Ranger (The Bugging Out Series Book 5) (23 page)

“We have to let the others know,” I said.

For an instant, Elaine didn’t realize who I was talking about. Then the broadness that could apply to the term I’d chosen became clear.

“The other colonies,” she said.

Yuma. San Diego. Edmonton. Those were the other bastions of humanity we knew of. There would clearly be more, and must have been. Neil had mentioned in the ATV broadcast that there had been trouble with other colonies. Whether that referred to those we knew of could not be determined. Not standing where we were sampling the smoky air.

“We need to find out who the Unified Government moved on before us,” I said.

Elaine coughed lightly, the acrid haze working on her still compromised respiratory system. She was holding her own, but I found myself hoping, and praying, that Genesee’s plan to manufacture a diluted vaccine would work. And work fast.

“Let’s go,” I said, wanting both to get Elaine clear of the smoldering site, but also to get to the one person who might be able to shed some light on the Unified Government’s actions before it zeroed in on us.

“Where?” Elaine asked as I led her away from the shattered armory.

“To see Grace.”

*  *  *

“D
id Neil say anything about the other survivor colonies?”

Grace listened to my question and thought as she stood next to Brandon’s crib, the piece of furniture brought to her house and tucked neatly next to the bed she’d shared with Neil.

“The other colonies?”

Since returning, as though she was in a state of low grade shock, the woman who’d been a sharp and determined individual, with a nursing degree to her name, had struggled to process even the simplest questions. It was as though each rattled around in her head, competing with raging thoughts, before any worthwhile response could be summoned.

“The people from Yuma, or San Diego,” Elaine prompted her.

For a moment Grace thought on the question, then she looked to Elaine, some connection made to memories that should still be fresh.

“Edmonton,” Grace said. “You forgot Edmonton.”

“That’s right,” Elaine said, smiling as she reached out and put a hand on our friend’s arm. “I did.”

In his crib, Brandon slept, not even stirring as we talked quietly near him. Across the hall, through the open door to her room, I could see Krista on her floor, drawing in her notebook, a pile of colored markers and pencils next to her in-progress creation. Art seemed to be her companion at the moment. An almost therapeutic way to express thoughts and feelings.

“Do you remember him saying anything about the Unified Government going to those places?” I asked. “Or anyone there? Did anyone talk about those places?”

“I didn’t spend much time with the others,” she told us. “Neil was always with them, and he didn’t want to talk about what went on.”

She paused for a moment and looked down to their son.

“He never seemed happy once we were there,” Grace added. “Never. I still don’t understand why he made us go.”

She was drifting off into a melancholy fugue. A state of simmering despair which we’d observed on several occasions since her return. We needed to pull her back from the edge of that mental abyss. For her own good, and for ours.

“Grace, we need to know about the other colonies,” I told her. “We need to know if they’ve been threatened. We need to warn them about what’s happening.”

“Why don’t you call them?”

The question, simple and innocent, came from the room across the hall. Krista’s room. The girl was looking up from her book, the drawing she’d been working on stopped, a bright yellow marker in hand.

“They’re a long ways away, sweetie,” Elaine said.

“Micah said that didn’t matter,” Krista countered. “He said the radio signal can ride a skywave.”

I stepped away from Grace and stood close to the bedroom door, Krista just a few feet away.

“Skywave?” I asked, the term vaguely familiar.

“It had a fancier name,” the child said. “But Micah said that signals go up and follow something in the air.”

“In the atmosphere,” Elaine said.

“Right,” Krista confirmed. “It was something in the atmosphere.”

I looked to Elaine.

“We need to talk to Westin.”

*  *  *

F
ifteen minutes later, as we waited at Micah’s workstation, Private Westin arrived with Captain Schiavo.

“Here he is,” Schiavo said, personally delivering the man we’d wanted to see.

“You had a question about one of these radios?” Westin asked, eyeing the impressive setup which had been put together by Micah, for Micah.

“We do,” I said. “Talk to us about skywave.”

“Ionospheric skip,” Westin said. “To put it simply, under certain conditions, radio signals can bounce off of charged layers in the ionosphere and reflect back to earth. Basically, it negates line of sight limitations to transmissions. You can send and receive signals over thousands of miles.”

“So with the Ranger Signal gone, we could, potentially, reach out to one of the other colonies,” I said.

“Sure,” Westin said. “If you knew what frequency they’d be monitoring.”

“And there are thousands of those,” Elaine said.

The idea, though technologically possible, had this one inherent flaw.

“Scatter,” Martin said.

I looked and saw the man standing at the end of the hall that spilled into the workstation area. He walked toward us and reached to the computer mouse, dragging it across the monitor to click on an icon labeled with the word he’d just spoken.

“Micah wrote this program to both scan all usable frequencies,” he explained. “And to transmit on them. Record a hailing message and run the program. If someone is listening, they’ll hear it.”

“And if they transmit back, the program will know?” Elaine asked.

“The program will lock in that frequency,” Martin said. “Then you initiate communication.”

Martin stepped back from the workstation, staring at it for a moment. Staring and even smiling. As he’d stated before, this was where his son had lived. The cemetery was where he rested. I understood why this space soothed him—it was where memories could seem real. If only for a moment.

“Let’s record our message,” Westin said.

*  *  *

W
e chose Elaine’s voice to bear our message.

“Any survivors, this is Bandon calling. Please reply.”

That transmission repeated thousands of times on thousands of frequencies through multiplexers Micah had constructed and wired into his array of computers and radios.

An hour after we began sending, the transmission stopped and the program locked in on a specific frequency where a response was detected.

“Put it on the speaker,” Schiavo instructed her com expert.

Westin dialed the volume up and adjusted filters to clean up what was coming through. When the transmission became clear enough to recognize, our hearts sank.

The high, low, high tone repeating was identical to the alert tone which had preceded the ATV broadcast from the Unified Government.

“Maybe it’s them,” I said.

Westin, though, shook his head.

“This signal is not local. Not by a longshot.”

A few seconds later we learned exactly where it was originating as the tones ended. And we learned this through a familiar voice.

“Bandon, this is Yuma, a colony of the Unified Government.”

“Perkins,” Martin said.

Earl Perkins, who’d been head of the Yuma survivors taken to Skagway with others from the lower forty-eight and Canada. He was an abrasive man, small in stature but big in bluster. An autocrat with few to lord over, I’d thought when meeting him after our trip north. Now, apparently, he’d found a like-minded entity which he could serve.

“Shall I respond?” Westin asked.

“Bandon, come in.”

Schiavo looked to me.

“They’ve taken Yuma,” she said.

“Or Perkins just invited them in,” I suggested.

“Bandon, have you come aboard? Come in.”

“No other responses?” Schiavo asked.

“Just Yuma,” Westin confirmed.

“Bandon, are you there? Come in.”

“Shut it off,” Schiavo said.

Before Westin could, Elaine leaned in and killed the speaker.

“We may be the last,” I said.

“Yeah,” Schiavo said, disappointed, though that sentiment evaporated as quickly as it had come. “Or the seed from which many grow.”

C
ommander Clay Genesee, malcontent doctor of the Bandon survivor colony, began administering a diluted vaccine to the population less than twenty-four hours after surgically removing the implant from Sheryl Quincy’s arm and extracting its remaining contents.

It did not come in time for two residents.

“This morning,” Mayor Allen said as Genesee prepared to give him his injection on the porch of his house. “She never woke up.”

Genesee hesitated, the needle just above the old doctor’s arm, glancing past the man to the open door, then to me. I’d been drafted to assist him in visiting those too ill to come to the clinic where Specialist Hart was handling injections for those still mobile. After he was finished there, the garrison’s medic would begin a quick tour of the frontline checkpoints to administer the vaccine to our defenders who’d remained on the line through fevers, choking coughs, and debilitating aches.

Here, though, the Navy doctor and I stood with his predecessor, learning that his wife, sickened by the virus, had not made it through the night.

“Did we lose anyone else?” Mayor Allen asked as Genesee slipped the needle easily into his flesh on the outside of his bicep.

“The little Chester boy,” Genesee said.

“Good Lord,” the mayor said, his head shaking somberly.

The Chester household would have been our first stop once the vaccine was ready to distribute, but just before the process was complete word came that the child, not quite five years old, had succumbed. An asthma sufferer, he’d struggled from the beginning, growing sicker, and weaker, by the hour.

Until the hours ran out.

“If this works,” Genesee said, “I think we’ll be able to pull everyone else through.”

Mayor Allen nodded, grateful for that assessment. Truly grateful. But the shadow of loss upon his face, in his eyes and his slack expression, made clear how deep a loss he was experiencing before our very eyes. He’d made the town his priority, at his wife’s urging, I was certain. Even in her final hours, when she was still conscious and able to speak, I had no doubt that she’d pushed him to focus on the town, and to keep the residents foremost in his thoughts, and in his efforts.

“I’m sorry, Everett,” I said.

The old doctor who’d accepted the mantle of leadership reached out and put a comforting hand upon my shoulder. Offering
me
support. This town I’d adopted, which had accepted and embraced me as one of their own, had its share of fine, fine people. To think that there was a time, not long after arriving, that I’d thought of leaving, of heading off to seek survival on my own, was almost folly now. I simply hadn’t looked hard enough at the people around me to realize I was already in the best place, with the best people, that I could be.

Commander Genesee finished the injection and discarded the needle in a container we’d brought along.

“My condolences, doctor,” Genesee said.

“Thank you.”

“I’ll have a burial detail sent out,” I told the mayor.

He nodded and stepped back, settling into one of two rockers that sat side by side on the porch.

“I think I’ll just sit until they get here,” the mayor said.

“Of course,” I said.

Genesee and I left the man to be alone with his wife in their home for the last time. There was going to be another funeral. Another burial. More than one, I knew. And still more beyond those. Because, even with the vaccine, and expecting that it would work, there were still two armies facing each other, waiting for the order to attack.

But we had a chance, now. A fighting chance. Thanks to the man I’d suspected of turning against us.

“You may have saved us,” I told Genesee as we climbed in the Humvee in front of the mayor’s house and headed for our next stop.

“Maybe,” Genesee allowed as I drove us down the street.

Silence lingered between us for a half mile of town streets. I’d been waiting for the Navy doctor to speak, but I realized it was actually me who had something that needed to be said.

“I didn’t really care too much for you,” I said.

Genesee never looked away from the road ahead as he processed what I’d just admitted.

“And now?” he asked

That was a fair question. And the truth was, I didn’t have a good answer.

“Get back to me in a couple weeks,” I said.

“You planning on being my cellmate in a Unified Government prison camp?”

I glanced from the road to Genesee and saw that he was still staring straight ahead, his steely gaze over a very unexpected smile.

T
hey came from every direction but the west, the Pacific our only secure flank. It was also the immovable bit of mother earth that our backs were up against. There was no retreat. We could not run. We either stood our ground, or surrendered. I knew what that meant. We all did.

People were going to die today.

“I’m deploying the bulk of our reserves to the south,” Schiavo said, reacting to the volume of reports that put a sizeable force to the east. “I believe that’s a diversion.”

We stood together, the Defense Council, possibly for the final time. The events of the night to come would dictate whether we would all gather again in the town hall conference room where we now stood.

“And the north?” I asked.

Schiavo looked to both Elaine and me.

“That’s where you two will be with Corporal Enderson,” she said. “You’ll be able to read whatever happens there and know if a full attack is coming.”

“And if it does?’ Elaine asked.

“Then I’ll be responsible for the fall of Bandon,” Schiavo said, with matter of fact honesty. “I’ll be here. Sergeant Lorenzen and Specialist Hart will deploy with the eastern forces, and Private Westin with the southern forces on the front line. If we need the reserves, I’ll join them.”