Metal slid easily against the blacktop. They jockeyed the van into position to form one half of a two-vehicle roadblock. Nothing that would hold against rioting crowds, but enough to provide the irregulars cover against any of the urban assault vehicles that cruised through the city.
What began as a gut reaction to the Astral Prize incident—Capellan residents striking out in fury over the loss of so many innocent lives—had escalated quickly when police and local militia attempted to enforce order. These were people already under a great deal of stress. Once the lid came off, years of resentment boiled forth like water from a bursting dam. Within hours of the DropShip crash, most of Chang-an had fallen into the hands of a mob.
Mai Wa had been quick to take advantage of the chaos, and the militia’s lack of preparation. In this environment, a small force could accomplish a great deal of damage. Several streets back along their route a pair of Ranger VV1’s burned, the result of an ambush staged out of doorways and storefront windows. Inferno rounds layered them in fiery gelatin, melting tires and cooking off the ammo. A Demon had lasted only long enough for an Ijori Dè Guāng member to get close with a sticky-bomb—a stick of tetraglycerin in a small burlap bag, slathered in axle grease and a twenty-second fuse burning in one end. Slapped against the forward cab, it caved in the entire side.
One more vehicle taken for the cause.
Whit Greggor jogged over, SRM launcher cradled against his shoulder and balanced with only one arm. “Runners say something’s heading our way,” the large man told him.
“Something.” Mai Wa shook his head, adjusted his armored vest. The body armor already felt heavy. “That is informative.”
But what could he expect from civilian conscripts? Mai Wa’s organized assault on the Rangers had gathered him an instant army as rioters flocked toward anything that smacked of organized resistance. These people spent freely of their frustration, banked during their years of outrage and shame. Not interested in looting for their own gain, but ready—finally—to take back some pride, and their world. Such fury burned itself out quickly, though. Two days. Maybe three.
Longer, if Mai Wa kept the level of fury escalated through attacks such as these.
More runners from the west—people Mai had spread out to warn him of incoming trouble. All had the same thing to say: a vehicle, moving fast, returning fire only when challenged directly. This trickle of manpower and some rioters gathering behind the makeshift barrier gave Mai resources to work with.
“Greggor, set up behind the blockade. You and Phelps, standard loads, no inferno.” Too many people running loose here. He didn’t need to start a crematorium and turn the crowd against him. He tolled off a handful of civilians, sent them to gather others and keep the two nearby streets plugged up with live bodies, making a dead-end courtyard out of the intersection. “The militia won’t power through.” He was guessing. “They’ll turn and run first.”
And it was all he had time for, as a shout of “Tank!” and “Pegasus!” warned him of the hovercraft’s arrival.
“I want it taken,” Mai shouted for the benefit of his people. He coughed, clearing the taste of ash that clawed at the back of his throat. “When it brakes for the turn, swarm round it!”
The armored scout craft was painted white and gold, and bore the Roman profile crest common to the Principes Guards. Racing into the intersection from the western street, it turned a tight one-eighty spin and used its drive fan to powerstop rather than mow through the rioters and looters. People in the east-facing street were blown off their feet by the sudden zephyr.
The Pegasus would be vulnerable only for a few seconds. “Now, now, now!” Mai shouted. “Xiàn-zài! Xiàn-zài!” His small military team raced forward under the cover of rioters who threw paving stones and bottles—some filled with gasoline, bursting into a spread of flames that might scorch the hovercraft’s paint, but could do no lasting damage.
Showing disciplined restraint, the Pegasus crew did not use its twin SRM launchers to drive the crowd back. Such carnage would only fuel the mob. The gunner used the nose-mounted laser to spray a few warning swarms of emerald fire at the feet of the onrushing crowd. One of the rifle-toting irregulars went down with a savaged knee joint—more by accident than any clear intention of the gunner. Someone picked up the rifle and began firing it at the ferroglass cockpit, popping off small bursts of two or three rounds at a time.
The crew had had enough, and the Pegasus fishtailed around in search of an escape path. It pushed forward, driving over two civilians who stood in the way. With a buzzing growl like a lawnmower running over a stick hidden in tall grass, the Pegasus’s lift fans sucked the bodies into their blades and chewed them into grisly pieces. A spray of red splashed over the black asphalt.
But the Ijori Dè Guāng crew, coming in from the sides as they’d been taught—taught well, Mai noticed with no small amount of personal pride in Evan’s accomplishment—grabbed at vents and grills or leapt up for a full-body grab on the vehicle’s sloped side. The Pegasus spun madly, throwing several of them back off as it cookie-cut a path closer and closer to the impromptu barricade.
Greggor stepped around one side, took aim and waited for the launcher he held to acquire lock. Thumbing the activation stud, he sent one missile directly into the back of the hovercraft, damaging the steering vanes.
The Pegasus looped into a wide curve, slammed nose first against the side of the barricade, and stalled for several painful seconds.
Enough time for a freedom fighter to plant a small sticky-bomb on the crew hatch, light it and scurry back behind the swinging turret. Mai heard the loud pop. Two men wrestled the hatch open and another sprayed the inside with flechettes from a needler. The Ijori Dè Guāng began pulling wounded men from the vehicle, passing them to waiting hands.
Several rebels had vehicle training. Mai pointed out two of them. “Get that hovercraft back to the Conservatory. Watch yourselves at the gate. Go.”
He readjusted his armored vest again, appointed another man to command the intersection, and then led his diminishing team further into Chang-an. A new street. New recruits. More mayhem to spread on the back of the mob’s rage.
Eventually, Legate Ruskoff would order in BattleMechs and massed infantry to quell the disturbances. Most of the in-city forces were currently gathered around the capital buildings, but they would be released when the Governor assured herself that no organized force threatened her position. Mai certainly planned to avoid the White Towers District. He recognized the limitations of what he had to work with.
“Yet look at what we have accomplished,” he said aloud, then coughed again. It made him wonder. How much more would the Confederation regiments on Liao gain this day? The next?
“And how long before the militia comes for us?”
Because they would have to, Mai knew. The Conservatory could not be allowed to stand in rebellion for much longer. Not after this day.
The sky darkened, dusk turned to artificial twilight as a gray haze thickened over the suburbs of Yiling. Still dressed in MechWarrior togs, Evan Kurst pulled the motorpool jeep over the curb and parked on the grass outside of Bartoe Hall, Jenna’s dormitory. His joints were stiff and muscles tired from several hours in the hot seat, patrolling the southern approaches in case Legate Ruskoff took it upon himself to bring the Conservatory to heel under the cover of today’s confusion. But he’d seen nothing more threatening than a Joust, and that was a defecting crew coming in to add their support to the students’ local resistance.