Wendy was about to break in and ask about that, but Bart seemed to almost be reading her mind. He glanced back at her and then continued.
“My father had gone so far as to try to contact each of the communities, but most did not answer, probably fearing a trick. In the end, the only one who even answered was Cali, and that was when the trouble started. At first, Cali was very friendly with us. They traded technology, sometimes for meat that we hunted, and sometimes for goods we scavenged. Then, after a few months, they asked that we raid the local communities and capture the men and women to sell to them. My father was not happy about this, and he let them know that he felt that all communities should work together peacefully. A week later he was found dead in his own tent.”
Bart stopped talking for a moment, and everyone respected the silence. He cleared his throat, the sound so deep and loud that a bird was startled from a tree not far from them.
“We never discovered if he died naturally or if he was murdered. My brother took over, and it was not long before he made it clear that we would not remain as peaceful as my father had wished. We raided two local families in the course of the next two months. We captured six men and three women, and killed three. Farnak sold them to Cali in trade for weapons. I confronted him in front of the whole clan after that, and expressed my distaste with what he was doing. He told me that if I didn’t like how he ran things, I could challenge him, knowing full well that I would not kill my own brother. He held a vote, and because of my supposed cowardice, I was cast out of the clan. My own clan mates turned on me that night.”
They walked along for another half hour before anyone spoke. Wendy broke the silence. “So how did you know they would be there attacking us?”
Bart smiled mischievously. “Before I confronted my brother, I took a few precautions, just in case... I hid some devices in some of items that normally reside in the clan leader’s tent. These devices allow me to listen in on their meetings. I also manipulated their radio equipment so that I can listen in on their communications with Cali.”
Wayne spoke for the first time since they met Bartholomew. “Forgive me if this is offensive to you, Bart, but I thought the Mutes were stu... er, not as intelligent as regular people.”
Bart laughed, which was fortunate because after asking his question, Wayne looked like he was going to collapse from anxiety, and Bart’s comforting laugh seemed to set him at ease. “Overall, the Evolved have a lower capacity for intelligence, this is true. However, what that really means is that while some of us are pretty stupid, a few of us are quite intelligent. Chances are we will never have any scientists that will be extreme geniuses, but we do have scientists, doctors, politicians, engineers, and other people in our clan who are rather intelligent. I was never much of a political type myself, more of an engineer actually. I have never had access to the information that your communities have, but I have learned quite a bit from what I have scavenged and from what we traded with Cali. Plus, it is amazing what you can learn when the people you deal with think you are stupid.”
Wayne nodded, satisfied with the answer, and probably not very comfortable with the thought of asking another one.
Anton pulled the conversation back on track. “So you overheard them planning to attack us at the old factory building? How did they know we would be there?”
“It was luck really. I normally don’t listen to them during the day, as they are usually out hunting or sometimes even moving the camp, so I listen at night and sometimes review the recordings from the day, if there are any. It so happened that I was out hunting the previous day and had caught myself a very nice deer, and was busy butchering it yesterday morning. I turned on the radio to see if anything was going on while I worked, and a call came in from Cali. They said there would be a New Hope group at that factory in about an hour, and they would pay very well for anyone captured. Farnak sent one of his most loyal generals, along with fifty men to capture you. I figured that you must be important, so it would probably be a good thing if I foiled their plan. Turns out I didn’t need to do much. Our weapons are not nearly the quality as yours and obviously are not very effective against your armor. Farnak made a huge mistake, and I intend to make sure it is a devastating blow to him.”
Anton had gone pale, but Wendy was still trying to make sense of what Bart had told them. How did Cali know where they would be? It only took a moment before she realized, and she felt the blood drain from her face as well. She looked at Anton and said, “Holy shit, do you know what this means?”
Anton simply nodded, still too stunned to talk.
“Ah, looks like this is your turn.” Bart was gesturing, and Wendy looked ahead of them. The remnants of the interstate were a dozen yards from them. The tree line had grown right to the edge of the road bed, but only brush and grass was growing through the old asphalt. A path was all that was left, but it was clear in both directions, unlike the tree-strewn path they had followed through the mountains to get here. To the left there was a pile of brick and concrete, maybe a hundred yards down the path.
“Is that the ruins of West Yellowstone?” She directed the question at Anton, but Bart answered.
“Yes, but there is nothing there worth looking at. Just some piles of rusted metal and stone. A couple buildings still stand, but another hundred years will claim those as well, and soon there will not be anything left to show it even existed.”
They turned right and started walking down the path. Anton pulled out his PDP and hit a button. “Rescue party, this is Salvage Crew Three, do you copy?” A thread of adrenaline went through Wendy as she waited for a response. After a minute, Anton repeated the call. There was no answer, and the adrenaline faded from her blood, leaving her weak and hungry.
“Think they are out there?” It was Greg who asked.
Anton nodded. “I think we just need to get a little further south. Let’s move out.”
Chapter 32
Chuck dropped the transport down through the light cloud cover and started descending toward the landing site. He was keeping a careful eye on the trees down below, wary of any surface to air missiles. The rockets that Jack had described were very low tech, but dangerous nevertheless. They don’t have the explosive force required to completely destroy a medium transport, but it had been determined from the wreckage that the rocket had struck the transport at a critical point and caused the six air to air missiles in the bay below the cargo hold to explode. There was no telling if the Mutes who had attacked the salvage crew were still around, so he was playing it safe.
This morning he had been wandering the halls, bored out of his mind. Teague told him he needed to rest for another day, but it was bullshit; he needed to do something. The news Jack had given him the day before was weighing heavily on his mind, and he knew if he didn’t stay occupied he might do something he would regret.
“Goddamn Council” he muttered to himself. Those guys were so out of touch with reality after two hundred years of planning the “future of humanity”, it just made him sick. New Hope needed some new leaders. Chuck was never a leader; he’d always had issues with authority. As long as he thought it was the right thing to do, he would follow his orders without fail, but he had wound up in a cell on more than one occasion for failing to follow orders. Usually it was when some bullshit officer was trying to gain some glory at the expense of his men, but in the end nobody cared what the reason was, it was just a case of an enlisted man not following the orders of an officer. He had never met an officer he liked, at least until now.
Jack was different. Even though he had really not spent much time with the man, he was confident that Jack would never issue an order he wouldn’t be willing to do himself. That meant a lot to Chuck, and despite the fact that Jack had saved his life already, he would follow the man into Hell itself. If there was someone well suited to run New Hope, it was Jack.
He pushed the thoughts out of his mind and focused on the task at hand. It was mid-afternoon, and earlier the rescue crew h
ad not seen or heard anything from the survivors. Chuck knew that the odds were not good for them to find anyone. He still had hope, but it was quickly fading. This would be the last search party of the day, and he intended to stay out until dark.
He piloted the transport to about four hundred feet off the ground, then proceeded due east, first along the river, heading toward what used to be Yellowstone National Park. There were five men with him, and three were at the windows, scanning the ground below for any sign of anything. One of the men was watching his instruments, looking for a sign of technology, and the last was navigating. The navigator looked at the map on his datapad and said, “The hot zone is due north of us. We know they went northwest from the landing site, but they might have looped around the north side of the hot zone and into the mountains. We have covered everything for fifty miles to the north and west of the site, and it is unlikely they swam the river, so this is the last place we haven’t looked.”
Chuck just nodded. He had reviewed the search maps before setting out, and knew all this information already. He also knew Anton pretty well. If the man was still alive, there was a good chance that they were all in the mountains near the border by now, if not further east and north. He veered just a little toward the north, and moved along at a steady pace.
Ten miles later he banked north, then west again, starting his first zig zag over the area. It was going to be a long afternoon.
* * *
Jack spent the majority of the day just checking on everyone’s progress, and making sure they all had what they needed. The engineering crew had started manufacturing the pumps for the cooling system. Four members of the maintenance crew were constructing the entry doors for the cold rooms, and the rest of the crew was at the flight deck sorting out the insulation that the morning salvage crew had brought back. Tiny and his team had worked out most of the details, and were now waiting on a bulldozer to get the timing down. The key to the whole operation was the dozer itself, and everyone knew it. Most of his time was spent working with Teague and Thomas, finalizing the details for the mission to Saber Cusp.
The crew was ready to go, but Jack had been holding them back. He wanted to go over every detail one more time. The truth was, he was waiting on news from the rescue teams, and didn’t want to put more people in harm’s way until he knew the fate of the four people still out there. He hadn’t exactly lost his nerve, but he was definitely rattled.
“Jack, listen, we need to get this operation going. The team is ready to go. They’ve been briefed, they know the risk, and they know how important it all is. There is no reason to keep this on hold any longer.” Thomas was doing his best to convince Jack to ease up and let it happen. He was a good kid, very smart, very dedicated, and from what little Jack had seen so far, a good officer. He hadn’t missed anything, and had done a fantastic job briefing his crew.
Something was nagging at him, but he couldn’t put his finger on it. The problem was, he wasn’t sure if the nagging feeling had something to do with this mission, or if it stemmed from the other issues he was dealing with. Either way, he wanted to review the operation once more.
“Okay, how many men are you going in with?” Originally they were going to go in with a small group of six men, punch through the Mute neighborhood, then move in and disable the ground to air missile defense system. After Jack’s fight with the Mutes the previous day, he decided they needed more men.
“Our new group consists of fifteen men. Ten soldiers, one mechanic, one computer expert, the pilot, myself, and one other officer.”
Jack liked the idea of two officers in the group, in case something happened to one. The other officer was Red, the one he had dressed down the day before. Since he’d put him in line, the man was proving to be a valuable asset. When Jack decided they needed more men on this mission, Red had volunteered. He and his team were idle until they had a bulldozer anyway, and his men were seasoned fighters.
Thomas continued with the review, not needing to be prompted. “We have two fire teams. The computer guy will go with us, and the mechanic will stay with the transport. Red’s team will hit the Mutes here,” he pointed to a location on the three dimensional map, “and the distraction should allow us to punch through here in the south without much resistance. If we go quick and quiet, we can skip right past them, disable the defense system here,” he pointed at another location to the southeast of the first, “and then come back to here and hit the Mutes from behind. We will put them between a rock and a hard place, and if they don’t retreat, we will crush them.”
Jack nodded. It was a good plan. The central computer for the air defense system is in a building about a half mile to the west of the Mute camp. The area is guarded by some auto-firing turrets and other nasty surprises, so the Mutes avoid the area. They got that information from Marcus, who happened to be responsible for putting the systems in place, and who also still has the key to shutting those turrets down. The computer tech should be able to hack into the building and gain access to the defense system. Once the network is down, the transport can fly in from the east, avoiding the Mute camp, and with the help of the mechanic, load up the transport with the booty. From there it’s up to the two fire teams to get to the rendezvous points and catch a ride home.
Jack couldn’t see anything he could do better. The firepower and armor the teams will be packing will easily overwhelm the Mutes. If they work together as a team, and keep moving, they shouldn’t have any problems. Of course, the best plans are only good until the first shot is fired. At that point, it’s anyone’s game.
“When are you leaving?”
Thomas looked at his watch. “We want to hit them after dark, so we will leave in three hours.”
“Let’s get this party started.” Jack turned to leave the room, stopped, turned back to Thomas, and said, “Good luck, Thomas, try to come back in one piece.” The man smiled and shot him a quick salute.
* * *
They’d walked almost three miles down the path that was once a highway. Not much had been said along the way, mostly just idle chitchat. Anton appeared lost in thought, probably thinking about the information Bart had given them a couple hours earlier. Wayne and Gregory didn’t look comfortable around Bart, and they were giving him a pretty wide berth. That left Wendy to keep him company.
“So tell me Wendy, you never answered my question earlier. You told me you have been in New Hope for four months, yet you are not pregnant. Why is that?”
This was not a subject she wanted to discuss with anyone, especially not a four hundred pound mutated man. “I don’t know, I guess I just didn’t like any of the men I met.”
This brought on another burst of deep laughter from Bart. “Are you telling me that humanity is on the verge of extinction, and you couldn’t find a man you liked? Hahahaha!” He obviously found this amusing. “Wendy, you are an interesting woman. I think I like you.”
“Thanks, Bart. I think I like you too, but don’t get any ideas.” They both laughed. Wendy liked his easy sense of humor. It was unfortunate that his race was considered the enemy by her own. In the past few hours, she had grown fond of his company, but she was sure it had a lot to do with the sense of security his very presence gave her. It was a misplaced feeling, she knew, as one well-placed bullet could end either of them before they ever heard a shot, but nevertheless it felt good knowing that the biggest man she had ever seen had been protecting her and the others while they traveled.
The sun was getting low on the horizon, and daylight would only last another hour or so. Wendy had just started thinking about a campsite when the PDP on Anton’s wrist beeped. He quickly looked at it and pressed a button. “Rescue team, this is Salvage Three, do you copy?”
There was a moment’s silence, and in that time, Wendy felt adrenaline course through her body. The silence was followed by some broken chatter. “Salv--- is Re---- ates.” The communicator was digital, so when there was poor signal or interference, you only got the stuff that came through
okay, not the static that didn’t.
“Come again, rescue team, I can barely read you. This is Salvage Three, copy?”
This time it came in more clearly. “Salvage Three, this is Rescue Two, can you give us some coordinates?” Anton pressed some buttons, transmitting his coordinates. The PDP communications were secure, so there was no question it was a New Hope rescue team they were dealing with.
“Salvage Three, I got you on the map and will be there in approximately six minutes.”
“Be advised, Rescue Two, we have a friend with us, and he is big. Do not, I repeat, do not fire on him, he is friendly. Do you copy?”
There was a hesitation before the response. “Anton, did I read you right? You have a Mute with you and he is friendly?” This time it was Chuck and Wendy almost cried when she heard his voice. She realized now that she had almost given up hope of a rescue any time soon, and was very happy she didn’t have to walk all the way home.
“You copied that fine, Chuck, please don’t shoot at him. See you in a few minutes.”
Bartholomew cleared his throat and everyone around him turned to see what he had to say. “I suppose this is the end of the road for us. I will be heading back to my home after you are on board your transport. I hope my information was helpful to you.”
Wendy hadn’t given any thought to the possibility that he wouldn’t want to come with them. She assumed that he was in it for the long haul. “Bart, you are perfectly welcome to go back to New Hope with us.”
Bart shook his head. “I appreciate that, Wendy, but aside from the low ceilings, there are other dangers there that I would not be comfortable with. You obviously have someone in your community who has a different agenda than the rest of you, and once that information is made public, I would just be a very large target. I would like to keep in touch with you, but I am afraid that the equipment I have is not secure. Cali could listen in on anything I transmit, and worse, could find me very easily if I did.”
The Freezer (Genesis Endeavor Book 1) Page 35
