A minute later everyone was assembled, perched on the narrow ledge abutting the curving roof. They were badly understrength. He had wanted more manpower, but they had only managed to scrounge seven dive suits in town. Mountainous isthmuses made for lousy diving. They skinned out of the suits and pulled gear from their waterproof bags.
Spitting out his EGA, Pieter rubbed at his backside and looked over the edge. "It can't get any worse than that..."
Lieutenant Shin gritted pointed teeth. "Shut up and get out of the dive suit."
"Shin," Randal said, looking to distract him. "Go check the belvedere." He motioned for the others to stay low.
The wiry Korean drew out a double-edged blade, clasping it between his teeth. He slithered up the copper slope, disappearing from view.
Everyone pressed against the roof as a misfired rocket fizzled overhead, fishtailing and narrowly missing the group in its downward plunge. Rockets and shells were exploding regularly in the chateau grounds, lighting the night sky.
"All clear, Captain. I'm in the belvedere," came Shin over the comset.
They picked their way carefully up to him. In peacetime the turret-like belvedere gave lovely views of the nearby mountains. Those days though, he and Pieter knew the Abkhenazi would be using it as an observation point. As they climbed, the body of an enemy observer slid past them, plunging into the icy water, binoculars clattering after him.
"There was only one," Shin reported. He sounded disappointed. The twin panels of the belvedere's window were opened wide enough to admit the armored suits.
Randal's metal feet crushed the window bench as he entered. Down a short flight of stairs and he was in the guest wing's prayer chapel. Or what had been the chapel before all vestiges of Christian religion were purged from the room. That angered him in a way he had thought himself inured to by now. As boys, both he and Pieter had been discipled in the chapel by Pieter's mother. It was like having his childhood invaded by the Abkhenazi, along with his country.
"Okay, Team One. Form up on me," he said, taking position by the door to the hallway.
"Team Two is on me." Jeni pointed downward over her head. Originally, Randal conceived Shin leading the team tasked with destroying the Abkhenazi commo array. Jeni had prevailed upon him to let her come along, telling him she had a plan. Once she was on the team, inexorably she had taken charge. Even bloodthirsty Lieutenant Shin took a back seat to Jeni.
A glance showed the hallway to be deserted. Anyone not actively defending the ramparts was hopefully hunkered down somewhere, trying to avoid trouble.
At the end of the hall sat a majestic double-helix staircase, fashioned entirely in blue-veined marble. There were three such in the chateau, he remembered. The lines of the staircases were elegant and simple and Randal loved them. They were the only part of the chateau to escape Haelbroeck's parvenu hunger for the gaudy.
Reaching the base of the staircase, the two teams split up. "Okay, you know the layout. Down this next hall and 'round the corner. Then the dirty work begins," Randal said to his people. He pointed to the two Headhunters accompanying the mayor, Ariane and himself. "We don't have the luxury of being nice. We come across anybody, you put them down quick and quiet. Got it?"
The two solemn-faced Koreans nodded. One scratched at a neck covered to the jawline with skirling tattoos.
As Team One pushed into the long hall, Randal could hear Jeni's last minute instructions to her team: "Don't lollygag across the courtyard and no one get killed being stupid. I'll make catty remarks at your funeral and no one wants that."
Randal's team set a quick pace down the hall. It was short of running, since armored feet would echo even with their rubberized coating, but they wasted no time. The plush maroon rug extending the length of the hall did much to muffle their movement. A silver griffin was woven in every four meters. It was the central figure of the Haelbroeck coat of arms, though Randal suspected the coat of arms was as recent in origin as the Haelbroeck fortune.
He heard a surprised gasp from up ahead. The point man, Lee, fired a silenced burst into one of the bedchambers lining the hall. Passing the room, Randal saw an Abkhenazi captain in dress uniform. He sprawled dead, the beige of his uniform blending with the Oriental rug his blood was staining.
The hall seemed endless. Sculptures, paintings and other objets d'art purchased more for objective than aesthetic value lined the walls. It was difficult for Randal to focus; all of it felt so surreal. How many times had he and Pieter played soldiers in that very hall as boys? And now he was there to kill for real.
Killing was what the mission entailed, plain and simple. Randal accepted it, but he would never like it.
At last they reached the corner. He raised a hand, calling for a halt. The mayor's old suit took a stutter step before complying. Randal prayed it would survive the mission. He prayed any of them would.
He and the mayor were too conspicuous. One of the Headhunters would need to peek and make sure the path was clear to the Great Hall, their ultimate destination. It was a mere thirty meters away and around the corner.
Just as he turned to motion for a look-see, movement flashed on his viewscreen. Reacting without thinking, he grabbed whomever it was, slinging him to the ground, nearly crushing him. The man fell with a clatter of shoes.
Randal recognized the bruised face staring dazedly up into his own. It was one of the servants. Bunches of shoes lay around him, their strings clutched in his fist. All looked freshly polished. The Headhunters dragged the injured man into the nearest room, a swath of blood trailing them.
An arrhythmic clomping sounded from around the corner.
Lee leaned out a second and then pulled back, whispering urgently, "Two Fists. . . This way!" They were probably alerted by the commotion.
"Into the side room, now!" Randal called over the comset. He crouched in the doorway, training his targeting reticule in the direction of the sound. Across the hall the mayor did the same. If the Fists paused to examine the blood trail, they were his. If not, things would get interesting in a hurry.
***
Jeni's team made a dash across the interior courtyard. Aside from the Lanternhouse tower, only a few benches and a handful of leafless trees broke the smooth plane of square-cut granite. Shin and Pieter led, the two Headhunters flanking. Bringing up the rear was Lebedev, running with his gawky, skipping gait as always. Jeni wondered fleetingly what someone like him was doing in the armored infantry at all.
They approached the Lanternhouse at an oblique angle, the tall wooden doors coming into view as they rounded the tower. Nearly windowless, the tower rose past the chateau walls, capped by a glass dome which showed off the huge chandelier to good effect. Round, gray communications dishes sprouted like mushrooms from the top.
A single Theocratic Guard trooper stood outside the entrance. His eyes were on the castle walls, as if expecting a mob of angry peasants to scale them any minute. Shin's flying kick took him in the head. Jeni had watched the Headhunters practicing taekwondo in the Catacombs. It never seemed practical to her — too much jumping around. The unnatural tilt of the enemy trooper's head changed her opinion.
"So far so good! Everyone inside!" she called, giving Lebedev an impatient look. In a suit capable of making fifty kilometers an hour he still lagged behind.
"Perestan! Stop I say you!"
Jeni's eyes darted to the top of the wall. Blight! One of the defenders had them spotted. Others were turning to see what the shouting was about. She fired the submachine gun at him for nuisance value and followed the others into the Lanternhouse.
The foyer was empty. Pieter and Lebedev remained at the door. Jeni doubted they could hold it for long, but they would be good speed bumps.
Sprinting onto the main floor, what looked to have been a formal dining room, Jeni found cubicles filled with communications gear. She could just kiss Onegin. His intel was rock-solid as always.
The place was packed with commo techs, all yelling confusedly to each other. A seni
or officer was shouting orders over the noise. Apparently the counter-offensive in the south was making progress; everyone looked on the edge of panic. Jeni fired warning shots in the air and yelled in her best Russian, "No one move! Get down on the floor!"
The terrified commo techs gave her pleading, confused looks. "Oh. Reverse that. Down on the floor, then do not move."
Shin and the other two Headhunters assisted, snatching techs by their collars and hauling them to the tiles. She nodded to Shin. He pulled the officer to his feet, bending him over a desk and pressing a slim machine pistol to the Abkhenazi's temple.
"There we go," she said approvingly, motioning to one of the other techs. "You have something I need. Unless the Communication Officer's Instructions are in my hands in about ten seconds you'll never get all the pieces of your boss out of that keyboard."
Blubbering, Shin's hostage gestured to an adjoining cubicle before anyone else could respond. That's showing faith in your comrades, thought Jeni. She flipped through the spiral bound book, memorizing that day's protocols almost as quickly as her eyes settled on them.
From the foyer came the sound of autofire and the lower chatter of Lebedev's arm-mounted LMG.
"Jeni!" Lebedev called over the com, the nasally voice almost womanish in his excitement. "Fists of the Mogdukh! We have two of them coming, plus many other soldiers. To hurry is obligatory!"
***
The pair of Fists rounded the corner. Randal had gotten only a quick look at them in the warehouse. In a well-lit hallway they were even more horrific.
Growing up, he had once heard a theory that the "sons of God" in Genesis who coupled with the "daughters of earth" were demons. If so, the hunched, black-coated monsters with grinning death's heads were what he imagined their offspring might have looked like.
That was his thought during the tense second as they came to the blood trail. Neither Fist paused even a tic before their weapons came up, hungry for a target.
Randal cut loose, bringing his man down with a series of autocannon rounds to center-mass. The burst was cut short, and a flash on his HUD indicated an ammo misfeed.
Across the way, the mayor beat his man to the draw, surprising him with a long stream of LMG rounds, the archaic suit's only weapon. The ferocity of the attack put the Fist off-balance and his return fire went wild. It tore randomly through the walls around him. Unfortunately, the light machine gun rounds did not penetrate the thick breastplate of the Fist suit.
Randal added his own machine gun to the cause, further destabilizing the Fist. A near-miss shattered a vase next to him. Finally they whittled through the armor. The Abkhenazi flailed, falling backward through a velvet-covered wall. Even the Haelbroecks resting outside in the family cemetery must have heard the ruckus. The team was pinched for sure.
"Team One, we've got to hurry. Any casualties?"
"A stray round got Harry Kim," Lee said stolidly as he stepped back into the hallway.
"I looked him over - he's gone," Ariane confirmed.
"I'm sorry. We've got to move before reinforcements arrive."
They turned the corner and made for the Great Hall, Randal taking point. A Theocratic Guard piled out from the hall, with several more on his heels. Spotting Randal, they scuttled back inside.
Team One hustled to the double doors, clustering to either side. Randal took a moment to mentally review the room he was about to assault.
The hall was long and open, with a cavernous vaulted ceiling. Overhead, the ceiling was paneled, each section holding a different rendering of a religious theme. Most of the paintings featured a Madonna and Child, but these were likely long-since defaced.
Twin rows of solid wood tables had previously lined the hall, though who knew what the Abkhenazi had changed? On the far side of the room sat a raised dais, which could double as a stage. The senior commanders had likely taken the high ground for themselves. A plush velvet curtain covered the rear of the dais, and there was a small emergency exit behind the curtain. Thankfully, the Khlisti way of battle would not allow the enemy officers to flee through it. Nevertheless, the Abkhenazi could use it to bring in reinforcements. A kitchen adjoined the room on one side, with an exit leading outside to the garden.
The room was practically windowless, except for some high, clerestory windows too small to admit an enemy counterstrike.
He and Mayor Jowett stood to either side of the double doors, with a Headhunter close on each of them. Holding up three fingers, he counted down to one, and then they kicked open the doors and ducked back behind cover. The two Headhunters popped out for the briefest of seconds, each tossing a smoke grenade into the hall.
Belated answering fire missed the Headhunters, instead shredding a luckless Dutch burgomeister whose painting had been hung opposite the door.
After waiting a few more seconds for smoke to suffuse the hall, Randal gave Mayor Jowett a thumbs up. Switching to thermal, the two men entered the room, Randal breaking left, the mayor right.
Rendered in thermal, the hall glowed psychedelically. The heavy dining tables were upended for cover, cool green in the HUD, while tangerine faces of enemy troops appeared and disappeared behind them. Ruby fireworks from enemy rifles were followed an instant later by the impact of light caliber rounds on Randal's suit.
"Follow my lead, Mayor."
Ducking, he sprinted for the front most table. Legs churning, he threw his shoulder into the thing, driving it backward along with the soldiers sheltering behind it. The first table took out the next, and that one the next. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Mayor Jowett doing the same.
Engaging jump jets, he sailed over the jumbled tables, savaging the stunned Abkhenazi with machine gun fire. While returning to ground, he saw that Ariane and the Headhunters had entered the fight.
A downed Abkhenazi struggled up from behind one of the tables, poking a flechette rifle into Randal's face at point-blank range. Only his reflexes saved him as he stiff-armed the man, sending him flying onto the dais.
Turning his attention to the dais, Randal took down the handful of defenders still standing. Belatedly, he noticed the a man in the back shouting into a comset. Mayor Jowett took him out a moment later.
With no one moving except the wounded, Randal moved on to the unpleasant business of identifying the fallen. "Let's get some air in here." While the team shot out the windows, Randal activated the facial recognition application on his target acquisition system. Before the operation, Jeni had uploaded the mug shots of the Abkhenazi High Command provided by Onegin.
"Don't wait for all the smoke to clear, start grabbing bodies and identifying. Priority is on lieutenant-general and above."
Switching to standard optics, he felt his way carefully the room, holding his victims up close to his visor, watching as the FR application cycled through the faces chosen by some administrative reaper back in New Geneva. The first one came back as a master sergeant. Randal set him carefully aside. Next came a major, eyes staring sightlessly into his own. He knew these faces would never leave him.
"Vanguard General Assad," Lee reported, moving on to the next body.
Soon after, the other Headhunter called out cheerily, "Lieutenant General Mohammadi, assuming room temperature."
Randal saw Mayor Jowett heading for the dais, and moved to follow. Just then, something stirred on the raised platform. The smoke cleared enough for him to see a wounded officer scuttling for the emergency exit. Even with a partial view, the FR application went to work. "It's Field Marshal Mashkhadov! Stop him!" He triggered the light machine gun, but got nothing in return. Only then did he notice the empty ammo gauge on the HUD.
Jowett fired, but the shots went wide. He lumbered after the fleeing Abkhenazi commander, hard on his heels as the man tore aside the velvet curtain and threw wide the emergency door. Jowett grabbed the Field Marshal, pulling him into a lethal bear hug.
The first thing Randal saw through the open door was burning shrubbery. The second thing was Colonel Tsepashin.
<
br /> ***
Shin held the communication officer face-first in the keyboard, a machine pistol pressed to his scalp. Jeni Cho produced a memory chit from her pocket, pressing it into the officer's hand. "Okay, Shin, let him up - he's going to behave." Switching back to Russian, she pointed to the chit. "There's only one file on there, an audio file. It needs to go out over your Command Net now. You make sure all the protocols are satisfied. Turn the volume up so I can hear."
Shin moved back to help cover the door.
With shaky hands the officer complied, calling over the ComNet, giving and receiving authentication codes. Jeni made a show of reviewing the Communication Officer's Instructions to keep him honest, but she already had the codes for the day memorized. She would know if he betrayed them.
Watching her with fearful eyes, the man wet his lips nervously and then entered the command to transmit the audio file over the command channel.
"Attention all units! This is Field Marshal Mashkhadov. I have just received orders from the Guardian Council to surrender at once. It is with the deepest regret that I order you to lay down your arms, and to surrender to the nearest organized New Genevan unit. May the Mogdukh have mercy upon our spirits."
The officer wept openly, staring at her in horrified wonder. "The Field Marshal would never..."
Jeni cut him off merrily. "Of course he didn't. It's called voice manipulation and intrusion."
The ComNet was flooded with requests for confirmation. No one wanted to believe the news.
"Well, answer them. Tell them to surrender and play nice." She frowned thoughtfully. "Play nice" wasn't exactly in the Abkhenazi idiom, and she wondered how his mind would translate the phrase she had imported. It did not matter, so long as he didn't sell them out.
One of the Headhunters must have had the same thought, tickling the nape of the man's neck with the cold muzzle of his SMG. The tech shuddered and said over the comset, "No, no. That's correct, you are ordered to surrender. Authentication code Arlekino—Gromov—Lyotchik."
Knox's Irregulars Page 28