The Savage Dawn

by P. T. Hylton

  George’s eyes brightened as he spotted Alex. “Captain Goddard!”

  “How’s it going, George?”

  “Excellent.” He glanced at Owl. “Owl has been a great help, but we’re pretty much done here, so if you need her for anything else…”

  Alex chuckled. “Are you driving him crazy, Owl?”

  George blushed. “I didn’t mean—”

  “Of course you did,” Alex said with a smile. “Believe me, I can relate.”

  Owl’s brow creased as she frowned. “I’ll gladly bother every engineer in this mountain if it means getting my ship back safely.”

  Alex crossed her arms. Something about Jaden’s plan had been bothering her since she woke. “George, I’m having second thoughts.”

  George looked at her warily. “About what?”

  “Waiting.”

  Now both George and Owl were staring at her in surprise.

  “Look, we all know Fleming’s going to try to get that ship back,” she pointed out. “With the way he’s running low on resources, there’s no way he lets a whole ship just rot down here. He’s going to send a team down to get it.”

  “Does he even have a team?” Owl asked.

  Alex hadn’t considered that, but the answer came to her immediately. “Of course he does. He’d been planning to strand us on the surface for a while. It wasn’t a split-second decision. So of course he’s going to have people ready to replace us.”

  “A shadow GMT?” Owl said softly. “Is that even possible? How would he recruit them without word getting back to CB?”

  Alex shrugged. “This is Fleming we’re talking about. Even his shady plans have shady plans.” She turned to George. “We can’t risk losing that ship. It’s our only way back home. You get that, right? We have to get the ship ourselves. Now.”

  For a moment, she thought he was going to give in to her demand. Then his face hardened. “You want me to list all the reasons that’s not going to happen? Or should I just mention the only one that matters?”

  “Start with the one.”

  “Jaden said they’re going tonight. So that’s what’s going to happen.”

  Alex’s face flushed with annoyance. “You sound like some of the people back on New Haven. Instead of using logic, you just give in to whatever the great leader says. Is that the way it is here?”

  “Of course not. But we don’t disregard his orders without discussing it with him, either.”

  Alex took a deep breath, calming herself. This man had risked his life to save her and her team. “Look, I appreciate everything you’ve done for us. At the same time, if we want to get our ship, I don’t see why you’d stop us.”

  “Or how,” Ed interjected.

  George turned toward the Barton brother, the annoyance clear on his face. “I have Jaden and his undead warriors.”

  Ed grinned. “At night you do. During the day all you have is a bunch of sleepy vampires. And sleepy vampires are sort of our specialty.”

  Alex shot him a look. “That’s enough, Ed.” Her voice was firm, but she hoped he spotted the smile in her eyes. She liked that he always jumped in to defend her, even when her position was wrong-headed. “George, I’m not saying we disregard Jaden’s orders. Just give us the recharged batteries and the parts we need, let us use this vehicle, and we’ll head up to Denver. Jaden and his buddies are welcome to join us when they wake up. By then, Owl should have the ship fixed and we’ll be out of your hair.”

  “Actually, I don’t think it’s going to be that easy,” Owl said sheepishly.

  Alex raised an eyebrow. “Explain.”

  “We don’t know what exactly is wrong with the ship,” Owl said. “It’s going to take time to diagnose the problem and fix it. I don’t want to get caught out after dark again.”

  “So we just give Fleming the opportunity to take the ship?”

  “Why would he be in a rush?” Owl said. “Even if he is, they won’t be expecting the batteries to be missing. I think the chances of his team successfully flying it home today are slim.”

  Alex had to admit Owl had a point. Risking her team again by driving all that way was reckless. If they so much as popped a tire, they’d be in the same situation they’d been in the previous night. Besides, the team did still need rest.

  Her instincts made her want to be proactive, to always be in motion. At least this time, she’d have to find a way to silence that voice.

  Maybe it was time to truly start trusting Jaden.

  “Okay, we’ll follow Jaden’s plan,” Alex said. “In the meantime, is there a gym in this mountain? I feel the sudden need to punch something.”

  4

  “You told them, right?” Fleming asked Kurtz.

  The colonel nodded. “They were ordered let us know as soon as they made contact.”

  Sarah sank further into her seat, hoping Fleming would forget she was there. They’d been trying to contact Fort Stearns for over an hour. New Haven was circling the area above the settlement, and they were well within the radio's range. With each passing moment, the horrible feeling in Sarah’s stomach grew stronger.

  No one was answering. No one.

  That meant either Fleming’s theory that there was something wrong with the communication system was correct or…

  No. She wouldn’t think about the alternative. Not until she absolutely had to.

  Fleming sat down on his seat for what had to be the fifteenth time in the last hour. He’d sit for a few minutes, grow antsy, start pacing, and then stand back up. “I have a dark theory we need to discuss.”

  Sarah looked up sharply, surprised. She never imagined he’d admit defeat so quickly.

  “I hate to say it,” he continued, “but we have to consider the possibility that CB is behind this problem.”

  Sarah was so surprised that she couldn’t keep herself from responding. “I’m sorry. Did you say CB?”

  He laughed, running a hand through his unkempt hair. “Well. it makes sense, doesn’t it? He’s on the run, and he’s got two geniuses with him. They figured out some way to disrupt the radio signal.”

  Kurtz and Sarah exchanged a nervous glance. He looked as skeptical about that possibility as she felt.

  “I suppose it’s possible,” Kurtz said after a moment.

  Fleming stared at him, not blinking. “Possible? It’s a lot more than possible. See, this is why CB got the jump on you before you could shoot him. You underestimate his cunning.”

  Kurtz cleared his throat. “It’s not that, sir. It’s just I don’t see what motivation CB would have to disrupt our communication.”

  Fleming’s eyes widened. “His motivation? What has been his motivation all along? To make sure Resettlement fails. He doesn’t care how many people die in the process.”

  Sarah wasn’t sure that was true. As much as she considered him a fool, she had to admit he was an ideological fool. He wouldn’t want people hurt unnecessarily.

  The radio on Fleming’s desk chirped and the tension that had been hanging in the air suddenly disappeared. A relieved smile crossed Fleming’s lips. “Finally.”

  He punched a button on the radio. “Captain Eldred! Is that you?”

  There was a long pause, and then a female voice answered, “Uh, no, sir. You asked me to let you know when the GMT was ready for departure.”

  Fleming’s smile fell. “All right. Send them out. It’s time for the faceless GMT’s first mission.”

  Sarah looked up sharply. “You’re sending them to Fort Stearns, sir? If something happened to the Resettlers… I’m not saying it did, but if it did, do we really want to send our new GMT to the same place?”

  “Relax, Sarah. It’s the middle of the day. They’ll be fine.”

  Jessica and Brian sat amidst a vast network of pipes. They were in the underbelly of New Haven, directly beneath the agricultural sector. Brian tapped furiously at his touchpad as Jessica watched in silence.

  It hadn’t taken long for her to splice into the fiber-optic netwo
rk. The tricky part was hacking into the communications system. Brian had been working on that for twenty minutes, occasionally muttering about how this really wasn’t his area of expertise as he dug deeper and deeper into the code.

  For someone who wasn’t an expert in this area, he certainly was making a lot of progress.

  “So how’d you learn to do this?” Jessica asked softly as he worked.

  “Huh?” He looked up, his focus broken.

  “I was just asking where you learned this hacking stuff.”

  He shrugged. “I did some coding as a kid. One of my teachers thought it was important for the well-rounded scientific mind, or some such nonsense. I did okay at it, but I never came close to mastering the skills needed for this type of thing. I’m sort of figuring it out as I go.”

  Jessica nodded. “I understand. Don’t feel bad if you can’t get us in there.”

  Brian blinked hard. “Oh, I’m already in. Didn’t I tell you? Sorry, I thought I did.” He looked back at the tablet. “I’m just looking for that bit of footage you wanted, and we’ll be good to go.”

  Jessica stifled a laugh. Brian McElroy was once again exceeding her expectations.

  People sometimes called her a genius, and she supposed that was true. Brian couldn’t hold a conversation about engineering like George from Agartha—he wasn’t really the collaborative sort—but when left to his own devices, he operated at a whole different level.

  “It shouldn’t be long,” he said absently as his fingers flew. “Just another… There! Got it.”

  “Geez, already?”

  Brian grinned. “Yep. I guess that means it’s the Jessica show now. Ready for your big debut?”

  That made the director of engineering pause. She’d assumed this was going to take at least another hour, which would have given her another hour to mentally prepare. “I still don’t understand why it has to be me,” she grumbled.

  Brian didn't even look up from his tablet. “You know why. People already know CB’s going against Fleming, and they need to see someone who’s not GMT so it doesn’t look like a straight up military coup. I can’t do it because… well, I’m me. I'd freeze up the second the camera came on. Besides, I technically work for the GMT too. You ready?”

  “What? No, I need to—”

  “Best to rip this thing off like a bandage.” He pulled a tiny camera out of his bag, attached it to the tablet, and pointed it at Jessica. “We’re going in five, four, three, two…”

  Jessica took a deep breath to steady her nerves and forced the panicked look from her face. Brian pointed at her, indicating they were live. Though they couldn’t see it down here, she knew that her face was appearing on screens all throughout New Haven.

  Brian had hacked her into the ship-wide broadcast system; now it was up to her to use this opportunity to its utmost.

  “Hello, people,” she started lamely. She swallowed hard. This was much more difficult than Fleming made it look. “My name is Jessica Sundry, and I’m the director of engineering. As of today, I'm also a fugitive from Fleming and his badges.”

  She paused. Brian gave her an enthusiastic thumbs up, indicating she was doing fine.

  She continued, “Those of you who know me are aware that I am a careful person. I’m a scientist. I look at possible outcomes and likely scenarios before taking any important action. I would never have made the decision to go against our leaders if I had any other choice. In this case, I do not. Fleming is a murderer. He killed every other member of our city council so that he’d be the only one standing. Then he hoped you’d believe his implausible lie that it was an accident.

  “I don’t have proof of his actions in killing the council, but I do have proof of another murder he tried to commit. Brian, if you would?”

  Brian tapped the screen, and video footage from the Hub began to play throughout the city.

  “This took place yesterday morning. Fleming told you Captain Brickman was injured while attempting to break General Craig out of jail. As you can see here, that was not the case.”

  The footage showed Fleming, CB, and Kurtz walking down a hallway, CB clearly unarmed, then Kurtz pulling a gun and pointing it at CB. It showed CB defending himself and disarming Kurtz, then other badges running in and firing on CB.

  “Fleming attempted to kill CB because he disagreed with his agenda,” Jessica said. “In Fleming’s world, disagreement is unacceptable. Alex Goddard took a similar position, and Fleming arranged to have her and the entire GMT stranded on the surface. They spent last night down there, and I’m sorry to say it seems almost impossible they survived. Fleming only cares about his own glory, not the lives of the people of New Haven.”

  Brian tapped the screen as the footage of the Hub ended. He made a circular motion with his finger, which Jessica understood as him telling her to wrap it up. It wouldn’t take Fleming’s people too long to trace where the comm system had been hacked, and they needed to be gone before that happened. But before they left, there was one more thing Jessica needed to say.

  “I’m counting on every man and woman on New Haven to take a stand. When the time comes, you’ll know. Help us take control of the ship from Fleming, and help us protect every life onboard.” She looked at Brian awkwardly. “That’s all. Shut it down.”

  With that, screens around the ship went black.

  5

  The faceless GMT's first mission began as they landed the transport at Fort Stearns in the mid-morning. The cargo door opened and six figures stepped out, all clad in black. With the body armor, their black face masks, and their silent demeanor, it was difficult to even tell which of the team members were male and which were female.

  They simply looked like cold, efficient warriors, nearly indistinguishable from each other, just as Fleming had designed it.

  The leader of the newly formed team—known only to his team as One—surveyed the ruins of Fort Stearns with surprise. He’d expected to find a settlement of three hundred people, perhaps some of them nursing wounds from their first night on the surface. Maybe a little wiser from the eye-opening experience of being so close to vampires at night, but more prepared for the journey of Resettlement ahead of them. Instead, he found utter destruction.

  It was clear no one had survived the night.

  The realization was like a punch in the stomach to One. He was a true believer in Fleming’s cause, and to see that it had failed so completely was devastating. He couldn’t see the faces of his teammates, but from the way they silently stared at the yard around them, he felt sure they were having similar reactions.

  “What the hell do we do now?” Three asked.

  “We do our jobs,” One replied grimly. “We check for survivors.”

  They made their way to the nearest building, following One’s lead. As they were approaching the entrance, Four called, “Wait. Check this out.”

  One looked where his teammate was pointing and saw a five-foot-tall, seven-foot-wide hole in the building.

  “My God,” Five said, staring at the hole. “What could have done this?”

  No one answered, but they knew. They all knew. The same things that had done all of this.

  Vampires.

  They all stood in the light just outside the hole, peering inward. It took a moment for One’s eyes to adjust to the darkness, but when it did, he took an involuntary step backwards. Something was staring out at him.

  The strange, severe lines of its face were unlike anything he’d ever seen. He felt dizzy just looking at the inhuman creature.

  Then he realized the creature wasn’t alone. Slowly, his right hand went up to his helmet, and his finger found the switch. His headlamp turned on, bathing the interior of the building with light.

  Dozens and dozens of pairs of eyes stared back at him. There may have been one hundred vampires jammed together body to body under just the narrow beam of his light. How many were there throughout the rest of the building? How many were there in this settlement?

  Three turned t
oward him. “One, maybe you’re going in there to check for survivors, but I sure as hell—”

  A hand snaked out of the darkness with inhuman speed. Long, smoking fingers coiled around Three’s ankle. He let out a soft yelp of surprise as a vampire pulled him into the building.

  One watched in terrified horror as the vampires converged on Three. Ten vampires fell on him, tearing at his body with claws and teeth, devouring the blood that seeped and sprayed from his wounds. All around them, vampires fought, jockeying for position, all desperate to get a taste of this fresh victim's blood.

  The rest of the team jumped back, shouts and screams erupting from their mask-covered mouths as they watched their teammate being devoured.

  If there was any consolation, it was that Three only struggled for a few moments before his body went still. Which one of the dozens of injuries had killed him was anybody’s guess, but at least he was dead.

  Unlike One, who stood frozen, unable to turn his headlamp away from the carnage.

  “What do we do?” Five asked, her voice panicked. So far, the team had been relatively calm, at least considering what they’d just witnessed, but One realized it was shock rather than bravery that kept them from screaming and running away. Three had been yanked into the building and killed so quickly that none of them even had a chance to consider what they might be able to do to save him.

  One drew a deep breath. He needed to pull it together. Like so many great warriors before him, he was the field commander of the GMT. Like CB. Like Alex. Maybe it was his first day on the job, but he still needed to live up to that lofty legacy.

  Even in the areas through the hole not illuminated by his headlamp, One could see ripples of movement in the darkness. The ground shook as vampires throughout the building began to howl.

  One thought fast. “We need to bring this damn building down. Shine a little sunlight on these sons of bitches. Six, do it.”