The Legend of Indian Stream

by Steven Landry

  The telegram was addressed to Lieutenant Colonel J.W. Mallet, Superintendent of the Ordnance Laboratories of the Confederate States, in Macon, Georgia. It informed Mallet that a courier was in route to him carrying a pistol of novel design that should be put into production as quickly as possible, and that a prisoner at Castle Thunder had other advanced weapons. The prisoner was being interrogated as to their operation and usage, and more information would soon be available.

  “That has to be her,” Brian said. “All our other operatives in Richmond are accounted for.”

  “Agreed, but getting her out of the prison camp will be problematic. What’s Spec Ops’ status?”

  “The Little Birds are operational, but the Pathfinders are guarding one of the river approaches to Big Island,” Brian said. “We couldn’t pull them out of line without taking a risk somewhere.”

  “What the hell was that?”

  Corcoran looked up, searching for cause of the Reaper operator’s exclamation. The display showed a large heat source, maybe five kilometers in diameter, centered on Tobacco Row. It faded quickly, and left a dark spot in which all the thermal signatures where gone.

  “It’s completely empty,” Brian said. “Like the middle of the ocean.”

  “Not quite, sir,” said the operator. He zoomed in on a tiny heat source in the middle of the circle of emptiness. A single human form lay on the ground.

  * * *

  “Raven’s Roost, this is Gretel, over.” Everyone in the operations center jumped at the sound of Anna’s voice over the radio.

  “Gretel, this is Raven’s Roost, we read you loud and clear, and have you on video surveillance. Stand by, over.” The Reaper operator looked to Brian for instructions. Brian looked at Corcoran.

  “We need to get her the hell out of there,” Corcoran said. “What are our options?”

  “We could have the CSAR bird from Objective Hilo there in about thirty minutes flying time,” Brian said.

  “Do it,” Corcoran said. Brian used the Warfighter Information Network to pass the order to Task Force Javelin, and instructed the Reaper operator to inform Anna.

  “Gretel, this is Raven’s Roost, over.”

  “Raven’s Roost, this is Gretel. Request immediate evacuation. Request bio-safety level four containment for me and some additional body parts. Also, a flamethrower, over.”

  Corcoran and Brian looked at one another. What had Anna found? Corcoran had already begun to suspect that Anna had done the unthinkable – used a portal generator as a weapon. How long has she had it? Why did she keep it a secret? More importantly, why has she used it to destroy half of Richmond proper? The bio-safety equipment suggested it had something to do with the plague, which had indeed first emerged at Castle Thunder in the original history, but not for several months. Better safe than sorry, though.

  Corcoran told Brian to notify the task force of the additional requirements, and told the operator to radio Anna that help was on the way.

  “Gretel, this is Raven’s Roost, Alpha One One will arrive your location in approximately thirty mikes, over.”

  “Roger Raven’s Roost, tell them not to land, and have the para-jumpers in full BSL-4 suits before they hit ground. Copy, over?”

  “Copy Gretel. Are you mobile, over?”

  “Negative Raven’s Roost. I can crawl on my stomach, but not stand. Also, I’m unarmed, over.”

  “Understood Gretel. We’ll watch over you. Stay on this net. Help is on the way. Raven’s Roost, out.”

  51 - SHEILA

  Richmond, Virginia, CSA, 0600 hours, Sunday, April 19, 1863

  Doctor Sheila Flynn sat in the spot usually occupied by CWO William Carson, the physician’s assistant assigned to Jennifer Carlton’s Pavehawk CSAR helicopter. She was going to oversee this operation herself. Two PJs sat on either side of her. The Pavehawk’s two crew chiefs were seated with their backs to the cockpit, on the opposite side of the stretcher rack holding the BSL-4 enclosure. The big M134 Gatling Gun poked out a window on the right side of the aircraft.

  It had taken them an extra fifteen minutes to locate and load the bio-safety level 4 containment equipment and supplies aboard the aircraft. Jennifer was furious at the delay, and was now flying at the very edge of the aircraft’s flight envelope. Everyone heard the whine of the engines and felt the unnatural shudder in the airframe.

  “Ye gods, would you look at that,” the copilot said over the intercom.

  Sheila looked out the front windscreen, but saw nothing but blackness. Unlike the pilots and PJs, she didn’t have a pair of night vision goggles. “Look at what?” she asked.

  “Half the city’s gone,” Jennifer said.

  “What do you mean gone,” Sheila asked. “Where’s it gone?”

  “Just gone,” said the copilot.

  “Approaching target,” Jennifer warned, and Sheila felt the aircraft slow, then come to a stationary hover. “PJs away.” Sheila watched as the two crew chiefs helped a bio-suited PJ into the rescue sling and lowered him to the ground. Two minutes later they repeated the process for the second PJ. They could have parachuted in, but Sheila thought the risk that they might rip their containment suits in the process was too great.

  Several anxious minutes passed before the winch began to retract again. One of the PJs, Sergeant O’Bannon, appeared above the bottom lip of the doorframe steading a second figure in a BSL-4 containment suit. “Did you decontaminate?” she asked O’Bannon.

  “Yeah, Doc. Just like you instructed. Fletcher sprayed both Gretel’s suit and mine after we left the ground. She’s lighting up the whole place now with the flame thrower.” Sheila could see the glow from the flames below.

  “Make sure she burns out everything at ground level,” Anna said. “She has to incinerate all the rats!”

  “Yes, ma’am. She’ll get ‘em,” O’Bannon replied.

  “How are you?” Sheila asked Anna.

  “I can’t feel my legs,” Anna said. “He dragged them into the abyss on the backside when I activated the portal.” Anna’s breath was labored. She didn’t seem to be getting enough oxygen.

  “He,” Sheila said, alarmed. Someone opened a portal? How the hell did that happen? Then she saw the portal generator hanging around Anna’s neck. Where did that come from? Sheila put those questions aside and focused on her patient.

  “Harold Worthington the Fourth. Patient Zero. Fletcher’s got his legs bagged, so you can confirm it, but I’m pretty sure I know what caused Yersinia pestis to mutate to Thunder pestis.”

  Between O’Bannon, the crew chiefs, and herself, they managed to get Anna into the BSL-4 enclosure mounted on the stretcher rack. Once the seal monitor flashed green, Sheila stuck her hands into the glove ports, grabbed a pair of scissors Velcroed to the inside wall, and cut away Anna’s containment suit. She put an oxygen mask on Anna’s face, then began examining the woman’s legs. Below mid-thigh they looked waxy, lifeless. She gently poked Anna’s calf with the point of the scissors. “Feel that?” she asked.

  “No,” Anna wheezed. Sheila tried again with a Wartenberg wheel, with similar results.

  Damn it. She’s going to lose both her legs for sure. Probably lost a third of her blood cells as well. “We need to get whole blood in her,” she said to O’Bannon. The man used a second set of glove ports to start the IV. Over his shoulder, Sheila saw a crew chief help Fletcher back into the aircraft. She was carrying a containment bag. “Did you decon?” she asked.

  “Yes ma’am,” Fletcher said. “Myself and bag on the way up.”

  “Major, we’re clear,” the senior crew chief said. “Let’s go home.”

  Sheila felt the aircraft tip forward and accelerate rapidly. Turning her attention back to Anna, she said, “What makes you think Worthington was Patient Zero?”

  “Two months ago I injected him with pink nanites,” Anna said. “But he was coughing his head off from a lung infection anyway. There were flea-infested rats in the prison. I think he got infected with bubonic plague from
a rat bite, and when the nanites tried to fight off the infection, the bacteria mutated to Thunder pestis. His job would have carried him from prison camp to prison camp, spreading the disease, if I’d let him live.”

  “Makes as much sense as anything else I’ve heard,” Sheila said. “But why would you inject an adult male with pink nanites?”

  “Man was a rapist pig. Thought it was a better punishment than killing him. Did it to another rapist before, Susan Riley’s husband, but he’s long dead.”

  52 - DWIGHT

  Albemarle County, Virginia, CSA, 2300 hours, Sunday, April 19, 1863

  Dwight bounced along in the belly of Jake’s M4 Bradley as the vehicle raced across the Virginia Piedmont. The Grenadiers, accompanied by an engineer platoon, Peta’s Pathfinders and Little Birds, and an orbiting Reaper, were bound for Chancellorsville, Virginia.

  Task Force Javelin’s ammunition shortage had been miraculously solved within hours of Anna’s arrival at Objective Hilo. A device she carried allowed the task force quartermasters, under close personal supervision by Mack O’Malley, to somehow retrieve a significant portion of the ammo lost during the landslide. He didn’t understand it, and didn’t much care at the moment. Anna had been seriously injured during her escape from Richmond, and was already on her way to Saint Patrick’s. Dwight’s focus was on ending this war and getting to her bedside as soon as Mack would allow it. Jake doubly so.

  The rebels had probed Objective Hilo throughout the day, but had been successfully fought off each time. Mack believed they were waiting for their units in the Shenandoah to close the other end of the Gap before conducting a deliberate attack. He wasn’t going to wait for them. After sunset, Alpha company had slid into the Grenadier’s positions, and a platoon from Bravo company had replaced the Pathfinders south of the river, allowing the Grenadiers and Pathfinders to rearm and refit. Once it was full dark, they took full advantage of their night fighting capabilities and a sustained mortar barrage to burst out along the northern bank of the James River. They fought their way through the rebels to the Pedlar River, crossed it with the help of the engineers, and turned north. That was three hours ago. Dwight expected to arrive in Chancellorsville before sunrise.

  Jake hadn’t said a word during the last hour. He sat in the vehicle commander’s seat watching the thermal display of the road ahead.

  “She’s going to be okay,” Dwight said, as much to himself as Jake.

  “Doc Flynn said she might… might lose her legs,” Jake replied, a hitch in his voice.

  “They’ll know more when they get her to Saint Patrick’s,” Dwight said. “She’s a strong woman.”

  “Not a strong as everyone thinks,” Jake replied. “Best case, she comes out of this addicted to opium again.”

  “I won’t let that happen,” Dwight said. And he meant it.

  ***

  Chancellorsville, Virginia, CSA, 0700 hours, Monday, April 20, 1863

  Chancellorsville was a small village, just a few farms, a tavern and a church, in the middle of a forest known as the Wilderness, west of Fredericksburg, Virginia. Strategically it sat at the intersection of the Orange Turnpike, connecting Fredericksburg and Culpepper, and roads leading to Ely’s Ford on the Rapidan and U.S. Ford on the Rappahannock. Dwight intended to occupy the tiny hamlet before the rebels had any idea he was there.

  Peta’s six Pathfinder Geckos roared up the Orange Plank Road and turned right on the Orange Turnpike. Dwight watched the status displays as Peta led them to the intersection with Old Plank Road, where her section of two Geckos set up surveillance. She dispatched another section to watch the road to Ely’s Ford and another to watch the road to U.S. Ford.

  “Delta Two Hotel Oh Six, this is Juliet One Sierra Three Six, over.”

  “Sierra Three Six, this is Hotel Oh Six, report, over,” Dwight replied.

  “Hotel Oh Six, we’re in position. No resistance encountered. No enemy activity observed, over.”

  “Roger Sierra Three Six. Maintain surveillance, over.”

  “Wilco, Hotel Oh Six. Sierra Three Six out.” Dwight switched to the Bradley’s intercom. “Jake, take us in.”

  The Grenadiers rolled into Chancellorsville and spread out in defensive positions around the perimeter of the largest field. The large, armored vehicles made sufficient noise to rouse the locals, who began to appear in their doors. None were foolish enough to interfere with the Grenadiers.

  Dwight picked up the mike for the HF radio and called, “Raven’s Roost, this is Delta Two Hotel Oh Six, over.”

  “Hotel Oh Six, this is Raven’s Roost. Send your traffic, over.”

  “Raven’s Roost, Delta Two Delta has secured Objective Orange, over.”

  “Roger, Hotel Oh Six. Will notify Osprey One Six. Raven’s Roost out.”

  Ten minutes later an Osprey tilt-rotor aircraft landed in the middle of the field Jake’s Grenadiers were guarding. Supreme Councilor Corcoran Fallon was the first to disembark, followed by two aides.

  53 - MARGARET & ANNA

  Ronald McDonald House: a boarding house that provides accommodations for the families of people being treated at Saint Patrick’s Hospital. It’s free, including three meals a day. The concept was carried over from the 21st Century by the Fallon Party, and named in honor the originating company, a fast food chain. The facility is funded by the Back Lake Enterprises Employee Association. Glossary, An Illustrated History of the Republic, Helen O’Shea, Ed.

  Republic of Indian Stream, 0700 hours, Monday, April 20, 1863

  Margaret Sampson kept one eye on her daughter Helen and the other on the doors to the boarding house they currently occupied. A farmer’s wife, she had risen early even though it would be hours before they would be able to visit Joe in the hospital. Helen was seated at a table a dozen feet away playing checkers with a black teenager who had introduced herself as Grace Riley. The girl’s mother had disappeared back upstairs as soon as she’d finished eating breakfast.

  The Riley’s were the only other boarders she had seen this morning, although she had seen several other families since her arrival five days ago. Prompted by that thought, she reflected on that first hectic night.

  Once the Osprey had landed at St. Patrick’s, Joe was whisked into the hospital’s emergency department. Margaret noticed that a soldier with a black armband bearing the letters MP closely followed her. Joe was examined by a young doctor, and further tests were ordered. Joe was taken for another x-ray and then an MRI. Helen and Margaret had to wait in a corridor while those tests were conducted. They also took some more of Joe’s blood from a vein in his arm, and had him urinate in a cup, which a young orderly took away. The soldier followed Margaret wherever she went, but never approached her or said anything.

  While they were waiting, the head nurse spied the blood stains on Margaret’s dress and emitted a gasp of horror. You’d think she’d never seen blood before. The nurse asked if she had any spare clothes and Margaret realized she had lost her bag of extra clothing somewhere along the way. The nurse ordered one of her aides to get Margaret a set of scrubs, then bring her into one of the small curtained-off rooms to change. Her clothes were placed in a green bag made of a material Margaret had never seen before, and she was instructed to wash them with bleach before wearing them again. Margaret felt near naked as she stepped from behind the curtain wearing the scrubs. Helen laughed.

  Finally, the young doctor declared that Joe was stable, and ordered him admitted to the Medical-Surgical ward. They wheeled Joe’s gurney into a small windowless room and the orderly pushed a button on the wall that had the number 4 printed on it. The doors slid closed. Margaret and Helen both let out a shrieks when the room began to move, startling the orderly.

  “Oh, sorry,” he said. “Don’t be afraid. This is called an elevator. It moves between floors of the hospital. It is quite safe.” Margaret wasn’t sure she agreed, but a moment later the doors opened and a glance out a nearby window confirmed they were indeed several floors higher than they had been.


  The orderly proceeded to roll Joe down a corridor to a large desk where several nurses were conferring with one another. One of the nurses detached herself from the crowd and came over to the orderly. The orderly showed her the paperwork the doctor had given him, and the nurse directed him to a room further down the corridor. Once in the room, the orderly and the nurse gently moved Joe from the gurney to the bed. The nurse spoke in soothing tones to Joe as she attached heart rate, blood pressure, and blood oxygen monitors to various parts of his body, explaining what each did.

  Satisfied that Joe was settled, she turned to Margaret and said, “Okay, let’s let Joe get some rest.” And she ushered Margaret and Helen out the door.

  Once out in the corridor, Margaret saw that the young soldier had been joined by a very tall black women, with short curly hair, wearing a different uniform. She had a bright gold star above her right breast.

  “Thank you, private. I’ll take care of Mrs. Sampson from here,” she said, dismissing the soldier. “Mrs. Sampson, my name is Deputy Agnes White, of the Indian Stream Sheriff’s Office. First, I want to formally welcome you to the Republic.”

  Margaret thanked her, and the deputy went on. “Since you are a citizen of a state with which the Republic is now at war, there will be certain restrictions on your movement while you’re here. You’ll be able to move freely about the public hospital grounds, and visit your son during visiting hours, which run from ten in the morning to three in the afternoon, and then from six until nine o’clock in the evening. The hospital grounds are clearly marked by a three foot high stone wall, with arches where roads and sidewalks enter the grounds. Also, I’ll need to put this on your ankle,” she said as she held up a device with a short strap and a small gray box. “If you leave the hospital grounds it will start beeping. If you haven’t returned within ten seconds, we’ll get a signal and come find you. If that happens, you’ll find your accommodations much less inviting, I’m afraid. Same thing happens if you try to remove it.”