“If we don’t return, who is going to protect these people?” Cory heard Mark say. The thought was sobering. The young woman never contemplated that they wouldn’t come back.
She wondered why she had such complete faith in Akio. Maybe it was because Akio always brought them home. More likely it was because her father’s loyalty to Akio was complete and unquestioning.
Cordelia trusted her father like he trusted Akio.
“Thank you, Akio,” Cory told him when she took her seat. Akio nodded briefly before returning his attention to the screen where Eve was funneling the video composite she was building of the Forsaken’s pod’s flight profile.
Blackie stayed in pod three with the jeep and the heavy weapons. Those he hand-selected to operate the weapons were squeezed in around the jeep. Blevin and Heitz sat in the front seats of the vehicle, and both were smiling.
Mark got the thumbs up from Blackie and from the platoon sergeant in the second pod, Sergeant Allison. The captain signaled for pods two and three to button up. He ran up the ramp to the first pod and took his seat next to Joseph. Char acknowledged him before buttoning up the aircraft.
Akio ordered the pods airborne. They flew slowly away, staying low as they headed over the lake, toward the open water, and then turned south to pick up the trail where Eve first spotted the enemy pod.
“We will find them, Char-san,” Akio promised as the pod picked up speed.
Terry’s Prison
“Ass-grabbing, ball-slapping shitbag!” Terry yelled when Kirkus walked through the door. Terry wasn’t angry. He just wanted the Forsaken to get a clear delivery of what Terry really thought.
“Good morning to you, too, TH!” Kirkus said happily. “It’s time that we celebrate your first week in your new home.”
Terry was instantly confused. He flexed his stomach muscles and rotated his shoulder. Had he been there a week, certain injuries would have already healed. He couldn’t believe that he’d been gone more than half a day, and he suspected it was less than that. He’d only eaten three times while in captivity.
No. Nice mind game, motherfucker. Can you hear me now, cheesedick? Terry thought.
Kirkus stopped approaching but continued to smile. He raised a hand and snapped his fingers. The Weretiger strolled in. She was in her human form and dressed the same as the first time Terry had seen her.
“Hi, kitten,” he said in a friendly manner. He had no animosity for her. He wondered how Weretigers got along. Aaron had been alone for a long time. Would he be able to relate to another Weretiger or had the Werewolves and Werebear ruined him?
Terry chuckled thinking about it. He felt tired but was in good spirits.
“I have to say, TH, your once-disciplined mind so easily breaks down with a little pain and lack of real sleep. What you would give for a bed,” the Forsaken taunted.
“Doesn’t quite take a mind-reader to figure that one out, ass-face,” Terry replied casually.
“Kick him in the balls,” Kirkus ordered.
The Weretiger hesitated before taking two steps forward, spinning and driving her heel into Terry’s pelvis, a couple inches from the directed target. Terry grunted and doubled over as much as he could while still chained to the walls.
He thought of his first mission to China with Akio. They’d gone deep into the mine. He’d been the weak link in the mission, the only one who couldn’t see in the dark, but he’d gone in any way. Terry had been in danger too many times to feel fear like normal people. He had confidence in his own abilities and those who surrounded him.
His fear was of failure, failing the good people who put their faith in him. Char was brave and undyingly faithful. He knew that he was safe as anyone could be when he was with her. She was a fierce fighter. Now that Cory was grown, she’d redoubled her efforts to train and get better, be more deadly. He thought that she’d become the deadliest killer he’d ever met who wasn’t like Akio or Bethany Anne.
Terry’s lip curled of its own accord. He yanked on his chains, hoping to snap a link or a bolt. He only needed one arm free, and he’d finish the Forsaken.
Kirkus laughed. “I think you’ll need more than one arm to deal with me, Colonel Terry Henry Walton. You think you can defeat me with one arm tied behind your back? Maybe we should try it and see.” The Forsaken was no longer smiling.
The air in the room turned cold as the Forsaken contemplated Terry’s punishment. Kirkus waved the Weretiger to the side as he stepped past her.
He dove in and punched Terry quickly, jabbing his ribs and hitting his face.
Terry lashed out with his legs, but the Forsaken blocked them. Kirkus rotated and with extra force, landed the heel of his hand on Terry’s mouth, splitting his lips and loosening a tooth.
Kirkus stepped back as Terry reeled from the impact. He licked his lips, tasting the blood. “You could be the biggest jagoff I’ve ever met,” Terry slurred as his mouth filled with blood. He spit it at the Forsaken, hoping the nanocytes would have pity and survive long enough outside his body to kill his enemy.
Kirkus laughed at him and with head raised, strutted from the room, leaving the light on, the door open, and the Weretiger behind.
“My name is Yanmei,” she said softly, picking up a rag and approaching Terry. She didn’t shy away from his unshackled legs. She didn’t think that she had to.
She dabbed at his lips, then called for her servant. The petite woman appeared almost immediately carrying a pitcher of water. Yanmei took the pitcher and held it to Terry’s lips. He winced at first contact but drank readily.
Once the pitcher was drained, Terry slowed his breathing, trying to relax and let the nanocytes do their thing.
The Weretiger watched him for a few moments and then left.
CHAPTER TEN
Flying in the Pod
Blackie sat next to the young Sergeant Nickles. “It took that pudknocker, General Tsao, five years before he raised his ugly head. We had to go in with the same kind of load out we got today,” Blackie told him.
“Well before my time, Lieutenant,” the sergeant replied. “That was twenty years ago.”
The lieutenant recounted the story as they flew, delivering only the highlights.
Everyone was listening intently to the story. Some had been there, most had not. It had been a long time since the Force de Guerre had destroyed the army of General Tsao.
“Over a thousand soldiers walked down that road, one hundred and seventeen lived to see the sunrise. That’s the story people need to know. Get on the wrong side of the new world, and the FDG is coming for you, coming to ruin your day. Fuck those guys,” Blackie said without looking at anyone in the pod.
“To whoever took him? Fuck you! We’re coming, and you ain’t seen nothin’ yet, bitches! Here’s to Terry Henry Walton!” Corporal Max Heitz bellowed with renewed vigor.
“To Terry Henry Walton!” those in the pod echoed. Adams and Merrit nodded. They were ready to do their part. They were ready to take on the Forsaken who had come into their house in the middle of the night.
Terry’s Prison
Terry stood upright, trying to relax. His legs didn’t ache, which told him that he hadn’t been there that long. His shoulder was healing, once again. The nanocytes had already knitted the skin of his lips back together and tightened his teeth. He worked his jaw, loosening it. He’d been clenching it ever since getting punched.
“Let me out of these chains, pus-wad and we’ll see what you can do in a straight up fight. Jagoffs. All the Forsaken are jagoffs. Maybe it’s in your nature or something. I don’t know. Twits,” Terry said, having a perfectly congenial conversation with himself. Since the lights were on, he took the opportunity to study the eyebolts.
He flexed and pulled, looking for the slightest movement. He continued working it. Terry was able to hold himself upright and brace his feet on the wall on one side to give himself additional leverage, but the bolt wouldn’t move.
Terry had been chained into a corner, with his arms
stretched to the side and slightly upward. The eyebolts were over his head, on each wall. He had limited movement, not enough to give it a good yank.
He let himself back down to the floor and found Yanmei leaning in the doorway watching.
“Hey!” he exclaimed with a scowl. “Don’t you people ever knock?”
“I would think less of you if you weren’t trying to escape,” she offered.
“That might matter if I cared what you thought about me. If you release me, then I would care a whole lot,” Terry replied with a half-smile. He saw that she had changed clothes again.
“Are you twins or something?” he asked.
“No, just one of me, but my room is not far. I prefer comfort; he prefers the elegant look.”
Terry wondered why she was trying to become his friend. He wouldn’t mention that it seemed forced. If he did, the Forsaken would be in her mind and see that she had failed. Terry held out hope that he could block the creature.
In the interim, he decided to play the game. The eyebolts weren’t budging.
“I can’t release you, because he wouldn’t take it well,” she finally answered. “Care for a game of chess?”
She produced a board from behind her back.
“I’m pretty busy,” he started, smiling. She didn’t see the humor in it. “Of course, I’d love to play. It’s been awhile so you’ll have to forgive me until I shake off some of the rust.”
She set up the board on the floor in front of him. She sat cross-legged and arranged the pieces. “You are the guest. You shall play white.”
He called out the square for his pawn. Yanmei moved it, and the battle began.
Yanmei was not a fast player, where Terry had been conditioned with timed play. He had never had time to contemplate moves and countermoves five plays ahead. He could usually think three moves ahead, and that had always been good enough.
The young-looking woman would make her play, and within seconds, Terry would move. She’d look at the board for several minutes before taking her next turn. What felt like forty-five minutes in and the game was barely underway. Terry took a risk and paid for it, losing a knight and a bishop in rapid succession. He slowed down, but the damage was done.
He started playing for a draw and succeeded, though he was unhappy that he forced himself into playing a defensive game, but sometimes, as in life, the best one could hope for was a draw.
She gathered the board and pieces, thanked him for the good game, and left.
“I’ll be damned,” he told himself when he was alone. “Pleasure and pain. Pain and pleasure. What is this fucker’s game? Play away, Kirkus. I’ll figure your ass out or die trying. You can take that to the bank!”
Terry was fiercely defiant. Then he realized that there were no banks. They were some of the first things to go after the fall. Food was useful. Money was not. Anything needed to get food was useful. That wasn’t money. Tellers, managers, and security had simply walked away after the WWDE.
“Nice one, TH. You need some new idiomatic expressions. Maybe you should make your own,” Terry told himself. He thought long and hard, but nothing came to him.
A shadow darkened the doorway, and his muscles tightened. It was Yanmei’s servant with a tray of food and water.
He was angry at how he tensed. Kirkus had scored a point, and he wasn’t even there.
“I could really use a beer if you have one,” he said softly. She simply shook her head, not understanding what he was saying.
Flying in the Pod
Sue, Timmons, Shonna, and Ted sat together in the second pod. The warriors were packed in tightly around them. The space in the middle of the pod was empty. Timmons shook his head.
“What?” Sue asked.
“We could have brought some more weapons or more of something. It’s wasted space. Terry would be mad,” Timmons replied.
“He can be mad after we’ve saved him,” Sue suggested.
Ayashe released her seatbelt and staggered across the pod to kneel in front of Sue and Timmons. They looked up together.
“You look worried,” Kiwi and Gerry’s daughter told them.
“We are always going into combat,” Timmons dodged.
“No, you aren’t,” she replied.
“Too smart for your own good,” Sue said, smiling. “This is different, for sure, because we don’t have Terry Henry Walton leading us. There is no finer warrior. He takes no unnecessary risks. His battle plans are meant to minimize our casualties and maximize those of the enemy, while always accomplishing the mission. He is the consummate professional when it comes to war.”
“And the major isn’t?” Ayashe asked in a young voice.
“We will follow anywhere she leads, if that answers your question,” Timmons answered.
“As would we.” Ayashe looked at the perpetually-young faces of the Werewolves. They returned her gaze, waiting for the question they could see she wanted to ask. Her face turned troubled. “What do we do if something happens to the colonel?”
“We comfort ourselves that we did everything we could to prevent it, then we keep Char from burning the Earth. Her grief will be more than all the rest of ours combined. We help her, and then we move forward, keep civilization from collapsing under the weight of tyranny,” Timmons said.
Sue looked at her mate, wondering where the philosophy had come from. Tyranny wasn’t a word that Timmons used.
“If we don’t move forward, then what would we do? Why would we exist?” Sue asked.
Ayashe shrugged.
“Why do you ask?” Timmons wondered.
“My mother saw Metaguas today. Someone is going to die. I know it. It’s been a long time since the rabbit has appeared, but there he was, in the park with the rest of us. I didn’t see anything, but my mother has the gift.”
“Then we will see who Metaguas has come for. No matter what, the survivors will always carry on, because they have to. We have a responsibility to humanity. Our alpha has declared that as our purpose. It is how things are and how they will be,” Sue replied matter-of-factly.
Timmons grabbed one of the young woman’s shoulders and Sue took the other. “We’re in this together. All of us. We’ll see it to the end, won’t we, Ayashe? No matter how it turns out, the one thing we guarantee is that we will win or die trying.”
***
“I gotta pee,” Max told his friend.
“What the hell am I supposed to do about it?” Blevin replied. Someone nearby snickered.
“I don’t know. Drop the ramp and let me pee out the back.” Max started struggling to pull himself out of the jeep.
Adams and Merrit watched curiously, wondering what the oldster was going to do. They wondered what it was like to get old, something they wouldn’t experience for a long time.
“Sit your ass down!” Blackbeard bellowed. Max gave him the finger.
The lieutenant calmly got up and climbed over people, balancing himself between the seats along the side of the pod and the jeep.
“Come on, Max. We’re not dropping the ramp. You have to hold it,” Blackie told the old man.
“Listen here, you little fucker, when you get to be my age, peeing isn’t something you can turn on and off. When it’s time, it’s time. It’s like when the rain comes. You can’t hold that back. Now, I gotta go, Lieutenant. What are you going to do to accommodate the troops?”
Blackie rolled his eyes and shook his head.
“Who’s got a mortar round?” A couple of the warriors raised their hands. He pointed to one of them. “Take the round out and give me the case.”
There was some discombobulation as the warrior removed his pack and pulled the round out, holding it away from himself so he didn’t dent the delicate fins.
Blackie took the case--a long, plastic cylinder sealed at one end with a cap at the other. The gasket was intact, which meant the case would seal after Max was done taking care of business.
“Here. Don’t make a mess,” Blackie tried to order.
<
br /> “No guarantees, Lieutenant. Thanks, but I would have been perfectly happy hanging it off the end of the ramp!” Max and Blevin both laughed as they thought how that would have worked.
“Sure. Can you imagine the colonel’s face when we told him we let you fall out the back of the pod?”
Max mumbled something, but he was already at work, taking care of his personal business. Blackie made a hasty retreat, giving the thumbs up to the warrior still holding the mortar round in his hands and a look of confusion on his face.
Blackie studiously ignored him as did the rest of the warriors. He resigned himself to holding the mortar round and remembered the old adage of “never volunteer for anything.”
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Flying in the Pod
The pod slowed as Eve painstakingly reconstructed the other pod’s path. The target had flown beneath the clouds, forcing Eve to search every opening on the original flight path, but the pod never reappeared. Then Eve traced the borders of the entire clouded area and searched, looking for where the pod emerged.
The clouds covered half a state. That was too much territory to search, but if Char was given no other choice, she would walk every inch of the ground.
From the southern end of what used to be Indiana to the southern border of Kentucky and for a similar distance from east to west was the refined search area.
“I am afraid, Charumati-san, that this is the best we can do. The Forsaken’s pod has landed somewhere within this area.” Akio drew a box with his hands over the map displayed on the screen.
“What’s the biggest city in that area?” Char asked.
“Louisville,” Akio replied, clearly pronouncing the ‘s.’
“Let’s start with Louisville,” she suggested, pronouncing it as ‘Looavull.’ “We’ll pass low and slow over the city, separate the pods by ten miles. If a Forsaken is down there, we’ll sense him.”
Akio nodded and quickly programmed the flight computers of the three aircraft.
They covered the distance quickly and slowed once they reached the outskirts of what had once been Louisville, Kentucky. The city had never recovered, but it looked like the small towns that cropped up on the outskirts were thriving. In an agricultural world, it made sense that places best suited for growing food would rebound the best.
Nomad Omnibus 02: A Kurtherian Gambit Series (A Terry Henry Walton Chronicles Omnibus) Page 65