By Temptations and by War

by Loren L. Coleman

  “Want to tell me about it?” she asked, falling into step with him as he headed for the doors.

  “No.”

  “All right.” But she continued to follow.

  She waited until they were inside, climbing the stairs, then changed her mind. “You know what, it’s not all right, Evan.” She shook her head, and her braids danced across his shoulders. “Maybe you were first to support the Capellan cause on Liao. Maybe you deserve more consideration because of the Ijori Dè Guāng and whatever history you have with Shiao-zhang Mai.” She grabbed him at the first landing and pushed him back against the wall, forcing him to look at her. “But you do not walk away from your friends, Evan.”

  The stairwell wall felt cold where it pressed into the back of Evan’s head. He stared up over Jenna’s head, at the naked bulb that burned behind a safety grill in the ceiling. “I’ve spent more time worrying about the four of you than any other threat to me on this world,” he said. Today was apparently the day to speak his mind.

  It took her aback. “Why? What did we ever demand from you?”

  “Not a thing. But it’s the first rule of insurrection: trust no one. Mai taught me that. I let myself get close to you. And Hahn, David and Mark,” he quickly added.

  “Then why didn’t you bring us in? David practically begged you, every day.”

  There was any number of reasons for that. Uncertainty. Unsuitability. Evan jumped right for the throat, though. “Because you four were the first thing in my life that felt normal. Something that everyone else took for granted, and I never could. I didn’t want to lose that. For any reason. So I tried to walk a line in between my world and yours. And every time one of you pressed a bit too hard about my . . . activities . . . for days afterward I waited for the roof to fall in.”

  Jenna blew out an exasperated sigh. “I once asked Mark what he would do, you know, if we ever saw evidence of your involvement with the Ijori Dè Guāng. He said that he’d be very disappointed in you.”

  She laughed a nervous little laugh. “Not that he’d turn you in. He knew you well enough that he understood your politics, even if he disagreed with them. I think he would have argued with you forever, trying to change your mind. But you never let us close enough. Not Mark or Hahn or David.” She reached up to grab his chin, tilted his head down so that he had to look at her. “Not me.”

  He sensed the question. “You were with Mark,” he said.

  “Well, I couldn’t wait around for you forever, could I?” Jen sucked in her breath as if she’d said something wrong. Then she smiled, thin and hard. “I was beginning to wonder if you liked women at all. I mean, Hahn is a very handsome man. And available.”

  Evan opened his mouth to protest, but no words came out. Jen had thrown him right out of the conversation with the ease of a judo wrestler laying hands on someone who’d only thought to spar. Part of it was good-natured teasing—she was, after all, still his friend. But a strong undercurrent of tension ran beneath. Had he really thrown away so many chances, frustrating Jen Lynn Tang as he never allowed her nearer than arm’s length?

  “If I had known. . . .”

  “You would have run even faster, damn you.” She curled the front of his jacket into her fists and shoved him back harder against the wall. “And now you’re finding another way to run out on us. Evan, you have to start trusting someone sooner or later. Enough to make the hard calls.” Then she pulled him into her, rising up on her toes to plant a hard kiss on his mouth.

  He drew her scent in like a drowning man fighting for air. Her warmth taunted him, and he grabbed on to her with desperation born from need. One thing. One thing left to hang on to. And Jenna was here. She was here, and warm, and fighting alongside him, not against him.

  Evan wasn’t certain who finally broke away first. They stared into each other’s gaze. She tucked herself into his arm even as he pulled her to his side, and together they finished climbing the stairs to his floor, his room, and their first and last night together.

  29

  Growing Pains

  In related news to the Confederation’s war of aggression, word has come from Prefecture VI that the Oriente Protectorate has seized the world of Ohrensen. With the worlds of Park Place and Elnath now threatened, it is unlikely that the Sixth Hastati Sentinels or any help from New Canton, will return to the aid of Prefecture V anytime soon.

  —Around the Sphere, Station 64, Genoa, 2 August 3134

  Yiling (Chang-an)

  Qinghai Province, Liao

  4 August 3134

  The Liao Conservatory came under full assault just after dawn, the alert waking Evan Kurst and Jenna to a gray, overcast day, pulling them away from each other’s warmth. Evan suited up, waiting for Mai Uhn Wa to deny him a place. But whatever their differences, Mai gave him the Ti Ts’ang and situated him on point. No doubt Mai wanted someone he trusted holding the center. Someone he could control.

  Evan allowed him the first. Not the second.

  Leaving behind a shortened company under Jen Lynn Tang’s command, the Conservatory fielded one lance of actual BattleMechs and two converted industrial machines. Three companies of armor and infantry spread out in a ragged line around them. Legate Ruskoff anchored the center of The Republic line with his own Zeus, an assault ’Mech variant that boasted a PPC, Gauss rifle and plenty of armor.

  Evan angled his Ti Ts’ang in a short, violent slash across the Zeus’s path, pulling an SM1 Destroyer and a pair of Maxim APCs in his wake. His targeting reticle burned solid gold, and a series of scarlet lances slashed molten wounds across the Zeus from the shoulder to hip. An argent stream of particle cannon fire chased after Evan, caught him, blasted armor into molten shards and smoking coals. Ruskoff saved his Gauss ammunition against a possible charge by the ’Mech killing tank or Evan’s strong axe.

  But the Destroyer was a ruse. The Capellan forces swung back almost at once.

  Missiles from a JES Carrier chewed up ground behind the Ti Ts’ang’s feet. A Republic Cavalier squad popped out of a tangle of deadwood and thorny brush, jetting up on boosters, but then faded as a pair of Balac Strike VTOLs swooped down like crows on carrion. Evan forced his way into a small stand of bare-branched alder and hunkered down as two Sparrowhawks screamed overhead, laying down strafing fire.

  “What are we doing out here?” Han Soom Gui asked on a private channel to Evan. He served as gunner on the Destroyer.

  “Wait for it,” Evan said, not answering directly. Hahn was a soldier under his command, and the risks were very, very real. He could not afford to think of Hahn as a friend. New alarms wailed as sensors locked onto his machine, and threat icons swarmed forward on his HUD. “Here they come.”

  Evan had hoped to draw Ruskoff in, exposing the Legate to whatever kind of flanking assault Mai could shake loose. So far the strategy was not working. Ruskoff wouldn’t shove his face into the blades so carelessly. But a Republic fire-lance thought it could push Evan back to secure their commander’s advance. A Panther supported by a full lance of armor drove forward at the small woods.

  Evan’s infantry had dumped out of their APCs behind cover of the trees, and now a double squad of Purifiers blurred out to surround and worry a pair of Jousts while Evan threw his Destroyer at the Panther. Evan slammed down on his foot pedals, launching the Ti Ts’ang on a short hop to land between two Scimitars.

  His lasers stabbed out in a fury of bloody light, running streams of molten composite into the pale grasses. The ’Mech’s titanium ax rose and fell. One Scimitar lost a missile launcher and a long stripe out of its skirting. It spun wildly as the driver fought for control and then ran like hell for the safety of Republic lines.

  Evan backpedaled away, pulling his infantry back toward the small wood with him. The Destroyer chased after the retreating Panther, then skirted the trees and dodged back to safety.

  “Evan,” Mai’s voice whispered into his ear. A crackle of static washed out his next few words. On Evan’s left, the Panther fired its PPC at an enc
roaching pair of VTOLs, causing more interference.

  “Say again,” Evan said.

  “Pull back and slide around to the west. Let Ruskoff forward.”

  “We have good position here to stall them,” Evan said, not challenging the order but making damn certain Mai understood the tactical position.

  “Let them come,” Mai said again, his tone a touch stern. “I need you out of there in twenty.”

  Jaw muscles aching, Evan dialed for his small force and passed the order. Infantry loaded up and trailed behind. He and Hahn led a quick retreat north and then west. Every step shook the cockpit, and reminded him that he was moving away from where he thought he was needed. But Mai Uhn Wa commanded.

  Control? No.

  It came down to trust.

  Their first clash had not been the quick, decisive engagement histories always talked about. It opened up a game of kilometers and time as both commanders positioned forces, drove forward with feints, and then followed up with short, vicious jabs. Every so often one of them attempted a long maneuver. Mai Uhn Wa played his people with a conservative hand. Legate Ruskoff had an instinctive feel for battle that too often predicted where the real threat would come.

  Now Mai retreated again as artillery shells reached for his command vehicle, whistling down from a heavy, gray sky. Flash and fire spread charred earth into the air, opening three craters in a ragged line just short of the massive crawler. Dirt pattered against the ferroglass shield behind him.

  The muted roar of explosions blended into a background of overlapping communications bands and the constant exchange of warnings and commands. Mai let his hindbrain worry on it, too occupied with tracking any of a dozen different threats and trying to coordinate a defensive line that included four different factions. That is, three too many.

  “Cavalry-five! Close up that gap.” One of Mai’s junior aides, fresh out of the Conservatory’s Tactics 101 and drunk on authority. He coordinated a mechanized infantry lance sent by Terrence McCarron. A green kid ordering veterans. “Move that hunk of metal!”

  Mai turned the back of his command chair to the young firebrand and kicked against a footrest, gliding the swinging boom that supported his chair. He braked to a stop just behind the flustered aide, laid one hand on the boy’s shoulder and used his master communications circuit to override that station.

  “Cavalry-five, this is Shiao Mai.” He abbreviated his newly adopted title for the battlefield. “We have Capellan children dying on your forward right. Deploy Fa Shih to slow that Catapult. Buy us time.”

  He toggled off, yanked the headset from his aide’s head and pulled the boy back until his throat was exposed and his ear not too far from Mai’s lips. “McCarron sent us three lances of armor and infantry,” he whispered harshly, all pretense of calm and civility vanished. “Nothing turns a veteran bad like lack of confidence in command. If you turn them against me with your insults and boorish shouting, I will slit your throat and toss your corpse out as an apology.”

  “Yes, House Master,” the cadet stammered. “Duì-bu-qı˘!”

  With no more time to instruct the aide, Mai released him and glided forward again. His dark gaze slid across station after station, screen after screen. Here, a lance of militia Condors swung out to flank his modified ConstructionMech. There, a cadet-crewed Schmitt probed forward, found a Triarii infantry position exposed and hammered twenty-mil rounds into their position. Back at his own station, a computer painted colorful arcs across a monitor, estimating parabolic courses from the recent craters, tracking the Republic artillery position.

  Slipping behind with every second spent training his staff under battle conditions, Mai routed the data to a different station, shifted command of the Armored Cavalry lances to a new aide, and plugged himself back into the strategic overview.

  Just in time.

  For the fourth time running, The Republic line surged forward in a well-coordinated press, threatening to encircle Mai’s truncated defense. Armor rolled ahead of BattleMechs. Aerospace fighters screamed overhead, strafing the pro-Capellan force. Green cadets wavered, slipped back, trading ground for time. Veterans found themselves exposed, taking heavy fire until Mai ordered them back as well.

  Ruskoff knew how to create an offensive, forcing the Capellan defenders to show their weaknesses. But Mai Uhn Wa knew how to expend limited resources for effect. He’d been doing that his entire life.

  “VTOL support, flank left,” he ordered, passing the command through another aide, directing McCarron’s lance of Balac Strike VTOLs on a strafing run which pinned down one side of Ruskoff’s line. “Double our missile strikes at the center, make Ruskoff pay for the push. And lay down Fa Shih minefields under that cover.”

  His people were slow, which cost. Ruskoff’s Zeus hammered at a Marskman fire-control lance, chewing through armor and setting one tank burning into a small copse of acacia. Smoke roiled into the sky.

  A pair of Pegasus scout craft tried to slip in and sting the Legate’s ’Mech. They popped half a dozen missiles each, driving Ruskoff away from the retreating Marksmen. They quickly ran into a rain of missile counterfire.

  Mai knew the order to swing wide went out too late. Knew there was no steeper learning curve than trial by fire. Both Pegasus craft took scattered hits as missiles blossomed over their sloped sides. One lost integrity on its turret, and a gout of fire and debris blasted out of the ruined top. The hovercraft cut hard, and rolled end over end until it fetched up against a large boulder and burned.

  The second hovercraft skated back to safety, but the loss would still be felt.

  Mai checked his positions. He saw new lances of enemy red moving up from Ruskoff’s backfield; Governor Pohl’s forces finally arriving to join The Republic side of the fight. He watched the blue icon that represented Evan’s Ti Ts’ang loop back and westward, drawing even with the new forces. He weighed the chances and made the call.

  “Evan. Advance and engage. Split that line wide open.”

  He left it at that. Evan would resent micromanaged tactics, and would be right to do so. The young warrior had to be given some room, even from his House Master. He had to be allowed the chance to make a difference. Even if Mai had already decided that Evan could not be allowed to succeed.

  Pushing his Ti Ts’ang past ninety kilometers per hour, Evan ate up the ground in large strides. To his left, Hahn’s Destroyer throttled back to keep pace. APCs of Purifier infantry trailed behind. They dashed forward, fired and faded back left or right to whatever cover they picked up in the local scrub. Light autocannon chased after them, ripping into brush and bark, having trouble against the faster machines.

  Mai Uhn Wa had picked a good target of opportunity, where Ruskoff’s forces were spread thin in anticipation of reinforcements out of Chang-an. After every pass, the gap widened, and forces at each edge chanced more desperate tactics to hold their line until Governor Pohl’s people arrived.

  Once again, Evan’s small contingent fell back, turning aside early as aerospace fighters strafed by, their autocannon ripping long furrows into the hardscrabble ground. He stepped into an artillery-made crater, which threw a hitch into his step. Fortunately, his gyroscope and the neuro-feedback circuit adjusted.

  “Evan,” Mai reopened direct comms. “Begin falling back. Slowly. Hold that gap open, but do not punch through.”

  “Shiao Mai. With support, we might bring down the reinforcements and split the Republic line wide—”

  “You will not engage Governor Pohl’s troops. At any cost, Evan. Fall back.”

  Frustration welled up inside Evan, but he acknowledged the order and passed it to his team. They ducked out of the thin stand and fell back before any Republic forces pressed forward to engage. It left Evan with something extremely valuable in combat operations. Time. A moment with no pressing demands, where he could monitor comms and try to pull larger details from the pressing assault.

  “Command, Cav-one. Eastern forces are down one Joust.” Score one for the Conser
vatory.

  “Sergeant Hoi is down. Down! His Behemoth overturned on that last artillery barrage.”

  Not good. Behemoths could make even a MechWarrior nervous, and Field Sergeant Hoi had been helping crew the second of only two such tanks fielded by the Conservatory. That could not be enough to pull his unit back, though.

  “Here they come again. Zeus leading forward, flanked by two Jessies and—”

  “—can’t see them. Aerospace fighters chewing up our position. We need VTOL support and a MASH pickup.”

  “Lost one Ranger.”

  “Two Cavaliers down.

  “Someone swing in at grid thirty-six . . . thirty-seven . . . Vrebrachney! Southwest side!” That sounded like Whit Greggor. “We’re taking heavy—”

  “Alert, alert, alert!” A weaker voice broke into the chatter, making up in intensity what she lacked in volume. Icy dread spiked into Evan’s guts. “We have contact at forward-post Wilco. Two BattleMechs with support. We need help and we need it fast.”

  The western picket line. Jenna. The thought of Jen being pummeled by heavy firepower nearly caused Evan to turn his Ti Ts’ang for the Conservatory grounds. He paused at the end of his first retrograde maneuver, ready to push forward again or head full flight to Jenna’s rescue, on Mai’s command. “Identify those ’Mechs,” he ordered, preempting Mai Uhn Wa.

  “One Firestarter. One Ryoken II. Principes Guards. Supported by Brutus assault tanks.”

  So the Guards had sent Ruskoff support, and with better timing than Governor Pohl’s laggard forces. How many more lances of the white-and-gold were sneaking through Yiling?

  “Evan?” Jen Lynn Tang recognized his voice even without a callsign. “Ijori-one, can you assist?”

  Nothing. No call from Shiao Mai. No order to press forward, cut for the Conservatory, or simply cease and desist all sideband chatter. Evan hesitated.

  “We are falling back under heavy fire,” Jen reported. “Double-V, Demon, down already.”