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"Oh, God," someone whimpered, and Harris swallowed hard.
"W-what do we do, Sir?" His exec was trapped on the far side of the blast door behind the colonel. Harris could almost feel the man's struggle to suppress his own terror, and he sighed.
"There's only one thing we can do," he said heavily. "Lay down your weapons, boys. It's over."
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
The cutter grounded amid the ruins of Blackbird Base's hangars, and a tall, slim figure in a navy captain's skin suit walked down the ramp while a squad of battle-armored Marines at its foot snapped to attention.
"Sergeant Talon, Second Squad, Third Platoon, Able Company, Ma'am," the squad sergeant a
"Sergeant." Honor returned the salute, then looked over her shoulder at her pilot.
None of Fearless's small craft had yet returned, so she'd grabbed Troubadour's number two cutter. Commander McKeon, still dealing with his own ship's damages, would much preferred to have told her she couldn't have it. Unfortunately, she was senior to him, and since he couldn't keep her upstairs where it was safe, he'd assigned Lieutenant Tremaine as her pilot. Now the lieutenant trotted down the ramp in her wake, and Honor's lip twitched as she saw the heavy plasma carbine slung over his shoulder.
Pockets of Masadans still held out inside the base, and the chance of walking into trouble couldn't be totally ruled out—that was why Ramirez had assigned a full squad to babysit her and why she herself wore a sidearm—but Tremaine's weapon of choice seemed a bit extreme.
"I really don't need any more babysitters, Scotty."
"No, Ma'am. Of course not," Tremaine agreed, double-checking the charge indicator on his carbine.
"At least leave that ca
"That's the idea, Ma'am. Don't worry. I know what I'm doing with it," he assured her, and she sighed.
"Scotty—" she began again, but he gave her a sudden grin.
"Ma'am, the Skipper will skin me alive if anything happens to you." He looked over Honor's shoulder at Sergeant Talon, and his grin grew broader as the Marine glowered at him. "No offense, Sarge, but Commander McKeon can be a mite unreasonable at times." Sergeant Talon glared at his carbine, sniffed audibly over her com, and then looked pointedly at Honor.
"Are you ready, Ma'am?"
"I am, Sergeant," Honor replied, abandoning the attempt to dissuade her over-zealous bodyguard.
Talon nodded and waved her first section out to take point while Corporal Liggit's section brought up the rear. Talon herself accompanied Captain Harrington, completely ignoring the lieutenant trudging along beside his long-legged superior, and Corporal Liggit chuckled to himself behind her.
"What's so fu
"He is," Liggit replied, gesturing at Tremaine and chuckling even harder as he did a hop-skip-hop to catch back up with the Captain.
"Why? What about him?"
"Oh, nothing much ... except for the fact that I used to be a small arms instructor at Saganami Island, and I happen to know he's qualified High Expert with the plasma carbine." The private looked at Liggit in disbelief for a moment, and then she began to laugh.
"I still think it would have been wiser to delay your landing." Major Ramirez greeted Honor in the mess hall which had become a POW cage. "There's still shooting going on in here, Ma'am, and these idiots are certifiable. I've had three people killed by grenade attacks from `surrendered' Masadans."
"I know, Major." Honor held her helmet in the crook of her arm and noted the unlimbered tri-barrels of Sergeant Talon's squad. Even Lieutenant Tremaine had abandoned his cheerful pose, and his forefinger rested lightly beside his carbine's firing stud. She looked back at Ramirez, and the living corner of her mouth twitched a brief, half-apologetic smile.
"Unfortunately, we don't know how much time we've got," she went on quietly. "I need information, and I need it quickly. And—" her slurred voice turned grim "—I want Madrigal's people found. I am not going to leave them behind if we're forced to pull out suddenly!"
"Yes, Ma'am." Ramirez inhaled and indicated a Masadan officer in a captain's uniform. "Captain Williams, Ma'am. The base CO."
Honor studied the Masadan curiously. The right side of his face was almost as badly bruised and swollen as the left side of her own; the other side was tight and sullen, and it tightened further as he glared back at her.
"Captain Williams," she said courteously, "I regret—"
He spat in her face.
The glob of spittle hit the dead skin of her left cheek. She couldn't feel it, and for just one moment she couldn't quite believe it had happened, but Major Ramirez's left arm shot out. Armored fingers twisted in the neck of the Masadan's one-piece uniform, and exoskeletal muscles whined as he snatched Williams off his feet. He slammed him back against the wall like a puppet, and his right fist started forward.
"Major!" Honor's voice cracked like a whip, and Ramirez diverted the blow in the nick of time. His gauntlet smashed into the stone wall beside Williams' head like a mace, so hard flying stone chips cut the Masadan's cheek, and the red-faced, strangling captain flinched aside with a gasp of terror.
"Sorry, Ma'am." The major was white with fury as he muttered his apology—to Honor, not Williams—and dropped the Masadan. He rubbed his left hand on his equipment harness as if to scrub away contamination, and Sergeant Talon handed Honor a napkin from a dispenser on one of the mess tables. She wiped her numb face carefully, her eyes still on the major, and wondered if Williams truly understood how close to death he'd just come.
"I understand your feelings, Major," she said quietly, "but these people are our prisoners."
"Yes, Ma'am. I understand." Ramirez drew a deep breath and turned his back on Williams while the captain wheezed for breath. "They're scum, and one of them killed a medic trying to patch him up, but they're our prisoners. I'll remember that, Ma'am."
"See that you do," Honor said, but she laid her hand on his armored shoulder as she spoke, and he managed a brief smile.
"Yes, Ma'am," he replied more naturally, then gestured at a large chart spread out on one of the tables. "Let me show you where we are, Ma'am."
Honor followed him to the table, and he ran a finger across the captured ground plan.
"We now control the three upper levels," he said, "and I've got one of Captain Hibson's squads down onto Level Five to secure the power plant, but the Masadans still holding out on Four and parts of Five had too much time to get set before we penetrated that deep. It looks like the most fanatical members of the garrison headed that way when we took over the control room, and some of them knew how to override the blast doors locally, so we couldn't keep them from flowing together into some fairly tough knots."
Honor studied the plan and nodded in understanding.
"The specialists Admiral Matthews loaned us are interrogating the computers," Ramirez went on, "and, in some respects, I'd as soon leave them down there while we got what we came for and pulled out. Unfortunately," his voice turned harsh, "we've begun picking up indications Madrigal's survivors are being held somewhere in this area—" his finger tapped "—on Level Four."
"`Indications'?" Honor asked sharply. "Not confirmation?"
"No, Ma'am. That's what worries me. None of these people—" he waved at the Masadans crowded against the mess hall walls "—will say a word about them, but they look awfully uneasy when we ask. We haven't really had time for systematic interrogation, and, as you say, they're our prisoners, so there are limits to the way we can ask, but after Commander Theisman's hints, I don't like it, Ma'am. I don't like it at all."