Chapter 29 #3
I accelerate toward the gate, making sure we’re high enough to avoid harming the protesters.
We zoom over the gate and the hooks catch on the metal.
My ship lurches to a stop in midair and the engines roar, metal grinding and screeching.
I open up the accelerator and feel the gates give beneath us.
A second later, there’s a loud snap as they’re torn from the ground, taking chunks of the wall with them.
“We did it!” Clover says as we accelerate toward the Presidential Palace.
“Told you we would,” I chuckle, watching as the docking hook swings the gate forward.
As soon as the gate has some momentum, I retract the docking hooks, which releases the twisted metal and concrete. The momentum sends it all flying at the Presidential Palace and it crashes through a wall, tearing a hole big enough for the protesters to storm President Highton’s residence.
“There,” I declare smugly. “I think they can take it from here.”
“I hope my parents are okay,” she frets, looking out the window.
“Let’s get higher and see if we can spot them.”
The protesters on the ground beneath us are running toward the Palace en masse. I raise the ship above the front lawn, high enough to see the military and the protesters fighting on the outskirts of the angry mob. The orcs are almost there, so I accelerate in that direction.
“I won’t be able to get a clean shot at any of the soldiers,” I tell Clover. “But I can take out all their equipment.”
I open a communication channel with the orc general on the ground and start firing missiles.
They sail over the crowd, hitting trucks, tanks, and armored vehicles that turn into fireballs below us.
That’s enough to surprise the military and give the protesters the upper hand.
They don’t have weapons that can match the guns the soldiers are carrying but the crowd is big enough to overwhelm them nonetheless.
Some of the soldiers drop their weapons—maybe Clover’s message did get through to them—and the protesters have mostly subdued the rest by the time the orcs arrive.
There’s some tension at first, but once the protesters realize the orcs are there to help, they start working together.
First time I’ve seen orcs and humans work together since before The Great War.
I turn us back to the palace to watch the mob pour through the hole I created in the wall.
From above, they look like floodwater breaking through a cracked dam, rushing over marble paths and manicured gardens that have never known hunger, never known fear, never known the agony of a second-born being sold, and never known the fury coming now for the man who failed an entire country.
President Highton’s security forces try to hold them off, but they fail. The crowd swarms over them and into the mansion, and we wait for an update. Finally, I receive a notification from the team monitoring radio transmissions.
“The protesters have President Highton. They’ve taken out his security detail and they’re dragging him out of the mansion,” I report the good news to Clover.
“I want to see this,” she crows.
Moving closer to the Presidential Palace, we see there’s no military presence left on the ground. The ones who didn’t abandon their uniform are either dead or holding up their hands in surrender. The mob will decide their fate.
“There’s my parents!” Clover shouts, pointing ahead excitedly.
I look out and see them. They’re on the front steps of the Presidential Palace. President Highton is on his knees. The crowd is screaming for his blood.
“Can we land? Please?” she begs.
“You really shouldn’t get off the ship,” I growl. “It isn’t safe.”
“My parents are right there,” she argues. “And I started this.”
I look over and see even more determination in her eyes. She needs this. As much as I needed to watch the humans lower themselves to their knees in surrender when The Great War finally ended. I understand vengeance better than anyone.
“Fine,” I snap, lowering the ship to the ground. Yup, I’m getting soft in my old age. Or maybe it’s just this woman.
The crowd parts beneath us, humans scattering away from the heat of the engines.
A few raise stolen weapons into the air.
Some raise their fists in a salute. This is the first time I’ve heard humans cheer when I arrived instead of scream.
I suspect most of their cheers are for the woman beside me, though.
Clover unbuckles before the ship has fully landed.
“Wait,” I command before she stands up.
I look through the windshield at the palace steps. At President Highton on his knees. At the humans who elected him, now screaming with enough rage to shake the marble beneath them. At Clover’s parents, alive and furious, standing in the middle of the revolution their daughter started.
The ship comes to a rest, and I shut off the engines. Clover isn’t trembling anymore; she’s glowing. The little human girl whose legs shook in my throne room has come into her own. It’s a beautiful sight. So is she.
I reach for my helmet and put it on. The crown forged into the brow settles over my head. I look like a king. Time to show the world I still know how to be one.
“Stay beside me,” I order.
“You’re coming with me?” she asks, her eyebrows shooting up in surprise.
“Yes, of course. I want to make sure you’re safe, and the safest place you’ll ever be is by my side.”
I stand and grab my axe as the ramp lowers. Hot air, smoke, and the roar of thousands of voices rush into my ship.
For the first time in two hundred years, I set foot on human soil without hatred leading the way. Not as a conqueror. Not as a monster. Today I am a protector, a defender, and a liberator.
Clover steps up beside me, and the crowd sees her. The roar changes and they start chanting her name.
Today, I’ll be the kind of king I always should have been.
The kind of king she needs me to be.