"Sir, when this operation was planned, I was assured that -"
"Shut up! Just shut the fuck back up!"
"Sir," Chiawa continued, despite the order, "however we got here, the situation is coming completely apart. We need more -"
"I told you to shut your trap, Captain." Sharwa's voice was suddenly icy. "Of course you want more men. And just what in your brilliant handling of the situation to date suggests to you that I'd trust you with a kindergarten class? If I give you more men, you'll just make this disaster even worse!"
"Sir, we've got to get a mobilization order out before -" Chiawa began, then looked up as Lieutenant Nawa came running into the hallway.
"We've got trouble out front!" Nawa was breathing hard, his eyes wide. "The crowd's getting ugly. They're starting to throw bricks and paving stones. And they're demanding to see Pankarma-now."
Chiawa closed his eyes. Then he opened them again, held up one hand at Nawa in a "wait" gesture, and drew a deep breath.
"Colonel," he said into the handset, interrupting a further tirade. "The mob -" he used the noun deliberately, hoping it might break through to Sharwa "-outside the hotel is turning violent. And it's demanding to see Pankarma."
"And what the hell do you expect me to do about that?" Sharwa demanded. "You're the genius who killed the bastard! If a mob's gathering, disperse it!"
"Sir, I don't know if that's the best approach," Chiawa began. "If we -"
"Goddamn it, Chiawa! Get some people out there and get those sons-of-bitches under control! I don't care how you do it, Captain, but you damned well better do it now!"
Chiawa lowered the handset and looked back at Nawa.
"Take your platoon," he began, then stopped. Sergeant Lakshindo's squad had been from Nawa's platoon. Emotions would probably be running high among their platoonmates, and Nawa would be understrength without Lakshindo, anyway.
"Tell Salaka to take his platoon out there. Tell him I want those people dispersed."
"Yes, Sir!" Nawa began to turn away, but Chiawa's left hand shot out and grabbed his equipment harness.
"I want them dispersed," he repeated in a lower voice, simultaneously pressing the com handset against his thigh with his right hand to muffle the microphone, "but I don't want any more escalation if we can avoid it. You tell Salaka that no one fires a shot, except in direct self-defense. If he can't move them back without that, he's to tell me so and get my direct, personal authorization before he opens fire. Clear?"
"Yes, Sir!" Nawa repeated.
"Then go!" Chiawa released Nawa's harness and watched the lieutenant disappear. Then he raised the handset once more.
"I'm sending troops out, now, Colonel," he said. "With your permission, I'd like to go take personal charge of that and -"
"I'll just bet you would, Captain!" Sharwa snarled. "Unfortunately, I'm not quite done with you yet. In fact -"
Lieutenant Tsimbuti Pemba Salaka drew a deep breath and looked at his platoon sergeant.
"All right," he said. "Let's get this done."
Sergeant Garza nodded, but his expression was less than confident. Salaka didn't blame him. The lieutenant had tried to project as much confidence as he could, but he knew he'd failed. This wasn't the sort of situation he'd envisioned in his worst nightmares when he'd decided to join the planetary militia.
He gave the taut-faced men behind him one more glance, then hefted his bullhorn and started towards the shattered glass doors.
The luxury hotel's palatial main lobby was a shambles. Huge shards of broken glass glittered in the patches of blood which showed where the GLF gunmen had shot their way in. The hurled bricks, paving stones, and beer bottles which had produced most of the breakage lay amid the rubble like curses, and the snarling sea of voices from the furious mob was like the sound of some huge, hungry beast.
Something else came flying in through one of the demolished glass walls. It hit the floor and shattered, and a gout of smoking flame erupted from the crude Molotov cocktail. The hotel's sprinkler system activated almost immediately, and Salaka and his platoon found themselves advancing through a pounding downpour.
Just what we needed, the lieutenant thought. He swallowed again and again, fighting the useless urge to wipe his sweating palms on his breastplate.
Another Molotov cocktail crashed into the lobby, sputtering flame, and two or three of his people flinched.
"Steady!" he said, wishing his own voice sounded less tentative, less frightened. "Steady!"
We need riot police, not militia, he thought. Why didn't they deploy riot cops to handle the outside security in the first place?
Then he was at the doors, and he drew another deep breath and stepped out of them, wishing he had something considerably more lethal, or at least intimidating, than a bullhorn in his hand.
The mob voice surged suddenly higher at the sight of his men and their uniforms. He could actually feel the hatred pulsing behind that deep, harsh, snarling sound, and a bewildered part of him wondered where it had come from. The militia had only wanted to arrest a batch of self-proclaimed criminals. The vast majority of Gyangtse's people condemned the GLF-that was what all the militia's intelligence briefings, all of the editorialists, had been saying for years! They should have wanted to see Pankarma and his people taken into custody. And surely they must understand that no one had wanted this sort of carnage-that it was the GLF's fault for coming in shooting this way!
"Citizens!" he shouted, the bullhorn giving him sufficient volume to make himself heard even through the bellowing chaos. "Citizens, disperse at once! You are engaged in an illegal activity, and people-more people-are going to get hurt if this continues! We don't want any more injuries, so please -"
Tsimbuti Pemba Salaka never heard the sound of the three shots. One round struck his breastplate and was deflected. The second struck his left arm, shattering his upper arm instantly.
The third struck him almost exactly midway between his left eyebrow and the rim of his helmet, and his skull exploded under the impact.
"-and after that, Captain, I'll personally see to it that you spend the next five or ten years in prison!" Sharwa raved in Chiawa's ear.
The colonel was into full rant mode. Even at the moment, he had to know as well as Chiawa did that most of his threatened extravagant vengeance wasn't going to happen. Or maybe he did think it would. Maybe he was even right. Depending on how badly this turned out, the planetary government might just decide that one Captain Chiawa would make a suitable scapegoat for how all of his superiors had screwed up.
Chiawa didn't know about that. He just knew there were things he needed to be doing besides standing here listening to this idiot scream in his ear. Unfortunately, the idiot in question had the rank to keep him standing here.
And then Chiawa looked up from the handset as Nawa came charging back into the hallway.
"Sir, Salaka's down and -!"
The sudden crackle of rifle fire cut Nawa's report off. The outburst of fire was as brief as it was sudden, and then Chiawa heard the baying howl of hundreds of voices as the mob outside the Annapurna Arms charged the building.
"- and I trust you have an explanation for your high-handed, illegal actions, Major!"
Бkos Salgado's voice would have blistered battle steel, but the golden-haired woman in the Marine uniform on his communicator's display simply looked back at him calmly.
"With all due respect, Mr. Salgado," she replied after moment, "any explanations are due to Governor Aubert, not you."