Resistance: A Hole in the Sky

^{CHAPTER ELEVEN} WHAT’S YOURS IS MINE

Having successfully attacked the federal base and split his forces into three groups for the 290-mile trip home, Judge George Ramsey and twenty-two of his regulators were making their way through a narrow river gorge when the Leapers attacked. The Chimera were roughly the size of dogs, but because of their long, pointy tails they bore a vague resemblance to scorpions.

One or two Leapers would have been no match for such a large party of humans. But hundreds of the creatures were pouring out of caves in the rocky slopes on both sides of the shallow river. More than that, they had the advantage of height, and many were able to leap onto their victims from above. Once they gripped the outrider’s head with their forelegs, the monstrosities opened their jaws wide to expose needle-sharp fangs. That was the last thing some of the humans saw as they were dragged off their horses to die in the river.

The whole thing happened so quickly, and the stinks attacked with such ferocity, that Ramsey and his entire party would have been killed had it not been for drills held at regular intervals during the journey. Ramsey was mounted on a huge Clydesdale named Thunder. As the attack began, he jerked the horse’s head around and made a grab for one of two sawed-off shotguns holstered to either side of his saddle. “Form a circle!” he shouted. “Protect the pack animals!”

Ramsey’s voice was barely audible over the staccato roar of gunfire and the screams of panicked horses as their riders fired at the Chimera. Some of the stinks were blown apart, but there were plenty more, and they kept coming. Ramsey fired both barrels in quick succession. Each blast of double-ought buck struck one of the airborne monsters and produced an explosion of blood as Thunder trampled a squealing Leaper beneath his massive hooves.

Then it was time to holster the first weapon and draw the second. The first shot went wide as Thunder took an unexpected step to the right. But the second struck an already wounded Leaper full-on and blew half of its skull away.

Then Thunder was part of the defensive circle. Ramsey pulled the Clydesdale around and kneed the big animal into line. The pack mules, each of which was loaded with a portion of the loot taken from the federal facility, were milling around at the center of the formation. Some of the braying animals were tangled up by then and began to nip at each other. But none of the regulators had time to sort the mess out.

The river ran red with blood as Ramsey and the surviving members of his party fired hundreds of rounds. Projectiles chewed up both the Chimera and the surrounding landscape as each man blasted whatever was directly in front of him. Three of the horrors took a rider named Carter down. All four of them perished as a hail of projectiles chopped the surface of the river into a bloody froth.

The battle came to an end about a minute later as the last of the Leapers launched a suicidal charge and fell in successive waves. “God damn it to hell,” Ramsey said as the firing finally stopped. “It seems like there’s more of the bastards every day. Hunter? There you are! Let’s find out how many casualties we have. And why didn’t our scouts warn us?”

“I don’t know,” the hard-faced outrider replied. “But I got a feeling they were cut down without getting a shot off. We’ll find ’em upriver.”

“That makes sense,” Ramsey agreed darkly. “They might hit us again. So let’s keep our eyes peeled.”

It took the better part of fifteen minutes to count heads, treat the wounded, and get the pack train straightened out. Unfortunately, one of the pack mules had been killed and part of its cargo destroyed. Ramsey still had more than four thousand doses of Hale vaccine left, however. That was enough not only to supply all of his workers but to protect lots of other people, too. All of whom would be required to swear fealty to him.

But that was in the future. At the moment, Ramsey had other matters to attend to.

“Tully is in a bad way,” Hunter told him. “Doc took a look but says he ain’t gonna make it. Tully asked for you.”

Ramsey was reluctant to dismount. Because at 290 pounds that was a chore. But if Tully was dying, then it was Ramsey’s duty to speak with him.

Hunter accepted Thunder’s reins as Ramsey swung a meaty thigh up and over the Clydesdale’s enormous hindquarters and managed to lower himself to the ground without assistance. That was a personal victory of sorts.

One of the regulators was waiting to escort Ramsey downstream to the spot where Tully was laid out on a horse blanket with his saddle for a backrest. It was soaked with blood, as was the pressure bandage wrapped around his chest. Tully was a tough man and knew the score. The outrider managed a smile as Ramsey knelt next to him.

“Thanks for coming, Judge. It looks like this is the end of the trail for me. Please make sure that my woman gets my pay and gear.”

“I will,” Ramsey promised. “Plus I’ll tell Mr. Perkins to scrub whatever you and the missus owe to the company store.”

“That’s right kind of you,” Tully managed. He coughed, and blood trickled down his chin. Doc Laferty was there to wipe it away. “There’s one more thing,” Tully added. “A favor, if you’re willing.”

“Which is?”

“You can’t wait for me,” Tully replied. “I know that. But don’t leave me alive.”

“I won’t,” Ramsey promised, as he struggled to his feet. “Where do you want it?”

“In the head.”

Ramsey favored a British .455 Webley Break-Top revolver as his personal sidearm. He removed the weapon from the shoulder holster under his left arm and took careful aim. The report echoed back and forth between the canyon walls, sent a bird flapping into the air, and marked mile 231 of the long journey home.

Two days after the battle with the Leapers, Ramsey and his men cut through what had once been a ranch and arrived at the edge of a huge crater. It was at least a mile across and roughly 600 feet deep. The riders made their way up over the lip that surrounded the depression and then followed a circular path down to the wreck below.

No attempt had been made to hide the path—a decision that would have been fatal elsewhere. But Ramsey knew the crater and the wreckage that lay at the bottom of it to be unique. Nobody was quite sure what type of Chimeran spaceship was interred there, or how the American military had been able to bring the huge vessel down, only that it had.

And even though there were more than 300 humans living in the wreck, it had never been attacked. Was that simply a matter of good luck? Or did the ship register on the Chimeran sensors as an active installation? If so, that reflected the hive-mind’s limitations. It could see everything its minions saw but had to process all of the incoming data itself. Some things got lost, were misinterpreted, or were assigned the wrong priority. And with no one to question the hive-mind’s conclusions, such errors went uncorrected.

The party was welcomed by a pair of well-armed guards and allowed to enter the hull via a hole that had been cut through the side of the ship. The power plant was still online, although no one knew how long it would remain that way. So the air was warm and the lights were on.

The uppermost levels of the vessel were reserved for livestock, so the horses and mules were left there, as the mayor of Shipdown came up to greet Ramsey. Piers Olmey was a tall man who had a long face and insisted on wearing a frock coat.

The two of them had a long-standing relationship that dated back to the days when Ramsey had been a district judge and Olmey had been a prosecutor. They shared a stern, no-nonsense approach to law enforcement.

Having installed Olmey as mayor of Shipdown, Ramsey knew he would be able to count on the community’s citizenry when it came to the challenges that lay ahead, and there would be plenty of them.

Because, if humans were to take their planet back, they were going to need a strong authoritarian government rather than a dithering democracy. And that was one of the reasons he had undertaken the long, grueling trip to the Arkansas National Forest: to kill the government that was taking root there before it could grow any larger.

Ramsey was ushered onto the only elevator that still worked and taken to the spacious quarters Olmey had assigned to himself. They were decorated with a variety of furnishings packed in from a Sears store located twenty-five miles away. Ramsey thought the juxtaposition of 1950s Americana and Chimeran tech was a bit off-putting, but that didn’t stop him from tucking into a huge dinner comprising of steak, potatoes, and freshly baked pie.

The meal presented an excellent opportunity for Ramsey to tell his host about the Hale vaccine and the role it was going to play in making the American Empire a reality. Ramsey had a luxuriant mustache that drooped to either side of his mouth. He made use of a napkin to dab at it as he spoke. “Not only will the vaccine provide our people with additional protection, we’ll be able to offer immunity to other communities, and bring them into the fold as well. Then, once we have enough people to form an effective army, we’ll take this part of the country back.”

Olmey nodded sagely. “The sooner the better. That’s what I say.”

Once the meal was over, it was time for the obligatory tour of the weapons factory that Olmey ran on Ramsey’s behalf. The facility was located two levels down from the mayor’s quarters. That made it necessary for the men and their bodyguards to board the central elevator and ride it down to L-6, where an obsequious foreman was waiting to escort the VIPs through a narrow passageway into the open space beyond.

Workstations had been set up all around the circular deck. As Olmey led Ramsey from station to station he provided a running commentary. “As you know, the Marksman was developed by humans based on Chimeran tech. We’re taking that process further by developing a model that allows the user to tag his or her target. That required us to sacrifice the secondary mode of operation, of course, but the Drones are difficult to manufacture under these conditions, so we believe it’s a positive tradeoff.”

Olmey paused next to a bench where a gray-haired woman was bent over another weapon. She continued to work, but her hands had begun to tremble. “You may recognize this as an Army-issue XR-13 Bellock,” Olmey said, apparently unaware of the way his presence was affecting the woman in front of him. “But as you can see, the original rotary magazine has been rechambered to fire twelve-gauge shotgun shells. Unlike the Rossmore, which has a capacity of eight rounds, what we’re calling the XR-14 can accommodate sixteen shells, and that makes it ideal for close-in combat with Grims and Howlers. As for human opponents, well, you can imagine.”

Ramsey nodded. “Excellent… Well done. Let me know when I can buy some.”

What both men knew, but never discussed in front of others, was the underlying strategy that governed who made what. While Olmey’s people manufactured weapons, Ramsey’s were producing ammo for them, and neither group had access to a large supply of both. It was an arrangement calculated to keep malcontents from rising up and taking over either community. Plus both men employed in formants, whose job was to provide early warning of any plot to remove them from power. The price of power was eternal vigilance.

After the tour was over, Ramsey was shown into the guest suite adjacent to Olmey’s heavily guarded quarters, where he looked forward to a good night’s sleep followed by an early-morning departure. He’d been absent from Tunnel-Through for far too long, and there was a great deal of work waiting to be done.

Once in bed, and comfortable for the first time in weeks, Ramsey fell asleep quickly. There were dreams. Lots of dreams. And all of them were good.

Except for the pools of light thrown down from the fixtures mounted high above, it was dark and gloomy inside the railway tunnel. Because of the mostly flat terrain, it was one of only two such structures in the state. And thanks to Judge Ramsey’s foresight, the tunnel had been stocked with supplies and sealed off during the days leading up to the government’s collapse. That included a train with a locomotive, a flatcar-mounted diesel generator, a string of tank cars loaded with fuel, and three passenger cars, the last of which housed Ramsey’s office and private sleeping compartment.

Now, as the sound of the locomotive’s horn echoed through the tunnel, Roger Shaw was filled with joy as he lifted his daughter Amy up and carried her out of the family’s cubicle onto the west walkway. “Here we go, sweetie,” he said. “We’re going to see Mommy!”

Amy had a head full of curly brown hair and a slightly upturned nose, just like her mother’s. “See Mommy, see Mommy!” the child chanted excitedly.

Father and daughter joined the steady stream of people who were headed south onto the track-spanning wooden platform located to the rear of the train. Ramsey and the final group of regulators had returned from Arkansas, and all sorts of rumors were circulating as Shaw followed the crowd to the assembly area. “The Chimera are going to leave the planet,” one woman said.

“No,” a man insisted. “I heard that they turned the entire city of Tulsa into a gigantic pod farm.”

“That’s bullshit,” another worker proclaimed sourly. “Ramsey wants to run his mouth. And we have to listen. It ain’t no more complicated than that.”

Shaw secretly agreed, but was afraid to say anything, knowing that some of Ramsey’s most vocal critics were informers. Men and women who would prime the conversational pump, get someone to agree with them, and turn the sucker in for a favor of some sort. And he couldn’t afford to wind up on Ramsey’s shit list, not so long as the bastard had Monica under his control, and there was Amy to look out for.

So all Shaw cared about was the fact that Ramsey had returned. Because if the judge was back, then Monica should be back, and he couldn’t wait to see her. But as Shaw joined the crowd behind Ramsey’s passenger car, and maneuvered his way up front, there was no sign of his wife on the riser where Hunter and the others were gathered.

So Shaw felt a bit uneasy as Ramsey emerged from the passenger car and stepped onto the platform. His toadies led the tepid applause. The judge was resplendent in a gray cowboy hat, snowy white shirt, and string tie. A black suit and a pair of gleaming boots completed the outfit. “Thank you!” Ramsey said, as if in response to genuine applause. “It feels good to be back in Tunnel-Through after a successful campaign. It’s my pleasure to announce that our brave regulators were able to dig the pretenders out of the hole they were living in—and destroy the fake democracy they planned to impose on the American people.”

The toadies clapped. So everyone including Shaw did likewise, and Ramsey beamed happily. “But that’s not all,” he continued. “Not only were the usurpers trying to seize control of our country, they had developed a vaccine to protect themselves against the Chimeran virus, and we brought more than four thousand doses home!”

This line didn’t generate any applause, largely because Ramsey’s toadies didn’t understand what their leader was talking about. “Think about it, my friends,” Ramsey continued. “Once vaccinated, a Spinner bite won’t mean anything more to you than an accidental cut would. Clean the wound, cover it with a bandage, and you’ll be ready to go. And, because you are members of this community, every one of you will receive a vaccination during the next five days.”

Ramsey’s announcement was greeted with a moment of silence, followed by genuine applause, as the citizens of Tunnel-Through realized how fortunate they were. Not Shaw, though, because Monica was still nowhere to be seen, and there was a growing abyss where the bottom of his stomach should have been.

The workers and their families were dismissed a couple of minutes later, but Shaw carried Amy up onto the riser, where he was able to intercept a man named Martin Lewis. “Excuse me, Mr. Lewis,” Shaw said formally. “But I was given to understand that my wife Monica would return with Judge Ramsey. Is she here? And if so, could we see her, please?”

Lewis had been a rancher before the Chimera took over, and his face was still brown despite many months of living in the tunnel. A network of wrinkles radiated away from his beady eyes. They rearranged themselves as he frowned. “Shaw, isn’t it?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Wait here… I’ll see what I can do.” Lewis disappeared into Ramsey’s passenger car, and five long minutes elapsed before he returned. Shaw tried to read the toady’s weather-beaten face but couldn’t. “Follow me,” Lewis said. “The judge would like to speak with you.”

Those were ominous words, because such a summons was rarely a good thing. “Where’s Mommy?” Amy wanted to know, and Shaw kissed her forehead.

“I don’t know, honey,” Shaw said, as he followed Lewis into the richly appointed railroad car. “I hope we’re going to find out.”

Two men, both armed with pistols, stood to either side of the doorway that led into Ramsey’s office. The judge was seated behind a large desk. It was covered by a green blotter and stacks of paper, each held in place by brass apothecary weights. Ramsey had removed his jacket by then, which meant the Webley was visible, as was his enormous paunch. Ramsey nodded as Shaw entered, but he neglected to get up, or offer his visitor a seat.

“I’m sorry to say that I have some bad news for you,” Ramsey said, as he selected a cigar from the box at his elbow. “As you know, your wife agreed to carry out a very important task on my behalf. And things went well at first. But then, according to what a couple of witnesses told us just before we shot them, she warned the so-called President that we were about to attack. Her misguided act made no difference to the outcome. But our casualties were unnecessarily high as a result of your wife’s treachery.”

Ramsey paused to clip the end off the cigar, strike a kitchen match on the underside of his desk, and turn the enormous tube of tobacco over the flame. Then, once the cigar was drawing to his satisfaction, he resumed speaking. “A small group of people escaped the complex,” Ramsey intoned, “and your wife may have been among them. But, given the overall situation, and the speed with which they had to depart, I believe it’s safe to say that all of the worthless scum are dead by now. Do you have any questions?”

Shaw felt a terrible sense of sorrow. Somehow, deep inside, he knew the story was true. Monica was dead. But he felt a strange sense of pride as well. Because even though her decision to give warning ran counter to her best interests, not to mention her family’s, the act had taken courage. A great deal of it. “No, Judge,” he said stoically. “I don’t have any questions.”

“Good,” Ramsey said, as he released a puff of smoke. “Because I have very little time to waste on either traitors or their families. I told your wife that if she betrayed me I would banish you and your daughter to the badlands. And that’s exactly what I’m going to do. Lewis! Take them away.”

Shaw felt as though he was part of a living nightmare as he and Amy were escorted through a maze of side tunnels—and from there to a hatch that opened onto a ravine. Then, without so much as a word, the steel door closed behind them. Shaw put his daughter down on the ground and looked around.

Next to the hatch was an exhaust port, through which Shaw could hear the distant rumble of a generator. There were no other sounds. The Chimera owned North America, sunset was no more than two hours away, and all they had was the clasp knife in his pocket and the clothes on their backs.

“Daddy, I’m hungry,” Amy proclaimed. “And I’m cold, too.”

Shaw wanted to cry and swear at the same time. But he couldn’t. Not with Amy holding his hand. “Come on, honey,” he said gently. “We need a place to hide.”