down, screaming as they were trampled. Clubs swung, machetes hacked.
It was a bloodbath.
Sergeant Bruce was closest. He saw it all. He and Chesty transmitted none of it. But he did risk a quick turn back to Kris. His plaintive shrug said it all. What do we do now?
Doing nothing had seemed like a good idea. Now, doing something seemed like a much better one.
“Jack, advance two squads of Marines to reinforce Sergeant Bruce.”
“Yes, I think we better,” he said, and the orders were quickly given.
Twenty Marines rose from cover behind the paddy dike and, rifles ready, moved quickly to support the sergeant. Kris reached for her automatic, and announced on general net, “I am about to fire one shot in the air. Be prepared for any reaction.”
Beside Kris, Penny made a sour face but said nothing. Jack moved to put his body between Kris and the opposing forces.
Kris fired three shots straight into the air. “Everybody calm down,” she shouted. Nelly enhanced her voice, causing Jack and Penny to do a bit of a jump. Behind Kris, Mr. Annam and his wife hit the ground.
“Calm down, everyone. We’ve got food enough for all of you,” Kris repeated.
For a long moment, it looked like it might work.
The slaughter around the food carts stopped as people looked up to see where the noise was coming from. Maybe some even understood the words Kris shouted. For a long moment, Kris could hear the moans of the injured.
But the decision for what would happen next depended on those who carried the machine pistols and rifles. Most of them still lay prone on the flanks of the line and in its dead center. Those 140 or so gunslingers hadn’t moved.
Yet.
Among the seven to eight hundred club and machete swingers who had broken for the food carts were maybe fifty gunmen, say the precinct bosses who had produced the cannon fodder. They held back when the rabble broke. Now they looked for instructions from the boss man on his perch on the central truck.
Then the undecided silence was shattered.
Someone let loose on full rock and roll.
Kris thought it came from the far right of the opposing line, but a quick glance in that direction showed no stream of bullets knocking people down like tenpins. And one quick glance was all the time Kris had. A roar of fire, single-shot and fully automatic, swept the battlefield.
One of them, probably an old-fashioned .30 caliber, took Kris right in the chest, almost knocking her down. If she hadn’t been wearing a spider-silk bodysuit, it would have drilled her through the heart.
As it was, the force of it left Kris struggling to keep her footing even with the cane’s extra help. Around her, screams came as first a few, then more of the milling rabble around the overturned carts were hit by small-arms fire.
Then Jack hit Kris with a football tackle, and she went solidly down . . . taking Penny with her. They ended up in a pile, Jack with his back to the firefight, Kris sandwiched between him and Penny.
Penny was talking to herself . . . or someone on net more likely . . . but she interrupted herself to complain. “Hey, you two could have given me some warning.”
“You work for a Longknife,” Jack snapped. “Consider yourself permanently warned.”
Kris found herself staring at the Annams. Husband and wife clutched each other . . . but they clutched the ground even more as they stared wide-eyed at Kris.
“Stay behind me, bullets can’t get through me,” Kris said.
“Of course,” the husband told her wife. “She is a Longknife and cannot be killed.”
“She can be killed,” Jack spat, and used his hand to force Kris’s head back down even as she twisted around and tried to sneak a quick look at the developing battle. “You aren’t wearing an armored wig, are you?”
Jack was right, Kris wasn’t. And now Kris knew why the Marine’s usual high-and-tight haircut had looked a bit shaggy this morning. He was wearing an armored hairpiece.
“First platoon has not fired,”
It was a bloodbath.
Sergeant Bruce was closest. He saw it all. He and Chesty transmitted none of it. But he did risk a quick turn back to Kris. His plaintive shrug said it all. What do we do now?
Doing nothing had seemed like a good idea. Now, doing something seemed like a much better one.
“Jack, advance two squads of Marines to reinforce Sergeant Bruce.”
“Yes, I think we better,” he said, and the orders were quickly given.
Twenty Marines rose from cover behind the paddy dike and, rifles ready, moved quickly to support the sergeant. Kris reached for her automatic, and announced on general net, “I am about to fire one shot in the air. Be prepared for any reaction.”
Beside Kris, Penny made a sour face but said nothing. Jack moved to put his body between Kris and the opposing forces.
Kris fired three shots straight into the air. “Everybody calm down,” she shouted. Nelly enhanced her voice, causing Jack and Penny to do a bit of a jump. Behind Kris, Mr. Annam and his wife hit the ground.
“Calm down, everyone. We’ve got food enough for all of you,” Kris repeated.
For a long moment, it looked like it might work.
The slaughter around the food carts stopped as people looked up to see where the noise was coming from. Maybe some even understood the words Kris shouted. For a long moment, Kris could hear the moans of the injured.
But the decision for what would happen next depended on those who carried the machine pistols and rifles. Most of them still lay prone on the flanks of the line and in its dead center. Those 140 or so gunslingers hadn’t moved.
Yet.
Among the seven to eight hundred club and machete swingers who had broken for the food carts were maybe fifty gunmen, say the precinct bosses who had produced the cannon fodder. They held back when the rabble broke. Now they looked for instructions from the boss man on his perch on the central truck.
Then the undecided silence was shattered.
Someone let loose on full rock and roll.
Kris thought it came from the far right of the opposing line, but a quick glance in that direction showed no stream of bullets knocking people down like tenpins. And one quick glance was all the time Kris had. A roar of fire, single-shot and fully automatic, swept the battlefield.
One of them, probably an old-fashioned .30 caliber, took Kris right in the chest, almost knocking her down. If she hadn’t been wearing a spider-silk bodysuit, it would have drilled her through the heart.
As it was, the force of it left Kris struggling to keep her footing even with the cane’s extra help. Around her, screams came as first a few, then more of the milling rabble around the overturned carts were hit by small-arms fire.
Then Jack hit Kris with a football tackle, and she went solidly down . . . taking Penny with her. They ended up in a pile, Jack with his back to the firefight, Kris sandwiched between him and Penny.
Penny was talking to herself . . . or someone on net more likely . . . but she interrupted herself to complain. “Hey, you two could have given me some warning.”
“You work for a Longknife,” Jack snapped. “Consider yourself permanently warned.”
Kris found herself staring at the Annams. Husband and wife clutched each other . . . but they clutched the ground even more as they stared wide-eyed at Kris.
“Stay behind me, bullets can’t get through me,” Kris said.
“Of course,” the husband told her wife. “She is a Longknife and cannot be killed.”
“She can be killed,” Jack spat, and used his hand to force Kris’s head back down even as she twisted around and tried to sneak a quick look at the developing battle. “You aren’t wearing an armored wig, are you?”
Jack was right, Kris wasn’t. And now Kris knew why the Marine’s usual high-and-tight haircut had looked a bit shaggy this morning. He was wearing an armored hairpiece.
“First platoon has not fired,”
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