by Summer Lane
He smiles his beautiful smile, and for a brief moment, all is right with the world.
“Commander?”
Chris and I both turn at the same time. Uriah is standing there. He is dressed in black. Like me, camouflage paint is smudged on his face.
“Yes?” I say.
Chris raises his eyebrows.
“Omega is here,” Uriah says. “Get ready.”
There is always a calm before the storm. I lie prone in the brush, my rifle in my shoulder, my cheek on the stock. I am comfortable, I am prepared. I am strangely at peace. Chris is beside me, his position the same.
We are a team again. A single unit.
We’ve got six teams here in the woods with us. All of them are members of the Freedom Fighters. I miss having Alexander Ramos and Derek in the fight with us, but we have to work with what we’ve got.
I see Omega approaching. They are coming up the steep incline, cautiously moving along. They are well armed. None of them are talking. They are expecting us to attack them at some point, but they cannot see us. This is their scouting unit, the prologue to the initial attack. We will wait until their first wave is in the midst of our ranks – until we have drawn them in – and then we will attack.
We are hidden, invisible. We are guerrilla warfighters and the element of surprise is our best weapon. I study the enemy. As always, Omega is a varietal mix of ethnicities. German, Russian, Middle Eastern and Chinese. Some of them I can’t put my finger on. It brings on the same old question: Where does Omega really come from?
Focus, steady, I tell myself. Get ready, girl.
They come closer. I can feel my blood rushing through every inch of my body. I swear that I can hear Chris’s heartbeat next to mine. I barely move my head, enough to see Uriah on the ground with his team about two hundred feet to my right. Vera has her team two hundred feet to my left. Sophia and Andrew’s teams are further ahead. We form a curved lineup, a crescent moon. We are pulling the enemy in, trapping them inside a corral made of soldiers and bullets.
Ten, twenty, fifty, eighty…
I count under my breath. There are at least two hundred Omega troops here. I wrinkle my brow, a twinge of worry in the back of my mind. Harry had at least five hundred troops in the dunes. Where are the other three hundred? Probably spread out around the city.
I shake myself.
Five hundred troops is not really enough to inflict damage when you’ve got militia warfighters and United States military forces guarding a heavily fortified city. The warships on the coastline…they’re not firing any more cruise missiles because they fear retaliation from the Alliance.
But Omega has always fought dirty. Why would they follow the rules?
A thought strikes me.
“Oh, my God…” I whisper. “Chris…”
He looks at me. He makes a sign to remain silent.
I have gone completely pale. Blanched like a sheet.
Where’s Manny? I think. If he’s been flying, he must know, too.
I am bursting, dying to tell Chris what is going on inside my head. This is important, this is life or death. If I’m right, this could be the difference between Monterey falling into enemy hands or us achieving a major victory against Omega.
The front line of the Omega troops are close enough to hear their breathing.
Chris gives the signal by firing the first shot, hitting a soldier in the head. He jerks backward. There is a momentary, split-second where the enemy is frozen. And then everything is chaos.
We are at war once more.
I bring my rifle back into my shoulder, taking a shot. My first bullet hits my target, but I am off by a couple of inches, nevertheless.
“Hang in there,” I tell myself aloud.
The smattering of gunfire in the quiet of the forest turns into a barrage of white noise, of shattering limbs and desperate, guttural pleas for mercy. Sprays of blood fill the air. I move in formation with the rest of my units. Dropping to one knee to shoot, fire and return fire. Then I sprint to the next area of cover, repeat the action, and do it all over again. There is no break in the fight. It is one massive blur of instinctive movement. Of action and reaction. I make sure that I am in the former category.
I want Omega to react to me.
Chris and I stay together. I am always right behind his shoulder as we move from position to position. Our lines move in a circle around the Omega forces. We surround them from all sides, boxing them into our circle of fire.
It is a technique that we once used when we were fighting Omega in the hills of Squaw Valley and the smaller Central Valley farm towns like Sanger and Dinuba. We are so well camouflaged that Omega can barely see us as we move from point to point. It must seem as if they’re being attacked by ghosts.
If they only knew how much they outnumber us.
An Omega soldier manages to worm his way to the front of the enemy line and charge forward, evading gunfire for a few moments. He is very young – almost childlike in his appearance. I am kneeling behind the trunk of a tree, reloading my weapon. I see him coming. He is holding his gun carelessly, a wild look in his eyes. I know that look. It is the expression of someone who knows they are about to lose a fight.
He sees me behind the tree. I am the first person to make eye contact with him. I snap my rifle into my shoulder but he is faster than me. He is crazed with terror and the knowledge that he is about to die.
That is the difference between us: he doesn’t care.
He squeezes the trigger on his automatic weapon. A sputtering of gunfire hits the tree right above my head, tearing pieces of bark off the trunk, tossing splinters into the air like confetti.
I duck down, flinching. I fire off a couple of shots, hitting him twice in the shoulder. He jerks backward and rolls into the brush. He crawls on his stomach. His weapon is out of reach, his teeth are gritted in pain. Blood seeps from the sides of his mouth. I drop to my hands and knees and grab the butt of his weapon, bringing it to my feet, away from his grip.
I will not shoot him again. He will die. My job is done.
“Cassidy!”
Uriah sprints to my area of cover from a few yards away. He stops on the other side of Chris, who is methodically and calmly finishing off the front lines of Omega’s defenses.
“Manny’s here!” Uriah yells.
“GOOD!”
I have been worried about Manny, and even more confused that he shares the last name as Elle, the girl with the bomb dog. It ran through my head that they could possibly be related…but on the other hand, lots of people have the last name of Costas. That doesn’t mean anything.
But what did Elle say to me on the train ride to Monterey?
I was at a ranch in the Tehachapi Mountains. My Uncle’s place, after the EMP. I went back afterwards…it was empty. He was gone. Everything I thought I knew was changed. That fast.
Was it possible…?
Bam!
I hit the tree chest first, the wind knocked out of my lungs. I collapse on the ground, ears ringing. I look down at my body, scanning for injuries. My armored vest has not been pierced. I don’t see anything. But I feel it.
My hip is screaming with pain. It feels like it’s on fire.
Chris is instantly by my side. He fires off his gun and I turn. The dying trooper on the ground is gripping a handgun. There is now a bullet hole in the center of his forehead.
“You’ve been shot,” Chris says.
I touch my hip. Hot blood seeps through the material of my pants. I probe the wound with my fingers, flinching.
“I don’t think it hit bone!” I yell over the noise. “It’s just a scratch!”
“Are you sure?” Chris asks.
“I’ll let you know when I need to get carried off on a stretcher!”
I kiss his cheek and force myself into a kneeling position. My hip is throbbing, but it’s not unbearable. The adrenaline of warfare will keep the pain at a minimum for now. I tear my medic bandage off my vest and slap it on my hip,
sealing the wound up. It’s only skin deep. I should be fine.
We continue this pattern, pushing and shooting and moving until there are no survivors. Until there is nothing but the sound of weapons being checked and the heaving breaths of tired soldiers.
Sweat runs down the sides of my face, plastering my clothes and my hair to my skin. I lick my lips, dry and cracked. I taste blood in my mouth – I must have bitten my cheek during the fight, concentrating on hitting my marks.
I turn to Chris. The jarring thought that occurred to me before the beginning of this battle is back, demanding attention.
“Chris,” I say. “This doesn’t make sense.”
Chris takes a drink of water from his canteen. The Lieutenants are sweeping the area, checking for any survivors. Putting down anyone who is left alive.
“What?” he breathes.
“Two hundred here, three hundred there,” I say, shaking my head. “This isn’t enough to take over a city. This is a distraction.”
Chris looks at me. I can tell by the way he closes the lid on his canteen that this is a thought that he has had, too, but he said nothing. It does no good to upset the nerves of your troops right before a battle, after all.
And then I say,
“Manny!”
I turn on my heel, away from the forest. I run through the brush, the pain of my wounded hip on the backburner for the moment. I reach the clearing. There is a little highway here. It has been cleared of all vehicles, and Manny’s biplane is settled in the midst of it.
“Manny?” I call.
He is standing on the wing of his biplane, his leather duster caught in the wind, his flight cap stuck to his head, tangled with his wild gray hair.
“Cassidy,” he smiles. “What is it, my girl?”
“You’re not going to believe this,” I say. “But I think we found your niece.”
Manny’s hand drops to his side. I see something that I have never seen on his face before: shock.
“Elle?” he asks.
I nod.
He takes his flight cap off and hops off the wing of the plane.
“But where? How?” He walks closer. “How did you know I had a niece? I was under the impression that I’d kept that a secret.” He pauses. “Have I been talking in my sleep?”
I laugh – almost hysterically.
“No, Manny,” I promise. “I figured it out for myself.”
“Where is Elle?”
“She’s safe. She’s at the Naval Postgraduate School. She’s got a bomb dog.”
Manny makes a face.
“Makes sense,” he says, but I can see the excitement on his face – the total relief.
“Manny,” I tell him, snapping my fingers. “I need you to focus.”
“I’m focused. Bright eyed and bushy-tailed.” He grins. “What’s the situation, Commander?”
“You’ve been flying overwatch, right?” I ask.
“Just about three times a day,” he replies.
“What have you seen?”
“Well, I didn’t see Harry’s cronies hidden in the dunes,” he replies. “I’ve got a biplane, not a modern aircraft. I couldn’t see them through that thick fog.”
“Have you seen anything else?”
“I’ve been circling the city about twenty or thirty miles out every day. Haven’t seen a thing.” Manny shrugs. “Why?”
“Have you been flying today?”
“No. The threat of missiles put a cramp in my organized schedule.”
“What about last night?”
“No. Pulled aircraft in. I was searching the bay, looking for you.” He smiles softly. “I’m glad you’re alive, my girl.”
I blink, hard.
“Me too,” I say, clearing my throat. Then, “So all of our forces, all of our resources have been concentrated on the coastline, keeping those warships out of our hair.”
Manny nods. “Yes, that’s about the size of it.” He leans closer. “You’re brain’s working so fast, I can hear the cogs whirring.” He makes a motion with his finger. “Don’t give yourself a headache.”
“Too late.” My eyes widen. “Manny. Remember when we were fighting in the Grapevine? You told me that Roman soldiers used to send mercenary groups to the front of the line as a sacrifice. Right?”
“Yes, they knew that the first line of defense is always killed, so why waste the rest-”
“-Manny, I think we’re in trouble.”
“How do you figure, my girl?”
“Five hundred troops. Warships that are just sitting in the harbor, blowing up stupid buildings on the shore…” I look Manny in the eye. “My God, Manny. I think we just let Omega roll a Trojan horse through our front door.”
Manny doesn’t reply.
He just looks at me with an expression that says,
Here we go again.
We are back in the forest. Chris is on the radio, contacting the Naval Postgraduate School. Don’t pretend this isn’t happening, he keeps saying. Something bigger is coming. This is a distraction, smoke and mirrors. We’re in trouble. Call in the Alliance’s air support – everything.
I am breathing hard. Normally I can control my breathing, but right now I am on the verge of panic. I have lost quite a bit of blood, and I lean on Manny for support. He keeps his arm around me, gently squeezing my shoulders.
In the distance, the sound of gunfire and rockets echo across the sea.
“They’re not answering,” Chris says.
Manny cracks his knuckles.
“Try again,” he tells Chris.
Chris does try again. And again. We try contacting the guard posts, anyone.
“What the hell is going on?” Uriah mutters.
Nobody knows, so nobody answers.
“We should send scouts into the city to see what’s going on,” I suggest. “If something bad did go down, we won’t risk sending all of our militia forces into the heart of the city where we can’t make a quick exit.”
More gunshots. More rockets.
There is a distant scream, like someone is punching the air. I look up. Two fighter jets scream above our heads. “Enemy aircraft,” Chris says. “Damn.”
“What do we do?” I ask Chris.
Because I really don’t know what we should do.
The city isn’t responding. We’re stuck in a phantom gray area. Without communication with the rest of the Alliance, how can we know what’s going on?
“We send the scouts into the city,” Chris says, seconding my suggestion. “We find out what’s going on, and we keep the rest of our forces hidden in the woods. If Cassidy’s theory is right…” He shakes his head. “We’ll find out. Uriah, Vera. Take a team. Do a recon. See what you can see.”
“I’m going with them,” I say.
“You’re going nowhere,” Chris replies. “You’re wounded.”
“Give me some epinephrine and I’ll be fine.”
Chris gives me a look.
Geez. I was only joking.
Well…kind of.
I get a flashback of Desmond, the crazy field medic from the Mountain Rangers, his dreadlocks fluttering in the breeze as he went from wounded to wounded on the battlefield, saving every man he could.
He would have had me fixed up by now.
“Sophia,” Chris replies. “Help Cassidy with her wound, then hit the city. Fast.”
Sophia doesn’t meet Chris’s gaze, but she does as she’s told. She has often been our go-to medic when there is no one else available.
I walk over to her, sitting on the edge of a rotting stump. The sound of distant warfare is unsettling. Sophia kneels beside me, checking my hip. It is only a flesh wound, but it still smarts. The skin has been cut and burned. The bullet passed through the flesh, leaving me with nothing but pain – and what I’m sure will be a highly attractive scar later on.
“How are you doing?” I ask Sophia.
She glances at my face, shrugging. She cleans the wound with water and antiseptic wipes from her med
ial kit. “This needs some stitching,” she says. “Hang on.”
I sigh. She takes the needle and inserts it into my flesh. It pinches and burns, but I force myself to remain still. If I can endure a gunshot, I can endure the stitching up that comes afterward.
“Sophia,” I say.
She keeps stitching.
“Lieutenant,” I press. “Look at me, soldier.”
Sophia snaps her head up, locking gazes with me. Her eyes are red, teary. I touch her shoulder. She freezes, looking like a deer caught in the headlights of a moving vehicle.
“What is it, Sophia?” I ask. “Why all this bitterness?”
She finishes the stitches and ties it off, leaving me with a cleaned, bandaged hip. “What’s going on,” she whispers, “is that we’re at war.”
She stands up.
She swipes her black hair out of her eyes, now long enough to pull into a ponytail.
“You know,” I say, “you can only act like this for so long before you have to take responsibility for your attitude. And let me tell you, Sophia, I’m getting sick of this. We’ve all been through crap, and none of us do this to the team. It’s time for you to suck it up and get over it.”
Sophia’s expression is pure poison.
“You have no right to tell me how to feel or how to act,” she hisses. “I don’t care if you’re the chosen one or the freaking messiah of the entire revolutionary movement. You can’t help me. Ever.” She stands up. “You’ve made your choice. I’ve made mine.”
She shuts her medical kit and walks away. She converses briefly with Vera. They both look at me, then look away.
Sure. That’s right. Talk about me behind my back.
See how well that will turn out for you.
I stand and test my weight on my hip. Not bad. It’s sore, but it will heal – and hey. It could have been a fatal wound, but I got lucky. I’m still in the game. I approach Chris and place my hand on his.
“I want to take a team into the city,” I say. “Let me go instead of Sophia and Vera.”
Chris considers this. He knows that he cannot really stop me. I will go whether he wants me to or not…but I would prefer that he approve of my decision.