by Noah Mann
“Are you in command?” Schiavo asked.
I thought her question had a bit of psychology attached to it, some quiet flattery that she might think a lowly lieutenant would be the ranking officer of a sizeable Marine fighting force. In a small way, it appeared to work, the lieutenant shaking his head and slinging his rifle over one shoulder, notching the aggressiveness he’d greeted us with down further still.
“Major James is commander,” Mason told her. “Stan James.”
“Okay Lieutenant Mason,” Schiavo said. “I need you to take us to him.”
Mason thought for a moment, then looked back to his troops and motioned to them. Their weapons lowered.
“We’ve gotta load up here first,” he told her. “Should take thirty minutes.”
“We appreciate your help, lieutenant,” Schiavo said, then waved us forward.
She led Martin, Genesee, and Carter down the steps and off the locomotive. I hung back for a moment.
“Heckerford,” I said.
The man poked his head out the window hole and looked to me.
“The west coast isn’t Unified Government territory,” I said. “Not now, not ever. You ever get out to Oregon, you’ll see that.”
I held my hand out and up to Heckerford. He reached out and shook it.
“Goodspeed to yous all,” the man said.
I moved along the catwalk and down the front steps, a short leap putting me on the gravel bed that supported the tracks.
“Do these guys look friendly to you?” Carter asked me as we walked toward the transport that had accompanied the tanker trucks.
“No,” I answered. “They look tired.”
There was an exhaustion about each and every one of the Marines we could see, from lieutenant to private. But it was not from any lack of sleep. That sort of tiredness showed in the eyes. This lack of energy I saw in their posture. In their speech. It was more what one might see in a person who’d given up. An expression of futility.
As we watched them transfer oil from the train cars to their own tankers, it became more apparent, at least to me, that the Marines were just going through the motions. They were warriors, it seemed, left out of the war.
* * *
We drank water and washed up in a halved steel barrel the Marines set up for us as the transfer from Heckerford’s train progressed, diesel pumps chugging as the thick oil was pulled from the tanker cars. It was more water than we needed, but the clear, cool liquid splashed upon our faces and soaking our shirts felt wonderful. One of Mason’s men explained that they had a trio of wells in Colby that produced more water than they needed, and that if they ever received some of the seeds rumored to exist that were immune to the blight, they could turn the whole area into one massive farming operation.
“They’re real,” Martin told the young corporal. “We’ve seen them grow.”
The corporal nodded, but seemed to draw no joy from what he’d just learned.
“Send some our way if you can,” he said. “Everyone else has forgotten about us.”
He walked away, leaving Martin and I alone, sitting on a low wall near the transport. Schiavo stood not far away with Genesee and Lieutenant Mason, discussing something that likely involved logistics and possible arrangements to get us home. Carter sat on the ground in the shade of the transport, stripping and cleaning his M4.
“That reminds me,” I said, gesturing toward the young private and tapping the AR leaning next to me. “Mine could use some TLC soon.”
“Carter is gung ho enough to do yours if you ask him,” Martin said.
“You’re saying I’m not gung ho?”
“You’re just like me, Fletch—a civilian draftee.”
It was a peculiar status that had been thrust upon us. No need to wear a uniform, and no desire to do so, yet we fought alongside those who had made that commitment. Ours was conscription by happenstance.
“You know why she’s leaning on you, right?” Martin asked.
“What do you mean?”
“You and Angela with the president, with the pilots on Air Force One, with our bearded friend in the train.”
I knew she had her reasons. It would have been just as easy for her to have Genesee be her second in the interactions that Martin had just catalogued. But she’d chosen me. I’d suspected it was she wanted a civilian present. Someone who could report back to the Defense Council regarding and decisions she made, or actions she initiated, while we were away from Bandon.
I was wrong.
“She hasn’t told me anything that happened with the president,” Martin said. “She probably will at some point. Right now, though, she can’t be seen using her husband as some civilian adjutant.”
“Martin, no one would care if she did that,” I said.
“She would,” he told me. “She’s the straightest arrow I’ve ever known. Appearances matter to her. She wants to be beyond reproach.”
I knew some had faulted her for decisions made during the siege by the Unified Government. She’d even wished she’d handled some things differently, I thought. But there was little to no doubt that whatever Angela Schiavo did, she did for the good of the people she served.
“I know you don’t mind, Fletch, but I just wanted you to be clear on why this is your burden as well as hers.”
I nodded, understanding more now than I had a few moments ago. Whatever the reasons, I was there for Schiavo. And for Martin. More than ever, even a thousand miles from those I loved the most, I knew how much I was connected to the fabric of people that made up Bandon. I only wished that all who had survived this long after the blight could have what we all had.
Thirty Two
The trip to Colby from Oakley, both towns just off of I-70, took almost exactly an hour, the three vehicle convoy skirting bad patches of highway and navigating piles of abandoned wrecks which had been bulldozed to the shoulder of the interstate. We pulled into the base on the western edge of town, through a control point manned by a pair of bleary-eyed Marines armed with their personal weapons and a machinegun atop a mound of sandbags, barrel resting on its bipod.
A few minutes after we stopped, with the tankers continuing on, presumably to the processing facility the Marines had in place, Lieutenant Mason led the five of us into town. Only Schiavo and I followed the junior officer into what served as the command center for all military activities in the central United States.
Headquarters for the 2nd MEF was an old furniture store, the inventory long ago carried away, leaving just an open space with folding tables and chairs, maps tacked to one wall, and a weary looking Marine standing alone, watching us as Lieutenant Mason led us in.
“Major James, these are the people we radioed about Heckerford picking up.”
Mason stepped back as soon as he’d offered the brief and vague introduction. His superior gave a quick nod toward the door and the lieutenant was gone.
“Major Stan James, Second Marine Expeditionary Force,” he said, his tone matching the tired posture that made it seem his body was about to slouch to the floor.
“Colonel Angela Schiavo,” she said. “This is Eric Fletcher.”
“Colonel, Mr. Fletcher, welcome to Colby, jewel of the plains.”
There was no discernable sarcasm in the major’s voice. I suspected any inflection there might have been had been swallowed by the overt exhaustion that was the man’s defining characteristic. Still, it wasn’t a physical tiredness, I knew. It came of something deeper. That same thing which had bled down from him to his troops—a complete abandonment of hope.
“We need your help, major,” Schiavo said. “You have transport aircraft, I understand.”
“I do,” the major confirmed.
“Is there enough range in one of them to get us to the coast of Oregon?”
James considered the question he’d been posed, though nothing about his demeanor indicated he was concerned with offering the answer she wanted.
“Colonel, I have two Ospreys. When command pla
nted us here over a year ago, I had eight. Six have either crashed or broken down and been cannibalized to keep what remains flying. Except God only knows what I would fly them for, or where. We haven’t so much as sniffed an enemy since we got here.”
“Mr. Heckerford told us there was some action in Salina,” Schiavo said.
“We heard the same,” James said. “Heard. That’s all. Apparently some locals did a number on a Unified Government unit trying to flank us. When we went looking after the fact, there wasn’t a body or a drag mark left for us to find.”
“You’ve had no contact?” I asked. “None.”
“Mr. Fletcher, we get supply drops every six or eight weeks. I’m told they come all the way from Hawaii. We get ammunition, food, equipment from some list a bureaucrat somewhere came up with. No spares for my Ospreys. No replacement Marines. And sure as hell no information on just what it is I’m supposed to do here now that it’s clear the enemy doesn’t give a damn about this part of the country.”
The man wore his frustration on his sleeve, and didn’t apologize for it. Under circumstances more normal than this, he would have thought twice about complaining in front of a superior, even one from a different branch. But, like his men, Major Stan James was about at the end of his rope.
“I’ve got enough supplies to fight World War Three, Mr. Fletcher, if someone somewhere hasn’t already done so. But there’s no one to fight, and nothing to fight over. I’m not even sure there’s anything left to fight for.”
Schiavo had heard enough.
“There is, major,” she told him. “I assure you of that. There are people, survivors, who would trade what you have for what they have in a heartbeat. You’ve lost men, major? Well so have I. I didn’t ask for the command I’ve been given, but I’m executing my orders to the best of my ability, and right now those orders come from the President of the United States.”
James took that in for a moment, then gave me a quick look.
“I’m supposed to believe this?” James challenged me.
“You don’t have much of a choice,” I said.
“Right now, major, the enemy you’re not facing here is making their way up the California coast toward my area of operations. The president summoned me to a meeting, and now I’m needed back in case our enemy decides to close in on our home.”
“Home...”
James spoke the word as if it were some alien utterance. Incomprehensible. Lacking meaning.
“Where is home for you?” he asked.
“Bandon, Oregon,” Schiavo answered.
The officer drew a breath and ran a hand over his head, thinking.
“We can put auxiliary tanks in the cabin,” he said, thinking aloud. “That would get us there. But unless you have a bunch of JP-Five available in your town, we’d be stuck. And I can’t chance that.”
“So you need a gas station,” Schiavo said.
“I do.”
“It just so happens we have one right off our coast,” she said. “Unless you mind topping off with Navy gas.”
“I can’t send a bird that far west without knowing for sure, ma’am,” James said.
“Fair enough,” Schiavo said. “I presume you have satellite communications capability.”
“We do,” James confirmed.
“Let’s put a call in and reserve you some fuel,” Schiavo said.
Thirty Three
Just before dark we walked across a dirt field toward one of the 2nd MEF’s serviceable Ospreys, its wings tilted to the vertical, huge propellers spinning at the end of each. Schiavo’s call to the Rushmore had allowed our trip to happen, and she’d briefed the two pilots, Captain Jules Hogan and Lieutenant Arthur Grendel, on what to expect once we reached our destination, and on a suggested flight route to avoid known concentrations of Unified Government forces. We had a four-and-a-half-hour flight ahead of us, barring any complications.
The first surprise, though, occurred before we’d even taken off.
“Everyone secured?” Major James asked as he came up the aft cargo ramp, pistol strapped across the chest of his flight suit and helmet under one arm.
“Major...”
Schiavo’s tone expressed her curiosity at his presence, if not outright confusion.
“This flight needs a crew chief,” James explained. “And I’d like to have a few minutes to talk to this admiral who authorized fuel for my bird. Maybe he can give me some answers about this pointless use of resources I’m in charge of.”
James slipped into his helmet and plugged into the wireless communications system clipped to his belt and moved past us to the cockpit. The rest of us slipped into headsets wired to the aircraft’s intercom. Less than a minute later the major was back, positioned at a panel near the rear of the fuselage. He activated a series of controls and the sloped ramp tipped upward, sealing us in the aircraft as its engines spun up.
“Cabin secure,” James reported over his link to the intercom, then took a seat across the cabin, the auxiliary fuel tanks between us.
The aircraft lifted straight into the air, wobbling a bit before its nose swung around, stopping when we were pointing just north of due west, the nose dipping slightly as we began to move forward and accelerate, gaining altitude fast.
“It’s unnatural,” Genesee said. “First time I flew in one of these I lost my lunch. You think you’re in a plane, then it acts like a helicopter.”
“Was it a good lunch?” I asked him.
“It was a Navy lunch,” Genesee said. “So yes.”
Martin laughed, grimacing after the expression. He was hurting, and I wondered if the sense of relief that we were actually going home had finally erased whatever adrenalin reserve his body had tapped into to counter the injury he’d suffered.
I wasn’t the only one to notice.
“When we get home,” Genesee said, pointing to Martin. “You’re on rest in a hospital bed for a few days.”
“You’re the doc,” Martin said, no need to offer any resistance now.
The lights dimmed in the cabin until there was just the bare minimum to move if necessary. James stood again, and headed to the cockpit. I noticed Schiavo watch him, intensely, as if she was pondering some greater truth about the man. Or about something.
“Angela...”
She looked to me, realizing I’d taken in the sight of her interest in the Marine major. She thought for a moment, then unplugged her headset and motioned for me to do the same, shifting the gear so that one of her ears was uncovered. I followed her lead, the pitched roar of the engines immediately surrounding us, making any conversation difficult. Sitting to my left, Schiavo leaned close.
“I’m worried, Fletch.”
“About what?”
Just past Schiavo, I could plainly see Martin purposely giver her space. Not paying attention to our exchange. He was living up to the standard she’d set, allowing her to cut him out of her thoughts. For now, at least.
“Everyone we’ve come in contact with on this excursion has been military. Or beholden to them. Heckerford, MacDowell, they’d be bones by the side of the road if they hadn’t hooked up somehow with the guys with guns.”
“Or the girls,” I said. “You could put me in that category, couldn’t you?”
Schiavo shook her head, true concern about her.
“You’re not the same. Bandon’s not the same, Fletch. I’m talking about a survival structure built entirely around wearing the uniform.”
“There are others,” I told her.
“I know there are, but they’re the ones not getting air drops of supplies. Bandon wouldn’t have offloads from the Rushmore if I and my guys weren’t garrisoned there.”
“It’s a necessity,” I said. “Until things stabilize.”
She heard what I said, but couldn’t quite accept it.
“We’re effectively living in a military dictatorship,” she said. “Not under, but in. That’s what really concerns me. Especially after seeing the pieces of it at every poin
t of our journey. It seems so...normal. But it shouldn’t, because what happens when this stability you see coming actually arrives? Do the people like me in uniforms, with the bigger guns, do they step aside and let civilians like you take over again? Do they cede power?”
I hadn’t felt any of what Schiavo was stating. No concern at all. To be certain, we were in a world where might ruled, or could rule, if those who wielded it saw fit to impose some will upon others. That was the conflict playing out with the Unified Government right now. As it had played out between me and Major Layton in Whitefish. And between more of us and Borgier.
As those events swirled in my thoughts, I shifted without warning toward the state of worry that Schiavo had adopted. I’d faced off against those who saw themselves as some military strongman. Dictator. Ruler. Was all we were doing to build our world back up going to lead to that exact state of governance by force on a grander scale?
No...
“We’re different,” I told Schiavo. “We’re better than that.”
“If the president had thought so he would have given the card in my pocket to Admiral Adamson,” Schiavo said. “He fears it, too, Fletch.”
I shook my head.
“You, Adamson, Major James, none of you would abuse power. Harker didn’t roll his Stryker unit into Bandon instead of rescuing us, and he could have. He could have raised hell with his weapons. Instead, he followed orders. He respected the chain of command. As long as the person at the top has the right mind about things, we’ll be okay.”
“And if they don’t?” Schiavo challenged me.
“Then I imagine enough people in uniform who are just like you will put them in their place.”
She considered my expression of confidence for a moment.
“You have a lot of faith in the system that let us all down in the first place,” she said.
“No,” I corrected her. “Not in the system—in the people. Like you, me, Martin, everyone. Uniform or no uniform.”