Emergence (Eden's Root Trilogy) (38 page)

“Get down!” A deep voice shouted.

BOOM!

She and Sara dropped
and a crater of soil erupted twenty feet to their right as the Truthers and Army members screamed and cowered.

“
Shit! What the hell kind of gun is that?” Sara shouted over the din.

“I don’t know,
but it wasn’t in our plans,” Fi replied. Or their armory, she thought, terrified to think what else they might have missed. They raced north, toward the battlefield. When they reached the edges of the combat, they ducked behind trees, searching for Asher and Sean. Fi saw the grey t-shirts of Eden’s Seekers and was relieved that they’d been freed.

“Look
!” Sara pointed. “Those must be the General’s forces!”

The dawn sun was starting to break through the haze and a
long the cliff Fi saw the Seals, pulsing shadows in head-to-toe black. Many appeared to have exhausted their ammunition and were now fighting the Lobos hand-to hand.

A bloodcurdling shriek rose from
the east and a Lobo stumbled out of the smoke clutching a gaping wound in his chest before falling.

“Ashe
r!” Fi ran in the direction from which the Lobo had come. The smoke cleared and there he was, his sword coming around and taking another Lobo down.

“Why won’t you just
SURRENDER?” he screamed.

“Asher!”

“Fi!”

His face
erupted into a hundred emotions as he ran to her and hustled her behind a tree. He was covered with blood, but she was relieved to see that it mostly wasn’t his. With the exception of a nice slice to his left forearm, Asher was in one piece.

“What are you doing here
, Fi? Where’s Luke?” His voice was panicked.

“He’
s safe, Ash. He’s with Lucy. We heard the big gun and saw the fire. We had to come back, to help.” She gestured at the twenty “armed” fighters they’d brought.

His eyes darted over the crowd and he exhaled.
“Hey, everyone. José,” he nodded.

The younger boy bowed his head.
“Ash. How can we help?”

Asher sighed.
“We could definitely use some help. A few things haven’t gone according to plan. Like the big gun. And the Seekers. Mostly the big gun.” Nearby, cries drew his attention and he peered around the tree to check on it before turning back.

“What about the Seekers, Ash?”
Fi said.

“Let’s just say that they weren’t in fighting form,” Asher answered, craning his neck for a better view.

“What?”
What the hell did that mean?
Was he losing it?

“We already sent a
bunch of colonists to join the Wall,” Sara said, ignoring Asher’s battle-addled brain.

“Good, that’s good
,” he said, nodding. “I think General Zelinski and Julius have the military actions under control. The main thing we have to do is shut down that gun and I think we’ll have them.”

“So what are we waiting for then?” Sara said.
“Let’s find that thing and shut it down.”

BOOM!

“Dammit,” Asher cursed, as dirt and snow pelted them. “I’m getting pretty sick of that thing. I just wish I could tell where it’s coming from. It seems like the blasts are coming straight down.”

“
Sara and I’ve been all over this side and the south, Ash,” Fi said. “It’s gotta be on the other side of the settlement, close to the armory.”

“
Ok, Sara, take a group and go find Sean. The last time I saw him he was helping the Seekers and protecting the wounded.”

Fi’s heart leapt at the word “wounded,” but there was no time for
fear, or leaping hearts. Sara selected eight colonists and was about to take off, when....

BOOM!

They hit the ground as the shell hit forty yards to the west, sending up a mushroom cloud of dirt and cracking a young pine in half. It fell, crushing a Truther cabin.

Sara looked up first.
“Ay, ay, Cap,” she yelled. “Let’s go troops. We have soldiers to protect!” She raced away with her group before Fi could say a thing. For a moment she was frozen, trapped by the image of Sara’s disappearing silhouette. They’d been together twenty-four hours a day for weeks…Sara was her other half now, practically.

“Fi!”
Asher’s voice roused her. “We have to take out that big gun.”

She nodded, driving after her husband into the swirls of smoke.
“Let’s go,” she called to José and others.

----------------- Sean ------------------

Sean pushed forward, grunting, as his staff crushed the Lobo’s wrist. The Lobo howled and Sean swung around, feeling the crack as he connected with the man’s skull. The Lobo dropped and Sean stood over him, gasping for air. Every breath burned like fire from the tear gas and his eyes were streaming.

“Sean!”

He heard a woman’s voice and turned. His knees went weak as Sara appeared from the billowing smoke, a small group of colonists in tow.

“Sara!”
He rushed to her, embracing her and then pushing her back by the shoulders and shaking her. “What the hell are you doing here? You shouldn’t be here!”

“Incoming!”
a voice shouted.

BOOM!

They hit the ground as a chunk of cliff to the west exploded

“That’s what I’m doing here, Sean,” Sara said.
“Fi and I missed that gun. We have to shut it down.” She stood and raised her daggers to the smoky heavens and shouted. “You hear me, Carter? We’re going to shut you down!”

Sean
jumped up beside her. He knew that look. Sara was ready to hunt. “All right, then. Let’s find that thing and take it out.”

She grinned.
“Now you’re speaking my language, baby.”

They plunged into the darkness to the east and made their way about twenty paces when the
battle screams were pierced by a different sound. A repetitive, snarling, snapping…
barking!

Sean’s head spun and he spotted a golden glint in the firelight.
Two shadows wrestled beside a body while a small girl screamed and beat at one of them.

“Kill him, Titan!” she shrieked.
“Kill him!”

“This way
!” Sean called, changing course. Sara and her flock followed, but he was racing ahead, leaping bodies.

Little
Hannah Lemly was there, laying protectively over Darryl’s body and screaming. “DON’T TOUCH HIM!”

Titan had a Lobo pinned
. He was whipping his head back and forth, his jaws locked on the man’s arm. The Lobo was screaming, but he reached for his gun with his free hand. Just as he grabbed the gun, Hannah lunged for him.

“Hannah, no!”
Sean screamed, sprinting.

The gun bucked.
POP! POP! POP! POP!
Sean leapt in front of Hannah and felt a series of tugs in his side, like he was a hooked fish. He fell, confused, as fire lit him up.

“SEAN!”
Sara’s scream hung in the air.

His hand reached for his side.
What happened? He must have caught a branch…or a rope…was there a rope? His hand came back hot and wet. He stared down at his dark fingers in confusion.

“No, Sean!”
Sara scrambled to his side, holding him as he fell. Her eyes were wild.

“Hannah?” he murmured, blinking.
His eyelids were so heavy…so heavy. He blinked again and Sara faded. The smoke faded. The screams faded. It was peaceful. Quiet.

Relieved, he let go.

------------- Fi ------------

Fi’s group took off and she felt a new rush of adrenaline as they headed deep into the chaos of the battlefield. The “big gun” felt like her responsibility. Somehow, she and Sara had missed it. Unfortunately, crossing a battlefield wasn’t a simple run from point a to point b. It was an exhausting pick over burning terrain littered with the wounded and dead. They’d “lost” most of the colonists who’d joined her by now, sending them back with the injured on their backs, or slung between them like a hammock, one hand per limb.

Now she was huddled with her remaining group over a fallen Army member, trying to protect him long enough for the medic to stanch his bleeding.
A Lobo charged them and she stood.
Bam! Bam!
She squeezed off two rounds and the Lobo screamed and fell, clutching his bleeding leg. She stepped on his chest, her gun centered on his head. “Thank you for your surrender. Now shut up and stay still! If you move, I’ll kill you.” She turned back to the medic, who was soaked in sweat and blood. “You good, Rollins?”

Rollins twisted the cord
of the tourniquet, while Asher and José held the screaming soldier down. “Yes,” he started to say, when another Lobo raced in and tackled José.

The Lobo
tried to pin him, but José kicked out and flipped him onto his back. Asher’s blade was at his throat in an instant.

“Surrender!
” Asher hissed. “Be the big winner tonight.”

The Lobo
snarled and reached for his machete, before drowning in a bloody gurgle as Asher opened his throat. “Wrong answer,” he said. “You lose.”

Jos
é shoved the Lobo’s body off his leg. “Thanks, man.”

There was a strange sound in the distance, like a WHUMP.

“Get down!” Asher yelled.

They dropped just as a shell whistled overhead
.

B
OOM!

T
he ground rocked as the big gun found a target to the east. Asher sat up, squinting through the smoke. The sun had climbed higher and they could now make out people and buildings in the distance. “There!” he said. “I see it now. They mounted it on top of the storage shed, but on the lower level, behind the roof. That’s why we couldn’t see it before.”

Fi followed his gaze and saw the gun and the shadows guarding it.

“Let’s go, let’s go,”
José said. “Time to finish this thing.”

They ran, crouching, behind t
he south wall of the Main Cabin. When they reached the corner, they stopped and examined the target. Two crouching Lobos dropped a shell into a tube and then turned away.

WHUMP!
The shell shot from the tube and into the distance.

“Mortars!” Asher
cried. “I knew it was something like that. Some goddamned RPG or whatever. Shit.”

In addition to the two Lobos
operating the mortar, two others were positioned beneath. All four had guns.

“How can we get close
if they all have guns?” Fi said, frustrated. “I think I could get at least two of them before they could figure out our position, but then…”

“…The others
will mow us down,” José said. “But I think I could take out a couple from here if we could come up with a distraction.”

Fi found it hard not to laugh
. The air was filled with smoke and screams, and José thought what they needed was a
distraction
. And then it hit her. She’d forgotten that the Lobos still thought she was Marie. Even in her current outfit, they would be confused for…
Hopefully for long enough
.

“I’ve got it
! Here.” She unstrapped her buck knife and handed it to Asher. “In about two minutes, they’ll all be looking to the east instead of the west. Make a break for the shed then, ok?”

“Fi, what are you going to do?” Asher asked, grabbing her arm.

“I think that ‘Marie’ deserves an encore, don’t you?” She kissed him on the cheek and turning, snuck her way from the Main Cabin to the armory. As she reached the corner of the building, she stared up at the mortar and its operators.
Ok. Here goes nothing.
She hid her gun behind her back and stepped out into the open.

“Aaaaaaaauuugh
! My baby! My baby! Where is he? They took him! Those animals!” She shrieked like her hair was on fire, and two of the Lobos left their posts. Though she didn’t look up, she was certain that the two on top of the shed had turned to her as well.

“Marie?
What’s wrong?” The two who’d broken away ran to her.

“Stop right there,
” she said quietly. Her .22 was trained right between the eyes of the closest Lobo. Their faces turned into matching round “O”s. One started to raise his pistol. “Don’t!” she warned, and he froze. “Don’t make me shoot you. I really do hate shooting people.”

“Marie?”

S
he snickered. Most Lobos weren’t the brightest. “Drop your weapons and kick them to me. Now!” They removed their weapons, cursing her. There was shouting behind them, followed by screams. One of the Lobos spun as a rock caught his skull and he fell off the shed. José’s next shot caught the second Lobo in the gut and Fi’s captives whirled in time to see José climb onto the shed and raise his slingshot in victory.