by Summer Lane
When the briefing is dismissed, I sit on my chair, staring at the projector as Beckham gathers a few things. Vera and Andrew lean their heads together and murmur softly, while Father Kareem confers quietly with his top advisor, Sister Leslie. Manny sits between Elle and Arlene.
Elle has a cold expression on her face, stony and unfeeling.
Cheng’s death has permanently scarred her, and I can only hope that she recovers.
I can only hope that we all recover.
“So, I’m guessing all of us get to go with you to Monterey?” Em asks, her hand on Devin’s knee.
“I guess,” I reply. “The Freedom Fighters’ one last stand…” I snort. “Sounds poetic, doesn’t it?”
“We’re going to be okay,” Manny crows. “Nobody’s ever kept us down before, and we sure as hell aren’t going to back down now. This is our moment to shine, ladies and gentlemen. I intend to take center stage, too, in case you all were wondering. Star of the show, all the way to the end.”
“You can have it,” I say.
“In the event of your death,” Sister Leslie suddenly interjects, looking at me, “who will take your place?”
I bite my lip. Then, “Lieutenant True. I think you’d all agree with that.”
No one voices any problem with the decision.
“I do not believe that you’re going to die,” Father Kareem booms. “The Prophecy foretold of a girl with hair like fire…a girl born from blood, coming to save us from the mouth of hell.”
I raise my eyebrows, surprised. It’s been a long time since I heard Father Kareem recite any religious prophecies or startling revelations. I’d almost believed that he’d put that behind him, keeping the appearance of a Mad Monk simply for the intimidation factor.
“I don’t believe in prophecies,” I tell him.
“You should,” Father Kareem goes on. “Because this one is yours.”
I stand, and Uriah says, “If this is our last briefing before the Strike, I want to make it clear that I’m not going to surrender. I hope nobody else here feels differently.”
No one says a word, until Elle breaks the silence.
She says, “Please. We’ve all come this far, and we’re all either going to go down fighting or we’re going to win. There are no other options. You know that.”
She and Uriah stare each other down for a few beats, and then Uriah bows out.
“I know,” he says. “Let’s go, Angels.”
“Let’s go, Freedom Fighters,” I whisper.
Chris would be proud.
***
When I gather my gear before deploying with Beckham and the rest of the troops, the full realization of what is about to happen next rips through me. It tears my heart in two, thinking about the people we’ve lost leading up to this final fight. And it terrifies me to know that there is a very good chance we will not emerge from this battle victorious.
If anything, I promise myself that we will damage Omega enough to weaken them, so that future generations will have the courage to fight back, too. So that they can remember what it is to stand, to have courage, and to lay your life down for your friends, your family, and the things that you believe in.
At the very root of our humanity, something greater binds us all together. If not spirit, then it must be the will to survive. Because that is what is at the heart of everything we do: the desire to continue to survive for the sake of our children and for the sake of the history of this country we love and call home. For the sake of the good memories of this place, for the sake of the rolling hills and the towering mountaintops. For the sake of freedom and love and family and unity and security. For all of us.
I know, as I strap my rifle across my back and slide my knife into the sheath on my hip, that what happens in the next few weeks will bring our doom or our victory. Either way, our destiny is waiting. The last fight looms ever closer on the horizon, like a hellish red glow moving on the wind.
I set my backpack on the floor and take a knee, resting my arm on my leg.
“God,” I whisper. “If you’re listening, and you’re good like Father Kareem says you are…watch over us. I’m not a praying girl, and I’m not good at asking for help…but please. We need something, and it’s got to be more than a rabbit’s foot or a lucky charm. We need something bigger than that. I’m begging you…I’m begging anyone.”
I lift my head, looking at the ceiling, feeling the tears roll down my cheeks.
If this is how I die, I have made peace with it.
If this is how the Freedom Fighters perish, we will rest in peace, satisfied with our sacrifice and our devotion to the cause of freedom.
“Thank you for everything, Chris,” I murmur.
His training and leadership are what got us this far. Through everything, he was always there. I will carry him with me wherever I go, because he is a part of me, and his blood, in some ways, pumps in my veins.
As I leave the house behind, and I see my friends gathered around Beckham’s convoy, waiting to take us to the airfield where we will depart for Monterey, one thought strikes me. I cannot shake it, and it cycles in my head, over and over again, until I say it aloud.
“Don’t give up hope,” I say.
I hold onto this shred of goodness with every ounce of my being because I know it is the only thing that has any chance of keeping me alive until the end.
Part Two
The Last Great War
Chapter Eighteen
Monterey, California – Four Days before Athena Strike
The Black Hawk circles the sky over Monterey, and I look down into the dark waters swirling below us. The coastline is clear and the cliffs overlooking the tide pools are smothered in flowering purple succulents.
I experience a horrible rush of déjà vu.
The last time I was here, I think, Sophia died, and Chris told me the truth about his first wife, Jane. The last time I was here…we almost lost Monterey.
But now, looking down at the seaside town and peninsula that cups Cannery Row on the border of the ocean, I clearly see that Beckham was right. It has been rebuilt. A blockade of naval ships hovers off the coast, protecting the city. Docks have been built, buildings repaired and the naval postgraduate school seems to have been partially restored. Many of the buildings are missing, but portable structures have been moved in, and from the air, I see that many military vehicles are parked inside.
Everywhere, there are troops from Sector 13. Hundreds of them, swarming the streets like flies. The chill of the oncoming battle is in the air, and I rest my thumb on my holster, hesitantly glancing at Uriah as he sits beside me.
All of us have deployed – even Devin. He has wrapped his injury, determined to fight even with a busted leg. Em sits next to him, her hand on his knee. He places his hands on her fingers, and they share a comforting smile.
Ah, love. So sweet. So destructive.
Vera threads her arm through Andrew’s, and Elle Costas sits solemnly between Manny and Arlene, staring at Bravo. Her eyes are red – obviously from the effort of fighting tears – and I feel a pang of sympathy.
I know exactly how it feels to lose the man you love.
Elle’s loss of Cheng is killing her – I can see it on her face.
Father Kareem sits with Sister Leslie directly across from us. The rest of the Mad Monks are in the Black Hawk that trails us, and I wonder if, someday, if I’m lucky enough to survive this war, I’ll look back on my time as a commander and general as nothing but a blurred series of helicopter rides.
“Yes, kids…and on my seven hundredth Black Hawk ride, I almost died. Again. Just another day in the life of young Cassidy Hart…”
The thought actually brings an amused smile to my face, and Vera yells over the rotor wash, “What’s so funny!?”
I shrug. “Nothing!”
“I haven’t seen you smile in days.”
“I was just thinking.”
“About…?”
“About how our future children
are never going to believe we were this cool.”
Vera laughs, “Right? They’ll never buy it!”
“Good to know your steel trap of a mind is working overtime,” Uriah remarks.
“Shut up.” I lightly punch his shoulder. “Your future kids are going to want photographic evidence of you on a death strike team.”
Uriah almost smiles.
“My future kids are going to know how freaking awesome I was,” he shouts back. “I don’t expect them to doubt it for a second!”
I look at him, and I get a flash of Uriah as a father, dressed not in black tactical attire…but in a white shirt and jeans, holding a blue-eyed toddler in his arms. It’s a vision, almost…similar to a vision I once dreamed of Chris, holding my own future child.
I stare at Uriah, and then I snap out of it.
My dreams of having a unified family again – or at least building my own – are pretty much over at this point in my life. Even if I someday found someone who could love me despite how damaged I am…they’ll never know what it’s like to live in a pre-Collapse world. They’ll only know the aftermath of the greatest global war the world has ever seen. I will be bringing them into an environment that has been consecrated with too much blood. I think I could have done it with Chris, but now…
“Cassie!” Uriah says.
I look at him. “Yeah?”
“You okay? You look rattled!”
I force a smile.
“Nah,” I lie. “I’m good to go!”
I flip a thumbs-up.
I can tell that he doesn’t believe me.
By the time the Black Hawk lands, I have pushed all thoughts of a post-war life out of my head. There is only now, and I have got to keep my head in the game. The small airfield has been built here on the edge of the city, once a massive parking lot, and now a tarmac for Black Hawks transporting troops.
I step out of the chopper, feeling the sea breeze tangling my hair. There is a convoy waiting to take us to headquarters where General Beckham will be waiting – and I’m sure he can’t wait to work with me.
We pour out of the choppers and approach the convoy. A young Sector 13 soldier in uniform salutes, and we pile into the vehicles. We roll through the streets of Monterey, passing the Fisherman’s Wharf, and driving past the naval postgraduate school. The fences have been rebuilt and electrified, and as we drive, I force myself to look away.
Too many memories. It just doesn’t feel right to be back.
We hit the downtown area and take a right, sloping into Cannery Row. Everything here has been fortified, as well, and every building has been cleaned to make room for Sector 13’s forces. In the center of the main drag through the tin-like buildings overlooking the bay, I see headquarters. It’s inside a large building – once used for canning sardines in a world so far removed from global war, it’s hard to believe it ever even existed.
Everything has been moved out, and it’s now a massive, warehouse-style building. The convoy comes to a halt in front of it, and I take the first step outside.
“Well,” Vera mutters. “I was going to say it feels good to be back…but it doesn’t.”
No kidding.
“General Beckham is waiting for you inside,” the Sector 13 soldier tells us.
I thank him, and then we head inside the building. It’s massive – there are desks and computers crammed next to each other, all facing a screen at the end of the room. The screen is displaying live satellite footage of the Athena Strike fleet, which is moving toward the California coastline. Beside the big screen there are two dozen smaller ones monitoring different areas of the Pacific coastline, from San Diego to Washington State, all the way up to Canada and Alaska.
General Beckham stands near the big screen, talking in hushed tones with Sector 13 intel officers. He looks up as I walk in with my team. He exhales.
Like I said: thrilled to see me.
He finishes his conversation and then walks over to us.
“General Hart,” he says, saluting.
I return the gesture. It’s strange being greeted with the title of General.
He nods respectfully at the rest of the team and says, “Why don’t you come with me? I have some intel you’re going to need to know.”
We follow him through the massive room, up a series of stairs that leads to a large upper floor. Here, there are rows upon rows of folding chairs. They are all aligned in front of a raised podium.
“I’ve been using this room for briefings with intel and officers,” Beckham explains. “For now, it’s just us.”
He shuts the door, a hesitant expression on his face.
“Please, have a seat,” he encourages.
I sit in the front row next to Uriah, and Vera folds her arms across her chest.
“I’ll keep this brief,” Beckham says. “The Athena Strike Fleet is carrying Chancellor Veronica Klaus. Apparently, after she escaped from your men at Compound C, she went straight back to her fleet. She will be leading the attack on the West Coast, and thanks to favorable weather, they will be here in three days instead of four.”
“Do you have any information we couldn’t have already guessed at?” Elle grunts.
Beckham glares, then turns to me.
“Hart, it’s imperative that we protect California above all else,” he goes on. “California offers more resources than Oregon and Washington at this point, because of the nuclear damage Omega inflicted on their states. We’ve been hit the lightest. I want you to oversee the protection of everything from Monterey to the northern tip of California. I will oversee everything from Monterey to San Diego – everything in the southern regions.”
“And President Banner?” I ask.
“We’ll be communicating with him directly from Camp Freedom as we fight,” Beckham says. And then he sits down, resting his arm on his knees. “I don’t want to sugarcoat anything for you. Our odds are getting worse by the minute. Our forces are feeding us intel from overseas, telling us that China, North Korea, Syria, and the rest of Omega’s strongholds are not only mobilizing their civilian population for relocation but for military movement.
“Do you understand what I’m saying?” he presses. “The Athena Strike is nothing but a first wave. There are millions more coming. We have no chance.”
“We have to destroy the heart of the enemy,” I tell him. “If we can destroy the leadership, we can destroy the entire structure of Omega.”
“And how do you propose we do that?” Beckham asks.
The only way we have lift, I think, my heart sinking.
“We have to bomb the Table in Beijing,” I say.
“That’s what President Banner originally wanted to do,” Beckham snaps, “and you begged him not to.”
“As a first resort, yes,” I correct. “Starting this last battle with a nuclear strike would have guaranteed starting a firefight before the fleet even got here. We couldn’t afford that before even trying to withstand the army coming at us. But if Athena is too powerful, then we have to destroy the Table, and we have to neutralize the territories overseas that Omega is using against us. Obviously, President Banner would agree with that strategy.”
“What about the civilians who are under Omega control?” Vera asks. “By using our nuclear weapons to exterminate Omega, we’ll be exterminating the population they’ve subdued.”
“They’ll just have to die,” Uriah shrugs.
“Then we’ll be just like Omega. Killing anybody in our way to win.”
“We’ll be alive, and we’ll have freed their slaves from a lifetime of misery.”
Vera presses her lips together.
Yet Uriah is right…we have no choice. At some point, people are going to die. It’s just a matter of when. Does that make us horrible people, deciding who will die, and why?
No, I think. It’s the nature of war. No matter how horrible it is, you have to make decisions for the greater good, or the wrong people might end up making them, and then the world ends up being worse
off than it was in the first place.
“I’ll discuss the matter with the president,” Beckham agrees. “Hart, you’ll be downstairs with me, monitoring the invasion. The Freedom Fighters and the remainder of every militia in California are gathered in Monterey. They will answer directly to you.”
I had expected this, but it still scares the crap out of me.
For the fiftieth time today, I wish Chris was here.
“The next 72 hours is going to be a tense prologue to the destruction coming,” Beckham warns. “We must have every troop in position, every ship in place.” He draws a rough line down the center of a piece of presentation paper on a large easel. “Omega will have roughly twelve ships at every hotspot on the coast. Their troop transports are called Blood Sharks, and each Shark holds a thousand Omega soldiers. Monterey alone is going to be hit with twelve Sharks – that’s twelve thousand foot soldiers.”
He draws dozens of small circles along the line.
“Hart,” he says, meeting my gaze. “Do whatever it takes to destroy those transports. They must not reach land. Once their soldiers reach our shores, our chances of pushing them out diminish greatly. We have to destroy as many on the water as we can.”
“Understood,” I agree.
“This is the last stand,” Beckham goes on. “We destroy Omega, or we die trying.”
“We’re all ready for either.”
He nods, and then he leaves us, looking away from me. He exits the room without a word, still angry that we have to work together on this, that he must take my opinion into serious consideration.
“Now what?” Vera asks. “He’s so bitter that President Banner made you a general, he can’t even stay behind to-”
“It doesn’t matter,” I interrupt. “We have three days until Athena Strike. That’s all. Beyond that, we don’t even know if the country is going to survive. Let’s focus on that.”
Some part of me wonders why Beckham dislikes me and the militias so much. I think about what he said about wanting to command my men, back in Camp Cambria, and I think about how his personal experience with Omega is so limited…or so he says.
