by Graham Brown
“Keep going, God damn you,” he grunted. “Keep going!”
A false step put him down once again. This time, as he got to one knee he heard something. Something other than the sound of the wind and the sand.
Fifty yards off, a pair of sharply defined spotlights snapped on, blinding him. The high intensity beams cut through the storm like the eyes of some demon come to claim his body for perdition.
James knew all too well what those lights came from.
“No,” he muttered to himself.
The lights began to move and the ground began to shake as the huge machine began stomping towards him.
It shook James from his lethargy. “No!”
He got to his feet and began to run. He could lose them in the storm; he knew he could. But thirty paces into his flight, another set of lights snapped on in front of him and James skidded to a halt. As he turned, another set lit up and then another.
With nowhere left to run, and no energy to run with, James fell to his knees defeated. The lights from one machine moved forward, until the big machine appeared through the swirling dust like a nightmare come to life.
James felt his shoulders sag and his spirit fail as he awaited the inevitable. From the chin of the MRV a wave of blue light spiraled forth, it cut through the storm, much like the stun beam that had been used on the tunnel dwellers.
As the wave of energy swept over him, James fell forward, unconscious in the dust. His last thought was simple: this is the end.
CHAPTER 48
James awoke in darkness. The wind and blowing sand were gone. He was sitting on a chair, his hands cuffed to a small table in front of him.
A tiny chemical light sat in the middle of the table, its whitish glow soft and steady.
“About dammed time you woke up,” someone said.
Two more lights came on. Halogen beams but nothing fancy. They were work lights. The kind mechanics use to see what they were working on in tight engine bays. From what James could see they were mounted on a scaffolding of some kind. Hastily rigged up and aimed down toward him.
Where the hell was he?
A shadow moved forward in the lights. As it got closer, the light painted some of the features on the man’s face. He had a snarling look, a full bushy beard and a scar on the right side of his jaw that left a gash in the beard like an access road cut through a dense forest.
“Who the hell are you?” the man growled, his voice echoing as if they were in a large room or a cave.
James remembered he had ripped the ID strip from his arm. Maybe they hadn’t seen the gash. Or maybe with the bullet wound in his shoulder and the other injuries, these men had simply overlooked it.
James chose to remain silent. He might learn more if the interrogator asked a few more questions. But instead of more questions, the interrogator stepped back.
“Jog his memory,” he said to someone else.
Another thug moved in, rolling up his sleeves. He stepped between James and the light and threw a right cross that caught James in the jaw, sending him tumbling off the chair. He hit the ground and lay there, his hands held up where they were still cuffed to the table.
The force of the blow seemed to wake James up. He spat out some blood and small chip that had probably broken off one tooth.
“Don’t you dumbasses know anything about interrogation,” he managed. “You want someone to talk, you don’t break their mouth.”
With that the brute kicked him in the stomach, a blow James had expected and steeled himself against. The impact was jarring and painful, but not half as bad as it must have seemed to the men administering it.
“Where did you come from?” the interrogator asked. “And how did you find us?”
That was a strange question, James thought.
The interrogator stepped forward and righted the metal chair. A quick look told James it had been ripped out of the front end of a truck or some other vehicle.
“Help him up,” the interrogator muttered.
The thug taking orders hoisted James up, putting two beefy hands on his collar, yanking him off the floor and depositing him back onto the old seat.
James noticed a full beard on this one too, scruffy and unkempt. What he didn’t see, despite looking for them, were the cryptic markings of the mercenaries.
“Where’s all your ink?” James asked.
“You think we’re mercenary scum, like you,” the enforcer replied angrily.
James’s mind began to spin. His thoughts leaped about in huge bounds. If they weren’t mercenaries then they had to be…”You’re regular army?”
“41st damned Armored Division, you son of a bitch!” the enforcer shouted. “And by God we’re gonna know who you are before tonight’s over.”
James felt his mind whirling. He began to laugh hysterically. He couldn’t help it. He glanced around, trying to peer through the darkness. Where the hell was he? A firebase. The 41st had built themselves a firebase and hid out there.
“What the hell are you laughing at you son of a bitch?”
James couldn’t explain it fast enough. He couldn’t find the words.
A club-like blow from the enforcer’s arm to the back of his head shattered the moment of good humor.
When he looked up again his eyes were filed with righteous fury. His voice grew low and menacing. “You wanna know who I am?” he growled. “I’m your goddamned commanding officer. James R. Collins. Rank, Major. ID number, 410-33-797.”
The interrogator and the enforcer seemed stunned for a second by this statement. They looked at one another in confusion. Then they got angry.
“You lying son of a bitch!” Another punch came his way, but James took it and stared back at the man who’d thrown it.
“This guy’s out of his freaking mind,” the interrogator said. “Get the shock machine.”
James stood, fast and angry, the cuffs pulled tight against his wrists, yanking the table up into the air. Shocked by the sudden move, the interrogator stepped back a few inches.
James stared him in the eye. “You listen to me soldier! I am James Collins, and you will obey my orders. Now go find Lt. Dyson or another officer and bring them back here. Or I promise you’ll spend the rest your life wishing you had.”
“What?”
“Did he say what I think he said?”
You heard me!”
“He’s got to be a damn spy,” the enforcer said. “No one from those camps would know Lt. Dyson?”
“Get him in here!” James shouted.
“Shut your mouth!”
James lunged to the side, yanking the table with him. If this really was the 41st, Dyson or some other ranking officer would be watching.
“Dyson!” James shouted into the darkness. “I know you’re out there. You get your ass in here and talk to me. You know who I am.”
The interrogator and the enforcer had been thrown into a state of shock by all the shouting but were suddenly coming out of it.
“Hit that man!” the interrogator shouted to the enforcer. “Take him down!”
The enforcer came first, slamming the end of a baton into James’s stomach and dropping him to the ground.
“Shut him up! Knock his ass out!”
“Dyson,” James shouted. “Perrera would kick your ass for this if he was here.”
The baton was raised in the enforcer’s hand, ready to come smashing down when a voice from the dark prevented it.
“Wait!”
The interrogator and the enforcer stopped their attack and stood at attention.
James heard the sound of boots crossing the stone floor toward him. They echoed slightly like everything else had.
A new figure moved into the light. He was cleaner cut but still a little ragged for a military officer.
“You’re relieved,” he said to the interrogator.
“Sir, with all due respect, I don’t think it’s safe for you to-”
“I said, get out!” the officer shouted. “Now!”
“Yes sir.”
The interrogator and the enforcer turned and moved off into the darkness as the officer crouched down and studied James where he lay on the ground.
“My God,” the man whispered. “You look like hell.”
James had no doubt who he was talking to. “You don’t look much better, Lieutenant Dyson. But it’s damn good to see you again.”
CHAPTER 49
James spent much of the next hour receiving fluids and explaining what he’d been through, while Dyson filled him in on their tactical situation, explaining the odd stalemate that had developed, leaving the 41st wandering the desert like the lost tribes of Israel.
“So where are we anyway?” James asked. “What is this place?”
“The original survey site for Olympia,” Dyson explained. “They dug enough living space out of the rock to house the first crews, but the ground was too unstable for heavy construction so they moved. Later surveys put the city in the valley, ninety miles from here.”
“Ninety miles?” James said. “I thought I was a lot closer than that.”
“At some point you must have wandered off course,” Dyson said. “Assuming you were trying to cut the corner, you’ve come at least thirty miles in the wrong direction.”
“Story of my life,” James said. “What’s our strength?”
“We’ve got thirty-seven working rigs. We’ve had to strip the others for parts. But even with that, most of our mechanics are back in Olympia. So we’ve really just been trying to hold on. We’ve done what we can to protect the MRVs but with this storm and the limited supplies, we’re all but out of time.”
“Food and water?”
“Water we can make,” Dyson reminded him, “but even on half rations, we’re down to the bottom of the barrel on food.”
“I heard they might have tried to poison you,” James said.
“They did try,” Dyson admitted. “But we were kind of expecting something.”
James grinned at Dyson’s foresight. “So what was your plan here?”
“We’ve been trying to contact the high command, find someone who knows what the hell is really going on, but all the signals out are being jammed. Lately we’ve been considering raiding parties or even trying to re-take the city. But from the info I have they outnumber us three to one.”
“Maybe not,” James said. “We took out a whole battalion of their rigs out at the armory. And I have reason to believe a resistance movement has been growing among the Terra-formers. If we can get word to them as we march on the city, we might be able to turn this thing around. But we have to move soon. And by soon, I mean right now, as soon as the men can mount up.”
Dyson’s eyebrows went up. “In the middle of the storm?”
“The storm will give us cover,” James said. “If we can hit them while they’re still hunkered down in the shelters, we’ll have the advantage.”
“And these rigs will be useless forty-eight hours later,” Dyson noted.
“They’ll be useless in a few weeks anyway,” James said. “It’s now or never, lieutenant. Now or never.”
James managed to get an hour of sleep as the men of the 41st sprang into action, turning the dormant firebase into a hub of activity. With great energy, they began tearing the protective covers off of the MRVs and arming them to their full capacity. Missiles were loaded into the launch tubes. Racks of armor piercing rounds were carefully coiled and packed into the magazines of the Gatling guns.
They worked through the night, lit up floodlights in the orange swirl of the storm. It was difficult work under such conditions but not a single man or woman complained. As the job neared completion and morning approached, the storm’s intensity began to lessen.
Having shaved his beard and donned a uniform, James walked out amid the final stage of preparations. He crouched beside one of the goliaths and scooped up a handful of sand from a windblown pile that had formed against the machine’s armored foot.
It was the finest powder he’d ever held, almost like water in the way it moved. He tilted his hand and let the dust slide off. It caught the wind, vanishing before it reached the ground as if it had evaporated in the thin air. It dawned on him that these tiny particles were all that had stopped the mercenaries from killing everyone in the staging area and ending the rebellion before it began.
Strange, he thought, that something so small could have made such a large difference.
“We’re almost ready,” Dyson announced, walking up.
James stood. All around the makeshift yard the soldiers he’d known and led on Earth were preparing for the biggest fight of their lives. “The men look like they’re raring to go.”
“They ought to be,” Dyson remarked. “We’ve been losing out here, without firing a shot. Wandering the desert, waiting for someone to take us into the Promised Land.”
“You’d have gone eventually,” James said.
Dyson shook his head. “I don’t know.”
There was guilt in Dyson’s words. The kind James felt after witnessing his father’s building explode. As if he’d stood by and done nothing, when he’d actually done all he could.
“You kept the unit together,” he told Dyson. “That can’t have been easy. Not under these conditions. If humanity gets a second act, you’ll be the main reason for it.”
Dyson took the compliment for what it was. But he knew the limits of his own style. There were caretakers, he thought, and then there were leaders. And now—in their hour of need—the leader of the 41st had returned to them as if he’d been brought back from the dead. The men took it as a sign, an omen of destiny, and if Dyson read them right, they were ready to storm the gates of hell if necessary to put an end to the Cartel’s madness.
James followed Dyson up into the command vehicle and took the gunner’s position, while Dyson settled into the driver’s seat.
As the machine powered up, James grabbed the comm. There were no speeches this time. None were needed. He simply gave the order, broadcast to all the units simultaneously. “41st, this is Major Collins. Time to roll.”
CHAPTER 50
In the same storeroom where the resistance had initially met, Hannah, Davis, Isha and Julian had now been joined by three dozen others. Plans were being made to strike and hold strategic buildings. Weapons were being divided up and placed in crates for distribution. A hundred rifles and fifty pistols soon to be handed out at clandestine meetings in three different locations.
“If the mechanics can take the hangar bays, we might be able to keep the Cartel’s men out of their MRVs,” Hannah suggested.
Davis and his crew nodded. “We can take them,” he said. “Just not sure how long we can hold out.”
“I’ll try to get you some help,” Hannah said.
“From where?”
“The detention facility,” she said. “If my count is right, Cassini has almost five hundred people crammed into the holding cells. Half of them are former members of 26th. They’ll be ready to fight.”
“Assuming they’re in any condition to do so,” Isha said. “Are you sure you wouldn’t be better attacking a different target?”
Having seen how they treated prisoners and slaves, Hannah had no doubt that many of them would be in bad shape. “I helped Cassini round up those people,” she said. “I had my reasons but mostly I was just protecting myself. I’m not going to let them rot in there any longer.”
Isha seemed to understand that, but she still looked concerned. “Fine,” she said, “but why now? Why are we rushing? You said you wanted to wait until the mercenaries went back out to the Core Unit after the storm. But they’re still cooped up here with us.”
“I have my reasons,” Hannah insisted.
“I think it’s time you explained them.”
Julian and some of the others nodded. Hannah had become the de-facto leader of the group but she was not unquestioned. “You have to trust me,” she pleaded.
“Perhaps you need to trust us,” Julian s
aid.
There was no way around it. She nodded and closed the door, sealing them off from the others. When she was certain she had everyone’s attention she spoke. “I’ve received a message,” she said, “transmitted from the desert. The remnants of the 41st Armored Division are marching on the city as we speak. They’ll be at the gates in less than an hour.”
A hush fell over the group.
“Are you sure?” Julian asked. “Are you sure it’s not a trick?”
“I’m positive,” she said. “But they’re badly outnumbered. And they’ll be at a disadvantage once they enter the confines of Olympia’s streets.”
“So we distract and harass the enemy,” Julian guessed.
Hannah nodded.
“If the 41st can get into the city we have a chance,” Isha said. “A real chance.”
There was excitement in her voice that told Hannah she’d figured the revolt was a lost cause prior to this. It made Hannah realize Isha was braver in some ways than she had been.
“As good a chance as we’ll ever have,” Hannah said. “But this information carries risks. It cannot, under any circumstances, fall into Cassini’s hands. In other words, no one in this room can be captured alive.”
With the stolen weapons in their possession, Hannah and her small militia rushed through the underground catacombs which hid the power conduits and the high pressure pipes that were used to heat and cool Olympia. Part of the original phase of construction, the corridors spread across the city like a web, with the Core Unit and the main government building at the center like a spider waiting for a meal.
Aside from the technicians who repaired and monitored the hidden systems of Olympia, few people used the tunnels any more. The streets above were wide and pleasant, the tunnels cramped and dark. But the tunnels were a more a direct route to anywhere one wanted to go.
At the front of the small force she’d gathered, Hannah came to a door protected by a coded lock. She turned to Davis. “Are we in the right place?”