She had considered it, yes. He was right, of course. In politics, allies became enemies faster than drunken porters traded bedfellows at a City brothel. But that didn’t change TRACE’s need for those supplies.
I’m worried about TRACE soldiers starving today, she replied. If by arming the Wild Ones we can weaken Transport one iota, I’ll not only hand them the weapons, I’ll load them myself. Besides, Logan has pledged security for future shipments from the AZ. Out loud, staring hard into his eyes, she said, “I’ll ask one last time, Sean. Do you support me or not?”
Her voice, as usual, had its intended effect.
Sighing, he said, “Always.”
Finally, the debate was over. They hurried to catch up to the others as they neared the banks of the Susquehanna.
“Here we are,” said Logan ahead of them. When the QB saw where his finger pointed, she felt like he’d shown her the punch line to a day-long joke.
The smile on Sticks’s face was broad and disturbing in its toothlessness. “Told ya I’d be seein’ ya again!”
“Seriously?” Bracer couldn’t believe it himself.
“Oh sure! Gimme lip!” Sticks said. “And after I set it up so nice for you to get all your supplies back.”
Hatch glanced guardedly at the QB. Still think this is a good idea?
In answer, and after only a moment’s hesitation, she stepped onto the old man’s ferry. It was a small side-wheeler with a bridge and aft quarters, a smaller version of the historic riverboats from the Old Planet. Her soldiers followed her. The waterline barely rose as they climbed aboard; the ferry was used to carrying cargo heavier even than Stug.
Trick approached the dock. He’d done a good job hiding the rest of Bestimmung Company. Until they came out from under their camouflaged canopies, the stillness on the banks around the docks had been broken only by the croaking of frogs and the ballet of water dancers.
“Captain, looks like you’re not done with your trip yet,” said Brevet-Captain Mason.
“Right, Lieutenant. Come aboard. I’ll brief you.”
As Trick stepped onto the ferry, he didn’t think he liked what he saw in Hatch’s body language. And after the QB introduced Logan and explained the plan to secure the Transport weapons from Columbia, he was sure of it.
“The only way to get these people their weapons is to break into Transport’s armory? Inside the City?”
“Unless you have a better idea,” said the QB. “I’m all ears.”
“Can’t we just smuggle guns out from Pook?”
“And power them how?” asked the captain. “TRACE will never release the okcy we took at Gettysburg for that purpose. The only cache of laser rifles with batteries this side of the Great Ridge is in Columbia.”
Trick admitted he had no better option for securing weapons for the salvagers. He wasn’t happy, she knew, but he’d follow her orders.
“Once we’re away and committed, Logan’s people will deliver the supplies to you. Expect a flat barge to come down the creek, loaded with what’s left from the three wagons. It should be here in six hours. Secure it and have Charlie and Delta squads escort it to the island. Hold this position with Bravo and Echo until we return, or until oh-four-hundred, whichever comes first.”
Trick acknowledged her order. “But what do I tell Neville? He’s due an update at sundown. I fended him off earlier, but he’ll want details on your progress.”
“Tell him you don’t have any. He’ll believe that. He’s used to my mavericking.”
Trick nodded reluctantly. She had no doubt he planned to practice his report before giving it. Or that he was uncomfortable lying to a superior officer. Even Neville.
“We could take the food from these people,” Pusher said, stepping onto the ferry. “It’s ours by right, and we have the firepower.”
The QB stared Pusher square in the face—really for the first time since the day after the battle that had taken the lives of her squadmates. That day they’d both stood in the bar, consoling one another with words of salt and steel.
“Sure, we could do that,” the captain replied. Her voice carried. She wanted Logan to hear, to understand why, exactly, TRACE was willing to help. “And make a new enemy. Or, we have the chance to make an ally instead, and impede Transport in the process. It’s a no-brainer, Sergeant Ellis.”
Pusher said, “I know. I just wanted to hear you say it, ma’am. I like to know what I’m fighting for and why these days. It makes a difference.”
Mary understood Pusher’s need to know. Specifically, her need to know that their objective was worth the cost. Something Pusher, as much as anyone, understood personally. The damnable thing about it was, you never knew the cost till fate had exacted it.
“And I’d like to go with,” said Pusher.
The QB observed her for a moment. “Why?”
The question was simple and direct, its tenor unforgiving. As it needed to be.
The sergeant paused before answering.
“Is it because you have one of those ‘I lost my squad and I feel guilty’ death wishes?” pressed the captain. “Because we’ll have enough on our hands with Transport. I don’t have time to babysit you, too.”
Hatch narrowed his eyes at Mary. There it was again, that uncaring, aloof attitude he both admired and loathed in her. Even Stug stopped what he was doing and watched the two women.
“No, ma’am,” said Pusher, not the least bit put off by her captain’s icy challenge. “But you might need an extra hand. And I’m tired of sitting on my ass all day.”
Stug’s hooting drowned out the frogs.
Mary allowed herself a bleak smile. “Smoker, can I borrow your sergeant for a few hours?”
Lieutenant Gray made a whatever sign. “Not much going on around here, ma’am.”
The QB said, “Trick, we’ll be back by oh-four-hundred. If we’re not, get the rest of B Company back to Little Gibraltar. And I expect that brevet rank might be made permanent.”
“Don’t say that, ma’am,” admonished Trick.
“You’re too superstitious,” she teased, though secretly she was touched when her soldiers they genuinely cared for her. “We’ll see you in a few hours. Come on, Pusher.”
“Welcome to Alpha Squad,” Stug said to Ellis. “Consider it a temporary promotion. Don’t expect my position to open up anytime soon.”
“Honestly, Stug,” said Pusher, looking down in approving appraisal, “I could never fill your shoes.”
The big man smiled and clapped her on the shoulder.
The soldiers got their river legs as Sticks made ready to cast off. Logan asked him, “How long till we reach the City?”
“Coupla hours,” estimated the ferryman. “Should be full-on dark by then.”
Logan nodded. “The darker, the better,” he said.
As night came on, the Pittsburgh—a name Sticks insisted fit his workhorse vessel to a T—rolled up the Susquehanna, its single paddlewheel stroking against the current. The ferry’s smokestack puffed black clouds that were almost invisible in the night, and the low rush of the river masked the slow churning of the ferry’s small steam engine. To anyone on the riverbank, the Pittsburgh’s dark wood painted black with pitch would appear as only a specter gliding over the water.
Logan walked the small deck fitfully. B Company’s soldiers lazed around, mostly because standing upright threatened to bring up the meal he’d fed them earlier. When Logan finally lit on the bow, staring forward toward the City, the QB joined him.
“I can have Hawkeye scan ahead, if you like,” she said to break the ice.
The Wild Ones’ leader gave a half smile, though she couldn’t see from where she stood. “That’s okay. I’m a deal-with-it-as-it-comes kinda guy.”
“Comes in handy in the spy business, I guess,” she said.
He looked at her, the low moonlight etching his face with frown lines. “I’m not a spy anymore. I told you that.”
After a couple of breaths, Mary said, “I suspect th
at’s a little like leaving the military. You can muster out, but you never stop sitting with your back to the wall.”
Logan’s voice sounded cheerless when he said, “Too true.” He stood up and began pacing again. It was a short walk in the narrow bow.
“So, what’s wrong?” she asked.
“Ah, there’s that directness. Have I told you how much I like that quality about you?”
“I think you just did. For the second time.”
A flit of moonlit gray at his temples showed her he was nodding. “I don’t know you from Eve,” he said suddenly.
“She’s a lot older. Also, I’ve never trusted snakes.”
Logan cracked a genuine smile at that. He settled again on the bow’s gunwale.
“My people are caught between—not just a rock and a hard place—everything. They scrape for every scrap they can find. Unlike the Amish, they produce nothing, so Transport sees them as useless parasites on the system. At worst, we’re a threat because, well, we must want what they have, right? That’s the way the people in power always think. They fear covetousness because they got where they are by being covetous. The Amish don’t trust us, but then the Amish don’t trust anyone, really. ‘Love everyone, trust no one.’ And who can blame them? And TRACE . . .” He let it hang there, an invitation for her to say something and make him believe the resistance was different somehow, more noble perhaps in its motivations.
“Part of that is your reputation,” she said, not taking the bait. She didn’t like giving anyone exactly what they wanted. Doing so made her feel weak. “People think you’re cannibals. That you ambush Plain People and steal their food and take them back to your cookfires and make Pacifist Pies for supper.”
“Only two-thirds of that is true,” said Logan sardonically. “And even that part—taking from others, just to be clear—is the exception, not the rule. But I take your point. We encourage the rumors, of course. About cannibalism.”
Interesting, thought Mary. “Why?”
“It isn’t obvious?” The Pittsburgh climbed over a particularly foamy rush of river water before settling down again to the comforting chugga-chugga-chugga of its engine. “Ever wanted to be left alone? So much so that you snipe and snarl at anyone who comes around you?”
The QB turned her head away from him so he wouldn’t see the bitter grin on her face. “Never. I’m not like that. I love all mankind all the time.”
“Yeah, well, good for you,” Logan replied bitterly, missing her sarcasm. “We don’t have that luxury. We’ve cultivated what others think of us very carefully. If people think you’ll eat them if they bother you, they tend to leave you alone. Honestly, our reputation as savages is all we’ve got.”
Mary thought about that. Transport had weapons, personnel, technology, and a dogged desire for control. TRACE would have fallen before the Authority long ago but for luck and the SOMA’s technowizardry. She tried to weigh what it must be like to be a Wild One in that reality. Skins on your back, Stone Age weapons to hunt with, and no place to call home but whatever nature provided. She recalled the Wild Ones’ simple, stone apartments and the wild deer roasting on the fires. And how enthralled the children had been to see the soldiers in their midst. Enthralled, or simply terrified? She recalled her mirror image out of time, the girl with the defiant stare, daring the armed stranger to raise her laser rifle against them. If the captain had, what could the little warrior have done about it? Stabbed her with daggers from her young eyes? And that girl and all she knew of her family and community, every bit of it, was protected only by an illusion. A myth.
“I see now why the guns are so important to you,” she said quietly.
“Without them, we’ll die,” Logan said with grave surety. “Transport is eliminating anyone it perceives as a threat to its ultimate power. The Wild Ones are just rats in their grand scheme of things, but they’ve already begun moving against us, with one goal: extermination. You saw the field where Eeguls found you. And if they’ve gotten so aggressive as to come after the rats . . . well, I wouldn’t be surprised to see the City go eventually.”
“Go?”
Logan sighed, the sound lost as the water shushed against the ferry. “When you have a cancer, you cut it out to save the body.”
“Destroy the City?” Mary asked, as if saying the words could make them somehow more believable. “That’s crazy.” A sudden realization that murdering an entire city full of people wasn’t beyond Transport after all sent a shiver up the back of her neck. “Do you know this for a fact? Is Transport planning it?”
“I used to be a spy, remember? I hear things when we scavenge. It’s not a plan, as far as I know—yet. But whispers of an Ultimate Solution to the TRACE problem are out there. Take that intel back to your superiors, Captain. Nothing is beyond the Authority. Nothing.”
She had always thought the same. But to destroy the City? Could even Transport be that desperate? That evil?
The deck thumped. Mary turned her shocked face toward Hatch as he approached. She quickly put her QB mask in place. She didn’t think he’d seen.
“Sticks says to be quiet. We’re getting close to ears friendly to Transport.”
Logan gave him a sad smile. “Time to be a mouse, not a rat, Lieutenant?”
“What?”
“Never mind,” the captain told him. “Private joke.”
“Ah. Well. Mouse or cockroach, take your pick. But shut up. Ma’am.” He wandered away again to leave them to their privacy and its jokes.
“You let all your soldiers talk to you like that?” asked Logan.
She sighed, grateful for the distraction from her own thoughts. “No. Just him.”
“Ah . . .” In that one syllable, all understanding.
“It’s not like that,” she said defensively.
“Not anymore, I take it,” he answered with half a laugh. The water soon swallowed the sound and they were silent again for a moment.
“We’ll get you your guns,” she whispered.
Logan nodded but said nothing.
Warpath
Sticks cut the engine for their approach to the dock. Momentum carried the Pittsburgh forward, and its captain swung wide to starboard to avoid a collision. The ferry barely nudged the pier before the old man hopped across and began to tie her off.
The lights of the City glinted off the Susquehanna a quarter mile upstream. The old dock Sticks had tied them to looked to have been abandoned for years. No homes, no farms, no lights. Just the sounds of the natural world settling down for the night.
“The target is half a klick inside the City,” the QB reminded them as they hopped across to the pier. Stug and Bracer needed a moment to get their land legs back.
“Are you sure this man of yours inside is reliable?” asked Hatch.
“The distractions he has planned will pull the patrols away from the river entrance,” said Logan, as if that answered the question. “Once they’re preoccupied, we’ll go in through the sewer, like I said before.”
“And like I said before, that still sounds—” began Stug.
“Don’t say it again!” ordered Hatch.
“—like a crappy plan to me.” Whatever seasickness he’d suffered onboard the Pittsburgh had evidently passed.
As usual, the QB was short on patience and ready to move. “Let’s go.”
Logan and B Company followed her along the river’s edge. They made sure to keep to the shadows until they reached a copse of trees from which they could observe the sewer entrance. Four large steel gates attached to chains protected the City from entrance via the river, while allowing the water and the refuse it carried to flow out.
They waited. There was the sound of an explosion from the City’s interior. Then a second. And a third. Three different locations, each deep inside the heart of Columbia.
Alarms wailed. Lights came up, stretching out across the river and its surrounding banks. From their current position, they could hear the bustle of Transport troops stationed along
the wall moving to high tactical alert.
“We move,” said Logan. “Now.”
He led them out of cover, shuffling low and hugging the river’s edge. Hatch glanced at the QB. “I guess there’s no turning back now,” he said, then ran after their ally. The infiltrators soon formed a line under the City’s wall where it met the riverbank. Searchlights passed over them as a fourth explosion erupted inside Columbia. This one sounded closer, no more than a few blocks from their current position.
“And now . . .” Logan sounded like a magician willing his assistant to reappear inside an empty box.
A screech of metal on metal made them all cringe. One of the steel gates began to ascend to their right as they stood, backs flat against Columbia’s wall. Two feet above the river’s surface, it stopped.
“It’s not going to get any higher,” said Logan, starting to move.
“Wait.” Hatch put a hand on Logan’s arm, forced him back against the wall. “Bracer, count it.”
“One-Mississippi. Two-Mississippi. Three-Mississippi.”
“Hawkeye.”
The unit’s spotter directed his omni-lens up and along the length of the wall above them. No heat sigs. No movement of any kind.
“Nada.”
“Can we go now?” asked Logan. “Or would you rather stay here till the guards return and actually start observing the river again?”
“Hawkeye, take point,” ordered Stug.
The spotter moved slowly into the chilly river. The smell was horrendous this close to the City, and the water saturated their uniforms. Bracer and Pusher went next. Holding their laser rifles above their heads, the three slipped one at a time behind the steel gate and under the City wall. Hatch and the QB brought up the rear.
“Couldn’t you have stolen our food in August?” Bracer’s teeth chattered around the question.
Susquehanna Page 4