The Halls of Montezuma

by Christopher G. Nuttall

  “I thought we were really done,” Rifleman Jeff Culver said. “What are we doing here?”

  “Sniper hunting,” Command Sergeant Mark Mayberry growled. “Or weren’t you paying attention at the briefing?”

  Haydn ignored the byplay as he scanned the surrounding streets and buildings. An enemy sniper, perhaps more than one, had opened fire on a pair of surveyors an hour ago, killing one and wounding the other. The marines had been ordered to find the snipers and catch them - or kill them - before the area could be reopened. Haydn feared, as the marines moved from shadow to shadow, that they’d have to kill the men. The vast majority of the enemy soldiers had surrendered, when they’d been promised amnesty. Those who remained active were either loyalists or war criminals. Or simply convinced they wouldn’t be allowed to surrender. It wasn’t uncommon for snipers to be killed out of hand.

  Sweat prickled on his forehead as he peered towards the nearest skyscraper. It looked dangerously unsafe. A missile or shell or something had crashed through the building without detonating, smashing a chunk of the concrete and probably damaging the frame. The windows were shattered, pieces of glass littering the ground beneath his feet. It would be the perfect place for a sniper to hide. Haydn had seen snipers hit targets over five kilometres away. The skyscraper would let the bastard shoot right across the river and into the heart of the city. Haydn feared what would happen if the sniper started taking pot shots at random civilians ...

  Most of the poor bastards don’t want to come out of their houses, he thought. And who can possibly blame them?

  He keyed his throatmike, muttering an update to the distant controllers. There weren’t many marines on the ground, not now. The former insurgents were trying to maintain order - the new government needed to try to stamp its authority on the planet - but they were neither armed nor trained for crowd control. It would be a long time, with the best will in the world, before the planet calmed down to the point everyone could relax. Haydn wished he could call on the rest of the company, if not the entire regiment. A few thousand marines would be more than enough to flood the entire area and flush out the sniper.

  And our snipers are keeping a watch for him, he thought, as he held out his hand to count down the seconds. They’ll shoot if they catch a glimpse of him.

  He cursed under his breath as he slipped out of the shadows and ran across the road. The marine snipers were good, terrifyingly good - they bragged they could castrate a man with a single shot - but they couldn’t fire unless they had positive identification of the target. Merely carrying a gun wasn’t enough. They had to wait until the sniper took aim before they put a bullet in his head. Haydn understood the political requirements - the local government couldn’t afford to look weak, as if it was allowing the marines to shoot civilians at random - but he wished that whoever had come up with the policy was the one on the front lines. It was a great deal easier to issue blanket Rules Of Engagement when one wasn’t at risk of being shot.

  Glass crunched under his boots as he reached the edge of the lobby and crashed inside, rifle swinging from side to side as he searched for targets. Nothing moved, not even a mouse. The signs of looting were all around him. Paintings had been yanked from walls, drawers pulled out of the receptionist’s desk and dumped on the floor ... their contents stolen and probably sold for scraps. There were no papers ... Haydn guessed the office had been completely paperless. Or the papers had been used for fires. The locals had had a nice city once. Two successive invasions and an ongoing insurgency had ruined it.

  Probably taught them a few bad habits too, he thought, as the rest of the squad joined him. How long will it be before they start settling disputes with violence?

  He put the thought out of his mind as they finished sweeping the ground floor, then sealed the lifts and headed upstairs. There was no power, not any longer. There’d been few, if any, independent power generators on the planet, rendering the entire district largely powerless. A faint smell hung in the air as they reached the first floor and peered inside. The office looked looted, stripped of everything that wasn’t nailed to the floor. Haydn felt a flicker of sympathy for the workers as he swept the chamber, noticing how they didn’t have so much as the illusion of privacy. Or any real control over their lives. They couldn’t even adjust their desks and chairs. It struck him as cruel and unusual punishment. He was in the military and even he knew that complete uniformity was a bad idea. He’d hate to have to wear BDUs designed for someone smaller than himself.

  I suppose it bred good little corprats, he told himself. The office kitchenette was as bland and boring as the rest of the office. The powerless freezer stank of rotting food. He was amused to notice the looters had taken the cleaning supplies, although he knew it wasn’t funny. Someone could make a pretty good IED, with a little ingenuity. And it sure as hell would have kept them in their place.

  He tensed as he heard something above him. A footstep? A bird? He hadn’t seen many birds in the city, but urban wildlife might well have started making a comeback now large swathes of the city had been effectively abandoned. Haydn exchanged signals with Mayberry, then inched towards the stairs. By his assessment, they were going to be moving up to the damaged part of the building. The skyscraper didn’t feel as though it was going to collapse at any moment, but the shattered walls and damaged interior would make a good sniper nest. If nothing else, it would be very hard to pick their way upwards without making some noise.

  Haydn considered his options as they studied the stairwell, then started to inch up to the next floor. The air blew colder, carrying with it the unmistakable scent of unwashed human and human waste. It didn’t smell like a dead body ... Haydn grimaced. They hadn’t seen many dead bodies since they’d begun their sweep, although he wasn’t sure why. Perhaps the corprats had collected the corpses and buried them in a mass grave. It was the sort of thing they would have done, if they’d realised it had to be done. His lips quirked. Of course they’d do it. They’d wanted to bring the city back to life as quickly as possible too.

  The sound came again as they reached the top of the stairs. Rubble lay everywhere, providing all the cover a sniper could possibly want. Haydn could imagine a skilled sniper setting up a bunch of nests, perhaps even an optical sensor to allow him to track his targets without a spotter ... or revealing himself to prying eyes. There might even be an automated gun ... the corps didn’t use them, unless they were in a clear war zone, but the corprats might have different ideas. Who knew? The sniper probably already considered himself doomed.

  He unhooked a stun grenade from his belt, held it up so his team could see what he had in mind, then hurled it through the door and into the exposed zone. Blue-white light flared. The grenades weren’t as effective as the media made them look - Haydn wanted a few moments alone with the producers who made those wretched flicks - but anyone caught in the blast would have a few moments of stunned disorientation, at the very least. He leapt forward, rifle in hand. The section was deserted. There was no sign of a sniper or ...

  Something moved, above him. Haydn barely had a moment to notice before another grenade fell from the upper floor. Haydn shouted a warning and dived for cover, an instant before the grenade exploded. The floor shook violently. Haydn breathed a sigh of relief they weren’t in a confined space, then scrambled forward and up the next flight of stairs. The sniper had to be stopped before he got away. He heard someone snap off a shot behind him, the bullet cracking through the ceiling. He couldn’t tell who’d fired, or if they’d hit anything. Another explosion shook the building a second later. Haydn felt a flicker of fear. It was hard to escape the sense the entire building might come tumbling down within seconds.

  He crashed into a dark shape. The sniper bit out a curse as they tumbled to the floor, fists pounding against Haydn’s armour. Haydn headbutted him, feeling his nose break under the force of the impact. The sniper had clearly been enhanced, probably illegally. He almost snorted as the sniper kept hitting him, trying to beat him to de
ath. The corprats had broken hundreds of laws, just by setting up a colony that was technically off the books. Why on Earth would they stop breaking laws now?

  His fingers found the knife at his belt, drew it and stabbed upwards. The sniper was wearing body armour too, but it wasn’t designed to cope with knives. Haydn guessed the sniper’s masters had seen the advantages - the armour was very good at coping with bullets - and chosen to overlook the disadvantages. The sniper let out a breath as the knife was thrust further into his chest, flailing uselessly as he gasped for breath. Haydn pushed him over and stared down at him. The sniper looked ... no different from any of the other soldiers he’d fought and killed in the last few months.

  “Lie still,” Haydn said, quietly. If he could take the sniper alive ... the spooks would have a field day. The poor bugger was clearly enhanced to the max. “We can do something ...”

  The sniper gurgled, then lay still. Haydn cursed under his breath as he checked the man’s pulse, just in case he was faking it. Enhanced or not, a knife to the gut had proven fatal ... it looked as though Haydn had punctured the man’s heart. A team of medics with modern equipment might have been able to save him, but the closest medics were on the other side of the river. Haydn pulled out the knife, wiped it with a cloth and returned it to his belt, then started to search the body. The sniper hadn’t been carrying much. It looked as though he’d abandoned everything that might have identified him, something else that was technically against the law. Haydn was mildly surprised the corprats had broken that law. Terrorists and insurgents did it all the time, but the corprat soldiers were supposed to be better. They, at least, had superiors who could hold them accountable ... and be held accountable, in turn, for their subordinates.

  A shot cracked past. Haydn darted to one side, seeing another sniper - no, a spotter - standing by the far door. He cursed and unhooked another grenade from his belt, hurling it towards the enemy soldier. The soldier dived back, retreating further into the skyscraper. Haydn called in the contact as he picked himself up and chased the man. He wanted - he needed - to take this one alive.

  “Give up,” he shouted, as he crashed through an open door. The wooden shape hung off its hinges. “Give up and we’ll take you alive!”

  He jumped into the next room, just in time to see the enemy soldier diving down a garbage chute. Haydn was tempted to follow him, but it would be a good way to get stuck. The rest of the corps would never let him forget it. Instead, he yanked a third stun grenade from his belt and dropped it down the chute. The sniper might be armoured, but in such close confines it probably didn’t matter. He heard a curse, followed by a thump. It dawned on him, a moment too late, that the sniper had probably lost his grip and plunged down. Hopefully, he’d had enough sense to make sure there was something soft underneath.

  “Sergeant, check the rest of the building,” he ordered, as he ran back to the stairs. The one advantage of a city designed by soulless corprats was that the city was practically uniform. Learn to navigate around one skyscraper and you’d know how to navigate around all of them. “I’m going to snatch the prisoner.”

  He ran down the stairs and into the basement. It stunk, a grim reminder that no one had been collecting trash for months. He could hear someone kicking in the semi-darkness. The garbage chute opened into a giant metal drum on wheels ... Haydn had a sudden horrified vision of someone getting stuck inside, then being driven to the furnace and incinerated with no one being any the wiser. He had no idea how the sniper intended to get out. Perhaps he could tip it over from the inside, with a little effort, or scramble up the outside of the chute.

  “Marine Corps,” he shouted. If the sniper wanted to take a final shot at him, now was the chance. “Surrender and we’ll get you medical attention. Resist and you’ll go to the grave.”

  He listened, but heard nothing beyond a faint whimpering. He sneaked up on the drum, grabbed hold and yanked it over. A torrent of rubbish - and a twitching sniper - fell out and landed on the concrete floor. The sniper had clearly taken the brunt of the blast and fallen hard, breaking at least one of his legs. Haydn secured his hands with a plastic tie, then searched him roughly. Getting the sniper to the medics was going to be a pain, but it could be done. He had no doubt of it.

  “Sir, the building is clear,” Mayberry reported. “There’s no trace of anyone else.”

  Haydn nodded, unsurprised. If there were more enemy holdouts, they’d have scattered over the city. They wouldn’t run the risk of being trapped, not as a group. Haydn wouldn’t hesitate to call down fire from the orbiting starships to smash the enemy, rather than risk the lives of his men trying to root them out and take them alive. The corprats would certainly assume the worst, if they were smart. There was no way the city could be brought back to life before the corprats were exterminated.

  “I’ll meet you in the lobby,” he said. “Tell the medics I have a patient for them.”

  He searched the enemy sniper quickly, finding nothing. Again. The enemy had dumped everything, even his weapons. Haydn guessed there was a cache of supplies somewhere not too far away. The corprats hadn’t had much time to prepare for an insurgency - another insurgency - but a skilled junior officer with enough guts to take the lead might just lay the groundwork before it was too late. And his superiors would probably take a dim view of it. Corprats disliked people showing even a hint of independent thought ...

  And maybe I’m completely wrong, he thought, as he carefully picked up the twitching body and carried it up to the lobby. Moving a wounded man was dangerous, but the medics wouldn’t come any further into the building. The corpsmen were just too valuable to be put at risk. These two might have set off on their own.

  “Raptor inbound, sir,” Mayberry reported. “The medics will be here in a moment.”

  “And then we can sweep the rest of the area,” Haydn said. He cursed under his breath. They needed the entire regiment, not a single understrength company. He knew the score as well as anyone - they were short of trained marines - but it was worrying. They were running the risk of being caught out by superior forces and taking a pounding. “Any word through the grapevine on reinforcements?”

  “Nothing, sir,” Mayberry said. “There’s a vague report we might be heading back up there.”

  “You’d think they could make up their minds,” Culver said, as he joined them. “Where are we going tomorrow?”

  “There’s never a dull day in the corps,” Haydn said. He grinned. “The only easy day was yesterday. Who dares, wins. And a bunch of other clichés.”

  Culver made a face. “And no hope of shore leave?”

  Haydn shrugged. “I dare say they’ll try and organise something,” he said. He hadn’t heard anything, but marine officers understood their men needed leave every so often. Everyone needed time to decompress, preferably in an environment where no one was trying to kill them. “But I have no idea when or where.”

  “There has to be something to do here,” Culver said. “Hunting. Fishing. Shooting ...”

  “Yeah,” Haydn said. He understood the younger man’s feelings. He just knew they had other problems. “But our duty comes first.”

  Chapter Two

  It’s a hard question to answer. Certainly, a number of theories have been advanced that have their roots in ideology rather than the real world.

  - Professor Leo Caesius, The Rise and Fall of Interstellar Capitalism

  “I think we need to make some hard decisions,” Major-General Miguel Foxtrot said. “To whit, what are we going to do about Onge?”

  Major-General Gerald Anderson nodded, curtly, as he sat at the conference table on HMS Havoc and studied the display. The debriefing notes were all too clear. They’d severely underestimated the enemy and now ... they were caught in a trap of their own making. It had been costly enough landing an invasion force on Hameau, an invasion force that had nearly been destroyed by the arrival of enemy reinforcements. They’d won a series of bloody battles, only to discover they were facing a
multi-star corporate polity. And now they could neither abandon the campaign nor push it to a speedy conclusion.

  He kept his face under tight control. Major-General Miguel Foxtrot was a friend, but ... he hadn’t been there. Not when it counted. Foxtrot and his division had arrived too late, after the enemy force had been shattered, the remnants forced to surrender or head for the hills in hopes of hiding out long enough for a second relief force to arrive. He hadn’t had to grapple with the prospect of being the first marine officer to lose a campaign, a defeat that could have easily led to the end of everything. Gerald had no illusions. There were only a handful of new marines in the pipeline and, until they established a new training base, there wouldn’t be any more. The battle could have shattered the remnants of the corps beyond repair.

  “There are three options,” Captain Kerri Stumbaugh said, bluntly. Her position was a little awkward. On one hand, she was in command of the ship and the flotilla; on the other, she was an auxiliary and therefore not wholly part of the corps. “We sit on our asses and do nothing, at least until we have orders from Safehouse. We send out messengers to Onge and seek a mutual understanding. Or we find a way to take the war to them before they realise what’s happened and launch another invasion.”

  “I know,” Gerald said. “Do they know what’s happened?”

  Kerri frowned. “We defeated their fleet and retook the high orbitals a week ago,” she said, slowly. “Assuming they had someone watching the fun from a safe distance, someone who returned home as soon as they realised we’d won, they’ll know what’s happened in a week or so.”

  “Assuming nothing happens to that ship in transit,” Foxtrot pointed out.