Four seconds, and the fighting’s over…for now.
The dome is mostly dark, lit by numerous fires and the clouds of smoke and countermeasures dust that seem to glow faintly in the light. The walls, floor, and dome are stained with soot and gore, and pockmarked by thousands of small and large craters. Less than a third of those who were gathered here earlier are still alive. Of those still alive, most are in no condition to do much of anything. I’ve got two men down with serious burns, and most of us have some injuries. Two needles filled with nano-toxin got through my uniform and are currently being fought by my augments.
It’s clear we weren’t the main targets of the attack. The major leaders of the great Houses were all here—and not one of them survived. Someone’s just launched a major coup on Venus, and we’re back at war.
The ambassador finally gets to his feet, drawing the cape around him as if for protection, and he stares around in horror at the carnage all around us. He’s come a long way from his world of formal banquets and high-level meetings…now he’s in the world of war, for the first time in his life.
The surviving Venusians are also kind of stunned, but not because of all the violence. They’ve lost their leaders, and they’re now cut off from their Houses and any other communication with the outside world. For possibly the first time in their genetically and socially engineered lives, they’ve got to think for themselves and figure out what they want to do next.
We’re cut off, too, of course, but we won’t be stuck here long.
“Sgt. Martin, how long until we can get that hatch back open?” I ask.
“We’ll have it open with shaped plasma charges in five minutes, sir.”
“Sparky, having any luck getting through the electronic blockade out there?”
“No, sir. It’s going to take longer to get through this than to blow the door. We should have communications reestablished once we’re out—this appears to be local blockade.”
“We’re leaving in five minutes!” I announce to the rest of the chamber. “Anyone who wants to come with us will need to stay clear of our lines of fire. We’re going to our quarters, through anything that gets in our way. We’ll help protect you as long as you’re with us, but we’re not staying here.”
“You!” The ambassador grabs my shoulder, and I stop my reflexive counter before it even begins. “You…and your gunmen did this! You destroyed any chance of peace!” He hurls the cape to his feet while shaking in fury.
“Sir…” All my irritation and anger at him vanishes as I see the terror in his face. “Sir, please wrap that cloth back around you—it’ll help protect you from harm.” As he does so, he’s shaking. “We’ll keep you safe, sir.”
The Marines have already extended two stretchers of smart cord to carry their wounded.
“All right, everyone, be ready to move as soon as that door is down!” Sgt. Martin bellows.
It won’t be long; the attack in the dome was just the opener. Beyond those doors will be a second attack ready to finish off whatever the first team failed to kill. We’ll probably have to fight all the way to the fortified area around our quarters.
* * *
It’s time.
We’ve got everyone behind some kind of cover, and we’re ready to blow the doors. The plasma explosives set along the line of the doors to the chamber should be able to cut through any kind of normal matter, and the expanding gas cloud should have enough force to send the heavy doors flying off their hinges. The blast will be blinding and deafening to unprotected senses.
That’s not why we’re taking cover.
On the other side of those doors could be assassins waiting to finish the job, Venusian troops from House Dragon to fight us, biological monsters ready to kill us all…anything at all, actually.
We have to be ready for anything. Countermeasure dust and scramblers are already deployed, which should cause any autonomous weapons that get past our laser fire to have a hard time finding us. SPGs by the door are set as smart-mines, permitting us to leave, but acting as deadly shaped-charge traps for anyone who rushes us. All that together should buy time for our mixed group of flight officers, Marines, diplomats, and Venusians to fight our way clear.
Of course, the hallway could be empty or full of friendlies…but I’m not counting on it.
The countdown approaches zero, and everyone who doesn’t have eye protection ducks as the blinding blue flash fills the room with sharp, tearing thunder.
The integrated flash-protection in my eyes is more than up to the task, I see, as the smoke begins to clear…
A stream of railgun darts hammer into the chamber from the hallway, and the dust and smoke fluoresce as high-energy beams pour in, seeking us. Enemy SPGs, micro missiles, and wasp drones fly in a fraction of a second later.
We take out all those in a hail of laser fire, then we find new positions as enemy return fire hits where we were an instant before.
Shadowy forms race into the room, bearing what appear to be rifles and laser lances—
They don’t get far.
A series of roaring explosions rock the room as our shaped charges set at the entrance tear into them, and our railgun fire finishes off anything that looks like it’s still moving. Then we fire our own remaining SPGs into the hallway, and the passageway beyond fills with fire and thunder.
There’s no time to worry about who they are—they’re shooting at us, and that’s enough.
“Now!” the Marine sergeant shouts, and he charges back down the corridor. We follow right behind.
The passageway is a horror of ruined bodies, scorched walls, and fires here and there. Our jamming is trying to search out and find any remaining enemy mines that might be here and keep them from going off—or make them detonate prematurely. A second later, I know either our anti-mine systems are better than Venus’, or there weren’t any mines—because we’re still alive.
We still can’t get access to the data-net. Hostile programs seem to be running throughout all the systems of Ishtar, and there’s no way to get in touch with our people back at quarters, our frames in the hangar, or our ships in orbit. For all we know, the Dragons might have taken over the whole city, which is the military command center for Venus. There’s no telling if the rest of our people are still alive here, or whether the fleet still exists or is a cluster of radioactive debris. We just don’t know until we reestablish communications or get outside Ishtar.
“Wh—what’s happening?” the ambassador asks.
It’s best not to tell the ambassador how much trouble we’re really in; he’s scared enough right now.
“Please follow us, sir,” I answer as gently as I can. “We’ll get you out of here.”
* * *
Following our internal map, we make our way through the embattled city hallways. We’re ignoring the main ways—those are likely to be blockaded and trapped—but we also avoid the smallest, narrowest passages so we don’t get trapped in them.
The thunder of railgun fire, the hiss of energy beams, and the roars of explosions echo throughout Ishtar. The fight for Venusian high command is still going on, and there’s no telling who’s going to win. Along the way, we come across the dead, sprawled across the corridors and intersections, and the living, hiding away behind locked doors, hoping silently that we pass them by.
Many of the doors and hatches are sealed. We’ve had to cut through some of them, wasting precious time, but others respond to the command codes of Houses Unicorn and Phoenix when entered by the Venusians with us.
Are we going to the right place? Second guessing haunts me as we head into the unknown. Heading to our quarters gets us reinforcements, and we’ll be able to relieve them from whatever is likely attacking them…but maybe we should go to the hangar instead? The hangar holds our exo-frames, and more importantly, our assault shuttle. We could truly leave, not only this city, but the whole crazy planet. Still, all the hangars will be under concentrated attack by House Dragon. If our frames and the shuttle surv
ive, a few people with half-charged weapons and no real armor aren’t going to make much of a difference. We’ll do better on a rescue mission once we’ve gotten the power armor and heavy weapons now in our quarters. It’s also possible they might escape from the hangar on their own, and the logical place for them to go would be to our quarters to pick us up. So on we go into the unknown, following my best guess and hunches, because we don’t have anything more to go on.
A series of coded signals shriek out from a cloud of sentinel beetles that rise into the air with buzzing wings. Cybernetic augmentation takes over, and everyone seems to move in slow motion as we break into a run. We come around the corner, fully alert, hopefully before whatever is waiting for us is fully ready.
Oh…
A squad of House Dragon heavy infantry is set up in the intersection. The hulking humanoids have their own scaly armor instead of skin, and the heavy infantry armor on top of that. Most of them are holding railguns the size of small support weapons in their talons. Those big rifles will go right through our uniforms—but at least their heavy plasma-repeater is still pointed in a different direction, at the moment. Their pointed, toothy snouts swing in our direction as they see us pile in.
My laser carbine is nearly useless against their heavy armor, so I set it on wide beam and play across them to blind and dazzle them, and maybe buy us a second or two.
It works; they’re still trying to get themselves together when the Marines hit them with their railguns and the last of our SPGs. It looks like we’ve still got the technological lead, as our rail darts rip through their armor to detonate inside the hulking Venusians. Then our SPGs arrive and detonate in flashes of blue plasma, submunitions, and screaming, transonic darts.
That should have been enough to drop almost anything, but the surviving Venusians come out of the smoke and flames in snarling fury.
One of the hulking creatures lands on me, still moving, even though covered in gaping wounds and burns, and we collapse to the deck. It’s too close for my carbine, so I reach for my diamond blade while he tears at me with talons and opens his maw to sink his fangs into me.
He never gets the chance. The atomic edge of my diamond blade cuts deep into his neck, severing both his primary and backup spines, and my foe convulses uncontrollably.
As I finally throw him off me, everyone is mixed up in the fight. Even with time slowed by my augments, it’s hard to tell which Venusian monsters in the brawl are on our side, though the IFF overlay helps me keep track. I get back in there and try to do something useful, but it looks like we’ve got this one; it’s already pretty much over.
Still, the soldiers of House Dragon fight to the last.
We’re all hurt and exhausted after that, but we’ve still got a long way to go. The House Unicorn and Phoenix Venusians part company with us; they’ve got their own people to help out and a fight to win. I wish them luck. I wouldn’t normally, I think, but they had our backs in a fight, and that always counts for something.
We secure the injured limbs of our people with smart cord and carry on, alone.
* * *
Finally, after another skirmish, we make it back to quarters.
The surrounding quarters and lobby are a ruin of burning furniture, dart-riddled walls, and dead Venusian soldiers. There are no civilians or general staff anywhere to be seen.
There was quite a fight here, but who won? Are we too late? Did the Venusians already overrun our position? Are we walking into a trap?
A signal finally gets through the pervasive comm lockdown.
“This is the Jovian Marine Corps! Halt and identify yourselves!”
Looks like they made it after all; let’s hope we don’t get shot by our own people—everyone’s really wired after all this.
“This is Lieutenant Commander Michael Vance, escorting the Jovian diplomatic mission. We need immediate access to our field quarters,” I send back, along with the daily security codes. If they’re real, they’ll let us in, and we’ll be OK. If they’re Venusians, we’re already too deep into the trap to fight our way out.
Two Jovian Marines meet us in full power armor. There are more than a few dings and burns on the armor—everyone’s seen a lot of action. “It’s good to see you again, sir,” one says as they escort us through the perimeter.
Sensor networks scan us from small remotes, and we pass a number of live smart-mines set into the walls, floor, and ceiling. We pass two more Marines manning heavy, belt-fed rail cannon guarding the immediate accessway to our quarters. It looks like our defensive preparations worked, at least so far.
This isn’t over yet.
“What happened here?” I ask.
“They tried to infiltrate our position with commandos disguised as hotel staff armed with integrated cyber-weaponry and a nano-bio assault. That was followed up by a concentrated attack by House Dragon’s heavy assault infantry. Since that, we’ve had a few probing attacks but nothing more serious.”
We’re back in the familiar hallways where we’re quartered, but now everything’s changed. The opulent hallways and furnishings are fortified positions, and there are sentries, barricades, spare ammunition, and generators everywhere.
“How bad is it? That assault must have been rough.”
“No one killed, at least on our side yet, sir.” He sends the force list to my augments. It’s mostly green combat-capable figures, a few yellow injured, three red non-combat-capable wounded, and thankfully no black killed in action. “We still have most of our spare parts generators, ammunition, SPGs, charge cells, and micro missiles, but we don’t have enough to sustain a prolonged siege.”
“How’s our communications? Do we know anything about the situation outside?”
“Some. We’ve taken over the local network, but most of the city is still locked down. Once we knocked out the windows, we were able to send some remotes and establish a communications network with the outside world. The fighting between the Houses is going on all over Venus and in orbit, and it’s not clear who’s winning, if anyone is. We’ve had Venusians try to take the hangar, but our Marines and assault shuttle, along with our Angel frames operating in autonomous mode, fought it off. Right now, they’re cut off. There’s fighting in orbit, and our ships are currently in conflict with Venusian craft and satellites. They’re…sir, we can’t expect any help from above; they’re outnumbered and fighting for their lives.”
I nod.
The ambassador comes up to me, finally composed somewhat. “This all must be some terrible misunderstanding. I’ll speak with them and sort it all out.”
What? “I highly doubt this is a misunderstanding or any kind of accident, sir.” I manage not to explode, somehow. “Everything indicates a high degree of planning and coordination in their attack.”
“But if we could just talk…”
“They’ve cut off all communications after the surprise attack, sir. That’s typically not the behavior of someone who wants to talk.”
“I’ll get out there and negotiate our release.” The ambassador gets more agitated, and his eyes search about.
“Sir, it would not help our mission if you were captured and forced to regurgitate propaganda to the solar system.” Everyone remembers our ambassador to Titan, captured by Saturn and forced to publicly declare his allegiance to the Saturnine Union, accusing Jupiter of every conceivable crime. That disaster is still burned into our people’s memory. “Besides, most likely you’d just get yourself killed—the Venusians are shooting at anything that moves, and you being dead harms our mission, as well.”
He kind of deflates a bit. “What was it I could have said? There must have been something else we could have done…how can we fix this?”
“I sincerely doubt it was anything you said or did, sir,” I answer. “They were preparing for this for a while. Once the Dragons knew we’d never give them the entire inner solar system, they launched the attack. Even if you’d given them everything they wanted, we’d still have to fight them later. Th
ey won’t talk until they’re beaten.”
“But…why? They’ve thrown away all our trade relationships, cultural exchanges…everything!”
“The people doing this probably aren’t interested in those things, sir. They want one thing—power.”
All right, we can’t stay here, and the corridors are filled with hostile Venusians. “Sergeant, get us ready to go over the city to the hangar. We’ll want any spare sets of power armor and flight armor for myself and my flight. Once we’ve gotten our Angels and our shuttle out of there, we’ll have more options and be able to make a real difference in the fight.
“We’ll take everything we can and still remain mobile. Rig up the stretchers on smart lines; we need to get our wounded out of here, too. I don’t want to leave anyone behind for the Venusians to work over. Anything we can’t take, set to self-destruct; I don’t want them getting our technology, either. The smart-mines and automated defenses can self-destruct 30 minutes after we leave.”
I bring up a map of Ishtar city on the holographic projectors. “We’ll send some of our handheld remotes out first to make sure the way is clear. Then we’ll make our way out the already broken windows, and climb the outer facing—here.” That’ll have us climbing a zigzag pattern up along a series of balconies on the outermost wall of the floating city. “We’ll proceed across the dorsal surface, along the side of this support spar.” The raised structure should help give us some cover or concealment, and its industrial purpose places it far away from the gardens and balconies that cover so much of the upper surface of the city. “We’ll make our way through Ariel Park, here, then down by this structural spar until we reach the hangar. Then we’ll identify and attack the hostile forces, enter the hangar, board the shuttle and our exo-frames, and exit Ishtar to rendezvous with the main task force.”
It’s a long way to go, lots of things could go wrong, and I don’t even know if the shuttle or our frames are still there. Hang on, Talon, we’re coming soon.
Cherubim Page 20
