“Um, how in the hell do they have the Borg Queen’s voice?” Heath asked.
“It was Doug, or Uncle Doug. The program is on the computer at the cabin. Doug surmised that if Lance and Ian were scared of the Borg Queen, other smart people would be too.”
Waving a hand at the camp now completely lit by fire, “I didn’t know who she was at first, but I would damn sure be terrified of her now,” Heath confessed.
Lilly just nodded in agreement, watching people trying to find anywhere to hide. If they found a spot from those bots attacking from the hills above, the bots inside found them and if they didn’t, Angel did from overhead.
On the screen she spotted a group, a very large group, hunkered down in a ravine near the north end. From the size of the group, Lilly was guessing there was close to, if not over, a thousand trying to hide. The spot provided cover from the bots on the slope and those to the south and Angel was near the lake edge, shooting bodies trying to reach the water. On the screen, Lilly could see so many were packed in the depression that they couldn’t lay down, they were all just squatting and trying to will their bodies into the dirt.
With all the bunkhouses on fire in the south Phoenix took off, heading to the smaller group of bunkhouses on the north end. The few people that crossed Phoenix’s path were just sucked in. All of a sudden, Lilly saw Phoenix change course to go further west, but still heading north. “Oh, Lance spotted you trying to hide,” Lilly said.
Phoenix crested the lip of the ravine doing thirty miles an hour and hit the outer edge of the group. The bar at the bottom to trip bodies into the shredder and clean up its playground was now used as a scoop when Phoenix plowed ahead, gore spewing out each side. The bot was fifteen yards into the group, going right down the middle, before those at the other end knew the queen’s star child had found them.
The shredders were sucking in bodies as fast as it could handle them, but Phoenix had slowed to a crawl. Because the group had been packed so tightly, it took a bit to move and Phoenix still drove on, nearing the middle and creating an eight feet wide path down the middle of the pack.
Now the group started breaking apart to run out of the ravine, but Ian had diverted two of his thunder bots inside to the north. The group that emerged from the ravine, trying to escape Phoenix only met thunder bots. Bodies, the young, old, male, female, all just exploded as steady streams of steel raked the air.
“Angel’s out,” Denny called over the radio, and they saw Angel zoom away, heading south back home.
“You piece of shit!” Ian screamed, coming out the back of his track. They turned to see him grabbing a sledgehammer off the side as Jennifer ran over to him.
“What’s wrong?!” she cried out as the queen taunted the souls in the camp.
“Fucking Dragon’s loading arm broke!” Ian screamed. “We just replaced it and the arm has the nerve to break right now?”
“Ian!” Jennifer shouted, and got between Ian and Dragon. “You will not hit that damn thing! You rupture one of those capacitors, and there won’t be enough of your ashes left to put in a matchbox!”
About to move around Jennifer, Ian stopped and turned from Dragon to look down at Jennifer. Only he, Lance, and Denny didn’t have on masks because they all had display glasses on. “You know, I didn’t think about that,” Ian admitted.
“Put the sledgehammer down, go back in your hole, and command your minions until we leave,” Jennifer commanded.
With a huge grin, “Aw, don’t be that way,” Ian snickered. “The last time you were irritated this much, you showed me and Lance your hooters. How about now?”
Stomping her foot, “I tried showing them to you last week, but you ran the fuck off!” Jennifer shouted. With only the light of the fires from the camp below, Heath saw Ian’s face turn red as his mouth fell open. Ian glanced around and realized he wasn’t the only one who’d heard that, and his red face turned purple. Spinning around, Ian sprinted back to his track and dove in the back.
“He shouldn’t be ashamed of that,” Heath chuckled. “First time a girl showed me her hooters, I froze up. She just stood there and I couldn’t even blink. Finally tired of waiting, she put her shirt back on and I still stood frozen.”
“Ian!” the Borg Queen cried into the night, and everyone froze. “I told you to go back because running off like that would piss her off!” It was only then that the others figured out it was Lance who was speaking with the queen’s voice.
“Oh, like you’re one to talk.” The queen’s voice sounded like she was bipolar. “What the hell was I supposed to do? I’m not doing that shit we watch! A woman would chop a man’s head off after biting his fingers off, pinching and pulling that hard! That can’t feel good!” Everyone realized Lance and Ian were both the voice of the queen.
“You could’ve just looked!” the bipolar queen shouted back, and Jennifer took off running for the track.
As Jennifer dove in the back, “Oh no, not here!” the queen cried out. “Just thinking about your hooters, I already got wood so bad I’m lightheaded!”
“You know, hearing the Borg Queen say she has wood really freaks a person out,” Heath confessed, and everyone heard Jennifer tell Ian to shut up and he did.
“Heath,” Sandy called out walking up, and he spun around. “Let me talk to Lilly a bit,” Sandy told him, but it clearly meant, ‘Leave now… please’.
Not arguing, Heath scurried off and Sandy turned to Lilly. “I trust ‘the watching’ are the movies you spoke of?” Sandy asked.
“Yep,” Lilly nodded.
“Am I guessing correctly that the study material has been moved to the build house in that closet that’s been turned into a bank vault?”
Again, Lilly nodded, “Yep.”
“It sounds like they have S&M stuff. Don’t they have, like, any normal porn?” Sandy asked, and Lilly stumbled back.
Not even taking the road to what ‘normal porn’ was, “I don’t know what they have. That’s top-secret material to them,” Lilly answered, but was getting really freaked out again. Before Sandy spoke, Lilly lifted her hand up to stop Sandy. “I’m not talking about this with you, here of all places. But I really don’t want to talk about this with you anywhere. Remember, you’re ‘Momma’ and I don’t want Lance to ever hear the word ‘porn’ coming from your mouth.”
Turning to the camp, the bots on the slope still fired down at people trying to hide but now, there were long pauses. Sandy saw stinkers were now inside in force, covering over half the camp and those still alive weren’t going to be able to hide from them much longer.
“Okay, you’re right. Not the time or the place,” Sandy finally said, then turned to walk off but stopped, seeing Lance climbing out of his track. Lilly was so happy to see Sandy not head over to Lance and instead, head back over to Mary.
“Come, my children,” the queen’s voice calmly echoed over the land. “You have done well and killed for your queen. Let us tell the Wild Ones the vile mortals have been slain.”
“That was cold,” Lilly said as Lance stopped beside her.
“They shot our dog,” Lance replied, and Lilly was glad the queen didn’t repeat it.
Both turned to look over the burning camp and watched Phoenix leading the six thunder bots back into the water. “You have done well for your queen, Phoenix. You are now my chosen,” the queen declared, and Lilly looked up at Lance because he hadn’t spoken and she could hear Ian and Jennifer arguing.
“How did you do that?” Lilly asked, praying they didn’t have the queen stuffed away somewhere.
“Programed for when Phoenix headed back to the water,” Lance shrugged.
Hugging Lance’s side, “Let’s gather the rest of the children and get home then,” she snickered. “They have to get a bath before getting tucked in.”
Lance just hugged her laughing and both headed back to the track. Commands were sent out, the bots all formed up, and the group headed home, leaving a lesson for all burning below.
Chapte
r Twenty-One
Trading Post
Stepping outside his residence, Colonel Bren breathed in the cold night air feeling something he hadn’t in a long time, pride. He now had over two thousand troops under his command since bringing in those from Buckhorn. Like he had told Victor, none felt any remorse about Wade. The only problem they had was more of their buddies hadn’t made it to the Trading Post. It had been eight days since the Wild Ones had hit and wiped out Buckhorn, and Bren didn’t regret his decision one bit.
Under the starlit sky, Bren scanned the thirty acres behind his residence. The helicopters were spaced out, as to not make easy targets, and at each one he could see ground crews working. At long last, he had air mobility and air power again.
The helicopters were in worse condition than he’d thought and no sooner than they’d landed, Bren had started sending them out the next day. He’d known where the supplies they needed for the helicopters were at. Loading up the choppers with as many troops as he could, Bren himself had led the assault to Farmers, Kentucky, where a FEMA camp had been overrun, but there’d been choppers and a maintenance wing set up at the airport before the camp had been lost.
Having learned much since this started, Bren had held the area with the troops who were flown in and had started airlifting the supplies back. The troops had stayed in place to hold back the infected while the choppers ferried the supplies back. The flight alone had been nerve-wracking in itself because every chopper’s rotor blades had been operating nearly double the recommended flight time. Not to mention every engine needed to be overhauled, but Wade would never commit the resources to maintain the craft. That was Bren’s first concern, and they’d hit pay dirt.
His troops had secured three more Blackhawks that’d been in Farmers for maintenance and a Chinook. What had thrilled Bren and everyone else, the hangers had been stocked with supply parts before the camp had fallen. It had taken two days, but the Chinook had made a world of difference in their hauls.
At the time the Wild Ones had hit Buckhorn, Bren couldn’t have airlifted out even if he’d wanted to. He had ordered all aircraft down and immediate maintenance done. Several of his subordinates had wanted to keep a few Blackhawks ready just for emergencies, but Bren had said no. It was too much of a risk to operate machines that were so far behind in maintenance, and he didn’t want to lose one from something that was preventable. Helicopters would start coming back into service in two more days, but they would truly be airworthy once again.
Bren had to admit, he liked the troops under him. They didn’t have to scrounge for supplies because that was Victor’s scouts’ job. Their primary job was the protection of the Trading Post. Despite this, two platoons had set out on their own, and had done a scavenging run. The Trading Post was mainly two peninsulas blocked off and trading only occurred on the main one, but there were really three peninsulas for the Trading Post. The third was a peninsula that had a large marina they used to bring in supplies, and the only one that could be accessed by a vehicle. Supplies were brought there and then moved by boat to the other areas.
There was a container fence but there was also a gate and because it was used so much, this was the area the infected flocked to. The troops had to keep the infected back and continually burn bodies to keep the area operating. Just a half mile up the road that led to the marina was where the eggheads had set up the battle bot they’d built. It didn’t operate with the efficiency of the Wild Ones’ bots, but it did operate enough to average a hundred infected a day. The troops loved it because they didn’t have to kill the infected and the marina gate was much easier to keep clear.
Granted, the bot broke down a lot, but the troops never complained because they’d learned how to fix the thing and not wait on the eggheads. This was what the troops had gone out for, supplies to build more battle bots, three more and now, they had four total. Unable to figure out how the Wild Ones had upgraded the batteries, the eggheads did what the Wild Ones had done before, set two bots up so one could recharge while the other worked.
All the troops had to do was pull the bots back, burn the area off and then set the bots back up. Unlike the Wild Ones’ bots, neither the troops nor the eggheads improved the design. They figured it worked so they’d leave it alone. Now, it was rare that infected even reached the marina wall with two battle bot stations set up, and the troops were figuring out where they could get supplies to make more.
Thinking about this, Bren gave a smile as he watched crews working on the choppers. There were very few trees left on the main peninsula where he was and the ‘airfield’ was a thirty acre leveled area. Putting his hands on his hips, Bren surveyed his growing army.
Other finds in Farmers had been drones (or UAVs, as the military classified them, Unmanned Aerial Vehicles) and a short-range radar unit. There had been micro drones that only had a range of three miles and medium drones that could range out to a hundred miles. It had been the day before the attack on Buckhorn when Bren had tried to fly a medium UAV over the Wild Ones’ area.
The UAV had been ten miles away from Bimble when they’d lost it. One thing they did know was the drone hadn’t crashed or lost signal, it’d been destroyed in flight. No alarm had gone off of a radar lock and they’d never seen gunfire. It seemed the drone was simply destroyed in the blink of an eye. After that, Bren had ordered no more flights east past the interstate.
Two days after the attack at Buckhorn, Bren had broken his own order and flown a drone north and then east, avoiding the area the Wild Ones claimed. He’d been relieved when the UAV wasn’t shot down, but that relief soon vaporized when the UAV had reached the Buckhorn camp. The destruction was total. Seeing modern armor ripped apart increased Bren’s desire to avoid the Wild Ones at all costs.
A group of scouts west of London had run into nine survivors of Buckhorn and had brought them to the Trading Post. All nine were military and one was a first lieutenant. Bren had questioned him about the attack and the lieutenant had assured Bren that no more than a hundred could have escaped the slaughter. The weapons the lieutenant described that the Wild Ones had used on the camp just put Bren in awe. One thing the lieutenant was positive of, the Wild Ones had a RAIL gun and it was mobile.
Bren knew one could make a RAIL gun mobile with no trouble, it was hauling around a massive power plant that posed the problems. Another thing that shocked Bren, he had offered for the lieutenant and eight soldiers to stay, but they’d all refused. ‘The Borg Queen told us to leave the state and never return. We’re leaving and never coming back’, the lieutenant had told him. Even though they hadn’t asked, Bren gave them some supplies and when the gate was opened, the nine took off in a jog to get the hell out of the state.
“If it comes to it, we’ll abandon the Trading Post if the Wild Ones take an interest,” Bren said out loud. “We have the capability now,” he grinned, looking at the helicopters. He didn’t want to leave because setting up somewhere else would take a lot of effort, but there were a few areas his staff had spotted that had survivors they could take over. Bren was certain if he had to, with the forces under him now, he could inflict damage to the Wild Ones, but was certain he would eventually lose.
***
From the east under the clear night sky, Angel two, three, and four cleared the treetops at the edge of the lake and then dropped down ten feet from the surface, speeding west.
***
Bren waved at the two soldiers on roving patrol as they continued past his residence and out to the airfield. Skimming over the surface two miles to the east, Angel two, three, and four shot up from the surface and leveled out at seven hundred feet.
A hundred yards from his residence, Bren looked at the Blackhawk he had assigned for his own use. Six crewmen were using a hoist to replace the engines they had completely rebuilt. The bodies of the crew started exploding as Bren watched projectiles punch through them and the Blackhawk. A split second later, he heard the stream of sonic cracks as projectiles eviscerated the helicopter and mainten
ance crew.
In three seconds it was over, and Bren looked out across the airfield in horror to see two more choppers had been hit. Before he focused his eyes, he watched three more choppers getting shot up. After a few seconds, three more were being hit and now troops around the airfield started diving for cover, realizing they were under attack but couldn’t hear the report of gunfire, only the sonic crack of rivers of steel.
Still standing on the porch of his residence, Bren watched his air wing get destroyed, three choppers at a time. Even then, he realized there were troops out there but unless they were near an aircraft, they weren’t targeted.
In sixty seconds, Bren had watched every aircraft he could see get hit and some were now starting to catch fire. Hearing a loud hum from the east, Bren tilted his head up and his mouth fell open as Angel two shot overhead. He knew instantly what it was because the lieutenant had told him about the overhead hover drone that’d attacked, but the lieutenant had said it had six rotors. This one had eight. Underneath the frame, Bren saw the gun bot.
With his mind processing the event in slow motion, Bren watched the bot flying west and the gun slung under it pivoted to aim behind it and started shooting at the destroyed helicopters again. It was only then that Bren caught movement in his peripheral vision a hundred yards south of another bot, and another a hundred yards further.
The two troops that had walked past on patrol had dived to the ground but both came back up on their knees, lifting their rifles and aiming at the one that had flown over. Angel was several hundred yards away when the two opened fire. Before either had shot more than ten rounds, both let out grunts as half-inch projectiles impacted them.
Seeing the impacts in the ground after hitting the troops, Bren realized they were coming from the south and not from the ones that had just flown over. Further into the airfield, he saw other troops shooting in the direction the bots had flown because Bren couldn’t even see them anymore. In quick succession, each troop who was firing was blown apart. It was then Bren’s brain registered others running about on the airfield but they weren’t being shot at, and some had passed mere yards from one who had been hit. On the far side of the airfield Bren saw a soldier firing away into the sky with a belt fed machine gun, then like the others he was hit but this time, a HUMVEE a hundred yards away was hit. “Stop shooting!” Bren bellowed as troops ran to try and save the choppers. Bren had quickly gotten the message, ‘stop shooting at us or we destroy more’.
Forsaken World | Book 6 | Redemption Page 43