From the Ashes

by Chris Kennedy

  The target was eliminated. The next protocol was self-defense. Waiting for the victim’s army of guards to swarm her wasn’t an option. Perhaps tossing the repugnant man off the balcony had been a tactical error? Shiva moved to the express penthouse elevator, strapping the sheathed sword over her ridiculous garment. It was time to go.

  * * *

  Chaos erupted. The large man escorting Miles shouted orders, and another shower of glass fragments pelted the concrete outside. Guards piled in front of an elevator; weapons ready. The crack of gunshots reverberated through the open central core of the building.

  “Move it!” the big man shouted. “Live intruder on the penthouse level!”

  “Where’s my wife?” Miles shouted at the man.

  “Troy, he’s full of shit! He’s by himself; I didn’t see no—” Travis collapsed when Miles brained him with his hossleg. The same moment, the elevator dinged open and the waiting guards poured in.

  “Troy, you want a war with the Swiss?” Miles yelled. “That’s what will happen if I don’t walk out of here with my wife! The other warlords will let—”

  It was Miles turn to be interrupted as a screaming Asian man slapped into the marble floor with a sickening crunch.

  “Kid, I don’t have time for your missing person bullshit. Come back with your Hauptman after I get this mess sorted out, and we’ll talk.” Troy glanced upward.

  “Your cousin said you bought my wife!” Miles leveled the hossleg at the large man. Everyone else was engrossed in the violence upstairs.

  “You shoot me, and you’ll never see her again!” Troy yelled back. The large man had a holstered pistol but didn’t move for it. However, his eyes swept the lobby for any of his men who might be paying attention to the unfolding tableau. The weapon reports petered out, then fell silent. Miles focused on the man in front of him, and when Troy’s eyes flicked, Miles knew there was trouble.

  A bullet caromed off the marble floor where Miles had stood a split second earlier, and another shattered the glass of an empty coffee shop. Miles spun behind Troy and squeezed off a shot at the only target visible past the big man’s bulk. Crimson blossomed from the guard’s upper thigh, and he sprawled on the stone floor. Even if the 190-grain bullet didn’t shatter the target’s femur, it had a solid chance of damaging the artery.

  Miles levered the gun one-handed, so he could draw his sword. Troy did the smart thing and fell flat to the floor, exposing Miles. Luckily, the guard didn’t expect the tactic, which gave Miles a split-second to dive behind a stone planter. Three bullets cracked against the faux marble and two more zipped overhead. Miles poked out his sword, and two more shots ricocheted off the floor.

  The elevator dinged. He was out of time. Miles shoved his sword into his opponent’s view, as though feinting again, and rolled after it. The guard was gaping toward the elevator as Miles fired. The shot struck under the guard’s arm and punched into his ribcage. Bullet and bone fragments shredded one of his lungs and his heart.

  Miles whirled to face the guards spilling out of the elevator. One stumbled halfway through the parted doors and collapsed. Blood coated the interior of the elevator. Dead men slumped within the compartment. Miles remembered his father’s tales of Obsidian Agents and the carnage they could wreak. Had this been Hawkes and Lefevre’s true destination? Would they help Miles or consider him collateral damage?

  The other elevator opened. Sarah stood alone, holding a bloody sword in one hand and a pistol in the other. She was clad in little more than strips of gauzy fabric, the garment splattered with blood. While Sarah had taken a basic gun safety course, she wanted nothing to do with firearms or their violence, and Miles had never known her to handle a fighting blade. What had happened?

  Miles sheathed his sword and sidled toward the elevator, scanning the lobby for threats.

  “Sonuvabitch,” Troy muttered, still sprawled on the floor, but he made no aggressive moves.

  As his wife stepped from the elevator, Miles embraced her with his free arm but froze when he felt the cold, steel edge of a sword at his throat.

  * * *

  “No!” The cry echoed in Shiva’s mind.

  Sarah clawed her way to the surface of her psyche. This was Miles. She wanted to collapse on him and sob. She had witnessed the last five minutes of slaughter as though it were a dream.

  “Later,” Shiva demanded. “We have no time for weakness.”

  Miles stood motionless, her blade at his throat. No, not her weapon, Shiva’s weapon. She spotted Troy crawling across the floor. Without thinking, she pointed with her sword. “He did this to us.”

  Miles stepped back, still wary of her blade. “As he should be.” No! He wasn’t supposed to fear her. She loved Miles. Love is a weakness.

  Sarah followed Miles as he chased after the large man.

  “What did you do to her?” Miles yelled at Troy, brandishing his hossleg. “What did you do to my wife?”

  Troy covered his head with his arms, as though it would afford him protection. “I tried to keep her away from Harkness, but I had no choice!”

  “Execute the sniveling lump,” Shiva whispered in Sarah’s mind. “He used us as a disposable weapon. He doesn’t deserve mercy.”

  Miles grabbed the large man by the collar and hauled him to his feet one-handed. Sarah suspected Miles’ family harbored a secret. Her husband was stronger, faster, and more resilient than most folk, and Miles’ father even more so. She had never worked up the nerve to ask, nor had he or his family volunteered anything. “We are even better,” Shiva whispered.

  “You messed with my wife.” Miles shoved his carbine against Troy’s sternum. “How do you fix her?”

  “The imprinter is downstairs,” Troy admitted. “But it’s damaged, and I don’t know how long it will take to fix it.”

  Sarah followed Miles’ gaze. Guards were massing outside. “Let me kill them,” Shiva murmured.

  “How does this end without all of us dead?” Miles asked. “You’d better come up with an answer, Troy.”

  “I’ll have my men stand down. Let’s go and talk to The Roach,” Troy suggested. “He can take the assassin persona out of your wife. With Harkness out of the way, I’m sure we can come to an acceptable deal with the Berne Swiss.”

  “What about your cousin crawling for a gun?” Miles asked.

  Sarah felt a moment of disorientation and heard a shot. “Problem solved.”

  * * *

  “Sonovabitch!” Troy snarled. The Roach was gone, along with whatever hard drives weren’t fused into the imprinter.

  “I don’t like the sound of this,” the Swiss Guard intoned.

  “My technician skedaddled,” Troy said. “He was the one who wrote the Shiva protocol, but the drive and the imprinter were damaged in some sort of power surge.” How truthful should he be? The Shiva persona was an assassin, would she know if he lied?

  “This is a waste of time,” the woman said. She lost her Germanic-tinged farm accent when speaking as Shiva. “We should affect our escape before more forces are called in to pin us down.”

  “This could be our only chance to fix you,” Miles protested.

  “The operator is gone, and we don’t have long before reinforcements gather,” Shiva said. “We should retreat and consider our options.”

  “Fine.” The Swiss Guard’s gaze fell on Troy. “Are you going to help, or do we have to slaughter our way out of here?”

  “Starting with you?” the woman added in an unaccented voice.

  Getting them out of there was the best option. “Fine. You walk, and when The Roach turns up, I’ll send word to the Berne Swiss,” Troy replied.

  * * *

  The car ground to a stop in front of the Power Building. Hawkes grinned and patted the car door behind him. “Hey kid. We thought you might need more than a ride, but you seem to have things in hand.”

  Miles glanced at Sarah. “I can’t take credit for this, but we’d appreciate a ride.”

  “What are we goi
ng to do?” Sarah whispered as they approached the car.

  “We’ll find the asshole who messed with your head and make him fix it,” Miles replied. Who knew how long it would take, but they had to try.

  “Do you think we can track him down?” Sarah asked.

  Miles nodded. You had to have hope, even in this Fallen World.

  * * * * *

  Jon R. Osborne Bio

  Jon R. Osborne has been forging stories through gaming since he was thirteen. He studied journalism in high school and majored in journalism at Franklin College. Decades later, he finally combined writing and storytelling with his first published work, a short story in the military science fiction Four Horsemen Universe.

  The second book in the Jon’s The Milesian Accords modern fantasy trilogy, “A Tempered Warrior,” was a 2018 Dragon Awards finalist for Best Fantasy Novel.

  Jon lives in Indianapolis, where he continues to play role-playing games and write science fiction and fantasy. You can find out more at https://jonrosborne.com.

  * * * * *

  A Well-Dressed Wolf by Mark Wandrey

  Hugo Legrand made sure he was on the bridge when it was first sighted in the west. A low line of hills, tinted green, barely rising out of the hazy horizon. Bermuda, once a possession of Britain, back when such a country existed.

  “Are you sure about this, Master Legrand?”

  He turned to regard the captain of the Vichy. Captain Mercier stood next to the navigational system. The man was twice his age, with skin the shade of rich cappuccino, permanently colored from thousands of hours under the sun. He was a competent ship’s master and loyal to the cause.

  “It isn’t too late to sail past,” Mercier added.

  Hugo nodded and walked out on the bridge wing where the wind was strongest. Just behind the bridge, the ship’s 11 vertical wind turbines thrummed as they spun, converting the trade wind to electrical energy to drive the motor.

  “Forty-five days from La Rochelle to Ponta Delgado in the Azores. After drawing the attention of the Vespers, we spent 110 days dodging them all the way here. We’ve got 20 days food, tops, before we start deciding who lives and who dies, and you suggest we bypass the only fresh water and food for another month, minimum? Not to mention the whole reason for our mission?”

  “I am sorry, sir,” Mercier said.

  Hugo grunted and turned back to Bermuda. The captain was loyal to the cause, but he wasn’t committed to the mission. He didn’t understand, and probably wouldn’t until it was done. Some were born with the gift of seeing day to day, others with the ability to see far into the future. Hugo was here because he could look to the future, even in a fallen world.

  The Vichy started life as a 20,000 TEU container ship manufactured just before Dellik Unified was defeated by Obsidian in 2045. She’d been powered by purified natural gas, or PNG, back then and capable of making 25 knots. Most of her sister ships were rusting in harbors or at the bottom of oceans now. She’d been lucky enough to be converted to wind/electric turbines two years before the nuclear war. She was still afloat and reasonably operational, but she could only make 11 knots, with a strong tailwind.

  She carried 1,000 containers, at most. The rest of her space was filled with other containers, but they were welded in place and served as passenger cabins. As many as 50 souls shared a 20’ container. More than 100 shared a 45’ high cube. They were refugees seeking a safe harbor in the former land of milk and honey.

  “Little milk, radioactive honey,” he said.

  “I’m sorry, sir?”

  Hugo looked at Mercier and shook his head. “Nothing. Have the watch take care; we should spot their watch ships anytime now.”

  The Vichy’s radar still worked, but small ships were hard to spot. Motorboats were even harder. Hugo proved correct. The first Bermuda Free Zone patrol boat came racing at them ten minutes later. They’ve got gasoline, Hugo noted. In the Azores, the locals used sails and human rowers.

  “Ahoy, Vichy!” The patrol boat captain used a blowhorn to call up to the bridge. He was as weathered as the captain, but his skin was a naturally rich mocha. Like many of the native Bermudans, his ancestors called southern Africa home. He was tall and lean, and built like a cheetah, as were the other dozen men on the patrol boat. They all had small arms.

  “Ahoy! Captain Mercier, here.”

  “Welcome to the Bermuda Trade Zone. I am Jacob Lee, Deputy Customs Director. Where are you out of?”

  “La Rochelle, France.”

  “France,” the man said, shaking his head. “Is there still such a country?”

  “A place needs a name,” Mercier said. “France used to be a place.”

  The man nodded. “Cargo?”

  “Trade goods…”

  “And?”

  “And refugees.”

  The man nodded. “Bermuda Free Trade isn’t taking refugees.”

  “We’re not looking to offload; we’re interested in trading for supplies. The refugees are destined for North America.”

  The man laughed and shook his head. “Better you go back home, than there.”

  “That isn’t possible,” Hugo said, speaking for the first time.

  “It’s that bad?” Lee asked.

  “Worse,” Hugo said. “The nuclear plant in Blayais melted down six months ago.”

  “We had not heard,” Lee said. “Your name, sir?”

  “Hugo Legrand.”

  “I have heard that name. You ran a town in Spain, yes?”

  “Yes,” Hugo said. “A warlord fleeing the fighting in the Middle East overran us and took over last year.” Hugo shrugged. “Now, I try to lead people to a better life.”

  Lee looked down the length of the ship. “Your vessel is a good one. I have never seen it, but its condition is excellent. If you only have refugees, what do you have to trade?”

  “We brought with us everything we could find. I used some of the goods to pay Captain Mercier for the use of his vessel.”

  “How generous of you, sir,” Lee said. “And what of the Crusaders?”

  “They still control Paris, though many have died of radiation from the meltdown.”

  “You understand our paranoia? The Lord Commander has tried to gain access to Bermuda for a long time. The Crusaders would like nothing more than to control trade and the movement of people across the Atlantic.” Lee gestured at the land, a few short miles away. “We are the only source of fresh water and food for many miles.”

  “I understand.”

  “What do you have?” Lee persisted.

  “A little of this, a little of that.”

  Deputy Director Lee eyed Hugo for a long time. His patrol boat bobbed in the water about 50 meters off the Vichy’s beam. Hugo used the time to look over the patrol boat. Gunboat is more like it. It obviously started life as a metal-hulled, diesel-powered fishing boat. Now, its rear transom sported a heavy steel shield and pedestal. Hugo figured it would take the crew no more than a few seconds to mount a machine gun on the pedestal. Another rested on the bow.

  “I’d like to share more specific information with Tam Olchern.”

  “Tam doesn’t talk with just anyone,” another of the crew yelled back. Lee glanced at his crewman, then at Hugo, clearly watching to see what Hugo’s response would be.

  Hugo took a small package out of his pocket and held it up for everyone to see. All eyes focused on the item as Hugo tossed it. His throw was true, and Lee caught it after it sailed the 50 meters between them.

  Lee unrolled the package and examined the contents, bringing it to his nose to sniff. His head snapped up, and he looked across the water. Hugo nodded slowly.

  “How much do you have?”

  “Enough to warrant talking with Tam Olchern.” Lee looked down at the package again, and Hugo smiled.

  * * *

  Hugo stepped off the patrol boat and onto the dock. He looked down at the worn wooden planking and thought about all the years he’d wanted to be there. The Vichy was visible as an
outline many kilometers off King’s Island. Dozens of ships were anchored close by, hoping to come ashore.

  King’s Wharf, once the place where cruise ships docked to unload tourists excited to explore the islands, now hosted three small trading ships lucky enough to be allowed to dock. All three ships would fit on the deck of the Vichy, with room for a dozen more.

  “Something bothering you?”

  “No,” Hugo said to Deputy Director Lee. “Just glad to have my heels on land again.”

  “This is not land,” Lee said and laughed. “Come; we’ll get you to The Tower.”

  Before the fall, the center of government was across the Great Sound. The islands avoided nuclear fire, but not fighting. A few skirmishes were fought there. They were nothing compared to those fought in the cities of Europe or America, but they were enough to ruin the city. Before the fall, Obsidian had built a corporate headquarters in Somerset Village. The ten-story spire looked strange in a former fishing village. Maybe it was what the corporate oligarchs intended.

  Lee led him to an electric cart waiting at the end of the dock. Hugo scarcely noticed when he set foot on dry land. The road was ancient stonework, made to support the British military presence of ages past. The cart seemed equally ancient, but it worked. In addition to Hugo and Lee, two of Lee’s men got on. They road in the back, where they could act if Hugo decided to cause trouble. He had no intention of causing trouble.

  “Where do you get power?” Hugo asked as the cart hummed off the docks and onto the cobblestone ways. A series of causeways led from the docks toward the wider island.

  “We have solar farms all over the island. They are old, but they still work. Government functions get priority, vital services next, citizens last.”

  “You have power for average people?” Hugo was amazed.

  “Some.” Lee looked at Hugo and gave him a small wink. Hugo chuckled.