Rise of the Resistance (War for Orion Trilogy Book Two) (42 page)

It was simple enough and not a single
crodillian had even glanced above them. He dropped down from the
rope and dashed towards the door, slowly opening it to be sure no
enemy was waiting on the other side. Once clear, he crept down the
dark hall to a dim light shining at the end. When he reached it, he
looked over the edge of the balcony into the room below and saw
several crodillians in black armor gathered together. They were
different than grey uniforms the ones outside were wearing, so he
assumed these must be the ones in charge. That, along with all of
the comm devices set up, left no doubt in his mind he’d chosen the
correct place.

Dorjan pulled a bug out of his pocket and
turned it on. He took out small controls and flew it down the
unsuspecting enemy. The bug landed silently on their equipment and
started sending information to him as he put away the controls and
pulled out his rifle. Just because he’d bugged their command
easily, didn't mean he was going to leave quietly. A little chaos
had to be made before he left or he wouldn't have done a good
job.

He aimed it at the crodillian wearing the
most red badges. The round left the chamber and struck the enemy
below, causing his head to explode and the dark blood to spatter on
the others’ faces. They quickly turned to see where the shot had
come from and immediately spotted Dorjan and began firing on him.
In seconds, he was surrounded in a barrage of fire. Laser fire hit
the walls around him and he reached down to his side, unclipping a
grenade and throwing it over the ledge before running back down the
hall to the roof. A bang erupted behind him and enemy screams
filled the building as he reached the door. He grabbed the rope and
slid down to the adjacent building as quickly as he could.

Dorjan started jumping from roof to roof
until he was far from their headquarters and was sure no one was on
his trail. He pulled out his comlink and set it to the transmission
of the bug and listened to the crodillians frantically trying to
figure out what’d just happened. The Commanders were sending a
single message through to every crodillian: kill on sight. No rebel
was to live.

Kanti pulled out her comlink to call
Pyrrhus. Parts of the speech were put together, but most of it was
going to come from the heart, not from some holopad. Of course, no
one but Anlon knew, and there was no chance she'd let anyone else
know until they heard the speech live. It was her duty as the
Princess to let the races know the truth, no matter how harsh the
reality may be.

Pyrrhus picked up, already knowing why she’d
called and told her to be prepared to leave. She hung up the
comlink and felt Anlon's hand on her leg.

“I love you, Kanti. I don't know how many
more times I'll be able to tell you, but I’m going to tell you
every chance I get.”

“I love you too,” she embraced him. “We'll
make it through this. There will be rebels fighting by our sides
that’ll want to win this as much as we do. The crodillians will be
fighting to slaughter us, but we’ll be fighting for freedom. We
have much more to fight for and more surprises than they'll be
ready for. Together, we’ll all come out of this alive.”

“I never thought when you first came to my
aid on Gaea that you'd turn out to be the Princess and that we'd be
here right now.”

“I still can't believe that I
am
the
Princess,” she smiled. “These races don't even know me and they're
about to follow me into a war where we’re greatly outnumbered.”

“You're a natural leader. Both of your
parents are good leaders, though your father chose the wrong side,
but they're both smart and have many who are willing to die for
them.”

“My mother's cause is the one that’ll
prevail in the end,” Kanti said. “And all because of you.
Everything started with you, Anlon. Your family, meeting the Queen,
and then doing everything you did to help her. If it hadn't been
for you, I honestly believe Orion would be doomed right now. As
much as you try to say that
I
am about to save Orion, it was
you
who actually saved Orion.”

He looked down, denying he’d been much of a
help. “Pyrrhus will be here soon, let's change into the clothes we
were given.”

Anlon and Kanti both went upstairs to change
into the garments that’d been chosen for this speech. Kanti pulled
out a long, light red, dress from her wardrobe. A vibrant orange,
the same as the fire phoenix, shone out from underneath. Her
shoulders were bare, with thousands of diamonds going around the
collar of the dress. She pinned an emblem of the phoenix to her
left shoulder and opened a drawer to put on orange diamond jewelry.
Once that was done, she pinned up her hair with a similar diamond
pin and turned to Anlon.

“You look beautiful,” he smiled. “Your
mother would think the same if she was here now.”

Kanti blushed and turned back around and put
on red lipstick and eye shadow. “You don't look too bad yourself,
Anlon.”

He looked at his black suit with orange
accents in the mirror and placed his phoenix on his left shoulder.
She turned around and straightened his tie with a smile.

“Pyrrhus should be here soon. We both look
ready to go.”

They walked downstairs just in time to hear
a knocking at the door. Pyrrhus stood in the door frame and gave
them both a slight nod to follow him to the cruiser waiting at the
curb. They entered and Pyrrhus flew over thousands of rebels
gathered in the center of Lacedaemon. Anlon and Kanti peered out of
the window, amazed at what they were seeing before their eyes.
There wasn't a street visible for miles that wasn’t packed with
cheering races and screens were set up throughout the city for
everyone to see Kanti speak.

The cruiser neared a protruded balcony with
black banners of the fire phoenix on either side and came to a
stop. “This is a little more than I was expecting,” she said with a
big smile on her radiant face. “I thought I'd be doing it from the
Debate Hall and the recording would be spread throughout
Orion.”

“No. You're doing it in front of all those
that’ll be following you. It’ll be played live for all of Orion,”
Pyrrhus put a firm hand on her shoulder. “The rebels on the other
planets have set up screens in the streets like here and will
unveil them when you start your speech. Everyone in Orion will know
this war has started when you stand on that balcony and say your
first word.”

“You'll do great,” Anlon took her hand.
“I'll be right next to you the whole time. We’re in this
together.”

Pyrrhus pulled the cruiser next to the
balcony and Anlon exited the cruiser, taking Kanti's hand to help
her off. She lifted her long dress from the ground and turned to
face the thousands of cheering rebels below her. Their images were
immediately displayed on the screens throughout the city, and her
fear of speaking disappeared instantly. She straightened and smiled
to the crowd below.

The crowd erupted in more cheering and
fighters started darting across the sky, shooting out fireworks and
confetti. This is where she felt she was supposed to be. This was
her place. Her whole life on Demeter she’d searched for meaning in
life and knew this is what she’d been searching for. Not all in
Orion may know her at this moment, but after his speech, every
rebel would know who she was, as would the crodillians.

She fastened a microphone to her dress and
placed her hands on the balcony. “Many of you do not know who I am
yet. I’ve only just found out myself who I truly am. My name is
Kanti and my mother is Queen Adira,” the crowd erupted in frenzied
cheering as she told them who she was. “The crodillians think
they’ve wiped all hope from us by slaughtering our families and
burning our homes! They think we’ll bow down to them and let them
have Orion without a fight! My mother would never let that happen
and she made sure to let us all know at the cost of her own life,”
she looked down on the crowd with fire in her eyes. “We won’t let
these monsters rule us. There will
never
be peace between
us. Many of you may think that it's hopeless after all they’ve done
to hurt us. Well, I’m here to tell you it's not. We’ve been setting
up rebellion forces all over Orion, right under their noses and
Queen Adira knew it the whole time!” She smiled as the crowd got
even louder. “She delayed them, played them, so we could stand a
chance when the time came.”

Kanti looked over the crowd to pause a
moment. She wanted everything to sink in before the next things she
was going to tell them. It was time to let them know the cold hard
truth. She hadn't lied to them, but she hadn't revealed this would
be a long and hard fought war.

“The path that lies ahead of us will be a
tough one,” she continued. “Our numbers aren't as large as the
crodillians'. We are much smaller, but
we
have something to
fight for. Every last one of us has nothing to lose and
everything
to gain! If they win or we don’t fight, we’ll
live in fear the rest of our lives. There will be casualties when
it begins, we
will
lose lives in this war, but not as many
as if we don't fight them and free ourselves from their grasp.
Thousands
will die fighting in this rebellion, but
millions
will be freed. I can't lie to you and say this will
be an easy task, because it won't, but this is something we
must
do.”

She paused another moment to catch her
breath. Everything she was saying was coming straight from her
heart and she felt the enthusiasm from the rebels below. They were
fueling her fire and she was fueling theirs.

“I’ve told you we are outnumbered, but they
also possess powers we haven’t yet faced. They’ve only revealed a
fraction of their strength in what they have done to us so far. But
now, we know everything there is to know about them, where as they
know little of us. They haven’t taken the time to study us as
they’ve laughed at us instead. They will pay for that mistake!” She
held up a fist above her head and pumped it. “They’ve fought us
once, and they defeated us easily, but we’ve learned from those
mistakes and won’t make them again. The crodillians have become
careless recently and we’ll make them pay for it with their
lives.”

The crowd seemed to be with her more than
ever now. It didn't matter what she told them, they would fight for
her. They hated the crodillians and she was only fueling the hate
even more. Deep down, all of them knew what had to be done, she was
just reassuring them their urges were correct and they’d have
others by their sides when they acted on them.

“We’ve watched them and we’ve studied them.
Our battle plan has been carefully planned and put together so that
we may win. This is our
home
and we cannot allow them to
destroy it anymore than they already have. We will
take
back
our old lives! We will not ask them for mercy! We’ll show them the
full fury of Orion! The time to hide has ended and the time to
fight has arrived. Pick up your weapons, because the war with the
crodillians has just begun and it will be a bloody war. I
’
ll
be fighting with you, if we fail, then we
all
die together!
We’re waiting for you Merikh, right here on Ares. Come and try to
take it from us.”

Kanti grabbed Anlon's hand and threw it up
in the air. She waved it back and forth, causing the crowd to go
ballistic. Every one of them knew the crodillians would be coming,
and every one of them was ready to fight to the end. She hadn't
thought she'd be able to encourage them like this, and she knew the
Council wouldn’t be overly thrilled with her ending, but she was
fighting by their sides. There was no way she was going to let them
go off to die. They’d all started in this together, and they’d all
end in this together, whatever the outcome was.

Pyrrhus pulled up the cruiser and Anlon
helped her in. The two stood, holding hands, as the General circled
around the thousands of rebels below. Pyrrhus didn't seemed to be
bothered with the last part of her speech, in fact, he seemed to
approve of it by the large smile beaming on his face. She pulled
Anlon in and gave him a kiss for all the rebels to see. Everyone
had someone to fight for and this was who she was putting her life
on the line for.

Kirill stared at the screen in front of him,
not believing a thing he was seeing. This couldn't be happening,
they couldn't be rebelling. Merikh's forces were too strong for
them to rebel, they stood no realistic chance. They were too dumb
to realize it though as they were listening to every word that
spilled from the Princess’ mouth. She must know their real chances,
and yet, even she didn't seem to care.

He didn't actually think they'd rebel after
Adira's message, but he’d been very wrong. This was even worse than
anything he'd imagined, all of Orion was seeing it live. The rebels
were no longer trying to hide, they wanted the crodillians to know.
This wouldn’t bide well with Merikh. He thought he was invincible,
that no one would dare stand up to him, but he too had been wrong.
Unlike himself, Merikh had the resources to make them pay. Every
race in the galaxy would die for opposing him.