House of Reeds

boiling from plated armor, but did not slow down. Three Jehanan dropped, smashed to the ground by the flechette rounds from her assault rifle.

Only seconds later, the granite shielding her rang with the impact of native bullets. Stone chips scored her visor and slashed at her shoulders. Ignoring the shrapnel, the Marine dropped another two slicks, but hundreds more were swarming through the gap. The tank rumbled forward and its long gun boomed again. The marble gazebo disappeared in a cloud of dust and flame. Felix clicked her teeth, breaking into the chaos of voices on the combat channel.

'We need the Whipsaw in the eastern gardens with armor-piercing,' she growled. 'This tank nearly took Carlyle's head off!'

We can't spare the 'saw from anti-artillery duty, Kosho responded curtly.

The tank fired again, obliterating another of the ornamental buildings. The two Marines down in the gardens leapfrogged back again to a low wall only meters from the Residence. Felix gritted her teeth and fired five grenades in quick succession, dropping them right across a line of Jehanan troopers crashing forward through the rose bushes and beds of orchids.

The grenades burst in a rippling wall of fire. A hailstorm of bullets smashed against the granite around her, filling the air with whining shrapnel. Felix ducked down, hearing the high-pitched wail of mortar rounds dropping out of the sky. The Whipsaw on the roof of the Residence stuttered, snapping out interceptor rounds with a piercing whine. The sky blotted with black puffs of smoke.

'Stupid-always-right-officers…' The Marine flexed her trigger-hand and thumbed her visor to full automatic tracking. Bullets continued to spang! off the merlons. The engineer laid himself down, still fiddling with his comps and antenna array, trying to keep the channel to the ship open. 'Carlyle, Renton, go to full auto! Helsdon, get below!'

Felix shifted position two embrasures and popped up. The Macana jerked in her hand, a full-automatic burst ripping from the rifle. Her visor lit up with hundreds of possible targets, glowing red crosshairs dancing across the gardens. She let her conscious mind subsume in the twitch-reflex of the gun/visor interface and emptied a two thousand round magazine coil into the charging Jehanan soldiers.

If I had a powered-armor rig… Felix had applied for transfer to a powered armor regiment before being posted to the Cornuelle. A rejection letter had caught up with her nine months ago, precipitating a mild funk. Luckily, the ship had immediately encountered a Khaid raiding group and been plunged into a ferocious battle for survival, which had cheered her up immensely.

Flame stabbed out from the other two Marines as the passage of so many hypervelocity flechettes made the air incandesce. For an instant, a whirlwind of ionization and metal lashed the Jehanan battalion spilling through the breach and hundreds of the natives staggered, torn to shreds. The tank continued to grind forward, lurching up over a carved alabaster retaining wall, the forward glacis spotted with smoking, red-hot impact scars.

Then the tank turret swung towards the southern tower and flame blossomed from the muzzle with a crack! Felix shouted at Helsdon and flung herself to the side, curling automatically into an impact resistant ball. The granite merlons shattered in a ball of plasma. The engineer's carefully pieced-together antenna array disintegrated, the comps were blown into the far wall and flame washed over both Imperials. The concussion threw Felix into the opposite stonework, where burning debris pelted her armor and face, and Helsdon – who had scooted towards the stairs – was flung down into the tower itself. Smoke and dust billowed up from the gaping hole torn in the parapet.

The Jehanan tank turret whined around towards the Residence, long gun sliding down.

On the roof of the main building, the Whipsaw team ran to the edge of the rooftop and set down the tripod- mounted weapon. The lead gunner cycled the ammunition coil to armor-piercing, flipped the targeting display on and squeezed the firing lever. A lance of super-heated flame – engendered by the supersonic passage of dozens of depleted uranium-core munitions – boomed out, leaping down to draw a white-hot line across the front of the tank and across the turret.

Metal squealed in agony as multiple jets of metal plasma spewed into the crew compartment. There was a deep, resounding whoomp! and the entire machine blew apart as the munitions and fuel inside brewed up. Flames engulfed the chassis and the turret, blown free by the explosion, crashed down into an apple tree, setting the leaves and trunk alight.

On the southern tower, Felix – wheezing and tasting gravel – rolled over, groping for her rifle. The Macana had vanished, along with the communications array and half of the tower wall. Pea-sized rubble and granite fragments slid from her thigh and arm as she sat up.

'Oh, crap.' The Marine spat blood to clear her mouth and realized most of the gear strapped to her gunrig and belt were gone with the assault rifle. She tapped her comm with a trembling hand. 'Helsdon? Engineer? You still alive?'

In her sick-bed, Kosho heard the distant crash of artillery and tried to sit up. She winced immediately, her porcelain face twitching with pain as her head spun. 'Who is attacking?' She snapped into the combat channel. 'Can anyone see unit blazons, idents, regimental flags, anything?'

The Resident was parked at her bedside, one long hand to his ear, listening intently to the chatter of servants, troops and wayward Imperial citizens who had taken refuge in the Legation. He was still dressed in a formal mantle, cotton shirt and trousers – the rising had caught him amid a state luncheon and he hadn't found time to change. Between them, they represented Imperial command authority in central Parus. Attempts to contact the Regimental cantonment had failed. He shook his head, listening to a babble of reports from throughout the sprawling building.

'This doesn't sound like a single military unit,' Petrel said, voice hoarse with weariness. 'The rising must have split dozens of regiments along clan or parish lines… One of the lesser princes will have taken control of the forces in thisarea.' He adjusted one earbug, rubbing an eye swollen by a bad cut. 'This attack on the garden gate in the south – the harness and traveling cloaks on the dead sound like those worn by religious pilgrims… Rural zealots must be entering the city, looking for asuchau – the unclean – to expunge from holy Jagan.'

'I see. They will be discerning, I'm sure.' Kosho felt faint and tried to lie still on her pillow. The feeling of fine silk under her neck was disconcertingly at odds with the patina of dust on her coverlet and the acrid smell of burned metal and propellant hanging in the air. The banging sound of hammers resounded from the hallway where the household servants were busily fortifying the windows and doorways. At the edge of hearing, a human baby was crying hoarsely. 'Do we know where kujen Bhrigu stands in all of this? Is he part of the rising, or a fellow target?'

Petrel shook his head in dismay, silver hair mussed by the events of the past two days. 'He is a nervous, untrustworthy creature – ever at odds with his generals and the priests. No one trusts him either. I would wager, however, that someone is attempting to overthrow him amid all this chaos.' The diplomat smiled, rather grimly. 'If not, then he is hiding in the basement of his palace, waiting for the dust to settle.'

Kosho sighed, wishing she'd stayed on the ship. I wanted to feel the wind on my face – and see what kind of vacation I am having. Battle reports continued to bark in her ear. Tireless dogs, tireless… 'We needn't look to him for relief then.' Exhausted, she made a courtly gesture of resignation to fate. 'The enemy has withdrawn from the southern gate. But we will not be able to stop up the breach in the east. Not if they have another tank to send against us.'

Petrel stared at her hand, surprised and a little alarmed. 'Without holding the outer wall…'

'The Residence is large,' Kosho replied. 'Move the civilians into the basements. Once sufficient rubble has been generated to block their armor, we will be able to hold them off while we have ammunition -'

The combat channel cleared abruptly, leaving only the disgusted voice of the gunner commanding the Whipsaw on the roof shouting: Incoming aircraft! Three of them on my scope, on an attack run! We're swinging the 'saw round…

'Bah!' Kosho's rude exclamation took the Resident by surprise. 'Where is our aircover? Are they jets?'

Fragmentary reports from the 416th had indicated the natives had several jet aircraft in inventory. The Sho-sa would have laughed at the futility of deploying air-breathing, turbine-powered atmospheric aircraft against Imperial forces in the field, save for her complete lack of orbital fire support to knock