We Few

"I didn't," Despreaux said angrily. "Okay?"

"All right, all right," Pedi said pacifically. "How do you reload one of these things, again?"

"Look, just... stay down and let me do the shooting," Despreaux said. "Okay?"

"Okay," Pedi replied with a pout. "I wish I had my swords."

"I wish I had my Roger," Despreaux said unhappily.

"Look, Erkum," Krindi said gently, eyeing the weapon his friend was carrying. "Let me do the shooting, all right? You just watch my back."

He looked up at the towering noncom one last time, while a small, still voice in the back of his brain asked him if this was really a good idea. Erkum was the only person, even among the Mardukans, who could have carried one of the light tank ca

"Watch my back," he repeated firmly.

"Okay, Krindi," Erkum said, then kicked in the front door of the Neighborhood Association and stepped through it, tank ca

The round came nowhere near the humans. Instead, it blew out the corridor's entire left wall, opening up half a dozen rooms on that side, then impacted on a structural girder and exploded in a ball of plasma.

Pol's finger, unfortunately, had clamped down on the trigger, and two more plasma bolts shrieked from his muzzle, blowing out a thirty-meter hole that engulfed the ceiling and most of the right wall, as well. The building was instantly aflame, but at least between them, the follow-up bolts had managed to take out most of the guards who'd been his nominal targets.

"Water damn it, Erkum!" Krindi dropped to one knee and expertly double-tapped the only human still standing with his bead rifle. "I told you not to fire!"

"Sorry," Erkum said. "I'm just getting used to this thing. I'll do better."

"Don't try!" Krindi yelled.

"Ooooo! There's one!" Erkum said as a guard skittered to a halt, looking at them through the flames of several eviscerated rooms on the right side of the mangled passageway. The human raised his weapon, thought better of it, and tried to run.

Erkum aimed carefully, and the round—following more or less the damage path to the left of their position—went through the room and hit a stove in the kitchen on the back wall, blowing a hole out the back of the building and into the one on the other side of the service alley, which promptly began spouting flames of its own. If the ru

Erkum tried again... and opened up a new hole in the ceiling. Then his finger hit the firing button to no avail as the ca

"I'm out of bullets," he said wistfully. "How do you reload this thing?"

"Just... use it as a club," Krindi said, ru

"What the hell was that?" Clovis shouted.

"I don't know," Trey said, checking right, "but this place is seriously on fire!" He fired once, and then again. "Clear."

"I'm melting!" Dave shouted in a cracked falsetto. "I'm melllllting!" he added, taking down two guards who had just rounded a corner at the run.

"Up," Catrone said. "Whatever it was, it's given us an opening. Let's take it."

He tapped Dave on the shoulder and pointed right.

"Daddy, don't touch me there, please?" Dave said in a little kid's voice as he bounded down the corridor and skidded around the corner on his stomach. He cracked out three rounds from the bead gun and then waved.

"Corridor clear," he said in a cold and remote voice.

"Office of the Prime Minister," a harassed woman said, not looking up at the screen. Sounds of other confused conversations came through from behind her, evidence of a crowded communications center without a clue of what was happening.

Eleanora cursed the fact that the only current number she had was the standard public line.

"I need to speak to the Prime Minister," she said pointedly.

"I'm sorry, Ma'am," the receptionist said. "The Prime Minister is a busy man, and we're all just a little preoccupied here. Perhaps you could call back some other time."

She started to reach for the disco

"My name is Eleanora O'Casey," she said. "I am chief of staff to Prince Roger Ramius MacClintock. Does that ring any bells?"

The woman looked up at last, her eyes widening, then shrugged.

"Prove it," she said, her voice as sharp as Eleanora's. "We get all sorts of cranks. And I've seen pictures of Ms. O'Casey. They don't look a thing like you."

"Are you aware that there's a battle going on in the city?"

"Who isn't?"

"Well, if Prime Minister Yang wants to know what's going on, you'd better put me through to him."

"Damn it," Adoula snarled into the com screen. "Damn it! It really is that little bastard Roger, isn't it?"

"It looks that way," Gianetto agreed. "We haven't captured anyone who's actually talked to him, but there's a widespread belief that he's back, and more his mother's son than his father's, if you get my drift. And they may be right. If I didn't know exactly where she's been and what her condition is, I'd say this plan had Alexandra's markings all over it. Especially the assassination of Greenberg. If it hadn't been for that..." He shrugged. "The point is, I'd say there's an excellent chance that they're going to at least get control of the Palace. And they've already taken out your office downtown. I'd be surprised if they hadn't made arrangements to deal with your other probable locations."

"Very well," Adoula said. "I understand. You know the plan."

He switched off the communicator and sat for just a moment, looking around his home. It was a pleasant place, and it pained him to think of giving it up forever. But sometimes sacrifices had to be made, and he could always build another house.

He stood up and went to the door, looking through it into the office on the far side.

"Yes, sir?" his administrative assistant said, looking up with obvious relief. "There are a number of messages, some of them pretty urgent, and I think—"

"Yes, I'm sure," Adoula said, frowning thoughtfully. "It's all most disturbing—most disturbing. I'm going to step out for a moment, get a breath of fresh air and clear my brain. When I come back, we'll handle those messages."

"Yes, sir," the woman said with an even more relieved smile.

She really was rather attractive, the prince reflected. But attractive administrative assistants were a decicred a dozen.

Adoula walked back to his own office, and out the French doors to the patio. From there it was a short walk through the garden to the back lawn, where a shuttle waited.

"Time for us to go visit the Ha