Wren’s slaughter machine clicked empty, her ammo box depleted. In seconds, she had the cleaver in her massive mitts. She met an oncoming Octo and with a mighty cut—slashed the thing apart. That monstrosity wasn’t going to heal that.
The Heartbreaker saw the Octos. Their gunners pounded the ARK forces, giving us some cover. It wasn’t going to be enough—Sketchy’s new airship had the ARK zeppelins and U.S. Blackhawks to contend with.
Our Stanleys used their machine guns and missiles blasting into the Octos whirling toward us. Behind them, Regios took aim and opened fire.
Both of the other Cargador’s grappling hooks soared and struck the bottom of the Jonesy. All three Cargadors kept the airship still. All three of the spools churned, drawing in their cable, pulling President Jack’s zeppelin, down, closer to the ground. But how long could we keep the Octos and Regios at bay?
The Evermore shuddered, thrashed, but we were pulling her down. The Kevlar-covered airship blocked out the clouds, and we fought in her shadow. The Heartbreaker was still tethered to her as well. That Jonesy was caught, and the forces pulling on her were tremendous. I heard her neofiber skeleton creaking and cracking. If President Jack’s airship didn’t break, our plan just might work.
Then it all turned to crapperjack.
Octos overwhelmed one of the Cargadors. The creatures tossed out women or tore them apart with their spiked tentacles. A second later, the ARK monsters used their rifles to shoot the cable. It snapped.
Only two grappling hooks remained on President Jack’s airship. But not for long.
A grenade struck Aunt Bea’s Cargador, where my extended family were.
I locked eyes with Aunt Bea. Something passed between us, and then, another explosion struck the tractor and the vehicle was consumed in a ball of fire. It tumbled away in flames and smoke and pieces of whistling metal.
Gone. My people, the women who had raised me, were gone. We’d been so lucky for so long. But a run of luck always ends.
Allie lay on the ground with her red hair a crimson splotch in the snow. The twisted bodies of the other women lay crumpled and bloody in the snow. Aunt Bea would never cook her pork green chili and flour tortillas ever again. Nikki Breeze would get to see Tenisha Keys, maybe, if there was a Heaven for tough Juniper women. Kasey Romero would join them, and Allie would sing and sing forever.
’Cause our voices would remember her and her songs.
My heart became a sick bird in my chest. Only one Cargador remained, tethering President Jack’s airship. Three Blackhawks chopped in. Machine gunners cut one of the Heartbreaker’s leashes away.
“Cavatica!” June Mai yelled, snapping me back to the battle.
An Octo scurried up toward us.
I’d have to mourn my adopted mothers later.
I unloaded needles into the Octo’s head. One of my darts must’ve struck its brain ’cause it slumped down.
“Nice shooting,” June Mai said. “But we’ve to bring that zeppelin down!”
“That’s unlikely,” I muttered.
Two cables from the destroyed Cargadors dangled not three meters above us. Gave me an idea. I slid off the Cargador.
And headed for Wren.
She stood in a pile of Octo bodies, tentacles, legs hewn off, arms flopping in the snow. Her cleaver dripped black blood and brains.
“Wren!” I shouted, hiding behind the legs of a Stanley. “I need you!”
Wren cut another Octo down, then spun and ran to me.
I pointed to the cables dangling from the grappling hook. One was near the Jonesy’s bottom hatch. “I need to get on that Jonesy. I’ll get to President Jack.”
She shook her head, eyes blazing.
“It’s the only way. I need a boost to get me to the Jonesy. Then you all can fall back. Trust me.”
She grinned. “Little sister. Crazier. Than I ever was.”
She gripped me, and my courage left me. What was I thinking? Wren ran me over to June Mai’s Cargador. We climbed to the very top until Wren was standing on the gunner’s cage at the top. Wren grabbed me and lifted me. I managed to catch hold of the cable.
I started shimmying up even as bullets whistled past my ears.
I’d become the Octos’ new favorite target.
Chapter Twenty
PRESIDENT JACK KANTON was a politician, and like all public figures he had two faces. Like I did. We have to secret ourselves away when there are so many who don’t want to understand us. They only want to hate. When I looked in the mirror, I saw a frightened woman who couldn’t let the world see her fear. When President Jack looked in the mirror, I believe he saw his own place in history. It’s what I see now in my own reflection, for better or for worse.
—Burke, Sally Brown, My Apologies, New York: Simon & Schuster, 2076
(i)
Bullets buzzed me, but nothing hit home. Between you and me, I believe it was Mama nudging away those bullets.
The Heartbreaker bumped into the Jonesy. Women in machine-gun nests whirled about in their seats and strafed the ground with suppression fire.
Blackhawks still dogged Sketchy’s big Bobby zeppelin ‘cause they weren’t about to fly under the two great dirigibles floating above Coors Field to get at little ol’ me.
I gripped the cable with my legs and shimmied up, going fast before I lost my adrenaline-fueled strength. I couldn’t have done that climb even six months ago, but after my starvation trek to Burlington, I had the strength-to-weight ratio to make it.
One more example of God using our suffering to turn us into needlegrass.
I got to the hatch and by some miracle, it was open; the rope ladder was within reach. I pulled it out of the zeppelin and the rungs unfurled down under me. Switching from the cable to the rope ladder, I scurried up the rest of the way.
Smoke from the ruined Cargadors blew in the foul odor of cooking flesh. My stomach turned. Then I forgot about all that as I flopped into the zeppelin. I was given new smells: acrid smoke
