Black Guard, The (7 page)

"Look sergeant, women!"

"Can’t be… They’re with—"
His face went from surprise, to confusion, and finally recognition. As it did,
he reached down for his rifle which was lying on a small table next to his
chair. I shot him, and Glick shot the other man as we began running. She and I
threw our stars at the same time. Her star went into the reception room
striking the wall, and my star into the terrace striking a wooden column. I
closed my eyes and counted slowly to five, then dove thru the doorway, sliding
into the room and twisting so I finished on my back. A few seconds later Nadel
slid next to me. She began firing to our right while I concentrated on the
left. I had six on my side. I ignored the three who stood rubbing their eyes
rather than searching for their guns. Rubbing one’s eyes just made matters
worse, and you weren’t ready when your vision began to clear. The other three
were feeling around for their rifles. One knocked his off the table and was
crawling on his hands and knees feeling for it. The other two had found their
weapons and began firing, hoping to hit the intruders, although they still
couldn’t see. Not too smart. They were more likely to hit one of the rebels on
the other side of the terrace. That was the good news. The bad was the amateurs
had their shard guns set to wide because most were not experts, and some shards
were pelting me. They weren’t penetrating my body armor, but they would leave
welts that would last for a week.

I shot both as a pain scorched its way
across my thigh, side, and forehead, causing blood to drip into one eye. The
forehead cut could have been from someone on Nadel’s side since we were lying
close together. I shot the one crawling on the ground, who had finally located
his weapon. As the laser beam hit him, his gun went off and a dozen shards
pelted my side and leg. Two of the three who had been rubbing their eyes
stopped looking for their guns and began to run. With my vision blurred from
blood, I shot in their direction but doubt I seriously wounded either one. I
ripped my blouse open and used the loose end to wipe my eyes and apply pressure
to stop the bleeding. The remaining man now had his rifle and was firing while
still rubbing his eyes. I think he was firing at the noise because his gun was
pointed waist high in that direction. A few more random shards hit me in the
stomach and chest. I gritted my teeth at the pain and shot him in the neck,
just below his chin. He stumbled backward into a chair and sat. I shot several
times at the two men running, but by now they had too much of a head start for
a reasonable shot. I might have wounded one or both, but I couldn’t be sure.
The terrace was silent.

"You’re hurt!" Nadel said
while wrapping a torn piece of cloth around her hand.

 
"Later. We need to get to the rooms
on this floor." I jumped up and sprinted towards the reception room with
Nadel just behind me. The impact as each foot hit the ground sent pain running
up my leg and side. Glick and Lipkin were just emerging as we got there. They
each had three fingers raised. That left at least twenty not counting the ones
downstairs. "The rooms. Glick, take the ones on the left, then the stairs
to the servants’ area." I made for the right hallway, with Nadel a step
behind me.
Damn.
The impact damage from the shards was causing me to limp,
and I could feel blood dripping down the side of my face. I pressed the cloth
tighter to my forehead.

The first two rooms in the hallway were
a drawing room on the right and a game room on the left. I motioned to Nadel to
take the left side. As we entered the hallway, a man coming out of the game
room saw us, shouted, and fired. Although his aim was poor, with his gun set on
wide-beam shards hit both Nadel and me. I felt the impact on my thighs and
stomach. Nadel and I fired simultaneously, hitting him in the center of his
head. Dead, he stumbled backward into the wall and collapsed. We stopped,
focused on the two doors. Several seconds later, heads cautiously poked out of
both doors. Nadel shot the man peeking out of the game room and I the one from
the drawing room door. Then we sprinted past the entrances, looking to shoot at
whoever we saw. I fired at the chest of a man who was standing at the far end
of the room. His gun fired after I had passed the door. I stopped a few steps
past the door and threw a flash star into the room, counted to five, and dove through
the opening. Two men stood in the middle of the room rubbing their eyes, guns
pointing towards the door. I shot both in the head. The man I had shot in the
chest lay on the floor not moving. I rose, shot him in the head to be sure, and
exited the door just as Nadel came out of the game room. She smiled holding up
four fingers. We continued down the hallway. Nadel had a bathroom and a study
at the end; I had a bathroom and two bedrooms. Nadel’s bathroom was empty. Mine
had a man sitting on the toilet. I shot him in the head as he leaned over to retrieve
his rifle.

A man came running out of the study. I
let Nadel shoot him as I opened the door to the bedroom—nothing. Nadel
was running towards the study. Halfway there, she threw a flash star into the
room and seconds later slid through the doorway. I had opened the door to the
first bedroom only part way. A man swung a rifle towards me as another pulled a
shard gun from his holster. I twisted back against the wall as his automatic
ripped a path of destruction into the wall across the hallway. Shards followed
seconds later. Looking around, I pulled a large framed-picture from the wall
and waited. When the shooting stopped, I threw it into the room, hoping their
guns would follow the picture by reflex. As I did, shots sounded, and I rotated
enough to see into the room. I could tell by their eyes they realized their
mistake, but before they could swing their guns to bear on me my laser beam
seared through the temple of the man with the rifle. The man with the shard gun
fired before I could, but in his panic he fired without aiming. The shards hit
the door. He died before he could get off another shot.

As I ran towards the next bedroom, a man
peeked out then ducked back. A few seconds later his hand with the gun came out
first. My laser beam burned through his wrist. He screamed and jumped back as I
followed him, sliding into the room. He was holding his wrist; his face a
bleached white. Another man stood next to him, eyes darting around the room,
frozen in fear. His gun discharged, shattering the door frame—an uncontrollable
reflex. I shot both in the head. When I stood and exited the room, Nadel held
up two fingers as she exited the study.

I stopped to rip off the servant
clothes and tear off a piece of cloth to tie around my forehead. Nadel did the
same for her hand. I noticed a shard in my hand also, but it wasn’t bleeding
enough to worry about now. We headed for the stairs. At the bottom, Corporal
Kott lay on the floor in a pool of blood, clearly dead. Catz was farther back,
shooting every time the man’s weapons-grade gun appeared out of the doorway.
Now with Nadel and I on his right and Catz on his left, the man couldn’t peek
around the doorway without exposing himself. But we couldn’t breach the door
without getting killed.

The room was on my left and the door
opened to the left, so he was probably on the wall to the right of the door. I
sprinted for several meters, dove past the door, and rolled to a standing
position next to Catz. The man had fired as I flew past but too late to hit me.
I tapped the release on my whip and signaled Nadel to get ready as I inched towards
the door. I stopped a meter away from the door and my whip whistled over my
head. It shot out, through the door, and around to the right. A man screamed,
and I heard what sounded like a gun drop as I moved closer to the door. Again, my
whip snaked into the room. A gurgling sound, then nothing. Nadel dove past me
into the room. Silence. When I looked, a man was lying on the ground. His upper
arm was cut through to the bone, and his neck cut so that it barely supported
his head.

"Most of us thought those whips
were for show," Nadel said, looking down at the man on the floor and
poking his head with her boot. "Looks like we were wrong."

When I emerged, Haber was coming out of
an open area, and Glick and Lipkin were coming out of the laundry room with our
equipment.

"What happened, Corporal
Catz?" I asked. She was limping and bleeding from her hand.

"Someone alerted them we were
coming, because they caught us by surprise. Private Jaffe entered the open bay
where most of the seriously wounded rested. A sergeant had a rifle under his
blanket and shot her in the face. Private Haber killed him and the rest.
Corporal Kott and I took the servants’ rooms. It was difficult going, but we
were making progress until Kott opened that door. He shot her in the chest and
has been holding me off for the past five minutes."

"Suit up," I said, strapping
my Mfi to my arm and the Mfw and laser to my thighs. "Private Lam, grab
what medical supplies you can and meet us outside. Our men probably miss us. We’ll
retrieve Kott and Jaffe when we return." We found a large ground vehicle
that accommodated the six of us and headed for the Ming Tree forest. Each of
the Guard had special training in some specialty or another. Corporals Glick
and Kott’s specialty had been medical.

As we drove, Glick worked on each one
of us, removing shards and repairing open wounds. It turned out to be an
interesting experience when combined with bumps and turns at two hundred km/h.

"Found it, Judt said, turning
sharply off the highway onto a narrow road, spraying dirt and gravel as the
wheels fought for traction. Several vehicles could be seen about a klick away.
When we reached the area, there were five skimmers and eight ground vehicles
scattered around. Off in the distance, I could hear faint shooting. We were all
functional, if not in prime condition, as we began making our way towards the
sounds. Sections of my body seemed to be taking turns complaining each time I
stepped, turned, or jumped over something. Only the thought of my team fighting
for their lives drove me half running through brush and over dead limbs in the
heavily treed forest. I and the others fell several times in our mad rush with
our battered bodies. What seemed like an eternity later, the shots sounded
close. I raised my arm for a halt and activated my Mfi.

"Colonel Wolfson, this is Captain
Sapir, my team is in the Ming Tree forest fighting rebels. Do you have visual
or heat signatures?" I asked, hoping my signal was strong enough for the
War Horse to detect it. No answer. I repeated my request several more times—hoping—but
nothing.

"Captain Sapir, this is Warrant
Officer Loeb, in commando shuttle seven from the War Horse. I’m delivering
supplies to Captain Drezner. Your signal is too weak to reach the War Horse but
maybe I can help. I’ll make a couple of passes over the area, high enough I won’t
be noticed." Several minutes passed, then my Mfi lit with a map of the area
and over a hundred red dots.

"How’s that?"

"Great, Warrant Loeb, I owe you
several rounds when I get back." I forwarded the map to everyone. The red
dots showed three distinct lines—us, rebels in the middle, and the Guard
farthest away. Judging by the distribution of the red dots, it appeared like
Lieutenant Ceder had lost several members and the rebels twenty or so. And
unless I was mistaken, the rebels had detached two groups of ten, one to the
right and one to the left in an attempt to encircle the Guard—a lucky
break.

"We’re going to move cautiously
forward until we are about forty meters from the rebels’ position. An easy shot
for us, not so easy for amateurs. The rebel line looks to be close to eighty
meters long, not counting the two groups moving to encircle the Guard. Catz,
take up a position forty meters to the right. Haber, twenty meters right.
Glick, forty left. Lipkin twenty left. Nadel and I will take the middle. Signal
when you are in position. When you are, I’ll send a count down on your Mfis.
Use the laser in your Mfw to kill anyone you see with a military grade weapon, and
then switch to shards using a meter spread. Aim for their faces."

"What about those encircling the
Guard?" Catz asked.

"Those two teams reduce the main
group by twenty, leaving about fifty. If we break them, it will leave something
for the men to do." That got a few grins.

"Why a meter spread? Less likely
to kill than our normal thirty centimeters."

"True, Haber. We won’t be able to
kill them all. There are too many of them and too few of us. The idea is to
create panic. First the surprise, then a few killings, and finally being pelted
with shards. With a meter spread we may be able to wound two or three at a
time. Don’t worry about killing them as much as wounding as many as you can in
the head and face."

"That’s devious, Captain. I hope
Jaffe and Kott are watching—from wherever." Nadel said, receiving
muttered agreement.
Me too.

"Go." I began slowly moving
forward while the others fanned out. Several minutes later I lay, looking up at
a small rise where the rebels lay shooting. I had at least twenty in my sight.
Nadel was only a few meters to my left. Soon afterward, I began getting
"in position" messages from the others. I set the count-down to ten
seconds on my Mfi and sent it.

I identified two with military grade
weapons and waited. As my Mfi chimed, I shot one then the other, switched to
shards and began firing as I swept to my right as far as I could see and then
reversed direction coming back to center. Five or six received fatal shots, six
or seven had dropped their weapons and ran holding their faces, the rest had
maintained discipline and returned fire. Dirt and tree bark spayed around me
with shards hitting me every few seconds. One ripped through my cheek and several
hit my skull cap causing white flashes behind my eyes and momentary dizziness.
I switched to explosive bullets and shot blindly in their general direction,
hoping to cause a distraction long enough to recover. It worked, but by the
time I could see properly again, the few that were still alive were running
right or left. Of course, they were running a gauntlet because of the way I had
deployed my team. I switched my Mfi to Lieutenant Ceder’s channel.