Ancient Astronauts

Spartan Company

"Sgt. Batts! Your insurrection is at an end! Give up now and you'll join John Hagglethorpe on the noose, but your men will live!"

"Whassat!?" Sgt. Batts replied, "I thought I heard something."

General Kellerman's face twisted in frustration as he lowered the microphone. "Of all the pig headed NCO's in this damned army, why Batts?"

Raising the microphone again, "Sgt. Batts, I'm done playing games with you. Give up your position now, or we'll kill you all!"

Sgt. Batts booming voice carried without a microphone, trained as it was to outblast the fury of a battlefield, "I did hear something!" He shouted, "It almost sounds like...It almost sounds like...pussssyyyyyyy."

His men laughed. Some of General Kellerman's men laughed too but kept it to themselves. Everyone knew NCO's had no souls, but Batts was a popular officer in the army. Many of the men had served with him in one battle or another. The others had all heard of him. If Hans was Captain America, Sgt. Batts was the Winter Soldier. Cold and hard as ice, even on a sweltering day. When the Eastern States' forces were routed at Chernobyl, the troops hooted, "Babe Ruth batts a homerun!" The nickname stuck.

"Goddammit!" General Kellerman shoved the microphone into the hands of an orderly and jumped off the truck bed. "Prepare for a full scale assault," he spat, his face red as Newbury cherry, "No terrorists are gonna take over my town."

"General," a firm, wisened voice spoke from behind one of his barricades.

The General turned around to see a Middle Eastern looking man in outlandish garb with his hands up as four rifles pointed at him.

"What is it, Dr. Alulim?" He motioned for his men to lower their weapons, "Surely, you won't take offense to the term 'terrorist'."

Dr. Alulim shrugged as he lowered his hands, "As long as you don't use it on me."

"I wouldn't be so bold sir," the general said in a peculiarly respectful tone.

"But in this case, I believe you're using it correctly, General. If I may offer some advice?"

"Go on."

Just then Sgt. Batts' voice cut through the air like a knife. The recipient of Sgt. Batts' own version of MSP wasn't Kellerman. The General's face twisted with rage as the words snapped across the street with the fury of a god.

"Listen up Spartan Company!" The company hadn't had a name before that moment since it was made of all volunteers who were technically guilty of defection. They had one now, "Fitting name isn't it!? Three hundred men, three hundred spartans, and nowhere to go! At our backs stand the Hot Gates! Within its bowels is this colony's only chance for a just future! Out there is a baby killing wannabe canary in a fancy top brass cap!"

A bout of laughter swept the assembled company. They'd never said it to his face, but General Kellerman had earned himself a likeness to the tiny yellow bird that only sings when it's safe. Kellerman's face flushed a previously unknown shade of red.

"What started as a standard issue SNAFU is now going full FUBAR, and any yella bellied canaries who want to defect back better do it now. Those who stay here will die here! This is the Second Battle of Bunker Hill gents! A capitol is not a place, it's an idea! Lying on a double pallet within these halls is our new nation's capitol! A champion of freedom! Any fucker who wants to get to him or the innocents at his bedside have three hundred Spartans to go through before they do!"

The speech could've fallen as flat as any other pedantic oration given to the day to day passerby of the street. It likely would've been met with hysterical laughter in the clamorous halls of a session of Congress. But it wasn't. It was given to men within whom the fire of just fury burned for a reckoning, and it was given by Babe Ruth. You just can't beat it.

The speech was met with howls of fury. The barricade bristling with hundreds of barrels glinting ominously in the sun held a promise. You come here, you die. You come here, we die. More of you will litter the street with your corpses than us. Count on it.

General Kellerman took several deep breaths to control himself, then threw back his head and laughed mockingly. If it was an attempt to dispel the tension or steady his own men, it didn't work, and several nervous looks were thrown his way from the men of his regiment.

"General," Ahriman's voice interrupted Kellerman's own furtive glances at his men and clearly determined enemies.

"Uh, erhum. Yes, Dr. Alulim, you were saying?"

"If you order a full scale assault on the hospital, the building will be destroyed and it will take many years to restore all that delicate medical equipment. Not to mention," here Dr. Alulim motioned with a hand behind him where hundreds of Second Chancers were gawking, "innocent civilians will get caught in the crossfire. Don't think they won't. How do you think the citizens will feel about your operation if their sons and daughters and brothers and mothers are added to the casualty list?"

General Kellerman surveyed the gathering crowd, noting that some of the braver souls were even moving in closer using buildings and concrete barriers for cover.

His eyes flicked back to the sage, "What do you suggest?"

"I suggest you negotiate or let me do it for you but first, call for the civilians to clear as you are, ahem, 'dealing with terrorists,' on the off chance that they start shooting first. It will do you credit, General."

"Hmmph," General Kellerman grunted, then snatched back the microphone.

"Clear the street!" He bellowed into the loudspeaker, "The terrorists will be dealt with. The assault begins in ten minutes and anyone who doesn't want to get caught in the crossfire better be outta here!"

"There, that should do it," he muttered under his breath, "Just like the good philanthropist said, label the insurrectionists as terrorists and the people will flee, fucking cattle."