Текст книги "Wolves On The Border"

Автор книги: Robert N. Charette

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Текущая страница: 20 (всего у книги 28 страниц)

38

Central Square, Cerant, An Ting

Galedon Military District, Draconis Combine

2 January 3028

 

Akuma's staff car had slowed progressively as it moved through the city of Cerant. At the edge of the central square, the driver brought the vehicle to a halt. For the moment, its bulk, even reinforced by the Draconis Combine ensigns flying from its fenders, could gain it no headway. The square and the streets leading to it were choked with people. Angry people.

“It seems you have a reception committee, Colonel Wolf,” Akuma commented, indicating the crush of bodies beyond the one-way windows of the vehicle. Wolf and Blake watched the throng but said nothing. Quinn seemed oblivious to his surroundings.

Wolf glanced through the back window to be sure that the second car was still behind them. It had stopped with its bumper nearly touching Akuma's car.

“Checking to see if your hotheads are about to get into trouble, Colonel?”

“Just making sure your driver didn't take a wrong turn.”

“Hardly necessary,” Akuma harrumphed. “Driver, take the car as close as you can to the Dragoon headquarters. We don't want to make our passengers walk too far.”

The car crept forward. Progress was slow, but relatively steady. Even the most vociferous and obstinate members of the crowd eventually gave way when it became clear that the vehicle was going to proceed whether they moved or not.

The mob's attention was directed toward the administrative HQ, where a cordon of Dragoon soldiers stood at the base of the steps. They wore combat armor and full helmets, their faces invisible behind the visors. Each trooper held a Ceres Arms M-22 Crowdbuster, a formidable stun rifle. The weapon's bulky appearance made it intimidating, and it was well-balanced for use as a bludgeon.

Halfway up the stairs, a pair of Dragoon officers divided their attention between the mob and a detail of Dragoons erecting barricades to link the columns of the portico into a defensible perimeter. Two sandbag emplacements flanked the main doors, each with a semi-portable laser and crew. The heavy weapons were a statement to the mob that the Dragoons were ready to answer serious violence with serious firepower.

Outside the cordon, the crowd roared as a straw effigy in a mocked-up Dragoon uniform burst into flame. It burned with the fierce heat of gasoline-fed flames, and people came forward to spit on it. Every time the breeze fanned the flames, the mob's cries peaked. The red-and-white striped uniforms of the Civilian Guidance Corps were nowhere to be seen.

The staff car came to a halt at the ruins of a festival wagon. In the press, there was no room to maneuver the vehicle. The car following had pulled close again, and that prevented the driver from backing up. They were still twenty meters from the steps to the Dragoon HQ. “We're not getting any closer, Chu-sa-sama,”the driver told Akuma.

Wolf reached for the door handle.

“Be careful, Colonel,” Akuma warned.

“I didn't know you cared,” Wolf replied dryly. Blake smirked at the sarcasm in his Colonel's voice.

“I would not care to see you the victim of random violence.”

Wolf forced the door open and stood beside the car. As soon as the Colonel had elbowed out enough space amid the milling throng, Blake followed. No longer protected by the baffled interior of the vehicle, they could now hear the jeers, taunts, and recriminations the crowd hurled at the Dragoon soldiers. “Cowards” and “turncoats” were among the milder epithets that rose above the general uproar. Then a single voice stood out above the hubbub, screaming that the Dragoons were wanton murderers of innocents, and naming them teki.

Wolf marked the speaker as the crowd took up the chant of “Enemy! Enemy!”

“Keep your eye on that one in the red tunic, Stan,” Wolf ordered as he started to force his way toward the rabble-rouser. Too short to see over most of the crowd, the mercenary relied on Blake's directions, correcting his course whenever their target moved.

A sudden shift of the crowd left Wolf facing his quarry's back. Stepping up to close the distance, he threw a backhanded slap against the man's shoulder blade.

“Hey, you!” Wolf addressed the man in his best battlefield voice, speaking Japanese for the crowd's benefit. “You've got a big mouth for somebody who needs to hide in a crowd. If you have accusations, you say them to me, to my face. I'm Jaime Wolf.”

The man turned around. He stood a full thirty centimeters taller than Wolf and was built like a wrestler. Throwing out his chest and tensing his muscles, he frowned disdainfully at the short mercenary. The practiced ease with which the man went through those motions showed how used he was to intimidating people with his size alone, especially those smaller than him. Wolf was unimpressed.

“Lost your taste for speeches now that someone is here to call you on your lies?” Wolf demanded.

The man's eyes narrowed beneath his bushy eyebrows. They darted to the left as the man glanced over Wolf's shoulder.

Trusting Blake to warn him of treachery, Wolf turned his head to follow the rabble-rouser's line of sight back toward the staff car. Akuma had gotten out and was standing on the vehicle's door frame, his tall, lanky frame visible even to Wolf. Wolf thought he saw Akuma nod, but a disturbance near the second vehicle distracted him. The Dragoons who had been traveling in it had disembarked and were working their way through the crowd. When Wolf looked back, the Draconian bully was ready to bluster.

“So you are the barbarian Wolf. You seem an insignificant package to have caused so much grief to the people of the Draconis Combine.”

The mob around them had quieted.

Wolf was getting the confrontation he had asked for and now he had to deal with it. “And you seem to have gotten away from your keepers, lackwit. I didn't come here to trade insults. You've called the Dragoons murderers and I call you a liar.”

“I am no liar! You are the liar if you deny what the Dragoons have done. These people here have all heard of the butchery your bandits performed against the peaceful people on the planet of Kawabe. Now you have brought your violence here to An Ting.”

“We have killed no peaceful people on this or any other world.”

“Hear his lies, fellow Draconians! You know me. I am Albert Nitta. You know I am an honest man. I myself saw two of his men brutally attack and kill an innocent man in a bar last night. They had no cause—the poor fellow merely got in their way.” Nitta raised his arms and shouted, “Citizens, we must rid ourselves of these vermin before they decide our children are in their way!”

“You've got your facts wrong.” Wolf's tone held a clear note of warning.

“Now the cowardly cur wants to call facts to his defense. His kind of facts will have little truth to them,” Nitta called out. “He hopes to slip away from our justice on the grease of a facile tongue, to blind our eyes with glib lies. I can tell you the facts. The truth is that three loyal sons of the Dragon lie dead today, their blood on the hands of mercenary scum. Those are facts, villain. Can you deny them? Can you silence my voice of truth?”

A new voice broke in before Wolf could answer. It was shrill and cut through the crowd's murmur like a laser slicing paper. “Look out, the tekihas a gun!” The– words were punctuated with the report of a gunshot.

Nitta stiffened as though about to hurl himself at Wolf, then a thin trickle of blood escaped from the corner of his mouth. He toppled forward at the mercenary Colonel in a disjointed sprawl.

Wolf got one arm around Nitta before he could hit the ground. The man was heavy, dead weight. Nitta's body slipped from Wolf's grip, its mass and the slick blood covering the man's back making it impossible to hold. Wolf's right hand and arm were covered with Nitta's blood.

With a howl of rage, the mob surged forward. Bodies crashed into Wolf. Hands struck and pawed at him. He smashed out with his elbows. He kicked and bit. The tide of humanity was too strong for his efforts, and the mob overwhelming.

Blake was attacked as well, but his greater mass and lesser age let him strike back more effectively. Several Kuritans whirled away, screaming their pain, before the weight of multiple attackers caught and pinned the Major's arms. A few seconds later, Blake, too, went down under a snarling mass.

The screeching of a stunner rifle cut the air as the Dragoon guards on the steps opened fire. Draconians fell in windrows on either side of the melee around the fallen Wolf. The Dragoons dared not fire too close, however. If one of their burst caught the Colonel, Wolf would have no chance against his attackers.

Lieutenant Riker was about to order his men to form a wedge to charge through the mob when the Dragoons from the second car began to force their way toward the Colonel. They were considerably closer. The Lieutenant redirected some of his men to fire on the portion of the throng between the struggling Dragoons and the scuffle where Wolf had disappeared under a pile of Kuritan bodies. Riker's decision proved to be a wise one.

Struggling to come to the Colonel's aid, Anton Shadd didn't know why the pressure against his advance had eased, but he took advantage of it. A few well-placed punches at the Dracs in front of him opened a relatively clear path through the mob. Only sprawled bodies and a few stumbling, half-aware Kuritans were between him and the knot around the Colonel. Galvanized at seeing flashes of the Dragoons uniform, the commando bolted forward. Behind him, his companions broke through as well. He heard Fraser's whoop as the kid pounded after. Shadd didn't have time to look back, so he missed Cameron's tumble over a fallen Draco. Lean stopped to help her comrade, leaving only Shadd and Fraser in the first assault against the snarling mob around the Colonel.

Without thought of backup, the commando threw himself into the knot of Snakes pounding on Wolf. Bodies flew as eighty-two kilos of hardened muscle and bone struck. Shadd went down with them, but he was prepared. He struck out with hands and feet, knees and elbows. Rough and tumble was the way he liked it. Five seconds later, he was on his feet again, but those he had bowled over were not.

Fraser arrived in time to lay low a street punk who was using a brick against Blake's head, then the young Dragoon immediately engaged with two of the Draco's friends. Or so they seemed, dressed in the same gang colors as the fallen punk.

Wolf was on his hands and knees, battered, bloodied, but still alive. He was moving slowly and seemed unaware of the screaming harridan who rose up beside him with a knife. Fraser and Blake were occupied with their own problems. Cameron and Lean had just resumed their progress toward the melee. They were too far away to be any help.

It was Shadd who launched himself into a flying kick. His kiaishout carried above the bedlam, momentarily stilling it. The crack as the woman's neck snapped was audible over most of the square. Even before her body hit the ground, Shadd was up and had recovered the knife. “Come on, Colonel. We've got to get you out of here.” Shadd had to help Wolf stand. The Colonel was shaky, disoriented, and covered with blood, some of it his own. Shadd could not tell how serious the injuries were. The Colonel was too old for this kind of ill-use.

Cameron and Lean arrived in time to help Fraser and Blake finish off the last of their immediate opponents. For the moment, the mob held back, unsure what to do about the new furies in their midst. Shadd did not want to give them time to recover. Hit them and vanish was the rule in Seventh Kommando. Vanishing with this crowd around them was going to be a little tricky.

“Major!” Shadd shouted. “We've got to get the Colonel inside. He's hurt.”

“Right.” Blood streamed down the side of Blake's face from a gash on his scalp. He looked worse than Wolf but was considerably steadier on his feet. “Everybody else functional?”

A quick chorus of ayes replied.

“Shadd, on point. Fraser, rear guard. Lean, right flank,” Blake ordered. He himself took up the left side. He didn't need to give Cameron an order, for the comm officer was already supporting the Colonel. Somebody had to do it, and Cameron was the least effective fighter of the group. “Let's move it!”

The rescue of Wolf, and the speed with which the Dragoons had organized, caught their tormentors off-guard. Shadd's sudden plunge into the midst of the press had gained the fugitives a fair bit of ground, as much from surprise as from his liberal use of the knife he still held.

They had made it only a quarter of the way to the steps when Shadd went up against an armored figure. He almost struck the trooper down in a reflexive move before he recognized the Dragoon's equipment.

After making it possible for Shadd and his group to reach Wolf in time, Lieutenant Riker had organized a sally by the cordon guards. Once the beleaguered Dragoons were safely inside a ring of armored bodies, the guards opened up freely with their Crowdbusters. Only fallen bodies opposed the Dragoon retreat to the steps.

The mob, cheated of its prey, stormed up behind them in an attempt to reclaim the victims they had let slip from their grip. A volley of concentrated stunner fire took out the leaders, and the crowd recoiled. Belligerent Kuritans hurled rocks and bottles. Bits of rotten food rained down on the steps of the barricade.

Safe behind that shelter, Blake turned. In a voice loud enough to carry over the abusive shouting of the mob, he shouted, “Clear the steps! Go home!” The crowd only jeered him.

“All right,” he said more quietly. “Lieutenant, sweep the steps with the stunners. I don't want any Draco standing on our property.”

“Yessir!”

Blake didn't need to see the face behind the helmet visor to know it wore a pleased smile. Riker passed the order to his men. Blake watched as they opened up, the keening wail of massed Crowdbusters drowning out the roar of the crowd. With no protection and nowhere to run, people began to fall. The mob's nerve broke. They routed.

Though the stunners were not aimed at him, Blake's head ached from more than the head wound he had taken. Without the sound baffles of a helmet, the close-range buzz from the weapons affected him. That ache would be with him for hours, but he did not care. He felt a savage satisfaction. Some of the Kuritans had taken multiple stunner hits. Such abuse heaped on a living system often had serious results. Blake hoped some would die.

In minutes, the square was empty of rioters. The bodies lay where they had fallen. A few semi-conscious Kuritans wandered about. In their dazed state, they were more a threat to themselves than to anyone else. Broken festival wagons littered the pavement. The square looked like the aftermath of a battle.

39

Dragoon Administrative HQ, Cerant, An Ting

Galedon Military District, Draconis Combine

2 January 3028

 

The two Kurita staff cars stood silently in the square, reefs in a sea of debris and bodies. They were scratched and dented and their surfaces were marred by smears of food, but they were otherwise unharmed.

The rear door of the first limousine opened and Akuma stepped out, ever pristine in his uniform. Picking his way toward the Dragoon HQ, he carefully avoided the fallen bodies and clutter left behind by the fighting. The hulking blond mass of his bodyguard trooped behind him.

No Dragoon made a move to stop the approaching Kuritans, but Blake could tell from the way trigger fingers twitched that several thought about it. When Akuma shifted his path to pass by Blake, the intel officer stepped into the Draconian's way.

“I believe that I should see Colonel Wolf,” Akuma announced, undaunted.

“ Ibelieve the Colonel will want a few minutes before he talks to you.”

Akuma inclined his head. “A reasonable request. Shall we wait inside?”

Malking Snake,Blake thought. As though nothing had happened. I can be unreasonably reasonable, too.“If the Chu-sawould accompany me to the waiting area.”

“Certainly,” Akuma replied.

After sending a runner to inform Wolf of their presence, Blake silently escorted the Draconian. Accepting the Dragoon's silent treatment, Akuma sat and waited. After a few minutes, Lean came back with the runner.

“Colonel wants to see you now,” she said. When Akuma started to rise, she said, “Not you, Colonel Snake. Wolf wants to talk to Major Blake first.”

“As he wishes, Captain. I do suggest that your Colonel not delay over long.”

“I think Colonel Wolf knows what he's doing,” she snapped back.

“So long as the wait is his doing and not yours.” Akuma knew it was petty to agitate Lean this way, but he enjoyed seeing the angry color flush her face. After all, soon there would be no Dragoons to bait.

“Five minutes,” she ground out.

“I can certainly wait that long. I will see you then, Captain.” He dismissed her with a wave of his hand.

Lean came back exactly on time to escort the Kuritans to the planning room. With her were two security troopers. Unlike the men stationed outside, these carried Ryonex subguns. Akuma decided that this was a warning that any trouble inside the headquarters would be met with deadly force. How pathetically juvenile,he thought.

The Dragoons had removed the teak conference table from the center of the planning room and replaced it with a holotank from one of their DropShips. Technicians were busy with it, calling up a map of Cerant. Even the brief glance he allowed himself showed Akuma that the city was reproduced in intricate detail. That surprised him, for his own maps were not as good. What his maps did do, however, was indicate the exact positions of all Kuritan forces as well as the carefully plotted locations of all Dragoon assets. The Dragoons had misplaced several key Ryuken units.

Knowing that it was not wise to show too much interest, he looked around for Wolf. The mercenary Colonel was in conference with Blake on the far side of the room. Though the man looked much the worse for his tumble in the square, he did, unfortunately, seem fully functional. Now, while Wolf was still rattled, would be the time to press matters. Akuma strode up and interrupted the conversation.

“That was quite a demonstration you set off, Colonel Wolf.”

Wolf's eyes glittered. “I suppose you didn't know things were this bad.”

“I knew that your Dragoons had disturbed the local populace. I had no inkling that they had brought things to the brink of riot.”

“So we are to blame.”

“How can it be otherwise? You were dissatisfied with your contract and were looking for an excuse to break it, while still preserving your highly overrated sense of honor. But this! I had no idea that you would stoop to murdering innocents to further your ends. That you would slaughter civilians merely exercising their lawful right to protest your criminal behavior. Now you will no doubt claim that the riot was deliberately incited and that you are free from the obligations of your contract. Will you produce evidence that I or my officers organized this threat to you? What is your next move, butcher?”

Wolf said nothing into the stillness that had fallen on the room.

“Have I struck too close to the truth?” Akuma swept his right arm to encompass the Dragoons in the room. “Some of your officers look surprised. Have you not shared this grand plan of yours with them? Are you, in your megalomania, seeking to drag down the good reputations of honest soldiers along with your own? Are you afraid that they would not believe your lies about Kurita treachery? Did you have to manufacture a cause to get them to follow you down your brigand's path?”

“Shut up!” Blake shouted.

“You need lackeys to speak for you?” Akuma threw a contemptuous look in Blake's direction. “Will you silence me as you silenced Nitta? What will you get from that?”

“Nothing,” Wolf said at last. “I didn't do him and I won't do you. Loud-mouthed troublemakers aren't worth it. It only dignifies their lies. Silenced or not, I get trouble I don't want. All of our posts on planet are under siege by the mob.”

“That is hardly unexpected. You have unleashed the many-headed beast. See what your violence has wrought. You will bring death to your own people.”

“Where's the vaunted Civilian Guidance Corps? Your civilians certainly need some guidance.” Wolf's voice was cool, but his hands were clenched at his sides. Akuma noticed and was pleased.

“The Corps was hardly expecting this and was probably overwhelmed by this beast you have loosed. But that was in your plan, wasn't it? Now yours is the only force-in-being in Cerant. Do you expect a commission empowering you to restore the peace? Will you then continue your bloody work and suppress the mob? I am sure your 'Mechs will be able to restore order. Kurita casualties will, no doubt, be light.”

“So that you can claim we fired on civilians, that we took the law into our own hands?” Wolf shook his head in refusal. “No. You won't get that. Bring your Ryuken into the city.”

“So you can claim we march on you? I will not give you an opening to start the battle you so clearly want. The Ryuken will stay clear of the city at this time. I will not provide the threats you seek. Find some other way to convince those who do not believe your lies that House Kurita wishes the Dragoons dead. Find some other way to win back the loyalty of your troops. Your actions shall be on your own head.”

Wolf turned from Akuma to Cameron.

“Call all the posts, William. Everyone stays put. No provocations.” Wolf looked over his shoulder at Akuma. “Satisfied?”

Akuma was most definitely not satisfied. He had hoped to provoke the Dragoons into rash action. The gambit had failed, but all was not lost. There were a few more turns left on the wheel of the rack. “Your performance has hardly been satisfactory. I assure you that Kurita troops will not strike the first blow.”

“Then you had better get ready for a quiet night in the barracks with your boys.”

Akuma felt the sting of Wolf's implication. Anger was not something he could afford here in the nest of his enemies. He turned and stalked off. Quinn gave Wolf a tight smile before following.

When the Kuritans were gone, Shadd approached Wolf. “You took a lot of cop from that Snake, Colonel,” he said in a low voice.

Wolf was slow to look up, for he had been lost in thought. “I wanted to get a handle on where he stood in this mess.”

“Think he's behind it?”

“Hard to tell. He's certainly taking advantage of it.”

“You want he should have an accident?” Shadd fingered the knife he had acquired.

“That's their style, not ours,” Wolf admonished him.

Shadd shrugged. “Your call, Colonel.”

“I've got something more important for you, Captain. I want to get a message out over the ComStar net, and I need somebody I can trust to get through in one piece. Things are pretty dicey outside right now. One man is less conspicuous than a squad, and you're the only member of the Seventh here.”

“I understand, Colonel. Is this the word?”

“No. Not yet. I just want to warn the other garrison planets to watch for trouble. This may be the start of what we've feared. It may not. But we can't afford to take the chance.”