"Roger you're last. You're transferring now to the Victory!"
"Negative," Sten said. "I'll be with First Battalion. Sten. Out."
Sarsfield had not even time to register his protest. Sten stood, stiff muscles stretching, and reached for his combat harness.
Alex, similarly outfitted for battle, held it ready. They went for the stairs. Kilgour turned and pulled a wire, then they went on up toward the ground floor.
Ten seconds later explosives shattered the coms and conference room.
"Y' hae a plan," Kilgour wondered.
"Sure," Sten said. "Many, many plans. To pray for peace. To not get killed. To make it to the Victory before she hauls. To break contact at nightfall, and exfiltrate into the country and go to ground."
"An' how long d'ye think," Kilgour wondered, "thae clottin' Emperor'll take t' send a rescue party f'r a man who disobeyed orders?"
"Have faith, Alex," Sten said. "Sooner or later, we'll just learn to levitate home."
In the courtyard Sten saw Cind, the Gurkhas, and the Bhor drawn up. Waiting.
He wasn't surprised.
But he almost started crying.
Cind saluted him, rain dripping from her nose.
He returned the salute, and his pissant little formation doubled off-up the wide boulevard toward the Square of the Khaqans to join the last stand.
Fleet Admiral Mason glowered at the screen, which showed the Jochi system rushing toward him. This whole assignment has been clotted, he thought.
First I am chauffeur to that popinjay Sten on that clotting yacht he was given. Then I spend time dancing around playing peep-bo and now you see it, now you don't with a bunch of geeks and ETs.
Hither, yon, hither yon, and it is all shadows, just like I told Sten, back on Prime, a world where everything is gray and there is no truth.
He deserved better from the Eternal Emperor, he thought furiously. And wondered how, once this disaster wound to a close, he could remind his Emperor of that.
At least there will be no relief and court-martial, as happened to Mahoney for some reason, he thought. I have followed my orders exactly.
And a soldier cannot go wrong when he does that.
"Jochi planetfall... two E-hours," his watch officer said.
The Altaic soldiers moved confidently into the Square of the Khaqans. Opposition had lightened, and then disappeared. Now they would take the palace, and move on to destroy unutterably the hated Imperials.
A cheer rose. This was the center, was the throne. From this place, all power came. Now-and each soldier's thoughts differed, depending on his race-the rulers of the Altaic Cluster would be different.
The counterattack struck.
The multiple rocket racks had been dismounted from the grav-lighters and concealed behind balustrades, terraces, and even statues. Firing studs were touched, and the rockets crashed out, ripping horizontally across the square.
Explosions shattered and echoed, and then the First Battalion counterattacked, rolling up the Altaic soldiers and sending them reeling back.
Bare seconds later, more thunder crashed. But this was not from the storm or from the Guards' rocketry.
Fire blazoned into the darkness that was technically day as the Imperial transports lifted clear of the park and drove at full power for space.
Sten watched them disappear into the storm clouds. Very good. Very good, he thought. Better than Cavite.
Now let's see if there's any way to save my own young ass.
The rain was slamming in now, wind-driven, and thunder was crashing as the wind roared across the great square in front of Cind.
She was stretched prone, using a projectile-chipped staircase for cover, and paid no mind to the puddle she was lying in, the puddle that was scarlet from the blood draining from the Guardsman next to her.
Her own rifle lay beside her, disregarded.
A precision sniper weapon was no use here. Far across the square, which was littered with crashed gravlighters and destroyed tracks, fire flickering from their hatches in spite of the storm, the Confederation Forces were getting ready for another assault.
Time had passed. How much time, she didn't know.
The enemy had reformed and attacked.
They tried first with armor—but Guardsmen with AT weapons were stationed in the upper floors of the palace, firing down into the always-vulnerable top deck of the tracks.
Then fast gravlighters swept forward, trying to punch through the increasingly thin lines of the Guardsmen. They were stopped.
Next the Confederation began human wave attacks. Shoulder to shoulder infantry attacks, men and women shouting cheers and marching bravely, suicidally, into the near-solid gunfire.
They died—but so did Imperial Guardsmen.
She had seen Alex cursing and putting a field dressing on a bloody, if superficial, shrapnel wound on his upper leg before he had gone back to the slaughter. Otho, too, had been hit. But after his wounds had been dressed, he had returned to the line, spotting for a Guards' mortar crew.
Cind wondered if they could stand two, three, or just one more assault before that wave washed over them.
There had been no opportunity to break contact and try for the Victory, assuming the ship was still on the ground.
Sten splashed down beside her.
The two of them were grimy. Bloody—but at least the blood was not their own. Their eyes were glaring.
"Well?"
"Two tubes left, boss."
"Here." He passed her another magazine of AM2 rounds.
"Be melodramatic," she suggested. "Kiss me."
Sten grimaced, started to obey, and then jerked back as he heard the grind of oncoming tracks once more. "Well, I shall be clotted. Look."
This time the attack was combined armor and infantry. And, standing in that lead track was...
Cind grabbed her exotic rifle and sighted. She saw the handsome face and silver hair. "It's him! You want the privilege?"
"Go ahead. I've had all the fun lately."
The man in the track was General Douw. Cind supposed he thought this would be the final attack that would overrun the Imperial Forces, and had chosen to lead it himself.
Brave.
Brave, but dumb, Cind thought as she touched the trigger and the AM2 round blew Douw's chest apart.
"Thank you," Sten said.
Cind scrabbled for the willygun. The death of their leader hadn't even been noticed by the oncoming soldiers.
Wave after wave of them poured into the square. Cind swept their ranks—then decided to wait until they were closer.
She lifted her head to see—and her eyes widened.
"Jamchyyd and Kholeric," she whispered, her tone wholly reverent, actually calling on the Bhor gods as if she believed they might exist. "Sarla and Laraz."
Coming over the city's rooftops, swaying like a great dark snake, came the cyclone, cutting a solid swath as it came. And behind the first funnel cloud... another. One... two... Cind counted six of them, swinging back and forth like a dancer's hips as they came.
Sten remembered: "... kill a thousand people in forty minutes... punch a blade of straw through an anvil... throw five tacships... a quarter klick ..."
The tornadoes picked up debris as they came. A roof. A shed. A gravsled. A personnel carrier. A crashed tacship. A man. Spun them, ruined them, broke them beyond recognition, and then used them as weapons.
Cind's ears cracked, and she swallowed.