Nuclear Winter | Book 3 | Chain Breakers

by Jones, Nathan

  Pete endured the man's tirade in stony silence. “I'll give you one,” he said once Torm was finished, “because you're grieving a friend. But only one, Private.”

  After a tense few seconds where he was sure Torm would take a swing at him, the man sullenly straightened. “Corporal.”

  Pete nodded and turned to leave, not about to push his luck.

  As he was opening the door Torm spoke quietly behind him. “The sergeant was a good man, you know. Kind to his men, kind to the slaves we rescued, kind to the civilians we came in contact with. You've been with us long enough to know that's true. The only ones he had no pity for were slavers, and even you should understand why.”

  Pausing, Pete turned back to see that the private had gone back to staring at his friend's casket. “You're wrong.” Torm started to whirl, wrath rekindled in an instant, and Pete calmly continued. “I may not have agreed with some of the things Sergeant Chavez had you do, and I'll admit I seriously considered reporting him for war crimes, but I did respect him for leading the squad safely through so many raids.”

  Torm snorted, rage giving way to bitterness. “Looks like you're in charge now, Corp,” he said, turning away again. “Let's see if you can do any better at making the hard decisions.”

  Well that was the challenge he faced, all right. Pete finished closing the door and walked away.

  Jack, Monty, Lily, and other members of their group, including Kathleen and her husband, were seated at the bar sharing a round. Pete noticed Ellen was there as well and wondered if he was in the mood to deal with a night of not quite flirting with her.

  But he'd promised, and anyway Lily had already spotted him and was waving eagerly. Pete made his way over and accepted the mixed drink Jack shoved into his hand, taking a deep gulp of it.

  After which he choked to avoid gagging. Honestly, that had to be the vilest thing he'd ever tasted. Coughing, he glanced at the greenish-brown mixture. “What the blazes is this?”

  Monty had the glassy smile of someone who'd already had more than a few. “We're calling it the Chavez. Jack got behind the bar and mixed together a bunch of the nastiest stuff he could find.”

  “Including what, silverware polish and drain cleaner?” Pete looked around and saw that nobody besides Jack and Monty were drinking the concoction. Lily was shaking her head in disapproval. He shoved the glass back at his friend. “I'll stick with anything else.”

  “Suit yourself, I think this stuff is delicious,” Jack said through an almost incomprehensible slur. He took the glass back and gulped down almost a third of it, and Pete's stomach roiled in sympathy.

  Yeah, Pete had noticed the drunker his friend got, the worse the mixed drinks he made tasted because he kept trying to make them stronger and seemed to notice the taste less and less. Jack had mixed some truly bizarre combinations before, but this had to be his worst.

  Pete met Lily's eye, and she pantomimed slapping her forehead and grinned at him. She didn't drink, and Jack had cut way back himself since coming to Lafayette, probably largely due to her good influence. Still, she'd been around him enough to witness this particular phenomenon a few times, and it always amused and irritated her in equal measure.

  Pete grinned back, reminded of why he liked spending time with her. Now as long as Jack had got the point across and she left his past alone, hopefully things could get back to normal.

  The wake was one of those unique combinations of solemn well-wishing, reserved grief, gallows humor, and straight up uninhibited revelry. Often all from the same people. When the entire Epsilon Squad challenged each other to take a swig of beer for every successful fight the squad had come through in its long history, many before any of them even joined it, Pete had to bow out. Even so he was plied for numbers on Epsilon's performance when he'd been with the squad years ago, and he reluctantly agreed to drink for at least those victories.

  He was glad he'd refused the challenge a bit later, when a private interrupted the event delivering a summons for him from Captain Renault. Pete reluctantly slipped out of the bar, leaving the wake to continue on undiminished behind him.

  “I know my way to Headquarters,” he told the messenger, who nodded and walked away as Pete headed for the center of camp and entered the sturdy building.

  The soldier on duty at the receptions desk was from a Canadian unit. He looked up as Pete walked in. “I'm Corporal Childress. Captain Renault asked to see me.”

  “I'll notify him of your arrival,” the soldier said. He gestured curtly towards the chairs along the wall. “Have a seat.”

  “Thanks,” Pete replied, slumping down on one. Not the most comfortable chairs, but he'd seen worse.

  The Canadian didn't respond, although as he turned away he muttered under his breath in French. “Chainbreakers? More like unchained rabid dogs.”

  Pete kept his expression carefully neutral. People tended to assume Americans weren't bilingual. For the most part they were right, although that was changing these days with more and more incentives to learn Spanish, French, and even Russian and Chinese. Between living in Canada, contact with Mexican traders, and dealing with all the freed slaves or even CCZ deserters running around, knowing an extra language or two wasn't the worst idea.

  In Pete's case he knew a few Russian and Spanish words and could cuss out a slaver in Chinese, but he was nearly fluent in French. Five years spent up in northern Canada had seen to that, and he'd gotten a solid start the winter he'd spent with the Roys. Especially since he'd had a very enthusiastic tutor and lots of free time to practice.

  The expected surge of pain swept through him at the thought of Abella, and his hand reflexively lifted to close over the ring hanging around his neck with his dog tags.

  The receptionist returned not long after that and nodded curtly towards the door. Pete stood and made his way over, knocked and waited for an invitation to enter, then stepped inside and saluted.

  Renault's office was just as disorganized as when he'd last seen it, the captain himself just as exhausted looking and borderline unkempt in appearance. Renault saluted back curtly and motioned for Pete to stand at ease. “Corporal. My condolences for the loss of your squad mates.”

  “Thank you, sir.”

  “As you've probably guessed, you'll be taking over for Sergeant Chavez as squad leader. I asked you to come in mostly as a courtesy, to inform you that Epsilon squad has been taken off active duty. In a week you'll all be transferred to the 100th.”

  Although Pete had been expecting to get chewed out, this announcement hit him like a baseball bat to the chest. The 100th was a greener company, who'd taken over the duties of the 102nd escorting convoys when the Lancers were put in charge of Lafayette. They were basically glorified security, operating so far from the border with the CCZ that their main concern was preventing petty theft rather than protecting against slaver attacks.

  “May I ask why, sir?” Pete asked. “We've been the most effective squad in the company. Just because we lost our sergeant doesn't mean we can't still functio-”

  “It's not about that,” Renault cut in coolly. “Less than an hour ago the 102nd slapped a report on my desk. They'd been gathering complaints from freed slaves and civilians, even fellow soldiers stationed in Lafayette, of major human rights violations committed by Epsilon Squad.”

  Pete felt his heart sink. It didn't take a genius to guess where that report had come from. He should've seen this coming the moment Vernon started taking an interest in the people they brought out of the CCZ. “Will there be formal charges?” he asked quietly.

  The captain scowled. “Against whom? Your sergeant would've ordered any such actions, or been responsible for them if he knew but didn't put a stop to them. The fact that Epsilon has been torturing slavers for information for who knows how long sort of lends weight to that assumption, wouldn't you say?”

  Pete couldn't think of any good answer to that. Renault sighed and leaned back in his chair. “Now that the man is dead, the best we could hope for is to
go after anyone in the squad who committed those atrocities on his say-so. But the report doesn't mention anyone specifically, so unless we wanted to bring the whole squad up on charges, further sullying the Chainbreakers' good name, we'll have to leave it at that.”

  So the man was going to bury this to protect the 103rd and his own career. Not surprising, since Epsilon couldn't have been the only squad doing this sort of thing and the company commander had to have known at least some of what was going on. For all Pete knew Renault may have been complicit in some of it himself.

  Epsilon was just the first squad that had been publicly outed, so they'd be the scapegoats. To be honest Pete almost didn't mind; he bore his own responsibility for all this since he hadn't spoken up to put a stop to it. Small comfort in the likelihood that if he had he probably would've ended up the sole scapegoat in the mess and nothing would've changed. Even so.

  “There are rules in war,” Matt had told him. “Not for the enemy's sake, but for ours. To keep us from becoming animals like them.”

  Pete hadn't understood then, but that's because he'd fought beside good men who knew where the line was and stalwartly refused to cross it. Since then he'd fought alongside soldiers who frightened him almost as much as the slavers, especially when he'd rejoined Epsilon.

  At the moment he was almost tempted to feed Renault Torm's name as Chavez's personal torturer. It was actually on the tip of his tongue, and he couldn't think of any reason why he shouldn't.

  But somehow the words didn't come. Maybe because he valued loyalty to a squad mate and didn't want to rat the man out, even if Torm deserved it. Or maybe because it was too late anyway and Chavez would already be eating all the blame, so most likely the only thing it would accomplish would be making an enemy of a very dangerous and likely unstable man. Or maybe he thought that now that he was in command he could rein Torm in, prevent him from continuing his activities.

  Either way the moment passed, and Renault continued. “I'm sorry it has to be like this. I haven't forgotten Epsilon's exemplary service, and hitting you with this during the middle of Chavez's wake is a lousy move. I just wanted your squad to have time to get used to the idea.” He straightened, suddenly businesslike. “Now, before you all become somebody else's problem there is one final service your squad can do for the Chainbreakers.”

  Well that was some great motivation right there. “Sir?”

  The captain nodded. “It'll be right up your alley once you move over to the 100th, the sort of duties they carry out. So you might as well get started now.” He saw Pete's slightly impatient look and picked up a box from his desk, which from the way he held it was moderately heavy. “Courier work. With a bit tacked on.”

  Pete waited patiently for the man to continue, still not enthused.

  “I don't know if you've noticed, but there's a pattern to CCZ raiding activity. The hotbed was up in Canada proper for a while, then they gradually moved down to the Northern US and finally here.”

  “Yeah, the Locust Swarm,” Pete said, nodding.

  “Right. Well you're in the thick of it so it's hard to tell, but over the last few months slaver activity in the area has started to die down.”

  Ah. Pete had assumed that the slavers were having less opportunities to raid because they were so busy dealing with the Chainbreakers and other companies raiding into their territory. But this would explain the uptick in slaver activity along the Mexican border. “So you think the Locust Swarm is preparing to move on.”

  “Not me, Command.”

  Pete nodded. He hadn't seen it before, but now it was fairly obvious.

  This was fairly consistent behavior for the slavers. Their people raided along every border, of course, but the serious raiders they trained and supplied went in large numbers into an area until the pickings started getting slim and the locals began seriously resisting them, then they'd move on to another target. That was why early on the raids had mostly been in Canada, as in to the north, where their victims actually had things to steal. And then as the Eastern States got back on their feet the slavers had steadily moved on to there.

  If the enemy went clockwise picking their raiding targets that meant their next victims would be in the South, but Pete wondered whether the CCZ would seriously risk angering Mexico and losing the food the country supplied them by sending the full force of their Locust Swarm. Their people raided into Mexico, sure, but never enough to seriously strain relations.

  “So the next target for the swarm is going to be . . .” Pete began.

  “The United States of America,” Renault confirmed. “The National Guard has already reported increased slaver activity along their borders near Mexico.”

  Pete nodded and waited patiently until the captain sighed and continued. “Which brings us to the last mission Epsilon will be doing for the Chainbreakers, Corporal. I'm not sure if the USA has been tracking slaver activity like we have, since they haven't been the focused targets of the main Locust Swarm. But even if they have, they won't have any personal experience fighting the swarm like we do.”

  Renault patted the top of the box. “This is everything we have on the behavior and tactics of the Locust Swarm, including high level intelligence. Seriously classified stuff, the sort we rig with an incendiary so if it looks like it might be captured by the enemy you can destroy it rather than let it fall into their hands.”

  “Sounds like basic courier work so far, sir. What's this “bit tacked on?”

  “Well the soldiers in your squad are some of the most experienced we have when it comes to dealing with the Locust Swarm,” the captain replied. “A box full of dry intel only goes so far, and Epsilon can also lend them your expertise; give them an idea of what to expect, and maybe collaborate with them on instructing their troops so they're ready for what's coming their way.”

  In spite of himself Pete's heart surged with equal parts panic and expectation. That sort of task would involve a longer stay than just the time it took to wade through red tape and hand over a few documents. Which meant he'd have no excuse not to touch base with Aspen Hill.

  He hadn't been home in six years. He didn't really feel like he had a home anymore. But if he was sent to the USA it meant he could finally-

  “So I'd like you to send your second, or at least who I assume will be your second going forward. Team 3's leader, Private Paulson, along with a full team.”

  Pete blinked. Torm's name was Paulson? The idea that the interrogator actually had a name was a bit of a surprise, and embarrassing that that was surprising.

  More importantly Renault wanted Torm to go, not him. “Private Paulson,” he repeated, feeling a surge of disappointment.

  “Our records show he's the one who provided most of the intel Epsilon brought us.” The captain steepled his fingers. “Brief him on what to expect, and what his likely duties will be after delivering this classified material. Assuming the Americans want his help.”

  Pete took a deep breath. “I'd like to go with him, sir.” And not just out of a desire to see home again; he wasn't about to send Torm off on his own in a leadership role if he could help it.

  The captain swore. “Are you serious, Childress? Your squad just lost its sergeant and you haven't even had time to get them used to you as their new squad leader. Leadership is already weak, and you want to disrupt it again by taking everyone in the squad qualified to lead? Why do you even want to go?”

  Unfortunately that was a good question. He hadn't wanted to for six years, but suddenly Pete found that he really did. “I grew up in Utah, sir,” he answered. “I haven't been home since before the first winter.”

  There was a long, uncomfortable silence. “Ah,” Renault finally said. “I did not know that.” He sighed. “I suppose you're familiar with the area the USA will be defending against slavers?”

  Pete hesitated, then nodded. Carbon County was pretty deep into US territory, but a road led directly there from the northeast so the slavers might strike that way.

  “And I'
m guessing you know people there who might help you get your message to the people who need to hear it?”

  After another brief hesitation Pete nodded again. Davis and Faraday had both long since been assigned back home, maybe even retired to civilian jobs. And he was sure he knew at least one or two others who'd be able to catch the ears of some bigwigs.

  Renault swore again. “So you're the best qualified for the assignment as well as having a good reason to want it.” He sighed. “I suppose your squad is due extended leave, and you're all going to be out of my hair in a week. They can sit on their hands until you get back.”

  Pete fought to hide his elation. “Thank you, sir.”

  The captain handed him the box, then grabbed a folder and set it on top. “Here. There's your mission specifics. We'll requisition you a car and arrange details from this end, let them know you're coming if not that you're carrying sensitive information. You'll leave in the morning, and if the Americans don't want your help or it doesn't take you long to share your knowledge I expect you back in a week for the transfer to the 100th.”

  A week wasn't all that long, considering. Pete half wondered just how solid that particular timeline was: what was Renault going to do if he came back late, kick him out of the Chainbreakers?

  Tucking the box under one arm, he straightened to attention and saluted crisply. Renault nodded his dismissal, and Pete turned and strode from the room.

  * * * * *

  The surviving members of Epsilon were still at the wake when Pete got back to it, still carrying the box of classified material; technically he wasn't supposed to let it out of his sight until he delivered it.

  It took a bit of work to get everyone out and to a fairly quiet, secluded spot nearby so he could deliver the news. And as expected, it didn't go well.

  “You're saying your feud with that Lancer got us kicked out of the Chainbreakers?” Torm demanded furiously.