No envoys, but she did see Michael and Sturm at one table, half-done with their meal. She wandered over, nodding and waving as people greeted her when she went by, and then sat next to Sturm, opposite Michael.
“Good morning, Marines. How’s it going?”
Sturm shrugged, and wore a smile. “It goes very well.”
Michael shot Sturm a glare. That was odd… He turned to Cassy. “Good morning. Going well, except for the damn stew. After biscuits and gravy, it’s hard to go back to slop.”
Cassy laughed. How true that was. “Yeah. I hear that. Say, Michael, where’s our guests?” Of course Michael would know. It was his business to know. His job.
He shrugged. “Not here.”
Cassy frowned. That didn’t answer her question. “Are you saying you don’t know where they are?” The idea was worrisome.
“No, I didn’t say that. They left Clanholme last night.” Michael took another bite of his stew and frowned, but ate it just the same.
Cassy’s eyebrows knitted. “Michael, you’re playing word games. You know where they are, and they left Clanholme. They said nothing about leaving. Did they find out something they shouldn’t have? Should I be worried?”
Sturm gave Cassy a half-smile and said, “I wouldn’t worry.”
Michael again shot a glare at Sturm. Then he said to her, “Why don’t you go get me another cup of apple juice, Sturm.”
“Aye, aye, sir.” Sturm got up and left.
Cassy was used to the weird way Marines gave each other orders, or even just talked to one another, so she wasn’t surprised that Sturm hadn’t even paused at the tone in Michael’s voice. It was normal, to her. Cassy watched her leave, then looked at Michael.
“You’re our head of security. I know you would never lie about official business, but stop playing word games. Tell it true—where are the envoys and why did they leave?”
Michael let out a long breath. He set his spoon down and gave Cassy his full attention. “It is this Marine’s duty to inform the Clan leader that he and three other Marines left Oscar and Jason in shallow graves deep inside the north copse of woods. They left because I instigated a lie that lured them to the copse, specifically so that I could kill them.”
Then he picked up his spoon and began eating his stew again, as though he hadn’t just told her he’d disobeyed her direct order to leave them alone.
She said, “So you follow my order to tell me the truth, but disobey my direct order to leave them alone? Do you know what you’ve done?” She felt her face flush, and felt suddenly hot.
Michael sighed. “That’s correct. They’ve been here a month. They have surely found out more than we’d have liked. Cassy, we are going to war, whether we want to or not. Whether we try to appease their spies or not. That being the case, it’s my job to protect the Clan, not to obey you. I did what I felt was required to do my job, and I’d do it again. You want to exile me, go ahead. I’ll leave with a clear conscience. Maybe you should just let me do my fucking job and back the hell up.”
Cassy’s jaw dropped. Michael had never, ever spoken to her like that before. She felt her hands clench into fists, but stopped. She counted to three, taking deep breaths and looking at her bowl as she did so. Finally, she felt her pulse slow a bit. This was not the time to make rash statements.
“Michael, I give you orders, and you follow them because that’s the chain of command, not because I’m somehow more important than anyone else. You feel you have a higher duty to protect the Clan than to follow that chain. Is that right?”
Michael nodded, staring into her eyes unflinchingly.
“What’s done is done. But Michael… If this bites us in the ass, the Clan will hold you personally responsible for the consequences of your actions. Unless and until that happens, I am going to simply trust your judgment. You have counterintelligence training, and I don’t.”
Michael nodded again.
“Okay. Time to move on. But one more thing… This Clan will never survive with too many chiefs. Next time, I want to know ahead of time, before you want to break the chain of command and risk war with a foreign power all by yourself.”
Michael was silent for several long seconds. At last, he said quietly, “Very well. Next time, I’ll talk to you before I go kill our enemies.”
Cassy nodded. “Good enough. Done is done. You going to eat that last slice of bread?”
Michael’s lips turned up at the corners. “I sure am,” he replied as Sturm returned with two cups of juice. “But I’ll split it with you.”
Cassy reached across and accepted the half-slice he offered to her. But she couldn’t get past the nagging worry of what would happen when the Empire’s official envoys didn’t check in with their masters, but that was a problem for the future. And Michael was right—leaving them alive wouldn’t have changed the outcome. She just had wanted as much time as possible in between now and the start of the war.
- 8 -
0900 HOURS - ZERO DAY +198
CASSY WATCHED AS Thomas, the Intercourse envoy, left her “HQ” and closed the door. Michael, sitting on the couch, grunted.
“What’s on your mind, Michael?” Cassy sat back down in her recliner and let the footrest up, leaning back.
“I have concerns,” he said. “Some things aren’t adding up.”
Cassy nodded. Of course, she had her own concerns. “For one, they’re pretty damn eager to join our Confederation. Most people need a bit of convincing, but not Intercourse.”
“There’s that, certainly. But I’ve got the report back from one of my men who went to Intercourse to evaluate their defenses and see where we could offer advice to shore them up. Now I think we should give them bad advice. Make them vulnerable if we can, not secure.”
“And why do you say that?”
“They’ve got no salvage. Name one established survivor group that has no piles of useful things they’ve scraped together. Everything from old window frames to tarps to scrap iron. And then there’s their rifles. My guy says fully half of their rifles are the same model, firing the same round. It’s remotely possible they found a gun store that specialized, but I don’t buy it.”
“That bit about the salvage,” Cassy said, “sounds like they just appeared there. And why had we not encountered their people before? At least, we should have run across their scouts before now. It’s not like we don’t patrol to our south.”
Michael nodded. “And the report I received says that their defenses seem recent. There’s gashes in the muddy ground still from where they moved big rigs into place to wall off part of the town. It implies their defenses were set up only recently.”
Cassy frowned. It sounded worse and worse. “So, they may have only recently appeared, only recently built those defenses, they’re well organized, and their weapons aren’t random enough. They were supplied with those weapons. And who has enough horses to move so many semitrucks around? I would have thought they’d have eaten most of their horses over this past winter. And finally, we never encountered them before now.”
Michael said, “So we’re thinking similar thoughts. I’ll make sure we keep an eye on that Thomas guy while he’s here. If we catch him snooping, I’ll take him to the Smoke Shack.”
“Only if it’s necessary, Michael. Understand? Check with me first this time—but if it’s needed, we’ll do that.”
Cassy shuddered—thinking of that dreaded place always had that effect on her. She swore she could feel the blood and pain that place had soaked up. If there were ghosts around, that’s where they’d be.
* * *
Jaz sat next to Choony on the wagon, the repetitive thump of the wheels over ripples in the Newport Road asphalt feeling hypnotic. Rifle in her right hand, she swept her gaze back and forth ahead of them and to either side, looking for movement. Every so often she would stare at some distant point for three seconds, the better to catch movement in the foreground. So far, nothing moved out there.
Choony had the reins loose
on his lap and was looking at their map. “Kinzers should be just ahead, so keep your eyes open,” he said. “After that, a bridge over some stream or other, and onward to Gap. That’s where the real danger will be—it’s a large enough town to have hungry survivors, maybe.”
Jaz grunted in acknowledgement. The warning wasn’t necessary, but not unwelcome. It was good to know what lay ahead, but she assumed all survivor groups were murderous cannibals until they showed otherwise. Someday, she figured, she and Choony would get ambushed and become someone’s dinner. Until then, she’d just do her best to keep them both alive.
The wagon slowly approached Kinzers. A large building on the left looked like a school. Then she saw a single plume of gray smoke rising from further east, past the school. Jaz said, “I think people are alive in there. Look.”
Choony turned his head, then picked up the reins and drew the wagon to a halt. “I suppose we should say hello, then. Yeah?”
“That’s what we’re here for,” Jaz replied. She checked the safety and small magazine of her rifle. “All set.”
Choony turned the wagon eastward, skirting the south end of the school. A large sign came into view proclaiming it a high school, but it had no obvious signs of inhabitants. Once beyond the school, they saw the “town” was really not much more than a few scattered businesses. They turned left again, trying to find the source of the smoke, and passed a huge grain mill, which Choony noted on the map. Then, on the right, they saw a cluster of buildings that looked like some sort of medieval manor. A winery, perhaps, or some weirdly-placed mansion. And directly ahead of them lay the source of the smoke plume—another school. The sign said it was an intermediate school. It was far too large for just the few pre-EMP locals who had lived nearby.
Jaz said, “It must have served practically the whole county. Look at those wide open fields around the school. And across the road is nothing but farmland. I wonder if it was sprayed with that brown haze the ’vaders used when their airplanes worked.”
Choony pulled the wagon into the parking lot of the school, which ran parallel to the road, came to a stop, and waited. Jaz could see that the plume of smoke came from inside one large segment of the school, the roof of which had a large hole cut into it. She imagined it was the communal living area. After sitting still for some five minutes, Jaz was about to suggest they wander inside but then she saw movement. Four people came out of the school armed with rifles, which they aimed at the wagon while they approached; they had a clear shot at Jaz, but with the way the wagon was parked they had no shot at Choony. Jaz aimed her rifle back, focusing on the person in front. Hopefully he was the team leader…
At about twenty yards away, they halted and three of them kneeled, keeping weapons aimed at Jaz and the wagon. The man still standing—the one at whom Jaz had her own rifle aimed—shouted, “Who are you and what do you want? You are trespassing on Outpost Alpha territory.”
Jaz didn’t know what the hell Outpost Alpha was, but shouted back, “We come in peace. We’re here to make contact with other survivor groups—”
The man interrupted, “Where you from?”
“Up north. We’re from Clanholme, and—”
One of the kneeling men shouted, “It’s them!” and opened fire, his first bullet tearing a chunk out of the wooden pole next to her head that held the wagon’s canvas cover.
Jaz’s return shot struck their leader in the face and he flopped over backwards, even as Jaz felt the surge of the horses straining against their harness. The wagon quickly began to roll. The three men kneeling fired one more time, but missed her, and she fired two rounds in quick succession, causing her attackers to slide face-first into the dirt as they went prone. The wagon suddenly veered right, and Jaz glanced ahead. Choony had taken the wagon around the corner of the school, between it and the winery or mansion they’d passed, and in seconds they were out of sight from the shooters. The wagon never slowed.
Jaz felt the wagon veer south again and onto the road. Ahead lay the bridge. She stood in the seat and turned around to look behind the wagon, and saw five people on horses far behind them, but catching up quickly. “They’re coming, Choony,” she said and swung her rifle up to rest on the wagon cover’s supporting crossbeam. They fired at the wagon intermittently, but never came close. She fired, but also missed. At this range, with the wagon at full speed, their pursuers would be almost right on top of them before she could be sure of hitting them, so she sat back down. No use getting tossed from the wagon on a bump. She figured fifteen seconds would be enough time for them to get close enough to hit, and began the mental count. It also helped steady her nerves. Fifteen… Fourteen…
The wagon reached the bridge and as the wheels crossed over, the whole wagon jerked wildly. She realized she would have been thrown, had she still been standing, but lost her count. Where was she? Screw it. Ten… Nine…
As the wagon half-bounced off the bridge and back onto level road, Jaz saw half a dozen people ahead, kneeling, rifles aimed at them. They couldn’t possibly miss…
Bang, bang came the rapid sounds of six rifles firing. And then the wagon was roaring past them. To her amazement, they all missed. She was still trying to get a good grip on her own rifle after being bounced around so much when, ahead, more people. At least four more. Frantically she scrambled to get her rifle to her shoulder, but once she did she saw that they held their own rifles up in the air. Behind her, more shooting, but these people would be in the line of fire of their own people… Jaz was a bit confused from so much adrenaline coursing through her, but then she felt Choony grab her rifle barrel and push it down, spoiling whatever shot she had.
Jaz’s head whipped around to glare at Choony, but he only smiled. She took a deep breath… and then the sound of voices penetrated her adrenaline fog. “… all right, people? Whoa!”
Choony brought the wagon to a halt. “Thank you for chasing them off,” he said to the men.
Looking at them, Jaz’s spinning mind finally caught up—these men weren’t shooting at her, but at the people chasing her.
The man in front said, “You’re lucky we’ve been watching those people, keeping them on their side of the river. We don’t need the Empire snooping around on our side.”
Jaz blurted, “The Empire? Those guys?”
He nodded. “That’s right, miss. Our scouts had everything between here and Intercourse as being vacant, and then one day those people showed up. We sent a guy disguised as a trader. Turns out they were claiming they’d always been there, which we know is bullshit.”
Choony said, “Interesting. And the people chasing us, they were from Intercourse?”
“Yeah. They got three or four outposts like that one. They said they’d always been there, yet they didn’t have a thing to trade, not even for food. No scrap, nothing. Tell me one group of people still alive who don’t have stuff they’ve gathered, and who don’t need more food? I figure them to be spies, and a beachhead.”
Choony turned to Jaz and said, “I wonder why they didn’t just kill us when we were in Intercourse. It makes no sense.”
Jaz had a sudden thought, and a shivering chill ran down her spine. “What if… Maybe they didn’t kill us then because they didn’t have orders to, yet, but now they do?”
Choony’s jaw dropped. “That would mean…”
“Radios,” Jaz finished for him. “The Empire has at least a few radios. We’ve lost an advantage.”
The speaker in front of them said, “Well, you’re welcome to join us back in town, folks. The Gap welcomes any enemy of those bastards.”
Jaz nodded slowly, mind still reeling. “The Clan would love to talk to your leaders.”
* * *
Frank greeted the incoming patrol as they rode into Clanholme. It wasn’t easy on him, hobbling around on his crutch.
“Welcome home,” Frank said with a smile as Michael reined up near him.
Michael dismounted and shook Frank’s hand. “Thanks. We found them right where the scout s
aid they’d be. Twenty people from the Empire, judging by the coins we found on them. Same gold coins Nestor sent us a few days ago.”
“Twenty? And you attacked them with only ten people? Ballsy.”
Michael grinned and winked. “That’s ten Marines, buddy. It’s amazing what you can do with a well-timed surprise attack. It’s a great force multiplier. We got one injured, but I think it’s a flesh wound. Anyway, the Night Ghosts showed up while we were searching the bodies. Nestor said he’s run into a couple bands of Empire scouts recently, too, and figured there were even more that he missed.”
“That’s bad news—them being Empire scouts, I mean—and you should let Cassy know about them and what Nestor told you, right away.”
Michael raised one eyebrow at him. “Chain of command, buddy. You go tell her, and then tell Ethan, so he can let our allies know. It’s all part of the job you volunteered to help out with.”
Frank was stunned for a moment, but then felt his cheeks flush red. Michael was right, of course. “Okay, I’ll tell them both. This is going to take some getting used to. I’m used to actually being able to pull my weight—you know, go on raids and all. And now…”
Michael shook his head, and Frank felt the weight of his disapproval. “And now you’ve got to start thinking like a leader again, because when Cassy’s busy doing her agriculture thing, you are the leader again. It’s who we need you to be. Got it?”
Frank nodded, and looked away. “Yeah.”
“Good,” Michael said. “Anyway, I’m off. Need to water and brush down the horses. And Frank? Come see me later if you need to get some shit off your chest, okay? We’ve been friends since long before all of this, and I’m here if you need me.”
Frank nodded. “I may take you up on that.” He turned and headed toward the HQ, feeling a little embarrassed that he had let his physical handicap become a mental one, and that just wasn’t like him. He may be missing a foot, but his mind was intact. It was time to quit whining about things he couldn’t change and make the best of it. By the time he got to the HQ, he was done feeling sorry for himself. Now that the Empire was bribing all the locals and it was becoming more difficult to know who to trust anymore, he knew it was even more vital that he listened to Michael’s advice. Now, more than ever, he knew he had to be a real leader.
Dark New World (Book 5): EMP Resurrection Page 11
