Mountain of Mars

by Glynn Stewart

  “And we still want to keep this secret,” Samara agreed. “Damn.”

  “So, we have, really, three options,” Damien told her. “We at least partially give up on secrecy and use the presence of an illegal set of automated weapons as grounds for a full-bore assault. Assault-drop a Marine company from orbit. They’d tear through those defenses easily enough…but they probably wouldn’t succeed in taking Odysseus alive. And we’d lose Marines,” he finished grimly. “Not many, most likely, but we would lose some.”

  “To take down the Mage-King’s assassin, they’d make that trade,” Romanov replied.

  “I know. But I see no reason to ask it of them unless I must,” Damien told his bodyguard. “Our second option is to take the Royal Guard in on one of those shuttles. Hard and fast, jump and drop. We might be able to do it without drawing attention from anyone other than the Navy, who we can order to keep things quiet.”

  He shook his head.

  “I don’t put those odds at over fifty-fifty, and there’s no way to reduce the risk of the attack itself. At high-enough speed, we can probably avoid the AA missiles, but it’s a single point of failure.”

  “And what’s option three?” Samara asked.

  “The reason you’re talking to me,” Damien said grimly. “The ‘send in a Hand’ option. A Rune of Power is used to teleport a strike team directly to the estate. I lead that team of Royal Guards directly into the main house, bypassing the entirety of the defenses while we move to secure Odysseus and the control room. Once the weapons are shut down and the target is secured, we leave the Guard to secure and clean up while Romanov and I bring Odysseus back here.”

  “You can’t be serious,” Samara snapped. “You’re the Lord Regent. You can’t lead an assault.”

  “Someone has to,” Damien said quietly. “For me to elevate a new Hand and provide them with a Rune of Power will take days. Days I’m not prepared to let this problem fester.

  “The simplest and cleanest way to deal with this estate is to send in a Hand. In the absence of a Hand, someone with a Rune of Power.

  “Unless one of the Hands has shown up in-system in the last thirty minutes, your choices are me or Kiera—and even if I was prepared to let the Mage-Queen of Mars personally lead an assault team, she isn’t trained for it.”

  He smiled thinly.

  “I am.”

  His two subordinates looked at him in silence, then Samara turned a glare on Romanov.

  “This is what you expected, isn’t it?”

  “It’s what we needed,” the Guard replied. “Is letting the Lord Regent lead an assault a good plan? No. Is it the only option to achieve this with minimal casualties and no breach of the secrecy of this investigation? Yes.

  “Plus, it’s his call,” Romanov reminded her. “And I’ve learned I don’t win arguments with Montgomery.”

  Damien snorted.

  “No, you don’t,” he agreed. “Prep your team, Guard-Lieutenant.”

  “We’re going now?” Romanov asked, surprise.

  “I see no reason to let this wait. Do you?”

  30

  Damien generally felt small enough when surrounded by bodyguards. Most of the Marines and Secret Service Agents who’d shepherded him through his career as a Hand of the Mage-King had been at least ten centimeters taller than him.

  The problem was only exacerbated when everyone else was strapped into exosuits. The suits of powered battle armor were uniformly at least two meters tall, which left his guards towering fifty centimeters or more above him.

  “My lord, over here,” Romanov called him as he weaved his way through the team. It was only as he approached the Guard-Lieutenant that he realized there were eleven exosuits in the room and there were only ten Guards coming with him.

  The eleventh suit was the first he’d seen under two meters tall, and it was open enough for him to see that the inner layer had been resized for a much smaller person than the average Marine. It also didn’t share the red coloring of the rest of the armor. Currently, it was set into a black-and-gold livery that Damien didn’t even recognize.

  “I had this requisitioned before we left Mars last time,” Romanov told him as he approached the suit. “His Majesty got involved while we were gone and had it built to the same standard as his own armor, so it has the same runes as the Guard armor.”

  Damien touched the suit hesitantly. There were two reasons he didn’t generally wear armor: firstly, that he was well outside the range that the suits could adjust to fit; and secondly, because he’d lose a small but significant portion of his ability to project magic.

  “Those runes have to be tailored to the individual,” he said absently, but he was already probing the matrix in the suit. He could adjust it himself, given an hour, but… “Except Desmond already did that. Huh.”

  “I thought you needed the wearer,” Romanov replied. “I was expecting to delay while you adjusted. It already works?”

  “I think so. Give me a hand,” Damien ordered.

  Another Guard stepped over to help him and Romanov out. Despite the problems, Damien still had some practice on exosuit armor, but getting into it was a trick that would take time.

  The inner layer of smart fabric wrapped around him quickly, supporting him inside a suit taller than he was. Viewscreens dropped down in front of his eyes as Romanov lowered the helmet onto his head, flickering on fast enough to prevent more than the tiniest spark of claustrophobia.

  The suit closed up automatically at that point, and he could feel parts of it shifting and adjusting. It had been tailored for him and the adjustments were quick, allowing him to take a few experimental steps.

  “Even for us, the suit software is primarily coded around eye and chin movement,” Romanov told him, the Guard-Lieutenant’s voice coming through a speaker next to his ear. “Your hands shouldn’t be an obstacle, though you still can’t do much with them.”

  “I was trained on it,” Damien replied. “A while ago now, but I was trained.”

  He studied the screens in front of him and twitched his chin toward an icon.

  “…Regent in armor is terrifying,” an unfamiliar voice was saying.

  “Montgomery on the channel!” someone barked. “Control yer bitching.”

  “Believe me, Guards, I’ve heard far worse directed at me,” Damien replied. “No one is calling me ‘Darth Montgomery’ or ‘that little fucking psychopath’ or anything of the sort. I can live with terrifying.

  “Are we ready to deploy?” he asked.

  “Awaiting your order, my lord,” Denis Romanov told him. “Are you ready, Lord Regent? The next step is on you.”

  “I’ll give you all a five count,” Damien replied. “Let me confirm my distances and numbers. I’d prefer not to deliver us all into a mountain.”

  The suit’s operating system was sufficiently intuitive that he had the coordinates of his target up in moments—and, conveniently, it gave him an even better link to the Martian GPS than his wrist-comp did.

  There would be no dealing with the external automated weapons. The house plans said there was a large entryway with a vaulted two-story ceiling and plenty of room to drop eleven exosuited troublemakers.

  “Five,” Damien said aloud as he completed his calculations. Even with everyone around him clad in several centimeters of metal and ceramics, he saw the postures adjust as they caught his warning.

  “Four.”

  Guns were leveled. Most of them were carrying the heavy-penetrator rifles designed to take down similar suits to their own. There were several large-bore automatic shotguns and a magazine-fed grenade launcher, weapons less likely to over-penetrate the target. And the house behind them.

  The one thing they all shared was an under-barrel SmartDart gun. The Guards were loaded for bear…but they were hoping to take that bear alive.

  “Three. Two. One.”

  Damien’s magic filled the room in a swirl of power as he took hold of his companions, locked his target in his mind and
stepped.

  He’d intentionally aimed high and the squad appeared twenty centimeters above the laminated wood floor of the house entryway. That floor shattered under the impact of twenty-two metal boots falling from the sky, the clear coating the only thing keeping splinters from flying everywhere.

  “Sweep, sweep!” Romanov barked. A moment later. “Clear. All zones clear.”

  Damien was turning in place as the Guards spread out around him, taking in his surroundings. So far, at least, the plans appeared to match the reality.

  “Everyone has the map,” the Guard team commander continued. “Move by fire team. Secure the basement entrances and sweep up.”

  “Romanov, your team’s with me,” Damien said softly. The Guard worked in fire teams of two, with the most junior soldier usually paired with the squad commander.

  Of course, the most junior Guard in this squad was actually Denis Romanov—and the newly minted Guard-Lieutenant’s ten-year history in the Marines and Secret Service was on the low side for a new Royal Guard.

  “Understood—Roricsen, on the Lord Regent,” Romanov barked. “What’s the plan, my lord?”

  “Not interrupting your people, first of all,” Damien told him. “But there’s a fascinating-looking gap in the upstairs floorplan that would make for a panic room. Shall we check it out?”

  Even without being able to see the Guard’s face, Damien knew Romanov was resisting the urge to tell him to send another fireteam. A second passed in silence before the man finally responded.

  “Yes, my lord. Lead the way.”

  Damien carefully paced his travel through the house to keep behind the sweeping fire teams of Guard. He was going to poke at the most dangerous zones himself, but the Guards would make sure there were no surprises.

  “Anyone in the house?” Romanov asked as he and Damien reached the top of the stairs.

  “Negative, we’re drawing a blank on thermal and visual,” one of the fire team leaders replied. “Anyone else?”

  Multiple similar comments replied.

  “Bedroom was occupied recently, but no one in it now,” one leader replied. “Hold one.” She paused. “Bed is still warm. Someone is definitely here, sirs.”

  “Thought so,” Damien murmured. “Watch for automated defenses, people. Our target has bailed for the panic room. The million-dollar question is whether the panic room is the same place as the control room.”

  “Scanners aren’t showing anything in the house,” Romanov reported as Damien stepped past a team into the master bedroom to study the wood-paneled walls.

  “They’re also not showing a panic room that’s definitely here,” the Lord Regent replied. “Odysseus isn’t registered as a Mage, and even if he’s somehow secretly one, he hasn’t left.”

  “How do you know that? He could have teleported out after we came in,” Romanov replied.

  “I’d have known,” Damien said quietly. “There’s runes in this wall,” he continued, tapping on the wood paneling. The master bedroom’s west wall was just over two meters away from the upstairs library’s east wall. There was a big stone fireplace beneath them, but Damien doubted the chimney needed that much space.

  “What kind of runes?” Romanov asked carefully. “I seem to recall one set we expected to take out a city block.”

  Damien had teleported past those. These probably wouldn’t require that.

  “Nothing so destructive. Just concealment; it’s why your scanners aren’t picking it up. Maintaining those in secret must be expensive as hell, probably why this is the only spot that’s hidden.”

  “What do we do, my lord? I’m guessing the entrance is concealed and it’s presumably not to be opened from the outside at this point, anyway.”

  “Get another fireteam in here,” Damien ordered. “Any of us could open this up, so I’ll provide the shielding instead. An extra set of guns won’t go amiss.”

  “What are you expecting?” Romanov asked.

  “Trouble,” Damien said grimly. “So, let’s get more Guards in here.”

  Another two-Guard fireteam joined them a moment later, falling into line with Romanov and his companion as they leveled weapons at the wall.

  “Now,” Damien said loudly as he stepped up behind them. “I’m relatively sure that the panic room has at least some cameras and that you can see me and probably hear me, Mr. Odysseus.

  “From the fact that there are Royal Guards in your house, I suspect you know why we’re here. Surrender remains your wisest option, Mr. Odysseus. Don’t make us kill you.”

  Silence was his only answer and Damien shrugged.

  Power audibly crackled in the room as he wove a shield in front of the four Guards, one strong enough to stop any weapon they were carrying.

  “A door, if you please, my Guards,” Damien ordered.

  Romanov lifted his hand, took a moment to account for Damien’s shield, then slashed the armored gauntlet across the air.

  Blades of force ripped through the wall like tissue paper, wood paneling, supporting beams, and reinforced steel armor plating dividing with equal ease. The entire wall fell outward toward them, hitting the ground with a resounding crash as it unveiled the man behind it.

  He was moving before the wall fell, faster than Damien had ever seen. Odysseus leapt the debris of the wall, his weapon firing as he came.

  The discarding sabot penetrator rounds would have gone through the Royal Guards’ armor, but they shattered against Damien’s shield—and the same barrier threw Odysseus himself back. The solidified layer of air didn’t leave space for the Guard to fire their own weapons, but Damien had been expecting some version of this.

  He hadn’t been expecting the man to be quite this fast or for the man to have a Secret Service–issue penetrator carbine. The light but magically reinforced weapon fired the same rounds with the same power as the exosuit-mounted weapon, but that made it mind-bogglingly expensive.

  Odysseus tossed the gun aside and then moved again, a blur of motion as he dove for the wall, looking for an edge to Damien’s barricade. Unfortunately for him, the Guard had adapted to his speed by now and they didn’t need the SmartDart guns to take him alive.

  A burst of lightning appeared in the man’s path and he smashed into it before he could dodge. Sparks rippled across the assassin’s body as he crumpled to the ground, twitching in pain.

  “Bind him,” Damien ordered. He could sense the bonds of force holding Odysseus to the ground as he dropped the barrier and crossed to the man.

  “Alexander Ryan Odysseus,” he told the man formally, “you are under arrest for treason and regicide. Your only hope, I’m afraid, is to help me find the people who hired you.”

  There was no response. The man was unconscious. If Damien was lucky, it was just the electric shock.

  “Find the control room,” Damien ordered. “We need to bring in medevac immediately. We need this man alive!”

  31

  To Damien’s relief, the squad’s medic quickly managed to confirm that Odysseus wasn’t dead. He was apparently more vulnerable to the electroshock than anyone had expected—that was why SmartDarts were preferred. The dart would have calculated the right level of shock to apply.

  Alive didn’t mean undamaged, after all.

  “I’ve never seen anyone move like that,” Damien admitted as the medic was setting up an IV to feed medication to their captive. “The only people who came close were Augments.”

  “I’d guess top-tier combat cybernetics, but his scan comes up clean,” Romanov replied, standing beside Damien and looking at Odysseus’s unconscious form as well. “Bioaugmentation is the only thing left.”

  “I didn’t think modified genetics could get you that far,” Damien said quietly. He’d seen images and read reports on the small minority of the Protectorate’s population that was genetically engineered. It was rarely a successful process and had yet to ever be a fully positive “upgrade” to the recipients.

  Even now, human genetics wasn’t fully underst
ood. That was part of why the Mage-King’s children were partial clones—to make sure the Rune Wright gift was never lost.

  A lot of data had been lost when the Eugenicists had wrecked the research archives in Olympus Mons to stop the rebels taking them. Few Mages would shed tears for what had been lost there, given how it had been learned.

  And the Eugenicists’ shadow loomed large and ugly over genetic experimentation.

  “Can’t say for sure without dissecting him—which we’re not doing,” Romanov clarified quickly, “but there’s definitely been some people working on creating and implanting super-charged versions of human organs.

  “There’s a lot of upgrading you can do without tripping a scanner, and I would guess our friend here has all of them.”

  Damien shivered. Now that things had calmed down, something about the house was feeling vaguely wrong to his Sight. There was more magic here, magic he couldn’t quite localize, and it did not feel…right.

  “How’s the search of the basement going?” he asked.

  “Slowly. It doesn’t match the plans at all,” Romanov told him. “I’ve ordered some special sounding gear brought in with the medevac, but we need to find the control center before they can approach. And we’re still keeping this black, right?”

  “Correct,” Damien agreed. He studied the man and the field medicine station the medic had set up. “We need this one alive; we can’t take any risks with him. The rest of us can wait until the shuttle is cleared in, but he needs to go back to the Mountain now. Corporal?”

  That was addressed to the medic.

  “Can he be moved?” Damien asked.

  “Not without equipment we don’t have here,” the Guard replied. “A stretcher at least.”

  “Can he be teleported?” Damien countered.

  The medic paused, looking down at his patient.