In the next moment the dowager’s men poured out of the bus past him, dodging him and Banichi as they charged past Kaplan and Polano. Gunfire went off inside the building. And Banichi moved, got a hand on the bus step and started to get up, while Bren was sitting on the ground.
Other pale hands arrived to help haul Banichi up. Jase had come to help, and was giving orders to Kaplan and Polano to stand fast. Banichi got a knee under him.
“Stay down, stay down,” Bren said, with a hand on Banichi’s arm.
Banichi took a breath, got one hand on the communications earpiece that had fallen from his ear and put it back, listened, on one knee, and said something in code, the three of them sheltered behind Jase’s steadfast bodyguard.
“Get aboard the bus,” Banichi said. There was a hole blown in Banichi’s jacket, exposing the bulletproof fabric, and blood.
“ You get aboard,” Bren said. “You were hit, Banichi.”
“He,” Banichi said, looking toward the stone steps of the porch. Bren looked, past armor‑cased legs. The stonework was shattered and black‑uniformed bodies lay every which way.
“ He went down,” Bren said, looking back at Banichi. “You hit him. They fired. Jase’s guard fired, and if anything else came from our direction it was ricochets.” If Banichi had to ask the sequence of events, he had been hit hard, and he did not want Banichi to get up and go staggering into the house.
“If it got him,” Banichi said, “good.” He did gain his feet, grabbed Bren’s hand and hauled him up as if he weighed nothing. Then he leaned back against the bus to check the bracelet and listen to communications. “Nawari’s group is arriving,” Banichi said. “Jase. Allies to the west. Tell Kaplan and Polano.”
Bren repeated that in ship‑speak, to be sure–east and west were not concepts Kaplan and Polano knew operationally, and Jase relayed it in ship‑speak and coordinates.
“They understand,” Jase said. “They’ve adjusted their autofire to that fact.”
Gunfire broke out somewhere beyond the house. He heard servos whine as Kaplan and Polano simultaneously reoriented.
“Ours,” Banichi said instantly.
Jase said, “Hold fire, hold fire. Rules of engagement still hold. Fire only if fired on.”
“Stay here,” Banichi said. “Get on the bus, Bren‑ji, Jase‑nandi. Now. ”
They had become a distraction. Banichi was linking the operations together, Nawari’s group coming in overland, the ones that were behind the house, and in the house.
“Get aboard,” Bren said to Jase. “Keep Kaplan and Polano where they are–Guild can tell each other apart. We can’t. And they can’t.”
The bus was still running. The driver still had the door open. Jase grabbed the assisting rail and climbed the steps, and Bren followed close behind him, hoping Banichi would stay where he was, behind Kaplan and Polano, and direct matters from there, but by the time Bren had gotten to the first seats and turned around, Banichi had crossed open ground to the side of the house, and along the way, had gathered up his rifle.
Bren put his hand in his pocket, felt the gun in place. He planted a knee in the seat and looked outward. Banichi was on the steps, taking a closer look at one of the fallen.
“That was the one you were after?” Jase asked. “The one Banichi got?”
“If we’re lucky,” Bren said.
Banichi! that one had said and fired.
So had Banichi.
They’d known each other by sight, at least. But that anger . . . that instant reaction . . .
How, when they had known each other, he had no idea. But he had that impression.
He watched Banichi go into the house.
“Nandiin,” the driver said, “there is still resistance in the house. One believes they may be attempting to destroy information. We are moving to prevent it.”
“One hears, nadi,” he said. The driver was Guild–linked into communications and willing to tell them what was going on. That was unprecedented. Banichi’s arrangement, he thought . . . with the hope of keeping him in his seat.
The windshield was starred with a bullet scar. Simultaneous as it had been–the other side had fired first. He’d swear to it. Damned right he’d swear to it. Kaplan and Polano had fired when fired on.
The renegades had not followed Guild rules, had not called for a standstill and consultation with Guild authority.
They had done everything by the book–and the Shadow Guild hadn’t, damn them. The carnage on the porch, terrible as it had been, was thanks to that. There was no need for so many to be dead. It wasn’t the way the Guild had operated, before the Shadow Guild had tried to take the rules back to the dark ages, the clan wars, the days of cavalry, pikes, and wholesale bloodshed. Atevi had climbed out of that age the hard way, before humans had ever arrived in the heavens. It was their common sense, the Assassins’ Guild was their solution, and the Shadow Guild was doing their damnedest to unravel it.
Suddenly Kaplan and Polano reoriented, machinelike and simultaneous, toward the windows above. Bren ducked down to see what they were looking at, could not spot it.
“A man in an upstairs window,” Jase said, with a better view. “Waving and shouting.”
That would not be Guild. And they must not harm civilians. The bus door was shut, cutting off sounds from outside. Bren shoved himself out of his seat, Jase right with him, and ordered the door open, trusting to Kaplan and Polano for protection.
He got to the bottom step and looked up. The man was dressed as a servant, and seeing him, waved furiously, shouting down, “My lord requests respect for the premises! My lord requests assistance!”
“A house servant,” Bren said for Jase: the Padi Valley accent was thick. “Speaking for Lord Aseida.” He called up to the man: “Can you come down, nadi? Come to the front entry. You will be safe! We–”
A shot hit the folded bus door. Kaplan and Polano fired, robot‑quick, before Bren could react and recoil. He had felt his hair move; he had felt a sting in his cheek; and then thunder blew past him. He blinked, and saw the window at the building corner–missing, along with the masonry around it.
The window from which the servant had called to them was undamaged. But empty.
Sensors. A sniper in a window up there in the corner room. He stared for a few heartbeats. Jase was hauling him back by the arm. He moved in compliance, backed up the steps, still looking up in disbelief.
“Nadi,” he said to the driver. “Advise those inside. Sniper strike, building corner, top floor. Jase’s guard just took them out.”
“Nandi,” the driver said calmly, and relayed that information.
Bren said: “Lord Aseida’s possible location is also the third floor, third window, next to the missing one.” His cheek stung. He touched it, bringing away bloody fingertips. Not a real wound. There might be a splinter of some sort. He was disgusted with himself. “My fault, standing there. Sorry, Jase.”
“Your local problems don’t miss an opportunity,” Jase said. “Sit down. Let me look at that.”
He sat. Jase looked, probed it, shook his head. “Not too bad.”
“Missed my head,” he said, and sucked in a deep breath, mad at himself, and now he second‑guessed his sending information into the house. He hoped his information wouldn’t draw his people into some sort of trap. About Lord Aseida’s rescue, he didn’t at the moment give a damn. “My bodyguard’s going to say a few words about my going out there.”
“Nandiin,” the driver said. “They acknowledge. They say keep inside.”