EMP Retaliation (Dark New World, Book 6) - An EMP Survival Story

by J. J. Holden

  EMP Retaliation

  Dark New World: Book Six

  by

  JJ Holden

  &

  Henry Gene Foster

  To the victors go the spoils…

  As Cassy and her Clan celebrate their freedom and the Empire's defeat, Ethan—AKA Dark Ryder—receives a message from his secret masters that forces him to choose between his own life and the fate of the Clan. Meanwhile, as their enemies loom in the shadows, unseen, a new threat arrives from far to the west—the Empire's master launches a new proxy war against the Confederation.

  It's a shadow war that threatens to boil over into a direct conflict, one the wounded Alliance can scarcely face, much less win. As divisions between allies grow hotter, threatening to tear them apart, Cassy hatches a daring plot to unite the Confederation and deal a fatal blow to the Empire and its master.

  But will a chance at victory be worth the price they all must pay to achieve it?

  Copyright © 2017 by JJ Holden / Henry Gene Foster

  All rights reserved.

  www.jjholdenbooks.com

  Kindle Edition, License Notes

  This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Amazon.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, places, characters, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, organizations, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

  NOTE: This is the sixth book in the Dark New World series. If you are new to this series, be sure to check out BOOK ONE.

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  - 1 -

  1100 HOURS - ZERO DAY +334

  THE WAR WAS finally over, for now at least, and Cassy stood in her kitchen mixing drinks while Frank and the Clan Council—Ethan, Choony, Grandma Mandy, Michael, and Joe—filled the limited seating in her tiny living room. Construction was underway on a larger room off the east side, but it wasn’t done yet.

  It was a damn good thing she had finally persuaded Frank to take over as the Clan leader, Cassy decided, and she had been trying to get him to for almost a year. After forming the Confederation, an alliance of nearby survivor communities, staying on as Clan leader would have created a conflict of interest as far as she was concerned, and managing both jobs would have been an impossible task.

  “Thanks for making us lemonade, Chancellor,” Michael said, his grin belying the grand tone he always used when saying her new title. It had been almost three months since she had officially become Chancellor of the Confederation, but he liked to occasionally tease her about it.

  Cassy saw that Michael wore his Medal of Generator, which he had earned during the recent war with the Empire—their name for the Midwest Republic, which had been a growing power based out of Fort Wayne, Indiana before their defeat at the hands of the Confederation. As the Clan’s military leader, Michael rarely took it off because he felt it was a good visual reminder of his qualifications to be the military leader of both the Clan and the Confederation as a whole.

  Cassy brought a tray of drinks out and handed the first one to Frank. His rank as Clan leader entitled him to it, not that she was a stickler for silly protocols.

  Cassy noticed Frank’s new forearm tattoo. She had gotten a facial tattoo a couple months earlier, a mix of tribal-style patterns and a crescent moon, done in blacks and blues. It swept from above her eyebrow, past her eye, continued down her cheek, and ended just below her mouth. The moon portion was formed of simple Celtic knots. She thought it looked pretty good, and the smaller children were less frightened of her tattoo than they had been of her scars—the price she had paid to survive since the EMPs had destroyed the America she had known.

  For Frank and the rest of the Clan, their tattoos—referred to as “clanmarks”—were vitally important. Since the Clan functioned as a tribe, the tattoo—now worn by nearly every adult, generally on their forearms—had a unifying effect, not to mention the convenience of easily and quickly identifying Clanners.

  Cassy said, “Your tattoo is healing up nicely.”

  Frank moved his hand to touch it, but stopped himself.

  Grandma Mandy, Cassy’s mother, said, “I don’t know why you all have those silly things. Cassy may have covered her scars with something she feels is more attractive, but the rest of you are just followers in my opinion.”

  There was an awkward silence, during which Cassy finished passing out drinks. She recalled her last exhausting talk with her mother and how Mandy didn’t agree with her tattoo. She had complained that rather than covering her scars with makeup and being “normal,” Cassy was yet again thumbing her nose at adversity, a fact that Cassy took great pride in. But now wasn’t the time to have a repeat of that talk…

  Cassy leaned against the kitchen island facing the rest and changed the subject. “Just so we’re clear, I may have passed Clan leadership to Frank, and I may now be the Confederation’s leader, but Clanholme is my home. Always will be. Hell, I built it.”

  “We didn’t doubt it, honey,” Grandma Mandy said, now smiling again. “This is home to all of us. I’m sure the new Clanholds will soon be all marked up with their own silly tattoos, as well.”

  Ethan said, “Some already are getting inked. It’s that Founder’s Effect I told you about. In a generation, you won’t be a Clanner if you don’t have the mark. You’ll be an outsider. It’s already starting, really.”

  “A sad day,” Mandy said, though she smiled as she said it. “But if even our resident geek hacker says the clanmark is the future, it’s probably true.”

  “Speaking of Clanholds,” Michael said, “all twelve of them have logged their numbers with us, and I’ve equipped them as best I can with enough weapons and ammo to get by for now. We keep most of the ammo here so we can distribute it where needed, but it also keeps them from getting any brave ideas.”

  Mandy shook her head at him. “You know very well no one in these parts would challenge the Clan. It’s invincible, or so they say as far away as Carlisle and Reading. Plus the Clanhold leaders are all from here, long-time Clanners, so the holds are loyal as a Labrador.”

  Cassy cut in before that old argument got even older. “Of course they’re loyal, and of course we should take steps to cement that loyalty.” That seemed to mollify both Mandy and Michael. To add a lighter note, Cassy continued, “Can you believe it? Twelve new holds in three months.”

  Ethan said, “Well, the Taj Mahal was started long before the others. And thank goodness Cassy took pity on them when they were just refugees—they’re damn fine people, and as loyal as we are.”

  Frank cut in. “Yeah, but Taj Mahal is a lot bigger now. The Indians who first settled it might retain leadership, but they have people now who aren’t Indian.”

  Ethan nodded. “Two or three hundred people in each Clanhold, all within a few miles of Clanholme itself. And it’s starting to seem like every freehold within fifty miles wants to join the Confederation as soon as they’re solid enough.”

  Michael nodded
and said, “Good thing, too. The ’vaders aren’t gone, and neither is the Empire. Then there’s the other threat.”

  Cassy didn’t want to think about that right now. She changed the subject. “Where are our ‘dirty dozen’ Clanhold leaders?”

  Ethan pursed his lips and shook his head. “Why not just be honest and call them your Jarls?”

  Cassy’s jaw dropped.

  Michael interrupted before she could respond. “Because we’re the Clan, not the Vikings? And we have no slaves, if that’s what you’re implying.”

  Ethan looked up toward the ceiling and held out one finger, then another, as he said, “Well, you have Jarls, the holdleaders. And you have thanes, the Clanners who joined other holds to get them established, or who earned a spot by fighting with us in the Empire War. And frankly, the Indentured might as well be the Viking slaves.”

  “So you finally arrive at your point. But the Indentured can leave at any time,” Choony said, speaking up for the first time since the conversation started, “so they aren’t the slaves you consider them to be. I doubt any of us would ever agree to slavery.”

  Ethan usually looked cheerful or mischievous, but now his expression was grave. He held his hands up, palms toward Choony, in the universal no-threat gesture. “Whoa, slow your roll. Of course they can leave. But the point is, they won’t. They’ll work themselves to death for two years to earn their Clanner status and get into the next hold we set up, before they’d ever leave us. They’d be cut off, forced out with whatever gear they arrived with. Usually, that’s almost nothing. If the choice is work or die, then it’s slavery. And no mistake about it, that is the choice, at least in practice.”

  Cassy let out a long breath. “Ethan, the anarchist. It’s an old argument. They made the choice, it’s voluntary, and they’re better off for it.”

  Frank nodded and hastily added, “The Indentured have the same legal protections that Clanners do, and anyway, they’re only doing work they’d have to do to survive on their own.”

  Mandy smiled and said, “For most of them, it’s their first experience farming, so it’s like boarding school or university more than like being indentured. People can call it what they wish.”

  “Alright, that’s enough of that conversation.” Cassy took a long swig of lemonade. It was really refreshing on a devilishly hot day like today, when even her home’s passive cooling system only got the inside temperature down to about seventy-eight degrees. “Make sure we have lots of refilled water bottles on hand when the Fourth of July festivities begin. We don’t want anyone dropping because they’re dehydrated. Not even the Indentured,” she said, shooting a glance at Ethan.

  Choony nodded, water supplies being his main duty for the day.

  Out of the blue, Joe Ellings spoke up. “My money’s on the Claninator.”

  Cassy smiled. Joe’s outrageous southern drawl hadn’t lightened up since he had joined the Clan after being among the White Stag army that conquered them early on, but that was another story.

  Michael laughed at him. “Probably. The car from Liz Town—the Lizzy Borden—has a small block engine, I hear. It’s fuel-efficient, but not as much horsepower as ours, especially with the woodgas they use now. Either way, though, a tractor pull between two battlecars is good fun for everyone.”

  After that, the conversation devolved into idle chatter and rumor-mongering, a favorite pastime with no TV available. Yes, Cassy mused, life had become as “normal” as it could be since the Empire War ended.

  Cassy joined in the chatter, smiling and enjoying the company. These were her family, more so than had been any blood relative except her own mom and kids. Her mind wandered to the delicious watermelons growing outside, now perfect for harvesting. She’d have to fight to get a slice before the kids ate them all, of course.

  * * *

  After lunch, Ethan went into Cassy’s house. He left through the secret tunnel under the stairwell, which led to a bunker located well away from the house. It was huge, for a bunker, but most of it was either full of supplies and ammunition or set aside for emergency living space. Ethan had taken over a small portion of the main living compartment and set it up as a shielded command center, from which he monitored the Clan’s precious radios and securely housed the few working computers that Cassy had stashed there, shielded against EMP attacks, back when she was only a hobbyist “prepper.” The bunker had proved its worth many times during the chaos preceding the Empire War, as well as during the war itself.

  Ethan normally used encrypted messaging to communicate with Watcher One, whom he decided was an agent of the 20s—General Houle’s shadowy private Intelligence arm. That bastard Houle could rot in hell, as far as Ethan was concerned. But the 20s hadn’t contacted him in weeks, which was just the way Ethan liked it. He knew it was too good to last, especially after the Confederation had demolished the Empire’s army—the Empire was Houle’s lapdog. How much control Houle actually had over them was up for debate, but it was probably quite a lot.

  Ethan clicked on the laptop and radios—he had decided the best idea was to check the radios and whatnot right away, rather than the usual later time in the day, because tonight would have the best fireworks display he had ever seen. With no laws to stop them, Clanners had been competing to outdo each other in making the biggest, baddest, loudest fireworks mortars and rockets they could. Ethan had joked that if someone didn’t blow themselves up tonight, it would only be due to sheer dumb luck. He sure didn’t want to miss the display.

  As his laptop came back online, he noticed that he finally had a new message waiting in the strange little chatbox utility the 20s had planted in his computer system. The message timestamp was from twenty minutes ago. He sighed. Then he loaded up his “virtual machine,” a sandbox in which he could open strange files from mysterious hacker groups without endangering his actual computer. Even if they hacked through his defenses, the virtual machine ensured they would only see what Ethan wanted them to see. It was a fake computer image, essentially. Once that was set up, he opened the attachment.

  To: Dark Ryder, AKA D.Ryder

  From: Watcher One, AKA Watcher1

  Date: Today, 13:12

  Subject: Mission Parameters

  Dear D.Ryder,

  It has come to our attention that the residents at your location have established certain technologies that threaten to complicate the plans of the Commander-in-Chief of the U.S.A.

  Inasmuch as you have trusted-level access to the residents and their equipment, structures, technologies, and other facets enabling their continued operations, you are hereby issued the following commands. These are to be considered Top Secret, and you are reminded to limit access to those with a need to know. Authorization under P1776 Cypher: A9832BS59L.

  1. Regarding the local creation of generators that enable production of electricity in sufficient quantities to restore lighting and the operation of powered devices such as water pumps, kitchen appliances, etc., you are commanded to alter said generators sufficiently to limit or eliminate their usability in the immediate future, for a term of at least four months.

  2. Regarding the operation of modified civilian vehicles equipped to run from the fuel known as “woodgas,” you are commanded to alter said vehicles as follows: First, capacity to operate under woodgas power is to be eliminated. Second, capacity to function correctly upon restoration of woodgas power is to be eliminated. Both items to be accomplished in a manner that prevents operation for a term of at least four months.

  Agent is to accomplish the above goals in such fashion that his or her involvement remains unknown, as high priority is placed upon the continued operations of the agent in his or her current environment.

  Thank you for your cooperation. Please see attached.

  [Redacted]

  Ethan stared at the screen for quite a while. Did they really think “Dark Ryder” would obey those orders? He wasn’t actually in the 20s, being only an asset, and what about the events of the last few months made th
em think that there was even a remote chance he would follow these orders? The timeline caught his attention even more. What was going to happen in four months? Unless…

  What if Watcher One—his handler and a free agent like Ethan—hadn’t reported to the 20s what Ethan had done during the Empire War and previously? The Empire was the lapdog of the 20s’ master, General Houle in the mountains of Colorado, so Watcher One should have reported everything he knew. Which was quite a lot, actually. But the only way they’d bother issuing orders to their asset, Dark Ryder, was if they believed he might obey, or to provide him with misinformation. This definitely was food for thought.

  A beeping noise made Ethan jump, startled. He looked his computer, but it took him a moment to realize that the message had self-destructed. That made the “.txt” file actually a disguised executable file… and it had zapped his entire computer along with it.

  Or it would have, had he not loaded it into the VM. With a smirk, he closed his now-destroyed VM sandbox and spent a few minutes setting up a new one. That was a complicated bit of custom programming, and had just shown why he wouldn’t leave the home network without a running VM.

  Then he wondered at the self-destruct feature they’d used. It was possible that they didn’t expect to have to contact him again, which implied that they felt they wouldn’t need him after he completed that mission, but he didn’t think they would do that prior to confirming it had been done. More likely, they knew he had a VM running and wanted to remove all trace of both the message and the coding they’d used.

  Ethan sighed. Well, it was time to go find Cassy. Scratch that—it was time to find Frank. The Clan leader. Whoever. He left the bunker thinking hard about how much of this new information he should share with them.