Beyond Green Fields | Book 6 | Red's Diary [ A Post-Apocalyptic Story] Read online

  Before I got a chance to inquire on what was going on—and, more specifically, why they wanted me to be a part of it—Guinevere came in, followed by a throng of people, most of them wearing functional clothing. I figured those were her security personnel, and judging from the fact that they also looked tired and jumpy, they must have had a rough start into their mornings as well. They fanned out across the table, barely giving me a glance, which made me guess they had been warned about my presence and told not to make a fuss about me.

  “Status?” Guinevere more barked than asked when everyone had settled down.

  A man in his fifties—who, for one, looked like he was actually comfortable in his tactical pants, combat boots, and tan T-shirt—glanced first at Marleen before answering. “No updates since morning. Both our remaining people have signed in again and have confirmed each other’s numbers. Over one hundred fifty survivors of the town, and barely any casualties among the assailants. All primary targets still alive. Mole number two also confirmed that they seem to make plans to scramble after taking care of the dead.”

  My heart may have skipped a beat or two hearing the news. Presumably, Lewis and Miller had managed another hit—and if I wasn’t completely wrong, they must have sprung some kind of ambush or other. I hadn’t heard much since arriving here but between the lines—and Marleen specifically asking me about the California coast settlement that I’d never had the fortune to properly visit and thus couldn’t rat anything out on—I figured that must have been where shit had gone down. I did my very best not to bat an eyelash, not just pretending to listen with interest. After all, it stood to reason that Marleen had dragged me in here to eventually want my opinion.

  That turned out to be true, albeit only after I had to listen to disjointed fragments of situational reports for going on two hours. Unlike the older gentleman in his camo fatigues, the other staff seemed much less versed in their crafts. It also struck me as weird that it wasn’t Gita but some pimple-faced nerd who finally produced a number of grainy satellite images, detailing the damage, and two of his friends tried their hands at analysis that was both overly convoluted and utterly wrong. I didn’t miss that Gita, sitting a few chairs down the table across from me, kept watching me, probably also trying to gauge my reaction.

  Just as they had filed in without giving me much attention, most of the people left again without me having uttered a single word besides thanking the mostly mute woman next to me twice when she’d passed me some water to refill my glass. Only Guinevere, Gita, and Marleen remained, with three guards lurking by the door. None of them had that vacant looks in their eyes of the half-zombified soldiers, but it was still a laughable effort. Marleen was the only one who could seriously have kept me from doing anything stupid. They were for show only—and likely yet another trap for me if I wasn’t careful. Bored and hungry as fuck was more like it. I was starting to consider whether Marleen was using that as a way to trip me up rather than simply being neglectful…

  “Care to join our conversation, lieutenant?” Guinevere drawled, pulling my attention back to the table.

  I wondered if I should have drawn up short or otherwise signaled that she had my full attention but decided to remain in the relaxed slump I’d ended up in.

  “I didn’t want to impose,” I offered in a half-joking remark. When all she did was blink in irritation, I quickly dropped the failed attempt at humor. “If you don’t mind, I think I need a little more intel. How strong were your forces to begin with?” She didn’t respond, so I tried the next best thing. “Did your men kill or seriously injure any of the residents or part of the vanguard?” Someone had mentioned that Miller had apparently sent a few people ahead of their main group. Again, no answer. I turned to Marleen next. “I can’t be useful if you don’t give me anything to build my opinion on.”

  Marleen didn’t so much hesitate as seem reluctant to answer, the reason for which became obvious when she finally did open her mouth. “My plan hinged on a morally defeated, physically much reduced number of people to return to the settlement, limping home with their tails tucked between their legs, only to be utterly crushed once they found their people captured or already gone.” She paused, grimacing as if she’d bit into a slice of lemon. The very thought of even that morsel of food made me salivate instantly. “Instead, they came riding to the rescue, dragging along enough scavenger scum to, if not quite even the odds, be a true nuisance. That they also had support from both army and marines didn’t help. To make matters worse, the man I’d put in charge jumped the gun and converted two thirds of his fighting force too early, which must have made it easier for Miller’s people to pick them off one by one. We still managed to accomplish our tertiary goal—the settlement is badly damaged and the remaining settlers are discouraged—but too many of them remain alive, and their fighting force seems barely reduced, if at all.”

  As much as the idea twisted my guts that Marleen must have set all this in motion before showing up to “help” liberate the slaver camp, I had to hand it to her: it was a good plan to annihilate an opponent who’d already been thoroughly beaten… or was supposed to be. It sounded like it would have worked had she managed to kill Lewis and consequently take Miller and Hamilton out of the picture as well. Losing the California settlement as a last standing symbol of resistance that the Lucky Thirteen had become—one way or the other—would have further dispersed the scavengers, putting an end to any kind of coordinated effort that had remained. Instead, they were fully united and further morally bolstered with three victories in a row, no doubt flocking to their Pirate Queen and Ultimate Arena Monster. I didn’t need a report about that now; already seeing the change in the scavengers who had been at the slaver camp was enough to underline that. For years, majors and generals had campaigned in our staff meetings that we needed to produce Lewis as that would immediately disperse the scavengers as they fought each other over who would get to kill her. Now that she was back, they all fell in line, if anything fighting over who got to stand the closest by her side in this last-hurrah effort. That none of them seemed to give a shit about why they rallied again—and even went against the demands they had listed in the months ramping up to the New Angeles docks attack—none of them seemed to care about, just as none of them had seemed particularly worried when they’d received the news that they were, in fact, all going to die of the virus eventually. That was another little detail I still couldn’t wrap my mind around… and since it was utterly useless to me now, I quickly skipped on to the important questions.

  “Their entire command staff is still alive?” I asked Marleen.

  She nodded. “Miller, Hamilton, and Lewis are still alive and kicking, and from what my people reported in, they seem to have recovered well from any injuries recently sustained.” I noticed Guinevere making a face while Marleen’s expression remained stony. “My men did manage to kill Miller’s mentor, though.”

  That statement utterly confused me. If anything, Decker had been the only mentor I knew of, besides maybe… “Bert Hughes was in California?”

  Marleen went as far as to frown. “No, he hasn’t left Wyoming in years…” she said before catching herself. “Romanoff. But funny that you mention Hughes. Apparently, my people also put his daughter through the ringer, but she’s still alive. Apparently, Miller pulled off quite the rescue with her.”

  I took a deep drink from my water, trying to buy myself time while I processed the information. I’d met Andrej Romanoff a few times while exchanging intel with Zilinsky, but he’d never appeared to have much of a role beyond being one of the core team of mercenaries. He had been mentioned in the classified personnel files, but I honestly had never paid him much attention. The only valid detail had been that he and Zilinsky had been inseparable since becoming interesting to the army, back when Miller had recruited them as external “consultants” or whatnot. At the camp, he’d mostly been lurking around the headquarters, no longer fit for field work with the chronic injuries he’d sustained in the past
in some ambush Taggard and his people had staged. Lewis had gravitated to him just as she’d hung out with Zilinsky, Martinez, and Burns in particular, making it easy to guess their friendship was a close one. I’d walked in on Zilinsky, Romanoff, and Miller having an intense discussion the night before we’d split and went off to Dallas in some foreign language—Russian maybe?—but that was it. As far as I could tell, Miller and Romanoff had been friendly but it made no sense to designate Romanoff as any kind of mentor. I would have expected Marleen to know this. Interesting that she didn’t.

  “Losing him must have thrown a wrench into Miller’s gears,” I fake agreed with her. “Any idea what they are planning on doing next?”

  Marleen cocked her head to the side. “That’s exactly what I was going to ask you.”

  Right. I took another drink, staring at one of the satellite images as I tried to come up with what to suggest. It had to make sense but not hurt them too much. “How many men do you have left?” Marleen gave me a look like I thought she was stupid enough to respond to that. The impulse was strong to rant that I could hardly be expected to be of much help if she gave me nothing, but I swallowed it. Instead, I went with something she had actually given me—a name.

  “Is the kid still alive?” When both Marleen and Guinevere looked confused, I clarified, “Sadie Hughes’s child. She must be around three now? You said your force had gotten their hands on the mother.”

  Guinevere’s interest immediately waned, as if anything not directly connected to Miller or Hamilton wasn’t of any interest to her. Marleen looked suspicious. “I haven’t heard anything to the contrary, but then again, neither of my sources had any children designated as of interest. Why? What use should a kid be?”

  “Sadie—the mother—is Miller’s goddaughter…”

  “A useless sentiment just for show, I know,” Guinevere said, clearly annoyed.

  “For Miller, maybe,” I countered her. “But to the larger community, she’s important.” When both women still looked at me as if I’d gone insane, I did my best to elaborate. “It’s an open secret that she’s kind of a mascot in their community. Ever wondered why the Lucky Thirteen had only ever twelve people alive on their signup sheet?”

  They continued their stoic looks while Gita gave me a quick “are you insane?!” glance before focusing on her papers again. At me clearing my throat she looked up, noticing that Marleen was staring at her now. “It’s true,” Gita was quick to confirm. “For whatever inane reasons, they listed one of their men who had died before they officially signed up. He got killed when they took down the cannibals, I think?” She looked back to me for confirmation.

  I nodded. “I only know this because a few of the men stationed at my base knew him personally. Chris Bates. No idea if this is true, but the rumor goes he knocked up Sadie Hughes, which was the reason she up and left the Wyoming settlement. Apparently, her mother was extremely anti-serum even before the scavengers started bombing the settlements. Another theory is that Miller himself is the father, but I doubt that’s true. Lewis would have castrated him if that was the case.”

  Marleen was still processing my statement—likely trying to decide whether it was true or not—while Guinevere piqued up a little. “What you are saying is we passed up a great chance to pick off two essential targets, is that it?”

  I realized that was exactly what I had done—and my, did that feel good, knowing I had suddenly painted a target on a little child and her teenage mother—but not all was lost yet. “Maybe, maybe not. It would have further quenched morale for sure.”

  “I doubt someone like Miller gives a shit about two people, whatever their age or gender,” Guinevere said, the latent anger whenever she was talking about one of her favorite people in the world resurfacing.

  I shrugged. “He might not, but his people sure do. I think this might also be the answer to the question you are pondering now: what will they do next?”

  Marleen flawlessly picked up the lead I’d just dropped for her. “You think they’ll evacuate them?”

  I nodded. “I doubt they’ll simply leave them behind. They know they are a target, and one of the few really vulnerable ones. I expect most of the survivors will withdraw south to New Angeles, but they’ll take those two somewhere they trust they will be much safer.”

  “Like where?” Marleen wanted to know.

  This was where I needed to be careful. Provided they chose to trust me, I was absolutely endangering whatever settlement I named next. It also had to make sense. Four came to mind, although I doubted Dispatch or the Silo made sense. That left only two. “The Wyoming Collective or the Utah settlement,” I mused. “The first is where her parents still live. We know Miller’s people have close ties to the Utah people. I think that’s where they’ll rather go, seeing as Sadie’s parents likely still don’t want anything to do with her.” Plus, I knew for a fact that the Utah settlement was home to one of the more dangerous scavenger units, although I vaguely remembered they had been hit hard by the savage ones as well. I wasn’t sure how much of that was propaganda to mislead outsiders. One thing was sure: the Utah settlement was one that could easily withstand a full-on assault. That much our assessments had said right from the very start, and I’d never seen an update to the contrary.

  Marleen gave that some thought before she reached for one of the maps strewn across the table. She considered it while Guinevere glared at me, as if her open hostility would make me bow down and confess all my sins. “How sure are you of this?” she finally asked when all her glaring did was make me swallow thickly.

  “As sure as I can be, not knowing much of Miller’s plans to start with,” I admitted. “It’s a good guess. Until they leave, you won’t know. But if they do make their way to Utah, you’ll be able to track their movements.” I hadn’t known until today that they had access to satellite images but it made sense that they did. The army still had a few bases with equipment for tracking, and I knew the Silo did as well. “Even if they head toward Wyoming, they’ll likely stop at the settlement over night. If you still have the men, that’s where you can set up your next ambush.”

  Guinevere looked less than impressed but Marleen agreed with me after another long look at the map. “They’ll need around ten days to get there, even if they move quickly. I can have significant numbers there in eight days from now.” She glanced at me but then spoke to Gita. “What do we know about their defenses?”

  Gita looked vaguely uncomfortable. “Not much.” When she got the expected hostile expressions from the other women, she was quick to explain. “The Utah people are weird. All other settlements drew close together and built walls; they are more like several disjointed huddles. They were the base of one of the scavenger groups but they got eradicated with only two survivors limping home after the hit. Since then, nobody has even breathed a word of Luke’s Chargers. They also didn’t respond to Lewis when she rallied whoever she could. I’m not even sure they’ll let them in, to be honest.” She waited for Marleen to focus back on the maps before giving me another wide-eyed look as if to say, “Stop aiding and abetting!”

  I got where she was coming from. This was my best guess—and maybe I shouldn’t have said so. Then again, I would hardly get into anyone’s good graces if all I did was spout useless nonsense. Looked like we’d have to trust both Miller and Lewis but also the Utah settlement to know what they were doing—and to be a lot more lethal than anyone here expected them to be.

  When nothing more came from me, Guinevere got up, stretching. “Make plans,” she told Marleen. “Once they move out, we’ll know more. Make sure to activate your people in Utah in the meantime.”

  Marleen just stared at her. “I don’t have people in Utah.”

  Guinevere froze. “What?”

  “I only managed to establish three of them, and I moved them to California before I left to play devil’s advocate. They were instrumental in pulling off the siege. All of them are dead now.”

  Guinevere had a hard time no
t screaming at her, it seemed, needing a full ten seconds to get the next words out. “The mission you just bombed, you mean.”

  “Yes.”

  Guinevere continued to glare at her—she really did that a lot—before she visibly calmed herself, turning to me. “Well, this is your chance, lieutenant. If Miller turns to Utah, you might have a chance of getting her job, since of late she does nothing but disappoint me.”

  “I don’t want it.” When my statement made her eyebrows shoot up, I leaned back in my chair. “I’ll gladly help you, but I don’t need to be in charge of your offense. Marleen has years of intel that I can’t catch up with even if you open all the files for me right now. I’m quite happy with being your consultant.”

  Both women looked at me as if I’d laughed at them. “You really think anyone’s buying your ‘I’m only a beta’ BS?” Guinevere drawled.

  It was surprisingly easy to shrug off her criticism. “It’s not my plan to stay in the back seat forever,” I clarified. “And if I may say so, I think you will greatly benefit from my help. As I keep telling you, I know a thing or two about Lewis that you seem to have missed. That’s the upside of blind obsession—you know your shit. No doubt, you’re the experts on Miller and Hamilton, but she’s a part of their plans as well. A second fiddle, sure, but an important one. Just as I could have told you about her kidney and why Sadie’s kid is important, I can help you with other things as well. Let the next stage be my test. If I’m right—and I know I am—maybe after they go to Utah you’ll finally start to trust me?”