After the death of President Murphy, Nathan and his companions had escaped their pursuers and headed north, only to find themselves surrounded by the Arizonan militia as it moved toward the front line. Their TLX uniforms would have marked them as enemies, but the commander of the unit they encountered was so desperate for trained soldiers, he simply co-opted them.
They met the Chinese and North Koreans on I-10 on the outskirts of Phoenix and were forced to fall back to Luke Air Force Base. It was there that they first came face-to-face with the black drones that he'd since learned were called Reapers. They'd taken up hastily contrived defensive positions, expecting the enemy to attack quickly, but rather than the soldiers or tanks they'd been fighting until then, a group of a dozen glossy black drones appeared, looking for all the world as if they'd just been dropped by a spaceship. Small arms fire seemed to have little effect and only one was destroyed in that initial attack, by a brave soldier who got close enough to hit one with an AT4. The drone exploded, but the man was cut to pieces instantly.
Nathan would never forget the sheer terror of being pursued by those remorseless machines. Within minutes, the retreat became a rout and he was one of dozens who ran, waiting to feel hot metal slicing into his back. But, by some miracle, he, Jake and Su-Mi had survived. They'd found a car and headed off in a different direction than the others and, perhaps, that had saved them. The last sight he'd seen beyond the cloud of dust kicked up behind the car as it escaped from the base was Chinese soldiers casually strolling among the fallen, finishing off any survivors.
Once the terror had subsided a little, Nathan's rage had grown. It was bad enough that they were facing the massive armies of two implacable enemies, but now, it seemed, they also had an unbeatable technology at their beck and call. Nathan had always known that they had little chance of outright victory against the Chinese and North Koreans, but he'd hoped the defenders could inflict such losses that they were forced to slow their advance. But these “Reapers” could defeat an army without costing the life of a single enemy soldier.
In the days that followed, Nathan and the others had struggled to keep ahead of the advancing front line, especially when their car had run out of fuel and they were forced to proceed on foot. They'd met with remnants of other destroyed forces and, by a process of accretion, these had grown into the fifty or so Rattlers.
He couldn't quite work out how he'd become their commander, as there had been three others here of higher rank than him—two of them officers. Somehow, it had been his suggestions that had been accepted by the fighters, his orders that were followed. So, now all rank designations had been cancelled. They were all equals under Nathan Woods.
The only silver lining was that the Reapers seemed to be relatively few in number. The Rattlers had targeted smaller units of enemy soldiers and seen no drones. It seemed to Nathan that they were deployed for major engagements, with the common soldiers used elsewhere. Woods took some grim pride in the amount of devastation his small group had inflicted on the invaders, but it seemed their luck had run out this time.
They'd attacked a military convoy that had turned out to be more heavily protected than they'd thought at first. At least ten Rattlers had died when a pair of Reapers had appeared from the back of a truck and immediately attacked their position. He thought he'd lost Su-Mi when he was sprayed with her blood, but he'd dragged her, screaming, away from the line of fire and the Rattlers had retreated.
Mysteriously, the drones hadn't followed them into the desert and so the Rattlers had regrouped to treat their wounded. Su-Mi's eye was gone, and her orbit was a bloody mess that was now covered with a crimson-stained bandage. Nathan couldn't imagine how much pain she was in, but she wouldn't take the full morphine dose offered by their medic as she wanted to stay sharp. Beyond the pain and shock, one thing drove her—revenge.
It had been Vasquez who'd suggested they come here, to this farmer's market in Albuquerque. Nathan suspected he intended for them to hide in the labyrinthine building, but as soon as they'd arrived, Jake had pointed at the gas station and reminded him of their success against North Korean troops on their scouting expedition a couple of months ago. There was no waiting tanker to target this time, but enough fuel remained below ground to make for quite the fireball. They'd laid a charge, but only had fifty yards of cord, so someone had to wait in hiding to set it off, knowing that they'd be consumed. Three volunteered, but Nathan would not let Su-Mi sacrifice herself, so he gave the suicide mission to a young man he barely knew. Hugh Brown's leg had been shattered by a drone bullet and Nathan could see the agony in his face as he begged to be allowed to take the drones out and to end his own pain.
So, Su-Mi lay beside Nathan on the rooftop of the El Mezquite Market, and she wore his ring on her left hand.
Two black shapes hovered in the shimmering desert air, flanked by soldiers in sand-colored uniforms marching in formation as if on parade. Behind them rumbled an armored personnel carrier with a machine gun mounted on top, the commander's head popping out of a hatch near the front. Maybe fifty soldiers, plus those in the APC, then. Almost a match, though the Chinese were all trained, well equipped and relatively fresh. But it was the drones that tipped the balance heavily in their favor. Nathan wouldn't fancy their chances of beating them off even without backup from human soldiers, but together they were unbeatable.
"I've had an idea," he said to Jake.
"The APC?"
Nathan turned to him and smiled. "Yeah. I figure if a couple of crazies was to get in there and capture the machine gun, we might be in business."
"Count me in."
A cloud of dust rose from Jake's shoulder as Nathan slapped him. "Good man." And he was a man. The nervous boy Nathan had first met had disappeared without trace in the crucible of war. The shutters had come down a little since the death of President Murphy and, particularly, his son Luke. Behind his practical, brave exterior, Nathan kept reminding himself, Jake was still only seventeen and must lack the resilience that comes with long experience. For now, however, there was no one he'd rather have beside him, except, perhaps, Su-Mi.
"Are you planning something stupid?" she asked.
Nathan rolled over and shrugged at her. "Maybe. Jake and I are going to acquire that APC." He expected her to object, but she merely nodded.
"Take a couple of others with you," she said. "It won't make much difference up here, but there might be more commies inside the APC than you can handle."
She returned his kiss reluctantly before pulling away. Nathan put his hand to her face and felt her hot skin on his palm. "Look, we'll get you patched up once we're out of here, okay? This doesn't change anything between us."
Su-Mi's remaining eye moistened. "Nathan, it changes everything. But don't worry about that for now. Get back safely, that's all I ask."
He took her hand, the one that wore his ring, and kissed it. "I'll do my best. Signal to Brown as soon as the drones are over the fuel pumps, and don't worry about where I am." Again, he leaned in and whispered, "I love you."
She kissed his cheek. "I love you. Stay alive Nathan Woods."
Five of them ran out the back of the farmers' market and darted from abandoned car to abandoned car as they crossed 66 to the single-story motel on the opposite side of the road, expecting at any minute for the cry to go up or shots to echo in the lifeless streets.
It was just after midday and the air over the asphalt rippled with heat as he pushed them on. They had to be in place to attack the APC when the gas station exploded so they could use the chaos and devastation as a cloak. His legs felt like they were filled with water—ironic considering that he was parched.
He took a quick swig from his canteen as he peered around the corner of the side of the motel. Behind it was a small ranch house on a scrubby plot of land dominated by a pair of tall windblown trees still bare of leaves. Good, this would hide them while they watched.
They were now no more than a hundred yards from the gas station and the approaching Ch
inese contingent. Nathan pulled his binoculars out to get a closer look at the APC. As he scanned across the marching soldiers, he was struck by how young they were. They looked as though they were raw recruits who'd just graduated from basic training before being flung into the front lines. Could the Chinese army, the largest in the world before the Long Night, be short of manpower? Had they been hit by the same catastrophe as the US? How could that be possible and how had they recovered quickly enough to mount an invasion?
None of this mattered right now—he had two Reapers and fifty or so soldiers to handle and, if he survived the encounter, he could then concern himself with what was to come next.
He took a swig from his canteen, then turned back to the figures behind him. Jake was there, wiping sweat from his face but otherwise ready to go. The others were the two men and a woman he'd hand-picked. All had served before the Long Night, all were deadly. Coy, Teknis and Tanowitz. He prayed they'd be enough before looking across to the gas station. He couldn't see the farmers' market from here, so Su-Mi was hidden from him. The first he'd know of the attack commencing would be when Brown triggered the explosion.
Woods gestured them back under cover a little further as a black drone emerged from behind the gas station and hovered over the pumps. Now. Do it now.
He barely had time to shield his eyes from the flash as the blast hit him, throwing him backwards on a wave of heat. Moments later, he was on his feet, helping the others up. "Now!" he called, running into the smoke and dust, ignoring the cries and screams, as he headed toward where the APC had been. As he passed the gas station, keeping the road between himself and the flames, he spotted a shard of black armor rocking gently on the ground.
The thudding of boots followed him, and they were at the APC before the first Chinese soldier challenged them. Nathan held a Beretta M9 in one hand and a dagger in the other. The first enemy to emerge from the smoke at the back of the APC fell to his knife, and the second dropped backwards as Jake lashed out at him.
Coy and Teknis had clambered onto the metal skin of the vehicle and Woods glanced across to see the driver being pulled out from his seat and thrown to the ground, a bullet in his chest. It was brutal work, but it was soon over. One final soldier remained inside the vehicle. Nathan could hear him screaming something repeatedly and then his sidearm flew out of the rear hatch and he came out with his hands raised high.
Nathan Woods put a bullet through his brain without a second thought.
The APC was theirs. Nathan stood on the rotating platform behind the gun and brought it down from its raised position, trying to familiarize himself with its controls. Coy's head appeared through the commander's hatch in front of him, Teknis beside him.
"Jo, get moving!" Woods called out. Jo Teknis had said she could drive anything a man could invent. Now was the acid test.
A shot bounced off the gun's armor and Nathan swung it around, squeezing the trigger, feeling the raw power of spitting lead into the clearing smoke and dust. He lost control of it as the APC lurched away but saw dimly recognizable shapes fall to the bullets spraying left and right.
A burst of fire and Coy cried out, then disappeared into the vehicle to be replaced seconds later, and to Nathan's horror, by Jake, who brought his arms through the hatch and began taking potshots at their attackers. But the bullets that had killed Coy had come from above.
Through the roiling smoke floated a black shape.
"Jake! Get down! It's above you!"
He saw Jake look up, then the APC drifted into a bank of smoke and, when it cleared, the boy had gone. "Jake!"
Teknis had crouched down so only her head was visible, and she'd put on the driver's helmet, but that would be no protection against the Reaper.
Nathan pulled down on the handles of the gun, its barrel swinging upwards into the sky. He couldn't wait for the Reaper to become a big enough target to be sure of a hit—they'd all be dead long before then.
The machine gun vibrated in his hand as he fired round after round at the approaching drone.
"Get down, Jo!" he called out as return fire punched deep into the armor plating. There was still no sign of Jake, and Nathan gave himself up to rage and despair as the drone got closer. Why hadn't it hit him yet? Everything he'd seen so far suggested it was accurate from much farther away than this.
Time and again he hit it, causing it to spin a little before righting itself. Its lozenge-like shape caused anything other than a dead center strike to glance off and the clouds of dust that erupted from it when he did manage to hit it suggested some form of ablative armor. Enough hits, then, and he'd get through, but it was close enough now that it simply couldn't miss.
The machine gun went silent, so he pulled out his handgun and awaited death. Then Jake's head appeared from out of the hatch and he lifted something to his shoulder. "Get down!"
Nate dropped inside the APC just in time to see fire spread across the blue sky. He jumped back up and the drone was gone.
Shots from ground level glanced off the damaged armor, but he had no ammunition left to return fire with the machine gun. The surviving Chinese soldiers ran at them through the smoke of the still-burning gas station. Jake reappeared and leveled his carbine as the APC lurched into motion again, heading straight for the attackers. Then, as it seemed certain they'd be overwhelmed, he heard gunfire beyond the Chinese and looked up to see a ragged group of figures running across 66 toward their enemy. The Rattlers had come.
Chapter 9
The crack echoed around the hills as Jaxon hit another target dead center.
"He's a good shot," Sergeant Kuchinsky said. "And he's got the makings of a leader. Just so damn young."
Solly put down his notebook and looked down the slope at the boy. Jaxon was lying in one of the concealed foxholes Kuchinsky had ordered to be dug by his troops before they left. The order hadn't come through yet, but when it did, they'd have next to no notice before having to ship out. So, Kuchinsky had devoted all his energy to preparing the people of the farmhouse for the departure of his unit.
"He's the best of us, Joe. But it's a heavy burden to place on his shoulders."
Kuchinsky sucked in a lungful of smoke and blew a gray cloud into the air above his head. He hadn't smoked for ten years, but these days, well, what the heck? "And there's no one from the Fordhams’ place who'd be a better choice?"
"You know the answer to that as well as I do," Solly said, resuming his examination of the checklist. "The only one with the chops to be a leader is Becky Epstein, and she’s a medic."
"Sweet Jesus, it tears me up to just walk away from this place. It's the nearest thing to home I've found since everything went to hell in a handbasket. And the thought of those kids havin' no protection? Makes me wonder what the point of us ever comin' here was."
Solly put his hand on Kuchinsky's shoulder. "It's not your fault, Joe. I wish Bella would stay here and help Jaxon run the place, but we need Steve and she won't be parted from him. That means Maddie has to come as well, and that means so must Al. I'll tell you, Joe, I was hoping for a small team that could slip into Louisville and out again before the Lee Corporation even knew we were there, but at this rate we'll need a bus to carry everyone."
"And this Skulls fella," Kuchinsky said as he let out another cloud of smoke, "you gotta have him along?"
Solly nodded. "He's the best fighter we've got. Viv's pretty good in a scrap, but she's just a kid. Steve's got raw power."
"You're a good man, Sol."
"Not really," Solly said, flushing. "It's a fact. I guess I understand what she sees in him. He's my polar opposite."
Kuchinsky gave an amused grunt. "He may be the opposite of the old Solly she knew, but I'm guessin' this new, improved version is havin' her think a little different. I've seen how she looks at you."
"Honestly, Joe, I'm not in the market at the moment."
"Janice?"
"Yeah. I've got feelings for Bella, but not like that. I won't deny I get jealous from time to time,
though. I guess I want to have my cake and eat it."
A cry went up and a group of children began running up the slope toward them. Jaxon rolled over and put his gun down as they surrounded him.
Solly and Kuchinsky got to their feet and walked down to join the throng.
Miss Prism was fussing around them, tucking shirts into pants, pulling woolly hats down over ears. She looked up as Solly approached. "The children heard the gunshots and simply wouldn't believe that it was Jaxon practicing, so I brought them out to see for themselves."
Some of the children detached themselves from the grinning Jaxon and ran at Solly, wrapping themselves around his legs. One little girl—Carla was her name—moved across to where Kuchinsky stood.
"Why are you sad?" she asked.
The sergeant knelt so he was eye to eye with her. "What makes you think I'm sad?"
"Cos you isn't smiling," she responded, as if he was an idiot.
"Well, I guess I'm gonna miss you all."
"Where are you going?"
"Never you mind, little girl."
"Carla, my name's Carla."
"Never you mind, Carla."
The girl seemed to ponder for a moment. "I wish you would stay."
"Why?"
She shrugged. "Dunno. I just like seeing you watchin' out. Keepin' the bears and monsters who live in the woods away. Makes me feel safe."
With a piercing shock, Solly realized that Kuchinsky had frozen. He could barely move his mouth when he said to the girl, "Sometimes you gotta do what you're told even if you don't like it. I gotta follow orders."
"Why?"
At that, Kuchinsky straightened up, ruffling Carla's hair. "It's adult stuff, kid, now run along." He turned on his heels and, without another word to the girl or to Solly, headed across the field to his camp.
Showdown: Book 6 in the Thrilling Post-Apocalyptic Survival series: (The Long Night - Book 6) Page 7