half emulsifying his target's innards. Wheeling to face another, this one thrusting forward a fixed bayonet, Cruz tapped the enemy rifle aside and lunged to plunge his own bayonet into the enemy's throat. Dropping his rifle to clutch at his wound, eyes rolling up in his head as blood rushed out to spatter on the ground, this Salafi sank to his knees.
Cruz put one booted foot on the Salafi's head and pushed him off of his now red- running bayonet. Again he whirled to face two more charging maniacs. He swung his butt at one and missed, but then stepped forward and reversed the motion to slam the butt into the Salafi's unarmored kidney. That one went down puking with pain. The next one up Cruz shot before spinning to plunge the bayonet into the back of his previous opponent.
'Die, motherfucker,' he snarled as the Salafi screamed in agony.
By this time Cruz's men had reached him and joined the fray. The entire hilltop became a mass of lunging, shooting, screaming and dying men. The dog ripped out a Salafi throat, howled again, and bounded off in search of another.
Here the legionaries' superior training and armor—to say nothing of the pooch's –came to the fore. Even at close range, the Salafis couldn't usually get a bullet to penetrate directly from in front, though a number of the Balboans went down with wounds to face, head, limbs and torso sides. Within a few moments, all the Salafis were down and Cruz's men were finishing off the wounded with butt stroke, burst and bloodied bayonet.
There was no time, in a close fight, for the niceties. And men who had failed to surrender by the time the Legion closed to three hundred meters had forfeited their right to do so.
Breathing deeply, anger still raging within him, the centurion walked deliberately to where a crusty-looking, one-eyed Salafi struggled to load the light cannon that had smashed and burned the helicopter. Seeing the look in Cruz's eye the Cyclops stopped his efforts and began to raise his hands.
'Fuck you, asshole,' Cruz said, as he took aim and triggered a burst into the Noorzad's head.
Interlude
4 July, 2206, Cygnus House, Chelsea, London, European Governing Region, Earth
'The Marquis is dead; long live the Marchioness,' Lucretia whispered to herself as the last of the lower class investigating officers departed the mansion. The sun was down and an ambulance had long since carted off her late father's cooling corpse.
As she closed the door behind the police, Class Fours and thus very deferential to the new Marchioness, Lucretia sighed, 'Oh, Daddy, and you were such a good lay, too.' She sighed, and then burst out laughing, dancing on light feet across the black and white tiled floor of the vestibule.
The police had carted off the bulk of the domestic kitchen staff, of course. They would be incarcerated in Amnesty's own dungeons and rigorously questioned by its own interrogators.
'Then, too,' she said aloud, 'perhaps I should buy a commission in the Peace Forces. I've always fancied how I'd look in uniform.'
Lucretia walked to her father's desk and pressed a button on the intercom. A face appeared, that of one of the maids, Emily.
'Yes, mum?'
'I feel like celebrating. Whiskey. Ice.'
'Yes, mum.'
When the maid arrived, not more than five minutes later, Lucretia waited for her to pour and then struck her across the face with her riding crop. 'You were too slow.'
Weeping, the maid sank to her knees, crying and covering her bruised face with her hands.
'That's better, Emily. I much prefer you in that position. But . . . I think you would look even better with your face to the floor.' Arbeit used her dainty foot to press the maid's head downward.
Lucretia left the girl there, trembling and cowering, and with blood welling from the slash across her face. The new Marchioness liked that, the image, the reality, the trembling fear. She picked up the glass of whiskey and drank deeply.
Lucretia then laughed and started to sing, softly:
'Arise you prisoners of starvation . . . '
Chapter Twenty-four
So farewell hope, and with hope farewell fear,
Farewell remorse; all good to me is lost.
Evil, be thou my good.
Milton,
12/8/469 AC, The Base
The two infantry cohorts peeled the edges of the fortress, one clearing east, one west. As they did, they made the valley floor below uninhabitable to the Salafis trying desperately to relieve the central massif. As they did, too, it was possible for Jimenez and Masood to shift their own troops away from the cleared portions and concentrate on the sections of the massif still under attack.
It was not possible yet for the Scouts atop the massif to delve into the lower area, the caves and tunnels. It was also, Carrera considered, unwise to pull in the wide-ringing Cazadors and cavalry scouts to assist until the outer valley floors could be cleared in detail.
Still, one part seemed clear enough. He directed his Cricket to land by that part of the massif's base.
* * *
'Get us the fuck out of here, Martin,' Arbeit begged. 'I don't want to die here . . . or anywhere.'
Robinson ignored her. He needed desperately to call his ship or Atlantis Base. Unfortunately for that, his belt communicator could not penetrate the rock above and getting up to the surface was quite problematic. His allies here held the entrances to the caves, but any attempt to emerge was driven back by a fusillade of fire. Even being near the edges was dangerous as the enemy aircraft could swoop in at any moment to deliver rockets and napalm. Burned and bleeding men were even now being carried deeper below.
'You look worried, infidel,' commented Nur al-Deen.
'And you're not?' Robinson retorted, then realized the retort was hollow. Nur al-Deen did not look worried in the least.
The Salafi smiled. 'Not at all. Not only is my faith in Allah limitless, but we have an escape tunnel.'
'
'An escape tunnel. It leads from under this hill to a main line of the local karez.'
'Karez?'
'Yes, karez. They're underground . . . oh, aqueducts I suppose you would call them. About a meter wide, maybe one and a half to two high, deep below the ability of the infidel sensors to reach, and they lead everywhere. There are tens of thousands of kilometers of them in this area. It's a tight fit and, for the tallest among us it will be very uncomfortable to walk so far bent over like old women. Still, we can get out. And we will, while the martyrs above buy us time to escape.'
It suddenly hit Robinson, 'Those things I thought were lines of bomb craters . . . those are part of the system?'
'Yes,' Nur al-Deen replied. 'There are none for the tunnel that leads from here to the main line. That was deliberate on our part, partly for defense and partly for deception. We are building a fire by the tunnel entrance to draw in fresh air so we can use it. Before, any enemy who tried to would have had to carry their air with them.'
Relieved, Robinson ran his hand across his face, then reached into his pocket and pulled out the detonation device. He wasn't necessarily going to be captured or killed after all. 'You must take me with you. I still control the nukes,' he said. 'Only I have the key codes.'
'Of course,' Nur al-Deen agreed, amiably. 'Otherwise we'd stake you out for the other infidels now.'
