The Redwood Trilogy Box Set

by Jaxon Reed

  “I’m surprised you didn’t want to test fire these. You really do seem to trust Frogg and Tode.”

  “These are the same guns the Corps uses. Milspec quality. They pretest each one before releasing them. There wasn’t much point in taking the time to fire off rounds in fifteen different guns. Those guys are as honest as the day is long, or else the Corps wouldn’t do business with them.”

  When his brothers and Dee Dee got home from their classes, we presented them with their guns and told them how to get to the other rifles and ammunition. I programmed each of their palm prints into the safe for quick access.

  “Sweet!” Jason said. “Where did you get these?”

  Jacob shot me a warning glance. I laughed.

  “Ask me no questions, and I’ll tell you no lies.”

  -+-

  We got a chance to test a gun two nights later, with the semester winding down before Christmas vacation. The triplets were out while Dee Dee and I stayed home studying. I sat in the library, reading through the final chapters of my textbook for “Exobiology of the Outer Planets” on a vid sheet. Professor Kim had written the textbook. Combined with reading it, attending class and taking notes, I figured I had a more than decent chance of acing the final and the course. Still, finals made me jittery, and I wanted to review the textbook one more time to prep for the exam.

  Dee Dee worked through a final assignment for her class, “Women in the History of Space Colonization.” She worked out on the balcony by the pool. With New Bryan situated near the equator, winters never grew very cold. It looked like we’d be able to use the pool all year round.

  Dee Dee and I had separated to study because we found the temptation to talk and procrastinate grew in direct correlation to our proximity with one another. The only way we could get any schoolwork done was by working in separate locations.

  Suddenly the vid screens in the house came alive, blaring a klaxon.

  “Alert. Alert. An unauthorized flying object has entered campus airspace. Alert. Alert . . .”

  The screen changed to a map of the campus, with a red line steadily progressing toward the center.

  Dee Dee walked in from the balcony.

  “Where’s it headed?”

  “Alert. Alert . . .”

  The screen zoomed in, following the red line, and names of buildings popped up on the map.

  I looked at Dee Dee with a sinking sensation in my stomach.

  “It’s coming toward us.”

  Sure enough, as the line progressed on the map, our building moved into view. The line made a beeline toward us, approaching fast.

  “Hey, uh . . . you shut the door to the balcony, right?”

  “No, I . . .”

  About that time we heard a CRASH as something forced its way through the balcony doorway into the kitchen. We heard a whirring sound, similar to a personal helicopter unit, but different somehow. It seemed to be faster, and smaller.

  I hurried over to the bookcase hiding the safe, released the latch and swung it open. I placed my hand on the palm reader, bypassing the combination. The safe opened with a snick!

  I pulled out two rifles and a handful of magazines.

  “Load up.”

  Dee Dee took one of the guns, slammed a magazine in, and pulled back the bolt. I did the same.

  The whirring grew closer.

  I motioned to her with my hand to get down. She ducked behind a chair. I ducked behind the massive wooden desk.

  The whirring filled the room as a small drone slowly glided through the doorway to the library. I peeked out from behind the desk to look.

  It wasn’t very big, only about the size of a small table. It was built on the quad copter design. Four rotors sprouted out from an oblong black body, filled with cams and sensors. From its center, sticking out like a stinger on a giant bug, a single gun barrel protruded about a foot. A suppressor stuck out another six or eight inches off the barrel. Everything was black, no doubt making it virtually invisible at night.

  I realized what we were dealing with: an assassin drone.

  Dee Dee shifted in position, making a slight scuffling noise on the carpet.

  The assassin drone turned toward her, slowly advanced toward the chair she hid behind, the shrouded gun barrel pointed ominously in her direction.

  I picked up my vid sheet off the desk, still showing Professor Kim’s textbook, and tossed it behind the drone. It clattered next to a bookshelf.

  The drone spun around at the noise, knocking a vase off a table with a crash.

  From the kitchen, I heard the maid bot’s door swish open from her storage closet. She rolled into the room.

  The drone spun around as she entered, and shot three silenced rounds.

  Pfffft! Pfffft! Pfffft!

  Twang! Twang! Twang!

  Each bullet ricocheted off the bot’s torso. Just like the load bots back home, these models were impervious to gunfire at their center mass. You had to aim for the head, as we discovered in the Battle of Redwood.

  The maid bot took out her fire extinguisher hose and sprayed it on the drone.

  Dee Dee shoved her chair forward, and stood to full height. The assassin drone spun around in her direction, trying to aim its gun toward her, its sensors covered in white foam.

  Blam!

  The drone dropped to the floor in a pile of carbon fiber shards and fire retardant.

  The maid bot rolled forward toward the mess.

  “No, maid bot! Don’t clean it up yet. Go back to your cubby.”

  She looked me for a second longer than usual. I suspect she’d never been told not to clean something up, and her computer had to search for an appropriate response. After a moment she nodded, and trundled back toward the kitchen.

  “Help me turn this thing around to face the direction she was standing, Dee Dee.”

  We picked up the shattered drone and circled it 180 degrees so its gun faced where the maid bot had been.

  I unloaded my rifle, then Dee Dee’s, put them both back in the safe. About that time the library’s vid screen came on.

  “Incoming call.”

  “Mr. Savitch? This is Kent. Uh, sir, the University Police are here. They say that UFO went into your apartment.”

  “Send them up, Kent. We’ve got a disabled assassin drone up here.”

  Kent’s eyes grew wide.

  “Yes, sir!”

  -+-

  “So, this thing attacked your maid bot?”

  “Yeah. Like I said, we were hiding here in the library. It came in and knocked over a vase. The maid bot is programmed to come out whenever a mess like that happens. It turned toward her and started shooting. She sprayed it with her fire extinguisher, and down it went.”

  I thought that was pretty close to the truth. The officer interviewing me nodded, but he still seemed a little befuddled. We’d called the maid bot back out to let them examine her as well as the drone.

  His partner examining the drone said, “Look at this. A shot right to the chassis. That’s what took it down, right there.”

  The officer turned back toward me.

  “You say bullets ricocheted off your maid bot?”

  “Yeah. This model has a bullet proof torso. We saw that with the load bots we fought on Redwood. You have to shoot them in the head to take them out. This assassin drone, or whoever was controlling it, apparently didn’t know that and aimed for center mass. The bullets just bounced right off”

  His partner walked up to us.

  “Looks to me like one of the bullets ricocheted right back into the drone.”

  The officers looked at one another for a moment. They both nodded.

  “Looks to me the same way. That’s how we’ll write it up.”

  Once again we’d managed to keep our guns safe. I figured Frogg and Tode would be happy, if they ever found out what truly happened.

  Chapter Seven

  Finally, finals were over and grades were in. The campus depopulated, as those from elsewhere on New Te
xas went home for Christmas.

  We didn’t go home, of course. It would take a month to fly to Redwood, and then another month to get back. Maybe for the summer, we said to one another. But realistically, we figured even then we’d probably just stay in New Bryan.

  The triplets seemed to handle being away from home for the holidays fairly well. Mrs. O’Donnell took their absence from Ranger Station Alpha harder than they did. She corresponded with them weekly by email, and the O’Donnells along with Professor and Mrs. Cruz ponied up the money for a long distance vid call every month to speak with all of us.

  Dee Dee had started missing home on the spaceship. She’d overcome it with the excitement of the new semester. But now with finals over, homesickness came back in force.

  “I’m even missing Connie,” she said, wiping away a tear.

  I chuckled at that. Her sister Consuela hated me ever since discovering I had hematophagia. She found out on my first day at the ranger station along with everyone else. She also hadn’t spoken many kind words to Dee Dee after Fred attacked us, leaving Dee Dee with the same affliction.

  Christmas was celebrated on the Old Earth calendar on colonized planets, on Universal Standard Time. So December 25, standard time, might be in any part of the year local time.

  It so happened, the calendar on New Texas lined up fairly close to Old Earth’s. But, since New Bryan sat near the planet’s equator, Christmas came in sunny and warm just like most of the rest of the year.

  We lounged around the penthouse pool. Charlie joined us one last time before heading home to New Houston for the holidays.

  The outdoor vid screen came to life.

  “Incoming call.”

  Counselor Kotov’s face filled the screen, her blonde hair pulled back sharp in a pony tail. She did not look happy.

  “Marcus, Diane. You’re to report to the President’s office immediately. Are the O’Donnell boys there? Yes. You three need to get here also. Who else is there? Charlotte Stevens? You’re authorized for this, too. Get over here, all of you.”

  We all shuffled off toward the elevator, in a mild state of confusion. Why would President Montoya need all of us in his office at the same time?

  As the elevator doors closed, Jacob said, “Whatever they tell you, I did not cheat on my finals.”

  -+-

  We found Counselor Kotov pacing the floors of the Presidential office suite in a high state of agitation. I’d never seen her so upset. She rushed toward us as we entered.

  “I want you to know, you do NOT have to go along with anything they suggest. You are free citizens living under a University charter. Don’t let them coerce you into doing anything you don’t want to do.”

  A door on the other side of the room opened and President Montoya walked in, followed by an older gentleman with a close-cropped circle of gray hair around a bald head. He stood almost as tall as the President. Fit, ramrod straight back, olive skin and pale gray eyes. He had the look of authority.

  President Montoya nodded at Kotov, turned to us and said, “Students, this is General LeBlanc, the Corps Commandant.”

  The General smiled, showing bright white teeth, and shook our hands.

  The President invited us to sit. The General remained standing, and a hologram of New Texas appeared in the air next to him, the globe slowly revolving on its axis.

  “Ladies and gentlemen, I’m happy to announce that after several months of searching all over New Texas, the Military has finally found where the last remnants of the State is hiding out.”

  As the virtual New Texas revolved, the other side of the world slowly moved into view. A yellow circle flashed around a group of islands along the equator, on the opposite side of the globe from New Bryan.

  “The Atkinson Archipelago. It’s an ideal place to hide out. There are hundreds of small islands, not all of which have been fully explored. Plenty of fresh water and abundant wildlife.”

  The hologram zoomed in on the archipelago, showing a large smattering of islands. It zoomed in further, until one island stood out.

  “Here is where what remains of former Governor Prince’s cabinet, and a bunch of diehard Statists.

  “You’ll recall we found Phillip Prince not long after the Revolution started. He was holed up in a compound similar to this one near New Dallas, and he died in the fighting. We thought the worst of State resistance was over, and it was for a while. However, over the last several months there have been quite a few attacks around the planet against University personnel, including here on the main campus.”

  We nodded. I reflected back, thinking about the attacks that had included Dee Dee and me.

  “At first, as you are aware, they’d send out pairs to commit acts of terror and murder. We believe these were dedicated Statists around the planet that simply went inactive after the fighting stopped. They went into underground cells.”

  “So, they were imprisoned?” Charlie asked.

  “No, ma’am. By ‘cells’ I mean organizational units. If one was captured, he or she would only be able to divulge the members of their own group, keeping the rest of the organization safe. It’s a fairly common technique with secret societies and the like.”

  “Oh.”

  Dee Dee and I glanced at each other, but we didn’t say anything. Neither did President Montoya.

  “Lately, they’ve obtained some armed drones, a fact with which Mr. Savitch and Ms. Fremont are intimately familiar.”

  We nodded.

  “That’s one way to put it,” I said.

  “The drones proved to be their undoing. They thought they were smart, bouncing an encrypted signal around different satellites to guide the drones. But, we’ve been able to pinpoint the location of origin. Low key surveillance over the last several days has confirmed that this is indeed the final State hideout.”

  He paused for a moment, looking at each of us with a fair bit of pride and a sense of accomplishment.

  Jeremy was the first to speak up.

  “So, what are we going to do about it?”

  “We’re going to attack it, of course. That’s why we invited you all here. This will strictly be a Corps operation, but our numbers are depleted. We’d like you six to join us. You all have combat experience, except for Ms. Stevens of course. But, her training would prove advantageous since we always need Medics in combat.”

  Counselor Kotov, who’d been shifting uncomfortably in her chair throughout the presentation, spoke up.

  “No. I’m sorry, but this is completely unacceptable. These students have no formal combat training. They are not members of the Corps. They did not come here to fight. As their representative and serving in loco parentis, I must lodge my formal disapproval.”

  President Montoya raised a calming hand.

  “I understand, Counselor. But, it’s not your call. It’s theirs.”

  The three older people in the room turned and looked at us.

  I said, “I’m in.”

  Dee Dee said, “Me too.”

  The triplets were bursting with enthusiasm.

  “There’s no way you’re going to keep us out of this,” Jacob said.

  We all looked at Charlie.

  “I’m the only Medic with experience treating vampires. I’m in.”

  -+-

  The next day found us in a long line at the College Station spaceport.

  On Old Earth, the original Texas A&M was built a few miles outside the city of Bryan in the nineteenth century. Its train depot was known as “College Station.” Later, the town that incorporated around the campus named itself after the depot. Over time, the city of College Station grew larger than Bryan, eventually overshadowing the older city. On New Texas, the University established itself near New Bryan. There was no city named College Station, so the spaceport was named after it in a nod to the original train depot back on Old Earth.

  We’d been issued maroon body armor earlier in the morning. It was modeled after those worn by the GP reinforcements from New Hong Kong
who’d caused so much trouble on Alexandria. They were supposed to be bullet proof, but felt incredibly light. We wore them, and carried duffel bags full of guns and supplies.

  Charlie’s armor had a large white square with a red cross on the front and back, the universal symbol for Medic.

  Maybe they won’t try and shoot her, I thought.

  Jeremy was thinking the same thing.

  “They don’t shoot Medics, do they?”

  He smiled. Jason scowled at him.

  “What’s so funny?”

  “You know. From the book.”

  We looked back at him blankly.

  “There was an old book. You know. Horses? You guys never heard of it? It came out during the Great Depression, I think.”

  “That’s the most obscure pun reference I’ve ever heard,” Jason said. “Leave the humor to me.”

  -+-

  In due course, we proceeded through the line. Our names were called out, and we were directed to RST 3.

  “What’s an ‘RST?’” Dee Dee wondered out loud.

  “Rapid Supersonic Transport. We confiscated them from the State during the Revolution,” Jeremy said.

  We all looked at him.

  “What? Didn’t y’all research anything?”

  Jacob snorted. “No. We’re going to kill bad guys. That’s all I needed to know.”

  Sure enough, there were three giant sleek-looking airplanes sitting on the tarmac. We boarded the third one, climbing a ramp from its tail up into the fuselage.

  A grizzled older man, about fifty I guessed, with a flat top buzz cut and sergeant stripes on his maroon-armored shoulder, glared at us from the top of the ramp. Gray hair, light blue eyes. His teeth clenched a short, cheap, stubby cigar. His nametag read, “Sledge.”

  “Welcome to the ‘Vampire Express.’”

  He yelled back inside the aircraft, “Our guests of honor have arrived!”

  Muted cheers responded back. So of course, when we topped the ramp all eyes in the plane were on us. I felt mildly embarrassed.

  We stored our gear, found some empty seats and collapsed in them. Within minutes the loading ramp raised and the engines started.

  The sergeant yelled at us. I wondered if he’d be doing a lot of yelling in the coming days.