CHAPTER THIRTY
Julian looked around the rainy midnight square.
His armor’s light-enhancement system made the details as clear as day . . . not that there was a great deal to see at the moment. The tavern had been taken down, and the food vendors had packed up for the evening. Which was normal. The city always more or less rolled up its streets at dusk, but this was still eerie. No people at all were moving on the streets, and the shutters on every house had been closed almost before the square emptied. Clearly, the common folk knew something was going down.
It had taken barely a day for the king to confirm the broad details of the humans’ intelligence. The clincher had been a scouting foray by some of the city’s few skilled woodsmen, who’d found the Kranolta force awaiting word to move on the city exactly where the humans had told them to look. That had been more than sufficient for the king to give his go-ahead.
The Council had been summoned once again, this time at night. Its members were currently at dinner, or so said the latest situation report. Now all three platoons were in position and ready to move.
Julian’s own squad of armor had been spread throughout the company. Since the chameleon suits were going to be effectively useless against the low-speed impacts of swords and spears, Captain Pahner wanted the virtually impregnable armor on point for the entry. Which was why Julian found himself standing in front of the door to House N’Jaa, scanning the surroundings, checking his paltry power levels, and wondering if there was something that could penetrate ChromSten armor on this planet after all.
“Teams check in,” the communicator said. Lieutenant Sawato had that remote, robotic tone down cold; she sounded like a bad AI answering machine.
“N’Jaa team in position,” Sergeant Jin announced. Third Platoon had gotten N’Jaa, since it was the largest and toughest House. Lucky them. They might be the more experienced platoon, but they were also short a squad.
“Kesselotte team, in position,” came the next check, and Julian wondered if the Old Man were listening. God knew that very shortly he was going to be busy enough his own self.
“C’Rtena team, in position.” Lieutenant Jasco’s response was late, and Julian called up the remote plot on his helmet HUD and grimaced. The remote reported that C’Rtena’s backdoor still didn’t have anyone covering it, but just as he thought that, the last few troopers got into position.
Each mansion, unbeknownst to its inhabitants, now had two-thirds of a platoon parked outside its front door under cover. Even worse, two troopers in powered armor were poised to lead the entry, with the rest of the force in support. In Julian’s case, the backup was across the square, ready to jump off instantly when the word came. The unit had moved up in nearly complete silence, which, coupled with the chameleon systems of their uniforms and armor, made it extremely unlikely that anyone had even noticed their passage, despite the narrow, twisting streets.
The third squad of each platoon was on the backdoor of that platoon’s objective, ready to plug the bolt- hole, and each detachment was also accompanied by a squad of Royal Guards. The remainder of the armored suits were at the castle, ready to move as reinforcements if they were needed.
Which they shouldn’t be.
“All right,” the XO said finally. “All the pieces are in position, and the dinner is underway. All teams:
Julian drew a deep breath. He shouldn’t be nervous; there ought to be zero danger in this for him. And worrying didn’t help matters, anyway. It was time to do the deal, and he raised a hand and knocked on the door, hard.
K’Luss By paused just as he was about to throw the knucklebones. He’d heard that there was some new game going around, one that used pieces of paper, but he was a traditionalist. Knucklebones had been good enough for his father, and they were good enough for him.
“Who the hell is that?” he asked rhetorically, looking around at the other guards in the front room, and T’Sell Cob clapped his false hands and shrugged, then picked up his favored ax as the door boomed again.
“I don’t know. But he’s about to be in pieces.”
“
“Ah,” By said as he picked up his own spear, “maybe we ought to wait for the others to join us?”
It had always bothered Julian that there was no way to fidget effectively in armor. He wanted to pick at a finger, or bite fingernails. Nope. Pull hair? Nope. The best he could do was to fiddle with his bead cannon as the sensors indicated more and more guards gathering in the front area. A loud boom suddenly racketed through the night like a rogue thunderclap, and his sensors processed the sonics and electromagnetic flux and then announced that a full powered charge from a plasma cannon had just struck something at the facility the HUD designated “House C’Rtena.”
Nice to know the sensors were working.
He nodded at PFC Stickles and stepped to the side of the vast door.
“Gunny, I’d say we’ve got about max participation here,” he said, keying his helmet to darken. It was supposed to do that automatically, but it never hurt to make sure. Regrowing eyeballs would suck on this rock. “Stickles, darken your helmet.”
“Yes, Sergeant,” the PFC shot back just a tad testily. “Already done.”
He was the junior guy in the squad, which was why Julian had picked him as his own backup. Better that Julian be stuck with the rookie, although, to be fair, a “rookie” in the Regiment was hardly the same thing as a rookie in a regular unit.
“We’re ready here, Gunny,” Julian said, and leaned into the wall and pointed his bead-cannon to the vertical as he took it off safe. Time to party.
“What was that?” N’Jaa Ide demanded. The booming echo was similar to thunder, but not identical. “It sounded like one of the weapons of these visitors, these humans,” the house-leader went on with an ill-pleased glare.
Mardukan state dinners, in Q’Nkok, at least, were conducted on platters and covers on the floor. This one was no exception, and by careful manipulation of the seating arrangements, the human guests had been placed opposite the house-leaders considered particularly dangerous. And, just coincidentally, all of those humans were accompanied by Marines in armor.
“What was what?” Xyia Kan asked innocently. The monarch’s power had been systematically hamstrung and undercut by the Houses for a generation, the very Houses which were about to be removed, and his dinner had been deliciously flavored with anticipation all evening.
“That noise,” Kesselotte said in support of N’Jaa, sounding even more suspicious than his fellow house- leader. After the last acrimonious meeting, he’d insisted on bringing his full complement of guards to this one. Indeed, there were over twenty house guards present, far more than should have been allowed into the king’s presence. Perhaps it was time to act. Sometimes even the deepest plots were improved by a willingness to take advantage of opportunities, and one such as this was unlikely to come again. He glanced at N’Jaa to see if the other leader was in agreement, but saw only worry.
Kesselotte was still considering the significance of the human weapon when two more booms echoed across the city. They were just as loud as the first one, and his eyes flew wide as other strange crackling noises followed them.
“Brothers!” He leapt to his feet. “It is an attack by the faithless Xyia Kan! We must—”
Before he could finish the sentence, two of the human leaders came to their own feet and drew weapons.
Pahner had been infuriated by Roger’s insistence, but in the end, he could only accede to his demands. At least this time the prince had made them in private! So when the captain stood and drew his bead pistol, Roger stood up right alongside him. O’Casey, at least, had the intelligence to scuttle behind the armored trooper at her
