and the soot-choked smoke smeared fingers of thick grime over her canopy.

She’d been maneuvering through foothills and mountains for several hours, and although her own legs didn’t feel the strain, her ’Mech’s temp was inching up, like a hiker working her way to heatstroke. She’d taken hits these past few days, too many too close for comfort on her torso. Enough to shred two-thirds of her armor, most of it dead center over her munitions store, right where it counted most.

A man’s voice, deep and weary, came through on her comm: Anything?

Nope. Where are you, Theodore?

Your four o’clock, other side of the canyon, Theodore replied.

Katana pivoted and then spied a soot-smeared naginata blade on its long distal tang ripping a seam in an inky curtain of smoke. Sun glare reflected by the titanium blade winked in fitful bursts, like the frantic semaphore of a ship in distress.

A second later, the V-shaped hulk of Theodore Kurita’s Shiro hove into view on a lip of rock along a scalloped ridge. The sun bounced twinkling stars off the glittery gold and rich oxblood accents of his ’Mech’s kabuto, with its modified fukigayeshi wings, and do scarred gray and blackened by ash. The Shiro’s armor was scored from missile hits, a ragged gash jagging down the ’Mech’s left thigh, exposing bundles of myomer—as if a drunken surgeon had slashed through skin and flayed muscle with a blunt scalpel. Another slash, lumpier at the margins, had chewed away armor perilously close to one of the Shiro’s three right-torso missile stores. The Shiro raised the naginata blade wedded to its left fist in a salute.

Gotcha, Katana said. She rested the Kozo’s left leg on a rocky shelf some hundred and twenty meters above the canyon floor. Careful. That eastern ridge is kind of rotten, and the wall’s steeper.

You’re not exactly in the most defensible position either. All it’ll take are a couple good punches, and you’ll get knocked right off that slope.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. She backhanded sweat from her neck. When she shifted, her couch made a wet, sucking sound. I figure a traverse is better than a head-on climb. Otherwise, my autocannon’ll be punching rock. What’s your status?

How many different kinds of bad are there? Then, without waiting for her reply: Look, this is between you and me, okay? No one else on this channel, so just listen.

Listen to what? Of course, she knew what he’d say because she knew Theodore. Their friendship had been forged in battle, and a long JumpShip trip home.

Katana, my weapons’ status has gone from bad to the other side of crappy. I’m out of autocannon. I’ve got two racks of LRMs left. I know you want to win—

It’s not just about winning.

"Bull. This is about you being the new kid on the block. I’m on your side, remember? You know I won’t interfere, not when the Combine’s watching. But a good commander listens. She’s flexible. Now, it’s just plain suicidal for us to be out front here, with no reinforcements, and I don’t like this canyon. We should withdraw."

No, Katana said. Oh, don’t be an ass. He’s right, and you know he’s right. This is our last chance to take him. It’s my op.

I know. That’s what I said. More silence. Katana could picture Theodore in his command couch: his tanned leathery features creased with sweat, his lips thinned to a crack above his square chin and those frosty Kurita-blue eyes set with determination…

But there was something…wrong. Theodore’s reflexes were slower, his Shiro’s gait more herky-jerky. Yesterday, he’d made a misstep, coming down hard on his left leg before compensating with his right in a wildly exaggerated arc. And then his ’Mech froze. Right leg rigid and locked at the knee. Just for a few seconds, but she saw it.

A sudden revelation: So maybe this is also about him saving face, not exposing weakness.

She had to respect that. He was heir, after all. She exhaled. Okay, we’re gone. I’ll just—

She broke off as alarms screamed. Her eyes snapped to her HUD winking to a fiery red. Incoming, but not targeting her! Targeting…

Theodore! she screamed. Look out!

Roiling emerald fire punched the Shiro so hard Theodore swayed, reeled, and nearly toppled.

"Theodore!" Katana jerked left, tracked the source and…there! A Zeus, high above, blasting through curtains of black smoke like a demon released from the maw of Hell.

But I’m the one he wants! Got to get Theodore out of here before…

Theodore, back off! Katana shouted, already pivoting left, leaning into the mountain, bringing her pulse lasers to bear. But her aim was awkward, her angle hampered by the mountain, and her shots blasted wide.

Throttling up, she banged her ’Mech forward, punishing the rock, desperately wishing she had the claws of a Shockwave so she could grab hold and haul ass to the top. Her right leg jack-hammered the rock, but then she felt the shifting of rock and scree, and she slipped.

Gasping, she threw her body left, a motion that translated to a swooping arc that only shoved her ’Mech off its center of gravity. As she began to fall into the rock, instinct took over. She straightened her left arm, the impact shivering all the way into the cockpit. The arm groaned as 75 tons of endosteel drove her pulse lasers straight into the rock, and then her left arm jammed tight.

"Damn it!" She yanked back, trying to extricate her lasers, ignoring the warning shriek of her DI as her temp climbed. She could figure out the problem without the help of her diagnostic interpretation computer, thank you very much.

Katana! Theodore yelled, his voice hitching. There was a series of dull sonic booms; Katana spared a quick glance, and—horrified—saw a lance of saucer-shaped Sholagar fighters scream from the sky. Lasers pricked the Shiro’s back, needling the cockpit, just as a spread of LRMs bulleted against Theodore’s right torso, directly over his store of missiles.

A blinding series of explosions blossomed bright and hard as suns gone nova: BOOM-BOOM-BOOM! The roars reverberated across the canyon, redoubling as echoes—and then Theodore’s armor plating turned to sludge, to molten welts, the edges humping like badly formed scars. The Sholagars sped by the Shiro, then broke right and left, turning now, rocketing for the ’Mech, lasers slicing away the Shiro’s twin banners, the ones decorated with the Kurita dragon.

Katana! Theodore shouted, his voice broken by bursts of static. My firing system’s frozen, locked out, and my emergency dump’s off-line!

My God, he’s too close to the edge, too close! "Theodore! You can’t do any more good here, just get the hell…!" She broke off as the air overhead screamed with the passage of LRMs loosed by the Zeus, rocketing streamers of death. She gauged their trajectory, and understood their enemy’s strategy too late. "Theodore! The ridge! Back up, back up!"

But Theodore was already reeling, the Shiro lurching left, its leg swinging to broaden its stance—and then the ’Mech froze, right leg locked and still too close to the edge.

Helpless, Katana watched as the missiles plowed into the ridge, shattering rock like fragile glass, the concussive power of the blasts so strong that chunks of the mountain rained over her canopy, bulleting against ferroglass and armor. The ridge splintered, and the rock beneath Theodore’s feet disintegrated. The edge crumbled to dust—with Theodore still there, still frozen.

And then the rock face suddenly slid free, like an iceberg calving from a glacier. The Shiro rode a wave of pulverized rock and debris that evaporated beneath its feet. Screaming, Theodore was in free fall, pulling an avalanche in his wake, his blade snapping in two as his ’Mech rebounded off a protruding rock shelf, the Shiro turning a somersault just before its munitions blew. A series of blasts, each more powerful than the next, billowed fiery orange and blood-red.

And then there was only silence, because Theodore was gone.

"Onore! Katana roared, the simmering magma of her fury erupting in an explosion of venomous hate. Koro shite yaru! I’m going to kill you, you son of a bitch!" She swung around, bringing her autocannon to bear. But the Zeus was already on the move, disappearing as it retreated from the rim. The Sholagars had regrouped, but very far away and circling, not initiating another attack run. Waiting. And then, when the Zeus maneuvered onto a jutting portion of ridge line north of her position, she understood at once.

Long-range missiles, and me trapped like a fly on sticky paper. No way to get free unless I try to break off the arm, but then…

A flash as her adversary’s missiles roared from their rack, arrowing right for her but… What is going on? She gaped, wondered if her enemy had lost his mind, because she saw the missiles were going to fall short, not hit her at all…

Oh, my God, she said, a clutch of sickening cold knotting her stomach and then flowing like ice water through her veins.

He wasn’t aiming at her at all. Instead, he’d targeted the canyon wall.

The missiles thundered into the canyon wall above and short of where she sprawled, her lasers mired in a trap devised by her folly and petty pride. Beneath her feet, the ground shook with the violence of an earthquake, of the earth splitting in two. Then she wasn’t standing on solid ground anymore, but hanging for a brief, tenuous two—or perhaps three—seconds before her laser arm, unable to hold her ’Mech’s tonnage, snapped.

The shrieking ululation of alarm klaxons mingled with her screams as she tumbled down amid rocks and debris. Her Kozo skidded right and then hit with a tremendous BOOM, the autocannon mounted on its right shoulder shearing and then tearing free as the ’Mech turned head over heels.

Trapped in her command couch, her body bounced and strained against her harness, jouncing like the hopeless struggles of an insect stuck in a web. The world dissolved into a gray blur and black smoke, spinning, cartwheeling…

Desperate, she wrenched her upper torso, trying to fling her ’Mech flat, and flailed with her right arm. Her ’Mech responded, mirroring her movements: its twin-headed dragon sickle flashed forward, grabbing at rock. The principle was the same as an ice climber using his ax to stop a fatal slide. She felt the sickle snag and leaned into it, grimacing with the effort, the ’Mech’s temperatures so high now that the scream of her alarms was one continual, piercing note.

Against all odds, she stopped falling. The sickle caught and held. It shouldn’t have. The sickle should’ve snapped because a ’Mech was proportionately so much heavier than a human—but it didn’t.

Yes, yes! Her heart rebounded with a tremendous thump against her ribs. Not much time, get moving, get moving! Grunting, she swung her legs, battering the rock, trying to gouge footholds. But then her ax jerked and pulled free with a groan of metal, and her Kozo peeled away from the mountain, its limbs splayed like a four-pointed star.

Beyond her canopy, the sky retreated and grew darker as she plunged toward the river. She couldn’t eject, couldn’t use the jump jets. She hurtled down the abyss and suddenly understood the despair of the damned.

She hit the water, hard. Hard enough that it was as if the water were solid, an open palm that smacked her in the back. Momentum slammed her body, trying to thrust her out of her command couch. Her harness, strained beyond the breaking point, ruptured, and she barely had time to throw her arms up to shield her face before she smacked face-first into her canopy. Later, the diagnostics would show that the bones of her face had shattered with the impact. Water rushed over her canopy, and the sky—so far away now—wavered, shimmered, disappeared.

But not before a final image was forever branded on her brain: the Zeus, wreathed by flame, a nightmare demon from an underworld she couldn’t imagine.

And then everything fizzled, broke apart into multicolored pixels as the sim terminated and went black.

Silence.

Then a voice she heard even over the roar of her heart in her temples and the bellows of her gasping lungs.

I believe, said Matsuhari Toranaga, Warlord of New Samarkand, you are quite, quite dead.

CHAPTER 2

IMPERIAL CITY

LUTHIEN

DRACONIS COMBINE

13 JUNE 3136

Her personal bodyguard, Joji Ashido, had pulled back the easternmost shoji overlooking a kidney-shaped pond ornamented with jade-green saucers of water lilies and the paler hues of a lush silver water grass. The Kuritas’ latest treasure perched on a high berm: a weeping cherry crowned with purple-pink blooms so plump and densely packed its branches bowed.

Yet, in the midst of this tranquility, Emi Kurita spied a storm brewing in the distance. Slate-colored, heavy-bellied clouds unfurled, loosing a pillow of air that smelled of ozone and wet metal.

And so. Emi Kurita knelt upon a tatami mat and tipped fragrant, steaming green tea from a tetsubin iron teapot into a peacock-blue, crackle-glazed ceramic cup. Let the games commence.

Proffering the cup, she said, "Brother, you must not take this so to heart. Tai-shu Toranaga had superior forces, positioned to better advantage. You did your best."

Grunting, Theodore accepted the tea with his right hand, something Emi noted with dismay. He’d shaved—nicking his throat several times, judging from the beads of dried blood. There was more silver brushing his temples than she remembered, and he’d lost weight. His cheeks were sharper, his chin a little more square. He was haggard, as if wearied beyond fatigue.

And yet…and yet, his attire revealed much about his state of mind: a pair of flowing black hakama trousers and matching keiko-gi jacket, belted at the waist with a twist of Kurita-red sash. A man ready for kendo kata and other drills aimed at honing a warrior’s mind. A man prepared for battle.

But are you a match for this, the fight of your life, my brother?

Replacing the pot upon a matching round iron trivet, she peered into her tea, as if to divine its mysteries, or their future. But the tea was just tea.

Theodore said, A shame my best wasn’t good enough. I couldn’t hold my own.

You performed admirably, Emi said, her tone a study in neutrality. Yes, I will speak to him of our shared disaster, but I must approach this with caution. Bad enough his body betrays him. He doesn’t need a sister’s sharp tongue to cut him to the bone. Besides, you were a tad outnumbered.

I know, Theodore said. The hell of it was Katana really didn’t have a choice. Toranaga issued a challenge. She couldn’t very well refuse, not in front of Father.

Would you have wanted her to?

No. It’s just… Emi, she brought on this defeat herself, maybe to prove how tough she is. I don’t know. If she’d only listened—

She did not, and that is her bitter pill, not yours. Brother, you cannot save her from herself. She will either fall, or rise and make Dieron whole.

"With what, exactly? She’s got a fractured district, virtually surrounded on all sides by enemies nibbling away at the margins. Even the worlds we thought we’d sewn up—Styx, Saffel—they’re still not completely secured. Katana’s got to push back and forward at the same time, with limited resources and, on some planets, populations that aren’t exactly welcoming. The task is nearly impossible: raising troops and matériel, while fending off attacks in her realm. Theodore stared down into his cup, his face set in something just shy of a glower. Imagine how much more trouble she’ll have when Father names the new warlord for the Benjamin District tomorrow. Then she’ll have to watch her back, too, and then there’s Toranaga."

I thought we were all part of the same happy Combine.

Theodore gave her a narrow look. "Don’t playact at naïveté, Sister. It’s beneath you. Katana was Toranaga’s enemy today, but he surely is poised to become our enemy tomorrow."

You mean Yori. Emi sipped from her cup. The slightly sweet green tea was still quite hot and scorched her tongue. Yori Kurita had arrived with her patron, Toranaga, a week ago. There were wheels upon wheels turning in that young head, yet she carried herself with a self-possessed, cautious air that bordered on chilly. Yori is a threat, even if she does not know or wish it. She may be the granddaughter of a bastard, but she’s taken our name. That reveals which way the wind blows, and it hails from New Samarkand, Brother. This may yet be the storm that sinks us.

Theodore gave her an odd look. You’ve grown blunt, Sister.

I am Keeper of the House Honor, but I am my father’s daughter, your sister, and a Kurita above all else. Why do you think Father installed the sim in the palace? To broadcast that we still have plenty of teeth. She added, more gently, Though I do not think we saw yours, Brother.

Since when have you become a critic?

She touched his arm to soften the sting. "Since I drilled kendo with you, Brother. I know how formidable you can be."

"And I remember you ducking under my shinai and thwacking my bottom more times than I care to recall. Theodore grinned with genuine pleasure at the memory. We were happier then."

You mean before Mother and Ryuhiko, Emi said. It was not a question, and it hurt her heart when Theodore’s smile dribbled away, like water leaking through a sieve. But she needed her brother to be realistic and face facts. "Brother, kimi o ai shiteru. You know that."

I love you, too. Theodore’s voice was hoarse. He blinked and looked away, his gaze drifting to the garden. That’s a lovely cherry tree.

Yes, it is. But all flowers fade, Brother. Everything dies, even the most beautiful, the strongest. Even the best may die young.

Die young. And then he did meet her eyes, and what she saw there dug a talon of grief into her heart. "Don’t you mean me, Emi?"

They stared at one another for several seconds, the silence filled by the warble of a distant songbird. Finally, Emi said, Chomie hasn’t produced an heir. You must continue the line. Father will die someday, or he will become infirm. Then you will lead, but you cannot if you have no heir. You and Chomie have tried for years and failed, and you are not getting younger. That is Yori’s danger, Brother. She is young; she is a Kurita; she is wedded to Toranaga by will or design, and that could not be worse than the devil himself. Why not take a lover? Perhaps Katana—

No. Theodore’s tone was flat, final. "Not Katana. Not because she isn’t attractive or strong, she is. But I’ll not plant my seed in Katana, or any other woman. I love my wife."

Your duty is to the Combine.

Theodore flared. It is no service if I betray my wife. I can no more contemplate that than…well— he made a vague gesture, "—than you might entertain compromising tradition by taking a lover."

Tradition? Emi arched an eyebrow. Omi Kurita’s spinning in her grave.

Don’t be coy. You might break with tradition, but I suspect you’d do so only for life or death. Anyway, we both know this goes beyond having another woman, Emi. He let out his breath in a long sigh of weariness tinged with despair. "The curse is in our blood. All the wishing in the world won’t change that."

Emi waited a beat. Do you have an alternative, a plan?

Yes. But Chomie’s against it.

For heaven’s sake, why?

Mute, he shook his head, shrugged. Stared at his hands, the right covering the ball of his left fist. When he didn’t speak, Emi said, Brother, are you well? Have you seen a physician? When he shook his head, she pressed, "But you must. You know you must. You are not concerned enough already? Despite your defeat today? Despite the fact that I saw your right leg, how it locked? Despite the fact that you drink tea with your right hand? You are left-handed, Brother. Your Shiro has been modified, the naginata blade wedded to your left hand, not the right. If there is nothing wrong, show me your hand."

This is absurd. Theodore reached for his tea. I don’t have a problem. This is pure fool— He broke off as his body betrayed him, as the fingers of his left hand and then the hand itself quaked. Tea sloshed over his fingers.

Emi tried reaching for him. Theodore, it’s all right, it’s all—

"Damn you, damn you!" Wrenching free, Theodore sprang to his feet and unleashed his fury in a sudden howl, hurling the cup with all his might. The cup tumbled through the air, end over end, spattering tea and shattering against a far wall with such force that Ashido, standing sentry outside the room, was there in a second, his hand on the butt of a laser pistol.

Mistress. Ashido was as tall as Theodore, but his black hair was much longer, spilling across his broad shoulders. His deep brown eyes took in Theodore, and then clicked to Emi. There was a— he seemed to choose the next word with care, —commotion.

It’s fine, Emi said. She didn’t even try to smile. Thank you, Joji. You may go. We’ll take care of the mess later. She waited until Ashido bowed and then retreated before going to her brother. Theodore, we can talk about this, we can—

There’s nothing to talk about, Theodore said. His