Oscar frowned, not even trying to hide it. “I’m sorry you see our own necessities that way, Miss Shores. How nice it must be from your position, where you’ve never, ever had to turn anyone away and have always had enough to take care of outsiders. We have not been that fortunate, but I ask you not to judge us too harshly. We weren’t able to take care of half the people in three states by ourselves, no. But we never killed needlessly.”
Cassy’s jaw dropped, and she felt her cheeks flush. She couldn’t tell if it was from anger or embarrassment, or both. “You sanctimonious—”
Frank cut her off, chopping the air with his hand, “No. We have not been that fortunate. We have had to turn people away. Nine of ten people will be dead in a year because there isn’t enough to go around, and those who hand out all they have won’t save everyone, they’ll just be left without enough for themselves. I will not judge you for that, and neither will Mrs. Shores. Please accept our apology if we seemed to judge you. But there is a difference between turning people away and forcing them to take help they do not want.”
Cassy’s jaw snapped shut, and she remained quiet as she fought to regain her composure. To her, it sounded like these guys were carving up America’s carcass and fighting over its bones—and winning, mostly—so they weren’t the innocent helpers they portrayed themselves as. She watched Oscar intently for his reaction.
Oscar didn’t seem flustered by Frank’s comment at all. Instead, he smiled, a casual and friendly expression, and said, “Absolutely, Frank. And that difference is called ‘saving the ones who can be saved.’ It’s like triage at a hospital. When there is not enough to save all, you save the ones you can. We’ve done that. They haven’t been forced to join us, nor enslaved. Once they saw the benefits of joining us, they did so voluntarily. But please note that we have not yet asked you to join the Republic. To the contrary, we asked what it would take to be friends. If the Republic wants more than that from you, we have not said so. You have pre-judged us and you leaped to conclusions. Whether you’re right about us or not is irrelevant so far because we’ve only talked about being friendly neighbors.”
A lawyer, then, masking threats under a velvet glove…
“Well,” Frank replied, “you got me there. I don’t think you did ask us to join you. That’s fantastic news, and I can’t wait to tell our friends that you aren’t interested in having us all join you. They’re sure to ask, once word gets out that we received Empire guests, and now I’ll have something good to tell them.”
Hah! She had forgotten that Frank was in his home waters with people like this—he had worked with and around them for years. Sure enough, it was Oscar’s turn to flush, though he kept his face carefully blank. “I didn’t say that, either. I’ve said that the Republic wishes to be friends with you, but I have not said what that friendship means.”
Frank didn’t look perturbed at that. “Well, Mrs. Shores did ask, but I can’t say you ever actually answered her rather direct question.” Frank paused, then continued, “But we seem to be putting words into your mouth whether we say you do or do not want us to join the Republic. I fail to see a third choice in all this, but maybe you could enlighten us. I wouldn’t want to put words into your mouth again.”
Cassy froze, trying to mask her delight at Frank’s handling of these men, and turned her head back to Oscar, one eyebrow raised. Much rode on Oscar’s response, after all, so she made no effort not to openly stare, waiting for his reply. But it was Jason who spoke next.
“The third option is that Oscar and I are here to evaluate what sort of threat you present. Whether you’ll be worth dealing with on our way to our real objective. And whether, in the long run, you’ll be in the category of people we couldn’t help, or people who needed our help.”
Frank didn’t answer for a moment, but Cassy didn’t take her eyes off Jason when Frank finally did reply. “It doesn’t escape my notice that those who needed your help were better off taking it than not.”
Oscar chuckled, but it wasn’t a menacing sound. “You’re smart, I’ll give you that, Frank. If we can help people, we aren’t willing to let them suffer their own foolish pride. We’d very much like to hang out for a few days, get to know your people and the culture you’ve grown since the EMPs. Everyone has been different, so far. I guess the pre-EMP notion that we’re all one culture was way off the mark. A useful fiction, I suppose. We are currently asking your permission to stay awhile, maybe a few days to a couple weeks. We’ll work the fields with you, or whatever we need to do to pay our way while we’re here. But I’d like to see for myself whether we can be friends.”
Cassy found herself nodding without realizing it. Fear, she decided, but maybe her fears were well-founded. She fought to keep her voice even as she said, “I would not be so rude to the official representatives of another survivor community. Of course you can stay, so long as you earn your keep while you’re here. I have only one… ‘request,’ as you say.”
“And what’s that?” Oscar asked.
“I ask that you be courteous guests and not hammer my people with questions or snoop around unescorted. If you’re unfamiliar with our farming methods, you could accidentally fall into danger and we wouldn’t want that.” Nor did she want them mapping their booby traps on Clanholme’s approaches. “If you, the representatives of the Empire, have any questions you need to ask, pose them to Frank or myself as the representatives of this community.”
“Oh, of course, Miss Shores. We would not dream of being bad houseguests, so to speak. If I have any direct questions, we will be sure to ask you.”
Yeah, right… but she didn’t figure he’d turn down the chance to hear what her people thought while working with them, either. And she didn’t miss his refusal to use the more traditionally polite “Mrs.” form of address when “Miss,” in a patriarchal culture, would imply she was vulnerable. Not to mention, their refusal to tell her what they would want in return for their “friendship” was alarming, to say the least.
She felt suddenly quite certain that she swam in a much bigger and deeper ocean, now, and these were circling sharks.
* * *
1230 HOURS - ZERO DAY +176
Jaz sat next to Choony with her tray—bright red plastic now instead of a wood trencher, since some of the scrounging parties had the super bright idea of taking stuff from fast food joints all over the place—and nudged Choony with her elbow. “We shoulda thought of these ourselves, you know.”
Choony set his fork down on his own red tray. “I don’t know. The wooden trenchers had a kind of charm to them, I think. They felt better. More real.”
“Only because you hug trees and stuff. You can’t honestly tell me you’d rather wash the wood ones than these plastic things when it’s your turn for KP. Plus I hear they’re going to be super useful for seed beds in the cold frames.”
Choony smiled and tapped his finger on his tray, like he was testing it. Weirdo.
“Yes, I can see how they’d be useful for that,” he said. “But we only have KP once a month, so it isn’t that bad.”
She shrugged. “So what do you make of the Empire people? They’re always asking questions about everything we do. Whoever is working with them gets an earful, all questions and no conversation. Makes the job take for-evvver.” Jaz took a bite of bread and caught the unmistakable flavor of cattail pollen. It was light, but noticeable.
She’d gotten used to the pollen flavor and now sort of preferred it to the straight-flour bread. Plus grinding the flour was hard, and the pollen was ready-made. It cut the labor in half, so they ended up getting twice as much bread for the same effort. No more bread rationing…
“It can’t be changed, though,” Choony said. “They are here until they decide to leave or Cassy decides to risk war by kicking them out.”
Jaz rolled her eyes. “Puh-lease. We’re going to war in the spring anyway. Everybody knows that. They want access to the farming area, and we’re in the way when they want to come get it.”
Since the EMPs and the Clan, she hadn’t really found herself attracted to the rough kind of guy anymore. Maybe the rough edges were a way to be sort of free in the old world, like you could do what you wanted around those guys without getting lectured, but these days? These days, those guys did a lot of dying. Couldn’t fit in, couldn’t go along to get along.
Choony once told her that when water was scarce, deep roots were needed to survive. They had been talking about how it wasn’t so bad being in the Clan, even if most days were packed with chores from dawn to dusk just to survive. Jaz’s old “type” didn’t have any roots, much less deep ones.
But Choony totally wasn’t like the thugs she’d known on the street. He had grown his deep roots days after getting here—it had taken her longer than it took him, really. And he was non-violent. In the old world she’d have thought him a coward, but she’d seen him run toward the enemy to grab a wounded Clanner. So he was one of the bravest of them all, really. Maybe that was what made her so interested.
Whatever the reason, she loved his company. She did catch him watching her when he thought she wasn’t looking, like most guys did. But this was different. And he wasn’t afraid of dying so he couldn’t be afraid of her the way some dudes were. It wasn’t cowardice. Respect, maybe? She could probably approach him if she wanted to, but she’d have to be serious. That was the problem; the whole “serious” part made her nervous as hell.
Soon enough, lunch was over and then it was time for her to do “farm stuff” while Choony cleaned up the horse stalls. He sure liked the animals, all of them, and they seemed to like him. She hoped she and Choony would both be to dinner at the same time tonight.
* * *
“…isn’t like they’re going anywhere,” Frank said, and Cassy rubbed her temples in frustration, trying to concentrate on what he was saying. “We’re going to have to fight them, and here we are giving their scouts all the intel they could want. Didn’t even have to take the effort to actually spy, just changed their title to ‘envoys’ and we invite them in, instead of taking them to the Smoke Shack like the last two spies.”
Michael said, “You know I agree with you, Frank, but can we stop them? If it’s hopeless, then it’s better to bend over for them than fight them, if they’re just going to have their way with us anyway. It hurts less if you just relax.”
Frank groaned. “God, Michael, must everything be a joke? Besides, that shit’s not funny.”
“No, it isn’t. But if we pick fights we can’t win, then we’re literally going to get bent over and screwed.”
Frank didn’t reply, his lips pursed and eyebrows furrowed. Michael shrugged and turned to look at Cassy. She could only shrug.
Cassy said, “Listen, I’m going to make the decision I think gives us the best risk and reward ratio. I’m not playing the long odds with our lives as the stakes, got it? But if I think we have a chance to resist, or to negotiate an advantage, I’m damn well going to. If I think we can get them to just take a slice of our pie and leave us alone with the rest, we’ll give up the slice before we lose half our people winning a war, much less risk losing everything. I—”
There was a loud knock at the door. Cassy frowned, irritated. “Come in, dammit.”
The door opened and Joe Ellings stepped in, wiping his boots on the mat first. “Afternoon, y’all,” he said as he closed the door behind him. “I was hoping to have a word with you, Cassy.”
“Go ahead, Joe,” Cassy said, reining in her irritability.
“I been thinking about this Empire problem we got coming. ’Member how them ’vaders used to fly around gassing everyone, dropping bombs and whatnot?” He stopped and cocked his head, waiting.
Oh, so it wasn’t a rhetorical question. “Yes, Joe, I remember. I’m sure we’re all glad their jets are gone, or things would have gone a lot differently this winter.”
“Well that’s right, of course. But what if all them airplanes ain’t gone? And what if they could be ours, not theirs? You reckon that’s something?”
Cassy had frozen, staring at Joe. What the hell was he talking about? “Well… yeah, Joe. Of course. But the jets are dead, just like most of the cars and everything else. Unless you know something I don’t?” she asked quietly.
“Well now, picture it. What if we get all them ’vaders lined up out in the field like so much stalks of corn. What do you do with a field o’ corn?”
“Cut it down,” Frank said.
“But before you get to harvesting, ya gotta do something else first,” Joe said, raising an eyebrow. “Ya gotta dust the bugs off of ’em. And I reckon to do that, you gotta have crop-dusters. Probably hundreds of them old crop-dusters lying around now.”
“Aren’t those planes dead?” Cassy asked.
“The spray systems and what not are probably dead, but a lot of ’em still got old mechanical flight systems. Especially if you can rustle up one of them old biplanes. And they don’t run on that fancy gas jets use, no ma’am, they’ll burn just about anything.”
Frank nodded, smiling.
Joe continued, “Now follow me here, okay? I reckon out of all us White Stag people that done joined with y’all, at least fifteen of us knew about flying them things. I been dustin’ since I was eight or nine, same with most of them others.”
Cassy’s jaw had dropped and now her eyes lit up. What. The. Hell. Why didn’t she think of that? Of course not, she wasn’t a farmer. “Holy hell, that’s genius! Joe Ellings, I think I do love you,” she shouted, grinning, and wrapped her arms around him.
Joe stood up, blushing, and looking not at all comfortable with the display of affection. “Just a regular old idea, Cassy. I’m just glad I could be useful.”
“Oh, you brilliant, brilliant man! You know what you’ve done here, right? You just reshaped the whole damn situation!” Cassy grabbed him up in another bear hug. She glanced at Frank and Michael, and they were on their feet, mouths open and eyes aglow as well.
“You can’t tell anyone about this, do you understand me, Joe Ellings? Especially not those Empire guys. Keep it to yourself!” When she let him go, he was grinning. The Clan would have an air force! They’d only get the drop one time, but damn if the Clan didn’t have one hell of a brand new ace up their sleeve now.
* * *
Colonel Taggart ducked his head as he entered the big masonry-and-earth root cellar he was using as a temporary HQ. He’d banged his head a couple of times at first, and now ducking was a habit. “What do you have for me, Eagan?”
“Sir, I’m glad the runner I sent found you. We have traffic from your friend Dark Ryder.”
Taggart frowned. He’d just had traffic a few days ago—the orders to abandon this area to the enemy, leaving nearly two million Americans enslaved. “Alright, get it decoded.”
Taggart sat in his rescued swivel chair and leaned back, letting out a moan of appreciation to be off his feet for the first time in two days, it seemed. They’d been hungry for revenge after finding thirty thousand murdered slaves—murdered Americans—and went after the units that did it. Unfortunately, the invaders had a head start, and Taggart and his units kept missing them.
Everywhere they went, the civilians were gone and the whole place was on fire. That told him they were closing in. They must have been confident of outrunning him or they’d have left more fields of the dead. But then he found a warehouse with hundreds of bicycles among the dead computers and other items being shipped everywhere and anywhere from there. He put some of the new members of his units, the released slaves, on those bikes figuring they’d be hungry for revenge.
Well, they had been—they encircled a few enemy units and waited. When the units attacked their slaves, surprise surprise, the slaves attacked back, causing enou
gh distraction for Taggart’s men to close in. Then the battles became short and bloody. They’d repeated the process for the last two days, and Taggart had been kept busy keeping everything organized.
“Here we go, sir. They’re from the real Dark Ryder this time. Shall I read them?”
Taggart, leaning back in the chair and rubbing his fatigued eyes vigorously, muttered that he should. Eagan cleared his throat, and Taggart heard the sound of his staff sergeant ruffling through the sheets one at a time.
“Interesting, sir. It’s from the C-in-C again. I guess he figured we never left, but we knew he’d find out eventually. His new orders are to head to a small town called Lititz, or actually just south of it a bit. It says that there are small units coming through the region. Loyalists. I guess that means loyal to him. He wants us to go meet them, gather with them in central Pennsylvania east of Reading, and prepare for a major op in spring. His units will filter through for the next couple of months. We’re to strengthen our control of the Lititz region for his loyalists and allies.”
Eagan stopped abruptly and the room went silent. When Eagan didn’t continue, Taggart looked up, saw his aide watching him, and said, “Yeah, I caught that too. Allies. Who the hell are the ‘allies’ of his loyalists? If they follow his orders, shouldn’t they all be called loyalists, too?”
“Sir, maybe so, but the allies still have to be other Americans. I mean, Canada and Mexico didn’t invade us or something. They got hit with EMPs, too.”
“Affirmative,” Taggart said with a sigh. “So some other region has gotten themselves organized somehow and is taking orders from General Houle—the only allies he’d take would be obedient ones. That’s my take on it, anyway.”
Dark New World (Book 4): EMP Backdraft Page 32