SILENTLY MOUTHING CURSES, a sec man toppled off the roof of the power plant, his face dark purple, a length of knotted rope wound around his constricted throat.
Screaming, a sec man stumbled out of the officers’ lav, his pants dragging around his ankles and blood pouring from his ass, the feather shaft of an arrow protruding from between his plump cheeks.
The door to the dining hall was thrown open and slaves poured out, carrying weapons and ammo belts. Inside, a dozen sec man lay sprawled on the linen-covered tables, black tongues sticking out of their foaming mouths, the beer mugs dripping a bluish liquid on the freshly scrubbed floor.
Shouting orders, armed sec men piled out of the barracks, and the night came alive with blasterfire as they were cut down in the street by hidden snipers.
Suddenly, sirens blared and lights clicked on, filling the complex with blinding illumination. But the tactic failed miserably. Instead of startling the slaves and making them run away in fear, it gave them heart. They used the visibility to shoot down additional sec men, men seized their longblasters to kill more of the blue shirts. “Victory or death!” a woman yelled, waving a bloody longblaster. The rally cry was repeated by a hundred people in rags, brandishing weapons of every possible description.
IN A THUNDEROUS crash, the side of the main warehouse broke apart and an Abrams M-1 tank rolled out of the building, crashing under its massive armored treads several Hummers that had been commandeered by slaves.
Oddly, nobody fired a weapon at the tank, and the commander began to laugh as the gunner tracked the machine guns of the military juggernaut after the slaves scattering throughout the complex.
As the Abrams rumbled past the barracks, a glass window shattered and a slave leaped upon the machine, clinging to the thick barrel of the 120 mm cannon like a monkey. More laughter sounded from within the Abrams, and then a series of metallic clanks announced the main gun was being loaded. Light poured from the barrel, and the slave released the handle of the gren in his hand and threw it down the barrel. The men inside cursed in shock. Releasing the cannon, the slave fell to the soil and tried to run, but the military tank loomed above him like a wall of death. He darted to the left, the right, but not fast enough. The treads caught his leg, and he was pulled underneath the massive machine shrieking and wailing until his head was mashed flat.
Then the gren detonated, flame shooting from the cannon and out every port and hatch. Steam rising from its vents, the Abrams stood motionless in the street, the smell of death pouring from the broken vehicle.
With the destruction of the Army tank, the fighting became pandemic in the ville. Shots rang out constantly, screams coming from every building. The fighting went hand-to-hand at the armory, as each side straggled to reclaim the precious cache of ammo. Triumphantly, the sec men gained control of the building, ruthlessly shooting the slaves crawling in through the broken windows and shimmying out the fireplace flue.
Then a horn sounded a single clear note, and the slaves raced away from the structure. Weapons at the ready, the sec men stuffed grens into their pockets and waited for the next assault when the floor below erupted in a strident blast. The entire building lifted into the air, the tunnels below the foundation clearly visible for a split second before the tons of masonry plummeted earthward in a grisly rain.
That was the turning point of the battle. Now the slaves openly challenged the sec men, blaster for blaster, man for man, and the blues were decimated every time they tried to make a stand. Soon the sec men were ducking for cover, then retreating to strategic locations, and finally running for their lives before the relentless advance of the ragged horde.
“RETREAT TO THE BUNKER!” cried the sec chief, launching a flare into the nighttime sky. The incandescent charge soared upward and detonated in a pyrotechnic display visible from everywhere in the complex.
A shot hit him in the chest, the blow to his vest only making him grunt. Then a tracer round took him in the throat, and the man toppled off the roof of the Hummer, launching a second flare with his last ounce of strength. The charge went wild, rocketing down a street, glancing off the side of a building and streaking into the night to explode among the trees. Few saw the heroic act, even fewer the second flare. But the first signal had been spotted, and the wounded blue shirts obeyed the desperate command, fleeing toward the concrete block located in an open field.