Episode 19

The White Banner

The royal palace had been left almost unscathed by the shelling and skirmishes of the last day. Located deep inside the city in an island of green, its walled design hinted at a feudal past. Or maybe just an eccentric king. We’d eaten on the run, taken stimulants, and connected with the advancing troops as they came up the main road, ready for whatever happened. When we reached the palace, things came to a halt. Now I sat on the edge of a fountain with the rest of my squad. Behind me, a naked dame was spitting water out of her mouth. Not a real naked dame, mind you—she was made of marble. Good thing, too, because she was ejecting about five gallons a minute. The beauty of the landscaping around us was a weird contrast with the tension in the air and the two opposing forces facing each other across a sea of expensive paving stones, sculptures, banks of flowers and whatever you call bushes carved into circles and squares.

We’d actually caught a few hours sleep on the grass the previous night. Our brass were talking with the enemy brass and now we were killing time until whatever happened next.

“Probably going to send us in to take the place,” I said.

“You think?” Leighton asked, gesturing towards the palace. “Those guys up there behind the barricades are the prince’s royal guard. The best they’ve got.”

“Maybe,” I said. “But last time I checked, we’re better than that.” Despite my confidence in our superiority, though, I wasn’t about to sign on for an all-out assault on the palace. Bum-rushing them through the gardens when they had walls and barricades and machine guns, no way. We weren’t going to find any cover behind the topiary, that’s for sure.

“Yeah, well, I wouldn’t want to do a direct assault even if they were ranked thirty-fifth in the subsector,” Leighton said. “They’re dug in too good for us to go in light. If they’re half-way decent, we’d lose half our guys trying to take it. Better if they pound them with the big guns.”

“Sure,” said Jock from where he sat beneath a tree with a perfectly braided triple trunk. “I doubt the colonel would make us go straight in, anyhow. They probably don’t want to wreck the place if they’re intending to keep it. If we went at night with enough smoke, we could probably go through the gazebos in the rose garden over on the side and set some charges on the wall, then get inside.”

“Maybe they’ve mined the rose garden,” Park mused, chewing on a protein bar.

“I doubt it,” Leighton said. “That collection of roses is highly valuable.” He actually sounded serious.

I laughed. “Don’t be a faggot. What do you know about flowers?”

He grinned sheepishly. “Hey, I like flowers. My Grandma grew roses.”

“Geez, Leighton. Maybe your Grandma should have joined Wardogs,” Jock said, his voice dripping with sarcasm. “Sounds like she’d have some great intel for us.”

“I dunno, couldn’t be much worse than the other intel we’ve had lately,” I pointed out.

“Think the king is inside?” Park said, crumbling up the wrapper of his protein bar and throwing it into the fountain.

“Nope,” said Jock. “But the crown prince is. And pick up your trash.”

Park shrugged and fished out the brown wrapper.

And then we heard a whistling sound, followed by the deep crump of a single round striking the city.

“Spotter round,” Jock said as we watched the thin column of smoke rise up from where the shell landed. “Huh. That means an FFE is incoming. They are going to just smash the place up.”

We hurried back behind our lines. Jock gestured and pointed back behind us at some hulking gray artillery pieces. During the night the Ulimbese had brought a pair of massive 120mm howitzers and placed them up on the hills with us to permit direct fire. They had aimed both of them to take a bead on the castle now, even as and more spotting rounds from the supporting artillery landed. The prince's guard wasn’t going to have a chance, no matter how good they were. That much firepower would smash them to pieces.

And then it started. Mortars flew, cannons fired, and heavy machine guns opened up, pinning down the prince’s guard whenever they dared to show their faces. They were surrounded and overmatched. One of the towers on the edge of the castle collapsed into rubble. Bricks and marble splintered and cracked, and gargoyles and standards fell from the battlements amidst breaking glass and the deafening roar of the guns.

And then—after less than ten minutes of hellish bombardment—a white banner rose from the top wall of the castle—the intergalactic symbol of surrender!

The big guns ceased almost instantly, and except for a secondary explosion or two, the field of battle fell silent. Smoke rose from the pockmarked palace and the prince’s guard began to appear on the battlements, holding their hands high. And yet, as I reviewed the scene with my old-fashioned optical binocs, I saw the marble lady was intact and still spitting, just as if nothing had happened.

Jock looked at me and I looked back and shrugged. Looked like we got off easy this time.