TEXT: BATTLECORPS
  THE GAUNTLET
  by Ilsa J. Bick
  
  BATTLECORPS
  V
  Half of the harm that is done in this world is due to people 
  who want to feel important. 
  --T.S. Eliot, “The Cocktail Party”
  
  BATTLECORPS
  Gauntlet: Descent • Page 3
  Rome, Terra 
  7 August 3028 
  2345 hours
  “How much longer?” Francesca was breathing hard, her chest 
  straining against the gauzy film of sea-green tunic cut low enough 
  to reveal the swell of her breasts. She twisted the knot of her laced 
  fingers. 
  They were in the living room, near the front foyer: an attrac-
  tive room done in Mission with a spindle couch of plush forest 
  green and matching coffee table, and two matching slat chairs of 
  a lighter oak. The agent—that blonde with those odd eyes; the one 
  who said her name was Gloria—was sprawled in one chair. She 
  opened her mouth to reply, but it was Reinhardt, lounging on the 
  sofa, who answered. 
  “Just another fifteen hours, give or take,” he said. Reinhardt took 
  a minute sip of a very strong brandy from a balloon snifter. The li-
  quor cut a warm tail like that of a shooting star down the middle of 
  his chest before pillowing in his gut. The brandy was two centuries 
  old, potent and very expensive. Setting the snifter on the coffee 
  table, he tweezed a packet of cigarettes from his left breast pocket 
  and knocked out a smoke. His first smoke of the evening and only 
  the third of the day, and in a few moments, he felt his head expand 
  with the familiar buzz of nicotine combined with brandy. He said, 
  a bit strangled because of the smoke, “Cardinal Flynn will be here 
  day after tomorrow at one, and the broadcast Mass will be at four. 
  In the meantime, this is the safest possible place to wait.”
  “Do you really think so? Maybe we should take it someplace else. 
  Out of the Vatican, I mean.”
  “Whatever for?”
  “Well, drugging a baby,” Francesca said. “I mean, what if it wakes 
  up?” 
  “It won’t,” the agent said. Her thick blonde mane was in a long 
  braid, but Reinhardt could see the first blush of red roots along her 
  scalp. “But don’t worry. It’s a mild sedative, and with the active 
  noise reduction hardware added to the whole security net here, 
  no one will hear him if he cries a bit. Anyway, the more the baby 
  sleeps, the better off we’ll be. No yowling to wake up the neigh-
  bors and it will make it easier to slip him into the basilica.”
  
  BATTLECORPS
  Gauntlet: Descent • Page 4
  “You still have to get past security, and it can’t be good for the 
  baby to…”
  Reinhardt cut her off. “Don’t worry about the child. As for the 
  Davion security people, I can assure you that it’s only a small con-
  tingent. Their commander, Sortek… he’s an efficient enough sort; 
  we met, briefly. Of course, I pledged my full cooperation,” he said, 
  with a touch of irony. “The Vatican’s walls weren’t built without 
  reason, my dear. They keep invaders out and secrets nicely parti-
  tioned away, and corridors in-between.” 
  “Maybe.” The agent looked dour, perhaps because she’d been 
  forced to fold herself and the drugged child between canisters 
  inside a delivery hover for three hours. “I didn’t count on CID run-
  ning around the place, you know. You sure their guy doesn’t know 
  anything? Maybe they’re here because there’s been a leak, and 
  they want to…”
  “There hasn’t been a leak.” Reinhardt cut the blonde a frosty 
  glare. “This was arranged months ago. We’re talking one man 
  and a small detail. They’re not anxious to step on our toes. All 
  they want is to mount a presence. Believe me, if they suspected, 
  I’d already be hung up by my thumbs, and you’d be dead, if not 
  by Davion’s men then by your own people, don’t you think? You 
  just play your part tomorrow afternoon, and this will all go quite 
  well.” 
  “I can’t see how.” Francesca, again, her voice watery. Her eyes 
  swam, and her cheeks were splotchy with color. “Can’t we just 
  back out?”
  “For Christ’s sake.” The agent blew out in exasperation and 
  pushed out of her chair. “You talk some sense into her, and get her 
  to shut the hell up. I’m going to sit with the kid for awhile where 
  it’s quiet enough to hear myself think.” 
  It was on the tip of Reinhardt’s tongue to ask if she might be con-
  tacting her superiors, maybe to report how loopy their supposed 
  allies really were, and he felt the heat start in his neck. Not when 
  they were this close, not this close! Then he relaxed a bit when 
  he remembered that the jammers he’d installed in this apartment 
  meant that she’d likely not succeed.
  So he betrayed nothing, just waved a negligent hand toward a 
  small hall that led to both the master and back bedrooms as if to 
  say, Of course, go on, I deal with hysteria every day; nothing a little 
  chat won’t handle. 
  
  BATTLECORPS
  Gauntlet: Descent • Page 5
  But when he heard the snick of the back bedroom door pulled 
  shut, he turned on his wife. “What’s wrong with you?” He kept his 
  voice down but put a threat into his words. “She’s not benign, you 
  know. If her people suspect that we’re about to pull out, there’ll be 
  trouble all right, and we’ll be in the middle of it. No one’s heads 
  will roll but ours. So snap out of it.”
  “But I can’t.” Tears tracked down her face but, thank Christ, she 
  wasn’t wailing in one of her fits. “Friedrich, we need to tell some-
  one what’s going on. The truth’s bound to come out, and you know 
  we’ll be the ones they throw to the wolves.”
  “You’re being melodramatic.” Although, for the first time, he felt 
  a tingle at the back of his neck: a premonition that things were 
  about to go very, very badly. Maybe it was a mistake to have left 
  Francesca alone, even for fifteen minutes. His eyes crawled over 
  the flat’s living room, and in another moment, he knew what was 
  missing. “Where’s your link?”
  “Link?” Francesca echoed as if genuinely puzzled, but Reinhardt 
  saw her eyes jerk toward the master bedroom. “I could’ve 
  sworn…”
  “Don’t lie to me.” Reinhardt’s voice was soldier-hard, flat. “Did 
  you call someone? What in hell have you done?” Without waiting 
  for an answer, his hands lashed out in a blur, and then he had her 
  by her arms, squeezing hard. She gasped with surprise and sud-
  den pain, but he held on, dug his fingers into her flesh, ignoring 
  the glowing orange tip as the cigarette burnt down and heat licked 
  his skin. “What have you done, what the hell have you done?”
  “Nothing, nothing!” She twisted in his grasp. “I haven’t told…”
  “Liar!” he hissed. And before she could react, he cracked her 
  across the face with the back of his left hand. She staggered back, 
  tripped against a slat chair and would’ve fallen, but now he had 
  her by the throat and held the glowing tip of his cigarette above 
  her left eye. 
  “You like pain?” He shook her like a child’s rag doll. “You think 
  you know pain? By God, you know nothing about what I can do 
  and you will tell me what I want to know, or I swear that I’ll destroy 
  that pretty face of yours. I’ll burn out your eyes one at a time, and 
  then I’ll keep going. Do you have any idea what they will do to us 
  if we fail? That child is more valuable than God and all his angels. 
  Now, who did you tell? What did you say?” 
  
  BATTLECORPS
  Gauntlet: Descent • Page 6
  She couldn’t answer, not while he crushed her throat, but that 
  was almost incidental. By all that was holy, he would kill her and 
  take what he wanted at the same moment, and he would enjoy it, 
  he would! The idiot, she would ruin everything. All this planning 
  for nothing; all their schemes and hopes snuffed out like a candle, 
  and that New Avalon apostate Flynn who called himself cardinal 
  due in the Vatican day after tomorrow and that accursed prince! 
  They would have no better opportunity, and this addled-brained 
  fool that was his wife… ! He squeezed harder, harder, harder… 
  Suffocating, her face choked with purple blood, she jerked, 
  flailed. Her nails scored his cheek, drawing blood. Pain exploded 
  in his face, and he let out a roar, loosed his hold. The cigarette flew 
  from his fingers, leaving a trail of orange sparks. Blood drizzled 
  down his cheek, trickling into his collar. 
  There was a squeal of hinges as a door opened, and then the 
  agent appeared, eyes blazing. “What the hell’s wrong with you 
  people? You want… ?” The words died in her mouth as she got a 
  good look at Reinhardt. “What’s going on?”
  Reinhardt paid her no mind. “Who knows?” he rasped, advanc-
  ing on his wife. His chest was going like a bellows, and his face 
  was on fire. His hands, suddenly empty, twitched then fisted. 
  “Who knows?”
  “What?” The agent gaped. “She told someone? The bi…”
  “It’s over!” Coughing, Francesca scuttled back on her heels, her 
  black hair dragging along the carpet. Her voice came out in a tor-
  tured wheeze. A necklace of sudden bruises wreathed her neck, and 
  there were tiny red hemorrhages in the whites of her eyes because 
  death had been that close. “You… you hear me? It’s over, it’s…”
  “Don’t you tell me that,” he said, his fury ratcheting higher like 
  a spring wound too tight and ready to snap. He started for her 
  again. “I say when it’s over! You whore, you don’t tell me! Do you 
  realize how long I’ve planned for this, how many people I’ve had 
  to sweep out of the way? How much money’s…?”
  A soft chime at their door, and Reinhardt froze, his bunched fists 
  mere centimeters from his wife’s face. The agent stiffened, her 
  storm-cloud eyes narrowing. They all three stared at one another. 
  Reinhardt saw the terror in Francesca’s eyes, and he thought she 
  must see the naked killing fury in his. The agent’s face was a mask, 
  but Reinhardt saw her hand sneak to the small of her back, prob-
  ably where she kept a weapon. 
  
  BATTLECORPS
  Gauntlet: Descent • Page 7
  One of the neighbors, perhaps, come to see what all the ruckus 
  was about. Stepping back, he took aim at his wife. “Not a word,” 
  he said, hoarsely, backing away. He armed sweat and blood from 
  his face, cursing when his white shirtsleeve turned a rust color. 
  “When I’m through with this, you will answer, my pretty little thing, 
  or I will snap your neck in two.”
  That lush lower lip trembled. “I’m not frightened of you.”
  “You should be.” Reinhardt’s lips stretched in a thin, hard smile 
  that held, absolutely, not a trace of humor. “Be afraid, my dear, be-
  cause this isn’t over, and you will answer.” And when he saw her 
  eyes flick toward the back hall, he nearly laughed out loud. “What, 
  going to barricade yourself in our bedroom? By all means, do so. 
  You’ll be out of sight. Only don’t get any ideas about jumping out 
  the window, all right? Because after you’ve shattered your lovely 
  long legs and they’ve locked you away because you’ve been un-
  der a terrible strain and are quite, quite mad, I will come to visit 
  you in hospital as a good husband should. I will bring a present 
  to my darling wife and then we’ll be alone, and I will take my time 
  with it, and I will enjoy every single moment that it takes for you 
  to die. And, my dear, the hell of it is, you think now that you won’t, 
  but you will tell me.”
  “For Christ’s sake, enough threats.” The agent was backing into 
  the hall, a silenced pistol in one hand. “Just answer the goddamn 
  door.” 
  
  BATTLECORPS
  Gauntlet: Descent • Page 8
  2345 hours
  Sister Margaret’s eyes ticked to the time, and she groaned. 
  Enough. She had to be back in the kitchens in five hours. Thank 
  heaven the other nuns would take care of the guards. She would 
  be busy enough whipping up that mousse cake and melting choc-
  olate for ganache, and doing those accused meringues. Well, a 
  little rest and she could tackle the problem of this accursed sugar 
  fresh. 
  She took a set of sagging stairs from the basement to the sec-
  ond floor. The stairs fed into a landing left of the hall. The landing 
  was faced with glass and looked southeast toward the colonnade 
  that made up the right half of St. Peter’s square at the junction of 
  a crenellated stone wall, the Corridore di Borgio. She glanced out 
  the window as she always did—just a flick of her eyes out then 
  back and absolutely without thinking—and then she paused. 
  What? She had an… impression. Something out there. At this 
  hour? Frowning, she looked back, unsure, her eyes searching the 
  darkness and then she saw it again: a flash that resolved into a 
  flurry, like gray shrapnel from a bomb. Pigeons. Silly things. No 
  matter what they did, the birds would insist upon nesting amongst 
  the pillars of the colonnade and then a nun had to watch her step. 
  The apartment she shared with Sisters Bechte and Elsebeth was 
  down the hall on the left, marked by a buzzer and a brass plaque 
  adorned with heavy Gothic script. MEIRINGENER SCHWERIN. 
  They’d tried sprucing the place up with spindly tangles of darkly 
  green Shamrock and Devil’s Ivy (a bit of perversity, courtesy of 
  Elsebeth and one that earned her a narrow look from their mother 
  general). She’d already reached into the pocket of her plain cotton 
  shift for her key when she stopped. 
  Something wrong.
  
  BATTLECORPS
  Gauntlet: Descent • Page 9
  2352 hours
  The Command Center of the Pontifical Swiss Guard was dead 
  quiet save for the occasional rustle of paper or squeal of a caster 
  as a guard shifted in his seat. (Sometimes it was quiet enough 
  to hear the guards fart, something that happened with disturb-
  ing regularity whenever there’d been pasta fagiole for supper: 
  all those beans.) Then again, the place was always dead round-
  about ten when the Vatican went into lockdown every evening. 
  Anyone legally wanting in or out of the Vatican after hours had 
  to use either St. Anne’s Gate, or the Bronze Door, the official 
  entrance into the Apostolic Palace. Once ten came and went 
  the night watch consisted of three guards, all corporals, each 
  manning a security workstation, and the watch commander. 
  Mind-numbing work because, short of invasion, nothing ever 
  happened at the Vatican. 
  Major Pius Costa was into his second cup of fresh black coffee 
  and up to his elbows in paperwork, some left from the previous 
  watch (and wouldn’t he have a word with Reinhardt about that). 
  He’d re-read the same paragraph about ten times over, and his 
  mind still wasn’t on his work though his brain, jagged with coffee, 
  was cycling in irritable little circuits, the way insects spiral around 
  a bulb. He hiccupped, belched and then grimaced at the sour burn 
  at the back of his throat. Maybe he shouldn’t have had the coffee. 
  He was keyed up enough as it was and his stomach was running on 
  empty. He’d had no appetite, merely picked at his meal. (A shame: 
  The main course had been one of his favorites, carne alla pizzaiola, 
  a simple peasant dish of veal cutlets simmered slowly in a pan of 
  stewed tomatoes and white wine until the meat was fork-tender, 
  succulent and rich. He was a man who knew the value of good 
  meats and produce and wines, and the smell had been heavenly.) 
  But he couldn’t enjoy the food because his nerves were jangled 
  and his thoughts kept flitting away like a band of peripatetic biting 
  flies, the kind that drew blood. 
  It wasn’t just the murder, though when he’d read about it, he’d 
  felt the blood retreat from his skin, and his stomach drop out the 
  bottom of his shoes. How close he’d been to getting the hell out 
  of here, abandoning the plan entirely! He was still jumping at ev-
  ery shadow. But then nothing had happened. After more than two 
  months. Absolutely… nothing. He kept waiting for the ax to fall, 
  but it didn’t, and he started to believe that he was safe, and no one 
  knew or suspected that he was involved. 
  
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  Gauntlet: Descent • Page 10
  And he’d come this far. He couldn’t back out now, not with honor 
  at stake! Besides, he had to make sure it happened just so. It was 
  the damnable choreography of it all. State visits were always noi-
  some, but this was more so because of just who would sit to table 
  with the Holy Father. Each event, from greeting to audience to the 
  state dinner, had to come off for Flynn’s visit like clockwork. 
  No mistakes, nothing that would draw a reprimand or stick out 
  later when there’ll be questions. So, dessert course is at eight, 
  and then brandy and coffee… Thank heavens, the Pope’s an early 
  to bed sort. Dinner will probably break up roundabout nine and 
  then…
  “Hey, Maggiore.” Blinking to attention, Costa looked up. At the 
  right hand workstation, a guard was leaning forward, a frown 
  creasing his forehead. The guard was pointing at a monitor. “Penso 
  che ci sia qualcosa che accende.”
  “You think something’s going on where?” Actually grateful for 
  the interruption, Costa stood, yawned, stretched then tugged at 
  the hem of his navy blue tunic top. He palmed the back of his 
  neck with his right hand then wandered over to the workstation, 
  still working out the kinks. The workstation comprised a bank of 
  monitors, some twelve in all. Costa bent over the corporal’s right 
  shoulder. “What do you have?” 
  “It’s Feller over at St. Anne’s Gate,” the corporal replied. He indi-
  cated a square of monitor screen. The image was enhanced with 
  night vision and looked northeast at a shallow angle, so Costa 
  could make out green-tinted cobblestone road, the curb beyond, 
  and the gate itself surmounted by the Vatican state seal: crossed 
  keys surmounted by the Triregnum, the Papal tiara of three crowns. 
  The guard said, “See? Feller’s not at his post and my status board 
  shows that the gate’s open.”
  Costa’s black eyebrows knitted together. This was unexpected, 
  though it was appallingly easy to lose track of a guard if he hap-
  pened to walk beneath the cam, out of range, something he might 
  do for any number of legitimate reasons. “How long has the gate 
  been open? Did you see him leave?”
  “About forty seconds, going on fifty now,” the guard said. “And, 
  no, I didn’t notice. He might just be taking a piss.”
  “Possibly.” That had the ring of authenticity. The Vatican frowned 
  on guards dousing its walkways. They won’t set up a guard toilet 
  nearby, but they don’t mind if the pigeons crap on your head. 
  
  BATTLECORPS
  Gauntlet: Descent • Page 11
  But another possibility was the more likely—that Feller had 
  spied a mate stumble-drunk after a night out and gone to help 
  his fellow guardsman slip back into barracks. Despite the Swiss 
  Guards’ squeaky clean reputation, they were, by and large, young 
  men with young men’s appetites. It was one of the reasons there 
  was such a long delay before the alarms would trip. Except… “He 
  didn’t key out the gate to keep the alarm from going off?”
  “No, sir. Sixty seconds now, sir.”
  Costa looked round to the other two guards. “Anything?” When 
  both shook their heads, he turned back to study the image, and 
  debated. The alarm would kick in at two minutes, thirty seconds, 
  and he really didn’t relish all this attention, especially not when it 
  would be directed toward him. He could probably give it another 
  few seconds, maybe even manually override the automatic alarm, 
  only…
  “Oh, my God.” Startled, Costa squinted to bring the image into 
  focus. “Do you see that? Who the hell are they?”
  
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  Gauntlet: Descent • Page 12
  2353 hours
  Something wrong. Someone… watching her? Yes, but also… 
  she sniffed the air. What was that smell? This part of the barracks 
  always smelled a bit like men’s sweat, carpet mold, and disinfec-
  tant, but now her sensitive nose caught something else: a burned 
  smell, not of carbon but metal coming from her right. 
  And now she saw what she hadn’t before: a weak fan of yellow 
  light from a partially opened door. Commander Reinhardt’s apart-
  ment. Strange for the commander still to be up, and his door open. 
  She took one tentative step and then another. The smell of burn-
  ing metal was stronger.
  “Commander Reinhardt?” she whispered. No use waking the 
  neighbors with her nonsense. “It’s Sister Margaret. You’ve left…”
  Movement out of the corner of her left eye, and then a soft 
  squeal of a floorboard. Margaret’s eyes jerked toward the stairs 
  she’d just climbed and in time to catch that swirl of black cassock 
  snapping right to left on the landing. She opened her mouth, but 
  the question died in her mouth as the priest took the stairs. A face: 
  an impression of broad, square features, dark sapphire-blue eyes, 
  and close-cropped dark hair—and then he was gone.
  That face… Not Father Conley, but I know him. 
  A sudden frisson hop-scotched up her spine, and her belly went 
  cold with dread. Her head swiveled toward the commander’s open 
  door, and as she pushed her way in, that burnt odor smacked her 
  full in the face. 
  For the first three seconds—moments that seemed to stretch to 
  infinity—she could only stare, too stunned even to breathe.
  Then, time started up again, and Margaret let go of her breath in 
  a scream as the sirens began to wail.
  
  BATTLECORPS
  Gauntlet: Descent • Page 13
  2353 hours
  They’d gone with lights but no siren, speeding down the Via della 
  Conciliazione that cut straight through the Borgo district and con-
  nected the Vatican with the west bank of the Tiber River. As they 
  whizzed past the crenellated, multi-tiered Castle of St. Angelo on 
  the right, the great basilica, still a klick and a half distant, hove into 
  view directly center, drawing the eye as if the structure were ris-
  ing out of nowhere, the double-bricked dome splashed with gold 
  from hundreds of spotlights.
  After Amaris’s siege, this broad avenue was capped at the 
  Vatican with massive gates to stop the influx of foot traffic into the 
  relatively unprotected piazza after ten at night. They’d chosen St. 
  Anne’s Gate because of its proximity to the barracks, and as they 
  pulled round, Emma suddenly cried, “Hey, hit the exterior spot. 
  Shine it on the gate.”
  “What? Why?” Nick jabbed at a control. A wash of harsh white 
  light flooded the general area of the gate and cobblestones, and 
  then Nick said, “Uh-oh.”
  “Yeah.” Emma leaned forward in her seat and pointed as Nick 
  pulled the hover to a stop alongside the curb. “The gate’s open, and 
  I don’t see a guard. Oh, boy, I don’t like this. I think this is bad.” 
  Popping their doors, they bolted out of the hover. As they trotted 
  to the gate, Nick put a hand on Emma’s forearm. “Magnetic lock’s 
  been keyed open,” he said, pointing at a winking green light. “May 
  not have been open long enough yet to trip any alarms. Do we go 
  in?”
  “Let’s take a look around for a few seconds.” Emma ran back to 
  their city hover, grabbed a long, black, molded aluminum torch, 
  flicked it on, and then headed back, sweeping the tongue of blue-
  white light over the cobblestones. “Uh-oh.” She knelt, bent close 
  over a patch of what looked like oil. “Blood. Still tacky.” Then: “Oh, 
  Christ. I found the guard.”
  Then, a woman’s scream: high, loud, shrill. Emma spun around, 
  twisting this way and that, trying to home in on the sound. Then 
  the ululating shriek of alarms blasted the night just as the woman 
  screamed again, but now Emma knew where the woman was.
  “Over here, the barracks!” she shouted. She transferred the 
  flashlight to her left hand as she reached around for her Python 
  with her right. “Let’s go, let’s go!” 
  
  BATTLECORPS
  Gauntlet: Descent • Page 14
  They pelted across the cobblestones as St. Anne’s Gate began 
  to close.
  * * *
  “Key it shut, key it shut!” Costa shouted. Without waiting for the 
  guard, Costa pushed the man aside and rattled through the key-
  board commands to manually shut St. Anne’s Gate. Even as the 
  gate began to swing to, he knew he was too late. The masonry of 
  the command center was thick, but he could hear the alarms now: 
  distant whines and all the boards in the center were lighting up.
  A man and woman, those flashers, they must be polizia di sta-
  to; no, God, not now, this will ruin everything! Costa knew where 
  they were going because of the angle at which they’d crossed the 
  screen, and he’d seen the woman jerk her head around like she’d 
  heard something; her face came out shadow and then he realized 
  who she was.
  Fusco, what the hell is she doing here? 
  “Button us up now!” Costa shouted. He was already moving as 
  he tapped a channel on his link. “Two intruders, St. Anne’s Gate, 
  a man and woman. They are armed and in the vicinity of the bar-
  racks. They are to be considered dangerous. I repeat…”
  * * *
  They’d run straight through the shadowy courtyard—no one 
  there, thank God—and now Emma huffed up the stairs into the 
  barracks, leading with her Python, with Nick at her back. 
  Nothing at ground level, or the first floor, landings are clear, but 
  with the alarms, Christ, how can anyone sleep through that?
  Less than thirty seconds since the first scream, but she could 
  still hear her: more of a gasping inarticulate torrent of mingled 
  cries and words, getting louder every second. The alarms were 
  still going, but they were muted by brick, and now coming from 
  the second floor landing dead ahead, Emma caught the sounds 
  of doors opening and an excited gabble of overlapping questions 
  
  BATTLECORPS
  Gauntlet: Descent • Page 15
  and exclamations. As she hit the landing, Emma catalogued no 
  weapons fire, no flat bap of pistols, or high whine of lasers, but 
  that didn’t mean there wasn’t someone up there, waiting. On the 
  landing, she instantly peeled left, flattening against the edge of 
  the jamb while Nick went right. Emma did a quick peek, saw most-
  ly men in various stages of undress, a few women in nightgowns 
  and bare feet, their backs to the landing, all looking at something 
  or someone, all talking to one another. She gave Nick a quick 
  nod then rolled around and jogged down the hall, her pistol arm 
  cocked, the barrel aiming for the ceiling.
  “La polizia, polizia, li ha lasciati attraverso!” she shouted. Watch 
  the gun, watch the gun! “Let us through!” She caught startled ex-
  clamations as she and Nick muscled their way along, and then the 
  crowd seemed to part, people drawing to either side. 
  Now she could see a diminutive woman dressed in a simple black 
  nun’s habit. Still sobbing in articulate cries, her hands shielding 
  her face, the tiny nun was leaning against a wall to the right of an 
  open door. Two other women, each on either side, had hold of her 
  and were making shushing noises. 
  And there was a third, a man in a priest’s cassock who reeked of 
  cigarettes. He looked up as Emma broke through, and his brown-
  black eyes were too large in a face gone ashen with disbelief. “It’s 
  hell in there,” he said hoarsely. He passed a trembling hand over 
  his lips, as if he could stop himself from speaking. But he couldn’t. 
  “It’s all the piece of a hell.”
  Then Emma caught the stink—burnt metal and cordite and wa-
  tery rust—and knew: Hell wasn’t the half of it. 
  -End of Book One-
  
SOURCE: textdata/thevault/BattleTech [multi]/EXTRA/Novels/Battlecorps Novels/The Gauntlet Bk1 Chap5 - Ilsa J. Bick.pdf