So, why am I still here? the academic asked herself for the thousandth time. Why haven’t I left? Made my way out of here? Surely there were others, people who evaded capture and managed to survive.
But what sort of welcome would she receive? Men liked her—but that cut both ways. Men like Blackley would allow themselves to be used. But others, and there were plenty, would simply take what they wanted.
Jones shivered. Was it the coolness of the night? Or the thought of winding up as some postapocalyptic alpha male’s sex toy? So that’s what it came down to . . . The cave was boring, but it was safe, and that’s why she stayed.
Something hit the net, sent a shock through the hand rope, and broke the academic’s train of thought. She started to react, to pull the trap in, but felt another object hit the webbing, and another, until the combined weight exceeded what Jones could hold. That’s when she was forced to let go, the rope whipped through the block back among the trees, and was sucked into the river as the net released its load.
Curious as to what she had caught, then immediately lost, the academic waded out into the river. There was an eddy there, a place where the current liked to park things, prior to snatching them away. The water was warm, blood warm, and caressed her knees. Something bumped into the anthropologist’s leg—then quickly disappeared. But there were more blobs, dark somethings that bobbed up and down while waiting for their turn.
Jones waded out a little bit farther, managed to get her hands on one, and almost let it go. The object was soft, too soft, and wore some sort of clothes. That’s when she turned the body over, saw the Ra ‘Na’s dimly lit face, and knew the truth. The Saurons were murdering their slaves. Not just a few, as some sort of punishment, but, judging from the number of blobs, hundreds or even thousands.
As if to corroborate the anthropologist’s theory another corpse spun into the eddy, paused for a moment, and was soon sucked away. More followed, became tangled up with each other, and started to form what amounted to a logjam. Jones backed away. Part of her felt sick, but the other part, the academic part of her personality, wanted to know why. Had the citadel been completed? And would the aliens actually leave? The river tried to tell her, but Jones couldn’t hear, and the bodies continued to accumulate. Whatever the answer, the academic knew one thing for sure . . . Something was going to happen.
HELL HILL
The president of the United States crouched among the burned-out remains of a half-million-dollar summer home and peered through his binoculars. Hell Hill, which lay to the south on the other side of Pleasant Bay, shimmered in the sun.
Seen from a distance the citadel, which sat castlelike atop gradually rising tiers of pastel cargo modules, looked like a medieval town perched high above the Mediterranean. Only the observation tower, which lay where it had fallen, and the badly scorched citadel gave lie to the illusion.
The politician gave an involuntary start as a Sauron shuttle whined over the partially collapsed house, circled, and landed out on the bay. Another had pulled away from one of the floating docks and was ready to take off. Thousands of Saurons had landed during the last two days, and there was no end in sight.
Even now, while hundreds of slaves worked to repair the damage done to the citadel’s roof, a long column of Fon could be seen marching up the dirt road, past the rows of crow-picked crosses, and into the limestone complex where the birth chambers awaited them.
The politician lowered his binoculars and turned to the soldier crouched at his side. Deac Smith had taken Popcorn Farley’s death especially hard—and deep circles underscored his eyes. But he was determined, not to mention angry, and Franklin knew it would go hard with any Sauron that Smith happened to encounter. “So, you still feel good about a daylight break?”
Smith nodded. “Yes, I do. We’re going to take casualties no matter what we do . . . Once the demo charges go off, the slaves will start to run every which way. Directing them down through the wall will be hard enough during the day. At night, with no orbital mirror to provide extra illumination, the whole thing would be impossible. People would fall off cliffs, run the wrong way, and Lord knows what else. Besides, the last thing the bugs will expect is a daylight attack.”
Franklin was familiar with the arguments, having formulated some of them himself, but felt reassured nonetheless. No one knew when the Saurons planned to kill their slaves—but there was little doubt that the day would come soon.
Rather than wait for that day, and the slaughter that would follow, the resistance had resolved to engineer a massive breakout. A lot of slaves would die, there was no way to avoid that, but at least they’d have a chance. Franklin checked his watch. “Okay, Deac, make it happen.”
The ex-Ranger nodded, waited for the last few seconds to tick away, and spoke into his radio. The first thing that happened was that the stripped-down pickup truck, better known to the residents of Hell Hill as Cappy’s Meat Wagon, blew up.
Cappy wasn’t near the vehicle when it exploded, nor were the slaves assigned to pull it. They had been excused and sent elsewhere when the meat wagon’s rear axle failed earlier that morning, leaving the vehicle stranded by the main gate.
Had the Kan assigned to guard the entrance been less preoccupied with the aches and pains that plagued them, and had one or more of them been willing to penetrate a virtual cloud of flies and look through the pile of bodies stacked in the back of Cappy’s truck, they would have discovered the massive demo charge and still had sufficient time to disarm it. But such was not the case, which meant that the guards, the bodies, and the main gate simply vanished as 250 pounds of military-grade C-4 was detonated from a position half a mile beyond the wall.
The subsequent explosions were spaced along the entire length of the landward perimeter at points easily accessed from the hill’s eastern slope. Little bits of wood and stone were still raining down when Manning, closely followed by a group of volunteers, charged through break number three. The “moles,” as the sappers liked to refer to themselves, had spent days driving tunnels in under the base of the wall. Carefully shaped charges, detonated on cue, handled the rest.
Now, as Manning waved his self-designated Pathfinders forward, and gave something analogous to a rebel yell, he questioned his own sanity. A lot of Smith’s best people had died during the Battle of Anacortes, which meant the resistance was short of officers. That was part of it, but there was more . . . Somewhere along the line the security officer had crossed the line from neutral professional to full-blown patriot. A transformation that came as more of a surprise to the security chief than those around him.
But then, as an SLM slammed into one of the observation towers, and Kan swung into the action, the time for thinking was over. All over Hell Hill specially trained volunteers emerged from hiding, ran into the streets, and yelled the exact same words: “Leave everything behind! Run down the east side of the hill! Leave everything behind! Run down the east side of the hill!”
Most of the slaves obeyed, running as if their lives depended on it, which they certainly did. A group of Fon overseers, backed by human collaborators, emerged from a side street and attempted to turn the would-be escapees. They shouted orders, cracked their whips, and blocked the path. Those at the front of the crowd hesitated, and some managed to stop, but only for a moment. More and more people arrived with each passing second, and those toward the rear pushed from behind. Unaware of the confrontation ahead, they pushed from behind. Suddenly, like a dam bursting under pressure, the mob rolled forward.
Whips cracked, and some of those in the first few ranks fell under the lash, but most kept their feet. Those who went down were quickly trampled into red mush. A few of the Fon managed to jump clear, but the rest were overwhelmed and torn apart the moment the crowd came into contact with them. Human collaborators, or those perceived to be collaborators, fared no better. There were screams as they were subsumed by wave after wave of flesh.
Now other volunteers appeared. They provided the next set of instruct
ions. “Run toward the orange smoke! Run toward the orange smoke! Run toward the orange smoke!” The slaves looked, saw pillars of orange smoke, and ran toward them. Once they were close enough, more monitors urged them to move through whichever break they had chosen and out to freedom. Guides met the fugitives, formed them into groups, and led them into the protection of the surrounding woods.
That’s how it was supposed to work, at any rate, although plenty of things could go wrong, not the least of which was the fact that the Kan didn’t approve of exploding walls, incoming SLMs, or escaping slaves.
In spite of the fact that the nearest observation tower had already sustained two hits from SLMs, it not only remained standing, but provided the Sauron gunners with the ideal platform from which to fire on the slaves below. Some of the warriors functioned as snipers, choosing each target with care, while others hosed the hillsides with automatic weapons fire, happy to kill anything that moved. A poorly conceived strategy that effectively did away with slaves, collaborators, and Fon alike.
The steady rattle of automatic weapons fire, the whoosh of incoming SLMs, and the screams of wounded slaves created a hellish symphony as Manning and his team fought their way up the same slopes others were streaming down. The goal was to establish enough resistance to slow pursuers down and buy time so that as many slaves as possible would be able to escape.
Someone yelled, “Here they come!” and opened up with an automatic weapon. Manning looked up to find that at least a dozen Kan were leapfrogging down the hill, firing both from the apex of their jumps and when they touched down.
Manning bellowed, “Spread out!” and lifted the 12-gauge riot gun to his shoulder. The trick was to lead the bastards, to put the double-ought buck where the bug was going to be, and let the Kan run into it. Simple in theory, but damned hard when the target not only morphed to match the sky, but insisted on shooting back.
The security chief followed a momentary shimmer, got out in front of it, and squeezed the trigger. The shotgun slammed against his shoulder, and Manning worked the slide. The shimmer was still there, still falling, obviously unharmed.
The weapon made a clacking sound as a shell seated itself in the chamber and a solid boom! as it fired for the second time. The slugs hit the warrior just as he was about to land, tore the head off his shoulders, and sent a fountain of green gore gushing into the air. What remained tumbled down the hill. Manning looked for more targets, couldn’t see any that were close enough to do anything about, and turned to check his team. Two were dead, one was wounded.
A group of slaves came downhill, leaped to clear some of the bodies, and skidded in an attempt to slow their progress. Manning waved his arms and pointed toward the casualty. “Hold it! Take him with you!”
The first man looked uncertain, but the sight of the 12-gauge seemed to help make up his mind. He and another man grabbed the Pathfinder under the armpits, snatched him off the ground, and carried him downhill.
Darts pinged off the cargo modules to Manning’s right as a sniper opened fire on the pathfinders from above. “The tower!” Manning yelled. “Head for the tower!”
Then, obeying his own command, he ran. Four SLMs had hit the structure by then. Each left a wound, through which a latticework of metal reinforcements could be seen. Smoke oozed from the holes like black blood. But, in spite of the damage the red-orange wink of gunfire from high on the observation platform testified to the fact that the objective remained a threat.
Some of the team members questioned Manning’s sanity, since charging such a strongly held objective seemed suicidal, and stayed where they were. Others, those who understood, or simply believed that the security chief knew what he was doing, continued to follow him. They were the lucky ones because no sooner had they scampered to higher ground than a well-aimed energy bolt flashed through the planet’s atmosphere to obliterate those who had stayed behind.
The ground shook, the resulting shock wave knocked half a dozen still-fleeing slaves off their feet, and more explosions followed as the orbital shelling continued.
Heart pumping and lungs on fire, Manning rounded a corner and charged up a heavily rutted street. A dog barked from a doorway, the remains of a shattered street stall lay scattered in the street, and laundry flapped over his head.
Up ahead, a woman, her hands raised as if to defend herself, backed out of a cargo module, then staggered as half a dozen darts ripped through her body. Manning yelled, “Grenade! HE!” and heard a solid ka-chunk as a 40mm grenade arced into the cargo module. There was a flash, followed by a hollow boom, as still-morphing chitin sprayed out onto the road.
Satisfied that the way was clear, Manning turned his attention to the tower, which loomed ahead. As the security chief and his team made their way up onto the level area at the spire’s base, they encountered the spot where an incoming SLM had decimated the Kan assigned to defend the main entrance. The remains of their badly mangled bodies were scattered all around the blackened crater.
“Bring the C-4!” Manning shouted. “Pack it into the entrance!”
Now, as what remained of the original team approached the tower’s gore-splattered base, they realized that the manner in which the observation platform projected from the structure’s side served to protect the area directly below. That didn’t prevent the warriors from dropping the Sauron equivalent of grenades, however, many of which exploded prior to impact, and sent shrapnel screaming through the air. Manning heard one of the devices go off, heard something zing past his ear, and bellowed at the top of his lungs. “Set the C-4 and let’s get the hell out of here!”
“It’s ready, sir!” an army reservist yelled.
“Who has the remote?”
“I do, sir,” the reservist replied.
“All right then,” Manning answered. “Stay with me! Give the team thirty seconds to get clear of the area and let it rip. Come on everybody, let’s go!”
So saying, Manning ran out and away from the tower, heard darts ping off the modules on the left side of the street, and dashed toward the relative safety of a heavily shadowed alleyway. That’s when he heard someone say, “Damn!” turned to see the reservist go down, and saw the remote skitter across the hard-packed dirt.
Bodies pushed past as Manning turned, made for the remote, accidentally booted the device away, swore a blue streak, ran the device down, and returned to get the reservist. He was lying on his back, holding a handgun with both hands, and firing up at the observation platform. The dark splotch on his camos showed where a dart had ripped through his thigh. “Here,” Manning said, dropping the remote on the man’s chest, “I think you dropped this.” Then, scooping the reservist up, darts stitching a line past his boots, the security chief ran for cover. He was halfway there when the weekend warrior punched the button, the C-4 detonated, and a giant explosion rocked the hill.
Franklin heard the boom, saw dust rise around one of the few spires that remained, and held his breath. Nothing seemed to happen at first. But then, with the dignity of a giant redwood falling in the forest, the column started to topple. Dots, which might have been Kan, could be seen spilling off the observation deck as the spire fell. A fraction of a second later it struck one of the stacks and broke into three sections. One burst into flames.
The ground shook as the tower hit, Manning felt a wave of heat wash across the back of his neck, and was thankful when another team member offered to carry the reservist. Together the two men ran, stumbled, and skidded down the side of the hill as a trio of Sauron fighters screamed in from the south. The pilots had orders to stay well clear of the citadel, but everything else was fair game.
The high-rise stacks made the easiest target, and the Kan pilots went after them first. Missiles slammed into Big Pink, exploded, and sent cargo modules spinning through the air. Some of the humans, those who happened to be inside when the break began, or those who believed that safety lay in staying put, had been hiding in the metal containers. Many died where they were, but a few survived the i
nitial pass and skittered down the hill.
Nor was the surrounding countryside spared as the woods came in for an orbital bombardment followed by more than a dozen strafing runs. But that contingency had been anticipated, intermediate shelters had been dug, and most of the slaves were huddled together below ground when the energy bolts started to fall.
Some were not so lucky, however. Manning, escaping with the five remaining members of his team, had the reservist across his shoulders again as they entered the tree line, saw a woman wave, and ran in her direction. It was only after Manning had half dived, half fallen into the crude log bunker, and the woman had collapsed on top of him, that the security chief realized that the small body belonged to Seeko. She kissed him, he kissed her, and they held each other tight as the ground shook. Many people had died . . . but those who survived were free.
ON ASTEROID O Λ 2103
The Sauron shuttle slid along the flanks of a massive destroyer and thereby provided Tog with an opportunity to look out through the view port and gape at the damage done to the vessel during the recent conflict. Difficult though it was to believe, his fellow Ra ‘Na had attacked the vessel and blown a large hole in the side of its hull! It was madness, pure madness. Still, in spite of the fact that he disapproved, the prelate couldn’t help but feel a burgeoning sense of pride. Having never paid his race the respect they deserved, the Saurons had paid for their arrogance.
The shuttle dove into the gap between a pair of darkened factory ships, turned to starboard, and started to decelerate. Tog felt the tug and knew what it meant. Soon, within a matter of units, he would be face-to-face with Dro Rul. That’s when he would remove the custom-made weapon from his sleeve, point it at the other prelate’s body, and pull the trigger. Then, before Rul’s staff could react, Lim-Tam and his fellow Kan would emerge from hiding. Or would they? The possibility that they wouldn’t, that Hak-Bin would allow him to be killed, had kept Tog awake during the last two sleep cycles.
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