"What is it, Shan?"

"General, we are facing heavier resistance than expected. The human aircraft are shooting my warriors from the sky."

"And?"

Shan was taken aback. The problem was obvious-they were outnumbered and faced superior technology. He was suddenly torn between backing down from his superior and continuing to express his reservations. Before he could decide, General Soo's voice cut through the command center again.

"When your forces land, the human fighters will cease their attacks. We experienced the same here. In the sky, the human craft are superior, but on the ground, the humans are no match for our trained warriors. Tell your soldier at the console to accept an incoming video channel."

Shan nodded at the male seated at the controls, and half of the video wall lit up with a scene from the other side of the planet. Shan immediately recognized the panorama that filled the view. Minith warriors were aligned in a cla.s.sic battle line. The formation of soldiers fought their way easily through the timid human defenses. The defenders rarely had a chance to fire their strange projectile weapons before being cut down by the relentless a.s.sault of the advancing line. It was no contest.

As he watched, half a dozen carriers landed to the right of the battle line. Scores of additional warriors exited the vehicles quickly and joined in the slaughter of the humans.

"Questions, Shan?"

"No, General," he responded abruptly.

"Good. Now get your forces into that building and capture the human leadership."

"Yes, sir," he said, but the communication path between the ships had already been cut by Soo. Shan felt like a scolded child and began pacing.

The third wave of carriers departed his ship.

Shan appreciated the scene he had just witnessed. He hoped Soo was correct in his a.s.sessment of the situation. If the human fighters continued to attack them after they landed, they had little hope of success.

The wall of screens showed two carriers from the third wave explode less than a hundred meters from the ship. The sight only served to heighten his concern, but all he could do was push on with the orders he had been given.

The alien vehicles approached the center of the city and dispersed to the buildings surrounding the park. As Randalyn watched through the third-floor window, the Minith carriers landed on top of the buildings and began rapidly unloading soldiers. The move was a surprise. She-and probably everyone else-had expected them to land on the ground and fight their way to the Leadership building.

It was a problem she had discussed with Grant before. The strategy of battle was not something that could be learned easily. He told her it was his major concern, should Earth be attacked. Specifically, their forces would be at a disadvantage against trained, experienced commanders. The ability to antic.i.p.ate what your opponent will do, and establish proactive countermeasures before they do it, was a key component to success. Without experience or training, commanders are often at the mercy of their instincts-which usually means reacting to the enemy's actions instead of planning their own. She now understood what the ancient warrior meant. The commanders in the park across the street were probably wondering how to respond to the Minith's unexpected move. The battle had not yet begun, and they were already in reactionary mode.

"They are also going to land on our roof," Primo Esteval announced calmly. Randalyn glanced in his direction and recognized the truth in his statement. She mentally kicked herself for not considering the same thing. If anything, the Minith would concentrate as many of their forces as possible on this building.

"What?" Quasan stopped pacing. The frightened look on his face was mirrored in several of the other Culture Leaders. Sabatina quietly picked up her weapon from where it rested.

"The Minith are landing on the rooftops," Suyung repeated. "I have been on this roof. There is room for two or three carriers to land. No more."

"We have soldiers on the roof. They will protect us."

"I am not sure if we can rely on that as a certainty, Quasan," Esteval responded. The sounds of weapons being fired suddenly entered the room from above and through the windows. The battle had begun. The Leader Elect hefted his rifle and thumbed the safety b.u.t.ton, sending them a clear message. They needed to be ready, just in case.

Quasan countered by restarting his pacing and muttering a Peace mantra.

Randalyn tuned out the sound of the battle beginning outside and forced herself to ignore the others and consider the problem rationally. What would Grant do? That was her primary thought, and she gave herself over to the problem.

The Leadership Building had been specifically designed as a simple building. Forgoing the opulence and glamour of the past, their predecessors went for minimalism. They correctly understood that leaders of a Peaceful society did not require pomp or circ.u.mstance. Like many of the buildings in this part of the city, it was relatively small and squat at five stories tall. That meant the roof-and the aliens landing there-were only two floors above them. It was unlikely that the aliens would attempt to use the elevator, so the stairway at the center of the building was the most likely avenue by which they would come.

Randalyn raced around the table to the chamber door. Ignoring the confused looks from her fellow Culture Leaders, she opened the door and confronted the trio of guards posted there. Across the large outer office that separated their chamber from the hallway beyond, another trio of soldiers waited. All turned to face her.

"The Minith have landed on the roof," she told the six as she squeezed by the first set of armed men. She rushed for the far door that led to the hallway beyond. "They will be coming down the stairway just down the hall. Let's go."

"Randalyn, is this wise?" Primo Esteval was right behind. His question had merit.

"I don't see any other choice. Do you?" She pushed through the guards outside and made for the stairs thirty meters away.

The soldiers looked at each other, confused by the sudden change in their orders. But they were trained by a lifetime of civility and tradition to obey anything a Culture Leader said. They quickly followed, as did Esteval.

When they reached the stairway, Randalyn turned to one of the soldiers.

"Go downstairs. Send up reinforcements. We have to keep the Minith from getting inside."

"Yes, Culture Leader." He nodded and rushed down the stairs.

"Everyone else, we are going up," she informed the five remaining soldiers. Before setting off, she turned to Esteval. "You should wait here with the others."

In response, the Leader Elect slipped past her and headed upwards, quickly followed by the five soldiers.

"You are not leaving us behind," Suyung Trey announced as she and Diekela Mamun reached the stairway. Randalyn looked beyond them. Sabatina and Quasan were nowhere in sight, which was probably best. She offered a curt nod and headed up, racing to catch the group above them.

The sound of rifle fire increased as they ascended the wide marble staircase, a testament that a battle raged up top. Similar battles were no doubt taking place on most of the buildings surrounding this one. Randalyn did not know how many alien carriers were involved, or how many troops each could carry, but that did not matter now. As Grant was fond of saying, it is what it is.

Shan observed the battles that were beginning on the rooftops of the target and surrounding buildings. As Soo had suggested, the human aircraft had ceased firing upon their carriers once they landed among the human forces. Apparently, the humans were concerned with killing their own forces. It made no sense to the commander. Why not continue to pour fire upon their attackers? Sacrificing a few of your own troops for ultimate victory was the correct strategy. Withdrawing their aircraft from the battle was a poor tactic and an obvious weakness. It was a weakness that gave him an advantage, though, so he reveled in it. Perhaps the humans had not changed as much as he had feared.

The waves of fighters being delivered to the enemy had taken a serious pounding while en route. Hundreds of his warriors had died without ever firing a shot. Now that they were engaging in direct soldier-to-soldier contact, the advantage had pa.s.sed to his forces. The ma.s.ses of human soldiers a.s.sembled in the open areas and streets below the buildings were effectively out of the fight, which evened up the numbers substantially. The scenes unfolding on the rooftops proved that the human soldiers were no match for his fighters.

The tide of the battle rapidly turned in favor of his forces. On several buildings, the human defenders had already been eliminated. In those cases, his forces protected their rear from attack while also firing on the humans below. The defense was heaviest on the building which housed the human's Leadership Council. That was no surprise. He expected that they would defend it more heavily than the others. But even there, his troops were systematically eradicating the much larger human force.

Shan was appreciating the events unfolding on the Leadership Council building when something marvelous and completely unexpected happened. The doorway to the roof slammed open and a group of humans joined the fray. The best part was that some of them wore the royal blue jumpsuits of the human Leadership Council.

Quite unexpectedly, his targets had arrived.

He immediately sent revised orders to his leaders on the building.

Randalyn did not know what Esteval was thinking when he reached the top of the stairs and continued onto the roof. Her plan had been to set up some type of defense in the stairway, perhaps take out any aliens who made it that far. But that went out the window as soon as the Leader Elect crashed through the door ahead of the five soldiers on his heels. At that point, all she could do was try to catch up and help in any way she could.

She cast a glance over her shoulder to find Suyung and Diekela right behind her. The look in Suyung's eyes was resigned trepidation; in Diekela's, fierce determination. The Afc'n Culture Leader nodded and pointed her weapon toward the door that was swinging slowly closed. Without further thought, Randalyn pushed through the door and found herself behind a ragged line of human soldiers.

The sounds of battle, which seemed fierce while inside the stairway, increased tenfold. The concentration of noises merged with a confusing myriad of foreign sights and smells. Wisps of smoke, glimpses of sprawled bodies, and the mingled smells of bodily fluids and spent ammunition combined to paint her first mental picture of war. She did her best to ignore the red splashes of gore that formerly represented a living being and rushed forward to join the soldiers who were crouched behind a series of pipes and electrical boxes. She could not discern the purpose of the metallic maze, but it offered protection from the deadly red pulses of the alien weapons, so she gladly ducked behind a large gray box-like structure. She thought it might be an air-conditioning unit-not that it mattered.

Suyung and Diekela quickly joined her, and the three found themselves seated on the roof with their backs to the unit while a battle raged around them. The weapon in her hands-one of the human pulse weapons that did not require constant feeding of ammunition-felt foreign and useless.

Despite the protection the metal structure offered, Randalyn quickly realized she could not fire her weapon around or over the stupid thing. She had never felt so confused and useless in her life. People were dying all over the rooftop and she was stuck behind an AC unit, unable to help. She scanned the taller buildings surrounding them, but could not make out any details of the rooftop battles raging there. She had to move.

With her two fellow Culture Leaders on her right, she crawled left to the edge of the unit and peeked around. She was greeted by the sight of a human soldier's backside. The soldier was standing behind a thick metal conduit that ran across the rooftop to the left. Other soldiers-and Primo Esteval-were lined up to his immediate left. Their weapons were aimed over the top of the conduit, so she at least had an idea of where the threat lay.

The N'mercan leader ducked back behind the unit and looked to the Afc'n and As'n leaders. She offered a shrug and shook her head.

"Not sure what we can do on this side. What does it look like on your side?" she shouted to Diekela. The Afc'n nodded, slid to the far side of the unit, and slowly peered around the corner. For the effort, she received a blast from a Minith pulse rifle that removed the right side of her head. The accompanying spray of red and gray painted the s.p.a.ce between her slumped body and the doorway leading into the building.

"Diekela!" Suyung pulled the body away from the edge of the unit, but there was nothing she could do. The Minith had killed the Afc'n Culture Leader. The As'n representative collapsed back against the metal structure. She closed her eyes tightly and bit down roughly on the palm of her right hand, stifling a sob. She rocked back and forth and uttered a mantra around her fist.

Randalyn watched the scene unfold as if from a great distance. The elapsed time from when Diekela looked around the corner to when Suyung folded could not have been more than ten seconds, but to Randalyn, it felt like ten hours. It was more than enough time to formulate a response.

When Suyung began her mantra, the N'mercan moved to the right. She stood up, stepped abruptly over Diekela's body, and turned the corner. Her weapon was pointed toward the enemy, ready for revenge.

The Minith soldier was much closer than she had antic.i.p.ated. But she was not the only one surprised. The alien had obviously not been expecting a human to charge around the corner with weapons blasting. Before he could lift his own rifle, the first shot caught the invader square in the chest and flung him back two meters. Her attention was captured by the royal purple geyser that erupted from the hole in his chest. She stared at the dying alien for only a moment before regaining her senses and focusing on a second Minith soldier. The second alien was three meters away, facing a group of soldiers pinned down on the left side of the roof. He never saw the discharge that removed his left arm-or the subsequent one that opened his head to the sun.

The N'mercan did not think about her actions. She acted solely on instinct-instinct fueled by an intense, throbbing anger. She'd had enough.

She crouched low and worked her way past the two downed Minith to search for more. The green of their skin and the purple of their uniforms were like magnets pulling her body and her weapon forward. The far side of the roof, where the invader's carriers had come to rest, was crawling with the vermin. She spied the gathering group through the tangle of conduits, boxes, and pipes. One of the carriers was taking off to make room for another to land when she saw one of the creatures crouched twenty meters away. She went to one knee, lined up her shot, and let the weapon find him. He slumped down without a sound. She found her fourth target standing upright to the left. His back was turned, but that did not dissuade her fury from its task, and her shot landed true. A large fan of purple colored the rooftop where the remnants of his head landed.

With each kill, the overwhelming need to exterminate the Minith grew, while the thread binding her to the tenets of Peace-which was never very strong-diminished. She had killed seven of the green monsters, and the thread of Peace was in tatters, when her world finally went dark.

Shan hoped the human leader was not dead. The female had displayed a remarkable degree of courage and ability as she faced down his fighters. If the rest of the humans had fought so well, he might not be watching his soldiers storm the inside the building right now.

But they had not.

It had taken his forces less than fifteen minutes to eliminate the human defenders on the roof. It had taken another five minutes to capture the two Leadership Council members who had joined them-three, if the female still lived.

Unfortunately, one of the Council members had been killed needlessly before his orders to capture-not kill-the ones in blue could be pa.s.sed along to all his fighters.

Oh, well.

Hopefully, the remaining human leadership would be found cowering within the building. At least they had two. Maybe it would be enough.

Ten minutes later, Shan received word. The building was in their hands. The female leader was alive, and the remaining Culture Leaders had been taken without further losses. He had five of the six human leaders. Soo would be satisfied with his performance.

So far, it was a good day to be Minith.

CHAPTER 25.

Mouse struggled for an idea, a plan, a way to halt the aliens' rapid march through the human fighters surrounding the prison. Though scattered and confused, his forces still possessed the advantages Grant had drilled into his head as being important. They outnumbered the Minith and possessed superior air cover, adequate artillery support, and hundreds of armored tanks. Bringing them into play against the aliens, without killing his own troops in the process, was the nut he needed to crack.

"Alpha One, can you take your camera higher? I need to see the entire battlefield."

"Roger that, sir," came the response from his lead pilot.

Within seconds, the jet climbed to an alt.i.tude of several thousand feet and the view from the feed expanded. As the jet circled the prison, the two motherships, the lines of Minith attackers, and his forces came into focus. The twin circular scorch marks left by the s.p.a.cecraft showed up as ugly, black scars upon which the majority of the battle raged. Only the areas and forces to the immediate north and south of Violent's Prison-where his own carrier now sat-appeared unmarred.

His forces were digging in below, waiting for the lines of Minith warriors to reach their positions so they could take up the fight. That seemed like the right thing to do, but the advance of the alien lines was not slowed by that tactic. It also prohibited him from using his tanks, jets, and artillery to maximum benefit.

So digging in and waiting for the enemy to arrive was not the answer.

Which left... what?

Form your own line.

The tiny nugget of thought led to an idea. The idea led to a plan.

"General Soo, the humans are running."

The surprising announcement came from one of the captains leading the western battle line.

"Bring up that video," he ordered to the underling manning the system. A moment later, the view from the captain's video feed showed the humans in front of the western line retreating.

"Keep on them! Do not let up," he ordered the leader on the ground. The leader pa.s.sed the command along to his troops, and Soo watched as they gave chase.

Perhaps he had given the humans too much credit after all.

What had originally seemed unsolvable appeared simple in hindsight. All it took was a good plan and effective leadership, both of which had been absent until now, Mouse realized.

Tanks that were not already engaged with the Minith were ordered to form two defensive lines. On the south side of the prison, a line of nearly one hundred tanks formed and pointed their guns east, toward the approaching Minith. On the north, a similar tank line faced west toward the ranks of attackers there. Though simple in principle, the maneuvering required to get all the tanks in place took much longer than Mouse would have guessed. Every minute that pa.s.sed meant that more of his soldiers died, and he could not help but wonder how many perished because he had taken so long to establish a plan and put it in motion.

Finally, the tanks were in place and the order was given for all other forces-including those battling the Minith-to disengage from the enemy and fall back to positions behind the tank lines.

If the Minith wanted to fight in a line, Mouse would give them what they wanted. But he would do it on terms that played to his force's strengths-not the enemy's.

The humans retreated as fast as their bodies and the environment allowed. Fortunately, his warriors had little trouble keeping up with the trailing elements of their escape. The longer, more powerful legs of the Minith closed gaps quickly, and the throbbing rush of bloodl.u.s.t provided fuel for the wanton aggressiveness of the chase.

Blasts from their pulse weapons punched holes in, and tore limbs from, the bodies of the humans. His soldiers, consumed by the carnage, made a sport out of their efforts. Bets were made on all aspects of the hunt-who could kill the most humans in the next sixty seconds, or who could make the most consecutive head shots.

By Soo's count, Captain Czerk, the leader of the western line, was winning the head-shot contest. He was lining up his weapon for the seventh in a row when an explosion ripped through the Minith line thirty meters from where he ran.

The blast picked up the captain and cast him to the right like a toddler's toy. His shot went wide, ending his streak at six.

The line of tanks north of the prison clashed with the Minith first. The aliens were successfully pursuing and cutting down the fleeing troops from behind when one... two... fifty... high-explosive tank rounds were delivered to their targets.