The transport jolted as the landing skids hit the ground. “You’ve got an hour to stow your bags, get into your gear, and report to the briefing room on the west side of the complex. I hope you got some sleep on the flight, because tonight we’ve got work to do,” Commander Wren announced. He grabbed his bag, waved his hand across the green door control, and left the craft as soon as the door slid aside.
Traven stood, slowly stretching his stiff muscles, and looked around the cabin. Kalma was three stations back, sliding his video screen back into its case. Malik was directly across from Traven, hefting his black weapons satchel over his shoulder and making his way to the door. Zavier and Alex were finishing a card game in the back lounge, clearly not concerned about their sixty-minute deadline.
Six. Six Guard are all you need to rid an entire city of insurgents. The legends should be about us. Traven grinned, amused with himself, then hoisted his own weapons satchel over his shoulder and made for the exit.
The air outside the transport was still, and the city was quiet. Kalma walked down the ramp and stood next to Traven. “Is this what it’s always like?” he asked.
“Usually,” Traven responded. “By the time we get here, most of the city’s inhabitants have come to terms with their new living situation. And soon enough, we’ll make certain that those who haven’t aren’t around to make a nuisance of themselves.” Traven shot Kalma a mischievous grin. “You ready for this, kid?”
Kalma glared daggers at him but stayed silent. He hated being called ‘kid.’
“I guess we better get moving, then. We certainly don’t want to be late to the commander’s briefing.” Traven walked off toward the towering building to his right.
Kalma silently watched Traven leave, then looked around, taking in the city. The architecture wasn’t much different from home. The others were told he was from Creatal, a small run-down shanty of a village—even this city put Creatal to shame—but that wasn’t quite accurate. No, Kalma was certainly not from a backwater despot, but he couldn’t tell the others that.
It didn’t bother him all that much anyway. In his life, a little lie here or there was the least of his problems. Kalma was used to that type of deception after so many years of practicing. His family was full of secrets, sometimes the lies crafted so well it was hard not to get caught up in them. It was the only way to survive.
Taking one last look at the star-filled night sky, he wondered which one was home. He would have to pull up a map when he got some free time. Well, off to my wonderful quarters, he thought sarcastically, then walked toward the towering building into which Traven had just disappeared.
The lobby was clean but dark. Directly across from the large glass double doors was a long receptionist desk, and past that, the entry to a long corridor lined with offices. He walked up two flights of stairs, then down another long hallway, seeing Traven, who was rolling out his sleeping mat onto the floor in one of the rooms.
“At least the floor is clean,” Traven called after him.
Kalma passed three more rooms before settling into one for himself, pushing a heavy steel desk out of the way to make room for his black sleeping mat. He laid out his weapons on the desk’s surface, put on his assault gear, and then began holstering various knives, energy emitters, and plasma-accelerating guns all over his body. By the time he finished adjusting it all, so he could still move fluidly, it was time for the briefing.
Chapter 2
Malik entered the briefing room ahead of the others. He looked around the large conference room, then walked to the far side of the table and sat with his back to the wall, always positioning himself facing entrances so as not to be surprised from behind. He looked at his multifunction display band strapped to his left arm. The bands were an incredible source of information, connecting to the Council’s military data stores. They were controlled directly with magic, albeit simple, but it still limited the number of people capable of using them. For an additional layer of security, each band was linked to the mind of its owner for control and display. Once linked, the band was controlled by thought, making its use second nature, as if it was simply another appendage. The images displayed were only visible to the mind linked to it.
On the far left of the screen, the current time was displayed. He was twenty minutes early. He smiled to himself because he had time to send a message to his family before the others would arrive. There was usually not much time to make and send messages back home, but he made sure to send one every time there was an opportunity. The bands were the only method approved for the Guard to contact civilians when deployed, which wasn’t very frequent as of late. Videos recorded by the band were automatically filtered for sensitive material before transmission to its recipient.
Activating the recorder, Malik smiled. “Hi, Kaelen. Hi, Maliem. I hope you’re having a great summer and keeping Mommy company. Daddy misses you!” In fact, Kaelen and Maliem, his four-year-old daughter and five-year-old son, were just about all Malik could think of lately, along with his beautiful wife, Relana. “Hi, sweetie. I’m sorry this transmission’s taken me so long to send. The commander’s kept us very busy, and I haven’t had time to get a message off until now. I miss you all so incredibly much. I’m doing well, and Traven sends his love. We got a new kid on the team, and I think he’ll be all right. We’ve been traveling frequently and helping Councilwoman Denetaa befriend the locals.”
Malik hated lying to his family, but it was the nature of the job. ‘Befriending locals’ was a bit of a stretch for most of the Guard’s activities, but Malik didn’t want his children to know the things their daddy did in service to the Council. Their perfect little lives were far too innocent to hear of such matters. Relana had a vague idea about Malik’s duties, but she loved him far too much to care about such things. Besides, being the wife of a member of the Guard afforded her and their children with great luxuries at home.
Malik heard the footsteps of someone approaching the conference room. “I’ve got to go, but I’ll send you all another message as soon as I can. I love you and miss you so much. Sleep well tonight. Bye!” He turned off the recorder and had the message sent to Relana with one thought. At the same moment, Commander Wren entered the room. Malik jumped to his feet at full attention. “Commander, sir.”
“At ease,” Wren replied, waving a nonchalant hand toward him. “Take a seat and rest. We have a lot of work to do tonight. Sending a message to Relana and the kids?”
“Yes, sir. We’ve been so busy lately that this was the first chance I’ve gotten in a while,” Malik said.
“You’re a great dad, Malik. Not many of our ranks make as much time for their children as you. I think things are starting to wind down in this war. You should be getting more time to send them correspondence soon. I might even be able to set up a live stream for you in a few weeks,” Wren responded.
“That’d be great, sir, thanks!” Personal interplanetary streams were difficult to set up within a highly active war campaign, since live transmission channels were only kept open for military operations. Malik knew how difficult it was to get this done and figured Wren must have a way to twist somebody’s arm. He sat up in his seat, a little proud knowing Wren thought well enough of him to pull some strings. Wren was likely to be promoted soon, and Malik had his eye on becoming the next commander.
The others started slowly filing into the room and taking seats around the table. Zavier moved to sit across from Malik and gave him a nod as he sat. Alex entered a minute or so later, looking a little glum. He sat on the same side of the table as Malik, but several seats separate.
“Zavier take some money off your hands in that game you had going on the transport?” Malik asked, amused.
“Took more than some,” Alex murmured, his face flushed a little with repressed anger.
“Well you shouldn’t bet so high on a bad hand,” Zavier said with a smile that nearly reached his ears. “It’d also help to practice more. Double or nothing tomorrow?”
“You’re on. And this time I’m gonna clean you out,” Alex roared.
“All right, all right. Let’s calm down, gentlemen,” Wren said, laughing. “Alex, if you’re not careful, you’re going to end up losing your rations to Zavier in addition to your money.”
Zavier beamed even more. “Don’t worry, Alex. I’m not interested in your meals. I’d be happy to take that extra cushioned pillow you got from that last raid though.”
The door swung open as Traven and Kalma entered the room. They walked to the far side of the table and took the two middle seats between Alex and Malik. The conversation quieted, and Wren slid a small, thin device to the center of the table. A large three-dimensional Madison City sprung to life, hovering above the emitter, the image expanding to the edges of the table. The city was relatively large with many towering skyscrapers at the center.
“We’re here,” Wren began, the representation of the building they were sitting in turning yellow. “There’ve been reports of resistance fighters on the north and west side of the city.” The map turned red in the regions noted by Wren. “The west side of the city provides slightly more risk for a standard hunt-and-execute operation due to the bordering forest. There’s the possibility that the enemy will flee into the woods for cover. From there, they could make hit-and-run attacks or hide for an extended period of time. Finding them would get a little tricky, as the terrain will slow down search efforts. There’ve been rumors that the fighters are becoming more organized, with instructions originating from the west side. They appear to be recruiting and gained headway since the councilwoman’s introduction of curfew a few weeks ago. Unfortunately, our information thus far has been relatively limited. Traven and Kalma, I want you to go undercover for a little while and find out anything you can. The better we understand their organizational hierarchy, the easier they’ll be to eliminate. We want to avoid multiple skirmishes and a long, drawn-out guerrilla war within the city.”
“Yes, sir,” Traven and Kalma said in unison.
Kalma looked over at Traven with relief. It was easier to keep pretending he was a naïve new recruit around only one member of the Guard, especially in combat situations. So much of fighting involved relying on reflex and instantaneous decisions that it’d be difficult to hide his skill in an all-out barrage. Besides, subtlety was his bread and butter. A little infiltration mission sounded like fun to him, and Traven was as good a partner as any.
Wren continued, “The northern side of the city should be fairly simple to mop up. We have intel that suggests their stronghold is in a bombed-out clothing store located just off the river that cuts through the city. So far, coordination between the west and north has been minimal. We need to avoid the two groups forming a stronger alliance and joining efforts. Since the northern dissenters were stupid enough to concentrate their forces in one location, we should be able to eliminate them entirely. Alex, Zavier, Malik, and I will assault the store location tonight. Our objective is simple enough: wipe them out. We’ll send a message to the others in the city demonstrating the cost of insurrection. With luck, we’ll be back by sunrise.”
“Traven, Kalma,” Wren said, fixing his eyes on Traven. “Take as much time as you need, but plan on checking in within a week. If it turns out you can get valuable information sooner, then do what you can to stir up a little trouble and report back here. You can take a transport as far as the western bridge, but travel on foot from there to make contact. The rest of us will take a transport to the outskirts of city center and hoof it from there. Any questions?”
The men looked around at each other, but no one responded. The plan was pretty routine: infiltrate, destroy.
“Very well. My team will head out momentarily. Grab any last-minute items you need and meet on the north entrance of the building.” Wren glanced down at his multiband, noting the time. “The transport should be in place and waiting for us now. Traven and Kalma, your transport will be ready in fifteen at the west lobby entrance. Good hunting, gentlemen. Dismissed.”
The Guard rose from their seats and started walking toward the door. Their current base was a high-rise that had been vacated since the initial onslaught of the city. Many of the buildings at city center were closed off to restrict the movements of the city’s inhabitants. The Guard were nearly always placed in such buildings, kept separate from other government officials and standard military operations, giving them a greater level of secrecy from which to operate. Even though it sometimes felt isolated and lonely, it did mean that the six of them had complete run of the place; there was no need for whispered conversations or subtle exits.
Once everyone had vacated the conference room, Wren, Alex, Zavier, and Malik started down the hallway toward a bank of elevators, which were around a corner near the end of the hall. Traven and Kalma stood in front of the door and watched the others leave.
“Well, we have a few minutes if you need to grab anything before we go,” Traven said, turning toward Kalma.
“I’ve got everything I need. What about you?”
“No, I’m good. We’ll need to pick up different clothes somewhere though, so we can blend in better. It’d be good not to show up armed to the teeth in full body armor. That might just tip them off.”
Kalma laughed, adding sarcastically, “I think you may have a point. Wow, I’m glad you were here to tell me that. My plan was to walk up to the first rebel I could find and announce that I was there to get all his secrets and then betray them all.”
“Just making sure we’re on the same page.”
The two of them started down the right side of the hall to the stairs at the end, passing several office suites that were all abandoned.
“What do you think they did here?” Kalma asked.
“I have no idea,” Traven responded. “We’ll probably bunk here for a while. Maybe we can figure it out if we get some spare time.”
When they got to the first floor, they exited the stairway and walked into the dark lobby; the lights were out so no one would notice the building now had six occupants. The room was empty with marble floors, a receptionist desk, and glass windows stretching from the floor to the ceiling forming the outer wall. Traven and Kalma walked to a bench near the doorway and sat to await their ride.
It didn’t take long for two identical small vehicles to pull up, able to seat four people with two in the front and two in the back. Hovering just above the ground, they were called skimmers and could travel at tremendous speeds. Both were currently black in color, blending into the dark night, but could change to match most surroundings. As soon as they stopped, the driver of the first vehicle got out and took the passenger seat in the second skimmer. It then headed back toward the main base of operations for the city.
After it was out of view, Kalma stood up and exited the building. “You’re driving,” he called back to Traven, then looked down at his multiband and accessed the skimmer’s door controls. Once the passenger door opened, he slid into the comfortable leather chair and shut the door.
Traven took the driver seat and grabbed the control yolk, making a few quick checks of the sensors to ensure no one was around. He saw the signature for the other transport heading back to base. Looking down at his multiband, he synced it to the skimmer’s transponder controls.
“Access granted,” he heard in his mind as the band responded. “Transponder override activated. All vehicle transmissions halted.”
He looked over at Kalma. “Transponders are deactivated, and the skimmer’s sensor signature’s been suppressed. It’s just me and you now. Let’s find a place to park this thing and get some more appropriate clothes.”
The skimmer sped off quietly into the darkness of the city.
Chapter 3
It was quiet in Madison City’s Eisenhower sector. Ethan could hear the river bubbling as it flowed, passing the rubble that was left in the wake of the take-over. The name of the sector was in honor of an American hero whose government had united with others many years before. At one time, the w
orld was full of governments struggling against each other to gain economic advantage. Those governments eventually merged into just a handful, centered mainly on continental divides. When the need for a defense program against possible extraterrestrial threats became apparent, the world’s governments formed a coalition called the Alliance. Each country’s individual military maintained its independence, but when faced with an external threat, each had promised to work together for the good of humankind.
Unfortunately, the Alliance wasn’t prepared for the onslaught of an advanced militaristic civilization. When the Urlowens attacked Earth, the Alliance was caught off guard and the first few cities fell quickly. With the Alliance in retreat, struggling to put aside their differences and unite against the Urlowen attack, many cities were dependent on brave groups of citizens to secure extra food, medical supplies, and other necessities of life.
Although it was a desperate time, Ethan was certainly not going to give up without a fight, which was why he’d joined the Madison City Northern Resistance. The name needs some work though.
A messenger from the west side of the city had arrived the previous night with a request to coordinate their attacks. That inspired them to take a more formal approach to their resistance, which evidently needed a name.
He leaned back against a slanted stone half-wall that’d taken the brunt of a grenade at some point. It provided him with both a little bit of cover and a view of the clothing store across the street—the current base for the northern raiders.
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