Battle Lines: A Military Sci-Fi Series (Tranquility Book 2) by Josh Hayes & Devon C. Ford

Author:Josh Hayes & Devon C. Ford [Hayes, Josh]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Aethon Books
Published: 2021-08-09T16:00:00+00:00

Twenty-Five

“Are you thirsty, Captain?”

Despite still being dripping wet, his mouth was dry. He swallowed and pushed himself up to sit with his back against the wall. “Yeah. I’ll take a hose of cold water if you’ve got it.”

“You fight with honor,” Wong said. “Admirable. Would you like a blanket?” The major held out a folded gray wool blanket.

Lander reached out and took it. “Why don’t you just kill me and get it over with.”

“And why would I do that?”

“That’s what you’re going to do anyway, right?”

“I assure you, Captain Lander, if I wanted you dead then you would not have made it out of your rig,” the man said.

“So, what then? You going to invite me to dinner?” Lander motioned to his wet body. “I’m all washed up.”

“You must know that any resistance you and your people show will only be met with an overwhelming and exhaustive response. You will lose. Why not quit while you’re ahead, cut your losses, save the lives of your people hiding in bunkers and praying our bombs won’t reach them.”

Lander gave the major a humorless smile. “I thought we already covered this in our last conversation.”

“It’s meaningless to resist, you must see this.”

“You’re not invincible. We beat you once already, or did you forget that? You should’ve killed me when you had the chance.”

“I have no wish to kill you or anyone else.”

Lander couldn’t help but laugh at that. “Are you fucking kidding me? I guess the hundreds of thousands of people you murdered back on Earth was just an accident.”

“A means to an end only.”

“You’re a sick fuck, you know that?”

“Wouldn’t you welcome the chance to live? Or do you wish to die?”

“Killing me is the only way you’ll stop me,” Lander answered.

“I admire your courage, Captain. Truly I do. But in this case, it is misplaced. There is a certain… inevitability about all of this, you understand? You merely prolonged our crusade. Ours is a just cause that no one man can halt.”

“You really believe that shit?” Lander laughed derisively. “They really did brainwash you guys, didn’t they? What you’re doing is wrong, it’s evil—if you can’t see that your war against us is misplaced, that the slaughtering of thousands is wrong, there truly is no hope for peace. This war will just continue until you finally realize you’re wrong.”

“War does not determine who is right—”

“Only who is left,” Lander cut him off, finishing the historic statement. “Yeah, funny that when Churchill said that he was fighting a bunch of assholes all jacked up on their own propaganda. You get the irony there, right?”

“Regardless, the quote remains no less true. It is all a matter of perspective.”

“Perspective? You justify shit. You can’t spin this attack as some sort of crusade for justice. I don’t know what you believe about what actually started the war—for all I know that’s some hyped-up political propaganda invented by your government to justify all this, when all they really want is to conquer and rule. You’ve murdered hundreds of innocent people, and no amount of spin can redeem you of that.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.