“I understand,” Erik assured her. “Thank you, Gunnery Sergeant.” Brice stared at him a moment longer, in the manner of a veteran soldier who’d just thrown a green kid a rifle and required him to cover her back like another veteran. Doubtless there were dozens more things she’d like to tell him, but knew that rookies could only absorb so much, and shouldn’t be overloaded.
“Right,” she said, and hefted her short rifle with a wince at the pain from her rib. She moved to check on Cruze and the explosives to breach the wall. They hadn’t given him any grenades, Erik noted, feeling the shotgun’s grips with sweaty hands. That was probably just as well. He recalled Trace’s similar unease at giving him grenades in the Stoya temple. He’d been scared then, too, but not as scared as this. Trace’s presence had been comforting, and he didn’t think Alomaim would be offended to know it. He hoped to hell she was okay, where ever she was.
“Our getaway is in position in nine minutes,” said Alomaim, as Cruze confirmed the explosives were all in place. “I reckon we’ll take six. Everyone, positions.”
They went to a corridor corner, and Alomaim produced something Erik hadn’t noticed he was carrying. “Captain, I got this for you. Looks about your size.”
Erik looked, and saw it was the US marine helmet from the krim’s trophy room. He took it, knowing better than to argue with Alomaim’s instruction here. “Where’s yours?” he asked pointedly. “There were more helmets there.”
“Old, unfamiliar helmets in a close-quarters environment are asking for trouble,” the Lieutenant replied, watching carefully to see Erik buckled it correctly, and that it fit. “They fall off, get in your eyes at the wrong moment, we all die.”
“Doesn’t apply to me, does it?” Erik asked drily, pulling the strap tight beneath his chin.
“With respect sir, no one’s counting on your aim to save our asses. But we’re all counting on that brain of yours to save all our asses next time Phoenix is in a dogfight, and I’d like to see it protected.” He gave the helmet a shake to be sure that it sat well on his Captain’s head. “Looks good on you. Now just stay with Fuzz and Slips, and do exactly what they tell you, and you’ll be fine.”
“Why do they call you Fuzz?” Erik asked Cruze, as the Private examined the readout on the detonator trigger he’d rigged. He’d learned the names of all the marines by now, but was still working on the nicknames.
“Rather not say, sir,” said Cruze, crouching by the corner.
“He got drunk once and mooned a female army officer from across a bar,” Sergeant Brice said helpfully. “She said he had a hairy butt, like peach fuzz.”
“Thanks Sarge,” said Cruze.
“Anytime, Fuzz.”
“And why are you ‘Slips’?” Erik added. It was a better thing to think about than what they were about to do.
“‘Slips’ for ‘Slippery’, sir,” said Brice, matter-of-factly.
“‘Slippery’ as in…?”
“As in the female equivalent of hard, sir.”
Erik nearly smiled. “Oh. You must be thrilled with it.”
“Easily offended women don’t join the marines, sir.”
Erik had a thought. “Did the Major ever have a nickname? I know senior officers lose their nicknames because only equal or higher ranks use them, but what about before, when she was green?”
“The Major was never green,” said Alomaim, performing a final check of his rifle and gear. “She was new, but never green.” He half-smiled, with a flash of adrenaline Erik had never seen from him before. “I heard that for the first few months, her nickname with other officers was ‘Cheeks’.”
“Cheeks?” Brice wondered. “Seriously?”
“She refused to let some Lieutenant Colonel through when she was on station guard duty. He didn’t have clearance, started shouting at her, ‘Listen, Sweet Cheeks…’”
Past the dry-lipped tension, Brice and Cruze looked amused.
“How long did ‘Cheeks’ last?” Erik wondered.
“Until her first combat action,” said Alomaim. “You know the Major. Some people are nickname people. She’s not. Fuzz, one minute.”
“Got it, LT.”
“We’re going straight, then down a level, then right. Styx, are you copying any of this?” There was no reply. “She’s still out of coms range.”
“She’ll pick us up as soon as we’re on the grid,” Erik assured him.
They passed the last minute in silence, Alomaim watching the time. Then, “Fuzz, ten seconds.” Followed by, “Do it.”
A huge blast tore through the adjoining hall. Then Alomaim was up, and all four of them moved quickly into choking smoke, the hall filled with burning pieces of wall panel. The wall was not structural, just a relatively thin dividing panel, and the directional blast had ripped a hole nearly a meter wide. Alomaim put a forearm on the hot, bent steel to avoid burning skin, and skipped through to avoid jagged edges. Erik managed the same after Brice, and gasped lungfuls of relatively clean air as they moved crouched and ready down the State Department HQ corridor beyond, emergency lights flashing red in time with a klaxon alarm.
“Hello Lieutenant Alomaim,” came Styx’s voice. “I see no defensive response to your location. You appear to have surprised them.”
Alomaim moved faster, Erik lengthening his stride to keep up, down a hall more well-decorated than most station halls, with dark panels to hide the steel, and large artworks between adjoining doors. They hit a stairwell, Erik abruptly recalling that he was supposed to be watching the rear more than the front, then abandoning that when he saw that Cruze had mastered the art of running sideways while facing back better than he ever could.
They burst out of the stairwell a level down, with Alomaim yelling at someone to ‘Get on the Floor!’, though without a belt speaker to amplify a translation. The hallway here was lined with flags, and some tavalai civilians were backing away with wide eyes as the armed humans came past. Alomaim turned right, past offices with glass fronts behind which more State Department staff were moving, dropping conversations and work stations to peer into the corridor. Erik reprimanded himself for even looking, trying to look behind and to the sides as they passed doorways, and workers shrank back in startlement. At their rear he saw tavalai climbing back to their feet, gesticulating and shouting — no panic, never with tavalai. From ahead came a thud, and then he was hurdling a body underfoot, and realised that one of the civvies had tried to tackle Alomaim and received a faceful of rifle butt.
Ahead then was a wider space, a junction of control rooms, halls and meeting points creating a layout confused and difficult to cover. No sooner had Erik noticed than he glimpsed another tavalai in formal attire, wielding a gun and pointing — Cruze fired a single shot and he dropped. Too fast, Erik thought crazily, covering left as Brice indicated that way with a flick of her hand, as several civilians milled and stared from up that way.
“One down behind,” Cruze said calmly on coms. “He had a pistol.”
“Ahead and left, Lieutenant,” Styx advised him. “You have approaching hostiles on your left flank, do it fast.”
Alomaim went fast across the intersection, through a room of displays about a central core through floor and ceiling, and several tavalai disengaging from a VR simulation to stare in disbelief. Erik saw a tavalai past a far glass wall levelling a pistol, and fired his shotgun. Safety glass fractured rather than shattered, blinding the tavalai, who fired anyway.
“Gun!” Erik yelled, as Brice returned fire on full-auto, causing a cascade of collapsing glass where Erik’s shotgun hadn’t penetrated.
“Move LT!” Cruze yelled behind when Erik stopped to cover Brice. “Keep going!” And almost grabbed his arm, Erik running onward after Alomaim and guessing that meant Brice would follow, as the first person to engage would stay engaged.
Alomaim went down the next corridor with Erik behind, as Styx advised that, “The next left, your target room has armed guards waiting.”
Alomaim pulled a grenade at
full run, primed and threw it around the corner without looking. Shots chased his arm, then a sharp explosion and the Lieutenant swung out and low, spraying the corridor with fire. Erik was about to follow him in, but Cruze came past to take his Lieutenant’s side, and Erik swung to guard their rear, finding Brice coming up behind with her back to him, having taken the rear-guard when the others had dashed past.
More fire from Alomaim and Cruze, then shouting and more glass breaking. “We got him!” Alomaim announced. “We got Hiro.”
“I’m coming,” said Erik, recalling that the plan was for him to carry Hiro if he couldn’t walk, as his was the only gun they could spare. He ran into smoke from the grenade, walls torn with shrapnel and a body on the ground — parren, not tavalai. At the door the parren had been guarding was Cruze, swinging out to guard the corridor as Erik arrived.
The room inside had soundproof walls, a collection of sensory gear and a neighbouring observation window, a thin rectangle behind which several heads were watching, no doubt calling for help. Erik fired a shotgun blast and the glass shattered, as the two tavalai and a parren in the room flinched. On a reclining psych-ward style bench, bound with arms restrained above his head, was Hiro — shirtless, his face bloodied, with every sign of having been poorly treated. On the floor, another two bodies — one tavalai, one parren.
And the standing parren… Erik stared. “Lieutenant, you get Hiro out,” Erik commanded, shotgun levelled at the interrogators. None appeared armed. Senior figures, Erik thought, relying on lightly-armed guards to protect them. “I’ve got the area-weapon, I’ve got these three with one shot.” It was unorthodox — Alomaim was by far the better fighter, anything involving guns should logically be left to him… but the Lieutenant sensed that something was up, and set about undoing Hiro’s restraints from the far side of the interrogators, keeping a one-handed rifle aimed in their direction.
The parren was wearing high-ranking robes, pure and white. For the first time, Erik’s glasses showed him something useful, flickering recognition brackets about his face, then flashing a quick ID onto a neighbouring image. A name appeared. Tobenrah das Adard. ‘Adard’ meant ‘Harmony’, in the primary parren tongue. Tobenrah of Harmony.
“Captain,” said Styx. “I recognise this face off Phoenix’s recently-acquired parren databases.” She must have been seeing through Alomaim’s glasses, Erik thought. “This is Tobenrah, the head of Incefadh Denomination, leader of all House Harmony.”
Here in the Tsubarata, with State Department. Looking in on the interrogation of a Phoenix crewman. This was Aristan’s most concerned and powerful enemy, head of the denomination that Aristan’s Domesh denomination sought to overthrow, and wrest control of all House Harmony. Surely he knew how Phoenix had become recently tied up with Aristan’s group. For him to be here, in person, suggested fear. And this much fear, suggested knowledge.
“What are you doing here?” Erik growled.
The parren barely blinked, cool under pressure like all parren. He spoke, and Erik’s earpiece translated one second behind. “One might ask you the same thing, Captain Debogande.”
“State Department tried to assassinate me, using your people,” Erik retorted. “You must have agreed to it. Why?”
“You are running a covert operation here in Kantovan System,” said Tobenrah, unperturbed. “One suspects you did not come here to make a speech at all. Why then, if not that?”
Erik saw the two State Department tavalai staring back and forth between him, and the parren, in consternation. Suddenly he saw it — the debate within State Department, the likes of Jelidanatagani insisting that Phoenix was up to some dastardly scheme involving the Parliament speech, while the reports of strange activities elsewhere in Kantovan filtered in over the past hours — trouble in Gamesh, trouble on Chara, reports of highly-trained humans involved, with suspiciously advanced network capabilities. Tavalai were stubborn, and bureaucrats like Jeli didn’t change their minds easily. No doubt there’d been much of that famous tavalai institutional infighting, the pig-headed arguments between important individuals that went on for days and weeks without resolution, while nothing got done.
And now their parren guest had put his finger on it, far more astutely than the brightest minds of the State Department were capable. Parren, Erik supposed, were not tavalai. Where tavalai were obstinate, parren were mercurial, perceptive, and dangerous.
Beside him, Alomaim had freed Hiro from his restraints. Erik gave Tobenrah a hard stare beneath the brim of his ancient helmet. “See my sister safe and well,” he said, “and perhaps then I’ll share it with you.”
He indicated Alomaim past him, backing to the doorway with his shotgun levelled. There was shooting further up the corridor, where Brice was guarding their backs, while ahead at the next corner, Cruze beckoned them on. “I got him,” said Erik, bending to lift the half-conscious Hiro over his shoulders, and finding the weight not-too-difficult. “Let’s go.”
“Your escape ride is arriving in less than two minutes,” Styx informed them. “Defensive deployment appears to be gathering to block your retreat back to the Krim Quarter, they have not anticipated your move to the shuttle berth.”
They hadn’t. The tavalai between the humans and the berth level were all unarmed, and scrambled aside at the sight of mean-looking humans with firearms. Berth level had checkpoints, secure gates that Alomaim simply shot until one admitted him with a kick, while behind, Cruze sent a pursuing armed tavalai diving for cover with more fire. Erik ran as best he could, rifle in one hand and bowed beneath Hiro’s weight, but he’d done a far harder run before while carrying a wounded man, and Hiro was not so big, and unarmored.
Past the checkpoint were grey-steel walls and doors to emergency compartments in case of accidental shuttle collisions, Styx keeping the heavy safety doors open that HQ were no doubt trying to slam shut in their faces. Finally an airlock berth ahead, with small viewing ports revealing the angular bulk of an alien shuttle docked on the far side. Already the airlock outer doors were open and waiting, Alomaim shouting at some tavalai docking crew to clear the way. They did, as the humans piled into the airlock.
“I can walk,” Hiro muttered weakly.
“Sure you can,” said Erik, making no move to put him down. The inner doors opened and again Alomaim went first, through the narrow access tube from the Tsubarata’s side, then sliding down the ladder where the access latched to the shuttle’s dorsal hatch below. Brice took Erik’s shotgun, and made sure Hiro was steady on Erik’s shoulders before he descended, but no one suggested to change the load, which Erik thought was progress.
“Captain, this is Phoenix,” came Lieutenant Shilu’s voice. “We have two State Department registered cruisers announcing an act of war, they’re targeting your shuttle.”
“Figures,” Erik muttered, descending the ladder as fast as he could with two feet and one hand. “Make sure the sulik know.” From near-coms he could hear a sulik screech and chatter, with all the grace of fingernails drawn down a board. “Alomaim, my translator’s not making out our pilot’s query, try and sort it out.”
“On it,” said Alomaim from below, heading to the bridge.
“Captain,” Shilu added, “we have two sulik cruisers registering active armscomp. They’re not targeting the State Department ships, but there are some encrypted communications flying back and forth.”
Erik reached the bottom, and lowered Hiro by necessity, as the sulik shuttle’s dimensions were low and tight. He bundled the spy into an acceleration chair that was not even slightly designed for humanoid bodies, and hoped the sulik recalled not to manoeuvre hard. Brice and Cruze followed, then Alomaim, yanking the sulik-shaped restraint bar down and putting his rifle over the top of it — there was nowhere to put the guns either, this being a civilian shuttle for peaceful sulik.
“We’re leaving,” he told them, as the shuttle vibrated with retreating grapples, then a crash as overhead station grapples released, then freefall.
“Cap
tain, this is Shahaim,” came the Commander’s voice. “I am refraining from activating armscomp at this time, it looks as though the sulik have deterred the State Department ships from firing. I’m getting demands from State Department to tell the sulik shuttle to return, Shilu is telling them it’s a sulik matter and nothing to do with us. Do you have anything to add?”
“Negative, Commander,” Erik told her, as the shuttle’s mild thrust kicked him back in the awkwardly-shaped chair. “You have command until I get there. I don’t think they’ll destroy a friendly sulik shuttle in cold-blood, they’ve messed up sulik relations badly enough just now without that on their hands. Just be sure to thank the sulik again when you get a chance, from me personally.”
“It might work better coming from Private Cruze,” Suli suggested. “But I will.”
Erik realised that they’d actually pulled it off, without losing anyone else. The relief was strong, but not the elation that he’d expected. Perhaps, he thought, he was actually getting used to this stuff, just a little bit. Or more likely, he was coming to truly realise just how good Phoenix Company marines truly were, and that considering the relative incompetence of the defenders in this instance, it wasn’t actually that surprising. He certainly didn’t think Trace was going to be all that impressed to hear about it. She’d tell him that high standards existed to make difficult things simple.
“Hello Captain,” said Styx. “Congratulations on your success. Might I ask a question?”
Erik blinked. “Yes Styx.”
“We are allied to the Domesh denomination. In the interrogation room just now, you suggested cooperation with the Incefahd, who had just recently tried to kill you. Why?”
Styx suspected human weakness, Erik thought. Pleading with enemies to save his sister, for no better than selfish gain. “Aristan is dangerous, Styx. We are allied to him only by necessity. Given a better option, especially a much stronger option militarily, I’ll take it.”
“You will betray your ally?”
“He was never our ally. But yes.”
Kantovan Vault (The Spiral Wars Book 3) Page 45
