Hostile Genus: An Epic Military Sci-Fi Series (Invasive Species Book 2) Ben Stevens (best contemporary novels txt) 📖

“Likewise,” Jon said.

Maya walked onto the stage, Jon and Lucy flanking her. Ratt stayed on the steps.

Maya faced the crowd, just as she had done hours earlier. Then, they had been screaming with joy. Seeing a Lily Sapphire show would most likely be the highlight of the decade, if not their entire lives. Now she was greeted by hurt, confusion, worry, concern. Many humans had died in that battle—men who had families, wives, children; men who were needed at their homes and farms. Maya had never anticipated just how many people—human people—would fight to the death to protect their oppressors. She looked into the crowds across the plaza, women and men alike, and saw old and young crying over the bodies of human sentries that had met their fates on the edge of Lucy’s Macuahuitl. There was not enough left of those who had fallen to her pistol to identify, and this accounted for at least a percentage of the citizens walking around aimlessly, crying and confused.

Maya found herself momentarily at a loss for words. The sight of this suffering confused and frightened her.

“This wasn’t how it was supposed to be at all,” she mumbled to herself, her resolve evaporating. She opened her mouth to say something and stammered. A tidal wave of raw emotion came crashing in from nowhere, and she found herself choking up. A single burning hot tear blazed its way down her face and fell from her dirty chin to dampen her dress. Just as she was about to turn and run, she felt Jon’s hand take hers and squeeze again. She jerked her head and looked at him.

“It’s okay,” Jon said, gently nodding his head. “They need to hear from you, from Lily Sapphire.” She squeezed her eyes shut tight as Jon was squeezing her hand, pushing the tears that welled there out and down her cheeks—a wave of homesteaders following the first trailblazer.

Jon relaxed his grip, gave her one last little squeeze, and then released her hand. She was ready. Again she turned to face the free and broken people of the city-state.

“People of New Puebla. Please hear me.” Her voice came out amplified as if she was using a microphone. “You are now free. The monsters that have enslaved you have all been destroyed.”

Silence, at first. Confused silence. Then,

“Did we look enslaved?”

The question hit her like a slug of DU from Carbine’s railgun. She felt as if the air were knocked out of her lungs. Confusion followed the impact of the question, like the shockwave that followed the bullet. Jon glanced over at Maya, then to Lucy, looking as if he hadn’t heard the question correctly.

“Wha…what?” Maya managed, scanning the crowd, trying to find the asker of the question.

“I asked you if we looked enslaved. You killed the monsters, as you call them. Those so-called monsters were our government. Our protection, our military.” Maya now saw the speaker: a simple-looking farmer man, not a sentry. From the corner of her eye, she saw Lucy’s hands drift to the handles of her saddled war-clubs. Her Feroz Pantera would, of course, be more concerned with crowd control and her lady’s safety, and not the moral crisis developing here.

“What about Eduardo? The Munez family? Their father was murdered. They told us you couldn’t leave! That people disappear!”

“Ricardo Munez was a drunk!” someone shouted back.

“He probably abandoned them!” another voice cried.

Maya turned to Lucy, feeling sick to her stomach.

“Do you see them?” she asked. Lucy scanned the crowd, and with apprehension on her face, turned back to Maya and shook her head slowly side to side.

“I can’t believe what I’m hearing!” Jon exclaimed. “We risked our lives for you people!” He stepped forward and stood side by side with Maya. “Surely you people don’t think that you were better off with the vampires?” His brow creased, and his eyes flashed. Both of his hands turned palm-up in a demanding gesture.

The old farmer didn’t let up. “They were fair. Good rulers. Never hurt no one,” the old man shouted, this time louder. All four of the companions saw with trepidation the nods of approval that came from all corners of the gathered crowd. Jon squinted in revulsion and confusion.

Maya shook her head and blurted out, “But the blood tax?”

“Everyone has to pay tax.”

“It’s no big deal.”

“It’s for the greater good!”

New voices began to pop up here and there, bringing with them some scattered exclamations of “Yeah” and “That’s right.”

“No!” Maya’s confusion turned to hurt anger. “They eat you. They murder you. We’ve seen it!” She clenched her fists and stamped her foot down on the stage.

“Prove it!”

“Lies!”

Then came the worst one yet. From the old farmer, naturally, he who had clearly given up freedom for comfort long ago. “Even if that’s true, the ones they occasionally take is nothing compared to what would happen to all of us if they weren’t here to protect us from what comes out of the Drops!”

“The real monsters are out there! Demons!” shouted one.

“People like you! You killed my son!” shouted another.

“You killed my husband!” Now there were fists pumping the night air. Lucy flexed and crouched almost imperceptibly, ready for what might come next.

“That couldn’t be helped!” Maya cried, her tears making an encore performance. “Our fight was only with the creatures that enslaved you. We never meant to harm you. I’m sorry.”

“You’re sorry?” one haggard and very angry woman shouted as she stood over the top half of a fallen man’s body. The questions melted away into a mess of shouts. The crowd had turned into a mob in the blink of an eye.

“Don’t you see?” Maya’s voice, cracking with sorrow and tears, still boomed magically over the crowd’s roar. “You say the vampires provided you with a nice life, but you can still have that nice life without having to die or kneel or work twice as hard! Without them stealing and killing you! No more blood tax! You’re free!”

Maybe,