Michael said, “Yes, ma’am. Our allies are on the way, and hopefully this will slow the OpFor enough for our friends to get here well before the big showdown at the end. We’ll let the enemy roll us back, one hill at a time.”
Frank smiled, but it was a grim expression. “The battlecars will be on standby, ready to move in when Michael says the time is right. The planes will be on standby as well. We finished moving them east of our position last night so the Empire won’t see them until it’s too late.”
Cassy took a deep breath, put her fists on her hips, and let the air out slowly, then said, “Okay. Joe Ellings got put in a plane, and I told Jaz that if she wanted to do any fighting, we needed her and Choony to lead the Lizzie refugees to Clanholme. We’ll decide where they’re most needed after they arrive. In the meantime, I’ll be on lockdown with Ethan in the bunker.”
Michael said, “Mueller and our Marines will stay in Clanholme until I get back. I want them fresh for our counter-attack with the allied reinforcements. Taggart’s battalion will be in the front, getting rolled back from hill to hill to buy the rest of us time. A lot depends on timing.”
“I guess I should be off to the battlecars,” Frank said. “Be safe, Michael.”
“You too, my brother,” Michael replied.
Cassy knew it was the oldest of ceremonies for embattled humans—declaring blood loyalty, making them brothers in spirit—and she could almost feel the power of the ancient oath. She stood stone-still for a moment and then, hesitancy cast aside, she practically leapt forward into Frank’s arms, hugging him hard, and then did the same to Michael.
“We’ll all be safe,” she said into Michael’s chest, “and I’ll see you all back here in time for dinner, okay?” The emphasis on the last word made her sound like she was almost begging them to be okay, to survive the day, but she didn’t care how she sounded. In a way, she was.
Mandy wiped her eyes with the heel of her hand, saying, “I know some of you aren’t believers, but would you all humor an old woman and let me lead you in a prayer?”
Cassy nodded, as did Michael. Frank said, “I’m a believer, Grandma Mandy. I’d be grateful for it.”
Mandy made her prayer short and sweet, but Cassy got the impression her mother intended the prayer as much to boost the courage of the people with her as to please the Lord.
In her head, Cassy said her own longer prayer for them. She half believed, half didn’t know, but at least it couldn’t hurt. Then she turned away and walked back toward her house and its hidden bunker entrance without another word. She wouldn’t let them see her cry before they went to war.
* * *
The trip out to the Liz Town refugees would take very little time using the truck, especially the way Choony drove the beast. It was a Ford F350 with dualies in back, and when it revved Jaz thought it sounded like a dragon. It was awesome. Cassy had said time was of the essence, so it was probably okay for him to drive all reckless like that. Sure hurt like a bitch, though—her shoulder throbbed with every bump.
In the bed, in addition to the gasifier and a quarter-cord of wood, were supplies that had been thrown on before it was clear the truck had to go back out again. There hadn’t been time to remove them. Food, blankets, cooksets from sporting goods stores that were, in a post-civilization world, very far away. Ammo. Med kits. Not a lot of each, other than the mounds of food, but enough that Jaz figured they’d be totally useful if she had to fight before getting back to Clanholme.
To their right, far in the distance, they had caught a brief glimpse of the Empire column, snaking half a mile along the highway, and had veered left, southward, to get out of sight before being spotted. Ten minutes later, they saw the mob of Lizzie peeps trudging through the grass that grew for miles, recovering from last winter and from the brown goop that had left the countryside bare for miles after the initial ’vader attacks. Grass and self-selected weeds were thriving again. As Choony pulled the truck up to the mob, they looked concerned, but with three hundred of them, they weren’t terribly fearful. A good sign, really.
Choony jumped out of the truck and circled around to help Jaz down. She didn’t have her sling on, of course. It would be in the way if it came to a fight, she had told Choony, and when he said they were supposed to avoid battle till they got home, she had just laughed and asked him what they were doing out there, if not going to a fight. He had left it alone after that. Still, she babied it, especially with it throbbing still from the drive.
As she reached the ground, soft and springy from rains a few days ago, she waved to the mob. “Yo, peeps,” she called out, and they started to gather around. “I’m Jaz, and this is Choony. We’ll be guiding you back to Clanholme today.”
Someone shouted out, “How far is it?”
“It’s like, ten miles from here. We’ll get there just after lunch time. I figure you peeps don’t have, like, tons of food, so we brought some—you get it when we’re half way there, okay?”
Choony shouted, “Follow the truck, please. We don’t have time for a ton of questions, but I’m told you know the program from our guy, Joe Ellings, when he found you?”
Heads nodded all around. Choony continued, “We’re going to drive ahead and then stop, to conserve fuel. If you can’t see us waiting, you should follow our tracks or just stay on the road. You’ll reach us every twenty minutes or so. We’ll stop when we need to turn onto a new road, as well.”
“Alright. Let’s go guys!” Jaz said.
Choony headed around the back of the truck toward the driver’s side and Jaz climbed up the passenger side without help. She had told Choony before they got there to avoid helping her in front of the troops. Choony threw the truck in gear, and they drove slowly ahead. Soon after they got completely out of view, Choony pulled to the side of the road and turned it off to conserve wood—though it wouldn’t save much, since the fire that created the woodgas fuel had to be kept going. It wasn’t practical to put it out and relight it every time they stopped and wanted to get going again. Supposedly, Dean was working on a way to store that heat up or something, but she hadn’t really been listening.
Jaz yawned dramatically and, peering at Choony from the corner of her eye, said, “Thanks for coming. I know you didn’t have to, but I think I’m braver with you around.”
“You’re brave all the time,” he said. “And strong of heart. Few people would do what you do every day or do what you did back when you first met the people who would become the Clan.”
“What, set them up to get killed by wandering murder-hobos?”
Choony laughed, a deep, barking noise that was his totally cute version of a belly laugh, then he replied, “No, not that. Just the part where you risked your life for complete strangers to warn them about the ‘murder-hobos.’ The fact that you did that, knowing you’d be killed too if Frank and them lost that fight, that was brave. After the way they’d treated you?” Choony shuddered, horrified at the thought.
Yeah, she had told him the story once. Now she wished she hadn’t, because it was really uncomfortable to be reminded of it. Those men had treated her no worse than lots of other dudes in the old world, but they were the last to ever treat her that way. They stood out in her mind, just as they clearly did in Choony’s even though he hadn’t been on the scene yet himself.
“Frank and his people had kids. I was used to being treated a certain way, you know? It was normal to me. It’s just how things were on the streets. But I’d be damned if I was gonna let them do that to the kids in that camp. Frank’s camp. They were all about family, and I never had one… Oh hey, there’s our peeps.”
Jaz looked out the window, off to the horizon. It would be grand to just drive off into that horizon and put all this crap behind them… But of course, wherever she went there would only be more of this. Maybe worse. Still staring off into the distance, she said, “Okay. Manheim is like, two miles from here. If we’re lucky, we can swing through there and gather up more volunteers. Cassy said they could only
send fifty, but I bet I can get half the dudes still there to join us, too.”
Choony grinned and said, “Maybe, but they only get paid with food, got it? No favors.”
* * *
Cassy sat staring at the monitor, watching the timer count down. The radio beside her had an earbud plugged into it so she could listen in on the chatter while Ethan handled communications. He had shown her last night how the two computers could easily share a screen. He had a simple, open-source program called VASSAL on both computers. Originally intended to create a virtual tabletop for what he called miniature wargaming—moving little army guys around a table and rolling dice for combat—he was using it now for the real thing.
“How did you get this map onto the VASSAL?” she asked.
Ethan replied, “It’s a satellite map image. VASSAL—not ‘the VASSAL’—lets you use fake maps you draw yourself, on paper or with another program, so I just load in my sat-maps.”
“What would we do if you hadn’t hacked into satellites?” Cassy was only half-listening to him, between paying attention to the screen and considering how to proceed.
“Before the lights went out, a magazine kept a website that let you download geographical maps. You know the one, it always had cover pictures of topless women from Africa carrying water, or Indians on elephants.”
Cassy watched the map update, with labeled squares and rectangles of different colors representing both sides’ units. Ethan was correcting the unit positions as reports came in, and it was interesting to watch from a bird’s-eye view as the battle unfolded. Occasionally she’d give orders to a unit to turn this way or that, and Ethan then relayed those orders. The enemy wasn’t close enough to engage yet, which meant Clanholme had enough time to set up their defense-in-depth, as Michael had called it, before the fighting started.
Ethan said, “The radio in Jaz’s truck is in range. They just sent confirmation of their location and heading. They’re on their way to Manheim, en route to Clanholme. Three hundred refugees, armed, accompanying them just like you planned.”
Cassy grunted acknowledgement, but went back to listening on the radio. Every radio the Clan had, including a couple dozen Ethan had put together with his treasure trove of Raspberry Pi modules, was out in the field now and set to go from platoon leader to company leader, from them to battalion leader, and so on. Cassy and Ethan, the HQ, couldn’t talk directly to the platoon leaders, but could go directly as far down as the company level or even broadcast to all channels as situations changed.
Once the reinforcements arrived, of course, many of their already-distributed radios would have to go to them. HQ would probably only be in direct comms with battalion-level leaders, then, and maybe a few key company leaders.
The red and blue rectangles drew closer and closer to one another. There’d be blood soon, she knew, and the waiting wore on her. Was that what Michael felt before battle? She hoped not. The feeling sucked.
* * *
Carl ducked as three rounds ricocheted off the rubble wall’s edge, sending a sprinkle of gravel down onto his head. “This is getting out of hand—there are so many of them, it seems like every Empire goon I take down gets replaced by two more.”
Sunshine fired a round from her Remington 700 hunting rifle—powerful, but slow to fire—and said, “If it hadn’t been for the wall, Liz Town would have been overrun by now.” The Empire’s commanders had already tried to breach the wall once, using a pair of propane tanks tied together. Two “goons,” as almost everyone had taken to calling Empire troops, had died getting the improvised device to the wall.
“Yeah, probably so,” Carl said. “The bomb that cost them two goons would’ve been real trouble if our guys didn’t know how to build a solid barrier.”
Sunshine shook her head, smiling wolfishly. “Yeah, that was something to see, when those tanks exploded.” The rubble wall had just collapsed in on itself while gravel from left and right of the hole poured in, sealing it. This had been followed by the sound of Lizzies laughing and jeering from the ramparts.
Carl scanned for any more goons sticking their heads up. Seeing none at that moment, he dropped back down behind cover. “I don’t fool myself into thinking the Empire has been stopped. They’ll try something else, soon enough.”
For now, though, this fight had turned into a siege. Liz Town could hold out against a siege for at least a couple weeks, and by then the rest of the Confederation would either be conquered or have defeated the forces the Empire had thrown at them. If the Confederation won elsewhere, Carl was certain they’d come to Liz Town’s rescue.
He reminded himself that the damn regiment outside his walls would be fighting the Clan if it wasn’t fighting Liz Town, so it was vital to hold out as long as possible to give the other Confed forces the best possible chance of winning. Hell, the Empire probably attacked Liz Town just to keep her from striking the Empire’s own troops from behind again, or messing with their supply lines through guerrilla actions.
If that was the case, then Liz Town’s attackers wouldn’t try very hard to push an assault through, now that they had figured out it wouldn’t be easy. They’d just wait until victory over the Confederation freed up those troops to assist, and then the mayhem would begin in earnest for Liz Town. But knowing Cassy, they’d have some surprises waiting.
“C’mon, Sunshine. Our troops got this, for now. Let’s go find the nearest officer and tell them to sound the horn if a hard attack comes in.”
“Cool. Trying to get it in before we die?”
Carl wiggled his eyebrows at her, but said, “No, as amazing as I’m sure that would be. I was thinking more like getting something to eat and then check out Mary Ann’s war room.”
Sunshine feigned disappointment—or maybe it was genuine, Carl could never tell for sure—and then said, “Sounds great. Maybe she has one of those maps with the wood blocks on them, like in the old movies.”
Carl, climbing down the wall ladder, laughed. “No way. In this day and age?” But then he thought about it. Maybe Mary Ann would use a map and blocks… After all, this day and age wasn’t really “this day and age anymore,” was it…
* * *
“I can’t stand being cooped up in here, Ethan. I’m not even useful here. I should be out there, fighting with my people.” Cassy stared at the monitor as red blocks closely followed blue ones, all heading east toward another line of blue blocks.
Ethan continued typing as he replied, “The forward elements of the Confed forces have been forced back now and are fleeing toward the next line of troops. Once they arrive they’ll join that line, and both elements will fire at the oncoming enemy troops.”
“So at each line, the defense will stiffen?”
“Yeah. Meanwhile, the Empire’s troops become less organized, less concentrated and will lose more troops to mounting casualties as they push forward.”
“Our wounded will probably be murdered by the Empire as the bastards pass over wherever they’re laying. Dammit, I don’t know how you can stand to be inside this tiny little box while people are up there fighting for their lives.”
Ethan stopped typing, and looked at Cassy with a frown. Cassy saw that his cheeks were flushing red. He said, “Cassy, I’ll ask you never to question my courage like that again. Remember when Jed died, before we ever arrived at Clanholme? That wasn’t you rushing the ’vader position, that was me and Jed.” He turned away, looking back to his computer.
Cassy could see how stiff his shoulders were. Crap… She hadn’t meant to insult him, but that’s how it came out, and she couldn’t blame him for being upset. The way she had said it was wrong and insulting. “Look, Ethan, I know you can’t read minds or know what I was thinking, only what I actually said. I’m sorry, but it just came out different from what I meant.”
“Forget about it,” Ethan said, but he still looked tensed up.
“No, I’m serious. I’m sorry for what I said. What I meant was that I don’t know how you can do this all the time wi
thout going nuts. Being down here while they’re fighting? That’s hard. I’m having trouble with it but you just keep going. I don’t think I could.”
The muscles in his shoulders eased up a bit, and he sat taller and less closed off. That was a damn fine start as far as Cassy was concerned. “Someone has to do this, and I’m pretty sure I’m the best person for the job. I never get tired of the bunker, either. When there’s a battle raging, I do sometimes wish I were there fighting alongside Michael and the rest. Amber’s out there, too, you know, and here I am, dug into a spider hole. But I know they have a better chance to live if I’m here doing this job. So, I do it. My biggest fear is that I’ll fail and cost us lives.”
Cassy thought about that for a moment. Did his words have a hint of judgment, that insolent little… But had he meant it as a judgment of her, or had she only taken it that way because it was what she felt in her heart? Inconveniently, that thought carried a ring of truth to it.
She took a deep breath before replying. “You have a point. And I forgot Amber’s out there with the rest of them. But I’m still convinced that out in the field I’m more…” She suddenly went silent.
“More what?”
“Hold on,” Cassy said, almost snappish. “Trying to listen. Did you hear that? A faint signal on pre-programmed channel two?”
“No, I—Oh, there it is. Let me clear it up, boost the signal.”
Ethan fiddled with some program on his computer, and the signal strength indicator leapt upward. Through her earbud, she heard Jaz’s voice. “… going in. Looks like we’ll be late to your party, Charlie One.”
Ethan clicked his mic and said, “Ten-nine? Say again, please, you’re coming in faint.”
“I’m … Manheim is getting hit … at least a company. No, it’s … companies. We’re going to … and help them out. Wish us … Jazoony out.”
Dark New World (Book 5): EMP Resurrection Page 35