“It seems this Clan’s leader has more influence in the area than their numbers would indicate. She’s become the unofficial leader of the entire region. All the survivors there have their own enclaves, of course, but they are unifying into a confederation to fight off the Empire if needed and handle the various spats that happen between different survivor groups. Or enclaves, these days—I suppose it’s not such a small world anymore.”
“So they have a unified structure, they call us New America, they sent us comms to coordinate with them, and only Reading, Allentown, and Easton are between us and them. That sum it up?”
“More or less, sir. One last thing—the computer they sent us is set up somehow to videoconference with them. Their computer whiz—Dark Ryder, who didn’t reveal his real name for OpSec reasons, sir—is an elite hacker, and he set it up so that it would be almost impossible to find the connection, much less hack it, so long as we don’t leave it open. They’d like us to be available every evening at nineteen-hundred hours to participate in the Clan’s daily leadership meeting.”
“Thank you, Lieutenant. And what of General Houle’s units?”
“We got there after General Houle’s first troops had passed through already. They were supposed to meet us there, but the Clan convinced them you were upstate dealing with another ’vader general. They’ll keep sending Houle’s troops that way for as long as they can.”
Taggart nodded. “You’re dismissed. Get some chow and clean up before you start on your reports. You can get those to me in the morning. Tell your troops you’ve got light duty for the next three days. You’ve all earned it.”
That was all fascinating. With the computer they’d sent, they could coordinate in as close to real-time as was possible these days—daily, in fact—without the slow process of sending files embedded and back-channel as he and Dark Ryder had been doing. And they might as well have put a sign up saying they’d bow to his authority if he could get some sort of governance set up. They’d at least coordinate with him. And if they were going to have to deal with this Empire in the spring, which seemed likely, then just maybe the sudden appearance of a battalion of his civilian-soldiers could make a difference at some key point. Yes—they must have that at least partly in mind. He’d have to consider whether he really liked being at the focus of their play.
Eagan trudged up the embankment toward the HQ and grinned when he saw Taggart. “Well, sir, it seems you’ll have a lot to think about,” he said as he sat down.
“Indeed. I’m sure the returning troops told you about the laptop and the video conferencing this Clan wants to do. I want you to attend to those for me. I’m making you our envoy when I can’t attend, which will probably be most of the time. Tell their leader—Cassandra?—that I’d like to make her the Secretary of Agriculture for our New America. We need her knowledge. I hadn’t thought of it before, but she may be right. If the 20s and their overlord, Houle, are complicit in this whole end-of-the-world scenario, they can’t be allowed to take over. Twenty years from now, I want a new America, not more of the worst of the old. The Clan’s methods may well be the only way we can really grow enough food to save enough people to build a New America in twenty years and not be left with just a patchwork no-man’s land for the next century.”
Eagan, who had listened carefully to the monologue, nodded. “Yes, sir. I see what you mean. In the meantime, I’ll increase our scouting runs into the region between us and this confederation. Eventually we’ll have to deal with whatever’s in between us if we’re to link up to the Clan.”
Taggart nodded, but then an idea struck him, and he grinned at Eagan. “You know, with rail transport, we can strike just about anywhere we want, quickly, and vanish just as fast. Get me a map of the railways, and put a priority on locating railway stations.”
Eagan left to follow orders and Taggart followed his thoughts. Could he really rebuild the country, or maybe an improved facsimile of it? Maybe, with the right allies and a little luck, he could. He’d have to make all the preparations possible before winter ended, because springtime was going to be a critical window of opportunity. He just had a feeling much would be decided sooner rather than later. They had to get it right.
* * *
1300 HOURS - ZERO DAY +184
Down in the bunker, Ethan grinned, his face lit by his monitor. Cassy had taken the Empire’s reps to see Adamstown yesterday, and they’d been shocked and horrified by the slaughter and dismayed at the destruction. The town was mostly a cinder, and the bodies had been too many to do anything with so they’d been left to rot where they lay, lined up along both sides of the highway. Cassy had told the reps that the ’vaders were still active and that their supply lines ran east and then north to Lewisburg. It was probably even true, though they had no real way of knowing what that region was like now. This morning, having learned probably everything they needed about the Clan, the Empire’s envoys had traveled north to investigate. With any luck they’d die up there, the bastards.
Houle’s soldiers kept filtering in and they, too, had been directed north to Lewisburg. “If you can cut their supplies there, they won’t be able to keep hitting us here like they did Adamstown,” Cassy had told them. Between that and the handwritten statement the first of Houle’s soldiers had left, it was easy to divert them. For now, at least.
Only one last thing remained, and that was to convince the 20s of all that bogus intel. If the ruse held—and it might, since it was probably close to true—then it would divert much of the Empire’s forces, Lewisburg being closer to Fort Wayne. Uncomfortably close, in fact—a straight shot along Interstate 80—and they’d have to divert forces to defend themselves. Every unit the Empire put up north was a unit the Clan wouldn’t have to face when spring rolled around.
Best of all, if the Empire was General Houle’s lapdog like Ethan suspected, then they’d confirm independently what Ethan was about to tell the 20s. Houle would get intel from his own troops, the 20s, and the Empire, all pointing toward imminent danger north and far away from the Confederation’s territory. It’d still be a hard fight, if it came to that, but it would certainly help the Clan’s odds of surviving a war intact and free. “Confusion to thine enemy,” he murmured with a half-smile.
And then there was Taggart, who would finally be in contact with the Clan directly if he decided to lead the New America cause as he and Cassy hoped. Taggart was a wildcard, of course, but Ethan thought him to be a genuine patriot, and Taggart’s response to Houle’s manipulations supported his opinion. If the Clan could now maneuver his interests into line with their own, it opened up a world of new possibilities at the very least. A New America sounded just fine, after all—one based on people, not power; citizens, not money. He and Cassy had decided to call it New America partly to help get Taggart’s cooperation. Ethan figured that Taggart couldn’t be bought, based on how he was reacting to Houle’s orders, and if the Founder’s Principle he’d read about held true then it would be like a reset after the corruption and poison that had ultimately killed the old America.
Ethan put the finishing touches on his Dark Ryder reports for the 20s—many were falsified, with maps and scanned documents to add to their credibility—and then encrypted them for transmission.
He turned to Amber, who had made some time that afternoon to spend hanging out with him. “You want to do the honors? I’d love to have a woman hit ‘send’ on America’s future.”
Amber smacked his shoulder. “You’re so melodramatic. We still have to survive springtime, and a lot could go wrong. But for the first time, I feel like we might have a future that’s brighter than what we left behind.” Her half-smile became a full smile.
“So you don’t want to hit send on America’s future?” Ethan said sadly.
“Shut up.” She laughed, and reached over to press the Enter key. “I guess that makes me a Founding Father of New America.”
“I guess it does,” Ethan said, and grabbed her around the waist. Against her mock protests,
he dragged her through the curtain and into the bedroom beyond.
* * *
Jaz bounced around on the wagon’s wooden seat next to Choony, but for this trip they’d added a pillow someone had made for them, stuffed with the fluffy seed head fibers from cattails. They had a nice quilt stuffed with it, too, and it was amazingly warm. Who knew? She glanced behind them at Clanholme’s food forest, shrinking slowly behind them.
“Choon Choon, do you think we’ll be back before spring?” Jaz asked.
“I don’t know. But we have plenty of supplies in our little covered wagon. It feels like we’re in the Old West, heading toward the Oregon Trail. But for a while we’ll still be in Confederation territory, as safe as it gets these days.”
“Don’t worry,” Jaz replied, grinning. “I’ll protect you if we come across any wannabe Red Locusts.”
“Wow, Jaz, don’t even joke about cannibals! The thought makes me shudder. And I don’t want you to protect me. Violence against others harms you, too. You should know that by now.”
Jaz pulled the quilt up over her shoulder and leaned her head against Choony’s. “I know. But someone has to do it, or the evil in the world will take over.”
For a while, they rode on in silence. She was content to just enjoy the closeness. And maybe she’d had enough time away from the trauma that had defined her life before and right after the EMPs. Time enough to heal a bit, grow stronger. When she thought back, the Jaz who had first met Cassy while hiding from looters right after the EMPs, that Jaz was like a stranger now.
The rolling of the wagon was kind of hypnotic, and she found her eyelids drooping. Sure, they would be away from home for a while as they made their way as far south as they were able, looking for other survivor groups, but Clanholme would be there when they got back. Clanholme was home. Her family lived there. Her real family.
She smiled a little as she sank deeper into sleep.
# # #
TO BE CONTINUED IN BOOK 5… COMING SOON.
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Life After: THE COMPLETE SERIAL NOVEL
Badge of Darkness: THE COMPLETE SERIAL NOVEL
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JJ Holden lives in a small cabin in the middle of nowhere. He spends his days studying the past, enjoying the present, and pondering the future.
Henry Gene Foster resides far away from the general population, waiting for the day his prepper skills will prove invaluable. In the meantime, he focuses on helping others discover that history does indeed repeat itself and that it’s never too soon to prepare for the worst.
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Table of Contents
Title Page
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
Back Matter
Dark New World (Book 4): EMP Backdraft Page 35