Collapse Series (Book 7): State of Destruction

by Summer Lane

  I can see Manny’s outline in the cockpit of the chopper as he lowers the aircraft down to us, getting as close as he can to the side of the building.

  Good old Manny to the rescue.

  A soldier dressed in black kicks a ladder down and it drops down to the roof.

  “Refugees first!” Chris yells above the noise of the blades.

  I nod.

  We help survivors climb up the ladder, into the helicopter, filling the chopper until it’s bursting at the seams with refugees. The Blackhawk lifts into the air and leaves, cutting across the bay. Another Blackhawk arrives, and we do the same, over and over, until the survivors on the rooftop have been evacuated and Manny returns to give us a ride back to base.

  “Your turn, Commander!” Chris says.

  I wrap my fingers around the nylon ladder, climbing. The ladder swings around but I keep my balance. I have done this a time or two before. I reach the chopper. The soldier in black grabs my wrists and pulls me into the Blackhawk.

  Cheng.

  “Glad to see you alive, Commander,” he says, grinning.

  I raise an eyebrow.

  “Cassidy, my girl!” Manny yells from the cockpit. He’s wearing a headset. “Are any of you injured?”

  “No, we’re okay!” I answer.

  “That’s what I like to hear!” He laughs erratically. “Now we’ve got ourselves a real skirmish!”

  I roll my eyes as the others climb up. Elle comes up next. When she reaches the chopper, Cheng pulls her into a tight embrace. His eyes are serious, the grin is gone.

  “You’re okay,” he states.

  “Of course,” she replies.

  He steps back and lowers a harness down for Bravo. Chris sends the dog up next. Elle and Cheng pull him into the Blackhawk. The dog is still and calm as his paws touch the aircraft. He keeps close to Elle’s leg. Next up are Andrew, Vera, and then Chris.

  “Welcome aboard, passengers!” Manny roars from the cockpit. “Thanks for choosing Manny Costas, best pilot in the militias!”

  He keeps laughing. We grab the handrails on the walls to keep our balance as he lifts the helicopter up.

  “Home we go!” Manny announces. “I hope nobody here has a fear of flying…because I don’t care!”

  Vera shakes her head. We are crowded against the wall of the chopper. The cold wind whistles through the interior, making the environment of hot, sweaty bodies tolerable.

  By the time we land on Alcatraz Island, we are filthy, exhausted and spent.

  “Safe and sound,” Manny says, as soon as we touch the ground. “Did you ever doubt me?” He stands up, dropping his headset onto the seat, a wild expression on his face. It’s the expression he gets when he is flying—when he is at his best, and in his element.

  I am one of the last out, lingering with Chris and my team. The landing strip here on Alcatraz is little more than the empty field, formerly used as the outdoor area for prisoners who had good behavior.

  “Are you going back into the city?” I ask Manny.

  “No need, my girl,” Manny says. “They’ve already got more pilots going in for the rooftops. Turns out we’ve got a lot more air support here in San Francisco than we did in the middle of the mountains at Camp Freedom. Such a surprise, isn’t it?”

  His eyes crinkle with wry amusement.

  Elle hops out of the plane and gives Manny a hug. He pats her shoulders and kneels down, ruffling her hair. “How is it,” he says, “that you and your dog always manage to find yourself in the middle of everything?”

  Elle shrugs.

  Manny laughs and scratches Bravo behind his ears. The dog’s tail wags. I like seeing them happy, but it makes me miss my own family, so I turn away, looking at the shoreline.

  “I think we’re lucky to be alive,” Chris says quietly.

  “Yeah.” I exhale. “I also think that these attacks are getting out of hand.”

  We retreat to the Schoolhouse, where Arlene is scurrying around frantically, studying maps and communicating on the radio. We walk into the building. She looks up, dropping the receiver.

  “Thank God,” she says. “I can’t make all of these decisions myself. I don’t have the authority.” She gives Manny and Elle a quick hug. “I’m glad you’re all safe.”

  “Give us the rundown, Arlene,” I say. “What do you know about this attack?”

  My voice is firm and steady, but my mind is racing.

  “Let me show you,” Arlene states, hurrying to the biggest map on the wall. She drags her finger along the coastline, right outside of the San Francisco Bay. “I don’t know who organized this attack or how they got inside the city, but we do know that is part of a coordinated attack on San Francisco, designed to weaken our defenses and distract us.”

  “And?”

  “And our aircraft have confirmed sightings of at least four Omega battleships. I guarantee you there are more on the way. They’re packed with heavy artillery and thousands of foot soldiers. If more warships are following—and I know there will be—we’re talking maybe a hundred thousand Omega boots on the ground.”

  Vera inhales sharply.

  “God, we’re so outnumbered,” she says. “We don’t stand a chance.”

  “Yes,” I reply, staring at the map. “We do. We can take something from them that they need.”

  “And what is that, Commander?” Arlene asks.

  “Red Grove,” I reply.

  Cheng enters the Schoolhouse right behind us, his voice low, talking to Manny in quiet tones. When I mention Red Grove, his head whips up.

  “She’s right,” he says, stepping into the conversation. “If we can get into Red Grove and kill the Western Council, Omega will have lost their most important chain of command on the West Coast. It will hurt them, greatly.”

  Vera demands, “Who’s to say they won’t retaliate with a nuclear bomb?”

  “Like I said before,” Cheng replies, “they won’t. Besides, you have nuclear power here in San Francisco. If they threaten us…we can threaten them back.”

  “We have nuclear weapons here?” I ask, eyes widening.

  No, not here. Someone would have told us…right?

  I look at Arlene.

  “Yes,” she says, avoiding my eyes.

  “And you never thought you’d share that information with us?”

  I am angry—pure, unbridled anger. This knowledge changes things!

  “Nuclear weaponry is extremely dangerous,” Arlene presses. “If it gets into the wrong hands, it could mean the end of the world. So far, Omega has nuked areas that they are willing to sacrifice in order to gain a foothold here on the West Coast. But if we start using nuclear weapons against them to retaliate, it will ignite an all-out atomic fight. There will be no more skirmishes, no more guerilla warfare. It will be all bombing, and everything will be ravaged, and millions more will die.”

  I turn from the map.

  “I don’t appreciate you keeping that from us,” I tell her, glaring.

  “I did not act alone,” Arlene replies, steady, lifting her chin. Her gaze briefly flickers to Chris. I stare at him.

  “You knew?” I demand.

  He says nothing.

  I don’t know if I am embarrassed or furious. Maybe I am both. I clench my fists, my knuckles turning white. When I glance at Vera and Andrew, I know that they have not been privy to this information either.

  Manny looks shocked.

  Chris looks up at me, his face iron.

  “Cassidy,” he replies. “Outside.”

  He turns on his heel, in true commander form, and I watch him leave. I stand there, unmoving, for just a moment. Arlene does not offer an apology, although Manny looks pretty ticked off, judging by the tense expression on his usually jovial face.

  I leave the Schoolhouse. Chris is standing several feet away from the building, looking at the water that has risen over the lower edge of the island. His arms are folded across his chest, his stance stiff.

  “Well?” I demand.
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  “Nuclear weapons,” Chris replies, his voice low, “are something that you do not mess around with. You’re a sniper. When you pull that trigger, you know exactly where that bullet is going, and what it’s going to hit. It finds its target. With a nuke, everyone loses. Good people, bad people, allies, enemies. Everyone. There is no finesse. It’s just total destruction.”

  “You think I don’t know that?” I ask, shocked. “You don’t think I’ve seen enough death to know that a nuclear war isn’t something we want?”

  “I couldn’t be sure that you would understand,” Chris goes on, flicking his gaze away from me. “After Sky City…something about you changed. Your desire for revenge, your anger. I didn’t want you to know about the nuclear weapons here because I didn’t want you to press us to use them and cause division.”

  So there it is.

  Cassidy Hart, the great unifier, is in danger of tearing the militias apart.

  “You don’t really know me as well as you think if that’s what you believe I would have done,” I say, cold.

  “Haven’t you done it already?” Chris echoes, hollow.

  I run my fingers through my hair, exasperated. What has happened to us to make us mistrust each other like this? Was it the war? Was it Omega? Was it Sky City?

  “Chris,” I say. “I love you, and I care about you. But this? This is ridiculous. I cannot believe that you didn’t trust me with this information.”

  Chris’s jaw is tight, clenched.

  He says nothing else, but I know that he is conflicted. I know this because I know him—every tiny little gesture, every expression on his face.

  “I’m sorry you feel this way,” I tell him. “But we need to move on and focus on getting to Red Grove.”

  There is a long, heavy silence between us.

  “Well,” Chris says quietly. “At least we agree on one thing.”

  I don’t answer.

  I don’t want to.

  Chapter Ten

  I am watching the San Francisco Bay. The Golden Gate Bridge is glowing with orange torchlight and lanterns. The shoreline is orange, too, blazing with firelight and trembling with the rumble of militia vehicles. Refugees from the stadium have been moved around to different locations in the city, being housed in abandoned apartment complexes. Nearly three hundred innocent people perished in the attacks on the stadium.

  The loss infuriates me. Even at our best, we cannot protect everyone.

  Omega simply strikes too fast, too suddenly, and too secretly.

  “You seem conflicted, Commander.”

  I turn, startled. Cheng approaches me from the darkness, relaxed, catlike.

  “Do I?” I say.

  Cheng laughs.

  “Ah, it’s no use playing games with you, Commander Hart,” he replies. “You know what you’re doing. You’re too smart for that.”

  He shoves his hands into his pockets.

  “You’re not re-thinking your decision to destroy Red Grove, are you?” he asks.

  I raise my eyebrows.

  “Why?” I say. “What is it with you? Why do you want to see that place burn so badly?”

  Cheng’s relaxed grin fades, and he turns away from me.

  After a long silence, he speaks.

  “I have seen much evil there, Commander Hart. Murder and sacrifice and horrible death. I would like to see it wiped from the face of this Earth, no matter the cost.”

  “Even if it costs you your life?” I press.

  “Believe me, I would consider it a noble death.”

  I tilt my head.

  “Do you love your mother?” I ask.

  He looks surprised.

  “Why do you ask that?” he answers.

  “Because if you love your mother,” I tell him, “then you might still display loyalty to her, and that makes you dangerous. I need to know that I can trust you to lead us to Red Grove. I have to be able to believe you. Do you understand?”

  Cheng searches my face for a long moment.

  At last, he answers, “I loved her, once. When I was young. But she is evil, Commander. She is the devil. And when I discovered her true nature, she attempted to kill me…and to this day, she believes that she succeeded. Her heart is happy, thinking that she murdered me.” He touches his heart. “Who could love a woman like that?”

  I nod, satisfied.

  “Good,” I say. “Because for what we’re going to do, you’re going to have to be able to kill her. Are you ready for that?”

  Again, the mischievous smile.

  “Always,” he says.

  “Then you’re the man for the job,” I conclude. “Come on, it’s almost time.”

  We walk back toward the Schoolhouse. Militia members in black are spilling out of the doorway, silent in the dark night. I walk with Cheng toward the entrance.

  The Angels of Death. We are all here, reconvened and ready for another mission. Manny is huddled in the back of the room, talking in hushed tones to Arlene and Elle.

  Chris has one boot up on a chair, hand resting on his thigh as he talks to a small group of the Angels. “Commander,” Chris says, nodding at me. “Cheng. We’re ready.”

  I take my place beside Chris and watch the rest of the room grow silent as Cheng walks to the table in the center. Here, there is a map unrolled on the surface, drawn skillfully by Cheng’s hand.

  “This is Alcatraz,” Cheng says, pressing his finger on a black dot in the middle of the Bay. “And this….” He drags his finger across the water, past the Golden Gate Bridge, and into the wooded area of the redwood forests. “…is Red Grove.”

  A black triangle marks the spot. It is hidden in the forested area, thirty miles outside of the city. “To get there, you’ll need to go in through the back roads. There are four layers of security before you even reach the grove itself. Four checkpoints, four patrols, four potentially lethal situations. Ring One of security is the outermost perimeter, which is solely comprised of vehicles driving through the roads. Ring Two is the more of the same. The last two rings are different. The closer you get to camp, there are guard towers hidden in the trees and thermal heat sensors placed in the woods. It’s a fortress. It’s meant to be impenetrable.”

  “Sounds like my kind of party,” Uriah says, entering the room suddenly, appearing from nowhere. He looks exhausted, dark circles under his eyes.

  He looks at me. I am sure that he can see the concern on my face, because he offers a slight smile, and leans against the wall, allowing Cheng to continue.

  “It takes great skill to infiltrate Red Grove,” Cheng goes on. “To my knowledge, only two people have ever successfully done it…but they did not survive to tell the tale.”

  “How did they do it?” Chris asks.

  “I was a child at the time,” Cheng replies. “I was staying with my mother in the largest bungalow on the grounds. There was a commotion. The patrols were panicked. The bungalow was locked down. My mother…well, it is the only time I have ever seen her afraid.”

  “They were assassins, weren’t they?” I say.

  “They were.” Cheng straightens up, moving further down the table. “I don’t know who sent them—that was always a mystery. But they infiltrated the Grove by hijacking one of the supply vehicles. They strapped a bomb to the bottom of the driver’s seat and forced one of the patrols to drive, threatening to ignite the bomb if he strayed off course. The assassins hid in the truck. They made it through all four checkpoints and got inside. They blew up the truck, killed the patrolman, and came for my mother.”

  “What happened?” Vera asks.

  “They were shot and killed before they could even reach the front door.” Cheng shrugs. “Welcome to my childhood. Gunshots and assassins were a daily occurrence.”

  He smiles brilliantly, but there is pain behind his expression, and I feel sorry for him. I can’t imagine growing up in a house with Veronica—with Omega all around me, every second of every day. What a nightmare.

  It makes me realize how I lucky I
am. Despite the Collapse, despite the end of the world, I still have some happy memories of what it was like before. Soon, there will no longer be anyone alive who will know what the world was before Omega came.

  I am a dying breed, edging closer to extinction with each passing day.

  “Well, that was a stupid plan,” Vera says, stating the obvious. “Two lone assassins, blowing up a truck and making a run for the front door of a bungalow. Of course they’re dead.”

  “If anything, they illustrated what not to do,” Cheng shrugs. “Since that incident, Red Grove beefed up security like nothing else. They realized that more people were aware of their existence than they had previously believed. It forced them to take drastic measures.” He shakes his head. “The weakest part of Red Grove is the back of the campground—there is a large hall here, and it’s where the Western Council houses their banquets and indoor theater events. It is unoccupied for most of the year, and receives the least amount of attention from the patrols. There is a double layer of barbed-wire fence directly behind the building, and beyond that, only one patrol.”

  “It’s a blind spot,” I say, feeling jubilant.

  “Yes, indeed it is.”

  “So we take out the patrol, get over the fence and slip inside.”

  “You will have an approximate twenty-minute gap before anyone notices that the patrols are missing,” Cheng tells me. “That is more than enough time to get inside and take control.”

  “How many men are we talking about, total?” Uriah asks. “Patrol-wise, I mean. How many guards? How many guns? How many people are actually going to be staying in the grove? How do we know the Western Council will even be there?”

  “Even if the Council is gone,” Cheng tells us, “you will have access to incredibly valuable Omega war plans and computer databases.”

  Andrew perks up.

  “Brilliant,” he grins.

  I share his sentiment. Even if we don’t find the council, the opportunity to seize the enemy’s information is in itself perhaps the most valuable part of this strike.

  “We go in,” Chris says, gesturing toward the map. “We drop into a clearing just outside of the woods, ditch the parachutes, work our way toward the back gate, take down the patrol, and enter the camp. Once inside, we should be able to overpower any force they’ve got.”