Storm Girls (The Juniper Wars Book 4)

by Aaron Michael Ritchey

  June Mai reached out with a hand. “One last time. Give me the chalkdrive. I can make it across the border.”

  Truth be told, I wanted her to take it right then. But then her wanting it so bad didn’t make me trust her much. She easily could’ve been a Severin, and we’d never have known it. If the ARK could brew up something like Marisol, they could take a real person and slip in a fake.

  “It’s not going to happen,” I said.

  Pilate agreed. “Amen to that, Cavvy. You and Micaiah will get yourselves across that border. And June Mai? You and me will make sure that happens.”

  June Mai exhaled in what had to have been frustration. “The rumors of Weller stubbornness are well founded. Very well, like you said, let’s go say howdy.”

  We ambled our horses down the hill. Pilate and June Mai took point. Then me. Then Micaiah; Marie Atlas ordered us to spread out so in case of an ambush, we wouldn’t be clumped together.

  Our horses felt the tension. Eyeballs rolled, nostrils flared, and some started chewing their bits, clicking and clacking. A few reared, but we were all experienced riders, and we calmed them.

  Things got stranger. It was an old woman in a faded seaman’s pea coat over a New Morality dress. She didn’t have a gun, but a cane. Her white hair was pulled tight around her skull in a bun. Care and weariness lined her face. Her long, wool scarf of red and yellow-orange flapped in the breeze. I saw the logo of the Kansas City Chiefs football team sewn into the fabric. It was the old arrowhead one, before they reorganized the league into mixed-gender teams. Sticking out of her coat pocket was either a stick of dynamite or a road flare.

  Right then clouds eclipsed the sun, covering us all in darkness and shadow, but the Plainville Salvage Yard shined in the sunlight, like the Promised Land full of milk and honey.

  On their horses, Marie Atlas and June Mai approached the old woman from one side, Pilate on the other. The other soldier girls were spread out in a line behind them. Micaiah and I pulled ourselves back a bit. Miley drug a hoof across the dirt, wanting to run.

  “I’m Mabel,” the old woman said in a scratch of a voice. “I believe you have two things that belong to Tiberius Hoyt. One is his son”—he gestured to Micaiah—“the other is a chalkdrive.”

  My stomach jittered up. My voice left me. She wasn’t an old woman; she was a Severin.

  “Hey, Grandma,” Pilate called out. “What are your terms? We give you a fruitcake, and you let us pass? Or are things going to get ugly?”

  “Hello, Father Pilate,” Mabel said. “Or should I call you Peter?”

  “Pilate’s fine, Grandma,” he said evenly.

  From the Moby, a flare came flaming out, our signal that things were bad and about to get worse. Well, duh.

  “Pilate.” Mabel said his name like she really was a grandmother about to ask him if he’d like tea and some fruitcake. “All we want is the chalkdrive and Micah. But we are willing to negotiate. If you give us the chalkdrive, we will let you keep Micah.”

  “What if we don’t want him, but we want the chalkdrive?” Pilate asked. “Can we mix and match?”

  “No, dear,” Mabel said.

  “How about we keep both, and I blow your head off?” Pilate asked.

  All around us, the ground moved, shivered, and for a minute I thought I’d lost it. Then hundreds of soldiers emerged from their camouflage. Cuius Regios. We were surrounded. We were outnumbered.

  Once again, we found ourselves looking down the gun barrels in the hands of genetically modified women looking to kill us all dead.

  Mabel drew the stick from her pocket. She had a flare of her own. She sparked it into life; red fire sparked and hissed.

  Even a kilometer away, we all heard the engines roar to life. The sounds came from the Plainville Salvage Yard. Hidden there were M1 Acevedo tanks, A3 Athapasca Armored Personnel Carriers, armored UHV Humvees, running on growling diesel engines. The convoy roared out of their hiding places, moving toward us.

  And in the distance, a line of dots in the sky started moving forward, coming closer, and I knew what they were: Y-shaped Kestrel 15.2 gunships coming to kill us and cart off Micah and the chalkdrive.

  The Kestrel project had been a joint U.S.-Japanese project mingling corporate interests and military technology and the result was the world’s first blue-fire engine aircraft, using hyper-electricity and anti-gravity technology. The Marine Corps switched over right away, and I knew Tibbs Hoyt prolly bought a bunch of them as well. Those were ARK aircraft all right, full of Regios.

  Lucky for us, the Kestrels ran on great big Kung Pao Eterna batteries, which wouldn’t work in the Juniper. But they would keep us on our side of the fence line.

  The Moby drifted overhead. Peeperz finally saw the gunships and ground forces and had sent the flare out to warn us. Too late. It was all too late.

  We were caught.

  All of her soldier girls looked at June Mai Angel for orders, but she didn’t move, didn’t speak. She was pale, swallowing hard. And I knew she was desperately trying to think of a way out of our no-win situation. I hoped she did. I was all out of ideas.

  Pilate winced. He let the smoke drift off his lips. The wind caught the smoke and whirled it into nothing.

  “The chalkdrive please,” Mabel said.

  Cold, the wind, the entire world, froze right then.

  We were doomed. We’d failed.

  And then I laughed, out loud; laughed, until I fell off my horse. Miley stepped back, eyes wide and white.

  Still I laughed, lying on the ground, tears streaming down my face.

  No one else joined me. All the ARK soldiers took a fresh grip on their guns, and I knew they all thought I’d lost it, or that this was some ploy to throw them off guard.

  I stood up and approached Mabel. “Mr. Tiberius Hoyt is scared of us. He thinks we have a shot at getting the chalkdrive out into the World. He really does.” I tittered some more and had to wipe my eyes.

  “Come again, Miss Weller?” Mabel asked.

  “You have brought enough firepower to level Houston, and for what? Twelve soldiers on horseback? One of whom is me, a girl who, by all accounts, should be studying civics in high school. You’re scared to death of us! I find that funny.”

  Mabel reached into her coat and pulled out a Desert Messiah, a weapon I knew, especially from that angle. Once again, I was peering down its very familiar barrel.

  “It’s déjà vu all over again, Pilate,” I said lightly. “These things just don’t learn.”

  She was going to shoot me in the head, and I didn’t care all that much. ’Cause I knew we’d win. Didn’t really know how, but I knew we were going to get through this, and do you know why? I believed in our story. Hope was in me, a bindweed, clinging to the foundations of my soul, and my laughter and faith and love were all morning glory flowers.

  Even if I was killed, our cause was righteous, and our silent God would provide.

  Even as the noise of the engines of the ARK vehicles came barreling down on us.

  Even as their Kestrel gunships roared at the border to pick us up.

  Even as another flare flashed across the sky from the Moby.

  Even as Mabel cocked that pistol, like Reb Vixx had done on the Scheutz ranch. Same position. Same crappy odds. Same everything.

  Only this time, I was feeling mean and reckless. I was feeling Wren. I took my pointer finger and stuck it into the barrel of her gun. “I’m tired of you and the ARK. I’m tired of this whole game. Shoot me now if you’re going to shoot me, Grandma.”

  It all went quiet. And Mabel wasn’t an old woman any more. She had become a machine, trying to figure me out.

  Let her try.

  I let out a long breath, and then I really did think it was my turn to die. We all get our turn.

  Only some of us get to die lots of times.

  People like my sister.

  “Hey, skank!”

  I jerked my finger out of the barrel of the gun and turned, as if in a dream, tur
ned and watched a ghost come down the hill.

  Wren.

  Alive, all hips and pistols, she strutted toward us. She was chewing on one of Pilate’s cast-off cigars.

  Of course. He’d been leaving them behind like bread crumbs.

  “Hey, you ARK skank!” my sister spat. “You jack with my sister, you jack with me. And I gotta say, I think I’m going to love killing you Severins more than I ever did the Vixxes.”

  Leave it to Wren to come back from the grave, fighting, cursing, and saving the day.

  I smiled so wide that I just had to close my eyes to really enjoy it.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Hot as a grenade

  Sick and afraid

  Should’ve run

  But I stayed

  Girls and guns and tearing up the street

  Kill ’em when you’re bitter and kill ’em when you’re sweet

  —Charquida Gold

  (i)

  I DIDN’T THINK TO GET out of Mabel’s reach. My sister was alive! And if Wren had survived, maybe Sharlotte, and if Sharlotte, maybe Rachel ...

  That all went through my head, as Wren came traipsing down like she owned the plains and we were in her living room.

  Mabel grabbed me around the throat, put the Desert Messiah against my temple, and called out. “Stop. We are taking the chalkdrive. We are taking Micah.”

  Wren didn’t pause. She drew a Colt Terminator and shot Mabel in the head.

  I felt the bullet, I heard the snort of the Severin taking in a last breath, and I felt her hot blood hit my face. Dutch had taught my sister well. Always, always, always get ’em right between the eyes.

  Mabel fell away, dead, and the gunshot echoed across the prairie. That echo seemed to last forever and fill up a vacuum of silence. Then the Regios opened fire, but so did everyone else. The Moby floated above, and either Tech or Peeperz were in the Crow’s Basement, lighting up the ground troops with the triple-Xs, the twin-barreled .50 caliber machine guns which occupied the gunner’s nest. June Mai and her soldiers wheeled around on their horses, running, shooting, engaging the enemy.

  Marie Atlas ran toward me.

  I thought it was to protect me, but, no. She knocked me to the ground, rammed my head into the frozen mud, and ripped the chalkdrive necklace off me.

  She was the spy. She was the Severin, and she’d kept her deadly secret well.

  She fled with the chalkdrive in her hand. Stepping into Miley’s stirrups, she mounted up and went streaking across the plain.

  I stood cold and laughed a little. She looped the necklace around her head. Skank. Now I had to chase after her.

  Too bad an army stood between us and her.

  Oh well.

  An explosive shell hit behind us. The explosion knocked my hearing out, shaking my head, and smacking me with a wall of dirt.

  The ARK’s Acevedo tanks streaked toward us across the plain.

  I wheeled, trying to get to Micaiah on Lucky, a tobiano mare, who was frothing and whinnying, scared out of her wits.

  I didn’t make it. Another shell landed next to me, ringing my bell again. I went down, tried to get my head together, but I couldn’t think for a minute.

  Laying on the ground, dazed, I heard the thunder of a voice—louder than the bombs and bullets. Maybe it was only me ’cause that huge voice had said my name so often, and it said it in a way no one else ever did, and never would again.

  “’Teeca!”

  Alice.

  “Leave my ’Teeca alone!”

  I’d thought she’d gone coco for good, but maybe it didn’t work like that. Or maybe her love for me had pulled her out of the grips of her mental illness. Regardless, she was there, with dozens of Gammas tearing down the hill. She had found her command after all. And she’d done what I had told her to do, bringing in reinforcements.

  A collective gasp rose from the Regios, from June Mai’s soldiers, from everyone.

  A regiment of three-meter-tall monsters with shotguns, assault rifles, axes, defunct chainsaws, all came running on elephantine feet, shaking the ground. Metal helmets enclosed their heads, ’cause like Wren and Rachel, the only way to stop them was a head wound or a spinal cord injury.

  A blast struck one of the Gammas, knocked her back, ’cause yeah, the cavalry had come, but the ARK had tanks. We were just muscle and bone, though not for long.

  The ground shivered from stomping, and the coal smoke filled the air. Then the chunka-chunka of steam-powered pistons grinding.

  I watched in disbelief as the Marilyn Monroe come tromping over the hill, followed by a dozen more Stanleys. They raised their arms and missiles streaked out of their launchers and struck the tanks coming toward us. A few survived the initial blast, but others had their treads ripped off, their turrets blasted into splinters, and one well-aimed missile disintegrated one of the tanks completely.

  The Stanleys chugged down the hill, over the grass, their shoulders leaking smoke as their guns rattled.

  Down south, coming up quick, were steam trucks and diesel cars. I thought they were reinforcements for the ARK, but they weren’t. Too ragged, too salvaged ... and then I realized, it was June Mai’s outlaws, coming across the plain ’cause June Mai most likely figured, even with our secrecy and planning, that we might need help.

  On the ground, steam-powered war vehicles and canola-engine cars zoomed around. In the sky, three of June Mai’s zeppelins drifted in: a Jonesy on fire and smoking, a big Johnny with guns blazing, and a big Bobby dropping bombs. I noticed June Mai’s troops had come from a fight; they were bashed up, but they were coming.

  Pilate ran and stood over me, launching grenades into the fray, blasting the hell out the Regios. He yelled out, “John!” then picked me up. He was battle drunk, laughing and muttering, “A battle of four armies. We’d need the eagles to make it five, but I don’t believe they are coming.”

  More Lord of the Rings references. More stories.

  “Pilate!” I shouted above the din. “Marie Atlas took the chalkdrive! She’s a Severin!”

  No time for him to do anything more than grow pale. Four Regios came charging up, guns leveled to wipe us out.

  Pilate had yelled John, which meant he was out of shells to fire.

  I squinted against the coming pain.

  But I didn’t die right then. Again, I was saved by a sister.

  Alice came up, hunched over both me and Pilate, and took the bullets. Some pinged off the pieces of battle armor she had thrown over her shoulder. Pretty sure she was wearing a side panel from a 1967 Chevy Impala.

  She grunted, then hugged me to her. “Alice love ’Teeca. Alice go coco, but I came back. I found other sisters who didn’t like Dizzymona. They wanted cure, too! Alice come for you, but meet other sissies, Wren and Shar. Alice love all her family now.”

  However stinky, however monstrous, I hugged Alice to me. “And I love you, Alice.”

  The Moby roared over us. A ladder dropped.

  Micaiah rode up on his horse as we took shelter behind Alice again.

  He put out a hand, offering me a ride. Pilate reloaded his Beijing homewrecker, and Alice continued to take fire for us. I touched a rough piece of wool, and my fingers came away wet with blood. We needed to get out of there and get to Marie Atlas.

  But how?

  Micaiah was on horseback. We had the Moby offering help. But in the end, I knew neither was the best option. Especially if those Regios saw us climbing that ladder. They’d pick us off easily.

  Then an old diesel BMW—a 6-Series 640d convertible—roared up, and the driver, one of June Mai’s girls, got out, yelling for June Mai Angel. Didn’t know where she was, but I was going to steal her ride.

  I kissed Alice’s stomach. “Thanks, Sissy, I gotta go, but I’ll see you again. Meet us in Plainville. It’s just north. Gather up the troops and meet us there. We’ll get the chalkdrive back.”

  “Go,” she roared, “go ’Teeca! We give you cover!”

  Pilate stepped out from be
hind Alice and yelled, “Matthew!”—as in the book of Matthew—and another blast erupted from his gospel gun. “Like Alice said, go, Cavatica! Now!”

  The soldier girl from the BMW took a bullet in the head. She dropped to her knees, slumped down over, dead. Never thought I’d feel bad about one of June Mai’s outlaws meeting her fate, but I did for a split second.

  “In the car!” I yelled for Micaiah and slid in behind the wheel. Micaiah jumped from his horse into the back seat. I slammed her into gear, the old canola-oil-guzzling diesel engine stalled for a minute, and my heart trembled, before the engine caught again and we roared off.

  The Marilyn Monroe and another Stanley, both standing together, peppered Regios with bullets, sparking as they themselves were hit.

  I couldn’t see inside any of the cockpits, couldn’t tell who was driving and who was gunning, but it had to be my people. Had to be.

  I wanted to drive over to see Sharlotte and Rachel one more time. Heck, I’d even give Dutch a hug, but I had no time. This was our chance. The Regios were engaged. Now or never.

  In the BMW, we could outrun Marie Atlas on Miley, but we had to get to her before she got to the salvage yards. There was no time to gather up any guns. Micaiah and I had to do it ourselves.

  A surface-to-air missile, something big and powerful, hit the struggling Bobby, and the zeppelin dropped down, down, and hit the plain, throwing up dirt and grass, sagebrush and debris, then exploded. The heat felt like a fist, slamming our faces.

  Another of the zeppelins was hit, taken out of the sky by the ARK.

  The Moby swung around, covering us, and I was glad. We needed all the help we could get retrieving the chalkdrive.

  Bouncing over the plain, smashing up the body—but hopefully not the undercarriage—I sped onward, avoiding ditches and divots. Grass and sagebrush smacked under the body. We were throwing up a cloud of dust. It swirled around in the wind under the dark clouds above that were trying hard to bring in a cold night.