“I knew it!” she replied, before realizing how untrue it was. “What I mean is… I knew this was all wrong. Us sitting here. Them going to the pharmacy. Before leaving, he told me he was going to share a story about my mother I would appreciate. Well, I don’t. At all.” Kyla went into a defensive posture. Hands on hips. Chin up. “And he wanted you to be my babysitter?”
The Marine shrugged. “I’m sorry for doing this to you. I really am. I tried to argue it, but the president ordered me to let them get clear.” A small arrangement of firearms had been laid on the front porch, along with cartons of ammo and the small box of medical supplies they’d secured from the house in Westby. Kyla had thought it was there for their protection while they waited, but it was theirs for much longer. “Here. It’s time to change our dressings.” She held up a wide bandage, intended for Kyla’s small neck wound.
She swiped it from Meechum. “Dammit, this isn’t what I want. Sitting in a cabin nursing my wounds. We need to be out there.” She pointed down the gravel road.
“Amen, sister.”
“No, I’m serious.” She tossed the bandage and pulled the tablet out of its hiding place under her shirt.
Meechum saw her reveal it. “Oh, girl. You didn’t…”
“Don’t worry. The battery is out. No one can track us. However, I used it back in Westby to make contact with US forces in Europe. I got on a second time when we were at Devils Tower, before the bear attack. I’ve been thinking about it every second of the car ride here. Since we were stopping at this cabin, I’d planned to share what I’d done, and learned, so we could talk about it in a quiet place. My uncle was probably going to explode…so best not to do it when he was driving.”
Meechum made a whip-snap realization. “That’s why they bombed Westby, isn’t it? They tracked your tablet.”
Kyla cringed with sheepish embarrassment. “I thought I was fast enough to hide myself on the network. But listen—”
“This is bad. If the enemy draws a line between those two points, they’ll know exactly where your uncle and the chief are headed. They might also search here…” She seemed to rethink it. “We have to get you going in another direction. West is good.”
She huffed to get the woman’s attention. “Hey! Listen. It’s much worse than what you think. When I made contact the second time, some general talked to me on chat. He wouldn’t come out and say it, because of OPSEC, but I think they’re going to use a nuclear missile to destroy NORAD. I told them it was the invader’s base of operations.” She switched gears, getting more restrained in her tone of voice. “Meech, like I said, I was going to mention all this to the group tonight. If Emily and my uncle drive to that base, they’re in grave danger of being nuked. I can’t… We can’t allow them to die because of me.”
Meechum seemed unconvinced. “My orders were to protect you.”
Hands back on her hips, she stood in front of the Marine in a pose of defiance. “I’m going to find a car, drive like a maniac to catch up to my uncle and warn him to stay away from NORAD. You’ve taught me everything I know about war and fighting, and I’m thankful for it. But because of that same training, there’s no way I’m going to sit out the biggest conflict in human history.”
“You know, that should have been my line,” the other woman said dryly.
“What line? That I taught you everything you know?”
“Ha! Nice try. No, I don’t want to sit on my hands, either. But I also have to follow my orders. I’ll help you catch up to your uncle and pass the warning, but then you and I continue on our mission to stay outside of the main battlespace.”
“Unless we get new orders when we find them…” she said with a wry smile on her lips.
Meechum caught on. “I really have taught you too well, Dudette.”
“Nah, you’re an excellent Marine. You follow necessary orders. Luckily, I’m not in the military and Uncle Ted is family. Like my mom, I don’t have to do whatever he says.” Uncle Ted was right about her mother in one important regard, however. Her pacifist tendencies would have been all over the idea of Kyla sitting in a remote cabin doing nothing. But she’d been around two strong female role models for the past several days. It simply wasn’t in her anymore to sit on the sidelines.
Fort Collins, CO
“I forgot there’s no power,” Ted remarked while staring at the powerless television set. He’d jumped out of the truck and ran inside the abandoned home to tune into the local cable TV stations. If they were on, it would have meant Fort Collins still had a working studio. “They even have the Southern Solar digital-TV equipment connected to this flatscreen. This would have been perfect.”
Emily studied the living room, then walked toward the kitchen. The layout was large and sprawling. He’d purposely driven to one of the biggest houses he could find, assuming they would have the digital TV service. Since the man leading the enemy forces owned the Southern Solar network, it stood to reason if the station was still online, it was a result of his ownership of the hardware. Ted assumed it if they could hurt his local television operation, they would hurt the enemy leader. Less than a minute after she’d left, the driven woman came back in holding a phone book and a twinkie. “This will have our answer.”
“Where’d you find that?”
She somehow knew he wasn’t asking about the book. “They have everything in their kitchen. Still fresh, too.” She took a modest bite,
