After a big tour and a meal with the captain, he had his first shift with Gebre Selassie. Grandfather Captain Wang made him Able Seaman Training Class and said it was best to start as soon as possible. So he and Gebre Selassie went through all the complicated electronic equipment in the radio room. The radio officer needed to check all the equipment before the long trip across the sea back home. He explained every step to Hong-gi.
That was when the message came in. The message was in English.
At first he jumped up, thinking Pablo was on the radio already, but it was a grownup, someone he didn’t recognize.
“Shore to Chinese vessel, shore to Chinese vessel, come in Chinese vessel.”
Gebre Selassie allowed Hong-gi to take over. “Chinese ship Admiral Zeng He to shore. We read you.”
“We are a community to the north of New City. We heard of your arrival and a trading party is on the beach you are passing at this moment. Please send a boat so that we can discuss trade. We have some things you’ve been looking for that New City couldn’t provide.”
Gebre Selassie understood enough that his eyes went wide. He had Hong-gi tell them to wait while he ran off to talk with Captain Wang.
Within minutes Hong-gi heard the constant thrumming of the engine slacken, and felt the tremor from the bowels of the ship stop. The radio officer came back to tell Hong-gi to go on deck to greet the shore party.
“You’re going to act as translator,” he explained.
An hour later Hong-gi stood on deck watching the rowboat return with a group of Anglos. As they climbed aboard he recognized Mr. Weissman, one of the citizens who left to make his own town after the Righteous Horde attacked. The old man looked around the ship like he was impressed, his gold-rimmed glasses flashing in the sun.
Captain Wang spoke to him with Hong-gi translating. “We welcome you aboard the Admiral Zeng He and are happy to trade with anyone who offers use fair terms and peace. May I ask what you have to trade?”
Mr. Weissman smiled and pulled a bag from his pocket. He opened it up and showed him a pile of gold rings and some silver forks and spoons.
“There’s plenty more where this came from. I heard you want gold and silver. That’s fine. The fools on my continent have forgotten the value of precious metal and I’ve been trading for it cheap for most of my life. This is just a small sample. I’ve gathered quite the hoard. I always knew it would come in handy someday.”
Captain Wang’s eyes gleamed with interest. “Well, Mr. Weissman, while we managed to get some gold from New City, we can always use more. I think we can do business.”
Mr. Weissman rubbed his hands together. “Good. There are a few things I could use around Weissberg. Let’s talk trade.”
***
Pablo made his way through the dunes, keeping a sharp lookout for tweakers and weirdoes. While he never saw anyone out here, as a scavenger he knew it paid to be careful in the wildlands. He’d gotten Mom to tell him a lot of her stories from when she was a scavenger and he’d learned plenty. He also hung out in the market and listened to the other scavengers talk. He was going to be an expert scavenger soon.
He had more important things to do today, though.
The marker came into view up ahead. He’d placed three rocks together in a rough triangle to mark where he had hidden the radio. It was a different spot than where Jessica had kept hers, just in case she came back with her father and tried to find it. This radio was his. He kinda felt greedy keeping it all for himself but everyone else had used the last one for selfish reasons so it was better off with him. Yu-jin had agreed with him and promised not to tell anyone he had it. She seemed to have kept her promise too. It didn’t matter even if she didn’t. She’d never find it. The dunes were big and there were a lot of rocks and sticks and other stuff to hide things under.
Pablo went up to the top of the nearest dune for a long look around. Nobody. Then he looked out to sea. He had been looking out to sea a lot lately. It gave him a strange feeling, like happy and sad at the same time. After a minute he hurried back down to the spot and dug up the radio.
Once he got everything set up and had stretched out the antenna against the side of the dune, he got back up to the top to check for people again. It always paid to be careful in the wildlands. Every scavenger knew that.
After he checked that he was alone, he hurried to the radio, making big leaps down the sandy slope. Using the radio was even more fun now.
He sat down in front of the radio and turned it on. The speaker let out a soft crackle. He checked the frequency, picked up the microphone, and thumbed the transmit key.
“Shore to admiral, shore to admiral. Come in please.”
There were a few moments of static, and then Hong-gi’s voice came out of the speaker. He sounded faint and far away, the static almost as loud as his words.
“Admiral to shore, we’re reading you loud and clear.”
“Ni Hao, Hong-gi.”
“Ni Hao, Pablo. Your Chinese is getting better. You don’t sound like you’re barfing now.”
Pablo grinned. “I got a good teacher. Hey, no, two teachers! How do you say radio?”
“Shou Ying Ji.”
“Shou Ying Ji.”
“You sound like you’re barfing again.”
Pablo laughed. After a moment he let go of the transmission button and heard Hong-gi laughing too. “Oh, hey! Good news, shore. Admiral says we’ll try to get back for the next harvest fair.”
Pablo jumped up with a whoop and ran around in an excited circle. Then he grabbed the microphone and said, “Cool. I’ll see you then. Are you heading out of range? You’re getting fainter every day.”
“That’s right. Don’t worry, we’ll see each other next harvest fair. Maybe I can get you a more powerful radio.”
“Maybe I’ll make one myself.”
“How you going to do that?”
Pablo looked around to make sure no one could hear his big secret. “You know Philip, the electrician guy? I got an apprenticeship with him. I’m learning all about electronics and power supplies and wiring and everything. He’s like a genius with that stuff. He doesn’t know it but I’m going to build my own radio station, just like Radio Hope. In one of his books I read about a frequency called shortwave that goes halfway around the world. I’m going to use that so China can pick it up too.”
“Really? Awesome! I’m learning a lot too. When we get together again we’ll plan it out. I’ll build a station too and we can talk to each other whenever we want. It will be way better than this marine band. We can make our own station and tell people what they really need to hear.”
“I already found some plans in Philip’s books. I’ll know how to read them by the time you get back.”
“OK. I got to go now. We have to radio to base. Same time tomorrow?”
“Same time tomorrow. Zaijian.”
“Zaijian. Hasta luego.”
Pablo turned off the radio and packed it away. Once he had buried it, he pulled out a small broom from his pack. He’d cut the handle off so it could fit inside and nobody would know he had it. Walking backwards away from the radio’s hiding place, he wiped out his tracks. Once he got far enough away, he put the broom back in his pack and walked off in the direction of New City. Philip would be expecting him.
As Pablo headed south through the dunes, three hooded figures in identical white masks watched him go. The details of the masks were painted in black, each with a smile, a thin moustache, and a small pointed beard.
One of the figures held a small radio receiver.
“We could use him,” the figure with the receiver said.
“The last time we used a child she ended up using us,” the figure next to him grumbled.
“There are more possibilities with this one,” the third figure said. The voice was that of a woman.
The figure with the radio nodded. “He’s younger, and sees more clearly.”
“He’s not as selfish, that’s for sure,” the second
one said. “But it’s still risky.”
The woman said, “Pablo will do what he says he will do. He wanted to save his friend and he did it. If he wants to build a station, I have no doubt that one day he will do so. Not as soon as he thinks, but soon enough.”
“How?” the second one scoffed.
“He’ll find a way,” the woman answered. “He’ll steal the parts if he has to. He has access and no one will suspect him.”
“And if he gets caught the radio station will never be made,” the second one said.
“I think he will succeed,” the woman said. “And we can ensure that.”
“I think we should, but even if we don’t I think he’ll find a way,” the figure with the radio said. “If he gets caught he’ll try again, or Hong-gi will, or somebody will. This is what we wanted, for the world to move forward without us.”
“He’d probably do a better job than New City Radio. All they transmit is music and advertisements,” the woman said.
“Are you seriously suggesting we give a ten-year-old boy a shortwave transmitter?” the second one asked, doubt lacing his voice.
“That’s a question for the whole station,” the woman said. “We need to have consensus.”
The three figures turned and headed east for the distant mountains. Their path took them through the dunes and into an open area beyond the last farms. As they came out into the flatland they caught a glimpse of Pablo again, a tiny dot in the distance heading for the electronics lab in New City, the third most advanced electronics lab on this continent.
The figure with the radio stopped and watched the distant figure disappear into the haze.
“Good luck, Pablo. I have a feeling we will be seeing you again soon.”
Coming in Spring 2016: Book Four in the Toxic World Series:
EMERGENCY TRANSMISSION
Fiction by Sean McLachlan
Trench Raiders
September 1914: The British Expeditionary Force has the Germans on the run, or so they think.
After a month of bitter fighting, the British are battered, exhausted, and down to half their strength, yet they’ve helped save Paris and are pushing towards Berlin. Then the retreating Germans decide to make a stand. Holding a steep slope beside the River Aisne, the entrenched Germans mow down the advancing British with machine gun fire. Soon the British dig in too, and it looks like the war might grind down into deadly stalemate.
Searching through No-Man’s Land in the darkness, Private Timothy Crawford of the Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry finds a chink in the German armor. But can this lowly private, who spends as much time in the battalion guardhouse as he does on the parade ground, convince his commanding officer to risk everything for a chance to break through?
Trench Raiders is the first in a new series of World War One action novels that will follow the brave men of the British Expeditionary Force through the major battles of the First World War a hundred years after they happened. The Battle of the Aisne was the start of trench warfare on the Western Front, and it was there that the British and Germans first honed their skills at a new, vicious brand of fighting.
Available in electronic edition!
Digging In
October 1914: The British line is about to break.
After two months of hard fighting, the British Expeditionary Force is short of men, ammunition, and ideas. With their line stretched to the breaking point, aerial reconnaissance spots German reinforcements massing for the big push. As their trenches are hammered by a German artillery battery, the men of the Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry come up with a desperate plan—a daring raid behind enemy lines to destroy the enemy guns, and give the British a chance to stop the German army from breaking through.
Digging In is the second in a new series of World War One action novels that will follow the brave men of the BEF through the major battles of the First World War a hundred years after they happened. The Battle of Ypres was the first of many great slaughters on the Western Front, and it was there that both sides learned the true horror of the world’s first global conflict.
Available in electronic edition!
Christmas Truce
Christmas 1914
In the cold, muddy trenches of the Western Front, there is a strange silence. As a crack English trench raiding team enjoy their first day of peace in months, they call out holiday greetings to the men on the German line. Soon both sides are fraternizing in No Man’s Land.
But when the English recognize some enemy raiders who only a few days before launched a deadly attack on their position, can they keep the peace through the Christmas Truce?
Available in electronic edition!
A Fine Likeness (House Divided Book One)
A Confederate guerrilla and a Union captain discover there’s something more dangerous in the woods than each other.
Jimmy Rawlins is a teenaged bushwhacker who leads his friends on ambushes of Union patrols. They join infamous guerrilla leader Bloody Bill Anderson on a raid through Missouri, but Jimmy questions his commitment to the Cause when he discovers this madman plans to sacrifice a Union prisoner in a hellish ritual to raise the Confederate dead.
Richard Addison is an aging captain of a lackluster Union militia. Depressed over his son’s death in battle, a glimpse of Jimmy changes his life. Jimmy and his son look so much alike that Addison becomes obsessed with saving him from Bloody Bill. Captain Addison must wreck his reputation to win this war within a war, while Jimmy must decide whether to betray the Confederacy to stop the evil arising in the woods of Missouri.
Available in print and electronic editions!
The River of Desperation (House Divided Book Two)
In the waning days of the Civil War, a secret conflict still rages…
Lieutenant Allen Addison of the USS Essex is looking forward to the South's defeat so he can build the life he's always wanted. Love and a promising business await him in St. Louis, but he is swept up in a primeval war between the forces of Order and Chaos, a struggle he doesn't understand and can barely believe in. Soon he is fighting to keep a grip on his sanity as he tries to save St. Louis from destruction.
The long-awaited sequel to A Fine Likeness continues the story of two opposing forces that threaten to tear the world apart.
Available in electronic edition!
Radio Hope (Toxic World Book One)
In a world shattered by war, pollution and disease…
A gunslinging mother longs to find a safe refuge for her son.
A frustrated revolutionary delivers water to villagers living on a toxic waste dump.
The assistant mayor of humanity's last city hopes he will never have to take command.
One thing gives them the promise of a better future—Radio Hope, a mysterious station that broadcasts vital information about surviving in a blighted world. But when a mad prophet and his army of fanatics march out of the wildlands on a crusade to purify the land with blood and fire, all three will find their lives intertwining, and changing forever.
Available in print and electronic editions!
Refugees from the Righteous Horde (Toxic World Book Two)
When you only have one shot, you better aim true.
In a ravaged world, civilization’s last outpost is reeling after fighting off the fanatical warriors of the Righteous Horde. Sheriff Annette Cruz becomes New City’s long arm of vengeance as she sets off across the wildlands to take out the cult’s leader. All she has is a sniper’s rifle with one bullet and a former cultist with his own agenda. Meanwhile, one of the cult’s escaped slaves makes a discovery that could tear New City apart…
Refugees from the Righteous Horde continues the Toxic World series started in Radio Hope, an ongoing narrative of humanity’s struggle to rebuild the world it ruined.
Available in electronic edition!
The Scavenger (A Toxic World Novelette)
In a world shattered by war, pollution, and disease, a lone scavenger disco
vers a priceless relic from the Old Times.
The problem is, it’s stuck in the middle of the worst wasteland he knows--a contaminated city inhabited by insane chem addicts and vengeful villagers. Only his wits, his gun, and an unlikely ally can get him out alive.
Set in the Toxic World series introduced in the novel Radio Hope, this 10,000-word story explores more of the dangers and personalities that make up a post-apocalyptic world that's all too possible.
Available in electronic edition!
The Rat Killer and other Weird War Tales
A rat hunter on the Western Front suspects his prey are plotting against him…
A routine trip through the trenches leads to an unexpected insight…
A soldier discovers the most dangerous enemy can't be killed…
A bereaved woman performs a forbidden ritual to avenge her father’s murder…
A doomed militia is offered a path to victory that leads to damnation…
Here are five tales of war from the pen of military historian and novelist Sean McLachlan. From the bushwhackers of the American Civil War to the trenches of WWI, these stories walk the line from the strange and paranormal to the frighteningly real.
Available in electronic edition!
The Night the Nazis Came to Dinner and other Dark Tales
A spectral dinner party goes horribly wrong…
An immortal warrior hopes a final battle will set him free…
A big-game hunter preys on endangered species to supply an illicit restaurant…
A new technology soothes First World guilt…
We Had Flags (Toxic World Book 3) Page 28
