Lucretzia was scrambling at the belt of the fallen Land soldier. Damn, what's she doing? Then: Damnation, I should have taken his rifle!
He scrabbled over to the corpse, ignoring what he was crawling through. Just before he reached it, Lucretzia figured out how to pull the tab on one of the potato-masher grenades the dead soldier had been carrying in loops at his belt. Her toss was underhand and rather weak; the grenade landed spinning on the top step of the cellar stairs and hung for a moment before it tumbled over the lip of the doorsill into the kitchen.
. . three, four, five-
The confined space of the room upstairs magnified the blast, not nearly as much as having it go off in the cellar would have, of course. Jeffrey pounded up the stairs on the heels of the sound, caromed off the doorway and into the kitchen. The Land soldier was just staggering to her feet, blood running from her nose and ears. The green spot settled on the bridge of her nose, and Jeffreys finger tightened.
Crack.
The flat brightness faded from his eyes. "Christ," he muttered, staggering. I just killed five human beings. He'd been in skirmishes before, minor stuff, but this. .
this is what the world will be, for the rest of your life, Center said.
* * *
"You sure?" Jeffrey said.
Lucretzia nodded, looking down the street. "I am a danger to you. And you to me. Alone, I can fade into the city. Alone, you can move quickly-or find an enemy officer who will respect your neutrality."
The Imperial woman leaned forward and kissed him lightly. "I have the code. I will be in touch, Jeffrey. And thank you."
"You're welcome," he muttered, shaking his head.
a prudent decision, Center observed. chances of survival are optimized for both individuals.
"I still don't like it," Jeffrey said.
You'll like what comes next even less, lad, Raj said at the back of his mind. You'd better find an officer and turn yourself in.
chances of personal survival roughly equivalent to attempted flight in that scenario, Center said. mission parameters-
"I know, I know, mission first," he said. "Let's do it."
Reluctantly, he laid down the rifle he'd taken from the body of the Protege trooper. Logically, he should already be inside the Chosen unit's skirmisher screen. Depending on how closely they were following Land doctrine, and how screwed up things had gotten. .
He began ghosting down the street, staying close to the buildings and pausing to listen. It was late afternoon, the sun cruelly beautiful as it slanted through the hazy air. He could hear the heavy crumping of explosions from the south, down towards the river basin and the factory district. And closer, a rhythmic tramping.
He ducked into a doorway, the carved jamb and edge providing a little cover. A platoon of Land infantry were coming down the street, on alternate sides by eight-trooper squads; jog-trotting effortlessly with their bayonetted rifles across their chests at the port. And yes, an officer with them.
"Gestan!" he called out in Landisch. "Wait! Nie shessn! Don't shoot!"
A whistle blew, and the platoon went to earth in trained unison, weapons bristling outward. He stepped forward, hands in the air and uneasily conscious of how his testicles were trying to crawl up into his stomach.
"Attention!" he barked at the two Protege riflemen who came running up at a crouch.
They stiffened instinctively at the bark in upper-class Landisch.
"Take me to your officer immediately," he went on, walking past them at a brisk stride and tucking his swagger stick under his left arm. He could hear the silence of hesitation behind him, and then the clack of hobnails on the brick pathway as they followed. Doubtless the points of the bayonets were hovering an inch or so from his kidneys. Got to maintain the momentum.
The officer was waiting with a folded map in her hand and a bulky automatic pistol in the other. Blue eyes narrowed as they recognized his brown Santander uniform, and he could sense thoughts moving behind them. She's in the middle of a mission and doesn't need complications, Jeffrey thought. The hand holding the pistol gave a slight unconscious twitch. One bullet in the head, and there's no complication at all. If anyone found his body, it would be an unfortunate accident.
"Captain, Jeffrey Farr, Army of the Republic," he said, saluting casually with a touch of the swagger stick to the brim of his peaked cap. "Congratulations, fahnrich, on a soldierly job of work-taking a city this size by storm is quite an accomplishment!"
He extended his hand. The Chosen officer took it automatically; at close range he could see that she wasn't more than twenty, under the cropped hair and hard muscularity. There was a trace of baffled hesitation at this glib stranger who spoke the tongue of the Chosen like a native. He gave a firm squeeze and pumped the hand up and down once.
Good work, Raj said. Personal contact always makes it a little more difficult to shoot someone.
"Most impressive. Now, since you've got the situation well in hand, if I could trouble you for an escort to your colonel?"
* * *
"Jeffrey Farr?" the Chosen colonel said. His square, blond-stubbled face split in an unexpected smile. "Well, I'll be cursed. We're relatives, of a sort-Colonel Heinrich Hosten, at your service, Captain."
The command post was set up in a small park, a few officers grouped around tables carried out from nearby houses. Heinrich Hosten was a big man, easily an inch or two over Jeffrey's six feet, and broad-shouldered, slab-built. A pair of field glasses were hanging around his neck, and there was a square of surgical gauze lightly spotted with blood taped to the side of his bull neck.
He spoke fairly loudly; a battery of mule-drawn field guns was trotting by on the stone-block pavement beyond the park; Jeffreys mind catalogued them automatically, M-298's, the new standard piece-75mm calibre, split trail, shield, hydropneumatic recuperators that returned the tube to battery position after every round. Behind them came a brace of field ambulances, also mule-drawn-the animals looked as if they'd been commandeered locally-that pulled aside to let stretcher-bearers take their contents to a church being used as an aid station. More troops were marching up from the harbor, passing the banner and waiting motorcycle couriers of the regimental HQ.
Jeffrey smiled back at the Chosen colonel. Damned dangerous man, he thought, remembering John's description. Not at all the guileless bruiser he looked. Smart. Dedicated.
Bet he's glad of an audience, Raj said. These johnnies haven't fought a war in a long time. They're good, but they want to show off, too.
"Looks like you caught the dagoes asleep at the tiller," Jeffrey said, turning and shading his eyes with his hand. He touched the cased glasses at his side with his hand. "If you don't mind?"
"Klim-bim," Heinrich said; a useful Chosen expression which could mean anything from affirmative to all's right with the world.
Jeffrey focused the glasses. Nothing was left of the Imperial fleet that he could see; black stains on the surface, the protruding masts of a couple of battlewagons. Fire and billowing columns of dark smoke marked the naval basin; warships and merchantmen were burning, sinking, or listing all over the harbor. Black flags with golden sunbursts marked both the great fortresses at the entrance to the harbor, although Fort Ricardo on the south had the burnt-out skeleton of a dirigible draped over it. The Land's flag also flew over the governor's palace off to the west, and the city hall and railway station directly south. Fires were burning out of control in a dozen places, vivid against the dusk of evening, and there was a continuous staccato crackle of small-arms fire over the mass of tile rooftops.