Traitors

Downtown District, Rune Town, local time 14:12.

A third of the buildings in this colonial-style town were buried beneath tangled thorns, creeping vines, and stalked thatch. In the downtown district, colonial domed houses and boxy prefab buildings with sharp, straight edges stood in neat rows before Augustus and the others.

Antennae and solar panels had been installed on the rooftops to receive signals and store energy.

Like many towns on Turaxis II, Rune Town's houses all looked much the same. Straight roads divided the town into equal-sized blocks, forming a typical colonial grid that made it difficult for even outsiders to get lost. Grid-style towns like this were common on young colonies.

A few open-bed trucks and coal-hauling vehicles were scattered along the streets. Public facilities such as streetlights, signs, and benches had fallen into disrepair for lack of maintenance. Apart from that, Augustus couldn't see a soul. The streets and plazas were completely deserted.

"This isn't right. I thought they'd welcome us like heroes." The sight prompted Harnack to complain.

"If you showed up with a truckload of food and fuel, I bet you'd be the hero of the whole town. Maybe they'd even rename it Hankville." Raynor spoke over the comms.

"Sounds good to me." Harnack had clearly taken him seriously.

"That would make things difficult, Mayor Harnack Hankville. Intelligence says the entire town is made up of rebels," Augustus said.

"Then tell them all to get out of Mayor Hank's way," Hank said, unconcerned.

"Rally at the central plaza!" Company Commander Warfield ordered over the comms. "Stick close to your squad leaders and comrades. Watch the ground and your backs!"

Rune Town's central plaza was the only open space in town, just a clearing marked out with lime powder, about the size of a football field. With no one to mow it, the lush native plants of Turaxis II had taken over the entire lawn. Here and there, small, bright green, many-jointed insects could be seen.

In the middle of the verdant lawn stood a lone flagpole, from which hung a tattered Confederacy flag.

The entire 1st Company was deployed in Rune Town's central plaza. Augustus's 3rd Platoon and 2nd Platoon were positioned beneath the flagpole, behind Warfield. They faced the street to the north of the plaza, arranged in four columns. 1st Platoon stood on the right wing in the same formation, while 4th Platoon was behind and to the left of 3rd Platoon.

"People of Rune Town, I'm Lieutenant Warfield of the Interstellar Marine Corps." The lieutenant held a radio handset that could connect directly to the loudspeakers at Rune Town's broadcast station.

"Someone has informed the Marines that there are Kel-Morian spies here, spreading lies and deceiving citizens of the Terran Confederacy," Warfield said. "To preserve the purity of Rune Town and ensure it remains loyal to the Terran Confederacy, I have obtained a warrant for your arrest from the planetary governor, as the highest-ranking commander in this region."

"I have the authority to order everyone in this town to gather at the central plaza now and submit to our investigation. Anyone found innocent will be released immediately. But if you refuse to come to the plaza and submit to questioning, then, regrettably, I will have to arrest you all."

"You have fifteen minutes. I'm giving you fifteen minutes. Men, women, young and old—I don't expect you to be punctual to the minute, but unless you're missing limbs, fifteen minutes is enough to walk from one end of this town to the other."

"Bring no weapons. Otherwise, we have the right to open fire first."

"Lieutenant, our orders are to execute the insurgents, not arrest them," Augustus's platoon leader Reagan said over the officers' channel.

"If it were up to me, no one would have to die," Warfield said. "Unless there's no other choice, I won't slaughter people here."

After Warfield spoke, the entire 1st Company's comms channel fell utterly silent. His words had also gone out over the public channel to the more than two hundred Marines in the company, making his position on the mission unmistakably clear.

Augustus stood behind Warfield, beside Raynor and Harnack. The HUD in his visor had switched to thermal imaging, allowing him to see red figures hiding in homes and basements.

The scans had rendered real-time 3D models of several houses in the upper-right corner of the screen. A drop-down status bar displayed wind speed, humidity, and temperature.

A few minutes later, more and more figures appeared on Augustus's HUD. The people of Rune Town drove Ground-Effect Cars or rode maglev bikes toward the central plaza in small groups. Breathing grew heavier over the public channel, and Augustus found himself gripping his Gauss Rifle tighter.

Most of the townspeople carried various weapons: mining picks, shovels, entrenching tools, last century's automatic firearms, shotguns, and bolt-action hunting rifles. Only a handful had electromagnetic or laser weapons. Augustus guessed they were the organizers and leaders.

The hostile-looking townspeople of Rune Town surrounded the plaza, taking cover behind modified private vehicles and farm tractors. Augustus made a rough count and estimated there were already more than three hundred of them, with more arriving all the time.

Warfield watched it all expressionlessly at first, then lowered the visor of his Power Armor.

The visors of all the Power Armor in the 33rd Ground Assault Division, including Augustus's, bore a gray-white wolf's muzzle, white cheek fur, slanted triangular eyes, and pointed ears.

Still, Augustus couldn't help thinking it would look pretty imposing—as long as he could stop himself from imagining a husky.

"I demand to speak to your commander!" Once the crowd numbered more than five hundred, a representative stepped out from among them about four hundred yards in front of Augustus's position.

"I am," Warfield replied in the coldest, most unfeeling tone of his life. "Tell those people to put down their guns. I swear I'll let bygones be bygones. This is your last chance."

"We will never put down the weapons we use to defend our freedom!" The mustachioed man from Turaxis stepped up to Warfield without backing down. "Listen, you can't do this!"

"Decades ago, it was my father and our fathers before us who came here, wrested this land from beasts and venomous insects, cleared the ground, built houses, and reclaimed farmland. Everything we have today is thanks to generations of hard work," the man from Turaxis said.

"And what has the Confederacy government ever done for us? All they do is make us pay taxes, taxes, and more taxes, but they won't even help us build roads. When cheap industrial goods from Tarsonis flooded the Turaxis market, the governor's office and the Confederacy's Market Regulation Bureau did nothing. They just stood by and watched disaster unfold."

"After the local factories went bankrupt and countless workers lost their jobs, the government put on a show of concern and announced the Turaxis Economic Assistance Program—far too late to do any good."

"And even that would have been bad enough, but we haven't seen a single cent of the money from the assistance program."

A chorus of agreement rose from the crowd, while Warfield and the Marines could only remain silent.

"When war came, the Marines didn't protect us. They sent our children to the battlefield instead." The mustached man grew more and more agitated. At last, he threw up his arms and shouted, "We don't need the Terran Confederacy, and we don't need the Kel-Morians! Rune Town belongs to everyone who lives here!"

"I demand that you leave at once, or my townspeople and I will open fire!"

"Idiot. He'd almost convinced me. If he'd been a little more 'polite' about asking us to leave, that bastard Warfield might really have turned around and walked away." Raynor was furious over 1st Squad's comms channel.

"He doesn't really think those country bumpkins' popguns can pierce my Knight Armor, does he? He can't, can he?" Josephine, who came from a noble family, couldn't relate to Raynor's feelings about the speech. She thought it was laughable that these people would dare threaten the Marines.