Lt. Leary, Commanding by David Drake

The van stopped in front of the power room. Woetjans led the four spacers with her into the squat building. The van, with Tovera now in the cab with Koop, made a U-turn and drove toward the Captal’s residence.

Woetjans looked out of the power room and waved her free hand. “Ready, Gansevoort?” Adele called over the intercom.

“Ready!” Gansevoort answered, so loudly that his voice echoed down the stairwell. The building vibrated as his impeller turned inward.

Adele keyed the fire alarms for the barracks and the residence building. An electronic wail filled the compound.

Nothing happened for a moment. Adele disconnected the power to both buildings. A moment later a servant wearing puffed red-and-yellow garments ran from the residence and three half-dressed guards from the barracks. They looked around in a mixture of anger and confusion.

“Stay in the open!” Adele boomed over the public-address system. She turned off the siren. Woetjans and three of her team walked toward the barracks, their weapons aimed. “No one will be har—”

The house servant turned. His arms flailed and he sprawled across the threshold at the feet of two more liveried servants.

Tovera got out of the van, pointing her submachine gun one-handed in what might have looked a negligent fashion to anyone who hadn’t just seen her shoot. She beckoned the two surviving servants toward her with her free hand. One remained transfixed; the other knelt, clasped his hands, and lowered his head in prayer.

“No one will be harmed if you cooperate!” Adele said. Her amplified voice rumbled through the open doorways, cold and hectoring. The guards who were already in the open didn’t try to run in the face of the spacers’ guns, but no more came from the barracks.

Adele’s brain warned her of movement. Instinct slid the pistol from her pocket, but the threat showed on her panoramic display rather than in the room with her.

“Northeast tower!” she shouted. “He’s—”

The tower guard braced himself on the catwalk rail, holding his pistol in both hands, and fired across the courtyard. Dust flew from the facade of the residence.

Tovera turned like mercury flowing. Even before she could fire, the top of the northeast tower erupted into dust, chunks of stone, and streaks of vivid color where osmium slugs struck the turret’s metal fittings. Adele’s control station vibrated with the violence of Gansevoort’s long burst above her.

Gansevoort stopped firing. Woetjans’ team and the guards in front of the barracks had thrown themselves on the ground. Bits continued to drop off the crumbled tower: the slugs had chewed away the west face of the railing and turret. The wind drifted dust from the compound like torn russet gauze. The only visible portion of the guard was his right arm lying among the debris in the courtyard, severed at the elbow by fifty grains of osmium moving at Mach 8.

“Everyone in the barracks,” Adele said, “come out unarmed, now! In thirty seconds we’ll begin raking the building until it falls in and crushes everyone who hasn’t been killed by the projectiles.”

Another man came from the barracks, doubled over as if he were walking into a storm. Liebig taped his arms behind him. Two more guards crept out, their hands high. A woman came from the south tower, stumbling in her haste.

Woetjans cupped her hands and shouted in the direction of the gate. Adele grimaced and switched the helmet intercoms live again. “Unit, your helmets work now,” she said. “Signals out.”

“Signals, that’s everybody from here,” Woetjans voice said in synchrony with her lips on the other side of the courtyard. “There’s six servants and a guard in the residence with the boss, they say. Team One over.”

“Team One, all right,” Adele said, rising to her feet. “Leave a guard on the captives and join me at the residence. Ah, out.”

She’d never get used to RCN communications protocols. Of course, communications had never interested her very much. Knowledge for its own sake had been her focus.

She was smiling as she walked from the gate tower toward the residence building. A great deal had changed since she met Lt. Daniel Leary.

For the most part the spacers were exhilarated from the operation’s present success. Bemish was babbling that by God we’re showing these wogs how it’s done, but Adele didn’t let her distaste for the vulgar chauvinism touch the surface of her mind.

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