Better to Beg Forgiveness

  The STs were good. Well trained, no crap, good gear. He had to admit the running comments about the Aerospace Force were proving false. They were as professional as he was, which was more than the Army. That was an embarrassing admission for its truth.

  He buffeted a few people as they ran, and that AF sergeant was behind and to his right to help block. The other two were left and left rear. The movement was good and they had a decent amount of power, and having two maneuver units made for better response and safety. Every bump and bang made his arm scream and try to go numb. He wished it would. It hurt bad, and seeping blood stuck and made a mess as it congealed. He'd need proper treatment in a bit.

  Bal gasped and staggered, but didn't stop moving. White stumbled but was still running. The rest were fine. They'd only come a few hundred meters, after all. Amazing how for most people, that was a strain or an impossibility.

  He snapped back to the present, as it became necessary to elbow through the increasingly dense mob. He swapped his carbine to his left hand, snatched a stun grenade from his gear, and lobbed it high overhead. He watched it arc back down, spinning, and blow about ten meters ahead.

  With screams, the crowd fled. Off to the left, Elke tossed something that crackled and popped. The combination left plenty of empty space to move in, and he hustled everyone forward.

  The problem with a good, clear perimeter, he discovered, was that it encouraged those with weapons to move into it, and they could now clearly see a team, who were a group of armed men and women, certainly not locals, probably UN, moving toward them. That caused some to retreat and others to yawp in anger and glee and close.

  Ah, shit.

  Chapter Twenty

  The other team lit out at an oblique, then paralleled the President farther back. Elke had spent her break fabricating new charges, and had lots of them. Explosive was a wonderful tool. A few grams here and there simulated weapons fire, a few more scared anyone not familiar with them with the report and overpressure, and a little more was a legitimate weapon. So much more flexible than mere bullets.

  Then there was the special round in her grenade launcher. She had three of them, and was planning to use one per reload. Tentative plan. Things might change.

  There were fewer potential threats here but more bodies, and they were close to the rendezvous point.

  She scattered a handful of pellets just as Alex said, "Elke, something, please?" And she grinned. Things worked better with everyone on the same page.

  Behind them the cars chattered and banged. Chagrined, she said, "Oh, there's going to be activity at the cars. Sorry." She'd meant to say so sooner. She'd lost track of time. Yes, it had already been twenty-seven seconds.

  This was like American football, dodging, weaving, and shifting. Jason was next to her, reliable. She liked him. She slipped left, he slipped right, elbowing against elements in the crowd to keep as much space as possible. You could either keep your distance or close. Here, close was better. There was no distance to keep.

  But these locals were nicknamed "skinnies" for a reason. She could break them like twigs. A good shove or an elbow served to put most of them on the ground. She checked on that ground, too, watching for trip hazards. Besides the expended ammo, she saw debris and garbage, the occasional unconscious or dead body, cracks and fissures and blown holes. The surface could only be called paved by a very charitable stretch of the definition. Tufts of grass and weeds and some local stalky plant sprouted here and there, and it was worse as one got further away from the palace. Those buildings on the far side of the street had obviously been luxury offices and apartments. Now they were slum housing.

  This place stank. The bodies were unwashed, as were the clothes. The smoke, rot, and decay plus the blowing chemical fumes in the humid air made it unpleasant to breathe. The air had been "fresher" inside the palace.

  The crowd jostled back, but she kept dipping into her pockets and tossing out little gifts for them. That caused assorted small groups to mix up and clog any advance. The noise and flash was creating a riot around them, which was far better than them being in it. Of course, that meant it was slower going, having to divert around the clumps or push through.

  It was all going well, until someone replied with explosive of their own.

  A bang ripped the air, and people scattered. The blast had to be a couple of kilos solid in one shot; that tugged at her and shook the ground. Her earbuds squelched it, but she could feel it, and the sound was distinctive even when reduced.

  Alex's voice crackled in her ears as the volume came back up. "We're falling behind. Attempt to regroup."

  "Roger," she said, and nudged up against Jason. They swung out, backs to each other, and took a glance. Oh, kurva drát.

  They'd been split by a running river of panicked people. Getting together would mean pausing in that flood or joining it, and being still targets meantime.

  Jason said, "We should push on for transport and regroup. Keep live and updated. Concur?"

  "Concur, dammit," Alex said. "We'll hold and perhaps be at our last location." The cars.

  "Check," she agreed in turn. So it was her and Jason shouldering their way through the crowd, resorting to weapon butts and boots now, as well as elbows. She snapped out her baton and used it to jab and shock. The curses and convulsions that yielded would have been amusing under other circumstances. As it was, there were too many filthy people and too many filthy hands and too much bad breath mixed with the stink of the factories and the air.

  But now they could move faster. More accurately, they could move as fast as she could. They weren't handicapped by Bal, or by group maneuvers, only by her speed, which Jason could easily match.

  "Left," she said. "Let's get toward some cover."

  "Left," Jason agreed as Alex said, "Disregard and forward." They were all stuck on the same frequency. Elke clicked off her transmitter with a swipe of her hand. She wanted to hear, but there was nothing to say at present.

  They shoved through at a brisk run. Luckily, most of the crowd still had no idea what was going on. They were moving faster than any shouted rumors. At one time, the entire plaza had been surrounded by video screens. Those were still in place, but either physically broken, worn out in the guts or just nonfunctional. If they'd been live, they could possibly have shown what was going on.

  "We have recon," Alex said. She twitched slightly and wondered what he meant, when a drone floated past her head. Balloon mounted. Then another. There were four balloons and three foam composite powered gliders that took to the air over the plaza and reported back to the AF specialist. He was funneling intel to Alex.

  She turned back to her run. They could give the intel later. For now, she wanted cover to work from.

  Her unconscious guess was astute. Every skinny with a weapon started shooting at the drones. Their accuracy was bad, but their volume of fire compensated sufficiently. The drones came down.

  And the crowd was now rushing in toward the area they'd launched from. It was still a milling, uncoordinated group, mostly wanting to take a look, but it swelled and stirred and cut Elke and Jason off.

  "Shit," she swore in English. That seemed to sum up the situation.

  Now it was time to get nasty.

  She raised her weapon, made sure there were no kids directly ahead, and fired her special cartridge. She'd had a case base milled to take fifteen hunting rifle cartridges en bloc, and those were hand loaded with saboted projectiles that peeled into four subprojos as they left the tube. Sixty 5mm bullets cracked out at close to 1,500 meters per second, and tore a hole straight ahead, shredding several people into bloody hunks of meat. The second round was a normal canister load that ripped more bodies with flechettes and pellets, and the third was a standard HE that landed about where the gut-wrenching carnage stopped and blew the surrounding mass apart.

  Reeling from the recoil of that first bastard, she dumped her magazine on auto and reloaded while striding, accelerating, reaching a power walk as fast as a stron
g jog that gave her the stability of a proper walk over the bodies and debris.

  Behind her, Jason said, "Goddam, I picked the right buddy." She barely heard it; he'd muttered to himself, but she appreciated the thought.

  It suddenly got easier to proceed. Granted, she'd probably committed murder or worse, not to mention the multiple violations of the Military Code of Justice she was answerable to as a contractor. Even if she argued out of the contract issue, conspiracy, murder, possession of illegal weapons . . . there had to be a list.

  But knowing you were both condemned and prdele gave you a lot of leeway to violate the rest of the rules.

  She tossed a larger charge, about fifty grams, out. The ongoing blasts and weapons fire caused the gap in the crowd to persist for now. Now she was barely a hundred meters from a building. Cover. Hard cover.

  So the unit was in at least three teams now, which was becoming a problem. Individually, they could all be taken down. In pairs, they were marginal. She kept aware of Jason's location, and was glad of brushing elbows now and then. He was a friend, a compatriot, and the only backup she had at present.

  The crowd was jostling again, and she tossed a flashbang at her feet. "Boom!" she shouted to Jason.

  "Shiiit!" he replied, and hustled forward, dragging her by her forearm.

  They shoved and elbowed through the crowd, and Elke remembered her baton. Jason already had his out and was zapping people as he went. Disgusted looks and threats followed behind them, but that was the point—behind them. They had to beat their way through one thick knot, but were then near the building and slipping along the side, past the edge of the growing crowd, though over the feet of those resting or unconscious against the wall.

  Or dead, Elke discovered, stepping on a pair of bloated legs that squished and shed skin as she passed them.

  A trash dumpster stood in front of them, a chunky barrel three meters tall that hadn't been emptied recently or even in months, who knew, and had piles of debris and rotten garbage around it. It was a perfect place for two mercs to squat amid boxes, filth, and the occasional pile of shit, and check weapons while sucking down water.

  "Find transport," Jason gasped.

  "Roger," she said. "We'll need to fight our way around the building to the front. Can you navigate back from here?"

  "Yes," he said. "And Alex," heave, "knows where we are. Carry on."

  "And we're up," she agreed, rising from between the crates that had hidden them for a few seconds. She slung her carbine and shifted to shotgun. The mass of both weapons was substantial, but worth it, and getting lighter as she burned off ammo. The felt weight increased faster than the actual mass drop, though.

  The crowd had shifted and moved, and they were largely unrecognized. Certainly no one nearby triggered on them. They moved quickly, backs to the block wall and skipping along. Jason had his carbine tucked under his off arm, so it was barely visible. Elke's shotgun was not so discreet. On the other hand, it was a high enough tech piece that a lot of people didn't recognize it as a weapon intuitively.

  The building wasn't large, but progress was slow. Looting was in progress, people passing goods out of windows. Elke saw computers, office supplies, chairs, desks, all largely useless to the illiterate masses, but that never mattered in these situations. What was important was to take from the haves, so they did. She grimaced in disgust. She was tempted to toss some charges into one of the windows, just as an evolutionary gesture. But it wasn't needed, she might—probably would—need the charges later, and it would draw attention they didn't need yet.

  They ran past a loading dock, ignoring the theft in progress. Past some side entrances and portals, then they were around front and on a main street that five hundred meters to their right would intersect the convoy route.

  Facing an actual military unit.

  It wasn't UN or local. It was formed of civilian-clad men, likely all the same tribe, though it was hard to tell from the variety of dress.

  But there were three squads with rifles, at least one machine gun per squad, and some rockets. She ducked.

  So did Jason. All they could do was get low, skitter for some bushes, and cuddle underneath as the unit moved forward at an almost respectable march, into the roadway and toward the plaza.

  "Close," Elke muttered as they passed. They were largely ignoring even armed men, as long as no shots were fired. The unit was obviously on a mission, but was it against the palace or some other faction?

  "Alex knows," Jason reported. "They're nearing the rear of the building. Good if we can get transport in a hurry."

  "Right, let's move," she said, but still paused until the native platoon was a few meters further away.

  The immediate problem was that there were no cars on this street. Either it was closed with barricades, hopefully, and they'd find some a street over, or driving had become impossible and they wouldn't. The latter was not acceptable to their plans, so focus on the former.

  Another advance got them to the next block. Traffic wasn't much better as far as vehicles, but there were fewer people, and more motion. Some were running toward the palace, with shouts about loot and vengeance. Others were sensibly running away. Another element simply ignored the happenings and sat, talking, playing, drinking.

  Then they started taking fire.

  "Shit!" Jason shouted as he threw himself prone.

  "They saw we're Earthers," Elke said as she fired a burst in return. She'd been facing the fire. "Over there." She pointed.

  And Jason was on his feet, because there was nowhere to take cover in the street. They zigzagged across an alley opening to a building with a nearby door. They stacked, her backward for defense, him forward, and he kicked.

  The door was only wood and burst open. He fired a single shot straight ahead at nothing, turned left as Elke backed in and fanned right.

  It was a flophouse, and the occupants scrambled for the rear.

  "Going to be a delay on the vehicle," Jason shouted into his mic.

  "We're still advancing, but it's getting tight," Alex replied. She heard it, too.

  "We need to be moving," Elke said. "Only way to find transport."

  "Yes, but let me take out that asshole, first," Jason said, pointing.

  It really wasn't hard. They'd been targeted for being in the street, armed, and out of place. The would-be sniper was still sitting at the same window, occasionally taking a shot at someone or other. Jason's carbine wasn't competition accurate, even after his mods, but it didn't need to be. He lined up the shot, took a slow, measured breath, and squeezed. Half the vul's head peeled off in a splash of blood, and shards of the window—glass again—followed the body out of sight.

  "Now we can go," he said.

  There were two or three semiprofessional factions fighting their way in toward the palace, and various gangs and tribes forming a shifting pattern of allies and enemies. That did improve things in that a lot of innocent people were running around, creating distractions, acting as unintentional soft cover, and impeding progress.

  "I'm going to shoot some recon," she said.

  "Roger."

  She slung weapons again, dialed the cassette for its two reconnaissance rounds, and raised the shotgun. One should go over that building to the next block, and one at an angle over that way. She felt two heavy thumps against her shoulder. The projectiles would work—and had worked, she recalled—as regular slugs, but were rather pricey for that, being pop-fin stabilized rockets with cameras. The resolution was adequate for this, but at several hundred meters per second, they caught only a few frames each.

  Her glasses flashed. She didn't dare get out a fliptop in these conditions. The 10mm image on the glasses would have to do. She had six frames of each she could scroll through. Yes, there were quite a few cars. Of course, they'd have to find one either with a driver, or with its ignition already bypassed for easy starting. That happened a lot here since it was cheaper to do that than fix a damaged ignition lock.

  "Over that w
ay." She pointed. "Between those two buildings. Do you see the narrow alley?"

  "I hate narrow alleys," Jason said. "But let's go."

  "Argonaut to Playwright, we're about two blocks away and have located a taxi, over," he reported.

  "Understood. Is my location on your map, over?"

  "Stand by, over, break, Elke, got a marker on them on your glasses?"

  She flipped a button to change views and said, "Yes."

  "Affirmative, Playwright. Stand by for pickup, over."

  "Don't take too long, out."

  Most of the crowd didn't want to mess with anyone armed, and moved clear. Others didn't see them and could be slipped past. Only a few were disposed to trouble, but they could not be relied upon to be either logical or respectful.

  ****

  No sooner had they entered the shadowy depths of the alley than did it become obvious some group thought them a convenient resupply. Jason sighed under his gasping breath.

  The two of them were far better than any reasonable number of opponents, but quantity has a quality all its own. Some observer pegged them for their movement, weapons, or appearance, and fire started concentrating around them. Jason felt a bite against his ribs as his armor stiffened and went slack again. The shot had come from the door or the window to the left. He fired a burst in that direction and kept running. Which one wasn't relevant. Suppress and move. He heard Elke fire a blast from the grenade launcher. The result was another one of her horrifying meat grinders. He wasn't sure whom she hit, but blood splashed across his field of view.

  They headed back out into daylight, but there was substantial attention on them now. They'd been made as either soldiers or some kind of contractor, and that made them a juicy target for kidnapping, abuse, or flat-out murder, so their gear could be plundered.

  They were back onto a street, this one far less traveled, which was a good thing. On the other hand, without a crowd to hide in, they were far more visible to the ersatz unit now chasing them.