Generation Z (Book 6): The Queen Unchained

by Meredith, Peter

  “I told him that we need that ship,” Deberha stated.

  “And I told her that you need allies,” the young Knights Sergeant replied. “I was wrong about the Queen. I see that now. I withheld my support and the Queen suffered because of that. It’s my intention to take the Harbinger back to San Francisco and do my best to convince the Bishop to ally the Guardians with the new Queen in the south.”

  Deberha held up her hand. “And we can’t move any soldiers to the mainland using just that other boat. It’s got a hundred holes in it.”

  Before Deanna could answer, Wayne French burst in, his mouth opened wide. He stopped abruptly so that Andrea Clary, who was there with a different emergency, knocked into him. There were another three people behind her with a list of conscientious objectors, who had decided that as much as they didn’t want to be slaves, they were against killing. The list had over five hundred names.

  People began talking to her at once; the level of noise in the room rose quickly. “Can we talk in private?” Wayne asked, pushing to the forefront of the throng. “It’s the plan. I’m not sold on it. We have no idea what’s out there. We could be running into a thousand Corsairs for all we know, and with a spy among us, anything we do will be broadcast to the world. We’ll be slaughtered like pigs. And I can’t…no, I won’t be responsible for that. I-I’m handing in my resignation as Chief Security officer. I’ll stay on as an At-large representative.”

  So much for talking in private, Deanna fumed. There were already ten people in the room and a few of them were outrageous gossips. In no time, the entire island will have heard that the man who was supposed to be leading their army was calling into question their only hope for survival. This sort of weakness was the last thing she needed, especially with people deciding to become conscientious objectors all of a sudden. She wanted to scream at the man for his poor timing, only that would be spread around the island as well.

  Despite her blood boiling, she had to be calm about the entire situation. “I accept your resignation, Wayne. As for staying on in an At-large position, the answer is no. Those positions are filled.” He clearly wasn’t expecting that answer. He swelled with rising anger, looking ready to explode. She deflated him, saying, “Go dust off your rifle and prepare to move out with the rest of the men.”

  “But…that’s…I’m too old,” he pleaded.

  “Then join the ranks of conscientious objectors,” she told him, before turning to the indignant three-person committee. “May I?” She held out her hand for the list and then casually scanned through the handwritten names. “This is too bad. There are some good people on this list. I’ll miss them.”

  The three lost their look of indignation right quick. Their leader, a woman with sparse black hair on her chin and splayed, waddling feet asked, “What do you mean, you’ll miss them?”

  “There’s no place on this island for cowards. If you won’t fight, then you can’t stay. Gather your ‘people’, they’ll be the first off the island and clearly, since this is an emergency, we can’t allow them to take food with them or any essentials. And, since they aren’t interested in defending themselves, there’s no sense in bringing any guns either. So, I guess, it’ll be clothes only. Good luck out there, Jean.”

  “But,” Jean started to say; however, with Deanna looking at her with such perfect intensity, she lost the thread of her argument after that first word, and she, as well as the two others, wandered out of the room.

  When they were gone, Deanna pocketed the list and disconnected the IV from her leg. The room had gone quiet and she could feel their eyes on her as she let her blood drain into Gunner. “I’m going to need more blood for you. We got to keep you alive if you’re going to be…”

  He shook his head, his dark eyes hard on hers. There was something so familiar in the look that it silenced her. “In private please,” he said, so quietly that the words barely made it through his mask. As if she were queen, she ordered everyone from the room and then put her back to the door. For some unknown reason, her heart was racing and she felt a queer thrill.

  “The answer is yes,” he told her.

  “You don’t even know what I was going to ask.”

  He grinned behind his mask. “You were going to ask me to be your new Chief of Security, meaning you want me to lead your armies. I accept, of course. I’m going to need two things. That guy Wayne was right. If there’s a spy, you need to find him, quickly. Do whatever you have to because we don’t stand a chance with him out there.”

  “The spy is a she,” Deanna remarked.

  As her blood drained into him, he began to feel a little better, and in his usual manner, he grunted. “A woman is behind this? Somehow that makes it worse in my mind. No offense.”

  “None taken. Women can be as bad as men. I just don’t know how to catch her. She’s too smart.”

  “She’s not. If she were smart, she’d never have gotten involved with the Corsairs. You’ll see, she’s left clues, maybe even in plain sight.” She nodded, distracted as she thought about every interaction she’d had with the spy. “One more thing,” he said, quietly. “Because I’m like this, I’m going to need someone I can trust to help me out.”

  “You can trust Neil Martin. I know he trusts you.”

  Gunner hesitated. “Neil is, well he’s a good guy and he means well, he’s just not with it like he used to be. Remember that time…” He caught himself. “Uh, that wasn’t him. Either way, I need someone smarter.”

  “I don’t know. There are plenty of smart people on the island, it’s just I don’t know who would be a good fit. What? Why are you looking at me like that?”

  “I think you know why,” he said. She’s started shaking her head. “Yes. I need her. I need Emily. She’s the only one that I trust with my life.”

  Chapter 21

  Bainbridge Island, Washington

  Sitting in her office, doing her best not to watch Neil Martin terrorize a tray of lasagna, Deanna Grey realized that there were only two ways to catch the spy on Bainbridge. The first was to play private detective, root around at crime scenes and poke through the evidence that had been collected. Deanna didn’t have much hope in that. The second was to put out a trap for the spy, something she feared might be too effective.

  Gunner, wrapped in a blanket and sitting in a contorted position in a wheelchair, volunteered to be bait.

  “It makes the most sense,” he whispered in his raw, gravelly voice. In spite of receiving three liters of blood, he sounded worse than before. On the other hand, he looked a little less pale and his dark eyes were sharper; Deanna could feel them on her whenever he thought she wasn’t paying attention. When she was watching, he studied her with an intensity that should have been off-putting and yet, wasn’t for a reason she couldn’t name.

  He groaned and shifted, trying to get his hump in a comfortable position. “You could hint that I have a plan to destroy the Corsairs.”

  “You mean you don’t?” Deanna asked in an accusing tone. When she got right down to it, she really didn’t fully trust anyone in the room and that included herself. Gunner was new and scary. Neil was more zombie than man. Emily was a kid, and Deanna had created a facade about her that didn’t reflect her true fears which were almost incapacitating.

  Gunner frowned behind his mask and was summoning the energy to reply when Emily jumped in, defending him, her voice high and loud, and somewhat brittle. “Of course, he has a plan. You should’ve seen him before. Even with a spy with us, he had those Santas fighting like, well like anything you could think of. I bet he could whip the Corsairs with another ten bullets in him and one hand tied behind his back.”

  “She’s exaggerating,” Gunner growled, shooting her a look. There wasn’t an ounce of real anger behind the look; a long nap and a bath had set her up again, and with her long blonde hair tumbling down her shoulders she was the spitting image of her mother. He had to keep from grinning like a weirdo every time he looked at her. “I have many plans depending
on the situation, the lay of the land, the numbers of my opponents and their fighting qualities. What I’m talking about is hinting that I have a big Jillybean kind of plan, one that entails complete annihilation. When she hears this, the spy will either get too nosy or she’ll come right out and try to kill me.”

  “And if she succeeds?” Deanna demanded. “Where will we be then? We don’t have an actual military leader. We don’t stand a chance without you. No, I’ll be bait. We’ll tell everyone that you told me the plan and that you’re too weak to carry it out.”

  Both Gunner and Emily shook their heads in the exact same manner—almost like twins. “What do you think will happen if you die?” Gunner challenged. “Your people are practically begging to surrender. I haven’t been around many of them, but they all give off the same vibe. You’re needed more than I am.”

  “I could be bait,” Emily said.

  Now it was Deanna’s turn to pair up with Gunner. “No!” they said with equal force. Emily shrank back, startled. It was only for a second, then she smiled and laughed. Her parents shared a confused look, making her laugh even harder.

  It was a manic sound and so surprisingly loud that Neil glanced up from his lasagna. “What did I miss? Someone tell a joke?”

  “No, I’m just happy to be home with all of you.” She grinned and everyone was so caught up in their own worries—and in Neil’s case, his unending appetite—that they didn’t see the tears Emily wiped away. She was so happy she could sing, and she was so disappointed, she could scream. It had been six hours since she had been scratched and she knew that her head would start pounding anytime, and not long after, the fever that would eventually drive her mad would kick in.

  Her father coughed and tried to hide his pain, which had to be immense. “I think it should be me. It’ll be killing two birds with one stone. By telling the men that we have a plan of annihilation, it’ll buoy their spirits. It’ll get them in the right mind frame. Fighting and dying for a cause is noble. Fighting and winning for any reason is like a drug. I might even be able to use the spy to plant disinformation among the Corsairs. It only makes sense that it’s me.”

  “But Emily will be with you,” Deanna said, shaking her head. “I won’t allow you to put her in any more danger.”

  “She’s in danger just sitting here,” Gunner replied, softly. “We all are. Unfortunately, we need to consider the risk of not using her.”

  Emily raised her hand. “I’m not afraid. I fought the Corsairs all the way from Hoquiam and I can fight them all the way back.”

  Deanna’s stomach turned sour at the thought of her daughter being anywhere near a gun. At the same time, she couldn’t be more proud. “Maybe we can follow two avenues,” she suggested, hitting on an idea. “Maybe the spy isn’t smart. Maybe she left clues like you said, and maybe if I get close, she’ll start making mistakes. I will search for clues and while I’m doing that, we’ll let Emily spread rumors about you, that way you can still be bait and she’ll be safe. Do you have a gun?”

  He slid an old battered Glock from beneath his blanket. “What about you? I need to know that you’ll be as safe as can be. Neil, do you mind watching over Deanna?”

  “As soon as I’m done eating, I’ll be ready to kick some butt.”

  “So, you’re thinking June?” Emily said, laughing at her joke and rocking back and forth in her chair.

  Neil smiled with pleasant vacantness and said, “Huh? Who’s June? Have we met?” This only set Emily off louder than ever, and her laughter could be heard down the hall by a half dozen people including Deberha Perkins and Veronica Hennesy.

  Gunner coughed up something black and bloody which he hid in a fold of his sheet. “Never mind, Neil. Your job is going to be guarding Deanna. Stay with her everywhere she goes, and until we catch the spy, I don’t want you to trust anyone. One more thing, Dee I’m going to need that boat of Troy’s. Spy or no spy, we have to get every man jack to the mainland by morning.”

  Deanna hesitated. The way he had said, “every man jack” had a strangely curious and familiar ring to it. “We’ll get them there and we can do it with the boats we have on hand. It’s not like our army is all that large, and half of them barely count as soldiers. Women over fifty for goodness sakes. Flabby men more used to wielding fishing poles and hoes than guns. That’s what you have to work with, and an extra boat is not going to make any difference.”

  There were other reasons behind her decision not to take the ship from the Knights Sergeant. She felt it had been wrong to withhold the Calypso from Jenn, Stu and Mike when they had come looking for the “Girl doctor” months before. That one act had spawned the entire war. If Jillybean hadn’t been forced to steal a Corsair ship, Emily would never have been kidnapped and Norris Barnes would still be stretching his plaid shirts to the breaking point. Things would have gone on just as they had been, peaceful and idyllic.

  The other reason she wanted to let Troy have his prize was because he was a Guardian, and she figured he would be closer to God than an ex-whore like her. She had become more religious with every passing day and wasn’t about to do anything to get on God’s bad side on the eve of battle.

  Gunner scowled and seemed on the verge of arguing with her decision. She cut him off before he could start. “Now that we’ve settled that, I think that Emily and Neil should also be armed.”

  “I kinda already am,” Emily said, showing a nickel-plated .40 caliber Sig Sauer that she had found in a backpack on the Dead Fish.

  Neil brandished his fork. “I also have a gun, too,” he said around a mouthful of lasagna. He started patting his pockets. “It’s here somewhere. Oh, wait. I remember. It fell in the toilet when I was…uh, I mean it fell in the sink, but I washed it off so it’s all good. I should go check on it.”

  “We could switch,” Deanna suggested to Gunner when Neil was out of the room. “I’ll take Emily. We can be like be like Sherlock Holmes and the guy that was always with him.”

  “Doctor Watson,” Gunner told her. “I wish I could, but Neil isn’t able to follow exact orders and some things need to be precise. Besides, Emily and I are a good team. You never want to break up a team that works as well as ours.”

  Emily was beaming at him in a way that Deanna just couldn’t understand. He was repulsive, and yet there was something almost adoring in her look. It was a strange look, but not one that set off alarm bells. “You’re right, and you will need her more than me. Just promise that you’ll take care of her.”

  A small laugh on his part turned into a red-faced cough. When he finally brought up more terrible stuff from inside, he apologized and added, “I’d sooner let the island burn than let anything happen to her.”

  It was an odd thing to say and yet, she believed it. She also felt reassured by it, and, what was more unbelievable, she felt a moment of pure happiness. Her daughter was home and safe and, although war had come to Bainbridge, Emily wouldn’t be fighting this time. She would be behind the lines guarded by this ferocious creature. And in him she had an actual general, one with Jillybean’s stamp of approval.

  It was a strange sort of happy feeling that had all the substance of a retreating firefly. It pulsed inside her, growing dimmer as the terrible reality of their situation swelled inside her. The moment of happiness passed altogether with a big sigh. The spy was still out there, more Corsairs were coming and Gunner was living on borrowed time. “I should go,” she said. “There’s so much I have to do.”

  “Me too,” he replied. They both hesitated, their eyes locked. Emily was so afraid that they wouldn’t get another moment like this, that she was a second from blurting out Gunner’s secret. The words: This is my dad! bubbled up in her throat like champagne, and nearly came pouring out of her in an excited rush. With difficulty, she closed her mouth and a second later Deanna nodded once and walked out of her office.

  Gunner immediately sagged, his face pale and the breath in his lungs now rattling with phlegm. Alarmed, Emily knelt down in front of his chair.
“Can I get you anything? Are you in pain? Do you need to lie down?”

  Her honest concern was the only drug he needed. “No. I’m good. Can you help get me behind the desk?” She wheeled him into place, where he began scribbling furiously on a yellow legal pad, saying, “What I need are answers. How many real soldiers do we have? You know, how many have actually trained to fight? How many weapons do we have? What types and how much ammo are there for each? What about food? I need to know how much we have. I need a logistics officer, a personnel officer, a weapons master, and a communications officer.”

  He wrote all this and more, and as he worked Emily watched him from an angle, catching him on his “good” side where he still had hair. It was dark with little flecks of grey at the temples. His arm was strong and his one unaltered shoulder was broad. From where she stood, he looked nearly perfect. He didn’t sound that way, however. The rattle grew worse.

  “You don’t sound good.”

  “I’ll be fine,” he lied.

  She ignored this, her mind gnawing at an idea that had come to her while watching Neil happily eating his lasagna. “If your wounds and all ever got bad, or worse I guess I mean, like if you might die, would you ever consider letting Uncle Neil scratch you? You know, so maybe you could have a chance?”

  For him, the answer was a simple, “No. I love your Uncle Neil, but I don’t want to be like him. It’s not right and it’s certainly not natural. He would be the first to agree if things were turned around. Not to mention, we really don’t know what will happen to him in the long run. He still might turn.”

  “Yeah. Maybe. I guess.”

  Her strange demeanor and furtive glances were so unlike her that he worried there was more behind the question. Setting aside the pen, he focused on her and saw the nervous fear. “What’s really wrong?”

  “It’s nothing. Forget I asked, okay? It was just a stupid idea.”