Generation Z (Book 6): The Queen Unchained

by Meredith, Peter

  Scattered around the dark interior were the vague outlines of boxes and barrels and piles of these ingredients. There were parts of rockets in one corner and in another were pews lined with electronic components. In the exact middle of the church was an enormous, round scorch mark that was so nasty smelling that Troy stepped around it. He squinted, searching the dark for the Tupperware containers which Jillybean assured him would hold the black powder. They would be the easiest to ignite, she had told him. He wasn’t too worried. Judging by the stench, the entire building was a bomb waiting to happen.

  He had his own bomb. She had given him a four-pound pipe bomb with a thirty second delay. All he had to do was twist a knob and hit a switch, and time would do the rest. Holding it made his hand sweat, and twisting the knob was like turning on something inside his own body—it made his heart begin to race and thump heavily inside him.

  He could feel his heart thudding through his chest and banging against his armored vest, and it only got worse when he saw in front of him the stacks of perfectly rectangular plastic boxes. He was two steps away when he heard something behind him.

  “Whatju got there, boy?” There was suddenly a man standing near the altar twenty feet to his right. Just like that, an icy hand gripped his heart and now it felt like it stopped completely.

  Hit the button and run! a voice inside him screamed. But would he make it out of the building? A glance to the front door told him that he wouldn’t. Another man much like the first had slipped between him and the exit. They held black rifles which were pointed directly at him.

  “I have a bomb,” he told them, his thumb sliding up to the switch; it felt oily, or was that sweat?

  “Is that right?” If the man was nervous it didn’t come through in his voice. “This is the place for ‘em. It’s a reg-aler Bombs-R-Us ‘round here. Put whatever that thing is down and git yer hands up.”

  “I said, it’s a bomb.” Troy’s thumb caressed the switch. He had to remind himself that the bomb was more important than his life. It would destroy the Corsair’s ability to make rockets and, more importantly, it would summon the Captain. “I think I need to explode it.”

  The man by the altar sniffed. “Then you’d blowed yerself up, too. That seems all sorts of dumb to me.”

  “You think it’s a real bomb, Warren?” the other Corsair asked.

  “Nope. None-a-the bombs are ‘splode-able. The Captain gots all the detonators. So, he just holding some parts. Parts don’t ‘splode.” The man was so sure that he was walking forward, gun pointed as he talked. His friend, who was closer, started to edge in as well.

  Troy began backing away, so he could see them both. One part of his mind told him to: Hit the switch. Stop hesitating. This is your destiny. Make it count. The other part of him was afraid.

  “I ain’t tellin’ ya again, boy,” Warren said, his voice filling with menace. “Put down the gizmo or I will shootcha.”

  Hit the switch. Stop hesitating. This is your destiny. Make it count. It had been a mistake to move away from the black powder. He could only hope that whatever was in the cardboard containers next to him would burn or explode. “Of course. Just going to place it here.” He flicked the switch as he pulled his hand back.

  “Good. Now turn yer dumb-ass around. Whatchu got? An M4? That som-bitch looks like new. Tha’s gonn-be mine. Ya hear that, Rawly? I’m takin that gun fer my own and I don’ wanna hear no bitchin’…”

  “There’s a light on his bomb, Warren,” Rawly said, speaking quickly, but at the same time annunciating every word perfectly, as if a mispronunciation might set it off.

  Warren looked from Troy to the bomb and back again. “Wha’s that mean? Wha’s the light do?”

  “It means it’s about to blow up. It’s on a timer. If you know any prayers I would say them now. I personally think the Our Father is best suited for the moment. Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name…”

  Rawly prayed after the manner of Corsairs: “Christ! I’m…I’m getting out of here!” He turned, stumbled over a pile of copper wire, jumped up and ran. Warren took only a second longer to conclude that the bomb was real, then he too ran.

  Troy could have run as well. He could have dashed out into the street and watched the church erupt in a great fireball. But he would be caught. Maybe he could kill one of the Corsairs, but probably not both or the others that would come flooding in. If he was caught they would bring him to the Black Captain, not the other way around. And that wasn’t the plan.

  With the timer ticking down a foot from him, he ripped his M4 from his shoulder, swept it up and began firing at the two fleeing men. They blended so well with the darkness that he could not see what he was shooting at—not until Rawly hauled open the front door. Then Troy had him perfectly in his sights. Five shots dropped the two Corsairs as they crossed the threshold of the church. They fell beneath the crucified corpse of Stu Currans and he dripped his last few drops on them.

  Even as they went down, Troy flung aside his rifle and dove for the bomb, his hand smashing down the switch. The light went off.

  The Guardian stood panting, looking down at the bomb for half a minute. When it didn’t vaporize him, he calmly picked it up and brought it to stacked cases of black powder. Will the timer start over when I hit the switch? he wondered. If it didn’t he figured he had about five seconds to get out of the building. He flicked the switch and ran from the church in a full sprint. Four seconds was all he had left. It got him out of the building and halfway across the street.

  Troy was only just realizing that he had left his rifle behind, when there was a flash of light and a sound like God’s voice. It was impossible to describe the sound since Troy’s eardrums were ruptured as he was thrown off his feet.

  A fraction of a second later, the air above him was filled with fire, spears of wood, and bricks spinning by at two-hundred miles an hour. A burning hand lifted him and tossed him into a ditch that had a deliciously cold puddle of brackish water at the bottom. All around him was blazing red light and heat that was so intense that he thrust his head down into the puddle to keep his hair from bursting into flame.

  He had no idea how long he was under water. His brain was throbbing, feeling as though it kept expanding and contracting. When it expanded he thought it would break out of his skull, and when it contracted he thought he was falling away into nothing. Neil Martin pulled him out of the water just as he was on the brink of accidentally drowning himself.

  “Come on, Troy! Get up!” Neil’s words were muffled and sounded far away.

  “What?” he mumbled. The night seemed to have turned to a gold-orange day, which made no sense.

  “We have to move,” Neil told him. And Troy was moving though he didn’t know how. He couldn’t feel his legs, or the rest of his body for that matter. The only part of him that had any sensation was his head. It felt huge.

  Neil hauled him through the front door of the post office where they both fell over in a heap. “Up. We have to get you up.” He had Troy almost to his knees when he noticed that the entire first floor was filled with a heavy black smoke. It was a dense, blistering hot cloud that pressed down from above.

  “Smoke?” Equating smoke with fire was a slow process for Neil. So slow that it wasn’t until part of the building fell in and flames roared across what remained of the ceiling that he realized the building was on fire. “Huh. That wasn’t supposed to happen. Hey, Troy? Wake up. Did you blow up the wrong building?” He had already forgotten that only a minute before he had stopped to stare as the church disappeared behind a wall of flame a hundred feet high.

  When the paint on the wall began to bubble, Neil decided that the fire was hotter than most and that it probably wasn’t good for Troy, who was sleeping again. The little zombie sighed out a plume of smoke and dragged his friend out into the bright night. With the fire and the explosion still echoing in his ears, Neil had forgotten their mission and without thinking, he hauled Troy right out into the middle of the stree
t.

  He never looked more like a demon than he did just then. His face had blistered and his hair had begun to smolder, and now smoke curled off of him in eerie wisps. The man at his feet looked like he had been mauled by a pack of hyenas.

  The Corsairs who came up to see what had happened gave Neil a wide berth and at first didn’t question the strange creature—in Hoquiam, frequently it was best not to ask too many questions. Eventually, Neil realized that he was surrounded by Corsairs.

  “Aw, crap. Troy, we have to get out of here.” It was too late for that. The crowd was now a hundred people strong and more than one was beginning to figure out that there was something terribly wrong with Neil.

  “What is it thing?” one man asked. No one knew but they all made guesses.

  One dark man had the right answer, “That is a genuine scientific oddity of my own creation.” The Black Captain had arrived, just as Jillybean said he would. He wore his long black coat closed so that his guns were out of sight. They were not out of hand, however. The pockets of the coat had been cut, so even then he had a grip on a pearl handle.

  “This is Neil Martin. He’s something of a zombie so try not to let him touch you while you kick the crap out of him.” The Captain was both furious and frightened. Too much had gone wrong. No, everything had gone wrong and he needed to take the focus off of himself. “Thrash him, but don’t kill him. I have something special planned for him.”

  It was only at that moment that Neil remembered he had a rifle strapped to his back. Before he could wiggle the strap off, someone kicked him in the side. When he turned, someone else planted a heavy boot in the small of his back, throwing him forward where he tripped over Troy, who was still borderline comatose. Another Corsair tried to stomp his face with a big size thirteen boot, but Neil caught the foot and bit down on the man’s calf.

  The man screamed and dragged himself out of Neil’s grasp. Instead of pitying the bleeding man, he was laughed at.

  While the Corsairs were distracted, Neil tried to lunge for the Captain, however his gun had slipped and became entangled in his legs. While on his knees, he was kicked in the back of the head, and in the temple, and in the shoulder, and jaw. He was kicked two dozen times until his black blood ran like water and he could barely stand. The orbit of one eye was cracked and the other was so swollen he couldn’t see out of it.

  “I give,” he said in a wheezing, begging tone. “I give up. Jillybean told me not to waste my life.”

  “You don’t have a life unless I say you do,” the Captain laughed.

  “What? Am I just a plaything to you?” Neil demanded. “Am I just a distraction?”

  Too late, the Captain saw that Neil was grinning. He had been a distraction. For the Corsairs he had been the perfect distraction. Everyone had forgotten Knights Sergeant Troy Holt. He had been summoning his strength and trying to clear his head. Now he pulled a seven-inch hunting knife and pushed himself to one knee. The Captain was right in front of him, desperately trying to pull one of his revolvers from his coat pocket—they both knew he wouldn’t get it free in time.

  Troy had never been quicker. He leapt and lunged so fast he was a blur, the knife only a silver streak.

  He was fast, but the bullet that hit him in the back was faster.

  A hundred yards away, Gunner gasped, his stomach rolling over. One second he had the Captain finally in his sights and the next, something dark shot in front of him just as he pulled the trigger. “No,” he whispered as he tried to sight in on what he had hit. “God, please no.” Then he saw what he already knew what he would see. Troy Holt face down in the street.

  A curse screeched out of him as he fumbled his rifle between his knees so he could slam home another round. Before he could, he felt a touch of cold metal on the back of his neck.

  “Hello Gunner, remember me?” It was Mark Leney. “Where’s that crappy old Glock? I bet you want to pull it, don’t you? You want to find out who’s faster now?”

  Gunner slumped. He had failed yet again.

  Chapter 45

  Grays Harbor, Washington

  The fire from the burning church could be seen from the hills east of the city where Jillybean stood waiting for the gunshot. When it came she held her breath, knowing that a dozen more would follow it. Maybe they wouldn’t come right away, but they would come. She had known from the very start that the three would have to fight their way out of the city.

  Perhaps they’re sneaking out, Ipes suggested.

  Or they’re in hiding, waiting for things to cool down, Sadie said.

  Maybe they’re being tortured to death right this second, Eve said, breezily. That was only a bullet cooking off. Just admit it, Jillybean. As always, you’ve put your faith in the weakest people possible. A cripple, a thing worse than a zombie, and Mister Goody-two-shoes, Troy “no balls” Holt. I shoulda been running the meat suit from day one. Leney would never have had the balls to stab me in the back.

  Jillybean felt Eve’s tug. Her vision shifted and her mind felt as though it was slipping from her brain.

  “Not yet, Eve. When I’m done you can have it. I don’t care anymore, just let me finish this.”

  Finish what? That was it. That was your last shot. Your people won’t go through with an actual attack. Hell, even Ipes knows that and he’s an idiot.

  Hey!

  Butt out, fuzzball. This is between me and the know it all. And speaking of which, you’ve been wrong about everything. Your only option is to gas the whole town. You know a threat won’t work. The Captain knows he’s a dead man if he caves to you. He either dies with your noose around his neck or a bullet through the back of his head from one of his own people. Just gas them and be done.

  Jillybean sighed, “But the slaves…”

  The slaves aren’t even human at this point! Eve cried. You saw those things that the Captain let you have. He gave you a hundred and fifty ‘things.’ They were shattered, frail, vacant-eyed nothings. She spat on the ground. They made Shaina look normal. Lie to yourself all you want, Jillybean, just don’t think you can lie to me. Gassing them has to be an option.

  It was an option. The very fact that Eve was there at all proved it. Jillybean had always known that it might come down to laying waste to the entire town and walking away. In no way would it be considered a victory, but it wouldn’t be a loss either.

  It would be a victory in my book, Eve remarked. All those moronic bandits would think good and hard about trying to cross us ever again.

  Reserve Commander Jennifer Edgerton had been watching Jillybean twitch and mumble to herself this entire time. “Uh, ma’am? Your Highness? Wasn’t the plan to pull back?”

  Eve shot her a nasty glare. “Do you mind? If I wanted to hear from a pasty-faced sow, I would have come straight to you, but I didn’t, did I?”

  Jillybean turned away, hissing, “Eve, stop it! I told you I’d give you a chance when I was done.” Eve smoldered angrily into the background of her conscious. “Sorry about that, Commander. I was just…” No lie could cover the outburst and Jillybean chose to pretend it hadn’t happened. “Yes, please pull the men back. We’ll know soon enough if Gunner succeeded. Pull back but make sure you keep the fires going.”

  She wanted whoever was in charge in Hoquiam to think that they were surrounded.

  Alone, Jillybean made her way to the pickup point she had arranged and found the Mary Magdalene at anchor in the mouth of the Chehalis River, out of sight of the grubby little town. A boat rowed her to the ship and once on board she went below and slept in a stranger’s cabin, on a stranger’s pillow. It smelled distantly of lye and a man’s sweat.

  As she lay there, waiting for sleep, she pictured Stu Currans. Jillybean pictured him as he looked on board the Floating Fortress when they had first dragged it from the mud. He was tall and tan and heartbreakingly handsome. Despite his age, he had been a man through and through.

  “He could’ve been a king,” she whispered. At that, her vision shifted and now she saw hi
m standing across from the Black Captain in the low-ceiling jail, surrounded by dozens of people. He had a gun at his hip—and he had been too slow. Just a fraction of a second too slow. She fell asleep still picturing him.

  With a very light wind in their face, and a narrow channel that made tacking a headache, the ship made poor time and Jillybean had hours of deep, dreamless sleep. It was not until daybreak that they caught a good breeze and were able to angle in toward the Queen’s fleet.

  Although it was early, there wasn’t a soul still in bed and very few who had actually gone to sleep to begin with. Jillybean was one of the few people within ten miles who was completely refreshed. She came up on deck and saw that the Queen’s ships as well as the shoreline were lined with people. Hundreds of people and not a hero left among them.

  Emily’s a hero, Sadie corrected. And Jenn and Deanna have proven themselves a hundred times over.

  “Emily is a hero in the making,” Jillybean corrected, “And their people need Jenn and Deanna too much for them to be risked. It has to be me.” She knew already that Gunner had failed. The lack of gunfire was all the proof Jillybean needed for her to know that the Captain hadn’t been killed. There would have been a scramble for leadership. Ancient grievances would have been righted. Somebody would have been murdered. After all, these were Corsairs.

  Jenn knew better than to ask how things had gone when Jillybean came aboard The Courageous. Jillybean nodded once to her and the Bishop, accepted a hug from a damp-eyed Emily, and was given a sad grimace from Deanna who loved Neil like a brother. In silence, Jillybean went down to check on her patients, starting with Mike. He was a little stronger.

  “I heard the bomb,” he said, gravel voiced. “It was a big one.”

  “The size of a church,” Jillybean agreed, listening to his heart through her stethoscope. It was thready but no so weak as it had been.