Killswitch Chronicles- The Complete Anthology

by G. R. Carter

  “Why not here? They’d be safer.”

  “Maybe, maybe not. Essie will think strategically. If they can hold Independence, that gives us a tactical partner from outside the ring. She won’t be doing this to help ARK, she’ll be doing it to help us. And what about Lori? How is Beardstown holding up?”

  “Last cable said that the Boar King was holding on his side of the river. No attempt to cross yet. Captain Oliver and Levi Marshall agree with her.”

  “Agree on what?”

  “That there’s something else going on with the ditchers. They should have attacked by now, if they were going to. Instead they’re just camped out. And get this: they’re digging in, like trenches.”

  “Maybe our wild friends are learning how to kill in a more civilized manner,” Alex mused.

  “It’s not only that. Near as Lori can tell, they’re facing away from Beardstown. Almost like they’re trying to protect the bridges instead of attack them.”

  Alex smiled enough to unsettle Rebekah. She thought about asking, then decided he’d tell her why when he wanted.

  “Lori thought about destroying the bridges, but she’s waiting,” she continued.

  “She’s right to wait. If the Boar King wanted Beardstown, he wouldn’t be waiting for our Razorbacks to get on site, he’d have done it already. How soon until our reinforcements get there?”

  “We’ve got a couple of Raptors flying overwatch already. The first column of Super Snappers will be there in another few hours.”

  “Good, good. We’ll be ready to help when the real problem reveals itself.”

  Rebekah wrapped her arm in his, giving up trying to read his mind. “Should we try to retake the White City?”

  “No, not yet. It’s no good to us. We don’t have any use for a city, especially not one that would have been conquered and reconquered. All I want is the Caliphate gone, then the place can go back to nature for all I care.”

  “But rooting them out will cost us dearly…the casualties…” She couldn’t finish the thought. Each one of the faces that would never return home haunted her already.

  “I need you to think globally, Bek, outside of just our little sliver of land. What’s going on here? I mean really?”

  “Well, it’s clear that whoever orchestrated this was leaving us until last. Taking out the weaker partners so we’d be alone.”

  Alex nodded. They finally reached the outside and the noise went from the chatter of humans to the songs of birds and the bark of squirrels. Alex turned his eye to the trees. The animals were hidden, but their sound echoed.

  “I can hear them, Bek,” he said. He closed his eye and breathed deeply. “I hear their voices if I just listen.”

  Rebekah loved her husband completely, but times like this always left her a little uneasy. He seemed to transport his mind somewhere else.

  “Who, AJ? Who do you hear?”

  He didn’t answer right away, standing statue-still. He opened his eye but kept staring into the trees. “The generals, the emperors, the presidents…not always the winners, sometimes those who lost, too. In fact, I get more knowledge from the vanquished than the victors in many cases.”

  He sensed his wife’s concerns. “Oh don’t worry, darling. We don’t need to call the Bishop, I’m not channeling spirits here. I wouldn’t trust those voices. It’s the lessons our parents taught us that I call up. My dad, your mom…the hours of instruction that Gordon Steinbrink shoved into our heads. When we’d rather be dancing he made us read about General Lee’s Wilderness Campaign, or Rome’s Germanic troubles. Remember?”

  “Some of the lessons, sure,” she replied. “The important ones, at least.”

  “But see Bek, they’re all important to me. Every little battle, every maneuver, the logistics of the thing…history teachers get caught up in dates and places. It was the men on the ground who made the difference. The wagon drivers who delivered the food just in time. The dock workers who pulled continuous shifts to get ammunition to the frontlines. Very few soldiers actually fight in a war. But there are dozens who supply each one of them.”

  He grabbed both hands and looked at her face. He smiled at the sight of her, like he always did. “You know how our predecessors won World War Two? How they really won it? They kept their enemies’ enemies alive long enough to weaken all sides. By the time the United States officially entered the war, both the Allies and the Axis were weaker than they had been three years before. More experienced, sure. But the United States had mounds of food and natural resources, so our men never starved. It was the land, this land,” he started pointing at the ground beneath their feet, “that saved the world in the end. It will again.”

  “But all our allies are gone, AJ. We’re surrounded. Who are we going to keep feeding to weaken the Caliphate? We’re the only ones left to take them on.”

  Alex thought silently for a moment. “Call any leadership together who’s still in town. We’ll meet in the Domicile in two hours. I know most won’t be able to make it back here, so get them on the cable. No exceptions. Ask the Wizards to get all the cable boxes hooked up. We’ll meet as a group first, then do a broadcast to the entire Republic. Okay? Thanks as always for being my rock, beautiful.”

  Alex turned and walked towards the woods, leaving the trail and pushing his way into the undergrowth. Rebekah didn’t bother to ask where he was going, she knew he needed to talk privately with some old friends.

  *****

  Alex stood at the front of the Domicile sanctuary. The vaulted ceilings could make the biggest warrior feel a little small. The principal names and personalities in the Republic felt that humility, seated facing their Founder. Not small in front of him, small in front of what they had all created: an empire carved from water and stone and wood. Even though they had built it, they all knew it could be snatched away and destroyed in the blink of an eye.

  Sam and Celeste sat to his right, next to Bek and Skyler Hunsinger. In the center aisle, wheelchair-bound but iron-straight, sat Eric Olsen with his wife Maleah. A black box on a small table allowed the remote provinces to join the conversation. Martin Fredericks and Maggie Kemble, Tyler Eckert from Lafayette, and Julia Ruff, who had already made her way back down to Vincennes before Alex had called the meeting, were all attached via cable. Just to his left sat Bishop Hart, decked out in his Green and Silver robes.

  They’d already spent a few moments discussing the situation at hand. Now it was quiet as they sat and stared at the light on top of the box, this would be the first speech ever broadcast throughout every fortress farm and province in the Republic. The first ever fireside chat delivered by the Founder.

  Alex began. “My friends, I don’t know the last time we were all in the same room together, either by face or by voice. I value your council and we only succeed if we are unified. Which is why I need you today. We have some decisions to make…decisions that will set us on a course, ramifications that will affect not only us but also future generations. We make those decisions with scant information, so this will be an exercise in instinct and faith rather than calculation.”

  He stopped to appreciate the nods coming from the room. These were his people; they trusted him to do the right thing, and he trusted them to help. He felt those on the other end of the cable speakers would agree.

  “In the long years since our founding we’ve been wounded,” he stopped and looked at Eric, “robbed of those we love, pushed around, threatened and schemed against.” Eric returned Alex’s look with a subtle nod. “Now, we’re surrounded by those who would not just defeat us but annihilate us. Destroy our way of life, enslave our people. They even think they can wipe our faith off the face of the earth.”

  Alex took strength from Bishop Hart’s eyes. Not hatred, not fear - defiance. Come and try went unsaid.

  “I know rumors are swirling, about the black banners being back. We thought when we defeated them five years ago at the walls of Shelbyville we would never have to worry about them again. I assure you we’re tellin
g you everything we know about them, about the people behind this Circle emblem that has caused so much pain since the Reset. But our worst fears are confirmed.” Julia had spent time with the Jenkins fellow they had rescued in Vincennes, and he had told his story multiple times to multiple people. Jenkins had even been interviewed by the Bishops and Culper. They all believed him, no matter how fantastic the story seemed. “The Reset goes way beyond any accident, even way beyond a Caliphate scheme. The Caliphate itself is really just a fabricated sledgehammer to be used against us. A puppet regime designed to pound independent folk into submission, a source of slave labor for the ones who are really calling the shots.

  “Here is what we know, in full. We are witnessing a mass migration. Evil men who lived to our north, mostly the ones claiming allegiance to the Caliphate, have decided to migrate to the south. Mass migrations aren’t new in human history, just new to us. Climate, drought, warfare, disease…the reasons are endless. It’s not something we comprehend, but remember our ancestors formed a great migration at one time also, that’s why we’re here instead of Europe or Asia or Africa.

  “Republic intelligence has been able to determine some reasons why this particular group is moving. Apparently the Jijis have been promised a new homeland by a group claiming to be the Continuity of Government, essentially a reformed leadership of the United States. Some of you will recognize the name ‘Continuity,’ the name of a cult that infiltrated even the highest offices of every country before the Reset, a cult that inevitably caused the Reset and the needless deaths of so many. So why do they hate your Republic? Why do they continue to scheme and attack us? It’s hard to believe, but we stand in the way of the final step of their plans to conquer the entire continent.

  “I suppose in the end it doesn’t matter the motivation of this enemy. All we know at this point is they must be annihilated. Not just defeated or outfought. There can be no peace with honor, no armistice day, no compromise. Continuity,” he continued, “is not just a religion, not just a form of government. It is pure evil so diametrically opposed to our idea of an agrarian republic that there is no possible way its adherents would allow us to exist in its world. Continuity is too fragile, too unwieldly to allow a competitive world view. So we, the free folk, must be stamped out by it, subjugated, erased from the annals of history.

  “We’ve faced this before, our people have. And not just here, on this continent. Our ancestors came to this land from all over the world to escape persecution. We have fled from Continuity since the dawn of time. Some called it Baal, some Ra, others Jupiter. God-kings that would keep the common man in terror, bound by chains of his own forging. You must understand, we’ve always been a tiny minority. Freethinking people of the land who understood the Creator from the seeds we plant. Even those who claimed to rule the Christian world throughout much of history never really understood what we people of the land understand. If that’s hubris or pride, then I’ll make my apologies when I kneel at the Altar of the Domicile in a few moments.

  “People of the Republic, you and I have been given a task by the Creator. Our Buckle friends were right all along: we are facing the Tribulation, a violent storm growing deadlier by the hour. It will seem at times that we are losing. But we will not fail, we cannot fail. For if we are defeated, so too is the last hope of humanity scoured from this earth.

  “The next Reset will be one of spiritual warfare. I cannot emphasize this enough: we face a war of extermination. I do not fear death for myself. Like many of you, I have faced it rather close and personal numerous times. I know what awaits me on the other side of the veil. I am ready when He calls me there. But not yet…I have some unfinished business here, and so do you.

  “We may all be called to account by the time this war is over. I respect all of you, my countrymen, too much to mislead you. We are outnumbered. We are surrounded. There is no place to run, nowhere to hide. If that sounds like the worst pep talk you’ve ever heard, well, anyone who’s ever met me knows that false optimism isn’t my strong point. Honesty is.

  “And the truth is we must win this war. There is no other choice. Anyone who tells you we can make a deal with Continuity or the Caliphate is not one of us. Anyone who offers you a treaty of peace is a traitor. A wolf in sheep’s clothing.

  “We have no choice but to fight, and we must be ready for the struggle. So today I am authorizing full Tier One and Tier Two call-ups. I understand the hardship this will create for every man, woman and child. That’s why you needed to have all the information, to realize this is not a two-front or even a three-front war we face. We are encircled. Beginning now we do not think of ourselves as Land Lords, or Tradesmen, or Troopers. We shall for a moment forget we are Okaw, Old Main, Shawnee, American or any of the legacies we hold so dear. We even put aside for a brief time that we are Red Hawks. This is bigger than all that. We are, together, believers. Bound together by the common belief that man is at liberty to choose their own path, for good or ill.”

  The Founder’s face darkened, hard as the stone on the altar behind. A rumble rose from his voice, clear and sharp in every farm in the Republic. “Our enemies want a jihad? Continuity wants a holy war? Then I declare today that they shall have it. For we are the last true believers, the last of the free peoples. We are The Remnant!”

  Epilogue

  Peoria Province

  Beardstown Outpost (on the banks of the Illinois River)

  “I’ve never been happier to be wrong about something,” Malone muttered in disbelief. “I would have blown these bridges. Glad she’s in charge instead of me.”

  “Don’t worry Malone,” Captain Liam Oliver said. “Ninety-nine times out of a hundred, I would have agreed with you. Maybe I’ve just seen too much weird stuff in the last few months to ever take anything at face value.”

  He stood in the middle of Beardstown’s highway bridge, surrounded by a group of men he thought might kill all of them just a short time before. Strange men, some in animal skin, others in buckskin and still others in an odd assortment of patched and homemade denim and cotton. Torchlight made shadows dance on the men’s faces; hard faces, unshaven and scarred.

  In the middle stood another bearded man, this one looking rough yet somehow a bit more civilized. A simple green and silver scarf hung over his shoulders, covering a dark gray overcoat. He was speaking quietly to a man holding a long staff with a boar’s head on top. They seemed to agree on something, and then each held up their right hands to Lori Hamilton, who returned the gesture.

  Oliver couldn’t hear what they were saying, but the looks spoke of cautious agreement. He stood patiently, waiting next to Levi for Lori to return. He was nervous for her, anxious to get her away from the scary-looking wild men filling the bridge. The only one he couldn’t figure was the one wearing the symbols of Unified Church clergy. Compounding his confusion, that particular wild man walked arm-in-arm with Lori as she returned.

  “Gentlemen,” Lori said with a smile. “I’d like to introduce you to one of the most famous men in the history of the Republic. This is Bishop Steven Simpson, better known to most of us as Father Steve.”

  Oliver took the big man’s calloused hand in his own, then Levi repeated the gesture. “Bishop Simpson, I’ve heard about you. But I figured you would be in the Domicile…I didn’t expect to meet you out here.”

  “Call me Father Steve, please,” he said with a generous smile. “I’m more at home here in the woods, out where folks really need someone like me.”

  “Well, we can certainly use you, sir,” Levi said. “You just caused a lot of people to breathe a big sigh of relief. Knowing those creatures on the other side of the bridge won’t be coming across makes my day.”

  Father Steve patted Levi on his wide shoulders. “I think you’ve misunderstood what’s going on here, my son. They’re coming across, and not just to visit. Their children and old folk will pass over the bridges tomorrow. Only the warriors will remain beyond the gates for now. Eventually, they’ll join their famil
ies.”

  “I don’t understand. I thought you were negotiating with them to leave us alone.”

  “On the contrary. I’ve been living with the Boar King, reaching out to his followers. Most of them wish to return to the faith of their ancestors. Gradually, they’re coming to follow the Green and Silver.”

  “I’m thrilled about that, Father. I really am. But I don’t understand why that means they have to come and live with us,” Oliver said.

  Father Steve stopped on the bridge, the look on his face had gone stern. “I’m surprised of all people, a refugee from Mt. Horab would be so callous to another’s plight.”

  “Sorry, Father. I’m a recent convert,” Oliver said sheepishly. “I was an ARK gunboat captain before that. I still see everyone as a threat.”

  Father Steve’s face softened. “Your instincts and skills are needed, Captain. This world is a very dangerous place, that much we agree on. But when those who are lost wish to come home, we must rejoice.”

  “And if all of them aren’t sincere in their conversion?” Oliver asked.

  Father Steve nodded, “I see your concern. But I can assure you, the Boar King will handle any of his followers who deceive him in a much more severe manner than you could.”

  Oliver felt a little shudder from the matter-of-fact tone. Father Steve carried quite a reputation, apparently well deserved.

  Lori had been listening the whole time, taking in the debate. “Alex always hoped the people from the wild lands would join us. We were able to get a lot of them in the Shawnee to settle onto farms. In fact, we got a fair number of Trackers out of that group. And believe me, Captain, we need all the friends we can get.”

  Father Steve agreed. “There are thousands of folks living out there. They scratch out a living hunting, fishing…”

  “Raiding,” Levi interjected.