Master of Violence
by AJ Marks
Part 28
Toncor made his way to the bridge having been summoned by the admiral, Mark Pappas. He heard the battle in space had ended which was good news to him. He had been worried about dying in space on board the ship, but aside from a few bumps nothing major. And there seemed to be no panic among any of the crewmembers.
He actually used the time to go over the progress reports from his people. They had arrived at the planet Mars, and were helping to terraform it even more. Settlements were quickly established. Things were progressing rather quickly and Iccol had stated they might be able to plant a harvest by the end of the month. Even the other transport, the Hotlife was beginning to send people down to help as well. It was becoming a good mix of civilizations.
The bridge was full of people going about their duties, a few stopped and looked at him. It was something had had gotten used to. Not every human was used to having an alien around them. He looked up as Mark made his way over to where he stood.
“Ah, good,” Mark said. “We have ground troops headed to the surface right now. They should be there in a bit, but how much do you know of the other races?”
“I’m afraid the majority of races we met were in transport ships fleeing the O’krad. But I will do my best,” Toncor said.
“Well, we haven’t met many races either, at least not until recently,” Mark replied. “A lot happened in a short amount of time.”
Toncor nodded in understanding. “If we hadn’t had engine trouble we would not have met you.”
“And not been given your warning either,” Mark said.
“I somehow think you would still be in this spot even without us,” Toncor said. “From what I’ve studied of your race, every reaction you gave is consistent with your history. Humanity would have fought back.”
“Yeah, I’d like to think so,” Mark said. “Though we wouldn’t have been on alert as much, or have so much information so quickly.”
“With or without our warning, Earth would not have been an easy fight for them,” Toncor stated but a new report interrupted any further conversation.
“Ground troops have landed,” Joaquin stated. “Colonel Sventila on the line.”
Toncor watched as Mark went over and answered. “This is Admiral Pappas.”
“Admiral, wanted to let you know we have landed safely, there appears to be no surface defenses from what we could tell on the way down,” the colonel stated.
“Good, and the situation on the surface?” Mark asked.
“All ships have landed safely,” he replied. “We are currently working to meet up with the others and prepare out attack.”
“I’ll send a few fighters overhead to scout the areas,” Mark said. “Any luck with uniting with the resistance group on the surface?”
“Not yet sir,” the colonel stated. “I’ll let you know the moment we hear anything.”
“Thank you,” Mark said, as the communications ended.
Toncor looked on watching and waiting. He wouldn’t be needed until they actually met some aliens on the planet. Though several of the soldiers had communicators with them for such a situation.
“Any idea when you’ll want me to go down?” Toncor asked.
“Not sure yet, I want to make sure things are secure on the surface first,” Mark replied back to him. “Last thing I want is for you to be shot because we weren’t careful with security.”
“Thank you admiral,” Toncor said, feeling a bit better about it all.
Though, he couldn’t help but wonder what happened to his own homeworld. Were there still some of his race who were struggling to survive? And if so, what could they do about it to free them as well? He had so many questions and not a lot of answers at the moment. The humans would say this is only the beginning of a lot of things, and perhaps the freeing of many other planets.
For now he waited while listening to the reports coming in from the surface.
*****
Angie looked on from her spot, they had seen several shuttle type craft flying overhead not long ago. Jack had mentioned some name, explaining that was the name of the type of shuttle and obviously they knew what it meant. To her it wasn’t much of anything except good news.
They remained hidden a bit before turning to see several men walking towards them along with Sven.
“Hey, look who I found,” he said to them.
Angie felt relief at seeing another human, and one not from Sierra, but Earth. What she so hoped for was actually happening.
“Heard there was a planet here in need of liberation,” the soldier said.
“Yeah, you could say that,” Jack said to them.
“You are the resistance group?” the soldier asked looking around, “where are the others?”
“We still have two others checking out the perimeter,” Jack stated.
“All right,” he said, lifting his radio. “Found the group, sector six, we’ll use this point as HQ, all forces converge here.”
They were interrupted by the sounds of running, as Aku and Crystal came into the area only to stop short.
“Ah, we’re friendly,” Aku said raising his hands.
The soldiers lowered their weapons as the leader seemed to move forward. “The last two?”
“Yeah.”
“We need to get out of here, or get ready,” Crystal said. “They’ve organized some soldiers and are headed this way.”
“Expected,” the soldier said looking at the others. “Spread out, defend this area, night vision on.”
Angie watched as they pulled down some goggle looking things over their eyes and started moving off position as the leader stayed with them.
“All squads, hostiles have entered the forest, be careful, all resistance personal are with us,” the man said.
Angie moved a bit to hide a bit better as she and Heather tried to stay out of the way of the activity. She was ready for her part in all of this to be over.
Gunfire caused her to jump as now she could see the flashes of weapon fire in the distance. It seemed odd to see the flash but not hear anything for a second or two. It looked nothing like she had seen in the movies and honestly wanted to not see any more of it.
She watched as Jack spoke with the man who appeared in charge of everything even as a few more men approached.
“Third squad reporting sir,” one soldier said loud enough for Angie to hear.
“Good, follow Jack here, scout around and see about freeing any of the slaves there,” the commander said.
The group moved off along with Jack leaving them to listen to the gunfire as reports trickled in over the communications. From what she could make out they appeared to be winning the battle. In a way it didn’t surprise her at all, considering the way the O’krad had acted while out in the forest. It was like they didn’t like being out here and they were almost always thinking about something else when walking along. They had passed close by a few times while they were hiding.
“First squad has beaten back the attack.”
“Good,” the commander said, motioning for another man to come forward, he had a phone. “This is Colonel Victor to Enterprise.”
That caught Angie’s attention because the Enterprise was her uncle’s command, or had been last she had heard.
“Yes sir, we’re in the process of securing a landing area for the rest of the troops,” he said. “But the second division can be sent down at any time, we’ll send out safe zones to land which are secure. Yes sir.”
He hung up the phone and looked over at another man.
“Tell the fourth squad to be ready for additional troops, the second division is headed down,” Victor said. The man didn’t bother replying but took off with the report.
Even as they waited more gunfire erupted, this time in the direction which Jack and the squad had disappeared to.
Looking up into the sky she noticed that the night sky was beginning to lighten indicating morning was coming.
*****
Mark sat in the command room listening to the reports coming in. The fleet had set up a defensive position around the planet waiting for a counter attack which they all fully expected. In the room with him was Victoria, a few others monitoring the activity of the fleet and ground troops along with Toncor.
“Sir, incoming communications from HQ,” Joaquin said.
“Put it though,” he said, expecting to see Richard, instead he saw Senator Jeff. “Ah, senator, what can I do for you?”
“I’m hearing good things about the invasion,” Jeff said to him.
“So far things appear to be going our way,” Mark said, not wanting to jinx anything.
“Good, we had a report from Belru of the Rebellion,” Jeff said and Mark had to recall the alien realizing he was one who kept up with all of the intelligence of the O’krad for the resistance.
“Oh?”
“Yes, seems like about the time we attack there was a tremendous spike of communications. They are working on translating it, but they appear to be in chaos,” Jeff said to him.
“That won’t last long,” Mark said.
“Yes, but it’s the first time they’ve ever seen anything like this. They don’t seem too organized which should work in our advantage,” Jeff told him.
“Did he give any idea as to when we could expect a counter attack?” Mark asked. It was his main concern right now, how long it might take them to organize some sort of counter attack to their attack.
“He didn’t know, only that he’s never seen them so disorganized before,” Jeff said. “How are things going on the planet?”
“We have footholds on the planet, areas to land troops, and such, we are only now beginning to advance on the city, cautiously though as we don’t know exactly what type of defenses to expect, or how many troops they have stationed on the surface,” Mark stated. “They only had two smaller defense ships which we had not encountered yet before.”
“An unknown, wonder how many such ships they have,” Jeff said.
“It is reasonable to assume they have many,” Toncor said speaking up from his position having been listening.
“Ah, Toncor, how are things?” Jeff asked.
“Doing very well senator,” Toncor replied back. “I am waiting for my skills to be an asset so far, but I understand the situation.”
“You’ve really learned a lot,” Jeff said.
“You’re species is fascinating,” Toncor said not what Mark expected to hear. He fully expected Toncor to think of humanity as some sort of violent race. “I’ve found more contradictions in your history and planet than any other species I’ve run across so far. You have this innate desire to protect those weaker than you, yet you also have a history of taking over the weak.”
Mark wanted to listen in but another report from the surface came up. They were beginning to move into the city, meeting some resistance. He quickly looked at the map which indicated safe locations on the planet, there were two locations at the moment, both near the main city on the planet.
Sierra had only been recently colonized with a few smaller cities and one large city. It was the main city for transporting the raw materials mined on the planet.
Taking another look at the scanners he noticed nothing else had arrived after his force, and no O’krad ship had escaped which he knew about.
“It appears things are still moving as planned, which worries me,” Mark finally said.
“Why?” Toncor said.
“Plans almost never survive the first engagement,” Mark said. “I just hope we didn’t overlook anything when planning this raid.”
End part 28