Desperate Fire (Angel in the Whirlwind Book 4)

by Christopher Nuttall

  “See if you can hack their system,” he muttered to Rothschild. “Perhaps we can shut the bastards down completely.”

  “I’d need to get into the landline,” Rothschild said. “Their insulation isn’t very good, sir, but I’d probably set off an alarm if I cracked their wire.”

  “Primitive,” Bones said.

  “But effective,” Rothschild said. “Landlines have always proven harder to hack than electronic communications.”

  Pat felt sweat trickling down his sides as they reached the end of the tunnel and disembarked. A giant hatch loomed up in front of them, easily large enough to take a tank. He puzzled over it for a long moment—a tank couldn’t have fit through the tunnel—and then nodded to Rothschild to go to work. Unless the enemy was utterly incompetent, there would be a guard post stationed on the far side of the hatch. That was what he would do.

  “They set up a neat little system,” Rothschild said slowly. He set up his terminal beside the hatch and went to work, carefully isolating the locking mechanism. “I’d bet good money this place will survive the antimatter bomb.”

  “Depends where the bomb is,” Pat muttered back. “If it’s somewhere nearby, the bunker isn’t going to have a hope.”

  He’d reviewed the problem during the frantic preparations for the mission, but no answers had been forthcoming. Some of the analysts had even wondered if the bomb was nothing more than a giant bluff. But too many things would have had to go flawlessly for anyone to place any faith in such a scheme.

  No, he thought. Aeliana had been incredibly lucky to survive without being killed by a stray shot, captured by the prowling security forces, or raped by one of the mutinous soldiers. They would have contacted us to make sure we got the message.

  “Shit,” Rothschild said.

  Pat jumped as the hatch clicked and started to rattle open. Rothschild had opened it too early, before they were ready. He cursed, then used his implants to bring up the chart Junayd had drawn of the bunker. They’d have to move now, without waiting for reinforcements. Gritting his teeth, he slipped forward as soon as he could.

  Two guards, on the far side, gaped at him, then grabbed for their weapons. Pat shot them both down, silently relieved that neither of them had managed to sound the alert. The remainder of the company was already on the way, pressing through the hatch as Pat advanced into the barracks. A dozen men were getting dressed, clearly readying themselves for departure. Pat threw a gas grenade into the compartment and watched as the men tumbled to the ground. Anyone who hadn’t been immunized to the gas would collapse the moment it touched them.

  “Platoon One, with me,” Pat ordered. The bunker’s internal security systems might have missed them, but it was unlikely they would miss the gas. “Platoons Two through Seven, you know your targets. Go.”

  The interior of the bunker was strange, a bizarre mixture of luxury and austerity that puzzled him. Some walls were covered with paintings of famous scenes from history; others were completely barren. He couldn’t help cracking a smile as he saw a painting of Admiral Junayd positioned on one wall, a caption proclaiming him a holy martyr. Under the circumstances, he was surprised it hadn’t been taken down and desecrated. Maybe the Theocrats just hadn’t had the time.

  He turned the corner and ran into four men dressed in red uniforms. Pat shot them, too late to stop one of them from slapping a device at his belt. Alarms started to howl a moment later. Pat cursed and began to run, his platoon dogging his heels. The remainder of the company would secure the entrances and life support, hopefully gassing everyone in the bunker. He’d hoped to put everyone to sleep before they realized they were under attack, but their cover was blown. The bastards might just hit the switch before they fell asleep.

  A checkpoint loomed up in front of him, manned by seven men with heavy weapons. Pat unhooked a plasma grenade from his belt as they opened fire, triggering the weapon as it reached its target. A wave of white heat blossomed down the corridor, so hot it scorched his skin as he pushed onwards. The checkpoint was melted instantly, its defenders vaporized. He unhooked another grenade and threw it ahead of him as his team encountered a second checkpoint, Sergeant Bones shoving Pat to one side as the defenders started shooting at him with plasma weapons. Pat barely had a moment to realize that Bones had been hit, then the grenade detonated, setting off the plasma confinement chambers and destroying the enemy position. He covered his eyes at the blaze, then looked at Bones. A plasma bolt had struck her above the chest, burning through her skin. The shock alone would have proved fatal.

  “I’m sorry,” Pat told her.

  He had no time to mourn. He took one last look at her body, then resumed the race towards the bunker’s command center. If he didn’t get there shortly, everyone who had been killed would have died in vain.

  “That’s the emergency alarm,” Inquisitor Samuilu gasped. “They’re here!”

  Lord Cleric Eliseus stared at him. “How?”

  Junayd, Nehemiah thought coldly. And now they’re on the verge of breaking through and ending the war.

  He didn’t know if the treacherous admiral knew about the tunnels or not, but he’d had plenty of allies and clients. One of them might have known where to find the tunnel. Or maybe the Commonwealth had come up with some revolutionary new way to find an underground tunnel. But under the circumstances . . .

  “It’s over,” he said quietly. They’d planned to take the escape tunnel, then hike down to the hidden shuttlecraft. That plan was useless now. “They’ve won.”

  “They won’t win,” Samuilu snarled. He turned to the console. “I’ll burn the entire planet before I let them win.”

  “Don’t,” Nehemiah pleaded. He would have sold his soul for a weapon, if the devil had appeared and offered a bargain. “Samuilu . . . you’ll kill everyone on the planet!”

  “They deserve it!” Samuilu bellowed. “We wouldn’t have lost if there hadn’t been so much unbelief among us!”

  Nehemiah struggled to find words, knowing the effort was futile. Samuilu was a fanatic. He believed every last word he was saying. Samuilu would sooner burn the world to ash than let the population succumb to heresy. By his damned standards, he was doing them a favor. God would know His own.

  “This is madness,” Nehemiah pleaded. “Samuilu . . . just stop. Think about it! The children . . . how do they deserve to die?”

  “They’ll be born again in paradise,” Samuilu said. His hands were dancing over the console, typing in a series of commands. “Speaker, you failed. Let us show you the way.”

  “No,” Nehemiah said.

  He started forward, but Eliseus grabbed him. A second later, a shimmer appeared in the air between them and Samuilu. A force field . . . there was no way the two could get to the Inquisitor now, not without heavy weapons. And by the time they got them, it would all be over.

  “Damn you,” Nehemiah snarled. Eliseus was praying loudly, begging for God to accept his final sacrifice and shrive him of his sins. “Shut up, damn you.”

  Nehemiah felt a sudden sharpness and gasped in pain. Eliseus had drawn a knife and stabbed him. His mouth dropped open in complete shock as his arms and legs buckled, sending him falling to the floor. He’d never expected to be stabbed.

  “Die,” Eliseus said, “and face your fate like a man.”

  Pat used his last grenade to burn down the inner hatch, then charged into the command center. A man lay on the floor, bleeding out; another man was standing over him, holding a bloody knife. He turned as Pat entered, lashing out as if he thought he could slash Pat’s throat. Pat caught the knife on his sleeve, then knocked the man back against the force field. A surge of energy ran through him and he dropped to the ground, dead. The man standing on the far side of the force field turned to see what had happened, then resumed typing commands into his console. Pat didn’t need to know the specifics to realize that he was preparing to trigger the bomb.

  “You’ll all die, all of you,” the man cried out as the remainder of the platoon
followed Pat into the chamber. Pat recognized him from Junayd’s more detailed briefings. Inquisitor Samuilu, one of the fanatics. “This planet will burn.”

  Pat felt his blood run cold. His company had failed. He’d never doubted the bomb was real, yet he’d hoped . . . they’d failed. The bomb was about to be detonated. He checked the force field, but nothing short of a plasma grenade would break through—and he had none left. His plasma rifle wouldn’t be enough. And the man was leering at them, practically rejoicing in his own death . . . and then Pat suddenly felt very calm.

  I’m sorry, Kat, Pat thought as he pressed the terminal at his belt. The sensor within the terminal picked up his ID chip at once, arming the bomb. I’m sorry.

  The world went white.

  “General,” Colonel Washington said, “the enemy force field has collapsed!”

  General Winters turned to look at him. “How?”

  “Preliminary analysis suggests that the PDC’s shield generator has been destroyed,” Lieutenant Carter said. “Sir, it went up like a volcano.”

  The nukes, General Winters thought. Shit.

  “Order the attacking force to pull back,” he ordered. If the force shield was gone, there was no longer any need to risk his men. KEWs could eradicate the defenders if they refused to surrender. “And watch out for desperation attacks.”

  And we need to find that antimatter, he thought grimly. If the bastards put it on a timer too, the war might not be over yet.

  “Admiral,” the operator said, “the Tabernacle has been destroyed.”

  Zaskar flinched. The heart of the Theocracy, built on the spot the first colony ship landed so long ago . . . gone? It couldn’t be. But it was true. There was no hope of picking up the speakers now. The fleet was taking a beating. And if the enemy kept closing in, it wouldn’t be long before they destroyed his entire fleet.

  He was tempted to fight to the last. But there was no point.

  “All ships capable of opening gateways are to retreat,” he ordered. “The remainder are to fight long enough to hold the bastards off, then surrender.”

  The cleric stared at him. “Surrender?”

  “The war is over,” Zaskar snapped. “But we will survive.”

  “The enemy fleet is breaking off,” Wheeler reported. “They’re attempting to retreat.”

  “Press the offensive,” Kat snarled. The news from Ahura Mazda had hit her like a punch in the gut, but there was no time to mourn. “Don’t let them get away!”

  She scowled as the enemy fleet disintegrated, a good third of their surviving ships opening gateways and vanishing into hyperspace. The remainder were fighting, but without their missiles they couldn’t hope to survive for long. She’d won the battle . . . but at a truly terrifying price.

  “Commodore, the remaining enemy ships are trying to surrender,” Wheeler reported. “Orders?”

  Kat glared at the display. She wanted to kill them. She wanted to crush them like bugs, like the vermin they were. Pat was dead. He’d died saving Ahura Mazda from its masters. Who cared about anything else?

  “Kat,” William said quietly.

  Kat gathered herself. “Accept their surrender, then dispatch marines to take the crews into custody,” she ordered. “And then swing the fleet back to the planet.”

  “Aye, Commodore,” Wheeler said.

  We won, Kat thought numbly. She looked down at the golden ring on her finger. But was it really worth it?

  CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

  Kat rose to her feet, two weeks later, as the marines escorted the five Theocrats into the conference room. She saw their faces stiffen, just slightly, as they saw her, their eyes tracking across her chest before fixing firmly on her face. They didn’t seem to know where to look, she noted. She would have found their reactions amusing, she admitted to herself, if Pat had been there to share the joke. But he was gone. She still felt numb.

  “Be seated,” she ordered. She’d been tempted to have them stand, but that seemed mindlessly cruel. “Please.”

  She took a moment to survey them as they took their seats. Speaker Mosul, rescued from one of the Inquisition’s jails; Speaker Farah, the sole survivor of the post-coup Theocratic government; Lord Cleric Rather, the senior surviving cleric. And behind them, Admiral Junayd and Administrator Nestor. Between them, they made up the closest thing Ahura Mazda had to a provisional government, their authority recognized, perhaps reluctantly, by the remainder of the planet’s military. Kat rather doubted the provisional government would last very long, certainly not past the first election cycle. But for the moment they would suffice.

  And Junayd is supposed to be on our side, she thought. He’ll keep them in line.

  She was tempted to wait, to drag the ceremony out, to rub their faces in their humiliation, but it would have been nothing more than pointless spite. They’d come to the superdreadnought to negotiate, instead of trying to stick the battle out and fight to the last. She knew they hated it, she knew they resented having to come to the negotiation table, but they’d come. They understood, more than their predecessors, just how hopeless their position was.

  And watching as we disarmed and removed the antimatter stockpile probably helped, she told herself. They know their former masters were preparing to kill the entire planet.

  “My government has authorized me to inform you of our terms of surrender,” she said, keeping her voice firm. Junayd had advised her to act as stereotypically masculine as possible. “These terms are not negotiable. If you refuse to accept these terms, my fleet will take whatever steps are necessary to impose them. In that case, the final terms may be considerably steeper.”

  She took a moment to gauge their reactions, then went on. “First, all of your remaining warships, planetary garrisons, and occupation forces will surrender themselves into the custody of Commonwealth representatives,” she said. “You will send orders via our courier boats to your garrison commanders to make sure they understand that they are to surrender, instead of destroying the occupied worlds.

  “Second, Ahura Mazda and the other inner worlds will be under a general occupation until we can trust you to handle your own affairs without posing a threat to us or anyone else. All heavy weapons are to be surrendered to the occupation authorities. The outer worlds, the ones you occupied during your expansion, will be liberated; the remaining Theocratic populations will be repatriated to Ahura Mazda. We will provide transport to ensure that this is completed as fast as possible.

  “Third, until proper elections are held, you will be recognized as the provisional government of Ahura Mazda. However, you will be required to govern in line with the principles laid down in the Commonwealth Charter, including religious freedom, sexual and gender equality, and emigration rights. The occupation forces will have the authority to overrule or remove you from power if you transgress those limits.”

  She saw Rather wince. The Theocracy’s claim to absolute power had been broken by the invasion and occupation. If the clerics were denied the right to force their views on their population, who knew what would happen? Kat knew, from the reports that had flooded in over the past two weeks, that large parts of the planet were in a state of upheaval. Churches had been burnt, clerics had been murdered. The entire planet was on the brink of civil war.

  “Fourth, religious freedom specifically does not include the right to incite civil disobedience, violence, or any other form of harm against women, unbelievers, or the occupation force,” Kat added. “You will be responsible for silencing clerics who incite violence. If you are unable or unwilling to do it, we will do it for you.”

  Rather definitely didn’t look pleased, she noted. Farah didn’t look pleased either, although Mosul seemed oddly amused. Junayd had suggested that he was definitely one of the moderates, someone who had good reason to dislike the clerics. Kat had a feeling that he’d be a raving fanatic by the Commonwealth’s standards, but such musings hardly mattered. All that mattered was ending the war.

  “Fifth, the Commonwea
lth will not seek general revenge against your soldiers, spacers, clerics, or civil servants. The vast majority of them will be repatriated to Ahura Mazda as soon as possible. However, we can and we will prosecute and punish those guilty of war crimes against both civilians and military personnel. We require your full cooperation in unearthing and trying the guilty. Those found guilty of committing atrocities will be punished.”

  Mosul looked as though he wanted to say something, but held his tongue. Kat waited for a moment, then continued.

  “Sixth, the Commonwealth will not demand any form of compensation from the Theocracy for the damage inflicted on our worlds,” she said. Mosul looked astonished, then relieved; he knew, even if the others didn’t, that the Theocracy was in no state to pay anything. The economy had collapsed completely. “However, you will acknowledge, without any attempt to evade or mitigate the severity of your crime, that the Theocracy planned and launched a war of aggression that claimed the lives of upwards of two billion spacers, soldiers, and civilians. You will make no attempt to destroy your records, hide this truth from your civilians, or do anything else to obscure the question of war guilt. Your former masters started this war and lost it. No other interpretation will be permitted.”

  She took a long breath. “Finally, you will not be permitted warships, orbital battlestations, ground-based PDCs, or any other weapons until we determine that you no longer pose a threat to the rest of the galaxy. During that period, the Royal Navy will undertake to provide a minimal level of security for your planets. The Commonwealth will establish and operate naval bases throughout your territory to make this easier. Any other starships will be carefully inspected, repeatedly, while we hold responsibility for your security.

  “The treaty has been prepared for your signatures,” she concluded. “You have time to discuss it among yourselves, if you wish, but the Commonwealth has no intention of altering any of the terms. If you refuse to sign, we will take whatever steps we deem necessary to remove the threat you pose to the rest of the galaxy. There will be no further discussions.”