A Show of Force Read Online Free PDF

all but faded.
     
     
    “Captain, relay from Ground Command. Clear for Dragon,” Naralena reported.
    “Lieutenant Commander?” Nathan said, facing aft and looking at Jessica.
    “Executing Dragon, aye,” she replied. “Mister Chiles?”
    “Executing roll maneuver,” the helmsman answered.
    The image of the moon Copora moved around the outer edges of the main view screen, tracking along the bottom from left to right, up the right side, and across the top, coming to rest directly over their heads.
    “Locking main guns on target,” Jessica reported. “Firing.”
     
     
    Lieutenant Kellen, leader of the second Ghatazhak strike team watched from their safe fallback position five hundred meters away from the Jung base. Over the last five minutes, he and his men had feigned a disorderly retreat, lulling the unsuspecting Jung soldiers defending the base into a false sense of victory. Now, he witnessed the complete destruction of the base as bolts of plasma rained down from orbit as the Aurora bombarded the helpless base into a massive pile of smoldering rubble. Debris shot high into the air, spreading out in all directions, as the plasma shots continued to fall from above, one after the other.
    The bombardment ended only a minute after it had begun. When the dust cloud finally began to disperse, there was nothing recognizable left. Even the surrounding collection of shops and residences that had survived by supporting the base were destroyed. Several thousand Jung soldiers, and mostly likely several hundred Coporan civilians, both within the base and living around the perimeter, were either dead or trapped beneath the rubble.
    “We should have done that from the start,” the lieutenant’s master sergeant said, as he stared at the pile of rubble in the distance.
    “Agreed,” the lieutenant said. “These Terrans are too careful, too worried about how their actions are perceived by those who survive.” He turned and looked at the master sergeant. “It is not the way of the Ghatazhak.”
    “As the commander said, ‘changing times require changing tactics.’”
    “Perhaps,” the lieutenant replied, “but the Ghatazhak win because we are willing to do what must be done. Two hundred of our fellow Ghatazhak just died because the son of a Terran president, and a Takaran noble, could not commit to the level of force required to guarantee overwhelming success.”
    “Dumar is hardly a noble,” the master sergeant reminded his lieutenant. “He comes from a commoner’s lineage, just as the Ghatazhak do.”
    “He serves a nobleman, does he not? He lives as one, does he not?”
    “We are programmed to obey his orders,” the master sergeant cautioned.
    “And obey them we shall,” the lieutenant agreed. “To like them? That is not a requirement.”
     
     
    “Firing sequence complete,” Jessica reported from the Aurora’s tactical station.
    Nathan turned back around toward the main view screen. “Put the targeting camera on the main view screen.”
    A separate window appeared in the middle of the main view screen showing an aerial view of the target on the surface of Copora. In the middle of the screen was a massive pile of rubble where the base had once stood. It was obscured by a cloud of smoke and dust that was already being blown aside by the constant breezes that swept across the excessively flat, large, Earth-like moon. The damage spread well beyond the base itself, out into the shops and residences surrounding it. Nathan cringed inside at the devastation, knowing full well that he would have to deal with the accusations that would undoubtedly be thrown at him by the leaders of Copora. Despite the obvious disdain for their Jung conquerors—as evidenced by their media, as well as in communications the Alliance had intercepted over the past few weeks—the people of this world had not asked to be liberated. It was unfortunate that the Alliance had little choice but to make the decision for them. The 61