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Father Pierce had carefully set his bombs. He had chosen buildings with no one in them, and that the Evacuation Command didn’t need. He also set the bombs so that when they went off, roads and facilities that the Republic might want during an invasion were denied them. He also made sure that the fires that started were self-extinguishing before they became conflagrations.
When the fire department came to check things out someone took a shot at them. From his conversation with the Republican agent he knew that there had to be other teams doing what he was supposed to do. He had seen not the weapons barge’s spectacular explosion, and the battle between the fleets and knew that the invasion wasn’t going to happen. He had only two tasks to do. To stop the idiots who were killing the firemen and to present himself before the Queen and to accept the punishment for the wrong he had caused her. Somehow in the process he was hoping to find grace with god and await his judgment.
He saw where the shooting was coming from and stalked the shooters. He climbed into a building that was across from the fire, waiting for them to take another shot. He didn’t have long to wait. Another fire truck approached the fire and sure enough someone took a shot at them. Father Pierce left the building and climbed into the house where the shot came from. Up on the second floor he found them, there were two of them. They were hunkered down behind a window taking random shots at the fire men. He shot them both. As he did a black guard sniper who was laying on the open ramp of a landing craft mistook him for the snipers he had just killed and shot him with a single shot to his head. The theocracy’s priest never knew what hit him.
Every Last Mother's Child Page 238