By Temptations and by War

by Loren L. Coleman

“Time to repay some of Bannson’s goodwill,” Farrell said. “Not that you’ve got a choice. Since you’re all buddy-buddy with the authorities, you can make certain that a particular DropShip lands unmolested. Just one DropShip. That’s it.”

  One DropShip. Daniel Peterson looked out from the back of Michaelson’s mind and shuddered, and refused to shut the door after him. Screams echoed up from the darker recesses of his memory. Screams of terror, and of bloodlust.

  And his own screams, as he lifted the bodies of his parents back onto the bed, covered them with a heavy blanket.

  “One DropShip?” His voice broke. “More Confederation forces?”

  “The Second McCarron’s aren’t going to take the world by themselves, are they? This is right up your alley. You’ve even got experience.”

  “I’m in no position to make that happen. And I wouldn’t. Not again.”

  Farrell glanced over, taking his eye off of traffic for several long seconds. Then he whipped the wheel over and jammed the sedan into some open curbside. Loading Zone, it said. The raider certainly didn’t care. He pulled a cigar out and lit it up, taking his time about it. Violence burned not too deeply beneath his calm exterior, Michaelson knew.

  “Then you get yourself into a position to make that happen. This is not a request, Daniel. It’s an order. Straight from the top.”

  His teeth clenched hard enough to grind enamel. Michaelson—Michaelson!—shook his head. “I can’t get that close to the action again, Jack. Tell Bannson that. I wouldn’t be any good to you if I tried.”

  The other man snorted. “You’re no good to us now. No good to anyone except maybe those kids back at the Conservatory. G’head. Let the locals find out who you are, and watch ’em pull that entire university apart brick by brick. Not even the most die-hard Capellan-lover would stand up to protect you.”

  Michaelson clenched his eyes shut. He heard traffic coughing by on the street, the stream of citizens and residents who shuffled along the walk with their chatter and packages and errands to perform, and pushed them away as well. He had forfeited his rights to be a part of that world long, long ago. He couldn’t even stand for The Republic anymore. Not after Northwind, and Terra. All he had left now was himself.

  And Jacob Bannson was collecting the mortgage on that, too.

  “Which and when?” he asked, voice no more than a whisper.

  Farrell didn’t bother to hide the smile in his voice. “July twenty-fourth. By local reckoning, that should be the lunar New Year.” The first new moon of Liao’s spring. “The ship’s an Overlord conversion, part of the regular Bannson fleet on loan to MedCross. The Astral Prize. Take good care of it.”

  Michaelson grabbed at the handle, jacked it open and threw his shoulder into the door. “Yeah. I’ll take care of it,” he promised in a dead voice. He didn’t look back at Farrell, not wanting to see that gloating face. He threaded his way through the crowd, hands thrust into his jacket pockets and face pulled tight into a mask.

  One DropShip. That’s where it had started. It had ended with millions dead, bodies carried in refuse haulers and shoveled into mass graves. The first war of the new century. The death of a golden era.

  It had ended with the “suicide” of Daniel Peterson, and the birth of Ezekiel Crow.

  Could he do it again? Was it still within him to make that call? And would it be the right choice this time?

  His questions led him right back to the White Towers District. His faked military identification got him through the gate and up the long block of administration buildings. His assumed name, still on the list to see Gerald Tsung, bought him a new escort to take him into the palace halls, moving along with a flow of robed nobles with their wide-shouldered mantles and conservative politicians in their suits and long skirts.

  Back into Tsung’s office, where Tsung was busy reading through every document left by Hahn Soom Gui and marking his own notes into a small noteputer.

  Lieutenant Daniel Peterson stood before the Governor’s Aide, doing his best to bury both Crow and Michaelson in the back of his mind. Twenty years of doubts and recriminations sloughed away, leaving him with a certainty he hadn’t felt in far, far too long.

  “I’d like you to get me an interview with Legate Ruskoff,” he said with tight, clipped words. “Today.”

  “May I ask why?”

  Daniel pulled himself to attention. “It may be time for me to reenlist.”

  23

  The Dynasty Guard

  Citing “Manifest Domain,” Prefect Tao landed military forces on Styk to seize control of BattleMech production facilities and a local DropPort. The local militia, under the command of Legate Heivilin, moved to contain the limited occupation, but not challenge it. At this time.

  —In the News!, New Aragon Free Press, 14 July 3134

  DropShip Grand Sire

  Huáng-yù Province, Liao

  17 July 3134

  The Du-jin Mountains were one of perhaps five places where the Overlord-class Grand Sire could hide itself. One hundred thirty meters high and nearly ten thousand tons, it seemed to Evan as if someone had dropped a thirty-five-story skyscraper into one of the most remote regions on Liao’s northern continent. A gray-painted, egg-shaped military skyscraper, proudly bearing the gauntlet-and-sword crest of the Capellan Confederation.

  Standing in the pelting sleet, Evan and Mai Uhn Wa had watched the leviathan make planetfall that afternoon. Dropping in tandem with a Mule cargo ship to hide in its sensor shadow, the Overlord simply split away several dozen kilometers over Huáng-yù Province for its new mountain nesting grounds. It landed on a bright pillar of fusion-driven flame, painful to stare at, burning acres of forest into ash and instantly jumping the local humidity as rain-soaked ground baked under the driveflame kiln.

  “This is what you have been waiting for?” Evan had asked then.

  Tugging at his wispy beard, Mai Wa nodded slowly. “One of the things I was promised. Perhaps we are favored after all.” He would explain no more than that.

  Remembering the last time Evan had relied on the elder freedom fighter for much-needed supplies, he accepted the arrival of the Dynasty Guard at face value. They were here, not delayed in some other system, never to arrive. It was a good sign.

  Such optimism lasted only until the two men met with the Guard’s commander.

  Five hours later, the scent of wood smoke and charred greensward still lingered in the humid air. It competed with choking exhaust from diesel-powered vehicles and aviation fuel from the constant VTOL runs to haul supplies and equipment quickly out of the valley. Evan lumbered along in a LoaderMech, a modified construction machine that used viselike grips to move cargo in special cradles affixed with steel flanges. Sang-shao Carson Rieves had ordered Evan to work, and one didn’t argue with a man who had an elite combined-arms battalion to back him up. Evan relieved one of the Loader drivers and spent two hours walking cargo from DropShip bay to VTOL, staring out through water-beaded ferroglass, biting down on the inside of his cheeks until blood teased his tongue.

  He didn’t notice Mai Uhn Wa. Not until the man bounced a rock off the yellow-tinted canopy, startling Evan on his return trip to the Grand Sire.

  “Evan!” Mai called and waved to him, barely able to compete with the LoaderMech’s throaty engine noise. He stood next to an enlisted man, gesturing for Evan to cut the motor. To dismount.

  Evan set his machine into a wide-legged stance, then throttled down to a coughing idle. Jacking the latch and swinging the door up into the still steady rainfall, he formed a small overhang that allowed him to climb down and stand in relative dryness. The Confederation recruit—a san-ben-bing—shoved forward, grabbed hold of the steel rungs, and climbed up into the Loader’s cab.

  Evan stumbled out from under the large machine before being crushed underfoot. “I guess that means I’m relieved?” he asked Mai.

  Mai Uhn Wa’s leathery face was wrinkled in distaste. He gestured back to the DropShip, started the damp walk toward the r
amp that had been extended down from the Overlord’s main cargo bay. “It means we are dismissed. Sang-shao Rieves has tired of my constant arguments.”

  They waited as a new BattleMech—a Targe this time—filled the ramp’s entrance and then stomped its way down. Painted a deep maroon, the Dynasty Guard ’Mech was trimmed in greenish gold and black. It also bore the Confederation crest proudly on its right breast. A muddied path chewed up by the heavily shod feet of seven ’Mechs before it made an easy course to follow. It throttled into an easy walk, eating five meters in a stride.

  “No swaying him?” Evan asked.

  He had to repeat himself, louder, as a pair of Garrot Super-Heavy Transports thundered over a nearby rise. A Garrot wasn’t much more than a flying cradle with pairs of crablike arms extending down from three points along its body. Mai and Evan watched as the VTOLs each picked out a parked vehicle and then hunkered down over it, getting a thumbs-up from ground crew and clamping down with the cradle arms to secure the tank. A great roar of raw power and the sky-cranes lifted off with their burdens, ferrying the armored vehicles in the same direction taken by the Targe.

  “Not yet,” Mai finally answered when they could hear themselves think again. “He seems to be holding us responsible for the damage his unit took on Gan Singh. He will release nothing until his unit is up to full operational strength, with on-planet resources confirmed.”

  “Then why not just let us leave?” Evan glanced back at their Lamprey transport, grounded just beyond the active loading zone, looking very weak and small compared to the Garrot VTOLs.

  “Operational security, perhaps. Didn’t want to let us fly out of the mountains too soon, in case we were spotted and backtracked.” Mai glanced around. “Also I believe he was waiting for someone to arrive on that Sprint that came in. I missed their meeting, but not the enlisted men’s free talk. Someone who was on the Mule they followed down. Helping to coordinate.”

  Evan rubbed his hands against his damp fatigues, letting his interest in the landing maneuver overshadow his desire to simply be away. Far away. “Anything more on the Mule?” Whoever it was in the civilian cargo vessel, they were certainly more than closet supporters of the Confederation. Both Evan and Mai Uhn Wa evidenced interest in finding out who, and whether or not they were an asset that could benefit the local pro-Capellan struggle.

  “No. Sang-shao Rieves is being most obstinate.” Mai glanced over at his former student, now his partner in the unsteady alliance between rebels and cadets, and McCarron’s Second. “I am sorry for this, Evan. I know how badly the Conservatory needed these supplies.”

  Evan could not justly refuse the elder man something. “Not as badly as we would need them if you had not struck a deal with the Armored Cavalry,” he offered. As bridges went, it wasn’t the most steady, but it was a start. He had known even before his conversation with Ritter Michaelson that his destiny and Mai’s were inexorably tied together. The major, without meaning to, had merely pushed Evan into accepting it a little faster.

  Until Mai Uhn Wa and the Ijori Dè Guāng, he had never truly felt at home.

  They set foot on the ramp’s nonskid, leaning into the five-story climb to its top. Sang-shao Carson Rieves waited at the head of the ramp. He still cut quite the figure. In his Confederation uniform, blue gray trousers and a mandarin-collared tunic trimmed in Capellan green, a dao sword slung down by his left hip, he stood arrogantly with one foot up on the ramp’s lower rail. His Han-influenced helmet shed the rain onto his shoulders. Beneath the brim, his eyes were two black pits, supervising all in his domain. Evan felt the back of his neck warm with a guilty flush, and dried his palms again.

  Mai Uhn Wa bowed politely. “We salute the Dynasty Guard’s strength, Sang-shao Rieves. If you are determined to refuse us the Chancellor’s promise, then we must soon depart. We will have a great deal more work to accomplish.”

  “Waving placards and painting graffiti.” Carson Rieves’s smile was not a pleasant one. “If you can distract the garrison at LianChang with your rabble-rousing, you will have done the Confederation a mild service, Wa.”

  Evan tensed. “We do what we can.” Belatedly, prompted by Mai’s glance, he added, “Sir.”

  “Well, your work has been adequate this day at least.” The commander’s gaze followed a Loader down the ramp, the machine carrying boxes of munitions and mines to the loading area. Evan steeled himself for any following accusation, and the consequences. “I will allow you to select a crate of weapons and another of ammunition.”

  And by his standards, no doubt considered himself generous. Evan bit off a hot reply. Angering the senior Confederation officer on Liao any further would not be wise.

  “It is our hope to work with you again, Sang-shao Rieves.” Mai was not ready to give up, especially spying a potential crack in the other man’s armor. “As we have proved with the Armored Cavalry, our network of informants and guides, and the military forces controlled by the students as well, can be a welcome addition to any order of battle.” He hesitated. “The Light of Ijori grows ever stronger.”

  The commander glanced back into the DropShip. “Yes. I have been made aware of your ambitions. But I do not see a Warrior House yet, Chancellor’s word or no. If I have use for local support, I will demand it as needed. And you shall provide it. That is the way of things, is it not?”

  Mai Uhn Wa stiffened, but the gray bearded man nodded nonetheless. “I am a traitor,” he intoned with obvious disgrace. “I serve the Confederation.”

  “We will see that you do.”

  Evan was faster than his sifu. “We?” Sang-shao Rieves did not seem the type to use the royal possessive. Confederation nobles might take exception to a military officer putting on airs.

  The officer nodded. “Certainly. I am not sending you away with merely a few assault weapons. I have one further delivery to make.” He glanced into the bay again. “I believe you know each other?”

  Evan saw Mai hesitate, shoulders slumping every so slightly as if he suddenly carried a much heavier burden. He knew. Even before he turned, Evan knew.

  “Mai Uhn Wa.” The man’s greeting was cold and empty. Beneath his robed mantle he wore a basic gray uniform, the mandarin collar closed with a silver clasp in the form of the Capellan Confederation’s crest. His eyes were grayish blue, and stared ahead without blinking.

  Even though he had never known one before, Evan did not need a uniform patch or identification to know a Maskirovka agent.

  “N˘ı-hăo, Michael Yung-Te.” Mai Uhn Wa’s greeting was formal, but hardly any warmer.

  “You do not ask my purpose?”

  “I do not believe in coincidence. I assume you are here to check up on me.”

  Evan could only grab at the unspoken conversation occurring between these two men, and it left him feeling more nervous than before. A Mask agent sniffing around. The only thing worse—

  “I am assigned to you,” Yung-Te said. “To you, and your motley, paramilitary group. For the good of the State, Mai Uhn Wa.”

  Sang-shao Rieves smiled thin and hard. “Welcome home.”

  An enlisted man carried Agent Yung-Te’s gear, stored in a proper military duffel, and others were quickly sent by Sang-shao Rieves to load his gift of two crates. Mai deferred to Evan, who knew the needs of the Conservatory better, and Evan chose infantry SRM launchers and inferno rounds. The men were sent on ahead to properly store the crates inside the Lamprey’s transport area.

  Dismissed from Carson Rieves’s presence, they had only a short hike back down the ramp and across the muddy fields. Evan did not wait long, barely away from the DropShip ramp before he asked, “Warrior House?”

  “We can discuss that later, Evan.”

  Evan stopped walking, ignoring the frustration of Yung-Te who clearly wanted to hurry to the Lamprey, but was not about to leave the two alone for a private conversation. “More secrets, Mai Uhn Wa? You wanted me to trust you again.”

  The elder warrior nodded. “Yes, and I have withheld
nothing that would have meant anything to you.” He took his former student by the arm and pulled him along. “There was more to my forming the Ijori Dè Guāng than a simple resistance organization,” he admitted. “And you would have been informed of those plans, in time.”

  The Lamprey was only a few dozen meters away. Evan saw that one of the munitions crates had yet to be loaded. He stopped again. “We are not always given time, Mai Uhn Wa. Perhaps you should tell me now.”

  “On the flight, Evan.” The elder man glanced up into the freezing rain. “Where we can at least be dry, qı˘ng?”

  “And fiction often helps pass the time,” Yung-Te said sourly.

  Michael Yung-Te would obviously take some getting used to. Evan wrestled with his feelings about having a Confederation agent always looking over his shoulder, and the potential difficulties it raised in his own plans. Maskirovka were trained to ferret out secrets. Evan still had several.

  Some more pressing than others.

  But he had dragged his feet long enough. His obvious hesitation was beginning to draw confused looks from Mai Uhn Wa and irritation from the Mask. Irritation that quickly turned to concern, seeing the full VTOL payload with hardly any room for the passengers to squeeze inside.

  “Where?” Yung-Te began, holding them up outside the main door. Then his cold eyes fell on Evan. “You stole these supplies.”

  Evan slapped the side of the forward cabin, twirled one hand in the air as he gestured to the pilot to crank up the rotors and get them airborne quickly. “I was ordered to assist in loading cargo carriers. No one told me to restrict that to the Guards’ VTOLs.”

  The Lamprey’s engine coughed to life, rolled over, and began a staccato rattle that quickly smoothed into a deep thunder. Mai Uhn Wa stared at his student with an expression caught between respect and concern for Evan’s safety. But so far as Evan was concerned, the only thing worse than ruffling the Maskirovka’s feathers would be to stand up under a militia assault without enough equipment.

  “Missiles. Actuators. Fa Shih battlesuits.” Yung-Te inventoried the crate stencils he could easily read. “You took Fa Shih suits? Sang-shao Rieves will not look kindly on this theft.”