“Twenty thousand martyrs,” Jim spoke up. “Give or take a grand.”

Manny’s blood went cold. The SDF, at its height, hadn’t been more than six thousand fighters. And those were spread out across the serried battlegrounds of North Texas. The whole Free City of Austin didn’t have more than five thousand people in its full-time Defense Corps. Twenty thousand men was…

“Impossible,” he said. “That’s fucking impossible.”

“I’d be inclined to agree with you, kid,” said Jim, “if my own men hadn’t double-confirmed the count for us. The Kingdom has already marshaled half of that force on the outskirts of DFW, near Lancaster. They’ll be in Waco tomorrow if no one stops them. Hell, they could be pounding Austin with artillery by dark.”

Donald Farris nodded. “Mr. Shannon here,” gesturing to Jim, “has agreed to lend a hand, along with several dozen of his mercenaries. Add that to the warriors of Rolling Fuck, and we’ve got seven-­hundredish post-humans. It’s large enough force to hold Waco. And badly bloody their nose.”

“But,” Kishori spoke for the first time. She had a deep, gravelly voice that sounded like she’d been eating cigarettes for the last ten years. “Rolling Fuck is not in the business of volunteering for our own Vietnams. My people aren’t signing up for a war.”

“I can guarantee our presence on the battlefield for up to ­forty-eight hours. Enough time for vengeance,” she continued. “After that, you’re herding cats.”

“Is that a problem?” Manny asked. “I mean, I saw Roland lay waste to half a city. Six-hundred of him…”

“There’s only one of him,” Kishori said.

Jim nodded in agreement and fixed Manny with his uncomfortable gray eyes. “See kid,” he said, “me or any one of Rolling Fuck’s warriors is good for a few dozen normal troops in a straight fight. More if we’re talking half-trained partisans. But nobody’s like Roland.”

Manny looked over to Roland. The big man seemed distinctly uncomfortable with all the attention. He stared down at his hands, which seemed to be occupied with tearing up a paper drink coaster.

“The Martyrs have a lot of half-trained partisans, but they’ve also got tanks, artillery, suits… The resources of a nation state. Or close enough. Rolling Fuck can hold that off for a while, but without Roland the best they can do is delay the inevitable.

“Now WITH Roland,” Jim continued, “this is a two-hour fight, tops. We set up our troops in some little chunk of the city and start dropping mortars and rockets on their vanguard. They pull up, encircle us, and start deploying their artillery to bomb us to Kingdom Come. Then, when they’re good and packed together, we drop Roland on their asses.”