Chapter 82: The Wall
Citizens scrambled out of the way of the entourage as they crossed the city streets.
The Panoplians took the lead, their heavy metal limbs raising and falling in perfect rhythm with each other. Anyone too stupid to move fast enough found the barrel of one of their wrist-mounted cannons pointed at their face, ready to fire.
’Would they kill their own people, just because they didn’t move out of the way?’
Not for the first time, Charon found himself considering what Emerius had said.
’I need to remember that just because this side is the one I’m fighting for, it doesn’t make them perfect. That’s why I need to get back to the Empire. They truly are a force for good in the galaxy, even if they sometimes make bad decisions, it’s always for the people. For humanity.’
It was something he had thought about deeply. He missed his home, and despite seeing some parallels between what the Fort was doing and what he had heard stories of the Empire doing, he noticed that the Empire was always more forward-thinking.
They wouldn’t gun down a civilian for being slow. They might scare them into moving, but they wouldn’t need to raise a cannon to do that.
’I shouldn’t expect the same civility from this settlement that I do from a galaxy-spanning society with millennia of history. They are simply incomparable! Only the dissenters would say otherwise!’
As they walked, he noticed that they followed the opposite path that the spy had taken, still leading them to the outskirts but not crossing the poorer sections of town to do so. The Wall loomed in the distance, the mighty towers and metal turrets visible even from so far away.
It took them almost half an hour to reach it, Charon’s legs burning in protest by the time they finally approached a checkpoint.
It divided the street with a gate, two raised platforms flanking it, with multiple guards in each. An officer stood below, his hand held out to signal their group to stop.
Complying, the Panoplian who was carrying the body halted, while the other continued for a few more steps to address the man.