“I guess I work for you now,” she said with a sigh. Alaura would have come to the same conclusion. He might not
think
he was supposed to have the Hand yet, but he certainly seemed to be
thinking
like one of the overly noble twits Desmond picked for the job. “What do we do?”
“Vaughn has most of the planet on his side,” Montgomery observed. “The pair of us are a little outnumbered. We need to talk to the Freedom Wing. We’re going to need them.”
“Conveniently, there’s a gentleman just outside with an encrypted military-grade com to the rest of their leadership,” Amiri told him. “Should I introduce you?”
#
Dawn was rising over the pristine snow of autumn in the mountains. The pale golden rays of Ardennes’ sun shone across the fresh fall, and were obliterated as metal tracks smashed into the scant inches of white.
Four light tanks led the way up the mountain, their treads spraying the snow off the road and across the cleared ditches around them.
Behind them, five armored personnel carriers preceded ten heavy transport trucks, followed by five more APCs and a final pair of light tanks to close off the column.
The image flipped to another camera, and the room around Lori was dead silent. Sunshine was a low slung chalet-style hotel with only one road in and out. A car trying to leave had just run into the tanks. The cameras planted along the road the previous night couldn’t pick up sound, but the gesturing of the officer sitting on top of the lead tank was unmistakeable.
The driver’s response clearly wasn’t acceptable. With a gesture, the officer
ripped
the door off of the car and gestured troops forward. The driver and passengers were dragged from the vehicle and off to the side. Once they were out, the officer - the Mage - gestured again, throwing the entire car off the road.
“I know who they’re after,” the smooth voice of Agent Papa said quietly in Lori’s ear. She had her com feeding to an ear bud right now - everyone’s gaze was focused on the image being fed to a projector screen in the conference room beneath High Ardennes’ third-best hotel.
“Who?” she demanded quietly. She hadn’t heard from Papa since everything had started to come apart - the man was in Nouveaux Normandy, so the clocks were ahead of them, and he’d been busy with his own affairs.
“I was asked not to tell you,” he continued. “I work with them in… my other capacities, but they do know I work with you as well. Now,” he sighed. “I do not think even the seal of the confessional should bind me now.”
“Who, Papa?” she repeated.
“The Green Party was holding its annual conference in Sunshine,” Papa said quietly. “They kept it quiet - for all that they’re allowed to hold their seats, they don’t want to draw
too
much attention to themselves.”
Lori nodded slowly. When her Freedom Party had abandoned Ardennes’ farce of a democracy, the Ardennes Green Party - latest in a long legacy of environmentally focused political groups stretching back to Old Earth - had become the only opposing voice in the Ardennes Planetary Parliament.
The presence of an opposition bloc - even if it was only five seats out of two hundred - helped legitimize Vaughn’s election victories. So he tolerated them, even as they attempted to be a voice of conscience with regards to the rapacious environmental policies his government followed.
Apparently, that tolerance had run out.
“They can’t be the only people up there,” she whispered.
“They sent Travere, Alpha,” Papa said quietly. “That tells us what we need to know. For their sakes, I pray they surrender without a fight.”
Lori turned her attention back to the image on the screen. The armored personnel carriers had formed a solid wall of metal across the only way down the mountain, then disgorged their troops. The Scorpions formed a loose skirmish line surrounding the building, while Mage-Colonel Travere and the tanks went right up to the main doors.
With a flippant gesture, Travere’s magic ripped the main hotel doors off. The tanks leveled their main guns on the gaping hole, and the Scorpions charged in.
Like the rest of the cell in the room with her, Lori Armstrong watched in silence. Her enemy couldn’t reach her - the Wing was buried deep now. So instead, Vaughn was lashing out at whoever he
could
reach.
And she couldn’t do anything. To stop a battalion of Scorpions would take enough force to be all-too-visible - and she didn’t trust the Navy not to annihilate High Ardennes from space to kill them.
“Alpha, its Lambda,” another voice interrupted her thoughts. “I need to talk to you. Private channel.”
#
Damien was doing his best to pretend to be patient. After Riordan had disappeared to ‘consult with his superiors’, the young Mage had taken a seat on the luxurious couch in the suite’s sitting area and started reading a book on his personal computer.
He wasn’t sure he’d progressed more than a single page in the hour he’d been waiting, and he doubted that Amiri was fooled in the slightest. The woman hadn’t survived as a bounty hunter before meeting Alaura Stealey by being unobservant.
Finally, Riordan returned to the suite, carefully shutting the door and locking it behind him before grabbing a chair and facing Damien.
“Well?” Damien demanded. “Did you set a meeting?”
He knew immediately that the rebel had done nothing of the sort as the man shifted uneasily in the chair.
“Everything is going to hell,” he finally said. “Alpha isn’t sure we can trust you - or that it’s worth the risk for us to even consider working with you. After all,” he shrugged hesitantly, “at this point, your goals are our goals. We don’t lose by leaving you to go back to Mars on your own.”
“Right, so we’re on plan ‘get the fuck out’ then, are we?” Amiri asked.
Damien held up a hand to forestall her enthusiasm.
“You’re not done,” he told Riordan. “What else?”
Riordan glanced at where Amiri had risen to her feet, the Legatan battle laser in her hands, and swallowed hard.
“We
do
have a problem,” he admitted. “One we can’t safely address ourselves, but if you were to intervene, Alpha might reconsider the value of an alliance.”
“Of course. What do you want?” Damien demanded.
“The Scorpion battalion that bypassed High Ardennes has seized the resort at Sunshine,” Riordan told him. “That was, apparently, where the Green Party was holding their annual convention. Vaughn has arrested the entirety of the opposition in Parliament.”
“He thinks that the death of a Hand will cover many sins,” the Envoy said quietly. “If he succeeds in convincing Mars that you killed Stealey, he will be right.”
“We can’t rescue the Greens,” Riordan admitted. “We’d attract too much attention, and we’re not sure Vaughn and Cor would hesitate to blow High Ardennes away from orbit if we do rescue them.”
“Whereas if I do something, it can be chalked up to a desperate search for allies,” Damien replied thoughtfully. It made sense, though it was dangerous. An entire
battalion
? “What sort of force did they take the resort with?”
“Mechanized infantry,” the rebel replied immediately. “Six tanks, dozen or so APCs. At least half a dozen Mages under Mage-Colonel Travere.”
“Half a dozen Mages,” Amiri said quietly. “Damien, I don’t like that math.”
Damien considered the odds. Amiri had to have at least some clue what the runes inlaid across his torso were - she’d worked with Alaura long enough to have seen the Hand’s Rune of Power. Six Mages, plus a battalion of conventional troops…
“We’ll have to be very clever,” he responded. “A direct assault would be suicide.”
Both Riordan and Amiri stared at him like he was insane. Apparently, a direct assault hadn’t crossed anyone else’s mind.
“I don’t suppose you can give us any help?” Damien asked Riordan.
“Alpha didn’t say one way or another, and I want to save those people,” he replied. “I’ve got footage of the attack, maps of the complex, and a vehicle. I don’t think I can put up manpower, but…”
“How about explosives?” the younger Mage asked. “And I’ll need active links to any cameras you have around the site. For that matter, I’ll want cameras that we can set up - I’ll need surveillance around the entire exterior.”
“I can get some mining explosives pretty quickly,” Riordan told him. “Rockets or grenades… would take a couple of days.”
“Mining explosives will do,” Damien told him. “I’ll need proper winter gear,” he gestured at the slacks and shirt he wore. He glanced over at Amiri. “So will Julia, though I don’t think she’ll need any more weapons. You seem fond of that laser.”
“It’s a handy toy,” she replied, eyeing him carefully. “You have a plan?”
“Like I said,” Damien Montgomery told his team - such as it was. “We’re going to have to be very clever.”
#
It might not have been winter yet in Ardennes’ northern hemisphere, but it was still bitterly cold on the mountains above the Sunshine resort. Despite the effective - and expensive - winter gear that Riordan had managed to procure in short order, Julia Amiri shivered against the chill.
If pressed, she might have admitted that the flashing red “POTENTIAL AVALANCHE” warning on the bottom of her snow goggles made her nervous. The super-modern ‘glasses’ contained a suite of sensors that were scanning the snow around her, and linked in to the weather satellites and other tools.
The snow beneath her was old, leftover from last winter and crusted over. Amiri wasn’t hugely experienced with snow, but she had no reason to mistrust the snow goggles’ warning.
Beneath her, down the slope of the mountain, she could see the main entrance to Sunshine and the row of tanks and APCs blocking anyone trying to leave or enter the resort. There weren’t many Scorpions visible on the grounds - most were inside the hotel and other buildings.
This was the last of the eight charges she’d put together from the mining explosives, and she sighed as she
very
carefully made her way off the slope. The warning on her glasses slowly faded to a dull orange, still strongly suggesting that she should be somewhere -
anywhere
- else.
“Charges set,” she said softly into her microphone. “Moving to a safe zone and setting up the laser.”
“We’re not ready down here yet,” Riordan told her. The Freedom Wing cell leader’s voice was strained, but then he and Damien were climbing up the side of the mountain. Automated equipment had got Amiri onto the top of the mountain, but the men were going to be too close to any sensors the Scorpions might have set up.
“Let me know,” she said shortly. She’d spotted a rock outcrop rising out of the snow earlier, and that was her new destination. Hopefully the snow would hold her weight until she got there…
#
The wind whipping across the face of the mountain made the climb bitterly cold. Damien had scoffed at the number of layers that Riordan had acquired from the sporting goods store, but now he was glad for every scrap of fabric wrapped around his all-too-vulnerable skin.
“Why are these lines even
here
?” he asked the Ardennes native as he pulled himself up the cable. The pair, neither very experienced with climbing, had attached harnesses and automatic ascenders to heavy metal cables fixed into the mountain, running from the cliff at the back of the Sunshine resort to a winding mountain road two hundred meters below.
Two thirds of the way up said lines, the sheer icy face of the cliff was making Damien uncomfortable. They’d pulled the cables out of the snow, but even through his gloves the twisted metal fiber felt brittle.
“During the summer, idiot tourists - and local teenagers! - rappel down the side of the mountain, and then use ascenders like these to get back up,” Riordan replied. “Since it’s unhealthy for the rock to keep hammering in new pitons, they installed fixed heavy cables lines a decade ago. The cables tend to be replaced annually though.”
“In spring, I’m guessing,” the Envoy replied dryly.
“Yeah,” Riordan replied. “I’ve done the climb before,” he continued. “I don’t remember it sucking
quite
this much.”
As if to drive home his point, a sharp gust of wind sent the rebel skittering across the icy surface, holding tight to the cable as he slid uncontrollably.
Damien took a sharp breath and pulled himself up the cable, holding himself above the ascender with a tight grip on the freezing metal. A moment later, Riordan slid across the ice beneath him, missing him by a handful of centimeters.
He thought that was the end of it and began to sigh in relief as Riordan’s slippery trip began to slow.
Then Damien realized that the two cables had become wrapped around each other above his head. The pulling on his line brought his attention to the crossed metal fibers above him - just in time to see Riordan’s cable, brittle from the winter cold and stressed beyond its design,
shatter
from the friction.
The end flashed past his eyes, and he saw the other man begin to fall.
Clever plans fled Damien’s mind. Hanging onto the cable with his left hand, he pushed himself away from the cliff face and flung out his right hand. Fire
flashed
into existence around the runes in his flesh, incinerating the layers of fabric around his hand as he reached out with his magic.
Lines of force wrapped themselves softly around Riordan, gently slowing his fall. Once the rebel’s fall had been arrested, Damien gestured upwards. His magic propelled the older, heavier man up the mountain faster than any powered ascender could have lifted him.
Moments after settling Riordan on the edge of the cliff, Damien unclipped his own ascender and rose on a gentle elevator of his own power. Settling onto the frozen ground next to Riordan, he looked down at the shaky Freedom Wing demagogue.
“You okay?”
“Why wasn’t, that the, plan from the beginning?” Riordan demanded, the words coming in spurts as he gasped for breath.
“Because if Travere and his Enforcers are paying any attention, I just rang the biggest doorbell in four or five kilometers,” Damien told him.
“Oh. Shit.”
“Yeah.” Damien turned his gaze on the resort complex. The cliff was beneath a small dip, and it appeared that their impromptu arrival hadn’t attracted conventional attention at least.
“Amiri,” he tapped the communicator. “Any idea where they’re holding the Greens?”
“I’m showing two concentrations of thermal signatures,” the Secret Service agent told him. “A big one, looks like two or three hundred people in what I
think
is the big conference hall. Then there’s about thirty or forty people in the restaurant - on your end. The rest are in pockets, look like wandering guards and search parties tearing the place apart.”
Damien glanced over at Riordan. “Your guess?” he asked the rebel. “You know the players better than us.”
“I don’t think even Travere is planning on mass murdering the guests,” Riordan said quietly. “I’m guessing the forty in the restaurant are our people.”
“All right.” Damien glanced across the resort again. While the armored vehicles were forming a blockade across the entrance, the heavy trucks that had transported most of the Scorpions had been parked in an impromptu motor pool closer to the building. Unless he was mistaken, each of the transport vehicles should easily carry thirty or so politicians, staffers, and family members.
“We need one of those trucks,” he told Riordan. “Think you can grab one? When we blow the charges, pull it over to the main entrance and be ready to pick everyone up.”
“Wait, you’re going in alone?” the rebel demanded.
Damien smiled sadly.
“Mikael,” he said gently. “You’re no soldier. No spy. No Mage. You’ll just slow me down. And,” he saw the side door closest to them open up, “I think our doorbell ringing got noticed. Get the truck.”
Leaving Riordan in the dip, trusting in the man to go collect the truck, Damien emerged from its shelter and headed towards the door.
A single man stepped out of the hotel. He was in the Scorpions’ winter uniform, a heavy black and red affair that stood out against the snow like an old bloodstain, with the gold medallion of a Mage at his throat.
For a moment, the sight of the medallion, uniform, and body armor of a fully trained Mage Enforcer half-stopped Damien in his tracks. Enforcers were only a half-step below the combat Mages trained by the Martian Marine Corps, trained by the Guild to be elite mercenaries, bodyguards - and to serve in planetary armies. They were so far beyond the Mage he’d been before going to Mars that a single Enforcer could have easily overcome that young Mage and all his friends.
Damien was no longer that young Mage.
“Hey,” he hailed the Scorpion. “I need a hand here - I got lost on a ski trip and just made my way back. It’s fucking
cold
out there!”
The story was atrocious, rendered even less believable by the fact that the hiking trails came down in a completely different part of the resort. But it got him closer -
much
closer.
Then the Enforcer, already looking confused by Damien’s story, spotted his right hand - where the glove had been burnt away by a burst of magic to expose the silver polymer rune inlay below.
To Damien’s eyes, the man suddenly lit up with an aura as he channeled power, the energy flickering down his arm to the runes on his own palms.
After three years of training under the Mage-King, Damien didn’t need to gather power. As soon as the Mage began to act, his runes flared with warmth and electricity flashed from his exposed hand. The sparks slammed full-force into the Enforcer, flinging the man backwards even as fire flashed away from his own hands.
Snow melted where the Scorpion’s fireball had landed, but the man lay slumped against the door, twitching as electricity surged through his body. By the time Damien reached him, the Enforcer was unconscious. A faint and ragged, but still present, pulse responded to Damien’s touch, and then the Envoy dragged the other Mage into the hotel.
He hadn’t thought about using a non-lethal level of force - he’d just defaulted to it. Nonetheless, since the man
was
still alive, Damien couldn’t leave him in the cold to freeze to death!
#
No-one building a civilian resort deep in the mountains had put any thought into trying to shield the building from military-grade passive sensors. While the insulation built into any structure this high in the mountains limited the use of infrared, combining the fuzzy blobs of concentrations of people with the scanners picking up radio leakage gave Amiri a near-godlike view of Sunshine.
“Damien, you’ve got new movement heading your way,” she told the Envoy. “Looks like you attracted attention.”
“Damn,” he replied. “All right, we needed them elsewhere anyway. Blow the charges.”
“How exactly are you getting those people
out
if we block the only road?” she asked. Somehow, in all of their planning, the young Mage hadn’t mentioned that part.
“Trust me,” he told her. “And trust me that we don’t have time,” he continued grimly. “Blow the charges
now
, Amiri.”
She knew
that
tone. Alaura had practiced the same one - it apparently came standard issue with the golden amulet.
Shifting to make sure she could
see
what happened through the scope of the laser, she triggered the command she’d programmed into her personal computer. For a moment, nothing happened.
Then a burst of smoke erupted from halfway down the slope. The soldiers on the APCs were observant - they noticed it and immediately dropped into their vehicles, battening hatches against an attack.
The first explosion did nothing visible. Neither did the second. By the third, though, the entire mountain was rumbling.
The fourth and fifth blew massive chunks of ice into the air, slamming into the ground and setting entire snowfields into motion. The sixth explosion directed the motion, moving it into the channels weakened by the first three.
Snow rippled down the mountain, carving a path towards the APCs in a tidal wave of snow and ice. It hammered down on the armored vehicles, their hatches shielding them against the elements.
Then the seventh and eighth charges blew. The last pair didn’t release snow. Carefully positioned on a cliff her sensors had told her was more fragile than it looked, the last pair blasted a thousand tons of mountain rock free - and sent it careening down the path the snow had just carved.
Tanks and APCs half-buried by the snow couldn’t dodge and were crushed as multi-ton fragments of rock crashed into them. Several of the out-buildings were ripped apart by the avalanche she’d unleashed, and only the careful design of the landscaping in the resort’s valley directed the debris away from the hotel itself.
The third avalanche wasn’t triggered by any of her charges. It came from even higher up the mountain, rock and snow triggered by the earlier avalanches that came sweeping down on Amiri’s sheltering rock outcropping.
Her sensors gave her mere moments’ warning - enough to dive into cover, abandoning her scanners but hauling her gun with her.
The rock outcropping wasn’t much - but it was, hopefully, enough to shield her as the mountain loosed its wrath on the humans who’d dared to use it as a weapon.
#
It was impossible to miss that the charges had succeeded. The entire hotel building shook as the mountain came down around them, and the lights flickered around Damien as the building switched over to emergency power.
The shaking continued for longer than he’d been expecting, and he was starting to worry for the structural integrity of the building as pictures shook themselves off the wall nearby and light fixtures swung themselves into walls and shattered.
Finally, silence returned, and he touched his communicator.
“Amiri, are those troops moving away now?” he asked.