CHAPTER THIRTY

Julian looked around the rainy midnight square.

His armor's light-enhancement system made the details as clear as day . . . not that there was a great deal to see at the moment. The tavern had been taken down, and the food vendors had packed up for the evening. Which was normal. The city always more or less rolled up its streets at dusk, but this was still eerie. No people at all were moving on the streets, and the shutters on every house had been closed almost before the square emptied. Clearly, the common folk knew something was going down.

It had taken barely a day for the king to confirm the broad details of the humans' intelligence. The clincher had been a scouting foray by some of the city's few skilled woodsmen, who'd found the Kranolta force awaiting word to move on the city exactly where the humans had told them to look. That had been more than sufficient for the king to give his go-ahead.

The Council had been summoned once again, this time at night. Its members were currently at dinner, or so said the latest situation report. Now all three platoons were in position and ready to move.

Julian's own squad of armor had been spread throughout the company. Since the chameleon suits were going to be effectively useless against the low-speed impacts of swords and spears, Captain Pahner wanted the virtually impregnable armor on point for the entry. Which was why Julian found himself standing in front of the door to House N'Jaa, scanning the surroundings, checking his paltry power levels, and wondering if there was something that could penetrate ChromSten armor on this planet after all.

"Teams check in," the communicator said. Lieutenant Sawato had that remote, robotic tone down cold; she sounded like a bad AI answering machine.

"N'Jaa team in position," Sergeant Jin announced. Third Platoon had gotten N'Jaa, since it was the largest and toughest House. Lucky them. They might be the more experienced platoon, but they were also short a squad.

"Kesselotte team, in position," came the next check, and Julian wondered if the Old Man were listening. God knew that very shortly he was going to be busy enough his own self.

"C'Rtena team, in position." Lieutenant Jasco's response was late, and Julian called up the remote plot on his helmet HUD and grimaced. The remote reported that C'Rtena's backdoor still didn't have anyone covering it, but just as he thought that, the last few troopers got into position.

Each mansion, unbeknownst to its inhabitants, now had two-thirds of a platoon parked outside its front door under cover. Even worse, two troopers in powered armor were poised to lead the entry, with the rest of the force in support. In Julian's case, the backup was across the square, ready to jump off instantly when the word came. The unit had moved up in nearly complete silence, which, coupled with the chameleon systems of their uniforms and armor, made it extremely unlikely that anyone had even noticed their passage, despite the narrow, twisting streets.

The third squad of each platoon was on the backdoor of that platoon's objective, ready to plug the bolt-hole, and each detachment was also accompanied by a squad of Royal Guards. The remainder of the armored suits were at the castle, ready to move as reinforcements if they were needed.

Which they shouldn't be.

"All right," the XO said finally. "All the pieces are in position, and the dinner is underway. All teams: Execute."

Julian drew a deep breath. He shouldn't be nervous; there ought to be zero danger in this for him. And worrying didn't help matters, anyway. It was time to do the deal, and he raised a hand and knocked on the door, hard.

K'Luss By paused just as he was about to throw the knucklebones. He'd heard that there was some new game going around, one that used pieces of paper, but he was a traditionalist. Knucklebones had been good enough for his father, and they were good enough for him.

"Who the hell is that?" he asked rhetorically, looking around at the other guards in the front room, and T'Sell Cob clapped his false hands and shrugged, then picked up his favored ax as the door boomed again.

"I don't know. But he's about to be in pieces."

"Open in the name of King Xyia Kan!" a voice boomed through the hallway.

"Ah," By said as he picked up his own spear, "maybe we ought to wait for the others to join us?"

It had always bothered Julian that there was no way to fidget effectively in armor. He wanted to pick at a finger, or bite fingernails. Nope. Pull hair? Nope. The best he could do was to fiddle with his bead cannon as the sensors indicated more and more guards gathering in the front area. A loud boom suddenly racketed through the night like a rogue thunderclap, and his sensors processed the sonics and electromagnetic flux and then announced that a full powered charge from a plasma cannon had just struck something at the facility the HUD designated "House C'Rtena."

Nice to know the sensors were working.

He nodded at PFC Stickles and stepped to the side of the vast door.

"Gunny, I'd say we've got about max participation here," he said, keying his helmet to darken. It was supposed to do that automatically, but it never hurt to make sure. Regrowing eyeballs would suck on this rock. "Stickles, darken your helmet."

"Yes, Sergeant," the PFC shot back just a tad testily. "Already done."

He was the junior guy in the squad, which was why Julian had picked him as his own backup. Better that Julian be stuck with the rookie, although, to be fair, a "rookie" in the Regiment was hardly the same thing as a rookie in a regular unit.

"We're ready here, Gunny," Julian said, and leaned into the wall and pointed his bead-cannon to the vertical as he took it off safe. Time to party.

"What was that?" N'Jaa Ide demanded. The booming echo was similar to thunder, but not identical. "It sounded like one of the weapons of these visitors, these humans," the house-leader went on with an ill-pleased glare.

Mardukan state dinners, in Q'Nkok, at least, were conducted on platters and covers on the floor. This one was no exception, and by careful manipulation of the seating arrangements, the human guests had been placed opposite the house-leaders considered particularly dangerous. And, just coincidentally, all of those humans were accompanied by Marines in armor.

"What was what?" Xyia Kan asked innocently. The monarch's power had been systematically hamstrung and undercut by the Houses for a generation, the very Houses which were about to be removed, and his dinner had been deliciously flavored with anticipation all evening.

"That noise," Kesselotte said in support of N'Jaa, sounding even more suspicious than his fellow house-leader. After the last acrimonious meeting, he'd insisted on bringing his full complement of guards to this one. Indeed, there were over twenty house guards present, far more than should have been allowed into the king's presence. Perhaps it was time to act. Sometimes even the deepest plots were improved by a willingness to take advantage of opportunities, and one such as this was unlikely to come again. He glanced at N'Jaa to see if the other leader was in agreement, but saw only worry.

Kesselotte was still considering the significance of the human weapon when two more booms echoed across the city. They were just as loud as the first one, and his eyes flew wide as other strange crackling noises followed them.

"Brothers!" He leapt to his feet. "It is an attack by the faithless Xyia Kan! We must—"

Before he could finish the sentence, two of the human leaders came to their own feet and drew weapons.

Pahner had been infuriated by Roger's insistence, but in the end, he could only accede to his demands. At least this time the prince had made them in private! So when the captain stood and drew his bead pistol, Roger stood up right alongside him. O'Casey, at least, had the intelligence to scuttle behind the armored trooper at her back, then out the door.

Each of the Houses involved in "The Woodcutters Plot" had brought its maximum of three guards. In addition, two other Houses which were fully aware of that plot and were involved in others of their own against the king, had brought their maximum, as well. It was up to the humans to ensure that none of those extra guards did anything unpleasant.

Two of Xyia Kan's bodyguards picked the king up and interposed their armored bulk between him and danger as the humans opened fire. Since each guest's guards were placed to watch his back, and since the prince and the captain been seated facing the plot leaders, all their targets were lined up in a neat, formal row down the opposite wall.

It was Hell's shooting gallery.

Armand Pahner had been shooting one weapon or another for the better part of his seventy-two years. The M-9 bead pistol was an old and dear friend, so as he began servicing targets, his hand moved as steadily as a metronome. The small bead pistols had tremendous recoil, which meant the maximum rate of accurate fire depended primarily on how fast the shooter could get the weapon back on target. Armand Pahner had plenty of bulk and plenty of forearm strength, so in the first four seconds, eight guards were slammed back against the far wall, staining the pale wood with huge splashes of blood before they slumped to the floor.

At which point, it was all over.

Sixteen of the guards had been designated as threats, and it had been decided that the bead-cannon of the armored Marines were a bit too overpowering for an enclosed space . . . particularly since the idea was for all the "lords" to survive. So it was up to the pistol-armed "officers."

Pahner had moved from right to left, concentrating on picking off the guards that were quickest to respond. The first to react were a couple of N'Jaa elite, but before either of them could draw a sword or hurl a javelin, they were both bloodstains. The rest went down nearly as quickly, but by the time he'd cleared "his" zone, the prince's zone was already empty.

He looked at the eight blood splotches, all high on the wall where Roger's assigned targets had stood, then at eight headless bodies, and turned to his charge.

"Head shots?!" he demanded incredulously.

Roger shrugged and then smoothed his hair as the house-leaders erupted in consternation, some wailing at the blood that covered everything—the people, the floor, the wall, the ceiling, the food.

"My toot has a very good assassin program, Captain," he said.

"Assassin program?" Pahner repeated. "There was no mention of any `assassin program' in my brief, Your Highness!"

"I suppose that's because a secret weapon isn't very effective when it's not a secret," Roger said with a slight smile, then shook his head as the Marine's eyes narrowed. "I didn't mean to sound sarcastic, Captain. I didn't know you hadn't been told, and that's the only reason I can think of for your briefer, presumably Colonel Rutherford, not to tell you."

"Um." Pahner glanced at the bodies again. The pistol beads' damage was too extreme to be certain, but it looked as if every one of those shots had been dead center, and it happened that the Imperial Marines in general and The Empress' Own in particular knew quite a lot about combat enhancing toot software.

Pahner had several of the same sorts of packages tucked away in his own toot, for example. And because he was familiar with them, he knew that there were limits in all things. A package like the one the prince was suggesting was basically a shortcut for training, probably with some fairly impressive sight enhancing overlays to boost accuracy. But it was only a training device, one which had to have a human interlock if its possessor wasn't going to go around mowing down innocent bystanders in job lots, and no one knew better than a combat veteran how completely training could desert a man the first time it truly dropped into the pot.

That obviously hadn't happened here. Armand Pahner had a very clear notion of the sort of intestinal fortitude required for a combat newbie to stay focused—and confident—enough to take a single head shot, much less eight of them, rather than blazing away at center of mass.

"Head shots," he repeated, shaking his head, and the prince shrugged again. "Not even a samadh in your honor."

"Well, I didn't want anybody getting hit by accident," Roger said. "Safety first!"

"Now let's think safe here, okay people?" Gunnery Sergeant Jin admonished as First Squad entered the building. He was in the middle, watching everyone else's actions as the squad's troopers executed their dynamic entry. The most dangerous part of an entry like this was friendly fire. They had overwhelming firepower and good technique, but it was just as easy as ever to be shot by your own side.

He kept a careful eye on the squad's weapons. Each member had a zone to cover, including straight up, and the team leaders and Despreaux were ensuring that everyone covered his own area and not some random other.

"Julian," the gunny said over the com, scanning the upper stories as they came into the gardens around the inner house, "we're in the open. Be careful where you shoot."

The rounds from the powered armor's bead-cannons would go through the flimsy wooden walls as if they were tissue. There was plenty of evidence that the armored troopers had already been through; the swath of destruction looked like one of those pack beasts had gone on a rampage.

"No problem," Julian replied. "We're not firing much anymore. Most of them are being driven to the back. Make sure Third Squad is ready for them."

"Movement!" Liszez announced. "Balcony."

Jin saw two or three weapons twitch in that direction, then settle down on their own sectors, as he looked up. A single Mardukan, probably panicked by the fire, was running down the balcony to the right. It looked like one of the small females.

"Check fire. No threat."

"Check," Liszez responded. If the target had been clearly hostile, it would already have been an ink blot pattern. "Clear." She disappeared around a corner.

"Target!" It was Eijken, and the grenadier triggered a round as the Mardukan who'd charged into view drew back his arm to throw a javelin. The forty-millimeter grenade hit just to the left of the native and tossed him sideways like a mangled doll. "Clear."

"Center building clear," Julian reported. "Entering back rooms."

"Don't get too far ahead," Jin told him. He paused and looked around. "Time to split. Despreaux, take Alpha Team into the left wing. I'll take Bravo to the right. Clear front to back."

"Roger," Despreaux acknowledged, and jerked her head at Beckley to lead her team out. "Alpha, echelon left. Move."

The team leader nodded acknowledgment of the order. She'd already spotted a downstairs doorway, and now she spotlighted it with an infrared laser designator.

"Through there. Kane, take the door. Go."

The reconfigured team trotted towards the door with the plasma gunner in the lead. When she was fifteen meters away, the gunner triggered a single round into the heavy wooden door, which disintegrated in a roar of flame.

Kyrou and Beckley performed the primary entry. Kyrou went through and to the right and dropped to a knee. No more than five meters away a scummy was already starting to hurl the spear in his hand. Unfortunately for him, Kyrou reacted from thousands of hours of training, and the spearman was hurled backward by the hypervelocity beads punching into his chest. Another burst cleared a group further down before it could decide whether or not to attack.

"Right clear."

There was a burst from behind the private.

"Left clear," Beckley called. Another burst. "Really clear."

Despreaux set a cracker charge against the door opposite their entry point, and the thin, high expansion-rate charge shattered the simple bolts on the other side and scattered splinters of the door throughout the area.

She blasted the scummy on the other side of the doorway before she realized it was one of the females. Not only were they entirely untrained for combat, but this society sequestered them. This might have been the first time in this one's life that anything more exciting than sex had occurred. And it had been brief.

The sergeant gazed at the pathetic, shredded body, then inhaled sharply and looked around.

"Stairs," she called sharply. "Ground floor clear."

She stepped back out into the hallway, wiping at a line of blood from a flying splinter, and looked around. She pointed down the corridor.

"Kyrou, Kane," she said, then gestured at the stairs. "Beck, Lizzie." The team leader lead the way, and Despreaux followed. She carefully didn't look back at the pitiful shape sprawled in the shadows of the stairs.

Later for that. Later.