Shadows of Empyriad (The Empyriad Series Book 1)

by Josi Russell

  “I have to talk to you!”

  “Tavish reported that you deserted.” There was disgust in Uncle Carl’s voice.

  His words stopped Sol short. Had he deserted? He’d run from the battle. He hadn’t gone back. He supposed that he had deserted. For a moment, he didn’t know what to say.

  But then he remembered the men in the comms hut. “Uncle Carl! We’re not fighting Cascadians!”

  Uncle Carl looked at him like he had been struck in the head. “Sol, I don’t have time for this right now. And you need to be out there with your unit!”

  “Listen! I’m telling you these soldiers are not who you think they are!”

  Uncle Carl’s eyes flashed. “Right now, Son, it doesn’t matter. They are killing our friends out there. We have to stop them, regardless of where they’ve come from. And the only way I can do that is if you shut up and let me work.”

  Sol fell into silence. Uncle Carl thought he had deserted, and now he didn’t trust Sol. LeSue pushed Sol aside as he burst in.

  “It’s not good, Commander. We’re running out of troops. We’re running out of options. Our comms are down, so I can’t even contact the squads. If we can’t find an edge soon, it’s over.”

  Uncle Carl grabbed LeSue’s uniform. “Comms are down?”

  LeSue didn’t speak, but he nodded gravely. Uncle Carl looked at Mezina. She nodded, holding up her hands in a helpless gesture.

  “I’m not getting through, Sir, and I’m not getting anything incoming, either.”

  “I know why. ” Sol spoke up, and he knew that the intel he had would make up for how he’d disappointed Uncle Carl.

  “I passed a comms hut on my way here.” He said excitedly. “The Casc—” he stopped himself. “The enemy had taken it over.”

  Uncle Carl eyed him. “Which one?”

  Sol wasn’t a comms specialist. He wasn’t sure, but he told them he could find it again.

  “Commander Sinclair, take over here.” Uncle Carl barked to another commander.

  “Show me.” He waved at LeSue and Briian to follow, and Sol braced himself for the night’s bitter cold as they left the bright barn.

  He led them out and around, through the skimming field, the way he had come. As they approached the comms hut, Sol saw the gray-uniformed soldiers still inside. Uncle Carl didn’t wait for his men to advance. He strode up and tore the door open, firing as he did so.

  Both soldiers fell, but as Sol followed Uncle Carl into the hut, and Briian started working on the equipment, he saw that the officer was still moving. The team had secured the hut, and the man was no longer a threat. Sol couldn’t bear to see the soldier’s convulsions. The fallen man was beginning to make a sound, and Sol knew there were only seconds before one of them finished him off.

  Without thinking, Sol grasped the second injection from his pocket. He was just pulling it away from the man’s shoulder when he heard Briian’s voice.

  “Sol! What a waste!”

  Sol shielded the officer with his body. “He’s immobilized,” Sol said. “That’s enough.” He leaned over and unbuckled the man’s helmet, hoping he had been quick enough.

  As the helmet slid free, Sol recognized the terrified face of the Agent in Charge. Damen looked back at him with wild eyes, the last of the spasms shaking him.

  Uncle Carl looked around, and Sol saw the shock on his face. In a heartbeat, he moved across the hut, lifting the agent as if he weighed no more than a calf.

  “What the—” Uncle Carl pushed him into a chair. “You’d better start talking, Damen. Or I swear I’ll—”

  The man’s voice was weak as he interrupted. “Never trust a Libertyite promise.”

  Uncle Carl’s face contorted. “Don’t you dare talk to me about trust. You brought them in here when you thought we weren’t armed.”

  “I figured you would be. But I didn’t figure your little militia would be such tenacious fighters. Well done on that.”

  “None of them are Cascadians,” Sol said. “Who are they?”

  Damen closed his eyes briefly as another tremor shook him, “It’s over now, though.”

  “What’s over?”

  “We got confirmation that we’d pushed through your line just as you burst in here. It’s only a matter of hours before the Harvest team pushes in from the other side and Liberty is just a memory.”

  Uncle Carl nodded to Briian. As comms specialist, he could relay the information about the Harvest strike back to Mezina at the command center as soon as the lines were up again. “Why are you here?” Uncle Carl asked Damen.

  “I’m just overseeing.” Damen feigned. “Just doing my job.”

  Sol watched as Uncle Carl deliberately calmed his own anger, watched as he clenched his fists and pushed it down in a way that he never could seem to do at home. His voice was controlled as he spoke. “What exactly is your job, Damen?”

  Damen was regaining strength, and he laughed slightly. “I’m just the local agent. I’m here to count your cows, Carl.”

  Uncle Carl spoke again. “Why are you fighting for Cascadia? Why are you helping them?”

  Damen rested his head against the back of the chair. “The kid’s right, Carl, and it’s time you saw, too. Those aren’t Cascadian soldiers. They’re Terrene soldiers. In fact, there is no Cascadia. There is no Liberty. You are all citizens of Earth, governed by the Consolidated Terrene Leadership. Any other designation is a construct of your imagination. I have told you for years. This is not your world anymore. You are obsolete, and it’s time you accept that—all of you—the Cascadians and the Harvesters included.”

  Uncle Carl was quiet a long time, scrutinizing the agent. There was a new light in his eyes. “How long has this been going on?” he asked.

  “What?” The agent feigned ignorance. Sol didn’t understand what Uncle Carl was driving at. He searched his Uncle’s face.

  Uncle Carl must have felt his gaze, because though he didn’t take his eyes off Damen, he began speaking to Sol.

  “We’ve all been played, son.” He said. Sol waited for him to go on. “Isn’t that right, Damen? Cascadia doesn’t want half of Liberty. At least not bad enough to kill and die for it. But you let them know that they wouldn’t have to, didn’t you? You let them know that if they’d let you run operations from there, and bring your own troops in, and if you could buy uniforms and weapons from them, that you’d hand them their half of Liberty on a platter. And they bought it, because you bought them.”

  Sol’s mind was churning. The Leadership was behind this? Didn’t they just want people to unify and erase boundaries and all that?

  “And once you’d eliminated Liberty, you’d start stirring up Harvest and Yukon and do the same thing to split Cascadia. And then Yukon and Sonora could take over Harvest. And then, well, there’s no end, is there? You’re funding these local wars, and spurring them on. And for all your talk about unity, it’s war you want. War among the little regions, which threaten your ideal with our independence. You know that coming in and taking us over yourselves would create a backlash against the Leadership that would never end. But if you let us take each other down, if you let us destroy each other’s families and breed hate and fear between us until we’re worn down and weary with war, we’ll be happy when you come in and take over. And then you can offer to manage our crops and our herds. We’ll be in no shape to keep them going when we’ve worn ourselves out with fighting.” Uncle Carl shook his head, “I’ve already neglected my ranch for two months preparing for this thing. And when our operations are failing because we’re so distracted fighting each other, we’ll welcome your help. We’ll be totally on board with your vision and turn everything over to you so we can go on fighting to keep our little spots of land from our neighbors. But that’s how you’re erasing boundaries. You’re gaining control of everything. ‘No Borders’ doesn’t mean unity to you. It just means that there is no corner of the world that you don’t control. And you want control, don’t you, Damen? You want to be in charge of
everything. You believe that the people can’t be trusted with the resources in their own regions, and you think you can control not just the resources, but the people.” Uncle Carl spat. “The way we’re falling for your tricks, you might be right.”

  Uncle Carl turned away, and Sol looked at Damen. He wasn’t confirming anything, but he didn't deny anything either.

  Uncle Carl moved quickly. He took Damen by the throat. “Well, let me tell you something, you lying scum, I’m not about to let you trick us into destroying ourselves.”

  Damen struggled. A choking, gasping rattle filled the room. Uncle Carl didn’t stop. The Libertyite soldiers stood motionless and silent. Some of them watched, some looked away. Only Sol moved forward and laid a hand on his uncle’s arm.

  Uncle Carl looked at him, anger and shame in his eyes, and released the agent. Straightening, he spoke, and his voice was rough.

  “Briian. How’s that comms line coming?”

  His voice was subdued. “Almost done, sir.”

  “You need to let them know what we’re up against, specialist.”

  “Yes, sir,” Briian said.

  And you two get him to the armory brig.” He said to two field guards.

  “Yes, sir,” they answered.

  “And the rest of us had better get back to the front. We’ve got people to protect.”

  Sol and the others followed him out. Sol looked through the trees, watching the field guards as they dragged Damen through the carnage he had created.

  56

  Walt registered Sylvia’s voice calling to him from the spider, but he couldn’t stand. He knelt in the snow, his feet and knees numb. He heard the hum of the fence and the deep booms of artillery somewhere outside the park.

  The boulders to his left shifted slightly with some of the larger percussions, and tiny pebbles sifted down through gaps between them, making a sound like rain.

  One of the stones lost its support in the shifting and fractured with a loud crack. Part of it fell away, sliding down the pile of rubble and thudding into the drift at the bottom. Sharp crystals of snow sprayed Walt’s face. He snapped out of his daze and looked up to see, where the stone had broken, an opening the size of a bison.

  Snow fell in a fine powder over the gap like a waterfall, and Walt squinted, not daring to hope that he could be seeing what he was seeing.

  Sylvia was suddenly beside him.

  “Honey, let me help you back to the spider. I’ll get you home.” She was saying.

  Walt didn’t take his eyes off the dark space between the boulders. He took Sylvia’s hand and walked slowly toward it.

  She quieted as she saw where they were going.

  The shower of snow had stopped when they arrived, and Walt approached the crevice. He leaned inside and saw the beginning of a ten-foot tunnel, with a morel-sized crevice at the other end. He pulled out of the fracture and judged the distance to the fence. It was not ten feet. Somehow, this tunnel led directly through what appeared to be a fault in the fused fence. The tiny crevice at the other end was outside the park.

  The tunnel, clear at the opening, was filled with pebbles and fine dirt at the other end. Walt climbed in and scooped at the rubble with cupped hands. It moved easily, but his fingers weren’t strong enough to clear much at a time.

  Leaving Sylvia standing, stunned, just inside the mouth of the tunnel, Walt went back outside to the spider. Detaching the toolbox from its belly, he removed three of the metal kneecaps off the spider’s legs and went back into the tunnel. They made the process of digging and scooping the loose material out much easier. Sylvia went to work too, and together they began, clearing the passageway to get to the little window at the other end.

  Midnight passed. It was warm inside as he and Sylvia worked, and as they grew closer to the other side, he tried to ignore the way the earth trembled and the way the dust sifted through the angular ceiling of the tunnel each time the artillery fired. He tried not to wonder if the slabs would shift and come down on them. At least, if they did, they would go together and at least, if they did, they would work to their last breath to find Zyn’dri.

  57

  Uncle Carl spoke strongly. “We know more about our enemy now, but our immediate objective is still the same. We have to stop them.” Sol and the five they’d come with followed him as they headed back the way they had come. “We have a couple of options,” Uncle Carl strategized with LeSue and another sergeant as they walked. We could go back the way we came and try to meet them at the front, or we could attack from behind.”

  Sol saw the sergeants exchange a look, and Uncle Carl responded with what they must have been thinking. “That’s right. It’s a lot more dangerous. We’ll have the remainder of their force to contend with. But taking them out from back here could be more beneficial to our front line. It could give them a chance to punch through and start breaking up that advance.”

  Sol thought of the patrols he had seen. He kept an eye on the woods. He nearly ran into LeSue as they stopped and drew out an attack plan in the dirt. They decided to go to the North end of the line, where the most of the Milguard units were still holding out.

  It was the best tactical move, but the thought of facing the soldiers, especially now that he knew that they were trained military, terrified him.

  They hiked on through the rough terrain as Uncle Carl took stock of their assets. “We’ve got seven of us. Everyone has several charges.” Uncle Carl gestured in the direction of the front. “I figure if we’re careful and accurate, we can probably take out sixty, seventy guys.”

  The sergeants nodded.

  “And we’ll have some help from the units at the front, and more help as we go along. As we thin out the enemy line, the units can help us more.”

  Sol thought of all the soldiers he had seen, all the burstbead rounds. His knee burned again at the thought of them.

  The little band made it to the final ridge. Sol knew that when they crested it, they would see the full fury of the battle again, and he steeled himself. He tried to avoid looking at the Milguard casualties, tried to avoid wondering which of his friends was there. He glanced at Briian to reassure himself that some remained.

  They topped the ridge on their bellies, crawling on their elbows until they had a clear view of the battle. It had moved swiftly, far beyond what they had expected, and they were able to stand in the night shadows of the Ponderosa Pines without fear of being seen.

  It was worse than they thought. The enemy was advancing quickly, and the Libertyite army was retreating. Sol hoped they would come up with a different plan at the same time as he realized that punching through from behind the line was the only way to turn this tide. Sol saw that they had to go through. He also saw that they wouldn’t make it.

  Uncle Carl saw it, too. “This is it, soldiers,” he said. “I think you all know what we’re up against here. I think you all know how this is going to go.” He turned and looked at them. Sol could make out his face in the dim light. “Take as many out as you can.”

  Uncle Carl’s hand went, involuntarily, to his GO ring, and Sol saw that only by using them would they have a chance. His heart hammered in his chest. He thought of Juice, of the bright flash that had ended him, and wondered if he would have the same courage himself when the moment came.

  Uncle Carl pulled his gun and held it a moment before he began walking carefully forward. Sol followed him, gun in hand, but stumbled on the boot of a fallen soldier. His knee gave way, and he fell heavily beside the dead man.

  Sol lay for a moment as searing pain streaked up his leg. The band proceeded past him carefully. Sol tried to maneuver into position to stand again, but his leg would bear little weight. He scrambled to find a good place to put his hand so he could boost himself up.

  Inadvertently, his gloved palm brushed the chest of the dead soldier. Sol sucked in a breath. That was it. He called as loudly as he dared, “Uncle Carl!”

  The soldier nearest him passed the message up, and when Uncle Carl retur
ned, he was not angry, like Sol expected. He only looked weary and sad. He reached wordlessly for Sol’s hand and lifted him easily. His uncle put an arm around his shoulders.

  “I’ll walk with you,” he said.

  “Wait.” Sol grabbed his arm, trying to speak quietly. “We don’t have to use them.”

  Uncle Carl’s expression grew more sorrowful. “I’m sorry, son. I think it’s the only way. We have to use our GO rings.”

  Sol gestured to the battlefield around them. “Not our rings, Uncle Carl. What if we use theirs?”

  Uncle Carl shook his head, quickly, and Sol saw that he was disturbed by the idea.

  Sol hurried to explain. “We detach them,” he leaned down and pulled the dead man’s collar back, exposing the GO pack, and delicately threaded the ring backward through the suit. When he straightened, he was holding the GO pack aloft, with the ring dangling.

  Uncle Carl looked sorry, “They still have to be activated, Sol. Someone’s going to have to pull those rings, too.”

  Sol hurried to explain. “Do you remember that summer that Juice and I were messing around with the explosives we found in your shed? Juice taught me how to make a tripwire that we used to set off the blasts from behind the hill. I think I could rig one that would trip all of these at once.”

  Uncle Carl stood very still for a moment. He looked at the little band of soldiers, standing a few feet away. He looked across the slope at his fallen friends. Sol could see he was thinking.

  Finally, he nodded. “Okay. Let’s give it a try.”

  Sol was ready with his plan. He hobbled forward. “I need all the cord you can find.” He said, unlacing the cord from his wristguard as he spoke. “And gather all the GO packs you can get your hands on.” He sat heavily on a rock and began to fashion a long tripwire, with loops every six inches where a GO pack could be attached.

  “The packs will have to be held stationary.” He said.

  “We could bury them,” LeSue said.

  “No good,” Briian answered. “The ground will absorb the blast.”