Alliance Citizens

Young Kazhan spent the afternoon practicing how to drive and shoot from a tank. Then he found a quiet place and spent two hours memorizing Alliance vocabulary. When he returned to his stone house, his wife brought out grilled meat and sweet potatoes.

"Good thing I heated it up again just now. Hurry and eat," Sha Xue said.

Her snow-white scales glimmered with a pale golden sheen in the dim light. She was still the beauty who had captivated Kazhan, renowned far and wide.

Kazhan silently gnawed on a piece of Luo-beast meat and ate a sweet potato. Then he suddenly said, "I might be away from home for a few years."

Sha Xue stopped mending his outer robe and gazed quietly at her husband.

"The Great Elder plans to send some young people abroad to study. He wants me to lead them."

"That's wonderful!" his wife said. "Don't worry. Go ahead. I'll take care of things at home."

How could Kazhan not worry? He and his wife had three children. The oldest was only six, and the youngest was still an infant. He had inherited the chieftainship as a boy, and had resorted to a little bloodshed to secure the position his father had left him. He couldn't possibly have no enemies. His tribe had long been locked in a bitter feud with the White Thorn tribe next door over water sources and oases.

But he knew that, from the perspective of the universe, what did the grudges and feuds of one or two tribes even matter?

"If it comes to it, I'll hand the tribe over to Uncle Rhodes and take the children back to my family," his wife said with a smile.

Kazhan paused, then smiled too. His wife was clever, and, more importantly, she understood him. That touched him more than anything.

He held both her hands, about to say something, when he thought he heard gunshots outside.

"Those youngsters must be practicing their shooting again," his wife said with a smile.

"Practicing?"

"Yes. You said yourself that in the future, even our Wanu would live in a world of guns. If they spent half the time they usually spent practicing with knives and throwing spears on firearms instead, they'd have a better chance of surviving. Kaz, they took your words to heart."

Kazhan was even more moved. The tribal elites he had personally chosen and trained were young, but every one of them was capable and sensible. They would surely become the pillars of their people's future.

"If Uncle Rhodes doesn't want to take them in, we can let them form a mercenary company of their own, under the command of Mr. Fistwind, the Great Elder's chief disciple. They could make their own living that way." And they might even attract idealistic, courageous young people with unyielding spirits from the various tribes and city-states, strengthening their people's future. Kazhan had already begun to plan it out.

"Then you'll have to tell them yourself. If they find out you're leaving, they'll insist on coming with you," Sha Xue said.

"How could they? There aren't enough places..." Kazhan had barely finished joking when the gunfire outside grew denser. Now and then, it was punctuated by sudden explosions.

"Something's wrong! This isn't practice!" The young chieftain sprang to his feet. He was no expert on firearms or armor, but he knew the White Crow rifles his people used in large numbers didn't sound like that.

"I—I'm going to take a look. Stay here, and don't move!" The chieftain was about to leave, but then, still uneasy, he took off a wristband and placed it on the fur blanket in front of his wife.

"Turn the dial on it, and it'll activate a shield. It's an ancient treasure the Great Elder gave me."

After giving her those instructions, Kazhan strode out of the stone house. He saw a black-scaled Sandfolk running toward him. His name was Moetail, one of the tribe's famed young warriors and captain of Kazhan's personal guard.

"Chieftain, something seems wrong."

It wasn't just wrong. Everything was wrong!

Grimacing, Kazhan looked toward the sound, but all he saw were flames erupting on the distant heights and artillery thundering. He felt his whole body go cold.

"Quick! Get everyone together! Everyone!" Kazhan shouted. "Sea God Heights! Something's happened at the heavy artillery positions!"

But by then, the battle on what the Sandfolk called Sea God Heights—the same place marked as "Archie Hill 6" on the garrison command's map—had already begun.

Captain Winter had left two fire teams on the mountain peak on this side. The rest, including Yu Lian, activated their mechs' built-in powered gliding systems and swept across the ravine below, more than a hundred meters wide, leaping onto the heights like soldiers descending from the heavens. They still hadn't realized what was happening when Lieutenant Pakin, the first to land, swung his battle-axe and smashed a drowsy Sandfolk sentry at the edge of the mountain to pieces from the waist up.

"Pakin, take your first platoon and seize the stone gate on the mountain road. Set up a defense there. Ain, take second platoon to the left! Seize targets one through five! Norson's third platoon, to the right. Take targets six through ten! Fourth platoon, with me!"

"Kill every enemy except the enemy mercenary engineers! I repeat: kill them all!"

Captain Winter barked out orders as he charged ahead, his rifle never letting up. He wasn't a bloodthirsty man, but this was no time for mercy. They were essentially opening fire in the middle of a million enemy troops. One careless mistake could wipe them all out, so they couldn't leave any survivors nearby. As for the goblin engineers, they needed a few alive to find out who was behind them. Yu Lian didn't think the Sandfolk could have made the connections to bring someone like this in. Besides, their people weren't the sort to fight to the death rather than surrender, so the risk of sparing them was manageable.

As he advanced, Captain Winter watched nearly every soldier's position on the holographic map, issuing follow-up orders in an orderly fashion.

"Firebats, prepare to switch to support mode!"

"Aman, get ready to snipe! Take out the tank crews!"

The fire teams already positioned on the opposite mountain opened fire.

Several Sandfolk reacted quickly and rushed toward their stitched-together tanks, only to be destroyed on the spot. The soldiers beside Captain Winter began firing controlled bursts at every enemy who appeared in their line of sight. A gun barrel poked out of a nearby bunker and spat a burst of fire, only for its operator to realize that all the attackers were behind cover. He hadn't hit a single one.

A soldier in a Firebat special mech slid across the ground twice and reached the bunker. He sent a stream of fire straight inside.

The screams lasted only a moment before falling silent.

Yu Lian picked off several unlucky Sandfolk who had shown their heads at the guard tower opposite. He couldn't help admiring Captain Winter. Every one of his orders was decisive and direct, without a hint of hesitation or a single mistake. Some nitpicker might say he was simply following the established tactical manual to the letter. But wasn't that exactly what made him the perfect junior officer?

Yu Lian raised his rifle and fired two more short bursts, killing all the Sandfolk trying to climb the watchtower. Then several mobile infantrymen went up and took the high ground for good.

"Good shooting!" Captain Winter praised him casually.

Yu Lian chuckled and glanced at the three tanks in the middle of the heights, as well as the tank crews lying dead around them, their eyes still wide open. His eyes shifted as an idea occurred to him. "We could push them over there, toward the mountain road."

The captain looked toward the road and saw that Pakin was advancing smoothly too. The burly man had climbed up onto the stone gate at the mountain pass and sent the last Sandfolk flying with his battle-axe. Winter quickly understood Yu Lian's meaning and nodded. "Big Bull, push those tanks onto the mountain road and block it."

Driving a tank was a skilled job, but just getting one moving wasn't too difficult.

"Sir, all targets cleared!" Second Lieutenant Ain's voice came through the comm.

"Cleared!" Second Lieutenant Norson chimed in.

Meanwhile, fourth platoon had surrounded several large armored motorhomes. Under pressure from a Vulcan cannon and C10 rifles, a white flag emerged from one of the windows. Then a brownish-yellow creature, half the height of an adult, with a big nose and pointed ears, jumped out of the vehicle. It was none other than a legendary Kaldar goblin, a renowned engineer.

He looked around at the gun barrels and said in a shrill voice, "W-we're legal citizens of the Alliance. We demand that you abide by the Galactic Watch Convention. You must not harm or abuse us, or seize our personal property."

The goblin acted so self-assuredly that the soldiers froze for a moment. Then the fellow pulled out a little blue booklet, emblazoned with a crest of a stellar system encircled by wings and vines. It was the Alliance's national emblem.

"I'm a legal citizen of the Free Stellar River Alliance! This is my passport!" he shouted even louder. "All twelve people in this convoy are Alliance citizens. You must not harm us!"

Captain Winter hesitated. If the other party really were legal Alliance citizens carrying passports, that would be troublesome. After all, they were citizens of one of the two biggest hooligans in the entire galaxy—or even the whole universe. They were used to throwing their weight around.

But just then, Yu Lian walked up to the goblin and looked down at him, his eyes cold.

"Where did the heavy artillery come from? What are its models?"

The goblin swallowed under Yu Lian's ice-cold gaze. "I'm an Alliance citizen. You have to treat us fairly and humanely."

"I'll ask again. Where did the artillery come from, what models are they, and how many of you are here? Also, I need to adjust the fields of fire. You'll cooperate."

The goblin closed his eyes, determined to be an emotionless broken record. "I'm an Alliance citizen. You have to treat—"

Bang! Yu Lian casually snatched up a White Crow rifle left on the ground by a Sandfolk and blew the emotionless broken record's head off. Stepping over the blood and gore and the blue passport soaked in blood, he walked over to one of the motorhomes and yanked down another goblin who was staring blankly out the window.

"Where did the artillery come from? What models? How many of you are there? And I need your cooperation. Answer me."

The goblin said nothing. It wasn't because he was a stalwart who'd rather die than talk; he was dazed from the fall and terrified out of his wits. Of course, he wasn't the only one. His companions inside the vehicle, Captain Winter, and the soldiers were all frozen in place.