By Temptations and by War Read online

  “How many of you have truly embraced The Republic and all the good it has brought? How many of you continue to resist, each in your own way, when you can? I put it to you, to answer for yourself, what it means to be Capellan.

  “And that,” he said with a shrug, very animated coming from him, “is a debate for another day. Thank you for your attention.”

  Evan stayed seated as most of the class stood to applaud. A few dozen students crowded around the guest lecturer while most filed out, eagerly debating today’s lesson and ready to share it with their less enthusiastic friends around campus. Evan noticed that Hahn made a point of introducing himself to Mai Wa, and slipped the elder man a card. Jenna held herself in greater reserve, having already met the Capellan in a more awkward manner.

  Eventually, his friends joined the tail end of students leaving the room, and Evan nodded them onward as he remained behind. Mai came up the aisle, as self-effacing as only he could be.

  “What do you think?”

  Evan held back outright approval, but still felt he owed his teacher some warning. “I think you’ll have people looking into your past by tomorrow.”

  “Let them look. They will end up running around in circles.”

  “Yes, but for how long?”

  “Long enough.”

  There it was again, that unvoiced promise for the future. Evan remembered it from before. He also remembered how it had turned out, with Mai abandoning them when they needed a strong leader most. “I still do not trust you,” he said.

  “And you shouldn’t. I have not given you reason to.” Yet. He left that unvoiced as well, but Evan heard it in his head.

  “If you lead the authorities to us . . .” He did not have to finish. The necessary threat was understood. After all, hadn’t Mai taught him the rules?

  “A truce, Evan. That is all I am asking of you. If you need to contact me . . .” His eyes slid sideways, back down toward Professor Rogers. “I think you know how to go about that.” He offered his hand.

  Evan took it. Slowly. The handshake was no warm greeting, but it was an understanding. A truce, as Mai Uhn Wa had said. Evan did not want the older man’s help, and Mai, whatever he wanted, would ask for nothing more. For now.

  10

  Eye of the Storm

  Two hostile DropShips violated Liao airspace last night and made high-G drops over the continents of Nánlù and Beilù. We believe this is an exploratory advance by the Second McCarron’s Armored Cavalry, the same unit currently leading the assault on Gan Singh. It appears the Confederation has opened up a delayed front. I’ll take questions . . .

  —Legate Viktor Ruskoff, Press Briefing, 8 June 3134

  Xiapu

  Huáng-yù Province, Liao

  9 June 3134

  Ritter Michaelson sat astride an Eridani mare. He hadn’t been born to the saddle, but was growing comfortable with it after several weeks. He shifted his weight carefully, not wanting to spook the animal. Her ambling walk rocked him easily back and forth, back and forth, but he knew better than to let down his guard. The mare had already proven herself to be proud and headstrong as any of her breed. On his morning ride out, she had taken the bit between her teeth and ate up several kilometers with long, powerful strides before he’d regained control.

  He had learned one thing from that wild ride: he could hang on more easily during a gallop than during a canter or slower trot. A gallop rolled beneath him like the swaying gait of a light BattleMech. The short, choppy strides of a trot tended to slam the base of his spine right up between his shoulder blades.

  It all took some getting used to.

  The small ranch could not have been more different from the city life he had grown up with. Grassy plains stretched for hundreds of kilometers in every direction, cut apart by windbreak forests and a few muddy rivers. Eridani horses and beef cows shared the range. Simple barbed-wire fences kept the herds separate, and someone had to ride those fences every few days. It was a task he found almost enjoyable. It gave him time to be alone with his thoughts. As alone as he could be, for a man who had lived two other lives.

  Both of them ruined by bad choices.

  Daniel Peterson had been a young man caught up in large events. A fresh-faced lieutenant thinking he could force his homeworld into a confrontation with its Capellan heritage, with the Confederation. One DropShip. That had been the arrangement. Flashes of memory from that night haunted him still.

  . . . Chang-an, burning. He ran through the streets, fighting his way back to his parents’ home.

  . . . Muddy bootprints heading up the stairs, and a wet stain of blood seeping into the hallway carpet from behind the door.

  That had ended his first life and begun his second, where he’d tried to accomplish good works in penance. Becoming a Knight of the Sphere, then a Paladin, Ezekiel Crow gave selflessly to the homeland he’d failed. Twenty-three years, only to have his past catch up with him on Northwind. Blackmailed, he had again betrayed those around him—and himself as well. Was there salvation after that?

  Daniel Peterson, the Betrayer of Liao. Ezekiel Crow, the Black Paladin.

  “Who will I be this week?” he asked out loud.

  The mare snorted and shook its head, long mane whisking along the side of its neck. Michaelson patted the muscular neck with a gloved hand, calming the high-spirited animal. For a second he thought he heard the distant, thumping echo of VTOL rotors, but saw nothing on the horizon. He heard nothing more except the slow clop of hooves and the whistle of dry wind combing through tall grasses.

  Who would he be?

  Ritter Michaelson was all he had left.

  Things were heating up with the arrival of the Second McCarron’s Armored Cavalry. A veteran Confederation unit, its arrival put Liao on notice that the world had not been forgotten. The supposed minority of pro-Confederation residents became more vocal, swelled their numbers every day. Republic responses grew more determined in turn. A citywide labor strike in the southern city of Jíla turned ugly when the local magistrate shut off residential power as a way to force people back to work. The industrial sector was still burning, two days after the resulting riots.

  Michaelson had seen this kind of schism before, up close, and if someone did not head it off soon, blood would run in the streets again.

  Only there didn’t seem to be anything he could do about it. He had no BattleMech. No unit. No appointment by Exarch Redburn. All he had was a tenuous relationship started with Legate Ruskoff, and the ranking officer had not returned one of Michaelson’s calls in over a week. More important things to do.

  Then he heard it again. The thumping beat of rotor blades, soft, but getting louder, bouncing down against the grasslands and seeming to come from all around him. A nearby herd of grazing Eridani horses raised their heads, stamped at the ground.

  Lifting his eyes to the horizon Michaelson did a long slow scan of the leaden winter skies. There! A small dark smudge moved against the gray backdrop, dipping down and back up, making long, sweeping runs. Looking for someone. He rubbed a gloved hand over his face—the glove smelling of leather and horse, and always sliding too easily over the glossy healed burns.

  Coincidence? He didn’t believe in it. Not anymore.

  Who would he be? The question mocked him even as the helicopter swooped in close and circled once, twice. Nearby, the Eridani startled, trying to decide which way to run. His own mare tossed its head, pranced sideways. Michaelson bent forward to calm the beast, and she bucked up violently, throwing him overhead and into a bone-jarring heap. The ’copter flattened out and drifted down for a landing. The horses bolted northeast, a fine golden stallion running at their head and his mare trailing only a few lengths behind the herd.

  Michaelson untangled himself, rising on shaky legs. An angry shout died on his lips as Jack Farrell jumped down from the VTOL’s passenger compartment.

  No mistaking the tangle of coarse, dark hair, the eyepatch worn over his ruined socket, or the challenging set to his sho
ulders which held the proverbial chip up there. The veteran raider walked tall beneath the still-pounding rotors where most men would have ducked just out of forced habit. So far as Michaelson knew, Farrell bent his neck to only one person in all of The Republic.

  Jacob Bannson.

  “One-Eyed” Jack Farrell looked the part of rogue and pirate raider. His lean features were chiseled and hard. His good eye was pale blue, and seemed to bore right through you. That eye fixed on Michaelson now, who limped forward with fists clenched. The two men did not shake hands or even nod a greeting. There was history, yes, but most of it bad.

  “What do you want?” he asked Bannson’s man, shouting over the deep rattle of the still-spinning helicopter blades. He pulled off his gloves and tucked them into a back pocket.

  “Not to be here, you can bet. I can think of ten things I’d rather be doing than watching you rot out here in the desert.”

  Most of which involved stomping through cities in his Jupiter BattleMech, at the head of a raider company. Michaelson nodded back at the ’copter. “Don’t let me keep you.”

  Farrell hawked, spat to one side, and glared with his good eye. His contempt for Ezekiel Crow, never a secret, had degraded another few notches since the Paladin’s fall from grace. That likely translated over to the entire world of Liao.

  “Doesn’t work that way,” he said, obviously not liking the matter any more than Michaelson. “Bannson told me to ride herd over things on Liao.” He glanced across the golden sward, at the fleeing colorful shadows of the Eridani. “Didn’t know he meant that literally.”

  “Your boss gave me up on Terra. He told them everything. Tara Campbell. Jonah Levin. Because of him I had to bury Ezekiel Crow and start again.”

  “You should be getting used to that by now.”

  Michaelson glowered. He was getting to be an old hand at it, in fact. Speaking of which, “How did Bannson find me this time?”

  “What? You thought you had an ace in the hole with our ‘friend’ on Terra.” Farrell was talking about the crime boss who had arranged Crow’s escape and new identity. The raider smiled thin and cruel, and glanced back at the helicopter that waited on him. “Bannson Universal has far-reaching business interests.”

  In other words, the underworld lord sold him out. Probably before he’d left Terra. “I should have guessed.” The crime boss had muscle enough to set him up with a new identity, but it would have taken Bannson’s influence and long reach to make that cover stick so well on Liao.

  “Yeah, maybe you should have.”

  Farrell reached around for his back pocket, fished out a pewter flask and unscrewed the top. He took a long pull. Michaelson watched him drink, eyes glued to the flask. Farrell had never taken a drink on the job as far as Michaelson could recall. He watched as the pirate finished, wiped his mouth with the back of one hand and then held out the metal container, offering it. It was no casual nip, and not an offer of camaraderie. It was taunting, cruel and dark. Daniel Peterson had sworn off drinking after the Massacre of Liao, that last night he spent in the wine shop trying to staunch the memories of the blood and smoke, the mass graves dug by laboring IndustrialMechs. . . .

  Hearing the laughter in the voice of the Confederation agent as he described how they had toasted him.

  To the Betrayer of Liao.

  That laughter had followed him around for over two decades. In his mind’s eye he pictured them with their glasses raised, drinking to the health of Lieutenant Daniel Peterson. And they had paid him a bonus—one stone for every Republic citizen killed in the fighting. Ezekiel Crow had never forgotten, and had never touched a drop of alcohol since. Ritter Michaelson could have used a drink just then, anything to drown out the memory, but would not give Farrell the satisfaction.

  “I want nothing more to do with Jacob Bannson,” he said, biting off each word.

  “That’s hardly the point, Crow.” Michaelson started to correct him, but Farrell simply waved a hand, unconcerned with whatever name the disgraced soldier used now. “Bannson might have something more to do with you, especially if things continue to heat up on Liao and around the Prefecture. Opportunities abound for real men who are willing to take chances and seize life.”

  The Confederation invasion? “What’s Bannson got to do with this? Is he backing the Confederation’s play now?”

  Farrell wasn’t about to answer the question. “Ah, so you are still interested in the bigger game. That’s good, ’cause I’ll be around to make sure you remember who’s side you play on.” Another swig from the flask. “And don’t think about trying to skip out, either. You’ll never make it.”

  “There’s nothing more Bannson can do to me.”

  The raider laughed, long and loud, as if the disgraced man had said something truly funny. “Sure there is. Unless you like the idea of sitting through a very public trial, or have the balls to eat the barrel on that service piece you have back at the ranch house. You still have plenty to lose, and I’ll be here to make sure you don’t forget it.”

  With a toothy grin Farrell tossed the unstoppered flask at Michaelson’s head. He caught it, some of the amber liquid sloshing out of the spout and wetting his knuckles. Farrell gave him a heavy wink, and turned back for the ’copter, its rotors spinning in preparation for taking off.

  Staccato slaps of cold air buffeted Michaelson, stirred the long grasses. The scent of sour mash bourbon warmed his nostrils. He traded the flask into his other hand and sucked on his knuckle, eyes clenching as the alcohol’s smooth taste coiled at the back of his throat.

  No. Not again. Farrell’s presence on his homeworld was poison enough.

  Jaw clenched, Michaelson watched the helicopter thunder its way south, back toward the ranch house. He turned over the heavy flask, pouring out every last drop, letting the booze soak into the soil of Liao. He threw the container as far as he could out into the range, then turned in the general direction of the ranch house and began a long walk home.

  11

  Monsters in the Dark

  On Shipka today, elements of the Fifth Hastati Sentinels smashed through to the besieged militia at Sombulton. The Confederation Reserve Cavalry had supposedly choked off all access to the area, but reports claim that resistance cracked almost at once. New analysis indicates that the main body of the Reserve Cavalry may have been pushed as far forward as Menkar.

  —Franklin Chou, Reporting on New Aragon, 11 June 3134

  Yiling (Chang-an)

  Qinghai Province, Liao

  14 June 3134

  Wrenching on his controls, Evan Kurst manhandled the sixty-five-ton Thunderbolt into a sharp pivot that turned him in behind a small office building. Tracer bullets chased after him, white-hot and angry as they flashed through the perpetual gray of urban night. They smashed into the corner of the building. A blurred stream of autocannon fire chewed in with them, pulverizing stone, pitting the steel frame hidden beneath the façade.

  “Four . . . three . . . two. . . .” Evan kept count softly, marking the timing in his head. He levered back on his BattleMech’s throttle, shifting from a flat-out run to a reverse walk in a matter of seconds. The cockpit pitched forward, throwing Evan against his restraining harness. The entire machine might have sprawled headfirst along the street if not for the bulky neurohelmet he wore to link his own sense of balance with the Thunderbolt’s massive gyroscopic stabilizers. Arching his back, chin up, Evan shifted the ’Mech’s center of mass to cope with the change in momentum.

  “One.”

  The Thunderbolt stepped back into the intersection, right arm levering up and outward, pointing its light Gauss rifle straight back down the street at the Confederation forces. A bulky Shen Yi stomped along the avenue, a Schmitt assault tank rolling along at the BattleMech’s feet while a pair of Demons and Fa Shih infantry raced up from behind. A Wasp, battered from earlier fighting, leapt over a nearby building, cutting off the Shen Yi as it landed in a bent-legged crouch.

  Evan’s targeting crosshairs flash
ed from red to gold and he pulled his primary trigger.

  High-energy capacitors dumped their stored power into a series of coils, creating a magnetic funnel that latched onto the nickel-ferrous mass loaded into the Gauss rifle’s acceleration chamber. In a fraction of a second the mass had been driven up to hypersonic speeds, flashing down the short city block and into the left knee of the Wasp.

  Sheer kinetic force wrenched the leg back. Sparks exploded out of the ruined lower leg actuator. As the Confederation ’Mech stepped forward, the entire leg collapsed like an accordion. The Wasp pitched forward, planting itself face first against the unyielding ground. More sparks ground out beneath the fallen BattleMech as it sprawled into a rough, ungainly slide that tumbled it over once and left it pitched up against the office building.

  Evan throttled forward, ducking behind the building once again. Out from under the sights of the Confederation forces that followed.

  The Shen Yi levered its large laser forward to stab megajoules of ruby energy into the night. An orange afterglow of missile exhaust wreathed the upper torso as it let loose with twin flights from its assault-class launchers. The Schmitt pounded out fifty-millimeter slugs. Neither had a chance to hit him, but in this Confederation assault of Liao the enemy soldiers were programmed to vent their anger on civilian targets. Dark windows lit up as the building’s interior filled with the laser’s red glow. The missiles smashed deep into several floors, blossoming into fireballs of orange flame. Glass exploded out on all four sides, raining broken shards over the streets of Desu.

  The historical simulation was incredibly detailed. Biased, but very well-programmed.

  Desu was one of the larger cities of Nánlù, Liao’s southern continent, among the hardest hit in 3111 after the so-called Massacre of Chang-an. Just outside the city had been the Lord Governor’s mansion. It was always demolished before the local militia responded, with the Confederation assault force already moving into the outskirts of the city, burning and destroying.