Then Choony noticed Jaz was oozing blood from a nasty gash on the left side of her head, her hair slick with crimson. That explained her unconsciousness. She surely had a nasty concussion. All he could do was bandage it.
That done, he bolted to the back of the house to check on the window the Manheim fighter had mentioned. It was small. Even if he broke it out, he wasn’t sure he could get Jaz through it, especially with the glass that might remain in the frame. Even worse, outside he saw lots of movement. Empire movement. He dropped to all fours and crawled out of the room, closing the door behind him.
When he got back to the living room, the fighter was firing frantically. He glanced at Choony, but no more than a moment before he was firing again. “They’re overwhelming us. Too many. Can you get her through the window?”
Choony shook his head. “Window’s too small, and there’s a lot of movement outside it.”
“Shit…” He fired three times in rapid succession. “I’ll cover you. You’ve got to drag her out of here if you want her to live. We’ll be overrun in minutes.”
Choony nodded and spent the next minute getting his rifles slung onto Jaz. Then, with a moment’s help from the Good Samaritan, he got Jaz onto his back in a Fireman’s Carry. He was already sweating by the time he reached the door.
The fighter said, “Good luck, mister. Now… Run!”
Choony heard the man’s rifle, unloading half a magazine in the time it took Choony to get out the door and swing right. He trotted as fast as he could, headed southeast. Anywhere but here.
A cry behind him almost made him turn, but he caught himself in time. He didn’t have the time or physical energy to waste checking it out. Besides, he recognized the voice. The young man had been brave, and noble. But things were what they were. He would pray to Buddha for the young man, but knew that was more to assuage his own remorse than for the young man’s soul.
Then another cry, but of alarm rather than pain. Choony was halfway to the alley he intended to escape through when he heard a loud explosion. Someone had a grenade back there. Then he heard the sounds of boots pounding pavement, several people running toward him. He turned enough to see who was coming, but saw only three Manheim troops, two men and a woman. They all had U.S. flag shoulder patches, their simple statement of defiance to the Empire, someone had told him.
“Fucking run,” one of the men shouted. Choony turned back around and did his best. Whatever they were running from, he knew he had better avoid it too.
As they ran even with the overburdened Choony, the men pulled Jaz off his back and wrapped one of her arms around each of their shoulders. They moved as quickly as they could holding Jaz up between them. Choony had been there once himself, back in college after his first and only experiment with getting far too intoxicated.
Choony, Jaz, and the three fighters made a lot faster time after that. They reached the end of the alley and turned right, then doglegged left into another alley. At the end of that was a chainlink fence, but the woman said, “Don’t worry, Clanner. Follow me.”
She lifted the edge of the fence where it overlapped another section of chain link, and it came up easily. She held the flap for the two men and then for Choony. “Come on. There’s a safehouse around the corner.”
Just as she said that, a shot rang out from behind them. Choony, looking at the female fighter, saw from the corner of his eye one man’s head explode. The other man, pulled by the weight of Jaz and his fallen teammate, collapsed on top of her in a heap of arms and legs.
The Empire trooper pulled the trigger again, but nothing happened—Choony heard the click, click of him trying, then he fumbled with the charging handle to clear the jam.
Rather than return fire at the helpless Empire man, the woman beside Choony said, “Sorry, man. You’re on your own.” She grabbed her fallen Manheim fighter and half-pulled him to his feet. The two were gone in a second.
Just as Choony was going to rush to Jaz’s side, the Empire soldier behind him racked his charging handle. Choony heard the once-jammed round tink off a wall and then skitter along the pavement. Choony stiffened, waiting for the shot that would end his life rather than try to run. He wouldn’t leave Jaz behind.
“You don’t got a rifle, bud,” said the man behind him. “Turn around. Look at me.”
Choony turned stiffly. He didn’t mind the idea of being dead, but the process of dying? It was hard to maintain his detachment. His mind was fine with it, but his adrenal glands disagreed. And there was Jaz… Why didn’t she move?
“Why don’t you got a rifle?” asked the enemy fighter, keeping his own rifle aimed at Choony.
Looking down the barrel of that rifle, Choony slowly regulated his breathing and managed to get his heart rate down to something that didn’t thunder in his ears like a woodpecker. “We Buddhists don’t practice violence against our fellow man.”
“Then you keep strange company,” the man said, tossing his head toward Jaz’s limp form without letting his aim slip from Choony. “Oh ho, she’s got two rifles on her. One of them yours, right?”
“No, sir. I don’t fight. I help reload or I retrieve wounded, but I won’t do anything to harm a person directly.”
“Seems to me that reloading for her helps kill my people. You can’t say you won’t do anything to harm someone.”
Choony nodded slowly. That was a topic he struggled with, actually, but he had reconciled it long ago. “Perhaps. But if I help those who oppose the Empire, the bandits, and other evil people, then in a way I am reducing suffering in this world.”
“You killing someone like a raider would do the same.” He took a step toward them, briefly eyeing Jaz. “Surrendering and not fighting at all would do the same. I mean, there’s always gonna be evil in this world. Give in, suffer less.” He took another step toward them.
“Are we really debating philosophy in an alley with a battle all around us? Why haven’t you killed me yet?” Choony, his head cocked, was clearly interested in the answer, and by now had come to grips with the notion that he was about to die. Then Jaz would, too. Things were what they were. Why suffer by fretting things out of his control?
“Mostly because I don’t like the idea of shooting an unarmed pacifist civilian. I’m a soldier of the Republic, not a damn raider.”
“I notice very little difference. Please kill me first, okay?” Getting back to accepting his fate, rather than fighting it, had calmed him and restored his harmony. He just didn’t want to see Jaz die. Seeing her light snuffed out would destroy his harmony, he knew, putting him back into the curse of life, death, rebirth.
“I told you. I don’t kill unarmed civilians. Especially a pacifist. Run along. I have a job to do here.” The man approached to within about six feet from both Jaz and Choony, then swung his rifle to point toward Jaz.
She lay unconscious still, and unknowing. Choony’s heart sped up, his harmony gone in an instant. “No,” he cried out, and took one step toward the man without thinking.
The fighter looked to Choony, eyes narrowing. “Stay back, fucker, or I’ll shoot the bitch in the knee first.”
Choony froze. What could he do? But that was Jaz lying there. She was vulnerable. She was hurt. She would only be a victim. She had told him about her life before the Clan, at least bits and pieces of it. He wouldn’t allow her to die as she had lived, a victim right to the end. “You mustn’t. Please, for your own harmony, your energy. Killing me first would be merciful. Mister… have mercy. Please, you must.”
Still looking at Choony, the man spat on the ground, the wad of spittle and phlegm landing next to Choony’s boot. “I don’t kill civilians. But the Confed bitch dies,” he said. His voice was steady, calm.
As the Empire fighter turned his head back toward Jaz, time seemed to slow down and little details leapt out at Choony. The beads of sweat on the fighter’s forehead, the mole on his right cheek. The sounds of gunfire in the distance. His own heart beating like a drum. And then Jaz let out a whimper and rolled
her head to the other side just as the man was raising his rifle to his shoulder again.
If Jaz died in front of him, he would find his harmony so disrupted that he’d spend the rest of his life—whether five minutes or five decades—unbalanced. He’d be in the torment that those who were without Buddha’s guidance lived in, a world without color or joy. But if he attacked, then the fighter would be forced to kill Choony first. The entire complex chain of thought ran through him in an instant, like a bolt of lightning. He didn’t have to actually harm the soldier, only make him think he was going to do so.
Choony exploded in a burst of movement, sprinting at his enemy. The man turned his head, eyes widening so far that Choony could see whites both above and below his dun-colored irises. Choony came in low, crossing the six feet in a blink, and at the last instant he leapt forward. His shoulder struck the fighter below the arm holding the rifle.
The trooper’s feet came out from under him. As he and Choony flew through the air, the rifle went off, clattering away as they both landed on the pavement. Choony had knocked it out of his hands, but had the shot struck Jaz? No time to check yet. The fighter was scrambling to get free.
Panic flooded through Choony—if the enemy got that gun back, he’d definitely kill Jaz first, if only out of spite. As his opponent rose to his feet, Choony kicked the back of his knee. It buckled, and the trooper fell face-first into the pavement.
The man was trying again to rise up, hands under him and pushing. Choony got to his feet before his enemy. He ran over the man to get the rifle, his right foot landing squarely on the other’s back and knocking him violently to the pavement again.
Choony picked up the rifle and pointed it in his enemy’s general direction, shouting, “Get back or I’ll shoot you.”
The fighter smiled a toothy blood-stained grin, and a bit of crimson dribbled down from one corner of his mouth, thin lips swelling into fat lips already. “You’re in a world of hurt now, mister. I know you won’t use that.”
Choony clenched his jaw. “You going to bet your life on it?”
The fighter pushed hard with his hands on the pavement, palm down, and jerked his knees in a kip-up so that he landed on his feet in a deep crouch. As he rose to his full height, he said, “Sorry, mister. Now you both are gonna die.” He drew a large fixed-blade knife from its sheath at his waist, and turned toward Jaz.
Choony realized the fighter would kill Jaz first, more certain of Choony’s pacifism when it was someone else getting killed. The fighter would test that pacifism in a moment, after Jaz was dead. Killing another was wrong, even in self-defense. But what of killing in defense of another? He had never done so, but that didn’t prove it was wrong. What would bring more joy in the world, alleviate more suffering—killing the soldier or allowing Jaz to die? How many more would this soldier kill if left alive? And how was Choony, a man only in his early twenties, supposed to know the answer?
Buddha help him… Choony pulled the trigger. The report was loud enough to half-deafen him. The fighter fell, clutching his ribs, but when he landed, his eyes were open and vacant. The bullet had certainly gone through a lung into the heart.
Choony’s heart beat like the wings of a hummingbird, deafening him as much as the shot had, and sweat poured down into his eyes. He looked at the horror he had wrought. He had done it… stained his soul…tainted his own Karma. He felt lost, bewildered, his mind reeled.
He dropped the dead man’s rifle… and threw up, splattering his shoes.
* * *
Cassy listened, thanked the Manheim officer on the other end, then turned to Ethan. He stared at her with one eyebrow raised, leaning forward in his chair.
“So that sounded interesting.” Ethan waited expectantly.
Cassy sighed. He was right, of course. “Very interesting. It seems just by showing up for the fight, Jaz was able to re-energize Manheim into a rally from almost being routed. They circled around using their knowledge of the town’s layout and struck the Empire’s command platoon. Once El Jeffe was dead, the rest mostly fled. The ones that remained were defeated.”
“That sounds like Jaz.” Ethan’s knee bounced and he flipped a pen around one finger. “But you don’t look thrilled.”
Cassy would normally find his hyperactivity amusing, but right now it only irritated her. “That’s because the ones who fled headed north. They’re heading right toward the bigger battle up here. Tell Michael the Empire has some reinforcements coming within the next half hour.”
Ethan took a deep breath and closed his eyes. “We’re barely hanging on, even with our planes and battlecars. Telling him will only stress him out, without changing the situation for the better.”
“If we don’t tell him,” Cassy said, voice rising, “he will be blindsided. He can handle stress. So please, do what I fucking asked, and tell him!”
Ethan turned back to his radio, grumbling under his breath. She didn’t have time for Ethan to question every order she gave him. Surely Michael would handle the stress of this information better than she had. Though, maybe Ethan didn’t really deserve to be snapped at either, but there was no time to think about that now. Her radio squawked again, and it was back to work.
* * *
Frank felt his face turning red. He could hardly deal with Cassy right now as he drove through the thick of an enemy concentration while his gunner and cowcatcher laid waste to them. “Cassy, I know they’re coming from the south. You said that already. But we can’t strip our north defenders just because the enemy is light up there right now. There’s an entire missing goon battalion, or what’s left of it, and we don’t know where they are yet.”
“I get what you’re saying,” Cassy replied, her voice sounding strained, “but we do know what’s left of another battalion is headed your way from the south. We have to deal with the enemy we know is there, first. Head south. Coordinate with Michael to detach those north food forest troops.”
Frank fumed. She made a certain sense, but the upside to her plan left them vulnerable, and the downside was possibly losing Clanholme through an enemy end run. “Negative. We have to leave those troops there. Let me bring my battlecars and Joe’s planes south. We can intercept the new forces while they’re strung out and on the move, rather than waiting for them to attack us en masse when they’re ready.”
“Dammit, Frank! Why won’t you listen? Do I have to pull rank on you? I know your idea is what you think is the most practical, but this is it. This is the endgame. If we screw it up now, we lose it all. We have to move to face this new threat, not string our forces out even more. We’re on the ropes right now, and those north troops aren’t doing much. Move them into place. Let them do some good.”
“Cassy, you may lead us, but this is war. Right now, Michael leads us, not you. I’m not doing what you ask. I’m gathering my team and Joe’s, and we’re going south.” Damn, that woman was stubborn. And she wasn’t the only one who knew the gravity of the situation, not the only one who realized this was the make-or-break part of the battle.
Cassy’s voice crackled through again, and this time she sounded tightly wound. He could almost picture her in the bunker, face red, sitting on the chair and leaning over the table, shoulders back and tense. “Frank, as leader of the Confederation and Clan Leader, I command you to follow my instructions. Head north, relieve the troops there, and scout for that missing battalion while the troops head south to stop a new one.”
Frank was not yet ready to give up this important fight just because Cassy pulled rank. Damn, here she was, once again, using her title to get her way. Normally that wouldn’t be an issue, but here and now it was life or death. He was about to reply, when a new voice came over the radio.
Michael said, “Break, break. This is Lincoln One to Charlie One. I’m in the middle of a battle and don’t have time to mediate this. You may be in charge every other day, but today I am in charge, and next time you want to shift battle plans, you’d better run it by me first—”
�
�Michael, don’t you dare—”
“I’ll deal with the blowback later,” Michael counter-interrupted, cutting off Cassy’s transmission with his own. “Bravo One, head south with Bravo Two. Flank the approaching column and strike at the same time. Over and out.”
Frank ignored Cassy after that, given that Michael was in charge right now as far as he and everyone else was concerned. He contacted Joe directly and coordinated their attack. Joe would locate them from the air, then get out of sight. Hopefully he wouldn’t be seen. Then Frank would hit the enemy mid-column from the east, and Joe would hit at the same time or just after, hitting the enemy’s forward elements. Between the two, the hope was that the troops in the middle and rear would flee from the main battle.
It didn’t take long for the planes to find them, or for Frank to close in with his deadly Road Warrior battlecars. He gave the command, and all eight vehicles fanned out into a line and gunned it. Over the rough terrain they went, and only two cars had been damaged enough to have a hard time keeping up. They’d be right behind him, though.
The enemy troops rose into view. At the sound of engines, they turned to look. Such sounds stood out like a powder-blue tuxedo at a funeral, these days. Once they saw the onrushing battlecars, curiosity quickly turned to panic. The troops, having already been routed once that day, weren’t up for a fight. Rather than get set and concentrate fire, they scattered as best they could. On foot, against cars, it wasn’t good enough. Thud. Thud. Thud. Soon the entire front of his car glistened with a fresh coat of blood, contrasting with the dried brown gore already on the cars. The vehicles swept through the enemy ranks, firing, then split in half to circle back.
Just then, Frank caught sight of Joe and the other planes. Betsy began a crazy, slow spiral to its left, throwing bombs out at any group of Empire sonsabitches that managed to cluster up to defend against the battlecars.
Dark New World (Book 5): EMP Resurrection Page 38
