(A short snippet today ~Jason)

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With Corporal Jeffe leading the way, the trio of enlisted exited the building and stood in front of the door in the warm, poisonous rain of Myrkyma. Sergeant Buckholz looked around at the gathered mob and snorted derisively.

“Unless you are here to join the Legion, you are ordered to disperse from these premises,” he called out in a tone which brooked no argument. His voice easily carried over the assembled crowd of a dozen or so men and women. Flanking him, both corporals remained motionless, as still as stone. If not for the slight movements of their chests, Diego would have thought them statues. “This is sovereign soil of the Protectorate of Mars Primus.”

“Land stolen from us to bribe Martians to do the dirty work of the Tyrants!” a woman’s voice cried out from within the crowd.

“Odd . . . I would’ve thought it’d be one of the men,” Captain Rhys murmured. Diego said nothing. He really didn’t know if he was supposed to respond, or if the large officer had merely been thinking out loud. Guessing wrong in the past when dealing with men in charge had oftentimes led to beatings. Better to say nothing and be forgotten then to speak and remind someone a thrashing was due.

“The Protectorate does not interfere with local politics,” Sergeant Buckholz responded. The angry crowd, Diego noticed, was getting more and more worked up with each passing second. His sharp eyes spotted at least three knives, a blackjack, and a cheap-looking pistol which appeared older than Klysgaard itself, one which he doubted would even fire. “We don’t even care—”

“Give us the Tyrant bastard!” a man screamed and pointed at Diego. “That one! His father was the Butcher of Archangel! The Revolutionary Tribunal Council has decreed that anyone with Tyrant blood is to be executed to prevent their taint from spreading any further, trueborn or other! He might not be a trueborn son of a Tyrant, but he has their blood! He’ll be a monster like them!”

Diego swallowed nervously and looked up at Captain Rhys. How could four men handle such a mob?

Only the captain appeared . . . bored?

“I won’t ask you again.” Sergeant Buckholz raised his voice slightly, his tone colder than anything Diego had heard or felt before in his life. The switch from pleasant yet firm to dangerous had been abrupt. He wondered if anyone else in the crowd had noticed. Would it even matter at this point? “Please disperse, or be dispersed.”

“His kind are evil and need to be killed!” the first woman screeched again.

“Ma’am?” Sergeant Buckholz paused and adjusted his uniform slightly. “You are free to test the Legion’s resolve in this matter at your leisure, but be forewarned that our response will be quite . . . robust. You shall not enjoy it.”

One man screamed, a cry filled with hate and passion, and charged Corporal Jeffe. The legionnaire twisted slightly and planted his rear foot. With one hand, he held up his palm, a seemingly wasted gesture to force his would-be attacker to halt. However, Diego watched as Jeffe’s other hand made a peculiar twisting motion. A two-foot-long metallic baton snapped out and lashed forward, a brutally fast strike which caught the revolutionary square in the jaw. Before the man could ever register he’d been struck, Jeffe brought the baton in for a follow-up blow. The baton struck the man’s knee, and he was falling face forward, unconscious and more than likely permanently crippled, before anyone else could even react.

Jeffe slid forward two feet, his momentum carrying him, before he froze. Slowly he raised his head and looked at the stilled crowd. Barely two seconds had passed from the moment the attack had begun. Diego couldn’t believe it. He’d never seen anyone move so quickly or fluidly in his life. There was no way the human body could do that, and yet he’d seen it with his very own eyes.

“That’s one test of our resolve,” Sergeant Buckholz said into the silence. There were uneasy glances shared between those in the mob. “I think your man failed. Would anyone else like to try?”

“Murderers!”

“Not yet,” Sergeant Buckholz replied coolly. “He still lives. He’ll be eating through a straw for the next year, and I doubt he’ll walk normally without major reconstructive surgery on his tibia, but he breathes. He survives at our discretion now.”

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