Chương 434: 204.Visitors Don't Always Knock 2

Today's original itinerary had actually been quite respectable. Her Highness Hedwig would deliver a closed-door speech at the Imperial Hotel as the formal close of the exchange program. After that, the Imperial and Federation delegations would part ways, maintaining a distance sufficiently civilized, sufficiently presentable, and thoroughly fake.

Everyone would go home—back to their own systems, academies, fleets, languages, and flags—and quietly hope they'd never have to recognize each other's faces across live fire. That was how it was supposed to go. Unfortunately, I'd mostly stopped believing in supposed to lately. By the time we reached the closed hall at the Imperial Hotel, Hedwig was already preparing to take the stage.

She wore the same Galactic Empire dress uniform I'd seen her in the first time—straight cut, high collar, silver trim against dark fabric, the whole thing bracing her into that particular Imperial solemnity. The uniform suited her. Suited her so well it made you think some people were simply born to be worn by their own institutions. Behind her, the same oversized oil portrait still hung on the wall. I looked from the near-absurd portrait to the woman standing in front of it, and arrived at one clean conclusion.

I genuinely respected her. Being able to deliver a public speech under that level of institutional humiliation was, in some sense, more impressive than holding a line under bombardment. Maki stood beside me, following my gaze to the painting.

"What are you thinking."

"I'm thinking about whether the Empire counts public humiliation as part of standard royal education."

"Reasonable hypothesis."

"If it were me up there, I'd probably spontaneously combust halfway through."

"You'd take the painting down first."

"Also true." Seating was arranged by faction—Imperial cadets on one side, UIMA students on the other. Compared to last night's banquet, the air here was much colder. Strip away the music and the wine, and what's left is closer to the truth. Uniforms. Posture. Where people looked. How they stayed quiet. Every one of those more honest than any rhetoric. When Hedwig stepped up to the podium, the hall went still. She paused, as if confirming that every gaze had settled. Then she spoke. Her voice wasn't loud.

It was steady. She didn't reach for the kind of grand vocabulary that gives audiences goosebumps, and she didn't preach peace like a messianic proclamation. She said, plainly, that history, institutions, memory, and suspicion stood between the Federation and the Empire, and no one had the right to pretend those things didn't exist.

Which was exactly why the chance to see each other, to speak to each other, mattered—not necessarily to reach understanding, but at least to avoid a future where the two sides only recognized each other by their firepower. She said young people's exchanges probably couldn't reshape the galaxy, but they could at least ensure that whoever made the decisions later would remember the people across the table weren't abstractions.

They were living people who got nervous, who hesitated, who felt fear, and who tried to hold onto some dignity anyway. It wasn't a brilliant speech. But it held up. At least it wasn't the kind of political boilerplate that makes you want to file for immediate withdrawal from civilization. I leaned back in my chair, and somewhere in the middle of it I found myself thinking that Maki's late-night editing session really had saved this speech—and everyone's ears along with it.

Near the end, Hedwig's tone dropped, growing heavier. She said she hoped today's farewell wouldn't just send everyone back to opposing positions, but would leave behind a slightly less terrible possibility in their memories. Because even if storms were still coming, someone should remember that when there was still time to talk, they'd chosen not to draw first. I was just about to mentally grade the ending more mature than expected when everything came apart. It started on the Imperial side.

Not a single person losing composure—a ripple of chaos that spread instantly. Someone jerked to their feet, chair legs screeching against the floor. Then screaming. Then shoving. Then the whole block of seating buckled sideways, like someone had kicked a support beam out from underneath it. The next second, lines of killing light tore into the hall. Not a figure of speech. They actually tore in.

Red-and-white laser beams punched through from the side doors, the rear corridor, the shadowed second-floor gallery, all at once. The air filled with the smell of scorched material and the sound of screaming. Some people dropped on reflex. Some bolted for the exits. Some just froze, completely unable to tell which direction was less lethal.

"Attack!" I don't know who shouted it first. But the word set both sides off. I grabbed Maki's wrist and yanked her toward the stone column ahead of us. Chairs crashing, glass shattering, laser fire detonating against the walls—all of it at once. One of the overhead lights burst above us, and the fragments came down like cold rain.

"Maki!"

"Here!" She dropped into cover beside me and, almost in the same motion, looked up toward the stage. Hedwig was still standing by the podium, clearly still lagging behind the first shock. It wasn't that she lacked nerve. She'd simply been placed in the one spot least prepared, least expected, for something like this. All that protocol, all that ceremony, turned to a joke in about three seconds.

A masked attacker with no insignia, no unit markings, vaulted up from the side of the stage, leveled a weapon, and fired at Hedwig. The first shot missed. Maybe Hedwig had stepped back on instinct. Maybe someone in the chaos had knocked the shooter's arm. Either way, the beam clipped the edge of the podium and blew a charred gouge out of the wood. I didn't have time to think. My body moved first.

I broke from behind the column in a single burst, coat hem catching the air, right hand already inside my jacket, drawing the laser pistol from the quick-draw holster, raising it, firing. The beam made almost no sound. Just one clean, cold, brutal line. A heartbeat later, the attacker's face blew backward. He dropped like his strings had been cut, never getting off a second shot.

"Everyone out—now!" My throat still burned with the sprint when I shouted it. Hedwig snapped back to herself. I grabbed her arm and dragged her off the stage. Maki had already cut in from the other side, knocking down two beams aimed at our backs. She had a security-issue sidearm in her hand—I had no idea when she'd picked it up—and she moved like someone whose employment history you'd want to verify before crossing her. Support the creativity of authors by visiting the original site for this novel and more.

We were halfway to the exit when we nearly collided with Roy and Lan. Both pale. Both still standing. Good. Still usable.

"Roy, Lan!" I shoved Hedwig toward them.

"Get Her Highness and the President down to the underground parking level. Six buses down there. Load every student you can find—get the living out first, sort the rest later." Roy blinked.

"What about you?"

"I'm doing the job of a Seitokai Vice President." I let one corner of my mouth pull up.

"Cleaning up everyone's mess." Lan didn't waste a word. She took Hedwig's other side and nodded at Maki. Maki looked at me. Just once. But there was a lot packed into that look. Warning. A question. Disapproval. And a sliver of trust I really didn't want to examine right then. I tipped my chin toward the exit.

"Go." She bit down on something, turned, and followed. Good. That meant I could finish the ugly part with a clear conscience. I dropped the suitcase I'd dragged this whole way, popped the latches. The shell came open, and everything inside lay there quietly, patient, like some malicious blessing that had finally reached its unveiling. The Federal Intelligence Department really did know what a person needed.

I grabbed weapons and magazines and threw them toward the cluster of bodies crouched behind an overturned banquet table.

"D!" D's enormous frame leaned out from behind a pillar, wearing an expression that said finally, my turn—which, frankly, was not a healthy look on anyone. I tossed a tactical carbine and an energy pack to him, another set to Jess, a third into Akari's arms.

"Jess McCallow—if you miss again this time, I will hang you off the academy flagpole for three days." Jess caught the gun and clicked her tongue.

"You actually remember that."

"I remember everything," I said flatly.

"This isn't about winning. It's about covering the retreat." Akari cradled her weapon, eyes bright enough to look like a holiday.

"Understood!" Harvey vaulted over the next table, breathing hard, but still finding room to talk.

"Should I be thanking you for finally upgrading this field trip into live-fire training?"

"Don't thank me. Just stay alive." The first real, organized exchange of fire started right there. These weren't amateurs spraying at random. Their entry angles were staggered, their fields of fire interlocked, and some of them were positioned specifically to block the main exits, herding the panicking crowd toward preselected kill zones. Professional. And deeply annoying—professional enemies meant more bodies and more paperwork afterward.

"Left gallery, three!" D shouted.

"Got them!" I leaned out from behind the fallen column for half a second, two aimed shots, burning clean through a shoulder-chest seam. As the man toppled, Jess's beam cut past my ear and shattered the chandelier over the next group. The whole crystal fixture came down in front of them, forcing a scramble sideways.

"That one doesn't count as a miss!" Jess shouted.

"Barely counts as you having a brain." Akari's fire was heavy but controlled—like she'd finally found the right outlet for all that usual momentum. Crouched by the long table, she used short bursts to force two attackers back off the right-hand staircase. Harvey kept shoving stragglers toward the rear, mouth running the whole time.

"Heads down, keep moving, this isn't a show. Leave the bag—your life's worth more than a souvenir." I was almost touched. The man talked like a broken radio on a normal day, but in a crisis he at least knew what to prioritize. The worst fire came from the second-floor balcony. Three masked shooters were using the height to cut the main hall into disconnected kill zones. Twenty more seconds of that, and the whole retreat route would collapse.

"D. With me." I pulled something else from the case and tossed it to him—a combat axe, Federation-issue, close-quarters pattern, the edge lined with an energy rail. Powered up, it didn't cut. It took things apart. D caught it one-handed and smiled. The smile looked like someone had hidden his favorite flavor of violence inside the dessert course.

"After-dinner exercise?" I smiled back.

"Couldn't resist." We went up the side stairs at a run. Jess and Akari held the base, beams crossing between the railings and the walls, burnt stone and scorched air turning the stairwell into a deranged oven. The first shooter on the balcony barely started to swing his weapon before D was on him. The axe flared blue, and in one motion the railing, the arm, and the rifle all came apart together. The sound wasn't loud. It had the specific finality that makes you believe civilization has an expiry date.

The second one went for a blade. I didn't give him the room. My knee slammed his gut; my pistol grip caught his jaw on the recoil; in the half-second his balance broke, the muzzle found the seam under his ribs and fired. The heat transmitting back through the weapon into my palm felt like an irritating performance review from the universe. The third one was smarter—rolled back through a side door and threw a flashbang on the way out. I swore, and kicked it back through the door.

Two seconds later, white light detonated on his side, followed by a short, ugly scream.

"Lucky day," D said.

"Not luck. He was just stupid." By the time we could see the main floor again, most of the students were already clear. Roy and Lan had done clean work—the flow was funneling steadily toward the parking level. All that was left was to walk these uninvited performers to their curtain call. I ran a quick count of gun lines and retreat time. Close enough.

"Cease fire!" I threw it at our side. Jess clearly wanted two more shots, but at the sound of my voice she dropped the muzzle with bad grace. Akari and Harvey pulled back immediately. I reached to the bottom of the case and came up with a cylindrical device, thumb over the safety cap. Thermal-Reactive Vapor Charge. The name sounded like a failed lab experiment. In practice, it was excellent for teaching manners to terrorists who hadn't learned any. I lobbed it into the middle of the hall.

It bounced once, rolled half a turn, and started seeping a thin, nearly invisible mist that spread low across the floor. The attackers recognized it instantly. Their fire cut off. Because everyone in that line of work knew: once you're standing in that mist, any sufficient heat source, spark, or high-energy beam turns the whole question of who's a better shot into a question of whether anyone's left standing at all. The silence held for one second. Then they drew blades. I laughed.

"Now we're getting somewhere." Jess stared at me.

"Why do you always end up in melee?"

"Because civilization always fails," I said, backing away.

"Jess—you, Harvey, Akari—get to the buses. Now."

"What about you?" Akari shot back immediately. I pulled another close-quarters weapon from the case and tossed it to D, then drew the short blade from my own hip.

"D and I are walking them downstairs." D's hand closed around the axe handle, happiness radiating off him in a genuinely concerning way.

"Today really is a good day."

"Your standards for a good day are broken." The first attacker was already moving—a clean roll into the edge of the mist, using a column for momentum, coming straight at me. Fast blade, solid footwork. Not street trash. Unfortunately for him, neither was I. I let his first strike shave past my jacket front, twisting aside; my elbow caught his throat on the recovery, and as his weight shifted, my short blade found the seam in his armor. I shoved his weight into the man behind him, tearing their rhythm apart.

D wasn't interested in technique. The axe simply opened the way. What had been a stairhead wide enough for three men shrank down into a single-file game of whoever steps up first dies first. Metal, energy whine, bone and plating breaking together—chaotic, but with its own rhythm. We fought our way from the top of the stairs to the bottom. Not a clean withdrawal.

A grinding one—fighting forward and back at once, taking the pursuit apart section by section through service corridors, stairwells, and the doors to the garage. With Jess and the others gone, our covering fire was cut in half, and the pressure fell entirely on D and me. The upside: without students underfoot, I could stop being careful. A blade caught my left arm, opening a clean line through the sleeve. A shame. I'd actually liked this jacket.

I shot the man in the knee and used his falling body to clear the last few steps. D came over my head from above, one swing driving the nearest pursuer—weapon and all—into the wall.

"Parking level!" I called. Down there, the six buses were already running, headlights cutting hard white lines across the concrete pillars and floor. Students were still loading under Roy and Lan's direction. Chaotic, but not yet out of control. Maki stood beside the lead bus. Hedwig was next to her. The instant Maki saw D and me come through, her expression shifted—probably confirming I still had all four limbs, and probably confirming I'd once again turned a school trip into something no memo would ever approve.

I waved at her.

"Get on!"

"So do you!" she shot back.

"I know!" The pursuit was closing again behind us. I glanced back, judged the distance, checked the two remaining buses. Enough.

"D. Last wave."

"Copy!" We planted ourselves at the entrance to the garage, two people with no functioning respect for school regulations or life expectancy, and bought the last few seconds. Beams, blades, the arc of the axe, short bursts—all of it tangled between the concrete pillars in a way that made my teeth ache. When the last group of students scrambled aboard, I finally stepped back.

"Go!" D barked a laugh, swept the nearest two attackers back with the axe, and piled through the door behind me. The autonomous system slammed the doors shut right away—we hadn't even found our footing before the bus lurched forward. The attackers chasing us shrank into the headlights and exhaust, folding into a dark knot at the far end of the garage. As the buses shot up out of the underground level, I dropped back into a seat, chest still heaving.

My hands still carried the tang of scorched metal and discharge residue. My sleeve was torn, my arm ached, and the echo of the last ten minutes still rang in my ears. I turned my head. Hedwig sat up front, pale but sitting straight. Maki stood beside her, one hand on the seatback, the other still closed around the short pistol she'd liberated from somewhere. Roy was in the back running a headcount. Lan moved quietly between rows, talking down a few students on the edge of tears.

Jess had melted into her seat but still had the energy to flash me a sign that meant I didn't miss this time. Akari's face was a mix of exhilaration and delayed fear. Harvey looked like he'd just survived a final exam with an insane rubric. Good. Most of them were still breathing. I let my head rest against the window and watched the Imperial Hotel's outer wall slide backward, and suddenly wanted to laugh. Today was supposed to be a friendly farewell.

Instead, the Empire had apparently arranged us a live-fire exercise, complimentary anonymous terrorists included. How considerate.