Rise of the Resistance (War for Orion Trilogy Book Two) (41 page)

He continued plowing his way through the
streets, trying to find the perfect spot to stake out. Few
buildings were left standing, but there was one tall one in the
distance. It was the highest skyscraper left in Hassental and it
would give him the best view of the entire battle once it began. To
get to it, he'd have to go through the crodillian headquarters near
the Capitol building. While scouting, he’d avoided it at all costs,
but now he’d have to go right through the middle of it. All he had
on him was a laser pistol, binoculars, comlink, and some spare
rations to get him through a week at the most. He hadn't planned on
going through their headquarters, but he knew there was no other
options. If he wanted to save rebel lives, he needed to make it to
the skyscraper.

As he got closer to the headquarters, the
convoys drastically grew in size and firepower, as if they were
worried about rebels overrunning them. He climbed up a pile of
smoking rubble and looked ahead to find a safe way to the building.
Ezio saw a group of eleven crodillians approaching and dodged down
in the rubble, tumbling deep down as it broke loose. As he hit the
bottom, more rubble came crashing down on him, sending pain arching
down his back. Blood trickled down his arm and he looked up to see
he somehow wasn't trapped. Ezio pushed himself up and climbed back
up the pile of rubble to see the group quickly approaching the
ruckus.

As he looked behind, he saw a clear path to
a building with no enemies in the way. He pulled himself out of the
hole and darted towards the building, ducking through a broken door
as one of the crodillians shot in the spot he’d just been in. Just
as he peered around the corner, a grenade came flying his
direction. Quickly, he turned to find a way out of the building,
instinctively choosing the stairs that took him to the second story
of the building. An explosion rang as he reached the top and he
pulled out his binoculars to watch the crodillians’ next moves.
They turned around and left, assuming he’d died. He turned and
looked towards the Capitol building that was swarming with
thousands of the monsters. It’d been barricaded with destroyed
vehicles and posts were set up at every corner with at least five
guards at each. Passage through was impossible, unless there was a
way under the streets.

He climbed down the side of the building as
another convoy approached from behind, and waited for them to pass
before pulling off the sewer lid and jumping in the hole. The
tunnels were dark and smelled of feces, and he cautiously walked,
unsure of what he would run into. It was unlikely crodillians had
come down here, but there was clearly someone hiding here from the
horrid smell. His shoes splashed as he walked down the tunnel, and
soon he saw makeshift beds scattered on the floors. He stepped over
the beds and reached an opening at the end of the tunnel where
light was emerging.

It was a circular work room, or that's what
he guessed it used to be. Hundreds of survivors came into view as
he exited the tunnel onto the metal grate. They were huddled around
each other in a circle and none noticed him enter their refuge. He
walked down the metal stairs and a few of the survivors stood up,
startled that someone had found them.

“Who are you?” One of them asked.

“My name is Ezio,” he said. “I needed to get
to the skyscraper on the other side of the Capitol building, but
the streets are filled with crodillians. I thought this would be my
safest bet to get across the street. Those things are too big to
fit down these tunnels easily.”

“We’re aware of the Crodillians,” another
said. “Why do you think that we’re all down here? Why are you
trying to get to the skyscraper anyway, kid?”

“I'm going to be a scout for the rebellion.
The skyscraper will give me the best vantage point. It’s the
tallest building left standing and I’ll be able to see for miles in
all directions.”

“A rebellion?” A young girl stood up. “You
can't rebel against them. Look what they did to us last time we
tried!”

“The rebellion is already in place. The
Queen has ordered it to begin.”

“Your rebellion is hopeless,” the girl told
him. “They’re too strong to defeat. They kill everything they come
across.”

“It's not hopeless, not anymore. We've
gathered thousands of survivors, and there are even more
all
over Orion! It’s almost time to fight and I'm going to the
skyscraper. You're all welcome to help if you would like. The more
we have fighting, the better chance we have in defeating them.”

“Help?” One of the older ones asked. “How
are we supposed to help? Weren’t you listening to the girl?”

“You'll know when the rebellion has started.
You'll hear it above. We're going to spread the crodillians out,
get them away from here so we can attack smaller groups. When you
hear that it's started, come out and fight with us. Anything you do
will be helpful.”

“You’re foolish. We won’t go up there to
die. Go to your skyscraper, but don't lead the crodillians to us,”
an old man replied.

Ezio looked to the rest of the group and
didn't see any that looked interested in helping, so he let it be.
He went back up the stairs and continued down the dark tunnel. He
didn't blame them for not wanting to help, they hadn't seen Xiphos,
so there was no way for them to have any hope after losing their
loved ones. They’d been trapped in sewers, hiding underneath the
crodillians since the attacks. If he had more time, he would've
taken them to Xiphos, but time was short. Once the rebellion was
over, he’d come back for them and keep this incident to himself.
None needed to know about it. These people were only afraid to lose
what little they had left.

As he walked down the damp tunnels, he came
across another ladder after ten minutes. Ezio climbed it and lifted
the lid to peek through the gap. An empty alley laid before him and
he pushed the lid off all the way before climbing out of the
sewers. The skyscraper was close, he was almost right in front of
it, but there was still rubble he'd have to crawl through to reach
it. He climbed up the rubble, scraping himself on the twisted metal
and ships parts, and carefully crawled down to the other side.

The skyscraper was within fifty yards and he
dashed to the front doors with everything he had. As he entered, he
came to a quick halt and stumbled to the floor, covering his mouth
in terror. Half eaten corpses and ripped apart bodies laid sprawled
across the floors and the putrid smell of rotten corpses filled the
halls. Nausea overtook him as he walked on the floor to the
elevator, body parts squishing beneath his feet the entire way. As
soon as the elevator doors slid open, he jumped in, stumbling to
his knees and falling face first in more body parts.

Bugs swarmed the warm elevator and began
biting him, trying to eat the gore from his body. He closed his
eyes and began crying as the elevator ascended. The crodillians had
slaughtered these innocent races. They’d torn them to pieces, eaten
them, and had left them to rot like they were animals. He’d thought
he was safe on the streets after the initial attacks, but he’d been
wrong. After seeing this, he knew there could never be peace
between the two of them, and knew what would happen to them if the
rebellion failed. What lay before him was their future.

The doors slid open and he stumbled on the
roof, frantically trying to wipe the blood from his body. Luckily,
the roof was empty of any bodies and he looked over the edge into
the distance. He knew where Xiphos was, hidden in the forest, and
he could see the thousands of crodillians surrounding the Capitol
building and many more patrolling the streets in large groups. This
was the perfect spot to scout and he’d be able to help every one of
the units. He pulled out his binoculars to begin looking for any
weaknesses. Moran needed know how many there were and where the
best places to start the rebellion would be. Sure, he was young,
but he was going to help win this rebellion. There was no way he
was going to let these monsters win, not after killing his family
and slaughtering all of these innocent races. It was time to stand
up to them and make them pay for their crimes.

Dorjan stood in front of his small group of
men, masked in the dark of night. He’d gathered them in one of the
unoccupied buildings to inform them of what they were about to
carry out. There were many faces he didn't know, but that didn't
matter for this mission.

“I gathered you all here tonight to tell you
that the rebellion is about to start, but Zarah needs our help with
something first,” he told them. “You've all seen the crodillians,
so you know where they’ve all gathered since taking our planet.
I’ve told Zarah where their temporary base is, but I think there’s
more we can do to help with this rebellion.”

“You aren't thinking about going in there
are you?” A kaneen asked.

Dorjan nodded. “We're going in there. We’re
definitely going into the heart of the enemy.”

He saw some of the eyes widen, but he knew
they were all up for it. Sure the crodillians were dangerous, but
they were originally going to attack them upon arrival. What they
were about to do was much more safe, though he wasn’t sure how much
safer. They’d still be greatly outnumbered and could be killed
within mere minutes if they weren’t careful.

“We need to bug them so we know what they're
going to do. If Zarah's rebels know where the crodillians are going
to be and what their leaders want them to do, we'll win this
rebellion easily. How do you defeat a band of rebels who know your
every move?”

“Getting in and bugging them will be harder
than winning the rebellion,” a reptilian race said.

“It will be difficult,” Dorjan nodded. “But
just think, if we get in and bug them, how will they be able to
defeat the rebellion? We’ll always be one step ahead and that’ll
ensure thousands of rebels have chance to survive this.”

“What are we waiting for?” The reptilian
asked.

“Nothing. We're going in now. I just have to
outline the general plan, and from there, we'll just do our own
thing,” he grinned with a cunning glint in his eye. “Each and every
one of you will have several bugs. I doubt we'll get through this
undetected, but if you get in somewhere successfully, bug the place
and move on, if not, just get the hell out alive. Once you do bug a
place, make note of where it is and the transmission that it uses.
Hopefully, with all these bugs we'll be able to get one in their
headquarters and that'll be the transmission we tell Zarah to set
her device to at all times.”

“Are we going in groups?” The Kaneen asked.
“If we do, they need to be small. We'll have to move fast, and if
one gets caught, we don't want a lot of our men going down with
them.”

“We'll do groups of two, or one if you want
to go alone,” Dorjan nodded. “We need to be quiet and quick. Don't
try to be a hero. If you can't get in and out of somewhere alive,
move to another place. I’d like to get this done without any
fatalities.”

“Can we kill them?” The reptilian asked.

“If they find bodies it may alert them, but
to hell with it,” Dorjan grinned. “Kill as many of those bastards
as you want. They'll be coming after our own soon enough. We might
as help the rebellion by getting a head start.”

Dorjan started to hand out the small bugs to
the rebels in the room and then headed out alone. He didn't want
anyone to come with him because he didn't want their lives on his
conscience if they happened to die while with him. A sonic pistol
was strapped on his hip and was carrying a laser rifle in his
hands. He didn't plan on going in quietly and didn't care if he
came out alive. His only goal was to find their headquarters and
bug it. That’d give the rebels the best chance of survival and
that's all he cared about. Everything he cared about was gone,
wiped out by this savages.

He snuck through the streets, using the dark
to his advantage. They were fairly empty so far, but he didn't want
to alert the crodillians of his presence too early if he could
avoid it. An abandoned building approached and he entered, going to
the roof for a better view of the center of Thermopylae. Savages
littered the streets up ahead and their headquarters was easy to
pick out. It was a circular building right in the center of all of
the crodillian activities, surrounded by multiple vehicles, ships,
and groups of the monsters.

He ran across the rooftop and jumped on the
adjacent building's roof. He continued jumping from roof to roof,
without a single crodillian even bothering to look up. Once the
circular building was in front of him, he came to a stop. Dorjan
looked around to see if there was any way for him to get across the
big gap without going to the ground. An apartment was underneath
him and he climbed down the side of the building, entering the
abandoned room. After some digging, he found a long rope and
grinned to himself as he threw it over his shoulder and climbed
back to the roof. He tied a loop in the rope and slung it across
the street to catch a pole sticking up from the building, getting
it on his first attempt. Once he was sure the rope was secure and
fastened the other end, he wrapped his arms and legs around the
rope and inched across.