Terrence McCarron glanced at his two nearby bodyguards. One of them, a very large woman with a shaved head and flat features, raised an eyebrow. Mai caught the exchange, and wondered: a confidante, or advisor? The other had dark skin and a fiery look in his eyes. McCarron nodded something reassuring and, with a pointed look, dismissed the two. Both left with obvious regret. Now it was just him and Mai Wa.

“Jeremy is one of my infantry commanders, and he is too close to our Maskirovka friends. You understand?”

Mai nodded. Mask agents were a fact of life, though usually you had nothing to fear unless you acted against the Confederation’s better interests. “I am a traitor,” he said with heavy reservation. “I serve the Confederation.”

“Just so.” McCarron nodded as if Mai had just given the best endorsement. He walked over toward his Po II. “Things happen, things that have no direct bearing on men in the field. N˘ı do˘ng ma?” he asked, again wanting to know if Mai Wa understood.

In hàn-yŭ, there was less room for error. You did not hedge by words, only in tone. “Wo ˘ do ˘ ng le.” Mai made certain that he sounded very, very sure.

McCarron squatted down to take a closer look at the ruined tread. It looked to Mai as if a main hub had taken accurate laserfire. Or a very lucky shot. “Good,” the younger officer finally said. “Now what can you offer?”

“Not as much as I’d hoped.” But then, if Mai Uhn Wa had discovered as much support among the resistance cells as he’d hoped, he wouldn’t have needed McCarron at all. “I’m tied in to the Ijori Dè Guāng and the Conservatory’s network now. There are also some tentative reaches into this so-called Cult of Liao.” Evan hadn’t volunteered anything on the Cult, but it was apparent there were crossover ties in the two organizations.

“Right.” The other man nodded. “Sun-Tzu, the Immortal One. They are the ones who claim to have sightings of the Chancellor. What can they do for us?”

“They can supplement whatever other intelligence assets you’ve developed,” Mai offered. “And they would be willing native guides, the Ijori Dè Guāng especially. They have been skulking around Liao for the better side of two years now. Convoy schedules. Back roads. They have a great deal to offer. We can also coordinate efforts in planning and support from the Conservatory, for as long as we hold it.”

McCarron stood, looked down on Mai. “So it would be in our better interests to help you hold the Conservatory, then. Troops and armor?”

“I’ll settle for surplus equipment and sharing intelligence,” Mai countered, sensing the other man’s hesitation. “And I’ll ask for nothing that can’t be repaid after the arrival of the Dynasty Guard. You’ll share in whatever they bring us. Of course, you’ll have a better idea of when that will be.”

“Soon,” McCarron promised, still seeing no need to share such strategic information. He squinted up into the heavily laden skies, as if searching for their DropShip already. Rain washed his face with icy fingers. “All right. We feed at the trough first, but you’re welcome to whatever we don’t eat.”

Mai Wa smiled. Spoken like a true workhorse regiment. “With so much of Liao left to be harvested,” he said, “there should be enough for us all.” Even a return of Warrior House Ijori.

Yiling (Chang-an)

Qinghai Province, Liao

2 July 3134

Evan Kurst hung on to the back of the hoverbike, feet braced and arms aching as he pulled his chest into the back of David’s seat. The small, military vehicle was built for one, but a passenger could hitch if the driver was very careful. David Parks was borderline. Air blasted out from under the metal skirting as they cruised over the Grinder and David opened the throttles. Evan clenched his eyes shut and pictured the checkpoint gate as it sped blessedly closer.

The Liao Conservatory’s campus had an hourglass shape to it, with its administration and educational campus squeezing into the YiCha suburbs. The training grounds opened up from the southern edge of the city proper where commercial districts leaned in from east and west to form the narrow waist. The Grinder, a wide expanse of rough-topped ferrocrete where cadets marched parades, divided the campus’s manicured lawns and cobblestone walkways from a long fence line of chain-link and razor-tipped wire. Beyond the fence line was a small military post complete with garages, service depots, an armory and BattleMech hangars.

The lift fans calmed down to a mere growl as David slid the vehicle up to one of the gates and reversed exhaust to power bake. Evan opened his eyes. Two infantrymen stood watch in Infiltrator battlesuits, looming over Evan and David. Identification was hardly needed, as Evan had become one of the best known cadets on campus. His stunt with the ConstructionMech had been a good start.

Coming out and finally admitting his involvement with the Ijori Dè Guāng, that had been a much larger boost.

Still, he dug out his badge. The Full Access Pass was a new design, and handed out very carefully. It gave Evan’s small coterie and perhaps a dozen others the right to move anywhere on the tightly controlled Conservatory grounds.

The Infiltrator infantry saluted and waved them through, raising the gate.

David gunned the hoverbike’s engine, powering forward. Evan had to duck to clear the lifting bar.

“I can’t pilot a ’Mech with brain damage,” he shouted in his friend’s ear.

David barely turned his head to shout back. “So how did you get in the program to begin with?”

He’d pay for that. Evan wasn’t completely certain when or how, but Parks would pay.

Through the gate, the pretenses of a prestigious university disappeared. Reinforced roads, good for marching BattleMechs, cut between plots of scrub grass and tangled brush. This was the business side of the campus, where cadets trained in hands-on lessons. There were no barracks or clubs. This wasn’t a true garrison post, after all. Cadets came here to grab equipment and take to the field for parade, maneuvers, and live-fire ranges.

And now, to report for patrols and scouting assignments that put them into harm’s way.

A pair of DI Schmitts rolled along one side of a wide avenue, heading in for maintenance. A squad of Purifiers crossed the road behind them, disappearing with a chameleon’s grace into the brush. Evan tried to follow the blur of color, but lost them as their mimetic armor adapted.

David lifted one arm from the hoverbike’s controls and stabbed his hand at ten o’clock. From behind a stand of tall alder a Tian-zong stomped into view, swept the area with sensors, and then lumbered off to the southeast.

This is what Evan’s actions had wrought: cadets worried for an attack by their own military. Legate Ruskoff would not back down easily. Fortunately, Mai Wa had brokered a deal with McCarron’s Second, one which Evan honored through the Ijori Dè Guāng in order to procure more military equipment for the campus standoff. No one looked too closely at where the new materials came from.

Sound military policy: don’t ask, don’t tell.

The five-story hangar rivaled campus buildings for its massive size, dark gray, steel-reinforced ferrocrete, bunker-style construction, no windows. Just a set of massive doors that rose sixteen meters above the local tarmac.