by Summer Lane
The attacks in Monterey, and the attacks that killed Chris…the ambush that had half of the Angels captured, that ended in Cheng’s death…the mystery of how Omega knew we were coming…and the shock of seeing Sector 13 guards turned against militiamen, attempting to assassinate the president.
None of these things happened until Beckham arrived.
The thought occurs to me that perhaps Beckham is an Omega turncoat and that he is sympathetic to their cause. He’s young and brazen, and he has so much power…
I bite my lip, keeping this sudden revelation to myself.
There’s no reason to place doubt in the leadership we have in these last days – I need my men to believe in what we have. Right now, morale is just about all we’ve got to get us through the next stage of this war.
Yet as we leave the second story and retreat into the intel floor below, one thought reverberates in my head, like a radio announcement that won’t stop looping:
Beckham can’t be trusted.
My stomach clenches.
I hope my instinct is wrong…but I doubt it.
***
I am roused from a deep sleep when the building shudders.
I snap awake, sitting upright in the folding chairs on the second story of HQ. I had been resting for an hour or so after reviewing over nine hours of intel with Beckham. My head had been spinning, and while I was resting, Uriah was downstairs, keeping tabs on everything…
And now, the building shudders.
I jump to my feet, and the ceiling rips apart. Fire and ash rain over my head. My scream is lost in the ripping noise of the roof being shredded. I scramble backward as the floor in the middle of the room gives way. The explosion of black, acrid smoke blinds me. I lose my balance. I fall forward and feel myself tumbling toward the hole that has opened up.
I grope for something to hold onto, then feel the air leave my lungs as I crash through the opening, free-falling, and then smash against a desk on the first floor. Pain splinters through my back and shoots into my chest. I gasp for breath and roll over, falling off the desk and hitting the ground on my hands and knees.
For a moment, I am paralyzed with the pain of such a long fall. I slowly move my fingers and then lift myself up. All around me, I see intel workers screaming and clawing their way out of the building. I see Beckham racing toward the exit. He sees me, and then he keeps going.
Coward! I need your help!
I manage to stand, gritting my teeth and tasting blood. I feel some pain in my left hand. Sprained? Maybe. That’s going to suck later.
I push through the smoke and then, outside, a siren begins screaming. I hit the sidewalk and I search for familiar faces: where is the rest of my team? Where is Elle? Manny? Arlene…?
“I got you!” Uriah yells, appearing from the smoke like a dark specter. He grabs my shoulders and yanks me off the sidewalk. We head across the street, between two buildings. Someone opens fire on the rooftops. Snipers on the roof are firing down into the streets.
I blink through the night and see Sector 13 troops firing back on the snipers…
“What’s happening?!” I scream.
Uriah keeps moving, dragging me along until we are at least two blocks away from HQ, and I see the rest of the team huddled here in an alley.
“Thank God you’re okay!” Elle exclaims.
“Your hand,” Uriah says, concerned.
I look at it – it’s not terrible, black and blue, maybe…but not terrible. A small break, if anything.
“It’s just broken,” I say. “I need to wrap it. Quick.”
I bear the pain and let Andrew wrap it to minimize the injury, small as it is.
“Dammit,” I curse.
“What’s happening?” Elle asks, and she sounds scared. “Who’s attacking us?”
“I don’t know,” I reply, but Uriah cuts me off.
“It’s Beckham’s men,” he growls. “Sector 13.” He holds up a radio, and each airwave is loaded with desperate chatter.
“…13 has turned on us! I repeat, we need immediate evac…!”
“…13 is killing us! We need help!”
“…this is Roger 2 on Transport 7. 13 troops have turncoated. Request backup!”
“God,” I breathe, and a terror unlike any other grips my heart. “13’s turned on us.”
“Beckham has turned on us,” Uriah says.
“Hold up,” Manny says. Arlene is feverishly scribbling something down on a piece of paper, and she hands it to Manny. He reads it: “Up and down the state, 13 is killing militia. Because they have been working with the militia, they know exactly where everyone is. It’s turning into a bloodbath. The first report of an attack came in ten minutes ago…I tried to get upstairs to warn you, but they wouldn’t let me back in the building…on Beckham’s orders.”
Everything comes together, and I feel like a fool.
How could I have trusted Sector 13 to be our saving grace? Now we are being attacked from the inside. Our forces will be annihilated before the Athena Strike even gets here!
Beckham, you scumbag.
I was right. Dear God, has this been 13’s plan all along? To lure us in and then destroy us when they had gained our trust? I think of President Banner, under the protection of Sector 13 guards, clueless that their loyalty must lie with Omega…
What if they’ve already killed the first family at Camp Freedom?
“Okay,” I say. “Give me the radio. I have an idea.”
Uriah tosses the radio to me. I hit the receiver.
“Militia forces, this is General Cassidy Hart,” I say. “If you are receiving this message, pull back and regroup at Monarch Castle. I repeat, pull back and regroup at Monarch Castle. Beckham and 13 are Omega. We are being attacked from the inside. Trust no one. These are my direct orders.”
I put the radio down. I look at Arlene.
“Monarch Castle is a codename the militias have always used for Pacific Grove,” I say. “It’s not far from here, just down the coastline. Anybody who’s been in the militia long enough will know exactly where to find us.”
“Good thinking,” Uriah agrees. “Let’s go.”
“My friends,” Father Kareem says, gravely. “If Sector 13 has truly betrayed us, and Beckham is here to herald our destruction…we have no choice but to kill the general.”
“I know,” I answer.
Gunfire drowns my voice, and I yell, “Let’s get to the RV point and meet with the rest of the militia forces. We have to take back Monterey!”
My mind spins in circles as we move through the city streets, ducking from building to building – and then, house to house. The city is alive with chaos, erupting into a battleground between 13 and our own forces.
It’s like a rerun of what happened here before…turncoats, betrayals…
But this time, it’s on a much bigger scale, and the timing could destroy the rebellion against Omega.
I have to kill Beckham, I think. He’s their leader, he’s their strategist. If I take him out, that will weaken their structure, hurt their morale…
The harsh reality is that there are only two days left until the Athena Strike hits the coastline, and by that time, 13 might eliminate us…or at least seriously weaken us.
I think of the thousands of troops that arrived in Camp Cambria, and my heart aches, knowing that we have been betrayed one final time – and the knowledge that the first family is in mortal danger pierces my heart like a knife.
I don’t want them to die. I may not see eye to eye with the president on everything…but Omega cannot destroy this newly resurrected form of leadership here. We’ve come too far to back down now!
Hour after grueling hour passes, and we finally claw our way into Pacific Grove. Once a quaint seaside village filled with wealthy condominium owners and timeshare holders, it’s now a ghost town. The main street is empty. Bushes and grass have reclaimed the asphalt.
When I was young, shortly after my parents separated, I remember my mother taking m
e on a “girls only” weekend trip to this place. I think it was her way of saying, Sorry I screwed up our family. Sorry I’m leaving you and your father. Let’s take a trip and pretend it never happened. I don’t think I bought her apology, even as a kid.
We came to Pacific Grove to see the monarch butterflies nesting in the high trees, which was apparently a big draw for tourists all over the world.
I’ll never forget the serenity of watching the thousands of butterflies dance in the wind, then lightly cling to the bark of the coastal firs and pines. I can see my mother in my memory, frizzy red hair stuffed under a wide-brimmed straw hat, her blue yoga pants a vibrant contrast to her gauzy white shirt.
“Cassidy,” she said. “I just want you to know, even though I’m going away, I’ll miss you. You’ll always be my sweet Cassie. I brought you here because I want you to remember good things about me. I want you to think of me with a smile, okay?”
“Why can’t you just stay with me and Dad?” I asked.
“I just can’t.”
“But why?”
“Because I said so. Love’s a pendulum, baby. You can’t force it to swing at your own rhythm…it paces itself.” She sighed. “I have to leave. And you’ll be fine without me. I promise.”
“You’re lying,” I replied, turning away from her. “I hate it when you lie.”
She folded her arms across her chest, snapping a quick photo of a butterfly that had landed on her purse strap.
“I thought it was a good lie,” she whispered.
And that was it. She’d driven me back home that day, dropped me off on the front doorstep of my father’s house, and hugged me tightly. She didn’t say goodbye. She just left – and I remember being so angry at her for doing that.
As we find our way into the cove of trees nestled on the banks of Pacific Grove, I only wish I could go back to a problem as simple as my mother and father splitting up. If I had known as a child that protecting the western world from Omega domination would be my full-time career…I think I would have appreciated my relatively docile and unhappy life better.
Sure, I wasn’t a happy kid. I wasn’t even well-adjusted or confident. I was bullied at school, and I got in trouble one too many times for getting into fights on campus. My attitude got worse when my parents split, and my father nose-dived into work like a man possessed. Alone and isolated, I was angry at the world and angry with myself. As I grew up, I learned to be totally self-sufficient. I took care of myself…I took care of my father. I found solace in predictability and stability. I went running. I sometimes visited the range on weekends with Dad, knocking out paper targets, and I avoided L.A. traffic by riding my bike or walking. It wasn’t perfect. I was lost, and I was unhappy with the lack of magnificent adventure in my life.
But at least I was alive, and I had the hope of tomorrow.
We slip into the grove of trees. The wind is howling, sweeping through the branches and tossing leaves everywhere. I check in on the radio over and over again, using old code words that I know will be meaningless to Sector 13’s men.
Or at least I hope they’ll be meaningless.
Uriah says, “I’m assuming you’ve got a plan.”
“Of course I have a plan. I’m the queen of plans.”
I see his smile, even in the darkness.
“If we die-” he whispers, stepping close to me, but he is interrupted by the arrival of one of the militia groups who caught my message on the radio. It’s Anita Vega, here with the Coyotes.
“Anita!” I exclaim. “Glad you made it.”
Her hair is pulled taut against her scalp, and her pretty face is arranged into a scowl.
“13 is slaughtering our men,” she hisses. “We have to kill them all.”
“And how do you propose we do that?” Vera snaps. “They’re inside. There are thousands of them! We let the wolves in the front door, and now we’re royally-”
“Not to mention the Athena Strike is barely 48 hours away at this point,” Em Davis points out. “This was their plan all along…they’re collapsing us from the inside.”
The remaining two militia groups in Monterey finally arrive – the Strikers and the Cougars, small groups originally from the interior of Oregon, assigned to Monterey in cohesion with my own men and Sector 13.
“Do you have a number on the death toll so far?” I ask Anita.
“At least two hundred of our militiamen have fallen to 13’s forces,” she answers, grimly. “That leaves us with four hundred men against their two thousand here in Monterey.”
I mutter a curse.
“Okay, we’ve got four hundred men,” I say. “We’re better fighters than they are. We know guerilla warfighting tactics. We move fast, we move silently, and we’re invisible. We’ll have to destroy Monterey to take down their forces.”
“And what about the rest of the West Coast?” Sister Leslie suddenly says. “Sector 13 is turning on militia strongholds from Alaska to San Diego. They’re strategically pulling the teeth out of our defenses before the Athena Strike…even if we reclaim Monterey, what chance do we have of victory against Omega? The rest of the state is still struggling-”
“We have to try!” I yell over the roar of the wind. “If enough of the militias are able to overtake Sector 13, we’ll still form a defensive blockade against Athena. And we still have the naval fleet with Admiral Boyd.”
“If he’s not a turncoat, too,” Elle mutters.
“We have to hope he’s still loyal to the militias.”
“Don’t count on it.”
“We have to count on it. It’s our best bet.”
And, much to my horror, I realize that if Admiral Boyd was a turncoat…he has his finger on the trigger of the nuclear weapons we seized from Ohana Base in Hawaii.
Dear God, have we just handed everything we have over to the enemy?
I have to believe that we haven’t.
“Okay,” I say, gathering the remaining forces in close. “I’ve got a plan. It’s crazy, and it’s impossible…but I think we’re just the group to pull it off.”
Anita Vega’s teeth flash against the moonlight. She remarks, “I already like it.
Chapter Nineteen
When I was a kid, I watched a documentary on television about wolves. A group of cameramen trekked into the dangerous wilds of Alaska. They studied a pack of wolves and their lifestyle, and the most fascinating part of the entire documentary – to me, at least – was the hunt.
The wolves moved fluidly in the darkness, fast and light on their feet. They flew through the forest like projectile missiles, tracking their prey. Sometimes a lone wolf would lure an unsuspecting deer into an ambush, and sometimes the entire pack would form a moving ring around the hunted animal, and they would converge at once. And then, of course, the wolves would devour their prey in painful slashes of warm flesh, blood staining their gray coats.
It is the wolf that I think of now as I lay out my plan to the Freedom Fighters, Strikers, Cougars, and Coyotes. The city of Monterey is our prey, and each militia is a pack in itself. We will circle and lure them into our trap, striking when the time is right, and hitting them where they are weakest.
Our biggest enemy here is not 13’s forces: it’s time.
We have so little time until the Athena Strike arrives, and we will have to eliminate Sector 13’s forces by then…or at least push them out.
If we fail to do either, we will be unable to defend this stretch of coastline from the Omega Blood Shark transports bringing 12,000 men onto our shores. I can only pray that Admiral Boyd’s naval blockade will destroy those transports…
“Anita,” I say, “you stay to the east with the Strikers. The Freedom Fighters will be with me on the south side of the city, and the Cougars will cover the north. We’ll box them in, and instead of 13 using the city as their stronghold, we’ll turn it into a kill zone. We’ll destroy the city to kill them – we don’t have any other choice.”
“I’m in,” Anita agrees.
; “Me, too,” Uriah says.
“Any questions?” I say.
“One question,” Manny volunteers, raising his hand, throwing a roguish grin my way. “If I get wounded out there, can I get a Purple Heart for my valiant effort? I gotta say, I’d love to have one of those things pinned on my chest. It’d make a fine conversation piece.”
Arlene snorts, patting his cheek as if to say, Are you serious?
“Sure, whatever,” I say. “Any valid questions?”
Silence.
“Good,” I approve. “Let’s roll. We have to lock this down as fast as we can.”
I check my weapons and the earpiece that connects me to a closed channel with the rest of the militia commanders and lieutenants.
I find myself surprised that they are willing to take orders from me. Always, it was the militias taking orders from Chris, and me helping to carry them out. Now I am at the helm, and I am at peace with it. Maybe it’s because I know exactly what needs to be done, and my determination to do everything I can to stop Omega is like a fire inside me.
Sector 13’s betrayal boils my blood, and aside from destroying them and General Beckham, I am desperate to get a message out to President Banner and warn him to ditch the Sector 13 guards stationed to protect him at Camp Freedom.
If they haven’t killed him already…
I shudder, and I push the thought aside.
We will survive this. WE WILL! And so will Banner and his family.
I mentally shout this mantra in my head as we leapfrog through the streets of Pacific Grove with the rest of the Freedom Fighters, joined at the edge of town by the entire force of the Mad Monks. Sister Leslie has drawn black streaks across her cheeks, as have the rest of the Monks.
The Cougars and Strikers are both excellent militias whose commanders were just killed in the firefight in downtown Monterey, so I have placed Vera in charge of the Strikers, and Manny in charge of the Cougars. I have confidence that with good leadership and a solid plan, we won’t have any trouble smoking Sector 13’s men out of there.
But most importantly, I want to see Beckham burn for what he’s done.
I knew he was a rat – I knew it.