“Schwarze is right,” said Blondie.
Ritter’s jaw dropped. “But you’re the one who convinced them not to slaughter the caravan. Now they want to massacre a whole village!”
Blondie removed his aviator sunglasses and fixed his gaze on the younger soldier. On closer inspection, he was only a year or so older than Ritter. But his sky blue eyes held even more loss and sorrow. Did the Socs murder his family, too?
“Everyone in an outfit like this has two choices,” Blondie said, “fight or run. What’s yours?”
Ritter clenched his teeth to contain the cry of frustration that threatened to burst from his mouth. His white-knuckled fists fell to his sides.
“I’ll take silence for assent,” said Schwarze, mussing Ritter’s shaggy dark hair. “Be ready to roll out in ten minutes.” He turned and strolled down the dirt path. After ten paces he looked back over his shoulder. “I was talking to both of you.”
“I can’t believe you just folded like that,” Ritter shouted at Blondie when Schwarze had disappeared around the curve of the hill. The older Private had become Ritter’s mentor, even helping him with the new Grenzmark design he hoped to build one day. Ritter had thought the two of them saw eye to eye. Now he realized he didn’t understand Blondie at all. “Are you bloodthirsty or just a coward?”
Blondie weathered the verbal assault. “There’s a difference between surrender and picking your battles. Like I said, we all have a choice. Choose well.” He replaced his shades, stuffed his hands in the pockets of his red and black jacket, and strode down the path toward his Grenzie.
“The only battle I want to fight is for my homeland,” Ritter said to himself.
“This village is under the protection of the Black Reichswehr,” General Kopp announced over his Grenzmark II’s PA. “You have no need of weapons. Surrender your arms, along with your food, fuel, and equipment stores.” The mostly Chinese villagers ignored his gruff German words and continued their shrieking flight through the muddy roads between hovels.
Schwarze’s Grenzmark I, with its bullet-shaped head and earth tone desert paint scheme, pulled up alongside Kopp. “We’re wasting time,” Schwarze broadcast on the Reichswehr’s channel. His CF raised its machine gun. “Let’s clear this place out.”
Ritter urged his Grenzie forward from the tree line to confront his superiors at the settlement’s edge. “They don’t understand us. Gunning them down would be murder!”
The grill covering Schwarze’s sensor array swiveled toward Ritter’s CF. “Do you speak Mandarin?”
Frustration burned Ritter’s blood. “No. But if we just kill these people and take their property, we’ll be just like the Socs.”
“The Coalition took Deutschland,” said Kopp. His Grento’s domed head with its backswept command antenna never turned from the village. “We have the same objective. Why shouldn’t we emulate their methods?”
“Well said, Sir.” Schwarze’s Grenzmark I took an earthshaking step into the village and angled its gun barrel toward the street. Like a school of fish, the panicked mob retreated as one from the steel giant.
“That’s a language they understand,” said Blondie, who advanced his olive drab Grenzmark C from the jungle to join his squadmates. His Grenzie’s metal hand pointed to each side of the roughly square settlement. “If we position a CF at each side of the perimeter and have them all move in toward the center, we can herd the villagers into that building there.”
Ritter studied the long, warehouse style structure Blondie indicated. Made of whitewashed steel walls running east to west under a peaked wooden roof, the building dominated the prefabricated huts and plywood shacks surrounding it. Colorfully painted panes filled the small windows. Two simple beams intersecting at right angles hung over the double door. It’s a church.
Kopp took only a moment to decide. “Schwarze, keep driving them from the south.” His Grento’s left arm swept in a westerly arc, taking in the Reichswehr’s other Grenzmark I. “Heinz, move in from the left. Blondie, the right. Ritter, circle around and herd our sheep from the north. I’ll deal with any stragglers.”
Ritter breathed a sigh of relief. As the Black Reichswehr members broke off to fulfill their assigned roles, Ritter’s Grenzie snapped a salute at Blondie’s, which crisply returned the gesture.
Intimidating the frightened villagers into taking refuge in their church pricked Ritter’s conscience, but it beat the alternative. He flinched whenever Kopp’s 115mm machine gun thundered from the surrounding woods.
“That’s most of them,” Schwarze reported when the Black Reichswehr reconvened in the small unpaved square in front of the packed church. “Or at least enough to let us search this shithole at our leisure.”
“Start searching, then,” said Kopp. “Blondie, Ritter: You stand guard here. If any of these church mice so much as set foot outside, don’t hesitate to make an example.”
Kopp, Schwarze, and Heinz set to their task with gusto, tearing down rickety dwellings and sifting through the wreckage.
Ritter opened his cockpit to the humid, reeking air and turned his CF to face Blondie, who did the same. “Thanks,” Ritter said over the racket of his squadmates ransacking the village.
Blondie nodded, his face unreadable behind his mirrored glasses.
“You’re a hard guy to figure out,” said Ritter. “Why are you with this third-rate outfit, anyway?”
“Have you ever failed in your responsibilities, Ritter?” Blondie’s stony expression never changed as he looked to the cloudless sky. “Did you ever let someone important to you down?”
Shame warmed Ritter’s face. “I was sixteen when the Socs overran my town. More than old enough to fight back. My father said it was best to do nothing; that if we kept our heads down, it would all sort itself out in the morning. I listened to him. Now I’m the only member of my family left alive.”
Blondie’s deep but airy voice softened. “I bet you’d do anything to make up for that mistake.”
“Nothing!” Schwarze’s Grenzmark I came stomping toward the church. “We leveled this flyspeck to the ground, and we’ve nothing to show for it.”
“Serves us right for terrorizing innocent people,” Ritter said.
“You’re so naïve it’s a wonder you’re still breathing,” said Schwarze. “If these people are innocent, I’m Tesla Browning. They’re holding out on us, and by process of elimination, there’s only one place they can be hiding their stash.”
Ritter sealed his cockpit and imposed his Grenzie between Schwarze and the church. “These people have suffered enough. This church is all they have left. I won’t let you destroy it!”
“Does anyone else hear that?” asked Blondie. “It sounds like a jet, but I’m not getting anything on radar.”
The Grenzmark I lunged. Its armored shoulder slammed into the Grenzie’s chest and sent it reeling backwards. A jolt stabbed up Ritter’s spine as his CF landed in a sitting position against the church doors.
Schwarze drew the curved axe from his Grenzmark I’s hip. The air around its blade wavered with steel-melting heat. “Looks like I’ll have to cut through you to crush that church and everyone inside. The smell of your charred corpse will add savor to the work.”
Rhythmic tremors coursed through the ground as Heinz’s Grenzmark I and Kopp’s Grento tromped into the square. “We’ve coddled these peasants enough,” said Kopp. “Heinz, Blondie: Take down that church.”
Not good, thought Ritter. His Grenzie’s early warning system chirped an instant before he heard the roar of jet engines approaching from the west.
“This is Captain Maximus Darving of the Earth Governments in Exile,” a mellow tenor with a flippant edge radioed in American English. “Move away from the building, exit your combat frames, and surrender.”
Ritter rotated his CF’s head to scan the sky behind him. A white, hard-edged plane with blue markings on its forward-swept wings screamed toward the village. He couldn’t visually identify the aircraft, and he found no match in the Grenzi
e’s admittedly outdated CSC database.
Kopp pointed his oversized machine gun at the sky. “Shoot down that plane!”
Heinz obliged. His gun joined Kopp’s in splitting the air with bullets as big as milk cans. The jet rolled between both streams of fire and answered in kind with the twin Vulcans mounted in its nose. Kopp’s Grento danced aside from the double row of divots spraying out of the ground, but the rotary cannons’ fire chewed up Heinz’s slower CF like aluminum foil. The perforated Grenzmark I crashed backwards into the ruined village and lay smoldering.
Kopp’s Grento steadied itself, took aim, and fired a controlled burst as the jet flew overhead. Smoke trailed from the aircraft’s port wing.
Ritter used the distraction to haul his Grenzie to its feet. He drew his own heat axe and swung at the head of Schwarze’s Grenzmark I. His target’s grill swiveled toward the incoming axe, and Schwarze’s superheated blade intercepted Ritter’s with a ringing clash. Ritter’s axe went flipping from its hand to disappear in the wreckage.
“Still too weak, boy!” gloated Schwarze as he raised his CF’s heat axe for a blow to Ritter’s cockpit. A staccato burst of thunder punctuated his last word as a volley of 110mm slugs reduced the Grenzmark I to jagged scrap.
Ritter swept his main camera to the left. Blondie’s Grenzie stood, gun smoking, over the burning remains of Schwarze’s CF. “Thanks, Blondie,” Ritter said between heaving breaths.
From the corner of his eye, Ritter caught a blur of motion as Kopp’s Grento spun at the waist and leveled its gun at Blondie’s CF. Ritter fired his Grenzie’s rifle from the hip. The jungle ate most of the volley, but one round grazed the Grento’s arm. Kopp’s barrage flew wide of its target.
Blondie pivoted toward Kopp. He couched his gun’s stock against his Grenzie’s pauldron, aligned the sights with his CF’s sensor grill, and squeezed the trigger. Six rounds punched through the Grento’s chest in a pattern confined to the general’s cockpit door. The idle Grento remained standing with a ragged hole drilled straight through its torso.
“I didn’t expect to pay you back so soon,” said Ritter.
“We’re not even yet,” Blondie reminded him. “You still owe me one.”
Ritter’s proximity alarm pinged again. This time a beat passed before what sounded like a giant weed trimmer echoed over the western horizon.
Blondie moved his Grenzie to the church’s front wall and propped his gun up on the long roof, aiming at the sky. He motioned for Ritter to join him.
“Inbound helo,” Blondie told Ritter when both men had positioned their CFs facing the church’s east wall with their cockpits open. “She’s coming in hot and heavy. Gunship, probably.”
“No problem,” said Ritter. “Kopp sent that jet packing. We can take a chopper down, easy.”
“That helicopter is more maneuverable at low altitude, is probably carrying an arsenal of anti-armor ordnance, and has a team of gunners that can scatter us across the surface of a smoldering crater faster than we can react. Stay alert and don’t do or say anything till I give the word.”
The gunship hovered over the jungle canopy like an overfed green and brown hornet. A pair of tiered transparent blisters swelled from its nose. Ritter counted three Vulcans and a 70mm cannon mounted on turrets at the front of the fuselage. A pair of missile pods dangled from its stubby wings.
Ritter shut his cockpit against the lashing wind and piercing whine of the rotors. A higher register male voice with a Received English accent spoke over the radio. “This is Major Alan Collins of the EGE. Exit your combat frames and surrender.”
“That’s what the guy in the jet said,” Ritter replied. “Didn’t go too well for him.”
Blondie groaned.
“The guy in the jet is still combat-capable,” said the more laid-back, American English speaker whom Ritter recalled as Captain Darving. “And trust me; you want to do what the Major says. He’s way less gentle than me.”
“I repeat,” said Major Collins. “Exit the combat frames. I won’t warn you again.”
Blondie kept his Grenzie’s rifle trained on the chopper. “Negative. Your weapons are still locked on to us. Tell your gunners to stand down, and we’ll accept your terms.”
“I’m not blind,” said Collins. “Or daft. My gunners won’t stand down while you’re pointing a 110mm automatic rifle at my aircraft. And it’s no good using that warehouse as cover. I will shoot your cockpit right through it unless you stand down.”
“This is a church,” said Ritter. “It’s full of people!”
“I know,” the Major said flatly.
“Collins!” said Darving. “Have you gone apeshit? You’re not firing on a church.”
“I will use any means necessary to protect the men and equipment in my command, Captain,” said Collins. “Contradict me again, and I’ll have you in the brig for insubordination. Is that clear?”
The gunship was close enough for Ritter’s main camera to get a good shot of Collins’ face. The Major looked to be in his mid-twenties with short brown hair and green eyes with a scar bisecting his left eyebrow. He wore a bulky headset and a khaki uniform with a flag on the sleeve consisting of a red cross on a white field. Nothing in his demeanor hinted that he was bluffing.
“Listen,” said Blondie. “I can respect your devotion to your crew, but I’m on an important errand that can’t wait. My friend and I didn’t destroy this village. We helped take down the cretins who did. Why don’t we end this standoff and go our separate ways?”
“I don’t give a toss about your itinerary,” Collins snapped. “Whether or not you took part in the carnage here is for a military tribunal to decide. Now put down your guns and exit your bloody CFs!”
Ritter’s screen flashed red and an alarm trilled, indicating a missile lock on his Grenzie. He’s serious!
“My name is Sieg Friedlander,” Blondie said through gritted teeth. “Former L3 Prime Minister Josef Friedlander was my father.”
Ritter felt as if he were in freefall. He’s who!?
“I know who Josef Friedlander was,” Collins said, irritation edging his voice. “It’s only been a few months since the accident. My condolences if you really are his son, which I doubt.”
“Not an accident,” said Sieg. “An assassination. It’s part of the reason I’m here on Earth.” His Grenzmark rifle thudded to the ground beside the church. “I’ve already compromised a highly sensitive mission by telling you this much. Now tell your men to stand down, and let me get on with trying to save you idiotic grounders from yourselves.”
Ritter’s monitor shifted back to green, and he released a breath he didn’t remember holding. The helicopter descended into the square.
Sieg leapt down from his kneeling Grenzie’s cockpit and gestured for Ritter to do likewise. The landing gunship pelted the pair of them with dust and debris as Ritter joined the man he’d called Blondie on the church steps.
“Is it true?” Ritter asked. “Are you really Josef Friedlander’s son?”
“Yes,” said Sieg. “Now be quiet.”
Collins approached from the makeshift landing pad accompanied by a thin man with a light brown mop of hair and a stockier soldier with a similarly colored crewcut; both carrying assault rifles. According to their uniforms, the first man was named Zimmer and the second Edmonds. All three wore khaki uniforms with stylized globe patches on their upper right sleeves.
“Up against the wall,” Collins said.
Sieg complied, and Ritter grudgingly followed suit. Collins’ men handcuffed the two Black Reichswehr survivors, subjected them to rough, thorough searches, and relieved them of anything that could be remotely considered a weapon. The soldiers spun their prisoners around, and Ritter grunted as the cold steel bracelets bit into his wrists.
Collins stood at parade rest facing Sieg and Ritter. “You gentlemen have earned a free cruise aboard the ES Yamamoto,” the Major said, “with complimentary shuttle service. The duration of your voyage will depend on the outcome of y
our trial.”
“You don’t have jurisdiction,” Ritter objected. “I’m a German citizen.”
“A shame Germany no longer exists,” said Collins.
Ritter struggled fruitlessly against his bonds. “We didn’t do anything wrong!”
Collins nodded to his men, who marched the prisoners to the helicopter. The Major strode behind them.
4
“Esteemed delegates of the Commission,” Sanzen’s harsh voice filled the gray oval of the Coalition Secretariat Chamber in L1’s Byzantium colony. “Honorable secretaries; especially Secretary-General Mitsu. I am humbled to address such a distinguished body.”
Adopting a diplomatically neutral expression came easily to Mitsu Kasei as a skill honed by long practice. But sitting quietly amid her colleagues on the raised Secretaries’ Platform while the barbaric Security Director spread his dangerous rhetoric taxed her patience.
Sanzen’s rough hands gripped the podium centered on the red semicircle of carpet directly below Mitsu. He looked half-presentable, but a mercenary in an expensive navy blue suit was still a mercenary.
“I speak for of those who labor to secure the great strides we have made,” Sanzen said. “They toil thanklessly below to realize the Colonization Commission’s dream of a united and prosperous mankind. Many of these dedicated public servants will not live to see that dream fulfilled.”
Uneasy murmurs and the crisp shuffling of papers arose from the tables that radiated from the podium to the gallery’s edge in concentric rings.
“Your protectors in the Coalition Security Corps have persevered despite this council’s neglect,” Sanzen accused. “They ask for little and receive even less because more prestigious ministries are given higher priority. This inequitable resource allocation has exacted a toll in our citizens’ blood. One hundred and twelve casualties have resulted from combat frame armor reductions required by budget cuts.”
The subdued grumbling escalated to shouted denials and fists pounding on tables. “Order,” Mitsu called over the din. “Director Sanzen, please correct whoever furnished you with those figures. The CSC’s budget has increased year-over-year since its inception, if less drastically than your lavish proposals call for.”
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