Twenty-five
On Ganeymon on the Keltar battle front, it was just another day of uncertainty for the men in the trenches, never knowing when the next Kayton attack would occur. Apart from the odd exchange of artillery fire and the obligatory sniper taking a pot shot, not much was happening on this sector of the front. The young Second Lieutenant, who had been standing next to the unknown soldier when he had been so tragically killed at his side, had subsequently found out that soldier’s name. He had collected all his belongings and put them into storage until the day he could return them in person to his girlfriend, Otterley. Although when, if ever, that day would come, nobody could tell. Everyone now knew the war news was bad and all leave had been cancelled for the foreseeable future. Only their discipline kept them going. How much longer could they hold out? Like everybody else, they just did their duty as ordered.
Anyway, our Lieutenant was sitting there, minding his own business as always, when the man to his left said, “I’ve been hearing rumours that secret weapons are about to change the course of the war.”
“Yes,” the Lieutenant replied, “I’ve been hearing the same stories for the last two years, but nothing ever comes of it. It’s just propaganda put out by Vadoran’s S.I.S to try and keep morale up.”
Then the man to his right said, “God is on our side. Has not the second Guardian been discovered and come over to us? I do believe in the ancient prophecies and that one day the Kultarn miracle will come to pass.”
The Lieutenant just slumped forward with his head in his hands, thinking to himself, oh no, I’ve got a fantasist on one side and a guy with religion on the other; surely things cannot get any worse? Then, at that very moment, sporadic gun shots and explosions could be heard coming from the Kayton side of the lines. Further down the line the Major in charge was scanning the Kayton lines with his binoculars looking for signs of activity.
“They’re up to something,” he declared. “Sound the alarm and go to full battle readiness.”
“Yes, sir,” replied his deputy. As the alarm sounded, word was sent along the whole front line to prepare for an immediate Kayton attack. All the soldiers who were still in their dugouts poured out with their weapons at the ready. All were now as prepared as they could be for what they thought was about to hit them.
A messenger, almost out of breath, then arrived from company headquarters. “Sir, the Drones have turned on the Kaytons.”
“You are kidding, soldier,” the Major replied.
“No, sir. It’s true, the Guardians have knocked out the Drone Command Bunker on Tyros. There is no signal to control them any more. Your orders are to attack at once and help them finish off the Kaytons.”
“Now they are the sort of orders I like,” the Major replied.
As word was passed down the line to commence the attack, cheers could be heard emanating from the men as the news spread very rapidly along the whole front. When the news reached the Lieutenant and his two comrades, they all jumped and shouted for joy at the top of their voices. The Lieutenant said to his two men, “You were both right in your own way. Come on, let’s end the war now.”
When all was ready, the Major gave the order. “Now our time has come. Let us help these freemen finish the Kaytons off once and for all.”
Everyone roared as they followed the Major over the top to their date with destiny. As one they charged and as one they arrived at the former Kayton lines to help the former Drones defeat the remaining Kayton forces. It was all over very quickly. All the Kaytons had been killed or captured as things were starting to settle down.
The Major noticed a group of former Drones lining up Kayton prisoners against a wall, ready to be summarily shot. With some of his men, he ran over and stood between the former Drones and the Kayton prisoners.
“No,” he said. “What you do with the Kaytons you capture on your home planets is your business. But this is a Solaran military controlled area which means in this sector, I am in charge. If this lot have committed war crimes they will be tried by due process in the courts, not like this.
The former Drones, after a slight pause during which anything could have happened, then began to disperse. A serious incident had been avoided.
One former Drone pushed one of the Kayton Prisoners as he left, saying, “Ah, you’re not worth it.”
Another one said to the Major, “We want to go home.”
“Transports are making their way here as we speak,” the Major replied. “You will all be on your way home very soon.”
The tension soon subsided as everyone began to savour the moment of victory by celebrating in their own individual ways. Some just wanted to relax on their own, away from it all, to give themselves time for it to sink in just what had actually happened and reflect on how lucky they had been to survive. For others, it would be a mixture of drinking as well as singing and dancing and who could blame them? It was their moment in history now, a day to remember. And they could all think about returning home to be reunited with their loved ones again now the war was at last at an end.
Things were very different in the former slave labour camps and factories like the one Kronos had spied on. By the time the Hellertron military arrived it was all over. No Kayton had been taken alive. The former Drone guards and the slave labour camp inmates had seen to that and again, who could blame them? It was their revenge for all the pain and misery they had endured during their enslavement. You could hear the former guard dogs yelping as the children threw stones at them and chased them with sticks. It was a good job the dogs were fast runners; the children gave up their pursuit once the dogs reached the relative safety of the nearby forest. They were lucky, though, having all been released just in time by the kennel master who was in charge of looking after the dogs. He looked like Sergeant Schultz from the TV series, Hogan’s Heroes. The last thing he said before the former Drone guards killed him and strung him up was, “You savages, you’re not getting your hands on my little babies… now run like the wind!” He released them from their pens in the kennel complex and they ran out of the main gate and made for the forest. The two alpha male dogs, Max and Prince, were watching from the edge of the forest as the last of the females made it to safety. Now Prince was the hard case; he was just about to run out of the forest and attack one of the children, but then Max turned towards the females and gestured towards Prince as if to say, come on. Prince took the hint and after giving one last ferocious growl at the assembled children, he followed Max and the girls deeper into the forest to start their new lives together as wild pack animals, having from now on to fend for themselves. As Prince caught up with Max and the girls, he nipped Max oForgive the puns, but Max and Prince had experienced a woof… oh, rough time, but were now the top dogs and at least they had all lived to bark another day, which was more than could be said for their former masters.
Crowds of people had gathered around the dead bodies of the Kayton guards, kicking and spitting on them with all the fury and hatred they possessed. A number of the bodies had been strung upside down from the electrified fences that surrounded the camps. Sometimes sparks would fly off them as the odd gust of wind blew the body onto the electrified part of the fence. The war factories themselves had been torched. You could see the flames raging in the distance.
As the hatred subsided and the orgy of destruction came to an end, it was time for the Hellertron civilians as well as the former Drones to start boarding the Transport ships to begin their long journey home. Now it was no secret that the Hellertron military had come in for some very serious criticism from the Solaran military and civilian leadership. The Prime Minister and General Siliax had said as much to the Hellertron Government and High Command many times in the past. But it had to be said, the Hellertron Military Police who were now in charge of repatriating these people back to their home planets, were a cut above the rest of the Hellertron armed forces. The scope of the plan they had to enact was vast but so were the forces they had at their disposal to execute it,
as fleets of military Transports were pressed into service for this mammoth undertaking. The men themselves were highly trained and disciplined. They had the whole operation superbly organised down to the last detail as the civilians and former Drones stood in line to be directed onto their appropriate ships to be homeward bound in a matter of minutes.
The little boy who Kronos had observed being frightened by the guard dog, asked his father, “Is it true, Papa?”
“Yes, son. We are going home.”
They had reached the front of the line now as the military policeman smiled and said to the little boy, “Where are you going, young man?”
“We are going to the Taraxian system, sir,” the boy replied.
“Go to my left, son, with your father and mother and board Transport number seven. You will be on your way home very soon and good luck for the future. And make sure you look after your mother and father; they will always be the best friends you ever have.”
“Thank you, sir,” the boy replied, following his parents to their allotted Transport.
The next in line was the old lady who had the truncheon placed under her chin by the former chicken farmer Kayton guard. She did not give the military policeman chance to speak, but