Then the Caps had arrived, and had driven his people from the roof. Now, with the gunships of the 11th controlling the air, he held the roof again, and had stabilized his situation inside the building.
He wasn't trying to do anything with it; there was no point to that either. The Caps would get reinforcements, the 11th would surrender or be driven away, and there'd be all those stakes going up for the officers of the 103rd, those who survived the fighting. Nor did he delude himself that the enlisted men would make any last ditch fight.
A bargaining chip…
Then it hit him! He had no notion that the Kalif might still be alive, but perhaps a better hostage was available: SUMBAA. The general had stressed strongly that they must not damage the great computer, that it was essential to government. If he could capture it, he'd be in a strong bargaining position, might come out of this without a steel stake up his ass. Which was better than Old Iron Jaw could look forward to.
He turned to his 1st sergeant. "Mazhiib, how many effectives in 2nd platoon?"
"About twenty-five, sir."
"And in 3rd?"
"Maybe thirty."
Enough for a convincing-looking rush, a good diversion. He turned to the man on the other side of him, a sergeant, the acting CO. of the 1st Penal Platoon. "Skosh, I've got a job for you. For you and your five best men."
Thoga had opened the kalifa's abdomen, bonded crudely the damage that seemed most serious, applied antibiotics, even installed a drain. Then, totally inadequate to close her up properly, he'd simply applied clamps and abundant tape.
After which he'd collapsed, exhausted and disconsolate. It seemed to him he'd bungled, horribly and uselessly. That to open her up as he had, splash and wallow ignorantly and ineptly, then leave the job unfinished, had been a gruesome violation of her dignity, to little or no benefit.
On top of everything else, of course, she'd miscarried-aborted her fetus. It would have been a miracle if she hadn't.
One of the two surgeons brought in by the Caps had reopened her and finished the job, awed that a layman could have accomplished what Thoga had, and irritated that he'd done it so crudely. But, he said, she might live. She just might. If they got her to a hospital promptly. And if she did live, he added, Thoga's work would have made the difference.
They had other wounded ready to evacuate, too, more than they had ambulance space for just now. Besides the kalifa, there were a number of guardsmen, soldiers, rebels, and two Sisters of the Faith. The kalifa would leave in the first one out.
By that time the Caps had just lost control of the air over the Sreegana, but there was no reason to believe that the rebels would refuse to let the ambulances take out wounded. After all, they'd let them come in and land.
It was Jilsomo who pointed out the problem. The rebels were certain to insist on inspecting them, to make sure the Kalif wasn't smuggled out. And if they found the kalifa, they'd undoubtedly take her hostage.
So hurriedly the surgeon shaved her head like those of the Sisters of the Faith, painted her exposed skin brown with tincture of benzoin, and partly concealed her features with bandage. Her gown covered her smooth arms. The coloring didn't look at all natural, but the surgeon waved it off. She looked so bad anyway, he said, it wouldn't make any difference. Jilsomo was doubtful, but there wasn't much more they could do. And certainly she wouldn't be exposing her violet-blue eyes.
Then orderlies, led by a man with a medevac flag, struggled the stretchers to the roof and loaded them into the ambulance. As Jilsomo had foreseen, when they'd finished loading, a gunship hailed them, and the rebels landed a utility floater on the roof. Several businesslike soldiers got out, a lieutenant and three non-coms, boarded the ambulance, and hastily inspected its cargo of wounded. Two of the wounded wore rebel uniforms; that made the right impression to start with. And the kalifa appeared to be simply another Sister of the Faith, the one who looked closest to death.
The rebels were clearly in a hurry. Their lieutenant apologized, saluted the on-board surgeon, and left the ambulance. Which lifted at once and swung away hurriedly, bound for a government hospital in the western outskirts of Ananporu. Apologized! The pilot said the rebels must have picked up the same radio report he had: that a wing of gunships was on its way from the marine base at Bajapor, some three hours away. They had to be sweating.
Sergeant Skosh Viilenga watched from a light utility floater with the five men he'd picked. He'd gotten to pick from both platoons, and chosen only noncoms. Which pissed off Sergeant Jodharka in charge of the other penal platoon. He'd only had four noncoms left, and to lose two of them like this… But Captain Iighil had backed his selection; Iighil was a good officer, a hardnose.
As the floater lifted from its vantage atop the west wing of the Admin Building, the two regular platoons began to move in short rushes toward the almost blank-walled House of SUMBAA. Rifle fire had erupted at them, but they hadn't shot back. A helluva way to attack, Skosh thought. Apparently the two platoons thought so, too. Their attack lasted five seconds at most, then they broke and ran for cover, leaving fifteen or twenty men dead or wounded on the ground.
By that time the light utility floater was over the building. Carefully it settled to the roof, on the side farthest from the Admin Building, where they'd be cut off from view by the roof's curvature. Skosh was the first man onto the curved structure, the other five following closely.
The floater stayed. Crouching, Skosh moved up the roof to what looked like an access hatch. Its cover sat flat and snug atop the low coaming. There was no handle-it was built to open only from below-but the trench knife in his boot was enough to pry it with. With strong steel and strong fingers, he got it up.
It opened onto a shaft with rungs on one side. Without hesitating, Skosh lowered his legs inside and began to climb down. The shaft was less than ten feet long, with its ladder continuing out of it, emerging high in a poorly lit room bigger than a hay barn.
The ladder ended on a catwalk, and when he reached it, he unslung his rifle and looked around, moving out of the way of the men who followed. The place was silent. Not just without sound of its own; he couldn't hear the fighting outside, either.
Somehow it gave him the willies; it was as if he'd climbed down into another world. Beneath the catwalk were assorted housings, interconnected. And apparently without dust. That was strange, too. It seemed to him that there should have been dust.
Near the far end of the catwalk, another ladder went down, presumably to the floor. Softly, rifle ready in his hands, Skosh started toward it. As he neared the end, he could see the floor below, with a pair of seats at what appeared to be a console. There was no one there.
The Kalif stood just back from the entrance, pistol in hand, while guardsmen fired their automatic rifles at the attacking rebel troops. It seemed unreal; the rebels were simply charging, not firing as they came.
It lasted only seconds before they broke and ran back for the poor cover of a hedge and a row of barbered vaasera trees, leaving their dead and wounded where they'd fallen.
A strange attack in a strange kind of fight, thought the Kalif. A fight between brothers, so to speak, men some of whom might have served together at one time or another, who'd drunk together and called each other buddy.
Meanwhile he could hear plenty of shooting at a little distance, but none of it seemed to be in his direction. "Corporal," he said to the man in charge of the entry, "if anyone tries to remove their wounded, let them."