The Mammoth Book of SF Wars Read Online Free PDF Page A

ordered not to move.
    Petersen was doubled over, gasping.
    “Sir,” I said. “Are you hurt?”
    “No,” he said. “Just out of shape. It was the cell … the damned cell … nothing to do but go crazy.”
    He looked into my eyes, and I realized the senator might not have been speaking metaphorically. His gaze was awful. Stricken. Not quite there somehow. It occurred to me that, for all his slick, football-player toughness, Petersen had probably never endured real deprivation before. Certainly not on the scale we’d been suffering since our capture.
    I turned to the s’ndar . My TAD was gone, but theirs worked. “That air strike was just the first phase,” I told them. “They’re softening up the target before our rifle platoons get sent in to clean up. They know you’re here, and they won’t stop until they find you.”
    A single s’ndar shape pushed its way back towards me. I recognized her torn raiment; it was the priestess.
    “We will move forward rapidly now,” she said.
    “Look at us,” I told her, waving my hand at Petersen for emphasis. “We’re in no condition to keep up the pace. In another hundred metres you’d be dragging us. So we’ll have to go slow. I hope that doesn’t scare you too much, but that’s the way it is.”
    The priestess appeared to sag in on herself, if only a bit. “Yes,” she said. “We are scared.”
    She studied my face. “You hide it well, but my fear makes you happy.”
    “Only because you’re the enemy,” I answered. Then I sighed deeply. “The shame of it is, you didn’t have to be. There was no reason for it.”
    “I agree,” she said. “But of course I would: you invaded us . It is you who are the enemy.”
    And suddenly I knew who the real enemy was.
    “My sister died here,” I said, as the low rumble of more bombs filled the sewer pipe, then fell silent. “She was excited by the idea of your alien culture, and she was killed for her enthusiasm. But she wouldn’t have been here at all – none of us would be here – if not for the Conglomerate playing us off against each other.”
    “The ‘deal’ you spoke of,” said the priestess.
    “Yes,” I said. “Back on Earth we treat the Conglomerate like saviours. You know something interesting? We’ve never even seen them.”
    Her eyes widened. “Never?”
    “Just radio transmissions and text messages, and those robotic transport ships that show up in orbit. If they’re so advanced, it should be an easy thing for them to pacify a planet with or without human help. So what’s in it for them, using us like this? And why couldn’t they just leave your world alone? Why do they care if you’re at war?”
    “Our particular hive has never known these answers,” she said. “And since the arrival of humans, we’ve never cared to know. We want you gone. That is the sole thing that concerns us.”
    “Have you ever stopped to ask why humans would even want to be on your planet in the first place?”
    The priestess was silent. As were every other s’ndar and human in the sewer. Petersen just looked at me, his limbs slightly shaking as the adrenaline from exertion began to wear off.
    “ We’re here because of them,” I said. “ You’re fighting an invading force because of them. Maybe it’s time for both sides to take a deep breath and think about that.”
    She stared at me. “Go on,” she said at last.
    “If you stop fighting, my people have no reason to be here.”
    “A truce?”
    “It would give us time to find out what the Conglomerate really wants,” I said.
    “And to prevent them from getting it,” added the senator, who was quick on the uptake despite his condition.
    She turned to the senator. “Do you have the power to order a ceasefire?”
    He nodded his head. “I outrank every general officer on this planet,” Petersen said, seeming to regain some of his former stature. “I’m sure I can convince our side to enter a temporary ceasefire.”
    “What good is temporary?”