Reddened Wasteland (12 page)

“So you play ‘the truth’ right onto the televisions
inside everyone’s homes. No wonder you have so many people now. They are
probably happy just to see something that isn’t so—”

“Fake?” he finished for her.

“Exactly,” she nodded. “Got to tell you, man. You have
a pretty brilliant recruiting plan here… but there has to be more to it,” she
turned and walked out of the room, with Thorin on her heels.

“There is. Come with me,” he took the lead down the
hall.

After a short walk, they entered another massive room,
with dozens of bookshelves lining the walls. They were overflowing with texts
of all different shapes and sizes and colors. The room was brightly lit and
many armored men were lounging around, casually reading. Everyone looked
completely at peace, off in another world in their own minds. It was the most
bizarre sight, people reading books just out in the open without looking over
their shoulder at every turn of the page.

“We also offer knowledge. With these books, we can
learn from the past mistakes of humanity and we can better prepare for the
future. These books have taught us of old warriors, and have given us their
skill. We have used them to train an entire army. We even learned how to smith,
and made these great weapons and armor. While The Union has a wealth of
knowledge at their fingertips, we have the history of Earth itself. They may
have their fancy new guns, and they may be trained well with them, but we have
the sharpest steel, and a group of people that can masterfully use it.”

Velar was taken aback; she would give anything to
access the knowledge contained in those books. Liberty’s Hammer was quickly
becoming something unexpected. Maybe they weren’t the fanatical terrorist group
that she had originally thought. Maybe they
were
a well-educated group
that did bad things out of necessity. “So why me? Why did you take me?” she
asked.

“Well, you and Alerik are very good at what you do,
very dedicated to acting in the best interest of the people, regardless of the
consequences to yourselves. That is exactly what we are looking for. The Union
can’t have both of you, and of course, we assume you could convince Alerik to
switch sides,” he said with a smile.

A memory surfaced. “I don’t think that you are
Alerik’s favorite group of people right now,” she frowned. “I kind of left him
a clue that Liberty’s Hammer took me. I assumed it was Liberty’s Hammer, since
it wasn’t The Union.”

“That’s not good. But, it would explain why we have
reports coming in of his increasingly hostile behavior. He and his new partner
have been capturing our people and asking more questions around the
settlement,” he scratched his chin and leaned against the wall. “Well, the good
news is, he is only getting our fringe associates, people that we use out in
the world to get things done without ever bringing them into the circle. As
long as he keeps finding them instead of us, that is a good thing. It allows us
to keep our work going while The Union gets minimal information and preoccupies
themselves with false leads.”

“New partner?”
she wondered, but
didn’t bring it up with Thorin. Just another Union lackey, presumably. “Maybe I
should go talk to him. If he knew I was alright, maybe he would bring it down a
notch,” she offered.

“No… It is better this way. With him on the rampage,
it points The Union in the wrong direction. If he calms down and starts to
focus again, they might get to us before we are prepared. A great war is coming
to Liberty, we need to be as ready as we can be.”

“What do you mean?” she asked, her brow furrowed with
concern.

“One final battle. We are going to use everything we
have and attack The Union building. We are either going to take them out once
and for all, or be wiped off of the map. Either way, we only have one shot at
this, so everything has to be perfect,” he said with his hand resting on the
hilt of his sword.

“What? How will you orchestrate that? You said you
could only use that device when close to other devices that receive
transmissions.”

“You’re right, unless we have a way to amplify the
signal. Our plan is to fight through The Union building until we reach the
radio tower, then we will send out our broadcast everywhere for people to rise
up and help us clean up the remaining Union men at all of their outposts,” he
said, his voice dripping with confidence.

She thought it over for a moment. Hypothetically,
their plan could work. It would, if they were capable of cutting through The
Union building. Once they took that tower and gave the word, the people would
surely follow. Everyone hated The Union. “Sounds pretty solid, I have to
admit,” she nodded. “You know… you are a lot different than I expected,” she
caught herself admiring his physique and quickly occupied herself with studying
the ground at her feet.
What the hell?

“What did you expect, exactly?”

“I don’t know… Some old man, or a creepy black shadowy
figure. I’m not sure really.”

“Sorry to disappoint,” he chuckled.

“Oh, you did a lot of things, but disappoint was not
on that list,” as the words spilled out of her mouth she realized that she was
flirting. Again she wondered what was wrong with her? Alerik was probably
worried sick, searching the settlement high and low for her… and there she was,
picturing this guy out of his armor. She needed to get it under control.

“You are not THAT disappointing yourself,” he said
with a wink. “I am going to head out now. I need to start the day’s training
for my men. Will you be alright on your own?”

“I’m a big girl, I’ll be fine. If you need me again,
I’ll be in the library,” she hurried through her reply, extremely relieved that
Thorin would be leaving so that she could have some quiet time to get her head
straight.

“Tomorrow, I would like you to join us for training.
We need you prepared for anything that might come our way. Everyone must be
prepared,” he said as he started walking away, “No exceptions.”

“Will I get one of those sweet sets of armor?” she
called out to him.

“Of course!”

She couldn’t help the grin that spread across her
face.

***

Over the course of the next few weeks, Velar read many
books, soaking up as much information as she could. She read of Earth’s
history, along with legends of far-off worlds. She wondered if many of them
existed. She read tales of kings and queens, gods and demons, Valhalla, Mount
Olympus, Heaven, and Hell.

She picked up on the origins of many of the
expressions the people still used. Curse words were especially fascinating to
her. Funny as it seemed, the fact that she exclaimed the same thing that an
Earthling would’ve said, when she dropped a rock on her foot, was exhilarating.
Every bit of information, no matter how small, was amazing to her, and she
couldn’t get through the books fast enough. There was only so much time.

She quickly discovered that war was a fact of life on
Earth. Men fought and bled for their beliefs and for the people they loved. She
was beginning to understand what Liberty’s Hammer was all about, and she
decided that she was onboard.

As the days went by, she became more and more
enthralled with the cause, wholeheartedly dedicated to fighting for what they
believed. She still missed Alerik dearly, but she was getting training in The
Forge, and knowledge she couldn’t gain anywhere else. She knew that one day,
when she and Alerik were reunited, he would understand. She hoped at least. All
of this had to be for something bigger, she just knew it. She had been reading
a lot about fate lately, and from what she could understand of it, she knew
that she and Alerik would be together someday, and fate would get her to him.

She and Thorin had become pretty close during the last
few weeks as well, though she never crossed the line and did something she’d
feel guilty about. He never pushed it, either, which she was thankful for. She
was fairly certain that the attraction went both ways. It was hard at times for
her to ignore her increasing feelings for Thorin, but thoughts of Alerik always
snapped her out of those feelings rather fast.

There were times that she’d wish that she’d never met
Thorin, but then… then there were other times that she’d wish that she hadn’t
been involved with anyone before arriving at The Forge. She was confused and
ashamed of these thoughts, so she tried to avoid them.

She wondered why her life had to be so complicated,
most people went through life just doing repetitive tasks until they died. But
her life, for whatever reason, was different… it was suddenly interesting.
Be
careful what you wish for
, one of the books had said. It was so true, it
hurt. She had wanted something other than the monotony of the mines, and oh
boy, did she ever get it. ‘Interesting’ in Liberty was a double-edged sword.

She walked through the room with the shelves, letting
her finger graze over the tops of the uneven books. To her, they were a source
of magic and wonder… They had to be protected at all costs. Luckily, with her
training, she was now pretty good with a sword. She could protect them.
Probably.

She exited the library, daydreaming of fighting
dragons on Earth, and aliens on far-off worlds. She had been doing that more
and more lately. It was as if the books had unlocked her mind and its
potential. She couldn’t remember dreaming at all, before. If she did, they were
likely boring old nightmares about scrubbing dirt off of rocks. No wonder she didn’t
remember them.

She hated to leave the adventures in the books behind,
but she had to attend her daily training. She didn’t mind all too much, though.
She felt it opened her mind in another way and helped her realize the potential
of her body. She was much more athletic, much stronger than she had given
herself credit for.

She made her way down to where training was usually
conducted and found Thorin addressing the group. As usual, he went over their
duties for the week, and their assignments for the cause. He moved in front of
them like he was floating on air, just gliding effortlessly in his armor. He
was authoritative and strong, he knew exactly who he was and what he wanted.
The way he carried himself just broadcasted his confidence, she was entranced
by him.

She couldn’t help but feel the way she did, but she
cursed herself for it. It made her feel like a bad person, and she wondered if
this all meant that she was wrong for Alerik. Maybe they weren’t fated to be
together. She hadn’t seen him in a long time, she started wondering if he had
moved on from her. She could be dead for all he knew. As more time went by, the
harder it was to resist her own impulses. What if he was in a similar
situation? She thought about him mourning her, then moving on from her… and
though she was dealing with her feelings for Thorin, the thought of Alerik with
another woman seriously angered her.

She pushed the thoughts away, since she had no idea
how to handle them.

Thorin finished up with his men and walked over to
Velar, greeting her with a smile. “So, how was I?” he asked.

“Perfect, as always,” she replied.

“You sure know how to boost a guy’s ego,” he grinned.
“Come with me. I want to show you something.”

She wondered what that something could be, “Okay, show
me.”

He grabbed her hand and pulled her along. Velar wasn’t
entirely comfortable with him holding her hand, but she went with it. He
brought her to a room she’d never seen before. Inside was a metal table, and
bright lights shone down onto some strange device that was laying on top. She
was immediately confused, she had no clue what the object was or why he seemed
so excited about it.

“What is this thing?” she asked, as she wriggled loose
from his hand to try and pick it up.

“No! Don’t touch it!” He shouted and she recoiled.
“It’s not finished. This is the device that will win this thing for us. This is
what we will use to hijack the radio tower!” he grinned.

“But it’s not finished?” she asked.

“No. Turns out that several parts are missing and
cannot be replicated. We just don’t have the technology for it. There is only
one broadcasting station in the settlement, and we have to get the rest from
there.”

“You mean The Union radio station… the one inside The
Union building?”

“Exactly. When the time comes and we make our move, we
will need enough time to put this device together once we’re inside the control
room. Then, we need someone who is quick on their feet to get out to the radio
tower itself, and attach the device,” he said with a smile.

“Where do I fit in…?” she asked.

“I want you to be the person to do it,” he said as he
put his hand on her shoulder.

“What? Me? Why me?!”

“Because I’ll need every good man I have with me,
standing guard in the room. You’ll have to transfer the signal back to the
control tower so that we can override the scheduled broadcast. It will be
relatively safe because The Union’s attention will solely be on us. We won’t
have much time to execute, so you will need to be fast. Once you override the
broadcast and unlock the signal for us, we will be able to stream our own
broadcast out to the settlement and call for backup. The chaos from the
broadcast should take some of the heat off of us for our return trip out of the
building,” he frowned. “Not to put too much pressure on you or anything, but if
this fails, we will be sitting ducks inside that control room.”