“Dig,” Shannon shouted over the interLink. “Any man who finds a survivor gets a three-day pass.”
We normally would have located the bodies by looking for signals from their helmets, but the heat of the explosion must have destroyed their equipment. There were no signals, so we dug blindly through concrete, iron, and dust. As time went on, hope dwindled, and the rescue effort became less organized.
City engineers arrived on the scene with laser arcs that could cut through concrete and iron alike. With their help, we located twelve crushed bodies and the search became even more discouraging. Judging by the way the bodies were laid out, Azor must have told his men to spread out along the outer wall once they entered the warehouse. Perhaps they thought they needed to guard the windows and doors.
Sergeant Shannon came to check on me. He cursed softly when I mentioned my theory about the way the bodies were spread. “Fool,” he said, yanking a metal sheet from under concrete so violently that it tore. “Clone idiot! The enemy shoots rockets at you, so what do you do? You don’t hide in a fuel dump. Goddamn it!”
As Shannon spoke, a formation of fighters flew over us. Even though we were wearing helmets and speaking over the interLink, the noise of the fighters drowned out his voice. When they streaked away, I heard Shannon say, “So much for passive force. Klyber is going to make an example of friggin’ Ezer Kri.”
We did not find all of the bodies. In the early evening, as the sun set and a thick layer of clouds filled the sky, Captain Olivera spoke to us on an open interLink. “An entire platoon has perished here,” the captain of the Kamehameha began.
As he spoke, three Harriers cruised low overhead—less than fifty feet off the ground. They rotated in perfect unison and banked as they made a hairpin turn. Perched on two crumbling piles of rock, I watched them. Suddenly the middle fighter in the formation exploded and dropped out of the sky. It landed in a heap of smoke and flames. Looking quickly, I saw a contrail leading from a nearby rooftop. Someone had sneaked up there and fired a missile. The two remaining Harriers broke out of formation.
“Spread out! Take cover!” Shannon yelled.
The Harriers zipped around a building, then charged back to the battle zone. Crouching, with my rifle drawn, I watched the roof from behind the knee-high remains of a concrete wall. No more shots were fired. Whoever hit that Harrier had slipped away after making his point.
CHAPTER EIGHT
What leads men to make such foolish decisions? Admiral Klyber could never have touched the Mogats of Ezer Kri had they lain low. The government did not trust them, but our bylaws protected them. The daily patrols would have continued. We might have raided some buildings. Perhaps they had something to hide, or perhaps their separatist beliefs prevented them from waiting us out. Whatever possessed those Atkins believers to ambush our platoon, they had seriously miscalculated. Fanatics that they were, perhaps the Mogats thought they could take on the entire Scutum-Crux Fleet. But a few rockets and a massacred platoon did not intimidate Bryce Klyber. It irritated him. It showed him that the Ezer Kri government could not be relied upon.
With the Kamehameha at his command, Klyber had more than enough firepower to overwhelm Ezer Kri—a planet with a commerce-based economy and impressive engineering facilities but no standing army. Annihilating Ezer Kri would not have been enough for Klyber. He would have used Ezer Kri to send a message across the territories, and he would have made that message clear enough that every colony in the Republic would understand it.
The day of the massacre, the Kamehameha altered its orbit so that it flew over Hiro’s Fall. As it made its first pass, the ship opened fire, leveling the entire Mogat district. More than fifteen square miles were thoroughly pulverized. Whatever it was that the Mogats wanted to hide, the Kamehameha vaporized it in a flash of red lasers and white flames.
A few hours after the demonstration ended, Captain McKay sent several platoons to the area to inspect the damage and search for survivors. It was all theatrics, of course. The destruction was total; nobody could have survived it.
I did not recognize the scene when I hopped off the truck. The sun had not yet risen, and in the gray-blue light of my day-for-night lenses, the urban Mogat district looked like a desert. Lots that once held buildings now looked like rock gardens. The heat of the lasers had melted anything made of glass and metal. It incinerated wood, paper, and cloth into fine ash.
We strolled around the wreckage for nearly an hour, not even pretending to search for survivors. Klyber sent us so that the citizens of Hiro’s Fall would know that the U.A. Navy assumed responsibility for demolishing the offending district and that the U.A. Navy felt no regret.
“You see anything?” Vince Lee asked, as we walked over a sloping mound of pebbles that might have once been a factory.
Gravel crunched under my armored boot. “This is an improvement. If they planted some trees and built a pond, this could be a park,” I said.
“You’re not far off,” Private Ronson Amblin said, coming up beside us. “That happens a lot. I’ve been on more than one assignment where we sacked an entire town, just blew it to dust. You watch. They’ll build a monument to galactic unity in this very spot.”
“And the bodies?” I asked.
“Bodies?” Amblin asked. “Harris, those lasers were hot enough to melt a truck. Anybody caught here was cremated.”
By this time, the sun had started to rise above the skyline, and just as it cleared the tallest buildings, a motorcade approached. Four policemen on motorcycles led the way followed by four shiny, black limousines, with more motorcycles bringing up the rear. The convoy drove within fifty yards of us and stopped.
Shannon spoke on an open interLink channel. “The local authorities.” I detected disgust in his voice. “Fall in behind the other platoons.”
Moving at a brisk trot, we lined up in two rows behind the other platoon and stood at attention. The doors of the first government car swung open. I had not been able to see into the cars with their heavily tinted windows, but I was not surprised to see Captain McKay, dressed in formal greens, emerge.
“Attention,” Shannon bellowed in our ears, and we all snapped to attention.
I did not recognize the next man who climbed out of the car, but the third man out was Alan Smith, the mayor of Hiro’s Fall. A couple of young aides climbed out of the second car and joined Smith. As Smith looked up and down the scene, I saw a set of meaty fingers grip the sides of the car as the rotund form of Vice Admiral Absalom Barry, wearing whites with multiple rows of medals, struggled to his feet.
Barry smiled as he looked over the landscape. Happy-looking wrinkles formed around his eyes. He approached the mayor and muttered something in a soft voice. I could not hear what he said, but Smith laughed nervously. He looked pale. As he passed our ranks, he stared down at our feet.
“I think a slight alteration in the town’s name would be appropriate. Naming the town ‘Heroes’ Fall,’ after the fallen Marines seems fitting, don’t you think? And this spot, this destroyed area, would be a fine spot for a monument and park…with a statue dedicated to the memory of the fallen. That would go a long way toward showing your loyalty to the Republic,” Barry said in a raspy voice, his pudgy cheeks glowing. “Nothing too fancy. Nothing over a hundred feet, just a simple monument surrounded by U.A. flags…” and then they were too far away to hear.
As the others left, Captain McKay remained behind to address the men. “Gentlemen, you have just witnessed the ‘Bryce Klyber Urban Renewal’ program.”