Monsters Win Wars: A Novella Read Online Free PDF

saved
him in the villa. But he was half-dead that time. This time he’d
been completely alert, and could fully take in the efficiently,
brutality, and elegance of a saurian assault.
    “Impressive, no?” Aric asked.
    “Yeah…” Henry said. He turned to the wall
that lined the road. Rand still stood there, surveying the carnage
around him.
    Once the last solider had finished choking on
the Venus air, Rand left his spot on the wall, and slowly
approached the middle car. Two of the remaining commandoes
accompanied him, as he opened the back door, and pulled out the man
that sat inside. His heat suit was also of the flexible kind that
the guards had worn, but he wasn’t holding a rifle. He shook
violently as the Saurians grabbed onto his arms, and escorted him
to back to the truck. Henry opened up the back, and heard the
commandoes and their captor climb aboard. Once they were all
inside, he closed the back, and lowered the wall that separated the
back from the cab.
    They all sat on the floor of the truck,
taking long gasping breaths of the clean air inside. The human in
the heat suit was shoved to the ground with the others, and had his
bucket helmet ripped off, revealing the face of President
Sallis.
    “Let me out of here!” The president shouted.
“Do you know who I am?”
    “Yes we do.” Henry said from the front seat.
He’d turned back to face his enemy. The president began to shake
his head in anger.
    “Oh Patrick, you’ve really fucked up this
time!” He said. “You think they’ll really let you get away with
this?”
    “We’ve come this far.”
    “So what, within twenty minutes they’ll know
I’m missing and-” he stopped when his eyes fell on Aric, who sat in
the passenger seat. “What is that?”
    “Let’s just say I’m a friend.” Aric said.
    “Your soldiers were pathetic.” Rand
interjected bitterly. He took off his helmet, and his scarred face
turned to Henry. “You told me they were the best warriors your race
could offer. I didn’t even need to aid in the fighting.”
    “And we only lost one man.” One of the other
Saurians said.
    “Yes.” Rand turned to the president. “Are we
sure this is the right man?” President Sallis just kept looking
around at the lizard men.
    Henry was about to answer Rand’s question,
when he quickly turned out the window, and spotted the dead Saurian
among the bodies littered around the convoy.
    “Shouldn’t we go out and get him?”
    “Why?” Aric said.
    “If you’re worried about them finding out
about us, don’t.” Rand said. “The human government gains no
tactical advantage from the knowledge they’re fighting saurians. If
anything, it’ll just intimidate them.” He turned to Sallis’
frightened face and said, “Our scaly visages seem to have an
interesting effect on your race.”
    “But shouldn’t we try to give him a proper
burial?”
    “A warrior’s resting place is on the
battlefield.”
    “What about his family?” Henry asked. Rand
was silent, and he turned to Aric.
    “Saurian customs are a little different from
yours.” Aric said. “I assure you it won’t be a problem.” Henry
opened his mouth to say something, but nothing came out. He just
nodded.
    They called Emily, who in turn contacted the
spaceport authorities. She told them that the repair crews at the
dome were still low on dry ice, and that her ship needed to take
off immediately to get more supplies. The authorities let the truck
board the ship and they promptly took off. They’d just exited the
Venusian atmosphere, when the call came in that the president had
been kidnapped, and a state of emergency was declared across the
entire solar system. No ship was allowed to leave any planet they
were stationed on without government authorization.
     
    Back at the base, Emily and Henry had
prepared a room to serve as President Sallis cell. It was a ten by
ten room, that’d previously been used as a storage closet. Its
supplies had been moved to another room, to