_ _ _Hiiro

We came in fast and low, barely level with the upper cliffs from which Celio's estate overlooked the ocean. I could feel the carpet sagging out beneath me and I really hoped Bim had enough juice left in her to go the distance. There would be a certain kind of irony if we came this far just to get splattered on the cliff face. At the last second the tapestry pulled taut under me, gaining those final few meters of elevation we needed to avoid an ignoble death.

Then the rug went limp and lifeless. It fell away while Bim and I kept all of our momentum. We hit the crabgrass tumbling, then scraped across the patio stones before slamming into the pool. Instinct took over, I swam for the surface silently cursing my rotten luck and thanking Celio for having such an oversized swimming hole.

My head broke water and I heard gunfire. Everywhere, all around me I realized, long-bursts of automatic fire accompanied by shrieking rockets and roaring cannons. I could almost see the muzzle flashes lighting up the front side of Celio's estate, the brief spats of illumination reminded me of lightning crackling out of sight between heavy clouds. I shook my head, no time to think about that now. I swam to Bim and started towing her to the pool's edge.

Three rifles were waiting for me there. I only half-recognized two of the vigia in the pre-dawn twilight. Luckily, Malik was the third and the tall pale blond stood out from a crowd.

"Oh! It's you." Mailk said, barely lowering his weapon.

No one offered a hand to help us out of the water, but no one shot us either. I gave Bim a boost up first, then hauled myself up and collapsed on the pool stone.

"Whoa! Naked." Malik said, averting his gaze. Neither of the leering vigia extended that courtesy.

I felt my limbs trembling with exhaustion and adrenaline and relief. I was back at the palace now, supposedly 'safe' except for what sounded like a full-scale battle raging a few hundred meters away. My body was so heavy that breathing felt like a chore. I didn't know if I could even stand up right now let alone find a weapon and join the battle.

"Shit, you look rough. Think you can make it to the infirmary on your own?" Malik asked. "Maybe find some clothes and gear along the way?"

"Dunno." I wheezed. "What's going on?"

"Same shit, different night. Just another day in paradise where everyone want's you dead."

"Don't I know the feeling." I grumbled, flopping face-down and weakly levering myself onto my feet.

The exhaustion wasn't as crushing now that I was upright. I offered a hand and Bim took it, the meat of her palm spongy and sagging. She looked about as bad as I felt, but I doubted they could do anything for her at the infirmary.

Bim's skin had come together, sealing over the roiling insanity at her core with deep lacerations exposing black-gold strands of musculature. She was bruised a sickly yellow-green just about everywhere else I looked, except for her face. Her face was gaunt, her glassy vacant eyes were sunken back into pits that caught every shadow. She looked haunted and beaten.

I wrapped an arm around her protectively— it was tough since she was a good few centimeters taller than me, but I managed.

I hobbled for the palace proper, trying and mostly failing to keep my weight off my excruciated toe. Bim shuffled meekly alongside me, a shadow of her normal self. We donned robes and sandals from the poolside spa and kept moving, still practically nude in a battleground.

Out of the spa, across the foyer and into the south wing's main kitchen. It was like we'd walked over some invisible line from hearing the battle in the distance and being dropped into its periphery. Stray bullets were hammering into the north wall, maybe one in fifty tearing through and tumbling into the kitchen to strike the steely appliances or cookware with a clattering pang. I forced Bim to keep her head down and kept moving.

I poked my head out into a hallway antechamber, spotting twenty vigia ferrying thick hardwood tables out of this wing's dinning hall towards the fighting. They were shoring up this wing's north facing. That side of the palace had a bit of everything in it, same as the rest of the palace proper, but the edge facing where the gardens had been was mostly apartments and corridors. I remembered wandering the halls when we'd first landed on world, gazing out at the long promenade driveway and the gardens beyond.

One of the men hauling furniture yelled something at me. Probably telling me to get in the fight or help with the defenses. Some part of me wanted to do just that, but that was stupid. I was unarmed, wearing a spa robe that barely reached my knees, beaten and bloody, drained and exhausted. I gave Bim's ice-cold hand a squeeze, waited for a lull in the incoming fire and kept moving.

I knew there was a servant's stairway around here somewhere. I couldn't remember exactly but I thought it was closer to the war-torn side of the palace. I could always detour a few kilometers, go back outside and around the backyard to approach from the west wing instead of the south side. Being inside wasn't that much safer than out at the moment.

Bim tripped on a chunk of plaster that'd been knocked off the wall, nearly pulling me down with her. Nearly, but I kept my footing. I spotted a bathroom and dragged her inside, a few meters closer to the illusion of safety. I felt like scat. She looked worse.

"Hey! Come on, just hang in there a little longer. We're almost there." I sounded tired and weak. Bim didn't seem to notice, her attention was someplace a trillion kilometers from here.

"…I shall endure." She mumbled.

A split second later an explosion blew the bathroom door off the wall and bowled us both to the ground. I flopped back onto my feet, coughing out a lungful of plaster dust the entire time.

"You okay?" I asked.

"I shall endure." Bim repeated, though there was a little less life in the words this time.

"Let's move."

The corridor connected to our bathroom had a brand new skylight, as did the five floors above it. The bomb or mortar or whatever had punched a neat little hole going in and then blown a messy crater when it finally detonated. Through a hole in the plaster, I spotted the stairway I'd been headed for and climbed. The fastest route brought us closer to the wing's north edge and I actually saw the battle for the first time as I moved low, trying to keep out of sight. It was a war zone out there.

Tanks were burning in the main drive maybe two-hundred meters out. Troop trucks had spread wide to envelope the estate's landward approach; I could see where the lead trucks had rushed into the minefield based on the craters and burning chassis. The remainder had dismounted and were slowly clearing paths through the mines. At the same time a column of tanks were using their burning companions as cover so they could support the exposed infantry.

Further off to the east I spotted a mess of tracers and laser strobes being traded between the palace's west wing—where the mercs were based out of—and the garages/hangars next to the flat strip of ferrocrete Celio used as a drag strip and runway as he pleased. Beyond that, I saw something like thirty burning rotarcraft. The dogged remains of a failed airbridge holding out until they could link up with the main force.

I kept moving, dragging Bim behind me. The second floor wasn't nearly as battle-damaged as the first had been. I probably wouldn't have noticed under normal conditions, but I could almost see the angles the attackers had been shooting from. At ground level it'd been mostly flat, stray rounds punching through room after room after room, but up here I spotted a lot more damage up in the ceiling behind the defenders. Some part of me had this weird sense of artistry from the sight. I shook it off and kept moving, following the flow of wounded towards the infirmary.

Unsurprisingly, the place was quite busy.

I wasn't all that familiar with how hospitals operated, but the scene before me seemed backwards. Vigia and maids were being left on the floor to bleed out from massive wounds while the doctors and surgeon calmly stepped over them. Meanwhile lesser injuries were tended first. Broken limbs were splinted, painkillers and stimulants administered and then the walking wounded were sent back into the fight.

A leathery medic flagged me over. I collapsed onto the crusty armchair without a fight.

"Nice of you to join us, Hero." Frank said around the unlit cigarette between his lips.

A man was grabbing at my foot, blood gushing out from shredded meat of his stumped thigh. Half his face was ripped up by shrapnel, I could even count to wood splinters lodged in his jellied eye.

"What's going on?" I asked, looking away from the hand weakly clawing at me.

"It seems like the army finally got tired of Celio doing as he pleased. Hold still, relax." Frank said as he pumped twinned drug cocktails into my shoulder. "I'm surprised they took this long about it. First contact was about a half-hour ago."

"Why are we just sitting here and getting pounded? Shouldn't we regroup or something?"

"That's what he's been saying." Frank said gruffy, jutting a chin towards Celio's chief lieutenant, Richardio. "Drop everything and run— no mention of where he plans on running to… Talk like that would've gotten him shot in the legions."

"I didn't say run," I snapped defensively as the medic poked and prodded. "I said regroup."

Stolen novel; please report.

"That's what we're doing now. Circling the wagons. If you don't like that, take it up with the boss. There, all done."

"Can you do anything for Bim?" I asked.

The leathery medic took one look at the ribbons torn from her and reached for a stapler. He'd sank five hefty pins in her before Bim vacantly noticed.

"That is unnecessary." She said distantly. With a grimace, each staple forced itself out of her tissue and her wounds slowly glued themselves shut. Once she finished, her posture sagged and her shoulders slumped with fatigue.

"Neat trick. But I've got other casualties who need me." Frank started to move away but I snatched his arm.

"One thing, can I get some smokes off you? I lost mine." Frank rolled his eyes but dug out his pack anyway.

"You get one. Now get out of here. There's a war on in case you hadn't noticed."

It took some effort but I sparked up and started sucking down sweet poison then and there. Bim gave me a little sidelong glance but I was too busy scratching my itch to care. I threw on some pants that were a few sizes too big, grabbed a rifle and ammo bandoleer off a maid who'd been blinded. I hit the corridors and headed for the west wing without any better ideas than linking up with the rest of the mercs. Bim follow behind me like a dutiful shadow, as lost and out of place in the chaos as I was.

Whatever drugs were floating around inside my veins picked me right up. I felt fully charged, switched on and maybe a little skittish but all around decent. The general beating I'd take was a distant memory and the last traces of my exhaustion were a gritty sensation behind my eyes when I blinked. I tried to think of the last time I'd used a rifle. Decades ago, hunting as a teen. I'd never used one in a fight, never on a man. I'd have prefered a pistol but this wasn't pistol fighting, not yet anyways.

I reached for my killing flames and found dull embers in the pit of my stomach. I was tapped on that front. Maybe I could do something small, but small wasn't going to make much of a difference in a battle like this. I heard Bim stumbling half-blind and exhausted behind me.

The first hints of a thought came to me and I tried shut them down. It made sense, it was a good idea. The suggestion of memories still fresh in my mind beckoned, tempting me to look inwards. I'd seen what she could do if she cut wild. Bim could do make all the difference. She could slaughter them all. I hated myself for even considering it, but I still turned back to ask her to-

The haunted look in her eyes stopped me dead. I blinked, looking for the woman I'd been expecting—regal, powerful, self-assured if a bit aloof and so undeniably curious—but she was nowhere to be seen. Bim was a husk of the vengeful angel that massacred tens of thousands just to save me not even an hour ago. I saw a shadow of that woman's body, but the heart of what made her her was gone. Her eyes found mine in the twilight of burning vehicles and flashing gunfire.

She looked miserable and pained beyond words.

My request died on my tongue. Bim was paying whatever price my rescue had cost her. I price I couldn't even begin to guess at. She had done this to herself for me. Devastated a city, demolished a garrison, destroyed herself all for me. And like a heartless bastard, I was about to ask her to do it all again.

I couldn't do it. Damned if it might get me killed, but I couldn't put her through that. Not again. Not when she'd barely come back to me last time.

I hated how small and powerless I was, even thinking about asking Bim to fight my battles for me. I kept my head down and kept moving. That was all I could do. Keep moving. Don't think, just move.

I hit a massive crater where a small plane had crashed, stabbing a gash up to the roof at a steep angle. Two shapes defied the pre-dawn sky, illuminated by a constant stream of roaring tracer fire. I recognized Gidget's warsuit, a trashcan on legs lit by its own weapons, hurling hundreds of glowing shots into the night sky. Another suit of armor was at his back doing the same. A flash of red flames in the sky, then something was burning as it streaked towards the ground.

I found a path around the missing slice of palace and kept moving. It seemed impossible that the mercs and their armored demigods hadn't already won the battle. I was a fool for thinking they'd even need me. What difference would one more rifle make? None. None at all by the time the suns came up.

We were near the ops center and the small armory next door. The palace has had some very interesting new hallways smashed through rooms and floors the closer I got to the merc's headquarters. It made sense in the heat of the moment, but a small part of my mind kept thinking how annoying these holes would be after the fighting. If we survived the battle, we could always deal with it then.

I tried to chart a path clear of the fighting but a collapsed floor forced me to skirt the front. A squad of Celio's men were dug in at the crossing I needed, blindly spraying gunfire down at the attacking forces. Two of their initial seven were down and out, the remainder were keeping their heads down.

The crossing was too exposed for me to sprint it and those idiots were only attracting enemy fire while wasting their ammo. I was by no means a professional soldier—I'd been a conscript pioneer a decade ago—but even I could tell these fools were a weak link. The career soldiers outside saw it too. There was an enemy squad down there positioning themselves to exploit it.

"You guys need to move!" I shouted over the incoming fire.

They ignored me to a man. One even dropped his rifle to cover his ears with both hands.

"Cover each other! Then move!" I roared over the din.

One of seven got up and ran for it, spraying from the hip as he did. He didn't get very far. The rest hunkered down. Months of training and this was what came of it. I'd have felt bad for Leeroy and Celio if the morons weren't about to get me killed by proximity. They were gangsters too set in their ways. Too used to pushing people around and getting away with it. Fighting steel to steel like this went against everything they'd known until now.

A grenade airburst opposite the cowering thugs. I spotted shrapnel and glass twinkling in the low light for a split second. It made a mess of the vigia but I didn't see any of them drop. They barely got scratched from the looks of it. That was all it took to break them. They scattered right into the waiting guns of the squad who'd flushed them.

Then the enemy rushed for the ground floor trying to seize some ground worth holding.

Before I could even curse the poor stupid cowards who'd handed my ass on a platter, in rushed a squad of frills and fatigues from further west. They weren't all that pretty, to a woman they were bloodied and bruised, but damned if they weren't a sight for sore eyes.

Six of Celio's battle maids hit the approaching vanguard like they'd been training their whole lives for this— instead of just the past four months. Advancing by fire, covering, relocating under concealment. All said, they were probably better soldiers than I was with my bare-bones conscript background. Two of the girls went down hard while the rest kept fighting. I poked my head up and gave them some covering fire, dumping a magazine in three long bursts.

I couldn't tell if they were getting the job done, but those girls had nerve. In a fight like this, nerve might be what made the difference. More importantly, they gave me the window I needed to keep moving.

I reached the ops center, found a chair and collapsed into it. No one really paid me any mind. Alice and the head maid, Carmen, were listening to radio chatter. Princess was staring intently at a screen with hundreds of tags each denoting a explosive. I'd been expecting to see Celio and Leeroy but both were conspicuously absent.

Treu was lurking a man-sized hole in the wall near all the antennas gazing out at the see. More impressively, he had a weapon on him for the first time since I'd encountered the man. Some kind of long, slivery glaive/railgun-looking thing slung over his shoulder and a battle belt around his hips. That set me back a bit. If Treu felt the need for a weapon the situation must have been way worse than I'd thought.

Bim walked up to Treu like a condemned woman headed for the noose. She even bared her throat for him. Treu slapped the dampening torc around her throat once more, and I only just noticed she hadn't been wearing it. A second later, she found a chair to slump into and collapsed.

"-old out a little longer! I'm inbound now, eight minutes out." Leeroy was talking over the radio. Alice answered, soft-spoken but still her voice carried over the muffled gunfire.

"Stay away. I say again, stay away. Four suits won't make a difference-"

"We might-" He started.

"You won't! The situation on the ground hasn't changed but we've got more fast-wing drones than Gidget and Bazzle can shoot down. If it weren't for the home guard, we'd already be overrun. We-"

BOOM!

"Shit! Was that the last of the mines?" Alice demanded.

"No, that wasn't one of ours. That was a fuel explosion." No one bothered asking how Princess knew, they just took her expertise as fact. The albino demi-human plucked a detonator from the arrayed selection and clacked it. A chain of distant crumps sounded and a dozen tags vanished from her screen. "Well shit, this isn't ideal. We're going to lose the south wing faster than we thought."

"Carmen, shift some more of your women to the center to support them." Alice said before keying the radio. "Stay clear until we get break in hostile air cover-"

"I'll be there in six minutes." Leeroy answered.

"We don't have a window-"

"Then make me a window Alice!" Leeroy barked. "The enemy won't always give us our dream engagement, sometimes we've got to supply one ourselves. Make it happen! Four minutes."

BOOM!

"That one was incoming." Princess commented, sounding almost bored. "I guess the local militia is better armed than our crooks. Sure would be nice if they stopped throwing bodies at us. Any idea if their running low?"

"Unlikely," Bim stated wearily. "This assualt is being conducted by the 8th Lowland Motor Guard regiment. Additionally there are attached elements from: 12th airborn, 4th marines, 'Hellriders Armored Assault unit', 'Loyalist Irregulars', and 1st combat avionics. The force estimates for all combined units committed to the assault was twenty-two hundred combat-effective personnel."

"What!?" Alice demanded.

"Operational command belongs to Colonel Marcos Heathcliff." Bim continued by rote. "Primary objective is the capture of Celio-Rodrigo das Estrelas Salvador Dominar, secondary is the destruction and degradation of Celio's guerrilla forces. Prisoners of war are to be take or denied at unit discretion by on-the-ground commanders."

Everyone stared at Bim, waiting for her to elaborate. A few cast glances at me, hoping I would fill in the gaps. I couldn't so I just shrugged.

"How do you know this and how does this help us?"

"I…" Bim seemed conflicted, unsure of what to say. That wasn't like her. She was always very cut and dried. She had been before anyway. "This information was known to several of the soldiers and officers at Fort Liberty. I acquired this information while… prior to their collective expiration. I am unsure of if this information will be of use."

I shuddered, trying and failing to avoid thinking about all the people who'd 'expired' while Bim was rescuing me. No one but Treu seemed to notice.

"Well shit, yeah that figures." Alice said with a sigh.

"At least that means so long as Celio is here they won't just flatten the palace." Princess noted, selecting another detonator to blow.

Boom!

"Or maybe not." She added before blowing up something.

"I'm touching down in five minutes." Leeroy squawked over the radio. "Here's the plan, no objections. The Hound touch's down, I dismount. Celio and ever one of our people not in warplate, mount. The Hound leaves with the VIP and his new escort. Spitball from there."

"What about the rest?" Alice asked. I found myself wondering the same thing.

"Our suits can handle themselves. They've got a better chance of spearing through without littles slowing them down. Failing that, they can jump off the cliffs into the ocean and walk to shore if they have too."

"And everyone else?" Alice asked. "Celio's little army we've spent all this time training. Are we just cutting our losses with them?"

"Best case? They break out at their own initiative. Worst case? They buy us time. We have to focus on ourselves and our client first. If Celio dies than this is all for nothing. If I have to choose between them and us, I choose us. Every time."

"Dammit…" Alice growled. "Fucking shit! Fuck! Fine. I do to."