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

Marshal’s voice cut through the nervous muttering. "Stay back, my friends. Let the sturdy Carbineers deal with the renegade."
    Blue-uniformed men pushed through the mob behind Williams’s squad and drew their Regulation Sidearms.
    Jasmine tensed her trigger finger. If she unslung the Stormgun, she might get off a shot at Hamilton before they killed her. It would be a better way to die than in the cells of the Post Office Department of Human Sorting. The snag was, lots of innocents would get caught in the crossfire.
    The Security Workers shoved their pistols into the backs of the infantry squad. Carbines clattered on the white paving-stones. One went off and cracked out a bullet at ankle height. Somewhere in the mob, a man screamed.
    Postmaster General Hamilton bounced to the edge of the platform and declaimed, "As always, the ethically sound Post Office Security Workers ensure electoral propriety!"
    A pause for comprehension, then a ragged cheer.
    The diminutive Postmaster General opened his arms wide. Juddering like a crow on barbed wire, he ordered, "Clear a path! Facilitate the candidacy of this Hero of the People!"
    Jasmine blinked. The Stormgun seemed heavy on her shoulder. Hamilton and Lowenstein had fixed her up.
    General Hamilton stooped. "Come on Jasmine!" he coaxed. "Don’t disenfranchise yourself through underestimation of your own capabilities! False modesty is an Elitist affectation!"
    Jasmine forced herself into motion. Eyes fixed on a sword-gash in the tank’s armour plating, she marched the last ten paces. As she clambered up the vehicle’s bows, Hamilton held out his hand. Careful not to trip on the rivets, she let him usher her to stand next to the scowling Williams.
    The crowd rippled in all directions like a water-logged shell crater in a thunderstorm, arms waving, people jumping, heads bobbing. Hamilton raised his hand and there was silence.
    Jasmine grimaced and tried not to look at her boots. How could she have even considered debating with him? He would have annihilated her.
    General Hamilton jabbed a finger at Field Marshal Williams. " He removed her from the facilitation of Operational Group One!"
    Mutterings of agreement.
    "Dispatched her on a suicide mission with our chief gate scientist!"
    Cries of "Shame!"
    "And when – against all expectations – she returned to us?" He folded his arms. "Well, those near the front saw what transpired." The little man spun on the spot and strutted up the hull as if the increasingly purple-faced Williams was just another written-off tank component. "Is this how we treat our role-models?"
    The crowd roared, "No!"
    "Is this how we defeated the Elitists?"
    Another, "No!"
    Jasmine fought for breath. It wasn’t the words, she decided. It was the way Hamilton charged each with some urgent, special meaning discerned only by his all-powerful intellect. How the hell was she going to follow this?
    "How many of you lost friends to Williams’s manifest incompetence? Where in the tactical handbook does it recommend unsupported tanks in an urban combat theatre?" Hamilton ran out of hull, and bounded back to Jasmine. He pointed past her at Williams. "Shall we be led by a man who ignored the Anomaly like a child hiding under the bed in burning house?"
    "No!"
    "Then let us hear from somebody who truly understands how to make war, and who has faced the Anomaly and survived!" Hamilton produced a stopwatch from his jacket and held it up with a flourish. "Your have five minutes, Klimt."
    She leaned closer and hissed, "What the fuck do I say?"
    He looked up at her appraisingly, then smiled brightly. "The truth should suffice this time."
    Jasmine made to step forward.
    Hamilton caught her wrist and made a circular gesture. "Do remember to address the entire electorate – we are – ha-ha – ‘in the round’."
    Jasmine nodded and vaulted onto the tank's conning tower. She stomped her feet on the familiar lid of the armour plated shoebox, took a deep breath and spoke in what