by Chris Bunch
“Find something to sandbag me,” Kipchak ordered, and Erik puzzled, found a flatiron and four sacks of washers, piled them for Kipchak to rest the forehand of the Squad Support Weapon on.
“See that little bitty window?” Kipchak asked.
“Hell yes. They shot at me out of that.”
“Spot me.”
“Huh?” Erik said.
“I said spot me, dammit! Like on the range.”
“Oh. ’Kay.”
Kipchak fired a single shot.
“Uh … high. Left.”
Kipchak tsked, moved his sights a little, fired again.
“High. Center.”
Another round went out.
“I didn’t see it. I think a hit. Yeh. You put it in the window all right!”
“Nail this bastard down.” The weights went around the bipod legs of the Squad Support Weapon. “Now lemme show you something,” Petr said. “They’re all nice and bulletproof outside, right?”
“Right.”
Petr braced the butt of the SSW, let twenty bolts slam through the tiny window, paused, then another twenty, then another pause and the rest of the belt. “More ammo,” he ordered, but the door to the bank, if that was what it was, came open, and bleeding ’Raum, waving white rags, handkerchiefs, even pieces of paper, came stumbling out. “Bulletproof outside means bulletproof inside,” Kipchak said in satisfaction. “Bouncing bolts bedazzle and baffle bandits.”
• • •
No one except a couple of radar techs noticed the luxury lifter as it climbed high into the sky, Leggett no more than a dot below.
• • •
Griersons dropped into the Eckmuhl, and troops trotted off. I&R men were waiting to escort them.
“Just follow me,” a grimy soldier told a group of officers. “I’ll put your men where they’re supposed to be.”
The haut in charge looked suspiciously at the man, who wore no insignia. “Follow you? Might I ask your rank?”
“Cent Radcliffe’s my name,” Striker Penwyth said. “And I’ve got personal authorization from Mil Rao.”
“Oh. Then I guess everything’s all right. Come on, troops,” the haut said.
• • •
Njangu came to his feet, surprised, as Garvin walked out of the hospital entrance. He wore oversize fatigues, and one shoulder was lumpier than the other.
“What ho,” he said. “I thought you’d be flat on your ass in a ward, trying to play giggle and pinch with the nurses and feebly taking visitors.”
“That’s what they wanted to do to me,” Garvin said. “I didn’t like the idea.”
“Why not? Some nice days off after the shit we’ve been through. Float back, relax, and get some ghost time.”
“Uh-uh. I’m going back over, as soon as I can scrounge a combat vest and a blaster.”
“You’re what?”
“I promised I was going to kill Tver … his real name’s Brooks, by the way … if I got a chance. So I’m making the chance.”
“Aw shit, Garvin. I barely had time to take a shower and you want to go jump back in the stutter. You getting medal-happy or something?”
“Nobody said you had to go.”
“Not much they didn’t.” Njangu growled. “All right. Let’s scout up some bangsticks. You got any ideas how we’re gonna find our boy?”
“Yeah. But I’m not telling you ‘til we’re on the ground. You might jump the line and kill him first.”
• • •
“Is the fuse set, my brother?”
“It is.”
The pilot of the luxury lifter bowed his head, and his lips moved silently. “Then we go, and may the One bless our Task.” He pushed the control wheel forward, and the lifter nosed over. It dived down and down, starting to shudder, and the lifter’s computer pushed out dive brakes and the shuddering went away.
The driver tried not to look at his friend next to him, tried not to look out at the blue of the bay and the white stone, now smoke-covered, of the Eckmuhl, whose every alley he knew and loved. All that existed, all that should exist, was the swelling mass of the fortress below.
• • •
The sentries at the gates of the Planetary Government’s headquarters had a bare moment to react to the sonic boom, look up, and see the blurred black lifter as it dived almost straight down, into the main PlanGov building, centering on the mosaiced stained-glass dome over the main conference room, where most of D-Cumbre’s governing element were concluding a daylong meeting.
In the explosion died Planetary Governor Wilth Haemer, and most of his staff; about half of the Rentiers on the Council, including Bampur and Loy Kouro’s father, publisher of Matin; Godrevy Mellusin, Jasith’s father; Police Major Gothian, head of Planetary Police’s Policy and Analysis Division; and Caud Jochim Williams, along with his aides and heads of II Section (Intelligence), III Section (Operations) and V Section (Civil Coordination).
• • •
Jord’n Brooks watched the holo of central Leggett, the cauldron of destruction where Planetary Government had been for a brief moment, then slung his blaster, started out of the snack bar.
“There have been enough words,” he said, “Now is the Time. Our time to kill them all.”
He smiled.
CHAPTER
35
The ’Raum boiled out of the Eckmuhl. Some were disciplined assault forces on their assigned Tasks. Others were looking for revenge or loot.
About two hundred trained warriors attacked the ruins of the PlanGov fortress, with orders to leave no officials alive, and destroy all PlanGov records, from police files to mining deeds to land documents. The firefighters and medics swarming around the capitol didn’t see the formation trotting up the winding avenue, but one man did.
Finf Running Bear, Caud Williams’ driver/orderly, was crumpled inside his Cooke. The explosion had sent the vehicle tumbling across the avenue, flattening Running Bear on the floorboards, as he tried to keep from being thrown out and crushed. The Cooke came to rest halfway up a grassy bank, windscreen shattered. Stunned and bruised, Running Bear half sat, opened an eye, saw armed men and women running toward him, perhaps two hundred meters away. He vaguely identified them as ’Raum, and wondered why they were attacking him. He looked for Caud Williams for orders, saw no one.
He unclipped the autocannon from its travel lock, swung it up into position. He opened a box of ammunition, fed the belt of dully gleaming shells into the breech, ratcheted the operating handle twice, as he’d been trained so long ago, chambering the first 20mm round. Running Bear turned the range-finding sight on, hit the RANGE sensor as the oncoming ’Raum closed, and touched the trigger between the twin handles. The gun chattered, and he swung it across the formation. The hand-long shells, intended to penetrate light armor, sliced through the crowd. Bodies spun, shattered, and blood sprayed.
Running Bear heard blaster bolts explode around him, paid no mind. He swept the ’Raum again, and again. Something — an almost-spent bolt — cut his side, and he saw blood, but he had no time for that. ’Raum were falling back, some running, others, braver or more disciplined, found firing positions behind debris or in the open. Running Bear corrected his aim, and in two- or three-round bursts, killed them as well.
The gun stopped firing, and Running Bear realized the two-hundred-round ammunition box was empty. Moving carefully, slowly, he took another box from the rear of the Cooke, opened it, and fed another belt into the cannon. Something was running in his eyes, and he wiped his sleeve across them, saw blood, but felt no pain. He saw a group of ’Raum on their feet, about to charge, cut them down, swung his aim to the other side of the road, blasted three ’Raum who thought an overturned lifter would be adequate cover.
The dullness was fading, as if he were waking, and he felt the slash across his scalp, the wound in his side, another one he hadn’t noticed on his upper arm, but they didn’t matter. He shouted, a long, ululating cry no one on D-Cumbre would have known, but might have been fam
iliar to warriors a millennium earlier, on battlegrounds around Fort Phil Kearney, on the banks of the Rosebud River, at a place called Little Bighorn.
Again the gun clanked empty, and again he reloaded. He was aware there were other soldiers behind him, and he heard their guns firing. He looked for more ’Raum to kill, saw none. There were a few of them, running hard, far down the avenue, then they, too, were gone, their attack shattered before it began. The street was carpeted with broken bodies, and the wounded groaned, screamed.
Finf Running Bear got out of the Cooke. Someone came up, but Running Bear looked at him, and he stood away. He did not need, would not allow, anyone to help him. Proudly, slowly, he walked up the avenue, to where a Grierson with a bright red cross waited.
• • •
Loy Kouro stared blankly out of the screen at Mil Rao. “My father …” he said brokenly.
“Was killed with Governor Haemer,” Mil Rao said patiently. “As was Caud Williams and most of the other officials of the Planetary Government. I have assumed command of the Strike Force, in the name of the Confederation, and have temporarily taken charge of Cumbre’s government. I want my proclamation broadcast by Matin … you are now its publisher … and the other holos immediately.”
“Yes,” Kouro said. “That is good. My father would approve. Yes. I can do that.”
Mil Rao broke contact, turned to Cent Angara. “Damfino if he understood. He’s shocky.”
“A lot of people are,” Angara agreed. “Now, sir. What are your orders?”
Rao drew a deep breath, walked away from the knot of Command and Control Griersons backed up to each other just outside the Eckmuhl’s main gates, ramps lowered.
“All right. I’m thinking out loud. Tell me when I miss something. First, is it legal for me to continue martial law without dealing with whoever survives from PlanGov?”
“I think so,” Angara said. “But there’s surely no one who’ll argue. Not now.”
“That’s done, then. I’m bringing you up as Force XO. Put whatsisface, Hedley, in charge of II Section. Operations … I’ll control that myself, appoint someone else when the smoke clears. Civil Coordination … we’ll find somebody to give excuses and press conferences later, when we’re through killing them.” He spotted Hedley coming toward the command group with two soldiers. “Alt Hedley! Over here!” The three hurried over, and Rao told the alt of his promotion. “You’ll be a cent, maybe a haut, I’ll figure out what your rank should be later.”
“Yessir.”
“Who’re these two?”
“Our agents inside the Eckmuhl. We just extracted them. Finf Jaansma, Striker Yoshitaro.”
“Oh. Right. Well-done. You’re both kicked up to dec, effective immediately.” Rao put them out of his mind. “Now, let me collect myself. First thing, we’ll withdraw First Regiment from the Eckmuhl. The ’Raum have broken out into Leggett in two places already. We’ll have to pull back to Camp Mahan, regroup, and — ”
“Sir! We can’t do that!”
Rao stopped cold, stared at Garvin. “I beg your pardon, Dec.”
“I said, sir, begging your pardon, sir, we can’t do that,” Jaansma went on. Hedley, behind Rao, was motioning for him to shut the flipping hell up if he knew what was healthy, and Njangu was trying to look like he was somewhere else. “Sir, we spent time around that ’Raum named Brooks. He’s the leader … or anyway as much of a leader as they have … of The Movement.”
“I don’t have time for this, soldier.”
“I’m sorry, sir, but this is important. Sir, Striker, I mean Dec, Yoshitaro knows a great deal about the man. Don’t you, Njangu? He knows what he’ll do next.”
“I’m listening,” Rao said, in a dangerously cold voice. “I hope I’m not listening to the two shortest-lived decs in the history of the Force.”
Njangu gave a hard look at Garvin, but they were for it now. “Yes, sir. His intelligence chief, a woman named Poynton, told me a lot. The way he handles a problem is to hit it hard. He leads from the front. But if something happens, if it doesn’t go right, he’ll break contact immediately. He thinks The Movement is more important than anything, and it must be preserved. If he loses today, there’s got to be fighters for tomorrow or next year. Poynton told me he was the one who ordered the ’Raum out of the jungles into the cities, where it was easier to fight and hide.”
“So what should I do?” Rao’s voice was a little less cold. Hedley was suddenly very glad that Williams was gone, for he couldn’t picture the late caud doing anything in this situation beyond ordering up a firing squad.
“Hit them where they’re breaking out of the Eckmuhl, sir,” Garvin said. “Hard enough so that you cannot just stop them, but wipe them out. Hit them hard enough, and you’ll have Brooks, and maybe that’ll break them for good. If the attack breaks, hit the stragglers, and that’ll maybe finish this.”
Rao nodded. “Thank you, Dec. Now, if you and your mate’ll excuse us …”
Garvin saluted, and he and Njangu hastily backed away.
“Nice going,” Njangu muttered. “Bigmouth.”
“You wanted a chance to kill the bastard,” Garvin said. “If we pull out, he’ll go back into the frigging woodwork, and we’ll have to start all over again going up and down those goddamned hills.”
“Maybe you’re right. So now what?”
“So now we go get Dill,” Garvin said firmly, “then look up Petr, and go hunting.”
“Oh joy,” Njangu said. “Nothing like a nice, private little war in the middle of all this nutsiness.”
• • •
Mil Rao looked at the two rankers as they hurried away. “He made some sense. But we’re spread very thin.”
“Not necessarily,” Angara said. “Second Regiment’s in reserve. Dump them with First into the Eckmuhl. Get all those independent companies back, and that’ll give you Fourth Regiment as reserve.”
“What about the other cities? The ’Raum are hitting all over D-Cumbre … and the mining companies’ police on C-Cumbre are about to break.”
“If we lose Leggett,” Angara said, “nothing else matters.”
“You’re right,” Rao said. “And I’ve got to stop thinking like … like the way things were done before. You didn’t mention Third Regiment.”
“Third’ll be the bastard,” Angara said. “Grab all the MPs from the whole goddamned Force, and put them in the streets with PAs going, saying anybody … and this means anybody … who’s on the streets and armed is a dead pigeon. Then dump in Third Regiment and make it so. Hammer the ’Raum back into the Eckmuhl, and kill any vigilantes the Rentiers put in, as well as any private looters.”
“We’ll have some innocent dead out of that.”
“When it’s all over, we’ll make reparations and apologies, which is easy when nobody’s shooting. Just like we’re going to have to make sure somebody changes the way this goddamned planet’s run, unless we want Son of The Movement coming back in five or ten years.”
Rao thought for a moment. “You know,” he said, “when you read about great battles and things, there always seems to be a single point that everything devolves from. Is this one of them? If it is, damned if I don’t feel uncomfortable, having figured out a long time ago I don’t fit into a star marshal’s boots.”
“I don’t know, sir,” Angara said honestly. “But what do we have to lose? We’re cut off from the Confederation, the Musth are probably going to want our ass for breakfast after what happened to their mining center, and sooner or later Redruth’s going to show up again. I’d just as soon not have to worry about our backs when everybody else comes a-knocking.”
Raum nodded grimly. “Like you said, what do we have to lose?”
• • •
The ’Raum attack in Leggett was three-pronged. The first, against the ruins of PlanGov, had been broken by Running Bear. The second, deliberately planned to be as much a riot as an assault, was against the city center, intended to do as much damage as possible, demoralize
the citizens of Leggett, and mask the other two assaults.
The third was against the traditional enemies of the ’Raum, striking southwest toward the Rentiers’ district, the Heights.
• • •
Dec Nectan, Alpha Team Leader, ducked back as a rocket exploded against the huge tree he was sheltering behind. It creaked, groaned, but held steady. He leaned out, snapped a shot back that he secretly knew missed, and looked down the line of soldiers. Some were his, others were infantry from line units that’d somehow joined up with his troop of I&R. A spirant Vauxhall wriggled toward him, covered up as a bolt blew dust, then was safe.
“We’re surely pinned,” Nectan said.
“What’s your plan?”
“Wait ‘em out,” Nectan said.
“That’s NG,” Vauxhall said. “For all we know, they’re holding us with a blocking force, and the rest of the bastards have cut around our flanks.”
“Okay, boss,” Nectan said. “Your turn in the barrel.”
“Let’s try to shock them out,” Vauxhall said. “I’ll grab one of the Cookes and make a strafing run. You get the troops up, and hit ‘em hard as soon as I’m clear.”
“I dunno,” Nectan said. “You’ll be wide-open if they’ve got AA.”
“Aw, shit,” Vauxhall said. “You ever know a ’Raum who could shoot?”
Nectan thought of answering — damned right he did, and he’d buried the men and women who didn’t believe it, but said nothing.
“Give me five minutes,” Vauxhall said. He squirmed away. Nectan shook his head and darted from tree to tree, giving orders.
Five minutes ticked past. Nectan heard the whine of a turbine over the clash of fighting. “Get ready!” he shouted, and a battered Cooke banked around a corner, flying below the rooftops. He didn’t recognize the pilot, but saw Vauxhall strapped behind the cannon. The cannon blasted holes in the storefronts, sent dust cascading.
“Come on! Up and into ‘em,” Nectan shouted. He didn’t see the flash, but heard the blast as a rocket smashed into the cockpit of the Cooke, and the lifter exploded. “Let’s go! Go!” he shouted, and the line of infantrymen was moving forward, ragged, but moving, from a walk into a trot and their blasters were firing steadily.
