America's Galactic Foreign Legion - Book 2: Reenlistment (4 page)

“I carry money in my pockets, you idiot,”
said Guido. “You have an organization. You have fine soldiers. But
you waste your energy blowing up convoys? Go into business with the
La Costra Nostra, and we will run this planet within the year. We
will make a fortune.”

“It’s not about money,” said the Lion of the
Forest. “It’s about getting rid of you human pestilence once and
for all.”

“Fanatic,” said Guido. He motioned to the
dragon leader standing next to the Lion of the Forest. “Life is too
short to get involved with fanatics. We could sell that starship.
It’s worth a lot of money.”

“My starship will tip the balance of power on
Inhabited Planet #6,” said the Lion of the Forest. “It will be the
beginning of the end of humanity.”

“Hello! You already lost the war. Your own
Emperor wrote you off and gave this planet to the United States
Galactic Federation,” said Guido. “I’m surprised your own soldiers
don’t kill you. I’m through arguing with you. If you want to go to
war on the wings of the Shenandoah, it’s fine with me. I’ll show
you where it is. I just want to live through this without being
carved up and mailed to Czerinski in pieces. Maybe we will be able
to do business at a later time. The La Costra Nostra will live on,
no matter who wins the war.”

* * * * *

“How did Private Tonelli know about the
Shenandoah?” asked Lieutenant Lopez. “You holding out on me?”

“No, I’m not holding out on you!” I said. “I
don’t know how Tonelli found out about the Shenandoah, but it
explains why he joined the Legion and got sent here. He wants to
steal the Shenandoah from us.”

“Tonelli can’t steal what is buried a mile
deep under the casino ruins,” said Lopez. “He can’t know where the
Shenandoah is hidden.”

“Maybe. Maybe not. Tonelli might have guessed
where it is hidden. There might be rumors out there. If he leads
the Lion of the Woods to the casino, they might start digging.
Spiders love to dig. You know they dig tunnels everywhere. We can’t
take that chance.”

“So what do we do?”

“Put up roadblocks between here and the old
DMZ. I want Disneyland sealed up so tight, even a mouse couldn’t
fart. No one in or out. Arrest more hostages. Continue
interrogations until someone talks. We can still catch them while
they are in the city.”

“Maybe we should go to General Kalipetsis and
work out a deal,” said Lopez. “Cut him in for a share.”

“Not yet,” I said. “I don’t trust Kalipetsis.
He wants to be President someday. It may come to that, but let’s
try it my way first.”

* * * * *

“One of our guards has been killed,”
announced the dragon leader.

“Killed?” asked the Lion of the Forest. “I
heard no shots.”

“I think he was attacked by a wild animal. He
was badly mauled, and his head is missing.”

“What?” The Lion of the Forest he looked up
at Guido. “We are leaving now. Get the car. We will go to another
safe house, then to the tunnels, and then to the DMZ.”

“If there are wild animals out there, perhaps
we should wait until daylight,” suggested Guido.

“Perhaps the human pestilence is right,”
agreed the dragon leader, not wanting to go outside.

“I make the decisions here,” said the Lion of
the Forest. “We leave now!”

“I tried,” said Guido, giving the dragon
leader a wink. “At least untie me. If I get attacked by a pack of
wild animals, I want to be able to defend myself. I heard about the
javelina in these parts.”

“Javelina?” asked the dragon leader. “What is
a javelina?”

“Javelina are a pig-like animal imported from
Old Earth to enforce the curfew,” said Guido. “Except they have all
gone feral. Now they just roam the streets at night, killing
everything. Haven’t you noticed the legionnaires don’t like to
patrol at night?”

“It’s true,” said the dragon leader. “The
human pestilence don’t like to patrol at night.”

“Nonsense,” objected the Lion of the Forest.
“We conduct operations at night all the time, and we have never
lost anyone to javelina.”

“I don’t see how you can say that,” said
Guido. “You just lost someone. His head was torn off.”

“I’m not going out there,” said the dragon
leader. “There could be packs of javelina waiting in the
darkness.”

“I’ve never seen javelina,” said the Lion of
the Forest. “There is no such thing.”

“You never do see them until it is too late,”
advised Guido.

“I found mention of javelina in the data
base,” said the dragon leader as he read his notepad. “It’s a
fierce pig-like creature from the American Southwest. See. It’s
American!”

“Let me see that,” said the Lion of the
Forest, snatching the notepad. “It says nothing here about javelina
being used for military purposes.”

“It wouldn’t,” said Guido. “It’s probably
classified.”

“Fine,” said the Lion of the Forest, turning
to the dragon leader. “Radio all pickets to withdraw indoors until
daylight. Tell them to keep an eye out for javelina. They run in
packs, and we have already lost one freedom fighter to them.”

* * * * *

“Lopez, what is a javelina?” I asked.

“It’s a small wild pig that lives in the
desert,” said Lopez. “They might be extinct.”

“Are they dangerous?”

“No, but I hear they taste good. They are
afraid of people, and for good reason. Usually they run away
because they have been so extensively hunted.”

“Corporal Kool tells me he is intercepting
Spider radio transmissions about javelina,” I said. “It seems the
spiders are afraid to go out at night because packs of wild
javelina are loose on the streets, put there by me. They’ve already
lost three spiders to the javelina. Bodies were found badly mauled
and decapitated.”

“No, that can’t be right,” said Lopez. “But
let’s go with it. We can put up signs that say anyone violating the
curfew will be eaten by javelina. It will help bottle up the city
while we conduct house to house searches.”

<>
<chapter>>
<>
<>

CHAPTER 3

“Captain, it’s the Lion King on the radio
again,” said Corporal Kool. “He is demanding to talk to you.”

“Thank you, Corporal,” I said. “Mufasa! It’s
been a while since we last talked. Is Private Tonelli still
alive?”

“Yes, but not for long if you don’t come up
with his ransom,” threatened the Lion of the Forest. “Do you have
the money? Are you releasing all political prisoners?”

“In a show of good faith, I will release a
few hostages today,” I said. “But I need permission from General
Kalipetsis to release more. Also, we are having trouble raising the
ransom.”

“To show my good faith, I will lower the
ransom to a half million dollars,” said the Lion of the Forest.
“How much money have you raised?”

“Forty-six dollars,” I said. “It’s the
economy. That, and no one cares much for Tonelli. He kind of grates
on people.”

“Don’t you want your legionnaire back in one
piece?” asked the Lion of the Forest. “I will kill him slowly if
you cross me.”

“To tell you the truth, Tonelli isn’t one of
our best legionnaires,” I said. “Did I tell you Tonelli is a
compulsive liar?”

“Maybe,” said the Lion of the Forest. “But
even liars tell the truth if you squeeze them hard enough. Tonelli
says there might be buried treasure under the rubble of your old
casino. What do you think about that?”

“If that was true, I wouldn’t be here,” I
replied. “There might be a few coins, but I’m sure my many
bloodsucking creditors are already sifting through the ruins.”

“We will see,” said the Lion of the Forest.
“You will immediately stop all your house to house searches. If
not, I will explode nukes inside the city limits. I might even
tunnel under City Hall and take you out with a nuke.”

“Nuke Disneyland? And kill many of your own
citizens?” I asked. “You wouldn’t dare. We have seismic detection
devices listening for your digging. If you make any new tunnels,
I’ll pump nerve gas into your holes.”

“The city has been nuked before,” said the
Lion of the Forest. “One more time won’t matter. The place is a
dump, anyway. We have plenty of tunnels already under the city. And
your nerve gas won’t penetrate our exoskeleton.”

“How about if I release javelina in the
tunnels?” I threatened. “Which reminds me. I hear you are afraid of
the dark.”

“Your releasing javelina inside the city
limits constitutes a war crime because of the harm to civilians,”
said the Lion of the Forest. “You will be held accountable for
that. All of you human pestilence will be held accountable.”

“You are trapped inside Disneyland,” I said.
“You had better stop resisting the peace treaty signed by your own
Emperor, or it will be you who is held accountable. I demand you
return Private Tonelli now.”

“You Masons are so arrogant,” said the Lion
of the Forest, as he cut the radio transmission.

“He sounds like he suspects the Shenandoah is
buried under our casino,” said Lopez.

“Yes, but he can’t do anything about it.
Suspend all door to door searches unless the search is based on
reliable intelligence. What was that last part about Masons?”

“Who knows? I think he is going mucho loco,”
said Lieutenant Lopez.

* * * * *

The monitor dragon tracked Guido’s scent to
the new safe house. Now dawn, he climbed a nearby tree to stay cool
and to watch. Spiders came and went all day. Through a window the
dragon could see movement inside the safe house. Spiders would tap
three times on the floor. A sentry would open a hidden trap door.
The dragon watched until night came again. The monitor dragon
stayed in the tree because the perimeter of the safe house was well
lit, and a video camera panned back and forth from atop the
roof.

At about midnight, the lights for the entire
city went out. The dragon slithered down from his perch and
approached the front door. With its paw the dragon turned the door
knob. The door silently opened. Inside the safe house was total
darkness, but the dragon could see perfectly. Night time was the
dragon’s natural time to hunt, and its eyes adjusted well to the
darkness. He could smell a spider off in one of the side rooms. The
spider was sleeping in a bed. The freedom fighter was easily
killed. The dragon ate a few choice cuts of meat and then moved
on.

Standing in the middle of the living room,
the dragon stomped three times on the trap door. The tunnel door
opened. A flashlight lit up the room, but the spider sentry never
saw the dragon crouched to the side. Taken by the throat, the
sentry died quickly. His head was ripped off and cast aside. The
dragon entered the tunnel system beneath Disneyland, following the
scent of Private Guido Tonelli.

* * * * *

“Tell me again why I am here,” I mumbled to
Lieutenant Lopez as I looked out at the audience of spiders. They
all seemed to be smoking imported cigarettes and cigars. “We need a
no smoking sign for public buildings.” I added.

“You are the defacto Mayor of Disneyland,”
whispered Lopez. “The precedent you set tonight will help establish
the civil authority we are trying to build.”

With the strike of a gavel on the table, I
called to order the first City Council meeting for the City of
Disneyland. “I see we have a good crowd. Before I refuse to take
your questions, let me make an opening statement. This is our first
open Council meeting. Let’s make it productive. Any new
business?”

“Yes,” said one of the city council members.
“The garbage is not being picked up.”

“That is because someone blew up our old dump
truck,” I explained.

“Can’t the military provide us with another
few trucks?” asked the City Council member. “My neighbors are
dumping their trash in my front yard.”

“No,” I said. “Local taxes will have to be
used to replace the truck. We will work within the city budget
because the Legion is not paying for a new dump truck.”

“How come our phones don’t work anymore?”
asked a member of the audience. “Nothing seems to work since the
Legion occupied our city.”

“The phones don’t work because insurgents
blew up all the cell phone towers,” I said. “Think about that next
time you give aid to the terrorists.”

“We are not helping the insurgency,” said an
irate spider. “We just want to get on with our lives and live in
peace. We want our city back to normal.”

“Who keeps turning off the electricity?”
asked another spider.

“I did that because I was pissed off about
the dump truck and the cell phone towers being blown up,” I
admitted. “Also, we used the cover of darkness to move troops.”

That answer upset everyone. They soon shouted
more complaints, including neglected pot holes in the streets, rude
legionnaires, speeding military vehicles, soldiers shooting guns
inside the city limits, knocked down street signs, no fresh
groceries, bad tasting water, sewer smell, the curfew, the high
cost of tobacco, and sonic booms from the air force. “We don’t
believe FOX News is fair and balanced,” someone added.

“City Hall will give all of your complaints
priority attention,” I said, “but everything takes time as we
marshal our resources. On the positive side, voter registration is
robust. General Kalipetsis is a little dismayed most of you are
registering as democrats, but no process is perfect.”

“You are our mayor, but we did not elect
you,” complained another spider. “You impose taxation with out
representation.”

“If you think taxation without representation
is bad, you should see taxation
with
representation,” I
replied.

A spider waved his claw at me and asked,
“What are you doing about the packs of javelina running wild in our
streets at night? They are a menace.”