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Camp 1138 General Assembly Area, Chryse Planitia, 1096 kilometers from Amidala City

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With the last second realization that Molec's heart was likely connected to a dead man's sensor switch on the explosive chip detonator, Jason pulled his aim away from the warden's center mass. When he squeezed the E-11's trigger he fired a shot that he couldn't have duplicated with another hundred tries.

The bolt caught Molec in the elbow of his raised arm. The close range shot violently tore the Zygerrian's forearm from the rest of the warden's body. With the amputated limb came the electro-whip and the camp control datapad still secured to the dismembered forearm.

Molec shrieked in rage and pain as he grabbed frantically at his bloody stump.

From all around the assembly area the murmur of the spectators immediately ceased and the echo of Jason's blaster seemed to stretch out across the prison camp.

Jason felt a cold breeze cut through his armor as the creeping silence fell across the camp. It was if every one of the tens of thousands of watching Earthlings suddenly gasped at once sucking in all of the heat from the parade ground.

Almost robotically, Jason shifted his aim and blasted again. A heartbeat after that he blasted a third time. Both of the guards restraining Spiz collapsed dead to the ground. One hit in the head while the other took a bolt straight through his unarmored chest.

The bloody stump and electro-whip crashed into the dirt at Spiz's feet at the same time the guards collapsed next to him. Spiz pounced on it as the situation was just beginning to dawn on the troopers manning the inner perimeter.

As if in slow motion, the stormtrooper next to Jason was already beginning to raise his blaster in the direction of the CIA agent. Jason couldn't turn on him fast enough and instead lunged at the trooper. His right shoulder crashed into the trooper's back plate causing him to miss his shot. The bolt flashed across the crowd and ricocheted off the roof of the nearest barrack and on into the night sky.

Spiz held up the arm above his head and sputtered something. His voice was harsh due to his screams during his beating, and as a result couldn't be heard further than a few feet away.

Jason flung off his helmet, letting it fall behind him. "The bombs are gone! Fight! Fight now or die!"

The mob didn't need to be told twice. The Shore Troopers, guards and kapos manning the outer perimeter of the assembly area were only an arm's length away from the front rank of prisoners. The white armor before them symbolized everything about the vile Empire that had rained destruction down on their home world, kidnapped them, tortured them and eventually would kill all of them. There was only one reaction they all could muster; destroy.

Some of the troopers in the outer perimeter were able to get the safeties off their weapons in time to unleash a few bolts into the nearest Earthling rushing at them. At one point in the circle an Army Trooper reached down and activated her thermal detonator just as she was swarmed by the onrushing wave of humanity. The explosion engulfed her and a dozen prisoners before the fire disappeared in the onrushing mob.

"Blast them!" Molec screamed, while pointing with his remaining arm at the crowd surging towards the center of the parade ground.

The vast multitude of prisoners had to cross fifty meters of open ground to clash with the inner perimeter. Few of them thought of their own safety as they closed the distance.

There were less than twenty troopers, including Jason, who had manned the inner ring. Every avenue of escape was cut off. If the few hundred guards and troopers who manned the outer ring had fallen in a matter of seconds the small group of white clad soldiers in the center could do little more than stand their ground. They would sell their lives dearly.

The troopers cut loose on rapid-fire mode sending hundreds of bolts smashing into the bloodthirsty tide. Earthlings in the front of the rush fell tripping those behind them. Some who fell were crushed by their fellow prisoners in their mad dash for revenge.

Someone threw another thermal detonator into the crowd sending several bodies high into the air. A trooper on a pylon tower on the edge of the assembly area blasted into the crowd with a T-21B. The trooper screamed as prisoners knocked down the pylon causing the doomed trooper to fall among the vengeful mob.

A hand grabbed Jason by the utility belt and yanked him down. Jason saw that it was Spiz, still cradling Molec's arm and datapad, but now huddled against the LIUV. Molec was a few meters away shouting desperate orders to the troopers.

"Boston, help me with this. If we don't deactivate the bombs before that bastard gets ripped apart his dead man switch will kill us all."

"Let me see." Jason grabbed the arm. The datapad was still active from when Molec had grandstanded for what he thought were fully cowed prisoners.

"Its aurabesh, I know some but I can't make heads or tails of it." Spiz admitted.

Jason scanned it quickly. Molec, the fool, had left the command control for the prisoner neck bombs on the view screen. There were three commands; Detonate, Stand by and Inert. "Here goes nothing!"

Jason jabbed the Inert command hoping he hadn't misread the datapad and murdered millions. Instead a prompt popped up. "Are you sure- Yes or No."

"Hell, yes we're sure!" Spiz yelled.

Jason was just about to push the yes icon when someone shouted behind him.

"Traitor!"

Jason turned around to see Quan activate his Z6 riot control baton. Quan rapidly spun it around to intimidate Jason.

Behind Quan the crowd impacted with the inner perimeter. They had mere seconds before the murderous mob fought through the thin line and got their hands on Molec.

Quan swung the energy weapon down at Jason's head. Jason thought he had his own blaster in his hand and instinctively raised it up to block the blow. But instead he was still holding Molec's arm. Quan's riot baton slammed into the datapad.

"No!" Jason and Spiz screamed together.

As Quan reeled back for another blow Jason looked down at the cracked viewscreen to see the words; All Devices Inert.

He wanted to laugh. He wanted to cry. He wanted to jump up and dance a jig. Quan, the Imperial Zealot, had just freed over eight million prisoners in a single blow.

But Jason didn't have time to react. Quan was starting to swing his Z6 towards Jason's unprotected head. This time there was nothing Jason could do to stop his fellow trooper from caving in his skull.

But he didn't have to. A large figure crashed into Quan, causing him to drop the Z6 and tackling him to the ground.

Panda sat atop a squirming Quan. The big Hawaiian grabbed the fallen riot baton and started bashing in the face plate of the trooper. After a dozen rapid blows Quan's helmet was a bloody mess that didn't resemble anything similar to the Stormtrooper Quan had so desperately longed to be. Quan's legs gave several involuntary shakes and then were still.

Molec's scream caught Jason's attention. The Warden stood next to the last living trooper in the perimeter as he was seized by dozens of hands at once. A prisoner with a captured blaster shot down the last trooper. Molec was picked up and thrown atop the mob as if he was crowd surfing at a concert. This lasted several seconds before the Zygerrian fell amongst the Earthlings. Luckily, there were too many people between Jason and what surely must have been Molec's horrific last moments. The screams turned to bloody gurgles and then fell silent.

Several prisoners rushed at Jason, seeing his armor. Panda stood up and got between Jason and his attackers. Panda punched the first attacker squarely in the chin dropping him. The second he caught in the left temple with a nasty haymaker.

Jason got to his feet. Spiz grabbed him by his shoulder pauldron and tried to take it off. "We've got to get this off you or they'll tear you apart!" Jason recognized the threat and frantically undid the magnetic clasps that held his armor in place. He was jostled by Panda who was wrestling with another man trying to get at Jason.

In what had to be a new record for undressing, Jason stripped down to his body suit and boots. He left his armor where it lay in the dirt at his feet. Now that Jason was unarmored the murderers in the crowd seemed to have suddenly forgotten he was ever a trooper.

Spiz grabbed Molec's arm and climbed atop the LIUV. He gestured for Jason to follow him, which he did as the press of the crowd drove Panda back into him and in turn was starting to squeeze him against the vehicle. He stood up on the hood of the LIUV with the spy.

Ahead of them the crowd filled the assembly area. Prisoners who hadn't been at the punishment were pouring out of their barracks and into the streets of the prison camp. A long alarm klaxon was warbling across the camp. In the distance the death fence towers were coming to life. Sporadic E-WEB fire was being sprayed out across the camp as the perimeter towers woke up and started to react to the upriing. The energy of the fence emitted a blue glow all along the camp's perimeter. Explosions came from various locations as prisoners discovered they were no longer hostages and could strike back. The hundreds of of troopers and guards in the camp security force were starting to give them a fight all over the camp.

But what were hundreds against millions?

For the next hour that question might not matter but given time the Empire would bring in more troops to even the numbers. The prisoners needed to organize and concentrate their strength if they were going to survive.

Spiz grabbed his hand and held it up as if Jason had just won a boxing match. "This is Boston. Boston infiltrated the Empire and deactivated the bombs in your necks. Boston got close to Warden Molec, the murderer of your children, and struck at him to free us all. Boston saved us all!"

Jason wasn't sure if that was an exaggeration or not. This wasn't Spiz's original plan but it was the spy's clandestine actions that got them here in the first place. "Molec chased off the spaceships that would have taken us back to Earth and I doubt the Empire is going to send any more to us out of the kindness of their hearts. No, they are going to try to crush us!"

"No!" Many in the crowd shouted at once.

"They're going to try. But Boston has a plan!" Spiz announced.

Jason's eyes went wide. He whispered to Spiz, "I do?"

"Boston knows the Empire. Boston knows Mars. Boston will save us all!" Spiz yelled again.

"Boston! Boston! Boston!" The crowd chanted with a new fury. My god, they're all mad, Jason thought, I'm just a college kid from Massachusetts.

"Well say hello." Spiz said.

Jason raised his hand and waved. The crowd roared. Jason didn't know what to make of it all. He didn't think he was anyone special. In fact, since the Empire's arrival, he had tried his hardest not to be noticed. At every turn he had failed miserably but it had all led him to this; a chance to do something that mattered.

A fireball exploded to the west causing most people in the assembly area to gasp and involuntarily duck down. People looked to him for answers. "That was near tower sixteen. There's a Rhydonium storage tank over there." He said to Spiz.

"Well someone went and blew it up. Us? Them? Who knows. We need to take control of this situation before it spirals out of control."

"We need to take control of the entire camp." Jason faced the crowd. "Barrack leaders to me!"

Individuals pushed their way through the crowd towards the LIUV. While they were doing so people in the crowd were pushing the fallen pylon back up along the side of the parade field. This time Molec's hated and bloodied corpse was hanging from it. This got almost as many cheers as Jason's introduction. Despite the gruesome sight, Jason could read the crowd and wouldn't disparage them from their revenge, after all he felt Molec deserved it too.

Barrack leaders arrived at the LIUV where Panda stood guard at Jason and Spiz's feet. They were there for direction. Power to central portion of the camp suddenly cut out but several fires were already burning to light the area.

Blaster fire and detonations continued to sound out across the camp as Jason addressed them. "Send out teams of runners. I want every billet house emptied. We need to immediately secure the cook house, the infirmary and the warehouses."

People started shouting orders back into the crowd. Runners went out in every direction. "Find out who has military or police experience. Pass out the captured blasters to them." Several people stepped forward.

"What about this?" Spiz said holding out Molec's arm with the command datapad still attached.

"Let me see that." Jason took the device and pulled the bloody arm free, dropping it to the ground. He saw a variety of commands including priority security alerts. He immediately cancelled them. The longer it took for the officers at Tarkin Tower to hear about this, the better.

He came across a subroutine for perimeter containment power. He deactivated it. The blue glow of the death fence dissipated along the entire edge of the camp. From every direction E-WEBs cut loose on full auto from the towers. Shore Troopers in the guard towers poured their plasma punishment into the camp.

"The fence is down. Let's take the camp. Kill all the Imperials!" Spiz shouted.

The crowd exploded in a multitude of directions, down every street and back alley. The fight that followed lasted hours as troopers and guards inside the camp fought for their very lives. Some set up barricades that were over whelmed by a tidal wave of enraged Earthlings. No quarter was given as prisoners smashed into the durasteel refinery where dozens of guards and kapos had set up an improvised bunker. The prisoners destroyed the plant's equipment and machinery while Jason set work parties to dismantle the support struts of the camp's landing port. The Empire wouldn't be allowed to land reinforcements into the middle of the camp.

Runners came back with news that they had stopped and killed the guards who were about to start murdering the sick and injured in their beds at the infirmary. This good news was crushed minutes later when more runners reported that retreating stormtroopers had set fire to the camp's warehouses. Jason organized firefighting teams to attack the blazes. Without the food stuffs in the buildings starvation would soon become a very real threat.

Along the Death Fence, one tower after another was silenced and after a few hours of fighting prisoners had even gotten their hands on a portable PLX-2 which crushed several of the defenses which caused several nearby towers to be abandoned.

The camp quickly filled with smoke as retreating guards and rioting prisoners went on a rampage of destruction. As the night progressed Jason ran from one fire fight to another dealing with hundreds of flare ups. Spiz's organization proved larger than Jason ever suspected and he was surprised to learn the spy had contacts in nearly every single prisoner billet. Slowly but surely they managed to gain some control over the situation. Word spread quickly that an Earthling named Boston was in charge and had killed the Warden and was going to lead them all to safety.

It was nearly midnight when an airspeeder passed overhead at several hundred feet. The command party accompanying Jason paused and watched it pass. A few prisoners with blasters took pot shots at the thing without any noticeable results.

"What is it?" Panda asked.

"Looks like an 'H' fighter of some sort." Spiz guessed.

"TIE Striker. There's none of them attached to the camp." Jason said.

"Which means it was sent from the capital." Another freed prisoner in their group said. Jason assumed the TIE was probably based out of the Margaritifer Terra Military District but now wasn't the time for corrections. The Empire was on to them and it was only a matter of time before they sent someone out here to deal with them.

"Has any one seen my helmet?" Jason asked.

"We've captured dozens of Stormtrooper helmets but none of them work worth a damn." Spiz reported.

"That's because they each need an individual trooper's security code keyed in." Jason explained.

"Excuse me, Mr. Boston." A small voice said from behind the group. Panda turned to allow the command group to see who had spoken. They saw a small boy, his eyes swollen, accompanied by a woman. Jason recognized him as Ben and his nurse who he had given a bacta dressing to during his rounds in the infirmary earlier. Already it had a visible effect on the boy's recovery. Ben held a trooper's helmet in his hands. "I found this near where they said you killed the bad Warden."

Jason wasn't sure if the helmet was his or not but he took a knee in front of Ben nonetheless. "Thank you, kid. I'm glad you had my back."

Jason took the offered helmet and put it on. He keyed in his code and sighed in relief when the helmet's HUD activated. Through his vocoder he announced. "It's mine."

"See if you can find out when they're planning on hitting us." Spiz said.

Jason switched over to Cherek Squad's comm channel. "Any Cherek element, this is ML-3393. Is anyone still operational?"

"3393, you're alive!" Baobab's excitement carried over the comm. "Where are you?"

"I'm holed up in a prisoner billet south of the main assembly area." Jason lied.

"Fierfek, you're about dead center of this poodoo."

"What's going on? The whole camp has lost its mind. Where are you guys?" Jason asked frantically to keep up his act.

"We're holding the motor pool for now. We've fought off maybe a dozen good sized attacks over here. Blaster fire is picking up again and we've taken a cruiser full of casualties. We lost 7835 and 4668."

"I saw ML-5001 go down before I hid." Jason reported Quan's death.

"That scum. Was he with the Warden?" Baobab asked.

"I think so. Pretty sure the abos got Molec as well."

"That's what we figured. We've only got a few junior lieutenants and sergeants left to run things. Whole perimeter has been breached all along the line. When the abos didn't all drop dead we figured they must have disabled Molec's kill switch. We tried to fight our way back to the camp administration office an hour ago but the abos have it surrounded kriffing good."

Jason made a note about the secondary kill switches at the office building. "Maybe I can make it over to the Admin building."

"Don't try. Last comm we got from them was the abos had used a pair of captured E-WEBs to blast open a wall and were inside. Palpatine only knows what they did to the civilians working there. We can see the roof of the building is on fire from here."

"So what is the plan?"

"Echuta! We can't hold the camp. We are losing men and ground all over the place. We've got the camp's three Heavy Scout Walkers here which are holding the abos back for now but the scum are working their way around our flanks. We're destroying all the vehicles and pulling out."

"Who is we and where are you going?"

"We've only got a few hundred troopers and guards left over here. Haven't seen a living kapo in . . . I don't know how long. What we've got here, we are going to try to pull back to the west."

"Into the Nilokeras Mensae?" Jason asked. Because Spiz and his group were kept in the dark about their location Jason had made it a point to memorize the surrounding landscape for possible small escape groups. What was happening tonight was something no one could have prepared for.

"Copy that, it's got a bunch of canyons so we can ambush any stoopa abos who follow us. We're just waiting for more troopers from the towers to come in. Someone sent a fall back order a few minutes ago."

"What about me?" Jason pleaded.

"3393, man. I don't think we can get to you tonight. I doubt it, but there is talk of a counter attack when the sun comes up."

"Seriously?" Jason needed to know where to set up a defense.

"Fierfek, I doubt it. I think we lost two-thirds of the personnel in the camp tonight. The abos caught us just as the night shift was coming in. Can you make it to the motor pool?"

"Negative. I've got abos all around me."

"I'm so sorry, 3393." Baobab sounded as if she was crying. Jason felt for her. She had been a friend, but fate had cast them as opponents, and now unbeknownst to her, he was her enemy. "We can't make it. There are still troopers fighting at the East Gate. We don't know what they're doing over there but I doubt they can hold out forever. The abos . . . there are millions of them."

"I know. You did your best, Baobab. I'll try to make it to the East Gate."

"May the Force be with you." There was an explosion on Baobab's side of the comm and the line went dead. Jason's heart skipped a beat. Though the fighting was tooth and nail he really did want the troopers of Cherek Squad to make it through to the west.

Jason removed his helmet.

"Well?" Spiz asked.

"They're destroying the motor pool and pulling back to the west. They're going to try and draw as many of us into the open and mow them down." Jason started his report. "Send a message to the people fighting over there to stop at the Death Fence. Also round up as many mechanics as we can."

"Why?" Panda asked.

"They're disabling their landspeeders. We've got to get as many repaired by sundown as possible."

"Are we going somewhere?" Someone asked.

"Sure as hell are. We can't stay here. We lost three of the five food warehouses. We've got how many million mouths to feed?"

"A lot." Spiz answered. "So we push the Imps out of the motor pool. There's over a hundred big gravtrucks there so they're bound to miss a few. Even if we captured them all we couldn't even begin to transport everyone."

"We will have to hoof it out. We've got a lot of wounded tonight. We'll load them up in the landspeeders. We burn the dead. I know that sucks but what else can we do. We don't want to be here when the TIE Corps finally wakes up."

Spiz and other officers were shouting dozens of orders. Runners wearing partial Stormtrooper and guard armor relayed Jason's orders across the camp.

"We've will attack the East Gate. The troopers there are still making a stand." Jason said.

"We've taken heavy casualties in that direction. Why not break out to the north or south?" Someone asked.

"We've got to take the East Gate and the trooper barracks on the other side first. That's where the camp's armory is held. It holds several hundred blasters and some heavier weapons which we will need." Jason explained.

"Heavier weapons, Boston?" Spiz asked.

"Proton mortars, E-WEBs, hopefully some more PLX launchers. I hope to give any ET sniffing around a nasty surprise." The officers smiled hungrily at Jason's suggestion. More runners were sent out.

Jason addressed Spiz. "Send search teams to the Admin building. Have them search for the secondary kill switches Molec kept there."

All of Jason's new officers' eyes went wide at the suggestion. Several of them nervously rubbed the back of their necks. "There's still a risk?" Spiz replied.

"Maybe. I don't want to have to take it though. Have them scour the place for comm gear and anything that looks like this." Jason held up Molec's datapad. "Also maps. They might be part of some holographic machinery."

"How will we know what is what, Boston?" Panda asked.

"Just tell them to be careful."

"I'll send some of my best men and have them grab everything that isn't nailed down." Spiz said. This time several officers, not runners, left Jason's command group. The spy yelled after them. "We will need that communication gear to contact Earth."

Jason didn't know if that would work or not. He'd learned all about jammers in basic training and doubted the Empire would let any unauthorized signal off of Mars. Besides what did the Earth have that could reach them, they might truly be alone with no other choice but to take as many Imperials with them before they went down.

Though he was eager to search the newly captured and probably looted Administration building, Jason wanted the stormtrooper barracks and armory on the other side of the East Gate even more. He started to move in that direction surprised that the command group was following his every move. It still hadn't hit him that he was the leader of almost every Earthling on Mars, except for, maybe, the First Lady and her kids.

The camp was utter chaos. Barracks were burning and screams and smoke filed the night. Explosions and blaster fire stretched out for miles into the darkness as a massive smoke plume rose into the night sky. Jason was surprised to see the organization that was starting to take shape as he went through the camp. Spiz's officers were directing their fellow prisoners and getting them ready to move. Word was moving quickly that they couldn't stay here and that they were to grab anything they thought might prove useful and to destroy everything else.

Jason witnessed signs of the violent fighting that was still occurring. Mutilated trooper bodies lay at the head of alleys littered with prisoner corpses as they made the Earthlings pay dearly for every guard and trooper they killed. A deceased Trandoshan guard was nailed against the door of a burning barrack, while nearby a headless trooper was being stripped of his armor. The helmet, and Jason assumed the head was still inside, was impaled on a pole next to the body. Around another corner a dead Gamorrean Kapo lay in the street. At least fifty makeshift spears stuck out from every direction of the pig-man's corpse giving him the appearance of a bloody pincushion.

The sounds of fighting grew louder as Jason's group entered the eastern sectors of the camp. By the time they got within a kilometer of the large East Gate almost every single building in the vicinity was burning or had been knocked flat. Flickers of blaster bolts raced through the night sky from the East as evidence of the heavy fighting ahead of them. Tens of thousands of people huddled behind whatever cover they could. Jason saw several prisoners advancing ahead with captured weapons. Mostly shock batons and make-shift clubs and spears but a few carried captured blaster pistols and rifles. His command group followed the fighters towards the sound of the heaviest fighting, the Jurassic Park-like East Gate.

When they were within five hundred yards of the still operational barrier Jason took cover behind a wrecked power generating unit. The ground in front of the gate was intentionally left clear of all cover to facilitate travel into and out of the camp. Beyond the camp's Death Fence were the visible barracks of the camp security force and the open plains of Mars itself.

Jason could see the obvious hold up here. The camp's TX-225 Occupier tank sat squarely in the center of the gate unleashing sporadic heavy turbolaser fire at groups of prisoners cowering in the wreckage. The Occupier was flanked by two E-WEB towers and further protected by twenty Shore Troopers laying prone behind the inactivated Death Fence along the hovertank's sides.

"We need to get past that." Jason yelled at his officers. "If we don't they'll keep pounding us until the TIE fighters get here to wipe the camp off the map!"

"We've already got people through the fence to the north and south. Those guys stay there and we'll flank them out eventually." Panda responded.

"That will take too long we need to go now." Jason looked up into the sky again. He couldn't spot the TIE Striker but that didn't mean that it had left the area.

At that moment Spiz returned to the group. He had fallen behind on their journey east through the camp. Now he had two teenaged boys in two. "These two found something that might be helpful."

The two boys were covered in soot and their red utility suits were singed in several places. Jason guessed they had either escaped from or had been digging through a burning building. The boys smiled and held up what to most of the command group looked like two long tubular canisters until the boys folded down trigger stocks on the devices. "Our own personal hulk busters." One of the boys said.

Jason grinned. "HH-15s, nasty." He didn't think twice about what he wanted to the boys to do. Age meant little in this type of fighting. He pointed at the hovertank holding up the escape. "Hulk smash!"

The boys smiled and grinned. Eager to pull their weight.

"We need to give them a diversion. Those troopers will cut them down the moment they see them." Spiz said.

"We were just about to hit the tank from the left again." Another officer reported. "We could add some more people to that attack and the boys can hit it from the right. Might lose a lot of people in the diversion though."

"We are losing a lot of people just sitting here." Jason said. He pointed to another officer. "How many thermal, um . . . grenades does your group still have?"

"Three. I've got a good man on each." The officer replied.

"Good have them join the attack on the left. Spiz, have everyone set to go the moment that tank goes up. We need to take down those two towers as quickly as possible."

"Wow, you sound like Aragon or something." Spiz said, then turned to the others and shouted above the din. "You heard Boston, move out. Get some guys with blasters to cover the bazookas."

Things happened fast. The attack on the left went in two minutes after the command group had their orders. A lot of people not involved originally in the attack emerged from their cover and rushed forward to help. The TX-225 saw the oncoming diversionary attack and slowly started to pivot towards it. On the right side the two teens ran forward and positioned themselves a hundred yards from the hovertank.

Jason watched in horror as the teens fumbled with the weapons, trying desperately to figure out how they worked. The TX-225 opened up on the onrushing charge gouging great holes in its ranks. However, the added numbers carried the attack forward across the open ground.

At one hundred yards three explosions erupted in front of the Occupier's front glacis plate. The blasts were so powerful they shoved the hovertank to its left while mowing down dozens of prisoners in the front of the assault.

Jason saw that the hovertank was not correcting its slanted position. He caught a glimpse of the hovertank trooper in the driver's position and saw why. The trooper was slumped over with half his helmet cut away. He was probably dead in an instant as a lucky piece of shrapnel cut away half his skull.

The gunner frantically shouted at his partner as the assault reached the vehicle. He pulled out his pistol and blasted the first prisoner who climbed aboard but the next few tore him out of his turret and proceeded to beat him to death.

Jason stood up and shouted to all who could hear him, waving them forward. "This is it! C'mon they can't stop us now!" A hundred thousand prisoners jumped to their feet and did as he asked.

The E-WEB towers and Shore Troopers witnessed the demise of their most powerful defense and poured blaster fire into the crowd. But it was as futile as throwing pebbles into an onrushing ocean wave. The prisoners simply soaked up the casualties and surged ahead.

Suddenly one of the towers exploded as the teens finally figured out their missile launchers. The crowd cheered even when their other missile missed the second tower.

The remaining tower didn't last long as a young woman stepped forward wearing a D-93 Incinerator backpack. She stood atop the Occupier and sent a long spurt of flame into the second E-WEB tower. The defense burst into flames as a fiery pair of troopers fell from the tower.

"Don't kill 'em! Let them burn!" Spiz yelled.

Beyond the Death Fence the Shore Troopers were pulling back. The prisoners were cutting their way through the wire and fighting hand to hand with some of the retreating troopers. Prisoners with blasters rushed to the fence and exchanged blaster fire with the troopers as they fell back into the barrack complex.

A loud groan of metal against metal sang out as the doors of the gate were forced open. Soon thousands of freed prisoners were pouring out of the camp.

Jason called his command group together as the fighting died down. Officers and barrack leaders by the hundreds came to see this 'Boston' who had led them to victory.

"Have your people salvage everything they can carry. Find any weapon or ammo you can. I know we can't even begin to arm a fraction of everybody here but we will have to make due with what we can." He told them.

"What about our wounded?" Someone asked.

Jason turned to an officer who had just returned from the captured motor pool. "How many vehicles did we capture?"

"Some, not a lot. They used their walkers to destroy a lot of their floater trucks there. We found about six of the big transports and think we can get two more rolling by dawn. Other than that maybe five or six smaller vehicles and about a dozen of those luggabeast creatures. We've also got maybe twenty of the flying motorcycles their scouts use."

"Load as many wounded aboard the gravtrucks as possible. Use the luggabeasts to tow anything large that we might find useful, and then see if we have anybody used to motocross or racing bikes that can handle the speederbikes. We're going to need scouts when we leave here."

"So we're moving out?" Spiz asked. The crowd grew silent as they waited for Jason's response.

"We can't stay here. The Empire will be back and in greater numbers. They will blast this place from space like they did on Earth. We need to go somewhere they find too valuable to destroy."

"What about food?" Panda asked. "They burned three of the five food warehouses to the ground tonight. The food we got will only last a few days."

"And that's if we carefully ration it." Spiz said.

"Empire's going to shut down the water pipeline that runs into camp too. We're going to get mighty thirsty and fast." Someone shouted. There was a lot of grumbling after that statement.

Jason turned to Spiz. "Get your best men on the food situation."

"I hear you. Most of my best guys are looting the trooper armory right now. Those weapons should give us all the authority we need to ration food."

"I don't like threatening each other. We need to know we are all in this together or we'll never see the next few days."

"Sir, Boston, sir. A group of runners arrived at the meeting.

"Where did you guys come from?" Jason asked.

"We were part of the group looting the Admin Building, sir." One of them said. He held out a device which he had to hold with both hands. "When we activated it we knew we had to get it to you."

One of the other runners reached over and pushed a button on the device. Instantly a large holographic display of Mars erupted from the imagecaster. There were several awed gasps in the crowd. Holograms had become more common during the last decade on Earth but this was light years beyond what they had back home.

Jason stepped forward. He had received some rudimentary training on the scout trooper Terrain-Following Tactical Reader during his time in basic. The hologram reacted to his hand movement and he quickly zoomed in on Mars and enlarged the 1600 diameter Chryse Planitia. Camp 1138 was situated on the extreme north west of the circular plain and was blinking red indicating the location was in lock down.

"Is that where we are?" Spiz asked. "We've had every Martian expert we could find trying to nail down our position."

Jason knew there had been a lot of interest in Mars before the war because of the manned Mars missions, but the Empire had deliberately left the prisoners in the dark to hinder escapes. No work site was within fifty miles of the place in case a clever prisoner was able to match one landmark at a work site with something they could see from the camp. As a result there was nothing of note within those fifty miles.

"Yes, we're to the north of the Empire's agricultural zone. They put us out here on the ass end of nowhere on purpose, so we can't wreck anything important."

"So we can't stay here if they won't hesitate to blow the whole place up with their 'H' fighters. We're sitting ducks." Panda declared.

"Where should we go, Boston?" Someone called from the back of the crowd. Everyone seemed to lean in for his answer.

"Last thing I heard from the troopers that retreated was they were trying to draw in our fighters into this region to the west." Jason pointed at the warren of winding canyons that was the Nilokeras Mensae."

"We're already trying to pull as many as we can from back that way." Spiz said. "Some eager beavers were too happy to chase after the Stormtroopers once they started running. Word is they got their nose smashed flat and they've been trickling back into the camp for the past hour or so."

"That sucks. But don't let anymore go off in that direction. We might also have to fend off an attack or two from that direction when the sun comes up. They pulled back with their three Heavy Scout Walkers, so we should expect trouble." Jason said.

"We've pulled twenty more of those hulk busters from the armory we captured. Should give the crab walkers something to think about." An officer reported.

"Good, keep them at the ready. Up north is water, specifically the Yos Ocean. It's an artificial fresh water ocean set up in the Acidalia Planitia. It's about a hundred miles to the shore from here."

"Does it have fish?" Panda asked.

"Do you have a fishing pole?" Spiz threw back at the other man. Several people in the crowd laughed.

"To the east is the Arabia Terra. Nothing there but a religious center and its maybe 1500 miles away." Jason thought of Ashla. If it was just him alone he knew which way he would go. Though he figured he'd starve long before he got to Ashla. "Place is totally empty except for some monks."

"Who would be long gone by the time we got within a thousand miles of the place." Spiz admitted and shrugged. "That leaves the south."

Jason drew a line from the camp to a medium sized crater to the south east. "This is the Guaymas Crater. Outside of it is the village of Bira. It's got a population of maybe three hundred settlers, mostly Tarsunts. But most importantly it sits on the northern edge of thousands of square kilometers of agricombines."

"We've got good timing too. We're a few weeks from harvest. We've seen those farms have been getting ripe. A lot of them have Earth crops too." Spiz said. "But is that what I think it is alongside Bira?"

"Yep, that's a ford of the Yos River. It loops back and forth across the Chryse Planitia all the way south to the Imperial Palace. It's also the closest fresh water source to us."

"That's our best choice but it's obvious too. We will have to move fast before the Empire cuts us off." Spiz said.

"That's why we must leave as soon as possible. How fast do you think we can travel?" Jason asked.

This sparked quite a lot of debate within the command group. The vast majority of the camp's population would have to move by foot and they would be hindered by the fact that they needed to shepherd millions of elderly and children. After a few minutes the consensus was they could probably travel ten to fifteen miles a day, but they should probably send groups of scout fighters in advance to attack the town and drive off the Imperial settlers before they burned their fields.

Jason sighed. It was the best plan they could come up with. They would have more flexibility once they reached water and food sources.

While the conversation flowed and orders were cut Jason looked again at the map. He looked far to the south of the Chryse Planitia to a wide valley that was bisected by the Yos River. The Empire would engage them to fight for their agricombines but what would they do if he moved an army towards the Ares Vallis; the very heart of the Empire. Would they go so far as pulling their troops back from Earth to stop him?

Jason wondered how far both sides were now willing to go, knowing only doom awaited the defeated.

Jason cleared his throat and addressed his command group. All eyes were on him. "Let's roll."

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Up next- The Opposition's Champion