Killer Edge: Navigator Book Three

by SD Tanner

  “What are we doing wrong?” Leon asked.

  “What do you mean?”

  “I dunno, Ark. I just think we need to analyze what we could do better.”

  It had been two months since the critters had turned up and he still only had seven Navigators capable of working outside of the wire. Even with a thousand Navigators, they still couldn’t save the country, but they could at least free some of the people in the cities. With a thousand sets of gear in the warehouse, he should have found more people to train. They were immobilized, not moving forwards or backwards, but holding positon and it was getting them nowhere. He could keep using diversions to keep his squad alive, but eventually the enemy would learn they were lying and he’d be out of options.

  Sighing at their situation, he replied, “The main problem is that we don’t have an army.”

  “The army ran away,” Lexie said irritably.

  Leon gave her a sharp look. “They didn’t run away. They didn’t have anywhere else to go. If they were just running away, why would they have left a message saying where they went?”

  He shook his head. “We’re not reacting fast enough. We keep trying to do everything in a sensible way and I don’t think that’s gonna work.”

  Lexie was slouching against the handrail and propping her chin up with her hand. “Do you really think getting stupider is the solution?”

  “I’m not talking about becoming stupider. I think we need to take more risks.”

  Leon frowned. “What do you mean?”

  He wasn’t sure what he meant, but he had to agree that their current approach wasn’t solving anything. They were moving from one skirmish to the next and never getting ahead of the game. “Maybe Jonesy has the right idea.”

  Raising his eyebrows, Leon asked, “Death by critter?”

  “All in,” Lexie said, giving him a wide smile.

  “Do you even know what that means, Lex?” Leon asked skeptically. “It means we throw everything we have at it including our lives. It’s not a question of whether people die or not, only how many do before we win…or lose.” Returning his attention to him, Leon asked, “Are we there yet?”

  Knowing if it was time to go all in was always a question of whether there was no other way to win. He didn’t have an army of Navigators and the baby bots were still being built. Until he knew what was inside of the nest, he didn’t know whether they’d run out of options yet. Nothing was happening to the people in the cities other than they were being held prisoner. The countryside was slowly being stripped of human life, but he didn’t know whether the people were dead or had simply left. It was possible they were going somewhere they thought was safer, and maybe there were more people left alive in areas they couldn’t see. Without a doubt, they were dealing with a cunning and capable enemy, but he’d yet to learn whether he could outsmart them or not.

  “I don’t know,” he replied. “But I have a thousand nav suits and no one to wear them.”

  Shaking his head, Leon said, “Then we’re not there yet. We don’t do a Hail Mary until we know there’s no other way.” Leaning closer to him, he added sternly, “All in means most of us if not all of us will die. I’m okay with that, but I’m not leading my squad into certain death until you’re sure there’s no other option.”

  Leon was a good sergeant and so was he. They both knew that sometimes there was no other way, and they would put theirs and everyone else’s lives down if they had to. It wasn’t an easy decision to make and he studied Leon’s somber face. “I hear you.”

  “What the hell are you two talking about?” Lexie exclaimed. “You don’t even have an army to put into the fight.”

  He and Leon shared a look of patient understanding. As usual, Lexie had made a valid point in her typically blunt way. The best chance they had of building an army of Navigators was to find the soldiers at Fields Landing. “We’re gonna find the troops that went to Fields Landing and I’m pretty sure they’ll sign up.”

  “How do you know that?” She asked skeptically. “You don’t even know if they’re still there.”

  Leon gave her a stern look she couldn’t see. “The guys are reloading the trucks now and we’ll be back on road tonight.” Kicking Lexie’s foot with his own, he added, “And then we’ll see what’s what.”

  “I just think you guys try to get ahead of yourself. If you wanna go all in I’m okay with that, but can we at least go in with an army.”

  It was exactly what they were trying to do and both he and Leon shared another understanding look. Paternally patting her arm, he replied, “Sure we can, hon. We’ve just gotta find an army, train ‘em and then I’ll kill us all.”

  Leon laughed. “And you’re our battle commander, why?”

  Chuckling, he replied, “You know it takes a special kinda crazy.”

  Snorting, Lexie said dourly, “Oh, yeah, you’re all crazy, but I’m not sure that being the craziest in all of the land is something to be proud of.”

  Once Leon left to check on the team reloading supplies for the mission to Fields Landing, Lexie remained on the step and removed her short-range visor. Sometimes he forgot she was blind without it, and he studied the sharp contours of her face that were normally hidden under her visor.

  “What’s the matter, hon?” He asked.

  “You have a new nickname for me.”

  “Well, you didn’t like being called a kid…and you’re not one.”

  With the silver orbs replacing her human eyes, her expression was almost impossible to read, but she was nervously chewing on her lip. “Are we all gonna die?”

  Death wasn’t something he wanted, but he’d come so close to dying he no longer feared it. “We might. Why?”

  “You know, I’m okay with dying. I mean, it’s gonna happen sometime, but…” She waved her hand vaguely above her. “It’ll be out there and I’ll be alone.” Seeming to stare down at the floor, she said sadly, “I don’t wanna die out there alone.”

  When he’d woken in the hospital with his injuries, he’d been surrounded by medical staff. Other soldiers had been lying in the beds next to him and the room had buzzed with a quiet and competent energy. He might have suffered devastating injuries, but the doctors and nurses had formed a cocoon of confidence around him and he hadn’t felt abandoned. It wasn’t the same for those who died now. There was no emergency evacuation and no hospital to scoop them up. They died in the field alone, knowing there was no one who could help them.

  Reaching his hand to her face, she tilted her head until her cheek rested against his palm, and he felt a dampness on her cheeks. He hadn’t realized she was crying and he knew he could no longer expect her to keep fighting when he couldn’t. Leading her and the others from the safety of the command center was something he was no longer willing to do.

  Stroking her cheek gently, he said, “I’ll talk to the engineers and get on my feet. We’ll be outside the wire together, I promise. Neither of us will die alone.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE: Good call (Bill)

  “That was too close,” Stax said unhappily. “Waaay too close.”

  Sean and Dean were sitting at the conference table in the main building with their father, nodding tiredly at his observation. He’d watched the attack on the shelter and he had to agree. The critters knew about the shelters, which rendered them worse than useless. In effect, a shelter had now become a coffin and the critters could bury them as deeply as they wanted. None of the preppers could stay where they were, but he had no idea where they could go instead.

  “You have to move.”

  Eyeing him wearily, Stax replied, “Yeah, I know, but where to? Here?”

  To make it harder for the critters to breach their perimeter, they’d shored up the defenses along the walls of CaliTech using remotely controlled and motion detecting guns and lasers, but that didn’t protect anyone living in the surrounding forest. When they’d mounted the guns, they’d assumed no one would be living near the site. Now there was a risk that the people livi
ng around CaliTech could be shot by friendly fire.

  “It’s not necessarily safe here either. We have guns mounted on the walls to target the land and air. I’m not sure we can protect anyone outside of the site.”

  Stax scratched his five o’clock shadow noisily. “I hear that, but I’ve got over fifty people here now and there’s more comin’ from the other shelters. There could be over a thousand people livin’ here soon. Where else can I send ‘em?”

  There was safety in numbers providing they didn’t live in large groups, and he was still looking for people to train as Navigators, so he didn’t want the preppers to leave. There was only one other place he knew that might be safe and that was Fields Landing. In theory, it was where they would find any remaining military, but they’d yet to recon the area.

  Shrugging, he replied doubtfully, “Fields Landing?”

  “I didn’t think you guys had made it there yet.”

  “Leon’s heading up there with the squad and we’ll know what’s there soon enough.”

  “Could I move this many people there safely? I mean, the critters are tunneling and I dunno how to defend against that.”

  Before he could answer, Jonesy walked into the meeting room. His greying hair was still damp from a shower and he was wearing one of the Navigator black tracksuits. Throwing himself into a chair at the table, he began twisting the lid from a thermos containing a hot meal. “Ark said you guys were in here.”

  Nodding at him, he asked, “What happened to you?”

  Taking a sip of what he assumed was soup from the thermos, Jonesy pulled several bread rolls from his pocket and dropped one onto the table. “I fell under the shelter.”

  “How?”

  With his mouth still full of food, Jonesy was alternating between drinking and chewing on the bread. “They’d tunneled underneath it creating a fucking big cavern. We’re lucky the shelter wasn’t buried any deeper or none of us would have made it out alive.”

  “How did you get out?”

  “All that tunneling softened the earth around them. I’m guessing they were in a hurry so they didn’t do a thorough job. Thanks to the visor, I could see which way was up and I dug myself out.”

  Jonesy struck him as slightly deranged most of the time and he gave him a dour look. “You should be dead.”

  Still chewing on the last of his bread roll, Jonesy guffawed loudly. “Ya don’t say. I dunno why I’m still alive either. I’m like a cat with nine lives.”

  Stax snorted and then grinned. “God doesn’t wanna ya. Let’s face it, you’re batshit crazy.”

  Quickly sobering, Jonesy replied, “Yeah, well, it doesn’t pay to be sane these days.”

  “True story,” he said with genuine empathy. “We’re trying to work out where to send the preppers. Should they come here or go to Fields Landing?”

  Like pooh bear with a pot of honey, Jonesy had tipped the thermos to a sharp angle and was sucking out the last of his soup. Putting it down on the table with a loud bang, he asked, “Why would you send them there? You dunno what’s there. For all you know they’re batshit crazy too.”

  He and Ark had checked the electronic maps they had for the area, and it was a large marina filled with hundreds of boats parked in inlets to keep them safe from rough seas. Whoever had chosen the marina knew exactly where they were going and it was obvious what they’d planned to do. He imagined they’d commandeered control of the boats and were living on them, staying clear of the mainland. The only question was whether they were still there or had they already set sail for a safe island.

  Shaking his head, he replied, “I don’t think they’re crazy, or at least they weren’t when they chose that location.”

  “Whatdaya think, Knight?”

  Jonesy shrugged. “I dunno. You’re either sending people somewhere unknown or bringing them somewhere that’s marginally safer than the rest of the country. It’s a very close call as to which would be least dangerous.”

  For a crazy man Jonesy could still talk sense, and if he would just stop trying to die, he thought he was someone whose judgment he could learn to trust. As it was, for as long as he kept trying kill himself, he was a dangerous man to follow. When he’d asked Ark whether they should get Sally to talk to Jonesy, he’d merely shrugged and said they should stay out of his business. Clearly, Ark saw value in using his madness to gather intel and he didn’t disagree. He guessed they didn’t want to lose Jonesy as a Navigator, but most of the time the man’s sanity was questionable.

  Despite his odd behavior, Stax clearly trusted him and he asked, “What would you do, Knight?”

  His question only made Jonesy laugh even harder. “Seriously? You’re asking the opinion of someone who wants to die.”

  Rolling his eyes, Stax shook his head at him. “Ya don’t mean that.”

  “How do you figure that?”

  “We live in exceptionally dangerous times, and if you wanted to die that badly you’d already be dead. Now, quit screwin’ around and gimme your take on this. This is serious. I don’t wanna give the wrong advice to over a thousand people.”

  “Break it down,” Jonesy replied. “You don’t know what’s going on at Fields Landing, but Leon is heading up there, so if you bring the people here then you can wait until he reports back before you decide. And if you do decide to head to Fields Landing then you’d be safer traveling as a large convoy, so CaliTech can act as a staging area to give you time to get organized before you head out.”

  It was good advice, but it was wrong and he was sick of arguing with people to get what he needed to defend a country they were all responsible for saving. It was everyone’s job to fight the critters, and he didn’t understand why people like Stax felt they could offload the problem to an army that no longer existed.

  Sighing, he asked, “That’s a pretty good analysis, but it assumes you don’t want to fight.”

  Stax narrowed his eyes at him. “Whatdaya mean?”

  “If we’re going to stand a chance of defeating this enemy then we need an army. You have at least a thousand people, many of whom are armed and able to shoot straight. Why would you leave? Who do think is going to fight for our country? Do you think the critters will just go away and you can wander back later and set up your lives again?” The more he spoke the angrier he became. “I’ve got one squad here.” Pointing at Jonesy, he said accusingly, “This dumbass is so hell-bent on killing himself he’s lost the goddamn plot. I need every man and woman ready to fight for our country, and you’re proposing to take a thousand potential troops north as if the problem will go away on its own.” Leaning into the table and glaring at Stax, he asked, “Just what in the hell is wrong with you people? Why do you think this war has nothing to do with you?”

  “Don’t talk to my father like that,” Sean said in a low and angry tone.

  Stax raised his hand. “No, no, no. The man has a point.” Giving him a steady stare, he added, “Well said, Colonel.”

  Sean gave his father a surprised look. “He jus’ called you a coward.”

  “No, he didn’t, son, he jus’ advised me not to act like one.”

  He hadn’t meant to say what he had, but through his prepper network, Stax had access to thousands of armed and able shooters. Watching him considering walking away with their ammo and survival skills had enraged him. They should have teamed up earlier and now it might be too late. Hindsight always offered twenty-twenty vision and it was becoming obvious they’d made some serious tactical errors. He still had a thousand Navigator suits waiting for an army to wear them, and Stax had fit and capable shooters who should already be trained to use them.

  “What are you going to do?” He asked sternly.

  Giving him a tight knowing smile, Stax replied, “We’re stayin’. Tell me what kinda shooter makes a decent nav and they’re yours.”

  Nodding and grinning like a lunatic, Jonesy declared triumphantly, “Good call.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR: Born to fight (Hood)

  The
boats were in a rough line and slowly putt-putting their way towards the break in the sandbars that surrounded the bay. Beyond the mouth were open seas and with six days sailing they would reach their new island home. Even with several supply ships, the crossing wouldn’t be easy. Few of the boats had experienced sailors, and although they could probably navigate calm waters, he didn’t rate their chances if the weather turned rough.

  Standing on the bridge of one of the supply ships, he was joined by Spike. “How do you rate our chances out there?”

  Spluttering slightly, Spike replied, “We’re Marines not sailors.”

  “We’re in the Navy, dude.”

  “Yeah, so they said, but other than learning how to use a Zodiac, I don’t recall being taught how to steer a ship.”

  He didn’t remember being taught much about how to sail a Navy ship either. They were the ground forces attached to the Navy, serving much the same function as the Army did, and he had more combat experience than anything else.

  The ship’s captain was one of their few experienced helmsman and he said cheerfully, “I know how to skipper a ship, boys.”

  Giving him a rueful look, he replied, “Maybe so, but that isn’t gonna help the other boats out there.”

  “Did you hear that?” Spike asked.

  He hadn’t heard anything other than the captain being unnecessarily happy. “Hear what?”

  “There it is again.”

  Straining his ears, he finally heard something. The sharp crack of gunfire seemed to be coming from a mile or more away. The few shots were followed by the sound of rapid gunfire, and if he wasn’t mistaken, the rat-a-tat sound was that of a seriously high caliber weapon.

  “Are we under fire?” The captain asked in disbelief.

  “If we are then they’re a bad shot,” he replied dourly.

  Walking to the back of the small cabin, he climbed the narrow metal stairs to the outside door. Placing one foot onto the deck, he held onto the top of the frame and peered towards the receding shore. Everything looked exactly as they’d left it and he couldn’t see anything moving on the docks.