But was there an attempt in the offing? It was hard to tell what Jenn and Deanna were doing with their combined forces. Other than a few fires burning up in the hills to remove the zombie threat, Jillybean couldn’t see that anything was being done at all. Which wasn’t a bad thing. An unseen opponent could be twice as frightening as one splayed out for all to see.
Jillybean fell asleep in her chair, the cool winter sun on her face. She dreamt of cookies and woke to Faith holding a little disk of galvanized aluminum. It was somewhat disappointing, especially to Ipes who cocked a floppy ear and decided he wasn’t ever going to speak to Faith again.
“You never spoke to her before, so how is that a punishment?”
I’m withholding me. Think how dull her life will be now.
“She can probably use a touch of dullness. Oh, thanks for the fish, Faith. It really hit the spot.” The woman had been standing there watching Jillybean talk to herself with her jaw slack, wondering if Jillybean was really crazy like everyone said, or if she was actually possessed.
Faith’s face contorted into the very thinnest of smiles, she nodded and turned away, whispering, “Mother Mary bless us.”
Jillybean snorted a little laugh without rancor. She figured that since she was about to open up a man’s head, a blessing wouldn’t hurt. With the disk in hand, she made her way back down into her muggy little operating room and went back to work. The placement of the disc was a success, though an unnerving one since an electric bone saw was unavailable and the opening had to be cut by hand. It was delicate work especially as the boat constantly shifted under her feet.
It was evening by the time Jillybean had seen each patient. Tired, but happy with the results, especially with the brain bleed, she came on deck and found a small crowd waiting on her. There was Deanna and her daughter, both fresh and vibrant, looking almost like sisters in matching parkas; Bishop Wojdan taking up an entire cushioned bench with his bulk; Knights Sergeant Troy Holt and Reserve Commander Jennifer Edgerton in their armor stood behind him; Gunner draped in a sheet, a new mask in place, took up another bench; Neil Martin, still looking like he was about to take in a Mariners baseball game in hell, leaned against the rail and was eating one of the fresh caught fish, extreme sushi style: the scales were still on it and its innards were dripping onto the deck.
The last of them was Jenn Lockhart wearing her usual long black coat. She was pale and beautiful, and although only sixteen she retained an aura of authority that matched both the bishop and the governor.
She hurried to Jillybean and whispered, “He’s resting easier than he had been. Do you think he’ll make it?”
“Other than having his Excellency intercede on his behalf, I don’t think there’s anything more we can do.”
Wojdan smiled at this. “In the end, we all find God, one way or another. I’m just glad you finally seem to be poking about for him before it’s too late, your Highness.”
Jillybean was surprised that he had addressed her as he had since she was no longer queen of anything, and he knew it. She gave him a brief smile, saying, “When you’ve been to hell, you have to believe there’s a heaven.” She pointed with her chin at the squalid little town. “That’s the closest thing to hell on earth. It’s our job to burn it down. So, where are we on that? What’s the plan?”
Eyes shifted, Reserve Commander Edgerton toed a crack in the deck, the Bishop sighed, and Gunner rolled his eyes. “I think that means they don’t have one,” he growled.
“No, we just haven’t decided on one yet,” Troy said. “It’s a matter of risk versus reward. Most of us think that we need to create some sort of diversion before we attack. I personally like the idea of using smoke across the north side, while we bring the fleet up to the south. Then we feint along the mud river in the east and launch a full-out attack from the west. Yes, we’ll need flotation devices for two-thousand soldiers, but they can be made from anything that’ll float. It shouldn’t be hard.”
Jillybean was a little disappointed. She had hoped that when Jenn had said she would “take care of everything else,” it would include coming up with a workable plan. What Troy was offering wasn’t it.
“Seems somewhat complicated for an untrained army,” Jillybean noted, studying the young knight’s face. He took the criticism without blinking an eye. “Still, the timing wouldn’t have to be exact to draw men from the western defenses. The question is how many would shift? It would take only two or three companies to defend a river that’s over a hundred yards wide. And if our men made it across, they’d have to face at least two rows of concertina wire, trenches and pillboxes.” He only nodded, his face impassive. “What sort of casualties do you expect? Honestly?”
He did not care for anyone questioning his honesty and this was reflected in his glare as he answered, “They’ll be high. The same will be true of any attack.”
“High?” Jillybean asked. “That’s your best estimate? Could you give me a number? Would fifty percent be in the high range?”
“Possibly,” he admitted.
“It’s why we haven’t settled on a strategy,” Jenn said, quickly. “We run up against the same thing with each of these…what do you call them? Scenes? No, it’s scenarios. They’re all too bloody. It’s why I wanted to wait for you to finish and for Mister Gunner to wake.”
Gunner had been sleeping since coming aboard. Sleep was all he did anymore and he hated it. His body, those parts that weren’t mending, ached for action. “Next time, wake me,” he said, doing his best to look Jenn straight in the eye. He felt his gaze constantly being sucked toward Deanna and Emily. “First off, diversions will have only limited value. He’ll be expecting them. Secondly, an attack across the river would be all or nothing. If the fight bogs down there will be no way to retreat.”
“Which is an added incentive to drive on,” Troy said.
“Yes, well,” Gunner started to say, only to stop when he found his eyes locked on Deanna’s. They had just hopped right over to her and he always had trouble doing anything while he was busy staring at her. He grunted and blinked, and made himself concentrate on Troy. “What I mean is that the Guardians are fierce fighters, and very brave; however they are too few to make the crossing alone. You’ll need the rest of the army and I know for a fact that they won’t make it.”
The Bishop stirred his bulk, his layers of vestments rustling. “Then what do you suggest? Can the Corsairs be defeated?”
“Of course,” Gunner answered. “There’s a chance that Troy’s plan might very well work. There’s a chance that the Black Captain is barely holding onto power. I just thought the question on the table concerned casualties. Any attack against a fortified and prepared defense will mean very high casualties and a good possibility of failure. Our best chance is to lure them out of Hoquiam. We could then use the Guardians as a defensive fulcrum to launch coordinated attacks from every direction.”
“Can they be drawn out?” Jenn asked. She had asked Gunner, but everyone knew that the question had been meant for Jillybean.
She rubbed the bristles on her head, noting how they were softer than they had been. “The Corsairs will not come out of Hoquiam unless we drive them out. With the prevailing wind so frequently out of the west, it would not be hard to use chlorine gas against them.” This had everyone’s attention. It sounded like a quick fix to their problems. “The problem with its use is that it will affect the slaves as well as the Corsairs. I’m not willing to kill the slaves in order to free them.”
“I agree with the Queen,” Wojdan said. “I will not be a part of such cruelty. Which brings us back to how do we win? How do we win without getting half of us killed?”
Jillybean felt their eyes on her but she refused to look away from the distant town of Hoquiam. She had been turning the question over in her mind for a few years now and the answer was not one she cared to think about.
“Let’s first plant our poisonous seeds,” she said. “Neil could you be in charge of negotiating for us?”
This raised a few eyebrows, yet no one said a word. No one was sure that the Corsairs would respect a white flag. A man might get shot out of hand, while a woman might find herself in chains and being passed from bed to bed. Troy opened his mouth to say something, however both the Bishop and Jillybean shook their heads. There was also a chance that whoever went would be tortured for information and Neil was the least likely to say anything. Anything with any meaning that is.
“Sure thing,” Neil said, grinning monstrously, a trickle of pinkish gray fluid leaking down from his hairline. “I was hoping to be of some use around here. I’m also a whiz at cooking. If anyone’s interested in fondue when I get back.”
No one rushed to accept the invitation, Jillybean included. “I want at least a hundred slaves in trade, and half should be children. Start at three hundred, but don’t go lower than a hundred. And Neil, keep your eyes and ears open. I want to know about their defenses, how many men they have, their mood, everything.”
“Everything? Everything seems like a lot. I can try, though. And a hundred kids for our prisoners. Got it. Should be a piece of cake.”
She fed him more instructions then: “Don’t mention the size of our army besides saying it’s huge. Don’t make any bargains other than for the slaves. If he asks our intentions, tell him we are here to depose him and free his slaves. That’s it. We will accept his surrender and offer only a prison sentence as punishment for his crimes. Also, hint that we’ll be here as long as it takes. It’ll help us with the slave negotiations. After all, to him they’re just more mouths to feed.”
“Speaking of which, I’m getting kind of hungry. Are any of those Corsairs close to, you know, expiring?”
Jillybean laughed it off as if it was a joke. “Good one. Say stuff like that when you’re there. It’ll unnerve them.”
It had unnerved Jenn, Bishop Wojdan and especially Edgerton who went as gray in the face as her armor.
With the instructions swirling in his head, Neil climbed into a rowboat that was tied behind the Dead Fish. It took Neil within half a mile of Hoquiam. A white flag jutted from the prow of the little boat like the horn of a narwhal. Its bottom edge dragged in the water as he fumbled about with the oars. In dribs and drabs he managed to get the boat across the water until he ground up in mud. Taking his flag, he splashed to shore. Through her binoculars, Jillybean could see him waving to the Corsairs and flashing his hideous grin. He disappeared into the town.
The wait quickly became tedious. Unanswerable “What if” questions flew around the boat. Jillybean grew tired of the speculation and left to check on her patients. Jenn left as well and went to sit with Mike and held his limp hand while he clung to life. Gunner did everything he could to sit up straight and not look so much like a monster as Emily dragged her mother over to be with him.
He warned her with his eyes not to say anything and she reluctantly agreed…not to say anything completely obvious. That didn’t stop her from beating around the bush. “You were in the army back before, weren’t you?” she asked, as if the thought had just occurred to her. “Is that how you got so good as a general and all? Or was your rank captain?”
“No, that wasn’t me,” he said, glaring over his sheet. “I was a plumber. Drains and sinks, that sort of thing.”
“You knew the River King, right?” Emily asked, without giving him a moment. “Were you there when he died?”
Gunner had been close. He had been on death’s door being dragged away by Neil when Jillybean had killed the River King. He hadn’t thought about that time in years. Inadvertently, he said, “Yeah. Well, I wasn’t right there with him. No one was, except Jillybean. But I don’t want to talk about that.”
Emily had a follow up question in her holster. In fact, she had an entire interrogation planned to break him, but her mom stopped her. “Let’s leave him alone. Those weren’t good times for him. Gunner was mixed up back then. A lot of us were.”
“He wasn’t mixed up, mom. He wasn’t even a…” Gunner reached out and grabbed her knee, giving it a squeeze and making her jump.
Three lines cut across Deanna’s forehead and she was about to demand to know what was going on, when she caught sight of Neil in his little rowboat, battling foot-high waves as if he were out in a hurricane. He kept going in circles. The Dead Fish angled in and threw him a line and dragged him back across the harbor. He was all smiles.
“A hundred and fifty!” he yelled out as he got close. A small celebration occurred on board The Courageous. They acted almost as if a battle had been won. Neil was in high spirits. “I remembered everything. It was so strange. At first all I could think of was eating this guard and then there was the Black Captain. And I remembered what he did to poor Stu and, just like that, I was myself again. I’m not anymore and I’m still hungry.”
He was disappointed that no one had died while he was gone and had to settle for half of a fifteen-pound nurse shark that had been caught that morning.
While he ate, most of the fleet sailed up into the wind to await the slaves along the harbor west of the town. True to his word, the Black Captain sent a hundred and fifty miserable creatures limping across a narrow pontoon bridge and down to the beach. Once they were safely away, the other part of the fleet slid up and deposited the captured Corsairs on shore.
Once they were out of sight, Jillybean said, “Now we wait and pray that the poison spreads and kills them from the inside.”
“And what if it doesn’t?” Troy asked. He had as much faith in prayer as anyone, but at the same time he liked to be prepared for all contingencies. And they still didn’t have a plan. “Should we start looking for another miracle from the Queen?”
“Just pray,” Jillybean answered.
Praying was what the Guardians did best. The Bishop said mass every night, and that night was no different except the turnout was five times as large. Practically everyone was there and the Bishop had to shout at the top of his lungs to be heard. Hymns were sung, hands were held, and the Lord was beseeched.
The next morning, when the sun rose golden and brilliant, it lit up Hoquiam, making even the squalor seem quaint from a distance. To the left was the swollen western fork of the Hoquiam River, while to the right was the long mud bog that was the dammed eastern fork, and where that fork once emptied into the harbor was the Corsair fleet huddled in a mass. In front of the town were the sandy shoals that would make an amphibious attack a bloody massacre.
Along the low beach was something new. Cut down telephone poles had been set into the dirt—the poles still had their crossbars—and hanging from each was a crucified man. The poison had been spat out.
Chapter 43
Grays Harbor, Washington
As the seagulls and the crows battled over the rights to the dead Corsairs, the argument on board The Courageous heated up. A new plan had been called for.
Both Troy and Reserve Commander Jennifer Edgerton offered variants of the their attack plans, though neither addressed the likelihood that they would still result in outrageous casualties. Deanna suggested that they starve them out. Wojdan killed the idea, remarking, “You know it would also mean the death of two-thousand slaves. I wouldn’t put it past the Corsairs to eat their slaves.”
With each new plan trotted out, an interesting dynamic made its presence felt. Jenn Lockhart, who was the second youngest of those present, came to hold veto power over all of them, even if they had never pledged their honor to her. She always spoke last, asked probing questions and when she made a decision, it became the final one.
Once all the ideas had been rejected by the Queen, she turned to Jillybean. “I know you have a plan, because you always have a plan. It can’t be any worse than the ones we’ve heard already.”
“Don’t be so sure,” Jillybean replied.
“So, you’ve had a plan all along?” Bishop Wojdan asked. “Why didn’t you tell us right off the bat and save us the headache of going through all of this?”
“I was hoping someone would come up w
ith something better, something more palatable.” In truth, she had been hoping someone else would have come up with the same idea that had been percolating in her mind for some time. “My plan is very simple. We assassinate the Black Captain.” Before she even ran through the details, some of those present were already shaking their heads. She had expected her plan to be almost universally despised, which was one of the reasons she hadn’t wanted to bring it up at all.
Bishop Wojdan refused to bless it, calling it state sanctioned murder. Edgerton said there was no honor in it. Deanna didn’t think it had a chance in hell of working because of who was being asked to go, and Emily Grey was practically in tears because Jillybean wanted her father to lead one of the teams.
Captain James Grey, AKA Gunner, wasn’t exactly thrilled either. Simply climbing a short flight of stairs made him dizzy and his speed topped out at just below two miles an hour. It was all he could do to draw a full breath without breaking down in a fit of coughing, and if there had been another real marksman in their small army, he would have asked that he or she go instead.
Even Jillybean hated her own plan. First off, it was clunky, inelegant and depended too much on chance. Secondly, even if it worked she would be killing two of the people she loved most in the world. For Troy Holt, Gunner and Neil Martin, it would be a one-way mission. They would not live to see morning.
As before, the Queen was last to speak. Jenn listened to the pros, of which there was only one: it was the only plan that didn’t end in widespread slaughter, and she weighed the cons, of which there were too many to count. While the argument over the plan grew loud she remained silent until finally, her silence was noticed. Everyone turned to her as if her vote was the only one that counted.
“What do you think, your Highness?” Wojdan asked.
Generation Z (Book 6): The Queen Unchained Page 51
