by Rachel Aukes
“We can go back home?” Nick asked, hopefully. Their home was in Cavil, not in Far Town, though, and he missed his bedroom and all his things.
“We can’t go back home, Nick. Not yet,” his mother admonished, and Nick pouted.
“My place isn’t much, but it’s a whole lot more comfortable than this shack. It’s in the middle of Far Town, so you don’t have to worry about neighbors ratting you out.”
“Why not?” Nick asked.
“Because the only thing Far Towners hate worse than murcs is rats,” Grundy replied before turning back to Sara. “Zenith wouldn’t connect us, so you’d be safe as long as you keep to yourselves and don’t go back to your house.”
“Grundy, that’s too generous—”
“Nonsense. My house is sitting empty. It might as well be getting some use while I’m up here helping Val out. Once this Sloan trouble is over, I’ll go back to Cavil.”
“And we’ll be able to go home,” Nick said optimistically.
The old man smiled. “Yes, you’ll be able to go back home.”
Sara said, “Thank you. I don’t know how I can ever repay you.”
“Knowing those kids will get a chance to grow up and have kids of their own is more than enough payment for me. Now, give me a day or two to talk with Val. Until then, stay inside and be careful.”
Chapter Twenty
Roderick Sloan listened to the complaints of the other administrators on the video call for three minutes before interrupting. He pressed a buzzer that made a horrendous sound, and everyone went quiet.
“While I appreciate your candor,” Sloan began, “I believe in the importance of moving forward rather than dwelling on the past. Yes, how the Midlands are administered is changing. Change is inevitable, but it doesn’t have to hurt. I’m here to coordinate the effort to make things easier for all of you. Work with me, and soon enough we’ll have settled into a new and better normal.”
“President Darville said your authority is temporary. How long do we take orders from you?” someone asked.
“As long as necessary to ensure the Midlands remain at peace,” Sloan replied.
“And if we don’t, you’ll have your tanks blow us up,” the administrator of the southern-most town said.
Sloan’s jaw tightened. That one would likely be a problem. He would direct the squad based in her town to keep a close eye on her.
“Now, now, let’s not say such distressing things,” Sloan said. “I’d like to think we can all work together peaceably and deal with problems as they arise.”
Someone else tried to speak, but Sloan cut them off. “I need to take another meeting. In the meantime, please carry on as normal, and I’ll be in touch.” He disconnected the call and leaned back in his chair.
“How does it feel to own the Midlands?” Boris asked.
Sloan tapped his forefinger on his lips as he considered the question. “‘Own.’ I like that word. The rest I could do without. Why does it have to be so troublesome to accumulate wealth? Power would be far easier to gain.”
“Because you can take power by force. Wealth is harder to take from those who have it,” Boris replied.
“I suppose you’re right. But everything is in place for me to collect payments from each of the administrators, as well the wealthiest citizens, all in the name of peace and without bloodshed—for the most part. Using the tanks as an intimidation tactic, and the transports for the loot I collect is working splendidly. The administrators assume I’m trying to take control of the Midlands, and they’re afraid. If they realized this was a ploy to rob them blind, they and the rest of the MRC would be burning down my front door.”
“That’s why we’ll make sure they think you’re doing this for power,” Boris said.
Sloan nodded, then shook his head. “The desire for power baffles me. Why in the world would I want the hassle of running a zone when I could buy my own island—preferably an uninhabited one?”
Boris eyed him for a moment. “You’ll need to be ready to move. Once Darville takes the tanks back, and the murcs are reallocated, the administrators will come after you.” He paused for the briefest moment. “Unless your faceless friend is going to protect us.”
Sloan jeered. “My friend… While I have no problem taking their money, I certainly don’t trust them. No one simply gives money to support a campaign. Whatever their angle, they win if I win.”
“Maybe they want to be on your good side when you become the richest man in the world?” Boris said.
Sloan steepled his fingers. “Maybe. Nothing else certainly makes sense.” He leaned back. “Regardless of their motives, I will not count on them to protect me. I have to look after myself. In fact, I’ve been wondering about that silo outside of Clearwater. It could make for a fine place to lie low if things get complicated here on the surface. Speaking of which, did you send a squad to verify the silo’s location?”
Boris nodded. “They leave first thing in the morning.” His eyes narrowed in disapproval. “I still don’t like the idea of one of my squads getting slaughtered for no good reason.”
“Nonsense. It’s a very good reason. There’s no way for us to verify the silo’s existence and location without being seen. This way, when the criminals kill the entire squad, they’ll believe their secret is still safe. They’ll never suspect that we placed a tracker on the prisoner.” Sloan’s features hardened. “Start planning an assault as soon as you have the location.”
Chapter Twenty-One
Squad Four-seven left during the gray time that would soon give way to the golden colors of dawn. Joe hadn’t slept well. The mattress was thin and hard, and Tote, sleeping above him, snored. Between the sleeping arrangements and food, he was beginning to see why so many murcs seemed to have permanent chips on their shoulders.
Mutt’s squad rode in an MRC transport big enough to carry four squads. If Joe wasn’t playing for the other team, he would’ve had an uneasy feeling heading into a recon mission carrying nothing but his blaster, but Boris hadn’t provided additional weapons or supplies, and Mutt hadn’t asked.
The prisoner sat in the front seat between two troopers. The man was so thin he looked like he’d been built from willow sticks. His eyes were dull, and his expressionless face spoke volumes. Joe had seen that look many times before, in people who’d given up all hope and nothing mattered. They became immune to all emotion save bleakness. They were already dead, except that they continued to breathe.
Joe had expected the prisoner to be injured, that they’d have to drag him, but he appeared to be in decent health. However, Joe knew that physical torture was just one of many forms in the art of acquiring information.
“Marco!”
Joe started, and his eyes focused on the man sitting across from him along the bench seats that lined the sides of the transport.
“Did you forget your name?” Mutt asked.
“Sorry, I was just reminiscing about what your sister did to me last night,” Joe said.
Mutt smiled smugly. “Hate to break it to you, but you don’t stand a chance with my sister.”
“Ah, so you do have a sister,” Joe said.
“And she’s hot,” another trooper said.
Mutt handled the banter better than most but reined the conversation in. “I was asking you where you’re from, Marco.”
“I’m from Elkhaven.”
Mutt shook his head. “Never heard of it.”
“That’s because it’s a one-tavern town with a population that never changes. Every time a woman gets pregnant, someone leaves town.”
“That why you left town?”
Joe shrugged. “There was no DNA test to prove it’s mine.”
“Where’s your town?” someone asked.
“Northern edge of the Midlands,” Joe replied.
“Ha, I win. Pay up, suckers,” someone else said.
Joe frowned. “You guys bet on where I was from?”
Mutt nodded. “Things get pretty dull around he
re. We bet on everything, like which zone you’re from. We also placed bets on whether you’re married, have kids, or have an arrest record.”
Joe smirked. “Ah, well, that’s good to know. I’ll be sure to hold on to my secrets until the payout gets decent.”
Mutt grinned. “You’re not such a bad guy for being a replacement.”
“So, you guys bet about everyone at the farm?” Joe asked.
“Everyone and everything, except for Sloan,” Mutt answered.
“I take it Sloan doesn’t have a sense of humor,” Joe said.
“It’s not that. Sloan’s so obsessed with money, he’d probably get in on the bets, and we’d all be flat broke in less than a day,” Mutt said.
“Yeah, he’d sell his own mother for a few extra credits,” someone added.
Several laughed.
“Heck, he’s even stolen from the administrators in the Midlands,” another said.
“That’s hearsay,” Mutt said, “and be careful with accusations. Only Sloan, Boris, and Five-five know the truth.”
“Five-five?” Joe asked.
Mutt answered, “Squad Five-five is Sloan’s personal bodyguards. They go everywhere with him and even get to sleep in the mansion. They get the best of everything, and they’re getting paid a whole lot more than any of us schmucks. The rest of us do crap work, mostly just standing around and representing the MRC.”
Joe considered his words for a moment. “Back in Cavil, there were rumors that the Sloans were trying to take over the Midlands. I mean, why else would they have armies and now, tanks?”
“Who cares?” Mutt cocked his head. “I’m a career murc. I’ve worked under some commanders with plans to take over the world, and I have to say, Roderick Sloan’s never come across as one of them. He’s got plenty of ambition, sure, but he’s never seemed proud of having so many squads under his command. If anything, he acts like we’re a necessary evil when he’s talking to us.”
“You mean talking down to us,” someone said. “Sloan thinks we’re all beneath him.”
“That’s because he thinks everyone’s beneath him. That man is so full of himself that he’s been carrying on a lifelong romance with himself.” Mutt chuckled. “He’s the only one out there who’s not trying to hook up with my sister.”
“Hey, I’m not trying to hook up with your sister,” a female squad member said, which brought a round of laughter and more banter.
Joe filed away Mutt’s words. Sloan was ambitious, but it seemed that the murc had pulled together an army for reasons that had little to do with wanting his own army. Armies were needed to defend or claim territory. Since Sloan already owned a nice chunk of land, it only made sense that he was out to add more. Joe had figured Sloan would first want to take all of Clearwater and expand his assets from there, but that didn’t seem to be the case. Instead, Sloan had sent tanks to every large town across the Midlands. That could only mean the administrator was planning to take over the entire zone. But the MRC would never allow that to happen. Would they?
Chapter Twenty-Two
“It’s just beyond the bend up there.” The prisoner’s bony finger pointed straight ahead.
“Park before the bend, Walla,” Mutt ordered. “We’ll walk it from here.”
The driver stopped, and the squad climbed out. One trooper held onto the prisoner’s arm. Joe held his blaster ready, though he had no intention of firing it—at least, not at anyone outside of his squad. The prisoner did, in fact, know the location of the silo—Joe remembered the landscape from when he’d arrived a few days earlier. That meant Val would be waiting in ambush; he just hoped her forces were smart enough to not shoot him.
The squad was cautious, seven soldiers scanning the landscape for trouble. Joe didn’t know if Val planned an ambush—he’d assumed she would, but he supposed she could instead have found a way to conceal the silo’s entrance. He wouldn’t mind if Val had gone with the latter—he’d have a better chance at surviving the day.
As they came around the bend, the prisoner pointed again. “It’s in the valley, through those boulders.”
“I’m impressed how well you know the terrain,” the trooper holding the prisoner said.
“That’s because it doesn’t take much to impress you, Jeters. You couldn’t track a train with its whistle blowing,” Mutt said.
The trooper named Jeters shot a dirty look at Mutt, but kept walking.
Dawn had given way to a bright morning, just like every other morning in the Midlands. If Joe had been leading the reconnaissance mission, he’d have left the farm two hours before dawn so they wouldn’t be sitting ducks in daylight, but Boris Stolichov hadn’t exactly shown an abundance of concern for the squads under his command.
The squad continued forward in a weak line-up. Joe was confident none of the others had served in wartime, as they had only the most basic understanding of walking in formation, proving that some parts of the MRC held fast to their rebel roots.
With the prisoner in the lead, they wound between the boulders and into the valley. The silo’s entrance was obscured by foliage and rocks, but not completely hidden. Val hadn’t managed to pull off a miracle in concealing the structure.
“Hold up, squad,” Mutt said, and they stopped—in the wide-open—before the silo. He clapped the prisoner on the shoulder. “Looks like we have ourselves a silo. You did good, fella.” Then he raised his blaster and shot the prisoner in the chest.
Joe took a step back, startled.
“What’d you do that for, Mutt?” Walla asked.
“You heard Boris last night. Just following orders,” Mutt replied.
“Yeah, but I didn’t think he was serious,” Walla said. “You could’ve just let him go.”
“And have one more guy out there wanting to kill us? No thanks,” Mutt said. “Now, let’s head back to the farm. We might even get back in time for breakfast.”
Light flashed, and Mutt clutched his stomach with a look of surprise at finding a blaster hole in it.
Joe dove to one side and crawled behind some rocks. The rest of the squad broke apart. Two fired back, two tried to find cover like Joe had, and one fired wildly while diving for cover. But they were in a valley, and no rocks provided enough cover. Joe remained curled up behind his rocks, eyes closed, until the shooting stopped. Every member of Squad Four-seven was dead in less than a minute.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Joe snuck a peek around his rocky cover to see Val and several others coming down the hill toward him. He stood slowly, making a show of having his hands up and nowhere near the blaster slung across his chest.
He glanced at the dead all around him. He wished they hadn’t had to be killed. None of them were bad people, just soldiers following orders. He figured Mutt was shot first because he’d killed the prisoner. A life for a life. Joe wondered if things would’ve gone down differently if Mutt hadn’t followed Boris’s command to kill the prisoner.
He walked carefully around the dead to meet Val away from the bodies. They shook hands.
“It’s good to see you’re still alive, Havoc,” she said.
“Likewise. I admit, I was a little worried back there.”
She motioned to the group stripping weapons from dead murcs and checking the dead prisoner. “My people know you’re one of us. Did you learn anything yet?”
Joe shook his head. “Still working on it. You see the notice?”
She nodded. “You mean his proclamation that he’s taking over the Midlands? Yeah, I saw it.” She drew in a breath. “I was hoping that his bigger picture plans would distract him from the silo.” She grimaced as she scanned the bodies on the ground. “I think it’s safe to say that’s not going to happen.
Joe gestured at the bodies. “Unfortunately, we won’t be able to sweep these under a rug somewhere. They’ll know this squad came up against something when they don’t return to the farm.”
Val nodded in the direction of the dead prisoner. “They will, but without William,
they won’t know where to look.”
Joe frowned. “If William was their only source who knew the silo’s location, I’m surprised Boris ordered him executed as soon as Mutt’s squad had the location. If I was Sloan, I would’ve waited until the squad reported back. Unless…” A thought hit him. “They were following the squad this whole time. Check them for trackers.”
Val waved and a young man hustled over, carrying a large black bag. He set it on the ground. She rummaged through the contents and came out with a handheld scanner. She rushed over to the bodies, and wasted no time in scanning the murcs one by one. Finished, she frowned. “None of them have trackers.”
“Scan me,” Joe said, and she did with the same result.
“Maybe it’s on the transport,” she said, then froze. “Wait!” She jogged to the stretcher William’s body lay on, and ran the scanner over him, coming to a stop near his throat. She set the scanner down and ran her fingers under his collar. She came away with a small black disc pinched between her fingers. She scanned it and nodded grimly. “They put a tracker on William. He led them right to us, the poor bastard.”
“That means they know where we are,” Joe said.
“Yes, but that doesn’t mean they know this is the silo’s location,” Val said, and handed the tracker to Joe. “We need to move fast. Take this. Follow me in the transport. I’ll lead them to a new location.”
Joe didn’t bother responding. He took off for the transport. By the time he had it powered up, Val had pulled up alongside him in her cutter. She led him several miles away—he’d expected her to take them farther—but he knew why when she stopped. Ruins. An entire area of old buildings not unlike the one she’d held Tote in. There were dozens of places for a sniper to hide, and unlimited cover for ground troops. He set the tracker on the ground.
Val shot it without a warning.
“Why’d you do that?” he asked.
