Was the Professor right? Was there some angle he hadn't covered? No way. The old man was just a washed-up war horse, too rusted out to accept a new idea. With his own military talent and Anton's backing, what could possibly go wrong?

THE JUDAS BLIND

-Michael A. Stackpole

Somehow I'd hoped that growing a bushy black mustache would be enough to disguise me because getting killed this early on would certainly hurt any chances ot the mission coming off as planned. Actually, the plan was for me to avoid being killed at all—at least my version of it did. Still, some of the Intelligence types who were scoping this thing out for Duke Michael Hasek-Davion allowed as how survival was not 100 percent necessary to the mission's successful completion. Real rays of sunshine, those guys.

When I noticed a trio of long shadows stretching behind me down the rubble-strewn alley. I realized my mustache and ratty street clothes had not concealed my identity from the residents of the sawararenaislum. Pulling myself up to full height and expanding my chest in an effort to appear more menacing, I only wished I'd been endowed with my brother's height and heftier build. The three people producing the shadows behind me responded to my gambit with the low hum of a vibroblade.

Dressed in a leather flight jacket one size too small for his ample belly, a tall, heavy-set man drifted forward from the alley's depths. He came close enough for the weak yellow light from the street to illuminate his cruel face. With a full, fleshy face that even three days' growth of black beard could not harden, he had the complexion a mushroom would have envied. The man narrowed his piggish little eyes, then smiled to show me both teeth he still claimed as his own. ‘We got us a good prize here, nan datte?’

I raised both hands and opened them toward him as nervousness tied my stomach in knots. ‘Sumimasen, anata.I am not familiar with the streets of Hakkinshi. Perhaps you could direct me back to my hotel?’

I caught the dip of his head in the half-light a second before it registered upon the brain of the man he meant to signal. The vibroblade's murderous hum zeroed in on my back like an angry wasp, but I dropped to one knee, ducking under my attacker's slash. My Fingers closed around a heavy stick of wood, which I drove back behind me as hard as possible.

My blow caught the thug just below his belt buckle, and he doubled over as I twisted toward him. Swiveling the club around, I brought my right hand up, smashing the thug's jaw shut with a tooth-shattering crack. As the man flew up and back, his vibroblade dropped from nerveless fingers. Before the deadman-switch could shut it down, the weapon had burrowed to the hilt in the mist-slickened tarmac.

His two compatriots stared with shocked expressions at their fallen comrade. Pressing the advantage of surprise—in accordance with Duke Michael's admonition to ‘adapt and innovate’—-I wielded my club savagely. Swatting the next nearest bandit across the head, I slammed him face-first into an alley wall.

Then I parried the whirling length of chain employed by the third ruffian, letting it whip itself around my club. Tugging back hard, I pulled my skinny, pimple-faced assailant forward. Utterly off balance, he squawked for help in a high-pitched voice, but never dreamed of releasing his deathgrip on the weapon. I chopped my chain-weighted club down on his wrist sharply, breaking his grip. When he turned to run, clutching his wrist to his chest, I sent him sailing back to the street with a none-too-gentle kick to the seat of his pants.

Stars exploded in my eyes as the man I'd knocked into the alley wall caught me with a roundhouse right. I reeled across the pavement slamming heavily into the far wall. My attacker drove at me like a prize-tighter, but I sidestepped his second punch, relishing the cracking sound as his fist smacked into the brick wall behind me. His scream of pain shifted tenor as I jerked my left knee up into his groin, then died abruptly as I brought my club straight down on his head.

I turned quickly enough to see the fat man slip on some fetid garbage in his haste to escape. Snaking the length of chain from the club. I shook my head ‘Why is it that everyone thinks a MechWarrior is useless outside his 'Mech?’

Without replying, the fat man scrambled to his feet. He shot me one porcine look of horror, then tried to run off. Arcing the club down at his legs. I managed to trip him into a pile of rotting garbage He cried out, but the garbage so muffled his scream that it sounded as though he were drowning.

Crouching down, I activated the vibro-blade long enough to pull its 30 centimeters of blade from the ground. Shutting it all the way off, I tucked the blade through my belt. Then I slung the chain over my shoulder and sauntered down the alley to where the fat man wallowed in refuse.

I smiled at him. ‘Tea leaves add some nice color to your face.’ With one end of the chain in either hand. I looped it around his head. Pulling back gently, I helped him slide into something approximating a sitting position. ‘I have some questions you want to answer, wakarimaska?’

He nodded dejectedly. ‘Hai. wakarimas.'

I nodded to reassure him. ‘Good. Go ahead, flick that eggshell off your ear. It looks ridiculous. Now, I was told that if I were to find the Little Dragon anywhere, it would be here.’ I narrowed my eyes ‘You're not little, and you certainly aren't a dragon...You'd not be the one I'm looking for, would you?’

He shook his head, then his eyes widened to reflect the new light source in the alley. I turned and saw a woman step through a doorway, then immediately back away from the harsh light passing through it. Leaning back against the doorframe, she watched me warily.

I let the chain and the fat man fall. ‘You are the Little Dragon?’

She nodded almost casually. Though she wore the uniform of a Davion aerojock, I knew instantly that she was not a pilot. Not that she didn't fill out the uniform properly. The tall boots and leather jacket fit her perfectly. No, its was in her posture and in as simple a motion as her nod. Not even the Sternsnacht heavy pistol in her hip holster could taint it.

She moved with a sensuality that learning to kill robs from most people.

She gracefully waved me toward the doorway. ‘Colonel Kell, you will accompany me?’ Though framed as a question in her throaty whisper, I took it as a command. Passing through the door and into the small room beyond it, I caught a whiff of jasmine.

She closed the door and moved toward the center of the barren, white-washed room. She'd filled her right hand with the Sternsnacht, giving me a prey's-eye view of the pistol's muzzle. ‘You, Colonel, have been blundering all over Hakkinshi like a green Lieutenant looking for a way to spend leave-time. Either you are foolishly brave, or terminally stupid.’ She jerked her head toward alley. ‘Those four wanted you for the reward the Draconis Combine's Internal Security Forces are offering for your hide. Ten thousand ComStar bills could easily buy one passage from Akumashima.’

Averting my eyes from the gun barrel, I forced myself to chuckle. ‘Only ten thousand? Boy, the market's weak here on Murchison. On Mallory's World, I go for fifteen.’ I shook my head. Ten thousand ComStar bills was a small fortune. Even split four ways, it could finance relocation outside the slum known as Akumashima— Devil Island. ‘The price for mercenaries isn't what it used to be.’

Her brown eyes showed contempt. ‘Did I say ten thousand? That's for your brother. You, Leutenant-ColonelPatrick Kell, are only worth five thousand.’

I raised my hands. ‘Well. I'm the one. You've got me.’

Irritation flashed over her face like clouds before a storm. ‘Enough foolishness. You have 30 seconds to explain why you've returned to Murchison just 6 weeks after your 'Mech battalion got chased off by the 27th Dieron Regulars.’ She raised the gun in line with my right eye. ‘No nonsense, or I'm 5,000 C-bills richer.’