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.
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 encroaching 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.”