by Jae Hill
The craft touched down and I was escorted to the white building where I’d previously met General Skygard. Not surprisingly, she was there again. The craft took off again behind me, presumably taking the chairman back to the Citadel.
“Your pilot will be here shortly on the train,” Skygard said softly, with the slightest hint of accent.
“Thank you,” I said. “Your manners and treatment of us have been most polite.”
She looked concerned, then looked around to make sure no one was listening.
“You should know,” she whispered, “that the chairman is blustering about making war on Cascadia.”
“I have been instructed to tell my superiors nothing less,” I sighed. “This was a fool’s errand.”
The general frowned. “The first time we make contact with Cascadia in so many centuries. The bad blood has dried. Our parents’ parents’ parents’ didn’t even experience the troubles. The chairman has his viewpoint, and we may follow his orders, but we don’t have to agree. Many of us don’t.”
“I should warn you that if we lose this battle against the zombies,” I said sternly, “our Fleet is ordered to glass the planet.”
“Glass?”
“Pulverize it with orbital guns until there’s not a zombie or human left. They feel that they can come home in a few centuries and start over.”
“They wouldn’t,” she said incredulously.
“I hope not,” I said. “That’s why I came here. I need help. They have a strategic decision to make. I have mine. Your chairman, apparently, has his.”
The general shrugged. “And I have mine.”
Some guards walked through the door, escorting Morgana.
General Skygard rendered me a sharp salute, her pointed hand touching the tip of her eyebrow. I did the same, less cleanly, and then gave her the salute of our people.
“Not all is lost, Commander Faustus,” she said, with the hint of a smile.
We were escorted to the waiting jet. It was old and looked curiously like the Republic jet we had come in.
“Did they copy the Republic technology?” Morgana said, performing her pre-flight.
“It was something like the other way around,” I grumbled.
I reached over and grabbed her hand while it fidgeted with the controls.
“I need to know,” I said, “that we’re past that bullshit in the room a few hours ago.”
“We’re past it for now,” she smirked.
I squeezed tightly, and she scowled back.
“This is only over for now, Pax. We can revisit my feelings for you later, when we’re back in Cascadia. Unless you can find yourself a different pilot.”
I let go of her, and she grabbed my hand, squeezing it tightly. Just to prove a point.
A few minutes later, she was guiding the jet to the end of the runway, and then up into the buffeting air currents. We climbed high and fast, rocketing into the darkening sky.
A few uneventful hours later, we were landing at the airfield on Kit Island. It was a much smoother landing than before, but with the awkward tension and silence, it was not necessarily a smoother flight.
CALLING IN FOR HELP
Rebekah was still off in Magic Valley. Apparently, according to Cyrus, she’d made several roundtrips with the dropship with Kaelis at the helm. They could only carry so much per load, and with two thousand sets of armor and weaponry, she’d need to make six trips total, and had one remaining. With the Earth web services entirely offline, I couldn’t get a message to her to let her know I was safe. More than that, however, I couldn’t get a message from her to know that she was safe.
The armory was bustling now. The biologic recruits had been brought in from the Outlands during the evacuation. They were still going to stand and fight with us. Their numbers had actually swelled, along with other young adults from the Republic proper, and we had over five hundred recruits training and drilling. A few Fleet officers were present now as instructors, as well, but they weren’t teaching so much proper marching techniques or military courtesy as they were teaching the basics of operating advanced infantry weapons.
I was looking at a paper map when suddenly the notification light on my digibook started blinking. That was impossible with the web offline. Maybe it had been restored. I picked it up.
There was no sender. No address. No mailing information. Just a message that read:
A friend and I are coming your way. Hear him out. He means well.
I was baffled as to the meaning and the source of the message. The digibook said it was still disconnected from local networks. A few minutes later, Amirani, our mechanic friend from Burns, came running over to me.
“There’s a boat coming, sir,” he panted.
We gathered a few other recruits with their weapons and ran to the dock. We only expected friends, but we never knew what might get off that boat.
The craft slowly pulled to the dock. It was the size of a large yacht, but painted navy grey.
A middle-aged man in a strange, green uniform stepped off, followed by our old friend Ebenezer.
“Pax,” the elderly man said as he climbed up to the dock, “this is Colonel Kelly of the California Republic National Guard.”
He snapped a salute to me in a similar manner of the Kergueleni. I did the same, and then placed my fist to my chest. He paused, then did the same.
“It’s a pleasure to meet you, Commander,” he said. “Ebenezer speaks highly of you. And our informants in the Wastelands have relayed us tales of your adventures.”
“Tales?” I smirked. “I must say I’m less informed about you, sir, and why you’re here.”
“Can we speak somewhere more private?” he asked, nervously looking around at the other armed people standing around him.
I nodded and led he and Ebenezer to an office inside the large hangar, next to the briefing room, which served as my command post.
He took a seat.
“Can I get you a beverage?” I asked.
“Water, please.”
I poured him a glass from the sink and he sipped it.
“This is good.”
I was puzzled.
“A lot of our water is desalinated,” he added. “It never tastes quite right.”
“So Colonel,” I changed the subject, “to what do I owe the honor of your visit—possibly the first visit in the history of our two nations?”
“Indeed it is, Commander. And Ebenezer here made it possible. He believes this is the right time for burying the hatchet between our people, and I agree. The question is: do you have the authority to make a lasting peace?”
“The marshal told me ‘thy will, be done’ before he left for Luna,” I nodded.
“We know about your Able-Victor mandate,” he frowned. “We’ve been worried about it for centuries now, but we never thought it would be used. Now it appears that the time has come for the Cascadia Republic to end human life on this planet entirely, and start anew later.”
“That hasn’t been decided,” I stated authoritatively.
“But it will be,” Kelly replied. “The robots have always had a disdain for the humans still living outside of the traditional Cascadian lifestyle. Ending everyone else will be like ending a plague for them.”
I sat silently, not knowing how to proceed, and he continued.
“The storm that is coming will not stop with the destruction of your cities. The zombies will move south in search of food and hosts. We’ll not survive this, even if your Fleet doesn’t obliterate the planet. So I come offering the support of ten thousand Guardsmen, with light support from helicopters and vehicles. Our equipment isn’t nearly as advanced as yours; in fact, a lot of its nearly pre-Plague technology. But we’re willing to fight side-by-side with you, and actually under your command.”
I was stunned.
“That’s…umm…wow, Colonel,” I stammered. “I suppose there’s a catch.”
“Every treaty has concessions and conditions,” Ebenezer chimed
in.
Colonel Kelly leaned forward in his seat. “We’ll fight alongside you this time, and we’ll never fight against you again, provided that your Fleet does not enact the Able-Victor Protocol. Also, you must agree that the border between our nations will be forevermore the centerline of the Rogue River, and that you open up trade with us.”
“We don’t have a lot of consumer goods to trade,” I said cautiously, “as we’re not much of a consumer society. With the devastating loss of our adult population, we may have difficulties with even basic commodities.”
We all took turns looking at each other.
“I also don’t think I can sign a treaty, despite the marshal’s orders,” I spoke up, “especially one that defies a codified law. I’ll have to run this to him, and FleetCom will have to run it through the Senate.”
Kelly nodded. “I understand. If you can send this to your leaders immediately, we can discuss strategy.”
“That will also prove difficult,” I sighed. “Our web connections are down. I’ll have to go across the water and find an active link.”
The Colonel’s face turned into a frown.
“I’ll relay the terms,” I said, “but you have to understand that these are difficult times. What’s your alternative? Don’t fight against the zombies?”
“It would be easier,” he said quietly, “to defend our own borders at the border instead of a thousand kilometers east, away from our supply lines and homes.”
“How do you know where we intend to hold the line?” I asked.
“We have confidential sources,” Kelly replied nonchalantly.
I thought about that for a minute. Ebenezer didn’t know. Fleet didn’t talk to California. Maybe someone out in the Wastes near Magic Valley knew.
“Then you also know,” I responded, “that we can’t hold the entire Rocky Mountain region. We need to hold them at some key locations…bottle them up where we can use orbital bombardment on them. We’ve identified two locations: one near Magic Valley to the north, and one near the ruins of Green River, Wyoming. Our techs bombed the bridges there, and it will take a while for them to get to a flat place to cross.”
“Nothing to the south?” the Colonel asked. “El Paso?”
“No, we figured that the threat was higher to the north because of the direction they’re tracking.”
“But Taos went offline a few weeks ago,” the Colonel retorted, “and so we assume the zombies are moving across the south, too.”
“We’re using…uhh…indigenous populations at Magic Valley to hold the line,” I said, forgetting what words we were now calling the Plaguelanders. “The locals will be augmented by our own biologic forces. It won’t be enough to defeat them, but we’ll be able to hold them back for a while. We could use the bulk of your forces at Green River—60 percent should do it—and then the remainder at a location on the river just east of Magic Valley that the locals call ‘Highway Bridge.’ Once I tell FleetCom that you’re fighting alongside us to defeat the zombies,” I added, “they’ll be crazy not to agree to the terms of your treaty.”
“What about the south?” Kelly scowled.
“That’s your priority?” I asked.
He nodded. “It’s closest to our borders and settlements.”
I shrugged. “Other than splitting your forces three ways, I don’t know what else we can do. Maybe after we head them off at the other two locations, we can push back and hit them from behind?”
“The Colorado River should act as another natural barrier to impede their movements,” Kelly agreed. “If we can hit the bridges, and hold the dam….”
“The dam?”
“The Hoover Dam,” he responded. “It’s ancient, but a few of the turbines still spin and generate electricity for Southern California. All of the other dams on the river were breached in the 2100s with the environmental movement or they have collapsed on their own since then. If we can hold position on the west bank of Lake Mead, we should be okay. We might send our reserve force there.”
“The last thing you should know, Colonel, is that some of the zombies have vehicles.”
“What?” he guffawed. “Driving zombies?”
I didn’t laugh. “I know it sounds ridiculous, but I was captured near Magic Valley and trucked along in the back of a very old army truck to Omaha. It was gasoline powered. Ancient. We didn’t see them at Colorado Springs, but we should assume they’re still out there.”
He was no longer smiling.
“Driving zombies?” he repeated, seriously this time.
I shrugged. “Some of them appear to be much more ‘human’ than the others. Ghouls, we call them. They still speak English, and they’re plague-scarred, but they’ve weathered the effects of C-virus a lot better than the others. They act as the Reverend’s lieutenants.”
“How in the heck did they get trucks?” he said wildly.
“We won’t know until we capture someone with higher responsibility in the Horde. Like the Reverend, or…” I stopped. I didn’t want to reveal anything about Persephone. My mind raced for an answer.
“Or?” he asked.
“Or his compatriots, the other leaders of the Horde,” I replied.
“Leaders of the Horde?” He shook his head. “We knew there had to be something moving the zombies across the country. Directing them or guiding them or whatever. Swarming behavior like this has never been observed.”
“Well it’s of the utmost importance we stop whatever is driving them,” I said. “And I think your scientists figured part of it out with the ultra-low-frequency signals.”
Kelly shot a glance at Ebenezer, who shrugged and smirked.
“The flow of information goes both ways, sometimes, I’m afraid,” the old man laughed.
“Colonel Kelly,” I said, rising from the table, “please make your forces ready to move immediately into position at Green River and Magic Valley. Your forces will augment ours in position. I’ll be in contact with our Fleet, which will provide orbital support and reconnaissance. The zombies have left their winter encampments on the Front Range a bit early, presumably either because they’ve run out of ‘food’ or they’re trying to get ahead of the spring floods. We have three days until they start arriving in Magic Valley and just a few more days after that until they start arriving in Green River. I’ll get more intelligence about their Southern Route.”
He stood up. I extended my hand to grasp his.
Handshakes had fallen out of favor with our people since the Plague first arrived in the late 2080s, because of concerns with handshakes being a disease vector. Old movies showed handshakes, however, and as children we were taught that was the old way deals were made.
As he shook my hand firmly, I realized how far I was really reaching. Across the borders between two nations, and to a time long, long ago.
“You’ll speak to your leadership immediately?” he asked concernedly.
“I’m on the next boat out of here,” I affirmed.
He stepped back and saluted me with his fingers to his forehead. I pressed my fist to my heart, and he departed.
CONNECTION RESTORED
Cyrus and I got on one of the small boats and set off across the water, northeast toward the capital. When I arrived, there was a flurry of activity in the streets. Fleet personnel were driving around in massive trucks, loading the bodies of the now-dead enhanced forms. Almost a week had elapsed since the virus had taken hold, and the organic brains inside the bodies had all died.
I found a Fleet company commander who seemed perplexed by the commander’s stars on my uniform, until a quick call to Marshal Burnham’s staff office confirmed my identity. The staff office directed me how to configure our digibooks to the new Earth web connections with its ultra-tight quantum security measures. The AI would be hard pressed to hack this network without connection to the neural web, or the supercomputing mainframes at the Sanctuary.
After leaving a message for the marshal to call me at once, I continued walking toward t
he BRF.
“Why are we going there?” he asked.
“If there’s anyone left there, we’ll bring them with us. After that, we’re headed to the Presidential Estate to talk to the rescue operations staff and see what else we can do for them, or they can do for us.”
The BRF was deserted. Hand-written notes had been posted on a makeshift bulletin board in the main foyer, right in front of the mosaic of Atlas. Children who had returned home to check on their families reported that they were still interested in fighting, and had left information on how to contact them. Hundreds had done so.
“Cyrus, can you get this all into your digibook? Find out if there’s a way to remotely authorize all their connections into the new web so we can get in touch with them.”
He nodded, pulled out his book and got down to business.
“I’ll meet you at the boat in four hours,” I said.
I went to my apartment, a few blocks away, and looked around. It was tidy and still faintly smelled of the last supper Rebekah had cooked for us.
I missed her. I would be on my way to go see her, after one last trip to Valhalla. I headed to the street level and found an empty car which was unlocked. I got inside, and to my surprise, the thumbprint reader accepted my thumb. The car turned on, and I sped up the highway.
Valhalla was utterly deserted. No rescue staff. No children at the school or the crèche. My mom’s body was missing from the library as was my father’s from the dock. I sat on our boat, staring at the waves rolling gently in.
My digibook flashed.
“Marshal,” I acknowledged as his face appeared on the screen.
“Commander,” he said. “I’m glad to see you survived your trip to the Lost Isles.”
“Barely,” I said, and then relayed the story of basically getting shot down.
“It could have gone a lot worse.” He shrugged.
“It did,” I countered. “The Chairman of the Dominion has instructed me to inform you that he’s going to make use of this opportunity to reclaim the elevator and destroy what’s left of the Cascadia Republic on Earth.”
