CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
City of Kórinthos
Planet Odysseus
Bellerophon System
Free Worlds Alliance
January 15, 2553
“Oh, shit, Sir. We are so screwed,” Audrey Reynolds said, eyes still fixed on the smart wall from which Terrence Murphy’s stern-faced visage had just disappeared.
“Ya think?” Ahmet Yildiz replied. He started to add something further, then stopped and looked around the room.
Lopez’s promised eight hours off had turned into twelve, but all good things came to an end, especially in a shit-fest like this one had turned into. The good news was that his surviving people had gotten at least a little rest. The mostly good news was that Brigade HQ had turned up at least some replacements for the people they’d lost in Nafplio. And the potentially not so good news was that two of those new people—Lieutenant Lyam Routhier and Staff Sergeant Loki Thrane—were parked in chairs looking at the smart wall which, until about six minutes ago, had been a briefing map for Baker Company’s next op.
It wasn’t that Yildiz had anything against them, but then again, he didn’t really know them yet, either. Which, especially in the pressure cooker the Expeditionary Force had become, could make a too honestly expressed opinion bad for the opiner’s health. He looked at First Sergeant Mueller, who’d been conducting the brief before his display was commandeered, and Mueller shrugged ever so slightly.
“I expect it’s going to change our tasking order,” Yildiz said.
“And a damn good thing, too,” Bennath Kelly said harshly. She’d taken Spellman’s death hard, and Yildiz knew what she was thinking. If Murphy had turned up eighteen hours earlier, Dino Spellman would still be alive. And so would all the other people Baker had lost along with him.
Lieutenant Routhier around the briefing room, then grimaced.
“Right after they K-struck Agrino,” he said, eyes fixed on the overhead, speaking to no one in particular, “all I wanted was payback. Not so much, anymore. So, if you don’t mind my half credit’s worth, Captain,” he brought his gaze down to Yildiz, “I think I’m onboard with Lieutenant Kelly on this one.”
“Indicates you’ve got a working brain, Sir, if you don’t mind my saying so,” Mueller said. “Always a good thing to see in a lieutenant. No disrespect.”
“None taken, First,” Routhier replied with something more like a grin.
Yildiz cocked an eyebrow at Thrane, and the staff sergeant who’d replaced Spellman shrugged.
“Hey, I’m the new kid. Good news is that most of the people this Murphy’s gonna be really pissed with are way above our pay grade.”
“That’s true,” Yildiz said, “but—”
His earbud buzzed, and he held up a raised index finger.
“Hold that thought,” he said, and tapped to open the channel.
“Lopez,” a voice said in his ear. “Arm ’em up, Ahmet. We’re going to Kórinthos.”
“Yes, Sir. May I ask what our mission brief is?”
“You and I are taking Baker and Charlie, and we’re gonna arrest that son-of-a-bitch Alaimo,” Lopez said flatly. “Able is staying here to watch our backside. And what I really, really hope is that those fucking security troops of his try to get in the way.”
“And Brigadier Cowan?” Yildiz inquired in a calm voice.
“I’m afraid I’ve relieved him and placed him under arrest at the moment. Is there a problem?”
“No, Sir,” Yildiz said with a smile. “No problem at all.”
“Gunships and transport birds lift in twenty minutes, Captain. Get your asses in gear!”
* * *
Ahmet Yildiz felt more cheerful than he’d felt in days as Second Battalion’s aircraft entered Kórinthos airspace. The possibility that they might eat an Odyssian Wasp or two on their way in had occurred to him, and it would’ve been exactly the sort of bitterly ironic thing he’d come to expect here on Odysseus. But no one had shot at them, and now Parnassus Tower loomed ahead of them.
“Baker has the ball,” Arturo Lopez’s voice crackled over the command net. “Charlie is backstop. Iron Hand, set the bleachers. Go!”
The ground-based air defense systems had noted the First Division transponders, and Second Battalion’s lead element was inside the defensive perimeter before anyone on the ground had a clue what was coming. Some of the automated gun turrets started to train out as Yildiz’s command bird swept toward the raw, churned-up landing ground that had replaced the landscaped beauty of Parnassus Gardens, but the Iron Hand gunships were right ahead of him, tasked to suppress the defenses. A holocaust of rocket and cannon fire ripped down from the incoming “friendly” aircraft and tore those turrets—and every lander and shuttle parked on the landing ground—into flaming ruin.
“Go, go, go!” Yildiz barked as the transport birds went into ground hover on vectored thrust, skids a half meter from the field, and armored troopers spilled from the hatches and stormed toward the building.
The tower’s ornately decorated entrance was protected by heavily sandbagged autocannon and machine guns, but the gunners’ surprise was total. They wasted a handful of heartbeats gawking at the sudden assault, then flung themselves onto their weapons. But by that time, Audrey Reynolds’s platoon was down and in the prone, and deadly accurate rifle fire picked them off before they got there.
And about now—Yildiz thought.
As if the thought had conjured them into existence, a Hoplon fire team burst out of the tower. They were armed not with carbines but with auto rifles that would have been called medium machine guns under other conditions, and their heavy armor scoffed at mere rifle and carbine fire. Several of Kelly’s Third Platoon troopers went down, but Second Platoon had been waiting, and shoulder-fired rockets met the Hoplons head-on. Each of them took at least two direct hits from shaped-charge weapons designed to knock out heavy armored vehicles, and that was that.
“Go!” Yildiz barked again.
Unless Alaimo had changed his procedures in the face of Murphy’s arrival, that team had been his security detail’s only armored-up Hoplons. Lopez’s assault plan didn’t envision giving any of the others time to climb into their armor.
First Platoon was backup, leapfrogging through Third to take the doors with Second on their heels, and Yildiz went in with Routhier.
* * *
“Bulldog Six, Blue Six,” Lieutenant Kelly’s voice crackled in Yildiz’s earbud. “We’re at the objective line.”
“Blue Six, hold while Green gets into position.”
“Bulldog, we’ve got what looks like a lot of movement. Sensors are picking up a lot of foot traffic. Might be trying to rabbit.”
Which, Yildiz reflected bitterly, was exactly what someone like Alaimo would do. If he could. The question was whether he could. Baker Company had been inside the tower for almost thirty-five minutes, and in theory—in theory—Charlie Company had sealed off all ground-level and subsurface access behind them. Resistance had been even heavier than he’d feared, though—apparently Alaimo’s company-sized security detail had a pretty shrewd idea of what Murphy had in store for them—and he’d lost a lot more people than he wanted to think about.
And he wasn’t about to lose any more than he could help.
“Hold,” he repeated, and punched channels to First Platoon.
“Green Six, Bulldog six. Say position.”
“Bulldog, some bastard with a heavy machine gun’s dug-in on the mezzanine on the thirty-eighth floor. We’re flanking. Three minutes.”
“Copy.” He punched channels. “Blue Six, Bulldog. Three minutes.”
“Bulldog, I don’t think we have three minutes!”
“Yes, you do,” Yildiz said flatly. “Hold position. Acknowledge!”
“Blue Six acknowledges hold position.”
Kelly’s voice was bitter, but Yildiz could live with that. The last thing he needed was—
The explosion shook the entire tower.
* * *
“What happened?” Lieutenant Colonel Lopez asked.
Yildiz looked up, then patted Lieutenant Kelly’s shoulder, nodded to the medics to take her away, and heaved himself to his feet.
“Bastard had the entire fortieth floor wired with demo,” he said bitterly. “Took out most of the two floors above when it went.” His lips twisted. “Lost a quarter of Third Platoon when he blew himself the hell up. And I fucking never saw it coming.”
“Would’ve been worse if you’d let Bennath go in when she wanted to, Sir,” Reynolds said. Her armor was streaked with blood from the wounded she’d helped dig out of the rubble, and she shook her head when Yildiz glared at her. “It would’ve,” she said stubbornly, “and you know it.”
“That’s probably gonna make her feel a lot better when they start fitting her with her prosthetic legs,” Yildiz growled. But then he made himself draw a deep breath and nod at his one surviving original platoon commander.
“We knew going in he might do something like that,” Lopez said. “That’s why you didn’t let her go in unsupported. So don’t tear yourself up over it. Shit happens. And, truth to tell, I never really figured him for the suicide type. Bastard like him figures he’ll always find a way out, somebody to swoop in and haul his ass out of the line of fire.”
“Yeah, that’s what I thought, too.” Yildiz grimaced, looking after the litter bearers and his vanished lieutenant. “Guess we were both wrong.”
“Guess so.” Lopez pulled a nic stick out of his belt pouch, flicked it alve, and took a deep drag. Then he shrugged.
“Suppose I’d better see about accepting those surrender demands Murphy’s issuing,” he sighed.