Blood of Patriots (Book 4 of The Humanity Unlimited Saga)

by Terry Mixon

  It never got any easier. As soon as they saw him, they knew. He could see it in their eyes. The fear and horror followed by the despair. It tore at his heart every single time.

  “I want a listing of each and every one of them, and for those that aren’t in my company, I’ll need to know more about them. As soon as we get clear from here, I’ll make the notifications.”

  Krueger cocked his head slightly. “Most of them aren’t troops from your unit. They already have superiors and processes in place to perform notifications to the next of kin.”

  “I know that,” Harry said with a nod. “But that doesn’t change my duty. These people died under my command, and their families deserve to hear what happened from my lips. One day I might command enough troops so that’s not practical, and I’ll address that then, but today is not that day.”

  “I’ll get the information to you as soon as I can. It’s going to have to wait until after phase two of the fighting, I’m afraid. The surviving aliens pulled back toward the city, and I expect they’re forming a defensive zone to receive us.

  “Based on the air cars that they sent after you, we have to assume that they have other weapons in reserve for emergencies. Why they didn’t feel they could use them in fighting against the Volunteers, I don’t know, but we’re going to have to make the assumption that we’ll face more advanced technology and perhaps larger numbers than we expected.”

  Harry stared off at the distant city, its tall spires decayed, leaning, and occasionally fallen onto their neighbors. It was hard to imagine anyone there retaining any kind of technological sophistication, but the air cars hadn’t been mirages. They’d been real. And if used correctly, they could’ve been quite deadly.

  “I just saw Brenda Cabot up top with the prisoners and Jess,” Harry said. “I didn’t speak with her, but I’d expect that we can count on some technical assistance from her in the planning stages and perhaps even something of a surprise during the execution. We need to bring the Volunteers over once we’ve secured the area. We made a promise to them, and we need to keep it.”

  Krueger looked unconvinced. “Is that really the best idea? No offense to Miss Adorno and General Norris, but they’re more in line with the technological level of the targets. They don’t exactly have sophisticated techniques for going door to door in what’s going to be the ugliest fight of our lives. They’ll be slaughtered.”

  “This is their land,” Harry said firmly. “Who are we to tell them that they can’t defend it? We can do everything possible to shield them from the worst of the blowback, but we have to let them fight their own enemies. That’s what free people do.

  “That doesn’t mean we can’t be there with our advanced weapons and blow the living snot out of any resistance they run into. We can protect our friends, but we can’t coddle them.”

  “You’re the boss.” The other man looked up at the sun and did some obvious mental calculation. “We’ve got another six or seven hours of daylight. That’s enough time to get all the troops we want to bring through the gate, get them into place, and set up in a real defensive perimeter. We can use our night-vision gear and some scouts to make absolutely sure no one sneaks up on us, but we’re going to bivouac here tonight.

  “We’ll need to speak with our allies and our military commanders for as long as needed tonight to find out what we’re facing, how were going to break through the enemy lines, and take possession of those gates. Which brings up a couple of questions for you.

  “I thought this Asharim civilization was filled with people using these gates. All I’ve heard about are a couple of gates in the center of the city that we’re going to be pushing for. Shouldn’t those buildings be filled with gates?”

  Harry shrugged. “Perhaps they are, but there’s no power supply for them. The Volunteers said they had to secure a certain specific set of gates. On the heavy-worlder planet, the Asharim locked the gates down so that no one could use them. Perhaps they did something similar here. Until we can actually get Kevin to look at them, we won’t know the answers to those questions.

  “One thing that will be a huge bonus, if we win, is salvaging as many of the nonfunctional gates as possible. If we can lock them down to specific addresses, which Brenda says is possible, then we can give them to our allies on Earth.”

  “Sounds dangerous. They could undo whatever you did and gain access to the galaxy at large.”

  There was something to Krueger’s objection, but Earth needed something like this. The idea of having a bank of gates open in a major airport, allowing people from all over the world to just step from New Zealand to Los Angeles in a single heartbeat, would change the world instantly.

  “We won’t do it if we can’t secure it,” he said at last. “In any case, that’ll have to wait until we’ve secured the city.”

  Harry put his hands on his hips and stared off into the distance when Krueger only nodded. That brought his thoughts full circle. Those aliens would be defending their homes. This was not going to be an easy fight.

  But the Volunteers were also defending their homes. In many ways, they were the patriots of this story, much as their ancestors had been the patriots of the Revolutionary War. They were fighting for hearth and home.

  He looked forward to having time to talk to the Volunteers and learn more about their society. He suspected that they still had many of the honorable traits his forefathers had once had. The ones that had made them great leaders and had made the United States the shining jewel of the world.

  Perhaps that knowledge and spirit could salvage the nation he’d grown up in. He certainly hoped so.

  “I’ll leave you here to continue getting everything in order,” Harry said after a few minutes. “I’ll start sending down the Volunteers as quickly as they arrive. We’ll use the path, since the fighting is over. Set them up wherever makes the best sense, but make sure that they’re covered against surprise attacks. After the last time, I’d rather not have them hit in the dark again.

  “We’ll meet in the command post on top of the hill when everything is done. I’ll make sure we have food and that everything is set up for us to make our final plans as quickly as possible. Tomorrow, we attack.”

  Brenda stared at the Asharim city through a borrowed pair of binoculars. “Holy cow, can you imagine the amount of high-tech gear just sitting there? Even though most of it has to be junk, we know that the gates survive that kind of time, so there has to be other stuff that still works. This is almost like exploring that frozen Earth.”

  “Except that Earth-B doesn’t have people trying to kill you hiding in every building,” Jess said. “Not that having an atmosphere and survivable temperatures wouldn’t be a nice change of pace.”

  Taking one last look at the city, Brenda set the binoculars down on the rock she was leaning against and turned to face Jess. “You realize that you’re not even going to scratch the surface of that mystery during your lifetime, right? Just like I’m never going to learn everything I possibly can from the Asharim. This is going to be a multigenerational task.”

  “That’s where bringing in all those scientists that Queen promised you—and me for that matter—comes in,” Jess said. “It’s like a long-term research project where people will gain a lot of experience and bring in fresh viewpoints with new classes of graduate students. Then they’ll see things that their teachers never imagined possible. In a lot of ways, this is like the Manhattan Project, only bigger.”

  Brenda immediately realized that the other woman was right, but she was also wrong. “It’s like the Manhattan Project, sure, but this is like World War II hasn’t ended. We’re making the breakthroughs, but we can’t count on the information we learn stopping the Asharim or some other alien race from being a threat.

  “We literally have no idea what’s out there waiting for us. Humans never really had a good grasp on galactic civilization. We know the Asharim had enemies that fought against them, though we had no real grasp of who or what they were. Those ene
mies provided humans with some tech and some assistance when we needed it, but that was always behind the scenes. No one really knows what their true goals were.

  “We don’t even know if they were the race that the Asharim got into a knock-down, drag-out fight with. Someone ended the Asharim’s supremacy, but it might not have been those shadowy aliens that helped humanity. They might have been thrashed as well. Until we get out there into the wider universe, we’ll never know.”

  Jess sighed and rubbed her face tiredly. “I know, but we’ve got to take care of the problems closer to home before we can even start exploring. Just look at this place. This is really a side fight. I wish we could’ve spent our time elsewhere. We’d get a lot more mileage out of working on turning the heavy-worlders into allies than fighting these degenerate Asharim and their slaves.”

  “You’re wrong,” Brenda said with a shake of her head. “Fighting here and showing the heavy-worlders what the Asharim have become is the best way to make them feel that they can safely become your allies.

  “Just think about it. They’ve had the Asharim hanging over their heads like the Sword of Damocles. If they strayed too far, the aliens would crush them if they returned. Now that they know that fate isn’t waiting for them, they’re finally free to grow and become the kind of people they want to be. Whatever that is.”

  “That sounds pretty touchy feely,” Jess said. “We can’t count on anything like that. We have no idea what they’ll do.”

  “I’m serious here,” Brenda pressed. “Once the fighting is finished inside the Asharim city, I’ll bet everything I have that they return home and argue ferociously with their priest that it’s time to break away from that religion. What they do next, I don’t know, but there’s a very good chance that they’ll be allies to humanity.”

  “They want to find their home world,” Jess said. “Not Earth, but the heavy-gravity planet that they were transplanted to. That’s where their population is the strongest. And convincing these heavy-worlders that they should be our allies isn’t going to do anything to convince the others.”

  “You might be surprised. I think that wherever the larger portion of their race is, they’ll pay attention to these members of their subspecies. We might as well admit that’s what they are: a subspecies of humanity. I’m not sure what the scientists would call them, but even though the genetic change is artificial, they’re not exactly Homo Sapiens anymore.”

  Jess opened her mouth to respond, but a shout from back at the cave caught both of their attention. When they turned, they saw Susanna Adorno leading a long string of Volunteer fighters onto the planet. The men behind her cheered when they saw that they were home.

  “She and General Norris must’ve returned to bring the rest of their people here and get them ready to fight,” Jess said, her tone somewhat worried. “I really do hope that this isn’t a mistake. They’re so vulnerable.”

  Brenda put her hand on Jess’s shoulder. “They been fighting the Asharim for hundreds of years. They aren’t helpless. Whatever happens, we’ll be standing beside them and doing our level best to make certain that we come out on top.

  “But even if they suffer losses, this is their world. It’s their place to fight for their homes. Isn’t that what their ancestors did?”

  Jess slowly nodded. “This war is a just one for them. Like Jefferson once said, the tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants. The Volunteers are patriots and the Asharim are tyrants. We just have to do our very best to make sure that the tyrants shed more blood than the patriots.”

  Brenda tugged Jess toward the arriving soldiers. “Let’s go see that they get settled in. Once everyone is together, you can give them one of those motivational speeches that leaders always give to urge their followers on to greater heights.”

  Her friend blanched. “I’m an engineer. I hate talking in front of people at all, much less trying to raise their enthusiasm to new heights so that they can go conquer their enemies. That’s Harry’s job.”

  “I think you’re selling yourself short. Pretend they’re your engineering team and conquering that city is just finishing a project on schedule. Trust me when I say that you’ll motivate them then.”

  They’d almost made it to Susanna when Kerrick Vidar and his daughter came racing out of the tent where the prisoners were being housed. They immediately spotted Jess and Brenda and ran toward them.

  This couldn’t be good.

  “Lastark has decided to cooperate with you,” the elder Vidar said. “He has grave news. You must come at once.”

  Jess immediately turned away from the arriving Volunteers and ran toward the tent. Brenda shared a glance with Susanna and ran after her. A minute later, all of them were clustered around the alien warrior in his cot.

  Lastark looked up at them with an expression that Brenda couldn’t decipher. “I have considered what you said and decided that I will help you. Perhaps that will help my people as well, but it will certainly help bring an end to this continual war between the Asharim and the humans on this planet.

  “I have never known anything other than living under the heels of the Masters, and I find the idea of making decisions for myself, though strange and frightening, is one that appeals to me. With that in mind, I will tell you something that the Asharim would execute me for speaking of if they knew.”

  He cast a glance over at where the Asharim they’d captured lay. He was rolled over in the cot and so busy ignoring the presence of everyone else in the tent that it didn’t seem that he was listening. There was a bit of irony in him missing the big reveal.

  Lastark seemed to take a deep breath and then continued. “The forces that you are fighting here are not the largest group of my people. In fact, the Masters have called two other colonies of their own kind and summoned warriors to end the human presence on this world once and for all.

  “Even as we speak, a force much larger than the one you defeated travels to where the humans live on this planet. They intend to exterminate them. As they departed two days ago and will be travelling fast, it may already be too late for you to stop them.”

  Jess translated what the alien had said to Susanna Adorno, and the other woman paled. “Gods above! Our people cannot stand off a force that large. We must race to their defense, or tens of thousands of my people will be exterminated.”

  “I’m going to go talk to Harry,” Jess said resolutely. “We’ll save your people or die trying.”

  35

  Jess raced out of the tent and called Harry on the radio. “I need you up here right now. I’m near the medical tents.”

  “Can it wait fifteen minutes?” he asked.

  “No. Bring Commander Krueger if he’s anywhere near you. We’ve got a serious problem.”

  “Copy that. We’re on our way.”

  She paced back and forth in front of the tent as she waited, her mind racing. Various plans to intercept the attacking force came up and were discarded. None of her ideas seemed realistic. They were days late in responding and didn’t have the kind of equipment that could get them to the settlements in a hurry. What were they going to do?

  Harry and Krueger came running from where the ropes went down the side of the hill a few minutes later, both skidding to a halt beside her.

  “What’s going on?” Harry asked.

  “Lastark decided to help us,” she said grimly. “He said that an army about five times the size of the one we fought here left toward the Volunteer settlements two days ago. They’re going to exterminate them.”

  Harry cursed. “We don’t have aircraft. How are we going to get ahead of them?”

  “Can we even get ahead of them?” Krueger asked. “A two-day lead on foot is almost insurmountable.”

  “Maybe we can bring something through the gate,” Jess said. “I realize that the tunnel is too small for aircraft, but surely something can be disassembled and brought through that will give us a speed edge. We’ve got three days to get
ahead of them and form some kind of defense of those settlements.”

  Harry began pacing, massaging his temples with his fingers. “If we can bring through some ultralights, we could get some air cover. They have two-seat versions where one person is piloting and the other can act as a gunner or spotter for mortar rounds.

  “I realize that’s not much when it comes to air superiority, but we’re pretty much fighting people with black powder weapons. I understand that they might have a few flechette rifles, so it’s not a settled deal, but it beats having nothing at all.”

  “We’re not going to be able to get any vehicle of size through the tunnel,” Krueger said. “About the biggest we can manage are motorcycles. With this rough terrain, I’m thinking dirt bikes. If we can bring through a bunch of dirt bikes, we can give the troops that don’t have any knowledge about using them a couple of hours of training that will be sufficient to get them where they need to go.

  “If we have some of the bikes carry nothing but fuel, we should be able to catch up with the enemy before they reach the settlements. We’d have to keep sending even more bikes with fuel to keep that going, but it should erode the lead that they’ve got. The question will be if we can shave off enough time to stop them before the attack begins.”

  Harry turned his head and looked at the sun. “By the time we get things in motion back on Earth, it’s going to be dark, so here’s what we’re going to do. The bikes can be gathered and brought here overnight. That should get us a sufficient number by the time dawn arrives.

  “That’s going to be an expensive undertaking, and it’s going to draw attention. I mean really, who comes in and buys out a complete showroom of dirt bikes?”

  “I might be able to help with that,” Brenda said as she stepped out of the hospital tent. “Things have been a little hectic here, so I haven’t had an opportunity to tell you that we found the base in Virginia. It’s a big one, and the gates are operational. There’s nothing else inside of it. Whoever ran it back then cleaned it out, but it’s not very far away from DC.