"Stow it, Elise. Now is not the time. We couldn't have expected the U.S. to actually mount an offensive only minutes after the Arcadians joined us." Elle gritted her teeth. Saying I told you so never helped anybody and wasted time. She slammed her black leathergloved fist into her hand and shouted back into the screen. "Elise! Get your troops moving! I want some ships in the air now! I don't care if they only have three people flying them, I want them in the air!"

"Yes, Elle. We're scrambling now."

"Good." She cut the transmission. Then she turned to the tech. "Put me on a systemwide broadcast channel. Make it fast!"

"Yes, ma'am. Ten seconds..." The tech fiddled at his console and then waved a hand at her. "You're on, ma'am."

"People of the United Separatist Republic, the Americans are attacking the Tau Ceti system as I speak. They presently have seven U.S. supercarriers over New Tharsis. We must fight them! We haven't had to fight like this in over a decade, and never here on our own soil. But this will be no different than our days on the Reservation on Mars or at Triton. We will fight, and we will prevail. Take up arms and defend your way of life against the evil oppressor! Defend your home!" She cut the feed.

Elle thought for a moment, trying to decide what her next move should be. Deanna was down there in her penthouse. Since those U.S. fleet ships attacked the city, they might hit the Capitol Building and Dee could be in danger. She needed Dee alive. Dee was the only thing she could use to bargain with Moore. She had to have Dee alive. There was something deeper down, she wasn't sure quite what it was. A memory or a feeling she hadn't had in years that compelled her to want Dee alive. It was the same she had felt about Scotty when she had to kill him. She loved Scotty more than any man she'd ever met. But something, logic, had forced her to kill him for betraying her plans. Dee made her question the plans as well. She felt strongly for her granddaughter. But quickly those feelings were squashed by heartless logic and cold calculation. She needed Dee as a bargaining chip, nothing more.

Copernicus, we have to go get Dee and take her to safety.

Well, where do you want to take her?

Probably to our safe house in the outer-system moons.

In that case we will have to deactivate the snap-back alogorithm for her beacon. She can't leave the atmosphere of Ares or it triggers. The only place to deactivate it is the Capitol Building.

I know. Let's go.

Elle tapped her watchband, triggering her own snap-back, and vanished from the QMT facility. She reappeared a tenth of an AU away on the second floor of the Capitol Building in New Tharsis, where her personal QMT pad was.

The building shook from the explosions outside, and she could hear missile launches and some AA fire coming from the ground. There were no visible guards around the QMT pad, which was normal. The Capitol Building from the second floor up was hers anyway. Only the occasional VIP visitor or particularly strategically important pieces of her plan, like Dee, were allowed to pa.s.s through her personal pad. Otherwise, they used one farther out in the city or shuttled in. She often met with her generals on this floor, but they should be out defending her empire from the Americans. Another blast wave made the building tremble, and the windows rattled.

Elle? General Fink wants to talk to you.

Put him through.

"What can I do for you, General Fink?" she said as she walked toward the elevator.

"I'm on the first floor, ma'am. I need access to the military protocols so I can help you defend your city. I came back as soon as I saw the mecha crashing into the penthouse."

"What? Mecha in the penthouse?"

"I'm sorry, ma'am. I thought you knew."

"I'm bringing you up now."

Copernicus, give Fink access to whatever he needs. But keep an eye on him. He's a slimy one. And teleport him up to my pad now.

Yes, ma'am.

Elle stopped and turned around. If there was mecha hitting the penthouse, then she might be outnumbered up there. She wanted to know what happened to her defense systems and SIFs, but that would have to wait.

Are we going back for Fink? Copernicus asked her. Copernicus asked her.

I have an idea. Adjust the protocols and teleport Dee to the pad when I get there. Fink and I can keep an eye on her there.

Very well, ma'am.

As she rounded the corner to the pad, there was Fink in a full-body armored e-suit. His helmet was off and tethered over the shoulder as marines typically do while in an atmosphere. Ahmi looked at him curiously.

"Expecting trouble, General Fink?"

"Always, ma'am. That's why I'm still alive."

"It's just around the corner here," Dee said.

"All right." Alexander held up his armored hand. He and Sehera had redonned their AEM helmets and were both flanking their daughter. The other two in suits were behind them. DeathRay and Nancy kept their backs to the walls as they slunk through the hallway of the Seppy leader's house.

"It should be right-" Dee vanished right in front of them.

"Not again!" Moore lurched forward to grab her but got nothing but air.

"Are we too far from the penthouse, you think?" Sehera asked.

"I don't think so," Nancy replied in a low voice, almost a whisper.

"What the h.e.l.l!" They heard Dee's voice no more than five meters around the corner. "G.o.dd.a.m.ned Fink, I'm gonna f.u.c.king kill you!" There was the sound of a struggle, and two railpistol rounds fired.

"I don't think you are in the position to kill anyone," Fink said.

"f.u.c.k you," Dee said again, followed by more scuffling sounds.

"Stop it! Now! We need to get out of here." There was no mistaking that voice. It was Elle Ahmi. "On the pad, both of you!"

"Hold up!" Moore whispered, motioning them back against the walls. "We rush together in three, two, one, go!"

Chapter 30.

July 1, 2394 AD Ross 128, Arcadia Friday, 3:46 PM, Earth Eastern Standard Time "We go in three!" Colonel Roberts motioned to the rest of the Robots. The AEM squad had made it all the way through the tank line and across the front lawn of the governor's mansion. They were presently taking up a position outside the flower garden in a cover position behind some very large limestone and granite flowerpots. There seemed to be nothing more than a handful of infantry holding the mansion position. None of the enemy infantry were in suits. They had body armor and helmets, but a generation old and not powered. On the other hand, there were probably a hundred of them. There were only nine marines, and one of them had a hole where one of his knees used to be.

"Sir, we're ready on the east side," Gunnery Sergeant Tommy Suez reported. The squad was split into two by the driveway of the mansion. Tommy, Sergeant Hubbard, Corporal Bates, and PFCs Howser and Willingham were holding up behind a large ceramic fountain, across the driveway from the colonel, the second lieutenant, Top, and Corporal Cross.

"Good. Okay, Marines, in three, two, one, go!"

"Oorah, motherf.u.c.ker!" Howser yelled as she bounced up and over the fountain, firing her HVAR from the hip into the Arcadian infantrymen. She bounced down and continued to run at over thirty kilometers per hour.

"Serpentine, Howser!" Tommy warned her. He zigged and zagged through the railgun rounds that were leaving purple ion trails all around him and fired his own weapon. A few times, he pumped grenades from the launcher in his forearm. The grenades lobbed out about fifty meters or so into the barricades and razor wire, exploding with a deafening report and flinging dirt and debris and body parts across the lawn.

"Take that, you motherf.u.c.kers!" Bates yelled. He ran at the suit's top speed, never letting off the trigger of either his rifle or his grenades. He crossed the fifty meters or so between where they had been and the barricades at the steps of the mansion in seconds. PFC Howser bounced in right beside him. The two of them were practically back-to-back behind the barricades, pumping railgun rounds out as fast as they could.

Tommy bounced fast, but a bit more cautiously. He could see the colonel, the lieutenant, and Top doing the same as they bounced in from his right. There was always a trap, or a second tier of troops, and they were trying to see if they were drawn out by the first round of AEMs that broke through the line. Tommy's caution had been well placed.

There were snipers in the trees and on the second floor of the roof that started peppering away at the AEMs with larger-caliber railgun rounds. Tommy picked them up in his peripheral vision as soon as they started firing. He tracked the ion trail back up through the air to the treeline and dove sideways, returning fire on them.

"Snipers on the second floor balconies and in the treeline to the east!" Tommy shouted.

"Roger that, Gunny!" Top replied.

"I got 'em," Second Lieutenant Nelms shouted. Tommy could see the lieutenant turn his bounce path and go top speed toward the trees. Railgun rounds chewed up dirt all around him, but the lieutenant just kept on running toward the trees.

"I have the second-floor sniper," Colonel Roberts said. He bounced up and tossed about ten grenades at once into all the second-floor windows.

"They're gonna need a s.h.i.tload of new windows after that," McCandless called out as she pumped out railgun rounds to cover them.

Tommy had the best angle on the lieutenant's path, so he hunkered down behind a row of statues near the barricade and fired nonstop into the trees. The lieutenant bounced into the tree canopy and vanished from visual, but Tommy could still see him in the QM and IR sensors. Then the canopy exploded, and the sniper fire stopped. The second lieutenant was blasted out of the trees like a rocket, and he rolled and tumbled to a stop just south of Tommy.

"You okay, LT?" Tommy asked him.

"I'm good, Gunny. Keep moving."

"Yes, sir, LT!" Tommy bounced to his feet and over the barricade and joined in the rest of the squad as they mopped up the rest of the Arcadian infantry and security detail guarding the door-most of those poor b.a.s.t.a.r.ds didn't have any weapons serious enough to do the AEMs real harm, unless they were willing to drop grenades into their own laps. And Ramy's Robots certainly weren't going to give them time to figure that one out.

They moved in closer to the door, and Bates popped it with a few rounds then kicked it open. They stepped back, then carefully charged in like a bunch of d.a.m.ned rhinoceroses-armored rhinos with big f.u.c.king guns and HE.

The interior hallway and foyer of the mansion had been blown to s.h.i.t from all the grenades. The AEMs scanned the room and quickly cleared the first floor.

"So, if I were a control room to an orbital QMT facility, where would I hide?" Colonel Roberts asked.

"Not sure, sir." First Sergeant McCandless shrugged her armored shoulders.

"Well, Top, let's figure it out ASAP."

"Yes, sir."

"Sir, my QMs are reading a dead spot behind that wall," Tommy said. His sensors had plotted a three-dimensional map of the house in his head, but there was a spot just beyond the far wall that was blank. That meant his sensors were blocked.

"You know the only thing that can block the QMs, Gunny?" Nelms asked with a smile that Tommy could see through his visor.

"Uh, no training on the physics of QM tech, LT."

"Well, Gunny, SIFs are the only known tech that stop the QMs. You can jam the electronics and fool them, but if they are working right, the QM sensors can see through anything but structural integrity fields," the lieutenant informed them.

"Well, then, we should take a look," Roberts ordered.

"Tommy, give me a hand," Top ordered him. The two of them dug their armored hands into the wall boards and ripped them off.

"Hey, Marines, you off duty or something?" Tommy said to Bates and Howser. They joined in tearing out the wall, flooring, ceiling, wiring, plumbing, anything that was in their way.

After about two minutes of that the wall was gone, but there was an opalescent blue glow in its place. Tommy tapped it with his knuckles, and it felt as solid as armored deckplating from a supercarrier, or harder.

"Here." Bates pulled up his HVAR and started to fire a round into it. The railgun round vaporized into the field and splattered plasma back in his face. Had he not been wearing his visor, he would have been blinded and maybe even killed.

"Corporal, do you have a f.u.c.king death wish?" Top shouted at him. "Stand the f.u.c.k down!"

"Sorry, Top."

"Can we blow it with HE?" Tommy asked.

"No. We don't carry anything that would take out a field like that. And even the most precise strike from one of the carrier's DEGs could easily destroy not just the field, but everything inside it as well."

The lieutenant turned to the colonel. "Sir, my master's thesis was on the military application of SIFs for the infantry. I studied them considerably. It'd take a half kiloton or more explosive to take it out."

"Did you say a half kiloton, LT?" Tommy grinned.

"Oh s.h.i.t," Bates said. "Here we go again."

"Well, Gunny?" Roberts laughed. The rest of the squad did as well-except the new second lieutenant. "Looks like you're up."

"Fire in the hole!" Tommy ducked behind the riverbank down into the water with the rest of the AEMs. But they were in suits. He was in his UCUs. All good marines carried a minimal change of clothes in the suit packs. He actually had a layer of light armor and his cover, too. He hated having to actually blow his suit, but at least he wasn't wearing it this time. And there was atmosphere to breathe, so he didn't have to have his suit to survive. But to an AEM, not being in his suit was d.a.m.ned near torture. Besides that, he had to duck under water and hold his breath for as long as he could once his suit's power core went critical. He hated not being in the suit.

They had tried to get an HE bomb from up top, but the QMTs were all to busy moving wounded and fighting equipment around. Besides that, it would have taken too long to rig a small device for the job. Most bombs on the bigger ships were much too big for the job. So Tommy's suit was the answer, or at least his answer.

His AIC triggered the overload in the suit's power core. Three seconds later the quantum vacuumenergy storage unit overloaded and released almost a half kiloton of energy right on top of the SIF wall inside the governor's mansion. The mansion vanished in a giant fireball and mushroom cloud. There was no radiation because the suit overload was just a release of energy. Well, there was a blast of X-rays during the blast, but there was no radioactive fallout to worry about.

Tommy held on behind the bank of the river and Howser lay p.r.o.ne over him to give him more protection. The river was a good kilometer and a half away, but that put them right in the edge of the high-wind zone. The blast wave pa.s.sed over them, throwing dirt, debris, and water everywhere. Tommy held his hands over his ears and kept his mouth open to prevent having his ears burst. The howling winds subsided, and they rose up over the bank to look at the result.

There was a smoldering crater where the governor's mansion used to be. There was a b.u.mp the size of a troop carrier right in the middle of it. The marines rushed it. Tommy humped it the old fashioned way. Willingham, who had a hole in his knee, stayed with Tommy.

About that time, nearly a hundred new FM-12s and Ares-T fighters dropped down from the sky. Drop tubes pounded into the ground, and tanks and other AEMs burst out of them. Two supercarriers tore through the atmosphere at several hundred kilometers per hour to the south and west firing DEGs into the enemy line.

"Did it work, sir?" Tommy and PFC Willingham were still a good forty-five seconds out.

"d.a.m.ned right it did, Gunny. There's an eleveator shaft here leading down two or three stories. The Madira Madira is about to QMT some experts down, and we're going in to clear it first." is about to QMT some experts down, and we're going in to clear it first."

"Yes, sir." Tommy huffed out the rest of the run over the scorched terrain. He came to a stop where the rest of the squad gathered. Then Willingham vanished into thin air. "What the-?"

"That's a good sign that the fleet is getting ahead of the Seppies. Willingham's injury was noncritical. If they are already getting the noncritical wounded up, then we must be finally winning this thing," Second Lieutenant Nelms said. Nelms started speaking quietly into his comm. Tommy decided that he liked the young officer. He was a good and smart U.S. by-G.o.d Marine. There was another flash of light, and the sound of sizzling bacon.

"Gunnery Sergeant Suez, you are out of f.u.c.king uniform for this type of AO, soldier," Top shouted at him.