By Temptations and by War

by Loren L. Coleman

  27

  Truths Be Told

  An anonymous report, forwarded to our offices, promises to shake Liao to its very core. To find that we have welcomed home the Black Paladin, the Betrayer whose treachery caused so many needless deaths on the Night of Screams, seemed too great a lie. But it is not. Our investigation has confirmed it. Daniel Peterson, Ezekiel Crow: they are alive and well. And they are Legate Ruskoff’s new aide, Major Ritter Michaelson.

  —The Nánlù Daily Apple, Exclusive Media Broadcast, Liao, 30 July 3134

  LianChang Military Reserve

  Qinghai Province, Liao

  1 August 3134

  Pulling off the highway in his motorpool sedan, Daniel Peterson tightened his grip on the wheel. A large sign next to the access road reminded him of his destination. LianChang Military Reserve. A tight flutter twisted in his stomach. Major Ritter Michaelson had been brought here the first time against his wishes, but had handled it with stiff military bearing. Daniel returned voluntarily, tired of running. After two days of no sleep and very little to eat, he hoped to face the truth half as well.

  The guards at the base entrance worked with their usual efficiency, checking identification, waving through jeeps, cars and trucks. A fresh-faced corporal glanced first at the sedan’s window decal, giving the driver priority access, and had already raised the gate before Daniel coasted to a stop to hand over Ritter Michaelson’s fake ID.

  “Lieutenant Daniel Peterson to see Legate Ruskoff,” he said calmly.

  Corporal Paullat didn’t bother to open the wallet. His eyes widened with recognition. In the last two days, the media had made Daniel’s face instantly recognizable to the entire world.

  “Lieutenant. . . .” There was no respect in the title, only stunned repetition. “S–sir. You’re . . . under arrest.”

  Daniel nodded. “Have the MPs meet me in front of the base command building, please.” He drove under the raised gate without looking back. The corporal never had time to remember his pistol, holstered at his side.

  He picked up his first military patrol car only a block into the base, and two more before he ever got close to Ruskoff’s command center. A rifle platoon waited outside, backed up by armored infantry on the roof. Four military police approached his sedan, hands on their pistols, and ordered him out. Daniel complied, slowly, very much aware of how many weapons pointed his direction, keeping his hands in view at all times. The military police cuffed him, checked him for weapons, then shackled his wrists to the front of a leather belt which they cinched around his waist. With an MP at both sides, a hand locked around each upper arm, Daniel Peterson was finally escorted inside.

  They led him down a familiar stretch of hallway, through a door and an adjoining office, and held him at stiff attention in front of Legate Viktor Ruskoff. The Legate sat in his chair, hands clamped onto the armrests. His ash blond hair, normally shorn into a tight flattop, wilted as the length grew out. Bags began to darken under his eyes. He said nothing for a long moment, and Daniel held up under the basilisk stare.

  “So,” Ruskoff finally said. “This is what treason looks like.”

  No sleep and a starvation diet had done its work on Daniel’s face. It had taken a great deal of energy just to shave this morning before leaving the hostel where he’d hidden for two days, thinking. “You have no idea who I am,” Daniel said. “Arrest me or shoot me, Legate.” He glanced away. “I don’t care what you think.”

  “If that’s true, why did you come back? You’ve disappeared before. Twice before, in fact.”

  Daniel chewed on the inside of his cheeks, holding his answer until he’d thought about it a moment. His eyes felt scratchy, dry, and he blinked some moisture over them. “Not this time. Whatever happens to me now, I’ll see it through without having to look back over my shoulder.”

  “Very noble of you.” Ruskoff certainly wasn’t warming to the idea. “Do you know what you’ve cost this world? Just as the riots begin to settle down, suddenly people are up in arms again. I have fifteen new cases of officers absent without leave. You don’t want to know what this did to the enlisted ranks. And I can’t tell how many are defections, desertions or are simply dead. The public backlash has been incredible on both sides of the Capellan issue. Did you set me up, Michaelson? Crow . . . what the hell am I supposed to call you!”

  “Daniel. My name is Daniel.”

  He seemed to accept that. “Did you?” he asked again.

  “Set you up? No. I was set up. Played. Masterfully.”

  “So now you’re innocent?” Ruskoff’s sarcasm was plain.

  “Ah, I’m guilty as hell, Viktor.” One of the MPs shook him, and Daniel twisted around to shake away their hands. They pulled batons, but hesitated when Ruskoff waved them back.

  Daniel ignored the MPs and returned to some semblance of attention. “I’m guilty,” he said again, “but not of what you think. I was just trying to do what I thought was best.” That wasn’t quite right. That was Crow talking. “No, I’ve tried to do what I thought was best for everyone else. I did. But I never meant—”

  What? Anyone to get hurt? Too late.

  Ruskoff nodded a dismissal to the MPs, who left the office reluctantly. Daniel doubted they went much farther than the adjoining office, ready to take him back into custody the moment the Legate was through with him.

  “So if it wasn’t you, then who was it? Tsung? Did the Governor’s man play me into the enemy’s hands? The Dynasty Guard? Who?”

  What the hell. “Bannson. Jacob Bannson. Or, at least, it was some of his people.”

  “What’s Jacob Bannson got to do with this?” Ruskoff obviously didn’t believe him. “Why would he care about Liao? Answer me, Daniel!”

  “Business!” Daniel shouted back with all the strength left to him. “It’s all business with him. What he can get as a return on an investment. That’s what I was.” Daniel fought to recover his poise. “An investment.”

  “Why you? What did Bannson, or his people, have on you that was so damning?” Of course, the moment he asked, the answer came to him. “The Massacre.”

  Daniel breathed heavily as his chest tightened. He nodded. “Here on Liao, and on Northwind, I was Bannson’s tool. Some mistakes you never stop paying for. Not even when you die.”

  And Daniel found himself backing up, taking his time to explain—slowly, carefully—the way he’d been approached to let the Confederation DropShip through security protocols. Why he’d done it. What was left to him after. Two years of bloody war. In the chaos, it had been easy to forge a new identity as Ezekiel Crow. Trying to redeem himself by making the “best” decisions on behalf of The Republic, devoting twenty years to doing as much good as possible.

  He told Ruskoff about the Conservatory Uprising in 3128, how it was prompted by Confederation agents. That made the Legate sit up sharply and take notice. He talked at length about what happened on Northwind and Terra. For the first time in his life, he explained to another person every selfish motivation that drove him to excel, to do better, and what finally backed him into a corner. And what it had cost him. His parents. The trust and respect of his peers. Tara Campbell, who had reached out to him, and had been betrayed.

  He’d been talking quite awhile. His mouth was parched and his throat hurt. Daniel ended quickly with his arrival on Liao.

  Ruskoff nodded slowly. “So this is what treason looks like,” he said, though not quite so harshly as the first time.

  “I rated everything I got,” Daniel admitted, refusing any pity. “This time I wasn’t going to play another man’s game. I had no aspirations of my own. I just wanted to help. I came clean—clean as I could and have you believe me at all—and hoped it was enough.” He swallowed dryly. “It wasn’t. And a lot of innocent people died.”

  He thought a moment. “Well, they would have died anyway, I think. Bannson would have covered those bases. But I helped put it in motion, and got those deaths blamed on The Republic.”

  Ruskoff leaned over his d
esk with hands steepled together. “I’ve been there,” he began slowly. “You take one step beyond the job description, and suddenly people are dead and you can’t help but think of what you could have done differently. Usually, the answer is: nothing. And now Liao is burning.” He shook his head. “I’m beginning to think this was all put into motion long before you and I ever put on a uniform. But that doesn’t matter, does it? What we have to deal with is what happens today.”

  “And what is happening today?” Daniel asked. He couldn’t help it. The responsibility of duty still pricked at him. “Bad?”

  The Legate hesitated, then decided it couldn’t hurt. “Lord Governor Hidic barely managed to hold on to the industrial centers of Nánlù. The Dynasty Guard struck during the New Year’s chaos, but Lady Kincaid stop-gapped them. She took a bad hit from a cockpit breach. Then the Guard suddenly left. No idea why. They pulled out lock, stock and BattleMech while Nánlù’s entire defense teetered on the edge. Relocated to Beilù’s Northern Ranges.”

  “I’ve seen Chang-an,” Daniel admitted. “It’s every district and suburb for itself right now.”

  “Governor Lu Pohl—” Ruskoff shrugged. “I’m not certain about her. She’s got a small task force sitting inside the White Towers District, appropriated from the surviving militia I had on the capital’s streets. I haven’t tested their loyalty yet by ordering them out. I might need them up there.”

  “Need them? For what?” Daniel tried to see where the Legate had mentioned a pending attack. He hadn’t. “The Conservatory?” A chill grabbed him. He still felt torn inside that he had been unable to help the students. Unable even to reach Evan Kurst. “I think that would be a mistake.”

  “It’s one thorn in my side that I can deal with immediately.” The Legate’s hands clenched into tight, white-knuckled fists. “I knew better than to let that fester. Because of Lord Governor Hidic, I’ve already waited too long, and it’s cost us. I bring the Conservatory back under Republic control, the rest of Chang-an might calm enough for the Governor to relax. We may able to restore order.”

  He might be right, Daniel knew. Maybe it was too far gone for a peaceful solution. “What about me?” Daniel asked.

  Ruskoff thought, then shook his head. “I’m not fit to judge you, Daniel. That will be for people wiser than I.” He stood, leaning over his desk. His voice hardened. “But I can’t trust you either. I’ll keep you on the Reserve for now, under protection, until I am sure you can get a fair hearing. That’s the best I can do for you.”

  Daniel nodded. “Then it’ll have to be enough.”

  But still a part of him wondered who Legate Ruskoff could ever find to give him that fair hearing? Just who would declare themselves fit to judge him?

  And if anything happened to the Legate, what would become of him then?

  28

  A Divided House

  Sir Ian Valstone, Knight of the Sphere, and elements of the Fifth Hastati Sentinels pushed Confederation forces off the world of Algot this week. Thought to be another major offensive to take the working HPG station, the Capellan drive now looks to have been a feint designed to tie up Prefect Tao’s dwindling resources.

  —Your World, Algot, 2 August 3134

  Yiling (Chang-an)

  Qinghai Province, Liao

  4 August 3134

  “You gave it to them!” Evan Kurst shouted as he stormed through the door, into the invitation-only meeting Mai Uhn Wa had called.

  The tactical review room was normally used for student debriefing after live maneuvers. Located in a hardened building on the Conservatory’s “military campus,” it was used maybe twice in any given week during normal university operations, heavier toward the end of an academic year. Normally dressed in Mech Warrior togs or a simple jumpsuit, Evan often found the room cold, stark and forbidding. A place he was summoned to be lectured on what he had done wrong and to give an accounting of what he had learned.

  Today the room smelled of coffee and nervous cigarettes, filled with a dozen people that Mai felt deserving of a place in the budding House Ijori. Most of Evan’s campus cabal, painfully missing Mark Lo. Jenna Lynn Tang stood nearby, but shrank away from the fury that heavily darkened his face. Colonel Feldspar and Field Sergeant Hoi had selected three senior cadets to help cover infantry and tanks. Tori Yngstram. Whit Greggor and two more Ijori Dè Guāng cell leaders. These were the people who could be trusted implicitly. Plus the always present Maskirovka agent, Michael Yung-Te.

  Evan dismissed them all with hardly a glance.

  It was Mai Uhn Wa who could not be trusted.

  Word arrived that morning. Using stealth suits, the Dynasty Guard had taken the Cult of Liao’s valley stronghold, and had obviously been prewarned of the valley and vault defenses. Evan missed the initial report by hours, busy tearing apart the room “Ritter Michaelson” had used on campus, and then checking his contacts in Chang-an for any news of the traitor. Part of him recognized that Daniel Peterson was only a small part in the Capellan-Republic conflict. Another part wanted to choke the life out of him. If there was one man directly responsible for his parents’ deaths, it was Peterson.

  But no one knew where Michaelson had disappeared to.

  Evan had come back on campus to find the news waiting for him: Sun-Tzu’s body was in the hands of the Dynasty Guard. Now he stood, shaking. His hands clenched and unclenched.

  “You handed over the shrine to Rieves!”

  Mai had put together a paramilitary uniform with brown fatigues webbed at the forearms and lower legs with green plasteel mesh. The older man remained visibly calm, even in the face of Evan’s accusation. “Our final force strength includes only five BattleMechs, Evan. There is no way to return the Rifleman to duty without another week’s effort.”

  Evan locked gazes with his mentor, his Master, at a momentary loss for words that Mai would not even acknowledge the betrayal. “Did you think my network would not report this?” he asked, choking off every word. “I did not want to believe it. But the Guard’s DropShip is parked in the valley. Sitting right on top of the farmhouse, I’d guess.”

  “We are better prepared to field armor and infantry, although our battlesuits are a mixed bag at best and our vehicles weighted to the lighter side.”

  “Damn you, Mai!” Evan stomped further into the room, coming up on the display table most of the small committee had gathered around. On it was a map of the Conservatory, with icons spread around the campus to represent a placement of all allied forces. “How many Protectors died because of this? How many did I help you betray?”

  “Eight.”

  It was the first straight answer Mai offered, delivered with a simple matter-of-factness that seemed both cold and cruel. It helped Evan gather his poise again, letting him settle into a righteous anger. “Who gave you the right to make decisions like—”

  “You did.” This time the House Master did not allow Evan to finish, cutting him off with a hand tearing through the air and a whip-crack shout that silenced the cadet. “I told you then, what you showed me was bigger than either of us. It was mine to deal with as I saw fit.”

  “Giving his body over to the Dynasty Guard was not what I had in mind. You should have come to me.”

  “You swore yourself to me, Evan. Of your own choice. I am either Master of your life, or I am not. That is the way of a Warrior House. One leader. One!”

  Evan’s retort was silenced as Jenna stepped forward to place a hand on his arm. The warning was not lost. For all his anger and the cold emptiness eating away inside his guts, he saw he had not surprised Mai Uhn Wa. Far from it. Mai had waited for him, wanting this to be brought out in front of everyone. Evan glanced about the room as the shift in power played itself out.

  Colonel Feldspar did not even look in Evan’s direction. Neither did Whit Greggor. Both men silently cast their votes. Evan did notice that Feldspar and Hoi glanced at the resident Mask agent, but how they arrived at their decision did not matter. David Parks sat off to one side, mi
red in his own thoughts. Hahn glanced between Evan and Mai, shook his head subtly as if trying to warn his friend to back off.

  So even Hahn had abandoned him.

  Evan could not remain in the room. Not now, after openly challenging Mai. Evan had handed his mentor all the keys necessary to become master of the situation, and all because he’d thought—he’d hoped—that he had finally found the path forward. Instead, he’d found a new door being slammed on him. He’d given up the Ijori Dè Guāng and his prominence in the uprising. Even his friendships, so painstakingly built, were apparently lost now.

  He turned for the door. Jenna moved into his path, but Evan backed her off. “Stay,” he told her. “You may be able to help save lives.” Then he stepped by her.

  “Evan.” Mai did not command him to stay. He merely questioned.

  Evan paused in the doorway, refusing to face back into the room. Slowly, he unclenched his fists and laid his hands down at his sides. “I remember my pledge, Shiao Mai. And now I will wait for your orders. You certainly have no respect for my counsel.”

  And then Evan left behind his friends, his Master, and his final ties to anything Capellan or Republic.

  Making himself unavailable, Evan spent the rest of the day checking inventories and forward postings. He had shut himself out of the strategic council, but a nagging sense of duty pulled at him. He verified that the Rifleman could not be repaired any sooner, and hurried the military conversion of a second ConstructionMech into a modified design that might help make up for the Conservatory’s light armor assets. That gave them three modified IndustrialMechs. Slow and ponderous, but a threat nonetheless.

  Jenna finally caught up with him outside his dormitory. More to the point, she was waiting. Possibly for hours, knowing it was the one place he would return to sooner or later. It had been later, long after dark, and the overhead streetlights were throwing a yellow glare across the quad.