He exhaled slowly. "You people are crazy."
"Gotta be," Ness said. "That's what it takes to win."
* * *
Between Dr. Gohel's research into potential chemical weapons, his tests on Sebastian, and the sub crew's trip into Auckland—a voyage of 150 miles to the south that involved gathering all the necessary supplies, picking up a heck of a lot of medical crap for the doctor, and some covert Sebastian-led repairs to the ship's hull—it was eight days before they had the sub packed and prepped to leave the Bay of Islands and return to Sydney.
Across that time, Ness hadn't attempted to put the moves on Tristan. He told himself they'd been too busy with preparations. This was probably true, but he felt like something was slipping away from him, like when you wake up from a great dream only to realize you don't get to keep it.
They were taking just three people with them to assist in the assault: Emma, who'd volunteered right away, and Peter and Harris, identical twins in their early twenties who had no family besides each other and seemed almost troublingly eager to go whack a few aliens. Lionel, the doctor, and Clarke came to the dock to see them off.
"Doesn't feel right sending you to fight our battles," Lionel said to Ness.
"It's not your fight. It's everyone's. Don't worry, man, we got this."
"Dr. Gohel says Kia's going to be just fine. Can't thank you enough for bringing him back here. If you ever decide to retire from the extermination business, we'd be happy to have you."
Clarke made the rounds, shaking hands. He came to Tristan last, giving her a squeeze. "When you're finished saving Australia, how about you come back here? Would be a shame to pass the holidays cooped up in a boat."
"Oh, we'll be back," she said.
His smile widened. "Will you?"
"No doubt. Dr. Gohel owes us some penicillin."
"Ah," Clarke said. "That he does."
"I can't just conjure it out of the air," the doctor said, flapping a hand. "It may take months before I'm able to grow it in quantity."
She smiled at him. "Well, I can't think of a happier place for you to work. We've never seen a corner of the world this peaceful." Tristan caught Ness' eye. "Speaking of work, should we get to it?"
"Yep." He headed for the hatch.
She fell in beside him. "What are you so happy about?"
"Nothing," he said. "It's so pretty here. Now let's go kick ass."
* * *
On the crossing, Sebastian took the sub underwater. His patches held. They didn't have to surface until they entered the shallowest parts of Sydney Harbour. It wasn't quite midnight, but the city was quiet. They docked without any trouble. As they walked down the pier, Ness glanced back at the massive bridge spanning the bay.
Their first move was to seal off the exit to the sewer, ensuring that if the Swimmers tried to make a break for it, the entrance to the parking garage would be their sole means of escape. Ness, Emma, and Sprite bagged up their feet and descended into the muck, splashing through the ankle-deep water to the hatch beneath the tower. There, heart bumping, Ness used his laser to weld the hatch shut.
He climbed back down and found Sprite and Emma. "You sure you want to do this?"
"Yep," Sprite said, fiddling with his gas mask. "They've got lasers too, don't they? If they cut that pipe open, someone has to be down here to stop them."
"I don't know how much use I'd be up top." Emma winked. "But in these tunnels, even I can't miss."
"With any luck, you won't have to fire a single shot." Ness hesitated, then hugged them both. "See you in a few."
He turned and trudged back to the exit. They had a lantern with them, a column of yellow in the dark of the tunnels. Ness turned a corner and the light disappeared.
Back on the street, they circled around to the back of the tower facing the Deutsche Bank. There, Sam headed up to the fifth floor to cover them from the high ground.
That left Tristan, Ness, Peter, and Harris. If anything went wrong, Ness doubted it would be enough. Tristan and Ness suited up in their heavy plastic protective gear, then got behind their two poison-haulers: well-oiled shopping carts with blankets in the bottom to muffle their contents, metal canisters with blazing red skulls and bones printed on them. These didn't look like all that much, but Dr. Gohel had assured them that it was enough to smother the garage in poison.
"You set?" Tristan said, voice distorted by the mask.
Ness' heart was going pretty hard, but not as bad as when he'd done far less dangerous things, like jumping into water that might possibly have a shark in it. Weird as it was, going after the Swimmers just seemed to make sense to him. It was about the only thing that did. And he thought they were as prepared as they'd ever be.
"Yep," he said. "I sure hope this works."
While the twins covered them, they rolled to the stopped-up garage entrance. He didn't see any blue or orange prongs of alien matter that would contain motion detectors, but he had no doubts they would have them on the other side of the barrier. He found a path up the rubble and stopped below the top. Tristan drew a canister from the shopping carts and handed it up.
Ness was fully suited, but as he put his hand to the knob at the top, his heart got going so fast he was afraid he'd drop it. Before that could happen, he twisted the valve open and flung the can through the gap, a spume of thick white smoke tailing behind it.
24
Knights streamed behind her on the highway, gray figures in the coming dawn. Some were on horseback, others on foot. Some were those who had served under Dashing, and some were those who had been knighted by Georgia. Some were men and some were women.
But all had come to fight to liberate San Pedro.
"You look pleased," Georgia said from beside her, swaying with the rhythm of her horse.
Raina did nothing to hide her smile. "Why shouldn't I be happy? I'm going home."
"You're that confident we can do this?"
"If you're not, why would you commit yourself to a battle that could endanger your kingdom?"
"I've asked myself that a lot these last few weeks," Georgia said. "There are two answers. The first is cold politics: if we don't strike now, I think I'll endanger my kingdom far worse. The People of the Stars have gobbled up everything around them. They've already meddled in San Diego and don't seem to care that it got our king killed. If I sit back, and give them the chance to consolidate, it's only a matter of time before they come for me. And when that war comes, I won't have any allies left."
"I don't think you're wrong. I know Anson's heart. There's no end to its hunger. Especially for an audience. The very existence of people who belong to someone else is an affront to him."
"He hasn't introduced himself. But considering the chaos he's caused us, I'd say that in itself is a blow against him."
"And the second answer?" Raina said.
Georgia gazed down the highway. "Because you're the true leader of San Pedro and the Dunemarket. If I refuse to fight for what's right, then I don't deserve to be here."
It had been less than a month since Georgia had taken the throne. That was far less time to train her new warriors than would have been ideal, but in the process of scouting San Pedro, Raina's warriors had discovered it was poorly defended. Many of the troops that had occupied it since its capture had been recalled, possibly inland, or to prevent unrest on Catalina, which Raina had learned was now also part of Anson's territory. That revelation had not surprised her. It had only validated her opinion of the council, and her devotion to her cause.
Not only were the soldiers greatly reduced, but the People of the Stars' leaders appeared to be gone altogether. The absence of Anson was not so surprising: he rarely visited the southern reaches of his territory. Yet his right-hand man—the gum-chewing man who seemed to arrive whenever there was a fire to be put out—had spent much time in the South Bay. According to those in the Dunemarket, he hadn't been seen since early December. He was known to depart for days at a time, but this absence was far longer th
an anything those in the market could remember.
Thinking they had no more reason to defend San Pedro, the People of the Stars had shifted their resources to their newest and more fragile possession. Major reinforcements would take at least a day to arrive. With this intelligence in hand, Raina had made her proposal: strike the Dunemarket. Rout Anson's forces. Rally those citizens who remained loyal to her to the defense of San Pedro while Raina and the bulk of the San Diego warriors traveled to Catalina. There, they would use their momentum to overthrow the Anson-appeasing council, raise a new army, and take it back to San Pedro.
And from there, to march on the Heart.
There were many ways in which their campaign could crash. But even Mauser had agreed it might succeed. They were on their way to San Pedro at that moment, heading up the coastal highway, scouts ranging ahead to ensure they weren't discovered. Miles behind them, four ships tracked their progress, hugging the coast.
Ahead, two figures appeared on the road, jogging lightly. Henna and Bryson. Raina spurred her horse to a trot to meet them.
"The way is clear," Henna said. "A few of the Sworn are in the market already, but most are still in their barracks in the Seat."
"We'll hit them there. If we move swiftly, we may be able to take the Dunemarket without a fight."
Georgia passed word to her sergeants. They picked up the pace, exiting the exposure of the highway to move along the surface streets of Long Beach. And then they came to San Pedro: the great docks, the huge white cylinders of the oil refineries, the low hills to the south, the green hills to the west. In many ways, it was not so different from the countless cities of the basin. Yet when Raina looked upon it, she knew that she was home.
Rather than marching straight down the road to the Dunemarket, they paralleled it from two blocks to the west. As they crossed an intersection, white flashed from ahead. Two riders in capes spun away and galloped south toward the market.
"Take them down!" Raina yelled. "Before they can alert the others!"
Bryson ran up beside her and dropped into a crouch, bracing his elbow on his knee. He set his eye to his rifle's scope. His body rocked back; a gunshot boomed across the vacant neighborhoods. One of the riders jerked forward and tumbled from his horse. Bryson aimed at the second rider and fired again. The shot passed wide. He swore and ejected his brass and slammed the bolt closed. As he took his third shot, he was joined by a knight who had set up his rifle across the hood of a car rusting by the curb. The horseman's body jolted and fell to the asphalt.
Raina turned to Georgia. "They'll have heard the shots. We have to move fast."
Including Raina's handful of warriors, they had about sixty in all. Not nearly enough to smash Anson's army—but more than a match for the garrison at the Dunemarket. Raina and Georgia split up, with Georgia taking thirty knights around the back slopes of the Seat while Raina brought the remainder up the street leading into the market.
As they reached the tavern and inn on the Dunemarket's northern edge, five white-caped defenders ran across the road, intending to command the eastern hill. Before Raina could give the order to open fire, shots rang out from three directions—her own people, the Sworn sprinting across the street, and from the western hill, where a few defenders had already taken the high ground.
She ducked behind a landscaping boulder beside the road. Her warriors scurried behind cars and shrubs. One of the Sworn crossing the street fell, writhing. The other four dashed into the brush, putting trees between themselves and their attackers.
A bullet ricocheted from the rock in front of Raina. Some of her people shifted to fire back at the defenders on the western hill. In another minute, the Sworn to the east would be in firing position, leaving her people pressed on both sides.
"First Blade!" she called to those in her primary unit—Henna, Bryson, Mauser, Mia, Carl, and two knights. "With me. Blades Two through Four, hold position."
The knights covered the retreat of First Blade down the street. Once Raina had gotten them into the cover of the strip mall across the way, she sprinted around the backside of the eastern hill, dust spuming from her feet. Shots crackled from the street, but they were muffled by the hillside and sounded a mile away. Palms fluttered at the crest of the slope. Raina slowed, scanning the brown and green shrubs. She spread her people out and advanced in a leapfrogging motion until they reached the peak.
The western hill stood across from them, the street beneath. The knights held position outside the inn. Henna pointed downhill. Searching for white, Raina's eyes took a minute to home in on the four defenders, who had shed their cloaks and had taken cover behind trees to fire down on Georgia's people—leaving their backs exposed to the heights.
Raina gestured First Blade downhill. They moved in a quick but stealthy walk, guns and bows at the ready. When they were within sixty feet of the enemy, one of the Sworn turned to reload his rifle. He glanced uphill. His eyes went wide.
"Fire!" Raina said.
Her people unloaded. Before the Sworn were able to get off a single shot, they had all been felled, bleeding into the dust. Raina jogged to them and put those who were not dead out of their misery.
"Bryson, Ira," she said, indicating one of the knights, "Stay here and take up firing position. Unless you have a clear shot, don't open fire until I've begun the advance. We have to take that hill and hit the Seat while Georgia has them engaged on the other side."
They nodded and moved laterally through the trees, hunting for a good line of fire on the Sworn scattered across the opposite hill. Raina took the others straight down through the grass, which was knee-high and green, restored by winter rain. By the time they reached the street, the remaining Sworn still hadn't noticed them. She hustled across the asphalt with the others, then called to the Blades by the inn to begin their advance up the hill.
The Sworn unloaded at them, but the trees on the slopes disrupted their sightlines. One Blade stayed put to cover the others; Bryson and Ira began to snipe from the eastern hill. Raina's troops moved methodically and with greater discipline than she expected—many of San Diego's knights had never seen battle—and came within easy firing range with but a pair of casualties.
Raina ordered the sides of her line to swing forward, pincering the defenders. The overwhelmed Sworn broke and sprinted uphill. Four were cut down in the retreat. Only three made it to the other side.
Raina dispatched two of her people to tend to the wounded, then continued the advance. Once they crested the ridge, they looked down on the Seat, a small, bowl-shaped valley with a number of post-virus homes dug into the sides of the hills. A copse of trees sprouted from the bottom of the depression, fed by the spring there.
On the valley's other side, Georgia's forces outnumbered the Sworn, but there was little cover to allow them to maneuver and make use of their numbers. But the cover was poor for the Sworn as well—they were holed up behind shacks and trees and barrels of water, which presented their white capes as targets to Raina's reinforcements.
The Sworn numbered less than twenty. A third of them were dead before they knew Raina's warriors were killing them. Pinned from both sides, most of the remainder attempted to scatter, but this opened them to fire from Georgia's side.
To their credit, they fought—and died—to a man.
Raina took her Blades to reconvene with Georgia in the woods around the spring. Only three of the knights had died in the lopsided assault, but several more had been wounded. As they dispatched sentries to the ridges, they set up a triage center within the trees.
"Are all battles that easy?" Georgia's face was dusty but triumphant.
"When you outnumber an enemy who doesn't know you are coming? Yes," Raina said. "The next fight will be much worse. We need to enlist as many citizens as we can to defend this place while we blitz Catalina."
"Go find them. Tell them to come here."
Raina assigned Mia and Mauser to stay with Georgia to greet the locals she sent to them. She took the remainder of the
First Blade with her. The hill smelled like gunpowder and grass. As they walked up it toward the Dunemarket, it struck Raina that her plan might hinge on a fantasy. What if those who had stayed in San Pedro did so because they didn't care about Raina and the fledgling tribe she'd helped establish there? What if they wanted nothing more than to live quiet lives, unconcerned by who was "ruling" them? Maybe Raina wouldn't be seen as a liberator, but as yet another vainglorious despot.
And if the people didn't rally, she would be unable to retake Catalina.
They descended to the road and headed north; on their way in, she had seen unmanned stalls in the parking lots of the grocery stores. As they came to the pub, five armed men and women emerged from behind it and froze in their tracks.
"Hold your fire!" Raina said.
A Hispanic woman with muscled arms and a tight black bun drifted forward. "Raina?"
It took her a moment. "Wendy."
"We heard the shooting. Everyone's in hiding. What's going on?"
"We're back," Raina said. "If you want us."
Like blood dropped in clear water, a rosy grin suffused the woman's face. "What took you so long? Where have you been?"
"Finding my way. Wendy, we've defeated the Sworn housed in the Seat. Does Anson have any other soldiers here?"
She shook her head. "Most left two or three weeks ago. How many of you are there?"
"Not enough," Raina said. "I need you and your people to bring everyone you can to the Seat. Move as fast as you can. We only have a few hours."
Wendy bobbed her head. "We've been waiting for you, girl. I'll see you there."
She jogged off with her team, moving toward the houses beyond the dark-windowed stores. Knowing that they knew the Dunemarket's current landscape better than she did, Raina headed back to the Seat. It was still early morning and the sun was just starting to warm the air.
The first recruit arrived within minutes, an older man named Hancock who smiled at Raina and hugged her in a slightly sweaty embrace. Others followed, often in twos and threes. Their faces were wary but determined. During the occupation, the People of the Stars had confiscated their firearms, but the knights had brought extras—and they had captured nearly thirty rifles and pistols from the Sworn, who had stocked their barracks with much ammunition.
Relapse (Breakers Book 7) Page 32
