INSURRECTION
“Incoming!”
My helmet’s HUD flashed red. I dropped flat onto the wide ribbon of pavement beneath my boots. A second later, a pair of mortars exploded thirty meters off my right shoulder. The fiery blasts opened up a crater in the palm-strewn plaza spread beneath a triangle of office towers.
The comm chatter began even as the dirt blasted into the air rained down on us.
“I thought these buildings were empty.”
“The rovers detect no life signs in them.”
“Then who’s shooting at us?”
“Remote fired mortar.”
“We’re lucky the rebels haven’t learned how to use the weapons they stole.”
“Quit your yammering and back on your feet,” Sergeant Hervis Bucci ordered.
Flying air support above us, an Imperial Bolt launched a rocket at the building from which the mortars were fired. The rocket smashed into the tower about two-thirds of the way up. A split-second afterwards, roiling flames, marble and glass erupted out of a three-story section of the structure.
It must have been a beautiful park once, I thought, moving forward again. I imagined it filling daily with workers from the surrounding buildings, enjoying strolls and lunches in the open air, the city’s bustle buffered by the two-meter tall stone wall that enclosed the green space.
The park was now reduced to an eyesore. The trees and lawns were burnt, the benches overturned and wrecked, the pathways littered and painted with slogans and obscenities.
Our HUDs flashed red again. There was no time to react before a third mortar exploded ten meters closer than the last ones. Some of the blast’s spray of debris and shrapnel reached our lines, but, thanks to our armor, it all proved harmless.
“They’re quick studies, these rebels,” Ike said at my side.
Another rocket streaked from the overhead Bolt to the new source of fire. The adjacent tower suffered the same result.
“Let’s double-time it out of this shooting gallery!” Sergeant Bucci ordered over the comms.
We picked up our pace and reached the center of the park in short order. I’m sure, to a man, our eyes lingered on the toppled and be-headed statue of our Blessed Lady lying in a bench-ringed clearing. Such desecration would have to be answered for, I thought.
A fourth and fifth mortar landed just a few meters in front of our lines. Half-a-dozen of our men were knocked over by the blasts but they returned to their feet quickly and reported in green.
Even as the Bolt took out the new source of enemy fire, three more mortars landed direct hits on our lines. Bucci’s squad took two of the hits, hurtling him and six of his men through the air in as many directions.
The hit we took knocked half our squad over. The blast sent Ike hurtling backward to bowl me over. I landed hard, my breath expelled in an explosive grunt. I blinked back the momentary disorientation and consulted my HUD as I scrabbled to my feet.
I was fine.
I wanted to check on Ike and the rest of my squad, but protocol demanded I determine whether the chain of command was still intact.
“Sergeant Bucci,” I called out. I received no response. My HUD lit up with his vitals. Bucci was unconscious but alive. His helmet detected a mild concussion and his smartskin was delivering a dose of stimulants to rouse him. Two of his squad mates went over to help him to his feet.
I called up the sergeant’s squad feed as he began to groan himself awake. Bucci had lost two men. Brady was killed in the attack and LeFleur had lost his left leg beneath the knee.
A squad of squires rushed up behind us to attend to them.
The HUDs flashed red again.
Two more mortars pounded into the ground between us and the squires. The explosions showered us with dirt and some shrapnel pinged off our armor harmlessly. The squires were knocked over onto their backs. Fortunately, they all regained their feet in short order.
Another rocket from the Bolt above us eliminated the new threat.
I turned my attention to my own squad. The HUD informed me that we were all alive, but our newest recruit, Dekker was unconscious. His armor was also seriously compromised, his breastplate cracked nearly in two. I left Dekker a recorded order to drop to the rear if his smartskin managed to wake him before the squires hauled him off.
A quick glance around showed me the rest of my men were up on their feet. “Let’s keep moving,” I told them.
Sergeant Bucci suddenly barked over the comms, “Up and at ‘em, boys! Can’t let Gamma Squad beat us to the bridge.”
I grinned grimly under my helmet, assured that our sergeant had suffered no loss of gumption in the mortar blast.
Ike fell in beside me, running with a slight limp. He shook his head and said, “I’m beginning to question the wisdom of our ‘shoot to stun’ orders.”
“You and me both, brother,” I said.
We were being fired upon to mortal effect by very real hostiles, their Imperial citizenship notwithstanding. Brady was the eighth of our brothers killed since our battalion began sweeping through the city this morning. LeFleur was the latest of three times that many wounded. We were minutes from confronting their murderers and their maimers and we were under strict orders to do it with non-lethal force!
We all had misgivings about the mission, our first in the twenty-two months since the battle for Muvuru. Quelling an insurrection on an Imperial planet was a prickly affair, barbed with all manner of political complications which, depending on the Imperial Marine you asked, were either above his pay grade or beneath his consideration.
For myself, it was simply a matter of stamping out the latest flare-up of the old heresy of Humanism. It had to be done and I was glad to be of help.
Our recon rover reached the gates on the far end of the park. It alerted us to an improvised explosive device buried beneath the gates. It was rigged to blow when the gates were thrown open.
“Zapatas!” Sergeant Bucci called as we approached the southern end of the park. “We’re going over the walls rather than through those gates. Sweep East with your boys. I’ll take mine West.”
“We’re on it sarge,” I responded and then switched comms to address my men. “Gamma Squad. On me!”
And over the stone wall we went.
Beyond it, a broad, palm-lined esplanade lay between us and the wide, slow-rolling River, Bendicio´n. Across the river lay the Old Town section of the city. Two and three-story white-walled homes with red-tiled roofs rose up the gentle slopes of three limestone hills. Two bridges, one directly before us and another three thousand meters east of our position, connected Old Town to the city’s business quarter.
The picturesque view belied the threat before us. The rebels were entrenched in Old Town, hidden among the sinewy streets and long, looping lanes of the city’s original settlement.
Companies Two and Three were already beyond the river, positioned just outside of Old Town. Once we were across the bridge we would join them in rooting out the rebels, going house-to-house, with the help of four companies of the local military.
Fourth Company was already collected before the esplanade. Sergeant Bucci and I joined our squads and, together, slipped our Third Platoon into the empty slot in our own Fifth Company’s line. Both Imperial companies were buttressed with a company of local soldiers in their green and red armor.
“Gang’s all here,” Sergeant Hayes announced with the flash of a thumbs-up. “Lieutenant Obey, Fifth Company reporting in. Ready when you are.”
“Roger that, Sergeant,” Lieutenant Obey responded. “Rovers have not detected any signs of weapons on the protesters but we’ll proceed with caution all the same. Weapons on stun. Let’s move out.”
“Roger that, LT,” Sergeant Hayes said and then repeated the call to move forward with our weapons on stun.
We crossed onto the esplanade without incident. Past the esplanade, the ground swept gradually upward, ending in a levee wall. The ramps onto the bridges rose up to the wall and then above and beyond it.
On the ramps, throngs of protesters, each some five-hundred strong, stirred to life at our approach. Signs and banners were raised in the air. Glancing over them, I noticed they were, for the most part, the same signs which greeted us at the starport when we arrived.
Imperialists Go Home!
We Want Democracy And We Want It Now!
Not My Empire!
No Church! No State! The People We Will Liberate!
A new one caught my eye as we closed in on the protesters. It depicted the Emperor and the Pope as giant, bloated ticks feeding off the planet through comically long proboscises. Beneath the cartoonish image, red, dripping paint strokes declared:
Empires Are Parasites!
I smirked beneath my helmet, remembering the slogan from my cadet-days study of Federation History. The assertion was made by one of their more strident social scientists recently turned stentorian senator.
The protesters were innocuous for the most part. They were more of a nuisance, eager to play at being human shields for the militant rebels holed up in Old Town. Such ‘useful idiots’ had always been in the vanguard of revolutionary movements. They were invariably exterminated by one side or the other in the struggle.
My thoughts were interrupted by the approach of ground vehicles from both ends of the esplanade. Vans emblazoned with the logos of two different news companies pulled to a stop some one hundred-meters from our line. Drone cams lifted into the air from off their rooftops and floated in our direction. A couple of journalists stepped out of each vehicle and slowly made their way towards us.
“Seeing as our weapons are set to stun, can we shoot the journalists too?” Sergeant Bucci asked.
Lieutenant Flynn took it upon himself to answer Hervis. “Only if they get between us and the bridges, Sergeant.”
“Too bad,” Bucci said.
We closed in on the protesters, near enough to hear them. Their voices rang out with what was now an all-too-familiar song.
“Tolerance and equality
Will lead us all in harmony…”
Ike groaned over the comms. “Not that song, again.”
“It is pretty awful,” Sergeant Shoji complained.
“You can’t even dance to it,” I offered, eliciting a few chuckles.
“Well, I’ll be,” Sergeant Bucci said. “Corporal Zapatas made a funny!”
This elicited more laughter from the company.
Lieutenant Flynn cut through the chatter. “Alright now boys, here we go.”
There was a beat of silence before the Lieutenant’s voice boomed from the speaker in the overhead Bolt.
“In the name of the Emperor, you are hereby ordered to disperse immediately.”
The protesters did not budge but rather sang more loudly.
“Hand in hand
We take our stand
Equals all from every land…”
“In the name of the Emperor, you will disperse this illegal assembly or be forcibly removed from the bridges.”
“Equality and tolerance
Revolution, our only chance…”
Lieutenant Flynn switched back to Company comms. “Company - arms at the ready!”
As one, we raised our HAW3Ks into firing position. The front ranks of protesters began advancing on us, the song on their lips and flowers in their hands.
“Aim.”
Our combat computer assigned each of us a separate target. My first was a beanpole of a middle-aged woman with two salt-and-pepper braids. If I squinted and imagined another ten kilograms on her frame, she would have resembled my mother.
Of course, my mother would never involve herself in something so foolish. I reminded myself of that as the protester approached, singing at the top of her lungs with a bunch of colored daisies in her boney, long-fingered hand.
“Fire!”
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