David Drake - When the Tide Rises

Tovera stepped back on the landing, her face expressionless. She looked at the portion of the explosive still in her hand and threw it onto the concrete.

"I'll go first," Adele said, trotting up the steps. Working in the stacks of a major library was good training for a starship's companionways-or for this.

"No, mistress," Tovera said. She gripped the sub-machine gun in both hands.

"Yes, Tovera," Adele said. "Remember your place!"

Rene had started the door groaning open, but Woetjans speeded the process by reaching past Adele to grab the edge of the panel. The bosun tugged. She'd slung a sub-machine gun, but she couldn't have used it without removing her gauntlets. Apparently she'd decided her armored hands were to be her weapon of choice for this business.

Adele took her left hand out of her pocket and slipped through the portal. The interior was pleasantly cool after the ion-baked courtyard, though it'd probably seem dank if she had to spend long in it. Beyond was a corridor whose walls, floor and ceiling were concrete, splotched frequently with rust leaching from the reinforcing rods.

Adele turned right and strode toward Command Center Barbonnet, the post controlling this facet of the rampart. Her fingers itched to take out her data unit, but she had no need of it. She'd memorized not only the floor plan of this sector but also that of the one to the immediate south; until they'd reached Conyers orbit, Daniel hadn't been certain about where he'd land within Fort Douaumont.

Adele's entourage strode or stomped along behind her. Tovera and Rene were side by side. Adele risked a quick glance over her shoulder. The pair were glaring at one another, though they jerked their eyes ahead again when they realized she was watching them.

Woetjans was a step ahead of Barnes and Dasi. They'd taken their gauntlets off so that they could use their weapons, though the guns looked like toys in the hands of big men wearing rigging suits. Despite the weight and sweaty bulk of their gear, they matched Adele's quick pace.

To the left were short staircases up to a gallery. From it opened embrasures in the outer face, intended for automatic impellers or small plasma cannon. From the records she had available Adele hadn't been able to tell how many weapons were mounted. It wouldn't matter if things went as they should, but A weedy young man stepped into the corridor. He saw the group of strangers and started to duck back up the stairs from which he'd come.

"Hold it right there, soldier!" Adele called in her most sneeringly upper-class Blythe accent. "Don't you bother to salute here on Conyers?"

It'd be better if she weren't wearing ill-sorted, oil-soaked utilities, but you use what you have. Tone and audacity would get her some way; she hoped they would get her far enough.

The man-soldier? Civilian technician?-stopped, then slowly returned to the corridor. He started to salute, then fully absorbed the motley group of strangers and lowered his arm. "Mistress?" he said doubtfully.

"I'm Colonel Adele Mundy of the Fifth Bureau," Adele said sharply. I say most things sharply, I suppose. "I'm here to investigate corruption in the government of the Bagarian Cluster. I expect answers and I expect themnow."

She paused. The local's mouth dropped at the mention of the 5^th Bureau, Guarantor Porra's personal enforcement organization. His face went pale and he began to pant.

"Who's the officer in charge of Command Center Barbonnet?" Adele snapped. She'd be perfectly happy if the fellow hyperventilated and fainted, but there was also the risk that he'd run off in a screaming panic. It'd be easy to shoot him down-as Tovera, who'd been a member of the Fifth Bureau, would certainly do-but the sub-machine gun's chatter risked giving the alarm also.

"What?" the fellow said. "Who?"

He swallowed. "Sir!" he chirped. "That's Captain Cleggs, but I don't think he'll be there so it'll be Chief Belmont. Sir!"

"All right, come along with us," Adele said with a nod. "Corporal Barnes, take the fellow in charge but don't hurt him unless he tries to warn the traitors."

She strode down the corridor. The command post was on the other side of a pair of right-angle turns, intended as blast traps in case the fortifications were penetrated. A glance to the side showed her the local-whatever was his name?-following obediently, behind Woetjans and just ahead of Barnes and Dasi.

The door to the post hinged inward; it was halfway open. No one was on guard in the corridor, but a soldier in the outer section was seated so that he could watch through the gap.

He got up when saw Adele approaching. "Yes?" he called. He gripped the barrel of the sub-machine gun leaning against his chair and cradled it in his arms.

"I'm Colonel Mundy-" Adele said.

The soldier saw the armed group behind her. He slammed the steel door with his foot as he groped for the charging handle of his sub-machine gun.

Adele shoved against the door, jouncing it off the jamb but recoiling herself; the soldier outweighed her considerably. Woetjans stepped past and slammed her shoulder into the panel. The door flew open, bouncing the soldier into the partition separating the guard room from command center beyond. Another soldier was reaching for her sub-machine gun. The first man shot Woetjans in the chest.

Adele fired, hitting the shooter at the hairline. He lurched against the partition, then sprawled sideways. She took the pistol from her smoldering pocket and shot him twice more through the base of the skull as she entered the outer office.

The second soldier screamed and dropped her sub-machine gun. Tovera killed her anyway, a three-shot burst at the top of the breastbone which destroyed all the major blood vessels connected to the heart.

"Don't hurt the equipment!" Adele shouted as she pulled open the door of the inner office.

An overweight woman in rumpled khakis sat at a U-shaped console with her back to the left-hand wall. Three younger male clerks in utilities had been at smaller electronic desks which faced hers. They'd started to get up when the door flew open, but the nearest threw his hands in the air and cried, "I surrender! I surrender!"

The woman in khaki snarled, "You bastards!" and opened a drawer in the right-hand pillar of her console. Adele shot her through the right eye; the bone behind the sockets was thin. She didn't trust the ceramic pellets of her pocket pistol to penetrate the solid portions of the cranial vault.

The woman's legs spasmed, throwing her out of her integral chair. She lay on the floor, thrashing and battering her head against the concrete wall. She'd voided her bladder and bowels when she died.

Adele stepped over the body, setting her pistol on top of the console. She needed both hands to bring up her data unit, and the gun barrel glowing from the quick sequence of shots would melt into the synthetic fabric of her tunic if she dropped it back in her pocket.

A sub-machine gun slammed the three captured clerks against the back wall and pinned them there for the length of the burst. Fifty rounds pulped their chests, splashing the room with osmium ricochets and powdered concrete.

"Tovera!" Adele screamed, but of course the shooter wasn't Tovera, a sociopath but also a craftsman of slaughter. Tovera would never have wasted a full magazine like that when precise three-round bursts would do the job as well.

Barnes stood in the doorway, reaching for a reload from the pouch hanging from his hard suit. The barrel of his sub-machine gun was white-hot. The dusty gray air shimmered with ozone and aluminum ionized from the projectiles' driving bands.

Tovera grabbed Barnes' weapon by the receiver. When he wouldn't let go, she cracked his knuckles with the butt of her own sub-machine gun and jerked it away.

"Help Dasi with Woetjans!" Tovera said. "Quick! Do you want her to die?"