She rolled her eyes. Human men!
Besides, it would be good to remind him what he was missing.
“I miss you,” she said once more. Louder.
She sat in silence waiting for a reply, as patient as the stars watching her through the cockpit.
When none came, she dozed off and dreamed of adventure.
* * * * *
Chapter 44: Vaylen-Zis
He blamed the humans.
Brilliantly creative, brave, stubborn, ignorant—there was something different about the way that infuriating species saw the universe. Vaylen-Zis sometimes wondered over a pipe and a ch’alla-soaked biscuit whether the humans who’d arrived long ago had come from another universe altogether. Something about them just didn’t fit in the Perseus Arm.
He was proud to call himself an Ellondyte, but he admitted the best of the Federation was human.
Such as the WCD army waiting in ominous silence outside the city, just half a klick away from the barricade across Progress Avenue.
Kaylingen was a redoubt of decency in a seething swamp of WCDs.
Willfully cancerous dissenters.
The view through his blaster scope showed the rebel army was comprised of grim-faced civilians, bearing sporting rifles and low-powered blasters. There were heavier weapons too, perhaps looted during the breakout from A-10 a few days earlier. Some of the rebel soldiers might even be A-10 criminals, but all of them looked proud and determined. In fact, other than their crude Zone 40s sense of fashion and the Easterner burr to their accents that he couldn’t hear at this distance but had no doubt was there, they weren’t all that different from the brave citizens of Kaylingen standing with him at the barricade.
This army of dissenters didn’t consider themselves cancerous at all.
And for that, Vaylen-Zis blamed the humans.
Most of these WCDs were human. He didn’t think it was a coincidence.
Crazy humans.
“What are they waiting for?”
There was panic in the voice of the man beside him on the upper firing step. Vaylen-Zis dropped his scope and turned just in time to slap down a barrel being aimed at the army.
“Don’t be a fool, Ignet!”
“I can’t take it anymore.” Ignet Jens was pleading. What did the idiot think Vaylen-Zis could do?
“You’ll have to embrace the suck. That’s what the Militia likes to say, except the Militia are nowhere to be seen, which is why we have to stand firm in their place. We includes you, Ignet. And that means no firing at the enemy until they close. There’s over two thousand out there. There’s sixty-six of us. If we’re to die, we must make every shot count.”
“I’m not a soldier,” Ignet wailed. “I see someone threatening me, I don’t wait to discuss tactics. I shoot them dead. And to see that army of WCDs out there. It’s…” Vaylen-Zis sighed with relief when Ignet allowed one of the women from the lower firing step to safely take his rifle, but Ignet wasn’t finished. He shuddered with horror. “To see those WCDs…to merely look at them is a sight crime.”
“So, what are you saying, Harvey?” Vaylen-Zis asked angrily. “If I could give you a button to press that would agonizingly kill every single one of them and their families, would you press it?”
“In a heartbeat. Sure, I’d feel sorry for the families, but only because I’m a soft-hearted person. We have to harden ourselves toward those who don’t deserve our tolerance.” Ignet gave him a suspicious look. “Why? Wouldn’t you kill them all if you could?”
“If it came to a fight, I suppose so.”
“Waiting for a fight makes no sense,” said Ignet. The steel was back in his soul, and he was looking around for his rifle. “We need to kill those WCDs first. They’re not people. They’re something less. Sub-people.”
“Funny thing,” muttered Vaylen-Zis. “I reckon they think the exact same of us.”
“What’s that?”
“Nothing.”
Damned Militia. Where the hell are they? Situation’s going to flash into disaster any moment.
Ignoring the human glaring at him, Vaylen-Zis raised his hands high and stood on tiptoe so he was clearly visible to the WCD fighters.
“I’m not surrendering,” he announced in a loud voice. “I’m going to ask them what they’re doing.”
“I told you,” shouted Ignet, “they’re sub-people. You can’t reason with them.”
That won grunts of approval, so Vaylen-Zis replied, “The longer I stall them, the more time we buy for reinforcements to arrive.”
“Reinforcements?”
“Is the Militia coming?”
“I heard the Legion was setting up kill zones to wipe the WCD stain from the galaxy.”
Vaylen-Zis left the rumors flying and clambered over the barricade and down the far side.
Conscious that he had the starring role in two thousand sight pictures, he lifted his hands and strode toward the WCD army. The blue band around his right arm felt more like a target with every step.
He closed about half the distance before stopping and yelling at the invaders. “I ain’t surrendering. I just want to know what you’re doing there. I ask as the elected leader of this citizen armed response team. The people’s militia.”
“We’re the Revolutionary Forces of Reconciliation,” came a shouted reply. “It’s we who are the true people’s army.”
“People’s army? That’s the Militia.” Vaylen-Zis couldn’t help shrugging, and he added in a quieter voice, “Wherever the hell they are.”
“The Militia and the Amilxi people forever,” sneered the WCD spokesperson. Vaylen-Zis couldn’t see who he was communicating with. “The corrupt Militia has bargained with In’Nalla to suppress disorder in return for the riches of the asteroid mine—wealth that rightfully belongs to us all. The Militia is not the people’s army. They’re mercenaries. Oppressors. We are the true people’s army.”
“Then why don’t you attack?” asked Vaylen-Zis, immediately cursing himself for saying something so stupid a human could have said it. “We will fight. You will kill us, but there are barricades across all the main approaches, and you will have to go over our dead bodies to take this city, because we will stand up to you.”
“What’s your name?”
He hesitated. The WCDs could twist the most innocent of words into their perverted narratives, but he couldn’t see the harm in telling them his name. “I ain’t ashamed of my own name. I’m Vaylen-Zis.”
“Well met, Vaylen-Zis. Tell us, what is it you do for a living?”
“I’m a butcher. Got a shop just off Restitution Plaza.”
“Then I say to you, Vaylen-Zis, the butcher, this city needs people like you. I hope you survive this day. And to answer your question, we hope we won’t need to fight, but if the city does not yield to us willingly, we will seize it by force.”
“That saddens my old heart, because we will not yield, and many must die today.”
“Have hope, butcher. This day will be long, and it has barely begun. Now, return to your friends.”
Vaylen-Zis took a last look at the enemy and then turned back to the barricade.
Where the hell was the Militia?
* * * * *
Chapter 45: Major Lyssin
“Where the fuck are your people?” demanded In’Nalla. “There’s an army outside my city. Where are your air assets? Why don’t you bomb them into atoms?”
Major Lyssin silently cursed the woman fuming on his wrist slate.
This, he knew, was the end of a good posting. He’d be lucky to survive the day.
“Why don’t you answer, damn you? Is this mutiny, Lyssin? Where is the Militia?”
Lyssin ground his jaw, searching for the right words.
The real answer was that the system marshal, safe in her asteroid belt command post, had redeployed assets to the north to defend against what even the most incompetent of trainees would realize was a feint attack. It was a half-baked military deception that wouldn’t foo
l a semi-trained baboon. Had it fooled the marshal, though? Lyssin thought it just as likely that she’d been bribed or had decided it was time for a regime change.
Lyssin guessed the latter. This smelled of politics and bribery. Somebody had already decided what the fate of the city and its regime would be.
“Revered Leader, I regret that the sector marshal called away our air assets and rapid deployment battalions in error. I have recalled them.”
It was a lie, of course. He’d done no such thing.
“Idiots! How long?”
“About an hour,” he told her. “In the interim, I’m organizing a zonal defense with the assets I have. We just have to hold on until reinforcements arrive.”
“Make sure you do. But your contemptible handful of troopers won’t decide the city’s fate. I will go ahead with my planned speech from Execution Square, but now it will be a rallying cry to call the people to the barricades. Make sure I am protected, Lyssin.”
“Of course, ma’am.”
Her face vanished as she cut the connection.
“Shit!”
What to do…what to do…what the hell could he do?
To start with, he took deep breaths and calmed down. It was a fearsome ordeal to be the target of In’Nalla’s temper, but the old bitch wasn’t his mistress. That was the sector marshal, and her last words to him this morning had been, “Protect the city.”
He had five understrength companies, and they were not contemptible. It was time to remind the galaxy that the Militia could be more than ceremonial prison guards and do more than carry out reprisals for rebel atrocities. When pressed into service, they could be proper soldiers too.
* * * * *
Chapter 46: General Gzeiter
For once, Gzeiter agreed with the Trucker. Their combined assault force would first attempt to scare away the civilians manning the barricade across the Western Approach before blasting through to seize the objectives in the city center. After all, their aim was to win over the citizens of Kaylingen to the PHPA cause, not to slaughter them.
All the approaches into the city were blocked in some way, but none with any strength Gzeiter could see. Most of the armed citizen bands were facing Commander Slinh’s Reserve Brigade on the far side of the city. Gzeiter’s plan had been to bypass the main barricades and infiltrate the city across a wide zone, but the Trucker had argued they needed to move fast, hard and…dramatically.
The man had emphasized his last point with a curling smoke ring. Now that Gzeiter had seen the mysterious RevRec leader up close, he wondered whether, for him, this was all about the drama. The fate of the world could change today, but to the Trucker, it was just a performance.
“Ready on your order, sir,” reported his artillery commander, Ipstein, through his earpiece.
“Fire at will, Lieutenant.”
“Shots away,” Ipstein reported a few seconds later. The artillery battery only boasted three light pieces designed to be carried on dropboats plus a couple of missile launchers, but Gzeiter’s ears rang with the battery’s roar.
Here, to the west of the city, the terrain was dominated by the broad Pa-Hukshen River, which curved along the valley floor and flowed through the center of Kaylingen.
The area was littered with boatsheds, jetties, cafés, and other facilities for enjoying the gently flowing Pa-Hukshen. After scaring off the civilians with an advance force, the combined RevRec strike company and Gzeiter’s direct command had quietly deployed behind this concealment.
A series of crumps assailed the barricade.
The first salvo fired were crowd dispersion rounds. Thick clouds comprised of choking gas and skin irritants roiled out when the flash bangs inside burst. To drive home the point, one of Gzeiter’s two missile launchers fired from the upper veranda of the café from which he was watching events. A standard explosive warhead hit a spot painted twenty feet in front of the barricade, sending up a plume of dust and road surface fragments through the gas clouds and leaving a deep crater in the road.
“Loading HELBeR,” reported the artillery commander.
High Explosive Limited Blast Radius. If any brave fools still held the barricade, they would be churned to mincemeat when those HELBeRs hit.
“They’re fleeing,” said Trucker.
Gzeiter looked. The enhanced view through his binocs showed the armbanded rabble jumping off the heap of doors, vehicles, planters, and other crap that happened to have been within reach. Its defenders were now desperate to get away.
“Take that barricade down, Ipstein.”
“Consider it done, General.”
As the next salvo arced through the air, the mountainsides echoing with its firing, the RevRec leader began removing his clothing.
Behind him, Corporal Woods edged his hand toward his sidearm, but Trucker pretended not to notice as he stepped out of his stained coveralls like an insect bursting free of its cocoon.
Under the coveralls, Trucker wore a chic brown smuggler jacket and an elaborate thigh holster that held an exotic hand blaster.
“The game is on,” said the Trucker, extending his hand to Gzeiter.
Gzeiter looked at the man’s dirty hand dubiously, then at his face. Trucker seemed to have shed a couple of decades along with his coveralls. He was surprisingly young.
Trucker took off his shades and stashed them in a jacket pocket.
Gzeiter recoiled at the sight. Those eyes! Trucker was a damned mutant!
“You’re…”
“The hero who’s gonna save your ass, General? Or were you going to say something else? Tell me, does the PHPA have a policy of discriminating against my kind?”
“No, of course not.” Gzeiter shook hands.
“To victory,” said Trucker.
“Indeed.”
“By nightfall, the city and Eiylah-Bremah will be ours.”
“To our victory,” Gzeiter repeated, but he wasn’t anticipating a joint victory. Power would fall to the Pan-Human Progressive Alliance alone. RevRec would be decimated, and Trucker’s lilac eyes would be staring lifelessly out of his corpse.
Trucker’s two captured GAC-19s came out from cover, and Gzeiter narrowed his focus to the here and now.
The attack was on.
* * * * *
Chapter 47: Major Lyssin
“Ren Kay, update!”
“No change,” the lieutenant reported. “The main rebel army remains in position to the east of the city, awaiting orders. I’m not detecting the tension I would expect if they were planning to attack imminently.”
“The longer they wait, the happier I’ll be,” said Lyssin. “Wait long enough, and they’ll be chewed up when the flying dollies come back here and do their job. There’s nothing more you can do there. Return to the city and rejoin my command squad.”
“Roger that.”
“And fast. The fighting’s already started. Out.”
Lyssin wished he hadn’t sent Ren Kay to scout the rebel forces. He would have been more useful here, helping put backbone in the defense force he’d scraped together. But regrets were for after the battle.
For now, he had to do the best he could with the hand he’d been dealt.
As much as it pained him to risk Militia personnel and equipment for In’Nalla’s defense, the key to the city was Execution Square, and the pallid old hag was playing demagogue there this afternoon.
Lyssin keyed the commander of his armor column, which consisted of two tanks and a squad of dependable infantry. It wasn’t much, but he hadn’t been able to form up his troops before the enemy made their move, and that was all he could get to Execution Square in time. Just five more minutes, and his mobile strike force would have been ready to counterattack any advance from the enemy.
“Lieutenant Atiff.”
“Sir.”
“Advance on Execution Square. Defend it to the last trooper.”
“Roger that.” Outside the window of the school building he’d commandeered as a command post, Lyssin he
ard the sounds of tank engines revving up. “Any rebels get in my way, they’ll be in for a big surprise.”
* * * * *
Chapter 48: Yat Darant
The flying machine juddered as its quad blasters spat heavy bolts from its nose. It was loud, but what made Darant’s ears bleed were the pilot’s whoops of delight.
“I’d tell you to calm down,” he told Lily, “but I’ll need my breath to scream when you crash.”
They were in a GAC-19a, the red crosses of the REEDs still visible under its coat of forest green paint. Unlike the hover fliers they’d seen at Krunacao, this variant had a rear-facing gun, which meant Darant was watching Fitz’s RevReccers and the Panhandlers move up to assault and not whatever Lily was flying them into.
It was no use. He couldn’t resist. Darant twisted around for a look.
The GAC was traveling slowly. Although flying parallel to the ground, its nose was pitched down, unleashing red bolts of energy that screamed into a barricade already mostly wrecked by the artillery.
Flames and debris erupted under the devastating pounding.
A little higher and to their right, Bronze was shooting the shit out of the obstacle from the other GAC. From the rear seat, Vetch grinned at Darant and gave him a thumbs up.
Darant stared at Vetch dumbly. He would have given anything to swap seats with the hairy bastard. He didn’t trust that Bronze character, but he seemed to know how to do pretty much anything. Flying a GAC-19 was no exception.
Suddenly, his stomach backflipped, and their craft dove through the gap they’d blasted into the mound of smoldering debris. They were so low, their armored belly scraped sparks off the road.
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