Caliphate

Castle Honsvang, Province of Baya, 24 Muhharam,

1538 AH (4 November, 2113)

The departing guard's boots echoed off the stone walls of the castle. He'd been politely interested in Hans' arrival, but no more than that. After a few words, and a quick but penetrating glance over the guard's uniform and equipment, Hans had sent him on his way.

Once the guard's footsteps had moved away sufficiently, Hamilton tossed off the covering tarp and stood or, rather, crouched between the cargo truck's bed and its cloth covering. He frog-walked to the back, by the tailgate, and handed down two submachine guns and two ammunition carriers to Hans. He had to wait a bit while Hans took from a pocket and slipped over his head and around his neck a crucifix on a rosary chain. He tucked the cross and chain under his uniform.

One of each of the SMGs and ammo carriers Hans slung. The others he draped from the vehicle's rear bumper. By the time that was done Hamilton was back with two rucksacks. He passed these down from the cargo bed of the truck to Hans' eager grasp. Hans set both sacks down very carefully on the asphalt and then helped Hamilton to dismount.

"They can't see us here?" Hamilton asked.

"No. The cameras are oriented toward the outer perimeter, for the most part. There are some inside, as well, but this is a dead spot. That's why I parked the truck here."

"How long until the next roving guard comes by?"

"Five minutes, no more. We must hurry."

Hamilton took his weapon and slung it over one shoulder, and an ammunition carrier over the other. He then gingerly lifted a sack. Hans felt his to make sure that it not only contained one jar of cyanide crystals and another of acid, but also the bomb he intended to set off in the control room.

The two raced on cat feet for the nearest door. Hans pressed a buzzer while Hamilton crouched down very low.

"Guard room," came from a speaker mounted above the buzzer.

"Odabasi ibn Minden," Hans said. "Open up."

"Immediately, sir." It was Hans' ensign's voice.

The door buzzed itself with the sound of a solenoid moving a bolt out of the way. Hans opened the door, said, "Thanks," into the speaker, and entered. Still crouching low, Hamilton followed. Hans shut the door quietly, then pointed. "Two barracks that way. They're marked. Good luck."

Both men then took night vision goggles from their packs and strapped them to their head. With a nod, Hamilton took off in the direction indicated.

He killed the hallway lights, then walked ahead to his target.

These are men I am responsible for, Hans thought, as he came upon the barracks room door for his own third platoon. Men I took an oath to lead. And . . . they're good men, too.

He heard another voice, an old and dying priest's voice. "What does the Koran say about lying to unbelievers? Turnabout is fair play."

But these men never lied to me. If anything, they were lied to.

"Not that. It's that it was permissible for you to lie under oath."

Oh. I suppose so.

Still, Hans hesitated at the door. His heart was pounding, yes, but not from fear. He was sick at the stomach, yes, but not from nerves. It was just that, The only man I ever killed—helped kill, anyway—was that old priest. And now I'm supposed to kill nearly one hundred. It's a hard step.

But will it be any easier, knowing that two hundred children down below will be infected with a deadly disease if you don't save them? Take your pick, Hans. At least the men in that barracks room are adults.

Sighing, Hans laid down the pack and removed from it the two jars and an oxygen mask with a small tank. Then, after placing the mask over his face, he opened both and set them down on the floor by the crack of the door. The door he opened gently until there was just about a foot of opening. He slid the jar of cyanide crystals almost through that opening. With two hands, carefully, Hans began to pour the acid onto the crystals. They immediately began to dissolve with a sound of crackling. He pushed the jar all the way into the barracks room and closed the door.

Inside, sleeping men began the process of dying.

On the other side of the castle, Hamilton felt none of the qualms Hans had. These were not, after all, his men. On the other hand, his heart was pounding just as Hans' was. And that pounding was from fear, if not fear for himself.

If I fail in this, he thought, what becomes of Petra? If I fail, what becomes of the children down below? If I fail, what becomes of the world?

I must not fail . . . I must not fail like I failed Laurie.

Repeating Hans' motions, Hamilton took out and prepared two jars. Likewise, he donned an oxygen mask—be nice if it was impossible to absorb cyanide through your skin and eyes—cracked the door, half pushed in one jar, and then filled it with acid from the other. He then pushed it in the rest of the way, and closed the door . . . just as the door for the other barracks room—the one for the headquarters platoon— opened and a robe clad janissary emerged from it.

"Who turned off the fucking lights?" the janissary cursed. "Get up to take a damned piss and you risk your life around this place . . . "

Will he find the light switch? Probably. If he does, will he see me? Certainly. If that happens . . .

Hamilton aimed his submachine gun at the greenish image of the janissary and pulled the trigger. The gun was suppressed; it hardly made a sound. The janissary, on the other hand, was not killed instantly and managed to get off a scream.

"Ah, fuck!" Hamilton exclaimed.

"Fuck," whispered Hans, as he heard a scream from the opposite side of the castle. He stopped on the stairs that led down to the ready room, wracked with indecision.

Now, do I go help Hamilton or continue with the plan we already have? If I go back, the ready room may alert. If I go on, I can perhaps keep that from happening. Or not. Or fuck it all up.

He waited that way for several long moments. Had there been more such screams, he'd likely have gone back. If Hamilton had asked he'd have gone back. As it was, it sounded as if Hamilton was still in control of the situation, and Hamilton didn't ask for assistance. Hans continued on down.

The path to the ready room led past the sealed pen in which the experimental slaves were kept, near the observation and cremation chamber. There was a light on in the pens. Hamilton looked in on the children. There were too many to count. Besides, lacking beds they lay on each other in a twisted tangle of heads, arms and legs. He could only hope they were all present and accounted for.

It was only the one, Hamilton thought. Just one poor bastard who needed to take a piss. How many more in ten seconds?

Already there were sounds coming from the last barracks room, men rising, questions being asked, the mechanical sounds of weapons being taken from racks.

No time to fuck around.

Hamilton re-slung his submachine gun and grabbed the last two jars. On the smoothly polished floor his feet scrabbled for purchase, to propel him towards the still ajar door. His speed picked up . . . too fast. By the time he'd closed on the door it was all but impossible to stop. Cradling the jars against his chest, he let himself fall backwards to the floor. Ouch.

He slid on back and side, closing to very near his target. His feet struck the bleeding corpse of the janissary he'd shot. That stopped him.

No time to fuck around.

Hamilton smashed the jar of cyanide crystals just inside the barracks room. He could see the scattered pile. The jar of acid he smashed too, just before the spot with the crystals began. Acid splashed. Crystals began to dissolve, releasing their deadly gas.

Hamilton rolled away from the door as fast as he could, rolled and rolled and rolled until he smashed against the wall opposite the barracks. He arose to one knee, unslinging his weapon as he did. His aim lined up on the door opposite just as the first janissary emerged, barefoot, yelping, and automatically stepping high to try to avoid the burning acid below. The poor janissary had a chemical hotfoot.

Hamilton put a three-round burst into the janissary's chest, causing him to fly back into the barracks room. The door swung back and forth on its hinges, fanning the cyanide gas emanating from the crystals on the floor.

A knot of three janissaries entangled themselves and their arms at the door, each trying to force his way through and all making it impossible for any. Hamilton fired again, a long and normally tactically unsound burst. The mass of tangled men didn't fly back this time. Instead, held in place by the common mass, they oozed downward, creating a small obstacle at the base of the portal.

Long enough in this spot. Hamilton tucked in one shoulder, his left, and rolled in that direction. When he finished his roll he took the prone, weapon still aimed at the door. Hamilton guessed there were perhaps nine rounds left in the magazine.

The next janissary out vaulted the bodies at the foot of the door. Hamilton fired and missed, fired and missed, fired and hit, spinning the janissary down, broken and bleeding.

Six down, maybe forty to go. Change the fucking magazine. No time to fuck around. Gas, do your stuff, he prayed, glancing at the door to the first barracks he'd poisoned.

Originally, Hans had intended to take control of the ready room and give Hamilton time to thin the exterior guards, and possibly even to divert reinforcements from af-Fridhav. There wasn't going to be time for that, now. Better to take control and make sure all the exterior entrances are locked, the mines armed. To Hell with subtlety.

Hans knocked on the clear glass window beside the ready room door. The guards inside were already rising. "Open up!" Hans ordered. "Open up! The enemy is upon us."

The frightened bayraktar dutifully pressed the button to release the door bolt. Hans pushed the sprung door open with his posterior. With one hand he reached in to the delay detonator atop the explosive charge in his pack. He pulled the detonator, tossed the pack into the room, and then dove for safety, letting the door slam shut behind him.

The explosive was a two stage thermobaric device. When it went off it first spread a cloud of flammable dust throughout the room. This then detonated, creating an overpressure that burst the window even as it smashed the internal organs of every man inside.

The explosion didn't do any good things to Hans, either. Even with most of a wall between him and the blast, still the force of the thing stunned and deafened him. He thought one eardrum might be burst. He knew he'd been concussed from the way the world shuddered and shook around him.

Unsteadily, having to use one hand on the wall for balance, Hans entered the ready room and began to fire at any of the bodies that looked like they still had a spark of life to them. Compared to the overpressure of the blast, the overpressure from the muzzle was nothing.

Only one man emerged from the first barracks room. That one was blue in the face and clutching at his throat. He collapsed, gasped for a while, and then died.

From the other room they came out still, but more slowly and unsteadily as the gas filling the room took effect. Hamilton almost felt sorry for them as they staggered out, weapons sometimes in hand but fingers clawing at throats. He went through three more magazines that way, putting the suffocating janissaries out of their misery. He'd lost effective count of the number he'd killed, though more than fifteen bodies littered the corridor floor.

Hamilton felt the castle shudder. That would be Hans' bomb, I think. No chance to take the perimeter guards out quietly now. Fuck. Going to make it difficult when we bring the airship in to load.

Hamilton thought frantically about the implications of that. No time to leave it to the guys inside to die at their own pace. Attack!

Quickly he dropped the half empty magazine in his submachine gun and replaced it. He felt to check that his oxygen mask was still in place and feeding. Then he stood and charged for the door.

* * *

The men on the perimeter would have heard the blast; of that Hans had no doubt. Still stunned and staggering, he went to the control desk and pushed the bayraktar's body out of the way. With one finger he armed the mines in place around the perimeter, to include the newly emplaced directional ones the men had put in at his order. With another he fired the modular mine packs that sealed off all the roads and gates around the castle. These each sent out twenty-eight little bombs that dispensed seven metal threads upon landing and then armed themselves. Touch one of the threads, or disturb the mine, and it would leap a meter into the air and detonate, sending tiny bits of hot serrated wire in all directions. Then Hans killed all the interior lights.

Lastly, Hans cut off all communication between the castle and the outside world.

As soon as the sergeant of the guard felt the blast, he raced for the front door of the castle. Pressing the speaker button to demand a report, he heard only moaning and a muffled pffft . . . pffft . . . pffft.

"Crap!" he said aloud.

The sergeant then turned to the main gate where stood the same gate guard who had admitted Hans just a little earlier. Ignoring the guard, the sergeant picked up the phone and punched in the number for the corbasi's command post at af-Fridhav. Modular mine packs were going off around the perimeter. The sergeant had to assume all the mines were armed and live, now. Shit.

"Headquarters," came the answer.

The sergeant's voice was frantic. "This is Castle Honsvang, Sergeant of the Guard Bozkurt. We're under attack. The odabasi is in there. I don't know if he's alive or dead."