David Weber - The Shadow of Saganami

"Yes, Captain?" His tone was also more formal, Jezic noted.

"We don't know anyone in this installation is violating the law," the police officer said. "I realize the circumstances are extraordinary. And as Colonel Basaricek pointed out to me, martial law's been declared and Parliament's voted to authorize the use of the regular military-which would also cover your people, in this case-for duties which would otherwise fall squarely to the National Police. However, that doesn't absolve the government, or the police, from our responsibilities under the Constitution."

He paused again, and Kaczmarczyk nodded.

"You're a Marine, Captain Kaczmarczyk. So are all your personnel, and military training's necessarily different from police training. You said you intend to 'neutralize' the tower, or bunker, or whatever it is, as quickly as possible. I have to ask you if that means you plan to employ deadly force without first calling upon any suspects to surrender without resistance?"

He thought he saw a flicker of respect in those amber-green eyes. He knew he saw a grimace of what was probably irritation on Lieutenant Hedges' face, and Lieutenant Kelso gave him a tight, teeth-baring smile that was totally devoid of humor.

"Let me put it to you this way, Captain Jezic," Kaczmarczyk said, after a moment. "The question you've just raised was addressed by Captain Terekhov when he alerted me for this mission. He emphasized to me that the observance of Kornatian law was of paramount importance. However, although I realize this is essentially a police operation, the nature of this particular installation makes it effectively a military operation. I've attempted to strike the best compromise I can between those two differing sets of requirements and priorities.

"The instant the first of my Marines hits the objective, he'll deploy remote speaker systems which will begin broadcasting a demand for the occupants of the installation to surrender and come out of their hidey holes without weapons, and warning that we're prepared to employ deadly force if they don't immediately comply. If that demand's obeyed, we won't fire a shot. If, however, it is not obeyed, or the instant a shot is fired at one of my people or we discover we're looking at heavy weapons sited for immediate use, it will cease to be a police operation and become a military strike. Under those conditions, my people will be instructed to accept surrenders so long as it doesn't endanger them or any other of my personnel ."

His strange eyes met Jezic's levelly, unflinchingly, and the police captain understood he was hearing a nonnegotiable position. Still-

"And the neutralization of the tower, Captain?"

"Anybody in it will've heard the surrender demand, Captain. Sergeant Cassidy's team will be under orders to take out any heavy weapons without inflicting casualties, if possible. I will not, however, expose my people to fire from that position. If it's impossible to neutralize its weapons without destroying it outright, then I will order it destroyed unless anyone inside it comes out and surrenders instantly. I hope it'll be possible to shut it down without killing anyone. But if it contains heavy weapons, I'm going to accept that as proof the people in this installation are engaged in illegal activities, and as criminals, the preservation of their lives takes second place to the preservation of the lives of my personnel."

Jezic hovered on the brink of protesting, but he didn't. He didn't because he recognized the logic of the Manticoran's position. And because it was vital for his star nation to retain not simply the cooperation of the Manticorans, but their active cooperation. And he didn't because he was a SWAT officer-because all too often in his career, he'd been called into situations where the parameters and options were very much like the ones Kaczmarczyk faced here.

"All right, Captain Kaczmarczyk," he said finally. "I understand your position, and I respect it. I suppose we'll all just have to hope for the best, won't we?

Ragnhild Pavletic sat in her flight couch, on Hawk-Papa-Two's flight deck tonight, with her right hand lightly on her stick, and watched the clean, crisp twinkle of the stars. Major Kaczmarczyk had specifically requested her for this mission, and she felt flattered. She also felt nervous.

People were going to be killed tonight. Whatever the Major wanted, however much everyone would prefer to take them all prisoner, it wasn't going to happen-she knew that with absolute assurance. And if anyone tried to bug out by air, Ragnhild Pavletic or Coxswain 1/c Tussey, flying Hawk-Papa-Three, were supposed to nail them.

"Nail them," she thought, lips twisting in a humorless smile. I suppose it sounds better than "kill them" or "blow them into tiny bleeding pieces." But it means the same thing. And this time it won't be the computers taking a preprogrammed shot. It'll be my hand on the trigger.

She didn't much care for that but, to her surprise, it didn't frighten her, either. She knew what the FAK had done here on Kornati.

Yet she wasn't looking forward to it, and so she watched the brilliant, uncaring stars as Hawk-Papa-Two knifed along on the very edge of space, and wished human beings could settle their affairs with the same clean, cool detachment.

Platoon Sergeant George Antrim, First Platoon's senior noncom, stood and moved to the center of the pinnace. Unlike Lieutenant Kelso, Antrim was in a standard armored skinsuit, and he crossed to stand beside the pinnace's flight engineer at the jump master's station.

"Approaching drop," he announced, over his skinsuit com to the battle-armored Marines. "Prepare to drop."

The armored Marines stood and moved to the port side of the pinnace. The standard airlock was on the starboard side of the hull. The port side of the fuselage was configured for just this situation, and Antrim nodded to the flight engineer.

"Open her up."

"Opening now," the Navy puke replied, and a hatch four meters across slid open in the side of the pinnace. Everyone in the passenger compartment, including the flight engineer, was skinsuited or armored, with helmet sealed, for reasons which were obvious as the compartment instantly depressurized. Baffles forward of the hatch broke the slipstream, providing a pocket of protected airspace outside it, and Captain Kaczmarczyk and Sergeant Major Urizar stepped up to the opening.

"Confirm drop acquisition," Antrim said, and twenty-six armored thumbs rose on twenty-six armored right hands as every one of the queued Marines confirmed that his armor's internal computer had pinpointed the coordinates of the drop zone and projected it onto his visor's heads-up display. The sergeant nodded in approval, and checked the jump display projected into his own helmet's HUD again.

"Drop point in… forty-five seconds," he announced.

The appointed seconds raced away, and Antrim spoke one last time.

"Go!"

Captain Tadislaw Kaczmarczyk thrust himself out and away from Hawk-Papa-Two. His external sound pickup was adjusted to its lowest sensitivity, but the ear-piercing wail of the pinnace's turbines was still deafening. For just an instant, the air around him seemed almost calm; then his plummeting body crossed the boundary between the baffles' protective bubble and the air beyond.

Despite his protective armor, he grunted in shock as Kornati's atmosphere punched savagely at him. It was a sensation he'd felt before, although he hated to think what it would have been like for someone without armor.

He flung out his armored arms and legs, simultaneously triggering his suit's built-in thrusters, stabilizing himself in midair. This section of Kornati was virtually unpopulated, an endless forest of virgin, indigenous hardwoods and evergreens, which undoubtedly explained why the bad guys had chosen it for their installation. It also meant there were no artificial light sources below him. He gazed down into a vast, black void-the bottom of the greedy well of gravity into which he'd cast himself-and he could see nothing.