Of course, Private Akman would have traded all the surprise in the world for a few rotary-wing gunships. Puma class, with Imperial pilots.
It was time to go in.
Akman moved slowly down from his hilltop perch. He knew that after the first shots were fired, all organization would crumble unless he were visible to his troops. Hell, it would crumble anyway. But at least from down here Akman could get off a few shots of his own. In the palace rescue, he'd lost a few friends to those seven Rix defenders. If he personally made the kill-shot here at the pole, it would bury some of the shame of that failed assault.
He slid on his belly toward the cave mouth, pausing to signal forward Squad One on his left. A few competent techs were in One. He stuck his thumb up, and the squad leader, a young woman called Smithes, sprayed a bright mist of monofilament-dissolving aerosol over Akman's head and into the cave mouth. No snares showed.
Akman moved forward again, staying in front of his troops. With everyone to his rear, he could set his varigun to the widest possible spray pattern. The sawed-off shotgun effect might not kill the Rix-woman, but she would feel it. If he could stun her even for a moment, one of the thousands of rounds guaranteed to fly from his panicked troops might get lucky.
The cave was dark. Akman paused to adjust his visor, although the cold-blooded Rix were notoriously hard to see with night-vision. He crawled inside, the sudden silence of the cave eerie after the constant moan of wind.
Then Private Akman heard a sound. It came from within, echoing from the smooth, laser-carved walls as if they were marble.
It sounded like retching, or coughing.
Akman had never imagined a Rixwoman getting sick. Perhaps it was the hostage. There was a hollowness to the sound, an anguish that sounded human and somehow heartbroken.
He mentally shrugged. Whatever it was, the noise covered his approach.
Akman raised a fist, signaling Squad One to hold until they heard fire, and crawled alone farther into the cave.
A light shone before him now, glinting from the icy walls. The coughing sound and glimmer of light seemed to come from the same direction, and Akman followed them. He knew he should spray for monofilament snares. Even crawling at a snail's pace, the molecule-thin wires could cut through a limb before he would notice the microscopic incision. But something about the wracking, animal sound impelled him forward without due caution. Instinctively, Akman knew he had the advantage here.
The marine rose to his feet. The sound came from just around a sharp-hewn corner of ice. Akman swallowed. He was going for it: the lone kill of a Rix commando. Akman moved before he had time to reconsider this insanity.
He stepped lightly into the small room, gun leveled. A light squeeze on the stud would hit everything in the room.
The Rix commando sat before him, her head in her hands.
Godspite, she was a mess! Hair remained only in singed patches on her scalp. Her hands and face were red and blistered, every exposed centimeter of skin smeared with soot and dried blood. Her nose was swollen from a bad break. She wore a fire-blackened ablative suit that had melted onto her hypercarbon joints, hanging in tatters from them like shiny, sloughed skin. Half-frozen blood pooled on the floor below where she sat, and Akman could see at least three abdominal wounds.
There must have been a lung hit as well. The wracking cough shook her whole body.
Private Akman had a sudden realization. He could actually capture this Rixwoman. For the first time in a century of warfare, the Empire would take a living prisoner of the Cult. And Sid Akman would be the one.
With shaking fingers he switched the varigun to a riot setting, which fired a suspension of steel pellets in plastic goo. A laughable weapon against a Rix commando, but the woman seemed so hideously wounded already, it just might be enough. He aimed the gun at her bloody stomach.
Perhaps he wouldn't have to fire at all.
"Don't move," he said evenly, trying to hide his fear. The commando was believed to speak Legis dialect quite well, having carried off an impersonation of her hostage for several days.
The commando looked up, startling Akman with her beautiful, violet eyes.
By the Empire, he thought. She's been crying.
Surely this was some maintenance procedure, some repair-nano medium for fire-damaged optics. Some crocodile trick.
Surely not tears.
Another sob wracked the commando. Then she pulled a monofila-ment knife from her clothes.
Akman fired instantly, the recoil from the heavy projectile pushing him off balance. He staggered to remain upright on the icy floor of the cave. The suspension of steel balls bounced harmlessly from the Rixwoman's upraised hand--she had blocked it!
She coughed and threw the knife aside.
"I am unarmed now," she said in a perfect local accent.
Her burned and scarred head dropped back into her hands.
The rush of adrenaline and fear that had caused him to fire passed quickly, and Akman gained control of his breathing. This Rix commando was really surrendering. The Imperial marine lowered his weapon, wondering if everything he had been taught about the Rix could be false.
The ungainly sounds of Squad One moving up came from behind him. They must have heard the varigun's report. He turned and waved them back.
The first Rix prisoner ever. He wasn't about to let some yokel burst in and shoot her to death. Her body convulsed again, and Akman grew concerned. He didn't want her dying, by god.
"Are you . . . ?" he began. Sick? Dying? Weeping?
Keep it simple. "What's wrong?"
The commando looked at him again with her stunning violet eyes, the only feature of her face that was not grotesque with injury.
"I am mourning Rana Harter," she said simply. "Who died today."
And then she wept some more.
Executive Officer
The Lynx began to move.
Almost a full four hours after the captain's deadline, First Engineer Frick finally cleared Hobbes to give the order. The frigate shook as the main drive engaged, a rattle sweeping through the bridge, tinged with a metal shriek. The Lynx's artificial-gravity generators, which usually maintained zero apparent inertia, were showing their over-stressed condition. Hobbes felt herself pressed rudely back into her chair, feeling about half the frigate's four-gravity acceleration. She saw the captain scowl as the crushing weight released them.
"Hobbes?"
"Sir, the AG is doing double duty," she explained. "It's keeping us nailed down and the ship together. We've prioritized inertial dampening on the portions of Lynx where structural integrity is in doubt."