Chapter 15

The house was large, or so it had always seemed to Greg. There were two floors to the split-level home, and a staircase toward the front of the house connected the two floors. Of course, you could also enter the either floor of the house from the lake-side, either through the doors on the bottom floor, or by ascending the wrought-iron, spiral staircase to the upper floor. The lower floor sported three small bedrooms, a bathroom, and a small laundry and storage room. Anchoring the lower floor was a living room, identical to the one just above it. The upper floor contained a master bedroom, another bedroom converted from a small garage, a large bathroom, a small dining room and kitchen, a hallway, all anchored by a living room that had not seen use for many years.

The upstairs living room was often referred to as, "the museum," and it contained older furniture and a stack of Life magazines dating from 1940. Hanging from the ceiling of the upper living room was a lamp on an ornate chain that contained flickering neon bulbs designed to look like flames on a candle. The room was never occupied, and it was sealed off by a sliding glass door. Even the vents from the home's central air conditioning system were closed and taped shut.

Coincidentally, its old furniture had collected years of dust, and the remains of long-dead wasps and spiders were scattered on the carpet, beneath long and worn curtains that stood sentry between the tall windows and the sunlight outside. The windows of the living room were arrayed in a long and gentle convex curve, designed to remind one of the bridge of a ship, and a long-silent fireplace constructed of ornate stones faced those windows from the opposite side of the room. Upon one wall of the room was a small, decorative convex mirror, coated with years of dust. On the opposite wall hung a painting of a stern-faced man, staring blankly over the room as if in silent condemnation of how poorly it was maintained.

Directly below that living room, another living room nearly identical to it saw regular use, usually as a thoroughfare to the yard outside that sloped gently down to a seawall and then a large lake. Unlike the living room above it, this room had a small television set and an array of small speakers connected to a high-fidelity stereo system. It also contained casual furniture that saw use from time to time by the home's occupants. A dumb-waiter, built into the wall next to the fireplace, connected to the unused living room above, thought it had not been in service for many years.

Mounted above the entrance from the hallway to the lower living room was a large bass fish that had been caught out in the lake long ago. On the far wall was mounted a small bookcase that contained dust-coated books long unread. Unlike the room above it, this living room had many of its curtains drawn open, providing a stunning view of the beautiful lake outside. Long florescent light fixtures had been added to the lower ceiling of the downstairs living room in order to provide sufficient lighting at night or when the curtains were drawn shut.

Into the lower living room, Greg strolled, glancing at the fireplace that was identical to the one in the room above him. It now looked larger than he remembered. In fact, it looked large enough for him to walk into while standing up, opening up into the room in a foreboding manner. Greg averted his gaze and turned to look at the lake outside. The sky was filled with dark and swirling clouds, and the trees outside swayed back and forth in a powerful wind. He looked at the lake, and it appeared to be higher than he remembered and it was visibly rising. As Greg watched, the lake overran the seawall and crept up the grass of the yard, angry wind-whipped white-caps further out upon its surface, eagerly pushing water toward higher ground. Alarmed, Greg walked toward the door to the outside and made sure it was locked. As he reached the door, he noticed the water was now lapping against the long windows of the room, and some was seeping from beneath the door he had just secured.

The water continued its relentless rise, bringing pressure on the glass of the door and windows. Greg felt water on the carpet of the living room, and he backed away toward the entrance to the hallway. He saw that the exterior door would not long hold as water formed jets from the seams around its edges, creating miniature showers into the living room. Greg turned toward the opposite side of the room. The fireplace had nearly doubled in size, and a red glow and an unearthly moaning bass emanated from deep inside its bowls.

Greg turned toward the hallway to run, and then he tripped, sloshing into the water that was now more than a foot deep inside the living room. The outside door burst open, the lake poured in, and the cold wind whistled.

A quiet alarm, reminiscent of a whistle woke up Lieutenant Gregory Yost, commissioned officer of the Imperial Army. The room he woke up in was dimly lit, as it was programmed to be during sleeping hours, and he saw that his roommate was still sleeping. He quickly silenced the small alarm, which was integrated into a small control panel next to the bed. Greg then slowly sat up on his bunk and peered into the dim room. His wall locker was built into the bulkhead of his room, just next to the control panel, so he stood and placed his palm on the surface. The built-in biometrics device recognized his hand and the door released and slid open. He removed his standard gray Imperial uniform and boots and got dressed.

As an Imperial officer, Greg had the privilege of a private bathroom, although shared with his still sleeping roommate, who like Greg was also a lieutenant. Only a short time before, he had worked as a targeting officer on a star destroyer, but orders for a new assignment whisked him away, and he now found himself here.

Greg walked toward the bathroom within the small room, and a sensor Greg could not see detected him and sent a signal to the door, which swished open for him. The bathroom was not dissimilar to those he had seen on the ships of earth, though various fixtures had an alien look to him. He spent the next 15 minutes showering and shaving.

Long ago, Greg had foregone shaving cream and razor, in favor of a handheld electric razor that worked much faster than any electric razor native to his home planet, and it left his face smooth. He knew that somehow the device prevented hair from re-sprouting upon his face for up to a week, depending on the settings of the device. He had it set for three standard days. Otherwise he feared he might forget to shave.

Greg made his way down a passageway within the ship; as far as ships went, this was not a particularly large one, but it served its primary function well. The Star Galleon-class frigate was a relatively small ship, but this particular one had been slightly modified to carry maximum numbers of Imperial personnel, and only a small amount of cargo. While enlisted men were jammed into cramped berthing areas like sardines, junior officers like him were assigned smaller rooms that accommodated two men, and sported slightly better facilities. The few senior officers aboard were assigned their own staterooms with everything they could want, including workspaces with terminals. Greg had no such terminal in the room he shared with the other lieutenant, so he headed to one of the wardrooms set aside for officers.

After grabbing some quick breakfast, Greg entered the room adjacent to the wardroom that had various terminals built into small workspaces. He used his rank cylinder to activate one of the unused terminals, and it provided a basic greeting, acknowledging his rank and position in the Imperial Army. He knew the terminal confirmed his identity with a retinal scan, though he could not see where the scanner was. Greg noticed early on that Imperial terminals tended for forego flashy graphics that he was certain the computers were more than capable of. They were plain and straight-forward devices that used text, and little else. Greg chuckled to himself, thinking that the terminal could have been mistaken for an old MS-DOS computer, except for the couple of high-resolution graphics toward the top of the screen, and of course his ability to interact directly with the screen itself.

Greg scanned the messages waiting for him in his account. Most were meaningless: There were some congratulatory messages, wishing him luck as an Imperial officer, he saw a couple of messages from cohorts he had met over the past couple of years, and there were the usual advertisements that somehow made their way into his message account. He spotted a message containing assignment instructions. Ironically, he was heading back to Imperial Center to work under General Voss again, although this time as an officer. Greg did not recall department to which he was being assigned from the time he was last there, though its label clearly bespoke its purpose: Counterinsurgency Task Force.

Greg left the room containing workstations and walked down the passageway to one of the few viewports available on the small ship. From his vantage point on the port side of the ship, he could not see any other ships. That was logical, since the ship was in hyperspace. Only the strange, white vortex of hyperspace appeared outside the window. Though he could not see them, Greg knew that his ship was being escorted by at least one star destroyer and a couple of smaller frigates.

Greg had read multiple reports, suggesting that the rebel fleet was growing stronger by the day, and he had even heard rumors that their spies had managed to get their hands on the plans for the giant space station he had seen little more than a month ago. That wasn't good. Greg did not know if the mammoth space station possessed any significant weaknesses, but if it did then detailed plans for it would certainly assist enemy analysts in locating them. Were he in charge, Greg knew that his top priority would be to recover such plans as quickly as possible, before enemy analysts could study them in detail. He found himself thankful that such a task did not fall to him.

Greg glanced at the chronometer on his wrist. They had a few hours yet before his ship and its escorts would reach orbit of Imperial Center. He yawned as he gazed into the hypnotic light show that was hyperspace. Turning toward his small stateroom, he decided that he could afford a little more sleep.

…

The air was filled with fine dust and the sounds of competing calls to prayer in Arabic, over loudspeakers on tops of the many mosques of the city. In all directions, men clad in white and tan dishdashas and various forms of traditional Arabic head-dress crowded the sidewalks of the city. Other of the brown-skinned natives of the area could be seen wearing clothing more common to the so-called Western nations, but those in traditional Arabic dress were more common.

There were no shortages of wheeled vehicles on the streets, and luxury speeders that used repulserlifts instead of tires were becoming a more common site. Less common, and nearly always in the company of a man were the black-clad shapes that contained women. Throughout the city, portraits of King Fahd, the monarch of Saudi Arabia, stared benevolently down at all who passed under his gaze. It was late in the afternoon in July, so much of the native population ventured out to conduct business or meet with each other in the relative cool of the day. Nearby thermometers indicated a temperature of around 46 degrees, centigrade. This was the city of Mecca, and it was considered by most of the local inhabitants to be the most holy city in the world.

Fluun had grown to hate the city, along with its inhabitants. He recalled fond memories of policing and occupation duties in his native galaxy. Most of the time, the mere presence of stormtroopers was sufficient to prevent dissent and keep order. On the worlds of his native galaxy, stormtroopers were given a wide berth, and civilians moved quickly out of their way. That was not the case here. Fluun walked down the sidewalk of the city toward the structure know as the Masjid al-Haram, which supposedly contained structures built by religious men thousands of years ago.

During the early stages of the invasion, Fluun knew that Imperial forces had attempted to occupy the Masjid al-Haram, but they had been met with mass suicidal attacks by countless locals. While the attacks had cost untold thousands of local casualties, they had also effectively wiped out nearly half of a legion of Imperial stormtroopers. As a result, the local Imperial authorities had decided to pull forces out of the structure. Even so, stormtroopers often came under attack throughout the city, and their scattered garrisons were not immune either.

One garrison had been breached by multiple vehicles laden with high-explosives. Dozens of locals wearing suicide explosive vests had then swarmed the garrison, killing many off-duty and on-duty stormtroopers. As a result of that attack, tall reinforced concrete barriers had been erected around the remaining garrisons in an attempt to prevent such an enemy tactic from meeting with success in the future.

Like his fellow stormtroopers, Fluun's armor had upon it a localized pattern that blended him in with the city scenery and desert colors. He had seen images of soldiers from the West who had invaded a land mass to the north, about a decade ago. They had worn patterns on their fabric uniforms that reminded him of the pattern his own armor now sported. The stifling heat taxed his armor's cooling systems and more quickly drained the power cells, so squads could not operate as long without conducting preventative maintenance, checks and services, as they could in other, less harsh environments.

The armor the troopers used here was also strengthened against explosive blasts, or so Fluun had been informed. He was dubious. Too often, he had seen evidence of troopers ripped apart by the powerful explosives used by the local insurgents. In the first year of occupation, Imperial authorities had taken draconian measures to reduce the level of violence, including rounding up and mowing down hundreds of locals. Those actions had done nothing to reduce the level of violence however, and if anything it had increased. According to what Fluun read in reports, the indigenous population was tribal in nature, and they were easily drawn into bloody shame-honor cycles of revenge and retaliation.

Fluun conducted a quick check of his squad through his visor HUD and internal communication suite. None of the locals would hear him speak, but each of his troopers would. Fluun was among the few Jango Fett clones in his regiment, and very little concerned or frightened him. He had earned numerous accommodations and recommendations over his career, and he enjoyed leading men in hostile environments. This place though … death was everywhere, and often without warning. He absently checked the status of his modified weapon.

Unlike the standard blaster carbine to which he was accustomed, this one was modified to quickly disperse death and dismemberment with terrific "knock-down" power. It used much more energy than a standard blaster carbine, and it contained more powerful and larger cells. Suicide bombers running at you might be slowed down by a standard blaster carbine, but this weapon would knock them backward and hopefully burn through both them and their explosives.

The weight of both his weapon and the modified body armor, and body glove in which he was ensconced was a mild annoyance in comparison to the dangers that lurked everywhere. Fluun had personally repulsed well over a dozen attacks in the two standard months he had been assigned to his garrison. In all but one of those attacks, he had lost men under his command. Most of his men consisted either of raw recruits or those not favored by their former commands. Fluun's own assignment had come shortly after his "habit" had been discovered. He chafed inwardly, since he felt his "habit" had in no way degraded his efficiency as a fighting man. Shortly thereafter, Fluun had been assigned to occupation duty on Sol, and he had then drawn the short straw and wound up here of all places.

Dusk was setting in, and the crowds were growing thicker on the streets and sidewalks. Fluun and his squad had grown accustomed to the natives here getting uncomfortably close to them, though they were careful to constantly check each other. Fluun recalled watching one of his troopers fly apart after a passerby attached a "sticky bomb" to the trooper that subsequently detonated with lethal force. The "sticky bomb" was a cleverly-designed, shaped charge, and it had blown out the mid-section of the hapless trooper. The squad had opened fire in all directions, cutting down more than a dozen locals, but they had no way of knowing whether or not they had disposed of the perpetrator.

Fluun could almost sense the palpable anger radiating from the natives around him. Many glances were full of menace, but never for long. A few would look at him blankly, and those were the ones that concerned Fluun the most. Suicide bombers most often had blank stares just prior to lifting their arms in the air, uttering nonsense, and then detonating in a radiating burst of violence.

Fluun knew he had only twenty minutes left on his patrol, and so far all had been quiet. He found himself praying to nameless divine beings that he would get back to his garrison in one piece.

"Alla'hu Ackbar!"

Fluun threw himself to the sidewalk upon hearing the dreaded words from his left-rear. Half a second later, the concussion of an explosion picked him up and hurled him against the wall of a nearby building, and he landed with a grunt. Unconsciousness threatened to claim him, but Fluun shook his head and quickly took a knee, barking out orders and instructions to his squad though his intercom system. His men were scattered at least five meters apart, for Fluun knew that a favorite tactic by suicide bombers in the early days had been to take out as many grouped troopers as possible. He accounted for all but two in his squad. Two more were dead – likely killed by the concussion of the bomb, one was missing, and the remaining seven troopers were forming a loose perimeter.

Fluun directed his troopers to fire only at stationary targets, or those who were moving toward the troopers. Most of the street lights were out, whether because the darkness was not yet complete, or by design of the attacking force. The natives running away from the scene of carnage did not concern Fluun. With disgust, he noted at least a dozen dead or dying locals that had been victimized by the suicide bomber – the enemy seemed not to care about killing their own.

Fluun worked a rudimentary plan in his mind to locate the missing trooper and then retrograde to his garrison with his squad. As he briefed his squad members on his plan, two of his troopers worked to recover their fallen comrades. Fluun then heard a loud hissing sound, followed by an explosive and ripping sound.

"RPG!" yelled Fluun into his microphone.

He watched as one of the troopers bending down to recover a fallen comrade caught an RPG round in the faceplate. A bright-orange fire-ball replaced the trooper's helmet as he fell over backwards, instantly dead. Fluun cursed himself silently. Those RPG warheads had been significantly modified to be more deadly than those of the early days of the war. If the squad stayed here any longer, they were all dead.

Projectiles from local slug-throwing weapons glanced off his armor, not penetrating it, but nearly throwing him off-balance. He gave the order, and his men began an organized retrograde. He threw a thermal detonator toward the darkness from which he could detect the enemy firing. Through his visor, he could see their heat signatures, and they did not remain stationary, often ducking behind buildings and ground vehicles, and there were so many of them. Hisses filled the air, as more of the deadly RPGs were launched, and explosions filled the air around Fluun and his troopers. He and what was left of his squad bounded back toward the garrison, which seemed impossibly far away. While one section bounded, the other laid down suppressive fire and threw thermal detonators.

Fluun noted with resignation that he was beginning to receive fire from his flanks as well. A terrific explosion shook the ground to his left, and Fluun saw another of his troopers fly through the air. That was no RPG. That was a much more powerful road-side bomb that had been planted earlier and cleverly concealed. Fluun was down to now just six men, including himself.

Nearly half of his squad was lost. As he took a knee to aim at one of the advancing enemy fighters, bright-red bolts lanced from behind him and spat forth death at the advancing natives. Through his visor, he watched in grim satisfaction as four of the enemy heat signatures were torn apart by the heavy blaster bolts. He turned and saw an up-armored Imperial scout walker lurching in their direction.

Fluun ordered his diminished squad to fall behind the walker and continue toward the garrison. He looked at the garrison and saw bright flashes around and in the compound – it was receiving indirect fire, likely from local mortars within the city. Loud explosions attested to multiple RPG rounds impacting against the Imperial walker, as it returned angry fire toward the enemy fighters attacking with rockets and slug-throwers, from the darkness.

From within the garrison to which Fluun and his squad was fleeing leapt return indirect fire toward the platforms from which enemy fire had originated. Though he could not hear them, Fluun knew those warheads were finding targets somewhere within the city. With bitterness, Fluun knew they would destroy only abandoned launchers, likely set to crude timers. Unfortunately, the enemy wasn't stupid enough to hang around and eat counter-fire.

Fluun and his squad finally made it past the large concrete walls and into the relative safety of the garrison. He could hear the barking of the garrison's automated and remote-controlled weapon systems as they returned fire to an enemy that seemed impervious to losses. Only once in the garrison, did Fluun notice that his right leg was bleeding heavily. Shrapnel from one of the many explosions had found its way underneath the body armor and ripped apart the skin and underlying tissue, just above his knee. He shrugged off the wound and checked on his men. Outside, the sounds of multiple slug-throwers, explosions and Imperial weapons continued unabated.

"Sith take this accursed place!" spat the squad leader in impotent rage.

…

The admiral sat at the workspace within his stateroom and intently studied his monitor, seeking the key piece of information that would allow him the freedom to do what he had wanted for so long. Most of the messages were mundane trash, even after his aide had filtered out the minutia. With deep anger, he recalled what he had witnessed two days earlier. An insurgent video had surfaced on the internet that had prompted the admiral to beam his transmission to the Imperial High Command. He felt that his request was reasonable. With irritation, the admiral gave up his search for the elusive message. He stood and then exited his stateroom.

The command bridge of the star destroyer was as busy as ever, men clad in gray scurrying from workstation to workstation in order to monitor business within the ship, within the fleet, and on the third planet of the Sol system, over which much of the sector fleet was currently in orbit. The admiral strode in, and while the activity on the bridge did not slow, voices became softer. The admiral made his way to the huge transparencies of the forward bridge, and he stared out toward space, then diverting his eyes toward the planet over which his flagship orbited. A couple of minutes later, he turned and made his way to one of the stations.

"Play it again," said the admiral to a lieutenant.

The lieutenant needed no explanation. He had seen the clip dozens of times already, and so it was readily accessible. He activated the terminal, and the video began.

Arabic script with crossed swords accompanied Arabic music and singing. The video then revealed a small room with a mounted flag on the wall, also containing Arabic script. Four men stood in front of what was obviously a captured Imperial stormtrooper. His hands were bound behind him, he was still in his armor, and his helmet was missing. His haggard face bore witness to multiple beatings, one of his eyes blackened, and there was evidence of a broken lip.

While the trooper had been bald and clean-shaven at the time of his capture, he now sprouted short, dark-brown hair upon his scalp and face. He looked tired and dejected. His marred face also told of uncertainty and fear. The four men standing behind him were dressed in all black pajamas, and their faces were covered with black ski masks. One of the masked men behind the trooper held a sword, and the other held a paper in his hand. As he spoke, his natural language was masked over with broken and accented Basic.

The man reading from the paper spoke of his faith in Allah and of infidel invaders defiling the holy land. He spoke of the eventual throwing off of the infidel yoke from the holy land and their expulsion back into the depths of space. He then yelled something in his own language not translated into Basic, while the other masked man behind the trooper used the sword to cut off the trooper's head. While he was being murdered, the trooper was bound and could not struggle, though he convulsed wildly during the act. The scene then faded into more Arabic script with music growing loudly in triumph.

As the video ended, the admiral turned to look briefly at the young officer, who was as angry as he. That was the video he had beamed to the High Command two standard days prior. In silent fury, he left the station and then headed back to his stateroom. Once again, he sat at his private workstation. As he watched, a blinking red icon indicated a new message. He activated the message and slowly smiled.

"Finally," he growled.

…

As dusk fell, both men in Arabic dress and those in more "Western" clothing mingled in the city as the oppressive heat became more bearable. Their demeanor betrayed both curiosity and nervousness, for earlier in the afternoon the remaining Imperial garrisons had been packed up and moved away with large vehicles, some on the ground and others in the air. Gone were the Imperial stormtroopers and giant mechanized walkers. Most of the men and women of the city had not taken part in the resistance against the alien enemy, though they did not disapprove of the attacks. This was a holy city, and infidels had no place in it. Apparently, the infidels had been driven back. Now, the people of the city could do business in peace.

Fluun stared at the horizon. He was surrounded by desert in all directions, but still he stared in one direction, occasionally moving his gaze to the twinkling stars above. One of those stars was very large, and it was moving. Two of his squad members stood next to him, one of them pulling a swig from a large bottle of water. They had all relocated deep into the Arabian desert, earlier in the day. None of them had been told why, but they had their suspicions. He recalled the video of the trooper being decapitated by the insurgents. That was his man; the one he had lost during his last combat patrol. Another man had made it back, barely, but the bad news got only worse.

One of the squad members said, "Roz did not pull through."

The statement stood on its own. Roz had been recovered from that final mission earlier in the week after taking the blunt of the explosion of a road-side bomb. Roz had smiled and talked about recovering in time for his leave, but the medics knew better. The internal damage was too severe even for a bacta tank to heal. He died earlier in the evening, after the displacement of forces and equipment had been completed. Fluun shook his head.

"Roz was a good man," said the other squad member. Fluun nodded. He thought back to how many of his mates had perished in that hell-hole, and he recalled the rules of engagement that had subdued initiative. He could really use some of that stuff now – the stuff he had offered to a man on an Imperial dreadnaught so long ago; it would help deaden the pain. He tightly closed his eyes, and then opened them again, still locking his eyes on the horizon.

"Roz will be remembered, long after…"

Bright-green flashes from overhead lit the night sky, and giant, glowing green bolts slammed into the horizon. Even here, hundereds of kilometers from the target area, Fluun and his comrades felt the ground tremble from the terrific force of heavy turbolaser bolts biting deep into the crust of the planet. Fluun knew academically that the power of the heavy turbolasers was significantly reduced, set very low, or they would not survive at even so great a distance from the target area. Even so, the explosive force of the blast and the damage done by them could be seen, felt, and eventually heard with deafening thunder. Between the flashes on the horizon, Fluun saw the faces of his fallen men, though he knew it to be only in his mind. The barrage did not last long, but the glow on the horizon would remain for hours.

"Burn it all away," said the man to Fluun's right, and Fluun glanced at him, and then he turned to walk back to his sleeping quarters.

Fluun's men followed, for they did not know how far the shockwave would travel, so it was best to be inside. Fluun felt exhausted.

…

Greg jerked his head up in alarm, "They did what?!"

"The whole city was wiped from the planet," said the NCO, without apparent concern.

The Empire had been known to cleanse entire planets of populations numbering in the billions, so to the NCO, destruction of but a single city meant little.

"This is different," said Greg, "this is bad."

Greg had studied Arabic and Islamic culture before, since he had conducted operations in the Middle East. The US military had been careful to avoid offending their Kuwaiti hosts, who were nearly all Muslim. The magnitude of what the Imperial fleet over Earth had done was almost unimaginable to Greg. Not only were countless thousands of people wiped out in a very short period of time, but the place itself was central to their religion. Unimaginable! Yet there it was. The reports on the event looked sterile and nonchalant – just another city had been eliminated. Greg knew he had his work cut out for him.

…

Moheb was inconsolable. His visage was scarred with rage and grief.

"I will murder every one of them, EN SH'ALLA! I will kill them all!"

Lancer Six watched as the Syrian paced back and forth. He would not be able to reason with him in this state. Much of Moheb's muttering was in Arabic, laced with rage. Two of his cohorts sat at the table, deep beneath the ground. Lancer Six sighed internally, but he did not want to interrupt the anger of Moheb. Mecca was no more. The Imperials had effectively erased it from the surface of the planet. That was approximately seven hours ago. Moheb had learned of it only an hour ago, and his anger showed no signs of abating.

"We will strike back," said Lancer Six, "and we will do so on our own terms, and at times and places of our choosing."

To the right of Lancer Six sat Datshi. The normally animated Georgian looked subdued. He was used to relying on the patience and reason of Moheb to keep his own considerable fury in check. Datshi and Moheb had become friends over the past year, and Datshi now found himself in an uncomfortable position. He glanced uncertainly toward the pacing Syrian, and then a thought came to mind.

"Moheb!" barked the Georgian. Moheb slowed his pacing and looked at Datshi, anger still burning in his features. He saw hope etched in the Georgian's face.

"My friend?" said Moheb.

"We can use this," said the Georgian, "to our advantage. We can strike a severe blow at these devils!"

Datshi was becoming angry again – he seemed more comfortable and in control when he was righteously angry. His smile was now savage. Lancer Six looked on with interest. Moheb studied his friend's face, interest replacing his own anger. He finally took his seat and looked questioningly at his friend.

"What can we do?" asked Moheb.

"The resistance in Mecca waged effective jihad against the invaders, did they not?" inquired Datshi.

"Na'am," said Moheb, slipping unconsciously into his native Arabic.

"Imagine that jihad, on a much grander scale," said Datshi with a predatory smile.

Moheb considered his words, and then he slowly nodded. Lancer Six leaned back in his chair.