Fire, Ruin, and Fury (Embers Saga)

by Matthew Taylor

  “Oh my God! Oh my God!” she cried aloud. “Where are they going?!” She spun around to find she was alone in the nest. Emily had again raced forward behind Uncle Christian.

  What the fuck! Victoria willed herself to her feet, and her quivering legs reluctantly carried her from the bosom of cover. She nearly tumbled at the crackle of new shooting. Two, three, four bursts of gunfire. A clattering reply. Shouting. Screaming. Terror. Tears filled her eyes, and her chest heaved to get air. She forced herself to keep up.

  When the burn in her legs and lungs finally overwhelmed her, she doubled over to find blackened earth at her feet. Wreckage smoldered all around her, and her nostrils stung from the caustic stench of burning fuel and chemicals. Smoke wafted around her, and broken bodies were strewn on the forest floor. Small fires crackled in the dry brush and tree branches felled by the fallen airship, which lay nestled in the gash it had carved into the earth a short distance ahead.

  Uncle Christian was standing over a small group of young men in a ditch, his poised rifle and shock-pistol compelling their submission. Paul was yanking on the sliding side door of the crashed airship a few meters away, waving the smoke away from his face. She braced for a scene of carnage as the door squealed open.

  “Med kit!” Paul called, though Victoria just gawked, imprisoned in a daze of shock and exhaustion. “Vic, get the fuck over here!”

  She snapped to and hopped through the maze of charred metal, branches, and bodies to deliver the small first aid box in her rucksack. She looked down at the waif of a young man, barely conscious, his robes ripped and partially soaked with blood, a crimson smear matting his dark hair to his forehead.

  He looked small and insignificant.

  That’s him? All this for him?

  “The pilot’s dead,” her brother said, hurriedly applying a bandage to the young man’s head. “A guard and one other too.”

  This’s what we risked our lives for?

  “He’s prob’ly gonna die too,” she heard herself utter. “And whoever got ‘em is gonna come back. We gotta get outta here. I say we leave ‘em.”

  Paul and Emily looked back at her disapprovingly.

  “Well, what the fuck do you think we’re gonna do with these people?” she demanded.

  “We should get outta here as soon as possible,” Alias moaned from the ground, startling the entire group. He grimaced in a feckless attempt to turn onto his side.

  “Yeah, we should. …Without anyone slowing us down.” Victoria could hardly believe her own words, but she couldn’t help herself. She was desperate to leave.

  The young survivor cast a sideways glance at Victoria, displeased with her proposal.

  Emily knelt down next to Paul to help, offering the young man a sip of water.

  “Kinda defeats the purpose of why we came,” Paul scolded. “They’re alive, Vic—and under our protection.”

  Victoria offered only an exasperated sigh in reply. She slung her rucksack over her shoulder, grabbed her rifle, and stomped away toward her Uncle Christian.

  “Don’t worry about her,” she overheard Paul say. “Everything’ll be fine. We’ll get you somewhere safe.”

  Victoria fumed, and was about to turn around to give her brother what-for, but she was interrupted by one of her uncle’s captives lurching toward him with the look of a cornered animal. She jumped back and fumbled for her rifle. By the time she brought her weapon to bear, her uncle had subdued the man—and all three of his cohorts. He clutched his shock-pistol—now glowing purple—in one hand, and he fingered his white mustache with the other as he towered over the unconscious men.

  “Stop,” the young man groaned with a wince. “Please. They’re my people. They’re not a threat to you.”

  “Oh yeah?” Victoria snapped. “Then why’d that one charge my uncle?”

  “Fear?” he retorted. But he saw murder in her eyes and adjusted. “Maybe? I’m guessing here.” He smiled and winced again.

  Victoria was pleased to see suspicion and doubt finally make an appearance with Paul and Emily.

  “Not too late,” she posited to Paul and Emily. “We could just say we weren’t in time.”

  “Settle down, Vic,” Uncle Christian said flatly. “We’re taking him with us. And if they’re with him, then we’ll take them too.”

  “But they just—”

  “It’s settled, Vic.” The family’s patriarch—and the nearest thing she had to a real father—had ruled, and there was no re-litigating once he had laid down his judgement. Alias looked past Victoria to the real authority with relief, which only made Victoria more angry.

  “I’m Alias Goodwell Junior. …Junior,” the injured young man said to her uncle.

  Uncle Christian nodded his acknowledgment, also telegraphing a cool indifference. He tweaked his mustache again and activated his comms link to summon back-up from Shay.

  Victoria begrudged every hurried step back to the caravan at the turnout, though she was spared the burden of carrying their wounded and dazed catch. She was equally nonplussed when they arrived to find the others emptying the idling vehicles of valuable gear to make room for their new passengers. Every box, every crate strewn on the ground struck her as essential—and expensive—and she shook her head at the folly. Nevertheless, she knew there was no tolerance for dawdling, so she started toward the bustle before stopping short.

  She froze in place, as did everyone else, at the sight of flashing red and blue lights approaching, and she shielded her face with both hands as five aerial drones descended over the turnout, whipping up a tempest of dust. The lights illuminated the haze, and she squinted to make out the insignias on the doors of the three snake-eater assault vehicles now encircling them: Desert Plains Territorial Militia.

  A host of soldiers leapt from the vehicles, and the drones ascended back into the sky, flying in a formation of concentric circles overhead. The soldiers scurried about, some training their weapons into the forest, others aiming at Victoria and her co-travelers. As the dust settled and the militia had taken positions, a leather-faced man in desert battle fatigues, neatly pressed but splotched with sweat rings, stepped out of one of the snake-eaters and strolled into the cluster of workers. She eyed her injured guests, noticing relief on some of their faces, dread on others.

  This must be the lackey in charge.

  Her muscles clenched as Shay and Uncle Christian approached the militia commander, their arms extended conspicuously away from their sidearms. They exchanged words, though Victoria couldn’t hear over the din of the buzzing drones. Uncle Christian led the militia commander to the stretcher bearing Alias Goodwell. More inaudible conversation. At last, the commander signaled an all-clear to his troopers, who shifted their attention—and all their weapons—to the perimeter of the turnout.

  Victoria snuck nearer to Shay and her uncle, still chatting with the commander and Alias Goodwell.

  “We’ll escort y’all back to Troy,” the commander stated in a martial tone. He shot a disdainful look at the four mercenaries in Alias’ posse. “We ain’t got room for ‘em, though. You’ll have to bring ‘em yourselves.” He turned back to Alias. “Our medic will tend to him, but he’ll need to go in your vehicles too.”

  “We gotta dump a lot of gear—expensive gear—to make room,” Shay replied. He pointed to Alias’s, still-dazed security detail. “If you got room for them lot—”

  “They ain’t my problem,” the commander snorted. He looked down at Alias again. “Maybe this one can cover it when y’all get back.”

  Alias readily agreed, looking woozy as he nodded emphatically.

  Uncle Christian gestured to the others to resume jettisoning their cargo, kicking off a flurry of activity.

  Victoria knelt beside the militia medic, reluctantly volunteering to help. By the time she heard Oscar’s engine rev and groan, though, her head was swimming to catch up to events. The militia soldiers carried Alias on his stretcher to the back of Oscar, and his foggy-eyed mercenary companions climbed in
behind him. As the militia troopers scurried back to their snake-eaters—thankfully still vigilant—Victoria followed Paul and Emily to Oscar as well, where Uncle Christian snuck each of them a shock-pistol. Emily looked at him searchingly, and he silently darted his eyes toward the truck’s cargo hold.

  He doesn’t trust ‘em either. As her turn came to climb the ladder, her uncle grabbed her by the arm to pause her ascent, and she felt him slip a pistol into her side pocket. With a wink, he released her arm and departed for the cab, where Shay was waiting impatiently.

  Victoria slipped through the Oscar’s rear flap, only to be momentarily disoriented by the complete darkness inside. She reached into her pocket and gripped the handle of the pistol, though she had no idea what she would do with it without her sight. In another second, her vision began to return, and she surveyed the blurry shadows near her in the cargo hold.

  Alias was on the floor in his stretcher. No threat. He can barely to sit up.

  She scanned for his mercenary colleagues, whom she deciphered huddling at the far end of truck bed, still shaking-off her uncle’s shock-jolt. She shuffled toward them, grasping the overhead roll bars as her surroundings slowly became clearer. Close enough to make out their faces, she moved her pistol conspicuously from her pocket to her belt, making sure each of the mercenaries saw it.

  “I can still taste the electricity in my mouth,” the one called Nanner said, surrendering to her with a grin. Ben and the others rubbed their tongues in their cheeks and over their teeth, smacking their lips and frowning to signal their resignation. With their submission affirmed, she sat down on the side bench.

  At least they’ve got a sense of humor about it.

  On the long, bumpy ride back, Victoria started to glean a better understanding of the world they had stumbled—or rather been shoved—into. Almost everyone slept, or battled to sleep, except Nanner, who sat at Victoria’s feet.

  “Truth be told,” he grinned, “we was perdy glad you showed up when ya did—gigawatts aside.” He stared fixedly at her, waiting out her attempt to ignore him. Victoria, at last tired of playing the villain, smirked and gave him a wide-eyed, mocking stare in reply.

  Enthusiastic to get a reaction, Nanner sat himself up and continued. “One minute, we was feastin’ on pig sausages—no, I mean it—pig sausages—at this sweet-ass Ellie estate with that fancy fuck over there.” He gestured at Alias. “Next thing I know, fancy-fuck gets himself into some heap-o-shit, and all the hospitality goes out the window. We get told to go save his sorry ass.

  “It was a shit-show as soon as we got here. Nearly threw up them sausages on the way in. Prob’ly all be dead if you lot hadn’t come so quick.”

  Despite the voice of caution in her head, Victoria found herself sliding down from her bench to sit beside Nanner on the floor. He smiled at the gesture and continued.

  Over the next hour, Victoria learned all about Nanner’s host of mercenaries. Their leader, Ben. The smart one, Felipe. The angry one, Billy. And their mutual employer, Farid Sherman. Their travels through the Commonwealth, including smuggling trips to the Troy Township and many of the other worksites where her family made their living. Their recent brush with the same militia commander, Carmelo Hernandez, who now escorted them. The same man who had once sold Ben, Felipe, and Billy to Sherman, and who had robbed them just months before.

  Our paths were bound to cross eventually, she thought. But how bizarre. She pondered the odd tangle that pushed them together. Nanner was now very close. She wondered if she smelled as bad as he did, but even that couldn’t shake her attraction to him.

  By the time the convoy pulled into Troy Township, she realized her arm was draped over his thigh. In different circumstances, they’d have already bedded. Oscar jerked to a stop, jolting everyone back to consciousness, and she pined for the intimate experience that had been denied to them.

  Oscar’s rear flap flew open, letting in the orange glow of dusk. Shay’s grinning mug peered inside, quickly joined by the face of the militia commander, and a guard from the township.

  Here we go again, she groused to herself. Another humiliating rejection at the township gates. Possibly a dangerous tantrum by her brother. More work unloading their passengers, who would then move freely through the gate, while she and her brother slinked back to their tent in the work camp.

  “Hospital’s waitin’ for them lot,” the guard grunted before noticing Paul and Victoria in the group. “But these two can’t come in, Shay, and you know that, goddamnit. And don’t need no grief from that one. Things’ll go real bad for ‘m if he starts up with me.”

  Paul bristled, sitting up from his place on the bench.

  “No, no,” Alias interjected, putting a hand on Paul’s wrist. “Stay nearby. I can sort this out. I won’t have you pushed aside after saving us.”

  More assurances, as thin as air.

  She and Paul angrily helped the others lift Alias’ stretcher from the truck, when Alias turned to the militia commander.

  “Please find them a safe place to wait until I can resolve this,” Alias said with a grimace.

  The militia commander shot a look at the guard, who begrudgingly relented. Emily kissed both Paul and Victoria on the cheek before following Alias and his men through the gates. Only Nanner stayed behind for a moment, taking Victoria’s hand and planting a small kiss.

  “See you soon,” he whispered. But she didn’t believe him either, and her eyes welled with tears as she watched him trot away to catch up with Alias, who was being whisked away to the infirmary.

  The rest of their convoy started to split up, some vehicles rumbling into the township, while others made their way back to the worksite. Christian and Shay waited with Paul and Victoria near the militia commander, if only to keep a safe distance between Paul and the gate-guard.

  Victoria hoped against hope for Alias to come through, though she didn’t think she could hold it against him if he failed—or didn’t even try.

  I tried to leave him for dead, she reminded herself. She said nothing and avoided eye contact with the others, trying to brace herself for more disappointment—and ashamed that she may have caused her own misfortune.

  With every minute that passed, she became more discouraged. The sun was finally sinking behind the horizon, and she knew they should return to the worksite camp before too long. As she struggled to find her voice to suggest they leave, the township guard strolled over and coldly told them to follow him.

  Through the gate.

  Past the guard tower.

  Into the township’s central plaza.

  Her heart pounded, and her mind raced with anticipation as the guard escorted them to an autocar, which sped them to the infirmary. There they found Alias sitting up in bed, freshly bandaged and looking remarkably chipper, flanked by Emily and an unnamed township official. She looked around the room for Nanner and the others, without luck. She came back to Alias, who was welcoming her Uncle Christian, Shay, and Paul with smiles and effusive thanks. Her embarrassment kept her back several steps, but Alias found her through the crowd, taking her off guard with a friendly smile and a wink.

  “Well,” the official inserted, “I have probationary residency passes for a Paul Lancaster, which I believe is you. …Victoria Lancaster? Yes, there you are. …And Nessa Lancaster? …Not here? Well, have her report to the hall of government tomorrow to pick up her pass.”

  “I’ll go get ‘er right now,” Shay interjected. “If we could arrange to get back through the gate—”

  The administrator frowned at the proposition, with the township gates always closing at dark.

  “I can be back in forty minutes,” Shay pleaded. The administrator hesitated again, only to find Alias’ hand reaching with a wad of Kroners to deliver the necessary incentive.

  “Alright then. I’ll send word to the gate-guards. Forty minutes,” the administrator insisted, handing over the small badge to Shay, who snatched it like a greedy child before bolting to the exit. Uncle Christian waste
d no time trailing Shay to retrieve Victoria’s mother. Before Victoria caught her bearings, the administrator was in front of her, a small disk in his outstretched hand. She hesitated, fearing her sweaty palms might let slip the most valuable object she had ever received.

  Stepping forward impatiently to push the disk into her hand, the administrator continued, “Encoded on your badge are credits for meal rations and supplies. It is also the key-pass to your lodging. Community Sector #7, I believe. Yes. Swipe it over any V-plat for directions. It will also open your unit number and an’ give you an inventory of items in the apartment.”

  As Victoria wrapped her fingers around the precious disk, she looked back to Alias and pressed it to her lips.

  Chapter 21: Indulgences

  (Alias Goodwell)

  Alias Goodwell hobbled forward behind his sister Jasmine toward the door of the old tenement building, the stifling summer heat weighing him down. His sister knocked as Alias craned his neck skyward to catch the vapor trail of a thundering bull-shark jump-jet departing on its way to somewhere far away. The engine’s roar echoing in his ears and the anticipation of the door opening made him swoon a little, and the memories of his last flight—and crash—came flooding back to him. It had only been a few days, but he had hoped to make more progress in forestalling a fear of flying. The memory would not be denied.

  His head had been aching for hours when he reclined in his seat aboard the ministry’s jump-jet and forced his eyelids closed for some desperately needed rest. The engine noise faded into a softer, more distant drone, as his long days working with Ali Ibn al-Rashid—and his long night with Ben Holland—swirled in his mind until he surrendered to sleep.