by Vance Huxley
“The automatics fired over six hours ago? Tolly?” A lieutenant saluted smartly.
“Yes, sir.”
“When did you get the report of trouble here, either a build-up of hostiles or the artillery?” The officer seemed more interested in the timing than Sarge’s transgressions.
“When I arrived at the meeting to collect you, at oh-four-fifty. There was a message waiting from an artillery officer, querying the use of shrapnel. I told you. I received orders to come for you because there’d been a cock-up over transport, then the radio in my vehicle wasn’t working.” The lieutenant frowned, thinking for a moment. “Who did you speak to, Sergeant, because it wasn’t me!”
As the two officers exchanged times and names of informants, called HQ on the radio, and asked Sergeant Stokes for his version, the sergeant began to wonder exactly what had been happening. The newbie lieutenant he had fondly imagined kicking the crap out of one dark night didn’t exist. The man shouldn’t have been answering Sergeant Stokes’s calls, and there hadn’t been a cockup with the captain’s transport. When the two officers retired to mutter together, Sarge knew he was off the hook for that part. He’d still be in trouble once the captain got back to what had happened here.
* * *
Bethany limped up to the gatehouse, but the fitter members of her squad were already coming out. Suzie brandished her sabre before whispering. “We killed two, both barely awake. The front of the house is all smashed in.”
“Check the Battle Bus and the tank, then we’ll clear the other guardhouse.” The squad kept their voices down. Even if the noises deeper into the Close roused anyone inside, they’d never realise the Riot Squad were making house calls.
All the trained fighters in Bethany’s smaller squad were injured, some of them barely mobile, but they wouldn’t be moving far. Once the scroats in the gatehouses and the flats in Cherry Tree House were dead, this squad would seal two exits, the gates and the nearest breach. Moments after Suzie led the fighters inside the other gatehouse, voices were raised in alarm. A gunshot answered, followed by cries for help and short screams. This time Suzie’s sabre and sling were splashed with red when she came out to report. “We found a room full of badly wounded. I reckon they crawled in here after the shelling died down.”
“Prisoners? Did any of ours make it?” Bethany didn’t have much hope but she had to ask.
The scowl answered before Suzie spoke. “No, our people are all dead so we triaged the rest.” Louie, limping protectively behind her, nodded agreement.
“Is that policy now?” Neither the woman who spoke, nor those with her, seemed worried if it was. Several glanced at the armoured trailer as they spoke, where they’d just found the bodies of friends.
Bethany had just seen Hazel’s body, but only recognised her by the engagement ring. “It is until I find out they’ve taken prisoners.” She had a cold, hard place inside, where a normal person was supposed to feel compassion. Maybe it would thaw if enough of these shites died? “Any decent weapons?”
“A shotgun and a dozen pistols but they’re empty. I wouldn’t risk firing most of them.” Suzie proffered several weapons, but Bethany gestured for her to keep them.
“Use any decent ones as backups if you can find ammo. Make our worst injured shooters comfortable at the windows but keep them hidden. Louie, my leg can’t take the punishment. Take all the reasonably mobile and clean out Cherry Tree House. Keep it quiet because nobody over there has reacted yet. We want to make sure none of them get away to brag. If you find a rifle, put someone at a back window to shoot any runners.” Bethany hopped and wriggled into the tank, so she could watch or shoot through the loophole in the driver’s door. “Everyone get out of sight. With luck some idiot will think they’ve got a clear run at the gate.”
“There’s two coming round the wall, carrying extra weapons. I think they’ve been looting bodies.” Even wearing a sling, Tim could shoot a pistol. This time Toyah had come with him, to reload.
“Triage, because they’ll be wounded anyway?” Toyah had lost friends, twice now so she wanted blood. Bethany nodded. Shortly afterwards brief gunfire disposed of the problem. Five minutes later a storm of gunfire preceded the clash of steel. The noise of battle subsided, leaving only the sounds of screaming and begging as the Riot Squad finished clearing the flats.
* * *
Mercedes was back in a place she once thought was gone forever. Once again she was filled with a clean, pure, icy rage that wiped away all other emotions. Although the emotions were not quite gone this time because deep inside something survived, a wordless voice keening loss and pain. The Killer Queen took that loss and pain, using it to feed her rage. She’d seen the heap of rubble that had been his strongpoint. Mercedes would grieve for ’Arold later, but first the Killer Queen would build him a Samahd. ’Arold had told her what a Samahd was, a tomb built over the grave of someone special. She’d build this one with bones and skulls, once she’d killed enough gangsters.
Mercedes fired twice, the hollow points throwing the man backwards in a heap, then stuck the empty weapon in the back of her belt. She pulled another pistol, firing rapidly to cover the assault on an occupied house. As she did, more shots from just behind her added to the fusillade, then Mercedes felt Tessa take the weapon from her belt to reload it. According to Tessa she owed Harold two lives, hers and Eddie’s, twice. Smoke gushed from the window ahead as a bomb exploded inside before the fighters leapt through the window or charged through the gaping doorway. Mercedes followed, hunched over as the pain in her ribs stabbed at her. Her numb arm started to throb as she took a long, careful breath. She had this moment to recover, while the fighters cleared the house.
* * *
Emmy rubbed the back of a glove across her eyes as the smoke stung, then pointed out of the back of the house. “Straight through, we take that one next. Liz, get upstairs. You can reach the bottom windows from here so I want a bomb in each one.” She turned to the fit fighters, those who could still run and shoot. “The others will deal with any flankers. As soon as the second bomb blows, we go straight across the garden and in.”
“Got it.” Billy chivvied others into position before crouching behind his shield.
Liz pushed at Henry, but gently because his arm and shoulder were still strapped up. He had two shields hung from his neck, side by side to cover Liz as well, a rucksack full of bombs on his back and his mace in case all else failed. “Cripes Henry, hurry up. Now we’ve finally found something I can actually do, we’d better get on with it.” Liz had decided that since she hadn’t turned into an alien killing machine after all, she could throw bombs.
“What about the houses to each side, Emmy?” Berry brandished her pistol. One of the lasses from the Hot Rods had dropped out, curled up in a corner, whimpering every time a shot crashed out. The rest, those who hadn’t been hit, were still shooting. Four of Emmy’s squad, not all female, had tears streaming down their faces but weren’t giving up.
“You, and anyone not trained for close stuff, split up and shoot at anyone who shows. Lay it on so they daren’t pop up to shoot back. Seth, pick up that shotgun and cover the upstairs in the target house. It’ll be more accurate than the sawn-off. Get a couple of the better shooters to help, but don’t hit me in the back. Billy, you go through the door and I’ll take the left window.” Emmy turned towards the door. “Hurry up. I’ve got to get to number fourteen before the scroats escape. I promised Harold.”
* * *
Patty tossed her shield aside, holding back to let the shield line get ahead before pulling her Glock. The pretty poser gun had never been more lethal than today, every clip filled with new original rounds from the ammunition donated by Mack and Charger. “Straight down the street and across the road. Take number eight.” Patty wanted to be in that house because Harold had hidden her baby there.
A group of heavily-armed and armoured gangsters with big red crosses on their chests burst out of a nearby house, closing too fast for the pistols. S
teel met steel, the lighter Orchard Close fighters giving ground until their backup could get a clean shot. As she parried a machete, Patty’s gun hand flared in agony. She faltered, screaming in pain as the Glock fell to the ground. The man with the mace reeled back when someone walked half a clip up his chest, going down even as Patty curled around the agony, cradling her hand. A fusillade of shots from behind, more screams, and the rest of the gangsters were down. Someone stuffed the Glock in her holster. “Can you make it?”
Patty straightened a bit, trying to keep her arm and hand very still. It was bearable, though she daren’t look yet. “Yes. Keep going.” The next few steps were agony, so Patty paused to sheath her sabre before drawing the Glock with her right hand. The weapon was bloody but seemed unharmed. “Pick up that shotgun, but hide it from the bypass.” That brought a snort from nearby because it wasn’t easy to snaffle a shotgun unseen with binoculars watching. Patty glanced back.
“Bloody hell!” Half the Army were there, with tanks! “Ignore the guns and the bypass. Just get inside that house.” Patty still wanted to get in there because she’d made Harold a promise, and she needed the weapon in there to keep it. Patty winced as the pain in her hand flared but she ruthlessly suppressed it, holding onto that one thought. She’d made a promise, a last promise.
One of her girls spun away and down, jetting blood. Others pointed weapons at a rifle barrel poking from an upstairs window but a rifle cracked, up on the bypass. The rifle barrel flipped up and backwards. Moments later the three remaining fit fighters of Patty’s squad went through the windows and doorway of number eight, shooting at any movement or even shadows. Patty made it upstairs, collecting the pry-bar she’d tucked away at the back of the airing cupboard. “Here, give me a hand. That plank needs to come out.” Timber splintered as a floorboard came up. “Come to mummy.”
Patty held out the Glock until someone took it, then picked up the two fat, heavy boxes next to the Winchester. “Reload my pistol and bring my rifle, please.” She put the ammo by the window, then dragged a chair up to the loophole. “Find me a jacket or something, so I can pad the back of the chair to support my rifle.” Patty finally looked at her hand, flinching at the damage. There was hardly any bleeding, but her fingers and thumb were blown up like sausages. “Find me a sling, someone, then leave a couple of guards to stop anyone getting in the front of the house. Not fighters, just someone who can pull a trigger. Stand back from the windows though. Don’t let anyone up on the bypass see a firearm.”
As most of the squad left to clear the next house, number six, Patty laid the Winchester on the chair and started feeding in rounds. Two bloody jackets and a pair of folded jeans were laid over the back, which meant she didn’t need her other hand to hold the rifle up. One of the part-trained girls helped Patty tie her wrist up out of the way, using three bloody shirt sleeves. When the lass left to guard the front, Patty knelt facing the window. She slid the barrel just through the side bar of the cross-shaped loophole, snugging the butt in tight against her shoulder.
Liam hobbled into the bedroom, having struggled upstairs despite his cast and crutch. He held out a small-bore rifle. “I’ve found this.”
Patty ignored him because she’d got her first customer. The Winchester kicked up a little, but the loophole helped and she’d aimed at his waist. Her target pitched forward on his face, then dragged himself to his knees. She’d missed! Her vision wavered for a moment as the pain peaked, then died back a little. “Sorry, had a moment there.” She cranked the underlever before glancing at the rifle Liam held. “Can you use that?”
“I can fire it, but I didn’t graduate from a musket. The scroat had fifteen rounds in his pockets but I don’t want to waste them.”
“You won’t if you keep it simple, aim for their belts. Take the other bedroom window, then the two of us might make one decent shooter. We can always shoot them again, lots of times if necessary.” Patty turned back to her window, squinting as the throbbing from her hand brought tears to her eyes. She heard another rifle firing from further up the road, the other side of wall across this end of the Annex garden. “Emmy is on the job.” Patty concentrated on keeping the barrel lined up on her wounded target. Up or down a bit didn’t really matter, nothing did as long as the targets dropped.
* * *
Up on the bypass, the captain spun round towards the marksmen. “I said cease fire!”
The soldier turned towards the captain. “Sorry sir. Man with a rifle pointing this way.”
“This way?”
“Yes sir. I thought it might be the Army weapon.” The grunt from the captain wasn’t exactly acceptance. Sarge watched the soldier’s neck begin to redden under the officer’s scrutiny.
“If it was a rifle it won’t have been a friendly, sir.”
The ruse worked because the captain’s irate gaze settled on Sarge. “None of them are friendlies, Sergeant.”
“No sir.” Sarge knew that officially it might be true, but only one side down there brought his lads chips and beer. “I meant that none of the ladies were carrying rifles.”
“Who knows by now? They certainly have plenty of firearms and are collecting even more. If they pick up rifles we are supposed to shoot them.” The captain didn’t sound keen, but he’d been on the sharp end a few times so the officer understood reality.
Though Sergeant Stokes found he couldn’t just let it drop. “They aren’t shooting this way sir?”
The captain took a long look at the scene before answering. “Even if they did, I’m not sure our men would shoot back. Actually, I was told you hadn’t reported the guns earlier because your men were fraternising.” The officer watched the fighting for a few moments. “If those women really had got that close, they’d have tied your men up and be using your automatics. We ought to recruit them.”
Considering the number of times Sarge had thought the same, he could hardly do anything but agree. “It would be very popular.”
This time there was a little real humour in the grunt. “True, Sergeant, but the brass would never let it happen. I am impressed by whatever training method this Soldier Boy uses. We should apply it to our recruits.”
“It only works with women, sir. First they get thrown to the animals. They escape or are rescued, then someone like Harold gives them a weapon and training and tells them they don’t have to take the shit anymore.” Sarge knew his bitterness showed but he didn’t care just now, because he was watching some of those young women die. Young women he knew personally, women he couldn’t help, which cut deep.
“Ah.” The captain obviously couldn’t find an answer to that, official or otherwise. “Who was that?” ‘That’ was a deeper note, definitely not a hand gun.
One of the squaddies answered, a man with binoculars. “Can’t see the shooter sir. It’s someone shooting out of the back of one of the houses. A man running across the cleared ground at the other side of the enclave just went down.”
“It’s definitely not a pistol.” Another, similar weapon fired and another figure running away across the rubble crumpled. Even from up here the crimson blasting out of the front of his helmet was visible, briefly. “I think the young women have found a rifle. She can shoot as well.” Rather than being annoyed, the captain seemed quite content with that idea.
“Harold was a damn good shot. He probably trained her.” Out in the rubble other figures staggered or dropped, one of them curled up clutching his gut. “Three rifles now.”
“Sir! Out there, beyond the rubble. Out where there are still ruins.” The soldier with the binoculars pointed.
“What is it?”
“Movement, sir. There’s people in some upstairs windows of those houses by the traffic island.” He fiddled with the binoculars, trying to get a better view. “Not many of them, but there’s another group moving to join them, and infra-red shows a number of people among the ruins further along.”
Both the captain and the sergeant swore, before Sarge definitely broke several rules. “W
e can’t let them attack, sir.”
“We can stop them if they use long guns, but if there’s enough they’ll get the job done without. The citizens are allowed anything up to rifles as a self-defence weapon. It’s in their human rights.” The bitterness in the captain’s voice came through loud and clear, but then he sighed. “We can always go down there now and arrest the women. You reported automatic rifles which is all the excuse we need.”
“They’ll be sent to the farms sir. They won’t want to go, and I wouldn’t want a daughter of mine….” Sarge stopped because that was the wrong argument.
“You wouldn’t want those filthy swine to get her either. We’ll let the fighting die down first. It won’t be long now because those lasses are about done with this batch.” The gangsters below had broken, a large number of them fleeing across the open space to the Annex. The Riot Squad concentrated on those who hadn’t run, then on shooting those who ran too late.
Even when the shooting died down the depleted squads kept working through the battered houses, slowly and methodically. The shouting and screaming slowly died out, while a few wounded were carried gently into the street. Several fighters promptly shed their weapons to start cutting off clothing or applying dressings. Half a dozen women came out from under the bypass, heavily laden. When their burdens were unpacked, the red crosses were plain to see. “There aren’t any enemy wounded.” The captain sounded puzzled.