4The rest of the company was down at Nittany, and it was just Kevin, Justin, and me up at Kett Comm-Center. The boys at Nittany were probably having a nice quiet day, I reflected.
"Dammit," muttered Justin, "why the hell is it the frickin' Underguns have to go trigger-happy today? Why can't ever it happen on that b-stard' Stan's watch?"
I had no answer to that. Justin leaned around the corner, fired three shots, and ducked back. He continued, "y'know, I think I sh'd just quit this job. Go home, find a nice quiet town, move there, and do something uneventful."
"Like sleep?" supplied Kevin from the other side of the hall.
"Yeah, like sleep."
"Yes, well, you've taken for granted one thing," I told him, dropping the empty gun and picking up a new one. The last one on the rack. I swore quietly.
"What?"
"Us getting out of here alive."
Nittany was a city: the only city on the island. For its first forty years it had lived in relative peace. For the next forty years it had been occupied fighting off the native forces,and failing miserably. At the moment, all two thousand of its citizens were busy getting ready for the evacuation. The bell piped across the speakers, once: one more hour before the city was officially considered a danger zone.
The new consul stood behind his desk, in the Nittany Base facing the wide blue-glassed window. The consul was of Old Jegland stock, short, thin, and pale of hair and skin, and only come to the planet this past year, but during that time he had the people had grown to trust him. He was young – only twenty-five, and the highest non-military officer on the planet – but his manner of wit mixed with diplomacy was approved of by the people of the world Ohivald. There were times, though, that the wit turned to something sharper, and the consul had been known to make more than one sarcastic remark at times a little less than convenient.
The consul now stood, leaned on the windowsill and watched over the tops of the city as the first row of border-posts burst into dry flame. He looked down at his hands, tinged blue by the light from the window, then back out. "May you live in interesting times, eh?" He shook his head. "U-Gis from one side, volcano from the other. Yes, this I would call interesting."
The automatic door hissed open and Colonel Kathin rushed in. He stopped before the desk and saluted hastily. "Sir!"
"Here, I have an idea," said the consul, turning from his vantage point at the window to face the Colonel. "Let's pretend for a moment that I don't know what you're about to tell me."
The older man shook his head, disapproving. "Sir, this isn't the time, the volcano is—" He paused for a moment. "Unless you've Seen…?" his voice petered off, questioning.
"Of course I've Seen, how the hell couldn't I've Seen?" snapped the consul. As with most times he was stressed, his speech fell back into the vernacular he'd tried to rid himself of upon gaining office. His light eyebrows drew together, and he sat and put his head in his hands. "Half of the civilians are going to get away," he told the table. He looked up at the other man. The Colonel could see he was shaking. The consul's voice rose in pitch and volume. "Half, d'you understand? The rest are either going to be killed or enslaved. Kett Comm-Center's gonna fall. Post-Landing's gonna fall. Nittany's gonna go up in flames. U-Gi's gonna loot the whole damned place, an' there ain't a damned thing I can do about it!" The consul slammed his fist on the table. He stood and turned his back to the Colonel.
"You yourself, Colonel, will be shot twice and quite possibly severely burned in the first attack. But don't worry about that. You'll survive. Til nightfall, that is, at which point the U-Gis are going to ambush the Base from beneath, and tear the whole thing to shreds. With you in it."
The Colonel opened his mouth, then closed it. He knew the consul could watch the future. It was almost expected, at meetings, that he come out with some piece of news or another, and the military would act accordingly. More often, in recent meetings, it would be to their detriment, when the consul warned of another Undergun attack. But what he'd predicted had never yet been wrong. And something of this scale, so catastrophic…
"Are you certain, sir…?" The Colonel looked up at the figure by the window, blue-lit from the back. The consul nodded and the Colonel let out a breath. Then he regained himself. "And what of the other half, sir?"
"The other half will survive, as I said." The consul looked down at the main street directly below, clogged with carts, and followed it with his eyes to the harbor. "They will sail to Brigden, the next island in the Ohivald chain, and set their city around the harbor of Valfur."
"The military?"
"One half-company will sail with the people to Brigden. The other four companies will remain here, doing all they can to hold off the Undergun forces. They will share the fate of those citizens that remain, and, after they dispose of most of the resistance, the Underguns will attempt to set sail after the rest of the human population. At this, however, they will fail."
"Why will they fail, sir?"
The consul turned to Kathin. "Because we will bring out the Chevalier."
Pronunciation Guide/Glossary.
U-Gi, U-Gis: Underguns. Pronounced you-jee. Natives of Ohivald.
Jegland: Pron. YEG-land (From Hungarian jég, meaning "ice.") Think norse world.
Ohivald: Pron. Oh-HEE-vald. World, mostly water, with inhabitable island chain.