Order of Magnitude

LX. The War: Part 2

     Meghan went down on one knee. Her attacker kept coming, but she was able to get her grappling hook up in time to block a fatal slash. "Please, leave me alone," she screamed. "I surrender." Her enemy either couldn't hear her or was uninterested, and continued his assault. The metal clinked and clashed, and somehow the soldier's pin got caught in the curve of Meghan's grappling hook. She seized this brief moment of fortune and disarmed her opponent. Then, in a move that she would spend nights replaying in her mind, she jammed the pointy end of her hook into the soldier's stomach and pulled up as hard as she could. Blood and organs tumbled out, and he fell to the ground, not yet dead but definitely on his way.

      Meghan scrambled backwards, as far away from the body as she could. She backed into somebody, and looked up to see Hagen. He was covered in parv blood, and scouting around for more troops to slay. He put his hand on her shoulder and helped her to her feet. "Where's Jacques?" she cried out.

      "He's around."

      "We have to stop this. We have to get him to surrender."

      "Surrender? Are you nuts?"

      "Look at this; we're being slaughtered." A group of SubTerrans crowded around them, wounded and scared. They held their weapons in front of them, desperately fending off any attack that came near them.

      "We are trying to change the world," Hagen reiterated. "Casualties are expected."

      "Not like this," someone in the group shouted.

      "Jacques is leading us off a cliff," another parv said.

      Hagen surveyed the angry crowd around him. "Such talk will be met with punishment when we win the day."

      "We're not winning the day!" Meghan shouted. The throng of defeated SubTerrans was growing larger and larger. "We're all going to die here if Jacques doesn't surrender!"

      More words of agreement from the crowd. The Lost army wasn't even attacking the large group anymore. They recognized a good thing when they saw it, and there was nothing better to them then the seeds of doubt beginning to be sown.

      "You dare to stand in the way of victory?" Hagen stammered.

      "Victory?" someone shouted. The rabble became more and more unruly, with their new enemy being Hagen. There was pushing and shoving and arguing all around, like a powder-keg that was starting to erupt.

      Then Meghan saw it. The proverbial last straw for the SubTerrans.

      "Look, it's Jacques," she pointed across the battlefield. The group turned and watched as their leader pulled Edison through the wedge of parvs at the outskirts of the skirmish. In an instant he was gone, far away from the danger.

      "Where's he going?" a voice came from the crowd.

      "He's going to finish the mission," Hagen said with pride.

      "No, he's fleeing!" Meghan countered. "The coward is leaving us to die!"

      The group shouted their consternation. They knew they couldn't take their anger and fears out on their leader, but they could take it out on his right-hand man. SubTerrans shoved and pulled at each other in an attempt to get to Hagen.

      "Do not dare turn against Jacques," he shouted weakly, but nobody was listening. He shoved his way out of the crowd. Meghan followed him.

      "Look at our so-called 'leader'!" she called out to anybody who would listen. "He flees in fear! He doesn't care about us! He never did! We were just a means to an end for him!" the group roared their agreement. "This is not our war! It's his!"

      For a moment, it seemed like the rest of the SubTerrans were going to rally behind Meghan in surrender. But then in one quick moment, Hagen stepped behind her and everything went black.