"Yes, Kevin?" she said.
"Boss," he said quietly, "you went to Blockhouse on your own authority."
"Yes, I did," she said flatly. Then she inhaled and gave her head a little toss. "Sorry, Kevin. I know what you meant. But there's no time to clear it with Aubert ahead of time-assuming that asshole Salgado would even let me talk to him in the first place! Besides, this whole fucking mess is the result of their brainstorm, and it's obvious they went to considerable lengths to lay the blame off on the militia and Shangup if anything went wrong."
"But, still -" Trammell began.
"No." She cut him off with a sharp shake of her head. "I know what you're going to say, and I can't risk it. Right this minute, they're probably in a state of shock over there. And you know as well as I do that the only thing they're going to be thinking about right now is how to save their own asses. Their first instinct is going to be to try to keep their heads down and let someone else-anyone else-take the fall. Which means they're going to be busy trying to shove all of this off on Jongdomba, too. And Jongdomba couldn't organize a bottle party in a distillery on this kind of notice. Or do you actually think he had a contingency plan in place for something like this? Because, if you do, I've got some nice beachfront property on the Mare Imbrium I'd like to sell you!"
Trammell opened his mouth in fresh protest, then closed it. For just a moment he was deeply, selfishly-and guiltily-grateful that he wasn't in command of the battalion.
"No, Ma'am," he said. "I don't think the militia ever even heard of contingency planning. But going to Blockhouse without the Governor's authorization is going to raise a shitstorm. If anything-anything at all-goes wrong, Aubert's going to try to hang you for it."
"My mother always told me the real test of anyone's character was the enemies they made," Palacios said with a cold smile. "I'll take my chances, Kevin. Now, go."
"Yes, Ma'am."
Trammell surprised them both by coming briefly to attention and saluting formally. Then he obeyed her order and vanished.
***
Captain Karsang Dawa Chiawa stood in the corpse-littered hallway and stared about him in shock.
This wasn't supposed to happen, his brain told him numbly. They were supposed to surrender!
But they hadn't.
"Sir." He looked up dully from the contorted bodies and the death-stench of ruptured organs and blood. Somehow, he thought distantly, it was the smells, far more than the sights, which were going to live in his nightmares.
"Yes?" he said.
"Sir," his com tech resolutely looked away from the bodies himself as he held out a handset, "Colonel Sharwa wants to speak to you."
Oh, I'll just bet he does, Chiawa thought bitterly, but he only nodded and held out his own hand.
"Chiawa here, Colonel," he said into the handset.
"Chiawa, you fucking idiot!" Sharwa bellowed into his ear. "What the hell did you think you were doing?!"
"Colonel, I -" Chiawa began, without much hope that he'd be allowed to finish the sentence.
"Shut the fuck up!" Sharwa shouted. "I don't want to hear any goddamned excuses! It was a simple enough mission, and now, thanks to your fuckup, God only knows what's going to happen!"
Chiawa shut his mouth and gritted his teeth while the com rattled against his ear.
"Just how bad is it?" the colonel continued.
"Sir, I've lost at least thirty men," Chiawa said harshly. "They ambushed my outer security squad-apparently they had their own armed people mixed in with the newsies." The newsies which you specifically told me we couldn't bar from the hotel approaches without "giving away the game," he thought bitterly. "Then at least another twenty or thirty of their people shot their way into the hotel. I lost more of my people on their way in, and several members of the hotel staff were killed or wounded in the crossfire. And -" he drew a deep breath "- Pankarma's group hadn't surrendered when the shooting started outside. I'm not sure exactly what happened. According to one of my people, one of the GLF delegates produced a pistol. I don't know if that's true. If it is, I haven't seen the gun yet. But whatever happened, my people opened fire."
"You mean -?" Sharwa seemed unable to complete the question, and Chiawa's lips twitched in a humorless smile.
"I mean Pankarma himself is dead, Sir," he said flatly. "At least half his 'delegation' is also dead."
"But you have the others in custody," Sharwa said.
"No, Sir. I don't." Chiawa turned, looking away from the bodies and the puddles and pools of gummy blood. "The gunmen coming in from the outside shot their way through to the 'delegation' too quickly for that. As far as I know, they got all of the survivors-some of whom may have been wounded-out with them."
"Shit!" Sharwa exploded. "Couldn't you do any fucking thing right? Now the bastards know their precious leader is dead, or at least wounded, and we don't have a single goddamned bargaining chip!"
"Sir, when this operation was planned, I was assured that -"
"Shut up! Just shut the fuck back up!"
"Sir," Chiawa continued, despite the order, "however we got here, the situation is coming completely apart. We need more -"
"I told you to shut your trap, Captain." Sharwa's voice was suddenly icy. "Of course you want more men. And just what in your brilliant handling of the situation to date suggests to you that I'd trust you with a kindergarten class? If I give you more men, you'll just make this disaster even worse!"
"Sir, we've got to get a mobilization order out before -" Chiawa began, then looked up as Lieutenant Nawa came running into the hallway.
"We've got trouble out front!" Nawa was breathing hard, his eyes wide. "The crowd's getting ugly. They're starting to throw bricks and paving stones. And they're demanding to see Pankarma-now."
Chiawa closed his eyes. Then he opened them again, held up one hand at Nawa in a "wait" gesture, and drew a deep breath.
"Colonel," he said into the handset, interrupting a further tirade. "The mob -" he used the noun deliberately, hoping it might break through to Sharwa "-outside the hotel is turning violent. And it's demanding to see Pankarma."
"And what the hell do you expect me to do about that?" Sharwa demanded. "You're the genius who killed the bastard! If a mob's gathering, disperse it!"
"Sir, I don't know if that's the best approach," Chiawa began. "If we -"
"Goddamn it, Chiawa! Get some people out there and get those sons-of-bitches under control! I don't care how you do it, Captain, but you damned well better do it now!"
Chiawa lowered the handset and looked back at Nawa.
"Take your platoon," he began, then stopped. Sergeant Lakshindo's squad had been from Nawa's platoon. Emotions would probably be running high among their platoonmates, and Nawa would be understrength without Lakshindo, anyway.
"Tell Salaka to take his platoon out there. Tell him I want those people dispersed."
"Yes, Sir!" Nawa began to turn away, but Chiawa's left hand shot out and grabbed his equipment harness.
"I want them dispersed," he repeated in a lower voice, simultaneously pressing the com handset against his thigh with his right hand to muffle the microphone, "but I don't want any more escalation if we can avoid it. You tell Salaka that no one fires a shot, except in direct self-defense. If he can't move them back without that, he's to tell me so and get my direct, personal authorization before he opens fire. Clear?"
"Yes, Sir!" Nawa repeated.
"Then go!" Chiawa released Nawa's harness and watched the lieutenant disappear. Then he raised the handset once more.
"I'm sending troops out, now, Colonel," he said. "With your permission, I'd like to go take personal charge of that and -"
"I'll just bet you would, Captain!" Sharwa snarled. "Unfortunately, I'm not quite done with you yet. In fact -"
***
Lieutenant Tsimbuti Pemba Salaka drew a deep breath and looked at his platoon sergeant.
"All right," he said. "Let's get this done."
Sergeant Garza nodded, but
his expression was less than confident. Salaka didn't blame him. The lieutenant had tried to project as much confidence as he could, but he knew he'd failed. This wasn't the sort of situation he'd envisioned in his worst nightmares when he'd decided to join the planetary militia.
He gave the taut-faced men behind him one more glance, then hefted his bullhorn and started towards the shattered glass doors.
The luxury hotel's palatial main lobby was a shambles. Huge shards of broken glass glittered in the patches of blood which showed where the GLF gunmen had shot their way in. The hurled bricks, paving stones, and beer bottles which had produced most of the breakage lay amid the rubble like curses, and the snarling sea of voices from the furious mob was like the sound of some huge, hungry beast.
Something else came flying in through one of the demolished glass walls. It hit the floor and shattered, and a gout of smoking flame erupted from the crude Molotov cocktail. The hotel's sprinkler system activated almost immediately, and Salaka and his platoon found themselves advancing through a pounding downpour.
Just what we needed, the lieutenant thought. He swallowed again and again, fighting the useless urge to wipe his sweating palms on his breastplate.
Another Molotov cocktail crashed into the lobby, sputtering flame, and two or three of his people flinched.
"Steady!" he said, wishing his own voice sounded less tentative, less frightened. "Steady!"
We need riot police, not militia, he thought. Why didn't they deploy riot cops to handle the outside security in the first place?
Then he was at the doors, and he drew another deep breath and stepped out of them, wishing he had something considerably more lethal, or at least intimidating, than a bullhorn in his hand.
The mob voice surged suddenly higher at the sight of his men and their uniforms. He could actually feel the hatred pulsing behind that deep, harsh, snarling sound, and a bewildered part of him wondered where it had come from. The militia had only wanted to arrest a batch of self-proclaimed criminals. The vast majority of Gyangtse's people condemned the GLF-that was what all the militia's intelligence briefings, all of the editorialists, had been saying for years! They should have wanted to see Pankarma and his people taken into custody. And surely they must understand that no one had wanted this sort of carnage-that it was the GLF's fault for coming in shooting this way!
"Citizens!" he shouted, the bullhorn giving him sufficient volume to make himself heard even through the bellowing chaos. "Citizens, disperse at once! You are engaged in an illegal activity, and people-more people-are going to get hurt if this continues! We don't want any more injuries, so please -"
Tsimbuti Pemba Salaka never heard the sound of the three shots. One round struck his breastplate and was deflected. The second struck his left arm, shattering his upper arm instantly.
The third struck him almost exactly midway between his left eyebrow and the rim of his helmet, and his skull exploded under the impact.
***
"-and after that, Captain, I'll personally see to it that you spend the next five or ten years in prison!" Sharwa raved in Chiawa's ear.
The colonel was into full rant mode. Even at the moment, he had to know as well as Chiawa did that most of his threatened extravagant vengeance wasn't going to happen. Or maybe he did think it would. Maybe he was even right. Depending on how badly this turned out, the planetary government might just decide that one Captain Chiawa would make a suitable scapegoat for how all of his superiors had screwed up.
Chiawa didn't know about that. He just knew there were things he needed to be doing besides standing here listening to this idiot scream in his ear. Unfortunately, the idiot in question had the rank to keep him standing here.
And then Chiawa looked up from the handset as Nawa came charging back into the hallway.
"Sir, Salaka's down and -!"
The sudden crackle of rifle fire cut Nawa's report off. The outburst of fire was as brief as it was sudden, and then Chiawa heard the baying howl of hundreds of voices as the mob outside the Annapurna Arms charged the building.
***
"- and I trust you have an explanation for your high-handed, illegal actions, Major!"
Akos Salgado's voice would have blistered battle steel, but the golden-haired woman in the Marine uniform on his communicator's display simply looked back at him calmly.
"With all due respect, Mr. Salgado," she replied after moment, "any explanations are due to Governor Aubert, not you."
"I'm the Governor's chief of staff!" Salgado snapped furiously. "He's delegated the authority to get some sort of explanation for this idiocy out of you... and I'm still waiting for it."
"Then you're going to have a lengthy wait, Mr. Salgado," she said coldly. "For an explanation of my 'high-handed, illegal actions,' I mean. Because, Sir, they were neither."
"The hell they weren't!" Salgado glared at her. "You had no authority-none at all-to occupy the spaceport, or the city's water plant and power station, or to declare martial law here in the capital in His Majesty's name!"
"Under Article 42 of the Imperial Articles of War, I have not merely the authority, but the responsibility, as the senior ranking military officer on this planet, to take any action I believe the situation requires in the absence of direction from competent superior authority," she said, and Salgado's face turned puce.
"God damn it, the Governor is your superior authority!" he bellowed.
"I'm aware of the legal chain of command, Mr. Salgado. However, I had no direction from the Governor-or even from you-of any sort, and at the critical moment-due, no doubt, to the confusion engendered by the sudden outbreak of violence-I was unable to contact either of you. And," she looked him straight in the eye, "since I've been unfortunately unable to contact Governor Aubert for quite lengthy periods on several occasions over the past few weeks, despite what you've assured me are your communications people's best efforts, it was apparent to me that I might not be able to reach him for some time. Under those circumstances, I felt I had no option but to take action immediately on my own responsibility."
Salgado's teeth ground together. The bitch. The backbiting, conniving, rules-lawyering bitch!
He started to open his mouth for the verbal flaying she so amply deserved, but then he made himself stop. She was recording this. He knew she was, that she wanted him to say something she could play back for her own military superiors-or his superiors in the Ministry-to justify her own actions and hang him.
Well, Akos Salgado wasn't going to give her that particular soundbite.
"You may have acted within the letter of your own authority, Major," he said icily. "You did so, however, without any consultation with or authorization by your civilian superiors. Given the current state of confusion and the heat of emotions on Gyangtse, your personal decision to resort to the iron fist approach may very well have elevated what would have been a minor, purely local matter into a direct confrontation with the authority of the Empire. Should that happen, I warn you, Governor Aubert and I will do everything in our power to see to it that you suffer the consequences you will so amply merit."
"I'm sure you will, Mr. Salgado," she replied, her tone cool while contempt flared in her blue eyes. "Time, of course, will tell whether or not my actions were justified, won't it? And, speaking of time, I find myself rather pressed for it at the moment. Will there be anything else, Sir?"
"No," he grated. "Not at this time, Major."
"In that case, good bye," she said, and cut the circuit.
***
"My, my," Gregory Hilton murmured as he and Alicia stood on the roof of the Zhikotse spaceport's northernmost shuttle pad and watched the dense columns of smoke rising above the Old Town. "That doesn't sound good, does it?"
"That" was the staccato crackle of automatic weapons fire, interspersed with the occasional explosion of hand grenades, mortars, or chemical-explosive rockets. There were other sounds, as well. Sounds Alicia's sensory boosters could sort out of the general bedlam if she tried
. The yammering surf of a howling mob, the wail of emergency vehicles' sirens, individual screams and shouts, and the clatter and roar of the militia's old-fashioned, unarmored troop carriers.
How? she wondered. How did it all happen so fast?
She didn't have an answer for that question. So far as she knew, no one did. And as she watched the smoke billow, heard the cacophony grinding steadily closer to the spaceport, she knew it really didn't matter. Not now. Perhaps it had once, and no doubt it would someday matter once more. But what mattered right this moment was dealing with it, not understanding it.