By Temptations and by War Read online

  The unidentified DropShips burning in toward Terra continue to refuse all attempts at communication. The Tenth Principes has mobilized and their aerospace assets will intercept in approximately sixty minutes. After the recent fighting on Achernar, on Northwind—we can only imagine what has now come home to Terra and what will eventually befall The Republic of the Sphere. Why are we so afraid of the dark?

  —Mace O’Ronnell, Stellar Associated, 29 March 3134

  Yiling (Chang-an)

  Qinghai Province, Liao

  Prefecture V, The Republic

  24 April 3134

  Evan Kurst staggered over to a storefront wall and held it up for a moment. The night air felt cool against his flushed skin. Wiping his hands on the outside of his jeans, drying them, he then adjusted the straps on his backpack, trying to make it look natural. A half dozen books, a load of laundry for the laundromat, a few days’ groceries; those would have been nothing for a fourth-year student at the Liao Conservatory. Military-grade power amplifiers weighed a bit more. And you really did not want to get caught hauling them around the Liao capital of Chang-an.

  Or anywhere, for that matter.

  Even in the early hours of morning, barely past midnight, the Yiling suburbs could hardly be considered deserted. Separated from Conservatory grounds by the four-lane avenue and a high wall on Evan’s right, the local commercial district tailored itself to student lives which included late-night cramming sessions, celebrations, and general night-owl behavior. Neon signs glowed in fluorescent colors. There was no real traffic to consider, but several couples and half a dozen singles still roamed the streets, heading to or from the university or simply between parties.

  One kindred soul staggered along with an open bottle of Timbiqui Dark and saluted Evan with the tall-necked container, offering moral support.

  Evan waved back dutifully, shoved himself toward the nearby street corner. One edge of the amplifier’s housing dug into his back. He shifted its weight again by pretending to slide along the wall in need of support, shrugging his shoulder straps into a new position.

  Across the intersection was the corner entrance to a commercial park, where students could bike or blade or lounge on hard plastic benches if all they wanted was a place to get off-campus. To the right, across the wide avenue, was the Grand Arch entrance to the university: the photo-op entrance, with fortresslike stonework holding up a buttressed arch, LIAO CONSERVATORY carved in relief, framing an impressive stretch of landscaped grounds.

  Most students and military cadets chose to use any of several minor gates much closer to dorms or teaching halls or parade grounds. Which made for light foot traffic and just enough time to pull this off.

  Evan was late, ten meters short of the cross street when a squeal of tires and a plastic-crunching smash echoed up the street behind him. He fought to keep any extra spring out of his step. One of the easiest ways to blow a stealth operation was to do something that stood out from the crowd. Still, Evan staggered a last few steps to the corner before rubbernecking to look back at the auto accident. One block back a car abandoned the scene, fishtailing up the wide avenue that divided Yiling from the Conservatory wall. The other, an Avanti economy hybrid, caught fire as a sparking flywheel touched off spilled fuel, or that was how the accident report would read.

  People ran to the aid of the abandoned hybrid, or stood around watching, or pointing. One concerned youth sprinted over the four-lane avenue and pounded on the window of the small guardhouse nestled beneath the Grand Arch. A lot of shouting and gesturing ensued, followed by the security guard running off with Evan’s ringer, rendering aid to the prearranged “accident.”

  “Move along, please,” a commanding voice ordered. A uniformed policeman stepped into the intersection, waving Evan forward with a curt gesture.

  Evan nodded, thankful for his arrival. They traded tight smiles as Evan hurried across the intersection, knowing each other for members of the Cult of Liao. The officer would keep prying eyes focused away from Ijori Dè Guāng activity.

  Dodging into the commercial park, Evan pulled a light cotton mask down over his brow. An overhead streetlamp had been broken out the night before, and not repaired. Beneath that his people waited. Whit Greggor lurked into the shadows with a large piece of iron—a prybar good for jimmying doors. Two other Ijori Dè Guāng members were busy connecting their own equipment into a working laser.

  One of them had already cracked the lamp’s utility box and run a pair of cables out onto the cement walk. “Late,” he said, helping to wrestle the laser onto a stabilizing tripod. He was a utility worker with the Yiling suburbs. The man did not know who Evan was at all.

  “Get set up,” Evan said by way of apology.

  It took moments, well-rehearsed the week before and waiting only for the power amplifier Evan delivered. The fourth man, retired infantry, pulled amber goggles over his eyes and took up station behind the laser’s handgrips. “Charging . . . ready,” he said.

  Evan looked over the hedge at the Grand Arch entrance, the well-lit guard booth, and a small cluster of late-nighters who debated crossing the grounds or walking down to the accident site. The acrid scent of burning plastic drifted down on a light breeze. He nodded.

  “Fire.”

  The laser pulsed, stabbing sharp spikes of sapphire energy through the night. There were a few screams, more shouting. The police officer’s whistle shrilled sharply, directing people back—away from the park—just move it! No radio call as yet. Confusion of the moment.

  Evan stood rigidly still, feeling the warmth radiating off the overheating laser as it scoured and sliced and cut and stabbed.

  Then it was over. The Ijori Dè Guāng members broke down their equipment faster than it had gone together. Evan took the power amplifier and they split in three directions. Whit Greggor stayed with him until clear of the park, then left Evan alone as the student staggered back through the streets, making his escape.

  Behind him, the first sirens of the night finally sounded.

  Evan lounged at a bistro table outside YiCha’s Gourmet Coffees, sipping a citrus-blend juice. He sat with his back to the shop window—the best choice he had, considering—and his eyes glanced left along the street, right toward the intersection, then straight through traffic toward the busy monorail stop. The sun barely peeked over the roof of a nearby mall, its rays slanting down the narrow street, jumping over the curb and a double-wide sidewalk, and warming the left side of Evan’s face. It looked to be a beautiful day, part of Liao’s deep autumn wonder that ended with a short winter season during the Terran standard months of June and July.

  Left again. Right.

  Got him.

  Evan paused with the insulated cup half lifted to his mouth as David Parks skulked around a corner, keeping his back toward the wall. Parks moved at the edge of Evan’s peripheral vision, but there was no missing his Caesar-cut red hair or the black range rider trench he so adored.

  Parks reached into his coat. For a weapon.

  With a quick spin and toss Evan could have dashed his entire cup right into the David’s face—except that it wouldn’t do much for the other man’s temper, and the juice was still too fresh and cold to be wasted. Instead, Evan finished his sip as he brought up his left hand, resting casually in his lap until now, and formed a two-fingered gun that he aimed back over his shoulder.

  “You’re dead, David.”

  David leaped forward and snaked his thick arm around Evan’s neck, locking it in a stranglehold. Evan tensed, but forced himself not to react as his friend throttled him. “Tomorrow, Evan. I’ll get you tomorrow.”

  Jenna Lynn Tang walked up just as David gave an extra squeeze and then released Evan. Behind her followed Mark Lo. “I think you’ve said that three days running, Dave.” She offered Evan a weary smile. “Me, I’ve been assassinated every day this week.”

  “All for the good of the movement,” David told her. “Got to be ready.” He didn’t say for what, though everyone knew he s
poke of the Ijori Dè Guāng. He talked about joining up all the time. Dropping Evan a too obvious wink, he turned for the coffee shop door and disappeared inside.

  Jen slipped into a vacant chair at the small bistro table. Gathering her tight braids into a loose collection, she secured them behind her with a red band. Jen had pale skin and green eyes the color of polished jade. She had also paid for some cosmetic surgery during her sophomore year at the Conservatory, adding just a touch of epicanthic fold at the corner of each eye. Evan found the effect very appealing.

  “I’m gonna grab a coffee,” Mark said by way of offering.

  Jenna thought, then shook her head. “Nothing for me.” Evan picked up his cup and sloshed it around. He was still good. Mark ducked inside, and Evan’s smile faded a notch as soon as the other cadet was out of sight. He hadn’t called Mark, who had obviously spent another night at Jen’s. Mark would not find this morning’s event amusing.

  “Something wrong?”

  “Where’s Hahn?” Evan asked, covering his lapse by staring back the way his friends had come. Hahn Soom Gui was crossing the nearby intersection—against the light, of course, walking as if the world would move out of the way for him. A hoversedan blasted its horn. Safe behind red-tinted aviators, Hahn was oblivious.

  “Got stopped by some admirers,” Jen told him, amusement playing richly through her melodic voice. “I think they’re planning a rally.”

  “Again?” The academic year was only into its fourth month, and already Hahn had helped organize five pro-Capellan events.

  “Something has people stirred up,” Jen said, and she leaned across the table. Her eyes were brightly interested. “Of course, you wouldn’t know anything about that?”

  He might. Evan fought back any reaction. His friends might be ready to march in campus demonstrations—all but Mark, anyway—but they were also candidates for The Republic military. The less they knew, or had confirmed, the better. Very soon Evan would have to make a hard choice: cadet corps, serving in the local militia most likely, or underground.

  “Might have something to do with the new rumors,” he said, dodging away from the opening she’d given him. “I hear a new JumpShip passed through.” Which was the only way to get stale news from of the rest of The Republic these days.

  “We heard that, too.” She nodded in greeting as Hahn walked up. “Fighting on Terra. Who would have thought?”

  Devlin Stone might have, Evan did not say, or The Republic’s current Exarch, Damien Redburn. Terra was no more a true Republic world than . . . than . . . well, Liao.

  “Fighting on Terra. Northwind. Achernar.” Hahn Soom Gui stopped behind Evan because he knew how much it irked the MechWarrior candidate. Evan shifted his chair as Hahn struck a pose. “In the dark times no one can tell friend from foe, only brother . . . from other.”

  Hahn’s delivery was polished and perfect; he could have been reciting lines from any well-crafted political speech. And he’d likely made the expression up in just the last few moments. Evan was the eldest among their little campus cabal, and a training Mech Warrior, but there was a real reason why Hahn, an armored corps cadet, was the group’s leader.

  Not just the fact that Evan preferred to remain out of the spotlight.

  “Not bad,” Jenna said, playing it down. But Evan saw the light blossom across her oval face. Hahn inspired. Hahn led.

  Evan tried to imagine Hahn holding a gun, standing over the body of a Republic MP. The picture didn’t fit him at all. Evan winced, banishing the memory, and nodded his approval at the rhetoric.

  Hahn accepted the tribute from both friends, then turned to the shop window. He waved at someone in line—David probably—and made a complicated set of hand gestures that Evan actually understood: Mocha, double-shot, iced. Hahn did not get his own coffee either.

  Mark and David returned together, Mark on his wireless phone and David cradling two cups and a sweet bun in his large hands. Both men were enrolled in the Conservatory’s battlesuit infantry program, though David looked more the part at one hundred ninety centimeters, extra-wide shoulders and chiseled features. One could almost believe David’s claim to have Clan Elemental blood in his past. But then, David claimed a lot of things.

  Mark looked like a stockbroker, big but bookish. He clipped his wireless back to his belt.

  “Now that we’re all together,” Hahn said as he accepted his cup and passed David a couple of stones—The Republic currency that Evan refused to carry. “Maybe Evan will explain what’s going on.”

  “Yeah.” David bit into his bun. Around a mouthful of pastry he added, “Why the call?”

  Evan sipped his drink. Naranji had a wonderful sweet taste like strawberries and orange together, but in the morning he mixed some grapefruit into the popular juice. “Can’t just want to say hey before classes?” he asked, and smiled at his friends’ disbelief. “Okay.” He pushed his chair back and rose. “Come on.”

  On the way, pushing through the monorail crowd to the next street over, Evan explained. “I saw it this morning while on my run. I like to finish out here for some Ji-Go.” He rattled the ice left in his cup. Jen and David made faces. They couldn’t stand the sweet taste of naranji. He ditched the cup in a nearby can. “Instead, I went back for my phone and called you up to meet here. I thought you would like to see.” Most of them, anyway.

  They took another corner, rounding a bento restaurant with an enviable location one short block from the Conservatory’s main gate, and then along the commercial park. The small cadet cadre shuffled to a stop near the corner. They still had to cross the street for the Conservatory grounds, but the view was better here as there was still quite a crowd milling about underneath the Grand Arch entrance, trampling police tape.

  Word had spread.

  New guerrilla art. Or, what true Republic loyalists would consider more destructive graffiti.

  “Yes!” David jumped up and pumped his fist in the air, celebrating the coup. He spilled steaming coffee over his other hand, but didn’t care. “That is so excellent.” Hahn merely smiled, his washed-out gray eyes hiding safe and secure behind the tinted aviator glasses.

  Evan didn’t look toward Jenna or Mark at all, protecting his game face. Instead, he stared out across the slow-moving traffic and gathered students, up at the stone arch which had once proclaimed its entry to the Conservatory. The raised letters had been laser-sanded away, and a new proclamation etched over them.

  Yóng yuăn Liào Sūn Zĭ!

  Forever lives Sun-Tzu Liao.

  “If you will all excuse me,” Hahn said, pulling his own wireless off his belt, “I have some calls to make.”

  3

  The Guardian

  Lord Governor Hidic, we’ve had a dozen phone-in requests the last few minutes concerning this morning’s guerrilla art at the Conservatory. Would you care to comment on the sentiment? Do you believe that Sun-Tzu Liao lives forever on this world? Lord Governor? Hello?

  —Meet & Greet, Station XLDZ, Interview with Marion Hidic, 24 April 3134

  Yiling (Chang-an)

  Qinghai Province, Liao

  24 April 3134

  Evan Kurst counted more cheers and smiles around the Grand Arch than complaints, though not by many. And there was plenty of shoving to go around. With Hahn peeling away to do some campus politicking, the rest forced their way through the tight knot of students with Mark and David blazing a trail.

  “It’s vandalism.” Mark Lo kicked angrily at the ground as the cabal passed beneath the ruined stonework. He refused to look up. “Not free expression.”

  Evan felt a touch of pity for his friend. It couldn’t be easy at times, hanging around with a group of pro-Capellan cadets. Even though they were all enrolled in various programs which would—eventually—lead toward military service, some students were more Republic minded than others. Mark, fortunately, was a liberal. He believed that every person, citizen or resident, had the right to voice their opinion. Sometimes that belief ran hard up against his ow
n political views, though.

  And against Jenna’s.

  “Do you really think the PTB would let us post so much as a sign that mentioned Sun-Tzu Liao anywhere near the campus grounds?”

  PTB. Powers That Be. Evan did not care for that assignation. It implied irrevocable status. But that was Jenna’s way. Rock the system, but never believe you can effect real change. It was one reason, among others, why Evan had never approached her about the Ijori Dè Guāng.

  “No way,” David said, blowing on his scalded fingers. “The government’d rather pretend the resistance didn’t exist.”

  Mark shot a dark glance at David. “So untrue. The government would rather work with people, but they aren’t in denial.”

  “Remember the Heritage Days military parade? They called it a ‘switchbox failure,’ but I happen to know that some freedom fighters took over the public works building and sabotaged all the lights that morning. Gridlock forced the parade to pass outside of Yiling. I heard there was a killing, too.”

  Evan noticed the other three staring at him. “What?” Everyone glanced away at the same time. It was almost comical.

  Almost.

  His friends had long suspected Evan of being an Ijori Dè Guāng cell member. Or one of their resources, a snitch, maybe. Or a spy. Evan had a tendency to know more than he should, or be nearby when things turned . . . interesting.

  David came back faster than the others. “Well,” he said, “I did hear that something similar happened down in Duan.” Duan was the local capital of Liao’s southern continent of Nánlù.

  “Isn’t Bulics Academy in that province?” Mark asked.

  Evan had attended Bulics before finally getting his transfer to the Conservatory. Damn David. Why couldn’t he keep his mouth shut? David was too gung ho, and liked to spout off on the fact, otherwise the burly infantry cadet might have made an excellent recruit.

  Evan nodded. “It might be,” he said to Mark. “And you know, I think I remember taking classes with several hundred other cadets.”