Shadow of Freedom

He shook his head. The brass had better get a clue pretty damned quick, in his humble opinion. So far, things hadn’t been that bad here in Landing—since the Trifecta Tower attack, at least—but if the sort of crap happening in Granger and Brazelton ever did spread to the capital, it was going to get ugly. He didn’t doubt the Guard could deal with these MLF bastards if they’d only come out into the open and stop skulking around in the shadows like the cowards they were, but that didn’t mean they weren’t going to do a lot of damage first. And the sooner General Yardley and the rest of President Lombroso’s advisers figured that out and turned the Guard loose on the “resistance’s” sympathizers with open hunting licenses and no bag limit the better it was going to be for all concerned. The last thing they needed was to let the MLF build up some kind of effective support structure in Landing! In fact—

A shrill, high-pitched buzz interrupted Captain Clavell’s reflections. He jerked upright in his chair, reaching for his console, and his blood ran cold as the bright red icon flashed in his helmet visor’s HUD.

Laser! his brain screamed. We’re being lased, but—

The five-kilo kinetic penetrator struck the Scorpion’s thinner, vulnerable rear armor at thirty kilometers per second, within less than a centimeter of the target designation laser’s aiming point. Not that it really mattered where it had hit, of course; no light AFV had the protection to resist that kind of attack, and Captain Peter Clavell, late of the Presidential Guard, united with the alloy and fuel of his light tank—and the other two members of its crew—in a fireball that towered against the night.

Three more penetrators struck within half a second of the first one, killing the remaining Scorpions of Clavell’s platoon. More fireballs billowed, painting the faces of surrounding towers and buildings in bloody crimson light, and then the tribarrels opened up, scything down the Guard infantry troopers lounging in their unarmored personnel transports while they waited for their relief.

One of the infantry noncoms, protected in the heavily sandbagged CP, had time to scream for support, but she never got through to HQ. She was still trying to get a com response when one of the antitank launchers retargeted on the command post and turned it into an expanding cloud of dust, debris, and human remains.

It wouldn’t have mattered if she had gotten through, really. No one could possibly have gotten there in time to do any good. Besides, the elimination of Captain Clavell’s security detail was only one of dozens of simultaneous attacks spread across the city of Landing.

* * *

“Where the hell are they all coming from?!” Svein Lombroso demanded, his expression haggard as he stared at the map displays in the command center under Presidential Palace. Leprous scarlet splotches glared across them, marking the death and destruction which had exploded out of the night all across the capital city. “My God, there must be thousands of them!”

“I doubt it, Mister President,” Olivia Yardley replied. She wore two separate earbugs, and her own attention was focused on a much larger scale holographic display of the residential area around Summerhill Tower. “Not here in Landing, anyway.”

“Oh, really? Well just why in hell should I listen to what you doubt?” Lombroso snarled. “You were the one who thought it was such a wonderful idea to turn the screws on the MLF! Get them to come out into the open, you said. Force their hands. Suck them out where we could get at them!” He glared at her. “Well that’s working out just goddammed fine, isn’t it?!”

Yardley swallowed an almost overwhelming impulse to snarl right back at him. He’d seen the same analyses she had, and it was clear she’d been right about the dangerous escalation in the Mobius Liberation Front’s organization and equipment. In fact, she’d obviously underestimated both of them! And it was just like him to vent his frustration and his fear by blaming the situation on everyone—anyone!—other than himself.

Yet tempting though it was to point that out to him, actually yielding to the temptation would all too probably have been a fatal mistake. He was perfectly capable of ordering her shot, and she could think of at least three of her own subordinates who’d pull the trigger themselves if it let them step into her shoes. That would have been uncommonly stupid of them under the current circumstances, but that minor fact wouldn’t have prevented any of them from doing it.