Dark New World (Book 3): EMP Deadfall (20 page)

“Shit, Jim. I know what we have. That isn’t what I asked,” Peter snapped. “I need a new goddamn plan whether we have real soldiers or not. We have to figure out the Clan’s weakness. Taking Jaz didn’t make ’em surrender, so I don’t think snagging more of them will work either. Put on your big-boy britches, buddy, and think this through with me.”

Jim was quiet for a moment, and Peter let him think. Then Jim said, “Boss, what if we came at them when they couldn’t see us? If they can’t see us, they can’t hit us. Yeah, this could work. What if we came at them in the middle of the night? I’m sure we’ll set off some of their traps, but we can afford to lose another half dozen. At night, they won’t know where we are until we’re right on top of them, where our numbers will do the most good, and they can’t use those freakin’ snipers so well. Those are what got most of the hits on our people, you know.”

Peter glanced at Jim again. Maybe he wasn’t such a caricature after all. “I’ve considered that, too. Alright, let the sheeple know the plan, and get us ready. We move out tonight.”

* * *

1300 HOURS - ZERO DAY +28

Ethan sat next to Amber, Michael, and Tiffany at lunch. All the various little knots of friends were eating together today, which was understandable. They’d just faced their first test of battle as a full Clan—more than just the group he’d saved at his old bunker—and come through the other side. They had a right to show some pride.

Michael said, “See how they’re all smiling and laughing? We all know Peter isn’t done with us, but this is the afterglow of surviving a firefight. It’s as good as sex, and even better for some people.”

“I’m glad we’re all thrilled,” Michael’s wife, Tiffany, said. “Some of these people haven’t seen a fight before. I remember what a high I felt after our first gunfight, and it’s almost as good this time around. Like the time before that, too.”

Ethan chuckled, and said, “Between the firefight at my house, the skirmish at the garage on our way to the farm, and the encounters with the Red Locusts, I feel like a real Vet now, and I’m still riding an endorphin high this time. Michael, does that ever go away? This intense thrill after surviving a battle?”

“Negative,” Michael replied. “Nothing ever compares to the first time, but it never gets to be routine, either. Food will always taste better, flowers look prettier, all that stuff, after every battle you get in. I’ve been through dozens, if you include the crap storm over in the Sandbox, and I’m still in a rush. No, it never gets old.”

“The sex is better after, too,” Tiffany said with a smirk.

Amber giggled, and Ethan suppressed a grin. It sure would be nice to find out how much better the sex was after battle…

Michael looked Ethan in the eyes, wearing half a grin, and said, “So when are you and Amber going to find out for yourselves?”

Ethan was taking a drink of cider when Michael said that, and he nearly choked, some cider shooting out of his nose. Did he really hear that right? Holy crap! Maybe the Clan was ready to move past Jed’s death now, in the face of this implacable enemy. “Leave it to the jarhead to be direct,” he said, wiping his face with a cloth napkin. “We, uh, haven’t really talked about that… There’s been a lot going on lately.”

Tiffany nodded and then rested her head on Michael’s shoulder. “We’ve all been talking about it, and we think it’s time to let you two do what you want. Frank agrees, by the way. We’re not saying you have to get together, but if that’s something you both want, we won’t c-block you anymore.”

Ethan said, “Thanks, guys. I know Amber and my friendship has been hard on you guys and Frank, what with Jed’s loss, and of course he’s missed by more than just Amber. We’ve done as you all asked, to keep the peace in the Clan. But yeah, I’m glad we can move on now if she and I decide that’s what we still want.”

Michael’s face grew serious then, and he said, “I recommend you don’t wait too long to decide. We don’t know when Peter will be back, but it will be soon. None of us are guaranteed to still be here tomorrow, so live for today while you can. Take it from me. I lost too many friends in the Middle East who planned to do something
tomorrow
, but then ate an IED
today
. I plan on making Tiff wake the neighbors, tonight.”

“Good point,” Ethan said. He turned to Amber. “I have some 20s things to do in the bunker tonight, with the radios and all that. I could use company.”

Amber’s face turned a little red. “Sounds good to me. That might be the only place around here to get any alone time.”

* * *

0100 HOURS - ZERO DAY +29

Cassy couldn’t sleep. She’d been in bed for hours but couldn’t stay still long enough to doze off. Instead, she found herself kicking her legs, spinning in place, doing anything but sleeping. In frustration, she left out a long breath and sat up. Screw it. If she couldn’t sleep, she might as well go be useful. She’d been sleeping in clothes since learning of Peter’s approach, so she only had to slide on her boots and grab her rifle. Then she crept out of the loft room, through the overcrowded living room, and walked outside into the fresh night air.

She looked around for a moment, enjoying the relative quiet. There were only five people on guard duty at night, working in four-hour shifts. She could only see the guard in the tower, however; the others were hidden around the perimeter with radios to alert the Clan if Peter came in the night like the boogeyman. Ethan slept in the bunker with the central radio setup, maps, and so on, so in an emergency they had a communications center in a safe place.

Cassy couldn’t see the person in the tower well, but they could probably see her. Dean Jepson had made a couple pairs of night vision goggles out of colored film, welding goggles, high-intensity infrared LED lights, and a glue stick. A darn genius, he was, even if he was as grumpy as anyone she’d ever met. One set was kept in the guard tower, and the other was in the bunker for safekeeping, to swap out with the tower set if needed. Cassy smiled as she thought of Michael saying, “Two is one and one is none.”

With nothing else to do and nowhere else to go, Cassy decided to go keep the tower guard company. Besides, maybe an hour spent staring off into darkness would bore her to sleep. She walked slowly toward the tower, taking care not to trip on anything in the darkness. There was only faint moonlight that night, and it would really suck to be sidelined from her duties if she was foolish enough to sprain her ankle wandering around outside at night.

Cassy slung her M4 over her shoulder and climbed up the makeshift ladder, up to the guard tower’s platform. It was barely large enough for two people, so the guard helped her up through the hatch. Cassy saw that it was Gary on duty at the moment—the man who’d sprained his wife’s wrist, but he’d behaved himself since then. He and his wife had turned into good additions to the Clan since that incident.

“Hey, Gary. Anything moving out there?” she asked, voice nearly in a whisper.

Gary shook his head and gave her a thumbs-up. Good, nothing going on. Cassy didn’t really expect Peter to brave the Clan’s traps in the dark, but one never knew what a desperate and deranged lunatic might try.
 

Michael had said that a night attack was actually likely, but Cassy didn’t really believe it. Without electric lights, such an attack by untrained farmers would be far too bloody for a guy like Peter, who had to rely on superior numbers to get what he wanted, rather than negotiating. Too bad because Cassy would have jumped at the chance to negotiate giving herself up in exchange for the Clan’s right to be left in peace, if he could have been trusted to keep his word. If Peter wasn’t such an evil prick. If it hadn’t turned out that the guy thought he was doing the Right Thing, on a mission from God. You couldn’t negotiate with someone like that except from a position of strength. The Clan was not in a position of strength.

“What’s on your mind?” Gary asked quietly.
 

Cassy realized she’d zoned out, off in her own little world thinking about Peter and too many what-if scenarios. “Just wishing we had more options. More time to get ready for him, at least.”

Gary shrugged. “I know. We all do. But it is what it—”

BANG
.

A shower of blood sprayed the tower’s wall behind Gary, the bullet punching through the center of his chest and exiting his back. Gary wore a surprised look on his face. He reached out toward Cassy and opened his mouth, but all that came out was a torrent of blood, and then he collapsed. He was a marionette whose strings had been cut.

Cassy dropped to the floor by reflex and spent half a second—a seeming eternity—staring into Gary’s now-vacant eyes. Those bastards. Anger welled up within her, replacing the spike of fear that had sent her to the floor, and she burst into motion. First she scrambled over Gary’s bloody body, reached out, and slapped a switch mounted to the wall. The switch was tied to an old siren they’d recovered. Connected to the battery power system of the homestead, the siren wailed into life.

Then she tore the night vision goggles from poor Gary’s head and hastily donned them herself. Picking up her rifle, she peered over the edge of the guard tower’s wall, glanced, then ducked back down. She knew the flimsy walls would provide no real cover, but they offered a bit of concealment as long as she stayed down. Bitterly, the thought crossed her mind that the tower had been one of the preparations she had argued with Dean about. If only she’d let him put up the structural reinforcements, and the sandbags… But no, there had been no time.

What if, what if, what if. Enough of that. There would be time enough later for soul-crushing guilt about Gary and what might have been if she’d listened to Dean. She shook her head to clear the thoughts.

A bright flash and a scream from out in the Jungle announced that another one of Michael’s traps had worked, and Cassy grinned savagely. Now only some seventy to go. She brought her rifle up and, with her night vision goggles, saw two of the White Stag people making their way out of the Jungle and into the raised beds area. Deep breath. Aim. Exhale. Fire. The muzzle flash practically blinded her, but she did see one of the approaching enemy fall over backwards, head snapping back. There would be no victory feast for that bastard. She ducked back down and crawled to the tower wall’s other end, over Gary’s body. She hardly noticed him now, focused on the fight at hand.

Gary’s radio crackled, and Ethan’s groggy voice came out, sounding somehow both frantic and calm at the same time. “SITREP, Tower.”

Cassy fumbled at the radio, but her hands didn’t seem to work right. “Shitty adrenaline,” she cursed, then made the damn radio work. “Clan One to base. Tower One is down. Multiple OpFor coming through the Jungle. Over.”

There was a long pause, and Cassy imagined the chaos in the bunker right now as Ethan tried to manage a dozen radios, a dozen points of intelligence coming in so that the Clan could respond the best way possible. Odd to think the survival of the Clan might rely on Ethan’s radio skills, honed only by years of playing online games.

Finally, the radio crackled to life again. “Clan One, you have a dozen enemy about to exit the Jungle. They’ll be on top of the foxholes in seconds. Hit them hard, we can’t let the foxholes get overrun! Over.”

Cassy peered over the wall, and dammit if Ethan hadn’t been right. She could see one person, then another and another, all filtering out of the tall vegetation of the Jungle. She took aim, but then lost the target, and glanced over the top of her scope. The enemy fighters were
sprinting
toward the foxholes! Thank God they were occupied. She saw burst after burst fired from the Clanners in those holes, but more and still more enemies came out of the Jungle. She took aim, and fired. Another of the assholes dropped. She aimed at another, a woman, and dropped her in her tracks. It looked like combined fire from the foxholes and those behind the earthbag framework of a house stopped the drive. The enemy took cover behind raised garden beds, and both sides began to pop off shots at each other—mostly ineffectively.

But where were the rest of them? Peter had seventy-odd fighters, and there were no more than a third of them attacking from the Jungle. A shiver ran up her spine. Something wasn’t right.

- 11 -

0130 HOURS - ZERO DAY +29

CASSY ROSE UP to fire again, but with her night vision goggles she saw an attacker aiming his rifle right up at her, and she threw herself to the floor again. Part of her was horrified at the blood soaking into her clothes—Gary’s blood—but the thought was gone as fast as it had come. She grabbed the radio again and shouted over the din of battle. “Bunker One, where’s the rest of them? I only see a couple dozen!”

Ethan’s reply came immediately. “No sign of them anywhere, Clan One. You have heavy movement to the south-west. They’re focusing on just a few foxholes. We need supporting fire or they’ll be overrun.”

“Dammit! Where the hell are the rest of ’em?” Cassy knew the question deserved no answer, but an answer came anyway: “We’ll tell you when we find out.” She put down the radio, embarrassed that she’d wasted Ethan’s time. Maybe Peter learned his lesson and was holding the rest in reserve. If those foxholes got overrun, there could be an onslaught of a few dozen enemies charging through the gap—right at the houses, kids and all. If only she’d stayed in the loft with Michael. He would know what to do. But she
wasn’t
in the loft, and Michael was probably as busy as she was. She heard his voice echoing in her head: “Any action is better than inaction.”