They never saw us, and we didn’t stop to chat. When we turned west for the final leg of our flight, we saw a series of small lakes that looked like a chain of gems, the mirror waters crowed with herd animals and greenery at the edges.
“Good looking land. How far to The Outpost from here?” I asked.
“It’s sixty klicks north and west. I thought you said The Empty was peak desert?”
“It was. I think that storm knocked something loose with the local climate. This isn’t nearly as grim as when I woke up. I’m seeing a lot of growth, and the animal herds are way too big to be desert dwellers. We were hunting rattlers and blood chickens for every meal. This is a totally different kind of landscape,” I said.
“I’ll patch us into the Condor and see how far north the changes are,” Andi said.
She did so, and I had a moment of vertigo as my helmet view switched to the Condor’s camera far above us.
In the distance, I saw a column of smoke.
“Andi, look.”
“Got it, pulling the lens in. It’s—shit,” she said, her voice sour.
“I may be wrong, but that looks like a war party, and they’re coming from The Outpost.” Three wagons and a small hut were burning, sending black smoke skyward. I could see dots of people moving around, then the Condor lens focused again.
“Fuck me,” I hissed.
Twenty men and women were in the process of staking a man to a pole. There were bodies on the ground, and as I watched, I saw a figure break free and run. A woman with black hair smoothly drew a rifle and shot the fleeing victim in the back. The body tumbled once and fell still.
“Raiders,” Andi spat. “We could use a drone. One pass and they’re dead.”
“And heading south. Toward our place,” I said, following their path. “No drone. I want one of them alive. I have . . . questions.”
“How long have we got?” she asked.
“A day. Maybe two. Time to head back, I think. I need to greet our friends and take care of something I should have done a long time ago.”
“Kill everyone in The Outpost?” Andi asked as we banked hard and began streaking south.
“Not everyone. Just the ones who don’t want to join us, and I have an easy way to find out who they are.”
We landed before sunset, breaking the Vampires down by command process and tucking them back underground. I decided to leave the second reactor for another trip since time was of the essence, and it was just getting dark when we got in the truck and rolled out, our thoughts turning back to war as we rode in silence.
“I should have done this some time ago. This is my fault,” I said.
“What is?”
“The people who died. It’s on me. We’ll find out if there are any survivors after I’m done with those pricks. I have to decide if I leave one alive or not. I need to get the message out, but if they’re murderers, I can’t let them live,” I said. I could hear the anger in my own voice, and I tried to dial back any unreasonable rage. Killing the raiders wasn’t personal. It was business, and I had to remember that when the bullets were flying and people were screaming their last sounds.
“I don’t want your default to be killing. That’s not the man I want, and it’s not what we need as a society. We need you, Jack, not a tyrant, and your natural desire to avoid being that is why this thing is working. It’s why you have us.” She rubbed at her scalp, then shrugged. “Your women, I guess. There’s a phrase I never thought I’d be a part of, but you’re not some knuckle dragging asshole. You use violence as a tool.”
“Does this mean we’re going steady?” I asked her, trying to lose my dark mood.
“I’d say so, given what we do to each other at every chance. Now clear your head and think about who and what we want to do this job.”
“You, Mira, Silk, eight other guns, and Breslin. I want to see what he’s made of,” I said.
“Good call. Just because he’s big doesn’t mean he likes the rough stuff, though I have my suspicions he’ll be a damn fine soldier when it comes to the fight.”
“I’m with you. Tired?” I asked her.
“A little. That wind wears me out, but my ‘bots are pulling me through. I’ll be okay,” she said.
“When we get back, you go home and explain. I’m going to get Breslin and the others. I want to meet these assholes well outside our outer perimeter. The farther they stay away, the better.
“I know you’ll do what’s right, Jack,” Andi said. She leaned over and kissed me, then settled back in her seat, putting a boot out the window. The night air was cool in the cabin, and the windshield was filled with stars. We were driving without lights, since I could see well enough and we didn’t want to risk a scout seeing us approach. The Outpost wasn’t known for producing brilliant minds, but I couldn’t risk leading a war party right to our door in the dark.
When the first blaze of lights flared into existence, we turned on the headlight to let everyone know we were coming. After answering the guard challenge, we rolled in, parked, and set about assembling our defense.
This time, I swore, I would make my point, and then I would lay plans to break The Outpost apart and either bring them into our fold or eliminate them forever.
The choice would be theirs.
13
The Oasis was active, but not chaotic. That was due to my belief that losing your mind over something makes other people act in the same way, and that kind of frantic energy would achieve nothing.
I called everyone in for a central meeting—which made me realize we needed a communications network—and told them we had unwelcome guests on the way.
“I’m going to take a few of you with rifles, and the remainder will be organized by teams. This force is too small to take us,” I said, not shouting, but in a firm voice over the low hum of concern from everyone around the firepit.
“I can be ready with bandages and clean water,” Beba said.
“I was just about to ask you. They have guns, but they also have knives. Not that it’s going to matter,” I said.
“Why?” someone called out. It was a young man, somewhere at the edge of the group.
Silk stepped closer to me, and nodded to Mira, then Andi, and then touched my arm. “Because these three will kill all of them except who we decide to spare. Wetterick’s people won’t get one step closer to us than Jack wants, and even then, they’re walking into a trap.”
“Have we set traps?” Natif asked. He looked around with suspicion, since he was always in on any plans that involved fighting dirty. As a kid who grew up hard, it was his birthright to use whatever means necessary to win.
“No, and we’re not going to. We could take them out with drones, but we’re not going to do that either. I want something from them, and I can’t get it from corpses,” I said.
“Information?” Natif asked.
“No, I have all the information I need. Wetterick’s people are opportunistic shits, and they have no place here. But we need hands to help as we grow, and we’re going to need families and children and a second generation, and we can’t secure that if I kill every one of them.” I grinned at Natif, adding, “No matter how tempting that might be.”
Silk raised her hands for silence at the buzz that rose in the crowd. “Andi and Jack found more sites to settle, and we need to start thinking about the future in terms of population, not just food. We have food. We have power, and more coming online each day. Soon enough, we’re going to build our next city, and the next, and then we’re going to be a state or a country. We need people to trust us, and to want to be here. They have skills, and we have everything else. It’s time to do something other than just killing.”
A murmur of agreement spread through the crowd. Silk was a born speaker, and I’d been right to choose her as my de facto second in command. Where Mira was cunning in the wild, Silk was cagey among civilization, or whatever passed for it now. Andi was good at everything, but as an engineer from my time, she had the same s
ense of dislocation that I had at times. We needed Andi to fix things, and build—not hold the hands of nervous settlers who just crossed ten days of desert wasteland.
Breslin raised an enormous hand. “Who goes with you to fight?”
“You do, among others,” I told him. “We’ll assign shooters. Mira will handle the sniping and take out anyone who looks competent. I suspect that Wetterick’s people are bullies, not soldiers, but Mira will tag anyone who seems smarter than the rest.”
“What’s her range?” Breslin asked.
“That’s classified,” I said, earning a grin from Breslin.
Mira said nothing, a tight smile on her lips as she stared at Breslin without revealing anything.
He laughed, and bowed slightly to Mira. “I’m more of a smash-them-in-the-face guy, myself.”
“And you’ll have a chance to do just that. We’re going to remove every target except the ones I need, and then we’re going to bring them here for questioning,” I said.
“Then what?” Breslin asked.
“Entirely up to them. I won’t allow them to go free, just to warn The Outpost, but I’m not going to murder them in cold blood, either. Not unless they deserve it,” I said.
“I can live with that,” Breslin said.
“Good. We leave two hours before dawn. We meet them at the wrecked wagons from the Harling’s first trip. It gives us a shooting platform and clear vantage point, and we’ll reduce them before they can even get organized,” I said. “Let’s get some sleep. If Mira picked you as a shooter, come with me. We need to explain some details about our deployment.”
The meeting broke up in a flurry of low voices, but there was little to no outright worry except for a few mothers with small children. I understood their concern, and nodded to Silk, who moved into the crowd to reassure them that their children were going to be safe.
In five minutes, I had my snipers selected; two minutes after that I showed them where we would be positioned. The plan was brutal but simple, with few moving parts and maximum impact at long range. I also planned a surprise for the Outpost crew, because people who are willing to cross open desert to kill are rarely content to attack without some wrinkle in their plan. They might be simple brutes, but that didn’t mean at least one of them wasn’t cunning.
I spent a sleepless night on watch, strolling around the outside perimeter until Lasser met me under the crescent moon.
“Evening,” he said, his voice coming out of the dark.
“Lasser. You should be resting.” He was a tall, thin man with a nose like a hawk, but in the shadows, his face was all angles and planes except for his bright smile.
“No need. I find that as I age, I need less sleep. There’s so much to do, and not enough sunlight to do it.” I saw him give a rueful shake of his head. We had the strings of lights turned off to save the bulbs, because our reactor was barely working at all to provide us with juice.
“I don’t need much either, but mine is mechanical, I think.”
“What’s it like?” he asked. “The—the ‘bots?”
I considered the real question behind his inquiry, and gave him an honest answer, because he deserved it. “The short answer is—you’ll find out soon enough. The long answer is I feel like I have the confidence of youth with the conscience of forty years. It’s the best of both worlds, if you can manage it.”
We were quiet as he digested my offer. “I would like to live much longer, if only to see Natif grow. I never had children of my own, not really. It was impossible to be a true parent under Wetterick.”
“I plan on ‘bots for whoever wants them. Within reason. I try to be fair, but long life and augmented abilities isn’t for everyone. For one thing, I have no idea what it does to our ability to have children,” I admitted.
“Andi would know,” he said, astute as ever.
“She thinks she knows, but the nanobots we will be able to manufacture are several generations past most of her data. If we can find a library of some kind, we might be able to tap into advanced research, and move forward without the fear of rendering our best people sterile. In this land, that’s a death sentence.”
“Everything in this land is a death sentence,” he said, and I found myself nodding along.
“How many are out there?” he asked after a moment.
“Could be as many as thirty, maybe more. Our rifles will take two dozen before they can break, and then we’ll move in. I can move fast enough that they have no choice but to stand and fight. That’s what I want,” I said.
“Why?” Lasser’s question was simple; honest.
“Because it isn’t enough to win. We have to issue a decree. A law, sent from us to them. It’s more than a fight. It’s an invitation, and if I do it right, we gain up to a thousand people. If I do it wrong, I empower Wetterick to march on us in force, and then, I do have to kill everyone. That’s the last thing I want, so it comes down to that youthful confidence and adult temper.” I chuckled at the stupidity of reasoning about murder, but that was my world now. The Empty didn’t care, and neither did many of the people in it.
“We’ll have the center ready for your return,” Lasser said, then looked to the stars. “About time to rally your troops. Two hours until dawn, if I mark it right.”
He was right. I clasped his hand and slipped back into the homes, waking people with a quiet word. Many eyes were shining, having spent a sleepless night themselves. In ten minutes we were standing in a quiet column near the trucks. Andi drove one, and I drove the other, going slow and steady over the sketchy wagon path to intercept the raiders. When we had traveled for an hour, the sky was beginning to turn iron gray in the east, so we parked, stretched, and fanned out in our pre-planned array.
Mira checked her rifle, smiled, and slipped away like a wraith in the night. Andi sprawled in a shooter’s position, and the other people were dark lumps along the ground, only their eyes and the gleam of rifle barrels giving their positions away.
I saw them before I heard them. They were stalking low, spread out and silent, heading southeast in a disciplined path. I counted thirty-eight raiders in all before taking cover behind a slumped cacti that had been struck by lightning in recent days. The charred barrel was wide enough to hide me, but low enough that I could see over it with ease.
When the raiders were a hundred meters out, I chirped the signal, and eight rifles barked in near unison, the reports rolling across the open desert like a curse from heaven. Seconds later, every rifle spoke again, and I began to see individual raiders dropping, arms flailing as the first scream reached our ears. I made the first casualties at six, then seven more, and then I fired, taking the head off a woman who was running toward us with an automatic weapon of her own. She spun back, lifeless, and then I fired again at a tall guy with spiked hair and a long gun.
My round took him in the thigh, sending him to the ground with a bellow of rage and pain. I saw several more raiders fall, and then their core of five leaders began to break left, trying to flank us in a move that made good sense.
Except for one tiny detail.
Mira’s first round took one of the leaders in the chest, dropping him instantly. Before her report could fade, she fired again, taking a second raider in the neck that sprayed blood in a fountain, visible even to me as I raved to meet and refuse their flank.
Then my ‘bot vision cleared and I saw what I wanted. Three men, well equipped, muscled, and clean, all moving with purpose despite losing two of their squad. These were the leaders—the elite—of Wetterick’s forces.
At least the ones I hadn’t killed.
They all raised weapons in smooth motions, but Mira fired again, killing the third man just as he got off a shot that split the skin of my ribs with a searing pain.
“Drop it, shitheads,” I said, pulling a pistol as I drew up close enough to see the shock on their faces. Mira stood ten meters away, her rifle level and pointed at the head of the tallest man, who carried an undeniable command authority. Ne
xt to him was a short, stocky guy I recognized by sight if not name.
“Go fuck yours—”
Mira fired, and the short guy’s head bloomed into a spray that dispersed like fog in the rising sun. The leader stood alone as two final shots rang out to our right. His people were gone. It was only him, and he tossed his rifle down with an expression of pure hatred.
“Name?” I asked, walking to him with my pistol drawing a bead on his nose.
“Glinn,” he ground out.
“Jack Bowman. Start walking,” I said, gesturing with my gun. “Do I have to say it?”
“Say what?” he asked, standing still.
“Fucking amateurs. I’ll tell you the rules once. Walk, don’t run. Don’t speak. If you do anything I don’t like, I’m not going to kill you,” I said.
He raised a brow. He had a dark beard and eyes, with thick black hair. He could have been a general in another life, but now, he was a criminal.
“I won’t kill you. I’ll wound you—break both legs, slowly, most likely—and leave you here for the rattlers,” I said.
“Or hogs. Or whatever those dinobird things are we’re seeing,” Mira said.
“Right. Anyway, you’ll be coming out of the ass of a creature inside a day, so walk, behave, and we’ll have a chat at The Oasis. Now move.”
He began to walk, holding himself well despite the hatred all my people directed his way. As an aside, I issued an order that made sense in The Empty. “Strip the bodies of gear. Leave them. Anything you find is yours. Kill any survivors.”
“With pleasure, boss,” came a voice, and my people moved off to the site of the slaughter. I heard a thin scream and the ripe splat of a machete, then nothing.
“Guess that’s done,” I told our guest.
When we reached the trucks, his brows went up again in disgust, and I knew he had no idea we were mobile. “We’ve got reactors, too. Hell, we saw you from the air when we did a recon pass.”
“What the—” he started, then closed his mouth.
Future Reborn Box Set Page 49