The Prince by Jerry Pournelle and S.M. Stirling

“You knew—what is this, Ernest?” President Budreau seemed bewildered, and his voice was plaintive. “What are you doing?”

“Oh, shut up, old man,” Bradford snarled. “I suppose you’ll have to be shot as well.”

“I think we have heard enough,” Falkenberg said distinctly. His voice rang through the room although he hadn’t shouted. “And I refuse to be arrested.”

“Kill him!” Bradford shouted. He reached under his tunic.

Cordova drew his pistol. It had not cleared the holster when there were shots from the doorway. Their sharp barks filled the room, and Hamner’s ears rang from the muzzle blast.

Bradford spun toward the door with a surprised look. Then his eyes glazed and he slid to the floor, the half-smile still on his lips. There were more shots and the crash of automatic weapons, and Cordova was flung against the wall of the council chamber. He was held there by the smashing bullets. Bright red blotches spurted across his uniform.

Sergeant Major Calvin came into the room with three Marines in battle dress, leather over bulging body armor. Their helmets were dull in the bright blue-tinted sunlight streaming through the chamber’s windows.

Falkenberg nodded and holstered his pistol. “All secure, Sergeant Major?”

“Sir!”

Falkenberg nodded again. “To quote Mr. Bradford, I took the liberty of securing the corridors, Mr. President. Now, sir, if you will issue that proclamation, I’ll see to the situation in the streets outside. Sergeant Major.”

“Sir!”

“Do you have the proclamation of martial law that Captain Fast drew up?”

“Sir.” Calvin removed a rolled document from a pocket of his leather tunic. Falkenberg took it and laid it on the table in front of President Budreau.

“But—” Budreau’s tone was hopeless. “All right. Not that there’s much chance.” He looked at Bradford’s body and shuddered. “He was ready to kill me.” Budreau muttered. The President seemed confused. Too much had happened, and there was too much to do.

The battle sounds outside were louder, and the council room was filled with the sharp copper odor of fresh blood. Budreau drew the parchment toward himself and glanced at it, then took out a pen from his pocket. He scrawled his signature across it and handed it to Hamner to witness.

“You’d better speak to the President’s Guard,” Falkenberg said. “They won’t know what to do.”

“Aren’t you going to use them in the street fight?” Hamner asked.

Falkenberg shook his head. “I doubt if they’d fight. They have too many friends among the rebels. They’ll protect the Palace, but they won’t be reliable for anything else.”

“Have we got a chance?” Hamner asked.

Budreau looked up from his reverie at the head of the table. “Yes. Have we?”

“Possibly,” Falkenberg said. “Depends on how good the people we’re fighting are. If their commander is half as good as I think he is, we won’t win this battle.”

XI

“Goddamn it, we won’t do it!” Lieutenant Martin Latham stared in horror at Captain Fast. “That market’s a death trap. These men didn’t join to attack across open streets against rioters in safe positions—”

“No. You joined to be glorified police,” Captain Fast said calmly. “Now you’ve let things get out of hand. Who better to put them right again?”

“The Fourth Battalion takes orders from Colonel Cordova, not you.” Latham looked around for support. Several squads of the Fourth were within hearing, and he felt reassured.

They stood in a deep indentation of the Palace wall. Just outside and around the corner of the indentation they could hear sporadic firing as the other units of the regiment kept the rebels occupied. Latham felt safe here, but out there—

“No,” he repeated. “It’s suicide.”

“So is refusal to obey orders,” Amos Fast said quietly. “Don’t look around and don’t raise your voice. Now, glance behind me at the Palace walls.”

Latham saw them. A flash from a gun barrel; blurs as leather-clad figures settled in on the walls and in the windows overlooking the niche.

“If you don’t make the attack, you will be disarmed and tried for cowardice in the face of the enemy,” Fast said quietly. “There can be only one outcome of that trial. And only one penalty. You’re better off making the assault. We’ll support you in that.”

“Why are you doing this?” Martin Latham demanded.

“You caused the problem,” Fast said. “Now get ready. When you’ve entered the market square the rest of the outfit will move up in support.”

* * *

The assault was successful, but it cost the Fourth heavily. After that came another series of fierce attacks. When they were finished the rioters had been driven from the immediate area of the Palace, but Falkenberg’s regiment paid for every meter gained.

Whenever they took a building, the enemy left it blazing. When the regiment trapped one large group of rebels, Falkenberg was forced to abandon the assault to aid in evacuating a hospital that the enemy put to the torch. Within three hours, fires were raging all around the Palace.

There was no one in the council chamber with Budreau and Hamner. The bodies had been removed, and the floor mopped, but it seemed to George Hamner that the room would always smell of death; and he could not keep his eyes from straying from time to time, from staring at the neat line of holes stitched at chest height along the rich wood paneling.

Falkenberg came in. “Your family is safe, Mr. Hamner.” He turned to the President. “Ready to report, sir.

Budreau looked up with haunted eyes. The sound of gunfire was faint, but still audible.

“They have good leaders,” Falkenberg reported, “When they left the Stadium they went immediately to the police barracks. They took the weapons and distributed them to their allies, after butchering the police.”

“They murdered—”

“Certainly,” Falkenberg said. “They wanted the police building as a fortress. And we are not fighting a mere mob out there, Mr. President. We have repeatedly run against well-armed men with training. Household forces. I will attempt another assault in the morning, but for now, Mr. President, we don’t hold much more than a kilometer around the Palace.”

* * *

The fires burned all night, but there was little fighting. The regiment held the Palace, with bivouac in the courtyard; and if anyone questioned why the Fourth was encamped in the center of the courtyard with other troops all around them, they did so silently.

Lieutenant Martin Latham might have had an answer for any such questioner, but he lay under Hadley’s flag in the honor hall outside the hospital.

In the morning the assaults began again. The regiment moved out in thin streams, infiltrating weak spots, bypassing strong, until it had cleared a large area outside the Palace again. Then it came against another well-fortified position.

An hour later the regiment was heavily engaged against rooftop snipers, barricaded streets, and everywhere burning buildings. Maniples and squads attempted to get through and into the buildings beyond but were turned back.

The Fourth was decimated in repeated assaults against the barricades.

George Hamner had come with Falkenberg and stood in the field headquarters. He watched another platoon assault of the Fourth beaten back. “They’re pretty good men,” he mused.

“They’ll do. Now,” Falkenberg said.

“But you’ve used them up pretty fast.”

“Not entirely by choice,” Falkenberg said. “The President has ordered me to break the enemy resistance. That squanders soldiers. I’d as soon use the Fourth as blunt the fighting edge of the rest of the regiment.”

“But we’re not getting anywhere.”

“No. The opposition’s too good, and there are too many of them. We can’t get them concentrated for a set battle, and when we do catch them they set fire to part of the city and retreat under cover of the flames.”

A communications corporal beckoned urgently, and Falkenberg went to the low table with its array of electronics. He took the offered earphone and listened, then raised a mike.

“Fall back to the Palace,” Falkenberg ordered.

“You’re retreating?” Hamner demanded.

Falkenberg shrugged. “I have no choice. I can’t hold this thin a perimeter, and I have only two battalions. Plus what’s left of the Fourth.”

“Where’s the Third? The Progressive partisans? My people?”

“Out at the power plants and food centers,” Falkenberg answered. “We can’t break in without giving the techs time to wreck the place, but we can keep any more rebels from getting in. The Third isn’t as well trained as the rest of the regiment—and besides, the techs may trust them.”

They walked back through burned-out streets. The sounds of fighting followed them as the regiment retreated. Civilian workers fought the fires and cared for the wounded and dead.

Hopeless, George Hamner thought. Hopeless. I don’t know why I thought Falkenberg would pull some kind of rabbit out of the hat once Bradford was gone. What could he do? What can anyone do?

Worried-looking Presidential Guards let them into the Palace and swung the heavy doors shut behind them. The guards held the Palace, but would not go outside.