Steel Rain Read Online Free PDF Page A

surmounts is sheltered by massive oaks, some rising thirty meters and higher into the night. Such trees cast heavy shadows. A person with only the benefit of a norm's unaided vision could easily miss her step. To Machiko's eyes, the hillside is dark, but the teams of GSG and SDF stationed about the discreet slope of the curving driveway provide guidance, orientation. They are beacons of warmth amid the darkness. They stand out like lanterns among the trees, the manicured garden plots, and sculptured bends of a water-course.
    "I have extended our perimeter," Gongoro remarks.
    This is quite obvious.
    A team of five GSG, armed with M-22 assault rifles with integral grenade launchers, and supported by an M-107 machine gun, wait barely fifteen meters upslope from the gateway.
    Under ordinary conditions, only a third or half of the Guard is on duty at any one time, and would stand watch over only those areas providing the most immediate means of access to the Chairman's person: the room or garden or hall where the Chairman happens to be, adjacent rooms and corridors, household entrances. It is the responsibility of the Security Defense Force to guard the actual estate, to patrol the property, to seize any intruders and repel all attacks. The SDF is responsible for this and other Nagato facilities. The Green Serpent Guard is responsible specifically for the Chairman's life. Whether the house and grounds of the estate are attacked and reduced to burning bits of vulcanized ash is of little significance to Machiko, so long as the Chairman himself is not injured.
    However, Machiko can only conclude that Gongoro is right to extend the Guard's perimeter. The entire GSG membership is on hand. Tonight, they can afford to spread themselves across the landscape. Tonight, duty demands it.
    "I have doubled the guard on access passages to the Chairman's rooms and increased the body detail to eight."
    Again, Gongoro has chosen correctly.
    The body detail is composed of those GSG assigned to provide close cover over the Chairman's person. It is the detail's duty to follow the Chairman from room to room, in the lavatory, the Chairman's dressing room, even from one side of a room to another, should that seem warranted. Should an assassin suddenly appear, it is the detail's responsibility to physically move the Chairman out of danger, or kill the assassin, or, if necessary, take the bullet themselves. Bullet or knife or bomb or poisoned dart—whatever weapon is used. Here at the estate, the body detail ordinarily numbers only two. Tonight, though, they must be prepared for everything and anything. Prepared even for death.
    Especially for death.
    Machiko takes a tour of the hillsides. Experienced members are posted with latecomers to the Guard so that every team of GSG possesses a natural leader. The teams' positions on the hillsides are tactically sound. The few members Machiko pauses to scrutinize appear prepared for combat: uniforms, equipment, weapons. All properly outfitted.
    At the main entrance to the Chairman's home, Machiko finds Ujitaro. He sits cross-legged on the broad steps in the shadows of the curving pagoda-style roof, flanked by more than a dozen GSG. He looks like any other member of the Guard, except that he carries only sword and dagger for weapons. He has little need for physical weapons. His greatest weapons flow from within. He is a powerful mage, and all the more powerful for the powers of his snakes, the naga. Awakened creatures easily ten meters long and as weighty as an adult metahuman. It is said that the creatures are not merely sentient, but are also magically active, and that they serve to guard both Ujitaro and the Chairman from attacks via the astral plane.
    All Machiko knows for certain is that the naga's venom is no less deadly than a shot from a magnum automatic. She has seen the creatures take down heavily armed hostiles in body armor. It is a sight that encourages respect.
    Tonight, the naga lie across Ujitaro's