“I knew we should have put you in charge years ago.” Stefani helped Carlee to her feet, and they started toward the new floating fortress.
“Press your supplies in the back; there is a cargo area for it,” Carlee said.
“There’s an area for everything,” Stefani cut in.
“Jeff, use your hood to send it the coordinates you want to go to first,” Carlee said. “Then work on our supplies. Be sure to get Stefani some artisan beer, the best another reality has to offer.”
He followed Stefani and Carlee up the steps to their home base. It was astoundingly intimidating, and Jeff felt chills run down his back just stepping aboard. He couldn’t shake the feeling that this was the start of something big.
“My hood doesn’t work,” Jeff said.
“I’m not going to have to press you in a new one, am I?” Carlee asked.
“No, ma’am.” After what he had seen Carlee do, he knew he could press things as trivial as a hood or beer.
He steadied himself against the outside wall of a room, which a laser cannon rested on top of, while he replaced the hood in this time line with the hood from a time line where he hadn’t damaged it. It wasn’t a difficult story for him to convince his mind was true, and after a few deep breaths, he had recovered enough to connect to the fortress’s mainframe. He sent it the location of Townend.
33 TOWNEND
“AND THERE’S THE SIRENS YOU promised us,” Carlee said. She stood at the front of their floating fortress as they inched closer to Townend.
“Every able-bodied man in the community is going to be rushing to the walls now,” Jeff said. “Almost all of them are going to be expecting to die for their families.”
“How many people?” Carlee asked.
“I’m not sure . . . I’ve only been there a few times.”
“Didn’t get out much, eh, Handsome?”
“I would guess they have a few hundred fighting men. It’s not as big as Fifth Springs, but they were pretty well armed if I remember correctly.”
The fortress crept forward, hovering over some of the crops that the people of Townend relied on. She was glad the fortress wouldn’t hurt their crops. They needed the food, and it wouldn’t make the best impression to ruin a community’s food supply. She wanted to start this new adventure off on the right foot even if she still had her reservations about the entire thing.
“Hopefully, they’ll recognize that we come in peace,” Carlee said. She glanced up to where their fortress had a white flag flying above them. She’d been shot at plenty of times under that sign, but she doubted these people would want to start a fight with their fortress—although, truthfully, they should be more afraid of Stefani than their floating base.
“They’ll recognize we don’t want to kill them when it becomes apparent that we could, but we haven’t. Eventually, at least,” Stefani said. “Maybe after they’ve emptied a clip or drained their energy cells.”
“Just make sure that you don’t accidently fire back,” Carlee said flatly.
“That was one time.” Stefani made no effort to sound innocent. She carried her signature sniper rifle, as always.
The towers and makeshift walls surrounding Townend were among the better preparations she’d seen in a while. Some of them were even made of cement that had been poured after the Ascension. She had a soft spot for people who tried to create rather than destroy. There were so many people willing to tear down and kill and not nearly enough people wanting to build. Hopefully, they could change that ratio.
The towers and wall filled with men, who opened fire on their floating fortress. Metal bullets smashed into the force field guarding the fortress and slid off the practically impenetrable defenses. Energy blasts sent translucent cracks spidering across its surface for the briefest of moments.
It might have been enough to slow a leech or send a warlord running, but their fortress was unabated. The panicked faces of the men guarding the wall came into view; they ranged from old, grizzly-faced men who had seen hundreds of battles in their depressing lifetimes to boys who looked equal parts enthralled and terrified.
“So much for the white flag,” Jeff mumbled.
“That’s close enough,” Carlee said.
The fortress pivoted to the side and stopped about twenty-five yards from the edge of Townend. She sent the command to lower a set of steps so they could meet with the leadership of Townend on their feet.
“We’ll approach them when they stop shooting,” Carlee said. She felt oddly nervous as she anticipated the interaction. She’d been driven out of countless communities over the years, but she she’d never approached them as a vagrant before. It was almost as if she had been hiding behind a mask all these years, and now she was worried what people might think of the real her. She paced to the back of the fortress and manually lowered the crates of supplies to the ground. Arming them didn’t feel natural, but Jeff had made a compelling case for allowing good people to defend themselves. She just hoped she never regretted this.
The attacks on the shields slowed to a stop as the men trying their hardest to defend their home with comparatively weak weapons gave up. Trying to break through the force field generated by the fortress with a twenty-year-old energy gun was like trying to chop through steel beams with an iron ax.
“Let’s do this,” Carlee shouted. She made it back to the stairs before Stefani and Jeff. The two of them had been talking quietly to each other, and they caught up with her slowly. Jeff looked to be fighting nerves with determination, and Stefani had an odd air about her. But she had been changing ever since Jeff had joined them.
Carlee led the way with her hood still up. She didn’t carry any weapons openly, but she kept her energy pistols concealed on her side. Jeff didn’t bring any guns with him, although he had successfully pressed in a fully automatic scattergun, a devastating weapon that sprayed energy in a wide net when fired at enemies. It had been Stefani’s suggestion, of course, but Carlee was pleased to see him pressing so successfully. He had picked it up faster than any of her former students, but she hadn’t told him that. He could be special if he could control himself.
“I’m bringing down the shields,” Carlee said.
“It’s pretty hard to shoot vagrants when they know it’s coming, and it’s still pretty hard when they don’t,” Stefani said, addressing Jeff’s unspoken concerns.
“I dodged your knife in the game, but I don’t know if I could dodge bullets,” Jeff said.
“You’ll get better,” Stefani said as the three of them approached the walls of Townend. Plenty of the men had abandoned their posts and gone running, but the ones who remained had not fired on them yet. Instead, they looked shocked that three people had emerged from the massive transport.
“Is it so hard to imagine a reality where there may be a force field guarding you?” Carlee asked, taking even this chance to educate him. Training had always been her third favorite part of being a vagrant, after helping people and being able to see happy possibilities.
“I’m not sure I could press fast enough,” Jeff admitted.
“Have an idea of what you are going to press before you need to fully form that connection. It’ll help you do it in time. What about a reality where the space the bullets are occupying is taken by something much less sinister, like a flower?”
“You can turn bullets into flowers even as they are about to kill you?”
“Right before they kill you,” Stefani said. “For most of us, we have to be pretty close to what we are pressing.”
“That sounds insane,” Jeff said. “Even for you two.”
“Give it a try,” Stefani said, her voice back to the hyperaware, impending-danger tone she switched on whenever things got tense. Carlee had always found it comforting for some reason. “But maybe not today. Dodge or use a force field.”
Carlee stopped when they stood just fifteen feet from the wall. There were dozens of guns focused on them from on top of the wall, but it wasn’t enough to concern her. She glanc
ed down the line to see Jeff studying the guards profusely as he fidgeted nervously. It reminded her of her first few missions with the vagrants; even with Bobby by her side, she had been scared. Stefani looked bored.
“We come in peace,” Carlee shouted loud enough for everyone to hear. She lowered her hood, cutting herself off from the fortress, but she hoped to make herself appear more human to the frightened men. Some shouting happened in response, and the wailing sirens in the background stopped.
“Ya’ll brought lots of guns for peace,” a man with graying whiskers shouted back at them from the top of their fortifications.
“We weren’t the ones to open fire,” Carlee said. She tried to disarm them with her voice, but they didn’t lower their guns. It was rarely that easy.
“We didn’t send any invitations. Ya’ll are trespassing.”
“We wish to speak to your mayor or leader,” Carlee said. “There’s no need for us to come inside your walls. We will wait here.”
“We’ll be doing our talking from here,” the man shouted. “And I’ll be the one you’ll be speaking with.”
“We could let ourselves in if we wanted.” Carlee gestured back to the fortress, its firepower clearly visible. “I understand that you don’t trust us or want us here, but I will speak to your mayor. One way or another.”
“Are you threatening me, girl? Ya’ll left your ship, and now I’ve got a hundred guns fixin’ to send ya on your way.”
“Even now, your men would be dead before they could fire,” Carlee said. It was a much stronger tone than she had ever used with civilians, but everyone listening was a potential recruit, and she wanted to project strength and confidence.
The men on the wall shuddered, and she checked behind her to see that the fortress’s massive forward guns had rotated to focus on them. Stefani had not lowered her hood. She didn’t worry about Stefani accidently blowing their little wall to pieces, but she didn’t like how this conversation was going.
The man started to laugh, a low, rolling crackle that built to a hearty howl. Stefani growled under breath, and Jeff looked to Carlee, concerned. This was hardly how she had hoped this mission would begin.
“I don’t know how ya’ll came about that fancy boat there, but as pretty as it may be, you won’t be extorting us today.”
There was a confidence in the man’s voice that couldn’t be faked. He didn’t fear the fortress, and Carlee couldn’t understand why. In her experience, most communities wilted at the sight of Stefani’s gun, let alone their fortress.
“I’m going to shoot him,” Stefani mumbled.
“Something’s not right,” Jeff said. He was right. The situation didn’t make sense. She didn’t have any insights from other realities warning her of danger, but she didn’t like this at all.
The man stopped his laugh, which had not spread to any of his fellow guards, and sneered down at them.
“We don’t get pushed around by anyone anymore. Darwin protects us.” Hearing that name triggered something in her; however, she wasn’t ready to give up.
“We should go,” Jeff whispered.
“I agree,” Stefani said.
“We came to help you protect yourself,” Carlee said. “We are going to leave crates of weapons, medicine, and supplies just behind us. These are yours, our gift to you.”
“What’s your game, girl? Bombs in the boxes? Some sort of modern-day Trojan horse?”
“In exchange, we demand two things of your leaders. The first being that none of these gifts are used for preemptive or offensive attacks. The second is that anyone who wants join us must be given the chance to become a vagrant.”
Her announcement sent ripples through the men on the wall. The only things that humans feared more than leeches and warlords were Apostles and vagrants. She prepared to press a shield in around them in case they decided to be foolish.
The whiskered man consulted with the men near him. But before they could answer, chills went down her spine as she sensed a glimpse of another reality.
“Oh, no . . .” Stefani said. Her voice announced in no uncertain terms that bad things were happening. Carlee focused on her friend, who was connected with the fortress through her hood. “There is an Apostle coming.”
34 FLIGHT
“SAVE YOURSELVES—THERE IS AN APOSTLE coming!” Carlee shouted before she started running for the fortress. Jeff didn’t hesitate as he sprinted after her. If Horus was coming back to finish off the communities he had spared last time, Jeff didn’t want to be anywhere nearby.
Jeff pulled his hood up while he ran, and he saw that the fortress was already well into the process of preparing to leave. The steps were far enough off the ground by the time Jeff reached them that he had to jump to make it. He held himself against the rails with his human arm while he reached back to pull Stefani aboard with his metal arm.
“Jeff, make sure the crates are off!” Carlee shouted as she raced to the controls.
He sprinted to the back of the fortress, where four giant crates of weapons and supplies were ready to be offloaded. Indicators and alarms were going off in his head, and he didn’t know what any of them meant, but he knew they couldn’t be good. He threw his body into the first crate and shoved it off the back of the transport. Before it even collided with the ground, he had pushed the next one off.
The fortress lurched forward, nearly sending Jeff falling off the back of the transport with the other two crates. He struggled to step forward against the air pressure until the force fields kicked in.
As soon as he regained his bearings, he followed the indicators, transmitted from his uniform hood, to where a blinking red light was growing rapidly in the sky. He didn’t need to read the information displayed to the side of the indicator to know that it was tracking a large source of temurim that was heading directly for them.
“Coming in hot!” Jeff shouted as he ran to the front of the ship, where Carlee was focused on the controls; Stefani was aiming her sniper rifle.
“It’s following us,” Stefani said. She held her gun up, putting her scope to her eye, and cursed. “We gotta go faster, Carl!”
“Working on it!” Carlee shouted back. The fortress ripped past fields and trees and over lakes, continually picking up speed as it fled from Townend. Jeff stared up at the marker in his enhanced vision in fear as it continued to close in on them.
“It’s almost in range,” Stefani said. Her finger rested on the trigger even though it wasn’t necessary. She had explained to him while they were near the ocean how the gun connected to her hood and allowed her to aim the gun perfectly—although she claimed she didn’t need the help.
“Don’t fire,” Carlee said. “Maybe it hasn’t seen us. It shouldn’t be able to.”
Dozens of markers suddenly burst from the Apostle, spreading out in the air as they raced toward them.
“It’s seen us!” Stefani said. Her voice calmed now as she steadied herself for the battle.
“How can you be—” Carlee stopped herself as strange projectiles shot past them and exploded on the ground a few miles ahead. “Jeff, man the guns.”
The sound of Stefani’s gunfire filled the air as she unleashed her sniper rifle on the approaching Apostle. Jeff used his hood to navigate to the weapon system on the fortress and grabbed control of all of the weapons. He ordered them to track the incoming target with a few mental orders.
“What should I use?” Jeff asked.
“Everything!” Stefani and Carlee shouted at the same time. He sent the orders, and the massive cannons blasted three-foot balls of supercharged energy at the approaching target. The fortress shook from each of the mighty guns and hummed as the rest of its arsenal discharged. Orange streams of plasma spiraled from the rear of the fortress, and dozens of anti-aircraft guns scattered tracking grenades into the sky behind them.
“Hold on!” Carlee’s warning was too late; the fortress fired its emergency thrusters, sending Jeff slamming to the base of one of the main cannons. It turne
d too sharply, causing the bottom of the fortress to scrape against the ground with an awful shriek.
“What’s going on, Carl?” Stefani shouted. She had slid a few feet across the ground but somehow had kept her gun in the firing position. She continued to take shots at their approaching doom.
“It planted some sort of . . . force-field barrier up ahead. We have to go around it!”
“Can’t you take care of it?”
“I . . . we’re going so fast . . . and there so many layers and . . . maybe . . .”
The fortress steadied itself, and Jeff checked on his progress. The incredible display of power flying from their transport had done nothing to slow the Apostle, which was now close enough that he didn’t need any enhancements from his hood to see it clearly. He deactivated his enhanced vision and gasped.
“It’s not Horus,” Jeff said.
“We’re trapped!” Carlee said. “It’s got force fields all around us.”
“Just get close to some of the generators,” Stefani said. “We’ll press our way out of it. Not like it doesn’t know who we are already.”
“It’s that white Apostle . . .” Jeff repeated to himself. He stared up at the approaching white Apostle that acted as if their onslaught was nothing but a cool breeze. It cut through the air, its wings stretching for over a hundred feet. It let the small attacks be brushed off by its shields, while it destabilized and detonated the larger attacks before they reached it by using small red lasers that were reminiscent of Horus’s wings.
“There are multiple layers . . .” Carlee said. “We’re going to have to ditch the transport.”
“It was too big anyways,” Stefani said.
Hatred consumed him as he watched the white Apostle approach them. It was a shade from a nightmare, constantly haunting him no matter what happened. It had been there at Fifth Springs, it had chased them into the battle of Dallas, and it had saved Horus’s life. He wanted to scream at it, to rage about how the Apostle should just let him be. It had done so much to ruin his life that he refused to let if have Carlee and Stefani as well.
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