I’m not— #6
Once I got him inside the powered down, unsecured helo and its earth moving equipment, I made my way to the third Sikorsky, and, because Enrico was busy, I pulled the helmet back off so I could see better through the camera lens.
This helo was full of people too, but unlike the others, it was using battery power at awesome levels.
Inside the cockpit area, where the comms equipment was, techs were elbows deep trying to get a signal out.
They looked a little worried and a lot frustrated. That made me happy.
When I moved back along the massive fuselage and stuck the cam to a patch of snow-free, unfogged window, I saw what—and who—had come to the mine, chasing Bug signals and a Bug ship.
The cabin had a small table with rounded corners, crystal bottles with whatever booze they were drinking in the lowball glasses on its top.
Leather flight-style seats surrounded the table, filled with people, some in suits and most wearing US military uniforms: Army, Air Force, Space Force, and Marines.
The highest ranking brass was an Army woman—a two-star general.
I also saw two men in different uniforms.
Post-war People’s Republic of China uniforms.
“Bloody hell . . .” I trailed off. The Dark Riders were not just a group of former military working with active military and a few in the Gov. This wasn’t just an outlier cabal. This was either a tech-sharing treaty group or . . . What?
“Hands up,” a heavily accented voice barked from behind me. Before I could turn, he grunted and was yanked back. He disappeared, dragged through the snow faster than I could process. Enrico had taken him down. I didn’t have to be able to see in the snow to know.
But now, the Sikorsky party had a missing man, which would alert someone sooner or later.
Enrico reappeared and motioned me back. He was wearing the man’s snow-covered coat, gloves, cold weather headgear and coms, and carrying his weapons.
His own bike helmet was slung on a strap around his back.
Again, he handed me my helmet and I put it back on. Damn thrall.
I followed Enrico into the snow, along the trough he had made when he took the man. And killed him, if the scarlet trail was any indication.
Marconi’s kids had no compunction about killing and they were good at it.
Normally, I’d have been against killing a man in uniform.
But this guy was wearing the uniform of the PRC.
I looked at Enrico who was now carrying PRC weapons.
The dead guy was a PRC grunt. On American soil.
The military types in the helo and the Dark Riders were working with the enemy. Or a segment of the enemy. Had to be.
I set the camera to the side and knelt by the dead man. His throat was cut.
“I removed the threat of the other guard as well,” Enrico said. “One of ours. Not dead, but he might freeze to death if we leave him too long. First Class Private.”
I ripped the PRC shirt open. On his chest was a red dragon, the same kind of tattoo the Dark Riders wore. Something was very wrong with all this. More than a cabal?
Treason. I hadn’t wanted to think that. Hadn’t wanted to let the idea, the word, into my brain. But. My entire body said this was treason.
Enrico bent over the PRC and pressed something into the dead man’s hand. I laughed out loud when I saw the First Class Private’s insignia. Like the tent, it was brilliant. When they found this guy, and the other one was still missing, they would look to each other.
I buried the man in snow. With the right scanners, he’d be easy to find.
Enrico gestured to return to the buildings. I shook my head no and held up my hand, showing how many helos had landed, then dropped three fingers. We had one more to look into. Literally.
He shook his head in that way men did when they thought women were stupid, but he led the way to the other helo, the fourth.
For better or worse, this one had indeed crashed.
Inside were two bodies, already freezing in death.
It looked like someone had been here recently, as the bodies had been placed in positions of repose instead of the DOA splatters they had made on the shattered windshield.
If the Bell-Huey had carried equipment, it was gone now.
The back of the fuselage was empty. I took digital footage anyway.
When I was done, I pointed in the general direction of the buildings.
Enrico shook his head and led me off in an entirely different direction.
We got back to the buildings and the Sisters in minutes.
If not for him, I’d have frozen to death in the blizzard.
* * *
I slouched back in the camp chair, my back to the wind, watching the other high-ranking members of the clubs.
I had shown them the vids. They had been pissed.
The People’s Republic of China’s Central Military Commission had sent MamaBots to the US—starting World War III—when they came ashore in Port Angeles, Washington.
The Outlaw motorcycle club had been mid-rally when the AI bots walked ashore, changing life forever, in the entire world.
Every home lost, every friend killed, every battle scar, and all the damage to the Earth since, had been because the PRC thought they should control everything and everyone.
All the clubs had joined the war effort that day.
All the clubs had suffered and died. Every single member still alive hated the enemy and would kill them on sight.
Watching Gov. and military officials working with the PRC was enough to unite the motorcycle clubs to fight the enemy right here, right now.
Except that we didn’t have the weapons, the ammo, or the warriors to do so.
But we did have our advantages. And my small earth mover.
Plus, I had ideas.
However, when I got back to our makeshift HQ and tried to share my ideas, I got ignored.
I was just a woman, despite being a made-man with a list of kills, and a club president with a long history of successes.
Bengal and One Eye, Jacopo and No Dog, Jagger and Big Dick McKraken, were throwing potential OPLANS around like their thoughts were spit balls.
The masculine mindset in bike clubs, about women fighting and women in charge of fighting had stagnated somewhere in the mid-twentieth century. Maybe the mid-nineteenth.
I met Tomika’s gaze and shrugged.
She laughed aloud, and said, “Men.”
That pretty well summed it up.
The clubs had been willing to follow me and my plan when we were just gathering intel and going public with it.
Going to war with me in the lead was another matter entirely, regardless of the fact that the Battle of Warhammer’s Nest had been orchestrated and lead by me.
So, I twiddled my frozen thumbs while they hashed things out and gnawed through various options and hypothetical OPLANs.
The sticking point was killing our own uniformed warriors, which was as it should be.
So, I waited. I’d pick my time and bargain my way into the lead. It’s what I did best.
But it was bloody cold, waiting. The air was so frigid, the cloth of the chair beneath me froze and the ice encrusted on the chair’s underside and back cracked when I shifted my weight. I was so cold my fingers were blue when I tried to warm them on a metal cup of hot coffee.
I still hadn’t put away my EntNu-breaking shard, so we couldn’t call for reinforcements even if help could have gotten through the snowfall, which was a meter deep on flat land and mounded double that against anything not flat.
And thanks to me, we had no idea when the storm would blow out. Because, no comms.
“I’m not leaving PRC alive to get away,” Bengal said, his tone strident, his fists clenched. “We go after them. Now. When they don’t expect it.”
The OMW were not in agreement. Neither were Marconi’s HA people. Things were about go sideways.
“Suggestion,” I said, as casually as possible.
Tomika slid narrowed eyes my way. Loud enough to carry, she said, “You been quiet a long time, Little Girl. You been holding out? Biding your time?”
“More or less,” I said. “Listening. Drawing conclusions. Letting things settle. You’re all correct.
All of you. We need to fight, because if they get away, they’ll know we lured them here, that someone, now their enemy, knows about them and has access to Bug EntNu comms, which, in their minds, would mean that enemy, us, has a Bug ship, which we do not.
” I said it with a straight face, willing everyone attached through me to believe that as truth.
Jagger’s lips quirked. He knew I was lying. Cupcake and Amos just stared at me, knowing I was going somewhere with this. Trusting me. That was the hard part. Knowing that if people trusted me, they might die for me. Bloody hell.
“And, yeah,” I continued, despite the lump forming in my chest. “We have video of the scene and the people just like we planned, before the storm twisted on its ass and sat down on top of us.
And, if we get lucky and get some useful vid of the fight, we have to film that, to show we did no permanent harm.
“We need to keep the potentially innocent warriors on the helos alive,” I continued.
“No killing our own. And we still need someone to make tracks out of the storm immediately after, carrying the vids, and upload them everywhere at once, with a pinned location at this site. And last, we need to scatter.” I had other half-formed ideas of post battle actions, which included making off with any military stuff the bad guys left behind, and making a tidy profit on some of it. but one step at a time.
“Go on,” Bengal said, flexing his bot-hand.
“I suggest we use what we have,” I said, “the storm, hydraulic fluid, diesel fuel, my earth mover, the Sisters’ cameras, and Jacopo’s shooting skills.” My eyes found the kid in the small crowd. “See if you’re as good as you say you are.”