Evan tried to imagine Hahn holding a gun, standing over the body of a Republic MP. The picture didn’t fit him at all. Evan winced, banishing the memory, and nodded his approval at the rhetoric.

Hahn accepted the tribute from both friends, then turned to the shop window. He waved at someone in line—David probably—and made a complicated set of hand gestures that Evan actually understood: Mocha, double-shot, iced. Hahn did not get his own coffee either.

Mark and David returned together, Mark on his wireless phone and David cradling two cups and a sweet bun in his large hands. Both men were enrolled in the Conservatory’s battlesuit infantry program, though David looked more the part at one hundred ninety centimeters, extra-wide shoulders and chiseled features. One could almost believe David’s claim to have Clan Elemental blood in his past. But then, David claimed a lot of things.

Mark looked like a stockbroker, big but bookish. He clipped his wireless back to his belt.

“Now that we’re all together,” Hahn said as he accepted his cup and passed David a couple of stones—The Republic currency that Evan refused to carry. “Maybe Evan will explain what’s going on.”

“Yeah.” David bit into his bun. Around a mouthful of pastry he added, “Why the call?”

Evan sipped his drink. Naranji had a wonderful sweet taste like strawberries and orange together, but in the morning he mixed some grapefruit into the popular juice. “Can’t just want to say hey before classes?” he asked, and smiled at his friends’ disbelief. “Okay.” He pushed his chair back and rose. “Come on.”

On the way, pushing through the monorail crowd to the next street over, Evan explained. “I saw it this morning while on my run. I like to finish out here for some Ji-Go.” He rattled the ice left in his cup. Jen and David made faces. They couldn’t stand the sweet taste of naranji. He ditched the cup in a nearby can. “Instead, I went back for my phone and called you up to meet here. I thought you would like to see.” Most of them, anyway.

They took another corner, rounding a bento restaurant with an enviable location one short block from the Conservatory’s main gate, and then along the commercial park. The small cadet cadre shuffled to a stop near the corner. They still had to cross the street for the Conservatory grounds, but the view was better here as there was still quite a crowd milling about underneath the Grand Arch entrance, trampling police tape.

Word had spread.

New guerrilla art. Or, what true Republic loyalists would consider more destructive graffiti.

“Yes!” David jumped up and pumped his fist in the air, celebrating the coup. He spilled steaming coffee over his other hand, but didn’t care. “That is so excellent.” Hahn merely smiled, his washed-out gray eyes hiding safe and secure behind the tinted aviator glasses.

Evan didn’t look toward Jenna or Mark at all, protecting his game face. Instead, he stared out across the slow-moving traffic and gathered students, up at the stone arch which had once proclaimed its entry to the Conservatory. The raised letters had been laser-sanded away, and a new proclamation etched over them.

Forever lives Sun-Tzu Liao.

“If you will all excuse me,” Hahn said, pulling his own wireless off his belt, “I have some calls to make.”

Yiling (Chang-an)

Qinghai Province, Liao

24 April 3134

Evan Kurst counted more cheers and smiles around the Grand Arch than complaints, though not by many. And there was plenty of shoving to go around. With Hahn peeling away to do some campus politicking, the rest forced their way through the tight knot of students with Mark and David blazing a trail.

“It’s vandalism.” Mark Lo kicked angrily at the ground as the cabal passed beneath the ruined stonework. He refused to look up. “Not free expression.”

Evan felt a touch of pity for his friend. It couldn’t be easy at times, hanging around with a group of pro-Capellan cadets. Even though they were all enrolled in various programs which would—eventually—lead toward military service, some students were more Republic minded than others. Mark, fortunately, was a liberal. He believed that every person, citizen or resident, had the right to voice their opinion. Sometimes that belief ran hard up against his own political views, though.

And against Jenna’s.

“Do you really think the PTB would let us post so much as a sign that mentioned Sun-Tzu Liao anywhere near the campus grounds?”

PTB. Powers That Be. Evan did not care for that assignation. It implied irrevocable status. But that was Jenna’s way. Rock the system, but never believe you can effect real change. It was one reason, among others, why Evan had never approached her about the Ijori Dè Guāng.

“No way,” David said, blowing on his scalded fingers. “The government’d rather pretend the resistance didn’t exist.”

Mark shot a dark glance at David. “So untrue. The government would rather work with people, but they aren’t in denial.”

“Remember the Heritage Days military parade? They called it a ‘switchbox failure,’ but I happen to know that some freedom fighters took over the public works building and sabotaged all the lights that morning. Gridlock forced the parade to pass outside of Yiling. I heard there was a killing, too.”

Evan noticed the other three staring at him. “What?” Everyone glanced away at the same time. It was almost comical.

Almost.

His friends had long suspected Evan of being an Ijori Dè Guāng cell member. Or one of their resources, a snitch, maybe. Or a spy. Evan had a tendency to know more than he should, or be nearby when things turned …interesting.

David came back faster than the others. “Well,” he said, “I did hear that something similar happened down in Duan.” Duan was the local capital of Liao’s southern continent of Nánlù.

“Isn’t Bulics Academy in that province?” Mark asked.

Evan had attended Bulics before finally getting his transfer to the Conservatory. Damn David. Why couldn’t he keep his mouth shut? David was too gung ho, and liked to spout off on the fact, otherwise the burly infantry cadet might have made an excellent recruit.

Evan nodded. “It might be,” he said to Mark. “And you know, I think I remember taking classes with several hundred other cadets.”

Mark dropped the subject. Not that it would stay dropped for long.

The simple fact remained that Evan Kurst was part of the Ijori Dè Guāng. A large part, in fact, taking up the reins of the Qinghai Province cell after Mai Wa’s abandonment, and eventually parlaying it into a strong voice in all Beilù operations. That, and other reasons, was why Evan had to be so careful with whom he trusted. Mark Lo was the weakest flaw in his personal armor. But Mark came with Jenna, and they all circled around Hahn, so Mark stayed and Evan watched him most carefully of all.

The four students passed onto the Conservatory’s walled grounds, where brushed-ferrocrete walkways webbed out over immaculate lawns. Students clustered within some of the nearby courtyards, holding club meetings or just talking about the morning’s big event. A Men Shen BattleMech presided over one of these areas: The Guardian. The decommissioned ’Mech, with its hooked nose and long-barreled arms, stood a permanent post on the main grounds, a tribute to the Conservatory’s past as the alma mater of notable MechWarriors through the years, as well as a nod toward Liao’s Capellan roots. From a hundred meters it looked very imposing.