Ascendance by John Birmingham Page B

mostly human. Emergency vehicles, mostly police cars, pin-cushioned by Sliveen bolts and war shots. Ragged, uncoordinated gunfire duelled with volleys of arrakh .
    Karen appeared to ponder their situation for a moment, looking about her, calmly taking everything in. To Dave’s eye, the Russian agent could just as easily have been contemplating a difficult seating plan at a dinner party.
    She made a decision. ‘Sergeant, are you in charge here?’
    The cop she addressed was a squat, potato-headed character. He crouched as far back in cover as possible, while still firing his weapon at any monsters he caught sight of. The muzzle flash lit up their hiding place with flat white light every time the pistol cracked.
    ‘Just my squad,’ he said. ‘You guys going in? They told me you’d be going in. Said you’d know what to do.’
    ‘Yeah,’ said Dave, eager to take charge, to start kicking this pile of shit into some sort of order. ‘We’ll go in.’
    ‘In support of your men,’ Karen added, qualifying his reply. She was still searching the street for something, and her expression changed when she found what she was looking for. A couple of pumper trucks surrounded by firefighters eager to do their job. They were sheltered from the worst of the Sliveen’s assault by the angle of the street corner. She looked satisfied.
    ‘Sergeant . . . Mahoney,’ said Karen, checking his name tag. ‘Just wait here for a moment. I have a plan if you’ll bear with me.’
    ‘Can’t take any action until the incident commander gives the go ahead anyway,’ Mahoney said, pointing to a tall man in a black polo and a baseball cap about fifty yards away. He was speaking into a walkie-talkie while sheltering behind the bulk of an ambulance. There was a dead body at his feet.
    ‘We don’t need a plan,’ said Dave, feeling his impatience getting the better of him. ‘We go in, we kick ass.’ He tried to get up only to find Karen’s hand on his arm. She reached inside his head and pushed his thoughts aside again. Pushed him back down.
    ‘Hooper, your stupidity is wearing me out,’ she said. ‘Just sit your ass down for a second.’
    Suddenly feeling numb and extra stupid from her touch, he did indeed fall back on his ass, just as she had ordered. He wanted to tell her to fuck off, to get out of his head, but he couldn’t even manage that. It was like she’d stupefied him by laying one hand on his arm and pushing him somehow. Pushing what she wanted into his head.
    He stared dumbly at the two cops she’d pushed a minute earlier. They were still gazing after her with the dopey expressions of contented milk cows – exactly how he felt now. He fought to throw it off as Varatchevsky ran to the firefighters. It was hard, like trying to wake up after a night on the tiles, but he concentrated and felt at least some of the fog clearing. She covered the distance to the fire tender as fast as a big cat chasing down its prey. The officer in charge over there, a woman Dave saw, jumped, startled by her arrival.
    Dave felt a tightness in his stomach, wondering if Karen was going to push them too. But she didn’t appear to. He finally forced himself all the way out of the stupor. It was not pleasant, nor easy. The fighting continued around him, the gunfire picking up as a Hunn warrior leaped from a first-floor window, nuts out, landing on the roof of an abandoned sedan, snarling and whirling a heavy mace above its head. The car crumpled under the impact and the beast, immature but still massive and dangerous, jumped toward the median strip. A heavy volley of fire caught it midair, spinning it around, punching out fist-sized lumps of hairy meat. It landed in a tangle of limbs and jangling armour amidst the shrubbery dividing Park Avenue. An automatic weapon opened up, and then another, the harsh industrial chatter of machine-gun fire throwing off showers of sparks as the bullets chewed into chain mail and armour plate. The Hunn didn’t get up