Warlords race for power while the final battle looms! (Swords Versus Tanks Book 4) Read Online Free PDF

hope against the Aliens."
    Lowenside shook his head. " This expedition is humanity's only hope, and only if it is properly led." He touched her shoulder. "Now, inside if you please. You cannot address the army in sheepskin coveralls."
    Jasmine followed him back into the warm dope-stench of the hull, then down the companion ladder into the Bridge. She gave up fighting the rotation and sat on the deck.
    As she wriggled out of the flight suit, she looked around. It was like being on the set of a training film. Clean-uniformed crew operated undamaged instruments under an intact canvas ceiling, with no bloodstains on the decking or bulkheads, no Northmen, and no Sir Ranulph, either.
    She peeled off the flying helmet and Lowenstein sauntered over. He tapped the deck with his cane, seemingly unperturbed by the centrifugal force. "Excellent! Your forehead has not yet healed. A pity you do not have more wounds to display to the mob." He held out his hand.
    Jasmine considered kicking his legs out from under him, but instead just growled, "Bastard," and pulled herself up.
    The pilot cut the engines. Lines whirred out of the hull. The compressors howled. Airship 02 lurched, and bumped the ground. The gangplank dropped, letting in the roar of the crowd.
    Lowenstein handed the Stormgun to Jasmine.
    She raised an eyebrow.
    "You must seem every inch a soldier."
    "There’s a round in the chamber."
    "Really?" He put his palm on the small of Jasmine’s back and propelled her down the steps. She paused on the aluminium threshold.
    Thousands of soldiers stared up at her. Condensed breath shrouded their faces like musket smoke in an old war painting. Here and there, taut mooring lines angled out from the crowd like the pikes of Imperial Landmarchers in old illustrations. She looked over their heads to where Williams and Hamilton regarded her from the top of their wrecked tank. The nearside howitzer had been neutered – she had a flash of Sir Ranulph slicing through the thick steel barrel and felt the now-familiar jumble of lust and guilt.
    As she slung the Stormgun over her shoulder, she asked, "Are you coming with me?"
    "A hero walks alone," said Lowenstein, with the solemnity of somebody quoting great literature.
    "Crap," she muttered. "Sir Ranulph always had a squire." Until we killed him. Unless the expedition succeeded, the Army of the Egality would be no more than a gang of imperialist murderers.
    Field Marshal Williams smiled and beckoned. She waved back. "Silly sod thinks I’ve come to endorse him." She took a deep breath and plunged down the lattice-work steps into the steaming sea of bodies.
    The soldiers parted around her. A shrill voice chanted her name. Jasmine glimpsed a flushed face with a red circle on one cheek: Mary Schumacher, her driver during the last part of the Battle… Liberation of Kinghaven.. but now in the uniform of a motorcycle dispatch rider. Others joined in, until the cold air pulsed with the two syllables. There was, however, no sign of Tom.
    Over on the roof of the tank, Field Marshal Williams’s smile faded. He turned to the side and gave an order.
    Jasmine could tell he had realised he was in trouble. She doubled her pace, but a broad-shouldered Carbineer blocked her way. He grabbed her right arm and shouted, "You are under arrest for Dereliction of Duty!"
    Jasmine put her left hand over his and twisted her hips, making the Stormgun bump against her spine.
    The movement threw the man over her outstretched leg. He crashed into the boots of the nearest soldiers and lay still.
    Jasmine stared down at him. What am I doing? He’s one of ours.
    A female Carbineer threw a punch.
    Jasmine blocked with her left and lashed out with her right. Her knuckles blazed and the woman went down.
    Carbines appeared, bayonets flashed in the winter sun. The crowd recoiled, leaving Jasmine facing a dozen Carbineers drawn up in a line. Her eyes narrowed. Not random opponents, then, but a proper arrest squad.
    The Field