Battle Cry (Freedom/Hate Series, Book 4)

by Kyle Andrews

  The city was glowing with fire, centered on the HAND building. Smoke was rising into the sky, drifting in front of the large, bright moon. All around her, there were sirens, screams and explosions.

  Marti's heart was pounding in her chest. Looking around the the city where she had grown up and seeing it this way made her feel sick, even if it served the greater good. It looked like Hell was beginning to creep in around the edges of her world. What would be left of that world when the sun rose?

  Nothing, if the Governor had any say in the matter. He was going to kill them all. Even knowing what a horrible man he was and already wanting him dead with every fiber of her being, Marti couldn't fathom how anyone could be as evil as that man—to raze an entire city because it might slip from his grasp. This brought the Governor and everyone like him to a whole new level of evil that Marti never knew existed until that moment.

  How many people would die? How many of those casualties would be at home, taking no part in this violence one way or the other? How many of those people would be on the Governor's own side of this war? At the very least, he should be concerned with the safety of his own people, shouldn't he?

  But this was the root of their problem. Ultimately, it didn't come down to a true difference of ideals. While it might have worked that way for the average citizens or some of the lower ranking government employees, someone like the Governor was always going to be looking out for himself above all others. His safety. His comfort. His wealth. Their society was set up to keep his kind fat and happy, while everyone else was left to rot.

  Her eyes shifted toward the drones that were flying over the city. She could already see them moving out of their normal patrolling pattern. She watched as they were flown into an attack position. All they needed was one command and they would destroy everything.

  Marti wasn't going to let this stand. She was already devising a plot. She knew exactly what needed to happen. The helicopter would come for them. She would get on with everyone else. If they tried to stop her, she would tell them that someone on their team had to be monitored or cared for, using medical terms that would sound too technical for anyone but her to understand.

  Once the helicopter was high in the air, Marti was going to get close to the pilot. She would inject him with a heavy sedative, causing him to fall asleep almost instantly. The helicopter would crash to the ground, killing everyone on board and leaving nothing but their charred remains, scattered amongst the twisted metal that once carried them through the air.

  The Governor would die along with all of the people that he had condemned. He wouldn't die better than them. His corpse wouldn't be prettier than their corpses. He wouldn't be surrounded by loved ones, or given medication to make him more comfortable as he slipped from this world. He would be reduced to a whimpering, crying, screaming child before he died, and no amount of wealth or power would be able to change that.

  A light on the horizon caught Marti's eye. It grew closer and closer. Soon, Marti saw that this light was actually three different lights. She knew that this had to be the helicopter, with two others to fly beside it and keep the Governor safe as he ran away.

  In her head, she was running through her plan over and over again, mapping out exactly how she wanted to go about filling a syringe with the sedative without anyone catching on. She would have to choose whichever passenger was sitting closest to the pilot and find an injury to exploit. If there was no injury, she would have to use someone else and then lunge at the pilot, hoping to take him out before anyone could stop her. That would complicate things, so she hoped that it wouldn't come to that.

  As she watched the lights moving ever closer to the hospital, Marti heard a loud thunk, coming from the roof below the helipad. She turned toward the sound and realized that someone had pushed open the door from the stairwell. Before she knew it, shots were fired. One of the men next to her fell to the ground, bleeding.

  Though the helipad was raised above the rest of the roof, Freedom soldiers were able to get clear shots at the Governor's group before the Governor or his men even knew what was happening.

  Marti was standing near the edge of the helipad when the fight started. She dropped to her knees beside the man who was shot, looking over his wound. It was instinct for her to react this way, though she had no desire to treat him or make him better.

  More shots were fired, and she put her hands over her head, both shielding herself and showing the men with guns that she was not a threat to them. The Governor's two Secret Service agents began to fire back at the Freedom members who were taking cover behind the stairwell door and a large air conditioning unit.

  The Governor only had two men with guns to protect him. If there were more, surely they would have been able to take out the men on the roof below, but there must have been a half a dozen Freedom fighters, firing non-stop at the group on the helipad.

  “We need to get out of here!” one of the government officials yelled to the Governor.

  “We need the helicopter!” the Governor yelled back.

  A bullet struck a light that was not far from where Marti was kneeling. The light exploded, sending shards of glass all over the place.

  Someone grabbed her arm and pulled. She didn't even know who it was until she was on her feet and moving away from the edge of the helipad. Then, Geo held her close to the elevator doors and looked her over.

  “Are you okay?” he asked her.

  “I'm fine,” Marti replied.

  She reached into her pocket and grabbed a syringe and a vial of the sedative that she planned to use on the pilot. She filled the syringe, saying to Geo, “I have to help him. He's in pain.”

  “You can't go back there. You'll get yourself killed,” he told her, holding her arm tight.

  “It's my job.”

  “I don't know if you've noticed this or not, but you seem to be unemployed at this point.”

  Marti didn't respond. She kept her eyes on the man who was bleeding on the ground, willing to let him go untreated. She had the syringe filled now. She placed a cap on the needle and stuck the syringe in her pocket.

  As she put the syringe away, Marti heard the elevator motor beginning to groan. The car was moving again. She and Geo looked at each other and took a step away from the elevator doors.

  The gunshots were still being fired from the roof below. One of the Governor's agents fell over, dropping his gun and grabbing his arm. Though the second agent tried his best to keep the helipad clear, there was no way that he could cover the entire area by himself. Soon, Freedom soldiers were rushing up the stairs.

  Marti froze as she watched that Secret Service agent attempt to fight the first Freedom soldier off. The agent kicked at the soldier as he came up the stairs, but that soldier grabbed his foot and the two of them struggled.

  The elevator continued to groan. Everyone in the Governor's group moved as far away from the elevator as they could, toward the far end of the helipad, but there was nowhere for them to hide. They needed to keep a clear space for the helicopter to land. They needed to avoid the men at the stairs. They needed to avoid whoever was coming up in the elevator. It was beginning to look more and more like the Governor wouldn't be making it out of that place alive.

  Marti looked over at the Governor. He was standing near the edge of the helipad, keeping his eyes on the elevator. He was maybe fifteen feet away from Marti. She thought about rushing him and diving on top of him, pushing him off the edge of the helipad. Even if there was a roof below, it would have to be a significant drop and he would probably slam his head on the ground. At the very least, he would miss his flight.

  She wanted to do it. She wanted to be the one who took that son of a bitch out. She wanted to be there when he took his final breath, and the idea that some nameless, faceless Freedom soldier might get to kill him instead did not sit well with her.

  In that moment, Marti made up her mind to do it. Adrenaline started surging through her body. Her palms began to sweat. She took a deep brea
th and was just about to make her move when the elevator doors opened.

  “Marti, get down!”, she heard Sim yell, and gunshots started firing from the elevator.

  Geo grabbed onto Marti and pulled her down into a crouched position. She wanted to scream at him for it. She wanted to scream at Sim for not being a Freedom soldier, and for thwarting her plan to take out the Governor.

  When she turned to look in Sim's direction, she saw Justin rushing out of the elevator, dressed in a pair of scrubs. He reached the stairs just as the Governor's Secret Service agent fell to the ground, wrestling with the first Freedom soldier to make it onto the helipad.

  More soldiers rushed onto the roof, carrying guns and screaming in fury.

  Marti could hear gunshots from the roof below. Just by the number of shots fired, she could tell that there were HAND officers mixed into the roof fight now. Things were getting too complicated. Marti had a plan, and with every new element that was added to the mix, that plan would be more difficult to see through.

  She watched as Justin engaged the Freedom fighters, swinging his batons, spinning around and knocking them down, one by one. Of course, she knew that Justin didn't want to be fighting his own people, but if Justin didn't place himself between Sim and those Freedom members, Sim could shoot them dead from twenty feet away. They wouldn't stand a chance.

  Sim was firing his weapon at the soldiers as they came up the stairs. Between the two of them, they managed to keep the helipad from being flooded by soldiers.

  The Governor's Secret Service agents had been holding their own for a long time, but they were injured and each new soldier who decided to fire on them or wrestle with them made them weaker and less effective.

  Members of Freedom were falling and bleeding all over the place. The fighting on the roof below the helipad was growing more intense. Marti could barely keep track of everything that was happening, but she decided that it wasn't her job to worry about the larger fight. Her job was to take out the Governor.

  She looked over at the Governor, who was standing on the other side of the helipad, watching the fight. He was nervous. If one Freedom soldier managed to get past the men who were protecting the helipad, he would die.

  Marti watched him, studying that look of fear growing in his eyes. This man who had spent his entire adult life controlling others and making the citizens of an entire state tremble in fear was now considering the fact that this could be the end of his life. He knew that his death would be painful too.

  The Governor's eyes moved in Marti's direction and for just a moment they looked at each other. She tried to put on that reassuring, kind smile that she had perfected for her patients' benefit over the years, but she made sure to add a hint of nervousness to that look now. The Governor's eyes narrowed as he watched her, as though he were sizing her up.

  Did he know? How could he? Marti hadn't done anything that would have revealed her true motives to him. Yet, he didn't seem to trust her.

  The helicopters were getting closer and closer. The opportunity to push him off the edge of the helipad was gone. Besides, he was surrounded by too many other men and she would have had to get through them before she reached him. Somehow she doubted that he would just stand there while she fought her way to him, and wait for her to shove him off the edge of the helipad.

  She would have to go with the plan to sedate the pilot of the helicopter. It was a solid plan. She could pull it off.

  As the center helicopter prepared to land, the wind in the area grew more intense. Marti could barely hear the sounds of the guns going off over the noise of the helicopters' engines.

  The helicopters on either side of the Governor's ride hovered over the building. HAND officers hung out of those helicopters and fired down at the Freedom soldiers on the roof below. Marti couldn't see how much damage they were causing, but it had to be significant.

  Turning to take one last look at Justin before she left him behind, Marti saw that for all of his talent with those batons, the Freedom soldiers were beginning to get the best of him. They didn't know who he was. They didn't know not to kill him.

  Marti watched as Justin swung a baton toward one of those soldiers and missed. She could see the pain in his face as he twisted his already-wounded body. She watched as that soldier kicked Justin's leg and Justin fell to his knees.

  “Justin!” Marti screamed before she could run her reaction through all of her normal filters. She didn't care if it was appropriate for her cover. She saw him going down and she felt real concern for the first time since the battle began.

  The helicopter landed behind Marti. She needed to get to it if she planned to stick with her plan, but she couldn't move. She couldn't take her eyes off of Justin.

  Sim was close to Justin, but he was fighting with two other Freedom soldiers. He couldn't help.

  The soldier who was standing over Justin raised his gun, and the world seemed to slow down around Marti. She couldn't watch what was about to happen, and yet she couldn't take her eyes off of it.

  She could tell by the way that Justin's head was hanging that he didn't have much more fight left in him. He wasn't going to bounce back from this. He was going to die.

  “Geo!” the Governor called from the helicopter.

  From next to Marti, Geo began to move, but not toward the helicopter. He rushed toward Justin. What he was planning to do was unclear, but Marti watched as the Freedom soldier saw Geo Garrison coming toward him, and took his attention off of Justin. He aimed the gun at Geo instead.

  Marti watched this happen, and she wasn't sure how to react to it. Geo could die, which she was planning on happening anyway, when the helicopter went down. But to have him die while saving Justin did not fit into her plan.

  She waited for the gun to go off. She waited for the blood, and to see Geo's body fall. But that didn't happen. At the last moment, Sim shot the Freedom soldier, and the soldier fell backward. Marti watched him go down, and she was just as appalled by the sight as she would have been by seeing Justin fall. This was one of her own. But at the same time, that soldier was going to kill Justin only seconds earlier.

  How could she make sense of that moment? Marti didn't even bother to try, because there was no simple answer. She and Justin were behind enemy lines. They were in an impossible situation and she had no idea how either one of them could ever return to any semblance of a normal life once the war was over. After everything that they had done in the name of helping Freedom, how would any of their allies even be able to look at them?

  Geo pulled Justin to his feet and started to move him toward the helicopter. He turned back to Marti and yelled, “Let's go!”

  Marti joined them, climbing into the helicopter, and helping Justin climb in behind her. Sim covered them as well as he could, but it was only a matter of time before the Freedom fighters reached the helipad. The Governor's Secret Service were both dead, which Marti only just then noticed. Sim was the only one among them who had a gun.

  Geo got into the helicopter behind Justin.

  “What are you doing?” the Governor asked Geo, as Geo sat down next to Marti and secured his seatbelt.

  “They're the only security or medical help we have right now. Do you really think that we should leave them behind?” Geo replied firmly, looking his father squarely in the eyes.

  Marti had never seen anyone speak to the Governor in such a tone before. She had never even imagined it.

  Sim climbed into the helicopter and closed the heavily armored door behind him. As soon as he was inside, bullets began to bounce off of the side of the helicopter.

  “Everyone hold on,” the pilot ordered as they lifted off of the helipad.

  Marti watched the pilot as they took off. She wasn't as close to him as she would have liked. There was a member of the Governor's staff sitting between them, with a scratch on the side of his head. Marti watched the blood drip from that wound, waiting for the right moment to put her plan into action.

  “Are you okay?” Geo a
sked her.

  She turned toward him and tried to give him that reassuring smile, but it may not have been her best performance. She needed to sedate the pilot as soon as possible.

  In the hopes of not looking too suspicious, Marti said to Geo, “You saved Justin's life.”

  “I owed him one,” Geo shrugged. “Don't overthink it.”

  Once the helicopter was flying through the sky, Marti unlatched her seatbelt and went to Justin. She looked him over and asked, “Are you okay?”

  He was in more pain than he wanted to admit; she could see that much in his eyes. He had a fresh wound on his head and seemed tired, as though he could fall asleep at any moment.

  “You need to stay awake,” she told him.

  “Yes, ma'am,” he smiled weakly.

  Justin looked her in the eye. Without saying a word, he conveyed how messed up he thought this situation was. Marti nodded, just slightly.

  “Is he going to live?” Sim asked.

  The helicopter took a sharp turn, and Marti was forced to grab onto Sim in order to keep from falling over.

  She pulled the syringe from her pocket, keeping it at her side as she looked at Sim and replied, “Are any of us?”

  Sim smiled and put his head back. He looked out the window, at the city that was falling apart beneath them.

  “It's me,” Marti heard the Governor say. She turned and saw him on the phone, looking out the window. “Do it.”

  All of the blood rushed out of her head as she realized that he had just given the order to level the city. She was too late. How could she have missed her chance?

  She popped the cap off of the syringe's needle. The city might burn, but the Governor would not live to celebrate his victory. She would not allow it.

  As Marti prepared to lunge toward the pilot, the helicopter took another turn, throwing her off balance. This time, Geo grabbed her arm and pulled her back into her seat.

  He put his hand on top of hers—the same hand that she was holding the syringe in, and he said to her, “We'll be at the airport in a few minutes. You should stay in your seat.”