"Assassin program?" Pahner repeated. "There was no mention of any 'assassin program' in my brief, Your Highness!"
"I suppose that's because a secret weapon isn't very effective when it's not a secret," Roger said with a slight smile, then shook his head as the Marine's eyes narrowed. "I didn't mean to sound sarcastic, Captain. I didn't know you hadn't been told, and that's the only reason I can think of for your briefer, presumably Colonel Rutherford, not to tell you."
"Um." Pahner glanced at the bodies again. The pistol beads' damage was too extreme to be certain, but it looked as if every one of those shots had been dead center, and it happened that the Imperial Marines in general and The Empress' Own in particular knew quite a lot about combat enhancing toot software.
Pahner had several of the same sorts of packages tucked away in his own toot, for example. And because he was familiar with them, he knew that there were limits in all things. A package like the one the prince was suggesting was basically a shortcut for training, probably with some fairly impressive sight enhancing overlays to boost accuracy. But it was only a training device, one which had to have a human interlock if its possessor wasn't going to go around mowing down innocent bystanders in job lots, and no one knew better than a combat veteran how completely training could desert a man the first time it truly dropped into the pot.
That obviously hadn't happened here. Armand Pahner had a very clear notion of the sort of intestinal fortitude required for a combat newbie to stay focused—and confident—enough to take a single head shot, much less eight of them, rather than blazing away at center of mass.
"Head shots," he repeated, shaking his head, and the prince shrugged again. "Not even a samadh in your honor."
"Well, I didn't want anybody getting hit by accident," Roger said. "Safety first!"
"Now let's think safe here, okay people?" Gunnery Sergeant Jin admonished as First Squad entered the building. He was in the middle, watching everyone else's actions as the squad's troopers executed their dynamic entry. The most dangerous part of an entry like this was friendly fire. They had overwhelming firepower and good technique, but it was just as easy as ever to be shot by your own side.
He kept a careful eye on the squad's weapons. Each member had a zone to cover, including straight up, and the team leaders and Despreaux were ensuring that everyone covered his own area and not some random other.
"Julian," the gunny said over the com, scanning the upper stories as they came into the gardens around the inner house, "we're in the open. Be careful where you shoot."
The rounds from the powered armor's bead-cannons would go through the flimsy wooden walls as if they were tissue. There was plenty of evidence that the armored troopers had already been through; the swath of destruction looked like one of those pack beasts had gone on a rampage.
"No problem," Julian replied. "We're not firing much anymore. Most of them are being driven to the back. Make sure Third Squad is ready for them."
"Movement!" Liszez announced. "Balcony."
Jin saw two or three weapons twitch in that direction, then settle down on their own sectors, as he looked up. A single Mardukan, probably panicked by the fire, was running down the balcony to the right. It looked like one of the small females.
"Check fire. No threat."
"Check," Liszez responded. If the target had been clearly hostile, it would already have been an ink blot pattern. "Clear." She disappeared around a corner.
"Target!" It was Eijken, and the grenadier triggered a round as the Mardukan who'd charged into view drew back his arm to throw a javelin. The forty-millimeter grenade hit just to the left of the native and tossed him sideways like a mangled doll. "Clear."
"Center building clear," Julian reported. "Entering back rooms."
"Don't get too far ahead," Jin told him. He paused and looked around. "Time to split. Despreaux, take Alpha Team into the left wing. I'll take Bravo to the right. Clear front to back."
"Roger," Despreaux acknowledged, and jerked her head at Beckley to lead her team out. "Alpha, echelon left. Move."
The team leader nodded acknowledgment of the order. She'd already spotted a downstairs doorway, and now she spotlighted it with an infrared laser designator.
"Through there. Kane, take the door. Go."
The reconfigured team trotted towards the door with the plasma gunner in the lead. When she was fifteen meters away, the gunner triggered a single round into the heavy wooden door, which disintegrated in a roar of flame.
Kyrou and Beckley performed the primary entry. Kyrou went through and to the right and dropped to a knee. No more than five meters away a scummy was already starting to hurl the spear in his hand. Unfortunately for him, Kyrou reacted from thousands of hours of training, and the spearman was hurled backward by the hypervelocity beads punching into his chest. Another burst cleared a group further down before it could decide whether or not to attack.
"Right clear."
There was a burst from behind the private.
"Left clear," Beckley called. Another burst. "Really clear."
Despreaux set a cracker charge against the door opposite their entry point, and the thin, high expansion-rate charge shattered the simple bolts on the other side and scattered splinters of the door throughout the area.
She blasted the scummy on the other side of the doorway before she realized it was one of the females. Not only were they entirely untrained for combat, but this society sequestered them. This might have been the first time in this one's life that anything more exciting than sex had occurred. And it had been brief.
The sergeant gazed at the pathetic, shredded body, then inhaled sharply and looked around.
"Stairs," she called sharply. "Ground floor clear."
She stepped back out into the hallway, wiping at a line of blood from a flying splinter, and looked around. She pointed down the corridor.
"Kyrou, Kane," she said, then gestured at the stairs. "Beck, Lizzie." The team leader lead the way, and Despreaux followed. She carefully didn't look back at the pitiful shape sprawled in the shadows of the stairs.
Later for that. Later.
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
"Clear," Pahner said, nodding his head at the report over the helmet radio. It had nearly killed him to let Lieutenant Sawato take point on managing the company, but he'd had to be at the dinner. And better him on the line than anyone else in the company when that particular bucket of shit hit the rotary air impeller. Except, maybe, Roger. Which still had him floored.
Pahner was not the type to judge anyone by his ability to shoot. He'd known too many consummate bastards who happened to be good combat shooters to do that. But between Roger's surprising ability with weapons and the occasional depths he revealed, the captain was feeling distinctly whipsawed. Ninety percent of the time, he wanted to throttle the spoiled brat, but, lately, there'd been times when he was almost impressed. Almost.
He checked the maps and grunted at the report from Jin.
"Okay, I'll take it up with His Majesty. Make sure you hold the treasury, but don't get involved otherwise."
He looked over to where Xyia Kan was sitting. Most of the blood had been washed off, but the king was still a sight. Bits of dried blood clung to the decorations on his horns and on his face, but he looked up alertly at Pahner's motion.
"Yes? It goes well?"
It had, in fact, gone perfectly in the castle. The ring leaders had been seized, and their crimes had been detailed to the other house-leaders. Those leaders had then been instructed to send orders to their own Houses to stand down their guards on pain of the same sort of assault. Pending the delivery of proof of their crimes, the leaders of N'Jaa, Kesselotte, and C'Rtena had been separated and imprisoned. Those who apparently hadn't had any knowledge of the plot had been released to return to their homes; the others were still being held in the dining room, surrounded by the now rotting blood of the dead guards. The psychological effect was salutary.