Rising to their feet, Zan saw what tripped them — a tripwire!
“Shit, shit, shit!” Zan swore. Maybe they had gotten lucky, but they hadn’t discovered tripwires anywhere else in the camp. Whiskey missed it as well, so Zan made a mental note for next time: don’t rush over yourself. If there is a next time, he knew with a panic.
Instinctually, Zan realized they had to hide — reaching for a smoke grenade and pulling its pin, Zan tossed one toward the wagons. Then he ran for it.
He didn’t know if he really had a plan, per se, but he figured if he could disorient the enemy, that would mean less heat on them as they moved in and engaged them in combat.
Searchlight or no, it would mean nothing if the enemy couldn’t understand what was happening.
‘Maybe they think we’re escaped prisoners?’ Zan wondered under his breath.
Unlikely, but anything to keep the terror away…
While rushing to the wagons and the dozens of golems throughout the field overseeing the loading of prisoners, Jiehong said, “Guys! We’ve screwed the pooch! Let’s destroy these splintery craps, then get the hell out of here with our guys in toe, good?!”
“Yeah!” Zan and Whiskey shouted back.
Crashing into the first wagon’s golem guard, Zan made short work of the golems while fighting alongside his compatriots. Worried at first about too many of the golems potentially being highly ranked, Zan felt relief when he saw most of the golems were merely the basic grunt model. Wood and nothing more.
Gaining confidence as golem-after-automotron fell before them, that confidence faded fast as Zan heard the rumble of gates opening.
Around them soon would be hordes more of the automotron adversary. Zan had to act. He was responsible. He couldn’t let himself and his goals die here.
“Jiehong, Whiskey! Let’s go! Time to split up! Use those grenades and free up those wagons before the enemy gets here!” Zan yelled.
His team obeyed without question. Like wolves on the hunt, they rushed to their respective sites. All around them were wagons and confused people crying out for help; once the prisoners saw them wrecking house with the golems, a cry went up among some, while others cried.
When Zan ordered his team to liberate the other carts, they, as a unit, had already slew several groups of wagon guards. Seeing the fallen does weapon glinting in the dimming moonlight gradually giving way to morning, Zan thought of an idea once he had single-handedly liberated another wagon.
To the crowd, who had gathered behind him in the open space upon their liberation, Zan said, “If anyone has fighting experience, find a weapon and help us control these monsters!”
Of course, Zan could not wait for an orderly response to his declaration. He couldn’t — more people called out for rescue.
Rushing hither and there, occasionally receiving aid and giving aid to his fellow fighters as the battle spread, Zan raised his kill count to twenty-seven. As he did so, he kept an eye glued to the other gates surrounding the prisoner loading field. By now, the gates had opened. Entering the field, albeit slowly, to Zan’s comfort, were blocks of tightly packed automotrons. Instantly, Zan knew a truth: even with the fighting labor of a growing gang of freed citizens, he, Whiskey, and Jiehong could not resist the enemy’s assault for too much longer.
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Looking at the enemy’s slow advance, Zan reasoned they might have as long as twenty-minutes before the enemy came upon them, but with searchlights highlighting every wagon under allied duress, once the enemy made contact, it would be a slaughter and the prisoners would, under force, return to their pens. What could he do?
‘Where are we going to go? When every wagon is free, are we going to strut out the front gate? Wait… gate? Gate!’ Zan talked himself into looking around more and he saw what he hoped to see. Aways away, he saw the largest yet barrier. It was a way out of the camp, likely heading to the route the invasion force has already taken or plans on utilizing in their assault on the Kingship.
Thinking, Zan thought with a start, ‘that gate is going to go down if we have any chance of getting these people out of here. But there are still wagons to free.’
Making a brash decision, Zan screamed to everyone assembled — “Fellow countrymen! I, your liberator, need your help! My comrades and I cannot fight everywhere all at once. We need your help! See that gate over there? I must make haste and lower it for our benefit. Do you all see the wagons, the very same wagons which once, moments ago, held you?! Take your arms and kill the golems. Free your fellows, and once the gate is lowered, usher the horses to take you to freedom! Anywhere but here!”
To his surprise, the gathered civilians took to his plea with gusto and stormed, en mass, the remaining wagons and their guards. Zan could not see the carnage, but while he rushed alone to the front gate… so far away, he heard the sounds of rage being taken out on the automotrons.
Ahead of him was the gate and the many dedicated guards protecting it from being lowered. Zan had no time to waste and removed two grenades. He pulled the pins on both and tossed them as far as his arm could take him. Explosions rocked the night and gave birth to a red afterglow.
How many of the enemy he deactivated he did not know. But he knew it was at least near a dozen or more. It wasn’t their tactics which led to such destruction in their ranks, Zan knew, but the nature of the grenades to begin with — clearly, the Expanse had no experience with such weapons before now.
And that inexperience caused them to pay, dearly.
Slamming his weight into one golem, then storming with blade in hand to another, Zan fought his way into the center of the defensive line and swung wildly around, as he had done that first day when he and the other villagers had to defend the withdrawal of the town.
Unfortunately, his attack lacked the slaying power it had back then. Without the magically induced flame on his blade, the sword he had now, though deadly, still required a hefty few swings to take out a golem merely by nicking away at it.
Which was not the point, however.
The point, now, to Zan, was to sow chaos within the enemy ranks.
So, after his spinning twirl of death, Zan (despite his dizziness) continued to slash, hack, stab — anything, away at the enemy. He tossed another grenade, seeing, as he did, a couple of gold-golems enter the field; but the gold-automotrons weren’t meant for this world and melted to unworkable pieces once the grenades went off.
Although a few automotrons remained, Zan couldn’t bother in dispatching them back to the earth. He was more interested in the means of lowering the gate.
Seeing the lever hidden behind bodies of the dead, Zan rushed over the slain golems to pull it.
The gate did not lower.
Crap, crap — why?!
Rushing all over the limited space of the gate, Zan tried desperately to see what he missed. Then he heard a clicking sound. Followed by a sound of gears turning.
What is happening? Zan wondered.
Eventually, after a minute too long of angrily thrashing over the gate, fending off automotron stragglers, Zan heard a noise in his ear. It was his communication device.
“Zan, the prisoners are free, but we can’t wait anymore. We need the gate open — NOW!” Jiehong spoke into his earpiece.
Steadily swearing alongside a newfound resolve not to let everyone down, Zan then saw the lever he had pulled. Something had returned the lever to its resting position. I pulled this already. What the heck?!
Pulling the same lever again, it didn’t take Zan long to see what happened. The lever was on a timer. Why?! Zan screamed internally; and after some debate, externally —
“WHY?!”
Then he saw the ‘why:’ there was another lever.
On its companion’s side, Zan had not seen the lever right away due to the many dead obscuring it. Heaving the automotrons motionless bodies clear of the lever, Zan grunted with each of the dozens of exertions he demanded of his already exasperated body. One thing was for certain: tomorrow, he would be sore… if he was still alive!
Having cleared the bodies of both levers, Zan heard the familiar chime of his comm-device in his ear. It was Jiehong again. He said, “We can’t wait anymore! If that gate isn’t down, we’re going to try bashing through the parts of the gate which aren’t iron! See ya soon buddy!”