Кристофер Банч - Vortex

Time had passed. How much time, she didn't know.

The enemy had reformed and attacked.

They tried first with armor—but Guardsmen with AT weapons were stationed in the upper floors of the palace, firing down into the always-vulnerable top deck of the tracks.

Then fast gravlighters swept forward, trying to punch through the increasingly thin lines of the Guardsmen. They were stopped.

Next the Confederation began human wave attacks. Shoulder to shoulder infantry attacks, men and women shouting cheers and marching bravely, suicidally, into the near-solid gunfire.

They died—but so did Imperial Guardsmen.

She had seen Alex cursing and putting a field dressing on a bloody, if superficial, shrapnel wound on his upper leg before he had gone back to the slaughter. Otho, too, had been hit. But after his wounds had been dressed, he had returned to the line, spotting for a Guards' mortar crew.

Cind wondered if they could stand two, three, or just one more assault before that wave washed over them.

There had been no opportunity to break contact and try for the Victory , assuming the ship was still on the ground.

Sten splashed down beside her.

The two of them were grimy. Bloody—but at least the blood was not their own. Their eyes were glaring.

"Well?"

"Two tubes left, boss."

"Here." He passed her another magazine of AM2 rounds.

"Be melodramatic," she suggested. "Kiss me."

Sten grimaced, started to obey, and then jerked back as he heard the grind of oncoming tracks once more. "Well, I shall be clotted. Look."

This time the attack was combined armor and infantry. And, standing in that lead track was…

Cind grabbed her exotic rifle and sighted. She saw the handsome face and silver hair. "It's him! You want the privilege?"

"Go ahead. I've had all the fun lately."

The man in the track was General Douw. Cind supposed he thought this would be the final attack that would overrun the Imperial Forces, and had chosen to lead it himself.

Brave.

Brave, but dumb, Cind thought as she touched the trigger and the AM2 round blew Douw's chest apart.

"Thank you," Sten said.

Cind scrabbled for the willygun. The death of their leader hadn't even been noticed by the oncoming soldiers.

Wave after wave of them poured into the square. Cind swept their ranks—then decided to wait until they were closer.

She lifted her head to see—and her eyes widened.

"Jamchyyd and Kholeric," she whispered, her tone wholly reverent, actually calling on the Bhor gods as if she believed they might exist. "Sarla and Laraz."

Coming over the city's rooftops, swaying like a great dark snake, came the cyclone, cutting a solid swath as it came. And behind the first funnel cloud… another. One… two… Cind counted six of them, swinging back and forth like a dancer's hips as they came.

Sten remembered: "… kill a thousand people in forty minutes… punch a blade of straw through an anvil… throw five tacships… a quarter klick …"

The tornadoes picked up debris as they came. A roof. A shed. A gravsled. A personnel carrier. A crashed tacship. A man. Spun them, ruined them, broke them beyond recognition, and then used them as weapons.

Cind's ears cracked, and she swallowed.

The roar was louder now than the gunfire, and the Altaic troops stopped. They turned—and saw the cyclones.

Then the first vortex entered the Square of the Khaqans.

It swept through the soldiers and their weapons like a vacuum cleaner picking up dust balls. It picked them up and cast them aside.

Sten was on his feet.

Shouting. Screaming. Unheard.

He was waving—back. Back—away. For the Victory !

The second tornado entered the square. Both funnel clouds twisted and spun, hesitating, as if unsure if they should continue.

Imperial soldiers pelted away from this new demon that no one could be expected to stand against.

But they were not in panic. They ran—but slowly, helping the limping walking wounded. Bringing their weapons with them, or abandoning them to pick up the ends of stretchers.

Sten and Alex held, just where the broad boulevard opened, the boulevard Sten had sent the Victory roaring down toward the embassy, lifetimes earlier.

The square was a black swirl, as yet another tornado came onstage. Palace walls ripped away, spinning out into the near-vacuum low-pressure area, and were caught by the cyclone and lifted thousands of meters up, into the overhanging cloud.

Then the vortex stalked forward once more, wind roaring and speed building, toward and through the palace that had once been the pride of the Khaqans, then had briefly housed Dr. Iskra.

The palace vanished in a swirl.

The tornado's fellows, spawn of that great brooding wall cloud, came on, inexorably planing the soldiers of the Altaics, the shaky Confederation they had fought for, and that meaningless vanity of a palace that meant power from the face of Rurik.

They left nothing—nothing but chaos.

The Victory was still on the ground, waiting.

One AU off Rurik, Sten sent the message en clair , punched through with max power, direct to the Emperor's private channel, second transmission to the Imperial office:

ALL IMPERIAL UNITS SUCCESSFULLY EVACUATED FROM RURIK IN GOOD ORDER. IMPERIAL UNITS NOW ON DIRECT COURSE FOR PRIME WORLD. ALTAIC CLUSTER NOW IN OPEN REVOLT AGAINST THE EMPIRE.

STEN

Now, court-martial me, he thought. You insane bastard.

Mahoney waited in a prisoner-for-transport cell beneath the large new building that was Internal Security's headquarters. It was a small room, with white plas walls, a fold-up sleeping bench, and a hole in the floor for body wastes.

In a few minutes they would take him to his hearing before the Imperial grand jury. He was dressed in the pure white coveralls required by law for indicted criminals. The color was symbolic. White indicated presumed innocence. It also indicated that the prisoner's statements had not been produced by torture.

Mahoney had to admit that in his case the latter was true. So far. He had been treated with rough but professional courtesy. Sure, he had been beaten. The first time when they loaded him on the transport to Prime. But that had only been to alert him to his new station in life—bruises and blood to show him who was boss. There had been no emotion in the beating. Nothing personal. The same all along the processing line, as he was transferred from one IS group to another.

When the beatings stopped, Ian knew his hearing date had been set. It was a routine precaution. To make sure everything had healed in time for his appearance.

Mahoney had weathered the experience well. Not that he was philosophical about his fate. He refused to think about it at all. To dwell on the betrayal would only serve to soften him up—for the probably inevitable brainscan.

Instead, he thought about old adventures. Friends. Lovers. He never thought about food. Mahoney was glad that prison fare was efficiently bland. Otherwise, those meals the Emperor had fixed for him with his own hands would have come back to haunt.

Ian's hackles rose, his old Mantis senses prickling. Someone was watching. He made himself relax. Then he heard rustling at the cell door.

Ah, they've finally come, Ian. Be still, heart. And you there, lungs. You're not needing so much air. Steady on, boyos. Be of good Irish cheer.

Poyndex looked through the two-way as the IS screws hustled Mahoney out of the PFT cell. He was surprised at how well the man looked and wondered if he could do the same in Mahoney's position. He pushed that thought away. It was a talent he would just as soon leave undiscovered.