“It’s beautiful, Evan. It’s hùn dàn beautiful.” Hahn’s Destroyer swung out from the pack, autocannon burning off its munitions like it had been newly serviced and stocked. “Liao…!”
“Hahn!”
The Destroyer skimmed over the Grinder fast enough to leave a spray of shattered rain pulsing in its wake. Evan wasn’t going to catch the assault craft with its head start. Still, he raced forward, and the Ti Ts’ang’s charge triggered something primed and ready in the Capellan force. Most of the Conservatory line surged forward after him.
Now Shiao Mai spoke up. Ordering any laggards forward. Calling on true citizens of Liao to make themselves known. To honor the sacrifice of those who had gone before them.
Evan simply wanted to reach Hahn’s side, turn him from a suicide strike into a point-blank assault. But Hahn didn’t answer his call, too busy shouting “Go, go, go!” into his voice-activated mic. The Destroyer hammered out hundreds of rounds as it sprinted across the Grinder toward Legate Ruskoff’s Zeus.
Hahn’s crew might have brought down the Legate’s machine, too, except for the Principes Ryoken II that shoved its way forward and planted itself in the Destroyer’s path.
Trading weapons fire with a seventy-five-ton BattleMech was hardly conducive to a long life. But at one hundred kilometers per hour, the energy wrapped up in the Destroyer’s momentum carried more force than any weapons exchange. Slamming into the Ryoken’s left leg, it careened around and side-slammed the right as well, folding over the awkward ’Mech and dropping it onto the Destroyer’s roof. In a tangle of limbs, cannon barrel, tangled armor and overturned earth the two tumbled together over fifty meters before separating into separate junk piles.
There was hope that Hahn survived. Broken, maybe. Bloodied, certainly. But alive. Evan slackened back on his throttle, not so willing to dive headlong into the enemy line.
He would never forgive himself that moment’s caution.
The Firestarter had followed its larger brethren to Legate Ruskoff’s side. Trailing behind at first, it now planted itself between Evan and Ruskoff, close to the fallen BattleMech and wrecked hovertank. It turned, speared out both arms in the Destroyer’s direction, and out of nothing more than pure malicious intent sprayed out twin columns of fiery death to blanket the Destroyer.
“No!” Slamming down on his pedals, Evan leapt his Ti Ts’ang into the air on plasma jets, thinking to land a crushing blow against the Firestarter. He would be too late again.
A Triarii Phoenix Hawk, several hundred meters to Evan’s right, turned and stabbed its laser into the Firestarter’s back. A Regulator II tank in Governor Lu Pohl’s small force joined it, hammering a gauss slug in behind the ruby lance, shattering the last of the Firestarter’s armor and sending it crashing to the ground with the remains of its gyroscope spinning and spitting out of the gaping wound.
The tide turned that quickly. Where Ruskoff’s force had held the upper hand, it took one malevolent act to swing a number of shocked warriors to the Conservatory’s side. Evan found himself fighting alongside the Phoenix Hawk and Regulator II, Jenna’s limping ForestryMech and some Armored Cavalry Demons. His Ti Ts’ang hacked and slashed and battered its way forward, chasing Ruskoff’s Zeus.
Ruskoff fell back quickly with a guard of heavy armor and retreating infantry. His assault ’Mech became a dark shadow moving farther back into the gray downpour.
Blood boiling, muscles trembling, Evan still knew a bad fight when he saw it. Throwing away lives to chase after Ruskoff would not bring back Hahn. And there were still heavy forces belonging to the Principes Guard on planet. They would have to be dealt with as well, and not by a crippled Ti Ts’ang.
Evan stood at the edge of the Grinder, astride the shattered fence line, and watched as the Republic force fell back in full retreat, but not a rout. Thunder rolled overhead, like an echo of the battle’s earlier rage, and rain pelted down in a deepening cloak of false twilight. It pinged and rang against the Ti Ts’ang’s armored head, streaked the ferroglass shield and puddled on the Grinder’s rough ferrocrete surface.
Behind him, it began to quench the greasy fires that raged over Hahn Soom Gui’s funeral pyre.
It was a call Viktor Ruskoff had never thought to make. But then, he’d witnessed events in the last five minutes that he’d never thought to see.
…A beaten cadre that stood strong behind its desperate ideology.
…Students choosing the martyrdom of suicide strikes over rational surrender.
…A Principes Guards Mech Warrior throwing honor to the winds, executing any chance that the Destroyer’s crew might be saved. Those were Liao lives. Liao children. And the MechWarrior hadn’t cared.
“If he was still with us, I’d burn him down myself,” Ruskoff whispered out loud, wanting to hear the words, but careful not to trigger his voice-activated mic. There wasn’t anyone out here to talk to. Not even his aide, Lieutenant Nguyen, who had been in the Phoenix Hawk and had thrown his lot in with the Capellan horde. Where arguments had not persuaded Nguyen, one act of blind hatred had convinced him.
He toggled over to his command frequencies, connecting back to the Reserve and, through relays, into the satellite system that eventually found Lord Governor Hidic.
Ruskoff was not one to mince words. Even when the news was grave. Especially, when the news was grave. Turning his Zeus to stare back through the curtain of rain, he could see not a trace of Conservatory forces. But they were there. He waited for the Lord Governor to identify himself, and then strengthened his own voice with military steel.
His report was simple and damning, as most failures were.
“We just lost Chang-an.”
31
Friends and Family
“Freedom dawns on many true citizens today. A time long in coming, but one more step on the path back to the Confederation’s manifest destiny. Capellans rejoice. Gan Singh has fallen.”
Yiling (Chang-an)
Qinghai Province, Liao
7 August 3134
In a ceremony prepared over several days, Evan stood among his friends and comrades in arms as the final remains of fourteen cadets were laid to rest at the heart of the Conservatory’s grounds.
The battle-thinned ranks stood at silent rest on the circular drive, out in front of the administration buildings. Gone was the old sculpture celebrating Devlin Stone and The Republic’s coming to Liao, dismantled piece by piece by volunteer hands and cutting torches since the ConstructionMechs had all been pressed into service. The old metal lay in a scrap heap piled next to one wall. Eventually, it would be reclaimed and recast into a new sculpture. One that honored the sacrifice of all Capellans in the struggle to free their world.
Benevolent oppression, however you wanted to couch the name, was still oppression.
Mai Uhn Wa stepped up to the grave site. He wore simple robes and mantle of green and tan. His wispy beard was trimmed and his gray hair worn loose and flowing around his shoulders.
“As we say our farewells to these brave sons and daughters of Liao, we do so in the light of a new morning, which they helped to purchase with their very lives. We do so with the knowledge that they did not sacrifice themselves in vain. The Conservatory still stands. Chang-an and Governor Lu Pohl are with us. We have so much of what we sought. And yet, we have so much left to attain.”