Trial by Fire - eARC (75 page)

“So what would you suggest?”

“What I suggested from the first: that we side with the humans. They had the right of the Accord behind them. Our borders are far apart and we have no logical points of contention. And they can know both honor and the way of a warrior.”

Graagkhruud scoffed, looked at the smoking skyline. “This
insurgency
? You call this a war of honor?”

“I call it the war we forced them to fight.”

“Which they do not fight with honor.”

“Think of this as you would a Challenge. The Challenger calls for a test of Honor. What is the prerogative of the Challenged?”

Graagkhruud looked away. “The Choice of the Test.”

“Just so. That is what has happened here. We challenged the humans, so we cannot complain at their choice of weapons. That is the prerogative of those who have been Challenged—particularly when we attacked their homeworld. There may be fewer trained warriors among them, fewer who are ready to obey and die. But they are more inventive and better technologists, and quick to perceive and exploit new opportunities.”

“You are a traitor to your own race, servitor.”

“No. I am its true servant, because the prerequisite of success is a ruthlessly clear understanding of reality, of the facts with which we must contend. Without that, all plans begin in error, and so, they must end in disaster.”

“It is treason to speak so of First Voice’s plans, and you will pay for your insolence—but later.” Graagkhruud reared back, his crest erect. “You will accompany me to our interface craft. There we will gather what humans we can find, take them at gunpoint to orbit and use their lives as leverage to gain access to our craft and make our attack.” Yaargraukh made no move to comply or accompany him “Obey me, honorless pretender.”

Yaargraukh could not keep his crest from rising in response to “pretender,” the derogatory term for a Hkh’Rkh from the New Families. “I will not. And were I not your subalternate, I would challenge thee at this moment, in this place.”

Whether it was Yaargraukh’s disregard for the traditional authority of his Old Family leaders, his direct refusal to follow an order, or both, Graagkhruud raised up to his full height. As a sudden carpet-bombing sound built rapidly behind him, First Fist’s arms swept high, presaging a Challenge blow to the calmly waiting Advocate…

The bomb-thunder peaked. With a roar, the curtain wall behind them blew inward, spraying a cloud of both new and century-old cinderblocks into the volume of space occupied by the two Hkh’Rkh. Indonesian insurgents charged in immediately, following just behind the wave-front of debris, sprinting alongside chunks of rolling, clattering masonry—and over the prostrate forms of two Hkh’Rkh, whose argument of honor their demolition charges had preempted.

Permanently.

* * *

Trevor went past two prone Hkh’Rkh, recognized signs of high rank, shouted to Tygg. “We need those two alive. Leave someone you can trust on security, and take up positions to hold this ingress point.”

“Right. Beruwiak, get up here!”

Trevor pressed on, trying not to fall behind the nimble, lightly equipped insurgents that were with them. “Keep up, Stosh,” he called over his shoulder.

“Keep up yourself, sir.” The smaller, squarish SEAL passed him, huffing.

“Cruz, Barr, stay to the flanks and keep our guys moving in the same direction. Rulaine?”

“Sir?”

“Stay twenty meters behind me, with the Karpassos fire team. If anything happens to me—”

“Got it. I’m the shadow HQ. Give us a shout and we’ll provide covering fire if you get snagged and have to back out.”

Trevor smiled his thanks, hoped Rulaine would live.
A good officer and a good guy.

“What about me, sir?” asked Gavin, the long barrel of the Remington M167 assault gun jaunting about like a naked flagpole.

“You’re also with Rulaine, Gavin. I want a good solid base of supporting fire, and you’re an artist with the Remington.”

“So I am sir. I’ll be your guardian angel.”

Gavin an angel? Heaven would blush.
“Great.” Trevor drew abreast of Stosh as they neared the rally point from which they intended to rush into the inner compound—and he saw a figure staggering through the smoke toward them.
It’s upright, so it can’t be an Arat Kur, and it’s too small to be a Hkh’Rkh. But it could still be trouble: Ruap’s troops or maybe some still-loyal clones.
“Who goes there?”

A pause. “Trevor?”

Trevor placed the voice the same moment the face swam out of the humid mixture of mist and smoke: Caine Riordan. “Jesus—what the hell are you doing out here? Taking a walk?”

“More like a run. The Arat Kur have surrendered.” He shouted over the beginning of a few exultant shouts, including Stosh’s. “But the Hkh’Rkh wouldn’t have any part of it. They’ve gone rogue.”

“What’s their objective?”

“Not sure they’ve got one other than to kill as many of us as possible. They don’t have any real commo net left, so they’re defaulting to their basic game plan. When in doubt, terrorize the opposition with everything from knives to nukes until they cower in fear. Then take control.”

“They’re a little outnumbered for that strategy, don’t you think?”

“Of course, but at this stage, they’re
not
thinking. They’re operating as much on instinct as planning—and a bunch of them are after me, particularly.”

“You? Why you?”

“Long story. Worth telling if we’re both alive tomorrow.”

“Okay. Can you lead us to their command center?”

Caine looked around, squinting into the smoke. “Yeah—yeah, I think so. It’s over here near—”

Trevor caught his arm. “Whoa, let’s arm you first.” With one hand, he passed Caine a brace of smoke grenades, with the other, he reached back toward Cruz, who was unshouldering the rifle they were still carrying in anticipation of Winfield’s eventual return. “This is the eight-millimeter CoBro liquimix assault rifle: state of the art. I know we didn’t get a chance to train on one, but are you familiar with it?”

Caine hefted the long, light barrel. “Read about it.”

“Okay: here’s the quick rundown. All the weapon’s sensors feed data to the visor—yeah, there, hooked on the side—and include IR, laser-designator, rangefinder, and aimpoint. The video pickup gives you look-around/shoot-around capabilities at corners. The liquimix gives you plenty of control over projectile velocity and recoil, and provides the launching boost for the underslung smart semiautomatic grenade launcher. You’re familiar with that from Barney Deucy. It’s got dual purpose HE/frags in the tube. Got it?”

Caine nodded, a bit uncertainly. “Most of it. I’ll learn the rest on the job, I guess. You want their HQ?”

“Yup.”

“Then follow me.” And Caine jogged off into the fog.

Stosh looked after him. “Goddamnit, just what we need. Another officer.”

“He’s not
really
an officer, Stosh.”

Stosh looked Trevor straight in the eye. “Oh no? I’d know that tone anywhere. He was born an officer, even if he doesn’t know it yet.” And Stosh also disappeared into the mist.

As Trevor waved for the others to follow, he gritted his teeth and smiled at the same time:
Damn Stosh, anyway.

North-Central Jakarta, Earth

Winfield held up a hand. The figures in the smoke up ahead stopped.

“Who goes there?”

“Insurgents,” responded a woman’s voice—a voice that was either American or Canadian.

“Come forward, but slowly,” ordered Commander Ayala as the rest of his Team fanned out.

They did. There must have been almost a hundred of them. At their head were two men, grizzled and wearing Kopassus uniforms that were about twenty years out of date, and a woman. The woman was so incongruous that Winfield forgot security considerations for a moment. She was tall, dark haired, fair-skinned, and with a figure that bordered on the dramatic. And stranger still, he knew her.

“Ms. Corcoran?”

She started, veered toward Winfield. “Do I know you—er, Lieutenant?”

“I don’t know if you remember me, ma'am. I was Trevor’s XO, when we rescued you on Mars last year.”

She flushed. “My god—yes, of course. I’m sorry I didn’t recognize you immediately. But I never expected to see you he—”

“Quite all right, ma’am. This is Commander Ayala, another SEAL. We’re heading to the Roach motel. Uh, I mean the—”

“Yes, Lieutenant Winfield, I know of it. That’s where we’re heading, too.”

Ayala stepped forward. “Ma’am, first—my respects for your Dad. Hell of a man. But I can’t let you go on to the enemy HQ. That’s going to be—well, pretty hairy.”

She smiled. “Commander, I understand, and I appreciate your concern. But all the same, I’m going.”

Ayala put his hands on his hips. “Listen, Ms. Corcoran, I don’t have the time—”

“Exactly right, Commander. You don’t have time stand around arguing. And since I’m a civilian, and you can’t order me about, I suggest—along with my one hundred or so friends—that you stop wasting your time on an argument you can’t win.”

Ayala seemed about to counterattack when Winfield leaned over. “Commander?”

“Yeah?”

“Captain Corcoran told us two important things about his sister.”

“And what were those?”

“Never hit on her, and never try to win an argument with her. Particularly when she’s backed by a hundred Indonesian insurgents.”

Ayala stared at Winfield and frowned. Then he looked at Elena and frowned some more. “So I guess you’re coming with us after all.”

She smiled the same smile Winfield remembered seeing in the pictures of her father. “I guess so.”

Chapter Fifty-One

Presidential Palace compound, Jakarta, Earth

Three more of the insurgents went down, one of them hit by so many of the large bore Hkh’Rkh assault rifle rounds that his torso went one way, and his groin and legs fell the other. Caine kneeled, saw a dim thermal silhouette bloom through the drifts—loping, loping—and squeezed off three shots. The bloom tumbled into a long lump on the ground and did not move.

“Riordan, did you hear me? Pull back! Now!”

Caine checked, saw another bloom pop up, sighted quickly, fired in that general direction, then spun on his heel and ran.

Five seconds of sprinting and he was going past the fire team of insurgents who had been ostensibly covering their retreat.

“Caine,” Trevor called from the smoke up ahead, “are you coming?”

“Yeah. I’ve gotta—”

Thunder shattered the sky overhead.

“What the hell—?” asked Cruz, whose crouched, upward-looking silhouette loomed suddenly out of the mists.

As if in answer to his question, the rain came down with a pervasive roar against the streets of Jakarta. Caine was soaked by the time he had run the additional ten meters to Trevor. “What do we do now?” he shouted over the driving monsoon and the intermittent crashing of nearby lightning strikes.

“We find another way to get to their command center. That’s got to be the better part of a platoon we ran into.”

“And we’d better regroup,” added Rulaine. “We lost contact with Tygg.”

“What about radios?”

“The signal is scratchy and in this soup, without GPS, and without a current map of this complex, we’re not navigating: we’re playing Marco Polo.”

Stosh watched the rain running off his nose. “How many combat effectives do we have left?”

Trevor did the headcount. “You, me, Cruz, Rulaine, Barr, Caine, maybe a dozen insurgents.”

A dozen insurgents? Out of almost forty?
“Is that all?”

“That’s all. They hit us pretty bad. And they got Gavin where he set up the Remington.”

“Yeah,” muttered Barr, “and if it wasn’t for him cutting down their flankers, we’d be
dead
like him.”

“He was a hell of a shot.”

Caine stared at them, realized he could see them all a bit more clearly—“Shit! The rain is settling the mist. If we don’t move—”

At least a dozen automatic weapons—throaty and loud—opened up in unison. Some rounds bit into their scant cover: a low concrete berm ringing a cratered vertipad. More shouts and groans came from the insurgents in darkness behind them. Their covering force was taking losses. Trevor shouted that direction. “Everyone: fall back! Run!”

Caine sprinted away from the sound of the gunfire, wondering if he was the only one of the command group who was already following Trevor’s orders that they should all run like hell. Looking to right and left, he saw Stosh and Rulaine respectively, legs stretching, arms pumping.
Well, at least I’m not the only one
.

Behind them, there was more of the automatic weapons fire—this time punctuated by crackling hisses made by shrill projectiles which sliced the air about two feet over their heads.
Shit. An Arat Kur coil gun.
Just over his shoulder, speaking sharply above the gunfire and new screams, Trevor’s voice announced, “I recognize this area. Photos showed a work shed just ahead. Make for that.

“A work shed? That won’t stop a coil-gun—”

“It’s the only cover we can reach in time. Just keep running.”

“
Keep running?”
Caine tried to ignore his fear.
As if you could make me
stop
.

Presidential Palace, Jakarta, Earth

“Stay where you are,” ordered Opal. “Don’t move.”

The alien headquarters was filled with ruined equipment and dead Arat Kur, a few more well on their way to that same fate. One of the survivors rose up from the side of a very severely wounded comrade and seemed to stare at Opal.

“Major Patrone?”

What the—?
“Do I know you?”

“Not really, but I knew of and saw you during the Convocation.”

So who the hell would—?
And then she remembered Caine’s encounter in space. “Jesus! Are you Darzhee Kut?”

Despite the carnage, the destruction, the guttering flames, the two dozen short humans aiming guns at him, the Arat Kur sounded pleased. “Yes, it is indeed I, Major. I am, I suppose, glad to see you.”

“Er—likewise. I guess. Listen, let’s save the talk for some other time. Where’s Cai—um, Mr. Riordan?”