“Even in the relatively limited area we’re looking at, that’s ten thousand people, give or take,” he concluded. “We’ll be moving in to try and secure the area and take prisoners shortly.”
“If you don’t have biohazard gear, that could be dangerous,” Roslyn warned.
“I know,” Bolivar said calmly. “But if I have ten thousand raging madmen in the streets, that means I have forty thousand terrified civilians hiding in their homes, Commander. I have to rescue them—even if that means Nix-gassing a mob of thousands.”
“If it’s what we think it is, Captain, even the mob are innocent,” she said quietly.
“I know,” he repeated. “And the best thing I can do for them is to stop them hurting themselves.”
Roslyn had just closed the channel and was turning to look up at the shuttle flying toward them when she heard the crashing sound of a door being flung open.
She turned toward the noise and realized it wasn’t the stairwell they’d come up that was open. It was the other stairwell, the one that had been wedged shut…at the bottom. It had been battered open by two men in Guardia uniform, falling sideways with the lock clearly broken as the Guardia rushed out.
Roslyn’s greeting died unspoken on her lips as she registered the complete nothing in their eyes—and the multiple bullet wounds the lead man was ignoring.
“Hostiles!” she snapped, summoning a barrier of solidified air to contain the two attackers. They moved so quickly, she missed one. The second Guardia man was pinned inside her barrier, clawing uselessly at an invisible shield, but the second was on Roslyn before she could recover.
He leapt on her, the weight of his body driving Roslyn to the ground as the breath was crushed from her lungs. A stungun cracked and her attacker spasmed, but he was still on top of her, clawing at her uniform and trying to bite at her face.
Her own hands were up, Roslyn’s basic martial arts training sufficient to keep his teeth away from her skin. She couldn’t focus on her magic with someone pinning her to the ground, and the mild aura effect of the SmartDarts left her twitching against the shock.
“Watch the other!” she heard Killough shout—and then a familiar sound she’d hoped not to hear echoed across the rooftop as at least two of the Marines opened fire with battle rifles.
Her own attacker was flung aside by the high-velocity rounds that punched through his flesh. Injured, probably dying, he still managed to snarl and lunge back at Roslyn.
She couldn’t disagree with the Marines’ decision to go to lethal force—and followed suit. Her hands flashed out, channeling power as she summoned lightning and force in a hammerblow that could take out a tank.
Her target went flying over the side of the roof and vanished, not even screaming as her power incinerated his flesh.
Magic still flared around Roslyn as she turned to the second Guardia man. He had been flung backward by multiple gunshots but was getting up again—at the edge of the roof.
Mooren was there before Roslyn could act. The Sergeant was unarmored, having stripped to her skivvies to enter her exosuit, but she held a fully automatic combat shotgun in her hands as she stepped between the madman and her Marines.
The gun cracked three times in as many seconds, slamming heavy lead pellets into the rising Guardia officer and hurling him off the roof to join the first man.
The rooftop was suddenly very still and very silent.
“I didn’t authorize lethal force,” Roslyn said quietly. “But…well done, Marines.”
“Fuck this,” Mooren said harshly. “Exosuits up; cover the accesses with heavy guns. Everybody else, get in a fucking suit of armor.”
“No exosuits for myself or Killough,” the Mage pointed out.
“We have body armor and hazmat helmets,” Mooren countered. “We have one sized for you, and I think Killough can fit in my armor.”
The MISS agent gave the tall Marine a frank but nonsexual glance up and down and then nodded.
“Probably,” he agreed. “Might have to adjust here and there, but I’ll take it over these poor bastards trying to eat my eyes.”
“Hurry,” Roslyn ordered. “That kid we have in cuffs aboard the shuttle is the best chance we have of working out what the hell is going on. Mooren—pick a fire team to send up with her and Herbert.
“They stay aboard the shuttle until Medical has cleared them. Full quarantine,” she repeated for the tenth or eleventh time.
“Sardonis, go,” Mooren ordered instantly. “We’ll armor up and sweep the building.
“What are the locals doing, sir?”
“Securing the perimeter of the neighborhood and arguing with politicians,” Roslyn replied. “But they’re about to start moving in with riot vehicles and nonlethals.”
She shook her head, looking at the smears of blood where her Marines had shot two functionally rabid Guardia officers.
“Good luck to them,” she murmured. “We provide what support we can. I’m going to talk to Daalman…because Major Dickens needs to be ready to start dropping Marines for civil support. This is about to get very, very messy.”
She hated herself for it, but she was grimly certain that whatever plan the Guardia had wasn’t going to cut it. Whatever the hell was going on, she doubted water cannon, sonic dispersers and SmartDarts were going to bring calm.
18
“We’ve activated the security shutters on the exterior accesses,” Mooren reported once they’d completed their sweep of the precinct station. “No one is getting in. We can still get out, though our control is pretty manual. Someone needs to be inside to open and close the shutters.”
“Better than nothing,” Roslyn said. The hazmat helmet felt claustrophobic, limiting her visibility and head motion in every direction. She’d never worn full body armor outside of training exercises. All her hand-to-hand combat had been…insufficiently planned to call for that.
“Agreed.” Mooren loomed in the exosuit combat armor, looking out over the neighborhood from the station roof. “We checked the cells, too. Everyone is still contained.”
There was an edge to her tone that Roslyn
