Audacious

by Mike Shepherd

None of the big people really knew them, yet they all had to have seen them at this important party, that event. Now they were dead.

  And you would be, too, if you don’t do what the guys with guns tell you. It was an easily readable message. Yet those two were nobody that anybody personally knew. No one reached for a gun to defend either of the two women.

  Still, people looked at those two familiar bodies, and looked away or tossed up their fancy hors d’oeuvres.

  And obeyed the guys with guns.

  This was almost too easy.

  There was one more dead body Grant wanted to add to that collection. He searched for a certain red dress.

  And did not find it.

  So he eyed the crowd for bright red and blue Marines…and found them. But the women they surrounded all wore black, except for the orange thing that seemed out of place here.

  Grant called up the picture of the princess arriving and, yes, there she was on the arm of the Naval officer.

  He now stood alone.

  The orange woman, yes, a Naval officer herself, had been escorted by a Marine officer.

  Now a sergeant stood at her side.

  When had that changed?

  Grant eyed the brunette in a similar tight dress to the red one the princess had been wearing when he last saw her. Was someone gaming him?

  For only a second he considered having the Marines hauled up to him. Then he dropped it. That they had produced no weapons, offered no proof that they were not armed. And they stood there, united, defiant in their ranks.

  And other security men were gravitating to them.

  That was going to be a tough nut to crack.

  He’d remember that when the time came to kill them all.

  Grant tapped his commlink. “I have a problem, Colonel.”

  “Strange enough, so do I. Who goes first?”

  “Princess Kristine of Wardhaven was not caught up in our net. I suspect she is on the loose somewhere in the building with two or three of her Marines.”

  “That should be easily solved,” the colonel said. Grant considered disabusing the man of his error but let him go on.

  “The rapid reaction force is coming in,” the colonel announced into the silence. “If you want a good view of their deaths, you might want to stand behind the rotunda doors.

  “Take them down,” Grant ordered. Just like in the old days. His smile tightened. It would be good to get back to giving orders and having powerful men snap to and obey.

  Still, he did not move for a better view. It would be a shame to die gawking at an easy kill if one stray bullet got lucky.

  Grant did remember the old times.

  Even on the roof, Kris heard the roar of powerful engines. Through a window, she spotted eight-wheeled, armored personnel carriers roaring at full bore for the entrance.

  The cavalry was arriving.

  Maybe even in time.

  NELLY, WHAT’S THE NANO SITUATION?

  STRANGE NANOS ARE COMING DOWN THE HALL TOWARD US. I HAVE NEVER SEEN THIS KIND BEFORE. I AM LAUNCHING KILLER NANOS TO TAKE THEM OUT. PLEASE WAIT.

  “Freeze. Go dark,” Kris ordered through unmoving lips.

  And Kris turned into a black hole, married to a shadow in a darkened hall. Behind her, her Marines did the same.

  Along the roof beside them auto-guns opened fire. Twenty millimeter, piercing, armored shells tore into the top of the carriers. What they did to the men inside, Kris did not want to imagine.

  NELLY, WE NEED TO GET MOVING.

  KRIS, THESE NANOS ARE GOOD. I AM HAVING TO REINFORCE MY OWN. WE COULD LOSE THIS BATTLE.

  DON’T. STRIP MY CROWN IF YOU HAVE TO. KILL THOSE NANOS. WE HAVE TO PUT THOSE AUTO-GUNS OUT OF BUSINESS BEFORE OUR MARINES TRY TO GET IN.

  I AM TRYING, KRIS.

  Outside, a shell hit a gas tank and the personnel carrier exploded in flames.

  Four, five, six of them raced out of control, drivers dead or on fire or both. They collided with walls, trees, one another.

  Kris was grateful the distance robbed the scene of human sounds.

  And into that small piece of hell, new monsters trundled on tracks that would have shaken any building except this one of granite and marble.

  Where did Eden get those old battle tanks? Their appearance left the question irrelevant. Troops with assault rifles trotted along in the shadows of the monsters. This was a combined arms assault by skilled soldiers.

  Of course, smoke, a fire plan, and solid preparation of the battlefield would have been nice, too.

  But you don’t blast a battlefield loaded with the movers and shakers of your planet, now do you. Someone had ordered the heavies in without the heavy prep.

  So they rumbled, but no cannon’s roared. No machine guns reached out to challenge the auto-guns.

  Kris would have shaken her head at the sight. But the door down the hall opened and a man with a machine pistol stuck his head out to get a personal take on the scene.

  His face showed hard, alert, lit as it was by the sparkle of burning nanos. He grimaced at the battle taking place in front of his door. Then he studied the hall, marking each shadow.

  His hard eyes seemed of half a mind to just spray the space with a full clip and be done with it.

  Someone inside shouted something, and he scowled…and turned back in.

  The door slammed. Tumblers of a heavy-duty lock spun.

  Kris almost let a sigh out.

  And the world in front of the Gallery lit up as a rocket shot from the roof to slam into the rear of the lead tank.

  It hung there, burning for a second. Then it must have burned through. The rear of the tank exploded.

  Another rocket led a straight line of glare to a second tank. In less than a breath, that one, too, was a flaming pyre.

  NELLY, HOW MUCH LONGER?

  WE ALMOST HAVE THEM, KRIS.

  ALMOST IS NO HELP TO THOSE POOR DEVILS BURNING OUT THERE.

  I KNOW, KRIS. I AM DOING MY BEST.

  Kris knew she was. Knew that no one could do any better. It wasn’t Nelly that Kris was mad at. There was a certain Grant von Schrader who was running up quite a tab.

  A tab Kris intended to collect to its fullest.

  “We are clear. Only our nanos are left,” Nelly announced.

  Kris moved quickly, silently down the hall.

  50

  Captain DeVar had gotten the whispered “Batter up,” signal from Penny, followed by no more information than he could glean from the reflections of explosions and rocket fire as it lit up the soft afterglow of sunset around the Gallery.

  He’d ordered Gunny to keep his own counsel, unsure if they’d have communications or not. The princess had warned about the possibility of jamming.

  “Commander Tordon, are you on net?”

  “Sounds like I’m about the only one on it.”

  “Are you being jammed?”

  “Not that I’m aware of, Marine. I suspect if they jam us, they also jam themselves. Just now, they need to talk at least as much as us to find out what’s happening.”

  “So what is happening?” DeVar asked.

  “All hell done broke lose, son, and the devil’s out to lunch” came through in an easy drawl that almost made the Marine forget how bad things were.

  “There’s all sorts of confusion on the main government net about what may or may not be going on at the presidential palace. Some say he’s dead. Some say he escaped but wounded. There’s a whole lot of shouting on net for orders. Any orders. Any of that sound about right from your viewpoint?”

  “Most of what’s happening seems to be on the other side of the palace from me,” DeVar said. “I see a lot of reflections of things. Is anyone being jammed?”

  “Not that I can tell. But with everybody yammering and shouting, I can’t tell if there’s a hole in the middle of it. There’s plenty of folks willing to fill any hint of silence.”

  “How’s the rest of town?”

  “There’s an assault under way on that warehous
e we visited yesterday. But we kind of expected that. Your Lieutenant Martinez is up to his eyeteeth on that one. Don’t look for any help from him for a while.”

  “I wasn’t expecting any. If he can hold, though, these folks out here won’t be getting any extra help, either.

  “So, what you gonna do? Storm the place?”

  “I don’t know, Commander. It don’t look any too good, but I can’t be sure it won’t be worse in a few minutes.”

  “Ain’t that what they call a leadership challenge?” DeVar could almost hear the grin behind that.

  “Seems to me that’s what it is,” he said. “Let me know if anything changes on your end.”

  “I will. You’re about the only one calling home. Ain’t that sad how kids never do?”

  And the familiar voice was gone.

  Captain DeVar studied the Gallery, or palace, or killing field. Whatever it was.

  Talk to me Kris. What’s happening?

  Grant von Schrader watched as the last tank backed up, a failed antitank rocket sputtering on its heavily armored snout.

  “Well, it will be a long while before they try that again,” he said, smiling at the sergeant at his elbow.

  “No question, sir.”

  Grant turned back to the huddled wealth before him. Many of them had watched through the Gallery’s windows as their salvation turned to failure, death, and flight. He smiled as a wave of dread swept the place. Well, most of the place.

  The Marines stared back at him with hard, defiant eyes.

  “What shall I do about that missing princess?” As Grant mulled that conundrum, he climbed up to stand among the greats of Eden on Landing Day. And smiled at the image of himself. It was a pleasant thought.

  The Marines had formed themselves into a loose battle array halfway down the great hall’s south wing with their backs to the west wall. The only good shots at them would be from the east side of the second floor walk. The officers had their backs to the wall. The Marines held the first line.

  More and more of the still-armed security guards migrated to stand with them.

  During the initial planning, Grant had given thought to disarming everyone immediately. And given it up as taking too much time.

  Grant figured the dispirited people would be helpless and little trouble even with guns.

  He had not considered that some of the guards might be Marines. Dispirited and helpless didn’t seem to be in their vocabulary.

  “Commander,” Grant shouted, “you over there. Where’s Kris Longknife?”

  The Navy commander shared a few words with the woman in the ridiculous orange taffeta affair. She nodded and then stood a bit straighter.

  “I speak for this detachment.” The missing “sir” hung like a slap in the air.

  “And you are?”

  “Lieutenant Pasley-Lien, United Sentient Navy.”

  “Where’s Kris Longknife?”

  “The last place you want her, buster” shot back at him. That brought a titter of laughter to the hall.

  Looking ridiculous in front of these people was the last thing Grant wanted.

  “Throw down your guns, and I’ll let you live.”

  “Our guns are all that’s keeping you from slaughtering us. No way, my optimistic little friend.”

  Again the hall ran with that nervous twitter.

  Above them came the sounds of running feet. The riflemen brought in on the last of the caterer’s trucks galloped down the second-floor gallery and took up positions, assault rifles aimed down into the crowd.

  With luck, they might actually hit something if they fired, Grant thought. He’d been briefed about their poor performance on the rifle range.

  But no one down there knew that.

  “You, security guards,” Grant shouted. “You still have your weapons. Disarm those hardcases for me. You can’t be afraid of a couple of Marines. Do it and you have a job with me.”

  The security guards looked around among themselves. Some whispered things Grant didn’t catch.

  One looked like he might take Grant up on his offer, but he ended up coldcocked before anything came of it. Someone picked up his pistol and joined the group around the Marines.

  “You’re putting a lot of people at risk, Lieutenant Pasley. You could lose everything very quickly.”

  “I’m a widow, buster, you Peterwald toadies already took everything I hold dear” came back in a cold voice.

  A check with his computer told him what he should have researched sooner.

  “You going to let a nutcase like that get you all killed?” didn’t have the impact Grant expected.

  “Sergeant,” he shouted to one that commanded the shooters on the second-floor balcony, “throw down some plastic cuffs. If you allow yourself to be cuffed we’ll move you down to the north wing. You won’t get killed if we have to shoot these crazies.”

  The plastic stringers were thrown out, scattering as they fell. Some people did offer their wrists to their neighbors to be bound.

  “Don’t do it,” the orange harridan shouted. “They want to kill us all. If you make it easy for them, they’ll just kill you last.”

  The eager rush to be cuffed died.

  Grant eyed the firing line on the second floor. Should he give the order to fire? Let the massacre begin? He did not plan to let anyone here out alive. The only question was when to let them in on the secret.

  “Hey, Grant!” That blasted woman’s voice drew his attention back to her. The tall Naval commander moved out from in front of her.

  She held a service automatic. It was aimed directly between Grant’s eyes.

  “You die first,” she said.

  A second later, several of the Marines had joined her, their automatics on him. Reflexively, Grant’s eyes searched their uniforms. All were sharpshooters. One a sniper.

  Somewhere in the building there was an explosion.

  Now Marines and armed security guards drew beads on the punks lining the upper balcony.

  “You sure you want to die with a jarhead’s dart between your eyes” came in the voice of a Marine sergeant.

  Above, rifles wavered. One disappeared from view as someone broke into a run.

  Grant waited for one of his sergeants to tell him what was happening. Better yet, for one of his sharpshooters to take that woman down.

  Then the lights went out.

  Grant dropped into the darkness and off of the bronzes. Behind him darts pinged off the artwork where he’d been a second ago.

  Kris said a bitter word as the lights went out. That was not what she’d intended.

  She’d edged up to the door slowly, examining it as she went. It was metal, with an armored-glass window, reinforced with bars. In an older, more safe world, it would have been the epitome of maximum security.

  Today, it was puny.

  She waved a Marine forward. He frowned at the lock, then reached into this uniform and withdrew a coil of plastic explosives.

  While he rigged the door for destruction, Kris risked a few glances through the glass.

  It showed her little. Whatever was inside was far inside, well away from the door. What she did see carried the hint of observation and security.

  Hopefully, this was where the auto-guns were controlled.

  The Marine stepped back, signaling that he was ready to blow both the lock and the hinges.

  Kris reached into the padding of her rear and pulled out two whizbangs. Jack took one. She kept the other.

  The sergeant held up three fingers, then two. Finally one.

  And the door exploded.

  Kris launched herself from the wall in a low crouch. She hit the door low, Jack high. It went down ahead of them.

  But not flat. A body was on the floor beneath it.

  Ahead of Kris was a counter, a glass cage cutting off further access to the computer stations within.

  There was all of ten centimeters of clearance between counter and glass to allow supplicants to pass requests inside.
/>   Kris tossed her whizbang through the space the same moment Jack did.

  Behind her, a Marine went fully automatic, hammering at a small-caliber auto-gun turning to take her under fire.

  Even as Kris ducked and rolled up to the counter, the auto-gun was sighting in on her. Kris left that problem to the Marine behind her and aimed her gun at the four men sitting at the computer stations in the room.

  The auto-gun put three rounds into Kris’s hairdo, then coughed and spat no more.

  That’s going to hurt in the morning, Kris thought, as she shouted, “Anyone got a grenade?”

  “Here’s one,” a sergeant behind her shouted. He tossed. She caught it, pulled the pin in one motion, and tossed it through the opening in the glass.

  “Fire in the hole,” someone shouted.

  A moment later there was an explosion. Kris counted to two, then jumped up and started shooting.

  Maybe she didn’t aim all that precisely at any specific target. Maybe she should have.

  The lights went out.

  51

  For fifteen seconds, only the light of muzzle flashes lit up the main hall. It was enough for people to die by.

  Penny tried to trace Von Schrader’s flight by the flashes of the gunners behind him, but he was in full beat-feet mode, and not looking back.

  Penny did see several gunners go down behind him, so she wasn’t wasting her ammo.

  “Mind if we grab some grenades, ma’am” came from a Marine.

  “Let’s don’t and say we do,” Penny said. “We got a lot of civilians lying around” was her answer.

  “Let’s get them some protection,” Commander Mulhoney shouted. He rolled behind a marble statue in front of Penny, braced his back against the wall, and pushed. What was likely a very expensive bit of art toppled over, crashing into pieces as it hit. But people could huddle behind it. Around the great hall, other statues of bronze and marble went down.

  Fire from the balcony was getting light. Penny balanced that against the fire from the rotunda and ordered her shooters to concentrate there. She also sent a couple of shooters to cover the stairwells in the back. No question, she could be rushed from there.

  “Let me see if I can get some of the civilians out of here,” Commander Mulhoney said. He backed up, found a door that opened onto the east portico, and tried it. It stayed closed. He stood and fired at the lock. It flew open.