Zone Yellow

Chapter 1

During the course of the next twenty-four hours, we got a few Imperial Army units mobilized, equipped with hastily run off wide-field anti-disruptor beams. We made up a six-truck convoy, and forced our way through some flimsy Ylokk barricades to the open countryside with no casualties―on our side. By “we,” I mean Barbro, Luc, our loyal houseman, a dozen or so senior officers of the Army and the NS service, their families, various doctors, mechanics, cooks, a pick-up squad of men on leave, and anybody else who wanted to evacuate, most of them carrying along a few unleave-behindables.

At the edge of the city we commandeered six buses and an Army half-track, and after repulsing repeated feeble attacks, soon gathered in enough men to fill our transport.

“These ‘Lock’ aren’t what you’d call crack troops,” a young lieutenant named Helm commented. He’d served in the peace-keeping force in the Middle East, and he’d seen determined attacks. These fellows seemed tired, half-hearted by comparison. That was OK with me. But they were persistent, and didn’t seem to mind casualties, though they always dragged their dead and wounded away when they fell back, and always they managed to snag a few prisoners.

Once we were clear of the city’s outskirts, the aliens stopped harassing us. Our new gadgets had worked fine, and since the enemy seemed to have specialized in the one, seemingly irresistible weapon, they soon learned to run when we appeared. It was a stand-off: they got the cities; we could have the country. It was peaceful there, but somehow it didn’t look the same. We saw a few evidences of war.