From another window fire stabbed out across the street toward the Spartan positions. A body pitched forward to tumble off a balcony and forward to the pavement two stories below, a rifle rattling beside it.
“Got them pretty well suppressed, sir,” Sandeli said.
Hint. “All right; tell first platoon to—”
A sound interrupted him, a high-pitched shrieking from further down the street to the north, back along their path. Then a scatter of running figures; they were pushing a handcart before them, with a uniformed Spartan wired to the front of it and a thicker mob behind. The uniform was on fire, and the mob behind fell on the Spartan wounded in the street below the Marine position with clubs and tools and bayoneted rifles. More screams rose, and the flood of ragged humanity spilled over to the building the Royalists still held; the Marines had done their work of suppressing fire all too well.
“Kaak,” Sandeli muttered in his native tongue: shit.
Captain Laubenthal stood and touched the side of his helmet. “The last bloody straw,” he muttered. “Damned if I’ll see good soldiers murdered.”
“Sir?”
“It appears that we’re out of touch with HQ, sergeant,” he said. “I do not seem to hear a thing. A Company! Open fire, selective. Drive off those jackals and rescue the Spartans.”
“Sir?”
“You heard me, soldier!”
“Fucking A, sir! Carruthers. New targets! Clean house!” He turned back to his captain. “Sir, I hope you never get that mother fucking radio working again.”
* * *
“Owensford here.”
“Deighton here, sir. I have Fleet Captain Newell and Colonel Karantov with me.”
“Thank God. Boris, what’s happening up there?”
“Ciotti’s people had us under house arrest,” Karantov said.
“Thought it was something like that. Guildford too?”
“Sir, they’ve taken him somewhere else, possibly aboard that battlecruiser Patton, sir,” Lieutenant Deighton said.
“Thank you. But you have returned control of the CD space station to Fleet Captain Newell and Colonel Karantov?”
“I can do that now, sir. Fleet Captain, Colonel, any time you’d like you can relieve my troops with those you’ve selected.”
“I will see to this,” Boris Karantov said. “I also wish to see that my landing craft is made ready. Piotr Stefanovich, my thanks. We will speak again.”
“General Slater, let me add my thanks as well,” Newell said. “I can’t say I enjoyed being under arrest.”
“No, sir. If you’ll pardon me, Captain, what the hell is going on? Has Ciotti lost his mind?”
“Not quite,” Newell said. “According to the sergeant who was holding Colonel Karantov prisoner, Ciotti got, along with his orders to come here and arrest you, a message to the effect that Lermontov has been deposed. It doesn’t seem to have been an official order signed by the Grand Senate, but a message from someone at Fleet Headquarters. There was another from the Grand Senate, or maybe from a Senate Committee.”
“Or an individual Grand Senator?”
“Possibly. Since Ciotti’s the only one we know who read it, I don’t have the details. All I know is, we got word Ciotti was coming with special orders, and as soon as he got here he used his troops to take control of this station. We didn’t suspect a thing. I couldn’t figure out what was his hurry, but then not long after Ciotti’s takeover here, Signals got a long coded message from Fleet Headquarters. Ciotti’s people can’t decode it, and my people said they couldn’t, but that may have been a story for Ciotti. I’m checking on that now.”
“From Fleet Headquarters, but can’t be decoded by Fleet signal officers,” Owensford said. “Captain, if all else fails, perhaps Colonel Karantov can decode it. Or King Alexander.”
“Hmm. I see,” Newell said. “All right, I’ll have a copy sent down to you. If you can read it, I expect you ought to.”
“Meanwhile, what do you intend to do?” Owensford asked. “With Guildford out of communications, you’re the senior Fleet official in this system.”
“Until Guildford shows up again,” Newell said. “Or we get authenticated orders from Fleet Headquarters.”
“And if Lermontov has been thrown out in a Bronson coup?” Owensford asked.
“I’ll think about that. Now, if you’ll excuse me, General, I thank you for the rescue, but there are serious matters demanding my attention. I want to get to my ship!”
“Certainly. When you get the urgent parts done, Admiral Forrest and Captain Nosov would like to speak with you.”
Newell grinned. “I just expect they—I have an intercom light, Colonel Karantov wants to be patched in. Just a moment. Boris?”
“Da. Piotr Stefanovich?”
“I’m here, Boris.”
“Do not surrender. I am departing for planetary surface,” he said. “Godspeed my friend.”
* * *
“Are we going to die, Mrs. Fuller?” the girl said.
Juanita Fuller looked around the bombproof shelter at the sea of faces; there were fifty children here, and hers was the ultimate responsibility. A dozen shelters like this . . . The one who had asked the question was just too young to be up above helping with the last-ditch defense, around eleven. Her face was grave behind the CBW suit’s transparent visor, but some of the others were sniffling back tears.
Mark! something wailed inside her. But Cornet Mark Fuller was with Aviation Company of the Legion on New Washington. Lieutenant by now. If he’s still alive. We didn’t have enough time! A few months, just enough to begin healing from her horrible captivity in the escaped-convict settlement on Tanith. Now she was supposed to face danger like an officer’s lady . . . I’m just a girl, I’m only nineteen.
“Of course we aren’t going to die, Roberta,” she said, putting a teasing note into her voice. “You just want a chance to get up there and fire a gun.” The miniuzi hung heavy on her hip. I did all right on the firing range. Could I use it on a man?
“Let’s have a song, everybody,” she said. “Because there’s no school today . . .
Little bunny froo-froo
Hoppin’ through the forest—”
Roberta began to sing, and then the others took it up:
“Pickin’ up the field mice
Whackin’ ’em on the head!”
“Jodie! Do not whack Angie on the head!”
* * *
“Something funny that I didn’t notice, Kinnie?” Captain Jesus Alana asked. The motion sensors said a company level attack was coming out of them through the fire and smoke of the night; the Legion had pulled back to its original encampment, setting incendiaries in the huge Royal Army logistics buildings that made up much of the base.
Base commander, he thought. Base commander of a rifle platoon. Adult hands were far too few in Fort Plataia to spare anyone from the firing line.
Hassan al’Jinnah chuckled again. “Just reminds me of old times, sor,” he said, stroking the stock of his machine gun. “Ah, here they come.” The Berber had been a long-service man when the Legion was still the 42nd CoDominium Marines and John Christian Falkenberg III had been a junior captain; for the last twenty-five years his job had been chief mess steward. “Reminds me of Kennicott, sor.”
A very good steward, since he was devoutly Muslim and never touched alcohol. The cocking lever of his rifle made a tch-clack sound as he eased it backward and chambered a round.
Jesus Alana pressed his eyes to the vision block. The dark outside slipped away, replaced by a silvery day like none waking eyes had ever seen. The vast stores area in the western extension of the base was a pillar of flame behind the advancing Helots; two light tanks in the lead, and an infantry screen following. They came at a cautious trot, the AFVs taking advantage of each building, and the foot soldiers moving forward by squads and sections.
“Pretty drill,” he said, and pressed the stud. The ground erupted in a line of orange fire. He blinked; when he opened his eyes again his wife was beside him, whistling through her teeth.
Cathy only does that when she’s really nervous, he thought, unslinging his rifle. Her grenade launcher spat out its five rounds, choonk-choonk-choonk-choonk.
There were no living targets when he brought up his weapon. “Doubt they’ll try that again,” he said thoughtfully. “And it can’t have been their whole effort.”
The posts reported in, except for one. “Three?” he said. “Post three?”
Mortar shells whistled overhead. Landline cut? Possibly, and he had no one to spare to look.
“They’ll be back. At least once,” he said.
“Twice,” al’ Jinneh said. “Care for a bet, sor? Bottle of Cavaret Zinfandel?”
“Against what?”
“Blue Mountain coffee, sor. Half a pound.”
“Done. Though you win either way, Mess Steward.”
* * *
Lieutenant Colonel Scott Farley studied the map table, then looked up to Colonel Marco Ciotti. “Six companies fail to report, Colonel.”
“The communications environment is very bad,” Ciotti said. “But this is strange. Send messengers with new equipment and orders to report instantly.”