Extinction Cycle Dark Age (Book 3): Extinction Ashes

by Smith, Nicholas Sansbury

  Another creature barreled down the road beside them. It reached out to grab onto the vehicle and this time, Timothy slammed it with the side of the truck, sending it skidding into a light pole.

  Ruckley winced as she gripped her arm. Blood poured out between her fingers.

  “God,” she said.

  “You have to stop the bleeding,” Timothy said. “The med pack is…”

  His heart fluttered when he realized he had left it at the debris pile when they were attacked by the Variants.

  “Shit!” Timothy said, pounding the wheel.

  “I have some bandages in my pack.”

  Her voice sounded weak. He debated pulling off, but that would be suicide.

  He had to keep going until they were clear of the city. Finally, he flipped on the headlights. He didn’t like driving with the lights on, but he couldn’t see shit out here. The cover of dark wouldn’t matter if they ran into a tree or pile of rubble.

  In the rear-view mirror, he saw the burning outpost, but looked away to focus on the road and the future. On people he could save.

  And those that he was going to kill.

  They had to get to a radio, and if he couldn’t find one, then fuck it, he would just do what he should have done before—drive to Mount Katahdin. Even if it meant driving a hundred miles per hour all night to get to the base, he would gut Nick and Pete before they could launch that nuke.

  Timothy pushed the pedal down. The engine rattled in response. The beams illuminated abandoned vehicles pushed up along the median and shoulder of the two-lane highway.

  The headlights would make them a target to any waiting ambush, but it was impossible to maintain any speed without them. He just hoped the speed would make them less of a target if anyone, or anything did decide to try and stop them.

  “Goddamn,” Ruckley said as she cut away her shirt to reveal the wound.

  The gashes were long and deep.

  She grimaced and then closed her eyes, taking in deep breaths.

  “I have some antibiotics in—” she stopped. “Timothy, watch out!”

  He looked back at the road and swerved just in time to avoid a crashed motorcycle. The side of the truck ground against the median until he pulled them back into the left lane.

  He eased off the gas to about sixty miles an hour, his heart rate returning to normal.

  “Keep your eyes on the road,” Ruckley said before returning to wrapping her arm, using her teeth to hold one end of the gauze.

  By the time she finished, the glow of the fire behind them had vanished over the horizon.

  From the corner of his eyes, Timothy saw Ruckley wincing. She was clearly in a lot of pain. There wasn’t much he could without stopping, but at least she had slowed the bleeding.

  The next hour passed by relatively quickly. It was almost nine o’clock, and Ruckley seemed to be doing better.

  At this speed, he wouldn’t get to the base until three in the morning. That was assuming they didn’t run into any trouble, which seemed unlikely.

  Especially when he spotted a roadblock formed by burning cars ahead.

  “Shit,” he said.

  Ruckley pulled out her pistol.

  Timothy turned off the headlights and pulled off to the side of the road.

  “I’ll check it out,” Timothy said.

  “I’m covering you,” Ruckley said.

  “No way. You’re hurt.”

  “Don’t argue with me.”

  Timothy relented, and got out. Together, they approached the wreckage from the right side of the road. The heat of the fire rolled over the pair. The closer they got, the more flaming debris he noticed.

  A tire burned in the middle of the two lanes.

  He crouched when he saw a charred body.

  “I’ll check it out,” he said. “Cover me.”

  Timothy ran toward it with Ruckley holding up her pistol.

  As he moved, he caught the strong scent of charred flesh and burned hair. The glow of the burning vehicles revealed what remained of the clothes on the corpse. It looked like a standard-issue combat uniform.

  This was a soldier.

  He looked back up at the wrecked cars. This wasn’t an intentional roadblock. This was the site of an ambush.

  They advanced toward two pickup trucks.

  The vehicles were torn open like they’d been caught in an explosion. More smoking bodies were scattered in the dirt on the side of the road and across the median.

  They navigated past the two trucks to find a Humvee. Its back tires were flat, and the rear bumper was scorched, but it wasn’t burning.

  Timothy hurried to the front of the truck. The windshield was splintered from an onslaught of high caliber rounds. Blood had splattered the glass of the side window.

  He opened the door to find the driver dead, punctured by multiple bullet holes. The passenger was slumped over against the door, his upper body covered in blood and riddled by gunshot wounds to his chest.

  Timothy turned on his flashlight and directed it at the dashboard.

  His heart kicked at the sight of the radio.

  “Does it work?” Ruckley asked.

  “Let’s find out,” he said.

  Timothy gently pulled the dead driver out and put him on the ground next to Ruckley. She watched the road with her pistol in her good hand.

  Sliding into the blood-stained seat, Timothy grabbed the receiver. With a twist of the channel-selection dial, it buzzed to life.

  They had finally done it! They could warn command about Mount Katahdin!

  A flood of relief poured over him until he heard another voice.

  “Drop your weapons!”

  The relief turned to shock.

  There was a working radio right in front of him, something he had been fighting to find for days. And now, right after they had found it, the collaborators had spotted him.

  He reached for his pistol, but the same voice came again. “Don’t touch that.”

  “We’re friendlies,” Ruckley said.

  Slowly, Timothy turned to see two soldiers wearing night vision goggles standing in front of the Humvee. They approached cautiously carrying suppressed M4 rifles.

  Not collaborators after all.

  Survivors of the convoy.

  Timothy raised his hands and backed out.

  “Easy,” he said. “We have an important message to send to Command. We just need to use the radio.”

  Ruckley introduced herself and Timothy.

  The two bearded soldiers, a Corporal Winslow and a Corporal Carey with the US Army, had been on their way to Outpost Boston to help when they were hit by an IED and then ambushed by collaborators who had taken off after the attack. Their fatigues were covered in dust, oil, and the blood of their brothers.

  When the corporals finished explaining what had happened, Ruckley gave a rundown of their journey from Outpost Portland and the intel on Mount Katahdin.

  “A nuke?” said Corporal Carey. “No way the collaborators have a nuke.”

  “I saw it with my own eyes,” Timothy replied. “I was a prisoner at Mount Katahdin.”

  “Fuck,” said Corporal Winslow.

  “I have to radio this in,” Ruckley said.

  “Yeah,” Winslow said.

  She picked up the receiver and dialed the encrypted channel for Command. She got through to a comms officer and used her authentication codes to finally reach Lieutenant Festa. Once she had him on the line, she relayed the intel.

  Finally, Timothy felt some real consolation that they might have actually succeeded.

  But his mission wasn’t over. Not until he was sure the collaborator base was destroyed.

  “We need evac,” Ruckley said to Festa.

  His response wasn’t surprising.

  “I’m sorry,” Festa said. “I’m not sure that will be possible right now.”

  There wasn’t any to give. It was too dangerous with the bats and other anti-aircraft weapons the collaborators had, and the military w
as running low on aircraft. They couldn’t even confirm if they were able to attack the collaborator base.

  Ruckley stepped back out when the line went dead.

  All the relief Timothy had felt melted away.

  Had things gotten so bad that Command couldn’t even authorize an attack on a damn nuclear silo?

  Maybe they didn’t believe his intel or maybe they really were worse off than he’d thought. Or maybe they were afraid to announce their plans over the open channel in case the collaborators overheard. He hoped it was the later.

  Still, not knowing worried Timothy.

  “The hell are we going to do?” Winslow asked.

  “We ain’t got nowhere to go,” Carey said.

  “We do have somewhere to go,” Timothy said, “and we’ve got a truck to get us there.”

  Ruckley and the other two soldiers both looked at him.

  “We have to make sure that base is destroyed,” Timothy said. “Stock up on weapons and ammo, and give me some NVGs. We’re going in dark and fast.”

  ***

  President Ringgold finished off another cup of coffee in the temporary CIC within the offices of the 9/11 Memorial Museum. The chatter of officers coordinating defensive operations, triage, and other outpost duties buzzed alongside computers and radios.

  At nearly two in the morning, this was her fourth cup, and so far, the caffeine had done little to assuage the suffocating grasp of exhaustion. But at least she had some. Coffee, like bullets, and people, were in short supply.

  Of the original five thousand people who had come to shelter in the walls around the memorial outpost, there were only four thousand left. All holed up in the buildings within the final defenses.

  Their only saving grace was that they hadn’t been hit by another attack after the bats. The streets around the outpost were silent, and their remaining brave warriors were watching the darkness for monsters.

  It wasn’t just trained professionals that had answered the call of duty.

  Fischer was one of many civilian volunteers on guard tonight, sitting in his truck, watching for enemies underground.

  And soon, Captain Reed Beckham, Master Sergeant Horn, and Sergeant Rico would arrive in the stealth helicopter from their mission in Denver.

  She prayed the quiet lasted, but her gut told her the Variants were planning something for tonight.

  Commander Amber Massey sat at the head of the table next to her communications team. She looked up when an officer came in with a SITREP.

  “Fischer still hasn’t detected any tunneling Variants or other subterranean Variant activity,” said the officer.

  Massey simply nodded.

  Next came Dr. Lovato’s assistant, Ron. A soldier assigned to Sergeant Nguyen’s team accompanied him.

  “How are things going down there?” Ringgold asked.

  “A bit crazy,” Ron said. “Kate connected to the Variant network using the webbing.”

  “Connected how?” Ringgold asked.

  “With her body,” Ron said.

  “What?”

  Ron nodded. “Good news is it worked. She stopped an attack on Danbury, and prevented others. Judging by the signal activity, we’re optimistic that things are going in our favor.”

  Ringgold didn’t exactly celebrate. She didn’t like Kate playing with fire, especially when she was using her own body.

  “Tell Kate to be careful,” Ringgold said. “I don’t want her taking any unnecessary risks by tapping into the network.”

  “Understood,” Ron said. He slipped away with the soldier.

  Soprano came in from the other room with a piece of paper. Ringgold prepared for more news but found herself thinking more about Kate and what she was doing down there. She prayed the doctor wasn’t going to sacrifice herself.

  “Just got this from Vice President Lemke,” Soprano said. “It’s a list of outposts reporting no contact with hostiles tonight.”

  “Danbury, Providence, Allentown, and Freehold,” Ringgold said. “Ron’s right. Their plan is really working. They are convincing the Variants to stop attacks.”

  “Let’s hope it holds for us, too,” Massey said.

  Ringgold scanned another list of outposts being evacuated.

  “Civilians are being flown out, driven out, or escaping in boats where they can,” Soprano said. “Everything is going as planned. Most are on their way to Texas and Florida, but some are being taken to the classified location where Vice President Lemke and the fleet have been transferred.”

  Only a few people knew about the location Ringgold had chosen—Puerto Rico.

  “Soprano, get me General Cornelius on an encrypted call,” she said.

  “Yes, Madam President,” Soprano said. He pushed a conference phone into the middle of the table and dialed in the direct command number for General Cornelius.

  One of his officers answered. Ringgold requested to speak to the general. She didn’t wait long before his grizzled voice sounded over the phone.

  “President Ringgold, good to talk to you,” Cornelius said.

  “And you, General. I’ll get right to it—what’s the status of the SDS equipment.”

  “I’m moving the functioning equipment from Canada. As soon as the sun rises it’ll be on its way to the outposts you noted for protection.”

  Ringgold was relieved to hear that. She would have ordered the movement earlier, but the air threats made it too much of a risk. And with other outposts under attack there simply wasn’t any way to get it installed.

  “I have good news, too,” Ringgold said. “Our science team’s efforts to disrupt some of the Variant attacks seem to be working.”

  Ringgold continued the conversation to coordinate how they were going to share the strategies with Cornelius. The general was still holding onto Galveston with his forces, and they could use the break from attacks as much as the people Kate had helped.

  But before they could settle on logistics, Soprano returned to the room with a satellite phone.

  “President Ringgold, I’m very sorry to interrupt but I just got an urgent call,” Soprano said. “It’s from General Souza, and he says it’s an emergency.”

  Her heart thudded. “General Cornelius, I have to go. I’ll contact you again as soon as I can,” Ringgold said.

  “Good luck,” he said.

  “You, too.”

  She ended the call and Soprano handed her the phone.

  “Talk to me, General,” she said.

  “Madam President, I’ve got a credible report that the collaborators have a nuclear warhead mounted on a ballistic missile at Mount Katahdin in Maine,” he said. “We have reason to believe they’re planning to use this nuke in the near future.”

  Everything around Ringgold seemed to fade into the background when she heard those words. The urgent chatter, the noise of footsteps on the tiled floor, the odor of smoke still hanging in the air. None of it stood out to her now that the words ‘nuclear weapons’ resonated in her mind.

  Souza went on to explain the history of the facility and the ominous threat they now faced.

  “My God, we have to stop them,” Ringgold said.

  “You need to get out of here and take the science team with you,” Massey said.

  “What?” Ringgold asked, still partly in shock.

  “The collaborators could erase an entire outpost at any given moment,” Massey continued. “If they find out you and the science team are both here, where do you think they’re going to launch that nuke?”

  Ringgold stood, feeling light-headed.

  Just when she thought the nightmare couldn’t get worse, it did.

  “As soon as Beckham arrives, we’ll retrieve the science team and depart for Command,” Ringgold said.

  Massey nodded and Soprano assembled the Secret Service agents. By the time they were outside, a helicopter was already touching down.

  “That must be Captain Beckham,” Ringgold said.

  She jogged away from the 9/11 Memorial Museum.
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  To help mask their position from threats, they had turned off all the floodlights and spotlights around the interior of the outpost. But with the still glowing embers of the burning oaks and the moonlight, they had enough light to guide them toward the open lawn where a helicopter sat on the charred grass, blades winding down.

  From out of the side door, Captain Reed Beckham limped toward her with Master Sergeant Parker Horn beside him. A group piled out of the chopper next, none of whom Ringgold recognized. Several of them had their arms tied behind their backs.

  “Madam President,” Beckham said saluting.

  She saluted back, looking at the improvised prosthetic he wore. “Are you okay?”

  “I’m fine.”

  Commander Massey stepped up and Beckham gestured toward the group behind him. “We have people that need immediate medical attention. It’s a long story, and we’re not quite sure if they’re friend or foes yet.”

  Beckham pointed toward a skinny older man and a Marine. “These two are definitely friends. They’re the only reason we made it back here. They’ll need all the medical attention you can spare.”

  Massey gave orders and a few of her people ran over to help.

  “Where’s Kate?” Beckham asked.

  “In the tunnels, but before we get her, there’s something you should know,” Ringgold said.

  As quickly as she could, Ringgold explained the report about Mount Katahdin.

  “A nuke? How’s that possible?” he stammered.

  “How is any of this possible?” Horn said. “The collaborators have been planning for almost eight years.”

  “Jesus,” Beckham said. “Once we get you and the science team out of here, we have to take out that base.”

  “Agreed,” Ringgold said. “We don’t have much time. Now come on.”

  In a matter of minutes, they were descending the stairs into the tunnel where the science team was working. Their escort soldiers and Secret Service agents guided their journey through the humid, webbing-covered tunnels.

  Ringgold thought over every communication she’d had over the past several hours. They had been careful to encrypt every message, every call. But what if a prying collaborator had intercepted a single message and knew she was here?