“Well that’s not going to work!” Erik seethed, watching them go with hands on his head. “If Aristan deposes Tobenrah now and leads the defence, he’ll be de-facto head of House Harmony! He’s not going to let that go because a few hundred civvies try to block him!”
“Captain!” Trace demanded, stepping before him, rifle raised with great meaning. Erik grasped her suggestion immediately, without her having to say it. Perhaps she didn’t even need to say it, and would have been in her rights, as commander of ground forces, to order her marines without his permission… only this decision was political, and required a level of agreement from her Captain that not even she could afford to ignore. And more, she simply did not know if it was the right thing to do. Erik was simply better at this sort of thing than her — he’d been surrounded by big powers and big politics all his life, had had the great leaders of human affairs for dinner guests, and family friends. Here there were gears within gears, and if she made this one gear turn a certain way, she simply could not judge what would happen to all the others, and if catastrophe would befall them all as a result. But if anyone could know, it was Erik.
He stared at her, with a moment’s hard-eyed indecision. Then the indecision vanished, and he nodded. “Go! Take a small force and follow, don’t lead or they’ll mow you down! Let the parren lead and only fire if fired upon!”
“Lieutenant Dale!” Trace commanded, striding to the front of PH-1. “You stay and guard the shuttle with First and Second Squad! Third Squad, you come with me and Command Squad! Up front now!”
Running footsteps and rattling armour followed, and in ten seconds everyone was there, with parren still rushing by, heading up the steps. The furthest of them had now passed the next level up, and were leaping up the second flight of stairs. Beyond them, there were four more to the top.
“Wide formation,” she told her marines, checking her rifle and transferring the helmet from backrack to head, and fastening tightly. “We are support to the parren, we only fire if fired upon. Go.”
She ran, thought briefly about how little time they had to get up to Phoenix before the deepynine attack arrived, then thrust it from her mind. That was Erik’s responsibility… and Aristan’s too. It was because of him that they were all now wasting time, when they should have been forming all ships into defensive position and countering.
Staff Sergeant Kono and the rest of Command Squad got ahead of her, with Third Section to her rear, Sergeant Manjhi in command, Corporal Vijay Khan his second — Lisbeth’s former bodyguard. Word was he’d been in tears when she’d visited, blaming himself for not having been there to protect her on Stoya, only for Lisbeth to slap his cheek affectionately and tell him to pull himself together.
Vision on Trace’s glasses showed parren making fast progress up the rear of the Parliament hill. The marines ran hard, two strides to each enormous stair, but unarmored, many of the civilian parren were faster. None of them were objecting to seeing the humans come, and a few even turned to shout encouragement — probably House Fortitude, Trace thought, being the most loud and aggressive of the bunch. And now there was shooting at the top of the stairs, though Trace did not need to see it to know it was going into the air. Wild bursts to scare them off. Within the Parliament itself, some faint crashing noises, then a window broke, and smoke billowed out. There was fighting inside, then. Some flyers roared low overhead, probably for intimidation.
“Major, shooters on top of the stairs,” came Dale’s voice in her ear. “I count five, shooting in the air. I have snipers’ eyes on the targets.”
“If they fire at the civvies, shoot them,” Trace panted. She cleared the second flight up, sprinting on the flat, wide courtyard to the next flight. Shots up ahead, and parren scrambled sideways on the path, but did not stop. Several distinct shots followed from behind and below.
“Got two,” said Dale. “The others are falling back.” More shots ahead. “PH-1 just came under fire, small arms. I have no angle.”
“PH-1 has a shot,” Hausler added.
“Hold your fire PH-1,” Trace insisted, hitting the third flight and leaping up. Even marine-fit and augmented, running fast uphill in armour and talking was hard. “We can’t fire on Parliament with heavy weapons. Sergeant Kono, do you have a shot?”
Shots were falling amidst the running parren now. Trace saw something skip off the stairs ahead in a puff of fragments. Further up, several parren fell. Others ducked off the stairs amidst the flanking trees and bushes, but kept running.
“Hello Sergeant Kono,” came Styx’s voice. “I have a triangulation for you, from the overhead drones and other sources. Targeting dots to your glasses.” And then Trace could see it as well, small dots and red circles up ahead, where Aristan’s men were shooting from cover.
“Third Squad keep going!” Trace shouted. “Command Squad, cover right and take those shots!” She ducked right after Command Squad, finding cover behind a tree as Third Squad kept going and took the lead. She aimed around the tree trunk with her rifle, but Command Squad were already firing, a steady pop! pop! pop! of accurate, high-powered rifles. Styx’s targeting information was good, and quickly the incoming fire stopped.
“Not all of them are dead,” Styx informed them. “But most are hit, and the others are alarmed.”
“Command Squad go!” said Trace, and they were off again, as Third Squad cleared the stairs above and disappeared. Command Squad cleared the top stairs soon after, and finally got a good look at the Parliament — it was wide and imposing, just three floors high but with heavy stone walls and upper level balconies. Worst, the immediate surrounds were bare pavings, as all buildings of parren authority were designed to be the centre of ceremonial crowds.
Atop wide stairs between grand pillars, civilian parren were falling back from the main entrance, and gunfire followed them out. Several lay motionless, their comrades risking themselves to drag the wounded clear.
Sergeant Manjhi’s squad hit the stairs and took positions about the doors, as Trace and Command Squad sprinted across the pavings. The glasses feed showed Aristan’s and local government parren entering the building on the far side, in a great rush of bodies. They didn’t appear heavily armed.
“Sergeant Manjhi!” Trace yelled as her lungs burned. “Get inside! Full assault, make some ground!”
Third Squad pulled grenades and threw, waited for the explosions, then went in a volley of clearing gunfire. Trace ran up the stairs and followed, into a wide hallway now filled with smoke and a few bodies, all of them parren. Ahead, Third Squad advanced by leapfrog, each alternate group running until the next door, cross-corridor or stairway, then pausing to cover while the second group ran ahead. Command Squad made a blocking wall behind them, ready to lay down fire on anything hostile. Up the far end, a parren aimed a rifle, and disappeared in a hail of bullet impacts that splintered his cover… then reappeared falling motionless on the floor. To the left, Corporal Khan fired briefly up some stairs, and an armed parren tumbled down.
As rearguard, Trace walked half-sideways, watching behind and ahead, and saw the mass of civilian parren following them inside. They came crouched, completely unarmed and ready to dive for cover, eyes wide with fearful bravery.
“Major,” came Styx’s voice, “Parliament cameras are transmitting, Captain Debogande has tasked me to keep those channels open.” Which meant Erik thought this couldn’t look good to most parren. Or more likely, Lisbeth was telling him it didn’t, probably because Tobenrah was telling her. Ordinary civilians usually did what they were told, but the group behind her were risking their lives to oppose this power grab in the face of an alien invasion. Aristan risked everything with this last, wild throw of the dice.
Third Squad began taking more fire as they approached the end of the hallway, and Sergeant Manjhi ordered them to a halt ten metres short, pressed into alcoves and wall cover, or lying flat on the floor, bullets hitting the walls just ahead in sufficient volume to suggest the huge open space ahead was full of enemi
es. Trace took a knee against a wall as Kono shouted at the parren behind, and made grand gestures at them to stay down. Some were ignoring that, and running back to adjoining corridors and stairs, looking for a way to flank around. It was probably the best thing they could do, Trace thought — to fill up the rest of the building and hold it. But for her to follow would be to divide her forces in the face of a massively superior opponent, in numbers at least.
“I need to see that room, Styx,” she said above the racket, focused on her glasses, and comfortable at least that the civilians would give fair warning if someone tried to flank them. “Sergeant Kono! Let the bugs out, we gotta see ahead!”
Kono heard that and opened a small container on his webbing. A Parliament building schematic appeared on Trace’s glasses, zoomed and rotated for the best angle, then filled with rapidly multiplying red dots for enemies. Those dots now expanded, rushing down adjoining halls as the assassin bugs flew above their heads, and Styx expanded her analysis of camera coverage, and translated the results onto her tacnet…
Suddenly the shooting stopped. “Major Thakur!” bellowed a loud voice from the room ahead. It was in English, but the pronunciation was all parren. It took Trace a moment to find the correct icon on her glasses, then blinked and called up a camera feed from the room ahead. Robed parren were holding back, gestured by one tall figure to stay there as he moved slowly to the centre of the room. “Major Thakur!” he yelled again. From within his robe, he produced a long blade, and held it up where the camera could see it. Trace realised what he was doing.
“Let’s go,” she said, standing up. “Everyone up and rifles down. Styx, what’s the status on those bugs? Some of the Domesh look like they’ve got those microwave devices aimed at the ceiling.”
“No,” said Kono fiercely in the pause before Styx replied. Wanting to grab her arm, but not daring. Trace ignored him, walking forward as others joined her, the line moving.
“Major,” said Styx, “the microwaves will not destroy the bugs, but they will disorient their sensors, making them largely inoperable. The microwaves need to be aimed in the air, as they will injure organic beings, so I could direct the bugs to progress amongst the parren or at ground level. But I deem the chance of detection high.”
“No, we’re not going to cheat here,” said Trace, as the wide room came slowly into view. “There’s too many people watching.” All of the planet Elsium, for certain. The entire Drezen System beyond that. And, when packaged and sent on the next starship to leave the system, all of parren space beyond, in the weeks and months to come. Her timer read ninety-one minutes ETA until the deepynines reached Elsium. Fifteen minutes until they absolutely had to head back to Phoenix… and even that was cutting it far too fine. Ideally Erik should have been headed back on PH-1 as soon as the signal arrived.
The grand hall opened onto an even grander central room. On the left, a huge, wide stairway led to higher levels of government. On the wide floor before the stairs, a wall of black-robed parren now lined the walls. Between them all stood a single dark sentinel, sword in hand.
“No!” hissed Kono again at Trace’s back. Trace held a hand behind her back, and flicked fingers left and right to show how she’d like them to deploy. The marines moved, spreading along the wall to the right, and out to the stairs on her left, Domesh warriors fading before them, granting them this much space at least.
Behind them came the mixed-house civilians, with grim defiance as they saw what was taking shape before them. The catharan that Aristan had wanted, then sought to sidestep. Trace walked slowly forward, allowing her marines to take position, then more parren civvies arrived along adjoining corridors, and shoving broke out as they fought for their own spots along the walls, pushing the Domesh back, daring them to strike unarmed parren before the cameras. Trace could only admire their courage, and took confidence from the force with which they pushed their fragile position. They seemed to know what she was doing, even if she didn’t.
“Trace,” came Erik’s voice on her private channel, and she had to fight down her frustration.
“Not now,” she formulated silently in return. He was going to tell her to stand down, like Kono had. If Aristan decided to overrun the Parliament in a full-on firefight, she didn’t think she could hold him long, and would be killed eventually, along with hundreds of these brave civilians. He had too many men. But to take Parliament in a bloodbath of innocents would sully Aristan’s great ascension. Great parren were supposed to take power in moves both clean and elegant, which this desperate shambles had long ceased to be. This was now the only way for him to restore that elegance, and demonstrate to all assembled and watching that House Harmony was truly his to be ruled. And this, she was certain, was now the only way she could stop him.
“Trace listen,” Erik retorted. “The system scan is catastrophic. There’s no way we can defend this place from the deepynines, even if we were united. Disunited we’ve got no chance. We’ve got more time than him, because we’re going to withdraw to fight elsewhere. But Aristan has to fight here, to prove himself the defender of the parren people. He’s short of time, you’re not! Use it!”
Trace realised what he was saying, because it was something like the hazy idea that had been forming at the back of her mind anyhow… but such decisions were not a mere Marine Commander’s to make. Now Erik laid it out for her plainly, and showed her exactly what to do.
“The deepynines are here in ninety-one human minutes,” she said to the room, walking slowly to Aristan. She was completely surrounded now… but then, so was Aristan. If shooting started, they’d all die. The parren custom of unrestricted arms in such occasions had a certain, cold logic to it. “We must fight them together, humans, parren, all the houses, Tobenrah and Aristan together. And yet you refuse. Why?”
“There is no talking in the catharan,” the earpiece translated Aristan’s cold reply. “You have chosen this obstruction. You stand between a leader and his destiny. You will fight. Should you require a weapon, one will be provided for you.”
Trace considered that, looking around as she circled. Then she pointed to one of the parren civilians, and beckoned him to her. He looked puzzled, and wondered if she’d really meant him. Trace repeated the gesture impatiently, and he came, as Trace put the safety on her rifle and held it out to him. Perhaps, it occurred to her, she should just shoot Aristan and sacrifice everyone in the room to end any chance of his dangerous nonsense gaining true power in parren space. But that would lead to someone else just as bad taking his place, and following the same twisted ideology toward the same ruin. It was the ideology that had to be fought and discredited. Aristan himself was irrelevant.
She handed the man her rifle, then began unhooking her webbing, and handed the whole lot over, hanging it on the parren man’s shoulder — magazines, pistol, grenades, water canteen and all. Then the helmet, which was going to slow her down when she needed to move her head. Barefoot might be better, but the combat boots were light, and the pavings were smooth and potentially slippery. Plus they gave her power if she needed to kick.
She then began on the armour, but was interrupted. “Leave on the armour,” Aristan commanded. Past the translator, she could hear the tension in his voice, contemplating just how long the armour could take to remove. “It presents as much disadvantage as advantage. I am unconcerned.”
That was probably true, Trace thought. She was smaller than most men, and would typically rely on speed. She wasn’t going to have that here — unarmored, Aristan was much quicker. But killing an armoured target took time that Aristan didn’t have. Finally, she pulled her cap from a webbing pocket and pulled it over her head, for the limited protection its brim gave her eyes, and last of all, pulled a hilt from the knife sheath beneath her pistol.
From within slid a kukri. It was the traditional weapon of the Kulina, dating back to the Gurkhas of Nepal. Most had little cause to use it for more than utility in these days of armoured space combat, but on Sugauli, all knife-fighting
was taught with these. The blade was a beast, as long as her forearm, its thick spine angled inward at the halfway like an elbow. The blade itself was wide, the edge flaring to a wicked curve forward of the elbow. A greater surface area, to drag more sharp steel along the target from the same, small motion, and cut deeper.
Trace gave it a familiar spin, and tapped it against her forearm. Blade on armour made a ringing sound, and the effect was pleasing. All the parren were staring at it, for it was the most inelegant, brutal-looking weapon, unlike the slender steel in Aristan’s hand. It was a weapon only a human could love, Trace supposed — practical and vicious, designed as much for hacking animal carcasses as killing people. And it required its wielder to kill up close, close enough to smell her enemy’s breath, while parren preferred the swift strike from range.
Trace sank to a fighting pose, somewhat exaggerated for effect, crouched low with the knife held back, awaiting an opening. In full armour, she supposed she looked something like a scorpion, hard-shelled and close to the ground, sting poised for a strike. She looked in Aristan’s eyes for the first time, large and blue within his hood and veil, and saw what she was certain was alarm.
“The deadliest race of machines descends upon your people,” she told him, “and instead of defending them, you play these games. You are a traitor to your kind, and your people will thank me for killing you.”
“There is no talking in the catharan!” one of Aristan’s men yelled from the far wall.
“Fuck your rules!” Trace snarled. “Parren fight for games! Humans fight to kill!” She leaped at Aristan, and drew a fast slash for her exposed neck. She blocked with her forearm and tried to ensnare the blade between lower and upper arm while thrusting with the kukri. Aristan barely tore his blade clear in time, darting backward as her blow caught his robes. He circled backward, alarm clear in his eyes, and Trace pointed at the parren who had shouted from the sidelines. “Sergeant Kono! If this man speaks again, shoot him!”
Defiance: (The Spiral Wars Book 4) Page 36