The Chosen

'Right,' she said in a voice just loud enough to carry. 'This is what we've all been training for. We're the first in, because we're the best. It looks like the Imperials are sitting with their thumbs up their butts. . but once we land, even they'll realize what's going on. Remember the training: hit hard, hold hard, and by this time tomorrow Corona will belong to the Chosen. Corona, and then the Empire. Then the world. And for a thousand years, they'll remember that we struck the first blow.'

A short growl rippled over the watching faces, not quite a cheer; the sort of sound a pack of dires would make, closing in on a eland herd. The company and platoon leaders grouped around her as she knelt.

'No clouds, not much wind, unlimited visibility,' she told them. 'And no last-minute screwups from Intelligence, either.'

'Meaning either everything's as per, or the reports were totally fucked in the first place and nobody's found out better,' Fedrika Blummer said.

'Exactly. Fedrika, remember, don't get tied up in the scrimmage. Get those Haagens set up on the perimeter, or the Imperials will swamp us before the main force arrives. Kurt, Mikel, Wilhelm, all of you remember this-we're going to be heavily outnumbered. The only way we can pull this off is if we hit so hard and so fast they never suspect what's coming down. Go through them like grass through a goose and don't leave anyone standing.'

'Ya,' Wilhelm Termot said. The others nodded.

'Let's do it, then.'

* * *

Jeffrey Farr dumped the papers in the cast-iron bathtub and sprinkled them with lamp oil. He flicked a match on his thumb and dropped it onto the surface. The mass of documents flared up in a gout of orange flame and black smoke and a coarse acrid smell. He retreated from the bathroom into the bedroom.

Jeffrey began throwing things into a satchel-his camera, spare ammunition for his revolver-and checked the bathroom. It was full of smoke, but the papers were burning nicely. They held the details of the network he'd been setting up here in Corona-but Center was the perfect recording device, and one that couldn't be tapped. For that matter, he'd carefully refrained from memorizing them himself. What he didn't know he couldn't tell, and Center could always furnish him with the details. It put need-to-know in a whole different category. He waited until the tub held nothing but flaky ash, then quenched it with a jug of water from the basin before he jogged up to the flat roof of the apartment building. It was four stories tall, and the roof was set with chairs and planters; nothing but the best in this neighborhood.

He got out the heavier pair of binoculars and focused on the dirigible. It was close now, slowing. Heading for Fort Calucci at the outer arm of the military harbor, from the looks of it.

What in the hell are they going to try there? he thought. That was HQ for the whole Corona Military District.

an assault with air-transported troops, Center said. probability 78 %, ±3. observe:

— and troops in gray Land uniforms slid down ropes on to the roof of the HQ complex-

Looks like it, Raj said. The bastardos have nerve, I'll grant them that.

'Oh, shit,' he whispered a moment later.

What's the matter? John's voice.

'Lucretzia,' he said.

Well-

'I know, I know, she's not the girl you bring home to mother-but she's down by the portside.'

the legation would be the lowest-risk area for temporary relocation, Center hinted.

'Yeah, but I've got to do something about her,' Jeffrey said. 'It's personal, and besides, she's a good contact.'

Good luck, John said.

And watch your back, lad, Raj added.

* * *

The fabric of the Sieg groaned and shivered with a low-toned roar.

Valving gas, Gerta thought. Negative buoyancy.

As if to confirm it, the falling-elevator sensation grew stronger. The nose of the dirigible tilted upwards and the engines roared as the captain controlled the rate of fall with the dynamic lift of air rushing under the great hull. She tasted salt from the sweat running down her face. Any second now.

'Ready for it!'

The commandos were bracing themselves with loops set into the aluminum deck planking. Gerta snugged the carrying strap of the carbine tight and ran both arms and a foot through the braces. The engine roar died suddenly, down to idle. Into the moment of silence that followed came a grinding, tearing clangor. The ship wrenched brutally, struck, bounced, struck, flinging her body back and forth. Then it came to a queasy, rocking halt with the floor at an angle. The bellow of valving gas continued.

'Now! Go, go, go!'

Booted feet slammed against quick-release catches. Two dozen segments of floor plating fell out of the belly carrying the coils of rope with them; light broke into the gloom of the hold, blinding. Men and women moved despite it, in motions trained so long that they were reflex. Twenty-four jumped, wrapped arms and legs around the sisal cables, and dropped out of sight. Others followed them with the regular precision of a metronome. Gerta and the headquarters section went in the third wave, precisely thirty-five seconds after the first.

Noise hit her as she slid out of the hold, into the giant shadow of the huge structure overhead. The Sieg was shifting, beginning to bob up a little as the weight left it. The pavement of the tower's flat roof was only eight meters down, less than a third the distance the teams sliding down into the fortress courtyard had to cover. There were half a dozen Imperials below her, gaping and pointing at the dirigible overhead. They didn't start to move until shots and screams broke out below. There was a moment of controlled fall and she struck the ground, rolling off the segment of decking and reaching under the horizontal drum magazine of the Koegelmann to jack the slide back. The blowback weapon was new; it had a grip safety that was supposed to keep the bolt from racking forward.

She'd found that the safety wasn't completely reliable. A really sharp jar could send it forward, chambering and firing a round. Not a good idea to arm it just before you jumped down a rope.

Gerta came down in a perfect four-point prone position and stroked the carbine's trigger. It roared and hammered backward into her shoulder, spent brass tinkling on the painted metal surface of the towers top. The bullets were pistol-caliber but heavy, 11mm, and they were H-section wadcutters. They punched into the Imperials with the impact of so many soggy medicine balls, blasting out exit wounds the size of teaplates. The rest of the section was firing as well. Seconds later, the area was clear of living enemies.

Something whirled by overhead, towards the heavy disk-shaped metal hatch that led from the rooftop down into the main section of the tower. A man was standing on the ladder below. His face was gray with shock, but he was struggling with the massive covering. The stick grenade struck his hands where they rested on the locking wheel of the hatch. He screamed and sprang backwards off the ladder, falling out of sight. The grenade hit the lip of the entryway, spun twice and then toppled out of sight down the shaft after the Imperial soldier.

The hatch fell, too, pulled past its balance point before the Imperial noticed the grenade. Gerta came off the ground like a spring-launched missile, diving forward to try and jam the butt of her carbine into the gap. Halfway through the movement the grenade went off below, but though dust and grit billowed out, the pressure wasn't enough to slow the several hundred kilos of mass. It whumped down into the locking collar and the butt-plate of her carbine rang against it with a dull clank. She flipped up to her knees and reached for the small close-set wheel in the top of the mushroom-cap hatch. Three others joined her, but the wheel turned irresistibly under her fingers, and she could hear the holding bars sinking into their sheaths. The locking wheel on the inside was much larger than the topside equivalent, with greater leverage.

Damn, she thought, coming erect and looking around. Somebody down there must be able to find his dick without a directory.

Water pattered down, thick as a Land thunderstorm in the rainy season. The great bulk of the Sieg was rising and turning, dumping ballast as she went for extra lift. The dirigible seemed to bounce upward, the shadow falling away from the fortress, turning southward for the river estuary with