Jonny looked over MacDonald's shoulder. L'est was still standing near the center of the Square, watching them. Glancing around, he noticed for the first time that four more Cobras were also present, spaced more or less evenly around that end of the Square: the two men who besides L'est had been at Challinor's the night before, Challinor himself, and—"Sandy Taber's joined them," he said.
MacDonald grunted. "Chrys?" he asked.
She moved her face away from Insley's and shook her head. "There's no pulse in the carotid artery," she said gently. "Hasn't been since we got here. I'm sorry, Ken."
For a long moment MacDonald looked at her, his hands still in position on the dead man's chest. Then, slowly, he stood up and turned back toward the Square, his face like a thundercloud sculpted from stone. "Keep her clear, Jonny," he murmured, and started walking toward L'est.
The action was so casual that he was four steps away before Jonny understood exactly what the Cobra was planning. Simultaneously, a hissing intake of air behind him told him Chrys also had suddenly realized what was going to happen. "Ken!" she blurted, leaping to her feet.
Jonny was faster, standing up and grabbing her in an unbreakable grip before she could get past him. "Stay here," he whispered urgently into her ear. "You can't do anything for him out there."
"Jonny, you have to stop him!" she moaned as she struggled against him. "They'll kill him!"
For Jonny, it was the hardest decision he'd ever made in his life. Every instinct screamed at him to step into the Square and begin shooting, to try and knock out one or more of the Cobras waiting silently in their circle. To him it was obvious that Insley's death had been a deliberate effort on L'est's part to provoke precisely this reaction; to goad MacDonald into a confrontation where all the numerical and tactical advantages were theirs. But equally obvious was the fact that there was nothing he could to change the coming battle's outcome. At five-to-two odds he and MacDonald together would die just as surely as MacDonald alone... and with both of their Cobra defenders gone, the people of Ariel would have no way at all to fight back against Challinor's fledgling warlords. Even more than it had been the previous night, it was clear where his duty lay.
And so he clung tightly to Chrys and watched as they killed his friend.
It was a short battle. Even burning with rage, MacDonald had enough sense not to simply come to a halt and try to gun L'est down. Halfway through one of his strides he abruptly let his right leg collapse beneath him, dropping straight down onto the ground. Simultaneously, his arms snapped up, fingertip lasers sending fire to both sides. Patrusky and Szintra, at the receiving ends of the two blasts, reacted instantly, twisting aside as their own nanocomputers responded with return fire. An instant later there were twin howls of pain as the renegade Cobras' shots crossed the Square and hit each other... and from his prone position on the ground, MacDonald brought his left leg to bear on L'est.
He never got a chance to fire. With his own lightning reflexes and servo-augmented muscles, L'est leaped up in a six-meter-high arc that took him almost directly over his opponent. MacDonald moved with desperate speed to get his hands up... but L'est's leg got to firing position first.
The square lit up for an instant, and it was all over.
Beside him, Jonny felt the tension drain out of Chrys's body. For a moment he thought she would either faint or become hysterical... but when she spoke her voice was quiet and firm. "Let me go to him, Jonny. Please."
He hesitated, knowing what it would look like. "It'll be pretty bad—"
"Please."
They went together, Jonny with his arm still around her.
It was, indeed, pretty bad. L'est's antiarmor blast had caught MacDonald high in the chest, destroying his heart and probably a good percentage of his lung tissue. His arms lay limply on the ground, indicating that the connections between nanocomputer and arm servos had also been destroyed, denying the Cobra even the satisfaction of one last dying shot.
"Such a terrible waste."
Jonny turned slowly, disengaging his arm from Chrys's shoulders and taking a half step away from her. "Yes, it is, isn't it, Challinor?" he said to the man standing before him, a white-hot anger beginning to burn through his mind. "A shame he didn't try for you and your chief butcher instead of your two dupes."
"He attacked first. You saw that—you all saw that," Challinor added, raising his voice for the benefit of the stunned crowd. "Cee-three L'est was protecting you, as is his duty."
All the possible responses collided deep in Jonny's throat; what came out was an animalistic growl. Challinor regarded him thoughtfully. "I'm sorry about your friend—truly I am," he said quietly. "But we can't allow opposition to our plan. We're going to remake Aventine, Moreau; and the faster and stronger our first stroke, the more likely the governor-general will capitulate without unnecessary bloodshed."
Taber came up to Challinor's side. "Szintra is dead," he reported, avoiding Jonny's eyes. "Patrusky's going to be out of action for a few days, but none of his burns are really dangerous."
Challinor nodded. "I underestimated him rather badly," he mused. "I thought he was too angry to be thinking tactically. A dangerous man—I wish he'd been on our side."
"I'm going to kill you, Challinor," Jonny ground out. "You set Ken up to be killed, and you're going to die for that."
Challinor didn't move, but his gaze tightened slightly. "You're welcome to try," he said softly. "But you can't stop us. L'est will carry on in my place if I die; would you rather he be in charge? And don't expect you'll get all of us. MacDonald was lucky to do as much damage as he did."
Jonny didn't reply. Like a surfer on a wave, his tactical sense was riding the crest of his rage, calculating odds and possibilities with abnormal speed and clarity. Challinor stood before him, Taber slightly to his left, L'est somewhere behind him. An imperceptible bending of the knees could let him jump high enough to deliver lethal head kicks to the two in front of him, especially if the attack were preceded by a numbing blast from his sonic. L'est was far out of the sonic's outdoor range, but if he was watching the crowd for signs of hostility Jonny might be able to get in the first shot there, too—
"No!" Chrys's unexpected grip on his arm froze his thoughts in mid-stride. "Don't do it, Jonny. I've lost Ken already—I don't want to lose you, too."
Jonny closed his eyes and took a deep, ragged breath. My duty to Ariel does not include throwing my life away in anger, he thought at the white heat within him... and slowly the bonfire cooled to more controllable embers.
He opened his eyes. Challinor and Taber were watching him tensely. "Dr. Eldjarn had to go to Sangraal this morning," he told Challinor evenly. "You'll need to release our phone system so that we can call him back."
The two renegade Cobras relaxed fractionally. "No need," Challinor said. "He'll be back at home in a few minutes, if he's not there already. Our roadblock stopped him on the way out of Thanksgiving, of course. You really shouldn't have tried to get a message out like that—you left us no choice but to move in."
There was nothing to say to that. Taking Chrys's arm, Jonny led her away.
"His great-grandfather was the last of six MacDonald generations to hold commissions in the Fifty-First Highland Division on Earth—did you know that?"
Jonny nodded silently. Chrys had been curled up on the couch, talking almost nonstop about MacDonald, since their arrival back at her home several hours previously. At first Jonny had been worried, wondering whether she was retreating into some sort of personal fantasy world. But it soon became apparent that it was simply her way of saying good-bye.