Страница 147 из 186
Make kan primary and ken secondary; Musashi's words. Ignore the irrelevant; the noise all around her, the growing chorus of screams, shouts, shots, explosions, flashes lurid through the downpour. Muscles relaxed but not loose, only the effort necessary to bring the weapon up. Clear lambent yellow flame light in the scope sight, the circle bisected by the fine hairs of the granule. Two hundred yards, a clout shot with this weapon, if it weren't dark and raining…
Now to see if the commandant of this base did the instinctive thing. Yes. A shape backlit by the lantern, against the glass. Finger forward to set the hair trigger. Curling back to stroke it as her breath went out in a single long smooth exhalation.
CRACK. The recoil a surprise as it always was when you were on-target, but this gun really punished your shoulder; she swayed backward, taking the impact rather than trying to stop it. CRACK. Swindapa's a second after hers. A shape falling limp forward through the broken glass, another behind clutching at it, trying to drag it back. CRACK. CRACK. The second figure fell on the first. They lay limp and motionless, arms dangling, locked together.
No time to do more. No time to wonder if the human being she'd just killed was a good man or bad, or if someone would weep for him, or whether children would keep asking when their father would return…
She thrust the rifle behind her; a sailor took it, and Swindapa's-the weapons would be useless in a close-quarter scrimmage. They drew their Pythons and dashed forward toward the tall gates. Seconds, less than two minutes since the flares went up. No little winking firefly lights from the parapet, not yet. Move, move, their only chance was speed and impact and purpose, cutting through the enemy's bewilderment.
"Clear!" from a bazooka team ahead of them.
The two women dived to either side with balletic grace, slapping down in controlled diving falls despite night and muddy ground. SSSSSRAAAAWACKf The rocket lanced out, the backblast a wave of heat across the skin of her hands and neck. It ended against the gateway a half second later, with a hollow echoing booooom. Bits of hot metal flew through the air; the leaves must have been heavily reinforced with iron strapping or even plates. When she looked up and blinked the gates were leaning drunkenly, one on a single hinge and a gaping hole where they met, but they were still there. Reinforced indeed. Two more Marines ran forward, bundles in their hands-satchel charges. Neat as dancers they threw their burdens through the hole and then threw themselves aside, against the thick mud-brick wall and away from the gate. Another explosion, much louder this time-twenty pounds of gunpowder in each bag- and the gates disintegrated in a flurry of flying metal and splinters. The Marine platoon with them were on their feet and charging before the last wreckage pattered down; some of it struck their helmets as they pounded through.
Marian shoulder-rolled back to her feet, looked to her right, and felt a sharp stab of alarm; Swindapa was still on one knee.
"The stars put a rock where my stomach was going to be" she wheezed, then took a whooping breath. "Let's go!"
A brief, nasty little firefight was spilling around the courtyard of the commandatura as they came through the wreckage of the gates. A two-story gallery upheld by tree-trunk pillars lined the inside of the fort's square shape. The barracks were on the other side where the tower had its base, the angry red eyes of muzzle flashes winking out from under the overhang that made its roof. A Tartessian on the fighting platform that topped the second story aimed a rifle at her; she fired, three quick shots with the pistol. It wasn't her choice of weapon-she'd been good enough to requalify as necessary, before the Event, no more-but since then she'd practiced rigorously. The third shot hit him, and Swindapa took down the man behind, and they both emptied their pistols to drive the ones remaining to cover. The enemy in the barracks were shooting, too, and the Marines were returning fire from behind the wooden posts. Marian put her shoulder behind one, felt the wood give a solid quiver as a bullet hammered into the other side, risked a look behind. Swindapa coiled ready without a trace of tension, the Coast Guard Intelligence specialist who accompanied them clutching his pistol in both hands. He was a weedy little man with glasses who'd been a clerk in a house trading with Tartessos before the war and a designer of computer war games before the Event.
Hope he doesn't manage to shoot me in the back by accident, she thought.
At the next pillar a Marine fired his Werder, then ducked back, thumbed a fresh round from his bandolier down the grooved ramp of the block and into the breech, thumbed back the cocking lever in its semicircular groove, leaned around the pillar, and fired again. There was less black-powder smoke than in an ordinary firefight, with the fine drizzle washing it out of the air.
"Covering fire!" Alston called to the Marine officer. "We've got to get to that tower room before someone destroys their files."
"Hell with that!" he called back. "You need the barracks suppressed to get across the courtyard, ma'am." Louder: "Everyone, load a tit." That meant filling the strip of six loops on the left breast of the uniforms. Hands transferred shells. "Everyone ready… rapid fire, independent… fire!"
The Werders cracked faster, mad-minute speed; trained shooters could manage a round every three seconds this way, and aim them, too. Spurts of damp adobe pocked out all around the windows in the barracks opposite as the bullets struck. More shots were going through the windows, and the enemy fire died down as Tartessians ducked. A pair of Marines dashed around the perimeter of the courtyard as their squadmates fired, threw themselves flat, leopard-crawled the last few yards. Grenades flew out of their hands, through the windows. Seconds later fire and shattered sun-dried brick gouted back out and the Marines all charged forward. All but the squad assigned to her.
"This way!" she shouted, drew the katana, and went out across the courtyard's wet stone pavement, cutting diagonally toward the rear.
Granite rutched under her boots, flickering liquidly in the flashes of light; her sword gleamed as well. A quick glance aside showed her Swindapa's face; the same high-cheeked oval as always, but unrecongnizable with the blue eyes in a wide fixed glare and teeth bared.
Nearly to the stairs, a spiral of wooden planks around a post inside the ten-foot square of the tower's base. Men bursting out of a side door, out into the wet, probably trying to get away out the front gate. No time, and two had leveled their rifles at her from only five yards distance.
A shot cracked, the bullet whining dangerously off stone near her feet. The other ended in a damp fizzle as the hammer cracked the frizzen back and sparks showered into damp priming powder. The man came on without missing a beat, lunging behind the bayonet. Half a lifetime of relentless drill and the experience of far too many real post-Event encounters snapped Marian's katana from jodan up into a sweeping parry. Steel banged on wood, and the bayonet went up over her right shoulder; her left punched into the Tartessian's chest, knocking him back on his heels. Her wrists turned, hands sliding on the long hilt in small, swift, precise movements. The superb shihozume-forged blade swung back until the point nearly touched her left buttock, then forward with the falling stamp of her right foot. The sword flashed through an arc, all the whipping strength of arms and shoulders and gut, hips and thighs behind it.
Tense the wrists just before impact, thumping strike of sharp metal into meat and bone, rip the cut through and across, and follow through until the blade is parallel to the ground.