Anger and dark bitterness boiled up into the crowd’s voice as it shouted back its agreement and frustration. He had them, all right. Evan’s friend had turned them over to him in a nicely wrapped package. There was more pushing and shoving, fists and kicks.
And there, coming back for another batch of the rally leaders, was the local Conservatory security force. This time, though, they had uniformed members of the local police with them. The j˘ı ng-chá. Was it the crowd’s growing surliness or his own presence that had warranted more force? And how could Mai Wa use that?
“Securitat! ” someone called out a warning, voice heavy with a Slavic accent. Whit Greggor.
“Yes. Security is here. As determined as the Maskirovka to enforce their own idea of free speech.” Mai cautiously tread a thin line now, invoking the name of the Confederation’s feared secret police agency. Did people see that they had given up one type of oppression for another? At least the Confederation was not hypocritical about it.
A few in the crowd picked up on the idea, or something close to it. Or maybe they were just charged up enough to vent their anger at the nearest authority. Punches and kicks were thrown again, and the police used their clubs. Some uniformed infantrymen backed up the small cadre of security personnel, helping them force their way forward toward the impromptu stage in the shadow of the impotent Men Shen.
“That’s right,” Mai encouraged. “The military does not serve in spite of the people, but in support of them. Citizens… residents… they are supposed to represent the best interests of all. How many of you feel your right to free speech, to your culture and its millennia-old heritage, threatened right now? Do you welcome the appearance of soldiers, of stormtroopers? Is this the military you yourselves have worked so hard to become a part of?”
They had almost reached the pedestal. “Will it be another twenty years before I am allowed to speak to you again?”
It might. Or longer, depending on the exact laws the local authorities tried to charge him under.
Mai Wa knew a moment’s hesitation as a burly sergeant grabbed the microphone cord and ripped the device from him. Hands fastened onto his legs, pulling him off the stage, down into the grasp of the authorities. Now Evan! Release your dogs now! He saw his onetime apprentice standing off to one side with the large boy named Parks, holding back Hahn who no doubt had planned to end today’s rally also being led away. Where was Greggor? Where were Evan’s people?
Kept out of harm’s way, Mai realized. Not risked in such an open environment as this, the better to keep the cover from under which they operated. Evan had made certain to protect his organization at the risk to his old mentor. Damn him.
He had learned too well.
But then, Mai had other tools in his hands now, didn’t he? He leaned his head back. “Yóng yuăn— ”
“Liào Su¯n Z˘ı!” The crowd roared and jostled forward, shouting the name of the old Capellan Chancellor.
Mai prompted them again and again, struggling in the grip of soldiers who tried to muzzle him with their large, strong hands. They hauled him up off the ground, carrying him overhead where hundreds could see him carry on his struggle. One foot broke free and kicked a policeman in the head. A baton smashed back in response, striking him in the hip, in the arm. A rib broke as a second baton joined the first, snapping with exquisite pain, stabbing him with every breath.
Then a solid tap struck him just over his right ear, and there wasn’t much struggle left in him after that. He sagged limply in the grips of the infantrymen, the fight gone out of him… and placed instead into the hearts and minds of the mob.
With a wounded roar the crowd of students and civilians, soldiers and cadets, surged forward to reach the small knot of security personnel trapped in the Men Shen’s shadow. The world swung dizzily around Mai Wa, but he knew, he knew.
Jeeps blared horns and gunned their engines as they moved from nearby streets onto the grounds themselves, coming to the aid of the besieged group. Warning shots were fired, barking into the air and adding to the chaos. More fighting broke out as the mob turned their anger on their nearest pro-Republic brother. Mai knew he was in the hands of professionals, that they would somehow get him clear of the sudden riot and that he would answer for his actions very soon, but even in his half-stunned state he felt the rise of true anti-Republic sentiment, and found hope in the madness.
The true liberation of Liao had struck its first blow.
14
Loyal Son
Prefect Tao’s office confirms that elements of at least five Confederation commands are operating inside of Prefecture V, divided into two theaters. Warrior Houses and the Reserve Cavalry are driving through Menkar and Algot, while closer to home are McCarron’s Armored Cavalry and the Capellan Hussars. Elements of the Citizen’s Honored have moved to garrison the conquered worlds of Wei, Shipka, Palos, Foot Fall, and Foochow.
—Liao’s NXLK Station 32, 21 June 3134
Yiling (Chang-an)
Qinghai Province, Liao
21 June 3134
Evan Kurst dodged away from the budding riot, sidestepping a placard swung in his direction by a Republic supporter. Evan grabbed the end of the placard and pulled the other cadet in toward him. A side-hand chop to the neck stunned his opponent. Then he grabbed both shoulders and used his full weight to throw the other man over his hip, laying the Republican straight into the side of the Guardian’s pedestal. He’d wake up with one hell of a headache, but it put him out of Evan’s way and out of danger from the fury of the mob.
Large groups began to break away from the riot now, looking for opportunity or mischief. Some headed toward the Conservatory entrance and the YiCha suburbs. Others moved toward the dorms and lecture halls to spread word of the unrest. Some carried police or military weapons. Hundreds swarmed across Evan’s path as he fought his way after Mai Wa. Hahn and David were lost in the crowd, and he hadn’t seen Jenna since she’d helped a bleeding cadet over to the ambulances. Mark Lo disappeared right about the time all hell broke loose—looking for Jen, probably.
That left Evan alone and trying to decide how best to help his former mentor.
Part of him smoldered with resentment, that the freedom fighter had used his friends so blatantly. He considered leaving the man to his captors. That was the selfish side of Evan Kurst. The practical side spoke louder, and that side worried about the damage Mai could cause to the Ijori Dè Guāng if forced to talk.
Also, Evan did not like to waste potential resources. Whatever Mai’s personal reasons for leaving and now returning to Liao, he had connections and had proven in the past a reliable source of information and equipment. The way things were looking on Liao, they might need both.
“Evan!” A hand clamped down hard on his shoulder, spun him around. He grabbed the hand, twisted, then caught himself before he broke Mark’s wrist.
“Hey, easy. It’s me.” His friend shook life back into his arm. “Jen’s disappeared. Can you help me find her?”
“We have bigger problems,” Evan said, trying to spot an open path to chase after the knot of security. They had chosen a perfect route, damn it, right through a large knot of Republic supporters who gave their all to hold back the mob. “Those militiamen have radios. We’re going to see a lockdown of the campus in twenty minutes or less. People are going to get hurt really bad.” Find Mai Wa, and stop the riot. His list was short, but daunting.
“And Jen is out there in that mess somewhere,” Mark shouted.
“Jenna can take care of herself.”
“Jenna is stealing a jeep,” David said, jogging up with a field radio clamped against his ear.
Mark and Evan stared at him, at each other. “She what?” they both asked, nearly at the same time.
“She said we need to find a way to get a handle on this fast, before the local militia commander decides to pull a Kang.” Legate Kang. The man who had helped trigger the student uprising of five years before, rolling in with tanks and armored infantry. “She
thought we might need some wheels.”
“We may be beyond avoiding a Kang,” Evan said, “but a well-commanded mob is better than an unruly one.” An idea glimmered at the back of his mind. “First, we’ll need something to grab their attention.” He looked back the way he’d come, past the frozen profile of the Men Shen.
“The Guardian?” David asked. “You want to climb up there and wave your arms or something?”
“Or something,” Evan said, turning back the way they’d come and pulling his friends after him. “Come on. We need to beat them to the Grand Arch.”
Ritter Michaelson heard shouts of “the training grounds!” and knew that the situation was about to get a whole lot worse. There were two reasons for rioting students to storm the Conservatory’s training grounds. Weapons. BattleMechs.
That was where the students had first taken control in 3128. Security was tight there, but all it took was one cadet officer with a few access codes and eventually you’d have everything hot, walking and ready to fire. Cooler heads had to prevail before then, before the students caused permanent damage that could not be forgiven. Or at least pardoned.
Grabbing together a small cadre of students and civilians, ones with enough military bearing to respond crisply to orders, he had veered around the larger mob and formed a buffer between the fury of the riot and the fleeing security detail. The gap had narrowed dangerously over the last fifty paces.
“Let them go,” he suggested now, jogging up next to the policeman and two infantrymen carrying the stunned speaker. Two campus police hustled along another man, collared when he took a swing at them. “Pick them up later.”
The j˘ı ng-chá merely sneered. One military man half shrugged. “A little late for that now, we’re thinking.” He pushed along for a few more paces. “Besides. We’re nearly at the Double-V.”
A VV1 Ranger, not an uncommon sight on the Conservatory grounds, had been the second-closest vehicle. Closer had been a standard-issue truck with green “turtleback” shell to protect passengers sitting in the bed. It had waited, invitingly, door open and motor running.
And they had watched as the truck suddenly pulled away, with a burst of speed that belied its fair size, an impressive powerhouse under the hood.
A fast-thinking Conservatory cadet, no doubt, at the controls.
“You and you.” Michaelson tolled off two students who had some brawn to back them. “Double-time for that Ranger back there.” He sent them ahead, to make certain the security force would not find themselves stranded. A rifle-toting infantryman peeled out to jog with them. Going for the Ranger meant pushing deeper through knots of rioting students, but most of cadets knew a losing fight when they saw it and veered away from the organized cadre.
One group did not.
“Free Liao!” a large man shouted, brandishing a short length of broken pine board. He dressed civilian and carried himself in a very nonmilitary slouch, but still he led seven others forward in a push to get at the two prisoners. Most of them were good-size, even the one woman among them. And all knew hand-to-hand.
Which only made the fighting that much more desperate.
“Grapple only,” he shouted to his small band of followers, hoping to stave off anything worse than a strained shoulder or broken arm. He made the call automatically, leaping into the front and putting himself between the stick-wielding leader and the collared protestor. Wrestling moves ate up time. Grabs and throws did not raise a killing fever as easily as elbows and feet might.
Splintered stakes, however, were a whole different matter. The civilian did not brandish it as a club, but instead thrust the broken end at Michaelson’s face. This guy was street savvy and had good weight behind him. Michaelson barely deflected the blow in time, turning a stab at his eyes into three bloody, parallel stripes down the side of his chin.
Reacting on instincts more than thought, Michaelson fell back on Ezekiel Crow’s training in close-quarters combat. He wrapped an arm up and over the thug’s, trapping it, then applied pressure at the elbow with his other hand. The armlock twisted the man toward the ground, and he dropped the improvised weapon from suddenly numb fingers.
But this guy wasn’t without a few tricks of his own. Faking a kick at Michaelson’s groin, gaining just a bit of slack, he twisted his arm enough to bend the elbow and thrust his entire weight forward. The head butt was off mark, catching Michaelson in the side of the mouth and not the nose, but it was enough to knock him back several paces.
The two men circled each other with much greater respect for the other’s skill. Other students ran by, at times cutting in between them as the main body of the riot moved dangerously close.
“Greggor, c’mon.” Another street-dressed civvie ran up and pulled the larger man away by the arm. He said something else, which might have been a code word between them. It sounded like “cursed.” It was enough. The tough dodged back into the crowd and most of his followers with him.
Some of Michaelson’s people stretched across muddied ground, but none seemed permanently hurt. The security force gathered at the Ranger and a second truck, piling in, transferring their prisoners into the back of the Double-V. Putting a man in the turret.
“No!” Michaelson sprinted forward. He leapt up onto a sideboard just behind the passenger door as the driver threw the large machine into gear. The Ranger growled forward into a tight, tire-squealing turn. Holding on, dangling out over the blurring avenue, Michaelson reined himself in to the vehicle’s side and beat on the ferroglass window.
“Get that man out of the turret,” he yelled. “Do not fire on these people.”
The military had greater discipline than that. The double-barreled gun swung around to threaten, but never spoke once in what would have been a deadly chatter. Even so, the effect was not lost on some of the more furious cadets who ran to other vehicles, forcing doors and shattering windows in their attempt to commandeer new resources of their own.
But they would be too late, Michaelson knew, hunkering down in the small space behind the cab, leaning his head out and squinting into the breeze as the entrance to the Conservatory grounds approached. The driver was hell bent on making good their escape, and students in between the Ranger and the arched gateway seemed to know this, and dove out of the way. They had nothing to stop them
Except for the ConstructionMech that stepped into the avenue to bar the Ranger’s path.
Evan Kurst had recalled the work being done at the university’s main gate. The new Great Arch, with its new attribution: The Republic Conservatory. A small work crew had narrowed incoming traffic to one lane while a pair of ConstructionMechs manhandled new stonework into place.
The ConstructionMechs!
He filled in David and Mark on the run across the grounds. They circled behind students and cheering civilians who crowded around the Guardian’s base, holding it like some kind of military objective against all comers. That lasted until someone in the crowd spotted the fleeing security detail that carried Mai Wa and another student protestor. As if controlled by a group mind, the main body surged forward.
Evan let them go, hoping that Hahn was still free to act and that his friend could regain some control over the rabble. He had to get to the construction site ahead of any other protestors with a sudden thought for heavy augmentation.
Close enough. A few dozen people pressed in around the construction workers by the time Evan and his friends arrived, but they were more intent on stopping the work than taking a proactive stand. The workers hefted large metal tools or wielded sharp utility blades. The operational IndustrialMech fended for itself, but its driver was reluctant to step forward into the crowd. It managed a kind of guttural roar as the operator gunned his diesel engine loudly, belching thickened plumes of dirty soot into the air.
Evan ran for the second machine parked by the Conservatory’s outside wall, grabbed the iron rungs, and swarmed up the side of the yellow-painted monster. A worker saw him and moved his way with a very heavy wrench. David
and Mark took him down from behind, one tackling high and the other low.
The cockpit was cramped and smelled of sweat, stone dust and coffee. There was still a steaming cup in the drink holder, which Evan spilled over the floor as he slid into the seat, then slammed and locked the door behind him. No time for the safety harness, he left the buckles digging into the small of his back as he yanked on the control helmet and fired the huge machine to life. The engine coughed and growled, shaking the exoskeleton. He dried his palms against his thighs, then wrapped familiar hands around the well-worn control sticks.
It was similar to piloting a real BattleMech, but rougher. The neurohelmet wasn’t military grade, tuned to a specific brain wave pattern, but it wasn’t even remotely calibrated for his use either. The ConstructionMech’s arms moved in jerking fits, and his first step nearly toppled the entire machine when he failed to shift enough weight onto his right foot.
“Come on, come on!” He swung one of his vise-clamp arms out for counterbalance, centered his mass, and tried again. Small step. And another.
He was definitely top-heavy, and no wonder. The hulking arms on the ConstructionMech bent upward from the shoulder, then down again in a reverse elbow joint. Not to mention that his cockpit nest was slung low and forward of the machine’s torso, riding him only three meters above the ground.
David Parks waved frantically from the street, pointing at the entrance with enthusiastic stabs. No time left, Evan decided. He pushed up the engine’s throttle, thankful that the control helmet afforded him some hearing protection as the diesel coughed and roared and belched.
By Temptations and By War mda-7 Page 12
