Daniel strode toward the entrance, looking grim. The expression was appropriate for his persona as a Kostroman staff officer, and it was certainly easy to arrange.
Two jitneys and a three-axle truck, all of them mounting automatic impellers, were drawn up in front of the palace. Daniel was sure that long bursts from such powerful weapons would flip the jitneys over on their backs, and he suspected that if the gun on the truck fired broadside rather than in line with the wheels the same would happen.
That didn’t much matter because the Alliance APC on the other side of the entranceway would carry the real weight of further fighting. Its plasma cannon could hose the square in iridescent hellfire, vaporizing any conceivable counterattack the Hajas clan could mount. The Alliance commandoes standing at the bow and stern of the big vehicle looked as though they were begging for an excuse to shoot somebody.
Daniel imagined he was Candace in the same situation. He lowered his eyes, twisted his face to the side, and let his course curve away from the bow of the APC as though the two of them were magnets of the same polarity.
The nearest commando snorted, then spit near Daniel’s feet. Daniel scuttled a little faster without looking up.
He knew he wasn’t being entirely fair to Candace. The Kostroman’s proven cowardice was moral, not physical. But Daniel didn’t feel like giving Candace the benefit of the doubt, and it was the sort of behavior that the Alliance commando would like to see. Wogs whimpering at the feet of the tough Alliance soldiers. . . .
Spectators watched from the roofs of buildings across Palace Square. Small clumps of civilians gathered on the pavement itself, talking in muted voices and jumping whenever a vehicle rumbled by in the street behind them. They carried pennants of black and gold divided in a variety of fashions—whatever they’d been able to sew together quickly.
Prostitutes were already working the plaza. Daniel saw a statuesque blond man approach a commando in the door arch. He left laughing, but without doing business at least for the moment.
An APC ran its fans up in the gardens to the rear of the palace. The vehicle lifted just high enough to be seen as movement beyond the building’s mass, then curved south in the direction of the Navy Pool. Sporadic gunfire continued across the city, and a red glow to the west hinted of fire.
A squad of guards with Zojira armbands stood in front and to the left of the main door; there were three Alliance commandoes to the right. The Kostromans talked loudly to one another, waving their weapons and passing a bottle of plum brandy. Empty bottles lay nearby in the entrance alcove, some of them smashed.
The Zojiras were in a reasonably good mood: they were alive, and the flaccid bodies of their Hajas predecessors were an immediate reminder of the alternative. Nonetheless they were drunk and too excited to be safe with automatic weapons.
That was another reason Daniel stepped directly to the sergeant in charge of the trio of Alliance commandoes to say in a calm, quiet, voice, “I’m Lieutenant Benno Candace, signals lieutenant on the staff of Grand Admiral Sanaus. I’m here to collect written instructions on the navy’s employment and bring them to Admiral Sanaus. Can you tell me where the Elector is?”
Just-landed Alliance soldiers wouldn’t realize that Daniel spoke Universal with a non-Kostroman accent. If his luck was really bad, though, one of them might recognize a Cinnabar accent.
For that matter, Daniel didn’t know the name of the new Elector; he thought he was lucky to recognize Zojira black and gold. It wasn’t likely that a commando would ask him the Elector’s name. It was even more unlikely the Alliance troops really gave a fuck which fucking wog thought he was in charge of this fucking piss-pot planet, but you could never tell.
On the other hand, you could be hit by a meteor while lying in bed. It didn’t do to worry about things you couldn’t change.
“What’re you telling me for?” the sergeant growled. “Do I look like a guide dog? Go ask somebody inside.”