With the controls destroyed, the Kashmir’s nose dipped dramatically, far more than forty-five degrees. I clung to the seats even though they burned my arms. Better that than falling out of the hole where the windshield used to be. The thirty-meter plummet to the ground would surely kill me.
Then I saw an Athapasca APC troop carrier and soldier girls, taking cover. I eased myself back on the floor, and I lashed the seatbelt around the crate—I’d had bad experiences before with ammo falling out of zeppelins during a firefight. Once I had the box secured, I tried to target the APC as the Kashmir spun away to the right. The landscape blurred. I couldn’t see, but I knew we’d go spinning around again so I could take my shot.
My fingers had gone numb from the cold now blasting through the ruins of the cockpit; falling snow hissed on scorched plastic, but I managed to get a good grip on the Panzerfaust and my finger around the trigger.
Turned. Perfect. The airship came spinning around, and I saw the troop carrier, and I pulled the trigger, praying rather than aiming. The grenade flashed through the air at three hundred meters per second and struck the troop carrier. The soldier girls were sent sprawling. A direct hit. What if Pilate and Micaiah were with them? Had I just accidentally killed them? And how did I feel about murdering again?
No time for guilt nor doubt. Not if I wanted to keep breathing. Yes, I’d hit the Regios hard, but now I was a target.
Bullets pinged around the cockpit. I ducked low. Until the Kashmir spun away, and I was tossed around as more bullets filled the air.
One chunk of lead hit my arm but didn’t have the velocity to break the skin. It would leave a bruise, doubtless. But I was lucky. Another round scratched my cheek. I touched and felt the blood.
I ducked back to the floor even as the Kashmir did another spin, the nose rising until I had to grab ahold of the seat or go plunging back down the hall. While clinging there, I saw the wires connected to the stump of the yoke sawing back and forth. If I could get a foot in there, I might be able to ease off some of the spinning. Might be able to control her some.
I skittered around and jammed my foot against the yoke’s nub. And pushed right. The slipper tore right off, but I kept pushing even as the metal bit into my skin.
The Kashmir IV swung around, but we leveled off—level enough for me to dig out another grenade and reload my Panzerfaust.
I didn’t know German, but you watch enough documentaries on World War II, you know what the word “panzer” means: it means tank. And Faust? I’d suffered through Goethe in English class. Faust meant devil. Put them together and you get a devil that can destroy tanks.
That was what I had to take out that Acevedo.
As I whirled around again, I pushed the stock into my shoulder, ready, and then I saw the tank.
This time I aimed and fired. Nope. The crater I’d made next to the Acevedo smoked, but the tank itself was fine. The turret lifted as I watched. Lifted higher and higher until it was clear I was its next target.
Incoming.
(ii)
The tank’s shell exploded in a fiery blast of red fire and charred the starboard side of my zeppelin.
Jackering skanks had missed, but I didn’t think I’d get lucky again.
I used to think I was a coward or stupid or just young during all the fighting I’d done. But the truth was my level of violence had been low, and I’d not had the training I’d needed.
Up in the Kashmir, what I did, I did out of necessity. It wasn’t about courage or fear, logic or stupidity, age or immaturity. It was about dealing with one issue at a time while trying to handle the adrenaline and panic. But I’d been living on the edge so long, I’d gotten used to it.
And that is a sad thing, to be so violent and so accustomed to fighting that it’s just another Tuesday and your life is on the line. No big deal.
Such a life, such trauma, leaves marks and leaves them deep.
There was only one thing I could do.
Sucking in breath, trying to think through the thunder of my heart, I set my back against the chair and pushed down on the stump of the yoke. No time to reload the Panzerfaust: I’d have to get the tank with the zeppelin herself. I just had to hope the Marilyn was tied up next to the rear hatch, so if I hit the tank with the nose, I might be able to disable the turret, bend the metal, fix it into place, and leave the Acevedo useless.
Might’ve been a good plan if I hadn’t been right there in the nose of the Kashmir IV. Wasn’t sure if I’d survive it, but again, I was chasing after my instincts to eliminate the current threat, that tank below.
I stood on the ruins of the yoke with both feet. The metal ripped into my flesh. I hardly felt the pain and didn’t feel the blood.
The zeppelin plummeted. And doubt filled me. It was a bad idea. But I couldn’t stop. Better I die killing the tank than letting the Acevedo kill me.
Lower, lower, lower. The snowy ground and the black metal of the war machine were all I could see. No wind, no sky, just ground and tank.
Coming up fast. Coming up too fast.
The Kashmir crashed down into the dirt right on top of the tank. Before I knew it, I’d tumbled out along with the AZ3 I’d left on the passenger seat, but not the Panzerfaust nor the crate of grenades. They stayed where I’d lashed them.
I was on the ground, armed at least. Problem was, the entire zeppelin came crashing down right on top of me. And it wasn’t just the Neofiber, the Kevlar canopy, the thelium; it was the millions of rounds of ammunition, bombs, guns, and enough gunpowder for World War IV.
We count the Sino as number three.
Snow and mud squelched under my hands, the wetness soaking my knees through the gown.
Again, I’d become mere survival instinct rather than fearless warrior. I scrambled forward underneath the back of the tank as the heat, as the fire, as choking smoke rained down. I went from ice-cold to oven-hot in less than a millisecond.
The thunderous world-ending noise, the stink of the tank’s oil and diesel, the stench of the burning plastic of the zeppelin, robbed me of my senses for a minute, and all I could do was scream against it all. Scream and scream and scream.
The tank’s gun roared. Most likely, the soldier girls inside the Acevedo wanted to see if they could blow the Kashmir IV off them. Maybe the tank could survive being hit with the zeppelin, but it didn’t survive firing into the box of grenades I’d left inside the cockpit.
Even as the Kashmir IV lifted off us, the explosion, right there, left my ears howling. All around me was metal and burning, heat and destruction, and I realized I was still screaming.
I was in the belly of a hellish beast, and the air around me roasted. I smelled my own hair catch fire. On my head. On my arms. In my nose.
It was night-dark tread on my right and left, but daylight in front of me and behind. I slapped at my frying hair with handfuls of snow and mud. Something caught my eye behind me. The dark gray of the zeppelin’s canopy was lifting up—prolly caught by the wind and now so off center with the front air-cells gone, the back bags of thelium would catch a breeze and blow around.
Something fell off the back of the Kashmir IV. Could it be? Yes. The Marilyn came sailing down from the zeppelin. The ropes must have burned through.
The Stanley hit the ground, and her pistons and leg joints took the impact well.
The Marilyn paused for a minute and then started walking toward me.
“Cavvy!” It was Wren’s voice, sounding annoyed, or was that fear? No, couldn’t be fear.
I stopped screaming my throat bloody long enough to pull myself out from the wreckage of the Acevedo. The turret, aimed at the night sky, had melted halfway down its barrel. The rest of the metal had been turned to Swiss cheese. I could’ve looked inside to confirm the operators were dead, but I didn’t want to see the carnage.
The zeppelin, on fire above us, exploded as more munitions went off, raining detritus to mix with the snow.
In the flickering light of the burning airship, I could
see bodies all around, but only two figures upright. A Regio had Wren around the neck, the soldier’s pistol pressed against my sister’s temple. I could see Wren’s face was covered in a thick layer of blood going rusty as it dried.
We’d been here before, in this same position, time and again. My sister’s life dangled on the thread of a spider web, and I had to save her if I could.
Problem was, I never could before.
But things change.
This was just another problem I was going to solve with a bullet.
(iii)
I was barefoot in the snow, but I wasn’t feeling it. I’d been smoldering hot minutes ago, and besides, I was too keyed up to worry about my toes.
“Hey, Wren, you okay?” I asked.
“The chalkdrive! Where is it?” the Regio shouted.
“I’ll get to you in a minute,” I said quietly. “Wren, you injured?”
“I’m fine,” Wren answered. “The Audrey Hepburn nearly ended me with a missile. Goddamn friendly fire. I was just getting to my feet when this jackering skank grabbed me.”
“Don’t cuss,” I said automatically. Then I addressed the Regio, breathing hard since they had emotions, unlike the Vixxes or the Severins ... or so I’d heard. “Hey, I’ll give you the chalkdrive if you give me Pilate and Micah Hoyt. How is that for a trade?”
The Regio’s eyes narrowed. “I will not negotiate. Give me the chalkdrive, or I will shoot your sister.”
My teeth came together in a frustrated growl.
One of the Stanleys was tromping up behind me; the zeppelin, wreathed in hellfire, crackled above; but all else was silence. The shooting had stopped, and I had the idea we had won. Didn’t know if we’d taken any casualties, but first things first.
“Let go of my sister,” I said to the Regio. “Let go, or you’ll die. I know you and your kind want life ’cause I’ve had to kill some of you before. Don’t make me do it again. Drop your weapon.”
I expected Wren to erupt in yelling at me, but she stayed quiet.
The eyes of the Regio locked onto something behind me. Most likely the Stanley.
I knew what was coming. The Regio knew she was beat. She was going to shoot my sister and run.
And that I couldn’t let happen.
Quick as a snap I brought the AZ3 up and fired. Three rounds.
The Regio slumped to her knees and pitched forward into the dirt. Wren blinked beside her.
Didn’t know if I hit that soldier girl with all three rounds or just one, and I wasn’t about to go and count wounds. Didn’t matter. She was dead, and I had killed her.
Thou shall not kill. It’s one of the ten basic rules God gave us, and I’d broke it not just once but over and over.
My hands were bloody and worse, but I didn’t care. It was either my sister or the Regio, and it wasn’t like she was human. She didn’t have a mama or a daddy. No, she’d come out of a vat.
De-humanizing the enemy. Soldiers have been doing it since the beginning of war. It makes the killing easier, and there I was doing it some more.
Wren took a long look at me, pale and a little shaky, and then, dang me, she started yelling. “What the hell, Cavvy? You didn’t even aim! You do know that if you’d have hit me in the head I’d die, right?”
The sleep, the war, the endless days of running, and nights afraid caught up to me. I yelled back. “Oh, no you don’t, Irene Marie Weller, you will not give me a ration of crap for saving you. You’ve been wanting me to take a shot like that since we first started our adventures, and finally, for once, I took it. So, don’t mess me with about the how and why of it, okay?”
“Jesus, Cavvy, you have to aim! You didn’t even aim!” She stood, breathing hard for a minute, and then she exploded into mad laughter. Came over and grabbed me in a headlock. “Well, aren’t you just a little warrior? You takin’ the shot. You shootin’ at them skanks with the Panzerfaust, and then you smashin’ up the tank with the zeppelin. Well, I’d just like to finally welcome you to the family. You a Weller now, goddammit.”
I shoved her off. “Yeah, well, I was a Weller before I killed people, and you might just love all this war, but I don’t.”
“Oh, you’ll learn to like it,” Wren said easily. “You kill them before they kill you. Law of the jungle.”
I’d heard those same words before, spoken by that racist, sexist piece of evil, Aces.
“I want to follow higher laws—”
I was cut off by the sound of diesel engines chasing off into the night. Only two of the vehicles had survived, a Humvee and an Athapasca troop carrier. Both were back on the road zooming south toward Aspen through the snow and sliding around in the mud.
The Audrey lifted an arm and sent a missile firing at them. It struck to the right, exploded, but by that time, the Humvee and the APC were gone.
“We gotta get after Edger,” Wren said. “I searched, and I ain’t seen her body. I know I didn’t kill her, but I reckon I will if we can get into the zeppelin and—”
The Kashmir IV exploded, hanging butt end up in the sky. In a slow-motion crash, it came careening into the dirt, the snow hissing, the flames roaring, melting the ice and giving my toes a little comfort.
All those guns, all those supplies, our easy way to Burlington—all consumed in an inferno of heat. The noxious smell of burning plastic made me wince, and I had to wipe my eyes and nose from the blistering stench.
The doors on the Marilyn and the Audrey burst open. Figures swung out on the ladders to watch the fire. Dutch was in Marilyn’s cockpit with Sharlotte above him in the gunner’s seat. Rachel had driven the Audrey while Marisol had worked the guns.
We all turned to watch the Kashmir IV burn.
We’d come close, but Praetor Gianna Edger had managed to slip away with Micaiah and Pilate. Our chase wasn’t done yet.
Worse, the ARK would come looking for their dirigible, for their convoy, and once they found their dead, they would know we’d come south.
We had to beat them over Independence Pass.
Which meant we couldn’t tarry. But I couldn’t move. Something was wrong with me, my legs, my arms ... It took me a minute to realize I was shaking something fierce.
I raised one of my trembling hands and made a fist. No, I wasn’t going to fall apart. We’d won. I calmed myself through sheer will. Dammit, I was a Weller like Wren had said.
And I needed better clothes.
Taking a deep, shuddering breath, I walked over to the body of the soldier I’d killed. My feet were tender from where I’d stomped on the zeppelin controls. But not too bad. Yet.
I wrestled her white-camo coat off her and slipped it on. It was too tight and ill-fitting, and I couldn’t possibly get it zippered, but it was better than nothing. I didn’t look at the corpse too long.
Right away, I knew the pants wouldn’t fit me nor Sharlotte ’cause the Regios had been engineered with slim hips since killing was their business and not babies.
Sinking down, I got to work on the soldier girl’s boots.
Wouldn’t you know it, they didn’t fit me either. And since all the Regios were bio-engineered the same, nothing but their coats would work for us, and those wouldn’t work too well.
My poor toes.
My poor soul.
The snow continued to fall.
Chapter Three
Preacher stole a kiss after a Sunday brunch
Said Jesus was in his pocket, but I have a hunch
He says that to all the pretty girls in town
Got a pocketful of pretty he wants to spread around
—Renee Crowell
(i)
WHILE I TRIED ON THE boots, Sharlotte walked over to me. The wooden leg I’d fashioned from a dining room table leg squished in the snow. The foot was covered with a slipper. Kinda grateful I’d lost both of mine.
“Cavvy, what are you doing?” Sharlotte asked.
Dutch drifted over to us as well, and that jackerdan answered for me. “She’s looting the bo
dies.” Then to Wren, “I thought you said your little sister wasn’t much of a fighter. Dang, but did you see what she did? She went all Henrietta Bonney on those ARK skanks.”
Henrietta Bonney was a ruthless gunslinger on Lonely Moon, the Juniper drama so popular out in the World.
Dutch grinned. “Wren, girl, you might’ve done the same thing.”
Wren tousled my hair. “Yeah, I done taught her well.”
I stood and again pushed Wren away. “You didn’t teach me nothin’. And I didn’t plan anything that happened. Actually, what I did was stupid right down the line. I got lucky over and over. And I don’t expect our luck to last all that long. So instead of patting each other on the butt and acting all proud ’cause we killed a bunch of people, we need to get after Edger.”
“Weren’t people,” Wren said. “We killed Regios.”
I gave her a glare for correcting me. Then on my dang freezing, torn-up feet, I marched past them to the Marilyn and climbed the ladder. Marisol and Rachel watched me from the Audrey. Wide-open eyes stared at me from white faces still pale with fright.
I remembered feeling like that, as if the fighting was bad, but the aftermath was worse as my brain tried to understand all the horror, all the near-misses, all of the trauma; Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. Stress after trauma. I understood that, but I wasn’t feeling it. I wasn’t feeling anything, and such a cold numbness in my heart scared me.
What was I becoming?
Whatever it was, I could still be Christian about it. “Marisol, Rachel, you okay?”
Both nodded in unison like spooked toddlers.
Marisol was the first one to burst into tears. “I accidentally shot at Wren. I triggered a missile, and it nearly killed her. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”
Tears tracked down Rachel’s cheeks in sympathy for Marisol, ’cause when we cry, we cry together. Unless whatever part makes you weep gets too cold for tears.
I knew Rachel also cried ’cause we hadn’t rescued our boys. Rachel loved Pilate and was wishing for some kind of romance between them, but she was a cloned super soldier and he was a Roman Catholic priest—kind of—so yeah, star-crossed lovers.
Storm Girls (The Juniper Wars Book 4) Page 3
