“Where I come from, there are quite a few. We can arrange to ship some your way, if you don’t mind establishing the first post-apocalypse retirement community.”
The woman looked back at the SCEV, taking in its height and length. “Pretty impressive ride. Looks tough. I imagine it’s probably hot as hell, though.”
“Hot?” Andrews considered that for a moment. “You mean radioactive? Some parts of it might be, but the majority of the hull and the mission equipment pod are coated with a compound that inhibits most particles from clinging to it. I’d imagine that after all the rain it’s been through, it’s probably pretty clean right now. But it’s not emitting anything that’s going to harm you. Otherwise we’d be wearing environmental protection suits. The most radioactive parts are probably the particle separators that protect the engines from ingesting foreign matter. But the entire rig does go through a full decontamination process when we return to our base.”
The woman just looked at him. Andrews shifted his weight, then nodded toward the barricade ahead.
“You guys have trouble lately? Been in contact with other groups, maybe some that aren’t too friendly?”
“That’s not for me to say.”
“Really. Who can, then?”
“You can monitor our radios. You should be able to figure that out.”
“Your transmissions are encrypted. We know you’re using them, but we don’t know what you’re saying. That’s why I asked you to contact me over an open frequency,” Andrews said.
“Okay. How did you see us from the road?”
“Millimeter wave radar and infrared imaging.”
“Who told you we might be up here?”
“No one told us. We saw the barricade while conducting aerial surveillance. We found evidence of activity down in Bend. There’s a mass grave there.”
The woman took a step toward them, and she peered at Andrews intently. “What evidence? What did you find?”
“Tire tracks from what looks like a five-ton tactical truck,” Mulligan said. “A six-by-six.”
“And a bouquet of flowers,” Andrews added. “Freshly cut, no more than a day or two ago. Someone was paying their respects. Was it you?”
The woman glared at him for a long moment, then said, “So what do you want with us?”
“Just to help you out. Like I said before over the radio, our mission is to reconstitute the US. That means we have to go out, search for survivors, and sustain them as best as we can,” Andrews told her.
“Have you found anyone else?”
“This is our first run into this part of the nation, but yes. We’ve found people in the San Francisco Bay Area.”
That seemed to impress her. “No kidding. How did they survive?”
“Not very well,” Mulligan said. “They’re not exactly what we were hoping for, but they’re all we have to work with at the moment.”
The woman regarded Mulligan. “I don’t know what you mean by that, old man. What are you hoping to find?”
“People who aren’t murderers would be a great start,” Mulligan replied.
She snorted behind her balaclava, the sound more inferred by the movement of her head than heard over the rain and wind. “Then maybe you need to go back to your base and have yourself a nice meal and a hot bubble bath and forget about whatever your ‘mission’ is. Hate to break it to you, but while you guys have been living the lux life? The rest of us have been bashing each other’s heads in just trying to get enough to eat.”
“We can change that, if you’ll give us the chance,” Andrews said.
“What are you going to be able to do for us, guy? I mean, you look like a kid. What have you had to do to survive? Go to bed without dessert one night a month?”
Her voice was full of resentment, and that surprised Andrews at first. After he’d had a few seconds to consider it, though, he understood where she was coming from. He nodded at her.
“Okay. Listen, if you’re not the decision maker for your people, we’re good with that. But I’d like you to take back some things for us. Show them to your superiors. All right?”
“What did you have in mind?” she asked.
Andrews slowly unslung his rifle. The woman took a step back and raised hers, angling her body somewhat as she seated her old rifle’s stock into her shoulder. Andrews sensed Mulligan spooling up to respond in kind, so he held up his hand.
“Take it easy, guys, we don’t want any mistakes here,” he said. “Let’s keep things cool. No one needs to get hurt.” To the woman: “I’m going to put some stuff on the deck here, and you decide what you want to take with you. That’s all.”
“Move slowly. If you don’t, I’ll put two rounds through your right eye.” She kept her rifle up and aimed squarely at Andrews.
“Andrews, Mulligan—if that woman makes one more move, I’m going to guns on her. You guys just hit the deck and stay there,” Leona said over the radio.
“Stand down,” Andrews replied over his headset.
“Sir?” Mulligan said.
“Keep calm, Sarmajor.”
“Booger-picker’s not on the bang switch just yet, Captain. I’m not the one you have to worry about losing their cool.”
Andrews took in a deep breath, his eyes still on the woman pointing the rifle at him. “I’ll move slowly and deliberately. If we wanted to harm you guys, you’d all be dead by now. But if you shoot me, that’s exactly what’s going to happen. Take it easy. We’re not here to cause anyone any harm.”
“Excuse me if I don’t buy that,” the woman said. A gust of wind blew the rain sideways for a moment, but she acted as if it didn’t happen. “Do what you’re going to do ... just do it slowly.”
“Before you do, maybe you might want to clue me in on what it is you’re up to, sir,” Mulligan said. He kept his rifle at the ready, not quite pointing at the woman before them, but he was within a hair’s breadth of going weapons free.
“Paying tribute.” Andrews placed his rifle on the pavement, then slowly shrugged out of his pack. He placed it on the road as well. Then came his tactical vest with the spare mags and three forty-millimeter grenade rounds. Finally came his gun belt which held his pistol and spare magazines for that. He looped that on the rucksack, then slowly raised his hands and took a step away from the woman.
“That’s for you guys,” he said. “All of it. Take it back to your commanders.”
The woman snorted. “Really. What’s in the pack?”
“Three meals ready to eat, individual. Four liters of water. A first aid kit. Portable charcoal water filter and water purifier. Eating utensils. A set of generation seven night vision goggles, autogated. Backup battery for the goggles. A lighter and waterproof matches. Four Mylar blankets. Cleaning kit for the weapons. By the way, all the weapons are locked and loaded, including the grenade launcher. You don’t know how to use that, don’t play with it. We carry high-explosive rounds.”
The woman regarded the gear set before her. “So you’re just going to give me that stuff,” she said, incredulous.
“Yeah, are you really?” Mulligan said, in the same tone.
Andrews ignored him. “You’re free to take the gear. It’s a small sample of what we’re prepared to give to keep you guys going until we can figure out a longer-term plan. When you’re ready, you can contact us over the radio frequency we used today. Now, the sergeant major and I are going to go back into the rig. We’ll shut down and stay here overnight while you and your people talk, look over what we’ve given you, and decide if this is something you might want to pursue. But I want to make something very, very clear before we part ways.”
“What’s that?”
“If anyone makes a move on us, we’ll fucking annihilate you. This rig has a hell of a lot of autonomous tech on it, and while it’s not invulnerable, a whole lot of you will die if you somehow think it’s a good idea to attack us. To make things clear, if you get within three hundred yards of it, the miniguns”—Andrews took a second t
o point to one of the pods on the front of the SCEV—“will automatically engage. The systems are smart enough to recognize specific targets, so anything that even vaguely resembles a human being is going to get a face full of seven-six-two mike-mike at about four thousand rounds a minute. I don’t want to sound like a hard-ass here, but I’m not prepared to sacrifice my people for yours. You probably understand me when I say that, right?”
The woman stared at Andrews for a long moment as another burst of wind buffeted them. It was getting colder, and the rain was beginning to pick up again. In the distance, lightning flared. A few seconds later, thunder rumbled.
“Sounds like you might have had some bad experiences,” the woman said finally. “Maybe you’re not such a lost kid in the woods after all.”
“How many people have you killed?” Andrews asked.
She cocked her head to one side. “Why?”
“I’ve killed about forty-three,” Andrews said. “Trust me, it’s not hard to do. That’s not what I’m here to do, but if your people want to play that game? Understand up front that I’m ready for it.” As he spoke, images of bodies being ripped apart by rifle fire and miniguns flitted across Andrews’s mind’s eye. The survivors in San Jose hadn’t really fared that well when they tried to make hard contact with his and Laird’s teams. They’d gotten some licks in, but they’d wound up on the losing end of the encounter.
If the admission had any effect, the woman didn’t allow it to show. “Good to know,” she said. “I’m pretty sure you guys will have a restful night. I don’t think you’ll have to worry about us trying to sneak up on you.”
Andrews nodded and pointed at the gear. “This is yours. You can inspect it before you take it, but once you guys are clear we’re going active on the defenses. You should communicate with us once you’re more than three hundred yards out. Don’t hang around. Seriously.”
“We won’t. Before you go, though?” The woman nodded at the gear. “Do me a favor and open up that bag. Just in case.”
Andrews smiled and did as she asked. He spread the contents of the ruck out on the wet pavement. Everything was in packages, and he indicated what every item was. The MREs were factory sealed, but he was able to open the pouch containing the NVGs to show them to her.
“That’s it,” he said. “You want me to pack it up, or leave them out?”
“You can put it all back together,” she said. She still held her rifle on him.
Andrews put everything back in the rucksack and got to his feet. “Looking forward to hearing from you.” Into his headset, he added, “Open the airlock, please.”
The airlock’s clamshell doors hissed open and the inner lock’s LED lighting shone brightly in the gloomy day. Mulligan motioned Andrews in ahead of him, and Andrews climbed up the stairs to the rig. Mulligan did same, only he walked up backwards, keeping his rifle at the ready. He held the stance until the airlock doors cycled closed and locked.
“Well, that wasn’t so bad,” Andrews said, wiping rainwater from his face.
“Gee, why didn’t you just give them the rig,” Mulligan said.
“Come on, Sarmajor. We had to give them something to break the ice with, right?”
Mulligan shrugged. “I hope we’re not going to find ourselves regretting you gave up a rifle with a freaking grenade launcher attached to it. If one of those fuckers blows me up with one of our own HE rounds, I’m going to haunt you for the rest of your life.”
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
It was a restless night for everyone aboard the SCEV, but for Andrews in particular.
After returning to the rig, Andrews and Mulligan went through the standard decon process even though they hadn’t been directly exposed to radioactive emittents. But procedure was procedure, and they had all they needed in the airlock to ensure they wouldn’t spread anything nasty throughout the SCEV. After that, both men had showered in the small wet head in the rear left corner of the rig’s sleeping compartment. For Andrews, the shower wasn’t much of an event. It was plenty hot, but the routine was get wet, turn off the water, lather up, rinse off. He was done in less than five minutes, and Mulligan was finished in three. He’d even managed to find the time to shave, something Andrews had overlooked.
Leona and KC were obviously extremely interested in everything that had gone down outside, even though they’d heard at least half the conversation over their radios and had watched the exchange over the FLIR. The other contact out in the forest had remained in position, though he or she had kept a rifle pointed downrange. Mulligan was apparently the target of choice, for the shooter had maintained a clear line of sight between himself and his target. The shooter had chosen his engagement site well, but there wasn’t enough cover to ensure his continued survival once the SCEV returned fire. In one burst, the person would have ceased to exist, not just as a human being, but as a cohesive body.
The woman and her companion had departed the area shortly after the two men returned to the vehicle. They had in fact taken all the gear Andrews had offered, and other than a short burst of encrypted radio traffic, they were off the scope. Once they dropped down into a nearby ravine, they became invisible to the SCEV’s sensors. And they were now practicing strict emissions control. By not using their radios, the team couldn’t get a good idea of their exact whereabouts. For sure, they had an idea of where they might be headed, but if their entire establishment was practicing EMCON, then all they had was an educated guess.
“At least until we get the drone back in the air,” Leona said. “It’s recharged. Winds are still gusting outside its performance envelope, but once they die down, we’ll find them pretty quickly.”
“You know, let’s not do that,” Andrews said.
Leona looked at him, puzzled. “Uh, why not?”
“Let’s allow them to make the next move. We’ve already given them a lot to think about, so spying on them with the drone isn’t likely to make them feel any more kindly toward us. Besides, they might shoot it down, and that’s gonna be total no bueno if they do.” Andrews looked at KC. “Kace, let’s shut down for the night. Douse the mains and fire up the APU.”
“Roger that.” KC returned to her engineering station and began executing the required checklists.
“Mike, they can’t expect us to not look them over now,” Leona said.
“Well, we can’t anyway at the moment, so let’s not sweat it,” Andrews said. “I really don’t want to risk losing the drone right now.”
“The captain’s right, LT,” Mulligan said. “Even though he saw it fit to give them a select-fire rifle equipped with a functioning grenade launcher and last generation night vision devices, there’s not a great need to send out the drone. If they don’t get back to us in, say, twelve hours, then that’s a different story. We can probably afford to sit tight for a bit.”
Leona laughed. “I’m sorry, now you’re a peacenik?”
Mulligan looked offended. “How dare you,” he growled. That only made Leona laugh again, and Andrews chuckled as well. Mulligan’s expression of sheer indignation disappeared as he grinned.
“What I mean is, we can give them a chance to respond without feeling like we’re crawling up their butts,” he said. “They’re a disciplined bunch. They didn’t strike me as particularly desperate, but they have things they want to protect. If we start bracing them, they might come back swinging, and we don’t want that. We still don’t know who we’re dealing with.”
“They’re organized, that’s for sure,” Andrews said. “And if nothing else, they probably respect the capability of the vehicle. They’re not scared, but they don’t want to get into a situation where the only way out is in a few dozen body bags.”
“Nor do we,” Mulligan replied.
Andrews nodded. “That’s for sure.”
The engines wound down as the APU bumped out of standby and took on the power load. The only sign there was a variance was the audio alert from the engineering station that was echoed up in the cockpit.
/> The team had dinner, then set the watch schedule. Mulligan would go first for two hours starting at 2100 for two hours, followed by KC, then Leona, then Andrews. After that, they would start some work, including taking the samples Leona would need to start her more detailed analysis of the local environment. Andrews relented and gave her permission to work outside the vehicle with Mulligan providing security, while he and KC sat overwatch in the rig. For security purposes they both agreed to stay within line of sight of the SCEV. While Andrews was severely interested in going outside himself, Leona was the main analyst aboard the rig. He couldn’t hold her back from doing her job, and if he did, it would be viewed dimly by his superiors back at Harmony. Not to mention the lady herself, and Andrews didn’t need any more drama than he already had.
He tossed and turned in his rack that night, even though he had taken a dose of melatonin. They all took it sometimes in order to sleep; catching forty winks in a vehicle that was usually constantly moving could sometimes be a hard thing to accomplish, and the gentle sleep aid could assist in getting that done. But the level of excitement was too much to suppress, and Andrews slept only fitfully. He wasn’t alone. He heard Leona and KC stirring as well, infected by the same thrill he was. Only Mulligan seemed immune to it, as he had no problem falling asleep pretty much anywhere or any time. Apparently, the capabilities of a Green Beret were as layered as they were prodigious.
So Andrews only dozed off and on, listening to the gentle sounds his teammates made as they entered and exited the compartment for their shifts or used the latrine in the back. The APU droned away, encased in rather effective soundproofing, and regulated air flowed from the vents located throughout the chamber. Andrews listened to this biomechanical orchestra while wondering what lay ahead over the course of the next day. The survivors would have to contact them, of course. But would they for some reason choose to forgo further interaction with the SCEV crew? He considered that. Any survivors who had managed to hang on this long were doubtless a hardy bunch. Living through just not the Sixty-Minute War but its aftereffects, as well as the eventual conflicts that might arise with other survivors, only reinforced the notion that whomever the team from Harmony would be dealing with were hard core. And they might not be eager to be reintroduced to the government that had failed to protect them and their families. While Andrews rarely thought of it in that light, he was actually a representative of the US government, not some high-minded explorer blazing new trails in a decidedly changed land. He was an echo of institutions past, and the living remains of the United States of America could hold some hostility toward the SCEV field team because of that association.
Earthfall (Book 2): Earthfall 2 [The Mission Continues] Page 16
