Collapse Series (Book 9): State of Allegiance

by Summer Lane

  There is tired humor in his tone, and for that, I am grateful.

  Manny is as exhausted as we are—and he still knows nothing about Arlene’s condition.

  I slowly stand, checking on Chris. He is still unconscious.

  “Where are we?” I ask.

  Father Kareem and Manny emerge from the cockpit. Manny looks exhausted—dark circles are pressed beneath his eyes, and his cheek is black and blue.

  “Somewhere along Highway 1,” Father Kareem answers.

  “By my reckoning,” Manny continues, “We’re likely somewhere between San Luis Obispo and Cambria.”

  My heart sinks.

  Too close to the coastline—too far away from the mountains.

  How are we going to get out of here?

  “Hold on,” Andrew shouts, scurrying out of the cockpit. “We’re getting a transmission!”

  All of us curiously gather around the opening of the control room, waiting as a voice crackles over the static.

  “ … I repeat, this is Control 20,” the voice says. Male, young. “Identify yourself or we will be forced to take action against you.”

  “Sounds American,” I observe.

  “Answer them,” Father Kareem says.

  “We copy, Control 20,” Andrew replies. “Friend or foe?”

  “Local militia,” is the answer. “Do you have refugees onboard?”

  “We have militia and wounded.”

  “We can help you.” A pause. Then, “Hang tight. Are you inbound from the Pacific Rim? Call sign?”

  I share a glance with Manny.

  “Yankee Leader,” Andrew says.

  “The Roberta said we might expect a visitor,” Control 20 answers. “Help is on the way, friends.”

  I sigh, heavily relieved.

  Admiral Boyd must have warned the local militia forces left in California that we would be arriving. Granted, we didn’t think we’d be arriving here,but if Chris can get medical help from the militia in this area, I’ll be grateful.

  Manny and Kareem open the door, and the cold fog drifts in. After Hawaii, it seems strangely dry and crisp. Below, shadowy figures are moving through the mist. I keep my finger hovering over the trigger of my rifle as a young man with sandy blond hair steps forward.

  “Greetings,” he says, saluting. “I’m Lieutenant Eugene Miller. These are my men. We’re local militia.”

  He is a baby—maybe seventeen or eighteen years old.

  “Commander Cassidy Hart,” I reply. “These are my men. We have some wounded that need immediate medical attention. Can you help us move them? Do you have vehicles?”

  “We do,” Eugene replies, nodding. He flashes a bright smile. “We’ve heard a lot about you, Commander Hart. The Freedom Fightersare real famous around these parts.”

  Manny lowers the metal stairs, and I climb outside. I am wearing only a tank top and pants. I shiver against the cold air, but I steel myself. I shake the young lieutenant’s hand and wonder, Who are you? You’re so young—there is innocence in your eyes still. If you stay in this fight for too long, you’ll lose it, like I lost mine.

  “We’re grateful for your help,” I tell Eugene. “We’ve had a long week.”

  “Boyd said to make sure you were safely returned to the Roberta when you arrive,” Eugene replies.

  I look at him, surprised.

  “He’s coming here?”

  “Yes, ma’am. He is.”

  Boyd said nothing of that plan on the radio. Maybe he was afraid Omega might be listening.

  “Very good,” I agree.

  We’re going to need to discuss those nuclear weapons, anyway,I think. This is good.

  Eugene’s men hustle onto the plane, bringing stretchers, and they work on getting Devin, Chris, and a few of the other wounded outside.

  “You look exhausted,” Eugene remarks. “I promise you, we’ll have you fixed up in no time at all, ma’am.”

  I nod, ghosting a smile.

  Chris is hauled by on a stretcher and my smile vanishes.

  The future is so uncertain. How can I ever feel safe?

  ***

  I vaguely make conversation with Lieutenant Eugene Miller as we pile into vehicles, moving down an abandoned highway through the coastal foothills. Everywhere, I see signs of militia skirmishes with Omega. I sit silently, weak and spent.

  At some point, we veer off the road and roll through a checkpoint, then curve through a winding road shrouded from the sky beneath thick foliage. After what seems like an eternity, we emerge from the foliage to a long strip of buildings paralleling both sides of the road. A sign has been painted over to read Camp Cambria: USA!

  Quaint buildings and shops line the street, and they are buzzing with militiamen and women, along with many civilian women and children refugees. The fog envelops the small settlement like a blanket, making us invisible from the sky.

  We come to a halt in a parking lot near a building marked MOTEL.

  We get out of the car, and the wounded are taken to the next building, a squat structure with a red cross painted on the wall.

  A middle-aged man with short, sandy hair is waiting for us on the steps of the motel. He salutes, then offers his hand. I shake it, and I note how strikingly similar he looks to Lieutenant Miller.

  “Commander George Miller,” the man says. “Welcome to Camp Cambria. You and your men are heroes to us, to put it plainly.”

  “Nice to meet you, sir,” I reply, weary.

  “We have prepared accommodations for you here in the motel,” George goes on. “Our medical staff will take excellent care of your wounded, I promise. If you need anything at all, my son will be more than happy to help you.”

  He gestures to Eugene, and the boy’s chest puffs up.

  “Thank you,” I say. “We appreciate everything.”

  “We have a communication center at the end of the street,” Commander Miller continues. “You can stay in contact with Admiral Boyd and the fleet from there.”

  “Excellent,” Uriah replies. “Food and water?”

  “There, in the alehouse,” Miller replies, pointing across the street. It is a wooden building with a rustic sign, reminiscent of an Irish pub. “You’ll find everything you need there, at all hours of the day. My men have been instructed to help you however you wish.”

  I am stunned by the generosity of Commander Miller, and I take his hand.

  “Thank you,” I say again.

  He nods, understanding.

  “Everyone, get rested,” I tell the group. “I’ll be in the Red Cross building.”

  “I’ll come with you,” Uriah replies.

  “No. Rest. I’ll be fine.”

  I leave the group, knowing that we are at least temporarily safe here. I enter the Red Cross building, a clean and organized medical center. There are multiple rooms, inside which are five cots each—all of them are filled. Nurses and doctors dressed in dark scrubs scurry to and fro. I find Chris in the last room. He is lying still on a cot. They have threaded his veins with IVs, pushed an oxygen mask over his face, and they are currently hovering over him more than anyone else in the building.

  I swallow a lump in my throat.

  I stand in the corner of the room, watching the doctors, until they wheel Chris away to run tests, and I am left alone.

  ***

  The next day, I am picking at my food in the alehouse when Andrew bursts in with Vera.

  “I just talked to Boyd at the communication center!” he exclaims. “They should be here in a few days. He said that the Athena Strike is holding back. After Hawaii, they never pushed farther east. Something’s stalling them.”

  I bite my lip.

  Perhaps Veronica figured out why we were in Hawaii. Maybe she is afraid of nuclear retaliation on the militia’s part. She would be wise to think long and hard about her next move.

  If the decision is left up to me, I will not hesitate to pull the trigger when necessary.

  “That’s good news,” Uriah replies. “We’
ve bought ourselves a little more time.”

  The tavern is dark and smoky. Men drink in the corner, while the rest of us eat whatever is available on long, wooden picnic benches.

  “What’s our next move, Cassidy?” Vera asks.

  “I don’t know,” I say honestly.

  The Pacific Northwest Alliance is gone. The militia strongholds are gone. San Diego still exists, but they are comprised, and they’ll be right on the frontlines of the Athena Strike in six weeks. Arlene’s condition is unknown. Chris has spiraled into a coma. All we can do is sit and wait for Boyd to get here, and together we will decide when and where to strike at Omega with the weapons that we all paid so dearly to obtain.

  Chris, please wake up. I need your help figuring this out.

  “We can’t stay here forever,” Vera replies, irritated with me. “We have to get back into the fight.”

  “Omega will bring the fight to us soon enough,” I respond. “We need to recuperate, think about our strategy. We need to gather more allies.”

  Vera sighs and she sits across from us, along with Andrew. Manny is sitting quietly at the bar, his fist closed around a glass tumbler of whiskey. He slowly rises, then joins us at our table.

  “It’s time,” he says simply.

  “Time …?” Vera asks.

  “Time to kill them all,” Manny continues. “We have the weapons. When Boyd gets here, I say we take matters into our own hands and destroy them all.”

  No one answers.

  I think it is because we agree. Because we have finally realized that without drastic action, we are doomed to be eradicated by Omega’s foot army, slowly inching its way toward us across the Pacific.

  Lieutenant Eugene Miller walks into the alehouse, finds me, and says, “Ma’am, they’re asking for you in the medical building. They have news about Commander Young.”

  A stone drops to the pit of my stomach.

  Too worried to speak, I rise slowly.

  Uriah silently follows me, and I say nothing to deter him. I feel as if I may need him here for whatever is about to come next. Since yesterday, I haven’t heard anything from the doctors. No reports, no diagnosis. Nothing.

  By the time we get to Chris’s room, I am wound tight.

  There is a woman waiting for us. She is fairly young, her dark hair drawn into a messy bun.

  “Commander Hart?” she asks.

  “Yes.”

  “Thank you for coming so quickly.” She gestures to the two chairs near Chris’s bed. “Please, have a seat.”

  Uriah and I sit. The woman remains standing, watching the rise and fall of Chris’s chest.

  “My name is Marianne Woods,” she continues. “I’m the only surgeon in Camp Cambria. I’ll try to make this as concise as possible, for your benefit. We have run multiple tests on Commander Young. He is suffering from a concussion, which in turn caused severe bleeding on the brain. We believe he suffered a TIA, a small stroke. The bleeding caused him to fall into a coma.”

  I close my eyes.

  “How bad is it?” I ask, fighting a tremor in my voice.

  “Realistically, Commander?” Marianne replies. “I’m not going to lie to you. We’ll have to perform surgery on his brain. Right now, the continued bleeding is causing an enormous amount of pressure to build up inside his head. It could kill him. I want to relieve that pressure so that he has a chance to recover.”

  I gasp. The room spins around me.

  Uriah catches me and draws me to his chest, frowning.

  “And if you can’t stop the bleeding?” Uriah asks quietly.

  “He’ll die,” Marianne answers. “I’m sorry. But you have to know the risks. I wanted you to know what we are doing since you are his fiancée, Commander Hart. I felt it was your right to know.”

  I am numb, too shocked to cry.

  Of course, I had been afraid that Chris’s injuries were bad—but I hadn’t let myself think about that on the plane, or even last night. I had pushed the possibility aside. I have lost many people, but Chris has been such a constant.

  He is a part of me—I can’t live without him. Who would I be?

  “Thank you,” Uriah says.

  “I’ll notify you when the procedure is finished,” Marianne promises.

  Uriah thanks her for me—I am too horrified—and I glance one final time at Chris’s still, beautiful face before Uriah leads me into the hall, into the cold afternoon air.

  “Cassidy, he’s going to pull through,” Uriah tells me, gently squeezing my shoulders. “He’s the toughest man alive, right? We all know that.”

  I say nothing.

  This is life, an insidious voice whispers into my ear. You are doomed to eternal suffering and loss, Cassidy Hart.

  “If he dies,” I reply, “I will have nothing left.”

  “He’s not going to die,” Uriah says. “And that’s not true. You have a lot.”

  I jerk away from him.

  “Like what?” I scream. But still, I do not let the tears come. “Like more fighting? Like watching more people die? Like living from fort to fort for the rest of my life, hiding like a rat from Omega?”

  “You have me,” Uriah offers. “You have your team—all of them love you, Cassidy. We’re your family, you know that.”

  I turn away.

  Uriah reaches for me, but Eugene interrupts us once more, jogging across the street.

  “Commander Hart!” he says brightly. “There’s a ship coming in! Commander Miller wants us to check it out. Do you want to come with us? That’d be great, having you guys along.”

  “Yes,” I snap quickly. No hesitation. “Let’s go.”

  “Cassidy, you don’t need—” Uriah begins, but I ignore him.

  I am burning with white-hot rage. Rage at this world, rage at this war, rage at the unthinkable thing that is happening in Chris’s brain that has pulled him out of my reach, to a place where I am unable to help him.

  It is out of my hands.

  I want to get away from this medical building—I don’t want to think about the surgery, about cutting into Chris and draining his blood. It makes me want to die inside.

  So, I follow Eugene to accompany him on a routine patrol.

  Anything to get my mind off of this horror.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  The Cambria coastline is a ghostly place. The strip of antique shops and small restaurants paralleling the crashing waves of the ocean is abandoned—like most of California. I see signs of human habitation in some places, but for the most part, the city is dead.

  I stand at the beginning of a bobbing dock, along with Eugene and his small detachment of men. Uriah is here with me, trying to talk with me, to break me out of my angry spiral. I don’t want to listen.

  A small vessel is coming directly up to the dock, a shadow in the fog. It is not much bigger than a traditional Coast Guard cutter. It sports one small mast, the sail in tatters, torn and dirty.

  “What is it?” one of the men asks.

  “I don’t know,” Eugene replies, raising an eyebrow. “Looks like a piece of junk.”

  “Probably commandeered,” I offer. “Have you received any radio transmissions from them?”

  “No, ma’am. No idea who this is. Our scouts just wanted to make sure it wasn’t anybody unfriendly. They’ve been watching them come up the coastline.”

  Uriah says quietly, “It could be a trap.”

  The ship slowly comes to the peer, and a man on the deck tosses a mooring line. Eugene’s men hurry to help the man bring the ship in. The vessel comes to a bobbing halt in the water. I approach the helm of the vessel and look up at the man onboard. He is stick thin—his bones jut through his skin, and his young face is hidden by a scruffy beard.

  “What is your purpose here, sailor?” I ask.

  The man stares at me with empty eyes, but he says nothing.

  “Board the vessel,” I tell Eugene.

  He nods, and as the mute man slaps the gangplank onto the dock, Eugene, his men, Ur
iah, and I board the small ship.

  Chris is dying. Chris is dying.

  I shake myself, blinking back tears.

  Focus on the task at hand. That is how you survive this day.

  “Commander Cassidy Hart,” I offer. “I’m going to ask you again, sailor: who are you, and what is your purpose here?”

  The man takes a step backward.

  “My name is Davis,” he replies, his voice a croak. “We’re seeking refuge, ma’am.”

  “We?”

  He nods, then holds a hand to his throat, looking faint.

  “Help him,” I tell Eugene.

  I take my handgun from the holster on my hip, looking around the vessel. It’s little more than a fishing boat. Discarded fishing nets and equipment lay here and there, but there are no signs of fish. There is a Captain’s Cabin in the back of the boat, and I decide to begin my search there.

  Uriah is right on my shoulder, and we kick the door in.

  I move into the room, expecting an ambush, but nothing comes. It is a basic room—bare bones, with a couple of cots, a small kitchen area, and a dining room table. A glass window looks toward the sea. Books are piled everywhere.

  I pause at the dining table, scattered with maps. Red lines have been drawn across locations in Europe and North America, along with endless notes scrawled on the edges of each paper. I furrow my brow and pick up a map. Most of the commentary is illegible, but most disturbing of all, red circles made to look like fiery, all-seeing eyes are drawn everywhere.

  Omega.

  Movement.

  I set the map down and lift my gun. In the corner of the room, a man is sitting, eerily silent. He is wearing a dark coat, wrapped in a scarf and gloves, his head stuffed into a knit cap.

  “On your feet,” I command.

  The man looks up, his weary face unshaven and wrinkled. He slowly stands up, tall and thin.

  “I know who you are,” the man says. “You’re Commander Hart. I’ve heard of you.”

  “Everyone has,” I snap. “Get your hands up, behind your head.”

  I don’t trust him.

  “And you must be Lieutenant True,” the man continues, nodding at Uriah. “A pleasure.”

  I frown, puzzled. This man’s voice is strangely familiar.