Generation Z (Book 6): The Queen Unchained

by Meredith, Peter

  Almost all of them did. Emily darted to one that didn’t and was shocked to realize it was her fourth-grade teacher, Debbie Meredith. Her eyes were inches wide and although she hadn’t budged, she was panting like a dog that had just chased a rabbit down a hole.

  “Get up, Miss Meredith. Come on! We need you.” She hauled Debbie to her feet and then pulled her along, racing for the front where the gunfire was suddenly exploding louder than the rocket. Somewhere along the way, she lost her grip on Debbie’s sweaty hand. She did not look back for the teacher. The gunfire was now urgent and growing in volume.

  There was no need to be quiet and she raced through the woods, passing the soldiers slowly trudging forward, bowed at the waist as if they were moving against a heavy wind. Then she came to the lead companies who were pressing forward, firing as they went. One man fell directly in front of Emily. She tripped over him and went down hard in the dirt as bullets ripped the air where she’d been.

  “Oh God! My leg!” the man cried as he rolled in pain.

  He was oblivious to the fact that he was drawing more fire. Emily crawled to him and slapped a hand over his mouth. “Hush up, darn it!” she hissed into his ear. The moment he quieted, he heard the bullets smacking into the tree a few feet away. “Kick with your good leg,” Emily told him and began pulling him back behind the tree.

  Once they were behind cover, she looked him over. “Is it just the one bullet hole?”

  “Just one?” he griped. “You make it sound like it’s nothing.”

  “It is,” she answered, pulling out one of the lengths of cloth that had been cut to act as a bandage. Compared to her father’s wounds, this was a scratch. She quickly bound the leg, dropped a knee down on the wound and cinched a knot tight over it. “You’re good to go.”

  “Good? I can’t feel my leg from the knee…”

  She didn’t have time to hear him complain. The attack had surged forward and she was not going to be left behind. She gave the man a quick goodbye and darted forward again, coming on more wounded, some of whom she helped in the same brusque manner. Others were too far gone or barely scratched.

  The closer to the fight she got, the more fearful the Islanders became. Emily saw three different groups clumped oddly together, scampering from tree to tree as if they were one being with six legs. Some crawled like inchworms even though no one was shooting anywhere near them. Some were frozen in place.

  Emily came upon one lady clinging to a tree with both hands, her rifle forgotten in the high grass. It was Debbie Meredith again. Somehow, she had found the strength to get this far, but didn’t have the guts to go any further. The people around her had the same look, making Emily wonder if fear was contagious. If so, the attack was going to get bogged down; her father would be killed for nothing and her people defeated.

  She wasn’t going to let that happen. “Miss Meredith? Hi. We can’t stay here. Pick up your gun. It’s only a little further.”

  “No please. I can’t.”

  “Yes. We’re all going…” Emily was interrupted as a shadow loomed suddenly over her. It was Wayne French. He grabbed her by the wrist and started pulling her back. “No! Stop it!” She dug in her heels, but he was stronger and she left skid marks through the grass. When she realized she was losing, she changed tactics and launched herself at him, tackling him around the knees.

  He tried to gently pry her off of him without success, forcing him to use more force. This in turn forced her to escalate and she pulled out the same pistol she had threatened Deberha Perkins with not even two hours before.

  When she stuck it in his face, he rolled his eyes. “Will you stop that? You’re being a child.” He wasn’t afraid of her at all and with good reason. She couldn’t shoot him. She couldn’t shoot the man who had given her birthday presents every year for as long as she could remember, and who had always brought her favorite candied yams to the annual Christmas feast. This was the man who threw a Way Back Party each summer and stuffed her silly with venison ribs, and then never said a word when she barfed all over his rug.

  “We can’t go back,” she told him. “If we go back so will they.” Around them were frightened Islanders, looking for an excuse to stop. “If we don’t go on, there’ll be nothing to go back to.”

  He sucked in a long breath, held it and then let it out in defeat, his shoulders slumping. “You’re right.” Getting to his feet, he went to Debbie. “Come on, Miss Meredith. We can’t stay here. We have to go on, no matter what. Pick up your gun. There you go. Everyone, let’s go.” He sounded like a fourth grade teacher on a field trip.

  Around them were thirty or so people. They stood when Wayne stood and moved forward only when he did. For the length of half a football field they remained in a strange bubble of safety where no one shot at them and the enemy seemed to have disappeared. The bubble popped with a single rifle shot.

  No one knew who had shot or at what, and it didn’t seem to matter a second later when all hell suddenly broke loose. Emily dove to the ground as the space she’d been standing in was filled with flying lead that sizzled the damp night air as it passed. It was a sinister sound that somehow could be heard despite the ear-splitting explosion of guns. Mixed in it all was a strange knocking noise that was like the sound a woodsman made when chopping a tree, only this time it was a thousand woodsmen swinging their axes as fast as they could into a thousand trees.

  Emily found herself behind a tree that vibrated and shook and dropped the very last of its leaves down on her. A normal girl might have stayed behind that tree; she was not a normal girl. She was just beginning to grasp the fundamental essence of leadership: someone had to go first.

  “Everyone up!” Her voice was not that of a fearless hero ready to charge into battle. It was high and shrill—the perfect octave to be heard over the thunder, the knocking, and the evil hissing. It cut through the storm, and when she cried, “Follow me!” her people followed, some even letting out their own versions of war cries.

  Emily’s charge was not an epic one that carried her through the Corsairs and left her face to face with the Black Captain.

  No, her charge went in fits and starts. She sent a platoon of Corsairs running; then made it thirty yards only to encounter another group which had been trying to flank Paul Daniels company. The big man had taken a bullet in the side and promptly sat down, thinking he had done his part. Emily came rushing up, spraying bullets like a hose and sending the flanking platoon flying before her.

  “Get up Mr. Daniels!” she screamed as she dropped one magazine and fed a second into the weapon. “No one as big as you is allowed to be a coward.”

  “I’m not a coward! I was shot and it hurts.” In reply, she ran up to him and kicked him in the side. “Hey!” he cried. “Stop that.”

  She kicked at him again, missing this time as he swatted her leg away. She yelled, “It’s only a scratch, Mr. Daniels. Get up or I’ll kick you again. And I won’t stop. Do you hear me?”

  “I’m going to tell your mom when we get back,” he snapped, peevishly. “See if I don’t.”

  “Go ahead, see if I care. Just get up and follow me. Come on everyone!” Everyone now consisted of eighteen men and women who went forward in a huddled mass. They would’ve been an easy target if they had come on an enemy. Luckily for them they found another group of Islanders who joined in. They followed Emily as she went on and found a row of dead Corsairs, their innards splashed about. After that they found more bodies, some of whom were Corsairs, some Islanders, and some were unidentifiable.

  Then it seemed as if they marched smack dab into the middle of a huge fire fight being waged by shadow-people. Who was the enemy and who wasn’t? No one could tell. Bullets were coming at them from every direction.

  Emily felt that they were in something of a temporary “zone” and if they could push straight on through things would get better. It was a naive thought brought on by a lack of understanding of the tactical situation. The Black Captain had anticipated the attack and h
ad set up a secondary line of defense that was stronger than the first.

  Although it seemed impossible that the soft, indulgent weaklings of Bainbridge could break either line, he had been stung too often not to take precautions. A third line had been prepared and two quick reaction teams formed for support or to attack the flanks of any force that could manage to get to the third line. Gunner’s company had swatted aside the first line and then had smashed through the second. Emily had managed to drag the better part of three companies square into the fight against the third line just as the Corsair quick reaction teams had arrived on either flank.

  It was mayhem. There were bodies strewn about everywhere. She kept tripping over them and sliding in oozing pools of blood.

  “Keep going!” she screamed, shooting at anyone dressed in black. She had no idea if she hit anything and she didn’t stop to find out. Her father was somewhere up ahead and he needed her.

  Somehow she and about thirty others made it straight through the middle of the battle to where Corsairs and Islanders were slogging it out, trading shots at insanely close distances. In at least one instance, enemies were using the same tree to hide behind and shooting with their arms crooked around the trunk.

  She was amazed that these were the same people who had been as docile as whipped dogs not long before. What was more amazing was how close they were to winning. The rocket launcher was right there, not more than a hundred yards away. Not much further beyond it sat half the Corsair fleet tied up alongside a series of rickety old docks. Victory was so close she could taste it.

  There was only one thing keeping them from smashing through once and for all. “Where’s my dad?” she yelled to the closest Islander.

  It was Matthew McElderry. He was missing an ear and his entire side was splashed with blood. His eyes were spinning and his jaw hung open so wide that his back teeth were showing. He didn’t look like he knew where he was. He turned his remaining ear toward Emily and said, “I can’t hear you. I can’t hear…lots.”

  “Where’s my dad?” she screamed into his face.

  “He’s dead,” he answered.

  Stunned, she sat back. Her mind was reeling. She knew it was going to happen. Even if he didn’t get shot, she knew that his wounds…

  “He’s been dead for ten years,” Matthew was saying. “I was there when your mom brought you to the island. She was like glass because she had just lost…”

  Emily realized his mistake. “No, where’s Gunner?”

  He pointed off at a diagonal. Emily was already scrambling off the ground. People were firing at her. She knew it on an unconscious level and reacted on that same level. Without thinking, she dropped into a crouch and crabbed as fast as she could from tree to tree. Once she and a Corsair surprised each other, coming face to face through a stand of high weeds. He reacted faster than she did and had his gun up in a blink. A quarter-second later he was shot in the back of the head by another Corsair who had jerked a shot off at Emily and missed low. She dodged to the side, rolled, and went on.

  Then she was in a strange bubble of calm where the air was still and the trees didn’t knock and the explosions were distant. In it the air was lit by the golden light of dawn infusing the sky. It seemed peaceful, except for the bodies that is. They were strewn across the forest floor like garbage. They warned her that not everything was right.

  She dropped just as something snapped past her left ear.

  “Sniper!” she cried, rolling to the right and crawling through the grass. There were people with her still; people who had been borne along in her wake, carried by her spirit.

  One of these was Talica Sears, a woman who at one time had both babysat Emily and guarded her mother while she was in prison. She had been running in a daze, firing at everything. Faith had carried her this far and no further. A heavy slug smashed into her chest and stopped her heart. She fell back and died with the sunrise in her dark eyes.

  Eleven others fled into the brush as Emily had. One caught sight of the shooter was. “That willow to the left,” he yelled right before his head rocked back, a hole between his eyes. He was dead where he stood, his arm outstretched and his finger pointed. He stood that way long enough for seven guns to track to the exact position of his murderer and avenge him.

  When he crumpled and the sniper fell, Emily was up again, pulled along by a desperate need to find her father. It wasn’t hard. She followed the bodies.

  He had been the tip of the spear that had shorn through the three defensive lines and now Emily was only a long stone’s throw away from the launcher. The price for this chance had been high. She had passed at least a hundred Islanders who would never see the new sun as it cracked the sky over the eastern mountains. Even more were bleeding, pierced by evil hunks of burning lead.

  Their pain faded into the background of her consciousness. In front of her was a man who had been broken before she ever met him. Broken and long maimed. Now, he was truly dying. She saw this in a glance. He was a bloody, gory mess and quite beyond her meager medical talents. There would be no chance to save him. She knew that in her heart, but she would still try.

  “Dad!” she cried, rushing to him, her wet eyes going from one gaping wound in his flesh to the next. “It’s gonna be okay. Do you hear me? Hey! Look at me. We’re going to bind you up good and tight. And, and, and we’ll get some more blood…”

  His huge hand clamped down on her wrist with more strength than she could have guessed possible. “Em-il-lee,” he said in a wet gurgling gasp. The word came out slow and ugly, sounding as if it had come from beyond the grave. She leaned in close so he wouldn’t have to fight so hard to be heard. He had enough breath in his lungs to whisper, “Keep going.”

  She shook her head. “I can’t. I won’t. Someone else can do it.”

  “You’re as stub…” He was wracked by a wet cough and something obscene dribbled down his chin. “You’re as stubborn as your mom.”

  “Yeah well, I need you to be even more stubborn, okay? Hold on. I can help you.” In the gathering light, she decided that a hole high up on his stunted left arm was his most urgent wound. It was pulsing a red fountain. She shook off his hand, and with nimble fingers she snatched another of her homemade bandages from her pocket and crushed it down on the wound before wrapping it even tighter than she dared. She would worry about the circulation to the arm at another time.

  As she worked, he whispered a fractured sentence, “The rocket. Kill it. Now. Please. Hurry.”

  He was asking too much. She was only eleven. She was a bone-tired, frightened little girl who had only come as far as she had because of a new love that had sprung up aggressively inside her. When she looked at Gunner, she no longer saw a gruesome creature, she saw Captain James Grey. She saw a hero; a man who had been cruelly maimed but who had never for a second stopped defending those he loved.

  For a decade the world had turned its back to him and she wasn’t going to do the same in what could be his last few minutes. Someone else would have to lead.

  She took a quick look around and saw only a handful of fighters had made it through. Surprisingly Wayne French and Debbie Meredith were among them. They were crouched down behind a tree a few feet away, gulping down air.

  “Mr. French!” Emily yelled, making him jump. “Go, quick! Go to the launcher and the rockets and…and set it on fire or something.” She didn’t know much about rockets, she just knew that fire killed just about everything.

  “I don’t think I can.” He was looking down at himself and seeing the blood for the first time. “My leg.” He tried to move it, but it wouldn’t answer. This was very strange since he’d been shot low down in the belly. He was also worried about how he was going to pee. His bladder had been near to bursting when the battle had started and now the pressure was gone. Had it popped?

  The thought was too much and he vomited all over himself. “Sorry,” he whispered.

  “That’s okay, Mr. French. What about you, Miss Meredith? Can you lead? The rock
ets are just right there.”

  She straightened her neck just high enough to see the rockets and the Corsair ships before shrinking back down. “I can’t. Wayne needs me.” She knew nothing about first aid. It was a sad excuse that Emily didn’t know how to reply to. There was no logic to it.

  “What about you?” she asked another man who was nearby. In the early morning light, his face was only a featureless glow. He shook his head, while the man next to him dropped down so low that he disappeared. “Any of you?” she demanded. “It’s right there.” As she pointed, the launcher began to throw off silver shards of light as the sun hit it.

  Yes, the launcher was very close. But so were the Corsairs. They were already reforming. The Black Captain was screaming them back into position and soon they would be ready to attack. And then there was the rest of the Corsair fleet. Their sails were filling and water was foaming white along their keels as they charged towards the defenseless launcher. Whoever went out there wouldn’t be coming back.

  “It has to be you,” her father whispered.

  The child in Emily pictured walking out of the forest, gun in hand, while the adults cringed behind her. The child in her was frightened. The daughter in her was not. But she was conflicted. She had just found her father and if she left him then, he would certainly die. She would come back to a corpse. After all the years of dreaming about him, he had become something of a God-hero in her mind. In reality, he was even greater than she had imagined and she didn’t think she could leave him.

  “No. My place is with you, Dad. Um, can I call you that now?”

  He had been summoning the energy to order her to advance, but now deflated. “Yes. I guess so.” Sometime during the battle, his mask had been torn away and when he smiled it was hideous and ghastly and wonderful. “I love you, Emily. I’m so sorry that I’m…”