The Pear

The Pear
Product information
Type Short story
Author Rhian Hunt
Pages 23
Publication information
Publisher BattleCorps
First published 5 September 2006
Content
Era Star League era
Timeline 18 July 2664
Preceded by Seventy

The Pear is a story by Rhian Hunt that was published online on BattleCorps on 5 September 2006.

Teaser text[edit]

To a samurai, peace and war must be kept in balance. One cannot truly know one without knowing the other. But when a Kuritan is kidnapped by the Star League while under his care, Shimobu Yoshitora finds his blood rushing to battle to free her—and most of his fellow dojo students feel the same. But they can't do it alone; they must enlist the help of a rival dojo. But victory is not always found in the heat of combat...

Plot summary[edit]

Nagamaru Okimoto trains his students in the Way of the Bow and Spear at his dojo on Buckminster. An engagement between Kawana Takauji in a Champion and Shimobu Yoshitora in a Lancelot ends poorly for Kawana, when Shimobu violates engagement protocols on Okimoto's orders to teach Kawana the dangers of complacency and assuming opponents will play by the rules.

Okimoto's "ronin" are contracted by the Coordinator himself to serve as bodyguards for a high-ranking Combine negotiator, Lord Kobota, now in talks with Star League envoys. However, the students perform poorly as bodyguards and the negotiator's wife, Hisa, is abducted. Evidence implicating the SLDF is left behind, along with the faint smell of pears in the groundcar where Hisa's maidservant was murdered.

Okimoto goes to the rival Kikuhonshi dojo to request assistance in investigating this crime. While there, he sees a student cleaning a katana with pear juice, and connects the Kikuhonshi dojo to the crime. Okimoto subsequently leads his students into battle against those of the Kikuhonshi dojo. Prior to the fight, the student who performed the kidnapping returns Lady Hisa to the Okimoto students and performs seppuku to atone for having botched the operation. The two dojos go to war, each adhering perfectly to the dictates of bushido, and the Okimoto dojo emerges victorious.

Featured characters[edit]

Featured locations[edit]

Featured BattleTech[edit]

Notes[edit]

As the sequel to Seventy, this story inherits its chronology problems, and would work best set in 2694 instead of 2664. The story is set during the First Hidden War, but the 2664 datestamp predates the first recorded duel of that conflict.