Having dug out as many fighters as she could, she trudged back to Ashbar Square, where new units were beginning to arrive. If the current attack failed, she decided, she’d pull the trick with the suicide trucks again.
It wasn’t necessary. Sidney and the other infiltrators had worked their way through the maze of lanes and alleys and gotten behind the Naxid positions. They attacked seized some of the heavy weapons positions and turned the weapons on the other hardened positions. The fighters trying to move up the street suddenly surged forward as the Naxid defense disintegrated.
The Naxids had no reserves to speak of, and their positions had no depth. Once their line was breached, they had to pull back everywhere to avoid being cut off. Most were overrun before they could retreat. Sula’s fighters seized the Ministry of Right and Dominion, the Ministry of Police, the Ministry for the Defense of the Praxis, and the High Court with its admirable view of the surrounding terrain.
Mad triumph raged in her veins. She called Casimir.
“We’ve thrown down another attack,” Julien replied. “We’re just slaughtering them. I don’t know why they keep on coming.”
“Julien?” Sula said in surprise. “Where’s Casimir?” Then she remembered communications protocols and repeated the question using the proper form.
“He’s gone to sort out some of the units with poor fire control,” Julien said. “They keep wasting ammunition. He gave me his comm protocols while he’s running his errand.”
Sula sagged with relief. “Comm: to Wind,” she said. “Tell him that I love him madly. Tell him that it looks like we’re taking all the government buildings on this end. Comm: send.”
“We figured you would,” came the answer.
She spoke too soon. When the army tried to move on to the Commandery, they ran into serious trouble.
“They’ve installed one of those units they’ve been using against snipers,” Sula was told. “Fire one bullet across their perimeter, and a whole series of automated weapons blast the hell out of you.”
Fortunately, Macnamara reported that he’d pulled an antiproton gun out of its turret and mounted it on the back of a truck. Sula ordered it to the Commandery.
The automated defense system could pinpoint any bullet or rocket aimed in its direction. But it wasn’t capable of spotting a minute charge of antiprotons traveling along an electron beam at one-third the speed of light.
Macnamara demolished the Commandery’s defenses with ten minutes of careful fire. The loyalists charged forward with a great roar, chasing the remaining guards through the maze of corridors and capturing the entire Naxid Fleet staff in the situation room.
The Ministry of Wisdom was taken without a fight. The Naxid security forces tried to make a stand in the courtyard of the Hall of the Convocation but were swarmed from all sides and massacred.
Forty of the rebels’ tame Convocation were captured hiding in various parts of the building. Lady Kushdai, who chaired the Committee for the Salvation of the Praxis, was captured in the quarters formerly belonging to the Lord Senior of the Convocation.
Sula had launched the only ground battle fought in the empire’s history, and won it.
Zanshaa High City was now hers, and so was the government.
TWENTY-EIGHT
The technicians at the Ministry of Wisdom were mostly non-Naxids, and happy to cooperate with the forces that had stormed their workplace. Thus it was that an expressionless Daimong news reader, droning through the statistics of the northern hemisphere’s most recent spelt harvest, interrupted his recital to announce a special proclamation.
The image then switched to Sula, who had occupied a desk in the next studio. She was still wearing her cuirass, and despite the last minute attention of a cosmetician on the department staff, her hair was stringy and still bore the impressions of her helmet liner. One-Step’s necklace hung over her armor plate. Her helmet and PJ’s rifle lay on the desk in front of her.
The image went out on every video channel on the planet. Audio channels carried it as well.
Sula looked at the nearest camera and lifted her chin. She tried to remember how she had acted and spoken when she first met Sergius Bakshi, how Lady Sula had looked down her nose at the assembled cliquemen and demanded their allegiance.
“I am Caroline, Lady Sula,” she said in her best High City accent. “I serve the empire as Military Governor of Zanshaa and commander of the secret army. This morning forces under my command took the High City of Zanshaa and captured the rebel Naxid government. Lady Kushdai surrendered to me shortly thereafter, on behalf of the Committee for the Salvation of the Praxis.”
She paused for dramatic effect, and let an arrogant curve develop along her upper lip. “As Lady Governor,” she said, “I decree the following:
“All hostages and political prisoners taken by the rebel government are to be released immediately.
“All Naxids in the military and police forces are to surrender their weapons at once to units of the secret army, or to any captain of the Urban Patrol or Motor Patrol provided that he is not a Naxid. Naxid forces will then return to their barracks and await further orders. Those with families on the planet may return home.
“All promotions in the civil service, judiciary, and military made since the arrival of the Naxid rebels are canceled. Those placed in positions of authority by the previous administration may return to work at their old jobs and at their old rates of pay.
“All units of the secret army are ordered to cease offensive action against any rebel force that is in obedience to my instructions. Those who disobey may still be attacked. Units of the secret army are to hold themselves ready for further orders.”
She paused again, and tried to glare into the cameras as if it were an enemy.
“Disobedience of my orders will be met with the highest possible penalty. The cooperation of all citizens in the restoration of legitimate and orderly government will be required. Further announcements will be made as necessary.
“This is Caroline, Lady Sula. This announcement is at an end.”
We now return you to spelt prices,she thought, and had a hard time containing a sudden eruption of laughter until one of the techs signaled her that they’d cut back to the Daimong announcer.
Presumably, Naxids on other parts of the planet would be acting to cut off the broadcasts in their own areas, so Sula and her crew acted to get as much information into the hands of the public while it was still possible.
The announcers and staff at the ministry were ordered to repeat her announcement regularly, along with any news or analysis they cared to add that was favorable to the point of view of the loyalists. They were professionals, and had spent their careers cleaving to one ideological line or another, and they all understood their instructions. Camera crews were sent out to take pictures of the fighters standing around the various public buildings and monuments and wandering through the Convocation and the Commandery.
Sula realized that her claim that Lady Kushdai had surrendered to her would be considerably bolstered if Lady Kushdai actuallydid surrender to her, so she had the elderly Naxid brought from the bloodstained courtyard of the Convocation, where prisoners were being held, into the hall itself and onto the speaker’s platform. Behind Sula was the huge glass wall that looked out onto the Lower Town, where towers of rising smoke marked the acts of sabotage that she had called for in that morning’s edition ofResistance.
Lady Kushdai was escorted to the platform and presented with the formal articles of surrender, written by Sula herself a few minutes earlier.
“No flashing your scales, now,” Sula said. The red flashes could be used to send messages to other Naxids, messages that other species found it difficult to translate. Kushdai obeyed, and scratched her signature onto the sheet of paper that Sula had cribbed from one of the convocates’ desks.