Forest Empire: Survival in a Dystopian World (BONES BOOK TWO 2)

by Jim Rudnick

  The three of them moved into the room. Inside near the front of the space was a huge table, where arms were stacked and backpacks lay half-packed as they were being worked on. Piles of ammunition, long guns, handguns, and even ordnance lay there in separated piles.

  In front of the table, the chief armorer stood with his hands on his hips and a scowl on his face. He obviously was having some issues with the ten men lined up in front of him at the table.

  “I do not care what your sense of right and wrong are—these are the items requested by the Circle itself for you to take along on the mission. It does, as you can see, include some small tactical bombs, able to be preset with demolition times to allow you to clear out of the radius of the damage zones. But this is all that you can take. There are no personal choices when it comes to ordnance items,” he said, and it sounded like he’d said it already a few times.

  The team almost to a man shook their heads negatively.

  “Not an answer we are happy with, as we want more firepower,” one said.

  Vera stepped forward and smiled at the chief armorer and then to the team across the large, wide table.

  “Problems, I hear, in the outfitting of the team,” she said calmly. She knew that her position as the head of the Circle would get her some respect and that helped. But she also knew that at times, just being a woman was a problem, so she always tried to be polite at first. Before the shit hits the fan, that is, she thought.

  She sidled right up to the edge of the table, hoisted a hip up on one side, and looked at her chief armorer, the man to whom the arming of all Regime teams fell to as his job.

  He didn’t salute, as that was a long gone military nicety, but he did dip his head before he spoke. “Ma’am, the team has had their own choices for all arms—long guns and hand guns. But the ordnance, as you know, was spec’d in by the Circle. Small, tactical only sized charges, nothing above twenty feet for the concussion zone. No incendiary devices or fragmentation devices were spec’d in—the ones that these team members can carry are for anti-personnel use only. Throw and duck outside of the twenty-foot zone is what they’ve got. But not what they want, it appears, Ma’am,” he said, and his hands were back on his hips again, she noted.

  Vera looked over at the team and said, “Team leader, you want to argue this point, please do.”

  One of the team members, down the table from her, slid along his side of the table to face her directly. He looked over at the chief armorer for a moment and then shrugged. “Ma’am, this mission to go to Walkerville and steal some trucks sounds pretty easy. Intel reports—as you well know—that there may be some zombies tottering all over the old army base. That’s not what worries us, Ma’am. What worries us is that it’s so easy to kill dumb zombies that the ordnance you offer is irrelevant. But what, Ma’am, might happen if there are those bitten zombies there, ones who can use arms—or worse, their cousins the smart zombies who have the same brainpower we do. For them, yes, concussion bombs or grenades as they used to be called will work. But we also want the rights to carry frag grenades too—and yes, even incendiary ones too, in case we need to fire a building for instance as a diversion issue so we can get to those trucks. We want all the power we can have, ’Ma'am … and as we’re the ones who are out in the field, we would hope you’d see our POV.”

  He spoke well, Vera thought.

  He made good points, and yes, it was a strong argument.

  “I think you’ve made your point, team leader. Therefore, I will instruct the chief armorer to allow you to take any kind of ordnance that you’d wish along with you on your mission.

  “But I want you to remember this. A concussion bomb—grenade, yes they’re also called that—will kill people. As will a frag grenade too, but at a much bigger kill zone setting. But the incendiary grenades burn—at almost 3,000 degrees, they burn everything that they touch. And you’re going to be fighting, I’d imagine, in a closed room with hundreds of trucks full of gasoline. If that’s not a recipe for a huge conflagration, then I don’t know what is.

  “You can take them along as well … but I preach caution. Using one will cause a huge fire … you have been warned—and more than that, you are now all aware that you are the authors of your own future. I’d like to see them all come back unused, but that’s, of course, up to you to decide during the mission itself.”

  She motioned to the chief armorer to allow his aides to go and get the other kinds of bombs for the team to choose from as well, and she turned to leave.

  At the doorway, she looked at Gemma and Nixon who’d followed her. “I want the files for all of these team members on my tablet by end of business today. They leave, I think, today, yes?” she asked, and that got her a nod.

  She climbed the three flights of stairs back up to the ground floor of the Armories building and paused in the lobby to look out on the street. Bright sunlight, some citizens walking, and she could see a mother pushing a stroller with a child inside who looked positively angelic even at this distance.

  She sighed. The Regime was responsible for so much more than keeping Arlington safe … but that was surely at the foundation of our existence …

  #####

  Quarters were nice but spartan, Javor thought as he looked at himself in the mirror on the bathroom wall above the sink. He needed a haircut for sure. His graying temples especially and the matching eyebrows could use some evening up as well. No real new scars on the face that would last, he said to himself, as he carefully daubed at the small scratches left by a fir branch that had sideswiped him this morning. No scars. Good.

  His hands were bad though—chapped flesh, plenty of new scars, and even what looked like a wart on one finger. He grinned at that and said, ”You could always tell a lot about a man by his hands.” From what he saw as he turned them from palms up to backs up was that he’d been out and about and there was no doubt about that.

  He wet his hands and dragged them through his too long hair, hoping that would make it somewhat better. It didn’t and he shrugged as he went back out to the main area in the barracks. Here, he and the rest of them had been quartered in what might be called clean but very lean rooms. He had a double that he shared with Sue, Wayne, and Bruce across from the main living area, and the three patrollers were in a bunk bed room just down the hall.

  He smiled at Bixby, who was lying on the bed that was his, and he poured out a big helping of kibble for the dog and scratched him behind the ears. The dog would stay here and remain behind for the dinner, and he’d let him out later when he returned. He left his room and closed the door behind him to keep Bixby from troubles.

  The rest of the group was in the main living area. Three couches and a kitchen table with six chairs were all that was there, but he knew at least that it was clean and dry and there were no bugs. He scratched behind one ear where a “no-see-um” had gotten him sometime last night, the welt large and scabby already. “Don’t scratch,” he could remember his mother saying over and over and over. But he still scratched them then, and he scratched now too.

  They looked at each other, and Wayne, of course, made the first comment.

  “As an ambassador for the Regime, I think we’re like way under dressed, unclean, and to be totally honest, I think we’re out of our depth.” He looked at Sue when he said that, and that got him a smile.

  “Well put, Wayne. Mostly true too—but after the Boathi made Ceti4 into Bones, I’m afraid being under dressed is how we all feel. Unclean, well, there appears to be no showers in the head, and as far as being out of our depth—that’s not true at all. We are the ones who were charged by the Circle to ask the Empire to forgo its slavery model. That’s all we’re to do here. Ask them, argue with them, and get them to see the light. And if not, then oh well … we go to Plan B,” she said.

  They all nodded. Plan B, as had been explained to them at the meeting with the Circle, was to eliminate the leadership of the Empire. In any way, shape, or form, but that should put the cult into chaos and th
at too might work. Perhaps, it was the leader and his intimate group of aides who wanted the slave model to be how they ran the Empire. It was really Plan Z as far as Javor was concerned, as the simple fact was that while it might be easy to take out the leaders of the Empire, it was a suicide mission for the team.

  “I’m carrying my Colt,” Javor admitted, “but hidden behind my back.”

  The rest of the group nodded. All were still armed but had their weapons concealed. As they were all pondering that, a knock on the door to their barracks building sounded, and a black-robed disciple came in.

  “You are required to have dinner now with the prime disciple at your audience. Please follow me,” he said and turned to leave the room.

  “Can we leave our items here?” Sue asked. “They’ll be okay, right?” she said with a teensy bit of anxiety in her voice.

  “They will not be touched at all,” he said over his shoulder as he went out the front door and down the short walkway to the street outside.

  They all followed him, and while it went unsaid, the four Shieldsmen, armed with shotguns, who trailed along behind weren’t mentioned at all. Seems like they trust us, but maybe not so much, Javor thought and grinned.

  They walked down the short street to the main street of Empire City, turned to the right, and then walked toward the pyramid. From here, the structure, though it was still being built, was impressive as hell. The shine of sunlight, even now coming up to dusk, was bright off the granite, and they could see teams of slaves still hauling the large stones up the ramp on the rows of rolling logs. He tried to see the slaves themselves to see how they looked, but they were just too far away to take any kind of an audit of their condition. A quick count showed that he could see more than what he guessed were four hundred slaves, all straining on ropes as big as his forearm was thick.

  “About how many slaves does the Empire have building the pyramid?” he asked very casually.

  The answer was not surprising, actually.

  “That is a question you might want to ask the prime disciple,” the black-robed man ahead of him threw back over his shoulder.

  Figures, Javor thought, that they might want that to be kept to themselves. No sense letting that information get out there, he reasoned. Intel of any kind was a good thing for the other side—in this case, the Regime—to have.

  They walked slowly but soon were in front of a building almost at the last corner before where the pyramid was being erected. Their leader led them inside the main doorway, up a large flight of stairs, and into what might have been a meeting room. Inside the room, there were Shieldsmen stationed around the room at the walls, and Javor counted a dozen of them.

  But tonight it was set with a large round table and place settings for dinner. A quick count showed there were only eight place settings.

  Us and one more, Javor thought, and as their leader told them to sit, they all did that.

  Sue got Jon to change seats with her so that she was sitting directly opposite the only seat not taken at the table, and Javor nodded at that strategy.

  Well done, Sue, he thought as he reached for his water and swallowed the very cold icy water with pleasure.

  They sat. They fidgeted for more than ten minutes, and the only thing that happened was that a steward kept refilling the pitchers of ice water that were on the tables whenever they had a drink of same. There was nothing to do but to wait.

  From a doorway behind a large tapestry of a forest scene on the wall, a black-robed man appeared, and he slowly walked to the empty place at the table and smiled at them all before he seated himself.

  “Welcome to the Forest Empire,” he said nicely as he sat and got comfortable, “and yes, I am the prime disciple—the head of the Empire.” He looked in turn at each of them, face to face.

  “Let us eat first, and get to know each other—would help perhaps in what comes after, no?” he said, again nicely, and that got nods and yeses from around the table.

  And what a dinner it was, they all felt. Tonight wasn’t cold or chemically heated MREs. The starter course was smoked fish draped over a terrine of vegetables with Cumberland sauce sprinkled over top. The main courses were either a fillet of what looked like beef or a kind of fish he’d never heard of, so he took the fish. Salads, a chunk of great sourdough bread, and even a desert that he had to pass on came along in their time.

  And the prime disciple talked to them. He spent some time on their history of how they had found that their God had sent his minions, the Boathi, Javor called them, to bomb and burn their world. He explained how their God made most of the non-believers die, and of the ones that lived, most turned into zombies of all types. He shared that the Forest Empire had risen slowly, but being here in the north, isolated from most of the major cities and populations below the boreal forests, meant they were spared from most of the deaths that infected the rest of the planet.

  The prime disciple told them that because the areas in which the Empire ruled were also areas where huge deposits of oil and gas had been discovered and been mined and stored already, the Empire had its own sources of power built in. Added to that, their ownership of the oil and gas dirigibles meant they had air power too.

  He was open with all of that, Javor thought. He seemed to never correct his points as he spoke or try to backpedal either, but in fact, he shared all.

  Sue asked some pointed questions too, and they got answers as well.

  The Empire had more than five thousand slaves right now and more on the way. The pyramid was the major reason they were after new slaves. The trucks had come from Walkerville, the prime disciple had responded when Sue had asked where they came from.

  Quite open and honest, Javor thought.

  The prime disciple put down his small spoon as he’d finished his dessert, which was similar to bananas Foster. He smiled as the stewards cleared the table. He pushed his chair back a bit and waved for more water, and two stewards rushed to get him a new pitcher.

  The prime disciple looked over at Sue and said, “So, I understand you represent the Regime. May I ask what brings you to Empire City to see me?”

  Sue nodded, then leaned forward, and smiled at the Prime Disciple. “Prime, we—the Regime that is—find that the planet is slowly re-building itself. Our potential is great, our future is bright,” she started with, and that was all true.

  “But what worries the Regime, Prime, is the fact that the Empire has slaves. Buys slaves, uses slaves, well, like slaves to build your pyramid this week and God knows what next week,” she said.

  The prime disciple nodded and commented, “Yes, God does know what we’d need next week too,” but that didn’t slow Sue down.

  “The Regime believes that slavery is so wrong, so not us—that we are here today making a formal request for the Forest Empire to cease and desist using slaves. That all current slaves be released—given food and clothing to allow them to return to their homes or wherever they might like to go. And that the Empire, from now on, never uses slaves again. We, as ambassadors from the Regime, ask the Empire to consider this request,” she finished her formal statement, and she leaned back into her chair.

  That part of her job was done. And now for the answer.

  The prime disciple stared at her, and his face was neither smiling nor frowning. He just looked at her as he reached for his glass of water.

  He took a big sip and then put the glass down and motioned for a colder pitcher, Javor thought, only for an instant, as each of the Shieldsmen around them at the table brought their spears up and were ready to charge the table…

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Sue spoke first.

  “I see that your, what, Shieldsmen, I believe they are called, have changed their stances. They now appear to be threatening—do I have that right Mr. Prime Disciple?” she said.

  Not a soul at the table had moved, though all the cadre was armed.

  Javor thought, I’d have just about enough time to reach around to my back, draw out the Colt, and
plug the spearman in front of me—but not behind me, for sure.

  He knew that with more spears in the room than their group, he was in jeopardy. They all were.

  This is a standoff, he thought, and he was glad the rest of his group had had the same reasoning about the crisis they were in.

  The prime disciple smiled at them all. He spoke slowly and yet firmly. “We, the Forest Empire, know that the Regime is full of non-believers. They are a nation of non-believers, so what they want is immaterial to us. But what we want is what we will do—we will be the future rulers of Ceti4, and we will do it with slaves. You all in fact should know that we will do just that—and you will help. You are now slaves of the Forest Empire—Shieldsmen, take them away,” he said.

  He didn’t move, but the Shieldsmen did, each taking only a few steps to put their spear tips right up against the backs of the cadre team members’ necks. Javor froze as they all did. Spears at such close quarters would be deadly. These were trained spearmen, and he had no recourse but to sit still. From a side doorway that now opened, more of these Shieldsmen appeared, and they searched each one of the cadre team members’ bodies. Guns were gathered, and a probe was taken from one of the patrollers. As they had each of them stand, they patted them all down, and Wayne lost his ankle gun as well.

  Sue tried to speak, but the prime disciple held up a hand to stop her. “You are now property of the Forest Empire. I think I’ll have you sent to the pyramid ramps, where you’ll all be under constant surveillance, and have you learn what it takes to move stones into position, and you will all help to create our pyramid, our crowning glory,” he said and pushed back from the table.

  Sue yelled at him. “Prime Disciple—we are ambassadors from the Regime. You cannot, with any degree of impunity, do anything to us—we must be allowed to return to Arlington. This is an illegal act, Prime—it is an act of war,” she claimed loudly over and over.

  The prime disciple nodded to her. “We do agree on that—we are at war with the Regime; I’m so surprised that you didn’t already know that. Slaves. You’ll all make wonderful slaves, strong pullers, and if you do well, you might even get an extra helping of your dinners. Too bad that such fare will not equal the wonderful repast we just had.