The Solar War (The Long Winter Book 2)

by A. G. Riddle

  He’s stronger than I expected. He grabs my arm, fingers digging into my muscles like they’re wet clay, pain exploding up my arms and shoulder. I depress the plunger as he slams me into the wall. My head hits hard; my vision blurs. The entire world seems to shake.

  I hear Izumi yell out in pain. Through my blurred vision, I see the door to the cell fly open. Brightwell bursts out, grabs the private from behind, her arm locked around his neck. Izumi didn’t land the needle, but she distracted him long enough.

  The sergeant’s grip on me loosens as his eyes go glassy. His eyelids fall and he collapses to the floor a second later, just as Brightwell brings the private down. She wastes no time. She grabs the man’s keys and quickly unlocks the other two cells, freeing her soldiers, who spread out in the corridor, hugging the walls, a master sergeant rushing to us, squatting just long enough to grab the sidearms from our captors.

  The cadence of the gunfire is quickening. I can hear automatic gunfire closer to us, inside the warehouse, followed by softer rifle reports, possibly an enemy outside returning fire.

  Brightwell and her troops move quickly through the maze of narrow corridors, Izumi, Grigory, and I following behind. Some of the doors to the cubicles are open. As we pass, I catch glimpses of the families inside, huddling together, peering out with empty hollow eyes, expressions I haven’t seen since we liberated the Citadel. Camp Four has been rationing.

  Three gunshots only feet away snap my attention back to the corridor.

  “Clear,” the master sergeant calls out as he leads us around another turn. Two Atlantic Union soldiers lie dead in the hall. It’s the last thing I wanted to see. I tell myself that they chose this, not me. Richard Chandler chose this.

  Two of Brightwell’s troops grab the rifles from the fallen soldiers as we pass. She pauses in the next corridor, seeming to listen as she raises an arm at a right angle, her open palm facing forward, fingers held together.

  I hear it too: voices speaking quickly, the mention of my name.

  Brightwell points to a door on our left and motions to three of her soldiers. They rush forward, form up on each side of the door and kick it in. They sweep into the room, but thankfully, there are no gunshots, only the master sergeant’s voice yelling in the small space, the force almost as jarring as gunfire.

  “Hands up, face the wall!”

  “Clear!”

  Brightwell motions for me to follow her. Inside the small room, there’s a chart on the wall with an inventory of everything in the warehouse. It’s categorized into food, water, and miscellaneous. Hanging beside it on the wall is a roster of people, likely the residents here, their cubicle location, and which rations they received. This is obviously their operations center.

  Three radios sit atop a long table against the right wall. I flinch when one of the radios comes to life, blasting a woman’s voice into the room. She’s speaking French and sounds very angry. I would give anything to speak French at this point. I can only assume she’s with the group who’s outside—and that these two soldiers were listening in to their channel.

  The major’s voice comes over a second radio: “Acknowledged, Central. Try to hold them off. We’re sending reinforcements now.”

  Brightwell shouts through the doorway, “Look alive—we’ve got incoming.”

  Chapter 44

  Emma

  I’m lying in my cubicle, half asleep, Sam on one side, Allie on the other, when I hear Fowler’s voice, softly calling my name from the corridor.

  Without a word, I rise, careful not to wake either child. When I draw the sheet back, I can tell from Fowler’s face that something is very wrong. He motions towards the situation room, and I fall in behind him, my cane clacking on the floor as I struggle to keep up.

  In the situation room, live drone footage plays on the wall screens. I recognize the setting: it’s warehouse 412. But something has changed since last time: troop carriers are now parked longways in front of the warehouse’s roll-up doors. Two trucks each at the north, south, and west doors. One truck at the east door. Seven troop carriers—the exact number and model of the trucks in our convoy. Yep. Those are our trucks.

  Three other troop carriers are grouped farther out at the east entrance. Soldiers stand behind them, firing on the warehouse, their tracks in the snow carving a trench next to the trucks. These are definitely the Camp Five trucks.

  Whoever is inside the warehouse isn’t going down without a fight. They’ve shot the attackers’ trucks to pieces and aren’t through. The night lights up with tracer fire, beams of red and green issuing from the warehouse like lasers.

  I wonder if James is in that warehouse. And if so, is he fighting the intruders? Or perhaps fighting to escape?

  “How far out are our people?” Fowler asks Colonel Earls.

  He glances at the large watch on his wrist and shrugs. “Unknown, sir. We don’t have GPS.”

  Fowler squints, confused.

  “The surface ice is now hard enough for the light vehicles to drive on,” Earls replies. “They’re taking the direct route—as the crow flies.”

  “Best guess?”

  “Hard to say. I’d guess roughly thirty minutes.”

  Chapter 45

  James

  Brightwell grabs the three radios on the long table and distributes them to her people.

  “Tune to channel seventeen. Collins and Matthias, secure the entrance.”

  To one of the Camp Four soldiers who had been operating the radio, she says, “How many armed personnel inside this habitat?”

  When the man hesitates, Brightwell says, “Keep in mind, Private, when we search this habitat, you’ll be marching in front of us as a body shield. Lying will be bad for your life expectancy.”

  “Six,” the man mutters, eyes on the floor, seeming disgusted with himself.

  “Where?”

  “Two guarding—or supposed to be guarding you all. Two at the entrance. And the two of us here in comms.”

  I count that as good news: we’ve already neutralized four soldiers here inside the habitat and the other two are in this room. The men we met in the corridor must have been coming from the entrance.

  “How many out there?” Brightwell asks.

  The man grits his teeth and bites off the words. “Thirty-two.”

  The master sergeant leans into the doorway and makes eye contact with Brightwell, his gun still pointed out in the corridor.

  “Ten against thirty-two. They have the numbers, Captain.”

  “We have something they don’t.”

  The sergeant stares at her, unflinching.

  “Brains,” she says, turning to Grigory and me. “Gentlemen?”

  “We need weapons and leverage,” I respond instantly. To the Camp Four comms soldier, I say, “Where’s the armory?”

  “C seven.”

  Brightwell needs no further instruction. She barks an order to two more of her people. “Get to cubicle C seven and take what we need. Hide the rest.”

  I walk over and scan the roster of citizens. “Chandler’s in E nine.”

  Brightwell is about to issue a command to her soldiers, but I wave her off. “I’ll go. I want to handle this.” I turn my attention back to the radio operator. “Who’s in charge here?”

  “Major Danforth.”

  “Who’s the top civilian leader?”

  “Technically, it’s Governor Livingston. But he’s… he doesn’t have much say.”

  “Last question: Does Danforth have any family here in the habitat?”

  The soldier glances away from me, body going rigid. That response tells me everything I need to know. I glance at the chart. The word ‘Danforth’ is scrawled next to the cell F14.

  “Don’t worry. We’re not going to hurt them,” I say to the soldier.

  At that moment, the soldiers who had gone to the armory return, clutching semi-automatic rifles, body armor, and hand grenades. They pass out the weapons, Grigory and I both taking one.

  “You know
how to use that?” Brightwell asks.

  I study the heavy, black, cold machine. “I had a hunting rifle when I was a kid.”

  “It’s not much different.” She shows Grigory and me how to load a magazine and chamber the first round. “You just point and press the trigger. Just be careful where you point.”

  One of the soldiers holds a rifle out to Izumi, but she grimaces and shakes her head.

  “I can’t.”

  “You can stay here, ma’am,” Brightwell says to Izumi.

  “I want to survey the people here in the habitat. They might need care,” Izumi says.

  “Very well,” Brightwell replies. “But you’ll have to wait until we handle the situation out there.”

  Izumi opens her mouth to argue, but I cut her off.

  “We need to listen to her, Izumi. This is her specialty.”

  Izumi nods.

  Gunshots ring out, close, right outside the habitat. I hear bullets ripping through the hard-plastic walls as Brightwell yells over the radio, “Report!”

  One of the two soldiers she sent to the entrance responds instantly, gunfire in the background. “I count seven hostiles, Captain.”

  An explosion echoes through the habitat, the sound even louder over the radio.

  “Make that four, ma’am.”

  “Can I borrow one of your men?” I ask Brightwell.

  She nods to a corporal out in the corridor.

  Grigory falls in behind me as I exit the room, the corporal taking the lead.

  “Where’re you going?” Brightwell calls after me.

  “To get some leverage.”

  Using the mental image of the habitat map, I jog through the corridors, stopping at every intersection, peeking around the corners for signs of trouble. At one of the supply closets, I find the item I need: duct tape. All good plans eventually involve duct tape.

  A few weeks ago, I never would have imagined myself doing what I’m about to do. But I never thought I would be in a situation like this. This is survival. This is what I have to do—for everyone’s sake. Still, I don’t like it.

  At the door to cubicle F14, Grigory and I stand aside as the corporal turns the handle, his gun leading the way. The small room is bare except for three cots, a pile of rations in the corner, and two inhabitants: a woman about my age and a boy who looks to be about twelve, both watching their tablets; tears are streaming down the woman’s face.

  “Get up, we need to go,” I shout.

  “Who are you?”

  “It doesn’t matter. We’re here to help. That’s all I can tell you right now. We’re going to end the fighting in this camp. But we need your help. Please.”

  She looks from me to the soldier beside me, a soldier she no doubt doesn’t recognize. “Just take me. Not Noah.”

  “Both of you. Right now. We have to go.”

  We allow them a few seconds to bundle up and then we rush through the corridors to the E block. At cubicle E9, I turn the handle and throw the door open. Richard Chandler sits on a cot, alone in the small room, holding a radio, listening intently. His eyes go wide when he sees me holding the rifle.

  Quickly, I step into the room and grab the radio before he can say anything. “Figured you’d be on the front line, Richard.”

  Rage burns in his eyes as he stares me down. “You should surrender right now, James. You’re outnumbered. And there’s an enemy outside who is far worse than anyone in here.”

  “Who’s that?”

  “Camp Five. Back for revenge. Who do you think shot those soldiers you treated?”

  “Revenge on whom?”

  For the first time, he breaks eye contact.

  “Is that why you’re hiding in here? You think they’ll breach the warehouse? What happened? Did you run the same trap on them that you caught us in? Except they fought their way out.”

  His silence confirms my theory.

  “You were pretty smug when you had us under your thumb. Is that why you’re hiding in here, listening to the radio? Ready to run if they get inside?”

  He simply stares at the floor.

  “You’re all talk until things go south. Then you’re the first out the door.”

  “I saved these people,” Chandler spits out, staring at the floor.

  “I doubt that.”

  “It’s true.”

  “Why are you even here, Richard? In Camp Four?”

  “I was here for a rally.”

  “An emigration rally?”

  “Yes. It was scheduled for the day after the asteroids hit. I was staying with the governor’s chief of staff. She heard about the asteroid strike early. I made a quick decision. A correct decision, I might add—one that saved many lives. I realized that the weapons depot and largest warehouse—being close together—would be the asteroid’s likely target. I took my inner circle here—to the warehouse farthest away.” He looks up at me. “Say what you want, James, but I saved these people. That’s why they trust me.”

  “What about the people outside? The women in nightgowns with children frozen to them and gunshots holes in their bodies?”

  He reels back, acting disgusted. “Oh, spare me the whole high-and-mighty act, James. We made hard choices—for our own survival. This is a warehouse full of food on a dead planet. Not an ivory tower.”

  “And you’ve made it a war zone. That ends now.” At that moment an idea occurs to me. It’s perfect—a sort of justice that rarely comes along.

  He squints at me. “What?”

  I can’t help but laugh. “This is going to be good, Richard. I can’t wait. But first, I’m going to do something I’ve been wanting to do for a long, long time.”

  I reach out and grab the roll of duct tape from Grigory. Chandler rises, ready to struggle, but I rip off a piece of tape and cover his mouth quickly. The corporal holds him as I wrap tape around his head a few times and bind his wrists together. To the woman and child, I whisper, “I’m really, really sorry about this.” And I am. But it has to be done.

  By the time we reach the entrance to the habitat, the fighting has stopped. Brightwell’s men have prevailed and the entire group, except for Izumi, is waiting for us. Together, we rush out into the warehouse, towards the eastern exit and the sound of gunfire. As we draw closer, Brightwell separates her troops into three groups. They climb the stacks of supplies and crawl to the edge of the rows, flattening themselves, pointing their rifles at the troops massed at the roll-up doors.

  Grigory, Brightwell, and I stop at the end of a row of supplies diagonal from the Camp Four troops, keeping Chandler and Danforth’s wife and child behind us and well out of any line of fire.

  “Now what?” Brightwell whispers.

  “Now we negotiate, Captain.” I activate the radio and tune to the channel Major Danforth is using. “Major. Have your men cease firing.”

  “You really are crazy, Sinclair.”

  “Maybe. But you’re going to stop firing right now. The men you sent are dead, and we have you surrounded.” I release the radio button.

  Brightwell raises her own radio, which is tuned to our private channel. “Fire warning shots.”

  I peek over one of the stacks of habitat parts just long enough to glimpse the shots from above ricocheting off the metal door and girders. The Camp Four soldiers scramble, but there’s no cover for them. They crouch and train their rifles at the tops of the stacks of supplies, scanning for the shooters. Shots from the French troops continue to slam into the outside of the warehouse, some of the bullets making their way through the slits in the door.

  “Are you crazy?” Danforth shouts. “You’re going to get us all killed.”

  “No. You are. Put down your weapons.”

  “You’re a dead man, Sinclair.”

  Gently, I peel the tape from the woman’s mouth. “You’re our best hope,” I whisper to her. “You have to convince him to stop fighting. If you don’t, a lot more people are going to die.” I hit the button on the radio and hold it to her mouth.

>   “Max.”

  “Angela?”

  “I’m here. So is Noah.”

  A pause, then Danforth’s voice, angry, barely contained: “Sinclair, if you harm them, I swear to you—”

  “If they’re harmed, it will be your fault, Major. Lay down your weapons right now. Or we’ll do this the other way.”

  “And what do you propose to do about the army outside that’s going to come in here and kill us all?”

  “Leave that to me.”

  I peek over the pallet, and see Danforth shake his head as he lowers the radio and calls to his troops, “Weapons down.”

  A silent moment, then Danforth growls to them, “That’s an order!”

  I hear the soft clacks of rifles and sidearms being placed on the concrete floor.

  “Report,” Brightwell says over our private channel.

  “Four still armed, ma’am.”

  “That means all of your men,” I say into the radio. “Put down your weapons and step away from them.”

  A moment later, the master sergeant calls over the radio, “They’ve complied. Should we secure?”

  “Affirmative,” Brightwell responds.

  Time for phase two. I remove my body armor and sweater, then the stained white T-shirt I’ve been wearing for days. I rip the T-shirt down the middle and break off a long piece of wood from a nearby pallet. I attach the white T-shirt to the stick, fashioning a crude flag of truce. I hold the stick to Chandler’s bound wrists and tape it to them. His eyes bulge, and he shakes his head.

  “Sort of a weird twist of fate, isn’t it, Richard? You going out there to help us make peace.” I raise my eyebrows. “We need to send someone we’re willing to lose, and… you said it yourself: you and I are redundant.”

  He tries to step away, but I grab him by the upper arm and drag him forward. Brightwell’s men have climbed down from their perches and are leveling their rifles at our captives. A few sporadic shots from outside still slam into the warehouse, but without the fire from within, the French have slowed their assault.