Of Fire and Night - Kevin J. Anderson [90]
Outside the manufacturing compound, compies had torn away the door barricades, while squads of silver berets drove them back with heavy-projectile launchers. Smashed and shattered robot bodies piled up, but more compies climbed up and over the pile of debris. Shouts rattled back and forth on the command comm lines. "Breach in the southwest wing! They've knocked half the damn wall down, and they're coming out by the hundreds."
"Then shoot them by the hundreds!"
"We've got to pull troops from the north end. That's just the warehouse side. We're safe there--"
"Shit, here they come!"
Cain said quietly, provocatively, "Good thing King Peter reacted swiftly and decisively as soon as he received the report. Otherwise, we never would have contained them at all. They'd have taken us completely unprepared."
Basil breathed through flared nostrils. "I'll deal with the King's intractability when this crisis is over."
Cain's expression was unreadable, his voice flat. "I was pointing out the King's foresight, sir, not his failings."
After glaring at his deputy, Basil rested his elbows on the table, pressing his face close to the image. The screens showed armored vehicles pulling up to surround the factory. Compies came out of any hole in the shattered barricades.
Breathless and alarmed, Sarein rushed into the control chamber. "Basil, Mr. Chairman--what's happening? Can I be of assistance?"
"In a word, no." He spared her only a brief glance, then turned his attention back to the screens. "Unless you can magically double the number of people I have on the ground?"
Her expression hardened, and she was obviously hurt by his comment. "I was just coming to offer my support, Basil."
He had no time for her right now. "Then please do it silently."
When he'd okayed the initial response orders, Basil had been convinced that five hundred silver berets would be sufficient to stop any incursion. Now he thought about bringing in more Palace District security forces as well as the royal guards. But he saw that reinforcements could never get there in time. The silver berets were overextended, and the lines were clearly crumbling.
Cain looked at the Chairman, his scalp furrowed with concern. "We can't hold the outflux. We don't have sufficient weaponry or personnel in position."
Basil nodded. "It's time for a vaporization strike. We have to cauterize this wound before it gets worse."
The deputy's fingers were already flying as he opened channels to the ground-based EDF troops and Palace District security. "You realize the repercussions, Mr. Chairman? Calling in a strike in the middle of the Palace District? I would advise against it."
"On the edge of the Palace District. If those rogue compies get out into the general populace, the bloodbath will be unimaginable. They'll murder tens of thousands. At the moment they're all in one place. I'm calling the strike now."
"Then please allow me to contact the secondary commander and warn the silver berets to withdraw--"
"Absolutely not. The silver berets are the only thing hindering the spread of the Soldier compies. If they back off for even a moment, the robots will hemorrhage out of every access point in the factory. The men will remain at their posts until the end. They knew what they were doing when they signed up. Silver berets will not let us down."
"Calling in a strike within the Palace District, and targeting your own troops?" Cain's blue eyes were full of angry questions, his fingers hesitating on the keypad. Nearby, though she remained silent, Sarein appeared distraught.
"We'll issue the order in the King's name." Basil glanced at his status screen; the fast carriers bearing two vaporization bombs were on their way. Estimated time of deployment was twenty minutes.
Basil sighed at the deputy's obvious hesitancy. Sarein looked ready to blurt something, so he cut them both off sharply. "This is a difficult decision, Mr. Cain. A Chairman's decision." Sadly, his own deputy did not understand the burdens a real Chairman was forced to bear. Cain was intelligent, cooperative, competent .