Ejection controls…
No.
An unhealthy glow sparked inside the Tundra Wolf’s chest wound as the reactor vented spilled plasma through the cleft. Dark smoke roiled up and around the ax head. With the last of his strength, Evan Kurst wrenched the weapon free. No time to do anything more, except stand there.
The explosion ripped apart Daniel Peterson’s BattleMech with a savage fury Evan had never experienced quite so close. Golden fire splashed across his ferroglass shield, running molten fingers of melted composite down both sides. An acrid stench filled the cockpit, pulled down into Evan’s lungs where it burned like live coals. For an instant, it felt like every last molecule of oxygen had been sucked out of the cockpit, and a silence descended.
Then a magnificent roar screamed in Evan’s ears, pressed around his skull. His entire BattleMech was lifted up and hurled through the air. He couldn’t breathe, couldn’t see. He felt the Ti Ts’ang hit, laid out onto its back. His helmet smacked the back of his command chair with whiplash force, and pain exploded at the back of his head.
All was quiet.
Evan thought he was dead, pulled down into the abyss after Daniel Peterson. The man had warned him, after all. They were so very much alike, of course they would meet the same fate. Except that Evan remembered… he was under orders. Not to die until Mai told him to. He forced open his eyes, and worked carefully on focusing them.
He stared up through a cracked, half-melted ferroglass shield. Blue. White cloud. A Purifier infantryman stood on the bridge of the Ti Ts’ang’s brow, looking in to see if the MechWarrior was all right.
It was all Evan needed to see. With Ruskoff captured or killed, Peterson gone, the Dynasty Guard chasing down from the north—there could only be one final conclusion to the day’s fighting. The week’s campaign. The month’s struggle.
Evan rested back into his command couch, and stared up into a free Liao sky.
37
Homecoming
As Republic troops march into DropShips, departing Liao under an amnesty granted by Sang-shaoCarson Rieves, the crowd’s mood remains mixed. There is a feeling of wonder, and one of apprehension, as port workers and cheering crowds and even a few well-guarded protestors stand in the shadow of the main administration building and glance up at the green ensign waving overhead with its gauntlet and sword. The flag of the Capellan Confederation flies once more over Liao.
Chang-an
Qinghai Province, Liao
25 August 3134
Mai Uhn Wa stood at an open library window in the Governor’s mansion, drinking in the afternoon breeze. He accepted a small glass of plum wine from Gerald Tsung, but did not sip. The view out the third-floor window was intoxicating enough.
Outside the White Towers District, strings of firecrackers rattled inside garbage cans. People paraded through the streets with caricature heads of Daoshen Liao, Anna Lu Pohl, Confederation soldiers with their Han-influenced helmets and papier-mâché BattleMechs raised up on poles. A long, serpentine dragon jumped and twisted through an intersection, running along on a hundred human legs. It was like an extended New Year’s celebration. Only instead of riots, the Capellan people were truly reveling.
Michael Yung-Te slipped up beside him, the Maskirovka agent as unassuming and dangerous as ever. “Carson Rieves is in the palace, Shiao-zhang Mai. Perhaps you should rejoin us?”
Shiao-zhang. The title sounded better forced from the lips of the Mask agent. Mai Wa looked outside once more. It felt only right to sample the true New Year. But Sang-shao Rieves would not be in a forgiving mood, and it served no purpose to anger the man further without great need.
House Ijori was still in its infancy. Infants were vulnerable.
He set his wine glass on the window ledge, trading the celebration for the awkward attempts at small talk as Governor (pro tem) Lu Pohl and Gerald Tsung danced awkwardly around the room’s white elephant. Viktor Ruskoff stood at full attention, holding himself stiffly apart from the others. Sang-shao Rieves kept the Legate available, although soon Ruskoff would be allowed to follow Lord Governor Hidic to Genoa. A good place to reestablish The Republic government for Prefecture V. The tunnels and warrens of Genoa would be a tough nut to crack.
Taking Liao, for all of The Republic’s efforts and five decades of social engineering, had really been quite easy. The people, after all, were always the true power.
The people had wanted—and waited—to be freed.
The door banged back against a protective stop and the Dynasty Guard’s commander barged into the room as if storming a battlefield. Two large infantrymen followed him in. One kept a hand on the butt of a very large pistol.
“Mai Wa!” Rieves nearly rushed the House Master. “You have ten seconds to explain yourself or be shot as a traitor.”
The elder man stroked his long, wiry mustaches and the wispy beard he still refused to shave. “I am a traitor,” he reminded the other officer. Daoshen Liao’s denouncement still stood. “I serve the Confederation.”
“And that includes conducting more crimes against the State?”
“I am not sure which crime you refer to, Sang-shao Carson Rieves.” Mai remained properly deferential to the true power on Liao. Governor Lu Pohl would administer the world only so long as it suited the senior officer’s needs.
“Tā mā dè you’re not!” The crude insult, thrown out so freely and with real ire behind it, startled even the Maskirovka agent. But Rieves did not miss the implied warning, and restrained from barking out anything revealing in front of Ruskoff or the others. “The… the artifact. Your cultists raided the vault.”
This time Michael Yung-Te was startled for another reason. So Carson Rieves had informed the local Maskirovka agent of Sun-Tzu Liao’s survival.
“I have no cultists in my House,” Mai said evenly. The distant echoes of more firecrackers drifted into the room.
Rieves’s hands were opening and closing, as if wanting to fasten themselves around the neck of Mai Uhn Wa to wring the answers from him. “Where is the body, Mai?”
“Ah, the statue.” Mai nodded. “Yes, I heard about your discovery. I have to say, the rumors of Sun-Tzu Liao’s return certainly fueled a great deal of local fervor. And inspired our troops. Soon, I imagine, word will even reach Chancellor Liao that his Illustrious Father, the Ascendant, favored us with a brief visit.”
Mai frowned. “But you lost it, you say? That might be …unfortunate.”
Realization was replaced by dawning horror as Carson Rieves ran through several possibilities in his own mind. Mai watched him shift rapidly from prosecutor to protector of the faith. He covered his earlier gaffe with a lightning strike in a new direction, turning on Ruskoff. “Then I should assume the militia destroyed our… archeological find? You promised a peaceful withdrawal once Hidic fled.”
Ruskoff braced up under the assault. “We have met every term thrust upon us,” he said, biting off every word. “If you have partisan troubles, you are welcome to them, Rieves.” He shrugged, smiled. “Maybe in a few months, the local population will help throw you off planet.”
Rieves smirked, but it was forced. “I doubt the people of Liao will much complain about the return of Confederation rule.” His gaze did not shift to the Maskirovka agent. It did not need to. “Whatever they give up, it will be a small price to pay for what they gain. The return of their heritage. Liao is Capellan once more.”