“The spaceport will either be turned into a bridgehead or bombed,” Dave said. He pulled her away from the HQ. “Come on!”
Millicent hesitated, then followed him. Military or not, he was the only friendly face in the area. The spaceport was largely isolated from the nearby city, but it wouldn’t be long before people started flocking to the compound. She’d studied refugee flows enough to know that some people would try to take the shortest route to the spaceport, convinced that it would somehow magically allow them to escape the entire planet. Others, meanwhile, would head to the hills. They’d very rapidly turn desperate, then feral. Offworlders, and both of them were offworlders, would be attacked on sight.
“What do we do?” Panic yammered at the back of her mind. She’d never envisaged being caught in the middle of a war. “Where do we go?”
“There’re a few places we can hide until the navy shows up,” Dave said. Another round of explosions underlined his words. “I don’t think there’ll be much of a provisional government by this time tomorrow.”
Millicent didn’t want to agree with him, but there was no way to avoid conceding that he might be right. Judd’s provisional government had been held together by spit, baling wire, and a great deal of luck. And subsidies from the Commonwealth, she admitted in the privacy of her own mind. There was a good chance the planetary president was dead, along with the leaders of most of the factions. The remainder would probably start blaming each other for the disaster or simply go their own way. Civil war was a very real possibility.
“I thought there were marines by the embassy,” she called. Thunder echoed in the sky. “Why can’t we go there?”
“I’ll be surprised if the embassy still exists,” Dave said. “And even if it does, I don’t fancy our chances of getting there. All hell is breaking out on the streets, and I’ve only got a pistol. Do you have a gun?”
“No,” Millicent said. She’d done the basic firearms certification course, as it was a requirement for her position, but she’d never bothered to keep up with the training. “I don’t need one.”
“You need one now,” Dave told her. “This world is collapsing into chaos.”
Millicent had a nasty feeling that he was right.
CHAPTER NINE
JUDD
“Dig that fucking hole,” Sergeant Lewis shouted. “Dig, dig, dig!”
Private Alicia Callahan felt sweat dripping from her brow as she struggled to dig the trench in the unyielding soil. Guard duty was supposed to be easy, damn it. A company of provisional government militia, assigned to guarding the wretched refugee camps . . . she’d thought it would make a pleasant break from sniping at the occupiers before the sudden liberation. It had been positively cathartic to watch the Theocrats be on the wrong side of history for a change. The bastards had squirmed whenever they’d seen her jacket, just a little tighter than it needed to be, and the gun in her hands. A woman with a gun was their worst nightmare.
She shivered at the thought, despite the heat. She’d been captured, once. She knew she was lucky to be alive, but . . . part of her wished she’d had the time to commit suicide before they’d started in on her. The piece of battered meat the resistance had rescued had needed years to recover, years she hadn’t had. Going back to the war, going back to killing the bastards, had been better therapy than anything else, but . . . she’d been looking forward to the peace, damn it. Once their homeworld was cleansed of the infection, once the devotees of the True Faith had been banished, she could finally feel safe.
It isn’t fair, she told herself. They’d won, or rather they’d been liberated. Judd had been looking forward to a time of peace and prosperity. Instead, they’d been attacked. Enemy shuttles were inbound, and Alicia knew all too well that the only reason the camp hadn’t been bombed from orbit was that the Theocrats wanted to rescue their allies. It just isn’t fair!
“They’ll be here in five minutes,” Lewis bellowed as streaks of light fell from the sky. “Get your weapons ready!”
Alicia gritted her teeth, cursing the loud thunder echoing over the hills. Not real thunder. The KEWs were landing in the nearby city, she thought. Garston had been a hive of resistance, back during the war; the Theocrats had done their best, but they hadn’t been able to keep the city under tight control. Now, they were simply flattening the locale from orbit, slaughtering the population before they could flee. She muttered a silent prayer for her friends and relatives in the region, then ducked into a trench as shuttles flew overhead. A single HVM rose up to blast a shuttle out of the air, the wreckage falling to the ground, but the remainder kept flying on. They seemed determined to land just outside engagement range.
At least they’re not dropping in on us, Alicia thought grimly. She checked her ammunition pouch, wishing she’d thought to carry more. During the war, she’d loaded her belt and pockets with so much ammunition that she’d practically clinked when she’d walked. Now, she’d picked up bad habits. If we survive the day, we must never become complacent again.
A low rumble echoed through the air. She leaned forward, spotting the first tank as it advanced up the road, turrets swinging from side to side as it searched for targets. The Theocrats might not be able to build a decent sensor suite or vortex generator without help, but she knew from grim experience that their assault weapons and support vehicles were first-rate. They’d built them to be as simple as possible, she’d heard. She’d certainly never had any trouble using captured weapons against their makers.
“Stay low,” Lewis shouted
