Read Battle Earth: 12 for Free Online

being serious.”
    “All right, Inter-Allied, form up!”
    There was no enthusiasm from those sat enjoying a brief moment of peace. But Taylor simply turned and left, trusting in the Sergeant Major to get them up and moving. Morris was waiting outside the mess hall as he made his way outside. Jafar was with him.
    “You have found Erdogan?” Jafar asked.
    “Maybe. Sounds like a good enough lead to give it a shot.”
    “You would follow any lead,” he stated.
    Taylor turned and looked at Jafar in surprise.
    “Don’t you start as well! We’re going after this son of a bitch, and if it fails or we don’t find him, we’ll pursue the next lead, and the next one after that until we do find him.”
    “And when we do?”
    “We kill him.”
    “How?” Jafar replied plainly.
    Taylor looked surprised. “What do you mean, how?”
    “Last time we fought Erdogan…we barely survived.”
    “Yeah, well that was then, and this is now,” he snapped back.
    But Jafar appeared unaffected by his outburst.
    “What has changed?” he asked Taylor bluntly.
    If it had been anyone else, Taylor knew he would not have given the question a second thought or even considered answering, but this was different. He briefly thought for a moment, but he couldn’t think of a sensible answer.
    “I don’t know, maybe my motivation if different. Maybe our situation is more desperate? Maybe…”
    He stopped, realising he was grasping at straws.
    “I don’t have an answer, all right? Okay, Erdogan scares the shit out of me. He’s two or three times stronger than Demiran. He outclasses us in every way, and worse, he knows it. He doesn’t show the arrogance of those who came before him. I don’t know how to kill him, short of sticking a nuke down his throat.”
    “You know his location, yes? Then nuke it.”
    “I wish it were that simple.”
    “Why is it not?”
    “Physical confirmation by eye witnesses that Erdogan is dead is all that will suffice. We can never return to Earth for good unless we know he is dead and buried. And this intel we have is probably bullshit, anyway.”
    “And still we go?”
    Taylor nodded. “Yes, because there is still some chance it’s him, such a small chance, but one worth risking it for. We drop a nuke and assume he’s dead because of it, and he could just lure us into another trap. I want to see his body with my own eyes.”
    “And if this is a trap?”
    “I don’t see how.”
    “Like you didn’t see how Kelly and the clones were a trap?” asked Morris who had been lurking behind them.
    Taylor was silenced. It almost brought him to tears as he thought about what that had cost him. Finally, he shrugged it off and turned to face Morris.
    “Honestly I can’t say how I can beat Erdogan, or how any of us can. We’ve trained harder than ever since we last faced him. Maybe we’re up to the task. We’ll find a way because we always do. If you can’t have faith in that, then we have already lost. I believe we can beat Erdogan, and therefore we will.”
    It was wishful thinking, but he was starting to believe it. He began to imagine his Assegai plunging into the alien leader’s throat, and it brought a small smile to his face. Morris leaned in close.
    “You know that next time we see Erdogan, he’ll probably kill us all.”
    “He can try,” replied Taylor, “But he’s gonna have to be willing to die himself, and I’m not sure he’s likely to do that.”
    “What do you mean?” asked Morris.
    “To Erdogan, everything is about him. It’s about his rule, his time. But for me, and I hope the rest of you, it’s about more than that. I never thought I’d die through all this fighting, but finally I have accepted it if it is necessary. If Erdogan cannot risk the same, then he is finished.”
    Morris couldn’t believe what he was hearing.
    “You’re not gonna die. You can’t.”
    “Why?”
    “Because you’ve made it this far, why not to the end?”
    “My fate was always tied to this war.