Audacious

52

Penny ordered the sergeant to reorient his axis of attack.

The balcony was silent, all the shooters up there either dead or fled. If she wasn't mistaken, Bronc had been the one that led the final flight from up there but it was hard to tell in the faint light from the emergency lamps.

She hoped he lived. They owed the kid for his warning.

Then a grenade sailed in from the rotunda, and another. And another. The general slaughter had begun.

The first grenade landed among a clump of civilians. They stared at it…and died as it exploded. The second landed in a group that had a Marine. He fell on it and died…but the others lived. Another fell among the group of Marines. One of them tossed it back to explode above the head of the raiders.

It was nice hearing screams from them.

More grenades flew. More examples of folly and denial leading to death. Or bravery and courage leading to a single death or death to the enemy.

Long forgotten virtues quickly were remembered on Eden.

The grenade toss became a full participation sport.

''Don't we have a few of those ourselves?'' a Marine asked. So Penny and a security type ended up pealing grenades of their own out of their petticoats and tossing them to Marines in the front who tossed them into the midst of the shooters and throwers around the bronze figures holding pride of place there.

A lot of art shattered. A lot burned.

But then, so did a lot of people.

A security type saying, ''I was a pitcher for the Dodgers,'' asked for a grenade. He stood in the doorway to the west portico and tossed it toward the main entrance. There were screams. From Mulhoney came the first sign of life. Only a weak thumbs-up, but it was a sign.

But somehow, the portico force was reinforced. The sounds of a major firefight out there aimed at the car park and the one exit from the great hall told Penny safety didn't lie in that direction.

More grenades flew in. More grenades were tossed out. People died cringing in on themselves. People died fighting. But here or there, Marines shouted for more grenades or a fresh magazine. Penny found herself promoted from pack mule to supply sergeant.

How long could this keep up?

Kris watched the Marines charge from the river, hope rising in her belly. Then she turned for the door. ''Don't shoot, sergeant. Is that you, Bronc?''

''Yes, ma'am, Your Highness. And I've got a dozen scared kids with me. Please don't shoot us.''

And somebody fired.

Kris reached the corridor just in time to see the kids hugging the tiled floor and her Marine firing at something down the hall where Kris had lurked only a few minutes ago.

She pulled out two whizbangs and sent them flying down the passageway in company with the sergeant's darts.

The whizbangs went bang…and a door slammed.

''I think we got trouble on the roof. They might be trying to come around behind us,'' the corporal said.

''Or see if they can get the auto-guns shooting,'' Kris growled. ''Cover me.''

And Kris was out, tiptoeing through young men, who huddled as low as the floor would let them. Most had rifles, but few clutched them. Kris stooped to pick up one, pulled a bandolier off another.

She reached the door to the stairwell about the time the other stairwell creaked open again and the sergeant behind Kris took it under fire.

The next set of whizbangs brought Jack in behind Kris, along with a couple of kids who didn't take to lying on the floor while bullets whizzed by a few inches above their heads.

Even a teenager could figure that sooner or later, someone was going to lower their aim.

One of the kids was Bronc.

''The Marines from the river are taking fire,'' Jack whispered. ''DeVar's slowed. Half providing overwatch to the half still moving.''

''Can these auto-guns be fired on manual and locally?''

''Your guess about what they do on Eden is as good as mine,'' Jack said.

Kris flipped open the door to the roof.

And watched as it was quickly punched full of holes.

''This ain't gonna be easy,'' Jack said.

Kris felt around her bottom. ''Whizbangs, sleepy gas, don't look all that good just now.''

''I have some smoke and two frags,'' Jack offered.

Kris pulled out two whizbangs and two sleepy gas throwers. She distributed them among the willing kids. ''Jack will toss the smoke first. Keep it close in. You kids throw the sleeping gas as far as you can. It's open air and the gas won't do so well, but even a yawn helps.'' That got a dry chuckle.

Kris would toss the whizbangs. Farther than the smoke, shorter than the gas.

''Ready? Jack tosses on three, the gas on two. I'll throw the bangs on one. Jack, you add a frag to the mix. Don't run out there until I tell you the smoke has thickened up. Hear me?''

''Yes, ma'am.'' came back just like you'd expect from a bunch of teenagers.

And so they did it. Smoke, gas, then bangs, and lastly boom. Kris waited, one hand on Bronc's heaving chest. His heart was pounding like it might punch its way out past his ribs.

Kris waited for the smoke to thicken.

''Stay low. Run now.''

And Kris and Jack led the kids out, firing their automatics into the smoke, into the flashing lights.

Somewhere a man screamed. Another man cursed and hollered for a medic.

Kris ran low, then dropped to roll up behind the concrete base of some antenna. Jack picked the next one for his own.

A boy went down, sprawling from a hit. Another found a cinder-block wall to take cover behind.

There were six of them out on the roof before the smoke dissolved and a wall of automatic fire replaced it.

And somewhere down the roof, an auto-gun cut loose a long wicked burst at the ground below.

Kris didn't need to see, she could feel the Marines going down before it.

''Snipers, get those bastards on the roof,'' Gunny Brown called.

And got a fusillade of small-arms fire for his effort. Since this big, armored dinosaur hardly budged as it took the hits, it was no skin off Gunny's nose.

But clearly, something was happening up on that roof. From the looks of it, he'd say Marines held down the right wing up there. Probably that lieutenant and the princess.

And it looked like they could use all the help he could send their way.

Then an auto-gun opened up, thankfully, not on Gunny's side of the roof.

But it had to be shooting at something, and the old man and his platoons were the only worthwhile targets beside Gunny's fire teams.

Marines needed help and the only help Gunny could give was to the roof.

One sniper took down someone with a gun trying to work his way down behind the right wing.

Good.

Another dude up there stopped at what looked like an auto-gun and started to raise a shield or maybe it was just the top of the control box. A sniper put an end to that noise.

Now other Marines opened up, sweeping the front of the roof clean of dark figures. Those that didn't crouch low and beat a hasty retreat only stayed in place to die.

But applying pressure on the roof lighted up the pressure they'd been keeping on the front porch of that stone monster.

Clearly, a major fight was going on there.

Gunny drew up a good sight picture and dropped a guy leaning out a door to toss a grenade.

He went down. A moment later, his grenade did horrible things to the fellows around him.

Gunny grinned and swept the area, looking for another grenade thrower. He hated those things. Didn't those dudes up there know that Mr. Grenade was not your friend.

Gunny checked his fire teams. Between the half dozen around him and the two sniper crews on his flank, he could hold this car park against most any force coming at him from the front.

He spared a glance behind him. Tanks and trucks still burned fitfully. Why hadn't any of those shooters worked their way up to reinforce him? What was going on out there?

Gunny shook his head. Officers were supposed to do that kind of worrying. If he wasn't careful, someone would order him off to OCS.

Gunny sighted in on movement at a window. He blew another grenade thrower back to where he'd come from. A moment later, there was a delightful explosion.

It was nice being an enlisted swine.

Captain DeVar knew the auto-gun was aimed at him. Of course, every man up and following him felt the same way. But when the auto-gun finished its first burst, it was DeVar's legs that would no longer hold him up.

The captain skidded to a halt, the armor taking up most of the shock. His legs weren't hurting. Yet.

He put the time to good use.

''Rockets, get that gun,'' he ordered.

A Marine specialist behind DeVar sighted his rocket launcher on the roof. He seemed to pull the trigger the same second that the auto-gun selected him for death.

The rocket hit the roof, but missed to the right of the auto-gun, taking down two riflemen. A second rocket spec got the gun that got his pal.

For a second the fire fight seemed almost silent as only the usual rifle fire broke the evening's silence.

Then a second auto-gun opened up. Its first target was the remaining rocket man and he went down hard.

Hand grenades were hopeless at this distance. Even the 20-mm grenade launchers were hard-pressed to reach the height of the Gallery roof.

The snipers took the gunner under fire, but the auto-gun was looking for them, too.

Just about the time it started looking to DeVar that he and his men would need a miracle to cross this killing ground, the pain in his legs hit him like a runaway truck. A sheen of red covered his vision and he had to put his head down.

The battle would have to go on without him.