Terry didn’t feel tired at all. Char had also been a dynamo through the night, along with the rest of the platoon, but they didn’t have nanocytes to help them over the hump. They looked dog tired.
Which reminded Terry that Clyde was nowhere to be seen.
Terry figured that he’d come back after he found himself something to eat for breakfast. Terry thought he may have gone back to the mayor’s house to get into the garbage. Terry decided that he’d better do something.
“Boris and David, head to the mayor’s house and see if you can rustle up some chow for the platoon. I forgot about that little item and you’re going to help me remedy that.”
“But, sir,” Boris started, “Mark had us bring three days’ worth of food. It’s stashed in the back.”
“He did, did he? Well done! None of us is as smart as all of us, right?” Terry replied happily.
They heard Clyde barking outside along with the squeal of ungreased cart wheels riding down the old pavement.
Terry walked out. Clyde was barking at the cart horses, who paid no attention to him. Mark waved from the buckboard where Pepe drove the team. In the back were four barrels.
Mark had come through again.
They wrestled the barrels inside and took them deep within the plant to the bottom of the stairs leading from the boiler. Terry waved the members of the Force away as he took one of the barrels all by himself and carried it to the catwalk. Shonna picked up a barrel, but Terry called her off, unsure of how much weight the catwalk could support. There was more rust on the bolts than he was comfortable with.
They dipped the first valve in and it bubbled and foamed. After a few minutes, Terry pulled the valve out of the pungent mixture and found it easy to scrape off the scale, revealing a mostly intact piece underneath. He yelled at the group below to start working on the other parts and pieces that had been removed and stacked during the night and early morning hours. Vinegar was liberally splashed on the nasty bits and with some chiseling and scraping, they made quick work of the lime scale and other deposits within the system.
Merrit helped them flush the pipes and then clean them using a long metal pole with an augur-like attachment.
The condensers were in the best condition of all. The engineer thought the cooling system had been taxed to breaking but it was the sludge and debris in the first stages of the steam piping that had caused the problems.
Putting everything back together wasn’t too difficult, but Timmons requested that all joints get a weld bead added to ensure system integrity. Consistent steam pressure was better for the turbine. Speeding up and slowing down could damage the system, things that the engineer knew too well.
Adams was a wild man with the weld machine, once he was turned loose. They backed the car into a tight space where they ran it to provide power to the DC inverter. The 110VAC arc welder wasn’t the best for what Adams was welding, but he got after it, completely unperturbed.
And he was a really good welder. He wire-brushed the joints clean, smoothly put the beads in place, trailing them neatly around the pipe, and then added a secondary bead just to be sure.
The detail work within the generator took someone with a more delicate touch than the mechanic was able to manage. He had grown frustrated quickly, so Lacy tried it, without success. Xandrie and Sue asked if they could get a chance. Comparatively, they worked orders of magnitude faster than anyone else and with greater attention to detail. They tightened the wire wrapping where it needed and scanned through every bit and piece of the generator.
They noted imperfections and filed them smooth. And most importantly, they aligned the internal brushes and spacing to ensure optimal electrical generation.
The mechanic had never seen anything like it. In the end, he declared it good and that it was time to button the generator back up. They hadn’t needed Adams to weld anything, which was good, because Timmons had absconded with him, the car, the inverter, and the arc welder.
As the second evening approached, not twenty-four hours after they started, the group assembled by the turbine and the generator. They gathered the tools to make sure everything was accounted for. Then they reported the injuries. Charlie had taken a nasty tumble from a step stool, but the worst damage was to his pride. Add to that, two black fingernails and one sliced forearm, and Terry considered it a victory. Char did not, but she was more exacting.
Terry considered the body to be a tool, and she considered tools to be tools.
“Light the fires and bring the boilers online!” Roman called out in a superior tone, before he and the mechanic raced off to take care of it. The howl of the gas jets alight was a comforting sound. Ted manually dialed the water flow under the mechanic’s watchful eye. He let the steam and pressure build before opening valves and sending it into the system.
With the shaker flashlights that now had to be shaken the entire time as their small batteries no longer held a charge, Roman, Timmons, and Shonna inspected the piping and valves.
The moment of truth came when the high pressure steam entered the turbine and started it spinning, faster and faster, to ten thousand RPMs, then to thirteen thousand. Ted tightened a couple fittings, set valves, and let the turbine settle at that speed.
The generator hummed to life and the engineer threw the switch.
The lights came on and the assembled group cheered, even Timmons and the rest of the pack. Terry and Char hugged. Clyde ran through the platoon, getting petted as he passed.
And that was that.
“Well, that was kind of anti-climactic,” Char said.
The engineer’s mouth was set. Terry stood next to him and yelled toward his ear, now that the plant was noisy again. “We won’t be able to shut it down again, will we?” he asked.
“No,” he replied. “Next time it shuts down, it won’t come back up, no matter how much we want it to.”
Terry signaled for Mark to form the platoon outside.
“Sergeant. Take the platoon and return to the barracks. Three days’ liberty—do as you please. On the fourth morning from now, be ready at daybreak for PT. I’ll want to meet with the platoon leadership the day before. You and the other squad leaders are invited to our house for dinner, the night before. Don’t be late. Dismissed!” Terry ordered.
“Look at you, all military like,” Char purred. Terry wasn’t sure what she was getting at, but he was ready for more Klingon role-playing.
Timmons stood an arm’s-length away, watching but not saying anything.
“Yes?” Char asked.
“Is there a place for us to stay?” he asked.
“That is a good question,” Char declared. She had no answer. Terry shrugged.
“Let’s go see Billy. That’s his department,” Terry suggested.
They left as a group—Terry, eight Werewolves, and one dog. Sue had taken a liking to Clyde, so he walked at her side. Terry was a little put out, but Char brushed it off. “I love that dog, that little turncoat!”
“Someone to watch him and take good care of him when we go check out Chicago,” she offered.
“Indeed. We have a plan to come up with and three days to do it.” Terry stared into the distance as his mind raced through the options. Char had lost him for the meantime. She let him walk mindlessly forward as she joined Timmons and the others.
“Let me explain the Force de Guerre to you…” she started.
***
Terry and Char were looking forward to some time alone, but that never materialized. There were emergencies in the greenhouses, with the cattle, and with the hunting. When Terry and Char showed up to help, the Force was already there, getting their hands dirty.
Terry could not have been more proud. They took their time off to help others. It was the right thing to do.
It was the honorable thing to do.
“Knights of the Round Table all,” Char told him.
“And you, too, Sir Noballs,” Terry said and bowed.
“Did you just say what I think y
ou said?” She pushed him down, and he rolled, jumping easily back to his feet. She raised her hands in a boxer’s stance and waded into the fight.
The Force gathered around to watch, finding the sparring matches between the colonel and the major to be not only enlightening, but entertaining, too.
Char jabbed repeatedly with her left, so fast that her punches were just a blur. Terry blocked each of them without moving his head. His hands whirled like a hummingbird’s wings as he beat off attack after attack. This went on for only a minute but hundreds and hundreds of punches had been thrown.
Char dropped to the ground and swept one leg around to send her partner to the ground, but Terry leapt over the leg and toward Char. He rotated at his waist and drove his fist toward her face with the power of a pile driver.
He landed straddling her, stopping his punch a hair from her cheek. Even though they were always training, he found that he could no longer hit her. She wasn’t a sparring partner, but the love of his life. He froze in place, then slowly stood up and unclenched his fist, flexing his fingers. His hand shook.
Char crawled to her feet and stood before Terry Henry. “Penny for your thoughts.”
“We’re both faster than we were, scary fast, and I can’t hit you anymore. I know it’s training and that we’ll heal, but I think I could really hurt you and that scares me the most,” Terry confided.
The other Werewolves were nowhere to be seen, so Terry didn’t worry about being overheard. They didn’t need to know that both his and Char’s enhancements had become supercharged. That was a recent development, and neither understood it.
Not yet.
She tapped a finger to her mouth, before her eyes drew together staring at him, “I can feel it, too. My senses are heightened far beyond those of any other Werewolf. Damn you, TH! We could have had this two years ago if you hadn’t been such a puritan.”
“You pronounced ‘man of honor’ wrong,” he joked. “I know, two years wasted, and I’ll never live it down. All I can do is try to make it up to you. Do you like jewelry?”
“You like me with scars!”
“Actually, I was thinking more along the line of diamonds in a platinum setting.” Terry had no way of acquiring such a thing. That stuff was long buried in the dust of the Wastelands, having not served a useful purpose for survival.
Food and water. Shelter. Weapons. And that was how Terry Henry Walton survived twenty years, bringing him to this point in his life.
“Let’s go talk with Billy,” Terry said determinedly. His demeanor changed, became more focused. “We need to pave the way for the town to move. I can see it all. North to Canada, then east, then back south until we find what we’re looking for on the shore of Lake Michigan. We’re taking a few from the pack, a few from the FDG, and we’re going to find what Akio believes we need to find.”
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
“You know, Ted is going to be a pain in the ass the entire time you’re on the road,” Timmons said.
“That’s why you’re going too, because of your experience in dealing with him,” Terry countered. The smug look on the Werewolf’s face disappeared. “We’ll bring James, Lacy, and Geronimo, too. That’ll round us out. I hope you don’t mind riding a horse. They’ve grown used to Were folk, so they shouldn’t be too skittish.”
The real reason they were taking Timmons was that without Char, he’d probably try to take over the town, and they couldn’t have that.
They walked out back of the barracks to select their horses to see which ones would let the newly arrived Werewolves ride them. The bear cub went nuts when the Were pack showed up. He’d been good with Char, but not with the rest of the pack. He growled and stood on his back legs, pawing at the air as he snapped his jaws at them.
“Interesting,” Terry said, and he walked past the enclosure to get to the stable. The Force de Guerre maintained sixteen horses, and Terry was going to take eight of them on his trek around the Wastelands.
It was hard traveling to force their way straight through the waste, but if they skirted the mountains heading north, they’d maintain the advantage of good hunting and better weather until they were far enough to avoid the worst of the heat. Then they’d head east.
Terry wasn’t worried about the open country but the metropolis concerned him. From Milwaukee all the way to the heart of Chicago was one solid urban area. What would remain from before? What would be new?
Maybe he was more curious than worried. He also wanted to know the extent of his new strength, his new power. It was as if he had the combined abilities of a boosted human and a Werewolf. He expected Char was the same. Could they be unstoppable?
What if they ran across a Forsaken? The pack had told them that one arrived in Cancun, and that was why they’d run. Terry knew that he was supposed to be afraid of them, but with Char at his side, could he challenge one and win?
No. He didn’t want to learn the answer to that. He caressed the small comm device he always carried with him. That was how he would handle a Forsaken if the need arose. Akio and his people would come. They could deal with the others. All Terry and Char had to do was hide in the daylight.
If it were only that easy. He yelled at the pack to ‘stop being a bunch of ack-jasses’ and stop taunting the grizzly cub. They reluctantly joined him after the poor cub had worked itself into a lather. Blackie climbed into the enclosure to settle the creature down.
Terry led the pack past the stable and the horses went ballistic, rearing and pulling at their leads, eyes wide in terror. Clyde barked and ran around, further stirring up trouble.
“Get back!” Terry yelled at the pack. He made a lazy kick toward Clyde to let him know that his services weren’t needed at present. The eight Werewolves backed away until the horses started to calm. Gerry appeared out of thin air, looking angrily at the group. He and, oddly enough, Char worked with the horses to calm them. “We’ll do it one at a time. Ted, you first.”
Ted approached the horses and they remained calm. He even petted a few noses. They seemed indifferent to him.
Then Timmons. It wasn’t the pack that set them off, it was Timmons. The horses freaked as he approached. Not a single one would settle enough for him to get close to touching them.
Char stroked her chin in thought, then shrugged. “Fine,” she said.
Timmons looked happy with himself.
“You’ll just have to run the whole way,” Char added. He looked crushed. “What? You thought I’d leave you here because the horses don’t like you? I don’t fucking like you, but you’re still coming. When you’ve completely earned my trust, then I’ll leave you behind, not one red second before that.”
“Gerry, it looks like we’ll only need five horses from here, not six. We’ll ride ours and that’ll be that. If they ever get used to Timmons, then maybe he’ll ride. Until then, he runs,” Terry ordered.
***
“This is some bullshit!” Timmons complained to the others when they were back in the house they’d been given.
“I think you need to shut your pie hole!” Sue told him. “We have a new life here, and I like it!”
Clyde was on her lap, getting petted, kissed, and fed a continuous stream of treats. Terry had left him with her because it was too long of a trip to take him and Terry wanted to know that he’d be okay. Sue was on her trial run, so she wanted to make a good impression with the alphas. The group wasn’t heading out until the next morning. Terry was prepared to take the dog with them if Clyde didn’t get along well enough with Sue.
She wasn’t going to let that be a problem as she coddled Clyde. He was living it up at Aunt Sue’s house. It would probably take a pry bar to get him out of there.
“My new life sucks,” Timmons grumbled.
“You’re just pissed that your alpha aspirations went poof in a cloud of dust as a human body-slammed your weak shit into the ground. He stomped a mud hole in your ass, all right,” Adams offered, unconcerned about getting on Timmons’s bad side. The Werew
olf was leaving for a couple months. He’d forget all about the rest of them after being on the receiving end of any bitch duty that Char had for him.
“He ain’t human! How many times do I have to tell you that?” Timmons stomped around the room while the others sat on various mismatched pieces of furniture. An old, droopy couch seemed to be the favorite. Xandrie, Shonna, and Ted had melted into its cushions.
“Of course he’s human, but he’s boosted or probably something even greater than that. If a Vampire comes for a visit? Yeah, he’s different and I suggest no one else cross him. That hurt like a mother fucker!” Timmons rubbed his chest to emphasize his pain.
The others chuckled at Timmons’s self-deprecation. He smiled, too. They had let him live when by all rights, he had challenged the alpha, twice now, and survived both encounters.
“I know, I’m living on borrowed time, but son of a bitch, we just got here and already, I’m back to running.”
Ted smirked and waved his hand. “Maybe a good bath will help your equine sex appeal?”
“Bring flowers and chocolates next time,” Xandrie suggested.
“Bended knee. Don’t forget how romantic that could be,” Shonna chimed in.
“Gently caress the horse’s soft nose, whispering tenderly into its ear,” Adams offered.
“Very funny, but I need to do something. If she thinks I’m running all the way to Chicago, she’s high!”
“And you’ll do as the alpha orders, even if it is to run all the way to Chicago,” Ted said seriously.
“Yeah, you know I will. Cats may have nine lives, but Werewolves are only supposed to have one. I’m on my third right now, so let’s see if we can milk this one. I guess as long as I’m not starving, it’ll be okay,” Timmons conceded, but his words didn’t match how he really felt.
“Or roasting and starving, like you did to us!” Xandrie threw out.
“But look at you now! You like the new digs and your new gigs. You all have something to do, people to work with, and food that you didn’t have to hunt down yourself. If we must share a life with humans, let it be one where they are moving closer to bringing the modern world back.”
Nomad Unleashed: A Kurtherian Gambit Series (Terry Henry Walton Chronicles Book 3) Page 14