A state of disobedience

orders into a radio.

* * *

The Guard didn't use their radios, too afraid of the transmissions being intercepted. Instead, they used the intercom system the WCF had had when they first occupied it.

'Major Williams, this is Davis down in the command post. Whatever you just did riled up a hornet's nest. I've got reports of troops advancing on all sides. I'm only catching glimpses of them on the security cams but I think they're serious.'

Instead of answering directly, Williams flipped his intercom to make an announcement to the entire defending force. 'Listen up, everybody. Hold your fire until I give the word. But keep me posted.'

Using a periscope the engineers had jinned up for him from some broken bathroom mirrors and spare lumber (for a video camera similarly mounted would not only have been heavier, but might have needed hard-to-find batteries), Williams observed as small groups of black battledress-clad men advanced on the walls of his post using whatever cover—and that not much—was available.

When they reached the last of that sparse cover, though, those men stopped.

Williams called to all walls to report.

'Wall two: they've stopped advancing. . . . Wall three: looks like they've held up about where we cleared fields of fire to, but there aren't that many of them on this side. . . .  Major, this is the rotunda. They've got a man behind nearly every one of those pylons by the walkway. And I think there's more in the deadspace past those.'

Williams thought it curious that with combat so near his heartbeat had slowed, the nervousness had evaporated and that sullen, sinking feeling he had been carrying in the pit of his stomach had disappeared. He did not hesitate any longer. 'Sergeant Major, take the reserve platoon and all the machine guns and reinforce the rotunda. You can fire if they try to assault; don't wait for my command.'

'Sir!'

* * *

Sawyers thought it would be a fine thing if he could take the building even before the rest of the brigade showed up. He mused, silently, Not that anyone told me to take it on my own. Then again, nobody said not to and I was told to try to get them to surrender. That would have been taking the building back too. Seems like a simple extrapolation to me. . . . Besides, I'd truly like to get the bastards that shot up my unit at that old priest's mission.

'Sir, the last company reports they're in position on the other side of the building.'

'Thanks, Ricky. Send to all companies: open fire. Tell B Company they can begin their assault anytime.'

* * *

Half frantic, Pendergast pushed, prodded and physically shoved the machine gunners and the reserve platoon into their positions. 'Move it, damn it, move it. We haven't got all fucking day. And remember, hold your fire until I say to shoot. This might turn out to be nothing.'

Whatever Pendergast may have been feeling inside, to the men pushed, prodded and shoved he merely seemed very determined, perhaps even eager.

The positions themselves were set back some few feet from the once glass-clad, now boarded and sandbagged, floor-to-ceiling windows. The set back gave the positions, and the men inside them, a measure of protection from the concussion of shaped charges and demolitions that might be detonated against the walls. Most of these positions, made of wood and metal, sandbags and furniture, had but a single, narrow, slit of a firing port in those walls. This also made it all but impossible for an attacker to suppress those positions with rifle fire as the men inside were offset from the slits, their sectors of fire interlocking outside the building. There were also a few very strongly built bunkers that were right up against the walls. The men in these, machine gunners mostly, had much wider fields of fire.

With a grunt of satisfaction at seeing the last men slithering into their battle stations, Pendergast himself got down on his belly and crawled to a well-camouflaged observation post to watch developments.

At the OP, Pendergast selected two of four claymore clackers, one in each hand. These were wired, each to a different claymore mine, the mines themselves buried under broken glass from the windows and daisy chained together with explosive cord, called 'det cord.' Setting off either one would cause a chain reaction that would spill over ten thousand ball bearings outward from the rotunda.

From outside, rifle fire began to crack and splat against the walls.

* * *

'Hold your goddamned fire,' the sergeant major shouted above the din, reminding the men. Even so, men snugged rifles closer to shoulders while others inspected linked machine-gun ammunition for kinks.

One near hit split a sand bag and drove sand and dust into Pendergast's eyes. By the time he had blinked away the grit and looked out again, a smoke screen was building.

'Top, I can't see shit,' called one gunner.

'That's 'Sergeant Major' to you, son. Just hold your fire.'

Pendergast raised his eyes to the view port. Goddammit, can't see a damned thing. Can't hear much either. Wish I had one of those new thermal imaging rifle sights I was reading about a few months back. Then I could see through this damned smoke. Wish we all did. Might as well wish for the moon.

* * *

Outside, there was a steady crackle of small arms fire from the men behind the pylons. Behind those, in the dead space—low ground protected from direct fire—grenadiers with 40mm grenade launchers popped up to fire small smoke shells before ducking back down to reload.

'Goddammit, I wish I had one lousy section of mortars to lay smoke,' fumed the B Company commander as he watched his grenadiers load and fire, load and fire the little 40mm, smoke grenades. 'We'd have a screen then, a real one.'