The Scarlet Empress

by Susan Grant

  He stood straighter, taking off his hat. Ty noticed that his short black hair was damp with sweat. So the Ax was not immune to nerves, after all.

  Taking in a mighty breath, the general bellowed, “To President Julius Beauchamp and his servants I say this: Central’s future is yours no more! Central is free!”

  Bree let out a whoop, and spontaneous cheers broke out all over the building.

  Almost immediately, Beauchamp himself answered, using the Capitol’s speaker system, which he had electronically usurped. “Mine is the legitimate government! Armstrong wants the power for himself!”

  “No! We will hold free elections for our next leader. He or she will be a citizen chosen by the people. I know good people, worthy people, are out there. Many of them. As for me, I am happy to retire from my public life.”

  The soldiers’ cheers became thunderous.

  Bree left Armstrong’s side. Jostled by the celebration, she found Ty and moved into the circle of his arms. He drew her close. “When we were in the heli-jet, you said I didn’t belong to you,” she said. “You said that I belonged to the people. I don’t think that’s true anymore. I’ve done what I came here to do. I’m yours, Ty. Yours always.”

  He crushed her to his chest. He didn’t even kiss her; he merely held her close in a long, tight hug, as if he never wanted to let her go.

  Shouts of warning tore them apart. The lookouts’ high-powered imaging screens revealed a disturbing sight coming from the one area his father’s army didn’t occupy: the sea.

  “They’re Beauchamp’s private guard,” the general said grimly. “Marines.”

  Everyone on the Capitol turned to watch as the soldiers rolled ashore. More ships plowed forward behind them. They were trapped, all of the rebels, and it seemed about to be slaughtered.

  “New target—at a hundred miles, sir!” one of the lookouts manning an aviation tracker shouted.

  Bree’s disappointment was clearly etched on her face.

  “They’re coming by air now, too,” she said wearily. So much for this day ending peacefully, without massive bloodshed. “What else could go wrong? We can’t afford any more letdowns. Hundreds of thousands of soldiers, and too many likely on the verge of giving up and going home.”

  “No,” the lookout said. “It’s only one. And it doesn’t have the signature of any of the warcraft I know—space or atmospheric.”

  Several other Spec Ops guys joined the lookout in analyzing the new threat. Their eyes went from the aviation tracker to their handheld computers and back again. “Impossible,” one said. “It . . . can’t be.”

  “Let me see.” Bree exhaled noisily and pulled herself along the scaffolding to where the men huddled around the monitor. Ty followed.

  Upon seeing what so confused the men, Bree made a small sound that encapsulated disbelief, incredulity, bewilderment, and joy all at the same time. “That jet,” she told him. “It’s an American F-16!”

  Chapter Twenty-six

  Eyes narrowed against the pain in her skull and neck, Cam flew a few hundred feet off the water. “Keep it level, keep it steady. . . .” She found that if she talked to herself, she could focus better. And focus was what she needed this low to the deck. She was flying so fast that a sneeze could slam her into the water. At this speed she’d be dead in an instant. There was no room for mistakes.

  She raced over the seas—the Atlantic Ocean, the same waves she’d splashed through as a girl visiting the Georgia shore in summer. She was here to protect those waves now. Waves . . . Amber waves of grain . . . She jerked alert.

  I’m hallucinating.

  She shook her head, then cursed her stupidity when agony gripped her neck, radiating into her jaw and sinuses. Backing off the throttle, she slowed down, but she kept the plane above Mach 1 because, boy, that sonic boom would rattle a few glasses—and maybe a general or two.

  As she rolled in toward shore, the final run, the scene startled her. There were far more infantry on the ground than she’d expected. And no smoke or fire, no signs of a battle under way.

  “It’s the strangest sight, Kyber. Hundred of thousands of people. Everyone’s just standing around, staring each other down. Wait. There are more. Coming in by sea, troop carriers unloading what look like futuristic marines.”

  “Yes. We see them on the satellite. A private force, my intelligence people say. Beauchamp’s.”

  Well, she thought, she’d get down extra low in that case, and blow their socks off. She roared over the advancing marines, knowing the thunder she caused as she rent the air was deafening.

  She arced in a gentler curve as she slowed, wheeling over the Capitol building, where Bree was said to be. Despite her suffering, the poignancy of seeing Washington, DC, spread out below was intense.

  It almost made up for all the crap she’d had to deal with today.

  Almost.

  “Here it goes,” she whispered, and brought her finger to the trigger for the nanowriter. The entire plan hinged on this working. Please. She hit the screen icon and banked in a gentle turn, making a large circle over the Capitol.

  It was painful to do, but she craned her neck to see what she’d painted in the sky. The sight took her breath away. The montage of images showed reenactments from American pre-Revolutionary history, mixed with scenes from the centuries before the UCE. The Interweb was down—Kyber had told her that—so Cam could only imagine, and hope, that images of world leaders declaring their support of the revolt in Central had a tremendous impact on those on the ground.

  “There is troop movement,” she shouted into the radio. “I see soldiers running.” Running toward the Capitol and Bree, she realized, her heart pounding. But even from a thousand feet in the air, she knew they were deserting their UCE masters, not attacking. “It’s begun,” she murmured. “It’s truly begun.”

  Yes. Grinning, Cam rolled over on a wing, intending to take a victory spin around the Capitol, when her weapons warning system went crazy. Nee-nee-nee-nee-neenee. This was no measly radar warning. The alarm said it all: Beauchamp’s marines had lobbed a missile.

  Except, not at her. It was streaking through the air from the sea and headed straight for Bree’s position.

  Using the Han Empire’s air-to-air add-on, Cam blew it out of the sky. It went up in a harmless but beautiful bloom, illuminating all of Washington.

  “Incoming!” someone shouted.

  Ash and bits of the blown-apart missile rained down on the Capitol. It gave a whole new meaning to rockets’ red glare and bombs bursting in air.

  “Fireworks,” Bree told Ty. “You said you always wanted to see them.”

  Above, the F-16 veered back to sea. Except for missile defense, it seemed to have no real weapons. Whoever it was had truly come in peace and at the risk of their life.

  From the top of the Capitol, Ty and Bree had a birdseye view of the miraculous sky show. “Prince Kyber,” she said, watching the nanowriting. “He’s offering his support to us. And the leader of the Euro-African Consortium. Ty, this is what we needed. This will make the difference!”

  “And so will that pilot,” the general said, appearing behind them. “We’ve detected the evidence of defections from Beauchamp’s guard. I don’t think the ‘Star-spangled Banner’ persuaded them, but seeing world leaders on the other side certainly has. A brilliant move, that.”

  The F-16 roared overhead, wings rocking, as if the pilot were giddy with the heady pleasure of flying, and Bree would have given her eyeteeth to be in that cockpit. But she was needed here, standing amongst the militia as their symbol of freedom.

  “Hmm. Could that pilot be your missing wingmate, Cameron Tucker?” Armstrong asked. “If it is, she’s come at a good time.”

  Ice cascaded from Bree’s head to her heart, followed by a hot hope. “It has to be,” she whispered, the realization sinking in. “This has the markings of Cam all over it.”

  Beauchamp’s marines were breaking ranks, and thousands of defecting UCE soldiers took up defen
sive positions around the Capitol. They could see Armstrong, and responded by cheering when he greeted them with a salute.

  Another missile arced into the sky, this one aimed at the F-16. Who was ordering the attacks? It must be Beauchamp himself. Immediately, the jet went into evasive maneuvers, launching countermeasures and racing across the sky.

  “Shake it, Cam. Shake it off.” Bree brought her fists out in front of her, as if she were the one flying. It looked as if the missile would explode harmlessly over the ocean: more evidence that Cam was flying. Whoever was at the controls of that jet was a fantastic pilot.

  But not so lucky today, it seemed. The futuristic missile came around for another go. The antiquated jet had fooled it once, but it wouldn’t happen twice. Everyone on the Capitol roof sucked in a collective breath as the missile clipped its target.

  Trailing dark smoke, the F-16 banked. Bree’s fists came together. “Get out, get out,” she said under her breath. This low, Cam couldn’t waste time deciding whether to bail out. She had to do it now.

  Live to fight another day, Bree prayed. And she was rewarded. The F-16 turned until it faced the ocean, and the pilot ejected. The seat rocketed out and the burning, pilotless fighter flew on, gradually losing altitude before it crashed harmlessly into the sea.

  “There he is!” The crowd on the roof pointed at the pilot, who was coming down fast. The wind was carrying the parachuting figure toward the Capitol. Bree had a flashback to the terrible day she’d watched Cam get shot out of the sky over North Korea. She’d never forget the sight of those long dangling legs.

  They were the same legs she saw now.

  Holy Christmas, it was her. It was Cam!

  “She! It’s a she!” Bree fought her way through the militiamen to the roof stairs, ignoring even Ty who had to run to keep up with her. “It’s Cam,” she shouted to him breathlessly, taking the stairs two at a time, all while the thought ran through her mind: How the hell had Cam gotten an F-16 to fight with and she hadn’t?

  Cam plummeted to earth. The force of the ejection had knocked her out, but she’d woken in time to find the ground rushing up. Now she had more important things to worry about than her headache.

  Gripping her parachute’s risers, she tried to steer away from the buildings. So many had been torn down in this eerie, marshy ghost town of Washington, DC, that it wasn’t difficult to maneuver for a clear spot. Thank the Lord.

  Below her swinging feet, people were running to keep up with her. The good guys this time, she thought, panting to keep the pain from taking her awareness before she landed.

  “Kyber,” she whispered, though he could no longer hear her. “I made it. I lived through it.” He’d be fearing for her safety now, knowing she’d ejected. From halfway around the world she could feel his pain.

  Cam hit the ground in a perfect PLF landing. Standing, she unclipped her chute. Never underestimate Cam Tucker, she thought, took a couple of steps, then collapsed.

  Bree ran to the fallen pilot. “Cam! Cam!”

  Her friend lay on her back in the middle of the road in front of the Capitol. Bree’s heart stopped. Is she dead?

  But no. Just as Bree reached her, Cam rose up on her elbows—only to be practically knocked flat as Bree slammed into her, arms open wide.

  I found her, Bree thought. She’d found her wingman. At last.

  The reunion was a fervent reunion of tears, whispers, and laughter.

  And then everyone else caught up. “We’ve got to get her to a hospital,” Bree said, seeing Cam’s pain-stricken face.

  “It’s a prox-beacon,” Cam explained, clearly hurting. “As soon as it’s disabled, I’ll be fine.”

  They loaded her into a nearby truck and set off for the hospital. Ty radioed with the news that Armstrong’s armies were driving Beauchamp’s forces back. Cam’s air show had motivated the entire country. Not much was left of the UCE Guard after massive defections. The same was happening in every city across Central.

  “He’s going to help,” Cam told Bree, half-delirious with pain. “Prince Kyber.”

  “You convinced him to help us?”

  Cam simply smiled. “And more. He doesn’t know it yet, but we’re going to get married.”

  In the back of the ambulance, Bree sagged against the gurney. “You’re going to have to start at the beginning. . . .”

  Cam’s mouth curved. “Yeah. You, too . . .”

  Chapter Twenty-seven

  The war was shorter than anyone imagined it would be, lasting weeks, not months or years. It came to an abrupt and inglorious end when Julius Beauchamp fired a bullet into his mouth. UCE army loyalists surrendered to United States forces without further incident.

  After a triumphant journey from his Montana ranch, General Armstrong arrived at the White House—the original White House. Or, rather, a convincing replica built in record time over the old and crumbled foundation.

  On December 23rd, 2176, Bree stood behind a podium in front of a cheering crowd. “Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you the man behind the Shadow Voice.” She raised her voice above the thunderous applause. “The Voice of Freedom! Aaron Armstrong—our freely elected president!”

  Choked up, she stepped aside as the tall, lean man took his rightful place in front of those who had put him in office through the first true elections in the United States in more than a century. It was no accident, she thought, that on this very same date, minus approximately fourhundred years, George Washington, victorious commander-in-chief of the American Revolutionary army, appeared before Congress and voluntarily resigned his commission. General Washington not only stunned the world with an action unprecedented in history, but set the standard of military submission to a civilian government that had ended up lasting even after the United States’ ill-fated consolidation into the meganation called the UCE. Four centuries later, Aaron Armstrong himself made history by repeating it.

  It was a day Bree knew she’d never forget, a day that saw much weeping and laughter, apprehension and hope. It was the day that the old United States, in all its idealistic intent, was reborn.

  “ ‘Having now finished the work assigned to me,’ ” the newly civilian president Armstrong declared, paying homage to General Washington’s famous speech, “ ‘I retire from the great theater of action, and bidding an affectionate farewell to this august body under whose orders I have so long acted, I here offer my commission and take my leave of all the employments of public life.’ ”

  The public loved it—and they loved Armstrong. And so began the new age for which they’d all fought.

  Chapter Twenty-eight

  To the delight of a weary world, Prince Kyber of the Han Empire asked Cameron Tucker to be his wife.

  It was clear to everyone that Kyber was smitten with the beautiful, brave, shoot-from-the-hip commoner. The union was so obviously a love match that it smoothed over many a prickly diplomatic problem once thought hopeless, doing more for world stability in one year than all the treaties of the previous two hundred.

  At the royal engagement party in the gorgeous grounds of the Han summer palace, Bree decided she’d come full circle by returning to the Asian kingdom. Almost two years had passed since she’d first opened her eyes to this frightening, confusing future world, and yet it seemed millennia ago. She’d changed; the world even more so. And in her opinion, there was no better excuse to party. Once a fighter pilot, always a fighter pilot.

  Bree’s hand found her husband’s, callused not from fighting wars but from building a deck on the grounds of his father’s ranch in Montana, where the two of them now lived. As Bree had retreated from the public eye, Cam had launched herself into it. Bree couldn’t be prouder.

  Dignitaries mingled all around her, but that wasn’t what made this party such an incredible event. After so many years separated from the rest of the world, Asia was taking its first cautious steps toward dropping its isolationist veil.

  Bree watched Cam make the rounds on the arm of her fiancé, and she ha
d a feeling her friend would be no mere pretty wife of a king. Already a force for change inside Asia’s once-impenetrable borders, Cam, it was clear, in no way intended to relinquish individual power. Bree’s wingmate was only now coming into her own, and with her fight for clone rights, advocacy for the reopening of all borders and trade, and her lobbying to liberalize the more archaic practices of her new homeland, Cam’s impact on the world would no doubt be huge in the years to come.

  She walked toward Bree and Ty with a young woman in tow. “I have someone for y’all to meet,” she said.

  The stranger thrust out her hand. “Jenny Red.”

  “Ah, Jenny. My pleasure.” From what Cam had told her, this was the fiancée of Kyber’s estranged half brother, D’ekkar.

  Ty shook Jenny’s hand, then murmured in Bree’s ear, “I’ll get us a drink.” He obviously didn’t want to intrude.

  As he walked off, Cam moved closer to Bree, equal parts joy, hope, and surprise lighting her face. “I didn’t know if they’d come,” she said, smiling warmly at Jenny. “But you did.”

  Bree hesitated. “Is . . . ?”

  “Yes, Deck’s here.”

  Bree followed the other two women to the edge of the dining terrace. In the fountain gardens below, two men of similar build and stance stood facing each other in the shadows.

  The women gathered at the railing. Cam seemed a bit nervous. “He’s not armed, right?”

  “No, but I am.” Jenny pulled up a sleeve. A long, thin blade glittered on the inside of her forearm. She moved aside her skirt to give Cam a peek at a second knife.

  Cam revealed the tiny pistol she kept hidden in her bodice. “Me, too.”