Evan nearly struck out to their aid, but too many threat icons popped up on his HUD to justify throwing himself awkwardly around the Grinder.
“Zeus and company coming right at us.” Hahn was first to call it. He sounded excited. Eager.
“Hoverbikes swing around and tie up the battle armor,” another junior officer ordered, bleeding in on one of the sub-channels.
Jenna. “Wilco team, form on my lead.” She was dragging one leg on her ForestryMech, but the autocannon looked primed and ready and the huge diamond-toothed saw screamed around on the massive blade.
Evan stood guard over the mobile HQ, driving back any militia unit foolish enough to challenge his speed and the arcing swing of the Ti Ts’ang’s battle-ax. A trio of wheeled Demons converged on Jenna’s ForestryMech, thinking to find her an easy target and not thinking of the Ti Ts’ang’s faster speed as it grew hotter and hotter. Evan sprinted out, stopped one of the Demons with a foot placed strategically through the front canopy shield, and broke the vehicle’s spine with two heavy-falling chops. Jenna used her saw to carve a wheel off one other, and Hahn chased down the wounded tank to finish it with a deadly blast of autocannon fire. The third Demon escaped back to Republic lines, chased by Hahn.
“Think twice before they do that again,” Hahn decided as the Destroyer skated back into the fold.
Watching The Republic forces drawing up orderly lines at the southern and western edges of the Grinder, Evan wasn’t so certain. As the rain grew heavier they became shadowed outlines lit up only by the blue-white lightning flashes of PPC fire. He channeled his circuit to upper command, linking in privately with Mai Uhn Wa and Colonel Feldspar. “They are massing,” he warned. And Governor Pohl’s troops were taking a strong place near the center of that line. The Conservatory defense had gambled heavily on Anna Lu Pohl showing less backbone and more sympathy with the public outcry.
Shiao Mai evidenced little concern. “We can retreat no further, Evan.”
Evan traded long-range sniping shots with a Joust, losing armor along his left arm, but blowing a track from the tank. A recovery vehicle eased forward, fastened a cranelike towing arm to the tank, and dragged it back out of the way. “We could hit them first.”
“We could pledge neutrality,” Mai countered. He sounded as if he seriously considered it. What would be tantamount to surrender.
“It is too late for that,” Evan said. Legate Ruskoff could never allow the Conservatory to stand. Not with the Confederation’s return.
Colonel Feldspar’s Behemoth pulled back along the Conservatory’s rear lines. “Does everyone think that?” he asked. “Our cadets? Their soldiers?”
The Zeus strode forward, setting a strong center to come directly against Evan’s position. A solid cadre of armored vehicles and infantry swarmed around it. On its left flank the government auxiliaries mixed in with some light, fast ’Mechs and hovercraft. To Ruskoff’s right he brought up three assault-class Brutus tanks, the Ryoken II and the Firestarter.
“Make the offer, Evan.”
“Shiao Mai. I would not—”
“It has to come from you.” He explained no further.
Make this good. Evan toggled for broadband comms, and turned off his scrambling software. “Legate Ruskoff. This does not have to end this way.”
As if to deny that, a pair of Pegasus scout craft ran a quick slant out from the Conservatory position, laying out missiles in small, short salvoes. A pair of Gauss rifles struck out from The Republic lines. One Pegasus jumped up from the rough pavement, came down missing half its air skirt, and slid along the ground trailing sparks and fresh gravel.
“It has to end.” Ruskoff sounded tired, but his voice strengthened as he went on. “This time it has to end my way. Your choices are surrender or subjugation.”
“A choice Liao has never recovered from.” Evan tried to put a touch of pleading in his voice, and was surprised that it came so easily. “Can’t you see that? The Republic has to address the problem at its core.”
“End the violence and justify The Republic giving you a damn thing.” Fairly final. Ruskoff sounded angry, though not necessarily with Evan. He also had another channel open for passing orders. En masse, The Republic line pressed forward on two different fronts.
Evan stood in front of the command vehicle, ax raised defiantly. He and Mai formed an island of strength around which a few ’Mechs and a healthy group of armor and infantry gathered. Another tight knot of Conservatory defenders formed around Jenna’s ForestryMech. The Armored Cavalry was their own entity, and their few scattered units did the best they could to make a coordinated effort to stand and deliver.
There wasn’t much room to maneuver, so the cadets and soldiers mingled and mixed and fell back one reluctant pace at a time toward the burning buildings. Evan triggered laser blast after laser blast, cutting at the advancing line and waiting for the final order from Mai Uhn Wa, certain that it would come.
Capellan to the bloody, bitter end, they would go down swinging as a Warrior House—even a nascent Warrior House—should.
Evan chocked open his transmitter, still broadcasting on general frequencies. “You leave us little choice, Legate.” He refused to retreat any further, throttling back until he stood straddle-legged and still. He fired a full bank of lasers—even the ones that could not reach—driving his heat up with a heavy spike from the fusion engine, readying himself for the last stand.
A VTOL spiraled down and crashed on the Grinder, burning, roiling greasy smoke into the sky.
“Legate?”
A Republic Shandra overturned with two wheels sheared off.
The defenders had nothing to cheer about. The wounded Locust that Jenna had partnered up with took a PPC to the head, a stream of hellish energies flooding the cockpit and turning the control space into a crematorium.
“Legate?”
“Yóng yuăn …Liaoooo…”
The battle cry, drawn out into a howl of pride, of determination, cheered the Capellan world as a Scimitar hovercraft speared out from one small cluster of besieged students. Gaining speed, it swerved out from under a missile barrage, and then accelerated right for a tight knot of Republic militia. A Targe managed to move fast enough, sidestepping the suicidal hovercraft. A Behemoth moving slowly up from the backfield was not so fortunate.
The two came together in a shattering impact of metal, blades, missiles and fire. It shoved the Behemoth back a few dozen meters, caving in its right side. The Scimitar was lost, left mangled and burning and spread out over the Conservatory’s parade grounds.
“Liao! Liao!”
Two more vehicles: the Pegasus tank that had escaped death earlier and a wheeled VV1 Ranger. Both sped forward on charging attacks, braving missile fire and a sudden flurry of energy weapons as The Republic line reacted. The Pegasus disappeared under a wreath of smoke and fire, blasted out of its suicide run. The Ranger clipped the leg of a Legionnaire. The vehicle folded up like an accordion, spinning across the Grinder’s wet surface until its wheels caught again to flip it over in a death roll. It carried part of the Legionnaire’s leg with it. The ’Mech toppled in an awkward pirouette.
In singles and pairs, armored vehicles drove out in final charges not once ordered by Shiao-zhang Mai Uhn Wa, but arranged by him just the same. Arranged by him, and put into motion by Evan. Each victory added another martyr to the cause. Each death added more weight to Evan’s soul.