She grabbed the book and handed it to a man behind her.
“We’ll look at this. You’ll finish your mission.”
Like hell he would. He stared at the book as it was handed to someone closer to the bomb.
The woman pressed her pistol against Bronze’s forehead. “Execute the mission. Kill Chimera Company.”
“Roger that,” he replied, but he himself was the only member of Chimera Company who needed to die, and Bronze wasn’t going anywhere.
The curious operative opened the book.
In his time as Hines Zy Pel, and even more so in his extended afterlife as Bronze, he’d set a considerable number of booby traps. Inside the scooped-out pages of Darant’s book were two CM-7 micro-fusion grenades linked to a simple trigger activated by the book’s opening.
The confined space of the reinforced tunnel concentrated the blast of the grenades. Bronze barely registered the flash before he was obliterated, along with everyone else.
* * *
Apinya Lantosh
The crump of the explosion was muffled by the baffles in the ceiling.
It provoked no screams of panic from those in the chamber. Some probably hadn’t even noticed the noise. Lantosh had. She flew out of the presidential area, racing to get her VIPs out before the attack escalated. Only when she was on the chamber floor and sprinting for the podium did she take a half-moment to glance up.
The roof structure was a honeycomb constructed from ultra-strong materials. It looked as if a monster had tried to punch their way out. The distorted material was white with stress, but was holding for now. The ceiling façade below the roof wasn’t as tough. A segment 20 feet across was falling, bringing lights, cables, and other crap down with it.
Lantosh sped up.
Ahead, Indiya seemed to be in a state of meditation. President Ansiyka had her pistol out, searching for targets to service.
The next explosion was much bigger. The bottom blew out of the already damaged roof section. Bodies were falling down into the chamber. Lantosh paused to see if she recognized any of them, but they were nothing more than shredded body parts.
Her universe came to an abrupt all stop. She should be shielding Indiya. The first general-cum-president, too. Protecting the cause she’d fought and suffered so much for.
She should be. But she couldn’t remember why.
Then even the thought that there was anything significant about Indiya and the first general drifted away, to be forgotten. Momentarily, she was at a loss. Purposeless. Apinya Lantosh had never before been without purpose.
She sniffed the air that had become rich with unfamiliar scents. Since when had smell been so important? Since a few seconds ago.
Others around the chamber were sniffing the air, too. Not many. A few dozen. These sniffers had a comforting smell about them, but it wasn’t the one Lantosh was seeking. She wanted to smell authority, and she found it in a Parliamentary Defense Force corporal who’d burst into the chamber with his team.
The man blinked, confused as hell, then he came to his true self. In Lantosh’s eyes, if not yet in physical reality, the corporal grew in stature until he was a demigod wreathed in gleaming muscles. He radiated the reassuring odor of command. Lantosh looked to him for guidance. He pointed at Indiya and Ansiyka.
Lantosh drew her hand blaster and advanced on her targets.
* * * * *
Chapter Fifty-Four: Apinya Lantosh
She took aim at Indiya, but a bolt took off her gun hand before she could fire.
Kanha Wei fired into the crowd, trying to protect her mistress. Indiya herself was staring at Lantosh, and so too were First General Ansiyka and one of her aides, who had their pistols leveled at Lantosh, and another aide who’d come alive to the same scent of command.
“Why, Lantosh?” Ansiyka asked.
The mission objective was slipping away. The aide standing alongside Ansiyka swung her pistol around and shot the president and first general in the gut. As Ansiyka stumbled, he blew off her head.
Lantosh drew her knife and advanced on Indiya. Sizzling bolts were flying everywhere. Wei went down. So did the man beside Lantosh, taken down by a round fired from high above. As for the presidential aide who’d shot the president, he appeared caught in freeze frame.
Lantosh advanced on Indiya, but forcing herself against Indiya’s implacable stare was like pushing against a gale. Just 10 feet from the target, Indiya’s expression changed to one of irritation, and Lantosh froze in place.
It wasn’t just her feet that wouldn’t move. Her heart stopped beating. Her diaphragm would no longer pump air. She felt her consciousness being pinched off. It died with a flash and a bang that dropped her to the ground, but it wasn’t an end-of-life transition.
It was a detonation. A fragger grenade. And the hot sting told her she’d been caught by shrapnel.
Swaying, she got to her feet. Everyone on the podium had gone down, and stayed down, Indiya included. The ancient crone’s Orion Era ship suit was shredded and bloodied.
Lantosh stumbled onward.
* * *
Oso Sybutu
Although Osu continued to use professional precision to report to Lily what he was seeing through the scope, inside, he was stunned at the sights.
“Lantosh has become a threat,” Dodger said beside him. “Do you concur?”
The sniper was ready for action, sights active on the short-barreled sniper carbine pointing down through the firing gap. All Dodger lacked was the experience that good people could be turned so easily. Even legionaries. Even Lantosh.
Lantosh was more than a comrade. She was Osu’s inspiration.
That even the best of them could be corrupted? Osu had seen that far too often to even hesitate. “Do it! Take her out.”
* * *
Apinya Lantosh
Ignoring the groans of the wounded as being no threat to her purpose, Lantosh sank to her knees astride the ancient woman’s legs.
With her remaining hand, she put the tip of her knife to Indiya’s throat. She brought the stump of her right wrist over her left and shifted her weight to bring it down on the knifepoint.
* * *
Osu Sybutu
Dodger took the shot.
The round passed through Lantosh’s brainstem and out the other side, shattering Indiya’s cheek. Lantosh fell on top of her, her knife falling from her dead hand. It carved a bloody slash across Indiya’s throat, but the lack of arterial spray gave Osu hope that his leader was not about to make her final exit.
One of Dodger’s companions yelled at Osu. “Move!” He had his own sniper carbine he wanted to bring into action. Osu got out of the damned way.
Being useless for the moment, he watched the sniper deploy. He was fascinated by the use of a short-barreled weapon as a sniper rifle. It made sense. A regular rifle wouldn’t fit inside the metal boxes they’d crawled through. And to a sniper, he supposed the 100-yard range to the targets on the ground was touching distance.
“Talk to me, Sybutu,” Lily said over comms.
“Indiya’s wounded, but she’s still alive.”
“There’s nothing more you can do there. Meet us down in the chamber. All that matters now is to extract Indiya.”
“Roger that.”
Osu took a last look at the two snipers going methodically about their work. The other two members of the kill team were opening up another firing port. At the rate they were servicing targets, there was a good chance they could yet save Indiya.
As for Lantosh…Osu couldn’t think about that yet. Saving Indiya was all that mattered.
* * * * *
Chapter Fifty-Five: Weapons Chief Narazier
FRNS Amamara, Home Defense Fleet, Zeta-Arcelia System
The captain insisted everyone take frequent breaks to a carefully constructed schedule, a policy Narazier thoroughly agreed with. He needed his people to be alert at all times. The stand-off with the rebel fleet had already lasted over a day, and, in his experienc
e, once the crazy began, it would know no limits. Especially when Humans were in the mix.
Consequently, Weapons Chief Narazier was resting in his bolthole in the Frame 31 secure gunnery area, doing his duty to the Legion and the Federation by watching old holos of the Amamara’s victories.
With her keel laid down in FL-914 as part of the program to make good the losses of the Siege of Wutan-Scala-7, the FRNS Amamara was not only the oldest active ship in the fleet, but remained a vital part of the Home Fleet’s three-battleship backbone.
It was pride and excellence that meant Amamara remained such a crucial part of the navy, despite over 2,000 years of service.
Narazier’s temporary peace was interrupted when the lock to the secure weapons area chimed, and Kryzan and Hrrit stepped in. Narazier scowled at the pair. He knew them well. All three in the room were Zhoogenes, and there were times when the green had to stick together against the more numerous Humans, who tended to take over everything. He also knew they should be at their post in Turret #4.
“We’ve come to check the magazine stores,” Kryzan said, “as requested by the boss.”
Hrrit asked, “Do you know what’s making her so nervous, Chief? She wasn’t specific.”
There was a confused fuzz to his words. If Narazier didn’t know better, he’d say the man was drunk, but they were on high alert. Hrrit would never compromise the security of his ship. No one aboard would.
Narazier bit his tongue while he considered his reply. The boss hadn’t kept him in the loop on this, but it wouldn’t be the first time. Weapons Officer Shinyei was new and prone to bypass her section chiefs to micromanage directly. Her tongue was sharp and barbed. Narazier’s opposite number in the other watch had learned the hard way that Shinyei had the captain’s confidence and was prepared to use it ruthlessly.
Protocol demanded he verify this story, but…He winced to imagine Shinyei’s reaction. He waved on the two spacers, who made for the blast door that led down Magazine Store Number One.
“Halt!” Narazier snapped.
“Chief?”
He sighed. Protocol was there for a reason, even if he had to pay the consequences of honoring it. “Cool your green asses for a moment while I clear this with the boss.”
Kryzan drew a sharp breath. “Do you really think that’s a good idea, Chief?”
Before Narazier could reply that no, he didn’t, but he’d do it anyway, Hrrit shot him. Astonished, Narazier looked down at the hole burned into his chest. Screaming with pain, he reached for his comm set to sound the alarm. Hrrit shot him again before he could reach it. Everything went numb.
Narazier bounced off the table and fell to the deck, feeling nothing. His ears worked fine, though. While one of the traitors pounded down the steps to the magazine, the other barred the door to the weapons area.
Then he heard the blast door to the magazine bang shut. The sound of locking bolts ramming home was the last thing Narazier ever heard.
* * *
Captain J’Klin
“Azhanti!”
The Steadfast’s captain prided himself on his adaptability to any situation, but the report left him so stunned, all he could do was work his jaw like a landed fish.
“Putting visual on the main holo,” Sensors said.
The sight made the report seem real. The Amamara was mortally wounded, her starboard beam blown out. The gaping wound in her hull was so wide and deep that the pressure seals had failed; her air was still escaping, vomiting personnel into the void. She hadn’t been the flagship for a long time, but Amamara was the most venerated ship in the navy. J’Klin had built and painted several models of her by hand.
Incredibly, the scene grew worse. Amamara’s ventral batteries were pounding railgun volleys into her own escort destroyers.
Comms shifted the view of the old battleship to a secondary holo-projector, displaying in its place the figure of Admiral Hinso from the flag deck of Corsair. For political reasons J’Klin reluctantly understood, when the 4th Fleet had joined the movement, Indiya had appointed Hinso as the expanded expedition’s commander.
“Hinso to all ships, we have no idea what is happening on Amamara. None of this is our doing. It looks like sabotage, and I have to assume our own fleet might not be immune. All ships are to lock down CICs into citadel mode. I will try to explain to the Home Defense Fleet that this is not our doing, but—”
The admiral was gunned down from several directions and fell beneath the camera angle. Panic and gunfire followed, then the feed from Corsair shut down.
“Captain,” SitCon warned, “I’ve two light frigates on intercept. It’s the Ajax and Liberation. They’re trying to ram us.”
“Helm, prepare lateral micro-jump to evade them.”
Comms added to J’Klin’s sense of woe. “Multiple reports of mutinies on 4th Fleet ships. Two of ours, too.”
“Security, we’ll make a working assumption that this is the action of the Andromedan Corruption. Any of us could turn traitor at any moment, myself included. Figure out how to deal with that, and figure it out fast. I want to implement a solution in five minutes. Comms, put me through to all ships across both fleets.”
J’Klin considered his options, but when Comms signaled readiness, he still had no idea how to beat this attack.
“This is Captain J’Klin of the Legion Navy, loyal to the Federation, the Legion, and Lady Indiya. Both fleets have been infiltrated by hostiles we call the Andromedan Corruption. Your most trusted personnel could be sleeper agents who will turn against their shipmates and the Federation at any moment. That includes you listening to this message, whoever you are. The one advantage we have is, in our experience, those undergoing the Corruption often experience an initial state of confusion. To any ship still loyal to the Federation, prepare to form up on Steadfast after we emerge from an imminent micro jump. J’Klin, out.”
His jaw dropped when he brought up a tactical view. It was mayhem out there. Across both naval forces, around a fifth of the vessels were already disabled. Many of the others were undergoing mutinies.
“Thirty seconds to collision,” SitCon warned.
“Helm, initiate sidestep jump.”
“Executing short jump, aye.”
The ship fell out of reality.
“Let’s hope the Andromedans don’t note the significance of our Mark II jump drive,” J’Klin mused. “The eyes of the rest of the Legion Navy will pop when they see what we’re doing, but somehow that doesn’t seem so important today.”
Steadfast squeezed itself back out of j-space and was shot into the middle of a battle.
* * *
Osu Sybutu
Phantom
“That’s the last,” Osu said as he helped Sinofar into the main hatch.
Osu watched her head off to the medical bay with Arunsen, the two of them carrying their wounded Muryani. The Pryxian hadn’t said a word since learning Bronze wasn’t coming back—nor were Darant and Wei, but it was the old legionary’s death that had struck her dumb. And to think, he’d ribbed Bronze about his special blue friend only that morning.
“All accounted for,” Zan Fey said into the intercom and hit the ramp retract control.
“This is Dodger. We’re pinned down in the West Reading Room. Surrounded by 20 hostiles with blasters. Request assistance.”
Damn! He’d forgotten Dodger. The jack had linked comms with Osu and Zavage, providing overwatch and observation assistance as Chimera Company had fought through the battle in the Parliament Chamber to extract Indiya.
Osu hit the hatch control, halting it.
“Parliament is under attack,” he explained to Zan Fey. “The Legion is ripping itself apart. My place is here. I can’t abandon my post. Can’t do it.”
He hit the control. The hatch opened, and the ramp extended once more. Zan Fey looked him over, not angry. Not how he expected her to be. She nodded at the open hatch. All he had to do was hop out, and he’d be in the grounds of Parliament.
“Chimera
Company will be at the heart of what happens next,” she said, “with or without you. You can leave, Sybutu, but first consider this. Fitz is at the helm. Have you ever seen him run from trouble?”
“Dodger to anyone near West Reading Room. They’ve breached the back wall. There’s too many of them. Request assistance.”
Osu closed the hatch. Dodger’s calls for help were swallowed up as the shielding locked tight. It was the hardest thing he’d ever done.
“What the hell’s going on with my hatch?” the captain barked over the intercom.
“It’s addressed,” Zan Fey replied. “Lift off, but don’t hit the gas until Verlys reports her patients are secure.” She flicked off the intercom and grabbed a handhold as Phantom left the ground. “We lost our dorsal turret gunner, Sybutu. Get your ass up top. I hope you get a chance to take it out on some bad guys.”
* * * * *
Chapter Fifty-Six: Tavistock Fitzwilliam
Flight Deck, Phantom
“J’Klin, where do you want Phantom?”
Steadfast’s commander shook his head. Even with the holo-image washed out by the heavy encryption, Fitz thought the man had aged decades in one day.
“Negative, Phantom. Your fight is to keep Lady Indiya safe. Pair up with Ghost Shark and keep well away from the battle space. Jump out if you’re threatened. What state is the lady in?”
Hold the Line (Chimera Company Book 5) Page 29