Contact Imminent (35 page)

“You can't send a humanish into the secure heart of the embassy, Niall—you'll stop the challenge—”

“That's not a bad idea.”

“—and initiate an incident that will make the Night of the Mine look like a belch at a garden party by comparison.” Jani placed a hand on his arm. “Only an idomeni can enter that space, all right?” She waited for Niall's brusque nod before she stood and followed Dathim to the circle. “The neighbors will wonder what happened.”

“I do not understand you, Kièrshia.”

“Everyone will ask what is going on.” The air seemed to press around Jani as the tension in the room ramped. She followed Dathim around the edge of the ring to join Lucien by the weapons rack.

Dathim positioned himself on one side of Lucien and motioned for Jani to stand on the other. “He will attempt to kill you, Pascal. Before I only believed. Now, I know.”

Lucien's bland expression never altered. Some of his sangfroid could be explained by his augmentation, but what
ever he had indulged in the previous night to ease his tension, it seemed to have worked. “What do I do?”

“Watch his hands. If he strikes at your body, strike at his to let him know that you are aware of what he does. If he cuts you, cut him harder. If the physician-priests protest, let them end it. Otherwise, do as you must to protect your life.” The three of them regarded their bornsect opponents on the other side of the circle as Sànalàn uttered an invocation. Ghos, who seemed so serene as to be drugged. Elon, who stood beside him, watching them like a cat sensing movement in the weeds.

“If it goes to hell, I'll be right behind you.” Jani picked up one of the short blades from the rack and examined it before returning it to its place. Her temper had risen, spurred by the heat and the shine of metal. The self-inflicted gash on her arm, long healed, tingled.
This is my place—I know my way here
.

Lucien jerked his chin in Elon's direction. “She has a shooter.”

“What makes you think I don't?” Jani patted the familiar heft, concealed by her tunic. “I'm Tsecha's suborn—they don't scan me anymore.”

“I must go.” Agitation surrounded Dathim like an aura—Jani expected him to crackle when he walked.

“Take Fa with you.” She looked to the high seats on the idomeni side of the room, where the enclave Haárin had gathered to watch the challenge. “He was your suborn when you worked embassy utilities. He can help you.”

“He must stay here and watch. So I have told him. More to worry of here, with so many humanish.” Dathim gestured to Lucien. “Fight well, Pascal. Maybe for your next challenge, I will be able to act as I pledged.” He straightened and gestured regret to Shai, but before she could beckon him to come and inform her exactly what the hell was going on, he had slipped out the door.

Lucien eyed the silent gathering. “Do we need to announce you as the understudy?”

“Not if no one asks.” Jani gestured their readiness to Elon,
who responded slowly. “I'd suggest keeping to this side of the circle, and not exposing your back to Elon.”

The first crack formed in Lucien's blasé facade, a slight widening of the eyes that spoke of rising temper. “That's going to limit my ability to defend myself against Ghos.”

“Not as much as a knife under the ribs.” Jani looked to Shai, who gestured wary permission. To Tsecha, who clenched his hand and shook it once. Then, finally, to Sànalàn, who completed her prayer and gestured toward the circle. “It's time.”

Lucien walked to the weapons rack and removed his blade of choice, a mid-length curved sword. He entered the circle, back straight, weapon held out to the side.
“We will begin now,”
he said, his High Vynshàrau smooth and free of accent.

“Yes.”
Ghos collected his blade and entered the circle.
“We will begin now,”
he responded as he lowered into
hain
, the Stance of Welcome.

Lucien bent his knees and started to spread his arms wide in mirror of Ghos, but before he could fully attain the position, Ghos darted forward, sweeping his blade in a wide arc before him. Lucien leapt back, but not before the Vynshàrau's blade raked him, slicing his T-shirt. Blood welled from a gash the width of his torso.

“Ghos!”
Tsecha struggled to his feet while Shai tried to drag him back down to his low seat.
“Fight as the gods demand, or I will strike you myself!”

Ghos ignored him, following his blade in. But Lucien followed Dathim's orders like a physical law, catching Ghos' weapon with the side of his own, pushing it aside, then drawing his sword in and striking the Vynshàrau in the stomach with the point. Ghos gasped and doubled over, his hand pressed to the front of his tunic. He stilled, looking down as he eased his hand away from the wound. Then he bared his teeth and wiped his hand over his tunicfront, smearing the welling red across the off-white cloth in a wide slash. “Only skin, Pascal.” Then he raised his sword over his head and strode in.

Lucien's strike should have slowed Ghos, but it didn't. He brought his blade down, his greater height forcing Lucien to hold his blade up higher to block him, force his arm straighter to maintain the distance between them. Lucien's arm shook from the strain, sweat already coursing down his face, his arms. He broke contact and leapt back, dodging Ghos's downward stroke by a handsbreadth.

Jani checked the temperature of the human side of the room. Everyone, civvie and Service alike, sat forward, hands on their knees or the edges of their seats, ready to push to their feet and storm the circle. She caught Niall's eye and held up one hand in a “back down” gesture. Niall nodded, then slowly sat back—some of the Service personnel took his lead, but not all—they watched the battle as if hypnotized by the ring of the blades and the flash of light off polished metal.

Jani felt the same pull, but forced herself to look outside the circle in time to see Elon slip out of the room.
I should follow.
But the challenge already teetered on the brink of collapse, and she had pledged Lucien she'd remain at his back.

Shit
. She looked to the idomeni side of the room once more, and motioned to ní Fa once, then again, cursing under her breath when he hesitated.

Then he finally stepped down from his seat, head forward and shoulders rounded in the slump he employed whether angry or not. “Ná Kièrshia?”

Jani backed as far away from the edge of the circle as she dared. “Ní Dathim is in primary control. Go to him.”

Fa gestured in the negative. “He said I am to remain here.”

“Go to Dathim.”
Jani lowered her voice when Lucien half turned toward the sound and barely dodged a blow from Ghos.
“Now.”
She waited until the door closed after him. Then she reached beneath her tunic and activated her shooter.

 

“Like Jesus Christ himself, boys and girls!”
Chrivet led them in the now familiar charge, lake spray hosing around her with every impact of her exo boots on the water's surface.

Micah declined to rebuke the sergeant this time.
Four minutes to landfall
. He checked his readouts, comparing the heat-emitting rainbow blobs that filled his display with the occasional soft shimmer in the air that marked the location of a sheathed exo. “Walking in Jesus' footsteps.” He quickened his pace, his physical params—heartbeat, respiration—edging into orange or red for all categories.

“Slow down, Tiebold.” Chrivet's tinny growl filled his head. “Time enough to top out when we hit 'em.”

“Ma'am.” Micah eased off, trying to shake the wonder that gripped him as he compared the sims to the real thing. The same water beaded on his faceplate in the same perfect spheres, then ran down like weird rain, leaving the same dry surface behind. The same shoreline spanned before him. The same Exterior Ministry lights marked their progress.

Someone should have seen us disembark
. But no one had been walking on the private stretch of beach five kees north of the embassy when the truck parked and disgorged them onto the rocky sand. No one spotted them from shore. No one marked them from overhead. They passed through the most heavily patrolled stretch of lakefront bordering the most populous urbanscape on Earth, and no one detected their presence.

The shielding is that good
. Micah swallowed a nervous laugh.
All of Chicago belongs to the Group—they know we're here but they're pretending they don't see, pretending they don't realize what we're doing
. He heard the click of his exo intercom, Chrivet's voice again.

“Target at eleven, distance zero point two four two kilometers.”

One and a half minutes to landfall. Micah swallowed hard as the first outbuildings of the idomeni embassy came into view.

 

Elon crept to the entry of the primary utility chase, then paused. She heard nothing for some time, and made ready to turn away and search elsewhere.

Then she heard the scrape of boots on bare concrete, the slow, measured step of someone monitoring the readouts of the embassy systems.

“Ní Dathim?” She stepped inside the chase. “You have no right to work here. You are an Haárin of the enclave now.” She squinted into the half-light, and felt the press of systems array structures on either side like a closing in of walls. Saw the blink and flutter of blue and green indicators, the air and water and heat of the embassy.

A motion in front of her, a shadow from behind an array. A head. Dathim, looking around the corner to see who interrupted him. “The embassy defenses have been inactivated.” He vanished behind the array once more. “You know your scanset codes, Elon? Enter them, and save me time.”

“Why are you not at the challenge?” Elon reached beneath her overrobe, felt the knives, then released them reluctantly and probed for her shooter holster. “Why are you not assisting your Pascal to defend himself?”

Dathim looked around the corner once more. He may have even looked her in the face, but thanks to the gods for the dimness of the light, that she did not need to suffer the knowledge of his unseemliness.

He did not move for a long time. Then he stirred.
“Why did you inactivate the defenses?”

“This ungodly place must be cleansed with blood.” Elon took one step farther down the chase. Another. “Humanish. Bornsect. Haárin. One godly event. The end of this unclean place.”

Dathim stepped away from the array that sheltered him. Then he reached to his belt and slipped a blade from its sheath.

Elon's shoulders curved. “No blood here, Dathim.” She unholstered her shooter and disengaged the safety in a single smooth motion. “You do not merit a godly death.”

Blood streamed from the wounds on Lucien's arms and dripped to the coated floor, smearing and streaking beneath his trainers. He panted as though he'd run kilometers. Sweat soaked his T-shirt and the upper portion of his trousers, flattened his hair, darkening it to yellow. He stood by the edge of the circle now, grabbing a few seconds' respite as he waited for Ghos to initiate the next round.

Ghos didn't look any better. He had settled down since the initial exchange, concentrating on the proper
à lérine
form, confining his cuts to Lucien's arms only. But the need to rein himself in hadn't tempered the fight in him. He moved like the snake he resembled, with no wasted motion, striking after one or two parries before backing away. Lucien had slowed him down by inflicting a deep gash to the outside of his right elbow that hampered his ability to grip his blade. It forced Ghos to switch the weapon to his left hand, but even in that circumstance, his skill and experience showed. For every cut Lucien had managed to inflict on him, he repaid with three.

Lucien's going to sport an impressive set of scars
. Jani looked to the human side of the room.
I wonder how Appearances & Standards will fit that into the Officer's Guide
. The officers themselves had been swept up in the tension—
they stood, fists clenched, punching the air in silent applause each time Lucien landed a hit. Only Niall stood quietly, muttering occasional comments into his earbug mouthpiece as he monitored the proceedings.

A moment of stasis. Neither challenger breathed. Then Ghos hurtled forward, blade at waist level. Lucien struck it aside, then stepped in with a counterstrike of his own. But he'd had to reach across his body to parry Ghos's attack, and his blow had been weak—the Vynshàrau was able to bring his blade back in, delivering a gash to Lucien's upper thigh.

“Enough!”
Jani walked the rim of the circle and considered breaking the plane even though it meant the challenge would end without declaration being made. “This isn't combat. There are no winners and losers. Declaration is made, and the fight ends. You have traded enough blows to declare.”

“I have seen challenges that lasted day into night,” Shai called out. “So have you, Kièrshia.”

“Not when one of the combatants had something else on his mind.” Jani pointed at Ghos, goading him by looking him in the eye.
“I know that which you are thinking,”
she said in High Vynshàrau.

Ghos's shoulders rounded as he cocked his head to the side. “
Do you, Kièrshia
?”

Jani looked at Lucien, who eyed her uncertainly. “The purpose of this exercise is to declare your hatred for one another. You've both made your point. Lay down your weapons. Declaration is—”

A sound echoed through the cavernous room, like a distant roll of thunder. Then came a shorter, sharper burst.

Jani looked across the room to Niall—the expression on his face mirrored her thought.
Oh hell—

“Secure the doors!” Niall pulled out his shooter and jammed home the powerpack. “No one enters or leaves until further orders.” He drove the point home by advancing on a gaggle of deputy ministers who tried to push toward the en
try. It was anyone's guess what compelled them to return to their seats, the look on his face or the weapon in his hand.

“Ghos?” Shai struggled to her feet, the rest of the idomeni in her row following her lead. “What I hear now—these are our defenses?”

“No.” Ghos bared his teeth and held up his sword. “These are our defenses, nìaRauta. Our godly blades. No other are required. Choose one, and fight the humanish as the gods intended.”

Another blast. The Sìah chandeliers rattled. Screams and cries sounded.

“We must get to the armory.” Tsecha bounded from his seat and across the room, skirting the edge of the circle before stopping at Niall's side. “It is three corridors over.” He hesitated as he worked out the translation of directions. “Toward the lake, then left. There is armor there, short and long-range weaponry—”

“Tsecha!”
Shai rose and started toward him, two of the security suborns falling in behind. “Silence!”

“We have no choice, Shai!” Tsecha's bowed shoulders stopped the security contingent in its tracks. “The attack Mako warned you of—it has started.”

“This challenge is over.” Niall stalked across the room to the blade rack. “Everyone with a weapon—a shooter, not a blade—over here. Burkett!” He pointed to the general, who stood and beckoned to a couple of subordinates. “You're handling the home team. Station them by the doors. Keep everyone back.” He gestured toward the group of agitated civilians braced against the far wall. “After the away team pulls out, no one gets in without a password.” He pointed to two Vynshàrau security and a Service major. “Make it ‘crimson'—”

“Not a good word, Niall—the accents.” Jani gestured to the three guards. “‘Hana'!
The password is ‘Hana'
!” she said once in English, then again in High Vynshàrau. “It's the Pathen dominant city—I doubt any of the Group knows it, and it's easy for everyone to say.”

“Hana.” Niall nodded. “All right, away team…”

While Niall culled the chosen few to storm the armory and hammered out the hallway layouts with Tsecha, Jani kept her eye on Ghos. He had lowered his sword, but he stood on the balls of his feet, ready to move in any direction, the tension radiating from him like scent.

“What have you done, Ghos?” Shai gestured for a pair of Haárin to guard him. “Where is Elon?”

“Dathim knew of the assault Mako told you of. He initiated his own check of embassy systems as a precaution, and did not receive the responses he expected.” Jani monitored Ghos's reaction to her words, but saw only the tension. “He's down in the primary control chase evaluating the systems. I do not know if Elon has gone to him, but I sent Fa to check.”

“He believes systems are compromised?” Shai's shoulders rounded. “Why did not he tell me this himself?”

“You must ask him such yourself, nìaRauta.” Jani still watched Ghos. Their eyes locked once more, and the Vynshàrau's grip on his sword tightened.

“Pierce!” Burkett stepped away from his huddle with the ministers. “Service codes are blocked.” He held up an earbug and shook it. “Are Vynshàrau communications blocked as well?” The gestures he received from some of Elon's suborns gave him the answer he needed. “We can't call out. So far, no one's called in.”

“All right!” Niall backed away from Tsecha, who walked to the weapons rack and removed a knife and short sword to add to his shooter. “Away team.” He waved for the mixed group of Service, Vynshàrau, and Haárin to follow as he headed for the door. “Let's go!”

As Jani headed for the door, she caught movement from the corner of her eye and turned to the circle.
“Lucien!”

Ghos shook off the two Haárin as they grabbed for him—Lucien turned just as he closed in, blade raised. He brought up his own blade and pushed the Vynshàrau back, then moved in as Ghos swept his blade in a wide, backhand arc
that left his body open. Lucien stepped in and plunged his blade into Ghos's abdomen, then tilted it up. Under the rib cage to the heart. Ghos slumped and fell into his arms as blood poured from his mouth, spread across his tunic. Lucien shook him off and let him fall to the floor.

Jani entered the circle and moved to Lucien's side.

“Instinct took over.” He stepped closer to her, out of the path of Ghos's streaming blood.

“I know.” Jani looked from the gore-drenched front of his T-shirt to his spattered face. “Given the shape you're in, you better stay here.”

“How much trouble am I in?”

“I don't think that's our biggest problem right now.” Jani took her shooter from beneath her tunic, then grabbed a short blade from the rack and rushed for the door.

Niall moved to block her before she could break through to the hall. “Give someone your shooter and stay put.”

“I speak every language you've got here—you need me.” Jani pushed past him to the Vynshàrau-Haárin contingent charged with leading them to the armory. Tsecha moved at the head of the group, coding into doors, then covering as his people secured the rooms.

“The old bird has teeth,” Niall rasped as he shoved a serrated-edge blade into his belt. “Elon and Ghos lowered the building defenses, didn't they?” He swore under his breath when Jani nodded. “I hope humans can use whatever the hell they've got in that armory.” A rumble sounded from behind, and he exhaled with a growl. “That's one exterior wall gone.”

 

Micah blew through the gap in the outer wall that O'Shae had punched.
Where are the fuckin' screamers?
The boundary alarms, notifying the idomeni of the breach in their defenses. “Breach?” He laughed, acid searing his throat. “Fuckin' canyon!” He pounded up the hallway behind O'Shae as he had so many times, swinging his mid-range
into place as she blew the first door. Pulled back on his charge-through, braced for the kick, and spun back on one heel as it smacked him.
“Ha-hah!”

The chatter sounded in his ears, whoops and shouts of laughter from the rest of the Group as the reality of the moment drove home, backed by the incessant batter and rumble of disintegrating structure.

“Who's out there! Who's out there!”
A lilting female voice, breathless with glee.

Micah slipstreamed behind O'Shae as she blew another door. “Patel!”

“Tiebold, is that you? This is for real! This is—”

A crazed flash shot across Micah's display. He unloaded into another room, then fell in behind O'Shae again. “Patel?” Not her signals going down, couldn't have been. The noise from the mid-range must have drowned her out. Must have. “Patel!” Must have.
“Patel!”

O'Shae blew another door. Micah unloaded. Felt the recoil, but not as much. Stride made a difference. Stride, and how he set. He hadn't noticed that as much in the sims.

Patel?

They neared an open area—the first of the large meeting rooms.

“Let's go!”
O'Shae blew through the double-wide panels like paper, then—

Micah's display blitzed as the floor shook. The walls. Plaster rained down as blue flame licked through the gap O'Shae had punched in the doors.

Micah braked, slamming against the wall in his effort to stop. His display came up—suit sensors, smelling…what did they smell? Burned—burned—

Stronger than in the sims. Did they realize? It was all stronger—the recoils, the emotions.

The display histogram of the stink of charred flesh.

“O'Shae?” No response, only a distant rumble, which grew louder.

Patel's words. Her last words.

This is for real
.

“Where is everybody?” He raised his display, looking for signals.

Instead he got flashes. More than one. A dozen. More. Different signals. Live bodies, but not the Group's.

Micah upped his sensor. Heard the sound. The steady
whoosh whoosh
of exo legs pumping. Coming from behind.

He turned and looked down the hall.

 

Elon raised her shooter just as Dathim ducked back behind the array—

—and staggered forward as a blow shook the back of her head. Black fog closed in. She dropped to her knees, fell to her side, and turned behind her in time to see Fa, Dathim's suborn, lurch toward her, a length of sheathing in his hand.

“
Fa!
She is armed!” Dathim's voice. Hated English.

Elon propped her elbow against the floor, felt the cold through her overrobe, the black fog ebb and flow. Squeezed her hand. Fell back as the force of the shot shook through her.

“Fa!”
Dathim's voice as an echo in a cave. The caves of Rauta Shèràa, that opened onto the sea. The sound of booted footsteps. First distant, then near her head.

Elon forced open her eyes. Saw an orb of gold amid the black that sharpened to a face. Dathim, daring to look her in the eye.

“Fa is dead,” he said.

English
. That hated sound. “Speak your own language, Dathim.” She heard her voice, her beloved High Vynshàrau, rise and fall within the chamber of her skull.

“I am, Elon,” Dathim replied in English as he placed a hand over her face.

 

Tsecha stood still as the armory array scanned his biometrics. Mechanics hissed and clicked, then the door opened.

Niall stood against the wall, monitoring the rumbles as he tried to raise a signal on his earbug. “Funny they didn't wipe him from the system when he made outcast.”

“They did.” Jani checked the view down the hall, then fell in line to enter the armory. “Dathim kept reloading him.”

“I thought they wiped Dathim from the system.”

“They tried.”

“Good old Dathim.” Niall tapped his mouthpiece with his thumb, then frowned. “The occasional hiss or part of a word, then nothing.”

The armory contained all the equipment necessary to outfit embassy security and then some—Tsecha took charge of rooting through all the shelves and cabinets and doling out the minimum required gear. Armor. Helmets. Short-range shooters.

“There's a whole line of exos here,” someone called out from the back.

“You cannot use them—they are not typed to humanish.”

“Keep it simple, folks—body armor and small arms.” Niall had already kitted out in upper body armor and leg shields. “If Dathim gets the pink flowing, all these pretty toys are so much ballast.”

“I thought the idomeni had fine-tuned their latest pink so it didn't attack their systems.” That came from another of the Service officers. “We won't mention that they shouldn't have it here in the first place.”