Well, I’m running out of time, so I’ll leave off now. Write me back…but be careful what you write. I’ve been told outbound mail is safe enough, but our incoming mail frequently gets read before it reaches us. One computer geek attached some sort of program to his email, which he sent to a friend to send back to him, and it had been opened seven times before he received it.
So just tell me happy things…although I would like to know how Daily is doing.
Your friend forever, Ginnie.
Alisha reread the letter, hoping it would seem a little less horrible on a second read. A second read only worsened her mood. Daily raped so often she thought her only way out was to kill herself. Jersey gang-raped by colonels! Logan using bad battle plans to rid himself of soldiers. Besides taking on a girlfriend, what the hell was he doing on the East Coast?
The chime of a new mail distracted her. She looked down and read the name M. Williams. Had Ginnie not mentioned her, Alisha wouldn’t have opened the email. She would have forwarded it to MAC, along with the other emails from cadets requesting consideration for training.
Logan’s girlfriend…why would she email Alisha? She would have liked to delete it unread, but curiosity wouldn’t let her. What could Marge have to say?
She opened it and read.
Colonel Kane
The general has requested me to inform you that if you have a question, you should go through proper channels. He does not have time to receive unnecessary communications. He instructed me to send this reply through your general, but since you’ve been in so much trouble lately, I thought I might spare you another setback. However, this is my only act of kindness. Any further breach of protocol and General Powell will know of it.
Colonel Marge Williams, Battle Strategist.
Alisha was dumbfounded. Logan had had his new bitch write his response? He really was a different man than the one she’d known. The Logan she’d loved would never have allowed rapes and the making of dogs. He would never have purposely killed soldiers who pissed him off. Nor would he have taken such a bitch for his partner!
She wanted to believe the Logan she’d loved wouldn’t have treated her so badly… but that wasn’t true. He had treated her badly before. Why should she be surprised by his current behavior?
Alisha turned off the computer and went outside. She went to the wind tunnels, the only place in the fort where she felt at home. She found one of the units empty, turned the level up to tornado, and entered wearing her flight suit.
She had only been in the tunnel for a few minutes before someone shut the wind down. As Alisha glided to the floor, Daily opened the door, looking angry and resentful. “This is my hour!”
“Would you like me to stay and help you with your flying?”
“I don’t need any help,” Daily replied.
“We all need help sometimes, Daily. The hard part is trusting someone enough to reach out to them.”
“If I want a psych evaluation, I’ll fly over to MAC.”
“The tunnel’s yours. I’m pissed and angry right now, and this tunnel isn’t doing the trick. I need to fly the Cully. Want to join me?”
Daily’s eyes narrowed. “I was told the Cully can’t be flown.”
“Not by amateurs, and not by people afraid to die. But you and I can do it,” Alisha assured her.
“Isn’t it out of bounds?”
“Who the hell cares?” Alisha asked. “The Cully can’t be half as dangerous as the shit that goes on inside the Corps’ walls.”
“Is it any fun?” Daily asked, still wavering on her decision.
“In our moods? Probably not. But it’s worth a shot.”
Alisha stepped out of the tunnel and headed outside. She didn’t look back to see if Daily intended to join her. Whether she joined her or not, Alisha had decided she was going to fly the Cully, and then she was going to find a way out of the damn Corps.
She checked out her gear and signed a flight plan saying she was testing new maneuvers. She wrote the location of her test so poorly not even an encryption specialist would have been able to make out the word “Cully”.
“If a captain named Daily News ever gets her butt out here, just fill her name in next to mine,” she ordered the sergeant behind the counter.
She was just about to take off when she saw Daily running toward the field with her gear. Alisha waited, but didn’t bother to hide her annoyance. Inviting Daily had been a stupid idea. If she got the girl killed, she’d never forgive herself. Yet if Daily didn’t find some alternative channel for all the rage inside her, she’d end up killing herself anyway.
“The sergeant asked me where we were training. You wrote so badly he couldn’t tell,” Daily said as she hooked herself into her harness.
“What’d you’d tell him?” Alisha asked, glancing across the field, half expecting to see Jack running out to stop her from taking off.
“I told him it was none of his fucking business.”
Alisha gave her a half smile. “Good for you,” she said, and engaged a head-spinning vertical climb. At three thousand feet, she pulled up and waited what seemed an eternity for Daily to catch up.
“If you can’t fly better than that, then maybe you should just stay here,” Alisha warned her.
“I can fly better,” Daily assured her. “I just don’t want anyone here to know it.”
Alisha hoped she was telling the truth, because if her skills had severely deteriorated, then the Cully would eat her alive.
On the way to the canyon, Alisha ran her through several challenges, and she flew them fine.
“So what’s this Colonel Williams look like?” Alisha asked.
“I don’t want to talk about what happened to me,” Daily snapped.
“Sorry,” Alisha replied. “I didn’t realize Williams was part of your problem.” Alisha had only thought her part of her problem.
“She’s about thirty-five or so but looks a bit younger, blonde hair, big chest. The guys think she’s really hot,” Daily finally replied.
Alisha wasn’t happy to hear that. “She got a boyfriend?”
“She went for the gold and got it. All her face-time with the general clearly paid off. She was in his bed before the month was out.”
“You sound pissed,” Alisha observed.
“Well, don’t think I didn’t try for the general. Hell, I needed his protection more than she did! But I couldn’t get to first base. He literally bit my head off and threw me out of his office when I suggested I could sleep with him if he wanted. He must have already been taken in by her charms.”
“She has charms?” Alisha asked. Certainly couldn’t tell by her email.
“When she wants. But to most of us she’s just Super Bitch.”
“Then you don’t like her?”
“No, I don’t.”
“Good. I hate her too,” Alisha replied. “So today’s run will be called ‘Kill the Super Bitch’. And every time we touch down on the water, we’ll pretend the rocks we hit are her head.”
Daily gave Alisha a hard stare, then shrugged her shoulders. “Whatever,” she muttered distrustfully.
Marge Williams died many theoretical deaths during the day as they hammered the rocks with their slats while expertly managing the steep curves and changing wind direction of the canyon as it weaved down to Broadtown. As they broke free of the canyon, Alisha’s temporary pleasure was dissipated by the view of the flattened remains of the fort.
“That was my fort back when I thought being a SkyRyder was the best thing in the whole world.”
“That got pounded,” Daily observed.
“Yeah, it did.” Alisha replied, knowing she wasn’t talking about the fort. As they flew low over the town, she pointed out the prison farm. “I’ve got a friend in there. Really good person—her name is Carol.”
“What’d she do?”
“She tried to have a baby,” Alisha replied.
“An illegal?” Daily asked.
“What other type do you
think the poor can have? You think the government is going to approve a single woman with no declarable form of income for a legal birth?”
“There’s the virgin birth—”
“Carol lost that when she was twelve. And she did get pregnant, but the father took the baby and tossed Carol out on the streets.”
“That sucks.”
Alisha pointed to a grey stone house. “That’s where my gramps lives. Except for him and Jack, men suck!” Alisha declared.
“Men suck!” Daily screamed back in agreement.
Alisha and Daily flew across Broadtown, picked up the northbound winds on the other side of the ridge, and headed back to the fort, chanting “Men suck” and “The Corps sucks” all the way back.
When they landed, Daily even managed to give Alisha a smile. “That was fun,” she admitted. “Thanks.”
“Don’t thank me. I was out there for my own sake. I just wanted company,” Alisha replied.
“Well, if you want company again, let me know,” Daily said.
“You flew really well out there, Daily,” said Alisha. “Your landing sucked…” she added.
“Well, don’t expect to see any improvement. The general said he didn’t want me back until I passed the Class Five exam. I’m planning to drag it out ’til I’m tossed from the Corps.”
“Exactly how long will that take? Because you’re lowering my stats,” Alisha complained.
“My contract with the Corps ends in three years.”
“Great! Three years with one guaranteed deadbeat! Lucky for me the general doesn’t count East Coast trainees in my quota.”
“Doesn’t surprise me,” Daily replied. “Going to the East Coast was like falling into Hell. The only thing worse than the feeling everyone has forgotten you is the moment when the Iraqis start noticing you.”
As they folded and packed their catchers, Alisha continued their conversation. It helped her to talk to someone who was even more disillusioned with the Corps than she was. “At least you only have three years to go. How’d you manage such a short contract?”
“Four years is the standard contract. How long is yours?”
“Twenty!”
Daily looked confused but finally figured it out. “That’s because you came in as a captain.”
“Well, you’re a captain.”
“Field promotion. I’ve never signed any paperwork. And I’m sure as hell not going to. They can knock me back to private. I don’t give a shit. In three years, I’m out of here.” Daily looked at Alisha and shook her head. “Twenty years…man! Have you seen a lawyer about possible loopholes?”
“There aren’t any. If the Corps wants to get rid of me, they can do so after three years, but I’m stuck for twenty.”
Daily shook her head. “If the Corps wants to get rid of you, they can do it a lot faster than that. Trust me. You can be gone in days.”
“You mean dead.”
“Saves on the paperwork.”
As they headed back toward the equipment sheds, Alisha broached a sensitive point. “Have you ever heard of any one getting out of the Corps before their contract is over?”
“Only once, and it was because the Ryder became pregnant. Her BC implant was faulty.”
“What happened to her?”
“They gave her a choice. She could have the baby quietly aborted by the Corps medic and receive a dishonorable discharge with no pension, or they would turn her over to the public health officials.”
Alisha knew all too well what that meant: Abortion, sterilization and prison time. The government didn’t recognize faulty BC implants as a reasonable excuse for a pregnancy. If they did, everyone would claim it.
“How’d we fall back so far?” Alisha asked. “In the last century, women were finally treated as equals, and look at us now! What happened?”
“War happened, and everyone reverted back to the tried-and-true behaviors of all the centuries before them. Big men hunt, little women nest. I’d say we might see our granddaughters regain equal footing, but you and I won’t have granddaughters. The future world will be made up of puffy-haired debutantes.”
Alisha decided not to mention she had been one of those puffy-haired debs. Besides, it was true. All debs were allowed to keep trying until they got pregnant, and some were allowed to have more than one child. Truth was, having a baby was their calling in life. They were just a bunch of pretty-smelling brood-mares.
Chapter 18
Logan wondered how he’d gotten to the point where his every act was in violation of Corps regs. He’d given his approval for Marge to eliminate all persons involved in the selling of guns to the Cartel. He’d hoped the elimination of the top two bosses would stop the practice, but it hadn’t. The guns still flowed out of the camps every night.
He first suggested having the soldiers thrown in the brig for the smallest infraction, removing them from their positions, but Marge assured him the trade was too lucrative. They’d find a way to keep the guns moving even if they were in the brig.
“They crossed the line almost a year ago, Logan,” she assured him. “At this point, they’ve no honor, no loyalty, and no love for the Corps. They’re in it for the money, and they’ll do anything to keep it rolling. There’s only one efficient way to stop them.”
Tucker had sided with her.
What the hell am I teaching the boy? Logan worried. He’s seen me solve every problem by killing those involved. Am I creating my own monster for the Corps’ future?
He mentioned his concern to Marge when they were alone. Her reply was hardly consoling.
“You’re probably right. He may not be able to return to the inefficiency of standard Corps leadership.”
“I believe in the system,” Logan said. “I believe the regs are there for a purpose!”
“They are. This place would be chaos without them. However, they’re inefficient, and sometimes they’re downright dangerous to cling to,” she warned.
“And you think this is one of those times?” Logan said softly.
“I know this is one of those times,” she assured him. “And the longer you take to recognize it, the longer this cancer goes unchecked. Let’s stop dragging this out. Let me remove the problems now.”
“And how will you know who to remove?”
“I haven’t been sleeping on the job for the last three years. I have a list compiled.”
“And how many are on the list?”
“Originally? Five hundred and eighty, but the war and your first bold moves whittled it down to one hundred and sixty-nine.”
“You want me to order the death of a hundred and sixty-nine soldiers, with no process, with no judge and jury, just on your say?” Logan asked.
“That would be efficient.”
“Are you absolutely positive every single soldier on your list deserves to die?”
“No. There are probably quite a few on the list who don’t.”
“Then we will continue in my current inefficient manner. You bring charges against a man. You show me irrefutable proof he is guilty of a crime that would result in his execution if he were judged by MAC. And you give me an imperative reason why normal channels cannot be used to bring about justice.” Logan’s voice betrayed his anger over her lack of concern about killing innocent men along with the guilty.
“Fine.” She sighed and lay down on her side of the bed. “Back to your original concern about Colonel Tucker. You don’t have to worry about him. While the Corps clearly needs ethical leaders such as you, there are uses for the likes of Tucker and myself as well. When we finally clean up this mess, I’ll arrange for him to be transferred to SS. I agree with your concern. He’s learned too many bad habits for a regulation colonel. He’d almost certainly go bad on his own.”
Great, Logan thought. I’ve turned a promising young captain into a psychopathic killer. But don’t worry about it, because the Corps has use for those as well.
Chapter 19
Logan watched the video of seven Ryders
taunting Ben with details of Daily’s rape. They obviously wanted him to attack, but Tucker held the pint-size boy back and dragged him from the room.
“They would have let him take a few punches and then pressed charges,” Marge observed, then looked at Tucker. “You kept your head. I’m proud of you.”
Tucker’s jaw clenched tight. “I didn’t feel proud doing it. I wanted to beat the shit out of them as much as Ben did.”
“You think it was by coincidence you happened to be there? Think again. This was carefully coordinated. They wanted both of you. They wanted to send our general a message that his people are vulnerable.” She focused on Logan. “This attempt clearly failed. They won’t try it again. They’ll try something more fool-proof next time.”
Now it was Logan’s jaw clenching. “You’re asking me to send these men to their deaths, but all you’ve shown me is some clever goading. There’s no proof they raped Daily.”
“You’re right. I can’t prove it, because we didn’t have the security set up yet. But assuming you care about all your cadets equally, maybe this will be proof enough…” Marge hit a key on the computer.
Logan watched as seven Ryders entered a squad sleeping quarters and surrounded the bed of a young cadet. At their first touch, she pleaded with them to leave her alone, but her misery only seemed to feed their pleasure.
Logan felt sick as he watched them torment, rape and abuse her. It was a hundred times worse than he’d imagined. “Enough,” he said. “Are you absolutely certain these are the seven men listed here?”
“Yes,” Marge replied.
“Then put them on the front line. Next,” he said.
Marge went over the next four cadets, presenting Logan with the evidence she had to justify sending them to their deaths.
“Insufficient,” he said. “Next…”
“Logan!” Marge yelled, clearly losing patience with him.
“I said next, Colonel. We’ve still got a hundred and sixty-two men on your list. Unless you plan to have this battle sometime next year, then move on when I say next!”
Scavenger Vanishes (The SkyRyders Book 3) Page 10