Close up, the half-timbered building seemed to loom over them; Lutane had to remind herself that it was only three stories high. Three streets debouched onto the plaza surrounding the building; they were in the central one.
“Grelli; take your squad over to the left-hand street and set up a covering fire,” Lutane ordered. “Jollin, take your people over to the right.”
The two sergeants nodded and turned back to the alleyway, beckoning to their squads.
“What’ll the rest of us do, Lieutenant?”
“What do you think we’re going to do, Olerein?” Lutane snapped. “Have a tea party, of course!”
Olerein’s face set into a regulation mask, and Lutane felt a moment’s anger at herself for letting go like that—but it had been a dumb question.
Gunfire broke out from her right, Grelli’s position. Thirty seconds later, Jollin’s squad cut loose. Muzzle flashes showed at third-floor windows.
“All right, hotshot!” Lutane turned to Olerein. “Get those snipers!”
Olerein’s eyes narrowed. He dropped to sitting position, rested his elbow on his knee, took deliberate aim, and squeezed off a shot. The windowpane shattered, and the platoon whooped with glee. Then stucco dust geysered next to another window, and the pane broke on the third, as Grelli and Jollin got their own snipers working.
“Stay here and pin down that middle window, Olerein!” Lutane snapped.
“Wha . . . ! Lieutenant, I . . .”
“Do it! Everybody else—now!”
Lutane dashed out, sprinting in zigzags toward, the big central door. The last two squads followed close. Occasional ricochets rang to either side of them, but the Khalian snipers didn’t dare stick their heads out far enough to take proper aim.
Lutane jerked to a halt three feet in front of the door and started pouring automatic fire into the lock. Her squads slammed up right behind her and started stitching the hinge side.
“Hold!” Lutane cried. “Back!” She readied herself and slammed a kick into the lock. The door crashed down, and she sprayed the doorway with bullets. Answering fire from inside filled her ears with racketing, but her squad leaders ducked out to add their fire to hers. Pain blazed in her left arm and she knew she’d taken a hit, but braced her elbow against her belt and held the trigger down with her other hand.
Then the hammering stopped, and Lutane ejected the clip with a curse. She slammed in a new one just as the gunfire inside lessened, and her squad leaders leaped in. The move startled Lutane, so she was a step or two behind them, her squads streaming in after her.
Gunfire erupted from their right, and Lutane screamed, “Down!” as she threw herself prone. Soldiers screamed and fell behind her, and she cursed as she fired at the dim, elongated shadows lurking in a small, square room—they’d given her a sucker punch; they’d slacked off their firing to make her think she’d taken out all of them. Then, when her squads were in a point-blank range, they’d cut loose with everything they had.
It would be all they ever had, she decided grimly, as she thumbed down to semi-automatic and started picking targets. The Khalian in her sights jerked and fell; so did its mates, as her squad cut them down. The air was filled with their almost supersonic death cries, thin whines on the edge of hearing, tearing human heads apart . . .
Then the whines stopped. Automatic doors clashed closed, and Lutane leaped up firing at the heavy portal where the little room had been. A dozen automatics joined hers, and the door turned into a grating. “Cease fire!” She bellowed.
The entry hall went quiet.
“They got away,” somebody snarled.
“Just make sure they don’t come back. Sergeant Murghesh, set a guard on that door.” Lutane looked around her, counting dead furry bodies. There were ten of them—and six of hers.
Enilho knelt over Kazruitin, setting a stitch-strip over a raw hole in her breast, then spraying it with plastic skin. Lutane felt a sympathetic ache and moved toward them. “You gave her anesthesia?”
Enilho nodded. “First thing, Lieutenant—the whole bulb.” He finished spraying the plastic flesh, set the container back in her belt, and folded the slit uniform blouse back over her chest. “She’ll last till the medics get her.” He thumbed the beacon on her belt, and it started blinking.
Lutane nodded, feeling her heart sinking. “Any other casualties who aren’t dead?”
Belardin shook his head. “She’s the only one who didn’t go right off, Lieutenant.”
“Seven down.” Lutane hefted her rifle. “Let’s make it worth it to them. Clear the stairs.”
Soldiers started dragging Khalian corpses off the steps.
“Hold still, Lieutenant.” Murghesh ripped away Lutane’s sleeve and pulled an anesthetic shot from her belt. She sprayed the wound, then peeled back the edges to inspect. Dimly, Lutane felt the pain, but it wasn’t her arm it was happening to. “Clean wound,” Murghesh said. “The bullet went through, and it just missed the artery.” She slapped a patch on the underside and sprayed in the anesthetic. It smarted a little, but the bleeding stopped. Murghesh slapped a patch on the top. “Maybe we should call you a medic.”
“All right, so I’m, a medic.” Lutane twitched her arm loose impatiently. “I’m good for a few more rounds, Sergeant—and I have some troops to avenge.”
“Thought you already had.” Murghesh glowered down at the Khalian corpses. “Stupid bastards! They got what they had coming.”
“Not so stupid.” Lutane frowned. “They gambled and lost, that’s all. They suckered us in. When their mates on the stairs were dead, the ones in the lift stopped shooting. We figured they were all dead, and came in. When we were inside, the rest cut loose. But if they didn’t get most of us in, the first few seconds, they’d had it—and they knew it.”
“But they made it up in the lift!”
“No—the lift made it up,” Lutane corrected. “I very much doubt there was anything left alive in it—and if there was, it sure as hell can’t do any fighting.” She rubbed her temples. “Still, we can’t know that. We just have to figure they reinforced the guard up top.”
Guilt shadowed Murghesh’s eyes. “We shoulda waited for your call, huh?”
“Yeah.” But Lutane was glowering up the stairs. “But as you said, it was a stupid move. More than stupid—it was suicidal.”
Murghesh shrugged. “They must have figured they didn’t have a chance against us any other way.”
“And they were right—there were just too many of us for them.” Lutane scowled. “I’d have tried their trick, too, suicidal or not.” She stared down at the corpses.
“Something wrong, Lieutenant?” Murghesh asked carefully.
Lutane pointed. “Only two of ‘em are wearing bandoliers.”
Murghesh followed her gaze. “That mean they were officers?”
“No, it means they were soldiers.” Lutane pointed. “The other ones are only wearing armbands.”
Murghesh shrugged. “I heard the Khalia weren’t big on clothes, anyway.”
“Yeah, but they need some kind of rank insignia—and that’s all these ones had. They were reloading out of those boxes of clips, there.” Lutane pointed. Murghesh looked and saw plastic cases stacked along the edge of the stairs. “Then what were the rest of ‘em?”
“Communication technicians. They only had two guards stationed here, so the signal corps had to take defense stances as soon as the alarm went up.”