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CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
For the first time in a career that had seen the term used more times than he cared to remember, Armand Pahner had just discovered what "having your back to the wall" really felt like.
It was a much more powerful metaphor, under the circumstances, than he had previously believed. But that was because it was unpleasant to literally stand with his back to a closed gate while more and more enemies closed in on the humans and their allies. The Basik's Own was being pushed back into a broad "C" around the gate, and he knew that unless they got the gate opened—somehow—they were all going to be killed.
And eaten.
That was more than enough to convince any CO that he was in for a bad day. In Pahner's case, however, it was only one minor, additional item. Armand Pahner was widely known as a man who got steadily calmer as the situation got worse. Which was undoubtedly the reason his voice was very, very calm when Sergeant Major Kosutic turned up to report in.
"And where," he asked her, "is Roger?"
The same circumstances which produced monumental calmness in the captain produced a sort of manic humor in the sergeant major, and Kosutic swept off her helmet and cocked her head at him.
"Feeling a bit tense, Captain?" she inquired, and Pahner gave her a thin smile.
"Sergeant Major," he replied quietly, "I have known you for some years. And we need every gun we can muster. So I will not kill you. If... you tell me where Prince Roger is. Right Now."
"Up there." Kosutic pointed upward as a sound of releasing locks echoed through the gate tower. "Opening the gates."
"Great," Pahner said with the grumpiness reserved for the moments when he found himself with no option but to depend upon his rambunctious charge's talent for surviving one near-suicidal bit of mayhem or another without him. "Now if we can just break contact, we'll be home free."
* * *
Poertena winced as the breaching charge blew in another heavy wooden door. The tower's internal defenses required double charges, and the overpressure slapping at the Marine caused his suit to go momentarily rigid yet again.
There probably wasn't much of a threat left on the other side of the portal, given the hail of splinters the charge should have blasted into the room. But Momma Poertena's boy hadn't made it this far on the basis of "probably," and he wasn't about to take chances when they were this close to home. So he thumbed the tab on a concussion grenade, tossed it into the room beyond, and waited until the weapon had gone off before following it through the shattered doorway.
The room was filled with a haze of propellant residue, but two Krath were still partially functional on the far side of the room. One was hopping up and down, clutching a piece of shrapnel in his leg, and the other was just climbing back to his feet after the dual explosions. Two shotgun rounds sufficed to deal with them, then Poertena took a closer look at the room and grunted in satisfaction as he spotted the large barrels stacked against the wall.
"About pocking time. CLEAR!"
"That what we came for?" Neteri asked as he entered behind the Pinopan and swept his rifle from side to side.
"Yeah," Poertena replied. "Get some of t'em Vashin up here; we go
* * *
Pahner stepped through the second set of gates, looked around, and nodded. At least there wasn't an immediate threat on the far side of the walls.
The area beyond the gate was open for about a hundred meters—an obvious cleared defensive zone. Beyond that, however, a solid bank of buildings stretched as far as could be seen in the gloom. Obviously, the city continued well beyond the walls.
The heavy ash-fall seemed to be easing, and a little light was starting to peek through. Both of those changes were—probably—good signs. The ash was a misery for everyone, and some additional light on the battle would be helpful.
"Okay," the captain said to Kosutic. "We're through the gates. Now all we have to do is collect our charge and get him safely back under our protection, instead of the other way around. Oh, and somehow break contact with several thousand screaming religious fanatics. Any suggestions?"
"Well," a disembodied voice said from the darkness overhead, "I think using the plasma ca
"And good morning to you, Your Highness," the Marine said tightly. "Having fun?"
"Not really," the prince replied. "I seem to have gotten my asi the next best thing to killed, I lost a Marine and four Vashin, and I seem to have really pissed off the Krath. Other than that, everything is peachy."
"Yeah, well," Pahner said, after a moment. "We'll talk about it later. I doubt from the brief bit Eleanora told me that you could've done much different."
"I'm of the same opinion," Roger admitted. "But that doesn't make me any happier about it. And the fact that I keep having to shoot my way out of these situations is becoming ... a
"I'd say that it was 'a
"Sor Teb did," Roger admitted. "That pocker is fast. I took out the arquebusier first, and by the time I'd shifted target, Teb was behind the throne and thengone."
"It happens." Pahner shrugged. "The important point is that we've got you back, along with most of your party. We're into the gatehouse, and we've closed up our forces, too. Now all we have to do is break contact."
"Poertena's working on that," Roger said. "We need to get everyone to this side of the gate, though. And we need to do it fast."
Pahner looked at the traffic jam of turom, Mardukan mercenaries, porters, and hangers-on in the gateway and sighed.
"I don't know about 'fast,' Your Highness. But we'll get to work on it."
"As long as the gate is cleared by ..." Roger consulted his toot, "fifteen minutes from now."
"Got it," Kosutic said. "I'll extricate some of the Vashin and get them out here as security, then get the noncombatants moving."
"Do it," Pahner agreed. "In the meantime, we need to start pla
* * *
Poertena took another peek through the hole in the floor and shook his head.
"Come on, You' Highness," he muttered. "Time's a'wastin'."
"We've got company," Kileti said from the demolished doorway. "There are Krath in the gate control room."
"Good t'ing we smashed t'e control, t'en, huh? T'ese gates ain't closing until somebody get a whole new set built. T'ey can drop t'e portcullis, but even t'at won't be easy, not wit' t'e way we jam it!"
"Yeah, but if they get into the second defense room, we're cut off," the rifleman pointed out.
"Yes," one of the Vashin cavalrymen standing by the barrels of oil said. "And then we go kill some more of these Krath bastards."
"Timing on t'is is tricky," Poertena said, with another glance through the hole as the sound of axes biting into wood came from the far room. "I t'ink you Vashin better get in t'e other room and keep it clear, huh?"
"Right," the Vashin NCO said, and nodded to his fellows. "Let's go collect some horns, boys."
Poertena shook his head as the four cavalrymen left the room.
"I swear, t'ose guys enjoy t'is shit." There was movement below, and he saw the Diaspran infantry reforming and begi