A Crown of Stars

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Part 46
"...Though I Be The Lone Survivor"

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"-and I don't want anyone to disturb us until dinner!" Asuka shouted as she slammed and locked the door to the former 'owner's cabin' suite on the commandeered cargo ship that now served as a transport for their mostly-restored Mass Production Eva Unit.

Shinji dumped the last armload of their baggage on the deck near the slightly-larger-than-Double bunk at the rear of the room and massaged his arms. Their arrival back in their beachside tent following Asuka's 'assumption of command' after they had been cut-off had been rapid; Sergeant Bir had shown them how to work the dedicated transport pad that could flicker the two of them back to the South American base site and the suite of acoustic and holographic spoofing gear to fake their presence when they were gone, then packed them off before they could be missed at the fleet assembly site. The transport pad had been disguised to look like a thick, rubber-backed rug about the size of a bathmat, so they could leave it in plain sight in their cabin. Sergeant Bir had promised he, Misato, and their other Pilots would continue to try to re-establish contact with Avalon, or failing that, come up with a new plan by the time Shinji and Asuka could get away once they had some privacy in their cabin several hours later.

Shinji had just enough time to turn around before he was nearly tackled onto the bunk by a flying Eva Pilot. Asuka wrapped her arms around him and clung fiercely tight. "Wha-?" Shinji blurted in surprise.

"I just know this is going to go to Hell somehow. It always does. Something good happens, and then the world shits all over us again. You and I meet, then spend years missing each other's signals. We're beating the Angels easily, coming together as a team, and then your asshole father springs the Dummy Plug system on us. We survive the Third Impact, then get a world of thugs, rapists, and warlords. And now we finally… talk to each other, and then this… I just know something more is going to go wrong here, because this world hates us," Asuka said wearily into his chest.

"This world may be against us, Asuka, but I think we've already survived the worst it can do to us. What could beat the Third Impact and the last four years? At least now we've got allies, and our friends back."

Asuka buried her face into his shirt some more. "I want to burn the last twenty-four hours in to my mind. I was happier than I've ever been, Shinji. I want to hold on to that, against whatever is coming next."

His arms wrapped themselves around her back and held her close. "I'm happy too, Asuka. I meant everything I said yesterday; I'm yours. I'll be whatever you need me to be. I'm no good at doing anything for myself, but I can do things that surprise even me when it's not for me. You need me by you, to be with you and take on the world with you? I promised I would. I need you right back. I'm going to use you to push myself forward. I can do anything if it's for you. You are my fire, Asuka. You give me the heat and light I need to be more than an ember."

She pulled her face out far enough to give him a faint smile."I'm your fire, huh? Did you learn that word from Ching too?"

Shinji shook his head. "What word?"

"An Avaloni word she mentioned the night we arrived; fieron. Means 'the fires that drive you', she said. The burn that motivates you when good sense tells you to stop or give up. So I'm yours, now?"

He nodded. "I like that. I guess you are. I'm going to use you to make me more like the man who can stand by you. I'm nothing, Asuka. But I can use you to make me into someone better. The reward ...my friends safe, the world without people like Jinnai or my father in charge, being with you… is everything I've ever wanted.

Asuka's eyes snapped with as bit of anger, matched in her voice. "Don't you ever say you're 'nothing', Shinji. You're…" She shook her head to flick a thought away. "…you're not 'nothing' to me. You have to stay with me from now on. I won't stand for a 'nothing' boyfriend, remember? Or a… a lover. So you aren't allowed to be 'nothing'. I am who I am by choice. If you say you are 'nothing', you are choosing such and then you will be. Choose better. I want you with me. You are going to be with me. You promised me you weren't going anywhere. So you better be more than 'nothing'."

"I better be a better man, or you'll 'better' me upside the head until I am?" Shinji asked with a small smile.

"If that motivates you, Third Child, yes." She pulled him along with her as she stepped backwards onto the disguised transport pad. "Now let's get back to our company of lost souls and find out what they've come up with." Standing close to each other, purely in order to both fit on the small pad at once, of course, Asuka tapped a button on her wristband, and the cabin was empty.

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They appeared on the matching dedicated pad in the hangar from that morning, but this time there was no bustle of activity around the mecha or people moving cargo about to lighten the atmosphere. A quick look around revealed a crowd around the command pit near them, some of them already expectantly looking over at them, waving for them to join. Shinji and Asuka walked to the side of the map table as the crowd parted to allow their nominal commander and XO to the center of the ring.

Sergeant Bir looked up from staring at the map of South America displayed on the table to nod greetings to them. Ching, Misato, and the rest of their friends were spread around the inner ring around the table as well, matching grim expressions on everyone's faces. Sergeant Bir shook his head sadly and met Asuka and Shinji's gaze.

"Ma'am, I think our carefully crafted operational plan got completely defenestrated by this morning's event. We've been completely unable to make any kind of contact with the Empire or other friendly forces outside this worldline. We're a fragmentary unit not prepared for separate ops, cut off, out of contact with the Empire, no idea how long it will be before relief or reinforcements can reach us, trapped on an entire planet of warlords, madmen, and starving masses of desperate people, with one working StarStrider trainer mecha, two Black Knights, one hundred fifty seven personnel, all of which are equipped with mostly non-lethal gear, and two junior officers with serious combat scars and personal issues in command. The only reason I won't say 'we're fucked' is that implies we might enjoy any part of this. I don't see any reasonable alternatives to this plan we've developed in the last couple of hours."

He pressed a virtual button on the map table and the view zoomed in to a much closer map showing their base's location. A red arrow traced a path from their base deep into the Amazon Basin. "We'll abandon the base site here and retreat as far into the Amazon interior as we can manage, then dig in. We can cannibalize the powerplant in the StarStrider to give us an energy supply that we should be able to stretch out for years, and that will give us the juice to build a deep bunker we can fort up in. Hopefully, no one will notice us at all, and we can do our best impression of a pack of door-mice and hide out for years if need be while we wait for rescue."

Shinji grimaced, but found it hard to argue with the distasteful necessity. He stared at the map, trying to come up any other ideas. He drew a blank and looked up at Misato. The former NERV Operations Officer was one of the sharpest military minds he knew. Surely she had some more palatable alternative to mind. But no, Misato was covering her face with her hands and her shoulders were shaking. Was she crying?

Misato suddenly slumped onto the table and started pounding it with her hand, laughing hysterically. "I can't hold it! Bwhahahaahaha! Oh God, the look on your faces! Hahahaha!"

Asuka glared death at her. "Misato, this isn't very fucking funny. What the Hell are you laughing at?"

"You! I can't believe you're buying this! Hahahaha!"

Shinji looked from Sergeant Bir to Lieutenant O'Brien and the others around the table. All were suddenly grinning and laughing, his classmates less so than the Imperials, but still far from saddened. Ching was absolutely smirking at Asuka's consternation. "That's not the plan? What is, then?" he asked.

Sergeant Bir grinned like a wolf. "'Provide any and all support they need to assist my friends in toppling Jinnai, reestablishing peace and security, and rebuilding their world', He said. I'm a soldier of the Empire and a TrueBorn of Avalon. His Majesty gave me a mission, sir, and I will complete it. Unprepared, inadequate, cut-off unit? One hundred fifty thousand of them versus one hundred fifty seven of us? No plan, no backup, or support from home? That's no excuse! What have we got to worry about? Afraid? There is no such thing as fear. The impossible is just another challenge. And if you can't take a joke, you shouldn't have joined the Army! Heh." He chuckled darkly. "They're never going to see us coming."

Asuka blinked at him. "You intend to continue a mission planned out for thousands of soldiers and your Empire on call, and take on all the warlords of South America and the UN forces with one hundred fifty seven soldiers?!"

Sergeant Bir nodded. "I do."

Corporal Vasraith pointedly coughed "Ooh-rah!".

Bir rolled his eyes. "Correction, I plan to do it with one hundred fifty five soldiers, one squid, and one noisy jarhead. We're going to successfully complete our mission, and not only that, we're going to do our damndest to uphold the 'Nobody Dies' restriction stipulated by Lieutenant Ikari while we're at it."

Asuka shook her head. "That's even more impossible. You're all crazy."

The shark-like grin spread even wider on Sergeant Bir's face. "No, we're Avaloni! Retreat and hide in the jungles? Ha! This is the Imperial Army!"

Shinji shook his head in disbelief. "How? We don't have even one hundredth of what we were planned for, so how can we do this? In fact, what do we have?"

"One StarStrider trainer with non-lethal gear. Two Black Knight Mk. VIIs with non-lethal gear and one plasma cannon. Four Pilots, one Ops Officer, one nurse, one spy, one Navy Flight Lieutenant, one Prince Of The Blood, one jarhead, and me. A technical support platoon for the mecha, three dozen strong, gives us a good technological base for making friends around here. A signal platoon, fourteen strong, that can do computer and communication network infiltration and subversion. A medical platoon, capable of running up to a Class II MASH, also very good for winning friends and influencing people. Supply platoon, three dozen strong. Psi Ops platoon, one dozen operators. They're going to be key to our plans. A Scout platoon, two dozen Scouts in light power armor, our only other actual frontline combat section. And a hardboiled egg, honk. We might also have a partridge in a pear tree in one of the boxes of supplies, I'll have to check. We obviously can't do the broad program of 'shock and awe' we were templated for that Lieutenant Katsuragi showed us, so force majeure is out. We're going to have to go with far more subtle techniques like extensive use of hypnosis, targeting key leaders with psionics, smaller piece-by-piece taking of territory, and getting a good portion of the local population actively on our side."

"Not very much for taking on the whole world with," Asuka noted.

"Could be worse, ma'am." Sergeant Bir replied. "If this was an Imperial Ranger First Class Final Certification Exam, the Ranger would be expected to do what we're aiming for by themselves, with absolutely no beginning support. They usually start tied-up naked in the middle of a desert or something, in fact. This kind of situation is what they do regularly, albeit with the Empire on call for assistance. We're starting off a little better. And as you demonstrated during that coup you and Lieutenant Ikari headlined, it doesn't matter if the UN has 150,000 troops on paper if they can only bring a small portion to bear at once, and we've got mecha support on hand that far outstrips what you had to work with."

He tapped a few more buttons on the map table, and the view swept in to a closer shot of Buenos Aires. "We've worked up a couple of approaches while you've been setting the scene for everyone to think you're aboard the UN fleet, but they all start with Buenos Aires. The question for you and Lieutenant Ikari, ma'am, is what sort of approach you want to go with for at least the initial movements; stealthy, aliens, or angels."

"...You're going to have to explain that part, Sergeant," Asuka said after a puzzled pause.

At Sergeant Bir's nod, Ching spoke up. "We're going to pick up the whole operation here and fly it to the city, but how we go in is one of those three choices. We can go in hiding the mecha and the noticeably not-Homo Sapiens soldiers, and not let anyone know this is a force from outside this world until later. That's 'stealthy'. 'Aliens' is we go in publically, show off the mecha and the more exotic looking soldiers, and tell everyone up front this is an Imperial Army unit and what that means. 'Angels' is a bit of the same, but we lead with Lieutenant O'Brien, myself, and the rest of the Homo Avalonis soldiers who can show off their wings and convince the locals that we're 'agents of Heaven' or something. That way is likely easier for swaying people in the immediate term, but may have drawbacks later on when we have to explain we're not working for the Christian God or such. Although it still might be a good way to take down some of the more ugly warlords even if we don't go with it as a main strategy."

"Again, you people are strange, and now I'm having to turn into one of you. These are not the sorts of tactical decisions I was expecting to have to make," Asuka said dryly.

Sergeant Bir smiled again. "Welcome to the Imperial Army, ma'am. And if you think this is weird, wait until we tell you about the rock concert."

Shinji and Asuka shared a look, then returned to Sergeant Bir. "Rock concert?" they asked in confused unison. Misato started laughing again.

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Part 47
Bienvenido A La Reina Del Plata

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Eventually Misato managed to stop snickering, and a half-hour of briefing led Asuka to select stealth as the program for their immediate plan at least as far as their insertion to Buenos Aires went. Sergeant Bir snapped out some orders, and the company's soldiers fanned out to prepare the building for movement. They had only a few more hours of darkness to move into their target site before dawn would make stealth much more tricky. Shinji shook his head in amazement again. They were literally picking up stakes and moving on; using the gravity manipulation capabilities of their three mecha, they were going to simply pile everyone into their hangar building and lift it into the air for the flight to Buenos Aires.

Shinji and Asuka's part was to pilot der Roter Wirbelsturm when they were ready to move, so he found himself standing with Asuka by the foot of the mecha with little to do until then. Not that this bothered the Third Child much; it gave him the chance to stand next to the immense red mecha holding Asuka's hand and standing close enough to feel her warmth in the pre-dawn chill. He glanced downward at their hands and gave a small smile. Unthinkable a week before, holding her hand now felt as good and as natural as breathing. And almost as painful and difficult to stop for very long. They both seemed to draw strength from the constant grip.

"Guess I may have been overstating it a bit about 'personal issues' in that joke briefing, the way you two are looking. I don't think I've seen non-Imperials as close as you two in a long time."

Shinji jumped slightly at Sergeant Bir's comment as he walked up behind them. Sergeant Bir's approach had been almost silent. He hadn't any hint of his presence until he'd spoken. He felt a little less embarrassed when he felt Asuka jump too. The tall NCO gave a half-nod of apology. "Sorry if I startled you. We're almost ready for you to start your StarStrider up."

It stuck Shinji that the three of them were alone for the first time since the portal had snapped shut. Time to ask a couple questions that had been nagging at his mind since the briefing of their rather ambitious new plan had been laid out. "Sergeant Bir, can we really do this? One hundred fifty seven of us against the world? And keeping up my request for no one getting killed, no less? Aren't we taking a pretty gigantic risk in all this?"

Bir shrugged. "The Emperor protects, sir. Imperial Rangers take on worse missions all the time and are expected to accomplish the impossible regularly. We're the Imperial Army. We don't believe in anything like an 'impossible mission'. A lot of Rangers get their start with us. We can take on almost any force this Earth can throw at us with high expectations of success. Keeping to a non-lethal protocol makes it tougher, but we're not exclusively about laying waste to the landscape. In a crisis, we can revert some of our systems to direct damage modes, and in true extremis we can pull some variation of the retreat-and-bunker program we outlined earlier. But from the briefing notes on the original plan, it looks like this world needs our help. Warlords, brutes, and madmen running things, public medieval torture for 'subversives' in the capital of the UN, and the new boss was ready to use N2 mines to blow up a city block by block rather than lose a coup? We can't sit back and passively wait for rescue with something like that in front of us, and not even try to help. Not us."

"I'd have thought you'd all be more cautious, given how long you seem to live," Shinji wondered at him. "The moral risk so far overshadows the physical that you have to act?"

Sergeant Bir gave him a level look. "You even need to ask, Lieutenant? 'Only the soul matters, in the end. All else is dross,' the Lord says, and I am a faithful TrueBorn of Avalon. The Emperor faces that fire every day. How can I, one of his children, do any less? And I thought you felt the same way, that the moral costs are at least as high as the physical? Why else would you have us aiming for a 'Nobody Dies' scenario?"

Shinji acknowledged the point with a nod. "I do feel that way. It's just kind of new to me to see a whole nation that feels the same way. We haven't seen anything like that on our world for a long time, even more so after the Third Impact. An entire country that devoted to helping the downtrodden rather than ruling them like barbarian chieftains is really strange for us. After the Second Impact, most countries were pretty ruthless in the name of maintaining stability."

Sergeant Bir gave him a wry smile. "Well, one of the Founders, His Grace Grand Duke John Henry Drake, once said 'sometimes we're less a nation than a really big militant Holy Order', and he was only half-joking. The Lord founded us with a mission, and we have never lost sight of that. Do right. Uphold justice. Protect the good and punish the wicked. Bring the light and fight for the right until the day we all rise up. To turn away and hide when we can help isn't just a negative moral choice for us, it's practically apostasy. So we will hold on to our faith, and trust in the Lord and Lady, and do our damnedest to do what they have taught us is right."

"And you just wake up on Second Chance or one of those other moons if you die here, right?" Asuka asked. "Your gods restore you and you can go right back at it. That's how Ching… I mean, Lieutenant Leibshott made it sound when she explained it to me."

"Ehh… usually, yes, ma'am. Not now, though. 'Dragonfly' means we're cut-off, totally. Even spiritual avenues are blocked. Our souls can't reach home right now. There's some chance if we are killed on this world we'll end up in whatever the local afterlife is, but it's not a good one. We're too different. We die here, we probably die in truth."

Shinji took a deeper breath and heard Asuka's matching gasp. "But you're not going to change anything about what we're about to start here, are you?" he asked. "That's what you meant by all that. Even true death of your souls won't sway you from doing what your faith demands."

Sergeant Bir just solemnly nodded. "When we win the glory will be all the greater for the odds we overcame. And whether we win or we fall, we will never be forgotten by the Empire. If we are to be the only light in a world of darkness, then it's time to shine." He raised his left wrist to his mouth and keyed the unit broadcast. "Saddle up, Avaloni! We've got a world to save! Lord and Lady with us! Numquam Soli!"

From around them Shinji could hear various soldiers' responses, led by a shouted unit response; "Never Alone!" "I'll quit when the Emperor does." "...though I be the lone survivor." "Anybody got a copy of the Anabasis?" "As long as I can see the light..."

Sergeant Bir nodded at them again. "Start her up, ma'am. Time to ride out and chastise the evildoer. And in honor of our mission, I've found a nice classical piece to play over the unit push as we start off…"

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"Don Barceló! Don Barceló! There's something you… oh! I'm sorry if I interrupted, sir."

The current ruler of what remained of Argentina's capital city turned away from the weeping wreck of a human being still chained to the rack against the wall of his office. The man known to the people of the people of Argentina as Don Barceló, once of the Dominican Replublic's nastier prisons, and after the chaos following the Third Impact lord of Buenos Aires, waved a dismissive hand at his aide's apology. "It is nothing, Juan, I was done with this one. Now she knows better than to be insolent or slow when I give her an order. Get one of the nurses in here to patch her up and then throw her in the harem so that she might provide an educational example to the others. We'll throw her out later if she expires. Now, what was so important you came running in here?" He carefully placed the bloodied knife back in its rack with its mates and wiped his hands on a towel.

The aide tore his eyes away from the bleeding woman and blinked, trying to regain his train of thought. Even years of service as Don Barceló's assistant proved unable to fully desensitize him to what he'd just seen his boss doing. The woman had had a nose and both breasts intact when she'd arrived at the Casa Rosada, the former Presidential Palace last week as part of the latest 'tribute' from the countryside, for one.

"Ah, there's something strange going on in the city around the Monumental Stadium, Don Barceló. And none of the patrols we've sent to investigate are answering their phones or radios."

The Don's eyebrows rose. "Really? It has been a while since anyone has tried anything so foolish as attacking my men. Perhaps we've got some new friends out from the sea looking to make trouble, no?"

Juan Garcia fidgeted nervously. "This… we don't know why the patrols have not been coming back, sir. But this is something more than just someone ambushing them. This is something… I don't even know what to tell you. Look out the window towards the Belgrano district. You should be able to see it from here." He walked over to the north-facing window and pulled aside the thick drapery.

"Eh, what are you babbling about?" the Don rumbled, trailing after him to peer out the window. He followed his aide's pointing finger towards the huge football stadium up the coast from the Casa Rosada. The stadium itself was obscured by tall buildings in the way, but he could see something in the air over where it must be to the northwest. "They have something ne- ...Name of God, what is that?"

Over the distant mass of the Estadio Monumental Antonio Vespucio Liberti, suspended somehow in the air, hung a huge red billboard, facing them flat-on. No, wait, it was rotating… the next side slowly came into view. Four sides spun slowly in the air over the stadium, each at least one hundred meters on a side. 'Coming Friday! Open Rock Concert! Free Food & Drink For All! Free Medical Clinic On Site! Bring Everyone!' it proclaimed in letters that had to be tens of meters high, with a running countdown timer at the bottom.

"How long has that been there? How the Hell is it floating like that? What is going on in my city?!" the Don quickly raised his voice to a shout. "Get my personal guards ready! And the ready company of the Militia! I'm going down there to settle this myself!"

"Yes, Don," Juan bobbled nervously, and scooted out of the office. Don Barceló hated things that disrupted his little kingdom. When it was one of the infrequent uprisings by the peasantry or attacks by rival gangs, the Don took out his frustrations on their enemies and prisoners afterward. When there was no such targets to be had, or he was just bored, he relieved his tensions on people closer to hand. Juan Garcia had survived three years as Don Barceló's aide by making sure he was never the closest candidate for such when the mood took the Don. Being efficient at his job was another good survival method. He had the Don's personal troops ready to move in less than ten minutes.

The Don spared him the merest flicker of a glance as he swept past still strapping on his favorite machine pistols and vaulted onto the hood of his armored HMMWV and up into the .50 cal gunner's spot. "Let's go!" he yelled at the driver, and the ten other armored cars of his guards began to roll.

Garcia took a breath in relief as the last truck left the plaza and headed north. He'd been slightly worried the Don would shoot the messenger of this strange news. He'd done it before. Wiping the nervous sweat off his brow, Garcia turned to head back upstairs and clean up the Don's leavings before he returned. The woman might even still be alive. What had been her name again?

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Sergei Andropov wiped his sweating brow again and muttered a few more curses in Russian. He hated the heat in this fucking city. He hated this city, the madman's polyglot buffet of languages the rag-wrapped mass of people that filled it spoke, and the wretches that spoke it. He missed Russia. He missed winter, God damn it. Cool, snowy winter, not this constant sodden tropical heat this damned city was always awash in. He missed speaking proper Russian, and speaking it to a properly beautiful Russian girl. He hadn't found more than a handful of former Russian Army men in his entire four years in Buenos Aires, but even their few faces were a welcome addition to his group of Don Barceló's Militia. Being able to talk to them reminded him at least a little of home. It kept the homesickness at bay a bit, and was one of the nice parts of being a platoon leader in the Militia.

His ears perked up as he heard the steady growl of a car's engine approaching the checkpoint his platoon was manning this morning. His eyes widened a bit as the amazingly clean and shiny Cadillac convertible purred towards the checkpoint with a complement of pretty women inside, not a man or a gun in sight. A nasty smile spread across his face. There were some other nice parts to being a Militia leader, too. He waved at the car to halt at the checkpoint and brought his AK-47 around to easy reach on his chest as he got ready to exercise one of those privileges right now.

His eyes narrowed a bit as the car came closer. There was a large sign fixed to the trunk of the car, advertising a 'FREE CONCERT'. The sign was, amazingly, in Russian. Did one of these women speak Russian? Was one of them from the Motherland? That would be a rare treat. He hadn't seen a true Russian beauty in years. The driver had such wonderful blonde hair… she looked like a girl he'd known back in Chelyabinsk!

The car slowed to a halt right beside him. The stunning blonde in the driver's seat blinked impossible blue eyes right at him. "Good morning, officer. How can we help you fine men this lovely day?" She did speak Russian! Perfectly! And her voice was like music.

His intent rapidly shifted from 'inviting' her into the checkpoint shack with a half raised rifle to hesitantly asking, "H-hello, miss. I'm Sergei. What is your name?"

"Hello, Sergei," the woman said in perfect Russian. "I'm Ekaterina. We're going around the city telling everyone about the free concert we're putting on this Friday. We've got a sneak preview for all Militia members going on right now if you'd like to see what we're all about. Would you like to follow us back?"

Sergei could feel another prickle of sweat forming on his brow, but didn't want to even blink long enough to wipe it away. That would take away precious seconds from looking at Ekaterina and drowning in her eyes. Her Russian was even accented just like his, a faint rural tinge far from Moscow's standard. Wait, follow her back? Back where? "Follow you?" he mumbled.

"Yes, back to the Monumental Stadium. We've got all the free drinks and entertainments you could want, and if you boys come with us now, you get a sneak preview of what we have to offer; we've got a fleet coming in from Europe in two months, and there will be lots of room for anyone who wants a ride back when they go. Would you like to see the Motherland again, Sergei, to go home?" Her question was almost softly pleading.

Homesickness flared like a blast of heat in him. He swallowed. Go with her… er, them? Home? Yes, home sounded good. "Yes, let's go with you," his mouth numbly echoed. His head was buzzing. He looked around at his men. Several of them were likewise crowded around the car, talking to the other occupants. Most had a similarly unfocused look on their faces, matching his own. For some reason this failed to bother him. "Everybody mount up! We're following them to the Stadium." His men vaguely nodded, and they all began clambering into the checkpoint's motley collection of jeeps, pickup trucks, and his own HMMWV.

As his own vehicle rumbled to life and began to move out, Sergei briefly cast an eye at the radio mounted between the front seats. Should he report this in to his commanders? He dismissed it from his thoughts after only a moment. No, they didn't need to be disturbed by this. If it turned out to be nothing, they'd be upset at even mentioning it. Yes, he'd just see what it was first. And if there truly was a boat home to the Motherland in this somewhere, maybe he'd never have to report in at all. Home… so far away, he'd never thought he'd ever see it again… yes, home sounded good. Follow the pretty girl, Sergei… yes.

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Senior Lance Corporal Wong looked back over the trunk of the Cadillac and nodded with approval. All four vehicles at the checkpoint were falling into line behind them, heading for the stadium. He turned back to the driver. "Good job, Ektheria. Looks like they all took the bait."

The Psi platoon Junior Private First Class at the wheel shrugged her shoulders and brushed one hand back through her long silver-white hair. "Between the pheromone cloud and the combined psi field we're putting out, I think I could have said I was Gorgoth the Devourer here to eat his soul, and he'd still have happily followed us back. Hitting him with the subsonics and pushing his homesickness and horny-lizard-brain buttons just made it simple. They were so bowled over, they didn't even notice most of us weren't Homo Sapiens or female." She shook herself. "How many more of these patrols do we have to sweep up? The inside of that guy's head was disgusting."

Wong flicked his eyes over the map his interface band was projecting on the back of the seat in front of him. "Looks like this is the last one for our sector. Scout platoon has picked out a few more in other parts of the city, but they're not our problem. We get this band of thugs back to the stadium and let the rest of the company neuter them, and we've taken care of most of the local warlord's mobile forces in the city."

"Good. You don't want to know what that guy was thinking when he thought he saw just a carload of 'cute, defenseless girls' pulling up. Ick. I'll be glad when they're not in any shape to cause trouble anymore."

Sergeant Qwi!Tanak clacked her beak and ruffed out her crest in agreement. "We can probably guess, Private. Good job concealing us anyhow. The idea of some of them perving on me is halfway between funny and disgusting on its own. I lay eggs, for Lady's sake! Now floor it. The sooner we get these guys back to base, the sooner we can have lunch, and I'm starving."

"Roger, sarge." The Cadillac's V8 roared as she stomped on the gas. The militia trucks obligingly sped up to follow.