He turned then, Sergeant Yalabiin beside him, and strode down the perimeter corridor some forty yards to the window in that side. After repeating to its two defenders what he'd told the men at the entry, he backtracked to the door to SUMBAA's chamber. He'd see if the computer could fill in for him what was happening out there.
Yalabiin pushed the door open, stepped in and turned, holding it for him. From inside came an unexpected burst of rifle fire, and Yalabiin crumpled. There was a loud, harsh, electric crackling, and the Kalif's eyes jerked upward from the fallen sergeant to the catwalk, where three soldiers writhed in blue wreaths of miniature lightning that came from a small globe atop SUMBAA. In front of him, staring back at the sound, was a soldier, a sergeant. At the foot of a ladder stood another, and beside that one, another who'd dropped from the ladder when the lightnings began. They looked confused and shocked at what was happening to their buddies, afraid it might happen to themselves.
As the Kalif jerked his pistol from his holster, the lightnings stopped, dropping three dead soldiers onto the grating. He could smell their burnt flesh.
In front of him, the sergeant turned and saw him. Saw also the pistol muzzle pointing at him. "Your Reverence!" he said fervently. "Thank Kargh you're all right!" He stepped back as if expecting the Kalif to come in. The Kalif stayed where he was.
"Yab's not all right," he answered. The muzzle of his weapon flicked toward the fallen Yalabiin, then back at the intruder. "Who in hell are you, and what are you doing here?"
"I'm Sergeant Viilenga, Your Reverence." He said it loudly enough that his two remaining men would hear, and realize who he spoke to. "Captain Iighil sent us to get you out of here. We're from the Capital Division, attached to an armored company that's got stalled on the way by the rebels. The C.O. figured it might take too long to break through, so he asked division to send a rescue team by air. That's us. We came in through the roof."
He's lying, the Kalif decided. It felt like a lie, and the man's tunic was green, not blue. Still he wasn't entirely sure. The man wore no unit blazon on his sleeve; he could be part of the Caps penal platoon.
The sergeant looked over his shoulder and spoke to his remaining two men. "Go back to the roof and make sure everything's clear for an escape. Snap it up! We'll be along in a minute."
He watched them start climbing, then turned to the Kalif to find the pistol still pointing at him. He shrugged. "I don't know why that stupid bastard opened fire like that. Jumpy, I guess. Our floater took a lot of fire coming in, and I lost three men." He half turned. "We'd better get up there and get clear, sir. We heard radio traffic that the rebs have a bunch more air support on the way."
"Drop your rifle," the Kalif said quietly.
It clattered to the concrete.
"Who's your division C.O.?" he asked.
The sergeant's eyes sharpened, and abruptly he threw himself sideways to the floor as the Kalif triggered a burst that ripped past him. The man rolled, grabbing at his own sidearm while the Kalif's aim followed him. The racket of their firing overlapped. Skosh Viilenga's face burst red. Twisting, the Kalif crumpled, gutshot.
A guardsman at the nearest window saw him fall into the corridor, and shouting, jumped to his feet and came running.
Major Tagurt Meksorli wore his arm in a sling cut from a dead man's trousers. The battalion command floater had been disabled and made a hard landing. Broken arm and all, he'd had to run hard to reach cover. The battalion commander had been less lucky; bullets had torn through his chest, killing him.
Meksorli missed the screen array he'd enjoyed in the command floater. He'd set up his command post in one of the massive gate towers, and found its narrow windows a miserable substitute. Just now there wasn't much happening to watch in the quadrangle. Neither side could use it. His immediate challenge was to maintain control of the tough, hull-metal gate.
Or rather, the small ports which flanked it, their gates blown clear when the rebels held them. They very much wanted them back. His radio told him that A Company, 27th Armored Battalion, with its "mobile forts," was within a few blocks of the square, catching hell from gunships and anti-armor squads. The rebels had nothing really heavy on the ground, but even so, the 27th had lost several tanks getting that far. They kept coming, though, wasting the rebel anti-armor equipment as they came. When they reached the square, the rebel situation would be critical. The rebels couldn't hold the square against tanks, and they'd have no hope at all of reconnecting with their troops in the Sreegana.
Actually their situation was critical already. It would simply become more obvious then. Their officers had to be sweating; they could hardly win the battle now, and if they surrendered, they could expect only execution. He wondered what they'd told their peasant soldiers to keep them fighting. Probably that they'd be impaled, too. With peasants, that would work only so long, though. Sooner or later they'd quit anyway.
"Major!" called a man from an outside window. "There's a tank entering the square. Man! Some of the rebels are running already!"
Meksorli switched to an outside window himself. The rebel troops in the square were indeed breaking. The tank was under heavy fire from surrounding buildings, most of it ineffective. Hovering on its AG pressors, a mobile fort was hard to stop, short of holing its thick armor. Her guns were engaged mainly with the gunships overhead; they were the greater threat.
Then something apparently did hole it, for it slewed and stopped. But at the same time, another and then two more moved into the square after it, and with that, the giving way became a rout.
The major's radio sounded. "Dog One, Dog One, this is Bull Two. If you can open that gate, I'll send Bull Four in. The rest of us will park against the wall and suppress fire from the surrounding buildings."
"Got that, Bull Two," Meksorli answered. "We'll see if it'll open."
A tank in the quadrangle would end things quickly inside, he had no doubt, and backed against the wall, the others would be far less exposed to the gunships. Meksorli closed the gate switch, and almost at once could feel the tower shudder as the rocket-damaged gate tried to open. Something somewhere broke with a sound like a cannon blast, and with a mind-threatening screech, then a rumbling, the gate began to slide into its housing. He was quite sure he'd never get it closed again. The sound stopped, and the tank passed from his view, through the tunnellike opening, into the quadrangle. Back at an inside window, Meksorli watched it park with the wall at its back. He told its commander what parts of the Admin Building he knew for sure were held by rebels, then watched and listened as it began to pump shells into it.
"Caps Command, Caps Command." It was his radio. "This is Captain Iighil Dhozmariloku, commanding 103rd Infantry. Call off your tank."
"This is Caps Command. Are you prepared to end hostilities and surrender?"
"Negative. Negative. My men hold the House of SUMBAA. Call off your tank or I'll order SUMBAA's destruction."
It sounded unlikely. If the rebel held SUMBAA, he'd have used it to bargain with already. Still, there'd been a report of a light floater moving as if to land on its roof… He held off on the order until four more rounds had been pumped into the Admin Building, then spoke to the tank commander. "Bull Four, hold your fire for now.
"Rebel Command, I'll make a deal with you. You get your people out of there right away and surrender your regiment, and I'll guarantee with my own life that you, personally, will not go on the stake."