Farenough: Strangers Book 2

by Melissa McCann

  He ran his big hand down her naked skin from shoulder to thigh. "I'm flattered to know I thoroughly did my job for you, but we haven't been firebombed. If you've had your bit of a nap, I think we've both got work to do."

  He stroked her again, jostling her a little this time.

  Annia summoned a whimper of protest.

  He rubbed her back. "I know you want to get to work on your virus project. Mr. Solante had your hospital about half set up by the time I got back here with the communicator for Mr. Charmmes to talk to his ship."

  Annia had awakened enough to take in what he was saying. She lifted her head a few centimeters off the mattress. He'd said something about a hospital and her virus, and the firebombs hadn't fallen, and she almost wished they had. She had so much work to do and so little time.

  Still groggy, she tracked down a train of thought having something to do with the hospital. She had made a discovery about Century Plague when Mr. Solante told her the DPH hadn't been able to get a DV to attack the plague. She raised herself up on her elbows. Mr. Hollin moved down and kissed the small of her back.

  Century plague. The origin of DV technology. Black Man take the Charmmes family, they had used the most virulent immune plague in the history of the human species to create—well, it was the most effective medical technology since...anything...but it seemed to be useless against the disease that spawned it.

  Annia couldn't reach the DPH through the communications blockade, so somehow, she had to fix the Charmmes disaster herself.

  #

  The drone-humans—Tora had to remember they were something Mr. Ventnor called, civilian support corps—dragged barriers of wood across the main road. Now, they worked making more barriers between houses and shops on each side of the main road so the black-uniforms would not want to spread out and invade at many points. Letting them in at many points would make it easier for Tora to use her smaller force to block them with strike and run tactics, but Tora wanted to keep all the black-uniforms in one place outside Murrayville for as long as possible.

  Dess climbed over the barricade and came to Tora. She pushed something heavy at Tora's arm. "Take this, Colonel."

  Tora lowered the distance viewer and looked at the thing Dess tried to give her. It was a stun-jacket like the black-uniforms wore to protect themselves from stun weapons. This was General Baldwin's stun jacket—blue and brown with letters on it. Tora could not read letters. She said, "Give it to Mr. Ventnor." Mr. Ventnor would be with Tora when she talked to the Special Commander Marduk.

  Mr. Ventnor said, "Not me, Colonel. You're the one we need walking and talking."

  "I don't need vests," Tora insisted.

  "They'll know what you are and who you are. If negotiations break down, they'll try to take you out of the equation first."

  "The vest could make all the difference," Dess said. "Mr. Ventnor, and I love him, is expendable."

  That was true. Sometimes a soldier had to be sacrificed, but Tora did not want to sacrifice Mr. Ventnor even if it was only stun weapons and he would recover. She needed Mr. Ventnor to come with her. Sometimes humans were very stupid and did not understand what Tora told them. Mr. Ventnor could explain things to them in words they could understand, and Tora did not want him to be stunned. But Dess was right. If Tora wore the vest, she could not be stunned by the little weapons of the black-uniforms even if they all fired at her together. If the black-uniforms tried to stun her and Mr. Ventnor, she would just have to protect him as if was a human.

  While Tora put on the vest, Mr. Ventnor and Liam watched the black-uniforms. Liam said, "Advancing now."

  Tora snapped the closures on the vest and took the distance-viewer from Mr. Ventnor. The Special Commander Marduk was telling his soldiers to move. Black-uniforms formed into lines. In the background, a black and silver shelter flapped and collapsed.

  Tora handed the viewer back to Mr. Ventnor, jerked her head for Liam to follow her back to the barricade where her soldiers waited. "Black-uniforms come," Tora told them. "They have stun weapons, maybe smoke cannisters. If they fight, hide. Don't let enemy know you are there. If the enemy fires smoke projectiles, make the enemy see you run away. Then make them follow you to the traps. Get the enemies' stun weapons and use them."

  "Their uniforms are stun-resistant," Mika said.

  Lize cuffed the back of his head, but not hard. "The heavy shielding is too stiff to use on arms and legs, so fire low where it's thinner. It won't drop them, but it will slow them down."

  Ms. Bettuane said, "If you get the chance to get one of them down, get that vest off them and use it yourself."

  Lize said, "Don't mess with the helmets. They can see and hear anything you do when you're wearing one."

  The soldiers settled behind their barricades, and Ms. Bettuane gave Tora a signal with her fingers spread out to show that everyone was ready.

  Tora turned to Liam. "You take runners and make them report enemy movements. No fighting. If black-uniforms get through barriers, runners lead them to traps."

  Liam nodded. He already knew orders, and the runners did what he said. Fist, the Lieutenant of the runners, had wanted the runners to fight the black-uniforms, but Liam had told him "no," and Fist had bonded to Liam the way soldiers bonded to their lieutenant. Maybe that made Liam a lieutenant now. Sometimes Tora felt tired of things and people changing and not being what they were supposed to be. Humans could be soldiers, soldiers could be lieutenants, catpils were humans who could also be soldiers, humans could be enemies; all her simulations said those things could not go together, but they did.

  There were too many humans who were not soldiers standing in the street. Tora had ordered them to go to their homes and not get in her way, but they had not gone far, and now they had all come back. Tora saw Ms. Bucki and Mr. Twardowski talking to the humans in the street. Maybe they could make the humans be civilian support corps and not be in Tora's way.

  Tora returned to the street and stood beside Mr. Ventnor. Tora had been thinking about how Mr. Hollin made trade with people who had things other people wanted. She pictured in her mind the way connections and bonds and lines of force ran through him and all the people he talked to, and how they all ran back to him and made him strong with credit so people trusted him.

  She pictured herself and the Special Commander Marduk and through him the parliament enemy and the disease enemy and saw how lines of influence ran through them all. Tora wanted to make all those bonds run back to her and give her credit, and she must do it with a weak force. She had already made the Special Commander Marduk contain the disease enemy for her. She thought she saw how to use the disease enemy to reinforce her own soldiers, but she would have to make negotiations very well. It would be good if she did not have to use soldiers for fighting at all, but she could not see how to make the lines run that way. She had arranged her soldiers the best way she could. She would just have to fall back on her simulations.

  The black-uniforms had fallen into lines and begun to march while Tora gave the last orders to her lieutenants. Now they came toward Murrayville at a steady trot. The atmospheric fliers heeled over and darted away to the east and west. Tora was pleased. That meant the fliers would patrol the lake and the foothills, covering a lot of ground with heat scanners. The enemy would not try to come into Murrayville that way. That meant Tora would control their entrance here on the road. It also meant their whole strength would be concentrated in one place where it would have the greatest advantage against Tora's weaker force.

  The black-uniforms came ahead with the Special Commander Marduk in front. They came closer, and Tora held her ground in the middle of the road. Their boots tramped in unison on the road. Tora could see their chins under their visors. The Special Commander Marduk raised his hand and called the black-uniforms to halt.

  The black-uniforms stopped and stood ready to fight.

  The Special Commander Marduk came forward. "Who's in charge of this rabble?"

  Tora made one half-step forward t
o make the space between them smaller. He was not taller than Tora, so that was good and gave her more credit. "You talk to me."

  He glanced at Mr. Ventnor as if he thought Mr. Ventnor should be Command, but Mr. Ventnor shrugged. "She's the one you want to talk to."

  The Special Commander Marduk did not like to talk to Tora. He thought she could not understand him, but he had to speak to her because nobody else would speak to him. He eyed the barriers across the road. "Your people are ordered to withdraw. I'm declaring a quarantine of the area, and a fifty-meter dead zone around the city."

  The crowd of humans behind the barrier stirred and muttered. Tora heard Dess say, "Everybody calm down. Colonel Miraz has it in hand."

  Tora stepped closer to the Special Commander Marduk. "We have quarantine. We don't need you."

  The Special Commander Marduk said, "Maybe you don't realize how close you and your soldiers are to being bombed out of existence, but if you know what's best for you, you'll tell those people behind the barricades to go home and stay in their houses."

  "Afraid not," Mr. Ventnor said.

  Tora stared at the Special Commander Marduk to show she had enough credit to fight him. "UW Parliament won. Yetfurther Parliament enemy cannot use firebombs."

  He stared at her, too surprised to talk. Then he remembered he was supposed to be Command, and his face turned hard again. He raised his voice so even the humans in the street behind the barricade could hear. "You are all in violation of parliamentary edict. Disperse, or we will detain you."

  "Get out of Murrayville," a man shouted from the crowd. Other voices joined his, shouting curses. Tora half-turned, and raised one hand, palm out to tell the humans to be quiet. The humans stopped shouting.

  She turned back to the Marduk. "You make your dead place where you want it. You stay out of Murrayville. My soldiers keep quarantine."

  The Special Commander Marduk was not reasonable. He said, "You obviously can't keep these people off the streets on your own."

  Mr. Ventnor had been listening with one thumb stuck in his belt and his other hand on the handle of his truncheon. "Not meaning to quarrel, Commander, but we were putting together a quarantine of our own before Captain Carubba came in and mucked us up."

  "You had a riot," the Special Commander Marduk said.

  Mr. Ventor nodded once to say he agreed with the Marduk. That was good. Mr. Ventnor would give a little credit to the Special Commander Marduk so the Special Commander Marduk would have to give some back. Sometimes you could gain credit by giving some away. Tora was pleased with Mr. Ventnor. This kind of negotiation was very complicated.

  Mr. Ventnor said, "That's about what you'd expect when you're imposing a quarantine on ten thousand unruly people. We had it in hand until people started seeing police in riot uniforms. If you put a guard out here on the boundary, we can keep things locked down inside."

  Tora nodded to say Mr. Ventnor was saying what Tora would say if she knew the words for talking to humans. She did not want to fight the black-uniforms because her soldiers were few and poorly-armed, but if the black-uniforms come into Murrayville, the humans would fight. Humans would be hurt, many killed, and the quarantine would be lost. Maybe the Special Commander Marduk could not see that, but Tora knew it the way she knew enemies from friends.

  The Special Commander Marduk was only a human. He couldn't feel the mood of the crowd the way Tora did. He raised his hand to the black-uniform soldiers behind him and said to Tora and Mr. Ventnor, "Stand out of the way."

  CHAPTER NINE

  The black-uniform soldiers raised their stun weapons. Tora had hoped she could make negotiations and not have to fight the black-uniforms at all, but she had not expected it. The Commander Marduk would want to see if Tora was strong or if she was just fighting with credit.

  The Special Commander Marduk had seen the stun vest, but he knew many stun weapons firing together could get through the protection of the vest and make the wearer unconscious. The Special Commander Marduk stepped back toward his soldiers so they could fire past him.

  "Back," Tora said to Mr. Ventnor and pushed him toward the barricades, keeping herself between him and the stun rifles.

  The Special Commander Marduk dropped his hand, and the black-uniforms fired their rifles. Stun bolts made Tora's teeth buzz, but the vest drew the bolt into its field and smothered it, and these bolts came from a distance and were only strong enough to stun a human anyway.

  Only, the black-uniforms were strung out in a line across the road, and they had all fired at once, and Mr. Ventnor had been behind Tora, moving toward the barricade, and Tora could not be between him and all the bolts. Mr. Ventnor had staggered and fallen. Now he tried to get up, but he could only raise his head and one shoulder.

  Tora was angry. The black uniforms had fired stun bolts at Mr. Ventnor. Tora was angry. She would kill the Special Commander Marduk for firing at Mr. Ventnor. She would break his neck, and crush his skull, and break his legs.

  Tora crossed the ground between herself and the Special Commander Marduk faster than a human could think. The Special Command Marduk did not realized Tora had not fallen. He thought he could stun her with many bolts even through the vest. He had turned back to his soldiers to give them orders. He started to turn toward her and reached for the stun pistol on his belt. Tora slapped the his hand away from the weapon. She would strike him with one hand and shatter his breastbone so hard the pieces of bone would crush his heart.

  She should kill the Special Commander Marduk, but Mr. Ventnor had to get back behind the barricade where he could recover and not be fired at anymore, and Tora should get her soldiers ready to defend the ship...the town, and the Special Commander Marduk was also a human, and she was not supposed to kill humans.

  Tora pulled her lips back from her teeth and made a new face that was even more angry than her angriest face ever. The Special Commander Marduk made a face that meant he knew he was going to die right now and he was too slow, too weak to save himself. Then Tora turned away and did not kill him. She crossed the ground to Mr. Ventnor, knelt on one knee, and jerked Mr. Ventnor's limp body over her shoulder. He was very heavy. She staggered when she stood up before she got her balance. She looked back once at the Special Command Marduk to let him know she had not forgotten about killing him, only decided to do it later. Then she ran, carrying Mr. Ventnor back to the barrier across the road.

  Stun bolts made her vest buzz and crackle, but the stuns did not bother her. Mr. Ventnor was close enough to her that the absorption field of the vest protected him, too. Tora could not run fast carrying Mr. Ventnor, but she could run fast enough to get back to the barricade before the black-uniform stunners overpowered her vest. She rolled over the nearest barrier with Mr. Ventnor and ducked down among her soldiers.

  Mr. Ventnor was strong. Dess checked his throat to see if his heart was beating, but he was blinking and trying to get up on one elbow. Dess told him to lie still and wait for the stun to wear off.

  Mr. Ventnor slurred his words. "How did it go, Colonel?"

  Tora shrugged. "He will fight to see if he can get into Murrayville. We will fight so he knows it is better to stay out."

  "Wasn't much chance he'd take your offer, anyway."

  That was true. Tora had not expected the Special Commander Marduk to let Tora and the militia keep the quarantine without trying to fight instead, but if Tora fought him and she could keep him from getting into the town, then he would not want to waste men and weapons and power cells to keep fighting, and he would know Tora was strong enough to fight the disease enemy without him.

  "Should have killed him," she grumbled.

  Mr. Ventnor tried to make a grin, but the stun effect made his face grimace. "Over a little stun? Worst that would have happened to me is a day or two in the detention camp."

  But Tora needed Mr. Ventnor. He belonged to her.

  "They're moving," Ms. Stamos announced.

  Mr. Ventnor grunted and got himself up on his elbow. "Give me a minute t
o get my feet back, and I'll be with you."

  Tora nodded. She wished he were fully functional now, but he was very strong and recovering fast for a human. Tora moved back to her lieutenants and their soldiers behind the barricade. She had intended to have Mr. Ventnor on her right side with Lize and Ms. Stamos on her left, but she could not have Mr. Ventnor right now. She saw Mr. Pente kneeling behind the barricade among the other soldiers. He had come back to the militia the day after the fighting at the market when the black-uniforms invaded the town. Tora waved for him to come to her. He came like a soldier whose previous lieutenant has died, and who feels unsure of the lieutenant who has taken him.

  Tora made the approval face. "You with me," she told him.

  Mr. Pente took the place to her right. Tora slapped his shoulder to say she trusted him. He was a very good soldier even if the Cerise had almost ruined him before Tora took him.

  The civilian support corps had built a wall as high as Tora's ribs out of things they found on the streets. They had pulled down fences, dragged tables and bed frames out of the houses and shops, even torn pieces off some buildings and fixed them all together to make a line of separate shields that all went together to make the bulkhead across the street. It would block stun bolts, and Tora and her soldiers could move around behind it if they bent over.

  On Tora's left side, Lize and Ms. Stamos watched the black-uniforms through slits in the barrier wall. Tora watched the top of a building on the right side of the street. This building was as tall as three buildings—which was very tall— and someone on its flat roof would be able to see the street.

  A human appeared above edge of the roof line of the tall building. He held one arm straight up and swung it down to one side before disappearing again. Almost at the same time, Ms. Stamos said, "They're getting ready to fire," and the first wave of stun bolts hit the shield. Some of the soldiers made surprise noises and fell back from the barricade when they felt the tingle of expended bolts coming through the wall. Even Lize and Mr. Bracxs pulled away, and Lize shook her hands like rags to get the prickling feeling out.