War in the City Chapter 11

IN THE FIFTH YEAR OF THE NEW ERA
"Alright," Varro dragged his hands across his face and took a few steps away from the monitor and controls, which Armano sat by. "Let's review, shall we? The battle at Daved park is proceeding as planned."
Armano nodded. "All have gotten to position without being detected."
"Good, good." Varro put his hand upto his forehead, as he always did when he wanted to think. "And Stractus is still at the city square?"
"Correct, he and the twenty he took with him should be leaving for thier next mission any minute now. The fight at the city square was a success. Nota single casualty on our side."
"That leaves?"
"We have fifty men right now who are not with either Pompey or Stractus. They are all in the base right now awaiting your instructions."
Varro scanned the monitors surrounding the room, each a map of a different part of the city, with a dot representing the position of a Harpy. He applied slightly more pressure to his forehead, as he often did when he was feeling frustrated. "The question is, where do I send them? There's so many places that need their assistance."
Varro's thought process was interrupted by a call of, "Someone's coming."
A man named Yiza, standing near the window, had made that call. Varro walked over to see for himself and saw a man approaching the building. Armano walke over as well. "I don't recognize him," Varro said. "He can't be part of the Resistance. Who is he?"
"I don't know," Yiza answered. Varro turned to Armano, but Armano only shrugged his shoulders.
"Have the Teacher identify that man," Varro ordered.
Armano went back to the computer monitor, and punched a few buttons on the controls next to it. Armano looked briefly at the image before him, then shouted back, "It's Jonz."
"Jonz?" The name obviously didn't mean anything to Yiza.
"He's one of the top men in the Watcher Idealistic Nation," Varro explained. "I wonder what he's doing here."
Armano came back from the monitor to join the rest looking out the window. "I guess we'll soon find out." Jonz was almost to the door right now. It was very appearent he planned on entering the building.
Varro started walking over to the door to greet him. "I'll go see what he wants." .


Justa and Ortel ran as fast as they could, hoping they could make it to Strata an Morphel. However, just as soon as a space opened for them, it closed. The Harpies landed right in front of them, blocking their path. Ortel yelled out for help as he and Just ran the only way the Harpies had left open to them, a ninety degree turn to the left.


"Listen, I'm going to go see if I can find any more Harpies," Pompey explained. "There's probably not a whole lot of sense in you coming along, so how about if I just meet you back at the base."
"Alright," Peter answered, knowing how disappointed Pompey was in him, and feeling terrible about it.
"Peter, I know you're a brave man, even if you did choke in the battle. I still respect you."
"Thank you. I'm sorry I couldn't be of more us to you." A brief moment of silence followed, and in that silence they heard a cry for help.
"What was that?" Peter asked.
"It sounded like Ortel," Pompey answered. "He must be in trouble." Pompey ran in the direction of the sound, with Peter close behind. Soon, they heard screeching as well, ast the Harpies attacking Ortel and Justa resumed their cries.
Before long, Pompey could see Ortel and Justa running, with the Harpies all around them. He began shooting the Harpies all around the two, relieving them of some of the danger.
Pompey heard a whooshing sound behind him. He turned around, and washit head on by a speding Harpy, who had purposely collided with Pompey to help his colleagues. Pompey and the Harpy tumbled over each other, before each slid along the ground to a stop.
Almost immeiately, the Harpies were swarming around Just and Ortel in the same number they had been before. Ortel was waving his arms and yelling fanatically when he was struck by laser fire and he fell dead. Without even pausing to think about to think about wha he was doing, Peter raised his laser gun and started shooting the Harpies. Pompey joined him as soon as he recovered from his collision, and soo the few remaining Harpies fled through the air. Just collasped with relief by Pompey and Peter.
Pompey was grinning broadly as he turned to Peter. "Perhaps I judged you prematurely."
Peter looked adly at Ortel's body. "Poor Ortel," he said.
"Don't worry about it," Pompey responded. "There was nothing you could have done. Ortel died protecting the city. We should be proud of him. You should be proud of yourself."
Peter shook his head. "I don't understand it. I didn't even think about what I was doing."
"Didn't I tell you? That's the key. Peter, I take back everything I said about you. You're going to be a fine warrior. You showed you've got what it takes, and you're not afraid to use it when someone is in danger." Pompey turned to a still breathless Justa. "Are you okay?" he asked her.
She nodded. "I just feel sad for Ortel," she said.
"Don't worry. We'll avenge his death. How are you feeling?"
Justa smiled. "As good as ever. Just let me rest a few minutes."
"Fair enough. I'd say you earned it. Peter, stay with her. I'm going o go off and see if I can't find any Harpies we may have missed. Once Justa recovers, you two are free to join me."

Pompey had just left Peter and Justa when he heard someone calling his name. He looked all around to see who it might be, and he saw Varro running towards him. "Pompey!" Varro called out.
Pompey looked Varro over, his face fully showing his confusion. "Varro, what are you doing over here? What happened to you?" Varro was covered with dirt, sweat, and blood. He had a couple of cuts on his left arm that were bleeding rather strongly.
"Pompey, we were attacked."
"Who was attacked? Varro, what happened?"
"We were attacked by WIN."
"WIN?"
"The Watcher Idealistic Nation."
"I know what it stands for. Varro, start from the beginning. I want to know what happened."
"I was in the base, going over stuff and making plans, you know?"
"Yes."
"Then Tiza, he sees someone out the window, so he calls us over."
"Alright keep going."
"Well Armano and I, we look out the window, and we see someone heading toward our base, but we don't recognize him, so I tell Armano to have the Teacher identify him. The Teacher tells us that it's Jonz heading toward the base."
"Jonz? He's one of WIN's top men, isn't he?"
"Yes he is. I went to the door so I could open it and see what Jonz wanted. I had no reason to suspect a thing."
Varro stopped at this point, and Pompey had to prod him to keep the story going. "Yes, then what happened?"
"Well, I let him in, and Jonz started talking about how WIN wants to join the Resistance, so I thought, great. I'm talking to Jonz, making plans and everything for WIN to join us, when Armano comes up and taps me on the shoulder, and asks to talk to me, alone. I excuse mself, and Armano and I go into the conference room. No sooner does the door shut, then Armano starts telling me all this crazy stuff. He said that in the time I had been talking to Jonz, Stractus and all his troops wre ambushed and killed after a short fight by members of WIN."
Pompey stopped Varro. "Are you saying WIN is in league with the Harpies?"
"Yes sir. I found it hard to believe it the first time I heard it too, but I knew Armano wouldn't lie to me. I began to panic, because I knew there must be some connection between that and Jonz being at our base. I didn't even wait for Armano to finish talking before I ran out of the room. But by that time it was too late. While I was talking to Armano, Jonz had let other WIN members in our base, and they attacked our men. They greatly outnumbered us. It was like a a massacre really. As soon as we left the conference room there were laser beams flying and people getting killed all over. I had to do something."
Varro's voice broke off at this point, and he seemed, for whatever reason, unwilling to go on. He just closed his eyes and shook his head. Pompey grabbed hold of Varro's shoulder. "Varro, listen to me. Tell me what happened. This is important."
Varro swallowed, fearing Pompey would be angry at what he had to say next. "I had to do something. I knew I wouldn't be much help with a laser gun, so I thought I'd call for help. Somebody needed to anyway. Armano said he knew this room where we could use a monitor, a room where we would be out of sight so they wouldn't try and stop us. We got there, and I began instructing the Executor to connect me with computer pad, when they burst through the door, members of WIN, they came right through the door. Armano tried to flee, but they shot him. Pompey, what could I do? I was unarmed, and there were about six of them pointing their laser guns at me."
Pompey took a step back and swallowed. His face showed his disappointment. "You surrendered," he deduced, his voice quiet.
"Pompey, what else could I do? To try anything else would have been suicide. I just stood there and put my hands up, and they came over and grabbed me, and brought me before Jonz. They told him I was a prisoner, bu he told them they weren't supposed to take any prisoners. He told them everyone from the Resistance had to be killed. They kept me alive anyway though. They kept me alive util the massacre was over. There were five other people taken prisoner besides myself, and Jonz had them line us all up like he was going to kill us all. Do you remember Raga? He was one of us too."
Pompey nodded. "I remember hearing his name, yes. I'm not sure if I could connect a face to it."
"Well they lined the six of us up to kill us, and Raga just grabbed he nearest WIN member and started punching him, 'cause he figured he was going to die anyway I guess. They shot him, but in the confusion I made a break for it. We weren't that far from the windows, so I just ran for one of them and jumped right into it. The glass shattered and I landed on the ground. I rolled over in the dirt as soon as I landed, and then I got up and ran as fast as I could. A couple laser beams were fired at me, and they came pretty close, but I ducked around the corner before anyone could hit me. I ran here first thing to tell you everything."
"What you're telling me," Pompey said, his voice quavering, "is that you are the only survivor fom our base?"
Varro nodded. "I'm afraid I am. Stractus and all his men are lost too. The Resistance has been crushed Pompey. We are no more."