Farenough: Strangers Book 2

by Melissa McCann

"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 to 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.

  "Hold," Tora told them. They must wait until the black-uniforms came closer to the barricade.

  The soldiers were restless. They could not even look out and see how near the enemy was. "You do good," she told her soldiers. She put a hand on Mr. Pente's shoulder.

  A prickly feeling in the air made the hair stand up on Tora's arms. "Wait for enemies to come close."

  She heard the Special Commander Marduk order his soldiers to march on the barricades.

  Tora looked up at the tall building. The sentinel there raised his head raised above the top of the square wall.

  Tora heard the tramp of enemy soldiers' boots and tried to calculated distance by sound. In simulations, she would have Command to tell her when to fight, but she had no Command. She had to be Command for herself. So Tora had thought about how she could know when to fight when she couldn't see the enemy. On the rooftop, the sentinel swung his arm out and straight up in the air.

  Tora shouted, "Now."

  Once, Mr. Ventnor had said Tora did not use her head in a fight. He meant when General Baldwin had once pinned Tora on the ground, and she could have fought him by striking backward with her head, but he also meant that many things that were not weapons could be used for weapons.

  Now, Tora grasped one of the supports that braced the sections of the shield wall. Mr. Pente took the support on the other side. They lifted the shield together and rushed the enemy. A barricade had to stop an enemy, but it did not have to stop Tora and her soldiers. Too late, the black-uniforms realized the barriers keeping Tora's soldiers pinned down under stunner fire had become weapons. She heard Special Commander Marduk shout, "Aim low."

  Lize and Ms. Stamos carried their section of the wall on Tora's left. They were to be the point of a wedge to push between the lines of black-uniforms. Further out and behind Lize and Ms. Stamos, two more militia soldiers carried their shield, then Dess and Mr. Bracxs, even though Dess was too small to carry a shield, and Mr. Bracxs carried it
by himself. Then Ms. Bettuane and one of her soldiers behind Tora on her right. In all, they had eleven shields, each big enough to cover two soldiers, and behind the wedge, the militia came armed with truncheons and fist-weights and lengths of heavy cord weighted with metal at the ends.

  Two of her soldiers fell. They had lost the use of their legs, but Tora had expected that. Soldiers behind them took their places at the shields, and the charge did not break even when they lost two more, and then Lize went down and someone else took her place. The black-uniforms could not break their charge.

  The black-uniforms saw they could not stop the wall in time and began to withdraw, but Tora's and Ms. Stamos' shields had almost reached them. The black uniforms braced themselves for the impact.

  "Now," Tora shouted. She and Ms. Stamos turned their shields at an angle with their forward edges together to form a point that went between two black-uniforms and knocked them aside. An angle like that could go through a mass of enemy soldiers very easily and break them apart and force them into smaller groups that a lieutenant and her clone soldiers could surround and kill.

  Ms. Bettuane and her partner tilted their shield, and forced the black-uniforms out of their way. Tora wanted the black-uniforms disorganized and pushed together where they could not use their stun rifles and would have to engage her militia soldiers at close quarters—too close to use stun weapons.

  One shield fell as the soldiers who carried it had their legs stunned out from under them, but the militia soldiers behind them jumped over the fallen bodies and closed with the black-uniforms, fighting with clubs and truncheons where the enemy could not stun them.

  Two more shields fell, leaving eight. Then there only six. Mr. Bracxs plowed ahead with his shield, driving it into the black-uniforms. He was so strong they could not stop him even by stunning his legs. Ms. Stamos fell, and nobody took her shield.

  Tora had felt the muscle twitches that meant stun bolts were striking her legs. Now Mr. Pente fell and dropped his side of the shield. Tora could not move fast while carrying the shield herself, and she could not use it like Mr. Bracxs, so she gave it one big heave and threw it at the black-uniforms in front of her. She could not throw it very far or very hard, but it made two black-uniforms stagger and drop their weapons.

  All her soldiers had engaged in close fighting, and soon, Tora would call for a retreat, but she had one more piece of credit to show the Special Commander Marduk before the next part of her strategy.

  Tora had aimed the point of the phalanx straight into the middle of the black-uniforms formation. The Special Commander Marduk had placed himself there, thinking he would invade Murrayville in a single front, putting all his strength into one hard blow because he thought Tora had done the same with her much weaker force.

  He had dropped back behind the first ranks of his soldiers, letting them fight but not fighting himself because he thought his black-uniforms were enough to fight the militia soldiers. Three enemy soldiers stood between Tora and the Special Commander Marduk. The one on the right fired a stun at Tora close enough that even with the vest, she felt the stun rattle her nerves and blur her vision. She took the black-uniform's right arm with the stunner in the hand and smashed it into the throat of the middle enemy who was just then turning to bring his stunner to bear on Tora. She brought her knee up into the gut of the one with the stunner and he fell, writhing, on top of the one with the crushed throat. Tora had not meant to hit so hard, but she couldn't gauge her strength so well with the stun vibrating in her nerves. Tora caught the third guard by the arm, pulled him off balance and slammed her knee into his ribs until they cracked. Then Tora stepped over the humans and faced the Special Commander Marduk.

  He faced Tora with a composed expression and his hands raised to fight. Force-gauntlets covered his hands in a fine mesh. Force gauntlets could take the energy from a human blow and multiply it into something hard enough to damage a clone. He was not afraid of Tora. He thought he could fight her because he had armor and the force gauntlets.

  She feinted as if she did not know about the force gauntlets and meant to fight him face-to-face. He struck with his right fist, but Tora had already ducked under his arm. She spun and kicked low. He turned out of her reach just in time to save his knee from being shattered.

  Tora had the measure of his speed and balance now. He was very fast and strong, and Tora still had residual stun to slow her down. She tried to hit his chin with the heel of her hand, but he jerked back in time to take the blow on the side of his helmet. He fell back a step, but he was not harmed.

  He returned with his fist in the gauntlet, but Tora turned aside and grabbed his forearm. Tora had conditioning for fighting with force gauntlets and knew how they felt when you wore them. They could break even a clone's hardened bones, but if the wearer missed the target, his balance would be off for a moment until the gloves discharged their collected inertia. The Special Commander Marduk knew that. He would compensate, but he could only do it at human speed.

  While he was still trying to get his balance, Tora turned him, locked his arm under hers and jerked. His elbow snapped and tore. He gasped, but he did not scream.

  Tora bared her teeth. He had ordered his black-uniforms to stun Mr. Ventnor. He had tried to take Tora's territory and kill her soldiers. She would kill him and then kill him again. He didn't see Tora's hand come up under his chin. The blow snapped his head back. His armor protected his neck and kept the vertebrae from breaking, but when he fell, she caught his head in the bow of her elbow. He made a pain sound. Tora would kill him, twist his head until the bones broke and made him so dead even Annia would not be able to fix him.

  Annia would not like that.

  Tora shook with anger.

  Maycee would not like her to kill the Special Commander Marduk as dead as that.

  But he had stunned Mr. Ventnor and tried to take her territory.

  Even Mr. Ventnor had not thought she should kill the Special Commander Marduk.

  If she killed him now, she would have to start over to negotiate with the next Special Commander.

  Tora dropped him to the ground.

  She had a strategy. Her soldiers were fighting hand-to-hand but backing all the time toward the street where the shield wall had been. Militia and civilian support corps were dragging new barriers across the road, but they would not keep black-uniforms out. Tora did not care about keeping them out. If the black-uniforms crossed the boundary, the runners waited to lead the them into traps.

  Already her soldiers had crossed the ground almost half the way back to the flimsy barricade. Tora raised her voice and shouted, "Fall back."

  More of her soldiers shouted, "Fall back," so the rest could hear. They let the black-uniforms press them backward toward the barrier, not letting the black-uniforms get enough space to use stun rifles. Some of her soldiers broke free of the fighting and grabbed ones who had been stunned and dragged them back toward safety.

  Tora wanted the black-uniforms to press her soldiers close until they came between the first buildings on either side of the road. She took hold of Ms. Stamos' arm where she lay stunned on the ground. A black-uniform thought he could fight Tora while she was bent over. He rushed at her with a baton raised to hit her. Tora caught his arm and wrenched it down, broke his knee with her heel and pushed him away from her. She dragged Ms. Stamos with her left hand and fought two more black-uniforms with her free hand and feet.

  The militia soldiers retreated faster. The blacks-uniforms were charging their rifles. Soon, they would be clear to fire at the militia. Tora did not want to drop Ms. Stamos. Ms. Stamos might be captured and taken to detention. Tora did not want to lose one of her best lieutenants, but Ms. Stamos was already stunned, and Tora did not want any more of her soldiers to be stunned.

  She dropped Ms. Stamos' arm and ran to put herself between the black-uniforms and her retreating soldiers. The black-uniforms recognized her. She had fought their commander. They thought maybe she had killed him. They forgot about st
unning the militia soldiers. Their lieutenants told the black-uniforms to keep firing at the militia soldiers, but the black-uniforms wanted to kill Tora.

  Bolts overwhelmed her vest and twisted the muscles in her back. She spread her arms to shield her soldiers and make the black-uniforms fire at her.

  Her muscles cramped and knotted, and it hurt like knives. She was going to fall; her legs dragged through mud.

  The man in front of her turned back. He pulled her arm over his shoulder and took her weight keeping her body between the enemy stunners and his own body, but the stun strikes half-blocked by her body still numbed him. He stumbled. She shook herself free and pushed him ahead of her. "Go," she told him through clenched jaws.

  He stumbled toward the barricade.

  Tora made her legs move. Her body shuddered out of her control. She fell to her knees. The stun bolts didn't stop. They beat at her, thumping into her body in twisting jolts. She couldn't see. Her ears were full of ringing.

  Someone shouted a command. She recognized Mr. Ventnor's voice. That was good. He was recovered, and he remembered the plan. A rock hit the ground a meter away from Tora. Another one struck a black-uniform who had come too close to the town. More rocks and bricks and sticks, and Tora smelled tugolith dung from one of the big, slow animals that dragged carts and carried huge bundles of trade goods on their backs and left giant stinking piles in the streets.

  Tora had stationed militia and runners with strong arms and good aim on top of the tall buildings on each side of the road. The black-uniforms had come within range, and the militia soldiers had started to throw the piles of rocks and debris they had collected. Someone, probably one of the runners, had collected softer weapons. Much softer. A black-uniform in the corner of Tora's view dropped his rifle and pawed at the sticky stuff on his chest. Tora hoped the runner who threw the dung had very good aim. She didn't want to get any of the dung on herself. It would make her stink all day no matter how many times she showered.

  For a moment, Tora didn't realize the stun bolts had stopped pounding her or that the noise in her ears was not the buzz of stunners but the thunder and ping of projectile weapons. That was wrong. The militia had no projectile weapons. The black-uniforms had not carried them. Who had projectile weapons? Bullets cratered the ground to either side of her. She was lying on the dirt. She couldn't move.