11
They had counted on the element of surprise and they hadlost it almost immediately. The scream from the rooftop had galvanized theopposition into action and even though they hadn’t expected such a bold attack,they responded like the pros they were. They didn’t run: they chose to standand fight. In spite of the swiftness of their attack, Cooper lost almost halfhis men in the first three or four minutes of the assault. Three more werewounded, two of them seriously. As Andre ran across the atrium, a laser beamlanced out and burned a hole right through the left side of her shirt, missingher kidney by scant millimeters. Steiger, running right behind her, took outthe man who’d fired the shot, but another one they hadn’t seen until it wasalmost too late fired at him as he was bringing up his stunner. The beam struckSteiger’s forearm and burned a long furrow from his wrist up to his elbow. Hecried out, but managed to hold on to his weapon long enough to fire a dart intohis attacker, and Andre shot him with another one almost immediately. Hecrumpled to the floor.
“You all right?” asked Andre.
“I’m fine, go!” Steiger shifted his weapon to his left handand followed her as they moved quickly from room to room.
Cooper’s men had rappelled down from the rooftop and as soonas they secured the upper floor, they ran down the stairs to join the battle inthe main part of the house. Cooper heard the sounds of their booted feetcoining down the stairs and turned his head to shout a warning to them so theywouldn’t fire on their own men. In that instant, a laser beam burned its waythrough his left cheek and out the right. Cooper was so psyched, he didn’t evenfeel the pain. He spun around and fired, dropping his attacker, then kept righton going. If he hadn’t turned his head just at the right moment, the laserwould probably have killed him.
Delaney found himself pinned down behind a column in theatrium, under fire from three directions at once. Three laser beams bracketedhim, one passing to either side of the column, the third grazing the marble,inches from his head. He dropped down low and risked a glance around thecolumn. In that instant, he saw a sight that made his jaw drop.
Darkness suddenly appeared out of thin air and, movingfaster than the speed of light, plucked the weapon from the hand of one manwhile he knocked him senseless with his cane. Then he materialized behind thesecond gunman and clubbed him to the ground. before his afterimage had evenfaded from where he had first appeared. He repeated the same procedure with thethird S.O.G. man, but at the speed with which he moved, it all happened in thesame instant and Delaney actually saw three of him. He jumped about a foot whenDarkness appeared standing right beside him.
“Somehow I knew I’d find you in a situation like this,” Darknesssaid laconically.
“Jesus. Doc,” Delaney said, exhaling heavily, I wish youwouldn’t do that!”
“If I hadn’t done that, you lunkhead, you’d look like aSwiss cheese.”
“How’s Bryant doing at the palace?”
“Knocking them dead.” said Darkness. “You, on the otherhand, seem to be having a few problems. Excuse
Suddenly he simply wasn’t there anymore. Delaney heard asickening crunch behind him and spun around in time to see Darkness droppingthe limp form of an S.O.G. man whose head he’d smashed against a marble column.Then he jerked as he suddenly heard Darkness speaking beside him even as he sawhis image disappear again.
“I’d move somewhere else. if I were you:
“Thanks, Doc.”
“Don’t mention it.”
He vanished.
Delaney crossed the atrium and encountered Cooper and two ofhis men coming the other way. Andrew and Steiger came running up behind them.Several more strike force commandos came running into the atrium from theopposite side.
“Our wing’s secured. sir.”
“Second floor secured.”
“Grounds secured. sir.”
“How many did we lose?” asked Cooper. glancing around quickly.
“Kaufman bought it outside,” one of the men said.
“Hockett’s dead,” another man said. “He clocked in right ontop of one of the roof guards.”
“Poor bastard: said Delaney
“We lost Bishop and Grant.”
“Campbell’s wounded. We had to clock him out.”
“How bad?” asked Cooper.
“Pretty bad. I don’t know. He may not make it.”
“Connors. you hit?”
“I’ll make it.”
“Where’s Sharp?”
Silence.
“Damn it. Okay, you all know what to do. Find Sharp, see ifhe’s alive. Search the house and grounds. All bodies. tranked or dead, getclocked to TAC-HQ. Make sure there aren’t any weapons left lying around. Moveit!”
“Well done. Colonel.” said Delaney.
“You’re hit.”
“So are you.”
“Yeah, but I’ll be okay long as I don’t drink any beer,”said Cooper. “Did you get your man?”
“No. dammit.” said Delaney. “I had a shot. but I was just asecond too late. He clocked out on us.”
“Well, we might get lucky and track him down through one ofthe prisoners, but he’s probably long gone.” said Steiger.
“We’ll have some of Bryant’s people on Octavian and Antony.just in case.” said Andre.
“Where’s Darkness?”
Who the hell knows?” Delaney said. “He saved my ass backthere and then just popped off, like he always does. But he said things at thepalace were under control.”
“We’d better get back to the house and check on how it wentwith Lucas,” said Andre.
“Cooper, why don’t you clock out with your wounded and getyourself and them some medical attention?” Steiger said. “I’ll take over here.”
“Thanks. I appreciate it.”
“Okay, I’ll meet you all back at the house,” said Steiger. “Gotell Travers we pulled it off before he dies of an anxiety attack.”
Andre and Finn clocked out while Cooper hurried to check onhis wounded. Steiger stood alone in the atrium. He took a deep breath and letit out slowly. I’ll be damned, he thought. We did it.
“Steiger ….”
He turned around. One of Cooper’s men was standing by amarble column about twenty feet away, holding a disruptor.
“What is it, soldier?”
“It’s payback time, you bastard.”
“Simmons!”
As Simmons fired. Steiger made a flying dive to the left.The deadly blast from the disruptor barely missed him. He rolled and came upwith his laser in his hand. Both men fired at the same time.
“Now.” said Lucas, and Caesar and Calpurnia suddenly materializedbeside each other on their bed. Lucas heaved a deep sigh of relief. Andell wasright on schedule. He laid his weapons on the bed and bent to remove the warpdisc from Calpurnia’s wrist, then went around to the other side to get the onethat Caesar wore.
As he started to remove it, he heard a voice say. “Freeze.”
An invisible fist grabbed a handful of his insides andstarted squeezing. His laser and his stunner were both on the far side of thebed.
“Don’t try it.” Hollister said. “You’ll be dead before youget your hands on ’em. Just straighten up slowly and keep your hands at yoursides, where I can see them.”
Lucas knew his only chance was his thought-controlled transponder.All he had to do was concentrate and..
“Move away from the bed.”
Nothing! Lucas tried again, with the same result. It hadfinally decayed. He had hated the damn thing, but of all the times for it to goout ….
“What’s your name?” asked Hollister.
Lucas swallowed hard. “Priest. Col. Lucas Priest.”
“You in command?”
“That’s right,” said Lucas. His mind was racing. but therewas no way out. The weapon in the S.O.G. man’s hand was dead steady. And deadon target. And what do I call you. Apollodorus?”
“Name’s Hollister. Captain. That was some job your peoplepulled off tonight. Took a lot of fuckin’ balls. My compliments, Colonel.”
“Thank you. Captain.” Lucas said. “I’m just sorry theymissed you. Mind if I ask how it went?”
“First-class operation,” Hollister replied. “Your peopletook some losses, but I’m afraid we lost. However, the war’s not over yet.”