Wren dashed away, so big, and yet still so fast. I knew what she was thinking: This was our chance to get to our quarry. Our very last chance.
We ran after her. Pilate leaned on me, and his weight nearly smothered me, but the adrenaline hit. Such life, such power and energy, filled me. Thank God for our glands.
Three Cargadors chugged down what used to be Speer Boulevard. At first I thought they were ARK vehicles, but then I saw the Gammas and outlaws hanging off the sides. On the top were the grappling hooks, spools of cable, and the cannons. They were June Mai’s Cargadors all right. Behind them steamed Stanleys, running with their big legs and meshed feet.
The Cargadors chugged up to us, running full steam. In one of the big tractors, I saw our people: Nikki and Kasey Romero, Aunt Bea and Allie Chambers. June Mai’s outlaws drove the other two. Sylvia Archuleta waved at me from the driver’s cage.
“Going our way?” I asked, smiling. We still had a chance.
“We’re full up, mija, but get on the other one,” Aunt Bea said. “The Americans are still trapped behind the fences. The ARK, though, is right on our heels.”
“Just like old times.”
We climbed onboard Archuleta’s Cargador. Sharlotte, Pilate, and Baptista found handles on the outside to hang onto. June Mai took the top seat, and I crawled up to stand next to her, feeling the cold metal of the machine in my left hand, gripping my needle gun with my right.
June Mai started pulling levers and twisting knobs. She was going to use the grappling hook to pull President Jack’s Jonesy out of the sky.
“You have any practice with that thing?” I asked.
“You of all people should know I do,” she said, her eyes intense. “This time, you aren’t up there with a bazooka.”
“Best shot of my life,” I said. “And I nearly fell out doing it.”
She nodded. “Now it’s my turn.”
The Cargador chewed through the snow and we made a right on a street, heading toward the remnants of Coors Field. Crush Jones had wanted to take the bricks and build a new stadium in Kansas City, but it turned out too big of a project. Still, he’d managed to take down whole walls.
A Stanley drew up even with us. Nichola Nichols drove her, the Marilyn Monroe, fully repaired, fully loaded, and ready for a scrap.
I gave Nichola a thumbs up, and she gave me one right back.
This was it.
Our Cargadors, our running Gammas, and the last of our Stanleys burst out onto the infield of the stadium, the seats all gone, the concrete covered in snow. Weeds broke through the white crust on the ground, a far cry from the smooth grass when the Rockies played there.
June Mai, ever the commander, ordered, “Get into the middle of the field and stop! We have to anchor the Cargador before we snag that Jonesy!”
All three Cargadors braked near what had been the pitcher’s mound. A second later, outlaws triggered the anchoring clamps. Controlled explosions punched stakes deep into the frozen ground.
Our troops climbed down and set up firing lines, using the three steam-powered tractors and the Stanleys for cover. We’d need to keep the ARK’s ground forces busy while we pulled down the Jonesy.
June Mai hit the trigger on the cannon. I prayed she could make the best shot of her life. She did. The pressure from the steam engine sent the grappling hook streaking through the sky. It hit the bottom of the Jonesy with a satisfying snap.
Aunt Bea’s Cargador fired and missed but the woman operating her was already spinning the cable up for another shot. The third Cargador also fired and missed.
The Heartbreaker peppered the Evermore with her guns, but I knew they were aiming to disable her, not destroy her.
A missile streaked back to demolish something behind the walls of Coors Field. I couldn’t see what it was.
Then the Heartbreaker’s aft guns rattled, aiming for two ARK zeppelins buzzing into the battle. U.S. Blackhawks joined the fight, but every single machine-gun nest on the Heartbreaker was alive and blasting out bullets. She looked like a whale in the sky, surrounded by sharks, but she was dishing out damage in a cacophony of guns, missiles, cannons, and the glowing scream of tracer bullets lighting up the dark clouds swirling. The snow was gone, but the storm clouds stayed, blackening the day.
One of the Blackhawks took a missile to the side and went careening off to hit a big skyscraper, half salvaged, like a rotting fang on a decrepit dragon.
“Here they come!” Baptista yelled.
From the holes in the walls of the stadium, not just one Octo, but hundreds. They moved in a slither of arms, legs, and tentacles, lashing out, firing rifles, throwing grenades. Cuius Regios sprinted in after them, moving slower, but wanting our blood just as much.
A second glance. These Octos weren’t the perfect specimen we fought before. Some of these creatures had short tentacles, only a few dozen centimeters long. Others limped on misshapen legs, and others only had a few eye-dots on their thick skulls—most of their faces white bone.
“Christ Jesus,” Pilate spit from where he hung off the Cargador. The priest pulled his Beijing Homewrecker and sent two grenades into the forward mutants. The explosions sent tentacles and bodies flying.
Wren leapt to the ground. She dropped her cleaver and swung up her slaughter machine. The thudding automatic grenade launcher sent shells into the oncoming horror show.
I heard Tina Machinegun’s grenade launcher go off to take out another of the Octos. They might be bullet-proof and dart proof, but they weren’t grenade proof. The smell of their cooking flesh drifted across the battlefield along with the tang of gun smoke.
One of the Octos, two tentacles blown away, stood on sturdy monkey feet and peppered
