The men who wanted to conquer Caldera left the planet’s biggest city, Rackeye, at 11:00pm and drove trucks to the frontier of Helvetic territory. They carried assault rifles and enough ammunition for a single battle, though they hoped to pass in secret. The vehicles were ditched just before the border and their leader—call-sign Shooter—made contact with a fellow operative who escorted them across. It wasn’t difficult. Outside the Helvetic League, independent colonists believed in free trade and the free movement of people. While they inspected the major freight carriers, they didn’t pay much attention outside the main roads. Only the League’s army, charged with the protection of their society from unwanted invaders, patrolled the area.

  The night was clear. Caldera’s volcanic moon, Ran, shone brightly against the blackness, its ugly red scars tracing the surface like spider webs. Shooter considered that a good omen. He had fifty-two would-be soldiers with him, an unsuspecting victim waiting, and so far, everything was going well. The column marched through a thick forest until they came across a colony town. Trucks supplied by Helvet activists were supposed to meet them. Instead, the men found empty streets.

  “Where the hell is Jacket?” Shooter asked his guide. The fighters and activists only referred to each other using call signs.

  The guide shrugged and remained speechless as he watched the road. Shooter began to lose his patience. Their objective was fifty miles away, separated from them by nothing but open farmland. If they tried to walk, they would likely be spotted by suspicious locals.

  “Here’s a vehicle,” Shooter’s lieutenant, Gearbox, said suddenly.

  In the distance, a pair of headlights had appeared on the road. It was a large truck, but not the one they were waiting for.

  “Let’s take it anyway,” Shooter said.

  Anything was better than waiting around until daylight. He passed the word to the men, and they quickly set up a blockade. Fortunately, no shots were fired. The driver—a mail carrier—turned out to be a friend of the activists and was willing to let the men take his truck. Even so he was shaking with fear, which impressed Shooter. He and his men clearly carried themselves like warriors. They were ready to fight, unlike the peaceful locals.

  While Shooter jumped in the cab with the guide, the others crammed themselves into the empty truck, laying on top of each other and their rifles in the dark, suffocating space. They drove for an hour, until they arrived on the outskirts of a city. The truck pulled into a villa where the men, cursing and desperate for air, tumbled out of the back like dying fish.

  The villa’s owner, Dajik Constarov, rushed out to meet them.

  “Welcome, welcome to Maria,” he said as he grasped Shooter’s hand. “How did it go?”

  “Our vehicle didn’t show,” Shooter explained, “so we had to improvise.” He grinned. Don’t worry, nobody will complain.

  “Excellent, excellent. Please come in and make yourselves at home. I have a lot of food prepared.”

  Dajik was a businessman who liked to work with the well-financed and powerful Helvets. The previous year, colonist terrorists had attacked Rackeye and even taken hostages in a corporate office. The locals argued that nobody in the colony had heard of such an extremist group, or that it was the work of human trafficking activists trying to free kidnapped teenagers. Dajik knew that they were ignorant liars. They often harassed him or shut him out of local affairs because of his relationship with Rackeye.

  To the colonists, the city was a blight on the landscape of a free and prosperous planet; the foothold of an empire bent on bringing every living human under their control. To Dajik, it was the inevitable arrival of civilization to a frontier land. And so, with tensions rising, he had asked some of his friends if he could be more useful. Someone had put him in touch with Shooter, and the plan had begun to take shape.

  “What will your first target be?” Dajik asked as they sipped whiskey in the comfort of his study.

  “The police station is the best place to start,” Shooter explained. “If we can take it quickly, there’ll be no-one to give orders or co-ordinate resistance. Plus, we can take their weapons for our own use.”

  Dajik looked skeptical. “The citizens will form a militia. They’ve done it before, during the animal attacks. Every home has guns here.”

  “That will take time. As soon as we get control of the streets, we’ll go to the administration building and declare a referendum. The people will vote in favor of the creation of a new republic. Once it’s official, the army will come to secure the city.”

  “I hope you’re right about that.”

  Shooter downed the rest of his drink. “Are you ready to be mayor?” he asked with a sly grin.

  “How do you know the army will come?” Dajik insisted. “What if there’s a delay?”

  “I have received assurances. In any case, our force will attract loyalists and grow larger. We will be able to hold out if we have to. Trust me, Dajik.”

  Stolen content warning: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

  “I do, of course,” Dajik said solemnly. “Tomorrow will go down in history.” He laughed. “These people are feckless and stupid. They don’t understand the mission of the League. They have no governance to speak of; they just do whatever they please. Then, when I try and build connections to the wider galaxy, they call me a sympathizer and refuse to work with me.”

  “This distinction that people make is absurd,” Shooter said, shaking his head. “Helvet and Colonist? It’s so artificial— all humanity is united in our journey to the stars. Why can’t they see that?”

  “I don’t think they care. Most are ex-cartel or corporate rejects. They want to live outside the law; bully the weak to get rich.” Dajik raised his eyebrows. “Might makes right.”

  Shooter sighed, then got to his feet. “I have to make a call. Please make sure my men have somewhere to sleep.”

  ***

  Once he was alone, Shooter dialled the number he had been given. It routed through a number of proxy servers in Rackeye before connecting to an encrypted phone.

  “It’s me,” Shooter said, when he heard someone pickup. “We’re in position.”

  “Did everything go alright?” the voice said.

  “Nice and smooth,” Shooter said. No need to cause concern.

  “And everything is ready for tomorrow?”

  “We have enough ammunition. The locals are not prepared. I don’t foresee any problems. What about your end?”

  “I am… meeting resistance. There may be a delay before the army can be mobilized.”

  Shooter sighed and scratched his head. Through an open window, he heard his men laughing and joking in the courtyard. Their morale was good, at least. Most were former soldiers, but some were just ordinary citizens. They had worked in the Rackeye docks, warehouses and bars, or policing the streets. Eighty percent of them had come from a colonist background and migrated to the Helvetic city as opportunity or necessity dictated.

  What distinguished them all was their acceptance of Shooter’s first warning: if the operation went bad, nobody was coming to save them. If the army couldn’t come; if their uprising was suppressed too quickly, they would be framed as independent rebels and left to their fate. At that point, many of the prospective volunteers had walked away. Those that remained had pledged their loyalty to one another. Now, Shooter wondered how many would live to see either victory or defeat.

  “Just do what you can, Agent Genny,” he said. “That’s all we ask for.”

  Outside, a police car pulled up by the villa’s main gate. Two officers got out hesitantly. Their general bearing, as far as Shooter could tell through the darkness, indicated concern.

  “I have to go,” he said, then hung up.

  ***

  “What are you all doing here? Why do you have so many guns?” one of the policemen demanded as Shooter raced to the small crowd at the entrance. In the villa’s grounds, men were standing around with their rifles, and the scene had probably alarmed a neighbor.

  Shooter grabbed the stunned officer’s arm and shook his hand. “I’m in charge of these men, but don’t worry—we are here to liberate Caldera.”

  The elder of the officers stared at him with an expression of incredulity. “Liberate? From what?”

  “Cartel tyranny. Banditry and fascism are rife across the planet. Once we unite this city with the League, the others will soon follow, and civilization will advance once again.”

  Neither policeman said anything. They studied Shooter carefully, looking into his eyes. He saw, with joy, that their confusion quickly gave way to grim solemnity. Of course, he was a serious man, representing serious socio-political forces.

  “I promise you no civilians will be harmed,” Shooter added. “We won’t fight with anyone who doesn’t interfere with our mission.”

  “He’s not insane,” the younger looking officer said. “This is what my old nan used to say about the Helvets. They’re like zealots—the crusade never stops.”

  Shooter nodded. “If you aren’t here to help, my men will disarm and detain you.”

  “Hold on, hold on,” the older officer said as he held up his hands to the approaching fighters. “You believe in law and order, don’t you?”

  “Of course.”

  “Whatever you think is going to happen… wouldn’t it be easier if you negotiated with the chief of police? So we can make sure there’s no violence, at least?”

  Shooter cocked his head. “Do you think you can get him down here?”

  “Yes,” the man said slowly. “I expect he will be very eager to talk to you.”

  ***

  The sun was already rising when the chief finally arrived. He seemed to have thought that the whole thing was a joke and came alone. He argued loudly that everyone in the villa was going to be arrested, until someone pointed the muzzle of a rifle at him. Then he too was disarmed and led away.

  As the morning brightened, a few locals—part of Dajik’s fledgling network—arrived at the villa carrying weapons and eager to join the uprising. Shooter decided they had to move quickly, and the men were piled into a group of military trucks. They drove into the city center and made straight for the police station.

  Arriving at 9 a.m. the convoy secured the street. Shooter jumped out with a handful of men, while others took up blocking positions in surrounding buildings. He found the main entrance locked and shuttered, while nervous looking police hid inside with weapons drawn. Gearbox pulled a tow cable out from one of the vehicles and hitched it to a protective grate covering a window. When the truck ripped it away, Shooter smashed the glass with his rifle butt and climbed inside, followed closely by a dozen of his comrades.

  He quickly worked his way to the main foyer and fired a burst into the ceiling. Nobody moved.

  “Attention, everyone,” he yelled. “The city of Maria is now the territory of the Helvetic League. You will all be disarmed and submit to my authority.”

  Someone yelled from down a corridor. A handful of police had barricaded themselves inside the armory.

  “Lots of ammunition in there,” Gearbox said doubtfully. “They could hold out for a while.”

  Shooter scanned the walls and found a fire plan. He studied it for a moment, then flashed his lieutenant a wink.

  “Courtyard around the back,” he said. “Grab some smoke grenades.”

  The police hadn’t thought to barricade the armory’s window, and it wasn’t difficult to shoot out the glass through the grate and toss grenades inside. The defenders soon stumbled out through the thick, eye-stinging clouds, coughing and spluttering as they gave themselves up. Shooter’s men stripped them of their weapons, interrogated them about other law enforcement locations around the city, then let them go.

  The building was becoming hazy, so Shooter stepped back out into the street, and saw that a small crowd had begun to gather. Angry-looking citizens backed away down the street, pulling out phones when they saw the guns and the disarmed cops. A few dozen remained, excitement written across their faces. The fighters started to build makeshift defenses around the station, and the onlookers ran to find tires, desks and sandbags to help them.

  Then the small crowd cheered. Shooter followed their gazes to the building roof and saw one of his men climbing up to the flagpole. The man quickly lowered the city flag and replaced it with that of the Helvetic League. Shooter smiled as the crowd roared with praise—it was a good start.