Which would put the most pressure on landed nobles, who would lose everything if the Confederation returned and judged them not enthusiastic enough. The Maskirovka would quickly ferret out those who had worked against local efforts. Perhaps that was where Michael Yung-Te was off to. Yung-Te would find the Cult of Liao a great deal of help, if Mai Wa decided to grant the agent access.
“It is not an easy path,” Nguyen said. “In my head, I know that The Republic has been a better steward of this world and its people. I accept that its open form of government is a better system.”
“And what does your heart tell you?” Mai asked. But he was looking at Evan as well.
The lieutenant sighed. “That the people… our people,” he amended, “that they will only suffer more under the forced occupation of The Republic. And that my oath to the people supercedes my oath to the Exarch.”
Not an easy choice to make. Not for anyone. “It is time to put the past behind us,” Evan said to Nguyen and Mai both, but in different contexts. “Liao needs us all.” He bowed his head. “The heart knows where it belongs.”
“And that,” Mai said, satisfied, “is the essence of family.”
32
The Treasure of Daoshen
The whispers grow in retelling. Sun-Tzu Liao has risen. The great Chancellor is rumored once again to have appeared before military leaders on the world of Liao. His presence has strengthened Capellan resolve despite recent efforts by Lord Governor Hidic and Prefect Tao to strangle the newborn movement. Said the Lord Governor at the end of a recent interview, “How does one fight an idea?”
Thunder Mountain
Sian
Sian Commonality, Capellan Confederation
11 August 3134
Dagger Di Jones did not care for the Capellan Confederation. She hated Sian, and she was ready to stick her knife into Daoshen Liao’s throat.
“I have heard the shout for pan-Capellan unity. It echoes across half a hundred worlds, and shakes the foundation of The Republic down to its faulted core.” Daoshen clasped slender hands behind his back, voluminous sleeves falling down to cover them.
The two of them waited at a pair of bright steel doors, polished enough to reflect lasers, she’d have guessed. Funhouse images of the two of them stared back, standing at the beginning—or the end, depending on how you liked to think of mirrors—of a short corridor.
With a start, she realized that the images were actually mirror perfect. It was the difference between them that made it comical. Di Jones had angry red hair trimmed short, and brown eyes quick and active. Daoshen Liao had a dusky complexion, dark, dark hair worn loose around his shoulders and falling over his face, with eyes of polished, inscrutable jade. She also looked shrunk down next to Daoshen’s two-plus meters, and heavier than she should against his ninety kilos (sopping wet and rocks in his pocket as well as his head).
“It echoes. It echoes.” Daoshen liked to mark the passing time with the sound of his own voice. Di wasn’t even certain what they waited for. He had given no order, and there was no button to press. “It has even called to my father, who graces our efforts with his favor.”
Cracked bread. The phrase shook Di, recalled to mind a world she had tried so very hard to forget, one whose dust she had kicked from her boots twenty years ago. It just fit Daoshen Liao so well. Flaky and burnt on the outside, dried to crumbs within. A brittle husk that cracked under the lightest pressure. She damned the lunatic again for reminding her.
And Bannson, for sending her.
The inbound trip on the Corporate Raider–a joke in plain sight, Bannson liked to say—had been long and tedious. Checkpoints and searches. Redundant layers of security that any pirate navigator worth her salt could bypass with one in-system pirate jump. On the ground it got no better: Death Commando escorts, frequent changes in her schedule with no interview given, interminable periods of waiting in small sitting rooms after which a new flunky came to ask her for her business with the Chancellor. At first she gave them Bannson’s name only. Ten visits later she gave them the toe of her boot and a helping throw out the door.
Bannson didn’t like the way she did business, he could send one of his stiff-suited toadies next time. Hobnobbing with the powerful wasn’t her thing. But give Di a ’Mech, and she’d storm hell for Bannson.
Give her a few minutes with the knife tucked up her sleeve in a hold-out scabbard, and she’d carve an expression of interest on the Capellan leader’s slack features. She wondered how he’d look with just one eye.
Half as well as he does with two.
She smiled, and the Capellan Chancellor craned around to glare. “You doubt that my father returns?”
Yes! “I doubt that my employer has an opinion. I am here to pass along a report, and, no offense, get the hell home.” She started to dig the data crystal out of her pocket again, but he turned away. Again. No one would take the bloody thing. “My employer is very upset that his… reward… has not been offered.”
“We are not in possession of Liao, are we.” Not a question.
Di breathed a sigh of relief as the metal doors finally hushed open, revealing an octagonal room no larger than a BattleMech gantry lift. It had a wide seam around the entire floor. The walls were white-speckled stone and open to the chamber except for a square metal railing four feet around the entire floor. An elevator down into this Thunder Mountain that Daoshen had talked about on the flight north.
“My employer did not agree to take Liao. He agreed to support your efforts inside the Republic. That’s it.”
She followed Daoshen into the chamber. No wall held a tracked groove, so the support arm had to come straight up from below, like standing on the head of a giant piston. She didn’t care for that idea, but at least this wouldn’t be a long ride in an enclosed space with the scarecrow of a leader. Only one of them would have emerged alive.
“How we interpret his agreement is not part of our discussion,” Daoshen said.
“Well, he certainly did not agree to any appropriation of his fleet outside Prefecture V.” Now that was being diplomatic of her. Bannson had actually flung and broken a priceless piece of sculpture on learning that the Oriente Protectorate had seized three JumpShips. On the suggestion of Daoshen Liao!
The lift started down, building speed quickly as Di’s stomach lurched. “You discussed that with the ambassador from Oriente, didn’t you?”
“He was understandably curious how I moved troops and supplies around so quickly.” Daoshen sounded as if he were purring, self-satisfied and smug.
“And so the Protectorate feints at Elnath,” Jones said, “is able to grab Ohrensen, and they never show a weakness to the Marik-Stewart Commonwealth. At my employer’s expense.” The walls blurred past now, and she took a step back.
Daoshen remained where he was, so close to the near useless safety rail that if Di had wanted, she could have scrubbed the smirk off his face with a good shove. She didn’t believe even one of the self-serving tales telling about the Confederation leader’s superhuman strength or spiritual vision. She believed that if she had a secure way off-planet just now, she’d make herself infamous throughout the entire Inner Sphere.
“It is a wonderful plan,” he said. For a few brief seconds, Di thought that he might be complimenting her on her bloodlust.
How far would this lift descend? “It would be better if my employer were given his due.” If she brought it back with her, the appointment of nobility, then Dagger Di Jones was due a reward of her own. Bannson could be very generous when he was in a good mood.