"Tell artillery back of the lines to ready flare-shots and to stand by for my orders. I want the sky lit up until I say darken it."

Ben went to another frequency and alerted all commanders that flares were going up.

"Major Halloran is dead, sir," Corrie reported. "Sniper got him through the head."

"Who's the XO of Five Battalion?"

"Steinberg, sir."

"Tell Steinberg he just got promoted and to take command."

"Right, sir."

Jerre looked at Ben during a momentary lull in the gunfire. "Jerry Halloran?"

"That's him."

"He's my age. I met him at the gathering of the young people, just after I left you in Virginia. He got married after that and he and his wife had some kids. I met her and liked her. She's really nice."

"Yes. He was very much in love with his wife. She and the kids were killed in an ambush by a pack of white trash two years ago."

"I'm sorry. He must have taken that terribly hard."

"He got over it a few minutes ago." Ben's reply was given much more coldly than he intended, and he knew she would take it the wrong way, and she did. Jerre's look was strange for a moment before turning away from his eyes.

"Gunners reporting flare-shots ready to pop, sir," Corrie said.

"Fire." The darkness over the besieged battlelines was lit up as the flares popped open high in the sky.

"Creepie-killing time, people!" Ben yelled.

"Pick your targets and put them down."

For the creepies nearest the old service station, caught in the harsh artificial light, there were but two options left open to them: either die where they stood, or charge the CP and try to kill the leader of the Rebels, Ben Raines.

They ran screaming toward the CP.

A half-dozen creepies made the service station area, literally climbing over the bodies of their fallen kind and hurling themselves through the gla.s.sless front of the building.

Ben swung his M-14 like a club, the stock catching one Believer on the jaw and breaking it, sending b.l.o.o.d.y and broken teeth flying out of his mouth.

Beth jammed the muzzle of her CAR into a creepie's mouth and pulled the trigger, blowing away the back of the cannibal's head. Jersey was rolling on the dirty and bra.s.s-littered floor, battling a creep with a knife in his hand. Jerre stepped over, stuck a .45 to the creepie's head, and pulled the trigger, ending the struggle.

"Yukk!" Jersey said, crawling to her knees and shoving the stinking body from her.

"Here comes more!" Cooper yelled, jerking the b.u.t.t of his M-16 to his shoulder.

Dan reached down with his knife and cut the throat of the jaw-broken creepie, then turned to the outside action, Sarah by his side.

Over the din of battle, and the sound was enormous in the concrete block building, Ben sensed more than heard movement on the flat roof of the building. He could see the plywood decking of the roof where the tile had rotted away over the years. Motioning to Jerre and Corrie, they nodded understanding and lifted their M-16's, waiting for Ben to give the signal.

Ben opened fire with his old Thunder Lizard, .223 rounds from the women following the .308's from the M-14 a half second after Ben opened the dance.

The slugs tore through the decking, knocking great holes, mangling the bodies of those on the roof, and exposing the harsh light of the flares. Already overloaded from the weight, a portion of the decking collapsed, sending howling creepies tumbling inside the service station and another hand-to-hand battle was on.

A creepie jumped onto the back of Dan and the Englishman expertly flipped him off and smashed his face with his boots, kicking the man unconscious. Grenades exploded outside the service station, killing several Rebels and knocking to the floor those closest to the front. Jersey was slammed to the floor as a piece of shrapnel struck her helmet, denting the metal and giving her a h.e.l.l of a headache.

Cooper took a piece of hot flying shrapnel on the arm that knocked him down, addled but not seriously hurt. Ben got to his knees and again bipodded his M-14 at the front of the building and let the lead fly.

"All units under heavy attack!" Corrie yelled over the roar of battle. "Holding."

"f.u.c.k this," Ben said, and turned to Corrie.

"Order all units to charge! Charge, G.o.dd.a.m.nit, charge!"

Roaring like an enraged tiger, Ben left the building and led his contingent in a charge through the brilliantly lit night.

The creepies had expected a fierce fight from the Rebels; what they had not antic.i.p.ated was a charge of screaming Rebels coming dead-bang at them. The move momentarily confused them and that was all that the Rebels needed.

The charge broke the attack from the Believers and forced them back. From all points around the city, the Rebels advanced two blocks before Ben called a halt to it.

General Striganov's forces had pushed to Francis Avenue and now controlled -- at least for the moment-everything from Nine Mile Road to Morgan Acres to the east.

Ben had pushed his people all the way up to the old fairgrounds and now held everything from the Interstate north to the river.

West and his people controlled the area from Highway 290 up to the Russian's perimeter.

Ike and Cecil had bulled their way up to the Interstate and were holding.

Five and Six Battalions had held tough and beaten back the creepie attacks west and south of the city.

"Good night's work, people," Ben radioed. "d.a.m.n good work."

The commanders met at Ben's new CP the next morning, "G.o.dd.a.m.nit, Ben!" Ike got all up in Ben's face. "You could have ended up like Custer last night, you . . . you . . ." He sputtered to a red-faced halt.

"I concur," Cecil said. "It was a very foolhardy thing to do. You could have been killed."

"But I wasn't," Ben pointed out. "And it broke the back of the creepie attack."

"Can't you do something with this hardhead!"

Georgi yelled at Jerre.

Jerre only smiled and shook her head.

Ben didn't let the argument gather any more steam.

He slapped a map that had been thumbtacked on a wall. "We can't let the creeps regain any of the momentum they once had comor thought they had. Order all units to attack at once. Push the creeps toward the center of the city. That's it!" Ben's voice was sharp and all gathered around knew the meeting was over. "Attack!"

The Believers had no chance to recoup from the battering they'd taken only hours before. Slowly, a building at a time, the Rebels began taking the city, pushing the creepies into a corner from which there was no escape.

The Night People were well-armed, but they had put themselves into a box and they could but fight and die; they knew that for them, there was no surrendering to Ben Raines and his Rebels. A few had tried.

The Rebels promptly put them up against a wall and shot them.

At the end of the third day of bitter fighting, most of it close-in, eyeball to eyeball, using grenades and rifles comand sometimes pistols, camp axes, knives, and entrenching tools -Ben called for a halt to the advance and stood his people down for a rest.

The Rebels had forced the remaining creepies into a small downtown area.

Ben called for a face to face with his commanders.

"How many more prisoners do the creepies hold in the city?"

"Only a handful," West told him, leaning on a cane to give his aching ankle some relief. "In my sector, the creeps are shooting the prisoners as we advance, rather than have us rescue them."

Ben received the same grim report from the rest of his people.

"d.a.m.ned if we do and d.a.m.ned if we don't," he muttered. "All right." He made up his mind, and it was not a decision he liked. "The artillery has had a good long rest. Time for them to go to work.

Corrie, order all artillery into place. Ring the city. Tell them to use WP, napalm, and HE, in that order. Gentlemen, pull your people back and give the city to the big guns. Let's bring it down."

The Night People were barbaric and G.o.dless, but they were not fools. They knew as soon as the Rebels began withdrawing there was no hope left for them. Ben Raines had made up his mind and death stood just around the corner, waiting patiently.

The Reaper did not have a long wait.

The center of Spokane erupted as the sh.e.l.ls began dropping in, spewing fire and shrapnel and exploding destruction.

Interstate 90 had been cleared all the way through the city and Ben had ordered his command post be set up at the airport. Chase had moved his facilities to an old hospital not far from the airport.

The Rebels had taken casualities during this fight; more casualities than they had suffered in a long time, and it was not to Ben's liking.

While the monotonous sh.e.l.ling of the city boomed and the earth trembled, with the center of the city now engulfed in flames, black smoke drifting into the skies, Ben drove over to the hospital.

He found a very unhappy Lamar Chase.

"All right, Lamar," Ben said. "You look like a thundercloud. What's on your mind?"

"Is it worth it, Ben?"

Ben stared at him, knowing what the doctor meant, but wanting him to say the words.

"We've got a hundred dead, Ben. Three times that many wounded. We've rescued four hundred-odd people from the creeps. Perhaps, and this is a very optimistic guess, seventy-five out of that number will recover enough to lead normal, useful lives. One Rebel dies and approximately two are wounded for every four freed prisoners. Are the numbers worth it?"

"It's a hard thing you're asking me, Lamar."

"Yes. And as a doctor, it's a dreadful thought to have in my own mind."

With a sigh, Ben sat down and took the offer of coffee from Chase. "Lamar, you know as well or better than anyone how the Rebels operate. Those men and women would charge the gates of h.e.l.l if I asked them to. But something like this? I've got to put it to them. You've often said that this army will go down in history as the d.a.m.ned army ever to roam the earth. I think perhaps you're right in that. But no one's come along to whip us yet."

"That's certainly true. Your personal feelings on the loss of life, Ben?"

"I don't like it, Lamar. And now I'm going to tell you something that you're not going to like. Out of all those men and women we rescue, nine tenths of them were losers to begin with."

"What do you mean by that, Ben.

G.o.dd.a.m.nit, they're human beings that were captured to be eaten, for Christ's sake!"

"Why were they captured? Why didn't they stand and fight or join a larger group." He shrugged.

"Losers, Lamar. They'd be losers in any environment."

"You don't believe that, Ben! You've heard their stories. Many of them did fight, and fight hard.

I can't believe this is coming out of your mouth."

"What's the big uproar, Lamar? You're the one who brought up concerns about the losses we're taking rescuing these losers."

"They're not losers!" the doctor roared. "What the h.e.l.l do you want to do, Raines: kill them along with the creeps?"

"That was your original idea, wasn't it?" Ben asked innocently.

"h.e.l.l, no, it wasn't! It certainly was not. I was just . . . talking, that's all. The idea is barbaric, Raines. Hideous."

"Well, I'm glad that's settled them. Personally, I'd just as soon lay back and blow h.e.l.l out of the cities and not lose one Rebel. d.a.m.n, I thought I'd found someone who agreed with me."

"Well, you haven't!"

"Well, I'm very sorry to hear that." He drained his cup and placed the mug on the desk. "Anything else on your mind, Lamar?"

"Not at the moment, no."

Ben hid his smile as he stood up. "Well, then, I'll just be going. I want to see the wounded and talk to them. If that's all right with you?"

"Sure, it is. Just stay out of the ICU wards.

We've got some seriously wounded."

"I'll be sure and do that. See you around, Lamar.

Oh, by the way: how are the rescued?"

"They're doing just fine! We're making real progress with them. And I'd appreciate it if you'd leave them alone."

"Ill do that. See you, Lamar." He looked at Jerre. "You coining with me?"

"I think I'll stay and chat with Doctor Chase. I'll catch up with you later."

Ben nodded and stepped out into the hall. No longer able to contain his laughter, he leaned against the wall and laughed out loud.