15

Deber City, Benjamin

Benjamin Military District, Draconis Combine

2 February 3135

I want, I want, I want. Stone-faced, Atsutane Kobayashi waited while Sakamoto rambled on. They’d arrived on Benjamin two days ago: Kobayashi and his Saki-mono from Kitalpha, Hideki Ame’s party from Minukachi, and last but certainly not least, no, never least, Jazeburo Enda from Shibuka, a retinue of pretty geishas and sweet plum wine in tow.

Sakamoto, the great warlord, with his I wants : the man could bleat like a goat. I want this, and I want that, and I want the other. It would never occur to Sakamoto to ask politely. A lowly oyabun would, of course, not worry about honor. Of course Kobayashi had known that, eventually, something like this would come; if not during Sakamoto’s time then from the next warlord craving more power and higher glory.

Yes, but there is a way to ask, and a way to demand. He lets us know that we yakuza operate at his pleasure, under his protection. So, he will have what he wants, and he will have it when he wants—as if he’s never profited from our ventures.

He felt heat crawl up his neck. No, that would never do. Kobayashi took refuge in zanshin, watchful alertness. An ancient skill practiced by samurai and it served Kobayashi now, calming his heart and cooling his skin, and just in the nick of time because Sakamoto swung his bull’s head and regarded him with suspicion.

“You’re a close one, Kobayashi,” said Sakamoto, not bothering with an honorific.

Another opportunity to rub my nose in it. Kobayashi kept his face still, though his blood boiled. Who was Sakamoto anyway; who was he to order Kobayashi to do this or that? He knew the answer, of course: the man who suffers my Wakashu to continue in their activities unmolested. Kobayashi watched as if from a great distance: saw Sakamoto come round in a swirl of red-and-black-and-gold brocade kimono, belted with a stiff kaku obi that echoed the coil of dragons spilling over the kimono; felt Sakamoto’s breath in his face, and noted, with an almost wry detachment, that Sakamoto might not smell like plum wine but the liquor had left its imprint in a clot of burst capillaries threading through Sakamoto’s nose.

Sakamoto leaned close enough that his spittle wet Kobayashi’s cheek with a fine spray. “What say you, eh?”

Kobayashi inclined his head—just enough to show respect yet not enough to injure his own honor. “I say nothing, Sakamoto-san. I have nothing to offer, save to observe that the Ghost Regiments were disbanded decades ago, their men and women scattered as surely as a strong wind carries away the individual petals of the most perfect cherry blossom. For an operation of the magnitude you propose, however, we will have to call upon people who have never fought a battle, have barely mastered the skills necessary to survive a simulation.”

“Bah!” Sakamoto waved Kobayashi’s words away. He turned his back on Kobayashi—another insult—and faced the other oyabuns. “You yakuza have operated with impunity for years. I’ve not lifted a finger to stop you, never asked for your services.”

Untrue, Kobayashi knew. Sakamoto took his pick of the finest they each had to offer, and it was not for the first time that he was thankful for the fact that Sakamoto disliked pachinko and baccarat, his clan’s particular stock-in-trade.

“Well, now it’s time for a little payback,” bawled Sakamoto. He pinned Ame with a sharp look. Ame, a corpulent little man with gold rings squeezed onto pinkies that looked more like sausages, visibly quailed.

“And there’s no use your pleading that you can’t get the men or materiel either,” said Sakamoto, drilling Enda with the same glare. But Enda merely blinked. He was as thin as Ame was corpulent—a man with a lean, perpetually hungry expression capped with hair as black and oily as sealskin. “I know you’ve got them. If you don’t deliver, I’ll shut you all down, kick the lot of you down the street, and promote the hungriest pup in line to your post.”

“Sakamoto-san,” said Enda, bowing that sleek head of his. When he spoke, his tone was so honeyed and unctuous that Kobayashi was amazed the man could talk through all that sweet goo. “You have been magnanimous in overlooking our… activities. Simply tell us what you require, and we shall deliver.”

Speak for yourself. Kobayashi listened with growing dismay as Sakamoto rattled off troop complements and weapons needs. An operation of this magnitude would gut Kobayashi’s effective workforce by two-thirds.

“And BattleMechs, I want them primed, their pilots ready for action. And no use pretending you don’t have them; I know you do. You yakuza never throw anything out. You’re like pack rats. And I want them all,” said Sakamoto, planting his fists on his hips, “in four months’ time.”

Ame’s gasp was audible, and Enda’s jaw went slack. Kobayashi was stunned. Four months? To marshal all those men and materiel? Kobayashi almost shook his head but checked himself before he made what would be a supreme error. Sakamoto had had men’s heads for less, and Kobayashi was very attached to his, thank you.

Yet if this is what the coordinator wishes… Kobayashi bowed his head in rei as far as he was able with the accursed table in the way. (Insult to injury, not seating them on tatami but chairs. Maddening.) “Of course, we serve the coordinator at his pleasure as we have always done.”

He would have said more but Sakamoto cut him off. “No,” he said, his tone sharp as the snap of a whip. “This time, Kobayashi, you serve at mine.”

The pronouncement was so stunning that Kobayashi simply gawked. There was a slight scuffle behind them as each oyabun’s Saki-mono, stationed along the wall, reacted in kind. Evidently Sakamoto read their expressions because when he continued, his tone was more conciliatory. “The coordinator suggested that no one act until the time was right. We met with him, the other warlords and me, and that’s what he said. Well, now is precisely the right time.”

When he didn’t elaborate, the oyabuns exchanged looks with one another in a pantomime of surprise, as if to ask All right, who wants to go first? Finally, it was Kobayashi who cleared his throat. “Of course, Sakamoto-san, it will be as you wish. And you may rest assured that we shall be discreet.”

But Sakamoto had one more surprise in store. “On the contrary: I want some noise, and I will tell you precisely when the time is right.”

When the time is right, eh? Sakamoto’s words niggled at the back of Kobayashi’s brain like a cloud of gnats. He stood behind his DropShip pilot and watched the viewscreen as they broke orbit. Benjamin fell away, a brown ball of a world with its twenty semi-suns strung around in orbit like gaudy beads. And good-bye, Sakamoto. Not good riddance: whatever else Sakamoto was, he was still tai-shu. But the way he’d reacted at mention of the coordinator…

Kobayashi replayed the rest in his head: how they’d been dismissed—summarily, it seemed to Kobayashi, as if Sakamoto worried he might let something else slip; and how Enda had hung back, of course. Kobayashi’s lip curled in distaste. The oily young oyabun had practically purred, assuring Sakamoto that, of course, the Cholobara wine was wonderfully full of body, and his crop of lovely young geishas were a vintage lot. Sakamoto had practically drooled. Cholobara was prohibitively expensive, spoiled quickly and had to be drunk within a month’s time. (And how would Enda fare if he turned over as many of his freighters as he’d promised?) The wine was a potent aphrodisiac besides. Yes, Sakamoto had sampled both wine and women.