A Choice of Treasons Page 6

  She said nothing, gritted her teeth and glared.

  He grabbed her by the upper arm, gripping her hard enough to hurt. “Now walk beside me and try not to look forced.”

  Together they turned away from the shuttle and began walking. At first the crowd paid no attention to them and York thought they might get away with it. But then suddenly the mob stilled, a deathly silence descended, and with the sound of the weapons fire at the wall providing a deadly backdrop, the crowd began to close menacingly about them.

  The mob’s panic was gone. Fear still hung in the air but it no longer had the taste of many individuals. This was the fear of a single monstrous entity, cold, deadly, united. This mob would get foolishly brave now.

  In that moment he almost halted, but he realized that to hesitate in any way would be a confession to them that he was not the one in control. He kept walking, taking long, great strides as if he would climb over anyone who got in his way, literally pulling the princess after him. His hand still rested on his grav-gun, and he knew how intimidating a faceless, black-visored suit of plast-armor could be.

  The mob parted reluctantly, though one man was a little braver—or more foolhardy—than the rest and he refused to step aside. York plowed into him, hit him under the chin with an armor-plated forearm and knocked him down. And then he was walking across open lawn, with Hyer standing not far away, a rifle in his hands. We made it, York thought.

  Suddenly Hyer raised his rifle and screamed over the com, “Cap’em behind you!”

  York threw the princess to the ground and spun about as something zinged off his armor. A young woman stood a few meters away with a gun aimed at him.

  Later, much later, when looking back on the incident, he could never remember pulling and aiming his sidearm. He remembered the fear, and he remembered that eternity of an instant when the gun in the young woman’s hand kicked, spitting a puff of angry, gray smoke while he squeezed the trigger on his grav-gun, only then realizing that it was aimed at her abdomen, and that she was just a little girl, no more than ten or twelve years old, and that she was far more frightened than he, and that the signal from his brain to his trigger finger had already been sent, and the action irrevocably begun.

  The bullet from her gun smashed into the center of his visor, splattered just in front of his eyes and slammed his head back painfully. He staggered with the force of the impact as his own gun kicked in his hand, barely managed to keep his feet.

  “Hold fire,” he screamed into his com, fearing a massacre if his marines lost control. “As you were.” He glanced up at the telltale in his helmet; still green, his visor had withstood the impact of the bullet.

  He didn’t remember crossing the distance to stand over the Trinivanian woman—girl. The single shot from his grav-gun had blown away most of her abdomen and pelvis. She was quite dead, and York felt nothing for her, only the letdown that followed the rush of adrenaline needed to react. His own cold, unemotional lack of reaction bothered him far more than the actual death of the poor girl.

  “You bloodthirsty son-of-a-bitch!” the princess screamed. “You bloody butcher.”

  York turned on her angrily, felt his control slipping away. “She had a gun,” he growled, “and I had to protect you. Those are my orders.”

  “Orders?” she screamed. “You animal.” She struck at him, hit him square in the visor with her fist, knocked his head back. “You monster! You maniac!”

  Suddenly she was all over him, screaming and kicking and tearing at his armor. “Somebody give me a hand,” he yelled.

  “Incoming mortar!” someone screamed over the com.

  York reacted instinctively, wrapped his arms around the screaming princess, let his knees buckle and fell on his back, pulling her down on top of him. She landed with an “oomph,” lost her wind, and with his arms still locked tightly about her he rolled over and lay on top of her, trying to protect her from what he knew was coming.

  The ground beneath them bucked like a wild animal. The shock wave hit with a loud whomp partially muffled by his helmet speakers as they cut out to limit the volume, and even York, protected within his shell of power-reinforced plast, was momentarily stunned while clumps of dirt and lawn rained down upon them.

  York scrambled to his feet, took quick note of a large, smoking crater nearby. The next mortar round followed instantly, taking out a section of the compound wall. York keyed his com. “This is Ballin. Pull back to the roof. Double-time.”

  The princess picked herself up slowly, but her knees wobbled and she swayed from side to side like a drunkard as she tried to walk. York grabbed her by the back of her collar, swung her around and threw her at Hyer. She landed in a sprawl at the marine’s feet.

  “She’s yours, Corporal,” York shouted. “Get her to the roof and on the first available boat. And get her there alive.”

  Hyer pulled her to her feet. She started to struggle but the marine ignored her, threw her over one shoulder and ran unsteadily toward the main building. York and Hyer’s squad turned toward the breach in the wall, started backing toward the main building and laying down a continuous barrage of cover fire.

  The shuttle pilot begged for permission to lift without being shot down. “Go,” York hollered.

  “But what do I do about these fools hanging onto my skids?”

  “Hell if I know,” York shouted as he squeezed off several rounds at a gap in the wall. “You wanna stick around and figure something out that’s your busi—”

  The hand of some enormous god came out of nowhere and swatted him like a bug, left him dazed and sitting on the ground near another smoking crater. The Diana’s shuttle had already lifted several hundred feet in the air, ant-like humans still clinging to its skids. One of them lost hold, and in a last, frantic effort to save himself managed to take several of his friends with him when he fell.

  York crawled to his feet and looked around groggily. The same godlike hand of the mortar had swatted his small squad, and two of them were not getting up.

  Palevi and the rest of the marines had already reached the main building, were now laying down a heavy barrage of cover for York and his squad. Four of York’s marines grabbed the two wounded by the ankles and started dragging them while York and the rest backed in behind them, spraying cover-fire indiscriminately. York keyed his com. “One and Two, where the hell are you?”

  “On our way down now, Cap’em. High G drop—two minutes.”

  York thought of diverting one of them to the ground to pick him and his squad up there, but at dirt level the boat would be too good of a target for that mortar, and in two minutes the whole compound would be swarming with feddies. “One,” he shouted, “go straight to the roof. Two, see if you can find that mortar and knock it out. And strafe the hell out of the feddies in the compound. When One’s full-up trade places.”

  York and his squad reached the embassy building. “What’s the count?” he asked Palevi.

  “You were the last one in, sir. Rest are on the roof. All marines accounted for.”

  “What about the embassy staff?”

  “Don’t know for sure, sir. We got the princess, Cienyey, Harshaw, and about a hundred and fifty others.”

  “That’ll have to do. Let’s get the hell out of here.”

  “Right, sir.” Palevi’s next words came over the open marine frequency. “Pull it in, grunts. To the roof. Go! Go! Go!”

  They hit the stairwell running. Palevi hollered something about keeping their eyes open for feddies in the building, but York was too busy counting the steps and each landing as he cleared it. He was on the fourth floor with his lungs burning and starting to slow down when one of the stairwell walls exploded in his face and slammed him to the floor. Everything came to a stop for an instant, then the floor crumbled beneath him. He scrambled to grab at anything, tumbled through the air with a dizzy view of the lawn far below, but landed instead one floor down on a pile of twisted ironwork and broken masonry. A wall collapsed on top of him, knocked him f
lat, then everything went still.

  The first thing he checked was his telltale: still green; no suit breach, though he was half buried beneath a pile of broken masonry in the hall on the third floor. He could see blue sky through an enormous hole in the wall above and to one side of where the stairwell should have been. He thanked whatever gods existed the mortar hadn’t hit the stairwell directly, then, with the aid of a lot of adrenaline, pulled free of the rubble.

  He scrambled to his feet, saw the legs and hips of a suit of armor protruding from more rubble nearby. He grabbed the ankles, pulled with everything he had, and again, adrenaline did the job.

  No stripes and the name Dakkart stenciled on the chest plate. Dakkart seemed to be in one piece, though badly stunned. York backhanded her visor with an armored fist. “Come on, Dakkart. Snap out of it.”

  No response so he slapped her again. “Come on, private. Any breaches?”

  The woman shook her head. “No, sir. Telltale’s green, sir.”

  The umbilical that connected Dakkart’s rifle to her reactor pack disappeared in more rubble. York pulled on it and the rifle came free. He picked it up, slammed it against the marine’s chest. “Take your rifle and let’s get the hell out of here.”

  “Cap’em,” Palevi’s voice said in his ear. “There ain’t much left of this stairwell; better head for the other one. We’re coming down after you so don’t start shootin’ until you’re sure who you’re shootin’ at.”

  The building shook with the impact of another mortar round exploding somewhere. Dakkart was still groggy. York had to push her down the hall ahead of him, slapping the back of her helmet to keep her moving. They’d just rounded the first turn in the hall when York heard a groan over his com. He pulled Dakkart to a halt. “Palevi,” he screamed. “What’s your count?”

  “We’re missing you, Dakkart, and Stacy, Cap’em.”

  “And I’m missing Stacy,” York snarled. He spun Dakkart about, pushed her down to one knee at the turn in the hall. “Cover me,” he said. “I’m going back.”

  York ran back the way they’d come, conscious that feddies might come swarming up out of the broken stairwell at any moment, wondering if Dakkart might find it more convenient to let him take a feddie bullet. He dug through the rubble frantically until his eye caught the glint of a small piece of gray-green armor. More adrenaline helped him lift a piece of wall off the wounded marine and he had him free in seconds. He was still alive but unconscious.

  York grabbed him by the ankles, started dragging him on his back down the hallway, trailing his small rotary on its umbilical. He was half way back to the turn in the hall when Dakkart screamed, “Cap’em, yer in my line o’ fire.”

  York lifted his eyes and looked toward the broken stairwell, had one short instant in which to see a feddie there, and to understand he was looking straight down the muzzle of a rotary—

  The inside of a visor, blackened and scorched with a jagged line of a crack running down through the middle of it, spattered with flecks of blood. York stared at it for a long time before coming to the slow realization he was looking at the inside of his own visor. All of the lower half and most of the left half no longer functioned as a 3-D projection screen, and without power those areas had gone fully transparent. The telltale visible in the upper right corner of the visor still functioned, but only the upper half of the silhouette of the armored marine was visible, with the lower half cut off at the waist by an offshoot of the crack. The helmet and torso sections of the telltale were blinking an angry red at him, and his vision was oddly limited.

  Beyond the visor he saw his chest plate; it too was blackened and scorched, with power arcing across a large crack like small bolts of lightening. His breathing only came in shallow gasps, and any effort to breath deeper punished him with excruciating pain.

  Beyond his chest plate his legs were splayed out into the middle of the hall and tangled in Stacy’s still form. York lay on his back in the hallway, his back and shoulders on the floor, his head propped up uncomfortably by the wall.

  His com chattered incessantly with angry and frantic voices. For a moment his vision dimmed while he struggled to hold onto consciousness.

  Suddenly a pair of armored feddie legs hurtled over Stacy then disappeared out of sight down the hall. York turned his head to the left carefully, and slowly, just enough to see the turn in the hall where a cluster of feddie regulars were huddled staying out of sight of whatever lay beyond. York hoped it was Palevi and his marines that lay beyond.

  Evidently he and Stacy had been taken for dead. Again he turned his head carefully and slowly, but now to the right. At the rubble-strewn entrance of what was left of the broken stairwell another cluster of feddies stood in the open, gesturing as they conferred about something. York guessed the situation was a temporary stalemate, though that wouldn’t last long.

  He looked about for a weapon of some kind, careful to keep his movements to a minimum. Stacy’s rifle lay near his ankles, still attached to its umbilical, though whether or not it would function was academic since it was too far to reach quickly.

  His eyes settled on a short, dark cylinder clipped to the boy’s hip: a nuke, a big one. He kept his eyes on the feddies at the stairwell, had to gamble those at the turn in the hall were too busy with Palevi and his marines to pay attention to their backside. He inched his hand slowly toward the grenade, freezing whenever he thought someone might look his way. He reached the grenade, fumbled momentarily at the clips, panicked at the thought he might not get it free, but then it suddenly came loose and he had it in his hand. He kept it close to the floor, between him and Stacy, while he looked carefully at its face.

  He wanted to cry. It had a forty-pound rating, and it wasn’t adjustable. What he needed was a small two-pound chemical charge, not a forty-pound nuke. He swore that if he got out of this he’d kick Stacy’s ass across Hangar Deck for carrying non-issue explosives. But now he had no choice, so he set the dial on its face for a ten-second delay, then keyed the arming sequence on its side. A small red indicator lit up.

  “Computer,” he said. “Kikker, execute.” He felt the sting on the side of his neck as his suit flooded his system with a special mixture known as a combat kikker: adrenaline, phets, painkillers, anything that might help a badly wounded marine.

  His thoughts cleared for a moment and he keyed his com, spoke into the middle of all the com chatter. “Palevi,” he croaked.

  His com grew suddenly silent, then everyone started shouting at once.

  “Shut up,” Palevi shouted. “Shut up, god damn it. Cap’em, is that you?”

  “Ya. I’m gonna blow a forty-pound mininuke at the busted stairwell then hit the rest from behind with Stacy’s rotary.”

  “We’re ready when you are, sir.”

  York looked again at his chest plate. His suit computer had cut power from the area around the breach and the arcing had stopped. Otherwise it might short, and the energy available from his reactor pack could easily cook him alive in his suit. But without power to strengthen it, almost any weapon could punch through the plast.

  He shrugged mentally. “I’m ready,” he said. “Ten seconds.” Then he pressed the stud on the grenade, released the arming safety. He started counting down from ten, and when he reached two he rolled over, pitched the grenade to his right as far down the hall as he could, then grabbed hold of Stacy and held on for everything he was worth.

  There came a blinding flash and the walls lit up with an incandescent white glare. A shock wave traveled up the hall like the exploding powder in a gun barrel, and his ears popped as the force of it blew he and Stacy several meters up the hall. Then everything became suddenly still, silent.

  York hurt everywhere but he ignored that and scrambled over Stacy, grabbed the kid’s rifle, thumbed the settings to maximum muzzle velocity and fire rate then rested the four-barrel rotary on Stacy’s still form. He could see nothing through the clouds of dust in the hall, so he sighted blindly up its length and squeezed the
trigger.

  The rotary wound up to full firing rate and screamed with an angry, low-pitched whine, kicked and vibrated in his hands. Unlike his grav-gun it didn’t fire fragmentation shells. Instead, with all four barrels spinning madly, it spit small, blunt projectiles with enough velocity, and in sufficient numbers, to deliver far more destructive energy than a grav-gun shell. He fanned it back and forth randomly, watched it light up the hall as the friction of the shells burned through the dust and debris in the air. And then suddenly it went silent.

  He released the trigger and squeezed again. Nothing. He’d used up Stacy’s weapons reserves.

  He had nothing to lose now. He gave himself another dose of kikker, picked himself up with the intention of grabbing Stacy’s ankles and dragging him down the hall again, but his bad knee gave way and his leg slipped out from under him. He fell flat on his butt and his right foot suddenly began to throb with enough pain to bring tears to his eyes. He looked down at it, realized his bad knee really wouldn’t be giving him any more trouble since his right leg was missing from the knee down. His armor ended there in a jagged and bloody stump.

  He passed out.

  York awoke weightless, stretched out on his back and strapped to something hard. It was dark, and he guessed he was in one of the assault boats since he could hear the cries of dying people all about him. He wanted to cry himself, to tell someone he didn’t want to die, but he didn’t have the strength.

  Someone had cut away most of his armor. Bandages covered much of his head and face, and his ankle hurt like hell. One of the marine medics leaned over him working on his chest, and the sense of urgency in the medic’s movements told York a great deal.

  Palevi leaned over him, entered the field of view of his good eye. The sergeant had removed his own helmet and his head seemed disproportionately small protruding from his chest armor. And he wore that grin of his, though it was now strained and forced, and his eyes lacked the usual mirth. York reached up, tried to grab the sergeant’s shoulder, but he failed and his hand fell back to the stretcher. Palevi took hold of it and lifted it with almost parental concern. “Don’t try to move, sir. Yer in pretty bad shape.”