"… cute Scoop."
Ang Jangmu Thaktu's head snapped up as her com unit picked up the transmission. The GLF had its sympathizers even in the ranks of the militia. Even if it hadn't, there was always a militiaman somewhere who needed a little extra money and was prepared to "lose" equipment for the right price. Which was the reason her com was official militia issue, with the same signal encryption protocols as the one Captain Chiawa's com tech had just spoken over.
Thaktu had no way of actually knowing what the code word "Scoop" signified, but she could think of at least one ominous application of that particular verb. More to the point, she hadn't picked up a single hint of its existence from any of their militia sympathizers, nor a single scrap of communications chatter up to the moment the order to execute the operation was transmitted, which represented far tighter security than the militia normally achieved. There had to be a reason for that, and she snatched up her own civilian com.
"It's a trap!" she barked. "It's a trap! Breakout! I repeat, Breakout!"
Namkha Pasang Pankarma froze between one step and another as the doors to the elevator at the end of the hall slid smoothly open. The uniformed militiamen in the elevator car sat behind a tripod-mounted calliope, and the multi-barreled autocannon was aimed straight at him. At almost the same instant, four more doors opened-two on each side of the corridor-and more militiamen, armed with combat rifles, appeared in them.
"This is Captain Chiawa, of the Planetary Militia," a hard voice announced over the luxury hotel's intercom system. "You are surrounded. You are also under arrest, as directed by President Shangup in the name of the Planetary Government, for treason and the commission of terroristic acts. I call upon you now to surrender, or face the consequences."
Pankarma simply stood there, unable to believe what was happening. Despite Ang Jangmu's fears, despite his own reservations, he'd never anticipated anything like this. Surely even idiots like Jongdomba and Shangup knew better than to violate a promise of safe conduct this way!
"You will surrender now," Chiawa's amplified voice said harshly. "If you do not, we will employ deadly force."
Sergeant Lakshindo nodded to the troopers of his militia squad.
"You heard the man," he said. "Let's go!"
The squad filed out of its place of concealment in the Annapurna Arms' basement and took up its planned position to cover the hotel's main entrance. That entrance led to the hallway in which, Lakshindo knew, the GLF delegation was being taken into custody at that very moment, and under Captain Chiawa's ops plan, Lakshindo's squad was responsible for crowd control and for blocking the only possible path of retreat for Pankarma and his fellows. They were also supposed to be alert for any external threat, though exactly what sort of "external threat" they might face was more than Lakshindo could imagine. After all, operational security had been so tight on this one that even the members of Lakshindo's squad hadn't known what was going to happen until they reported this morning.
The sergeant stood with his back to the street, watching his people take up their posts, and grimaced in satisfaction. He would have preferred an opportunity to rehearse it all at least once, but his militiamen moved briskly, their expressions and body language calm enough to disguise their excitement from anyone who didn't know them as well as Lakshindo did.
He nodded mentally as they settled into place, then keyed his own microphone.
"Command post, Lakshindo," he said crisply. "We're in position."
"Command post copies you are in position, Sergeant," the com tech replied.
Lakshindo released the transmission key with a sense of profound relief. He'd been more than a little anxious when he was first briefed on Operation Scoop, and it was a vast relief to discover that his anxiety had been misplaced.
"Excuse me, Sergeant?" a voice said politely.
Lakshindo turned to the man who'd spoken. It was one of the reporters, he saw, taking in the other's press badge and the camera crew behind him.
"Yes, Sir? Can I help you?" Lakshindo said, equally politely, mindful of Captain Chiawa's admonition that everything had to be kept as calm and low-key as possible.
"Could you tell me what's happening?" the newsy asked, extending a microphone in Lakshindo's direction.
"I'm afraid not," Lakshindo replied. "Not yet, at any rate. I understand a statement will be issued shortly by Brigadier Jongdomba's headquarters. In the meantime, however, I'm afraid I'm going to have to ask you to step back from the lobby entry."
"Of course, Sergeant," the reporter said, with a respectful nod.
He stepped back and to the side, gesturing for his camera crew to follow him. But the cameraman and his two assistants appeared to have been taken by surprise by the gesture. They started to follow their newsy, but as the cameraman turned hastily, he bumped into the closer of his assistants and dropped his camera. It hit the pavement and shattered, and the sudden disaster to such an expensive piece of equipment drew Lakshindo's eye like a magnet.
Which was why the sergeant was looking in exactly the wrong direction as both the cameraman's assistants produced sawed-off combat rifles from under their jackets and opened fire.
Lakshindo felt the impact of at least half a dozen rounds. The tungsten-cored penetrators of the discarding sabot ammunition penetrated his antiballistic, unpowered armor effortlessly at such point-blank range. The sledgehammer blows battered him backwards, and he went down, eyes huge with disbelieving shock and agony as the penetrators-tumbling after slamming through his armor-shredded his heart and lungs.
The rest of his squad was frozen in total disbelief. They were still staring, brains numbed by the shock of their sergeant's sudden, brutally efficient murder, when the cameraman and reporter produced their own machine pistols. Then all four of the "newsies" opened fire, even as two nondescript civilian vans screeched to a halt and at least a dozen more armed men and women began erupting from each of them.
Three of Lakshindo's troopers actually managed to return fire before they died. None of them hit anything, and as the last of them was slammed to the ground, Ang Jangmu Thaktu led her attack force across their bodies and into the building.
Chapter Seven
Serafina Palacios was in the middle of a conference with her company commanders when the com on her desk beeped softly.
"Just a second, Kevin."
She raised one hand in Captain Trammell's direction, then activated the com implant in her mastoid instead of walking across to her desk.
"Palacios," she said. She listened for a moment, and Trammell and the other company COs watched with casual curiosity-which became abruptly uncasual as she stiffened suddenly in her chair.
"Repeat that!" she said sharply, then shook her head as if the person at the other end of the com link could actually see her disbelief. "And then?" she prompted. She listened again, then said, "They did what?"
"No," she said after a moment. "No, I believe you. I only wish I didn't. All right. This is going to turn into the mother of all clusterfucks, and it's going to do it fast. I've got all the company commanders right here. I'll pass the heads-up to them and get them back to their companies ASAP. In the meantime, get all of our people stood to. Transmit the Blockhouse alert now-my authority."
The five captains sitting in her office looked at one another. Then they looked back at her, as her eyes refocused on them.
"I take it you heard," she said in a desert-dry tone.
"Blockhouse, Ma'am?" Trammell asked for all of them, and she nodded grimly.
"Our esteemed militia colleagues have just screwed the pooch by the numbers." Her tone was no longer dry; it was harsh, biting. "Not that they didn't have help. It would appear that Governor Aubert's invitation to Mr. Pankarma wasn't issued in good faith after all."