The Reaper Plague (23 page)

“
Hit them now. Use all your
mobile forces in a lightning thrust. Most of our battalion is
either Edens or they have nano-enhancements. They’ll be hard to
kill, even if they have to fight a guerilla action. What they don’t
have is heavy weapons.”
I argued for them but got turned
down
, he thought.
Not enough lift capacity, they said. Water
under the bridge
. “Bring along small arms to reequip our
people, and all the tanks and APCs you can spare, attack helos if
you have any. Take out the Professor while he’s weakened and
licking his wounds.”

“
And if you’re wrong? If
F-burg had an easy victory and your people are all dead or
captured?”

“
You have to do it
sometime,
Governor
. You can’t allow rebels to occupy a piece
of Virginia unchallenged. Not if you really want people to respect
that title.”

Allaine sighed. “You’re right. But it means I
have to ask good people to go and die.”

Tyler smiled faintly. “Welcome to the joys of
command, Governor. Once we get the military operation moving, you
and I can discuss what your Federal Government can do for Richmond,
especially about getting you all the vaccine you can use. In about
a month another plague is going to fall out of the sky onto you and
lots more people could die. We need to get everyone vaccinated, and
to do that we have to clear up this little problem. So right now
I’d advise you to give the Fredericksburg job to your most
aggressive and respected officer, and you and I get on with our
business.”
See, I speak politicalese too.

“
Her, actually.” Allaine
stepped to his office door to call an aide. “Tommy, go get Alice.
Tell her that her F-burg plan is a go, and to come see me as soon
as she can.” When the aide had gone, Allaine turned back to Tyler.
“Alice Zimmer is the best we have. Armor officer. I think you two
will get along.” He gestured for Tyler to sit down at the small
table across from his desk, then joined him there.

“
Okay, let’s talk
turkey.”

“
Well, first, I can help
you with your Onesies…”

-36-

Repeth had left Ug and Bobby back at their
village, explaining to them that they had helped her enough, and
she would take it from here. They seemed to be natural hiders and
pacifists, not carrying even the most primitive of weapons.

Colonel Muzik and the rest were still hard at
work digging people out of the wreckage and salvaging what they
could. They had recovered one Armorshock weapon, and Repeth made a
mental note. She saw they had also gotten one of the Humvees and a
couple of golf carts functioning and were shuttling people and
equipment southward, away from Fredericksburg and into the
woods.

The open space of the golf course would be a
buffer and a fire zone in case the Fredericksburgers came back in
force. Their little group could shoot and run deeper into the
forest if they had to.

Night was starting to fall and it tore at her
– and the rest, she was sure – to know that there still might be
more of their people buried in the rubble. That Rick might be stuck
there, unable to call out, slowly dying. She hadn’t seen him with
the other prisoners, but there was nothing she could do about it.
The rest of the troops would keep working through the night, with
their handful of remaining MPs on picket duty, ready to give the
alarm.
Jill
, she told herself,
you have a job to do and
there are a couple of hundred people depending on you to help them
escape, so pull your head out of your fourth point of contact and
put him out of your mind.

But she couldn’t, not really.

Still, she jammed the concern back into a
dark corner, a lockbox where she kept all the scorpions and snakes
and demons of her life, all the regrets and sins and mistakes. This
may be one downside to a longer life, she thought.
More stuff to
shove into a mental container already full to bursting with a
hundred million deaths.

As they broke for a meal of heated MREs she
briefed Colonel Muzik on everything she had learned, all the
details she could recall. Checkpoints, rally points, linear
obstacles, she told him everything as she used the mapping function
in her tactical radio to display their route. Without GPS
satellites it wasn’t all that accurate but the inertial tracker
should serve well enough.

By midnight they had not located Rick – or
anyone else for that matter since nightfall, and Muzik called off
the recovery efforts, sending everyone to sleep back at the forest
camp except for those on watch. “You ready to do this?” he asked
her as they checked their weapons and gear.

“
You really nervous enough
to ask questions like that, sir?” she bantered.

“
Losing most of my command
makes me nervous, yes, Master Sergeant,” he responded dryly, but
she could hear the warmth in his underlying tone.

“
And your arm.”

“
You had to bring that
up.”

“
Gotta hand it to me,
sir.”

“
But I can’t anymore,
right.” He grinned that movie-star grin. “Come on, let’s go get
those people out.”

Trite phrases before battle,
Repeth
thought,
but somehow comforting. And I’m damn glad it’s Muzik
coming with me. After Spooky, I’ve never served with a finer
officer.
She shook the thoughts out of her head and rolled her
shoulders to loosen them, then jumped up and down a couple of
times. She taped down one clink then did it again, and camoed her
face with a tube from her pocket.

Muzik said, “I’ve ordered a diversionary
attack on the Fredericksburger lines to the southwest, away from
the escape area. That’ll start when I call for it, or at 0200 in
any case. It should draw their attention.”

“
Good idea. You’ll need
knee pads, sir, for the crawling.” She fitted her own, getting the
tightness right, and then helped him with his. Her camouflage
stretch net went over her head, and she was ready.

She saw Muzik had fitted a night vision sight
onto his PW10. She had already considered and discarded that idea;
she preferred to operate without the dangerous delay of changing
modes and switching eyes. Still, it might be useful. She dug her
suppressor out of her ruck and threaded it onto her weapon, as did
Muzik. The shots they fired would now be almost silent.

They moved out at twelve thirty, and she only
had to refer to the GPS once before finding the long storm drain
pipe that led through the enemy lines. Inside the pipe she asked
quietly, “Any chance of the Homies coming back in time to
help?”

“
No. Their job was to go
down to what’s left of Richmond and see if there was a state
government. If Virginia can start functioning again, it will help
put the US back together again. It’s the northernmost and the
wealthiest of the mid-Atlantic states that didn’t get
plastered.”

“
What about
Maryland?”

“
Hit too hard by the nukes
and plague both, I think. And the people are different. Marylanders
on this side of the Bay are mostly urban or suburban people,
basically liberal statists. They’ll fall back in line with whatever
governance shows up. The ones on the Eastern Shore will have come
through better, but will only have enough resources to help
themselves.” He chuckled quietly. “But most Virginians are an
ornery self-reliant bunch, at least those south of about Quantico.
They’re suspicious of the Feds ever since the War.”

Repeth looked at Muzik sideways. “What
war?”

“
The War of Northern
Aggression, of course. If they decide to resist the rebuilding –
notice I didn’t say ‘reconstruction,’ that’s still a dirty word to
Southerners – it could make things very hard. So we sent the
Homeland Security company with a special envoy from the
President.”

“
I hadn’t heard about all
that.”

“
You weren’t supposed
to.”

-37-

Major General Alice Zimmer’s eyes burned
with barely-controlled fury as she screamed orders at her staff. “I
don’t care if George effing Trebow says he needs to hold back three
tanks, tell him he will send all nine or I will personally come
down there and kick his nuts up between his shoulder blades, and
you can quote me. What about Jimmy-John?”

“
I’m here, Alice.” The
woeful voice proceeded from a pale hound-dog face, but the man’s
manner was confident and his eyes stared at the short middle-aged
black woman without fear. The very fact that a Lieutenant Colonel
called a two-star by her first name said it all, though only a
close inspection of their matching wedding rings would have
revealed what “it all” was.

She took three steps over to her much taller
husband and put a hand on his arm. “Jimmy-John, you got to go
corral George for me. That chickenshit son of a bitch doesn’t want
to weaken his defenses but hell, there ain’t no one to defend
against closer than Raleigh, not since we cleaned Petersburg’s
clock. He don’t need those Abrams. The mobile gun systems will do
him just fine for emplaced defense.”

“
Sure, Alice. I’ll handle
it.” He leaned down to kiss her, and turned to go persuade Nervous
George to give up his armor.

“
James,” she said to her
aide – she called him James to clearly distinguish him from her
husband – “you got them plans run out to everyone?”

“
Yes, ma’am. Everyone
should be ready by first light.”

“
You keep after them, hear?
I got to go see the boss and some fancy-boy from Washington. I mean
Pueblo, I guess. Just don’t seem right…” She turned and stomped out
of the operations center and jumped into her Humvee. A few minutes
later she pulled up to the front steps of the Governor’s Office
building, waving at the nearest Capitol police officer to park it.
They were used to her proclivities; she was a force of nature and
there was no point protesting. Besides, with martial law declared
she seemed to think they worked for her, and they weren’t about to
argue.

She marched past all the Governor’s
functionaries and gatekeepers, ignoring their looks and faint
protests to barge right into his office. She crushed Allaine’s hand
in hers. “Howdy, Howard, what the hell is going on?”

He never could figure out how she generated
so much strength out of a body no taller than his armpit. “That’s
what I called you to discuss, Alice.”

She tried the same trick on Tyler, but he
squeezed back, unperturbed. She said, “Good to see you again,
General. Got the virus and they put you out to pasture? Well, I
can’t blame you. Marcy musta got tired of your willy going limp
every time you tried to give it to her.”

“
Alice!” cried the
Governor, but Tyler waved him off with a laugh. “Don’t worry about
it, sir. Alice and I are old friends. I can’t think of anyone
better to put in charge of this operation. And no, Alice, I didn’t
get retired because I’m an Eden. I’m working directly for the
President now, trying to put the country back together
again.”

“
You jes’ keep telling
yourself that, Travis. Nice suit, by the way. I thought you had
better taste.”

“
And I thought you had
better manners. Now can we skip the lovefest and talk about saving
my peoples’ lives?”

Alice Zimmer sat down like a
jack-in-in-the-box run backwards and peered intently at Tyler. Her
face puckered up like she was sucking lemons. “Okay then Travis,
git on with it.”

-38-

Repeth fell silent as they approached the
end of the drainpipe.
I guess a Master Sergeant isn’t good
enough to know the top secrets.
Then she laughed silently at
herself.
I turned down the commission. I’m already having it
both ways, keeping my three-up, three-down and commanding a platoon
both. Stop whining, Jill.

They moved slowly and carefully into the dark
old town area. The moon had gone down and the shadows were deep,
pitch-black in places. Off in the distance she could hear engine
noise and see artificial light, and they made sure to keep
obstacles between themselves and the source.

A few buildings seemed lit by primitive
sources, lanterns or candles, but most were dark. Once a dog rushed
out of the blackness barking and Repeth’s weapon coughed. She hoped
the Needleshock had spared it but she could hardly let a dog’s life
weigh in the balance against all of their people.

From the edge of the lighted zone she could
see a cluster of buildings illuminated by large industrial lights.
One section was surrounded by a ragged cyclone and barbed wire
fence, with concertina wire crudely fastened to the top. They could
see a couple of bored-looking guards with rifles, obviously there
to keep prisoners in, not rescuers out.

The other section had no fence around it, but
lights blazed from every window. One building sported garish neon
signs. It appeared to be a bar or club. Other buildings seemed to
house governmental functions. The Confederate battle flag flew
above or adorned the walls of these buildings. People filled the
club, spilled outside. Celebrating their victory, it seemed.

Repeth put her mouth close the Muzik’s ear.
“We need to take out the lights. Or the generators. Then you can
pop them with your night scope while I move in close.”

“
That’s it? That’s your
plan?”

If his tone hadn’t been light she would have
taken it for incredulity. “I’m going to try to find the women. They
might be in that club building.”