State of Alliance (20 page)

“I’m counting on the United States Air Force to take care of it,” Chris replies. “Our job is to take back the city without destroying it. The National Guard and the Army have destroyed most of the Presidio and some of the Naval Postgraduate School to prevent our intelligence from falling into enemy hands. The rest of the city…well, let’s focus on preserving it, if we can.”

I notice his usage of
if
. To me, that signals that Chris is going to try, but in the end, this is going to be an old-fashioned shootout. Just the way Harry wanted it to be. He would enjoy the drama. It would suit him well.

“So we can’t drop a bomb on the city because we want to preserve it,” Vera says, “and because we’ve got POW National Guard and Army units inside Monterey. What happened to our Coast Guard boys and the Naval forces here?”

“Most of them got out,” Chris replies. “They’re regrouping.”

“We have to do this the hard way,” Sophia sighs.

“This is going to be brains versus brawn,” I correct. “Omega outguns us, but we’ll outsmart them. We’ll hit
fast and quick, draw their attention to a couple of areas of the city, then slip our forces through the back door while we’re juggling the smoke and mirrors. It will work.”

No one looks convinced, but there is no argument.

We have to stay positive, after all.

“I’ve sent recon scouts into the city,” Chris goes on. “As far as we know, Harry Lydell and the rest of the important Omega officers – whoever they may be – are holed up in the Naval Postgraduate School.” He looks at me. “Marshal Sullivan and his militia will attack Monterey from the south, Anita Vega will attack from the north. While they’re busy defending both sides of the city…” Chris opens his hands, drawing a circle around the east edge of the city with his finger. “Cassidy and I will slip in with our forces through the back door.”

“Can it be done?” Marshal booms. He is stately in his militia uniform and snow white hair. “Will they really fall for a scheme like this? They know we’ve got our militias out here somewhere. They may be expecting it.”

“They’ll be expecting
something
,” Chris replies. “But they won’t know what.”

I stare at the map, aware of how much is at stake. We can’t allow Omega to gain any kind of foothold on the Pacific Coast.

“What about the Pacific Northwest Alliance?” Sophia asks. “California joined forces with you guys for a reason – so that we could have backup when this kind of thing happened. Can’t you send help?”

Anita Vega shares a glance with Marshal Sullivan.

“The purpose of the Alliance was not just to unite the states,” she says slowly, “but to unite the militias. Our militias are more powerful than the military right now – we are by far more driven and organized than what’s left of the United States’ forces. I hate to tell you this, Commander Hart, but the Alliance’s strength has never been in the states themselves. It’s been in the militias.”

The Battle of Tippecanoe was fought between the United States and Chief Tecumseh’s Confederacy
. I get a flash of the words of a teacher I had in eleventh grade, during American history class.
Tecumseh was a Shawnee Native American Indian, and he realized the benefit of having forces that were united. As tribes, they didn’t stand a chance against their enemies because they were separate units. The tribal mentality had to go. And so Tecumseh created the Confederacy, a united front of Indian tribes to combat their enemies. Their most crushing defeat was the Battle of Tippecanoe…but the fact remains: Tecumseh recognized that standing alone is never the way. There is strength in numbers
.

“Just like Tecumseh,” I whisper.

Chris gives me a strange look. I shrug.

I can’t help my flashbacks. They just happen.

“So you and I take our teams here,” I point, “and then we go into the school and take it out?”

“That’s the general idea.”

“What do we do with the Omega officers?”

“We kill them.”

“All of them?”

“All of them. No more mercy.” Chris looks at the leaders gathered in the circle. “This is the way it has to be. These people are wicked, they stop at nothing. They murder
children
. We kill them before they kill us, period. Any questions?”

There are none.

But I can’t stop this thought from running through my head:

I have to be the one to kill Harry
.

No one else but me.

In the blistering heat of the battle, there is but one thing I know to be true:

Survival is a combination of skill and luck. There are many times I should have died on the battlefield - should have had my throat slit while I was a prisoner of Omega. But somehow I made it through. I am still alive, and Harry will rue the day I escaped from his guards.

All of Omega will.

Tight muscles. Slick sweat. Short breaths.

Tick, tock. Time is passing. We’re right on schedule.

I blink, checking my optics. I can see the border of the Naval Postgraduate School, the wrought-iron fence with its dull dark blue paint. My stomach flips. Almost time. I look left, at Chris. He nods reassuringly. He knows me well – he can read the worry on my face.

I look right. Uriah is settled in the grass, lying prone, like me. We are all like this – all two hundred of us. Uriah gives me the ghost of a smile, his dark eyes sparkling in the dim moonlight. There is no fog tonight. It is clear and crisp. Manny is next to Uriah. He
has a rifle, and although Manny is not a sniper, he is a good leader. I take comfort in the fact that he is at the front of the line with me.

Chris gives me one last look, then slips into the darkness of the surrounding marshy woodland. He has to get back to his men. I look down at my hands, shaking slightly. Being the Commander of a group this big is not terrifying, but it is intimidating. I must make wise decisions in the heat of battle, or many lives could be lost.

And there is nothing scarier than knowing someone’s life is in your hands.

In the distance, there is the rattle and boom of automatic gunfire, the occasional flare in the night sky when a mortar is launched. I watch one drop back down to earth. Anita Vega and Marshal Sullivan are doing their job well, attacking the north and south ends of the city. Watching through my scope, I can see Omega troops at the school scrambling to reach their vehicles, to reinforce the borders of the city.

Good. This is what we had hoped for.

I gesture to Uriah and get to my feet, ghosting through the darkness, a creature of shadow and silence. The militia moves with me, the order to go
forward spreading through the ranks as the officers pass it down.

Vera, Sophia and Andrew are dispersed throughout the militia, each in command of their own unit within my force of two-hundred. I trust their judgment and capabilities enough that I am not worried about them anymore. I pray for their safety, but I focus on the task at hand.

We keep moving, brushing through shrubs and skirting around abandoned buildings until we reach the fence of the Naval Postgraduate School. I follow the length of the fence. We curve north, reaching a large pond that has almost completely dried up.

Here we are.

There is no barbed wire on the top of the fence, no electrically wired shock system. When the National Guard and Navy were keeping this school safe, there was no need for measures like that. The guards and the military force kept the school from being attacked.

And now this will be a weakness for Omega.

I sling my rifle over my back and jam my boot between two bars, pulling myself up and over the fence in one swift motion. I land on the other side,
smiling. I remember when I could barely figure out how to climb over a chain link fence.

The world has changed. Cassidy Hart has changed.

I check my shoulder. My men are coming fast, pulling themselves over the fence in silence. We keep low, close to the ground, going from cover to cover, hiding in the trees and overgrown bushes along the side of the pond. The sedentary water in the bottom of the small basin smells putrid. Dead animals are rotting around the edges. Warning signs are posted on trees.

We move around the pond, stopping at the bend. We are right on the edge of the parking lot in front of Hermann Hall. The generators are running. The hotel and the parking lot are lit. Omega guards and patrols fill the empty space. They are everywhere, like insects. I nod to Uriah and we kneel down. I look back over my militia. Vera and Sophia have taken their units around the other side of the hotel. I have about a hundred men behind me, holding their breaths.

There is a distant
boom
. The battle on the north and south ends of the city rages on.

“Hear that?” An Omega guard says. “It’s really cooking over there.”

He sounds American, and that angers me.

Traitor. You’re one of them
.

“Yes, the militias are attempting to break through our defenses and take back the city.” This is the voice of another guard. Chinese. But he speaks English well. “They will fail. We have far more firepower than they do. They will burn.”

Uriah tightens his grip on his rifle. I place my hand on his shoulder.

Steady
, I think.
You’ll get your chance. We all will
.

I think of the Capitol Building, how the dome collapsed and buried so many people alive, sentencing them to tortuous deaths, pinned under concrete support beams, burning alive in the flames. I think of my father, missing in action. Probably dead. I find the anger and fight within myself to carry on, to finish this battle.

There is a gunshot. It cracks through the night air, sounding much closer than it really is. The guards in the parking lot are suddenly alert, searching the parking lot. There is no sign. There is a window on the fifth story of Herrmann Hall, facing the sea. Another gunshot, and the window shatters.

“It’s time,” I say.

And then it is all chaos and bloodshed and killing.

It is all war.

It begins with me. I shoot the Chinese guy that had been talking about the militias. It is a perfect shot – right in the side of his head. He jerks sideways, a spray of blood covering the asphalt. And then everyone attacks at once and it is a barrage of earsplitting gunfire. Glass shatters, alarms go off, Omega troops fall to the ground in twisted, bloody heaps. The parking lot is cleared in no time. I stand up and run, rifle in hand, breath coming fast and uneven.

I hit the parking lot and the militiamen rush in behind me. I am struck by the sheer mass and size of my group as they surge around me, hot, sweaty bodies yelling and moving forward, toward the main buildings.

Snipers are on the roof of Herrmann Hall. Uriah and I fall back, ducking behind a Jeep as some of our militiamen hit the pavement, dead. I look at Uriah. He looks at me. We read each other that fast.

I raise my head above the hood of the Jeep and take a quick shot, sighting the sniper on the far north side of the roof. My aim is not perfect, but I hit him. He is standing close to the edge and he tumbles off the roof, falling through the air like a lead weight. I watch
him hit the concrete. I swear I can hear the impact of his body hitting the ground from where I’m kneeling.

That’s impossible, I tell myself.

Uriah takes out the sniper on the south side of the roof. We systematically bring down every shooter on the roof that we can find, bump fists, then roll out of the cover of the Jeep, following the flow of militiamen toward the main buildings.

Chris’s militia is coming around the back of Herrmann Hall. Our combined forces flood the area, pushing inside the doors of the buildings. I see militiamen drag Omega soldiers into the grass and line them up in a row, a makeshift and quick execution.

I want to cry for them. I want to pretend that I am not a part of all of this.

But I am. This is the reality of war, and I know where I stand.

“Cassidy, let’s go!” Chris is yelling from the steps of Herrmann Hall, searching the madness of the crowd for my face. I sprint across the parking lot, Uriah hot on my heels. And then I see Manny. I feel relief, seeing his face. He is smudged in dirt and grime, blood droplets staining his jacket. He is holding two
handguns, eyes wild, hair crazy. He reminds me of an eccentric, steam punk cowboy.

“This hotel was never quite my style, anyway,” Manny comments, gesturing to Herrmann Hall. The back of the building is spewing flames. Black smoke is rising into the air. “Consider this my version of a bad online review.”

I want to laugh, but I can’t. Not right now.

“Come on, inside!” Chris urges, looking at me.

I follow him. Manny and Uriah follow me.

We push into the hall. An Omega trooper is standing behind the counter of the front desk. He fires off a round. I duck aside, hitting the ground. The bullet misses my head but shatters the glass mirror on the wall.

Chris fires his weapon into the center of the trooper’s chest. He slumps over the counter, dead. Vera bursts into the building from the side door, running full speed. She is flushed, radiating adrenaline. “About time you morons got here,” she mutters. “Where’s Sophia?”

I stare at her.

“She was with you,” I say.

“Not anymore. Andrew’s right behind me, though.”

As if to illustrate her point, Andrew slides through the side door. There is a massive gash on his forehead. Blood is pouring down the side of his face. The sight is horrible, momentarily shocking. But I remember that head wounds bleed excessively and often look much worse than they really are.

“Are you okay?” I ask Andrew.

“Fine. Bumped my head. It happens.”

“You bumped your
head
on someone’s
fist
,” Vera corrects.

Andrew flashes her a wry grin. Vera…grins back.

I don’t believe it
, I think vaguely.

“So Sophia is outside?” I ask.

“Must be.”

“She’s supposed to be
in
here!” I fist my hands. Chris touches my shoulder. “We can’t wait for her. We have to move on.”

I swallow my argument. He’s right. We have no choice.