The Lost Stars: Tarnished Knight

“Take them out,” Gaiene ordered. “They had their chance.”

Soldiers converged on the holdouts from three sides, overwhelming the defenders with a barrage of fire before charging in and finishing off any who were still alive.

Drakon watched it all, remembering so many fights just like it. Then the enemy had been Alliance soldiers. We were taught to fight without mercy. They fought without mercy, too. Now we’re fighting ourselves the same way.

Is that why Black Jack told his people to start taking prisoners again and stop bombarding citizens? Because he realized that if merciless behavior becomes habit, you can end up turning those tactics on yourself? The Syndicate government has been willing to do things like that for a long time, and here we are, without the Syndicate ordering it or the snakes forcing it on us, repeating that pattern.

We’ve got to break out of it. “This is General Drakon. Everyone will provide opportunities to surrender to any defender at any point. Only if they keep fighting are they to be killed.”

“General?” Gaiene questioned. “Your orders going in—”

“Have changed. We’re not snakes.”

“. . . Yes, sir.”

Drakon’s eyes went to part of his display. He frowned, wondering what had drawn his attention, then saw an anomaly warning pop up near the main construction dock. “Heads up at the dock. There’s someone coming your way!”

Moments later, a hatch blew open, and snakes and loyalist soldiers poured through it toward the massive hull under construction. Fire from Gaiene’s soldiers pummeled them while Drakon started moving himself, calling to some of Gaiene’s nearby units. “To the main dock! Now!”

Why should it matter? What could a few dozen snakes and soldiers do to something as massive and uncompleted as that hull? But they were fighting like hell to get to it, so there had to be some important reason. “Hold them!” he ordered the soldiers inside the dock. “Keep them away from that hull!”

“Too many!” one of Gaiene’s soldiers cried, the signal cutting off abruptly on the last word as fire ripped into her.

Reinforcements entered the dock from three locations, one group led by Drakon. They could see the force of snakes and loyalist soldiers moving toward the hull, their advance hindered by the stubborn defense from Gaiene’s original occupying force. Drakon’s force had come in from the side, giving them clean shots at the attackers. Leveling his weapon, Drakon sighted on a snake dashing forward, his shot hitting home moments before two others, the combined blows taking out the snake.

The other two reinforcing elements opened fire as well, putting the snakes and loyalist soldiers in a cross fire coming from three directions on top of the shots still pummeling them from the defenders of the hull.

A loyalist soldier jumped up to run, only to fall as the nearest snake pumped a shot into him. A second later, the snake died, too, as the loyalist soldiers turned on the ISS agents among them.

“Hold fire!” Drakon ordered as the last of the snakes on the dock died and the loyalist soldiers dropped their weapons, then stood with empty hands raised in surrender. For an instant of time, the fate of the loyalists balanced on the knife-edge of veteran soldiers fighting their own instincts and experience to kill without mercy.

But no more shots were fired. As Drakon took a deep breath and refocused on the situation elsewhere, he heard one of the loyalists broadcasting an appeal in a shaking voice. “You guys know us! We’ve fought together! Don’t scrap us!”

And the reply from one of Gaiene’s soldiers. “Frost out, brother. We don’t work for some CEO. We’re General Drakon’s troops. His orders are to accept surrender.”

“Drakon? Praise our ancestors! Hey, the snakes said they needed to reach two places inside that hull. We don’t know why. Here are the readouts.”

“Let’s check those locations,” a captain ordered some of her soldiers. “You two engineers, come with us in case something needs disarming.”

“General?” Colonel Gaiene’s voice came.

“Yeah.” Drakon finally relocated Gaiene on the map on his helmet display, seeing Gaiene leading a force down the passageway toward the primary control compartment. “They tried to get to the hull. Don’t know why yet. How are things on your end?”

“We’re about to knock on a door.”