But what time? And by whose right? Kobayashi would have to be as foolish as Ame—who wasn’t a fool, really, just fat—to believe that Sakamoto hadn’t twisted the coordinator’s words to suit his purpose. Which brought up a very interesting question: How much had Sakamoto lied? Not that deception bothered Kobayashi on principle; every businessman mastered the finer points of deception. Kobayashi was nothing if not astute and a practitioner of the art.

But business is business, and war is about honor. Kobayashi would have to be deaf and dumb not to have caught the mutterings flying around the Combine. No love lost between Sakamoto and Katana Tormark, that was to be sure, and now, perhaps, no love at all for the coordinator—and that was a different matter.

His eyes fell to his right wrist. He pushed back the folds of his kimono to reveal the chain-link tattoo, done in gold with a Kurita dragon. The Dragon perfects the circle.

He debated, then turned to his ship’s communications officer. “We will send a message to our brethren. We will inform them of the situation and tell them—we may have need.”

16

Command Center, Phoenix, Al Na’ir

Prefecture II, Republic of the Sphere

25 February 3135

There were days when Legate Zachary O’Mallory hated his job. Today was one of them. Pulling a face, he rubbed a hand across his substantial middle—he hadn’t seen the toes of his boots in over twenty years—and wished there was something he could take that would make this bellyache go away. He knew there wasn’t, though.

So Legate Fuchida in Prefecture I was right after all.

“You’re sure,” he said. “You’re confident of your sources?”

His visitor shrugged. “As much as you can be in this business, yeah. The Dracs are fortifying positions on Buckminster, Gram and Shimosuwa along the border with Prefecture I and Homam, Matar and Klathandu IV along Prefecture III.”

“Damn.” O’Mallory heaved to his feet and turned to stare out at the city. His office was nearly all windows, and the building a thirty-story pillar, the bull’s-eye in a sea of endosteel-and-glass buildings arranged in concentric circles to conform to the shape of the dome just beyond. The weather outside the dome was miserable, of course. The weather on Al Na’ir was always miserable: a combination of dust storms and ion-rich tornadoes swirling in a thin atmosphere of sulfurous poison.

Sighing, O’Mallory ran a hand through his thatch of sand-colored hair. It embarrassed him that he was relieved Al Na’ir wasn’t a target. No one in his right mind would want the accursed place anyway. Al Na’ir was rich in mineral wealth, yes, but hardly a vacation spot. The Jihad had been ruinous, devastating the domed cities, allowing the planet’s poisonous atmosphere to do its work. The irony was that the miners, certainly the most wretched of the planet’s population, had survived the longest, holing up in settlements deep underground. A simple matter, though, to wait them out. The settlements were not self-sustaining, and the miners who hadn’t emerged to be slaughtered by the Blakists were crushed when skillfully placed charges brought their tunnels crashing around their ears.

Pity the poor souls in Prefecture I, though. O’Mallory tucked his hands in his pockets. His fingers stirred loose change. “And their plan?” he asked, without turning around.

“Best intelligence suggests a two-pronged attack. One arm will drive toward Vega. The forces along the Prefecture III border are skeleton troops, with one aim: to lure in Katana Tormark. Once they’ve got her, her troops will surrender quickly enough.”

Well, it was a decent plan at that. If O’Mallory had been leading the campaign, that’s how he’d have done it, too; keep everyone guessing. It all added up: the Dracs mobilizing for a strike at Vega, and gunning for Katana Tormark, and that was good. With her out of the way, things on Al Na’ir would be a little less dicey. The Tormark situation was a sticky one; Governor Reinaldo Tormark, based in Homai-Zaki Dome, had denounced his second cousin in no uncertain terms, but that didn’t mean he was immune to the rumors making the rounds that Tormark was in league with his swashbuckling cousin. Perhaps this Drac invasion was a blessing in disguise, so far as Al Na’ir was concerned.

A little problem, though. O’Mallory chewed on the inside of his left cheek. Their forces didn’t need more action, what with the exarch’s attentions turning toward the Jade Falcon assaults in Prefecture IX, and the continued Capellan problems in V. He and Fuchida might be able to beg, borrow and steal men from the planetary militias of Rukbat and Shitara to beef up support on Tsukude, Altas and Alnasi. Still, they wouldn’t be enough if the Dracs came on, full-bore. “What about troop strength? What do the Dracs intend to throw at Vega?”

“Sakamoto’s forces will attack within the next two or three months, you can count on that,” said his visitor with an air of authority. “As for fighting a war on two fronts, even if one is limited… well, I think this will stretch even the Combine’s capabilities. The Dracs’ trade in black-market ’Mechs really took a beating after that business two years back when Katana Tormark broke up that ring in Prefecture III.”

“Yes. Some of those supposedly decommissioned BattleMechs would’ve come in handy right about now,” said O’Mallory. He turned and slid back into his seat, easing his paunch into the gap between chair and desk. “On the other hand, Sakamoto won’t have them either.”

“Sneaking ’Mechs across the border to Combine space was a pretty lucrative business,” his visitor mused. “Makes you wonder if Katana wishes she’d hoarded some of those ’Mechs herself because, let me tell you, her resources are stretched to the limit, if they’ve not downright run out. I’ve seen it with my own eyes. Her troops are so low on supplies they’re resorting to paint-ball battles, for God’s sake. Take my word for it. Sakamoto so much as sneezes at the Fury, the whole thing will topple like a house of cards.”

“Some comfort in that,” said O’Mallory, his mind toying with the possibility that his people might have the option of sitting this one out. If Sakamoto were gunning for Vega and Katana, Al Na’ir might come out of this without a scratch, and wouldn’t that be the best of all possible worlds? He gave his visitor an intent, searching look and could find nothing in the man’s face but confidence and a total lack of guile. O’Mallory nodded to himself. That settled it then. He would support Fuchida’s request for troops, and then sit back and wait to see what happened. Yes, the best of all possible worlds.

“Thank you for coming forward,” he said. He stood and held out his hand. “We can only hope your information is correct.”

Smiling, Wahab Fusilli stood and grasped O’Mallory’s hand. “Legate, have I ever once let you down?”