When it beeped, Sturm said, “It came out one degree high. That could be bad, or it could be nothing. Just to be safe, I’ll get you a bottle of antibiotics.”
Jaz groaned and said, “Not that fish stuff, c’mon…”
“Nope, not from the feed store. Real human pills for you, Jaz. I’ll go let Cassy know you’re here and wounded. She’ll want to debrief you, and I’ll find you later with the antibiotics.”
“She can’t have my briefs,” Jaz told her, sticking her nose in the air.
Sturm looked Jaz in the eyes, smiled, and said, “I’m glad you’re back alive, both of you.”
Before Jaz could ask what she meant, Sturm and her sidekick bounced out. “Well, deuces…” She put her shirt back on, then said, “It’s safe to turn around again, Choony. Your virgin eyes won’t be damaged by seeing my upper girl parts.”
Choony turned around and sat beside her. Maybe ten minutes later, the flap rustled and Jaz looked up as Frank and Cassy came inside. Frank looked terrible—sunken red eyes with huge dark bags, as though he hadn’t slept, or maybe he had been crying. Or both. Cassy sported a new injury, it seemed, with her arm in a blue sling with white straps, the velcro type. Totally not a good look on her. Too many scars already. She really needed to take better care of herself.
Choony bowed to them, and Jaz waved with her good arm, wiggling her fingers.
Frank only nodded, while Cassy spared an obviously forced smile. Something bad had happened, Jaz sensed.
Then Cassy said, “The Empire came. Then came again. And they’re on their way again now, with more troops than we’ve ever seen in one place. We had… some bad losses.”
Jaz felt a shiver run down her spine and her pulse sped up. It was suddenly quite hot in the chow hall, despite wearing only her tank top and jeans. “Who… who did we lose?” she said, her voice cracking. She felt her throat tighten up. She realized she was getting scared.
Cassy closed her eyes and lowered her head. Frank looked up, his eyes blinking rapidly. Neither replied right away.
Jaz didn’t want to ask. If she did, it might be true and that would make it real. But she had to know who it was. Obviously it was someone close. “Who did we lose, Cassy?” she said, sounding more like a demand than a question. Please, God, don’t let it be her…
Cassy looked up again and gazed into Jaz’s eyes. Cassy’s eyes were suddenly red-rimmed. “We lost ten Clanners. And,” Cassy croaked, “we lost Mary.”
Frank had teary eyes, one fat drop crawling down his left cheek, leaving a trail of despair that stretched up to his eye.
A helpless feeling crashed into Jaz and ran through her. She felt a physical pain in her stomach. Unable to look Frank in the eyes, she looked down and fixed her eyes on her shoes. It was the only safe place to look. It had been a while since she felt this familiar old feeling.
“I’m so sorry, Frank,” Jaz said. Her voice cracked into silence at the end, and she only got half of his name out. The tears began to flow freely, then.
Beside her, Choony bowed low to Frank. “I feel deeply for your loss, Frank. She had a beautiful Chi. A great, vast Karma. Surely she has reached Heaven, if anyone has.”
Jaz understood what a compliment that was from Choony, who had his own deep beliefs. She caught his last three words, as well, which prevented it from being dishonest. Even now, Choony cared for other people’s feelings as much as for his honesty.
“Thank you, Choony,” Frank said. Jaz thought he just looked lost and hopeless, but she said nothing as Frank straightened himself and cleared his throat. “The Empire will be here and soon. At least two regiments, over two thousand of them at minimum. We have scouts reporting continually, and the number inches upward as new companies are seen.”
Jaz’s jaw dropped. “Seriously? How… how many Confeds do we have to face them?” She heard the note of urgency in her own voice.
Cassy shrugged and said, “Four hundred of Taggart’s soldiers, roughly. A hundred Clan. Thirty Taj Mahal. Fifty Manheim. Three hundred Lititz. Five hundred Ephrata. Five hundred Lebanon. A hundred Brickerville. One-hundred-fifty from the Gap.”
Jaz nodded slowly. That was something, at least. “What about Liz Town?”
“Who knows? They don’t advertise. Maybe six or seven hundred, but that’s a guess.”
Choony muttered, “Figure roughly twenty-one hundred total, though not including Liz Town, and of the rest, not every person can go. Of course they’ll have to leave enough behind to keep order back home. I would guess we can actually field eighteen-hundred at most, when you take away the ones who have to be left behind to guard their homes and even that is only if they give all they can to the effort.”
Cassy said, “We have some equalizers, though.”
“That’s good,” Jaz replied.
Cassy tugged at her shirt sleeve and her eyes darted back and forth between Frank and Jaz. She shifted from her left foot to her right, and as she spoke, her words came out just a touch too fast, a bit too loud. “We have eight cars that are armed and armored—Ethan calls them ‘battlecars.’ ” Then she leaned forward and in a suddenly hushed voice, she said, “We have working airplanes. Propeller-driven, really old. One’s a biplane that Dean named Betsy. They were crop dusters, and now they’re the Confed Air Force. Only a few of us know about them and we have to keep it that way. We want them to be a surprise.”
Jaz looked at Frank. His jaw was still clenched, though he had uncoiled his fingers from the balled-up fists he had before. He looked like he had aged several years in the weeks since she last came back to Clanholme. If Frank was taking it that bad, how messed up would his and Mary’s kid be? Totally bent. She had seen it before, street kids raised in hate. It twisted them. She had to help, she had to do something. She didn’t want to see that lost, hating, poisoned look ever again, the one that such kids got.
Then Jaz looked back to Cassy, because it was awkward and heartbreaking to look at Frank. Tanks and fighter planes… “How the hell did planes that still fly even happen?” She tried not to feel insulted that no one had told her, though she understood that she couldn’t narc about what she didn’t know, after all. They probably hadn’t told more than a couple people even inside the Clan. It still irritated her though.
Cassy replied, “Just something we’ve been working on for quite a while now. As far as we know, none of our allies have them nor do they or the Empire know about these.”
“When is the battle?” Jaz asked.
“Tomorrow, or more likely the next day,” Cassy said.
Jaz thought for a moment, then said, “You know, we still have a really big silo full of grain that hasn’t been used for food or planting. And we know where there are hundreds of survivors scattered all over the place.”
Frank tilted his head as he looked at her, pondering. “Where are you going with this?”
“I’m not sure, but it seems to me—and this is just an idea—we could gather a bunch of them up, arm them, and tell them if they fight for the Confederation they’ll get guns, food, and land to farm, with the Clan helping and teaching them how to do it without farm machinery.”
Frank slowly nodded. “Yeah… Well, we have maybe one-hundred-fifty spare rifles. That’s another company’s worth of cannon fodder.”
Cassy bit her lower lip and Jaz could see her wheels turning, thinking hard. Then Cassy said, “Actually, if we include sidearms we have over two hundred. And if we include our own personal sidearms, we have almost four hundred. That’s a light battalion, I think.”
Frank said, “After the war, there’ll be plenty of guns for everyone. We can trade them rifles to get our pistols back, then organize them into new Clanholme-style settlements on the abandoned farms around here. Slowly bring them into the Clan itself. Or let them make their own clans. More allies.”
Jaz said, “This is totally fascinating and all, but for right now, I’m just worrying about living that long.”
“Of course,” Choony said, “you’ll have lots of
time for that, Jaz. Assuming the Confederation wins. If they lose we’ll leave quickly, before the Empire gets here. Head south with whoever else wants to come.”
Jaz shook her head. “I’ll worry about that if I survive the battle, Choon.”
Choony’s jaw clenched once, then he looked calm again. He said, “You can’t go to the battle. You’re wounded.”
He had said it like that was some sort of final answer. Like hell it was. No one was keeping her from that battle. She had a bone to pick with those bastards. “I’m going. Try and stop me. I want to be there to see us win or lose firsthand. Besides, I’m a good enough shot that I’ll do a lot of good. Instead of an M4, I’ll take one of those hunting rifles and play sniper with… what does Michael call them? Targets of opportunity.” Jaz put on her best war-face, head tilted down so she was looking at Choony fiercely through her eyebrows, and in her deepest, rumbling voice said, “Sniiiperrr!”
Choony’s expression became more somber. He stood from where he had been sitting near her, looked down at her and said, “Well then, I’m coming with you. I’ll carry your pack and your ammo.”
“I don’t need you to—”
“You can’t carry all that alone, and I doubt you’ll get more than one or two shots off before you have to discontinue this really bad idea— it’ll hurt too bad to keep shooting.”
“Choony, you really shouldn’t come. The pacifist thing.”
“It’s not a ‘thing,’ and that’s up to me to decide what is good and bad Karma for me. I won’t harm anyone, but since I can’t stop the misery that is coming for everyone involved, I can at least help reduce yours by carrying things you’ll need.”
Jaz felt a nagging doubt about the idea. He was great at running ammo to the foxholes and so on, but to accompany her into battle? Despite the fact that as a sniper she’d be far from the battle lines, coming with her as she killed people… That was another issue. And with her shoulder hurting so bad, would he nag at her the entire time to head back to safety?
Finally, Jaz replied, “Fine, you can come. But I don’t want to hear anything about heading back. Not one word, understand? If you can decide your Karma stuff, I can decide when it hurts too bad for me to keep taking those bastards down.”
Cassy cleared her throat, and Jaz turned to look at her. So did the others. Cassy said, “I don’t suppose I get a say in this, and you’re a grown woman. But I’m in charge of this operation, Jaz. If I say it’s time to go, I expect you to follow my orders. If you agree to that, then I won’t have to go through the hassle of keeping you behind, or trying to find you when you slip away and head to the fighting.”
Jaz felt a knot of fear in her belly, twisting and turning like like she had swallowed a snake, but there was no way she’d let others take her risk for her. She hadn’t backed out of her job as envoy and that was at least as dangerous as this battle would be.
But Cassy had said yes! It was official. She was going to be part of the biggest battle for independence in America since that war in eighteen-something-something.
Jaz nodded, looking Cassy right in her eyes. “Deal.”
- 25 -
0800 HOURS - ZERO DAY +256
JOE ELLINGS LOOKED at the shabby buildings of Elizabethtown, many partially collapsed already. He hadn’t thought it could happen so fast—it had not yet even been a year since the EMPs took away all them fancy toys people liked so much, along with their cars and trucks, their power, everything. Apparently, without people inside them, buildings rotted faster than he had reckoned possible.
“Well,” said Carl, walking next to him, “I’m glad we could help each other out like this.”
Joe kicked a tin can and watched it bounce and clatter down the road. “You ain’t half bad for bein’ a king and all,” he said with a grin.
The woman, Sunshine, who had come out with Carl, said, “He’s no king. He’s the Timber Wolves Band’s Alpha. It’s like your Clan leader. And I think it’s great what the Clan is doing here.”
Joe nodded, his head bouncing from side to side with his lips pursed. “Yeah. One of them win-win things. Carl gets rid of a mess o’ refugees, you get to help your people get settled, and the Clan gets fighters and settlers.”
Carl said, “Beautiful day for the march. We got what, three hundred for you now, waiting by the Liz Town gate?”
Sunshine nodded. “Yeah, plus children—what few are still alive after all this time. But like I said, you needn’t worry about the kids. The Sewer Rat Band will take care of them until this battle is over. If you get slaughtered, we’ll try to foster them, but we can’t guarantee anything.”
“That’s a tragedy, Lord knows, but I figure it for a square deal,” Joe said. “We all just do as we can, now. But if we win, they all get new homes and new lives as Clanners. Them kids and their parents, what’s left of them after we whup the Empire and send them packing.”
Carl said, “It’s just too bad you don’t have more trucks, Joe. Drive them all back to Clanholme. It’s about ten miles otherwise, right?”
“Ten as the crow flies, maybe. More’n likely it’s gonna take most’a the daylight we got left to get there. We’re all just hoping the Empire don’t come around before then. If they do, we got guns for all these here people, though, so’s they can at least protect themselves. That’s why the truck. I’m a big guy, but I don’t reckon I could carry four hundred guns all the way here.”
“So you don’t have more trucks?” Carl looked at Joe with one eyebrow raised, a corner of his lip turned up. It was what them educated folks called a ‘knowing smile,’ and it made Joe feel uneasy and maybe just a little bit guilty. Not that it was an outright lie… He shook his head, annoyed at himself.
“You know darn well we ain’t got enough trucks for all these folks. Nope, they gotta hoof it if they want to join us. If they want it bad enough, they’ll make the trip. It ain’t far enough to kill no one, though. And we got a little room left in the back with the guns if someone gets hurt on the way.”
A low, distant noise first bothered his subconscious, making Joe look around uneasily, and then his mind suddenly grasped what it was as the noise grew louder and entered his conscious mind.
“The alarms,” shouted Carl. “Quickly! We have to get back to Liz Town. Run, dammit!”
The three of them turned on their heels and ran, then broke into full-on sprinting. Joe kept his head down and focused on running. His lungs began to ache. The muscles in his legs first tingled, then burned. Just running… And then the end was in sight, and his heart leapt for joy—the gate! And inside that, safety. And his truck… Just run. The gate slowly swung open as they approached. Behind him, Joe heard the sound of a rifle going off. Then another, and then a dozen. Tufts of dirt scattered around him. Just run.
Then they were through the gate, and Joe let out a whoop. He heard it clang behind him as it shut. Only then did he lean over, resting his hands on his knees and sucking air for dear life. It felt like he’d never have enough air again, after that half-mile sprint. He turned his head and saw that both Carl and Sunshine were inside as well, both doing the same darn thing he was. Yup, a body needed air, more than it needed whiskey, even. Just breathe…
A Lizzie, dressed in the same colors as Carl, ran up and saluted him. Carl waved the salute away and said, “Get on with it.”
“Alpha, our scouts returned just before you did. It’s the Empire, and they came in force.”
Carl looked up at the sky as he said, “And you say there’s a lot of them?”
“Yes, sir. We counted at least twenty of their banners—they got one for each company—and maybe a third of them are on bikes and horses. The rest on foot.”
Damn and double-damn. Joe looked at the gate he had just come through. At least all his recruits had been let inside even before he came running back. “I reckon we’ll have to man the wall with you then, Carl. I don’t figure we can get out in time to run.”
The guard ignored the interruption, not even lookin
g at Joe, and said, “Also, they’re moving in two groups, and not in the same direction. They split up just before the scouts came rushing back to report. It seems one is heading for us, and the other headed on to the east.”
“Crap,” Joe said, and then spat onto the pavement. “They’ll run over Manheim like a frog on the highway.”
Carl pointed to the south. “There’s a gate that way. It’s big enough to get your truck through. You can’t help Manheim—the Empire will have a head start—but you can hightail it toward Clanholme. Once you get in range with your radio, you can alert them and they can give Manheim a warning.”
“Pardon, but first I reckon I better give the guns to these here people we turned up, then I can drive my butt back east right quick till the radio works. Then come back and get the people. Would you set ’em on what way to go and pass out my weapons while I get that other stuff done?”
Carl nodded and said, “I will, I promise.” He set his hand on Joe’s shoulder, then said, “Good luck, and keep your head down.”
They shook hands, then Carl had Joe follow the messenger toward where they had stowed his truck. Joe turned back once and waved. It was a crapshoot whether he’d lay eyes on any of these here folks again after the battle, but he sure did hope so. Carl was good people, as his mamma used to say. These folks already done for some bad players just recent and that shoulda been enough trouble for one winter, he figured. Well, we all do what we gotta do.
“Alright,” Joe said to his escort as the truck came into view, “let’s get my guns passed out so’s I can get the hell out of here and let the Clan know what’s up.”
* * *
Cassy cursed, then shot her mother an apologetic look. “Sorry. But dammit, this is happening too soon. We needed more time!”
Grandma Mandy said, “Don’t you worry. But whatever you would have liked, you don’t have more time. So what will you do now?”
Cassy looked toward Michael, who stood next to Frank. “Alright, Michael. Just like we talked about. Get everyone out to the hills leading to Clanholme. The units in front get the horses so they can get there in time and get out alive.”
Dark New World (Book 5): EMP Resurrection Page 34
