Let Freedom Ring
GRIFFIN BARBER
“Well, there went the neighborhood,” Mao whispered as another of the Militia assholes popped into view about five hundred meters off.
“Nah, Stockton was always shit,” James muttered, still tracking the first of the men to appear in his scope. He looked closer, saw the red bandana the lead man wore tied across the left bicep. He didn’t need a closer look to know the red bandanas would have a thick silver thunderbolt marked on them. Little more than a big, militarized gang with delusions of grandeur, the Delta Free State Militia was a real threat to the smaller, less aggressive polities eking out an existence on the coast of Northern California. His Rangers had investigated the aftermath of one of the Delta Free State’s raids a few months back. That shit show had proven the rumors of how the Militia had survived the Fall were true: ruthless amorality and lots of guns could force people to see things your way, at least in the short term.
“Two more,” Mao said. “Ten, then fifteen meters behind the second. All armed with long guns.”
“Copy,” James said, cheek to his rifle as he maintained his watch. The first guy dipped out of view, popped back up with something in his hand. The other men closed up on the first, who showed it to them. They all looked around, started to fan out and move to the northwest. They weren’t cautious of being attacked so much as alert to what was at their feet.
James gave mental shake of his head. With a lack of new infected to add to their ranks, exposure to wind and weather, a lack of easily accessible prey, and other diseases, the infected population had fallen off a cliff in the last year or so. Still, it wasn’t so safe you could make a lot of noise without attracting attention from surviving pockets of the infected, especially around areas of freshwater and the population centers that made for easy living for the infected, and Stockton had both. James’s team of Rangers were at the extreme northeast end of their planned scouting mission along the San Joaquin River and its sloughs. Any further upstream and the waterways were too controlled by pre-Fall engineering projects or too exposed to the urban centers where who knew what delights awaited an explorer.
James and the team watched for a few more minutes, making sure the Militia weren’t going to change course. Once assured the Militia folks weren’t going to come cross the Pixley Slough to get at them, James lifted his head from the sight and motioned for the others to pull out.
His small team rallied up a few minutes later in a shallow depression screened by a small wood sprouting from the soggy bottomland of the island they occupied. Just off the White Slough on a stretch of river called the Pixley Slough, the island had a good view of what James’s map told him was the Trinity Parkway bridge.
Mao kept an eye out in the direction the Militia folks had gone.
“What are they doing this far south?” Jalen asked, directing his voice at the ground. James felt a surge of pride at his son’s caution. The kid knew his business. Fifteen years old and pulling his weight like a man.
“Hunting, maybe?” Mao offered, equally quietly.
James nodded and added, “But what?”
Mao shrugged big shoulders. “That’s the question, ain’t it?”
“What we gonna do, Pops?” Jalen asked uneasily. The boy was fine with putting zeds down, far more comfortable than anyone not of his generation would ever be, but he was less sanguine about shooting uninfected. It spoke well of him, that hesitancy.
“Pull out and look for greener pastures?” Mao said.
“I suppose so. Didn’t realize the Militia had come this far off the Sacramento.” He shook his head, not really wanting to give up on the area, not least because they’d spent the better part of a week snooping and pooping their way up the delta and then the San Joaquin to get here, and the whole area had a lot of well-watered, viable land for agriculture that was also defensible. That land was the whole reason he and his people were on the delta in the first place.
“Probably had to, what with the fires and shit,” Mao opined, taking his eyes from his binoculars. A giant of a man, he crouched down next to Jalen and took a sip from his camelback.
“Water’s none too clean, either” Jalen added, looking at the muddy, sluggish water of the Pixley Slough as he slipped down to join his elders.
“Probably also a result of the fires,” Mao agreed. “I know they did for the refineries I used to work at, and those tanks will be leaking dirty shit until the turn of the century.”
James nodded. Forest fires had been a thing in Northern California even before the Fall, but after it, with no one minding the store, it seemed like the whole world had burned. He’d counted maybe five or six days last September when the air hadn’t been a muddled, angry red that was hard to breathe. Probably going to kill them with cancer, all the shit they’d been exposed to, if the zeds or some nutter with a gun didn’t do for them first.
* * *
James was on watch when the distant sound of gunshots rolled out across the water. He could see something he hadn’t in a long time: a light shadow under the clouds. Someone was using spotlights to light up targets. He nudged Mao awake with the toe of one boot.
“Wha—?” his friend said, still half-asleep.
“Militia idiots stirring something up,” James said.
Mao sat up, a darker shadow in the moonless night. They listened together for a minute.
From the number and varied timbre of the reports, James figured it for a bigger group than the trio they’d seen that afternoon. A lot bigger.
“They’re gonna bring trouble on themselves, making that much noise,” said Mao.
The shooting continued, the reports carrying easily across the water. As if Mao’d summoned it, the rapid-firing shots were joined by the distance-faded, dull, furious roar of a mass of infected on the hunt.
“Couldn’t happen to a nicer bunch,” James said, glancing at Jalen. His teenage son was sleeping through both the racket and the discussion his elders were having.
Someone over there went full auto, the sound like God tearing a tiny corner of the fabric of the universe.
“Damn, but they’re blowing through some ammo.”
“In for a penny . . . ” James said. Infected ran straight at loud noises, ignoring terrain that would give a billy goat pause, and once one heard you, the rest who were within earshot of the first would be shortly notified by what survivors sometimes called “infected-phone.”
The thought made James look over his shoulder. They’d made sure to clear the small island they occupied, but he hadn’t survived this long being complacent. Well, there’d been that one time he’d forgot to check for traps, but that had been a lesson learned. His quick sweep didn’t see anything changed from when they’d settled down for the night, and he heard nothing but the quiet lapping of the water around their island.
The shooting rattled on, rising to a crescendo before dying off. The roar of the howlers also faded away, which could mean they were feeding, but could also mean . . .
“Think they got overrun?” Mao asked into the silence that followed the shooting.
“We can only h—” James began.
Then there was one shot, followed a short while later by a pair.
“Nope,” James finished. “That’ll be them finishing off the wounded.”
Mao nodded agreement, said, “Waste of ammo.”
“Never been shy about poppin’ off, the Militia.”
“Nope.”
“You’re worried,” Mao said after a moment.
James nodded, then, aware the gesture might have gone unseen, said, “I am. They’re sitting on a lot of good land, and they don’t play well with others.”
“No, they don’t,” Mao said in his thoughtful basso rumble. “And the way they’re living, sooner or later, they’re gonna need to push south into the areas we control. That means we either fight or we pull out.”
“We don’t have any regular soldiers to fight them with. Sure, we do well enough against the infected, but we got almost no one trained to fight as regular infantry, against intelligent opposition.”
“I know,” Mao agreed. “But I also know they ain’t the soldiers they pretend to be, either. Too many hunters, gangbangers, and weekend paintball warriors among them.”
“Still shoot ours just as dead, and they carry a lot more guns to do the shooting with than we do.”
“True.” A quiet settled on the pair, Jalen’s faint snores and the regular night sounds slowly enveloping them in an easy, companionable peace.
“I’ll take the watch, brother,” Mao said, a little while later. James let him take over, even though there was about an hour left on his shift, figuring he’d need the extra time to ponder what to do. Not that they were spoiled for choice.
He zipped up in his bag and thought through the problem.
The Treasure Island Cooperative, as his people had taken to calling themselves, boasted only about a hundred fighters. Sure, they had a few ex-military types, but most of those weren’t trained tip-of-the-spear types, a fact they’d been happy enough with so far. Trying to survive without the technical skills most of the Navy, Coast Guard, and Air Force personnel possessed would have been next to impossible without adopting the kill-pillage-and-move-on methods the Militia used. Sure, there was a certain readiness to fight every person possessed if they’d survived the last couple years. But willingness and capability were two separate things.
The Alameda Axis had fallen a year ago now. To, of all things, a revolution: John Chou, the crazy megalomaniac who’d run Alameda like a personal fiefdom, droit du seigneur and all, had pissed off all the wrong people. The subsequent revolt had killed his chief lieutenants and, unfortunately, a lot of the rebellious survivors. The better part of the survivors of the rebellion had opted to try and join TIC. Try, because no one in TIC wanted shit to do with folks who believed the new world was reason to lord it over other people like they had done in the Axis. It had taken a while to get everyone vetted and worked through, but the end result had added a third to the population of Treasure Island and done the same for TIC’s Rangers, Fighters, and Mariners once they’d been trained in the way TIC did things. The Axis had even had a couple solar power technicians and a civil engineer who’d been worth their weight in beans and bullets. The rest had been put ashore on Alameda, a decision James had argued against, thinking they could have put the mothballed Air Force base and the marina to good use even if they hadn’t reclaimed the entire island.
He’d been outvoted.
New Alameda wasn’t doing well, at last report. Crops planted on the old airbase kept dying. Something to do with blighted soil, Sam’s people thought.
There was another couple of small groups down San Jose way, but they had their own problems, the population of infected being that much higher to begin with and arable islands in short-as-shit supply.
The restored portions of the U.S. government might want to help, but they could hardly project power this far north along the coast, and most everyone but the pie-in-the-sky-dreamers at home were leery of throwing away their sovereignty in exchange for patchy, poorly defined, and inconsistent protections. No, these days, the laws didn’t extend much beyond the reach of the men and women willing to enforce their own. That continuing failure of the rule of law was the reason the Delta Free State Militia types were able to operate with impunity.
Louis, before he’d eaten his gun, told the survivors he’d train them in modern infantry tactics, but the idea was lost among all the things that required attention in order to survive from moment to moment in the post-Fall world, and when he took himself out, no one else had pushed the idea. And now they didn’t have the time to train up to face intelligent opposition. Not that the Militia were all that bright, but they were light-years ahead of the howlers. Shit, he might have suggested Sam and the Council negotiate with the Delta Free Staters, but the Militia had a reputation for using parleys to size up the opposition and, on one occasion at least, get in close enough to take out the leadership of the people they were supposed to be talking with.
James turned over, half an ear on the night sounds, mind clouded with thoughts nearly as dark as the post-Fall night, and eventually fell asleep.
* * *
As he ate a cold breakfast, James decided to watch for any exploitable weaknesses the Militia indulged in. They would have to wait for the Militia party to decamp before leaving anyway and keeping the gang under observation should be easy enough. That in mind, the Rangers spent the misty and cold pre-dawn hours getting into position. As the morning mist burned off in the rising light of day, they got a long, good look at what lay across the water.
The U-shaped camp was sited on the opposite shore of Pixley Slough, about a kilometer east of where the Rangers had spotted their scouts the day before. Considerable effort had gone into its construction, too. He could see a small windmill and a pair of solar panels at the center of the camp. At the center of the camp was a big red fabric tent that looked like it might have been looted from some Renaissance Faire, the ersatz power station, and a low, loose-boarded wooden box about three meters on a side. Each corner of the camp had raised platforms, too short to call towers, where guards stood beside spotlights James had seen lighting the sky the night before. The Militia had set chest-high barricades on the perimeter, using a field adjoining the slough to provide clear fire lanes out to about two hundred meters inland, and the corpses strewn in clumps to show the site had been well chosen.
It looked as if the balance of the horde had charged along the shore, as there was a literal heap of dead about fifty meters short of the camp on that side, where a bend in the slough forced the infected coming from the ruins of Stockton to bunch up in order to get at their prey. The dead were a pitiful sight, even before death, with ribs showing and not an ounce of spare fat on any of them. Most had poorly healed injuries and sores, or other evidence of hard living, even before they’d been infected. Five or six looked much fitter than the rest. The Rangers had run across that before, too: newly infected people who’d survived in some shelter or the other, only to run out of food, hope, or will after a year and more of survival and simply decide to stop thinking—stop fighting entropy, Sam called it—and gave themselves over to the infected.
Carefully counting Militia heads, James came up with twenty, maybe twenty-three. Might be more of them out on patrol or something, but James didn’t think so. He was encouraged when he saw they didn’t bother setting watchers to look across the water at the island, their sentries all positioned to cover the landward side of the camp. Indeed, they had clear shots at nearly every part of the camp from across the slough. It seemed James’s own Rangers weren’t the only folks who lacked experience against uninfected opposition.
Beyond the attention of the sentries, though, the camp was all bad news: each militiaman was heavily armed, with a mix of ARs and AKs predominant. There was even a machine gun the likes of which James had first seen in Vietnam movies as a child, which James suspected was at least partially responsible for last night’s full-auto mayhem. Everyone wore the red arm band that reminded James of old news reels of the lead-up to WWII or some shit.
James consulted silently with Mao and Jalen, who both confirmed his head count.
At midmorning nine men left the camp. Each man wore a large, mostly empty ruck across their backs, and each was armed with an axe or other heavy-bladed weapon suited to fighting infected at close quarters. One man in three had a crossbow in hand instead of the rifles the others carried. The men split into three groups before disappearing into town, each down a different road. The camp sentries remained on high alert while the looters were out, probably to be sure to cover for the looting teams if their nighttime clearance hadn’t been sufficient.
It all looked quite systematic and moderately well-planned to James. Not a bad way to survive, even if it wasn’t sustainable in the long term. That was the problem facing everyone, now: civilization required farming. Farming required arable land, reasonably clean water, and intensive manpower in the post-Fall era. That the Militia was doing this labor- and materiel-intensive looting seemed to indicate they were about to settle down to farms. But if that was the case, why were they laying claim to so much land on the delta?
Like some many things in life, the answer came only after a long wait.
* * *
James was starting to feel a little anxious, like they’d been sitting too long in one spot, when he heard a noise from downstream. There was a repeat of the sound, almost like a long splash, but he couldn’t be sure what it was. He tapped Mao’s heavily muscled shoulder and pursed his lips in that direction when Mao glanced at him.
All three Rangers made certain they were under cover from the approaching sound and settled in to wait and watch.
A few minutes later the head of a dragon appeared at the downstream bend in the slough. Not like a scaly western dragon, but a long-whiskered, Asian dragon. The dragon’s “body” hove into view a moment later, and proved to be a relatively wide, shallow-draft boat manned by ten paddlers, five to a side, with a short, slender dude in the back with a longer paddle he was using to steer the whole show. All wore the red armband, and had rifles slung across their backs.
The boat covered the distance between the bend and the camp at a respectable clip, paddles moving in unison even without someone calling cadence. As the boat slid across in front of James’s hide, the Rangers got a better look from above and down into the boat. From the length, there was room for twice the number of rowers they operated with at present. James made out a bright, heavy metal chain running along the center line of the boat from just behind the dragon-headed prow to just in front of the steersman or whatever.
The boat took a sudden turn toward shore, the paddlers increasing their pace as the boat swept toward the camp. A short while later and the boat was being pulled up on shore. Two of the crew, the steersman and one of the paddlers, didn’t participate in the heavy work, instead moving to meet a short, broad-shouldered guy just emerging from inside the tent. The steersman had a ruck over one shoulder, and while it wasn’t full, it was obvious from the way it hung that it was heavy.
Their conversation wasn’t terribly animated, and their body language didn’t reveal much beyond a casual familiarity. After a few exchanges, they were joined by two more of the crew, still carrying their long, broad-bladed paddles. The party turned and walked up to the wooden, boxlike structure. The bosses stopped on the shore side while the two men walked to the far end and stuck their paddles between the boards. They began to work their way back toward the other end of the box, slamming the paddles around inside.
The steersman dropped his ruck and the broad-shouldered fella from the tent dove into it, hands emerging with a set of shackles. The dude from the boat opened the near end of the box and stood beside the gate. In a flash, a naked woman burst from the box, only to be caught by the steersman, who threw her gaunt figure to the ground as the other boatman slammed the door closed behind her. The muscular guy dropped a knee on her back while he hooked the shackles to her at ankles and wrists. That done, he stood up, dragging the woman aside and chaining her shackles to something on the ground. The whole process took about ten seconds from start to finish. Less than a minute later, all the men were back in position at the box and the whole process started again.
“What the fuck?” James heard his son whisper.
“Ah, fuck no,” Mao hissed as the first cries reached their ears.
* * *
James and his people returned to their camp just as the last of the red sunset lay dying in purple-edged darkness.
“Fuck,” James snarled, knuckles bone white with the grip he had on his rifle.
“Yeah,” Mao agreed, lead in the single word.
“Fuck,” James repeated. He hadn’t thought to see shit like that ever in his lifetime. A bona fide, honest to God, slaving operation. He imagined the smell of the branding iron and felt like puking. Might have, had his blood not been at a hard, rolling boil that demanded he kill something, that curtained off awareness of anything but the anger throbbing in his veins.
Jalen’s eyes brought him back to himself after a while. They were white all around, and full of fear. Fear of the rage contorting his father’s face, not some external threat. It brought James back to himself, that fear. He needed to think, not rage. Think clear. Think right. Think fast. He took a deep, shuddering breath, let the rage simmer rather than boil over. Set it to fuel him, not rule him.
He reassured Jalen with a hand on his son’s shoulder, the gesture rendered stiff after the death grip he’d maintained on the rifle. Jalen returned a smile that was uneasy, but no longer fearful.
“Need to think about what we’re gonna do,” Mao said, the lead in his voice having heated somewhat.
“Yeah,” James agreed with what he hoped was a reassuring glance at his son. He released the youngest Ranger and sat back.
Jalen knew better, though. He looked from one elder to the other and swallowed. Uncle Mao might be slow to rage, but he was, if anything, more frightening when the fury had him in its grip.
James shook his head after a long moment, a brittle, angry wonder dawning in his mind.
He’d read a lot of history while a guest of the State of California and liked to think he’d learned a thing or two about slavery, both in its eventual American form and the practice of it under Sparta and Rome. Hell, some of his gamer buddies had been all into miniature war games with Spartans and shit. What they’d just witnessed went a long way toward explaining why the Militia were staking claims to so much land despite the manpower requirements of their survival strategy. A slave society could afford to free up manpower for military operations if they had efficient controls in place on the enslaved.
Or, in this case, if the enslaved were those infected who, for whatever reason, hadn’t become the ravening monsters the vast majority did. TIC had been informed, of course, of the existence of betas. Hell, James had seen sign of them himself: infected who ran instead of immediately seeking a death match with whatever had impinged on their awareness. They were just as mentally impaired as the howlers, just not hyperaggressive like a fiend-on-the-fifth-day-of-his-coke-and-meth-fueled-bender impaired.
Some egghead from the remnants of the U.S. government had run the numbers and come up with a rough estimate of about eight percent of the total infected population having become “betas” when turned. From what he had seen, he felt that number was about twice as high as reality, but eggheads were eggheads both before and after the Fall, and arguing with them was most often an exercise in futility. And he had no way to seeing what data was used. As it was, the number, whether eight percent or four percent, was still pretty low. Their odds of survival in the aftermath were much, much lower, of course. Fifty percent die-off was considered unreasonable by those arguing the point. Of course, given the total percentage of the global population who’d contracted the virus in the first place, there were still a relatively hefty number of betas running about. About the same numbers as those who had survived the Fall uninfected, in fact. The Bay Area had been overpopulated to start with, and so it stood to reason the numbers would be high across the board.
“They’ll be leaving tomorrow,” Mao said, interrupting James’s thoughts.
“Yeah?” James said absently. Numbers didn’t come easy to him and thinking about this shit occupied a lot of bandwidth.
“They looked ’em over, and got them in the chains, ready for transport,” Mao elaborated. He had James’s full attention, with the emphasis he placed on the last word.
James thought about it for a hot second but shook his head. It was fucking suicide. “No way we can take eleven armed men.”
“Not if they see us coming, sure.”
James shot a significant look at his son he hoped Mao would understand.
Jalen caught the byplay before Mao could react one way or another. “Don’t use me as an excuse, Pops. If we can, we gotta do something.”
“Ain’t something we can handle. Not those kinds of numbers. End of discussion.”
“Man, fuck that,” Mao said, softly.
“Three on eleven is flat out suicide and you know it, Mao.”
“Might be, but then there’s the five women—girls, really—who’ve been sold down the river. Down the motherfucking river, James. Never thought I’d actually understand where that term comes from, but Jesus, could I have done without learning it.”
“They ain’t—” James tried.
“Don’t you fuckin’ say it, man,” Mao interrupted. Mao managed to look bigger even leaning back in the hollow. “That’s the argument the motherfucking slaveholders used, and it was just as much bullshit then as it is now. Humans deserve to be treated like motherfucking humans.”
“Man, fuck you, I was about to say they ain’t being watched by a couple guys with single-shot muskets. This is eleven men armed with modern firearms who do not give a shit about their cargo. Not any more than the slavers operating out of Grand Po-po did. As soon as the shooting starts, the very people we’re trying to save will get got.”
Mao’s face twisted in the last glow of the sunset. “Who?”
“Slavers. Slaves?” James said, unsure who Mao was asking about.
A gesture of negation from one of Mao’s big hands, barely visible in the gathering night. “Where, I mean.”
“Grand Po-po.”
Jalen giggled. “Po-po, like police po-po?”
James snorted. “No, course not!”
“Jesus.” Mao shook his head, the angry bubble between them bursting in the moment of confusion. His eyes glittered in the dark as he said, “And just where the fuck is Grand Po-po, you nerd?”
“West coast of Africa. Used to be called the Slave Coast,” James said, trying to keep a snarl out of his voice. “And who the fuck you calling nerd? It was you got me into D&D in the first place.” They’d always enjoyed the tactical, problem-solving aspects of the game. Story, too, of course. But man, the tactical stuff was a blast, and then there was the element of chance, too. Slaughtering goblins and such from ambush was always a good time and had already taught him the rudiments of what worked when the Fall started.
“True enough,” Mao said with a soft, deep chuckle and open hands to acknowledge the hit.
A thought floated free of James’s subconscious, triggered by something in those days of gaming. It hung there, just out of reach. He waited, knowing better than to try and grasp it before it had fully ripened.
When the thought refused to come fully forward, James focused on the present, instead. “Look, let’s get the Kleppers prepped. I want to be on the water as soon as possible. If we can get far enough ahead of these pukes, maybe link up with the other Ranger team, might be we can figure a way to snatch the . . . ” He decided against using the word “slaves” at the last moment, and said instead, “ . . . the captives and get them out.”
* * *
“Tear,” Mao said.
“Shit,” James said, pausing in his own efforts to lay his end of the collapsible kayak out. The frames were composite on the newer models, and tended to be pretty rugged, but the hard use and constant packing and unpacking the Rangers put the little boats through made for the occasional tear in the synthetic hull material.
A rustling noise came as Mao dug into his pack for the repair kit. “I’ll get it patched. Just gimme a few minutes.”
They had a lot of patching kits for Klepper kayaks, rich tech brats having been fond of the collapsible kayaks as a tool for showing their peers just how much more outdoorsy they could be than the next guy. Sam had said it had got pretty ridiculous there at the end, with tech weenies competing to show off their collections of, and accessories for, kayaks they took out maybe once a year, at best. Regardless of how often they had the use of them, the prestige hobby of a bunch of rich dudes had proven a godsend for the Rangers in their scouting. Silent, and low-profile, and able the kit for two Rangers up- and downriver or even in the Bay. Steep learning curve on paddling the damn things aside, the kayaks were light enough for one man to handle in a pinch, collapsible, and easy to portage. Indeed, the fact they were collapsible meant the Rangers didn’t leave a telltale boat ashore behind them in potentially hostile territory.
A few minutes passed, and James had his end laid out and ready.
“Done,” Jalen said from a few steps down the shore.
“Check,” James said.
“Come ahead.”
James moved over and started checking his son’s boat for tears and frames lacking the proper rigidity.
“Check the pump for him, Jalen,” James said. Damn hand pumps had a habit of going out at the worst possible time. So much so that the Mark One Plastic Milk Bottle, Capped, was used to bail water at least as often as the purpose-built tool.
“On it, Pops.”
“Good man,” James said, returning to the work at hand while his mind kept gnawing at the problem of how to save the captives. Hijacking seemed a fair option, until he considered how they’d disarm eleven men without exposing one of his team to being grabbed and held hostage or simply knifed.
* * *
“What are we gonna do, Pops?” Jalen asked as they put the kayaks into the water.
Taking out the map and his penlight, James gestured for Mao to join them. “I think we run west along White Slough to the San Joaquin. We didn’t see any Militia on the way north along the southern branch, and I figure if we are gonna stand a chance of stopping them, it’ll have to be on their way home.”
“If they’re going home,” Mao said.
Jalen said, “We saw ’em making room for the captives.”
“And that boat looked awfully heavy to run too far upriver with a short crew,” James added. “The map has a few marinas and docks on the north shore of the Slough as we head west, and a marina might make a good spot to base out of, especially if it’s on one of the no-shit islands that dot the slough.”
“Sorry, man, but this just sounds like more reasons not to do the right thing.”
James kept a tight rein on his temper. “If we don’t know where their backup might come from, we can’t very well count on getting away after we hit them. Especially with betas, who won’t know us from Adam, and will likely try and escape us as much as their captors.”
“Fair point,” Mao said thoughtfully.
“And we didn’t get a look to see if they had personal radios in the big tent or anything. Stands to reason they might have some. Can’t see those lights using all the power they generate.”
“You’d be surprised,” Mao said. He snorted. “Sorry, brother, I’m just so . . . offended by this shit I all I want to do is murder some motherfuckers, you know?”
James could imagine Mao’s expression. Glad the darkness hid his own, matching expression, he went on, “In any case, we’re good with heading west on the White Slough?”
“Sure,” Mao and Jalen chorused. James knew they were anything but happy, but that lacking a better plan, they had little choice other than to agree with him.
“What are we gonna do, Pops?” The question stuck with James down Pixley Slough and a good part of the way along the White Slough, which eventually joined the San Joaquin proper. A few kilometers as the crow flew, the White Slough bent and twisted like an accomplished stripper, drawing out the journey and giving him plenty of time to consider the questions writhing in his head.
* * *
About nine that evening, with the moon up and a foot-high mist rising off the waters of the White Slough, Jalen brought his boat in tight to James’s and leaned over to whisper in his father’s ear, “Lights through the trees. A little south of west.”
James, who had been focused on both keeping course in the north braid of the slough and watching the southern shore of the mainland, peered in the indicated direction. The slough to the south was dotted with islands along this stretch, and sure enough, a light hung bright and artificial in the middle distance. Maybe a kilometer off, and partially screened by the trees of an intervening island, the light was the equivalent of a beacon in the post-Fall night.
“I see the Beacon of Gondor,” Mao said, voice pitched to carry just so far and no further.
“Same,” James confirmed, stifling an unprofessional chuckle.
Jalen either didn’t get the reference or was too focused on the mission to comment.
“Snoop from the island between us?” Mao offered.
“Yeah. Let’s find a place to pull the boats up and settle in for a watch.”
“What about the rest of the Rangers?” Jalen asked.
James weighed splitting up but decided against it. If they’d already scouted downstream of the slough, he’d be all for sending Jalen on a quick run downstream. As it was, they didn’t know if the whole of the White Slough from here to the San Jaoquin proper was dotted with Militia settlements or what kind of threats might be out there.
“Gotta scope this before we rush into things,” Mao said.
James gave silent thanks Mao was down with keeping Jalen close. Sometimes the boy accepted direction from Mao more readily than his father. It was the way of things.
* * *
“Fuckin’ plantation,” James said as they climbed back up onto the deck of the house they’d cleared and claimed for their camp. Camp, because the floor-to-ceiling glass wall of the place was in shattered heaps on the deck and inside the living room. Thoroughly looted, the place had been some rich dude’s retreat before the Fall, complete with vast sectional and easy chairs arranged around a big-screen TV, now forever dark.
“You were expecting something different?” Mao said, looking around in the rapidly closing darkness before descending on the long part of the sectional.
“No”—James hid a grin in the darkness as he continued—“but I have to say: I’m happy.”
“The fuck?” Mao said, the sectional creaking protest as his weight settled on it.
“Pops has an idea,” Jalen said quietly, taking position where he could watch the approaches to the house.
James smiled again as he sat on the other half of the sectional. “I do.”
Mao made an impatient gesture James almost missed in the dark.
“What did we see today?” James asked, mentally reviewing the layout and situation himself. A big, plantation-style place, complete with white columns, dominated the landscape across the slough.
“That dragon boat showed up and dropped off its cargo with the bastards on the island across the way . . . and received a bunch of baskets of what looked like vegetables in return.”
“Right, and how many men were there to receive the . . . newcomers?” James refused to call them slaves. Not ever.
“Six.”
“Right, and that’s a much better number for our purposes. Especially when they’re dispersed over an island rather than eleven dudes in and amongst the people we are trying to save. Add to that they’re on an island, not confined to a narrow boat, and a rescue attempt becomes a lot more doable.”
“We don’t know how many more Militia they have holed up in the big house,” Mao said, not arguing, just thoughtful.
James cocked his head. “There’s probably a couple armed folks we didn’t see, not many more.”
“How do you figure?”
“First off, the ones we did see didn’t have any security out and looked bored as fuck until the . . . people they were looking over showed up all naked and such. Then they were all eyes on the prize.
“Secondly, the island ain’t that big, and the fields don’t require much more labor than what they just picked up.
“And lastly, did you see how the guys from the island didn’t have armbands on?”
“They didn’t,” Mao said the words firmly, but his voice had a note of wonder in it, as if he just realized it was true. He snapped his fingers and said, “Fucking customers.”
James nodded. “I think so.”
“That would explain why they didn’t show the same . . . discipline as the guys in the boat or the camp upriver, either,” Jalen said.
“Then who the fuck are they?” Mao asked. “They’d have to pose enough of a threat to make the Militia see the benefit of a deal rather than a rip, strip, and run.”
“Good question.” James thought about it for a moment, added thoughtfully, “Did you see how some seemed to defer to the older fella that came down to the dock with that big guy? Bossman with the gray beard?”
James caught Mao’s nod as the last of the light faded, leaving them in darkness. “A boss, though not to the guys in the boat. They didn’t seem all that impressed.”
“True. That guy, though, he had a tattoo. You see it?”
“No.”
“Big thunderbolt on his arm.”
A thoughtful silence stretched. “Retired Militia?” Mao said.
“I’d have thought their retirement would be like a street gang’s: dead or locked up,” James said.
“Ousted, maybe?”
“That’d make sense.”
“If he was too powerful to kill out of hand and not powerful enough to take over,” Mao said thoughtfully.
“May be.” James thought about that for a little longer, then said, “Or maybe they tryin’ to be all Roman and shit.”
“What’s that?” Mao said.
“Roman legionnaires were often given a tract of land in retirement. The smart legionnaires would try and time it so that any slaves taken as booty in their last campaign could either work the land for them or be sold to finance some other project.”
“Fuck.”
“Yeah. So . . . ”
“So, we watch for a day or two, then get ourselves downriver and bring up the rest of the Rangers?” Mao said.
“And any Mariners we can enlist on it, yeah.”
“Timing works,” Mao said thoughtfully. “They’re supposed to run us up some supplies this weekend.”
“What day is it?” Jalen asked.
James smiled. What day it was had very little meaning for most of them. “Wednesday. Two days here, making observations, one to get down to the forward base, and then we come back in force. Assuming there’s not another Militia base close enough to offer support in twenty minutes or so.”
“Assuming,” Mao said.
James shook his head, annoyed that Mao was less than completely supportive of the plan.
A few minutes passed in silence.
“Hey, man,” Mao said, breaking the silence with a deep, rumbling, “you still a fucking nerd, but thank you.”
James played dumb: “For what?”
“For keeping your head when we were all so angry.”
“Oh, I’m still plenty angry, brother. Angry enough to kill every one of those fucks across the river there, living well on the labors of enslaved people.”
“Damn straight.” James could hear the feral grin in Mao’s voice.
* * *
“There’s about seventeen ways this goes sideways, James,” Chong said.
James looked over and down at his fellow Ranger. “Ya think?” The shortest of the Rangers now Jalen was coming into his height, Chong was one of the guys who’d come over from the Axis. Indeed, he’d been one of the core members of the insurrection there. The most skilled gunsmith TIC had, he’d been forced to work the forward logistics camps like the one supporting the Rangers instead of ranging, a job he was at least as skilled as James at. So skilled and respected was he that he’d become James’s second on the strategic side of Rangers planning and command, and his voice carried a lot of weight on the Council. That said, one of the hats he wore was that of devil’s advocate, poking holes in any plan brought before him until it was as airtight as it could be.
“Yes, I do,” Chong said, waving at the mock-up James had made of the target. Yet another gamer skill, making scale models of terrain with whatever materials were at hand. “Just how far away is their relief?”
“From upriver, it’s two hours with muscle-powered boats. Half that for sail if they’ve got the proper wind. Twenty minutes, slightly less if they got a powered boat up there while we’ve been gone. From downriver, it’s roughly twice that except for the powered option, which is maybe a half hour?”
Chong gestured at the unit markers on the model. “Tight timetable.”
“It’s based on their probable response time after they learn of an attack. We saw no antennas on the island, so it’s not likely they’ve got backup on speed dial. Barring a smoke signal, or radio we didn’t see with the range to reach the next camp, we should be safe on those margins, assuming it doesn’t take too long to collect the evacuees up.”
Chong ran the fingers of one hand though his salt-and-pepper hair as he considered the tabletop. “Seems like they’ve left themselves stupidly exposed. The dawn lineups in particular are pretty stupid.”
“You know as well as I do how much those assholes think of themselves. As to the lineups, we can’t count on him doing one of them when we hit the place, and as to reasons, he probably thinks he’s maintaining military discipline or some shit.”
“Could be.”
“Besides, they’ve got some justification for thinking they’ve intimidated the rest of the survivor groups in the Bay Area. They’ve certainly been throwing their weight around enough.”
“What about prisoners?”
James gestured at the model of the plantation. “This is dangerous enough without us taking any additional risks to secure prisoners, so I don’t expect there to be any.”
“Still, that won’t go down easy with the Council . . . ”
“Man, fuck easy. These animals are enslaving their fellow man.”
Chong studied him a long moment, then nodded. He then cocked his head as if considering something new and asked, “You give any thought to how our Council will respond to an act of blatant aggression against a neighboring power?”
It was James’s turn to nod. “And I also thought about it in terms of the status of this particular plantation. If Bossman is an ousted political, then we might get away with it by removing a problem child from the Militia’s playpen. If not . . . well, if I have to face charges for crossing the Rubicon, then so be it.”
“More like Caesar’s illegal invasion of Gaul, but I see your point. And, like Antony, I’ll be in your corner should it come to that,” Chong said. He took another long look at the mock-up, but eventually nodded. “Once we confirm all hostiles down, we call the Mariners in to transport the . . . evacuees and . . . any prisoners who surrender?”
“Assuming there’s been no radio traffic from the target, that’s the plan.” James really didn’t like how things would turn out if the plantation men surrendered. He didn’t want to execute a bunch of assholes, and he didn’t want to testify at a trial, the legality of which would be extremely questionable at best.
“What about . . . ” Chong let the question trail off.
“What?” James said, barely keeping his tone even. Chong never hesitated to ask, normally.
“Look, I know this is something we gotta do . . . and I’m all in on it,” Chong added in calm tones as he saw James’s expression start to tighten. “What I mean to say, or to ask, is: have you guys thought this through?”
“You mean later?” James nodded. “Of course. Ain’t gonna be comfortable times, trying to both protect their rights and integrate the—”
“No, not that late,” Chong said, interrupting. He stroked his beard, something he only did when he was anxious. “Shit, man. This is hard to—look, the Mariners ain’t gonna allow the—the evacuees free run of their boat. That’s a shit show on the go, guaranteed to drown everyone involved.”
James shook his head again, not in denial, but in frustration.
“So, the thing is—well, there won’t be a lot of difference in the way the people we save are treated, not before we get them off the island and somewhere where it’s safe to deal with them being . . . themselves.”
“Fuck,” James said. He’d avoided considering the short-term issues inherent in controlling the flighty betas as someone else’s problem. Sure, he’d thought it through enough to know they’d need bigger boats than the kayaks the Rangers used to get around, but he’d fallen into the habit of thinking the gas engine RIB was the solution for all that ailed the evac portion of the plan. And it would look bad. Possibly very bad, to his Rangers and the Mariners, too, to have the betas dragged aboard in chains.
Chong gave him time and silence to think things through.
“Right. I’ll make sure everyone knows we can’t afford to go striking chains and letting them run wild.” He sighed unhappily. “And that it’s a temporary measure, much as we might hate it.”
Chong gave him another of those long, considering looks, then nodded and said calmly, “I can’t emphasize enough how important it is we don’t develop a morale problem over this. People get bent over this, they won’t unbend.”
“Right,” James agreed. “Got it. I will make it clear we’re gonna have to do what we have to in order to get them out before we can start treating them right.”
Chong nodded. “Let’s get everyone in here and on the same page, then.”
“Fuck.” James said the word with real feeling.
* * *
Six kayaks slid through the morning fog hovering about a foot above the waters around the plantation, the only sounds they made an occasional dip-slosh of their paddles in the White Slough. Faint moonlight limned the river fog, making it look as if they swept through a silver blanket.
Jalen and two of the other Rangers, better shots with scoped rifles, had snuck in the night before to keep the plantation under observation and report if things changed. The kayaks neared the point where they were to turn in and run toward the island or scrub the whole thing without James hearing a whisper from the team with his son.
Judging there wasn’t going to be a better time, James gently slapped the water with the flat of his paddle.
At his signal, the kayaks turned as one and started toward the island. They made for the west shore, on the other side of the island from the dock they’d watched the plantation people use. The west shore had fewer spots to run the kayaks ashore, but also about twenty meters closer to the big house the plantation boss lived in, and the plan called for neutralizing him before he could organize resistance.
The shore was quiet, the shadowed trees rising from it pierced with narrow slashes of faint, silvery moonlight as he and Mao drove their kayak ashore. Debarking the kayaks was always a pain in the ass, but he and Mao were up and out of it in good time. They left their kayak for the rest of the team to drag further up as they moved inland to set up a perimeter watch. James was uneasy with the weight of all the weapons he carried. The guns were not a part of his usual Ranger load-out, being too noisy for the work his teams carried out against the infected. It made him uncomfortable, thinking that this might be the new task they were put to.
Putting away his unease for later reflection, James crept forward until he could see the grounds of the plantation, which was laid out along a gentle slope to the eastern shore.
The house bulked white in the moonlight, no lights from its windows at this early hour. Two outbuildings, one of which housed the prisoners and two guards, stood closer to the docks along a wide gravel path that shone whitely in the moonlight. The other building was some kind of storehouse or had been converted into one since the Fall. To the north and south of the path lay large fields planted with everything from corn to pumpkins. There was even a large pen with a dozen turkeys muttering in it. Down at the east end of the gravel path was the dock, the light burning above it a would-be defiant middle finger against the fall of civilization. Would-be, because no true civilization that James wished to be a part of would countenance slavery.
Everything was still and quiet and as expected, at least from his vantage point. As the radio hadn’t alerted him to any change, he had to believe the pair of Militia sentries standing post at the front door of the big house were at their posts.
After a few minutes, he heard the rest of the team moving into position. Confident he and Mao only heard them because they were already aware of their Rangers’ presence, he waited a full minute before tagging the transmit button on his radio twice and starting the countdown.
Beside him, Mao clicked his light on and off, twice, to signal the rest of the assault team. He, Mao, and four other Rangers moved forward in the pre-dawn shadows, weapons up. The remaining three of his Rangers stayed behind to cover the rear of the house, which, keeping true to colonial style, had only a single, solid-looking back door.
“Light on upstairs,” Chong’s voice was tight over the radio.
They stumbled once or twice on the way, but James’s team stacked up quietly along the side of the main house with plenty of time to spare.
“Lights coming up all over.”
James click-clicked confirmation, reviewing the plan. It was fifteen, maybe seventeen paces to the front door and the first of the guards. Push come to shove, he would round the corner and tag the near one, then the other. All he had to do was wait. Bossman would be handled by the shooters across the water.
Bossman liked to show his people he was in charge. Normally, that meant he did the rounds of his property at or just after dawn each day. James had even seen him, one morning, just after dawn, run what looked like a full inspection on his people. Lined up in front of the house, he examined each of them and their kit while they stood in front of a big brass mariner-type bell mounted for calling folks to dinner or something. The only exceptions had been those on guard duty, who stayed at their posts. James would have loved to hit them while most of them were all lined up, but there was no telling when the next inspection would be.
The first rays of sunlight began to slant across the slough, making it easier to see for those not facing into the sun like the guards at the front door. Or James, for that matter, though as soon as he went round the corner, that would no longer be a problem.
“Target on the move.”
James raised one finger to shoulder height. Mao reached up from behind him and seized the finger in one huge mitt, signaling the stack was ready. Still nervous, James cracked his neck and settled his shoulders.
A moment later the front door opened, and he could hear Bossman’s voice, a rich baritone, acknowledging his underlings. His two lieutenants or bodyguards would be with him, naturally. They weren’t James’s problem.
James socketed the shotgun into his shoulder and raised it to eye level. He could hear Bossman’s voice move from the entrance out a ways.
“On the way,” Chong’s voice whispered.
A bell tolled.
* * *
It was a dull sound, that toll, nothing like the clear ringing expected from a brass bell like the one in front of the house.
James didn’t have time to process anything but what was in front of his barrel, however, as he rolled around the corner and saw the near guard flinching away from something to his front.
The Ranger stroked his trigger. Buckshot slammed out of the barrel and downed the target. James dropped the bead on the next guard, stroked the trigger again. Buckshot caught the man high in the chest and low in the throat, tearing the latter out.
“Bossman d—” Chong began. Mao’s AR cracked almost in James’s right ear, the suppressor stepping the sound down from a vicious crack to a bearable cough that still muted everything else.
The stack followed James up the veranda and across it to the front door, where they made entry.
Someone must have had a rapid rush of blood to the head, because as soon as James was over the threshold, he saw the flash of gunfire from a doorway off the entry hall. Hot pain lanced across his cheek and brow.
Staggering, James returned fire, buckshot tearing a pair of useless holes in white wainscoting.
Mao’s AR cough-coughed again, rounds creating small clouds of white splinters. The 5.56 rounds penetrated a lot better than James’s buckshot, however, the proof being the corpse of the shooter appearing in the doorway, skull cracked open and oozing.
“Prison guards on the move,” Chong’s voice was strangely muted. “Engaging.”
Some blood seeped into James’s right eye. “Keep moving! Move!” he shouted, moving steadily down the hall in pursuit of a man dashing through a door toward the rear of the house.
Half his people went upstairs to clear it while he, Mao, and Kristene moved to finish clearing the ground floor.
The man he’d seen didn’t try and escape out the back. They found him in the study, just picking up the radio mic as the trio made entry. The would-be radioman went down in a welter of blood, all three Rangers lighting him up.
James heard gunshots from upstairs—as well as a woman’s scream—and then, in a sequence of instants that always seemed to take forever to complete, it was over.
* * *
James winced as Mike plucked another splinter out of his face. He was the only casualty, and his injuries weren’t serious. They’d been lucky. The place had been full of weird Roman legion regalia and shit.
Mao appeared at the front door, helping a small woman down the front steps. She wore a shirt ten sizes too big for her and she was barefoot. Even from a couple steps away, James could see scars and fresh red weals at her wrists and ankles.
“Where is he?” the woman said, squinting into the morning sunlight. Her voice was hard, devoid of emotion.
“Who?” James asked, making several mental adjustments. In hindsight, it was foolish of them to think the Militia only enslaved betas. He stood, tried to shield her from the carnage in the front lawn.
“Jack Dean Angstrom, the pig fuck who—” Her eyes lit on Bossman, rage clotting her voice. Small hands turned to claws as tears welled in her eyes. She took a step forward. Mao let her go.
She moved unsteadily to Angstrom’s side, knelt and raised her hands as if to strike. She was like that a long time, hands raised, before lowering them to her sides.
“How did he die?” she asked in a thin voice.
James walked around to stand in front of her, the corpse between them at his feet. Angstrom’s chest had a neat, bloodstained hole in it. “One of my people tagged him from across the way.”
“He never saw it coming?” she asked, squinting up at him.
“No . . . I’m afraid not.”
“I heard the bell ring, and I thought . . . ” She looked up, over her shoulder at the shiny brass bell on its pristine white stand. James saw a smear of red on it with a whitish mark at its heart where the jacketed lead round had gone through Angstrom’s chest and struck it hard enough to make the ring James had heard.
“Thought what?” James prompted.
“He rang the bell when he had a new one.”
“New on—” James started to ask.
“His ‘new toys,’ he called us, the women he took. Said he could never settle for them,” she nodded at the betas being led from their enclosure down to the RIB. “Said the only way to know he was lord of all he surveyed was to see the knowledge in the eyes of his victims. Betas didn’t give him that thrill.”
“Well, there won’t be any more of that,” James said. The promise sounded hollow, even to his ears.
The look she gave him was weary, and skeptical.
Under that gaze, he resolved to make the promise real, to bring it about any way he possibly could.
“Evac is almost ready,” Mao said, nodding toward the RIBs.
James looked at the woman, and at the dead creature that had wanted to be her lord and master, and said, “Go ahead down to the boats, but give me a few.”
Mao looked at him. “What you gonna do?”
“This piece of shit liked the Romans so much; I think it only appropriate to leave a sign behind people like him will appreciate.”
It wasn’t easy, but prison had seen him trained as an apprentice carpenter, and there were plenty of stout fence rails on the property.
James and his Rangers left the island a few hours later, by which time everyone but Mao and Jalen had retreated downriver. He didn’t ask for their help, but his son and his best, oldest friend pitched in without a word.
The hardest part was dredging up the proper spelling and grammar. He hoped he’d got it right as he paddled the kayak down the White Slough.
Behind him stood a new monument: a cross with a fresh corpse nailed to it. From the neck of the corpse hung a wooden plank with words burned into it:
CAVETE, TYRANNI DOMINI,
NAM VIVIT ADHUC SPARTACUS