They watched the children play as the others arrived. Timmons, Pepe, Claire, and finally Terry Henry.
Pepe smelled of sweat and manure and Terry smelled of fish. Felicity covered her nose while Billy coughed. Char made the unwashed stand outside the doorway while the others filed in.
“No chairs?” Char scowled at the mayor. Sue was instantly upset that she hadn’t thought of it. Billy would have never remembered something like that.
Once they had everyone settled, Billy opened up the conversation.
“This is our first meeting of the elders, although I personally am not a fan of that term, since I’m young and beautiful,” he said in his gruff voice, in his tough way. He leaned back in his chair to watch Felicity roll her eyes. Char snickered.
“The council has spoken. We are all beautiful people in our own way,” Chief Foxtail suggested, smiling at the group before standing and nodding. Billy signaled for him to continue.
“Spring has come to all our worlds, in ways that only Mother Earth can deliver. The bounty seems endless, just like the opportunity we are given. The future is in how we educate our children.” Foxtail hesitated and looked over his shoulder. The laughter and sounds of joy were clear through the open doors.
“How we continue to incorporate newcomers as equals is a testament to the good people here. Everyone has their role, everyone works, and everyone benefits. Everyone has a place to stay, for now, and eventually, new areas will open, but we will never forget that we are one people.”
The chief sat down as if his words weren’t profound, but when he spoke, people listened, and his words forced them to think.
Terry started to walk into the room, but Char held out a hand and shook her head. He settled for leaning around the door.
“We proved today that fishing from a sailing ship in Lake Michigan is viable for the quantities that we need. And everyone else here will probably attest to what they foresee in their areas, which is all good, Billy Spires. We are in a good place, doing good things for the town’s people,” Terry told them, having moved into the room since he did his best thinking while pacing. He walked back and forth in the mayor’s office.
“The Force de Guerre is a military force, not a police force. We have the most modern of weapons because of Akio. We have some other advantages because of Akio’s master. That aside, the purpose of the FDG is to protect this community, hell, all peace-loving people from external threats. The recent intrusion was an example of that. We won’t ever police this town, but we will stand on the outside, making sure that someone who doesn’t belong doesn’t find their way inside in order to impose their will on the rest of you. We can’t have that. We’ve worked way too hard to give our liberty away.”
Terry shuffled his feet, then stopped and looked at the faces of those watching him.
“We’re going to have to deploy the FDG occasionally as we did with our trip to New York City. We have another couple missions coming up, and I wanted you to know that each of these, in their own way, contribute to the safety of North Chicago and the return of civilization worldwide. There is no one else in the whole world like us, believe it or not. We are the planet’s peacekeepers.”
Terry was uncomfortable saying it. He didn’t want to sound like he was bragging. He didn’t mind being thought of as a mercenary, but this work was for the good of the world.
No fortune. No glory.
He was a modern Knight of the Roundtable, but at least he didn’t have to be chaste. He smiled at Char, amazed every time by the sparkle in her purple eyes. Terry didn’t need any other reward. She looked away with her eyes, then looked back. Terry took the hint and coughed politely.
“We’ll be going soon on a short mission, just a few of us and later, we’ll take the entire Force on a mission far away for an unknown amount of time. That’s all I have to say,” Terry finished.
“Thanks for that, TH,” Billy said with a nod. “Do you ever see a reason for us to have a police force?”
“Not right now, but if we grow big enough, we’ll get someone who doesn’t like the rules, even as loose as ours are. But we can’t ever turn the Force inward. If we become the police, then the people become the enemy. It’s how it’s always been. The military needs to be focused on the enemy and the enemy can never be the population. If it is, then we’ve completely failed the people.”
Terry stepped back to the doorway, bumping into Kiwi on the way. He stepped aside so she could enter the room. Everyone looked at her and she froze.
Chief Foxtail stood and waved her to his chair. Billy looked askance at the young woman, then to Terry Henry.
“Kiwidinok is here at my request,” Foxtail said softly, but with command in his voice. Her presence was not up for debate. “She represents the new blood of our people and her voice is one of many that we need to hear.”
Billy looked from one face to another. “Welcome to the meeting, Kiwi,” Billy said, unsure of what else to tell her. “What you’re going to find is that a bunch of old people talking about stuff can be really boring. I trust that you’ll bring life to our discussions.”
She couldn’t commit to that since she had no idea what was being discussed. The chief, her father, simply told her to be there.
“I’m sorry I’m late. I hope I didn’t miss anything,” she apologized.
“Foxtail will catch you up,” Billy answered, before turning back to the matters at hand. “We need to talk about farming, ranching, hunting, and then to what a modern society looks like. It starts with power. How far along are you, Timmons?”
“Only a few days, but we need Ted and he’s driving the sailing boat.” Timmons shook his head as he talked. He clenched his jaw and pursed his lips as he waited for someone to tell him that Ted was going to focus on power generation.
No one stepped up.
“Come on, Terry!” Timmons blurted, then hung his head.
“I can drive the boat, but I have the external missions to attend to,” Terry started, but seeing Timmons crushed under the weight of expectations, he relented. “I’ll take the boat and train the new skipper. We’ll head out after Anne is ready to captain our fishing fleet on her own.”
Timmons brightened and nodded thankfully.
The rest of the meeting covered logistics and stuff that Kiwi found boring as snot. Billy was right, but she also understood the necessity of everyone knowing what the others were doing. Requirements for people were hashed out, with the farmers getting the biggest share. Without volunteers, they’d have to form mandatory work parties, like they did in New Boulder, starting with one everyone working in the fields one day in seven.
With the addition of Felipe and Jumbo, much of the hardest work would be done with minimal human involvement. Pepe could not have been more thankful. The elephant also worked to clear land of bushes and small trees. They wondered if he was part goat based on the wake of destruction he left behind.
When the meeting broke, Claire shook Timmons’s hand and thanked him in advance for bringing power back. She was almost ready to run the freezer, but needed to know that she’d get consistent power of more than twelve hours a day.
“Soon,” Timmons promised.
They’d cleaned the freezers and were ecstatic that three of the four seemed to be fully functional. Claire made ice every time the power was on. Of all the things that people appreciated, ice water was the most welcome. Many of the younger ones had never had an ice cube in their water before.
After thanking Timmons a second time, Claire rushed away to see how much fish Ted and his crew had brought in.
Mayra stopped Pepe and Maria from leaving. She looked around before speaking. “We have good, strong women who need work to help them move forward. Will fifteen people help you out? And could we live out there, too, by the fields? I think shifts, morning and evening, would work best to keep everyone from getting too hot.”
“Five would help us through the hardest of it and fifteen would make all the difference in the world. This so
il is so much better than what we had to work with in Boulder,” Pepe replied, then shook her hand vigorously in both of his. Maria hugged her.
With a terse nod, Mayra took a deep breath, held her head high, and walked outside.
Pepe and Maria went outside to where their cart waited. The horses had wandered, grazing as they went. The farmers recovered the two and returned them to their harness. Pepe and Maria climbed aboard and the horses pulled them away. They waved to the crowd in the grassy area in front of the mayor’s building.
The chief walked away with his arm draped around his granddaughter. Timmons and Sue left together, talking animatedly. Last out were Terry and Char. The first thing they did was look for their kids.
“I need to have a talk with Auburn,” Char said flatly.
“No, you don’t,” Terry told her. “Because I’m talking with him, man to man!”
Terry jutted his chest out, put his hands on his hips, and frowned mightily.
“Bullshit,” Char called, raising one eyebrow as she smirked. “You’re going to go over there and pussyfoot around the issue. This requires someone who is not called TH, as in, someone who will be both firm and tactful.”
“Sounds like me,” Terry replied as he reached down to fondle her backside.
“Hey!” Billy called. He and Felicity stood in the doorway right behind Terry and Char. Billy was doing the same thing while Felicity wiggled and squirmed.
“Maybe neither of us need to do anything,” Terry said as they watched Kimber walk away from Auburn, waving and grabbing her brother’s hand to pull him from a pile of other children. Aaron was obvious since he towered over the other parents. He was carrying Cory and had called to Kim and Kae as soon as he saw the meeting had ended.
“I’ve about had it with boring shit!” Terry exclaimed and ran into the scrum before Kim and Kae had cleared the mass.
***
Once again, Mark found himself in a position where he wasn’t sure whether he was doing the right thing or not.
With Sergeant James by his side, he continued the strict training regimen. The platoon ran, faster and faster, did more pushups, and excelled in all physical areas of their training. They were always wearing their flak jackets and carrying their rifles.
The lieutenant carried only a pistol, something that the colonel told him would set him apart. His job was to direct the action, not take part in it, a concept that Terry Henry Walton violated in every engagement. It was the only time where it was ‘do as I say, not as I do.’
But the colonel could heal almost instantly and that set him apart from the platoon’s warriors. The major and the other Were folk could heal, too. It was the colonel’s responsibility to keep the warriors as safe as they could be, so he and the Weres bore the brunt of the battles, but at some point, Mark and the others would be on their own.
So they trained, to be a little faster, execute more quickly, and be tighter as a unit.
When the time came, there couldn’t be any hesitation.
There wouldn’t be any hesitation.
CHAPTER TEN
By the fourth fishing trip that week, Anne was manning the wheel and commanding the boat. Terry pushed her until she almost tipped the boat over, to make sure she respected the power of the wind and the water.
She was pretty angry since she didn’t want to do what he made her do, but her lesson had been in how to recover from an ill-timed wind shift. Sailing the boat in a light breeze and calm water wasn’t the challenge. She needed to be able to handle the boat if a storm blew in unexpectedly, making the seas rough. Only then would she find out what she was capable of, what the boat could handle, and how the fishermen would respond.
Her husband was one of her crew. Terry left that one for them to work out as Alex didn’t seem too keen on the idea, especially since he was a puker. He’d yak within five minutes of leaving the dock, but then would recover and man his station without further interruption.
The next two days involved Terry working as a hand aboard the boat. On the seventh day, Terry turned Anne loose and went to the plant instead, where Ted, Gene, Timmons, and Shonna required someone to broker the peace because Char’s easy answer was to kill them all.
A couple setbacks and three days had become six with no end in sight.
Terry looked at the pack as he carried Cory. He found it easier to be calm with the baby in his arms. Char stood with her arms crossed. She saw their inability to agree as an attack on her position as the alpha. She was ready to kick some serious ass, going right down the line, one after another.
Char needed to be calmer so Terry pushed Cory at her. Both were instantly furious. Terry gave his best hurt look and apologized before saying please. She took the baby and held her tightly, finding the peace that Terry had hoped.
“What’s the problem this time?” Terry asked the group.
They all started talking at once.
“SHUT UP!” Terry bellowed, scowling at the group. “Timmons. What is the startup sequence for this plant?”
Timmons wondered where that came from. “But I need…” Terry stopped him cold.
“I don’t care who you need to do what. I asked what the startup sequence was,” Terry reiterated, getting closer to Timmons to loom over him.
“Once we ensure the water feed is functional, we start the reaction. It drives the boiler, which then was supposed to feed an integrated steam turbine, but that wasn’t with the Mini Cooper. So we’ve cobbled together a steam pipe to feed the turbine inside the plant. The rest of the system is within the plant. There’s no recycle on the water, so we need to make sure the feed we have in place is steady otherwise we could get a runaway reaction.”
Timmons leaned back.
Terry closed his eyes and rubbed his temples. “That’s your startup sequence?” he grumbled.
“Well, no, but I thought you should know the background,” Timmons said meekly.
When Terry opened his eyes, they glowed a faint red. His jaw trembled because he clenched his teeth so hard. Both hands had become fists.
The smug look on Timmons’s face disappeared and he started to sputter.
Char wore a strange expression, somewhere between relief and joy. She felt vindicated.
Terry grabbed Timmons by his shirt collar and reared back, ready to punch the engineer in the face. “One last time. I’ve heard you were a brilliant engineer, but right now, you’re dense as a post. If you don’t tell me the startup sequence, I’m going to punch you and keep punching you until you tell me or you’re in a coma. Then it’ll be Shonna’s turn and you don’t want that to happen, do you?”
Timmons spluttered as he held one hand up, begging for time while he dug in his pocket for a rough scrap of paper. He held it up.
“One…” Timmons read down his list. Terry let go of his collar and looked at Char. Her look of triumph was replaced by one of scorn.
He had a list the whole time.
“That seems pretty straightforward,” Terry added once Timmons was done. “Here’s the plan. Shonna on the water feed system. You own it. Do you need any other people?”
“Maybe one or two at the end near the pumps.” She looked indifferent, which made her perfect for the job.
“I’ll have Corporal Lacy assign a couple to you. Next Ted and Gene will start the reactor and boil the water.” Ted crossed his arms and pressed his lips together until they turned white. Gene looked bored.
“What’s his problem?” Terry asked the Werebear.
“Maybe you ask him?” Gene replied snottily.
“Because I asked you, fuckstick,” Terry moved close.
Gene didn’t hesitate. He lashed out with a meaty hand, trying to slap Terry in the head, but the human was ready for it. He ducked and with all his enhanced strength, he drove a knife hand into Gene’s abdomen hard enough to send all the air from the Werebear’s lungs.
Gene grunted and fell to his knees, struggling to draw a breath. Terry whirled with a roundhouse kick, but stopped his f
oot an inch from Gene’s head. The Werebear hadn’t been able to raise his hands to block it because Terry’s move had been so fast. When Gene got his breath, he held up his hand in surrender.
“He is mad because starting reactor is not so easy,” he mumbled in his heavy Russian accent.
“No one thought it was easy,” Terry explained, turning to Ted. “There’s probably a hundred things you need to do, but you know what? You make it look easy, because that’s what you do. You make hard things look easy, Ted.”
“There are only forty-two steps to start the chain reaction,” Ted reported.
“Forty-two. Key to universe, eh?” Gene said as he struggled to his feet. “Where you get such big punch for such small man?”
“Wouldn’t you like to know?” Terry slapped Gene on his heavily-muscled shoulder. “And you’ll be inside manning the generator, the condenser, and then throwing the switch, won’t you, Timmons?”
“I need some help, too.” Timmons tried to sound confident, but he came across as whiny.
“Sergeant James, Corporal Lacy, and a few others will be at your beck and call. Let’s say we light this candle. What do you think, time to turn the power on?” Terry swept his arm from the Mini Cooper to the plant.
“Today?”
***
Terry and Char were talking with Claire, Mrs. Grimes, and Margie Rose, when the lights winked on and stayed on. The freezer motors started to run. A fan spun up somewhere nearby.
The power had been a daily occurrence for the previous weeks, sometimes lasting longer than others, but always getting shutdown by dinner time.
“I think it’ll be staying on this time, ladies. Next will be running water and sewage treatment. They’ll bring convenience back one section at a time, but the chow hall has priority.” Terry smiled winningly, but it didn’t prevent him from getting his knuckles rapped with the wooden spoon.
“Chow hall, TH?” Margie Rose said, finally agreeing to call him by his chosen nickname. “We’re calling it Claire’s Diner.”
Claire Weathers had been the one who catered Terry & Char's wedding, while her husband Antioch officiated. All the town’s people pitched in, pot luck style, but it was Claire's doing to coordinate the dishes. Felicity and Char promised Claire that she'd open the first restaurant, post WWDE, in New Boulder, but Terry and Char uprooted everyone before that could happen.
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