WITH THE LIGHTNINGS(61)

"Force them to kneel," Markos said to the soldier on one end.

The soldier frowned and looked toward the officer in battle dress. "Make them kneel," the officer said. He didn't sound comfortable. "Mr. Markos is in command."

The soldiers stepped back to tension the leash, then used their weight to drag the prisoners down. The Navy Board functionary cried out as he lost his footing and slipped headlong. The Alliance officers watched with obvious distaste.

"You see," Markos said, "it's possible that our Zojira friends here think that in the future they might be able to invite Cinnabar to return and nonetheless keep their ruling positions on Kostroma. That can't be permitted."

Leonidas Zojira shook his head nervously. He was a dapper little man with a mustache as sharp as paired stilettos. "I assure you that our treaty with the Alliance of Free Stars is sacrosanct, good sir. You need not—"

"As sacrosanct as your pledge of eternal alliance with Walter Hajas here, no doubt," Markos said with catlike amusement. "Well, never fear. You'll stay loyal to the Alliance."

He crooked a finger toward one of the soldiers standing in back of the prostrate Cinnabar delegates. "Shoot them," he said.

"You can't do that!" said an Alliance naval officer. "They're prisoners of war. We don't shoot prisoners!"

"I'll remind you of what Colonel Dorrien just noted," Markos said. "The Guarantor has put me in charge."

He nodded to his aide. She stepped past him, aimed her submachine gun one-handed, and fired a single shot. Admiral Lasowksi thrashed like a pithed frog.

"Oh good Christ," said the Alliance naval officer who'd protested. He turned his back. The colonel in battle dress was expressionless, and the other naval officer looked white with rage. "Oh good Christ!"

The aide fired twice more. The snapping discharges weren't loud in the big room, but they echoed in the eyes of all those watching.

The Navy Board member was flailing and crying out. When the pellet hit him, his voice rose to a high-pitched whimper. The aide grimaced and put a second round into the back of his skull.

"I suppose it's better that the executions be carried out by a Kostroman citizen anyway," Markos said. "Don't you think so, Elector Leonidas?"

He laughed and added, "Anyway, now we can get back to deciding the future shape of the government of Kostroma."

Adele Mundy turned and walked out of the Grand Salon. No one paid any attention to her.

Not that she cared.



Somebody'd put a burst of shots into the head of the Triton. Water streamed from a dozen ragged bronze holes, but only a little dribbled out of the conch itself.

Three Hajas guards lay in a short row in the entryway. They'd been riddled too, but they'd long since stopped leaking fluids. Splotches of blood remained beside the pillars where they'd fallen. Water had been sluiced over the mess, but it still looked as though buckets of maroon paint had burst on the dark stone.

Daniel strode toward the entrance, looking grim. The expression was appropriate for his persona as a Kostroman staff officer, and it was certainly easy to arrange.

Two jitneys and a three-axle truck, all of them mounting automatic impellers, were drawn up in front of the palace. Daniel was sure that long bursts from such powerful weapons would flip the jitneys over on their backs, and he suspected that if the gun on the truck fired broadside rather than in line with the wheels the same would happen.

That didn't much matter because the Alliance APC on the other side of the entranceway would carry the real weight of further fighting. Its plasma cannon could hose the square in iridescent hellfire, vaporizing any conceivable counterattack the Hajas clan could mount. The Alliance commandoes standing at the bow and stern of the big vehicle looked as though they were begging for an excuse to shoot somebody.

Daniel imagined he was Candace in the same situation. He lowered his eyes, twisted his face to the side, and let his course curve away from the bow of the APC as though the two of them were magnets of the same polarity.

The nearest commando snorted, then spit near Daniel's feet. Daniel scuttled a little faster without looking up.

He knew he wasn't being entirely fair to Candace. The Kostroman's proven cowardice was moral, not physical. But Daniel didn't feel like giving Candace the benefit of the doubt, and it was the sort of behavior that the Alliance commando would like to see. Wogs whimpering at the feet of the tough Alliance soldiers. . . .

Spectators watched from the roofs of buildings across Palace Square. Small clumps of civilians gathered on the pavement itself, talking in muted voices and jumping whenever a vehicle rumbled by in the street behind them. They carried pennants of black and gold divided in a variety of fashions—whatever they'd been able to sew together quickly.