by SD Tanner
“Do you think there’s anyone left alive?” His co-pilot asked.
“Yeah, there will be, but they’ll be hiding.”
“Should we land?”
In the past, he would have been carrying combat shooters who would have ordered him to land. Now, there was no one in the back, and all he carried were weapons, missiles, food and the Water of Life. If he landed he could help the injured and find out what happened, but he could also lose the bird to any enemy that might still be around.
“Let’s see if the people who did this have moved out.”
Finding the highway buried under the canopy of trees, he followed it, unsure which direction the attackers would have gone. Eventually the forest opened slightly, and he saw a long column of vehicles and riders about four miles from the town. They were clearly leaving. They were flying flags that identified them as Crusaders, but this was the largest force he’d ever seen. There had to be at least a thousand armed men, and many of the vehicles had turrets with mounted machine guns. This was an army on the move, and if they continued in this direction, they’d end up in South Georgia or North Florida. Judging by their speed, it wouldn’t take them more than five days to make their way into Gears territory.
He needed to report to the Marine supply base as quickly as possible, but was unwilling to leave without at least checking on the town. Landing on the main street, he cautiously looked out of the window of the bird. Seeing no sign of movement, he clambered into the back, and grabbing his M4 and a pack filled with the Water of Life, he slid open the main door. The co-pilot had control of the bird and would wait, ready to lift off quickly if everything went sour.
Dropping to the ground, he quickly ran out from under the rotors, and watched the street warily for any sign of danger. Other than the dust and debris thrown up by the bird, nothing seemed to be moving, and he wondered if they’d killed everyone. Suddenly a small boy ran towards him clutching a bundle in his arms. The youngster was no more than five years old, and his face was covered in tear-streaked blood.
Dropping to one knee as the boy approached, he asked, “Is that your blood?”
Dumbly shaking his head, the boy stood clutching the bundle of blankets. Reaching out his hand to the boy, he gently pulled the cover aside, and it revealed the tiny face of a small infant.
“Is the baby okay?” He asked gently.
Nodding, the boy pulled away from his hand and clumsily covered the baby with the blanket again.
“Where are your parents?”
Tears slowly leaked down the boy’s face, forming a red, wet pool at the base of his chin.
“Is there anyone else alive?”
The boy still didn’t speak, but he slowly shook his head from side to side.
“Okay, I’m gonna take ya somewhere safe. You can’t stay here and neither can this baby.”
When the boy didn’t move towards him, he reached inside his pocket and pulled out the only picture he had of his three children. Roxy had given it to him as a gift the month before, and he’d wrapped it in transparent plastic, carrying it with him ever since.
Holding the picture up to the boy’s face, he said, “These are my kids, son. Do ya see the little one? She ain’t too much older than the one you’re holdin’. They got a great Mom. I’m gonna take you to her. You can stay with us. We’ll take good care of ya, jus’ like you’re one of our own little ‘uns.”
Gently taking the well-wrapped baby from the boy’s arms, he nestled it in the crook of his elbow, and held out his other hand to the boy. After hesitating for just a moment, the boy took his hand, and together they walked back to the waiting bird.
It was six hours before they made it to the Marine supply base, where he found Gears, Cutter, Jack and a guy he didn’t know in the meeting room at the back of the warehouse. To his surprise, the base was busy, and there seemed to be hundreds of people moving about purposefully.
“What the hell is goin’ on out there?”
“Who’s the kid?” Jack asked.
“I found him.”
“What? Like a puppy?”
“He wasn’t lost. There’s a large convoy of Crusaders headin’ in our direction, and they’re takin’ down towns as they go.”
Sitting hunched over the table and dwarfing his chair, Gears gave him a sour look and asked, “How many?”
“Dunno, at least a thousand and they’re packin’. Fifty or so armored trucks with turrets, another thirty vehicles and hundreds of ridin’ beasts.”
“So who’s the kid?” Gears asked.
“I found him and the baby in the town they’d jus’ raided.”
“And no one else?”
“Well, I didn’t hang around, Gears, I got no shooters.”
Cutter reached out for the bundle he was holding, and gently unwrapped the still quiet baby. The co-pilot had given the baby some Water of Life, and that seemed to keep it settled while they flew back to the base. The boy still hadn’t spoken, and he wasn’t sure he would for a while. He was clearly deeply shocked by what he’d witnessed.
Standing with the baby, Cutter gently said to the boy, “Come with me. My wife will take care of you.”
“No!” The boy cried loudly, and grabbing his hand, he held onto it fiercely.
Sitting down in a chair at the table, he pulled the boy into his lap and said, “He’s fine. I’m gonna take him and the baby to Roxy. She’ll know what to do.”
Gears nodded and said, “We’re about to come under attack. How far out are they?”
“Depends on their speed, but I’d give ‘em four to five days.”
“Then we’ve gotta little time to get ourselves organized,” Gears replied.
“I don’t think time is the problem, Gears. We haven’t got a viable army,” Jack said dourly.
“Are they really that bad?” Cutter asked in disbelief.
“Yeah, we’re crap,” the man he didn’t know replied.
Flicking his thumb towards the man who’d spoken, Jack said, “This is Marcus. He’s from Axe’s army.”
Marcus leaned forward at the table, and addressing Gears, he said intently, “If the Crusaders are organized and trained like you think they are, then one of their guys is worth at least five of ours. Truth is, we’ve never been in combat, and very few have cottoned onto Pax and Ted’s training. If there’s a real army on its way here, then we’ve got a problem.”
Nodding his large head, Gears replied with a slight sneer, “Maybe so, but it’s my kinda problem.”
Snorting to himself, he said, “Don’t pretend to be smart, Gears. You guys only ever have the one plan, and that’s to blow the shit outta stuff.”
Narrowing his eyes, Gears gave him a scornful look and said, “If I recall right, you’re the first to offer to bomb the shit outta anythin’.” Unable to deny that fact, he listened while Gears continued, “I see this as a good opportunity to finally get our army and the town leaders focused. I’ll recall the Council of Eden off the ship where they’re meetin’, and get ‘em onto the mainland. I want ‘em to go face-to-face with the enemy they oughta be fightin’. Jack and Marcus, I want you to get your troops ready for combat. Hatch, I’ll give you a letter to send by air to Pax and Ted. It’ll tell ‘em to get half their troops on road. Both our forces will meet the Crusaders before they get too close, and teach ‘em a lesson about good manners. Hatch, get back to your base and get me at least ten fully loaded birds. We’ll thin the Crusaders out by bombin’ ‘em from the air. And, Hatch, when you get back you’re with me, we’ll act as the command bird for the attack.”
“Sounds good,” Jack said confidently. “Just one thing…”
“What?” Gears asked abruptly.
“Don’t you think it’s time we looked for Cain?”
Raising his eyebrows, Gears replied, “You mean we should kill their General?” Nodding and answering his own question, he added dourly, “You’ve been keepin’ bad company, ‘cos that’s somethin’ Pax would do.” Turning to face him, he added, “
But Jack’s right. Sort out a combat team with Jack and send ‘em out to California. Let’s see if we can’t at least identify this asshole.”
Chapter Twenty-Nine: TL
“Quiet!”
Two hundred men and women ignored the order and continued to talk loudly to one another. They were sitting on what were once plush, red velvet covered chairs in the ballroom on the ship. When he first saw the ship, this room was a large area at the back of the boat used for events. After two years of hard use, the carpet was stained and worn, the chairs scuffed with torn fabric, and the walls were heavily marked. Far from luxurious, the room now looked battered and beaten, much like the rest of the ship. He really didn’t know why Gears wanted to use it as the command center again, and thought they should probably put it out of its misery by sinking it.
“Shut the hell up!”
For a little man, Axe could bellow like a foghorn, but at least the room became quieter. Nodding in thanks to Axe, he stood on the podium and surveyed the two hundred faces now looking up at him. Ip was sitting on the edge of the platform watching the room with disinterest. Preferring to stay with Gears, she hadn’t wanted to join him for this meeting, but he wanted her nearby just in case they needed a little taste of hell to keep them in line.
“Welcome to the inaugural meeting of the Council of Eden. As you know, you’ve all been called together to do what needs to be done to make our country great again. You can’t continue to operate in small towns with your own fiefdoms. You need to get the railroads working again. You need to secure fuel supplies. You need to educate your young. We’ll never be great again if we stay divided. It’s time to unify and become the sum of all of you.”
Turning to face Axe, he said, “This man built an army which he’s handed over to me and my brothers to train.”
“What the hell do we need an army for?” A voice shouted from the crowd.
“You’ve all heard about the Crusaders and some of you have met them.”
“We can defend ourselves.”
“I dunno about that,” another voice declared. “They take the women and kill everyone else.”
“Yeah, but that doesn’t mean we need an army. We’ve just gotta be better prepared to defend our towns.”
“Exactly. If we get a government, the next thing you know we’ll be payin’ taxes.”
There was a rumbling of agreement amongst the town leaders, and he didn’t think it was going well. Raising his hand to interrupt their growing noise, he said loudly, “It’s not just about being able to defend yourselves, there’s also logistics issues you need to think about. Unless you collectively restore a lot of skills, you’re not going to be able to keep producing oil. Turning oil into gas isn’t as simple as pumping it out of the ground and processing it, there’s other chemicals needed and no one knows how to make them. You can’t keep scavenging for what you need.”
Leo was standing on the podium with him and said, “That’s true and it’s not just oil. We can’t make glass or plastic. We’re hunting for the stuff we need, but it’s getting harder every year. Eventually we’re gonna need to know how to make this stuff from scratch.”
“What’s wrong with a simpler life?” A woman called from the back of the room. “What was so good about what we had? I don’t want to go back to where we were, look at where it got us.”
Many of the town leaders nodded in agreement, and the room again filled with the sound of loud murmuring. Raising his hand, Axe stood on the edge of the podium and said, “Look, I hear you. What we had wasn’t all that great. Like you, over the years, I watched us become more and more constrained by big government and big corporations. It didn’t work for me either, but I don’t wanna throw the baby out with the bath water. Some of what we had was good, and we need to work out the bits worth having and put those back in place.”
Surprisingly, the room grew quieter and people watched Axe with interest. Curious at the effect Axe was having, he too waited to hear what he would say next.
Beginning to pace up and down on the platform, Axe said intently, “The question is what would give us the best return for our efforts? We’re losing skills and once they’re gone, they’ll be hard to get back. Right now, we still have people who’ve been trained, educated and have the experience to do the things we need.” Stopping in the middle of the podium, he squared up to the room and asked, “How many of you have computer experience?”
Over half the people in the room raised their hands and Axe asked, “How many of you were teachers?” Another thirty people raised their hands. “How many of you know how to fix a car?” Almost everyone raised their hands. Nodding appreciatively, he asked, “How many of you know how to make a train work?” When no one raised their hand, he asked, “How many of you know how to make a radio signal work?” Again, nobody raised their hand and he asked, “How many of you know how to pump water from a dam and get sanitation working?”
His final question was greeted with the sound of people shuffling uncomfortably in their seats. Axe nodded and said, “I’m not trying to make us feel stupid, but if we don’t consolidate our knowledge across the towns, we’re never going to get mass transportation working, and we’ll become increasingly isolated as we lose the ability to make gas for vehicles. If we don’t get communications working, even in a small way, not only won’t we be able to travel, we’ll never be able to talk to one another easily, and that’ll add to our isolation. And if we can’t solve the sanitation problem, our towns will have to remain small because we can’t grow them into cities. Rome only succeeded because they built the aqueducts, so their cities had running water.”
While he listened to Axe, he watched as comprehension finally dawned on the faces of the town leaders. He had to admit, despite his stature, Axe was a hell of a leader. In just a short speech, he’d managed to make them see where they were headed, and why they needed to change.
Nodding to Axe, he said, “When we set up our first bases we had a woman called Kat as our administrator. She recorded every single person who joined us, and their skills. That tiny step of organization meant we knew who could do what, and whenever we needed something, she could tell us who could do it. We had another guy we nicknamed Fagan. He knew where all our stuff was no matter what base it was at. Our bases grew to be over a hundred thousand people and they pulled together into teams, irrespective of which base they lived in. It’s that sort of structure we need again, only this time there’s more of you, so we need you to start recording what you have in skills and resources and sharing it with one another.”
“Or we could just be giving you a shopping list so you can steal our stuff.”
Axe raised his hand and said, “That’s a fair concern and I don’t blame you for having it. But you’re all on a ship right now and, if we wanted to, we could kill you. For all you know, we poisoned the coffee you’re drinking right now.”
While people studied their coffee cups with sudden concern, he chuckled and asked, “What’s the plan, Axe? They’re all armed. Are you trying to get us killed?”
Axe shrugged dramatically and said loudly, “My point is, this is about trust. Despite the outward appearances of Eden, many of you have seen just how close to hell we really are. It was enough to motivate you to come here today to work out what we need to do to defend ourselves from that future. Equally, I’ve painted a picture of a future where, even if we avoid hell, we’ll become inbred little towns where our future is limited, and you don’t want that either. To avoid these bad futures, we’re gonna have to trust one another. Sure, it’ll be a nervous trust at first, but it’ll grow over time until it becomes something real and enduring.”
“Screw trust!” Gears roared from the back of the room. Storming up the center aisle until he reached the podium, he climbed onto the three-foot high platform in a single large step.
“You people are wastin’ my goddamn time. While you sit around drinkin’ my coffee, on my ship, we gotta Crusader Convoy bearin’ down on our base, and some of your t
owns are in its way. Our pilots have already seen they’re leavin’ nothin’ alive in their wake.”
The room erupted into panicked voices, and raising his hand, Gears roared, “Shut the fuck up! Do ya think we’re jus’ gonna let these assholes roll over towns?” Glowering at the town leaders, he said sternly, “I’ve already got our troops deployin’ by land and air. I will shove those Crusader’s heads up their own goddamn asses.”
Everyone in the room seemed to be frozen in position while they waited for Gears to issue his next orders, and he didn’t disappoint them.
“I am War by name and war by nature. All I know how to do is fight, and I’m gonna teach you dumbasses how to keep what’s yours. Ya’ll comin’ back to the mainland with me. You’re gonna join our troops and fight with ‘em, and when you get back to your towns, you’re gonna make sure ya’ll never get caught short like this again. Goddamn it, you will work together to defend what you’ve got and make more of it. You need to cut the crap and get with the program.”
When no one spoke, Gears turned to him and said, “I ain’t got no more to say about this.” Turning back to the town leaders, with a derisive flick of his hand, he added, “And I don’t wanna hear anymore bullshit from ya’ll. Now, saddle up, you’ve got a job to do.”
Grabbing Ip by the hand, Gears stepped down from the podium, and he heard his brother mutter, “I ain’t runnin’ no goddamn nursery.”
Chapter Thirty: Pax
“Buddy up and check one another’s gear!”
One thousand men and women ignored his command and continued to talk amongst themselves. To his left, a long line of vehicles was being prepared, ready to be loaded with troops, weapons and ammo.
“Umm, excuse me, but do we all have to go? I mean, I didn’t know this was happening today.”
From the top of his armored truck, he stared in disbelief at the upturned face of a man in his mid-thirties. The man was dressed in his ACUs, with his pack, tactical vest and M4 lying in a crumpled heap at his feet.
