Rene allowed himself to smile, taking his mind from the grim reality of what he would do if Solae were hit. He could appreciate her sentiment but the reality was that his death or capture didn’t matter much in the scheme of the things. It was Solae’s DNA that would activate the PEA and if were taken alive the very best she could look forward to was a life of slavery to the Duke and his creatures. 

“An after party sounds good,” he replied with a grin that grew more wicked as the moments passed. 

“There are a few of those dresses I wouldn’t mind seeing you in… or out of more to the point,” he expanded grinning as he brought the jeep live and lifted them from the warehouse floor. Solae was right, it was considerably better for morale to have something to look forward to. 

Night had fallen by the time they reached the compound. The consulate compound was an Imperial installation even if its control on Zatis was somewhat unorthodox. That meant that it was exempt from the crowding that pushed all of the other buildings in the dome together. A broad boulevard surrounded its nine foot wall, leaving clear lanes of fire in case the building needed to be defended. Fortunately the spirit of Zatis could not be completely curbed and their were several tall buildings that offered lines of sight down into the embassy compound. Rene set the jeep down behind one of them, the offices of a communications firm that made its money using the PEA during more stable times. Ten had not been clear as to whether he owned the place, or he was merely able to pressure the owners, but it amounted to the same thing, the doors were unlocked and the alarms were disarmed. The feed from the small overhead drone remained largely unchanged, though Rene noticed that the Dukes troops had taken up more defensible positions, close to their armored personnel carriers. Ralch’s mercenaries appeared to be inside the building and neither side was actively patrolling. Rene grinned and showed the vid screen to Solae, she arched an eyebrow in interrogation.

“They don’t trust each other enough to move around in small groups,” he explained, “our ruse looks to be working.” 

“But they aren’t shooting at each other?” she asked. Rene nodded, his smile wolfish and broad.

“Not yet.”

As Ten had promised the building was completely empty and they had no trouble working their way to the fifth floor where a large boardroom with industrial grey carpet provided a view over the wall that surrounded the spire like consulate building. The APC’s squatted amongst the ruins of ornamental gardens, oddly foreshortened for being viewed from above. Rene laid his duffel bag on the conference room table and unzipped it. Inside was an old fashioned slug thrower, similar to the kind most of Ralch’s mercenaries carried and a stubby tube with a dark green band around it and a boxy trigger assembly.

“Ok,” Rene said, delaying the inevitable for one more moment.

“I love you,” he told Solae, gently squeezing her hand before standing and moving to the open window. He laid the rifle down against the sill and flipped open its holographic sights. He laid the glowing ring across the neck of one of the Duke’s grey clad soldiers and then squeezed the trigger. The slug thrower cracked and the soldier pitched forward with a spray of red mist. Rene instantly elevated his angle and put two rounds through one of the windows in which Ralch’s mercenaries were sheltering. Chaos erupted at once as both sides, already jumpy opened fire upon one and other. Plasma bolts blew the windows of the building into chunks of flaming glass and slug throwers tore up the grass. One of the APCs fired its plasma cannon and the scorching cyan blast blew out every widow in on the front side of the building as it filled one of the lower floor rooms with blue fire, kicking up a donut of dust as the vehicle recoiled against the heavy discharge. The shouts and screams of panicked and wounded men echoed weirdly in the void between the wall and the building and fire alarms began to shriek. Rene dropped the rifle and picked up the tube and fitted it to his shoulder, aiming through the primitive iron sights at a spot part way between the second and third floors. The tube let out a dull chunk of pressurized air followed by the whir of cable as the carrier charge sailed across the street, over the wall and into the shattered window. It hit somewhere inside the building and a green light on the tube light up as the fibre optic cable return a solid connection.

“Here we go,” he told Solae, hooking the carrier to his combat armor at the attachment point.

“This isn’t how I prefer you to get into my lap but…” he held out his arms and Solae moved in front of him. He put his arms around her, took a deep breath and jumped from the window. The carrier whired down the zip line with all the speed of Rene’s leap. They raced towards the storm of gunfire, desperately hoping no one took this moment to look up, fortunately the plasma cannon had raised enough dust and debris that the air was already fairly opaque. Spot fires started by small arms added to the concealment and they swept over the outer wall, over the smoky divide lit by flashes of blue and orange fire and into the window. Rene did his best to coil his body around Solae’s but they hit hard, the line parting when the carrier reached the end, powerful motors whipped the line back across the road and out of sight as the two nobles tumbled into a sprawl on the floor of the room, their armor saving them from being cut to pieces on the shattered glass.

“Well,” Rene observed with a gasp as he lay on the floor beside his lover. There was no obvious sign they had been heard, though it would be difficult to tell over the snap of gunfire and the sharp crump of grenades going off. 

“So far, so good…”