Generation Z (Book 6): The Queen Unchained

by Meredith, Peter

  “But she defended the approaches twice.” Rebecca could only shrug at this. Jenn went to the widow and stared out at the Golden Gate. “We have to at least make an effort. Even if we can’t hold the bridge for long, we can bleed them. We can make them pay. If we hold it for an hour or two, it’ll be a win, and even a small victory sets a tone for us as well as for them. Especially them. They’ve never won here. Jillybean understood the necessity of seizing both the physical as well as the moral high ground, and if we can hurt them, maybe we can convince them that they can’t win.”

  “Uh, I don’t think so, at least not like this. Jillybean had a lot more real fighters and all we have…” She didn’t to say what she really thought about their so called army. “Either way, the Black Captain won’t make the same mistakes twice.”

  Jenn knew she was right. “He might not make the same mistake, so we just have to get him to make a new one. Maybe if we appear weak then he just might come at…”

  “We are weak. That’s the problem. We only have so many guns and so many bullets, and so few fighters. We have to be careful how they’re used. We can’t take chances with people’s lives.”

  Taking chances with the lives of others was precisely what Jillybean would do in this case. It’s what she had always done. Jenn didn’t know if she could be quite as merciless. It was a weakness, one she had to conquer, one that Jillybean, for all of her coldness, had eventually given in to. It had been a mistake. Jillybean had traded away a sure win and thousands of lives in exchange for three people, and Jenn had been one of them.

  Jillybean had flinched. She had let her heart get in the way. It had been a mistake, one that Jenn had to learn from. “If we have any chance of winning, we’re going to have to gamble. We’re going to have to risk the lives of everyone on this island. That includes our own. We just have to figure out what will get the Captain slip up.”

  Rebecca didn’t appear confident as she promised to go back to the headlands to: “Find a way to win.”

  “What would Jillybean do?” Jenn whispered, as she stared from her office window, looking down on her tiny kingdom. Mike was still working hard to free the boat from the tangled netting. Deaf Mick sat on the dock watching him, eating an apple tart. He was ugly and fearsome with his scars and his facial tattoos and yet he was nibbling on the tart delicately, like a happy child might. He was odd. Everything about him was odd, like there was a flip side to every word and deed, a flip side he kept hidden.

  He claimed that since he was “helping” the Black Captain’s enemies, he was living with a death warrant signed against him. He spouted this any time anyone pointed out how lazy he was.

  “We all have death warrants against us,” Jenn muttered. There was something about Deaf Mick that set off alarm bells within her. It was more than just his repugnant looks and his repellent odor, it was something undefinable. “Why doesn’t he run away if he’s so afraid of this death warrant business?” Her guess was that he was a spy and she made sure not to discuss any stratagems around him, not that she had any real ones.

  Her entire defense centered on the hope that the Corsairs would come in blind and stupid, that they would try to force their way beneath the bridge and get pummeled by the rocks thrown from above. “But the Captain would never do that.”

  She let out yet another sigh, and another followed that as her burned breakfast came in a second later. “It gotted burned again, sorry,” Shaina said, her face a mask of misery. “They said the Bishop was here and I wanted to see and when I got back the pan was on fire. I’m so stupid, I know. Miss Shay said I was and I said I knew that…”

  “Hey, don’t worry about it. Maybe tomorrow I’ll help you, if I have the time. Oh, you forgot the tea. That should be easy. You can’t burn water, right?”

  “You can’t?”

  Jenn laughed and patted her arm. “Of course, you can’t…” Suddenly Jenn went quiet as a memory flashed across her mind. It was in those awful moments after the Sea King had exploded, lighting up the last of the day in a blinding flash. Jenn remembered standing there thinking that only Jillybean could die in such a display and that only she could set the bay on fire. Jenn had never seen flaming waves before.

  She was still trapped in the memory when the harbor bell sounded. It meant the Guardians were docking. A glance out the window confirmed this. Mike hurriedly cut away the last of the old net. For some reason, the sight of him throwing it set off a feeling within her—it was a sign. “But what does it mean?”

  “Maybe it’s a breakfast bell,” Shaina said, thinking that Jenn was talking about the bell. “You know, like a dinner bell, except it’s for breakfast.” She pointed to the tray.

  “That’s probably it,” Jenn said, before she shooed Shaina away. As she scarfed down her breakfast, which was simultaneously both cold and burnt, a feat only Shaina could accomplish, she mulled over the net. Nets were to catch things, to trap them. “But what are we supposed to catch? And how?”

  Her mind was still in a whirl as she called for Shaina to take the tray and returned to her seat behind the desk, only a moment before Donna Polston knocked and announced: “His Excellency, Bishop Wojdan and Commander Walker.”

  Although Donna’s expression was purposefully neutral, her downcast eyes let Jenn know that she had failed again to move the Bishop from his stance concerning going to war. The Guardians were planning to sit this one out.

  Jenn had expected as much and was able to hide her disappointment behind a look that mingled disinterest and bland curiosity. The look was easy to fake, what took an effort for her was to remain seated when common courtesy suggested she stand. She had decided that the Guardians had turned down her request to join her because they did not take her seriously. When they looked at her, they saw only a young girl. They did not see a queen, let alone an equal.

  The two men stepped in; neither making any move that could be construed as subservient. The Bishop, his cherub cheeks ablaze from the cold wind, smiled down at her like a father might smile at his daughter when she’s learned to tie her shoes. Commander Walker, who was both tall and thick with muscle, seemed to take up a good portion of the room. He scowled as he looked around and saw that Jenn was in the only chair.

  There was a long silence between the three that spiraled out until Jenn asked, “Yes?”

  “Yes?” Walker cried. “Yes? That’s how you greet guests?”

  “Of course not, but it is how I treat squatters on my land.” Jenn had envisioned this moment and it was playing out exactly as she guessed it would. Walker choked in anger, while Wojdan stuck his hands behind his back, thrust out his belly and rocked on his heels.

  Eventually, Walker made fists out of his large hands, as if strangling his anger. “Squatters. That’s rich. By what right do you lay claim to anything?”

  “Why, that’s simple. The law of the jungle. Might makes right. Jillybean taught me that.”

  “Ha-ha!” His laughter boomed in the room, shaking the glass. Jenn sat through it without budging; she could feel Wojdan’s eyes crawling all over her. They were judging her. Still grinning, Walker went on, “If your army is anything like your navy, then your entire ‘might’ is the equivalent to my smallest company.”

  Jenn leaned back just as Jillybean would have and gazed on Walker through half-lidded eyes. It was Jenn’s favorite Jillybean move. It made the subject uncomfortable, while at the same time it allowed her a few seconds to collect her thoughts. Finally, she said, “You’re wrong. My army is far stronger than yours, seeing as I’m actually willing to use it.”

  “Even against us?” Bishop Wojdan asked. His voice was just as soft and commanding as ever.

  “Yes, especially against you. If I have to, that is. You’ve proven you’ll bow and scrape to a bandit. Why not for a queen? I’ll have Donna contact you for our list of demands.” Walker started to bluster and she cut him off. “If you don’t like the word demand, we can call it rent.”

  Wojdan rocked some more, blinking like an owl.
“We came here to talk about a trade agreement that could benefit both of our people, and instead you treat us like this? My, you have grown full of yourself.”

  “And you have shrunk,” Jenn shot back. “That robe of yours can’t hide your fear.”

  For a brief second, the Bishop’s eyes flared in anger. Then he hid his feelings, rocking again. “It’s a cassock actually. And you are correct. I am afraid. I’m afraid for my people and for yours.”

  Jenn decided not to give him her scathing half-lidded look. Instead she turned her gaze to the window just as a gull ripped by. It was gone in a blink. “You say you’re afraid, but all you’re going to do is hide behind my skirt? That’s why you’re moving your people here. You won’t fight, so you come here, knowing that I will.”

  “We never said we wouldn’t fight,” Walker said. “We only said we were going to bide our time until we are ready. Chances are we won’t hear anything from them until spring. By then, who knows? Maybe we’ll be in a better situation then.”

  “No. The Corsairs will be here soon.” She hadn’t seen a sign that told her this, and she didn’t need to. She could feel the Corsairs drawing closer. They were a ways off yet, but with every passing hour they drew nearer and nearer. “They will be here very soon and I am doing everything in my power to prepare for them.”

  Wojdan, who was not a military expert by any means, glanced at Walker, who shook his large head and said, “Whatever you’re doing isn’t going to work. It won’t be enough. You don’t have the ships or the manpower.” He turned and pointed his chin at the Golden Gate Bridge. With the ropes and cables crisscrossing it, the bridge was no longer a monument that inspired awe. It looked strangely messy and old.

  “Take the bridge for instance. You’ve wasted your time with all those ropes and chains. What good is all that when there’s no way you can hold the approaches? The land is too rocky to dig in and there’s not a lick of cover anywhere on it. It would take hundreds of men to hold either end.”

  “The former queen was able to.”

  “No disrespect, young lady, but that was her.”

  When she turned her slow gaze on the commander, she added a half-smirk. “No disrespect? You haven’t shown an ounce of respect from the moment you walked in that door. And now you have the…” She knew saying “balls” wouldn’t be proper; however she lacked the vocabulary to come up with “temerity” or any other word that would fit. She sputtered, “And now you call me ‘young lady?’ I guess you don’t seem to realize that this ‘young lady’ is actually a queen and that she can close the entrance to the bay like this.” She snapped her fingers.

  Walker glared. He was not used to anyone snapping their fingers in his face. In fact, he couldn’t remember anyone ever even considering doing it. He began to bristle, seeming to grow even larger.

  Just as he was about to explode, Wojdan put a hand on his arm. “Respect cuts two ways,” he said to Jenn. “Until you learn that, I believe our discussion is at an end. Good day.”

  “Hold on,” Jenn said. She waited until both men turned back, and then waited for another ten-count, what seemed like a very long time, before saying, “You have treated me with the respect a young lady in over her head deserves. That’s my fault, not yours. I haven’t given you any reason to respect me otherwise. Allow me to change that. Donna!”

  Donna Polston had been listening at the door, and now she burst in, a ridiculous synthetic smile on her face. She had no idea what Jenn was going to say and it frightened her badly. “Your Highness?”

  “Could you please radio the bridge? I want all traffic below it stopped. Lower the cables and if anyone, Corsairs or otherwise, tries to get through, they are to be sunk without hesitation.” Donna’s mouth fell open. “Go on,” Jenn said.

  Commander Walker’s large florid face went an angry red. “You can’t be serious. If you touch one of my ships, it’ll be war. Is that what you want? Do you want war with both the Guardians and the Corsairs?”

  Jenn gazed at him, and in perfect imitation of Jillybean, she said, “You can’t be serious, your Highness.” Walker looked like he wanted to jump over the table and strangle her. She wasn’t afraid. She paused long enough for him to make the correction, and when he didn’t, she stood, realizing that her imitation of Jillybean was not as perfect as she would have wished; sweat had plastered her shirt to her back. She went to the door. “What I want from you is the proper respect shown to my rank. When you return you will kneel before me and you will kiss my hand. Now, I’ll expect you off the island in ten minutes.”

  They left, Walker biting his tongue to keep from cursing and Wojdan trying to hide his anger by looking sad.

  When they passed Shaina and the cold tray of tea she carried, Jenn called out to them. “Oh, and gentlemen? I wouldn’t test me if I were you. You’ve heard the old adage: hell hath no fury like a woman scorned? It’s nothing compared to a queen scorned. Jillybean taught me that as well, and I think you both remember what she was like when you made her angry. I’m worse.”

  Chapter 16

  Puget Sound, Washington

  “Did Jillybean ever tell you about her first operation?” Neil Martin asked in that I-just-got-done-swallowing-a-spleen voice of his.

  Lying half-naked in front of Emily was Knights Sergeant Troy Holt. There was a quarter-sized hole in his chest, just off center, an inch above his heart. She figured that if she stuck her finger in the hole, the tip would be inside his heart and she’d be able to feel the hot blood rushing past. She had been swallowing loudly for some time and hadn’t noticed, though everyone else had.

  She looked up. “Huh?” She had no idea what he was talking about. Her mind was spinning. Her actual, real father wasn’t dead as she’d been told. He was all of seventeen feet away. It was something that she was having trouble grasping. He wasn’t a hideous beast named Gunner; he was Captain James Grey. He had been the last of the heroes. That’s what Neil and Jillybean had called him.

  And what had Emily called him? Her chin dropped to her chest in shame. She had called him horrible names and had reviled him and abused him. She had been almost sickened by his appearance and when he had touched her, her skin had crawled. What kind of daughter did that? Especially after the sacrifices he had made for her?

  Desperate to take her mind off him, she said, “Jillybean’s first operation? I don’t think I heard that story. All I know is that she was a kid. What happened?”

  “It was a gut shot,” Neil answered, raising a scarred and slightly singed eyebrow. “Some lady she was with caught a bullet right below the stomach. It was just the two of them and Jillybean knew the lady was going to die if she didn’t do something. Understandably, she was a little freaked out, so you know what she did?” He paused, building the tension like he was telling this story sitting around a campfire and not in the belly of a Corsair ship in front of two people who were slowly bleeding to death.

  Curled in a ball on the floor, pale and trembling Zophie Williams asked, “What? What did she do?” Zophie, who was sure that she was beyond hope, was eager to hear how this woman was saved.

  “I’ll tell you what she did, Zophie. She practiced! She got a few zombies, tied them up, shot them in the abdomen and then operated on them like they were real people. She did it all; she gave them anesthesia, she opened them up and commenced to root around in their bellies for the bullet. They lived, too. You know how old she was then?” There was a pause as he waited for Zophie to shake her head and when she did, he cried, “Seven! Can you believe that? An adult wouldn’t have thought of that, but Jillybean has always been different.”

  Neil grinned at his little audience. When he didn’t go on, making it seem as if revealing Jillybean’s age was the point of the story, Zophie frowned, a look with so little distinction from the grimace she’d been wearing that no one noticed. “That’s it? You haven’t finished the story. What about the woman? What happened to her?” Zophie, who was also gut shot, had a vested interest in the outcome of the tale
.

  “Who? The woman? Well, she kind of died. She bled right out. It was a big soupy mess; that’s how Jillybean described her stomach. Like a big bowl of snake soup. It seems that there’s a big difference between a zombie’s fortitude and a real person’s.”

  “She died?” Zophie screeched. “Why on earth did you tell us that story if she died? Why couldn’t you have told a good one with a happy ending? God! She died!”

  To Neil her tears were as confusing as her piercing voice. “I was just trying to cheer Emily up. You know, so that if she kills Troy she wouldn’t feel so bad. I mean if Jillybean killed her first patient, you know, I’m just saying our expectations shouldn’t be real high. Also I was trying-ay to distract her-ay since her father-ay, is dying-ay next door-ay.”

  Zophie felt like she was going insane talking to the half-zombie. “What the hell is that? Door-ay? Dying-ay? That’s not pig-Latin for God’s sake!”

  “Oh, really?” Neil answered crossly. “If it’s not pig-Latin, then what is it?”

  “It’s you being an idiot! I can’t believe I’m stuck with a retarded zombie and a kid. Christ, we’re all going to die.”

  Emily was thinking the very same thing. They were all going to die and it would be her fault. Her face was suddenly very hot. She pushed back from the couch, nearly upending the tray of sterilized tools that had taken her hours to prepare. “Tools” was a generous word for the mismatched, cobbled together bits and pieces of hardware that looked like the leftovers from a garage sale. There were three knives, one of which was serrated and meant to cut up steak, a couple of clothes pins to act as retractors, a single sewing needle to suture with, a safety pin as back up to the needle, a spool of red thread, a screwdriver, a pry bar in place of rib spreaders, and a C-clamp just in case the aorta had a bleeder.