I haven't really been writing as best as I can for this story, since it's just an internet serial...but now I'm going to write a lot better. Tension builds!
CHAPTER EIGHTY-THREE
When Cloud saw what was happening at the front gates of Mantin City, he nearly puked then and there, but since it wasn’t even his shuttle, he didn’t. The two Bodhran Sligs leaned forward, and their faces appeared not-so-thrilled, either.
Hundreds of Mudokons were fighting hundreds of Sligs.
Lasers and blue Spoocebolts interlocked the two armies like gleaming hairlines of starshine, and dozens of bodies lay in unmoving heaps on the scorched ground before the Mantin City gates. From this far in the sky, Cloud might have mistaken it for some natural ritual of the earth, but as he knew exactly what it was, he found it a horrific sight of death and destruction to so many.
Neither side seemed to be on the winning end. Both sides were losing their fighters on all fronts.
“That’s…that’s quite a sight,” Crak said. To Cloud’s shock, the gruff old Slig’s voice was choked with emotion.
Cloud clenched his fists. He was a soldier born and bred; he could do this. He could succeed where he had failed before.
He could do his duty – no, strike that. He would do his duty.
He put a new strength into his voice as he spoke. “Switch on the loudspeaker, Frizzl.”
There was such calm command in his voice that the Slig did not even take the time to argue with him. The Bodhran Slig reached out and flicked on the shuttle’s loudspeaker, and Cloud turned to face the speaker box.
“This is the Slig Commando Squad,” Cloud said into the speaker. His clear voice boomed out of the speakers in the underside of the shuttle, playing out across the battlefield below. “Where is the thickest fighting?”
While he waited for a reply, Cloud turned to his friends. Crak and Frizzl had odd looks on their faces, and Crak mouthed Slig Commando Squad…
Cloud shrugged. “How should they know any better?”
The answer wafted up from the battlefield below; someone obviously had a loudspeaker. “The government’s been taken over by an insane power-crazy Gabbit – he’s on the palace roof! Kill him!”
Cloud frowned. Power-crazy Gabbit? How had power suddenly slipped out of King Fragg’s control so quickly?
Despite his confusion, he answered, “Understood. We’ll see what we can do about it.”
He turned to the pilot. “Frizzl, take us to the palace rooftop.”
Frizzl punched the accelerator, and the shuttle lifted toward the huge Mantin City palace. “Will do, boss.”
Cloud leaned his arms on the back of the chair. “Just because I’m giving the orders doesn’t mean I’m the boss. I’ve heard that title given to too many power-hungry Glukkons, and look at what happened to them.”
Crak pointed out the cockpit window. “There’s our Gabbit!”
Cloud looked up, and blinked repeatedly. Frizzl’s ascension had taken the shuttle high enough that he could see the roof of the palace, along with the army of Snoozers climbing up the side of the building and inside through a scorched hole in the roof. A jet-copter hovered above, and in the open side door Cloud could clearly see a Gabbit. Since the species was extinct, and as it was a Slig jet-copter, Cloud had no doubts about the Gabbit’s identity as the one in control.
Cloud had no regrets about saying, “Crak, take the main guns. Shoot him down.”
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