Apocalyptic Visions Super Boxset (198 page)

Lance measured the distance between the three boats. In an effort to pass quickly the ships had clustered together, less than twenty yards separating the stern of one ship to the bow of the next. All Lance had to do was slow the lead ship, and the rest would buckle.

The Sani’s bow broke through the calm waters, pushing aside the debris of ships and limbs of men from its path. Lance kept the angle on his pursuit, forcing the Chinese vessel to either take the barrage of his cannons or chance running aground and joining his comrades in the rocky shallows. The Chinese ships were built top heavy, the bulk of their armor at the top half of their hulls, making their turns jerky, sporadic.

A cannonball blasted across the Sani’s deck, crunching the wooden boards under the sheer force, taking two legs, an arm, and a head from four separate men along with it. Lance’s arms trembled from the blows. The boilers rattled, and his engine supervisor burst into the wheelhouse, soaked in sweat and black as soot from head to toe, save for the whites of his eyes.

“Captain, the engines aren’t going to hold at this speed.” The coal dust was so thick around his face that when he spoke, puffs of the fine black dust burst with each syllable. “We’re only running on two thirds of our boilers; what’s left are too strained.”

Lance kept his hand on the throttle. The engines offered a foreboding jolt that reverberated all the way to the ship’s deck. The bulk of their portside cannons were almost in range of the lead Chinese ship. Just a little farther.

“Captain!” The engine supervisor thrust his face in front of Lance’s, blocking the captain’s vision. “She’s not going to last much longer.”

Lance shoulder checked the engine supervisor out of his way. “She’ll hold.” She’d been through worse before. It wasn’t the first time the odds had been stacked against them, and if the Chinese had their way it wouldn’t be the last. “Release the emergency valves; that’ll handle the remaining pressure.”

“Captain, if we do that—”

“That’s an order!” Lance turned on the crewman, and the sailor slowly backed down.

“Yes, sir.” The engine supervisor hurried away, leaving a trail of black prints in his wake. The Sani gave a whine. Lance knew the man was right, but now wasn’t the time to believe it. It wasn’t just the ship that was ready to break down; it was the crew as well. Lance saw it in their eyes.

The lack of supplies, the long hours, the constant noise of cannons and screams, the blood, the lead, the smell, the pain—all of it was reaching a crescendo. The adrenaline of war had subsided and was replaced with the hazy fog of exhaustion.

The cannons fired again, the Sani’s roar shaking the doubts from Lance’s mind. Even though she was tired, she wasn’t dead, and Lance knew their end wasn’t today.

Lance checked the angle of their approach and saw the lead Chinese vessel had slowed in anticipation of his attack, causing the trailing ships to nearly touch. The cannons were in position, and Lance pointed to Canice to echo the orders. “Fire away!”

“Fire!” Canice roared, her voice cut off by the thunder of twenty cannons thrusting hundreds of pounds of lead toward the vanguard Chinese ship. And just as Lance had suspected the ship would react, it maneuvered sharply, cutting too hard and close to the shallows, where it stuttered, and the short space between the two ships in its wake didn’t leave enough time for them to avoid collision.

The three ships wrecked along the edge of the harbor, and the Sani, the very ship that had felt the fatigue of war, and its crew exhausted, clamored in defiance. Fists thrust into the air, men pounded their chests, and the beat of war ravaged on.

Lance was not done. His ship and crew weren’t finished. They’d fight until their last breath, and they made damn sure their enemy knew they planned on breathing for a very long time.

Dawn broke over the mountain peaks. The warm air mixed with the cool of the ocean and cast a blue haze over the shoreline, a morning routine that citizens along the northwest coast of the Americas had grown used to. The Pacific Ocean lapped against the ancient rocks that had far outlasted the crumbling cities and towns of old.

The ruins, as citizens called them, were nothing more than worn lumps of concrete and wood, decayed far past the means of usefulness. The once towering structures had been replaced by one-story cabins, fashioned with logs and wood, as their pioneer ancestors had done hundreds of years before.

Dean Mars enjoyed walking through the ruins of the old cities. It reminded him of the cost of war, and the price was high. It’d become a ritual for him ever since his first battle during the Island Wars against the Chinese. Although then, he walked through the structures with his father, and now with his dad long dead, he walked alone. Even if his brothers were here, he knew that they’d refuse to accompany him. None of them shared the same appreciation of the ruins as he had.

As the second youngest of four boys, Dean had learned at a very young age the importance of words, and it was a skill that had served him well. His mother pushed him to learn as much as he could, so that one day he could trade his sword and pistol for a pen and paper. He held onto that, knowing that would one day be the future for his people, for his country. But for now, Dean was equally as thankful to his father for teaching him how to fight.

Dean’s green eyes glanced north, through the haze of the morning fog and over the dilapidated structures of the ruins. Somewhere in the great wilderness of the north and the vast tundra beyond, an army was slowly marching its way south, coming for the very lands Dean and his family had fought so hard to protect. His fingers clutched two pendulums hanging from his neck, both identical silver encased spheres, but one stained with blood.

The ground underneath his feet was an odd mixture of earth and ash. The bombs that were dropped here long ago had left a scar on the earth that many of the scholars believed would never heal. The dirt felt silky and grainy against his skin as he sifted it through his fingers. Finally, he wiped his hand along his pant leg and made his way back to his horse.

The mare whinnied at Dean’s arrival and gave a light stomp. He patted the horse with his clean hand. “Enjoy the quiet.” Dean looked back to the landscape and the shoreline, the light sound of the ocean the only noise the morning offered. “It won’t be like this for much longer.” Dean mounted the steed and turned east toward his town. Here, the dead required no attention, and it was time to return to the land of the living.

Despite the early-morning hour, the town was busy. The words of war had echoed throughout his entire region, and his people knew what was coming. While the past year of peace was a welcome reprieve, the way his people reacted so quickly to the call of battle made Dean believe that none of them ever truly thought war was done. And for that, he felt as though he failed them.

“Governor!”

Dean pulled up the reins, nearly trampling Hawthorne, who slid in the mud to get his attention. “Professor, can I help you?”

The old man had the wrinkled face of a prune, and what hair was left on his head was white as clouds. His arms were spilling with books and papers, and his lips trembled slightly, his words eager to leave his lips. “I needed to speak with you, again, about the symbols from the raiders.”

The horse offered a grunt to the professor’s words then stomped a hoof in defiance of being slowed in her pace. Dean brushed the animal’s mane in an attempt to calm her. “We’ve already discovered who means to do us harm, Professor. Both the Russians and the Chinese have banded together.”

“Yes, but the significance—”

“Governor.” General Monaghan stepped between the professor and the horse. “Your unit is ready for departure, and we’ve received word from the wasteland clans; the chiefs will hear you speak.”

“Thank you, Jake.” The general gave a light bow then departed. The streets were becoming increasingly busy, and while Dean valued the word of the old professor, the meaning of symbols was over. “Professor, while I’m sure whatever you found has a historical significance, I no longer have the time to give you.”

Hawthorne took a quick step forward, his feet smacking into the thick, traveled mud. “Governor, please, it’ll only take a moment.”

Both Dean and the horse offered a sigh. “I need to go and visit my family before my departure. Meet me by the mounted unit in an hour, and you will have your moment.” Before the professor could butt in another word, Dean spurred the horse and trotted past.

Nearly everyone Dean saw that morning offered a word as he rode by... most of them words of encouragement and strength, some of worry, and a few of disgust and discontent. But such was the life of an elected official. Dean recognized all of his people’s rights, even though not everyone may have recognized his.

The sentries stationed at his home gave a nod and took his horse. “Make sure you give her water, and I want her re-shoed before the journey east.” Dirt and mud fell from his boots as he made his way up the steps of the porch. He stopped before he made it to the door and ran his hand along the smooth wood of one of the bannisters. Dean’s home was the only two-story building in the town, and the only reason that was possible was because his brother had helped build it. A surge of grief and rage rushed through him at Fred’s memory.

“Uncle Dean?” The front door swung open, and Kit stepped out. “Are you all right?”

“I’m fine.” Dean offered a smile and gripped the young man’s shoulder. As a boy of seventeen, he was nearly as tall as Fred was, but thicker. The boy was stronger than most men Dean had fought with in battle, and far more intelligent. “Where’s your brother?”

“He went with Aunt Kemena to the hospital. He wanted to see some of the animals she had in her lab.” Kit stepped out onto the porch, gazing at the view of the town that Dean’s porch offered. The house was built on the high spot in the hopes of turning the town into the capital of a nation that would one day be united as it was so many years ago. “I want to go with you.”

It was a request Dean knew was coming. While the Russians that had slain both his mother and father had been killed, the larger host that those men worked for would soon come, and while Fred never had a taste for war, Kit’s father had a penchant for honor. And it was a trait his eldest son carried on. “Kit, there will be time for warring when you’re older.”

Kit shrugged Dean’s hand off his shoulder. “And how old were you when you fought the Chinese? How old was Uncle Jason when he helped fight the wasteland clans?” His words carried a weighted calm, giving them meaning and enough force to make Dean listen. Just like Fred.

“We were young, yes, but we had also been disciplined in the arts of war. And I know for a fact that you have not had any training with sword or pistol, and I will not send you out to be slaughtered.” Dean gripped Kit’s bulky arms. “And when I was sent to battle it wasn’t against an enemy who had just murdered my father. Rage is a tool of revenge, Kit, and it often gives us illusions and fantasies of salvation. But I tell you this, in war, and in rage, there is no peace of mind.”

Dean’s words seemed to penetrate the thick layer of defiance in Kit’s mind, and the boy lowered his head. “I’m sorry, Uncle Dean.”

Dean lifted Kit’s chin. “If you wish to test yourself, I will have General Monaghan start you in the next training class. Once it’s done, if he sees you fit, you’ll have your chance. Just like any other man.”

“Yes, sir.” Kit walked back around the house, easily leaping over the bannister and landing sure-footed on the ground. Dean knew the boy could be a fine soldier, but he wasn’t about to send a hotheaded, green-handed teenager with a chip on his shoulder into war.

***

The shelves in the storage room of the hospital were lined with jars stacked with different preserved specimens. The curve of the glass jars morphed each animal as Sam walked by with bulging eyes of curiosity. “Cooooool.”

Kemena smiled, watching the boy gawk down the rows of her inventory. She leaned against the doorway, her thin arms folded across her chest, her long, slender hands holding onto the fabric of her lab coat. “You want to take one out of the jars?”

Sam turned around quickly, his eyes even larger than before. “We can do that?”

After much deliberation, it was decided that the squirrel was of the most critical importance to examine. When he dipped his hand inside to pull the specimen out, he quickly removed his fingers and jumped back, stomping his feet back and forth and giggling. “It’s so slimy!”

Kemena laughed, dipping her hand inside the jar then laying the small, preserved animal onto the workstation she’d prepared. “It’s the formaldehyde that keeps it that way.” She picked up one of the tweezers and held up the animal’s tiny arm.

Sam made his way back over and poked the animal in the stomach. “Why do you have all of this stuff, Aunt Kemena? What does it do?”

“It’s important to understand the world around us,” Kemena answered. “The more we know, the more we can help people, and the more we can help people, the easier it will be for everything to return back to the golden days.”

“You mean before the Great War?” Sam asked, turning his attention from the squirrel back up to her. “What was it like back then?”

With the boy’s interest elsewhere, Kemena slid the animal back into the jar then sealed the lid tightly. “It’s hard to know for certain, but from what we’ve seen from records and the exploration of the ruins, it was an incredibly exciting time.” She rested the glass jar back on the shelf with its peers. “People lived in buildings that towered into the skies, and drove around in carriages that were faster than a hundred horses.”

Sam looked down, his feet stepping over one another awkwardly, and fiddled with his hands. “Would my dad still be alive if it was like it used to be?”

Kemena knelt down and took Sam’s small hands into her own, rubbing the boy’s skin gently with her thumbs. “It’s hard to say, Sam. We still don’t really understand everything our people were able to do back then, but we’re trying. You miss your dad?”

Sam nodded then wrapped his arms around Kemena’s neck, burying his face into her shoulder. Kemena lifted him off the ground and cradled the back of his head gently, rocking back and forth. “We all miss him, Sam.”

When Dean stepped inside, she set Sam down, and the boy ran to his uncle, who tousled his hair. “You training to be a doctor like your aunt?”

“No, just looking at cool stuff.” Sam smiled.

“Well, why don’t you go back to the house? I’m sure your brother can’t wait to hear all about it.” Dean gave Sam a playful shove as he ran past, and watched him disappear out of the building. When he saw Kemena’s concerned face, he spoke up. “I have men watching them. They’re fine.”

A tension Kemena didn’t even know she had was released, and she clutched her stomach nervously. “You’re leaving already?”

Dean walked to her, pulling her close. She savored the strong, warm embrace she knew she wouldn’t feel for god knows how long. “The provisions are almost loaded for the trip, and the clan chiefs have agreed to meet with me.”

A flash of surprise etched her face. “All of them?” The peace with the clans was barely a year old, and she knew that the tribes of the wastelands didn’t forget their enemies so quickly. Both Dean and his younger brother Jason, who was governor of the southeast, had been working tirelessly to establish communication and trust. Eventually it boiled down to the understanding that neither side could last alone forever. And the promise of taxes on the goods sent through their territory on the new rail they were constructing didn’t hurt either.

“I’ll find out when I get there, but I’m hoping most of them will show.” Dean pulled the tight bun of hair centered on the back of Kemena’s head loose and let her long, brown, curly hair fall to her shoulders then ran his fingers through.

Kemena took Dean’s hand and kissed his palm then pressed her face against the calloused skin. “You’ve already sent word to Lance?” With both Lance aiding the Australians and Jason being held by President Ruiz, she knew her husband was stretched thin. With all of his cunning, even he couldn’t command two armies from halfway around the world.

“Yes, it should reach him soon.”

Dean’s words were hopeful, but behind that she could sense the foreboding of skepticism. If what Lance had told him through his letter was true, then the Chinese would be a formidable opponent, even for the Australians. Kemena placed a sturdy hand on Dean’s face, pulling him close. “One thing at a time, Governor. Do not spread your mind thin with worries beyond your control.”

Dean leaned his head into her hand, and Kemena felt the weight of his thoughts. “If I did that, I wouldn’t be much of a governor, would I?” He flashed the smile that had always gotten him into as much trouble as out of it.

Kemena kissed him then pushed him away with a hard shove that sent him stumbling backward. “You come back in one piece, Governor. You hear me?” Once again her hands fell to her stomach. “For both of us.”

Dean walked back slowly, placing his hands over hers on the small bump, and the tiny life that grew inside. “This will not break us.”

When he kissed her, she felt the rush of their life together, all they had done, and all they hoped to do. From her first memories of childhood she knew exactly what she wanted out of life, and she knew the type of people she wanted around her when she did it. The world begged for more than it had received, and they were finally the right people to do something about it. Dean was right. This would not break them.

“Governor, I—”

Kemena pulled back from Dean’s lips and saw the red face of Professor Hawthorne fumbling with the books and papers in his arms, stumbling backward. She offered a smile and a light chuckle at the embarrassed historian. “Hello, Professor.”

“Governor, Doctor, my apologies, I didn’t realize I was intruding on a… moment.” Hawthorne kept hunched over in a half bow with his eyes glued to the floor, almost as if he were afraid to look up.

Kemena walked over to him and lifted his chin, grabbing a few of the books to lighten his load. “It’s quite all right. To what do we owe the pleasure?”

“I was hoping to speak with the governor before he left. I saw Sam leave from down the street, and the guards outside said you were here, so I was hoping we could have that word now.”

Dean was more flustered that the professor had intruded than she was and appeased the old man with a nod and a grumbled yes.

The professor dumped the remaining books in his arm on the closest table and started scrambling through the pages at a hurried pace. “I apologize for the mess, Doctor Mars; I’ll only be a minute.”

“It’s fine, Professor.” Kemena sifted through some of the pages of the old history books she remembered reading as a child. The professor had taught her when she was a girl, and she was always amazed at how vivid his retelling of the past was. It was Hawthorne’s lessons that had propelled her to learn about medicine in the first place.

“Ah, here, this is what I wanted to show you, Governor.” The professor pointed frantically at the page then paired it with a few old sketches. “The message your brother Lance sent about the Chinese and the black-market weapons trading they were doing in Australia had me wondering where on earth they could have gotten those types of guns. While I know we have our own stockpile of the old moderns, to have that many and to sell them would be worth a fortune.”

“What does this have to do with the symbols?” Dean asked, looking over the sketches.

“The old Russian countryside was massive, larger than that of all of Asia and the Middle East. And from what I’ve read, the leaders at the time had begun construction of a number of manufacturing facilities, and the western opposition believed that the Russians had more structures than they let on. If that was the case, then it’s possible a few of them weren’t destroyed when the bombs fell.”

Kemena took one of the sketches from Dean’s hand. The faded drawing was of a weapon, a rifle, but far different than what most of their military used. It was modern, one of the old rifles that required no loading of powder or lead. An efficient killing machine. “You think the Russians have found them?”

“Between what your brother described about the guns and the alliance of the Chinese and the Russians, I think it’s a strong possibility, yes.” Hawthorne looked at the drawings and cringed.

Dean, however, didn’t share the professor’s fear. “Even if they did, the Russians wouldn’t have the materials, or the knowledge, to try and operate those facilities. Guns and bullets have one thing in common: iron. And that’s something the Russians do not have, nor do they have the money to buy such a commodity.”

“Governor, there are still other places—”

“I thank you for your counsel, Professor.” Dean spoke with the inclination that no further words were necessary, and Hawthorne gathered his books and papers and quickly disappeared.

While Kemena agreed the connection was a stretch, she knew the old professor wouldn’t have brought it up without weighing both sides. “He could be right, Dean.” Her words caught his attention, although he didn’t look pleased with which side she seemed to settle on. “There are ways other than the Brazilians to get the materials needed. Much of the old western countries of Europe haven’t been explored, and in Africa—”

“Africa is full of warlords and civil unrest, and no one explores Europe because there isn’t anything left of it.” Dean held her arms. “Is it possible the Russians have gotten their hands on some modern weapons? Of course, but to have reconstructed them? That’s impossible.”

“Isn’t that what we’re doing? Rebuilding? It’s not impossible for the idea that other people are doing the same. You said it best yourself during the negotiations with the clansmen.” She kept her head lifted as she walked toward him. “We cannot survive alone in this place. We already know the Russians and the Chinese are working together, and with Jason’s capture in Brazil, it’s no doubt which side Ruiz has chosen. We’re not the only ones trying to build something, Dean.”

Dean placed a protective hand over her stomach then kissed her. “I will send word before I leave the East Coast and then again once I have Jason with me. I love you.” He offered one more kiss, and then he was gone.

Kemena walked back over to the closet where the specimens were stored and closed the door, locking them back into darkness. Much like the professor, she understood that knowledge was only as useful as the men who learned it. She just hoped that Dean hadn’t put all of his knowledge into just his war council.