Double Helix 03_ Red Sector - Diane Carey [2]
And Stiles had to make it look good. In the wake of Perraton’s mental leashing, the symbol now lay heavily upon him. If he couldn’t yell at his men, how would he keep them in shape?
He huffed a couple of steadying breaths, but didn’t lower his voice. Now that he’d gotten up to a certain level of volume, it was hard to reel in from that. He took a moment to survey the squad-bright white helmets, black leggings, white boots, red chest pads against the black Starfleet jumpsuits, and the bright flicker of a combadge on every vest. Elbow pads, chin guards, red visors… looked fair. Good enough. Time to go.
“There are riots going on,” he repeated, “but so far nobody’s tried to breach the embassy itself. Our job is to clear a path between the coach and the embassy and get all Federation nationals out. These people don’t have a space fleet, but their atmospheric capabilities are strong enough to cause a few problems. I won’t consider the mission accomplished until we’re clear of the stratosphere. When we get out of the coach, completely ignore the people swarming around unless they come within two meters or show a weapon. Clear?”
“Clear, sir!” Carter, Girvan, Moose, and Foster shouted. Perraton nodded, and White raised his nile. Had they accented the “sir” just a little too much? Stiles stepped between them and the hatch. “Mobilize!” Perraton took that as a cue, and punched the autorelease on the big hatch. The coach’s loading ramp peeled back and lay neatly across the brick before them. Instantly, the stench of burning fuel flooded the controlled atmosphere inside the coach. At Stiles’s side, Perraton coughed a couple of times. Other than that, nobody’s big mouth cracked open. Stiles led the way down, his heavy boots thunking on the nonskid ramp.
They broke out onto a courtyard of grand proportions with colonnades flanking it on three sides and the diplomatic buildings on the fourth side-a battery of fifteen embassies, halls, and consulates. Most of them were empty now. The Federation was the last to evacuate. Two of the colonnades were in ruins; part of one was shrouded in scaffolding while being rebuilt. Most of the buildings showed signs of structural damage, but generally the Diplomatic Court of PojjanPirakot was a stately and bright place, providing a sad backdrop for the ugliness of these protests.
A quick glance behind showed him the positions of the five fighters landed around the coach. Their glistening bodies, streamlined for both aerodynamics and space travel, shined in the golden sunlight. There was Air Wing Leader Bernt Folmer, their best pilot, code “Brazil,” parked like a big car in front of Greg “Pecan” Blake. Behind the coach the tail fin of Andrea Hipp’s “Cashew” fighter caught a glint of sun. On the other side, hopefully parked nose to tail, were Acorn and Chestnut, brothers Jason and Zack Bolt-but Stiles didn’t bother to check their position. He only hoped they were in sharp order. All around were angry people waving signs, some in a language he didn’t understand, others scrawled in English, Vulcan, Spanish, Orion Yrevish, and a few other languages familiar from courtesy placards all over Starfleet Command where multitudes wandered.
The ones in English jumped out instantly before Stiles’s racing mind. OUT ALIENS… LEAVE OUR PLANET… GET OUT STRANGERS… ALIENS UNWELCOME… CURSE ALIENS ALL ….
Some of the people were calling out in English, too, though clumsily and without really understanding the arrangement of nouns and verbs. The anti-alien message, though, arrowed directly through to the team.
To the music of enraged shouts from the people raffling gates and creating a din by banging small silver knives on the iron posts, Oak Squad broke into a jog and flooded into a broad shield of sunlight glaring between the embassy and the consulate next door. The doorways and lintels were heavily reinforced with titanium T-girders, and titanium bands swept around every building, two on each story, like shiny ribcages. Stiles