Walter Williams - Conventions of War

She wanted to say these things, but didn’t. She just looked at him for a moment and walked on without speaking.

Nothing she said would have made any difference anyway.

Sula lay for a few hours in Casimir’s arms, the both of them fully clothed and stretched on an old sofa in one of the cottage’s upstairs room. She supposed she might have slept. She was up before dawn, however, to make certain that the action groups received a meal, to conduct a last minute inspection of the vehicles, and to see that the group and team leaders understood what they were expected to do.

She went onto the terrace as dawn broke over the capital, the sun rising into the green sky out of a pool of bloodred that mirrored the one it had fallen behind the night before. Her binoculars were turned on the Naxid installation. Nothing seemed to have changed since the previous evening.

The Naxids shift changed at 0736, with most of the Fleet personnel coming up the funicular to join their officers who barracked in hotels in the High City. Sula wanted to keep any newcomers off the acropolis, and so had scheduled her attack to begin at 0701, half an hour before shift change and a little more than twenty minutes after sunrise.

The High City was slowly coming to life, and she could hear the calls of morning birds and an occasional vehicle on the road outside. The Lower Town remained largely in darkness, though many lit vehicles moved on the streets, ghosting through the gaps between buildings. She passed among the waiting fighters and gave the command to move onto the vehicles.

The action groups climbed in silence onto their transport. Sula watched Casimir march up the ramp of one of the trucks, awkward in the armor with which he’d never had a chance to familiarize himself, and he turned, a half-wistful, half-ironic smile rising onto his face as he saw her. He raised a hand and gave her a mocking salute, fingers flicking at his forehead, then stepped into the truck and sat with a group of Bogo Boys.

Sula wanted to hurl herself onto the truck with the others, but she didn’t move. She was a general, not a soldier. As she watched the ramp rise, she felt a fist clamp on her throat.

Fortune attend you,she thought uselessly. Ultimately, luck was all she had to count on.

Electric motors provided traction to the big wheels, and the vehicles slid away on their various errands. She wondered what anyone on the road outside might think, seeing the Ngeni Palace service gate disgorging Fleet military transport, a few civilian sedans, and the two earth-moving machines on their trailers.

The vehicle gate closed with a whir. Torminel guards armed with Sidneys stood behind the gate out of sight, while others quietly fortified the Ngeni Palace against any attack. His balding head bowed, PJ marched with his rifle at port arms in the shadow of the palace, awaiting his moment of glory.

In the cottage, Sula donned her cuirass and helmet, not because she expected to be shot at, but because it held her secure communications equipment and battery packs. She opened the visor, took her binoculars, and left the cottage for the shadow of one of the trees, where she could watch the Naxid guards without giving herself away.

Eskatars, scaly four-legged birds from Naxas, rained down angry cries from above her head, as if warning their distant kin of mischief afoot. Dead leaves and twigs pattered down on her shoulders.

The teams maintained radio silence on the approach. Then Sula heard a pair of signals.

“Four-nine-one, Thunder ready.” Spence’s voice, a little loud, a little excited.

“Four-nine-one, Rain ready.” Macnamara’s voice.

“Four-nine-one, Wind ready.” Sula’s heart gave a lurch at the sound of Casimir’s grating tones.

Her mouth was dry. She summoned saliva to moisten her sandpaper tongue and gave the orders.

“Comm: to Rain. Launch Rain. Comm: send.

“Comm: to Wind. Launch Wind. Comm: send.”

Rain and Wind, the seizure of the two entrances to the High City. Sula’s words were coded, compressed into microsecond bursts, and fired into the city at the speed of light. Brief acknowledgments sang in her headphones.

There was a moment of stillness, and she could swear that, in the morning stillness, even with the headphones and the helmet over her head, she could hear the distant sound of a pair of trucks pulling around a corner and heading toward the Naxids at the Gate of the Exalted.

Her pulse sang in her veins. Her forehead ached where the padded rim of the binoculars were pressed against it.

These were trucks painted in the viridian green of the Fleet, the same model of Sun Ray the Fleet used, and they would arrive just ahead of the time the Naxids would expect a pair of trucks bringing their relief. The Naxids moved casually toward the vehicles as they rolled onto the broad terrace, expecting to see their own emerge as the rear ramps began to come down and the side doors to roll up.

What emerged were a swarm of Bogo Boys spitting bullets and hurling grenades. Though surprised, the Naxids managed to fight back, and they were well-armored and tenacious, but were badly placed and in the end simply mowed down. Any Naxids that come near the open doors of the antiproton gun turrets were killed by Fer Tuga, the Axtattle sniper, who had crept up on the Naxid position in a chameleon-weave cape capable of projecting active camouflage, rendering him nearly invisible against his background.

The snap of rifles stunned the Eskatars into silence. It was as if they knew their side had just lost.

“Rain has secured its objective,” Macnamara said. His voice was a little breathless.

“Comm: to Rain. Can you use the antimatter guns? Comm: send.”

“I’m checking that now.”

The distant sound of fire reached Sula’s ears. The fight over the funicular terminal was still going on. Casimir was leading that fight, with Sidney as the group’s sniper.

There was the far-off crack of a grenade, and then the fading echoes of the explosion reverberating off the buildings of the High City and the great sprawl below. Then silence. Then, finally, Casimir’s deep voice.

“This is Wind. We’ve taken the funicular. We’re having the operator move the train to the High City terminus, and we’ll lock it here.”

A flood of joy filled Sula’s heart. She wanted to send Casimir a torrent of love, but instead made a brief acknowledgment and ran to the parapet as she sent another message.

“Launch Thunder. Repeat, launch Thunder.”

Thunder was the attack on the Great Destiny and the Imperial hotels. At Sula’s command, Spence launched the two big plows off their trailers, to hurl themselves with lowered blades to knock away the barriers placed around the buildings.

Sula turned her binoculars to the scene at the foot of the granite acropolis, where the Naxids stationed at the two blockhouses guarding the switchback road were reacting to the firefight overhead. It was clear they heard the shots, but it seemed they weren’t sure where the sound had come from. Some were crouching with raised weapons, others had stopped all traffic approaching the High City. Probably the rest were in their bunkers.

While Sula gazed down at the Naxids, she heard a breathless commentary from Spence, little excited bursts of prose that she sent when she remembered to, and when she had nothing more important to do.

“The plow’s hit the barrier! Wa-Did youhear that? The first barrier just went down!..Nothing left but bits of concrete and twisted rebar…Backing up to start again…heard a crash from the second plow…guards reacting…Keep those guards pinned down!”

Sula turned her binoculars on the Gate of the Exalted once more. Macnamara’s action group was taking up positions in the buildings behind the gate, ready to repel any counterattack aimed at retaking the position from behind. Spence’s one-sided comments continued, her voice a shout over the rattling sound of fire.