Chapter 26
Jiansheng
Forbidden Precinct, Tianjing
Benitez signalled for Cruzado and Jalil to go up first. Once they secured the route of ingress, the rest of them followed. From the moment they entered the Forbidden Precinct, they were to observe strict radio silence until the primary objective was completed. By now the secondary systems were supposed to have been fully compromised, so they shouldn't have needed to worry about cameras or auto-turrets, but they couldn't take anything for granted.
The idea was to get to Sturla quickly and take him out. Much like when they first infiltrated the Capital, they were supposed to avoid engaging the enemy until then. At this point it was probably just as well that they clear any resistance as they went, but the more they could keep Sturla guessing, the better.
Cruzado and Jalil stayed on point, but after a couple hundred meters, both of them slipped and fell. You'd think a couple highly trained commandos would be more sure-footed than that. However, it was too unnatural for them to slip at the same time like they did and they were now appearing as dark shapes in Yasuko's vision. She switched viewing modes and saw that their optic camo was being thwarted by some black liquid. She remembered it, the oil or whatever it was that they used against her in Heigangcheng. It was completely invisible on the floor but apparently when it came into contact with optic camo, it would turn black.
A little red light on the wall started blinking, then the floor where Cruzado and Jalil were standing smashed into the ceiling. If Bartok and Odingo were any closer, they would've been caught up in it too.
Odingo forgot his noise discipline and shouted a curse in some language Yasuko didn't know. If he hadn't, Yasuko's eye wouldn't have been drawn in his direction and she wouldn't have seen another red light start to blink.
"Look out!" Yasuko shouted, taking hold of Lowen and yanking him out of the way.
They just barely got clear before the next section of the floor shot up. And they were the only ones.
There was no time to dwell on it, though. Another light was blinking up ahead.
"Come on! Run!"
And so they ran. Each section was about ten meters and you only had about five seconds to get clear. The first two times it came from below, but then it starting coming from different directions. She could feel the rush of air each time. Down, down, left, right, left, right, up—
She heard Lowen trip and fall. She should've kept going. There was no way she'd clear the next one if she didn't keep moving. But she wasn't thinking about that. She turned back to help him, taking hold of his arm to pull him to his feet, but as he was getting up, the ceiling came down on his trailing leg.
Lowen started howling from the pain, but it just felt like distant noise fading into the background as time seemed to slow. They only had mere seconds. If she left him, she might narrowly make it. But that wasn't what she did. She unsheathed her sword and flicked the switch to activate the vibroblade. She pressed down the button in the hilt to turn on the overdrive. It'd wreck the sword if you overused it, but she needed every millisecond she could get. You couldn't just cut through the armor, so Yasuko had to press down on the back edge so the cutting edge could chew its way through. It felt like cutting diakon with a dull knife.
She had to saw a little to cut through the suit on the other side and once Lowen's leg was free, she seized him by the LBE to drag him along. She saw the light ahead.
Blink, blink...
Too late.
If she were thinking rationally, she would've known there was nothing she could do. This was it. They were dead. However, acting on sheer instinct, she tried to shield Lowen with her body for all the good it would do. And then...
Nothing.
There was a chime and it took Yasuko a moment to process the fact that they hadn't just been squashed like bugs. Once her brain accepted the fact that they weren't dead, she quickly realized that Lowen was going to bleed out if she didn't take swift action.
Their suits had bands at four points on each limb to act as tourniquets when activated. The one for the upper shin was right around where she cut She would've liked to save Lowen's knee, but even if she tried a conventional tourniquet, there was hardly enough leg left below the knee for it. She activated the band for the lower thigh and went into Lowen's medkit. She took out the skinmesh to cover the wound and seal it, then gave him a shot of morphine in the injection port on his thigh.
"There, that oughta help with the pain," she said. "How're ya feelin'?"
Lowen wasn't screaming anymore, just making ill-suppressed moans. Yasuko took off her facemask and did the same for Lowen. He was trying really hard to keep it together.
"We have to... abort... the mission," he said, as if the effort of saying each word only added to the pain. "Fall back... Take cover... Wait for extraction..."
If she were thinking rationally, that would've gone without saying, and in some corner of her mind, she knew that was what they were supposed to do, but that little voice was drowned out by a far louder and more demanding part of her.
"No, Lowen," she said. "We're too close to give up now. I can do it. I can take him down."
Lowen grabbed her by the LBE and pulled her in close.
"You can't," he insisted. "Who knows what other traps they've got... how many men they've got...You can't do it alone."
"I've gotta try, Lowen."
"Yasuko, I'm ordering you to fall back. You know what'll happen if you disobey orders."
Yasuko's expression hardened as she asked him, "Are you gonna push the button, Lowen?"
She could tell from the look on his face that he wasn't going to do it. She figured as much.
She laid him down on his back, then took off her helmet and used it to elevate his stump of a leg. Lowen grabbed her by the LBE again once she was done getting him all set up.
"Don't go, Yasuko. You're only going to get yourself killed."
"I've gotta do this, Lowen."
She leaned in and kissed him. Thankfully Sigma had the decency not to interfere this time.
"I'm taking these," Yasuko said as she broke off the kiss, taking the grenade pack from Lowen's kit.
She put his Triple-Seven in the firing position and patted it, saying, "Any a' them bastards come your way, put a hole in 'em."
"Yasuko..."
She tuned him out, getting to her feet and going on her way. If she didn't, she might not've been able to leave him. She did what she could for him. That's what she told herself, pushing away any thoughts of something happening to him left alone like that.
The corridors were eerily empty and silent. There were no other traps. There were no Imperial Guards to challenge her. She had to be walking into a trap. Sturla must have thought to have a redundant network in the Forbidden Precinct that was separate from the main network running through the Central Block. Maybe it was like that from the start. Who knew?
It was just like Sturla to set up something like this, though. He separated her from the commandos and was inviting her in with open arms. He knew she couldn't resist the bait. She could already imagine him smugly sitting on the Phoenix Throne waiting for her. His empire was crumbling down all around him and he thought he could play games with her.
As she peeked around the corner to the final stretch leading to the throne room, she saw a lone Imperial Guard in full armor standing in front of the door, a centurion judging from the armor's design. Possibly his entire century would be waiting inside, but why did he insist on standing out here alone? What would he have done if a whole team of commandos, even a a squad of regular troops, had come for him?
Her optic camo was active. She'd get in close, finish him off quick and quiet, the move inside. If she went in fast and hard, she might be able to break through whatever troops Sturla had planned for her and make her stab at the prize.
She moved in for the kill. Even with the overdrive, she didn't think she could take his head cleanly. Maybe she could do better to try for the seam in the side, under the arm or inside the leg. Then again, with her new arm, she might do just as well to snap his neck.
Before she could try any of that, though, the centurion swung his scabbard, cracking Yasuko in the ribs. Even with her armor absorbing most of the blow, she still felt it and it knocked her back. She didn't have the chance to regain her footing when he followed up with a punch to the gut. It wasn't just any normal punch either. He must've been wearing some sort of disruptor, because when he hit her, her vision glitched out. Half-blind, she held up her sword to ward off another attack while she tore off her facemask.
"Yasuko..." the centurion said wearily. "That's far enough."
That voice...
"Papi?"
"Yasuko, what are you doing here?" her father asked her.
"What are you doing?" she asked in turn. "Get out of the way."
"I can't do that, Yasuko."
Yasuko could feel her head swimming. Her father had just as much reason as her to hate the Celestials, maybe more.
"Papi... Why are you doing this?"
"I should be asking you the same thing."
"Sturla's in there, right?" she said. "He needs to die. If he dies, that'll be it for the Celestials. They'll be done once and for all."
"Is that what your new friends promised you?"
"They want the Celestials to go down too, yeah."
"And what then? Do you think they're magically going to make life better for the paisanos? Haven't you ever heard of 'the devil you know'?"
"I'm done dealing with devils."
"Are you? What do you think your new friends are going to do once the Celestials are out of the picture? It'll just be the same thing all over again, maybe worse."
Yasuko tightened her grip on her sword and said, "Then I'll take them down next."
Her father shook his head.
"You really don't know anything do you, Yasuko? Bad as the Celestials are, they can't even control a single planet. These Earthers? They've got thousands of planets under their boot and they're not afraid to burn any world they think is too much trouble. What are you gonna do against that?"
Yes, Yasuko had her doubts about the Imperials, but she made her decision. There was no changing what was going to happen.
"It's too late now anyway," she said. "Their fleet's moving in. I can at least have the satisfaction of killing Sturla myself. Come on, Papi, come with me. You have every reason to want him dead, same as me."
"I'm a man of the Imperial Guard, Yasuko. If you want to get to the Emperor, you have to go through me. Can you do that?"
There was no turning back. Yasuko assumed a fighting stance.
"If I have to," she told him.
Her father drew his sword and cast the scabbard aside, meaning that this was a mortal duel. Was he really going to go through with this? Was she going to go through with this? What choice did she have? If she didn't get her shot at Sturla, this would all be for nothing. She couldn't let that happen. If her father was going to stand in her way, he was her enemy. Her enemy. Don't think about anything else. The enemy, the enemy...
"I won't be holding back," her father warned her. "Neither can you if you want to defeat me."
There was nothing more to say. Yasuko made the first move, going for a high cut to probe his defenses, but it was dumb of her make any move short of a fully committed killing stroke against a swordsman of her father's caliber. He knocked her sword away and went on the offensive with a series of quick blows she could barely defend against. Once he got her in a pattern, he switched things up with a hit to the ribs and then a pommel strike to the chest while she was unbalanced. He hit her square in the solar plexus. If it wasn't for her armor, she'd probably be in too much pain to think straight. It hurt like hell as it was. And it was damn near the death of her.
Her father swung and stopped the blade bare millimeters from her neck.
"You're dead, Yasuko," her father said.
"I thought you said you weren't gonna hold back."
Yasuko batted away her father's sword. She had to go on the offensive. She couldn't give herself over to anger, though. Control. Control your mind. Control your movements. She couldn't afford any mistakes. If she couldn't best her father, there was no way she could best Sturla. Control. Control.
She had to end things quickly. She activated her sword's overdrive and when their blades crossed, her father's sword snapped in two.
Completely carried away in the flow of battle, she threw all her weight into driving her sword's chisel point into the breastplate of her father's armor. If it weren't for the overdrive, she would've never gotten through. And it was only when she did get through that she was hit by what she'd done.
Her father, damn him, only grunted as her sword pierced his guts.
"Not bad, Yasuko," he said, "but you'd still be dead."
He poked her in the side to draw her attention to the needle-pointed dagger he was holding in his offhand. Yasuko didn't think it'd be able to get through her armor, but it didn't change the fact that she'd left herself open and he could've easily exploited that opening if he wanted to.
"You were holding back," she said. "You've been holding back this whole time."
Her father grinned.
"You're damn right I was holdin' back. You think I'd go all out against my own daughter?"
He coughed and the broken sword fell from his hand. He took hold of Yasuko's blade and pulled it out of his stomach. He placed his hand over the wound and fell to his knees.
"Papi!" Yasuko cried.
She dropped her sword and went to hold him. When she was there, though, her training kicked in. Her head was filled with first aid procedures. She could save him. She had to save him.
She reached for the fasteners on his armor, saying, "Let me get this off you. I gotta seal the wound. I can get you stable until I can get help."
Her father brushed her hands away.
"Don't bother," he said. "Don't waste your time on me."
"Let me help you!"
Her father managed a bitter grin.
"You've gotten strong, Yasuko... But it's not enough... Sturla is stronger. He's too strong for you... Go... Find your mother... Get out now... while you still have the chance..."
He coughed, wincing a little, then hung his head. Disbelieving, Yasuko shook him by the shoulder.
"Papi... Papi!"
He didn't respond. A stab wound like that shouldn't have killed him so quickly, not unless she got an artery, and even then...
She tried feeling for his pulse. Either his heart had stopped or his pulse was too weak for her to feel through her suit. If he was breathing still, it was just barely.
Yasuko had a choice. She could do what her father told her, find her mother and escape the Capital somehow. She could do what she could for her father, staying with him until an extraction team arrived. Or she could go forward, face Sturla and bring everything to an end.
She knew what she was going to do and a part of her hated herself for it. She pounded her fist on the floor in anger.
"I'm sorry, Papi," she said.
Giving him a kiss on the forehead, she took up her sword and turned to the door to the throne room. Sturla was in there waiting for her. Turning her father against her was just one more thing in a long list she was going to make him pay for.