The first of several epilogues for The Saotome Gambit.
-- Attached file included as plaintext by Listar --
-- File: TSG-E1.txt
EPILOGUES
-I-
Eight Shining Pearls Fortress
Planet Jusenkyo, Jusenkyo System
The Jusenkyo Commonwealth
4 March 3026
"<Hush, Mushan,>" Shampoo said to her baby in a voice that was soft
and loving, and yet edged with the tempered steel of her own Joketsuzoku
upbringing.
The tiny child, barely six weeks old, looked up at her with piercing
blue eyes and gurgled a noisy response. Though all children's eyes were
blue at birth, and remained so for up to a year before changing to their
permanent color, Shampoo recognized the shade in her little one's eyes as
that of Mousse.
"<Impudent brat,>" Shampoo sighed as she handed Mushan over to her
great-grandmother.
"<He reminds me of you as a baby, actually,>" Cologne pointed out.
"<Though perhaps he has better manners.>" She took her great-great-grandson
into her arms, her old and withered hands caressing the top of Mushan's
head. The little boy quieted immediately in his ancestor's care, and looked
up with intense fascination at her ancient face.
Shampoo regarded her great-grandmother with a jealous look. "<He never
quiets that fast with me,>" she pouted.
Cologne toyed with a curly dark purple lock of Mushan's hair. "<That's
because you spoil him, child.>"
Shampoo didn't agree with her great-grandmother on that matter, but
she knew better than to get into an argument about parenting with a woman
who had raised more children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren, and now
great-great-grandchildren than she could easily keep track of.
"<I have an appointment to keep,>" she said finally.
Cologne's eyes darkened for a moment, then her face returned to its
normal placid and serene self.
"<You have nothing to prove, Shampoo,>" she told her great-grandchild.
"<The Elders are ready to exonerate you in light of your distinguished
service against General Herb and the Musk Dynasty.>" The entire matter of
Shampoo's punishment had been put aside upon her return to the Commonwealth,
as Joketsuzoku law forbade anyone who was pregnant to engage in combat, and
it was the accepted wisdom that a woman remained exempt for forty days after
childbirth.
Shampoo shook her head slowly in reply. "<I have a duty to *myself* to
appear in the Circle. The required time since the birth of Mushan has now
passed. I am eligible to fight for my life. If there are any who still feel
that it is necessary for me to die for my past mistakes, then I must meet
them and settle this matter for all time.>"
Cologne nodded gravely. "<I understand, child, though I feel that it
is foolish to tempt fate by choosing to enter the Circle so soon after
giving birth. It has been many years since the last time *I* had a child,
and I still remember how sore and weak I felt even six weeks later.>"
Shampoo did not expect such an admission from her great-grandmother,
who was said to have fought and won a major battle against the Furinkan
Combine within days of giving birth to the girl who would someday become
Shampoo's own grandmother. The truth was that she did *not* feel up to her
old levels of physical readiness. She had fallen far from the peak of her
strength and stamina during her pregnancy, and the discomfort in the
aftermath of childbirth along with the long nights of nursing a young baby
had taken their toll. She barely recognized herself in the mirror sometimes.
"<But if you must do this,>" Cologne continued. "<Then I do understand.
You are young, and while I see that you have done much growing in the last
year, you are still entitled to be impetuous. I only ask that you take more
care to look beyond the necessities of today.>" She raised little Mushan
up to the level of his mother's eyes. "<My number one great-great-grandson
depends on you, Shampoo.>"
"<He is a child of the Joketsuzoku,>" Shampoo responded. It was her
own conditioning talking, and she regretted saying it as soon as the words
slipped past her lips.
Cologne measured her own rebuttal by the look of regret on Shampoo's
face.
"<He is your son,>" she replied, and left it at that.
* * *
The Fated Circle was a ring of rough-hewn stone in a secluded courtyard
of the fortress that had been worn smooth over centuries of combat. Fine
white sand had been carefully raked and leveled to a pristine and even
surface within the ring. Close to three hundred kinswomen of the Joketsuzoku
stood on the perimeter of the circle as the Elders were brought in on gilded
litters to face the east.
As the presumed condemned, Shampoo faced the west, the direction
associated with death, for her challengers. She wore her full dress
cheongsam, though it had been retailored in the last week to accommodate
her better in her post-partum body. Though no man would have ever
considered her fat, she was a little roomier in the bust and hips than she
would have preferred, and as long as she nursed Mushan, she was going to
stay that way.
The Elders regarded her in placid silence. She could see her little
son in the arms of a much older cousin, who took her place by Colonge's
side as an attendent. Shampoo remained calm, and she saw that the faces
of those in the gathering crowd did not seem to be very supportive of her
impending death sentence.
It was the reason why she felt she could tempt fate, as her great-
grandmother put it. The Elders were in fact prepared to exonerate her
since her return from Ryuugenzawa, both for her struggle against the
Musk Dynasty, but also for her work in resurrecting the Star League with
the Nerima Confederation. In Commonwealth eyes, Akane Tendo's fledgling
Star League was equated with a strong alliance against the Furinkan
Combine, and as minor but vital bits of lostech were deciphered and sold
at reasonable prices to companies within the Commonwealth, the economy
was promising to boom. It was hard to hold a grudge against her on the
cusp of a new era of wealth and security.
"<Your great-granddaughter faces her death well,>" Elder Peony
said in aside to Cologne.
"<She is of my blood,>" Cologne replied crisply. The scales of
power had once again tipped in her favor over Peony with the death of
General Herb and the disintegration of the Musk Dynasty that followed.
The quiet threat of an audit of the Chancellor of the Exchequer's books
was more than enough to put Elder Peony back in her place, as such an
investigation would have eventually turned up her complicity in arming
and financing a traitor to the clan.
Still, Peony seemed terribly smug in that moment. Cologne began
to wonder if something was up.
Elder Peony, as if reading her thoughts, merely sat back in her
chair and puffed placidly on a pipe. Her homely face betrayed nothing
to her bitter enemy.
Shampoo stood at attention on the east side of the circle, facing
the west and the Elders as Cologne rose to speak. Her great-grandmother's
voice was dry and even as she spoke to be heard by all around the circle.
That little Mushan let out a loud cry of annoyance by her side did nothing
to her ability to project tranquil majesty.
"<Though it is the opinion of this Elder Council that Mechwarrior
Major Shampoo has exonerated herself of all shame and disgrace by her
actions in war and in the peace that followed, there may be those who
feel as if they or their clan have been wronged without sufficient
redress.
"<Thus it is the judgement of the Elder Council that Mechwarrior
Major Shampoo submit to this Fated Circle, in a trial by combat to the
death, to answer for any outstanding crime.>" Cologne made a slow circuit
of the crowd with her most inscrutable gaze. "<Should no one step into
the circle to offer challenge to Mechwarrior Major Shampoo, then let this
matter be dropped for now and for all time.>"
There was a long murmuring pause as the crowd waited to see if anyone
would step into the circle. Cologne stood coolly at her place, her gnarled
ashwood staff rigid and erect by her side as a symbol of her authority,
and waited.
It seemed as if no one would accept the challenge of killing Shampoo.
Then the crowd parted, and Pink stepped over the low ring of stone and
onto the warm sand. Her twin sister Link remained on the other side of
the ring, as if torn between her devotion to Pink and some other, unnamed,
concern.
Shampoo was about to close her eyes in relief when Pink appeared in
the circle. The look on her face was unreadable, save for the one fierce
glance she cast at Shampoo before turning to address Cologne.
"<I am Mechwarrior Lieutenant Pink, and I stand in challenge to
Mechwarrior Major Shampoo's presumed exoneration,>" she said in a loud
voice.
Cologne realized then that Peony had engineered this turn of events
as revenge against her, though as to what grudge the young poisoner, Pink,
had with Shampoo, she could not imagine. Peony was not in a position to
promise much for this service, though perhaps Pink did not understand
that.
"<Very well,>" Cologne replied calmly. "<It is the right of any
Joketsuzoku to face the accused in this trial by combat.>" She paused to
give Link a questioning look. "<Are there any more who wish to join Pink
within the Fated Circle?>"
Link cast her eyes down to the sand. No one else stepped forward.
It was a formality, as while Shampoo stood, anyone could join the circle
at any time. Only when Shampoo was the last one standing, and no one else
wished to challenge her, could the trial be considered over.
"<Very well then,>" Cologne continued. "<Mechwarrior Lieutenant
Pink, you have ten minutes to prepare yourself, if you wish.>"
"<I am ready now, Elder,>" Pink replied.
"<Then this Fated Circle is now open,>" Cologne said in her gravelly
voice. "<Let the will of the gods be made known to all this day.>"
She sat down on her litter as Shampoo and Pink saluted and stepped
towards the center of the stone ring. Her face did not betray her unease
with the situation. Shampoo was not ready for an intense combat, and though
Pink was not a strong fighter, her use of poisons and other agents would
require that her great-granddaughter exercise the utmost care with her.
"<How did you find this one, Peony?>" she asked dryly, letting her
know that she was aware of her rival's plot.
"<That's not important,>" Peony returned with her toothless smile.
"<But if you must know, there was the matter of a recent poisoning in
which the young mechwarrior was implicated. I offered to lend her my
assistance in stifling the investigation if she would do me this one
small service. Strangely enough, she was very receptive to the idea of
killing Shampoo.>" She narrowed her eyes to rhuemy slits at Cologne.
"<Your great-granddaughter does not look prepared for this fight.>"
As you well know... Cologne thought darkly.
"<Considering for a moment that Shampoo insisted that this trial
take place today,>" she replied crisply to Peony. "<I wonder if your
'pessimism' is misplaced.>" She couldn't resist adding another dig.
"<Taking into further consideration your own historically poor choice
in pawns for implementing your plans, I wonder if you haven't made yet
another mistake in this one.>"
Cologne's barb hit home, and Peony turned to sit back in her chair
with a sibilant huff.
Shampoo stepped within several paces of Pink as she drew her long
mechwarrior's dagger from its place on her hip. Shampoo didn't need to
ask if it was poisoned, nor would there be any opprobrium if it was. The
use of such tactics brought into question the poisoner's basic fighting
skills, but if the victim wasn't skilled enough or sufficiently aware
of the danger to avoid the envenomed blade, than her death was considered
a just reward for her own shortcomings as a fighter. The Joketsuzoku
did not become one of the great fighting forces of the Inner Sphere by
making excuses for themselves or playing by Hoyle's Rules.
"<Why are you doing this, Pink?>" she demanded as she drew her own
dagger. A wary glance in Link's direction confirmed at least for the
moment that she was just fighting Pink.
Pink returned her look. "<I have my reasons,>" she hissed.
"<Share them with me,>" Shampoo insisted.
Pink lunged with a strike that probed Shampoo's defenses. As she
had hoped, Shampoo was slow to evade, though she noted that Shampoo
had sense enough not to try and parry her poisoned blade and risk
getting cut.
"<Your whelping of Mousse's child for one thing,>" she spat as
Shampoo's riposte was turned aside with a clash of steel. "<How could
you bear the seed of a Musk traitor - and a worthless son at that!?>"
Shampoo's eye twitched at the denigration of her little Mushan. He
was male, but he was her one and only son - whom she loved with all her
heart - and he was all that remained of Mousse in this world. She was
reminded of her last conversation with Pink on Tau Ceti IV, which had
only taken place a year and an eternity ago. Pink's fanatical female
chauvinism had not apparently been diminished by the fact that it was
Mousse, a man, who had brought down the Musk Dynasty, and all for the
love of a child he had presumed was a girl.
"<You forget yourself,>" she returned, kicking up a cloud of fine
white sand with her slippered feet to distract and perhaps blind her
foe. "<You killed Laughing Orchid for opposing Mousse. Now you condemn
him?>"
Pink scrambled backwards, her eyes tearing up, and swiping wildly
with her knife to keep Shampoo at bay. "<That was different!>" she
snarled. "<Laughing Orchid stepped out of line.>"
"<And you alone are the judge of us, then, Pink?>" Shampoo shot
back. "<Perhaps I was blind to not realize your exalted place on the
Elder Council!>" She turned aside the horrid dagger of her enemy and
slashed at Pink's shoulder. The ring of steel upon silk cheongsam was
music to her ears, as was the sharp gasp of pain from Pink as the dagger
cut her tender flesh.
Shampoo stood her ground in the circle as Pink withdrew several
paces to nurse the wound in her shoulder. Her blood was running hot now,
and she let herself forget her aching back and the tender spot between
her thighs where her episiotomy still mended. Pink was going to die today,
and perhaps the girl realized it too.
She was not entirely surprised then, when a cloud of noxious spores
filled the air before her. She threw herself over in a somersault, her
joints crackling and her nerves singing their distress. Pink continued to
loose the foul substance from the bangles at her wrists as she held her
arms out at chest level before her.
Shampoo's head swam in spite of her swift evasion, and she knew
she had been exposed to at least a little of Pink's attack. She had
some confidence in the idea that the poisoner would never use something
fatal in such an unpredictable and indiscriminate attack. As her sinuses
began to fill and her ears buzzed, she realized that it was merely a
deleterious agent meant to distract and leave its victims vulnerable to
the true danger - Pink's poisoned dagger.
Pink waited to advance on her foe until the agent had taken its full
effect. The murmur from the crowd was mixed in its mood. While such methods
were not the norm in battle, they were kosher enough for the Fated Circle.
"<So killing me is your answer?>" Shampoo asked while Pink waited
patiently out of reach.
"<I consider it a cleansing,>" she replied. "<You've been corrupted
by Mousse and his putrid seed. You've forgotten what it means to be one
of us.>"
"<I'm a mechwarrior,>" Shampoo said coldly to her. She wiped at her
freely running nose and slung the blob of mucous at Pink's feet. "<Not a
vigilante assassin. If *that* is what it means to be a Joketsuzoku, then
I want no part of it!>"
Pink flushed with anger. "<I shouldn't have expected you to understand.
You didn't before, after all.>" She moved with great deliberation towards
Shampoo, her black slippers padding quietly across the sand and avoiding the
blob of snot that her foe had cast at her. Her voice now was soft enough to
carry only among the two of them.
"<The corruption that infects our people can't be rooted out with the
old ways. They take too long, and presume too much good of the guilty. If
you live this day, you will likely and in the fullness of time take your
great-grandmother's place as the Matriarch of the clan. With your foul
son by your side, you'll only lead us down the path of ruin, with men soon
considering themselves our equals, and more and more traitors like Herb
rising up to overthrow us.>" She looked at Shampoo over the glint of her
knife, the faint silver-green stain of her chosen poison casting its own
shards of light on the crowd.
"<Killing you is only the start,>" Pink went on. "<I swear to you
that your son will not long survive his mother's passing. Crib death is
still a menace, even in the days of star travel and mighty battlemechs.>"
Any remaining kindling of sympathy in Shampoo's heart for spiteful,
misguided Pink was quenched as she swore to destroy Mushan. She crouched
in a low stance like a cobra preparing to strike, her long knife raised
above her shoulder with the point directed at Pink's right eye.
"<If I die today, it will be in the knowledge that you will precede
me into the void,>" she said to Pink, and stalked towards her enemy. She
had to concentrate with everything she had to remain guarded against the
swelling in her sinuses and the watering of her eyes. Her chest was
getting tight, and her breaths were coming in short and ragged gasps.
Perhaps she had been mistaken about the lethality of Pink's spore cloud.
Pink lunged in a feint, a maneuver Shampoo almost fell for until she
caught the placement of her enemy's weight on the wrong foot for the
attack. She recovered in time to parry the dagger with a cry of desperation,
then stepped inside Pink's guard to drive her own knife straight into her
enemy's heart. The dagger punctured the chest wall with an audible crunch
that made even the hardened crowd of warriors watching the battle wince,
and the butcher's ring of tempered steel grating against Pink's sternum
echoed across the ancient courtyard.
Pink's eyes were wild with fright as Shampoo's wrist chopped aside
her last frantic attempt to stab her enemy. Shampoo held her there, fixed
upon the dagger as her fluttering heart lacerated itself further against
the razor sharp blade sunk into her chest. Blood spilled down her dress
black cheongsam to spatter in a pool at her slippered feet. All the while,
Shampoo stared into her terrified eyes as death's icy hand closed around
her.
Pink coughed out a garbled curse, thick with dark blood from a severed
pulmonary artery, and then expired. Shampoo let her slide off the blade to
collapse spread-eagle on the warm sand of the circle. Only when the roar of
surprise from the crowd had passed did she stoop to wipe the blood from her
dagger on the hem of Pink's cheongsam. She felt sick, not just from the
spores she had been exposed to, but with the very idea of slaughtering a
fellow clan-sister.
Cologne nodded quietly at her place as Peony choked out a gasp of
disbelief. She rose then to address the crowd.
"<Mechwarrior Major Shampoo has defeated Mechwarrior Lieutenant
Pink,>" she announced. "<Does anyone else wish to challenge Mechwarrior
Major Shampoo?>"
Another pause passed through the crowd. Many eyes fell upon Link,
who had fallen to her knees in grief at the edge of the circle. When she
did not rise to avenge her sister, the silence that followed was nearly
tangible.
"<Then let it be known that this matter had ended,>" Cologne
declared. "<The Fated Circle is closed. Let no one hold the events of
this day against Mechwarrior Major Shampoo, for the celestial justice of
the gods is far beyond the ken of mortals as ourselves.>"
* * *
7 March 3026
"<There is something I must show you,>" Cologne said to Shampoo as
she led her great-granddaughter down a dimly lit stairwell that seemed
to lead forever into the bowels of the basalt mesa that was the foundation
for the ancient Joketsuzoku fortress. "<Few have ever heard of this place,
and fewer still have seen it. You alone of all my great-grandchildren
have thus far been entrusted with what I am about to show you, and you
will keep this in the absolute strictest confidence.>"
Shampoo nodded quietly at her great-grandmother's admonition. She
was still recovering from the effects of Pink's poisoned spores, and was
surprised by Cologne's invitation to accompany her into the very heart of
the fortress.
"<I understand, Great-Grandmother.>"
"<See that you do,>" she replied.
They came to a huge door, as large and solid as any bank vault.
Cologne removed something from the folds of her robes that Shampoo could
not identify, and spoke several cryptic and half-heard lines from a poem
whose origins were lost to the antiquity of the pre-Jump era.
"<I foresee that you will lead our people some day, Shampoo,>"
Cologne said as the door unlocked with the heavy sound of massive bolts
being thrown. "<You are starting to show the germination of the first
seeds of real wisdom. Not the proverbs and parables of our people, mind
you, but the kind of true-seeing that comes only from hardship, pain, and
loss. You have experienced that firsthand now, and the birth of your son
has made you even more cognizent of your own mortality. Nurse those seeds
within you, Great-Granddaughter. Let them grow tall and strong, and let
their arms stretch wide through your soul. You will have great need of
them someday. In this you can be assured, as you shall soon see.>"
They stepped soundlessly through the door, and into a long bare
passageway, illuminated only by a single set of fluorescent track lights
along the right-hand wall. The vault door closed behind them with a heavy
thud, terrifying in its finality.
The passageway turned once to the left, and opened up into a vast
gallery, a chamber hewn out of the solid rock at the bottom of the
fortress. Gantries and catwalks criss-crossed the outer walls of the
gallery, and stretched out across the open air in a tracery of steel and
plastic. Shampoo realized that most of the complex was below the level
of the passageway, for she could look down upon the many partitions
twenty meters below her as if peering down at an enormous rat maze.
The indistinct buzz of a babel of voices and activities met her ears,
and she marveled at how so many people could work here and yet keep the
goings on of the place a secret.
"<The darkest secrets of the Joketsuzoku are buried here,>" Cologne
said to her as a platform elevator rose up from the maze to their level.
"<Most will stay buried for as long as I can keep them here, but even I
grow old, and someday the responsibility must pass to another.>"
They stepped upon the elevator, and it began to descend into the
gallery.
"<There are so many people here,>" Shampoo broached.
"<They know no other existence,>" Cologne replied, sensing what
Shampoo was asking in her statement. "<Most of them have never been
outside the gallery in their entire lives. It is the only way to maintain
the security of the place.>"
"<But what is this place, Great-Grandmother?>"
Cologne stepped off the elevator as it touched down. "<The very
life's breath of the Jusenkyo Commonwealth,>" she replied. "<As much
I look forward to reaping the rewards of membership in Akane Tendo's
Star League, I cannot bring myself to believe that the peace will
last long beyond the ten years she won for her people. Already there
are stirrings within the Furinkan Combine to overthrow the Kunos for
what happened, and whispers of the Black Rose gathering strength in
the marches along the Federated Shiratori are never far from my ears.
"<We must not put our complete faith in this Star League, child.
Though the Tendos currently entertain no dreams of dominion outside
their own Confederation, they control the flow of recovered technology
to the rest of the Inner Sphere, and so long as they are willing not
to divulge or use HPG technology, Comstar turns a blind eye to their
growing power. There will come a Tendo one day who has not known what
it was like to be on the losing side of a war, who will see his country
as the strongest in the Inner Sphere. What then of the new Star League,
when he usurps the political mechanisms carefully installed by Akane
Tendo to prevent abuse?>"
Cologne shook her head slowly to herself as Shampoo listened.
"<No, child. We cannot ever fully trust those outside our own
clan. We must continue to rely only upon our own power, our own
people, and our own technology. That is what this place is for.>"
They passed an enormous bank of glass cylinders, each filled
with a clear yellow-green fluid - and a human being suspended within.
Shampoo's eyes widened in shock as she realized that the stories of
a forbidden Star League cloning facility were true.
"<Yes, child,>" Cologne replied to her wordless question. "<In
the days before the fall of the Camerons, the scientists of the day
were drunk on their own knowledge. They tampered in the domain of the
divine, creating - or at least transplanting, as Gaido suspects - the
Jusenkyo Pools and, yes, even constructing this facility. What little
we are able to coax out of these ancient machines is enough to preserve
our clan. The first hybrids, so important to the creation of our ultimate
army, got their start here after their forebears were exposed to the
Jusenkyo Effect.>"
They continued on past the silent technicians, most of them
hybrids, as they looked after the incomprehensible technology that
drove the place. After passing through a sterile antechamber, they
entered a wide open section of the gallery, where warm, humid air
blew gently across their bodies.
It was here that Shampoo saw Kima, alive and apparently unharmed,
standing among a group of winged hybrid children who clamored noisily
for her attention.
"<...Kima...>" she gasped.
"<No, child,>" Cologne corrected her. "<Not Kima. Not the Kima
you knew, anyway.>"
"<I don't understand. A clone?>"
"<Yes, a clone,>" Cologne replied. "<This Kima knows nothing of
the intelligence agent we exposed to the Pool of Drowned Akane Tendo
- the Kima you knew. They have never met, nor have they ever suspected
the existence of the others.>"
"<Others?>" Shampoo asked. "<There are more than just two?>"
"<A secret for another time, child. You have much to learn
before then.>"
Shampoo nodded dumbly, still awed by the sight of Kima, so hale
and alive. It brought back bitter memories of the broken body of Akane
Tendo lying dead in the street of Capra City - the Kima she had known,
and the Kima that Tarou had slain. This Kima moved with the same
unconscious grace as her clone-sister as she looked after the hybrid
children - one of whom bore a suspicious resemblence to General Herb.
"<Come, great-granddaughter. It is not polite to gawk,>"
Cologne said to her, and led her along with a gentle tap of her
ashwood staff.
They came then to another chamber within the vast underground
gallery. Shampoo saw the man who stood at the center of the room,
and did not believe that any man could be more handsome or more
frightening. It was like looking at the face of a god, and as he
rose up on angelic wings, clad only in a golden satin loincloth, the
air seemed to shimmer with heat. She felt a blast of it upon her face,
and flushed with an almost sexual frission.
"<Saffron,>" Cologne announced calmly. "<Would that I were a
hundred years younger, I might feel the same for him as you do,
child.>"
"<He is a hybrid...?>" she muttered.
"<He is our greatest triumph,>" Cologne replied. Saffron flew
to the top of the gallery to stretch out his wings. To Shampoo, he
seemed to exude a golden fiery glow from every pore of his mostly
naked body. "<And perhaps, as Doctor Gaido fears, he will prove to be
our ultimate undoing. I do not know what the future will bring with
Saffron, but I fear a future without him even more.>"
She leveled a fiercely cold gaze at Shampoo. "<Saffron is not
to be trifled with, child. He is a tool that must be kept very close
at hand. Remember this, you who will rule the Jusenkyo Commonwealth
someday.>"
END OF EPILOGUE ONE
.---Anime/Manga Fanfiction Mailing List----.
| Administrators - ffml-admins@anifics.com |
| Unsubscribing - ffml-request@anifics.com |
| Put 'unsubscribe' in the subject |
`---- http://ffml.anifics.com/faq.txt -----'