The floor creaked, and Dani froze. She kept staring at the window before her but switched focus from the view outside to her reflection and the room behind her. Someone moved, and Dani turned.
The man facing her snarled, holding up a former table leg like a club. Dani reached for her gun and touched only her belt. She tightened her jaw and cursed Jace. She shifted her hand to her knife and paused. The man’s sleeves slid down his arms, revealing emaciated, sore-covered limbs. His strength wavered under the weight of his weapon. He’d been starving for some time and wouldn’t survive the winter.
She left her knife on her belt. “I just came up for a look out the window. I’m leaving.”
He stalked closer. “Give me your pack.”
Before she could answer, a series of shouts rose from elsewhere in the block. The man lunged toward her. Dani stepped aside, swinging her upper body away from the incoming club even as she extended her foot and tripped the man. He fell with a curse, and Dani darted to a window on the other side of the room. She swiped her hand across the film on the glass and peeked out. The raid had started.
MPs poured into the derelict buildings; Brigands scattered like ants.
The man lumbered toward Dani again. She lifted her heels from the floor, but otherwise forced her feet to remain still. She waited until he brought the club down at her again, then sprang to the side, grabbed his threadbare shirt, and shoved him away from her. His head collided with the wall; he groaned as he slid to the floor. She kicked the table leg away from his hands and left him behind.
She was moving past the first window on her way to the stairs when an unfamiliar, thumping noise emanating from the other side of the river stopped her in her tracks. She took a few steps backward to look out the window again.
Three helicopters were landing on the border of B and C Blocks. Black-uniformed Wardens spilled out of the helos and formed lines. A thirty-man Warden platoon had more advanced weapons than the Commonwealth. Warden rifles were of the same tech as the bombs they’d used to cripple the cities across the globe forty-four years earlier. One Warden platoon could engage a hundred CNA troops and likely win.
The C Block raid wouldn’t be using that many MPs, so Miles and the other members trying to capture Brigands would be caught unaware by these Wardens and slaughtered. She’d never find Miles in time to warn him, but she couldn’t escape C Block either. The Wardens were covering the border to B and the only decent bridge across the river. Fore River was too wide and too cold for her to swim across to E Block.
Her only choice was to move deeper into C Block and hide. She abandoned the room, skipped down the steps, and crawled back out the window she’d used to enter the building. She needed a good place to wait out the fighting—preferably something underground, in case the Wardens opted to use more firepower than their quake rifles.
CHAPTER
5
After completing his weapon checks, Miles lifted his duty belt from the table and placed it around his waist. Other officers moved through the armory, gathering and checking gear in preparation for the raid.
He’d just completed buckling his belt when the female ranking officer entered. He and all the other MPs came to attention.
“At ease,” Major Houston said.
Miles and his fellow officers shifted their stance, but their backs remained straight.
“We have a change in orders.”
Miles flicked his eyes toward the major, then ahead again. He’d been dreading this raid. He hoped it had been canceled.
“The Commonwealth of North America’s military experts are changing tactics. We will no longer hold Portland but will instead evacuate and regroup,” Major Houston said, moving between the two lines of MPs.
Miles glanced at the woman again without moving his head. Her uniform was cleaner and crisper than his had been in years. He assumed it was the better accommodations that came with rank—then remembered that he spent more nights with his Brigand lover than he did with the other MPs in the Stroudwater Barracks. No wonder his clothes were in such bad shape.
The major’s voice brought his thoughts back to the present. “We’ve received word that the Wardens are extending out from Boston. That includes north of the city. Their own raids have brought more Echoes to their ranks, and, of course, though they still have fewer numbers than our CNA field support divisions, they have the better tech. Our troops started evac-ing last night and left us as the only CNA forces in the region. Today’s raid was to be the first of several before we left, but those orders have changed too.”
If Miles had slept in the barracks the previous night, he would have noticed the ground troops moving out. Instead, this news surprised him.
“We will complete the C Block raid as planned in order to acquire as many human and Echo Brigands as we can to add to our ground troops,” the major continued. “Any Brigands with decent skill sets or Echoes with any knowledge of their alien tech will become part of the CNA weapons development division. Use every resource to capture as many Brigands, especially Echoes, as possible. If we can’t upgrade our weapons to match the Wardens, we’ll never win this war. Questions?”
“The Brigands that don’t come willingly?” an MP asked.
“Subdue them as needed with tranqs. I don’t want our captures spending their first few weeks as CNA recruits recovering in the infirmary. Understand?”
“Yes, Major,” Miles and the other MPs responded as a group.
“Complete the raid, return to the barracks, and pack your shit. We abandon Portland by sunset,” Major Houston said and left.
Miles’s mouth had gone dry; he couldn’t swallow. The other MPs resumed their activities, and he turned back to the table. He pressed his palms against the top and leaned against them. He needed to warn Dani that the Wardens were moving north, but he would be neck deep in the raid for the next several hours. There wasn’t enough time for him to go to her in B Block before he had to leave.
No one had asked where they were going once leaving the city, though there were only two choices when it came to escaping Portland. South landed them in a hornet’s nest of Wardens. East was the Atlantic. They could only evacuate to the west or north.
He righted himself and took a deep breath. Dani was an expert at surviving, and he couldn’t worry about her today. He holstered his weapon, an older-model plasma pistol he’d taken from a dead Warden. The newer models the Wardens had invented had twice as much power and held a charge three times longer than the one Miles had. Still, his weapon was more advanced than the ones most of the MPs carried; some of them used ancient revolvers like the one Dani carried. Shit. He couldn’t stop thinking about her.
The routine of finishing his gear prep and joining the platoon he led helped settle his thoughts. He was responsible for two squads, twelve MPs in each. His platoon of twenty-five, including himself, plus two other platoons, had raid detail today. They didn’t have far to march, since Brigands and MPs shared C Block.
He led his platoon to their designated location and waited while the others reached their positions. He stared at his watch, and at six minutes past the hour, he ordered his officers forward.
They caught two Brigands with ease—they were drunk—but the rest of their captures they earned. The scavengers scattered, spreading the word of the raid as they tried to escape. Miles barked a quick series of orders before firing his tranquilizer gun three times, hitting a fleeing man and boy in their backs but missing the woman he targeted. The man and boy stumbled for a few steps before falling. Louder concussion blasts sounded through other nearby buildings, and Miles recognized them as the sound of cannon nets being deployed. They used those to capture people grouped closer together. He despised these raids, but they were part of his duties as an MP.
Several Brigands poured out of a stairwell in front of Miles. One collided with him, taking them both to the ground. The young man reached for Miles’s weapon, and Miles drove his knee into the man’s gut. While the young man coughed, Miles rol
led him to his side and placed a silver, one-inch-long rod on the Brigand’s waist. The immobilization cuff, I-cuff, activated, forming a belt around the Brigand. The device generated an electrical pulse that prevented the wearer from moving voluntary muscles.
Miles left the young man on the ground and stood. Blood trickled from a wound somewhere on his scalp while he tried to determine the locations of his troops.
A cannon net boomed from an upper level of the building. He hadn’t ordered his MPs to start sweeps up through the structure yet. He and several of his MPs finished applying I-cuffs to the Brigands they’d caught coming out of the stairwell before he did a head count.
“Corporal, divide your squad,” Miles said. “Use half to secure the lower level and the other half to move these Brigands to the trucks to haul them out. Everyone else is with me.” He didn’t wait for the corporal to acknowledge his orders before leaving. He was eager to find out why some of his platoon were on the next floor up when they weren’t supposed to be there yet.
He rushed into the stairwell and took the steps two at a time until he reached the door leading into the second floor. He led his troops through the shambles of rooms toward the noise of weapon fire, passing dead, gunned down Brigands. He holstered his tranq gun and drew his plasma pistol. His missing MPs were using live rounds.
He stepped into the room, and to his horror, three MPs stood over the bodies of slaughtered Brigands. One of the scavengers took his final breath as blood poured from the open wound across his throat.
Miles pointed his gun at the MP still holding the dripping blade. “Drop the knife, Anderson.”
Anderson smiled. “He resisted.”
“Drop the knife.”
Anderson examined the blood on the blade instead. “Major Houston wants Echoes. The best way to tell the assholes apart from humans is to kill them, see if they come back to life. Those two were human,” he said, tilting the knife at the two dead women tangled in a net with holes through their backs.
Miles kept his pistol pointed at Anderson but addressed his accomplices. “Surrender your weapons. You’re relieved of duty.”
The MPs shared a glance but didn’t move.
A subtle, bluish color began to glow under the dead man’s skin.
“Look!” Anderson said with a sneer. “We have an Echo! Major Houston will be so happy.”
The blue color traveled beneath the Echo’s skin, moving through his veins. His body slowly writhed as the man’s body converted back to that of an older teenager. The wound across his neck filled with the blue liquid, replacing some of the red blood and healing the fatal injury. The Echo’s body heaved as he drew in a noisy breath.
Anderson grinned. “Now is the best time to permanently kill them.”
Miles kept his pistol aimed at his MP. “We need their memories to create better tech. We have our orders, Anderson.”
The MP shook his head. “Nah. These fuckers invaded our planet three hundred years ago, hid among us, and attacked without cause. Billions of humans have died because of them. They need to die.”
Anderson flipped the knife in his hand and raised his arm to plunge it into the helpless Echo’s chest. Miles fired. The plasma pistol’s blast tore a hole through Anderson’s heart, launching him backward. He was a corpse before his body struck the floor.
Anderson’s accomplices surrendered their weapons when Miles turned his pistol toward them.
“Sergeant Coulson, place these men under arrest,” Miles said.
“Yes, sir,” Coulson said and approached the rogue MPs.
Miles kept his weapon on them until Coulson activated the I-cuffs. She tapped a series of lights on the cuff belts that allowed the two men to move only their legs.
With the rest of their voluntary muscles immobile, Miles lowered his weapon. “Sergeant, stay with them until we return to the barracks to put them in a holding cell. James, Aeryn, carry the Echo to the trucks. Mitchell, gather up the net and reload the cannon. Take all the gear off Anderson for yourself; ditch that useless revolver.”
“What about Anderson?” Mitchell asked.
“Leave him.” Miles had six MPs left with him. His heart was not in this raid, much less in murdering Brigands. “Everyone else, we’ll split up into two groups of two and one group of three to finish clearing the building. Anyone who decides to start murdering people for sport, I’ll kill you myself. Let’s go.”
CHAPTER
6
Dani used less caution than before when moving through the city. She bolted across sunlit streets to move deeper into C Block. She stumbled for no obvious reason and crashed to the asphalt. While sprawled on her belly, the ground trembled, making bits of dirt and broken asphalt dance between her fingers. The Wardens were announcing their presence with earthquake grenades. She scrambled back to her feet, wobbling, the earth still shifting beneath her boots.
The building where she’d looked out the windows and left the starving man crumbled into a plume of dust. Her body trembled—not from the weapon’s earthquake but from fear. She flinched when images of structures collapsing, including the children’s hospital in Boston, flashed through her mind. Jace said she lost her memories when she reset back to ten years old, but apparently she’d retained pieces of her past, even if they were as small as the pebbles vibrating around her boots.
The tremor subsided and the shooting started. Dani couldn’t see the Wardens yet, but she heard the unmistakable whine as their quake rifles powered up for a second before blasting their targets. An earthquake rifle’s violent blast would stop a human’s or Echo’s heart even if he or she was shot in a limb. The Echoes would heal, and the Wardens took them. Several shots from a quake rifle could crumble a wooden house, and Warden quake grenades took down entire buildings made of concrete and steel.
Dani forced her feet in the direction of the raid. She had a better chance of escaping MPs than she did the Wardens. Brigands continued to scatter as she moved toward the raid’s chaos. They shouted at her to turn around, but she ignored their warnings. A few laughed at her when she told them of the Wardens’ arrival. A Warden attack on the remnants of Portland sounded absurd, even as her own words reached her ears, but she’d seen their helos landing by the river with her own eyes.
She skidded to a stop upon reaching an abandoned house—small in comparison to the others she’d passed, and farther away from the bulk of the other structures in the city. She hoped the Wardens wouldn’t bother with such a small building.
She moved along the side of the building to the rear. The back door was open, and she paused to listen for any movement inside. She moved up the steps into the three-story home, creeping and praying the boards wouldn’t groan or break beneath her boots.
She wanted to reach the top floor, get the best view of the area. She crept through the house to the second level and stopped when she caught a slight movement in the hall in front of her. She pulled her knife from her belt, her heart racing.
A man with a knife sprang from behind a closet door in the hallway, and Dani backed up, playing it safe but ready to engage the Brigand.
A woman’s voice halted the man’s attack. “Stop! She’s a Brigand.”
Dani peeked beyond the man’s form. The woman who had called her out of the sun earlier was crouched on the floor behind the closet door. Dani took a deep breath to ease the side effects of the adrenaline coursing through her body. She sheathed her knife and waited for the man to lower his. “Found your brothers?”
“The MPs caught my other one,” the woman said.
“I’m sorry.” Dani hoped Miles wasn’t the one who had broken up this woman’s family. “Wardens landed north of the river and are moving through C Block.”
“Wardens?” the man asked. “You led them here?”
“They didn’t see me, or I’d already be caught.”
“Caught?” the woman said. “Wardens only capture Echoes. Are you one of them?”
Dani tightened her jaw, annoyed by the slip. “Dead
. Captured. Does it matter? I’m going up to have a look at the area. Find a better place to hide than a closet.” She walked away without waiting for a response.
She arrived at the top floor and found a window overlooking the front of the house. Though she recognized the street by the other rows of rotting homes, her mind refused to focus. She’d practically confessed that she was an Echo. At least she hadn’t told them she shared her bed with an MP who was part of the raid that had taken their brother.
She passed her hand through her hair and pinched her eyes closed. “Pull it together, girl,” she said with a whisper. She took another deep breath and opened her eyes in time to see a Warden, plasma pistol drawn, approaching the front door. Shit.
She didn’t have many options for hiding inside the house, and she’d make too much noise trying to find loose floorboards to crawl beneath. The stairs down to reach the back door would take her through the front of the house. Dani moved through the rooms and found the window she needed. She eased the window up, wincing when it creaked with the movement. A tree next to the house waited for her. She slid one leg through the window and almost had her second leg through when the Warden fired his plasma pistol inside the house. Brigand men shouted as they charged the enemy, but their attack ended the instant the Warden fired more rounds.
Glass shattered as a Brigand dove out a window on the first floor and tumbled to the ground. Before the young woman could stand, the Warden shot her from inside the house. Dani flinched at the sight and almost lost her grip; she scrambled to cling to the window frame. If she fell, assuming she survived the fall, the Warden would shoot her.
She needed a better plan. Her mind shuffled through scenarios, and her thoughts stopped when the woman from the closet screamed. Dani heard her voice float up from the lower floor.
Echoes of War Page 3