“You have no idea,” I answered before I could stop myself. We’d been guessing all along.
General Eibling and her aids caught me up and we walked away from my team and toward one of the conference rooms of the Pepsi Center. There must’ve been fifty guns in that room. The security was like nothing I’d ever known.
Still, I could feel the weight of all that concrete above me.
“General,” I said, pushing my luck and hoping I didn’t break it altogether in one stupid push. “I don’t suppose I can get outside for a minute. I’m awfully claustrophobic.”
She gave me a long look. “You do have a lot of shakti, don’t you?”
“You have no idea about that either,” I said. “My whole family does. Which is why we joined to serve.”
“What’s your first name?” the general asked.
“Maggie,” I said without a thought ‘cause I loved Maggie Jankowski, the woman who’d invented the Eterna battery and changed the world. “I’m Private Maggie Cogburn.”
Eibling nodded and she and a few of her security officers walked me through the doors and out a back door.
I let out a sigh of relief once I got out under the sky. I bent over, breathing hard, the fresh air. How I loved the sky. I didn’t feel the cold, just the openness of it all, the snow, the milling soldiers, the landing pad. They’d taken pieces of scaffolding from somewhere and had cobbled together a zeppelin port. For President Jack, no doubt. Wasn’t scaffolding, but parts of the old Elitch Gardens, maybe the wooden coaster, the Twister II, though it was originally called Mr. Twister back in the day.
We stood on an area of cleared snow between the back of the Pepsi Center and the roller coaster zeppelin port.
“Much better, General,” I said with a breath. “So is that where President Jack is going to unload?”
She nodded. “Yes. He’ll be here any minute.”
Cuius Regios holding AZ3s stood around. An older woman stood with them, and I knew she wasn’t really a woman, but a Severin. I turned so she couldn’t see my face.
“Those aren’t army regulars, are they?” I asked the general.
“No, they aren’t,” she said. “We’ve enlisted some private contractors.”
From the ARK, I added in my head.
“What do you think of our operation in Denver?” Eibling asked.
I shrugged.
“You can speak freely, Private,” she said.
“Well,” I started, “seems to me it’s kind of odd. Why should the U.S. care about the Juniper now? I mean, it’s been here for thirty years, and all of a sudden America decides it needs to be cleaned up. I have questions about the timing, though it’s not my place to ask. I’m here to follow orders, right?”
“So, it would seem.” She said it lightly, but still, alarm bells went off through me, but I was in too deep to run. If it all worked out, I’d get my chance at President Jack, though I didn’t know how I’d ever get more than a few seconds alone with him.
“I guess I’ll get into trouble after this,” I said. “I didn’t mean nothing by it, though. You understand?”
She looked at me a long time and then nodded. “All of this has been out of the ordinary. I have to say, though, I like it better out in the field. I’ve been behind a desk since my tour in the Sino. As for the Juniper, it never sat well with me losing states. I understand the reasoning of abandoning the territories, but it seemed a shame. Maybe we can get them back. This would be the first step.”
“Can’t hardly believe Colorado would be a state again,” I said truthfully.
Eibling nodded and then pointed. “There he is, coming in.”
A sleek Jonesy-class zeppelin zoomed toward us, a shadow in the sky as the snow abated and the winds fell.
To the south, explosions tore through the day.
A flare arced through the air.
Then our outlaws blew the bridges. To the north, the Speer Avenue bridge. To the southwest, the I-25/Colfax exchange. To the west, not even a kilometer from where we stood, first Larimer. Then Wewatta. The smoke and debris from that last bridge rose up and we could see it, see it all clearly.
Bad timing.
All of it, a bad idea.
It was all happening too soon. Just like that, my bad plan fell apart around my feet.
And there I was, unarmed and surrounded by the enemy.
(iii)
General Eibling spun. “Intel! Now!”
I didn't move, and I pretended that I was shocked as everyone else. In fact, I was. What were we going to do now?
No idea where my team had gone. Everyone around me dashed away, but I stood there, watching the zeppelin dropping lower, The Battle of Evermore, coming in to float down to the hastily crafted zeppelin tower. Snow clung to the sides and the wind slipped around it in snowflake-laden gusts.
The Regios stayed stock-still, as did the Severin, arms crossed and her face drawn. They’d gotten the middle-aged part eerily correct, every line and every wrinkle, the drooping eyelids, and her thick middle. And yet, I knew the Severin could wipe out every soldier the U.S. could throw at her.
I heard someone talking to Eibling, about the dissidents, blowing the bridges, and about a fence line and mines. ARK mercenaries had engaged the problem but were getting hit with heavy fire. One of her underlings gave her something, a cylinder, kind of familiar.
That word, “dissident” was thrown around again and again.
First we were outlaws, then terrorists, and now dissidents. Seemed to me the U.S. couldn’t make up their minds ’cause the whole operation was an iffy proposition.
The soldier with Eibling mentioned monsters, and some kind of steam-powered battle robot, and I knew the Gammas and the Stanleys were holding their own, for now.
The zeppelin landed and Eibling and her aids ran up. I followed since I guessed I’d been forgotten in all the excitement.
U.S. peacekeepers clambered onto the zeppelin port and helped with the lead lines until the zeppelin was low enough,
