The First Love Of Alipang Havens

The prison population at the Attica Self-Esteem Center had borne Juanita Porres no malice at any time; and after the death of Rick Marquette, some of the positive respect prisoners felt for him was transferred to Juanita. Prisoners were aware of how Rick, in the deliberately chosen manner of his punishing the murderer of his daughter, had simultaneously been protecting Juanita from additional gratuitous abuse by guards. If Rick had thought well of her, so should they; and Juanita had thenceforth been able to bring her old school-principal persona into use, as little interpersonal frictions between inmates began to be brought to her for mediation.

Thus it was that, on the night when the lights went out in their prison -- with no emergency generators, because horror of horrors, emergency generators might have used FOSSIL FUELS -- Juanita found herself being looked to as a leader, without any election having been held.

Fortunately, in the no-power condition, it was possible to open doors.

"First, let's call out, in case any guards are actually still here," she told the four fellow prisoners standing next to her (using her indoor voice by force of habit). When concerted shouts produced no response, Juanita's next recommendation was, "All right, let's see if any flashlights were left behind. If we find more than one, let's only turn on one of them for now, since we won't know how much life is left in the batteries."

Two working flashlights were found. Juanita appointed another woman as her segunda, leaving one flashlight with her as she waited in a cellblock with the majority of the prisoners. Carrying the other flashlight, Juanita set forth with ten others to inspect the whole prison. The only other living beings they found were additional prisoners whose cellblocks had not communicated with their own. These others had not chosen any leader in the short while since the guards ran away, so Juanita found her sudden little empire expanding.

So the search for anything useful, and for any clue to what was happening on the outside, continued with an enlarged search party. A few abandoned weapons were found, concerning which Juanita declared, "Those will certainly be DNA-keyed, and for all I know they might even explode if any of us tries to handle them. Let's not borrow trouble." On a happier note, they discovered supplies of non-perishable foodstuffs, and determined that all plumbing fixtures were still working for the present.

Juanita's short-term assessment was that the power loss had to be on a FAR wider scope than the prison alone, or else repair crews from Sustainable Energy ought to have arrived at Attica by now. Which in turn meant that serious disorder -- maybe even more senseless fighting, like what had been happening on the night when Riff Gamble had perished -- was likely to be going on. Accordingly, even apart from the technical issue of legality (in a society whose authorities Juanita no longer felt any respect for), going outside could prove suicidal.

So, repeating her reasons many times to other inmates, Juanita judged that they needed to stay voluntarily inside the Self-Esteem Center. They would build some kind of barriers at the gates, but would let any returning law-enforcement personnel know that this did not signify a prison rebellion, only a precaution against OUTSIDE rioters breaking in while the guards were away.

In the course of carrying out her plan -- which enjoyed the support of her fellow prisoners -- Juanita experienced an unexpected flashback to childhood. A Sunday-school lesson, something she had resented her parents for inflicting on her, had told of two Biblicals named Paul and Silas, who had been unjustly imprisoned just as Juanita was now. An earthquake had broken open the prison that held the two preachers; but they had stayed where they were, apparently to make a moral point about their never having been wrongdoers in the first place.

Maybe it wasn't too late to learn something from those long-gone churchgoing years. Juanita and her flock would stay put, like Paul and Silas, waiting out the crisis in relative safety, and hopefully proving a point about their own moral character.

Of course, as she was now capable of realizing, GOOD moral character was the very reason why they all had BEEN arrested to begin with. But Juanita's chosen course of action still was the best choice any of them could think of. Who could say, maybe even the rulers would learn something in the meantime.

 
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The President and Vice-President of the Diversity States didn't _want_ to learn anything, still less to be obliged to do anything about events. Megavolt Atkinson and Reed Harrison had both always known that the Fairness Party intended to make their public so completely spineless that they could eventually surrender the country to the Aztec-Maoist Party, allowing the Formenteras to enlarge the dominion of their neo-Stalinism. But just as the two colleagues and lovers did _not_ know that Jessica Trevette still was alive, so they had _never_ known that Jessica and her true insiders _didn't_ regard it as necessary for this takeover to be non-violent.

On her short meddling visit to the Bi-Continental Assembly, Meg had flattered herself that the give-away-the-store concessions she offered to Aztlan would be a historical turning point. She had envisioned herself looking supremely diplomatic, the consummate peacemaker, as she yielded the Rainbow House to its new owners. It was simply _impossible_ for Emilio Formentera to _fail_ to see how the way was being paved for him; he _had_ to have seen that further violence was unnecessary!

All the same, the Formentera regime _still_ was using armed force.

Now, Continental Marshal Yelena Gorshkovskaya was acting, by Meg's own orders, as a surrogate President, while Meg and Reed hid out in the bed of the former Lincoln Bedroom, commiserating over the fact that her brilliant Gaia-honoring diplomacy had not after all prevented fresh bloodshed. Yelena's orders were to use deadly force only against citizens of her _own_ country, while taking all possible steps to accelerate a rapid and supine capitulation of the Diversity States.

Meg remembered the classic movie Billy Jack, treasured by the Fairness Party for its militant aim of subordinating Christianity to Native American paganism. She remembered the movie's theme song, "One Tin Soldier," which sang of warmongers killing off a peaceful society _despite_ that society having already offered submission. It had always been clear as daylight that the warmongers in the song represented the racist, chauvinist, greedy, Bible-thumping, white-supremacist United States, while the innocent "mountain people" represented, well, anyone who _wasn't_ the evil horrible United States. But now, defying all Fairness Party dogma, it was A NON-WHITE, SOCIALISTIC, PAGAN REGIME which was attacking defenseless people _even_ when submission had already been offered.

Trying to force her mind away from this disturbance of her worldview, Meg snuggled closer to her part-time lover and full-time political ally, kissed him, and asked, "Say, do you suppose that Vice-Commandant Brickhouse _himself_ might have murdered Rodney?" No one in the federal government knew more about Rodney Camberville's end than the fact that he had been blown to bits inside the building he had claimed for his command post in Lubbock. Nor did they know how Jed Brickhouse and Annabelle Swain had come to have the rail rifle with which they had been so intolerant as to defend their fellow Texans.

"It's conceivable," replied Reed. "Brickhouse was a God-fascist, which is the same as to say that he worshipped death. Whether he killed Rodney or not, we'll be better off without _any_ Texas Rangers in the new order. Shall we simply skip to the good part, and broadcast our total unconditional surrender?"

"Hmmm, no, not _quite_ yet, sweetheart. We need to let the global village see that we did first request guarantees that the Formenteras _won't_ massacre all the internal exiles out of hand. The exiles are still useful workers, and we did promise China that we would do right by them. We have President Formentera's surrender demand on record; but let's wait until the Aztlanos have had time to destroy all resistance inside the Enclave. Yelena will see to it that no outside help reaches the Texans and their friends. After the conquerors have had their satisfaction against that Vasquez caveman, they may be in a better negotiating mood, so we'll get a better deal for the surviving Biblicals...."

= = = = = = = = = = = = =

The contingency plan which Ranger Commandant Brittany Pierce had agreed on with Mexican President Andreas Garcia recognized that secession might have to be enacted at a time of electrical power loss. Therefore, with the help of some Energy Department employees who secretly sympathized with the Rangers, unscheduled alterations had been made in switching and routing priorities for the power grid of the Texas Federal District. As long as even fifteen percent of the usual power supply remained, it would be possible to proceed with the emergency plebiscite which would make Monica Sotero the first President of the newly-autonomous Republic of Texas. Concurrently, with technological assistance from the secret army, the Rangers had pressed ahead in efforts to tap into Presidential-level communications.

Consequently, when Yelena Gorshkovskaya transmitted through a supposedly secure channel the order for all Texas Rangers to be disarmed, disbanded and arrested, none of the D.S. Marshals in Texas received it any sooner than it was intercepted by Rangers and made known to Ranger Headquarters in Dallas. Ranger Sergeant Zella Greenlee, recently promoted both for her merits and because recent Ranger casualties necessitated promotions, was standing the midnight headquarters watch; and she had standing orders from Commandant Pierce to guide her now. Her first action was to press a button on her desk, causing alert signals to go out to senior Rangers. The signal would also be relayed to the Mexican Federales. Her second action was to turn toward the two D.S. Deputy Marshals who were in the office as unconfessed anti-Ranger watchdogs, draw her sidearm, and shoot each of them through the head before they could bring their own guns to bear on her.
 
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Before the nocturnal call to revolt went out, the people of Texas had already been awake and busy, both coping with the damage done by the air attacks in and around Lubbock, and helping each other deal with the sharp reduction in electricity. No serious riots occurred anyplace in Texas.

Governor Steven Jiang, and his confidential aide Sugarstar Hamilton, had taken refuge inside an elite club which was supposed to enjoy electrical priority. The first intimation the two men had that something was amiss was when the club nonetheless did lose electricity, even though some nearby buildings still had lights on. His dataphone somehow failing to make any calls, Governor Jiang bravely ordered his younger companion to go outside, accompanied by two of the D.S. Marshals who were acting as gubernatorial bodyguards, to find out what was happening.

Waiting in darkness, Jiang could hear some kind of shouting outdoors; but it seemed like cheerful, confident shouting rather than panic. Somewhere in there he heard what might have been gunshots. About ten minutes after Sugarstar had gone outside, someone else came in -- rather more loudly. The smashed bedroom door admitted one female and two male Texas Rangers. One of the two men held a flashlight, the other a pistol, both of these being directed at the Governor. The woman was Ranger Captain Martha Pollock.

"Good evening, Citizen EX-Governor," she exulted. "You've just been retired. I was the senior officer closest to your location, so I get to deliver the good news. We've been putting out the word by every possible means: Texas has had enough of you and the UN-Fairness Party. We just became an independent nation, by an immediate and massive response from the people. Our new President is Monica Sotero, the widow of a man who was killed by your Aztlano friends. And a section of Oklahoma looks like breaking loose to join us."

Slow to grasp the distasteful reality, Jiang finally regained the power of speech. "You can't do this! And where's my assistant?"

"Your fancy-boy is alive. As for the two deputies who were with him, they made the mistake of drawing on Rangers. The deputies inside this building were smarter, and are in Ranger custody. You and Citizen Hamilton will be spending a short time in a jail cell, while we mop up your goons. When we feel ready to let you out, you will be permitted to leave Texas by the fastest available transportation. If you ever show yourself in Texas again after that, you will be killed by the first Texan who sees you."
 
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The complacency of the Rainbow House, the Presidium and the Supreme Court had helped the Texas Rangers to prepare in secret. As the sunrise drew closer, rescue and recovery efforts were proceeding in the Lubbock area; but contrary to the impression that Party minions had been given, hardly any Rangers were involved in this work.

Some of the Rangers who _weren't_ in Lubbock, _were_ with their other most senior surviving officer below the Commandant: Captain Wade Sampson. His team had its own objective: a building in Houston which had formerly been a bank, and whose vault was now a storeroom for military-grade weapons. This arsenal was extremely modest by modern standards, in keeping with letting _nobody_ in America be so well armed as to worry the Chinese; but it would be a valuable improvement over what the Rangers had been allowed to possess for ground combat in the whole time that they had served under the Diversity States.

The electrical engineers collaborating with the Rangers had made _sure_ that the powered door to this vault would not be able to open until the Rangers were in possession of the building. A mixture of Marshals and Commerce Inspectors were vainly trying to get the vault open, when snipers with old-style hunting rifles and new-style night-vision gear took down the officers they had on watch outside the building. Captain Sampson and six fellow Rangers came in through the windows, and mowed down all their enemies inside, excepting two Commerce Inspectors and one Deputy Marshal who surrendered and were spared.

"Give all their sidearms and ammo to people on The List," Sampson ordered. He was referring to a top-secret list of Texan civilians which the Rangers had maintained since the Fairness Revolution. These were men and women whose good character was well known to the Rangers: persons who knew how to use guns, and who could be deputized if the day for an uprising ever came. Technicians loyal to Texas would deactivate the DNA-recognition restraints on the weapons.

Sending an encrypted signal to his power-industry allies, he soon beheld the vault door opening, courtesy of some computer hackers who were also on the side of the Rangers. "Bring everything out and inventory it!" said Sampson. The haul consisted of:

-- Four suits of energy-reflecting body armor, formerly property of the Overseers.

-- Three rail rifles of the same type as the one Ranger Swain had put to such good use.

-- Three portable rocket launchers, with five rockets each.

-- Two 40mm mortars, made to launch non-lethal infrasonic-shock bombs, and ten trank rifles with three ammo clips for each. The Rangers were as glad for these as for the deadlier weapons, for they didn't really want to take any more human lives than was absolutely necessary.

Another of the light patrol helicopters descended, flown by Ranger Sally Pitt. She had not happened to be on duty at the time Finnegan and Jessup made their flight to glory; so, by default, she was now to be promoted to lieutenant and assigned as acting commander of Ranger aviation, pending the question of whether Emilio Vasquez, who was senior to her, ever came out of the Western Enclave alive again. Sampson told one of his snipers to go with her, taking along one of the rail rifles for his own use, plus one of the mortars and two of the trank rifles. Lieutenant-Elect Pitt and her gunman would fly to Ranger Headquarters; the weapons they carried would be deployed to help defend that building, and Miss Pitt would join Commandant Pierce in trying to keep the revolution organized and moving. Sampson ordered her to don one of the protective "mirror suits," as her life was now especially important. Then he divided his followers into three squads, the largest remaining under his own command; the rest of the captured military-grade weapons would be divided up to equip all three squads. They would then await the Commandant's orders for where to strike next.

Before taking off, Sally Pitt told Captain Sampson, "While I was waiting for you to be ready for me, I heard some good news. A bunch of District Police and Commerce Inspectors in Oklahoma, under hasty orders from whoever's in charge in Washington, grabbed a mag-lev train and raced for the Aztlano border, in order to BLOW OPEN the border fence and _invite_ the scragging gangsters _into_ the D.S.A. as conquerors!"

"That's _good_ news??"

"The _next_ part is. A squad of Transport Police came over to our side, seized the train, and requisitioned the explosives the krins were going to use on the fence! When it was known what had happened, a crowd of civilians came and volunteered to join them if they were for secession. And they were!"

"Hoo-ee! We might could bring all the Okies along with us to freedom!"

Wade Sampson did realize, however, that the hopes for such an optimistic outcome would also be affected by hemispheric politics. It remained to be seen whether Mexico would let itself be thwarted politically from extending the immediate offer of alliance which President Garcia had promised.
 
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Inside the Enclave:

Emilio Vasquez possessed no details of the uprising by his fellow Texans, but a code signal had reached him so that at least he knew it was happening. This might result in Mexico becoming politically free to come to the Texans' aid; but even in the best case, no such aid, in any form, could conceivably arrive in Wyoming sooner than the middle of Friday morning, September eleventh.

Before any orders for unconditional surrender came to Rapid City from Washington, the Energy Undersecretary had decided that two could play the electricity-stopping game. The invaders had not yet reached even the southernmost power plant before workers had shut off the current flowing into Aztlan, and had done as much as they could in a short time to wreck the connections so that their enemies could not soon get the power flowing again. Bill Shao and Purvis Kroll had been among those coordinating this bit of scorched-earth tactics.

By now, in the final hour before sunrise, all non-combatants should be clear of the most immediate threat zone. Emilio, at this moment, was above the east-west line of ridges which passed south of Casper, flying solo recon in old Number 343. His canopy had built-in light amplification, so he could see his way without advertising his presence by active radar emissions. He was aware that the Aztlanos were likely to split in three directions. None of the power stations for Nebraska Sector were as close at hand as the numerous plants to the north and west, so Emilio expected that the smallest number of enemy troops would head east, more to guard the flank (and look for chances to rape and plunder) than anything else. A larger force would move westward, to seize Gas Hills and other energy facilities. Emilio believed that the largest force would continue north: to capture power plants in that direction, to occupy or destroy Natrona Airport, and to gain control of the railways.

The Commerce Inspectors commander, the same woman who had been prompted by the Chinese to cooperate with Peter Tomisaburo, had selected those of her personnel who she thought were least likely to lose their nerve and run away, and had flown these down to the vicinity of the recycling center, where they were placed under the command of Forest Ranger Kostas Demophilos. This group would act as skirmishers, to slow down the Aztlanos' eastward thrust which was likely to be all infantry. To the west, the Transport Police were standing by to defend the Gas Hills uranium refinery, using the defensive earthworks which exile workers had previously prepared. The Transport Police had heavier weapons than the Nebraska contingent, including their shotgun-like flame-shell guns; but of course, these had nothing like the range of the rail guns mounted on the armored personnel carriers. Accordingly, starting more than four kilometers away from Gas Hills, some explosive devices had been rigged along the enemy's line of approach, in addition to the several already-existing pitfall traps.

This battle plan left the "Sky Rangers" free to attack the center column of the enemy, without worrying about hitting friendlies on the ground. No ground resistance would be offered until the enemy advanced as far north as Natrona and the evacuated city of Casper. That was where the civilian volunteers, including Alipang Havens, Henry Spafford, and Peter Tomisaburo, would hopefully be able to inflict casualties in daylight, from their holographic ambush.

Right now, by Emilio's orders, the Ranger detachment's Great Condor was acting like the military of a sovereign Republic of Texas, and following the example of Colt Finnegan -- bringing the fight to the enemy. Taking a circuitous flight path, Saul O'Keefe and his crew had crossed into Aztlano airpace, where much of the enemy's air-defense radar had been disabled by the loss of Diversity States electricity, against which they had forgotten to prepare in their smugness. And right now, they were attacking President Formentera's followup ground forces which were moving up the former Interstate 25.

An encrypted report came to Emilio's cognitive radio. As he had hoped, the enemy troops had no air cover, because they had not believed it would be needed. Sweeping in from the west on whisper mode and unleashing its complete load of air-to-ground ordnance, the helicopter gunship first crippled all of the armored vehicles that were most likely to be able to shoot it down with railgun fire. Then, with its rotary cannons, it massacred more than a hundred enemy footsoldiers. The whole attack took less than a minute; and when Saul O'Keefe made his escape, he left behind him an Aztec-Maoist army that was feeling a lot less like swaggering.

Communications intercept informed Emilio -- and it was only to be expected -- that the rear-column officers were frantically reporting to their forward elements that the gringos had pulled off an ambush. Emilio counted to ten, giving the forward hostiles time to react in shock; then he sped forward to make his own modest contribution to the counter-offensive.

One of the railgun-bearing armored vehicles, with what looked like fifteen infantrymen walking along behind it, was scouting ahead of the rest of the lead force. This probe was almost to the ridge line; once past there, it could easily shoot projectiles toward Natrona. But Number 343, in her first-ever sortie as an attack aircraft, swooped up to strike before the quasi-tank could cross the hills. Emilio used two of his three particle-beam shots on the vehicle, because he was unsure how much penetration his relatively weak energy weapon would achieve.

It achieved enough. The armored carrier instantly went dead in its tracks, not moving and not attempting to return fire. At the very least, its electrical systems would have been destroyed, rendering the vehicle unusable. With luck, the crew inside would have received a lethal dose of radiation, if not been slain outright.

Emilio was already flinging his chopper sideways even as he noted the success of his attack. As further evasion against small-arms fire from the infantrymen, he activated the anti-gravity device which the spy from India had given him so many days ago. The seeming tablet computer had been attached to Number 343's underside all this while, waiting to be used at need. Now it proved its worth: Emilio's helicopter flew straight up faster than anyone on the ground could have guessed was possible. In fact, it rose as fast as it physically could without breaking off the rotor blades. This, Emilio suddenly realized, must have been something the Indian engineers had calculated for when planning the energy level of the anti-gravity generator.

Successfully dodging all the initial return fire from the ground, Emilio let them have the last shot from his beam weapon. At least two enemy soldiers fell down dead, and the rest must have been able to smell their flesh cooking. The survivors exercised the better part of valor, sprinting back southward at Olympic-athlete speed. Of course, Emilio now equally needed to retreat.

With a drop in altitude, he turned for Natrona. A rushing noise passed above him as he did so. A railgunner farther south must have acquired him somehow; if he had not changed altitude just as the gunner was about to fire, that shot would have killed him. He hastened to interpose the ridge line between himself and all rail guns, just like that time sheltering behind the Stegosaurus with Juan Riquelme, and flew for home barely three meters above the ground.

It felt good to have struck back at the barbarians. He would not soon be able to recharge his particle beam; but the enemy didn't know that. So now they had an additional menace to worry about.
 
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Chapter 137: The Frontless Battlefield

The Undersecretary of Eco-Sensitive Agriculture was known to have commandeered a helicopter belonging to her own department, to escape from the Enclave into the questionable safety of the browned-out federal districts. In fairness to her, there was some legitimacy in her explanation that she had to oversee emergency food distribution outside the perimeter, since the regular means of feeding the proletariat were now handicapped. For five years, the government had been _arresting_ citizens (outside the Enclave) who tried to grow _any_ food independently; so a great part of the American public really _didn't_ have anything to eat now.

The Undersecretary of Distribution continued to hide fearfully in her quarters deep inside Harney's Peak, offering vague excuses to the effect that she was inventorying emergency supplies in the underground shelters. The Undersecretary of Sustainable Energy was as usual the most productively occupied of the three women, supervising workers who were trying to repair the power lines leading outward to their nation at large. This required her to supply emergency codes to shut off the infrasonic minefields, so that the crews _could_ enter the perimeter zone. They had been slowed down by a single armed Aztlano helicopter, which, while not daring to tackle the Texas Rangers' Great Condor, had succeeded in going unchallenged flying over a bit of Kansas and into the Enclave's Nebraska Sector. Coming upon a repair crew that was working on the destroyed connections for Great Plains Federal District, with Kostas Demophilos' force not near enough to pose a threat, the helicopter had slain five workers with machinegun fire. The news of this was demoralizing all the electrical workers.

Rapid City itself was thus left without much in the way of leadership. A spontaneous committee was formed on Friday morning for civil defense and damage control, with the hasty approval of what remained of any kind of police in the Enclave capital. Members of this committee included persons as diverse as Avery Glass (whose daughter Lenore and son Larry had both been injured in the missile attack, but not fatally), the elderly Estelle Upton, the pedicab driver Ignacio Balubal, and the sometime exotic actress Osmawani Jalil.

Samantha Ford had been invited to join this committee and make herself useful; but she had opted instead to clear out, along with Hydrogen Forbes and Zimmo Garland, as soon as they could get seats on something that could still fly. Samantha was clinging to the hope that she could restore her diplomatic credentials by having some role in the grovelling surrender of the whole Diversity States to Aztlano conquest.

= = = = = = = = = = = = =

In Wyoming Sector, meanwhile, the population of Casper was camped out on and around the small rock buttes near Teapot Creek and the Montefiori sheep ranch. This was the same piece of territory across which Kim Havens had ridden with Lynne Wisebadger last year. Kim had later commented that the place reminded her of Masada in Israel. Kim's mother-in-law Cecilia was now hoping that this comparison was nothing prophetic.

Pastor Wayne Schell, Dalbir and Sarbar Pitafi, Tilly and Miguel De Soto, and Reuben Torvill were acting as this camp's de facto governing committee.

Rudolfo Montefiori, having previously managed to transfer much of his livestock farther north, set about to butcher several ewes and lambs that were still with him, in order to feed these refugees. He was not asking for any money; but he did not refuse to accept the "In case we survive this" I.O.U.'s which some of the families from Casper presented to him.

As for another natural leader of the internal exiles: Eric Havens, over Cecilia's objections, had stayed behind in Casper. With him were some teenage boys and girls who had been in training to become Grange volunteers, plus Texas Ranger widow Rosa Cantu. The crisis of the Aztlano invasion had led to a startling turn of events for Eric and Rosa: they were both carrying guns.

After the downfall of Nash Dockerty, Enclave authorities had looked through the traitor's personal effects, and had found what the Deputy Commander of the Overseers must have regarded as collector's items: an old-style but still functional lever-action rifle, a double-barrelled twelve-gauge shotgun, and ammunition for both weapons. The Forest Rangers had been allowed to keep these weapons, in case a use might turn up for them. Now the use existed.

In the midst of the frenzy of evacuation, Forest Rangers had given the two guns to Eric and Rosa, who knew how to use them, and asked the two still-active senior citizens, not to seek a gunfight, but to observe what they could of enemy movements, in case the enemy came as far up as Casper. Which did seem likely.

Wilson Havens had pleaded to be allowed to join his grandfather's squad, but had been reminded by Eric that all the volunteers with Eric were older than Wilson. Strictly ordered to stay with his mother, grandmother and siblings, Wilson found something to do upon reaching Teapot Creek: taking a shovel and beginning single-handedly to dig trenches for cover in case of gunfire.

Eric and Rosa had also been given another item unusual for exiles: two walkie-talkies (like the rifle, old but useable), whose frequency could be received by all of the parallel police forces. Eric had assumed a callsign of Overbite, and Rosa would be known as Pecan Tree. The addition of the teenage volunteers, who had bows and knives, had been the teenagers' own idea.

Eric had no contact with the ambush party Alipang had joined; but the old dentist could and did ask God to protect them all.
 
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(From post #1750)

"And the new Pope is from Brazil."

Not too shabby. Missed guessing the ACTUAL first non-continental Pope in over 1000 years by 1 country over!
 
Eric had three boys with him, while Rosa had four girls under her command. Eric's party set up an observation post in an empty house along Garden Creek Road, while the female scouts were up within the city, in fact on the rooftop of the Federal Merchandise Center. Alipang's ambush squad was to the southeast of his father, on the south slope of the modest-sized Casper Mountain, overlooking Beartrap Meadow County Park. Eric imagined that Rosa's party would be relatively safe, with plenty of time to flee if the enemy got past the holographic ambush.

Eric did not know just how many utility tunnels existed under this part of Wyoming, despite his elder son having had an adventure inside one such tunnel. Still less did Eric realize that Jessica Trevette was alive, and had provided the Aztlanos with charts of these passages.

The above-ground assault force was not proving so aggressive since they had been hit from the air. They had not, after all, fought a real slug-it-out war in the brief history of the Aztec-Maoist Republic; terrorizing defenseless victims was more the style of Los Malignos and their ilk. When some of the Enclave defenders -- not Alipang's group -- sent a holographic illusion of a Texas Tu-95, the Aztlano center force wasted a great amount of railgun ammunition trying to shoot down the non-existent threat.

While manning his post, Eric saw to the west what he believed to be the Texan detachment's ambulance helicopter. There had been talk of trying to tranquilize the enemy with the old lithium chemtrail formula, although the recent Islamist insurrection had proven that there was such a thing as immunization against this gas. Perhaps the medical helo was going to try laying down some trank-vapors against the enemy detachment which was engaging the Transport Police; Eric wasn't sure.

The main body of invaders finally worked up the nerve to advance again. Seven of the armored personnel carriers with the rail guns came into view, crossing the ridge line where they could and evidently making for Natrona. Infantrymen -- or uniformed gangsters -- accompanied them in ordinary motor vehicles.

"Dartboard, Picnic, Trampoline, Pecan Tree, this is Overbite!" Eric barked into his transceiver. "Seven jumbo burgers being served on the patio, with plenty of fries." Even amid peril, it amused him to be using the code language that had been hastily trumped up. Dartboard was the command callsign for the Texas contingent; Picnic meant the team of Energy Department workers who had projected the airborne illusion, and who were also in the middle of trying to rig up jammers to spoil the enemy's communications; and Trampoline was Alipang's group. Dartboard and Picnic acknowledged Eric's transmission; Trampoline was keeping radio silence, lest their little surprise be spoiled. As for Pecan Tree---

Eric watched as a twin-engine passenger plane came from the north, passing directly above Casper Mountain, bearing down on the armored column at its top speed. This plane was remote-controlled by a Texas Ranger technician, so no one died when it was demolished by a railgun projectile. Shooting forward on its momentum, the wrecked aircraft crashed on the road in front of the enemy column, bursting into really impressive flames thanks to the extra fuel that had been loaded on board. With its line of march blocked by an inferno, the Aztlano force veered to pass through Beartrap Meadow Park: exactly where the defenders wanted it to go. Eric was reporting what he saw of this, when Rosa Cantu's voice cut through his transmission.

"Dartboard, Overbite -- Pecan Tree! Hotdogs on sale at poolside!" This meant, unbelievably, that hostiles were in or near the Merchandise Center. When Eric tried to call Rosa back, he could not raise her; nothing else was coming from her walkie-talkie. But by plain hearing, Eric suddenly made out a faint sound of gunshots from Rosa's direction. It was not automatic-weapon fire, it sounded just like a Winchester in an old cowboy movie. The rifle got off half a dozen shots before answering automatic fire seemingly silenced it.

Eric turned to his young Grange-apprentice companions, handing his radio to one of them. "We've been flanked; must have been through tunnels!" (Eric had long known that the Merchandise Center had a basement; maybe it connected to one of the utility tunnels.) "Mount up, quick! Skirt the city on the west side. Remember, you push to talk, let go to listen. Report anything you see, but avoid contact. Move!"

The teens obeyed their dentist. The dentist was the only one of them who had not come here by horse; Eric Havens was a far better bicyclist than an equestrian. Slinging his double-barrelled Remington over his shoulder and hopping onto his single-seat bike, he pedalled at his best speed toward Rosa's post. He was hoping that some of the airborne Texans would reach her long before he could; but as he raced north, he neither saw nor heard sign of them.

Coming up a street, he heard voices in two languages from a parallel street. One language was Spanish; the other, unfamiliar language seemed like something Asian. One of the Spanish speakers said something about being glad to be in the fresh air again; another said something about having "gotten rid of the old one;" and the first added something about "young nurses treating our wounds." The Asian-sounding ones must have understood the Spanish-speaking ones, as they began laughing.

From the cover of a fence, Eric sighted the raiders: thirteen men wearing police-style body armor and carrying assorted firearms. All but five of these men had suffered wounds of some kind, though all were ambulatory. Four of the unwounded men were dragging along Rosa Cantu's four girls. There was no sign of Rosa -- except that one raider was carrying her lever-action rifle, which grimly implied the brave old lady's fate. It was plain that Rosa had made them pay a price for her life. The teenagers might also have done some damage.

But it was no mystery what the raiders now intended to do with the Grange girls. No doubt they were moving southward because they expected their friends to be rolling into town any minute; also, it was possible that the tunnel they had followed went no farther northward than its terminus at the building where they had emerged. Right now, halting in the front yard of a house, they slammed their captives onto the grass, preparing to commence their cruel amusements.

All through his years in the Enclave, Eric had lived in dread of seeing Cecilia, Harmony and Kim violated by Overseers or suchlike ruffians, with himself powerless to intervene. His wife, daughter and daughter-in-law had been spared; but these teenage girls were not going to be so fortunate.

Outrage took over; and a dentist who had never lifted a weapon against any human being in his life, set out to make up for lost time.

Giving the thugs a moment to get their attention well fixed on their victims, Eric then sent his bicycle rolling toward them from one side of a house, to distract them. He ran around the other side, coming out where he could get a line of fire. One raider was standing where Eric could shoot him with no danger of hitting any of the girls; aiming at a body part which seemed unarmored, Eric sent his buckshot into the man's legs, rupturing both femoral arteries. When another man turned to see who was shooting, Eric put his second shot through this man's face. All this he had done on the run; he continued around the back of the same house in whose front yard the gangsters had paused.

While out of sight of the gunmen who were spraying bullets into the house, Eric reloaded the shotgun. An old lawn chair stood close to the corner around which he would come; he kicked this chair ahead of him -- and reversed his own course, doubling back as the hostiles shot the chair. Returning the way he had come, Eric found himself face to face with another enemy trooper who had followed him. This man being ready to fire, Eric's only advantage was his adversary's expectation of coming up behind him. He gave this man both barrels in the face, then dropped the shotgun to snatch up the automatic rifle. Aztlan being less technologically sophisticated, he dared to hope that this weapon had no DNA-recognition requirement.

It did not.

There was noise that suggested an attempt by the Grange girls to fight their surviving captors. In response to this, Eric shouted at the top of his lungs, "GET AWAY IF YOU CAN!!" Then he fell back, reasoning that if some raiders came around the house to get him, his own fire at them would not hit the teens. He had the good luck to be able to shoot through a corner of the house: that is, in one window and out another, felling an enemy with bullets through the throat. He wounded another as they came after him...

And then something struck him. He expected to die, but then he realized that it felt more like being hit with a trank dart -- something he had experienced once during his captivity. The man holding a trank pistol shouted something in the Asian language, then drew near as Eric sank to the ground. Before losing consciousness, Eric heard the man switching to English to address him:

"Kali devour me if you're not one of their leaders! Yes, we do know some about the people who live here. I can promise you that your death will not be ordinary, Doctor Havens."




 
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Scanty though the defending forces were, there were enough of them to keep Emilio Vasquez jumping as the effective commander of the defense effort.

Ranger Glenn Souter had in fact taken the medevac helicopter to try chemtrailing the western segment of the aggressor force. The event had proven that some of those Aztlanos were not immunized against the lithium formula, but some were. The immunized ones had put numerous bullets through Glenn's aircraft; he had been able to limp away toward Natrona, but the medevac helo was not going to fly again without extensive repairs.

The light-artillery-grade rail gun from Frontier Plaza, for which Leroy Lincoln had obtained ammunition, had been mounted on an overland truck, which then started southward along the same west-edge recreational trail on which Henry Spafford had rescued Odette Galloway last year. Tipped by Forest Rangers patrolling that boundary of the Enclave, the railgun crew had driven off a company-strength Aztlano ground force coming in from a new perimeter breach. The gunners had also gotten lucky and shot down the single Aztlano combat helicopter to have entered Wyoming airspace, when it came around to try to support the western force.

There was no chance of Inspector Lincoln coming back into the Enclave anytime soon to lend further assistance to the defenders. The latest word Emilio had of the Great Plains Federal District was that it was one of the districts hardest hit by the sudden power shortage. The majority of proletarians in that district had not plunged into still more brawls, being already too tired and disheartened for that. But it was bad enough that hundreds of thousands of them were cast adrift without utilities or food; Leroy Lincoln, and the police officers who had previously been inside the Enclave with him, had their hands more than full just conducting emergency civil-defense procedures, trying to keep the civilians under their care alive.

The four-engine airplane which the Texan detachment had fitted with four particle-beam projectors had not been sent against the enemy center, since it carried no blur-projector and Emilio judged that it would only be shot down by railgun fire before it could get close enough to the enemy column for its low-strength beams to have any effect against armor. So he had ordered Brianna Wallace to take her ship against the infantry force on the Aztlanos' right. Kostas Demophilos' combat team had been holding well, albeit with casualties, when Brianna devastated the enemy from above, using up about half of her available beam power. Friendly reinforcements were now coming down from South Dakota Sector, led by Grange huntsman Porter Hennepin, to secure that flank.

The Texans' Great Condor was almost out of air-to-ground ordnance, because much of its supply had perished in the missile strike on Ellsworth Airfield. At this very moment, Saul O'Keefe and his current crew should be finishing one more counterattack on the enemy rear. Besides the two bombs and single air-to-ground missile remaining, Emilio had instructed Saul to use the sonic stunner now fitted on the gunship -- and to fire his rear-facing rotary cannon back at the hostile troops as he came out of each pass.

Now an encrypted call came from Saul over the cognitive radio: "Dartboard, this is Flapjack! Dartboard, Flapjack, must meet you at Point Fajita for offline conference!"
 
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Sergeant O'Keefe's call was followed by a group of code symbols, which meant: Secure channels may be compromised, must speak in person. Accordingly, Emilio set his chopper on the ground, behind one of the low hills in the neighborhood of Natrona Airport. He kept his engine idling while awaiting the Great Condor's arrival.

He was not waiting long. The gunship came in from the west, and landed facing him, its own counter-rotating rotors also still idling. It had been flying with one seat empty. Roosevelt Hill, the specialist in brain-linked fire control, had been on the first sortie; but that had come right after many waking hours, and since the latest sortie had not needed very complex weapon control, Roosevelt had been allowed to rest back at headquarters. Saul had gone out this time with Lester Buckley, and the new woman Perlita Ramirez; one less crewmember also meant conserving fuel.

Emilio had begun climbing out of his cockpit, expecting to speak with his second-in-command, when he noticed two things. No one was getting out of the Great Condor.... and all three persons in the larger helicopter were looking at him in a way that seemed -- wrong.

Not waiting to think or question, Emilio hurled himself back inside his cockpit, one hand slamming the control switch he had installed for his new anti-gravity device, not waiting even to get his door closed. Number 343 shot straight up into the air, as the Great Condor's two forward-facing guns opened fire, taking pieces off of the smaller aircraft's landing skids.

With side door still flapping loose and seatbelt unfastened, Emilio swung his helo directly above Saul's; for the latter was already trying to get airborne. Keeping directly overhead, Emilio could block his attacker from ascending. And the only weapon Saul had which could shoot right up above the rotors was the blinder laser mounted atop the rotor shaft. Saul fired this, but polarization of Emilio's canopy foiled that attack. Emilio shouted into his radio, using the callsign for the airfield guards, but from there used plain speech:

"Fiddler, this is Dartboard! Fiddler, Dartboard! Mental-warfare attack! Enemy has gotten control of O'Keefe and his crew! Personality change! O'Keefe and crew tampered with, cannot be trusted!" He was saying this in order that others would know about the unexpected Aztlano trick in case he should be slain. All the while he spoke, he was matching Sergeant O'Keefe's movements, as the reprogrammed Ranger dodged one way and another, trying to get clear so he could climb and shoot at his commander. Emilio had him stalemated: Saul O'Keefe was piloting the more advanced helicopter, but Emilio Vasquez was the better pilot.

With one hand, Emilio pried his fire extinguisher loose from its bracket, then dropped it out of his open door. As the metal object fell onto his adversary's rotors, Emilio lifted 343 higher, to escape damage from anything ricocheting. With a mighty clang, the fire extinguisher bounced off of, but also damaged, the upper of the two co-axial rotors. A short but violently twisting fall put the robotized Rangers on the ground.

Seeing that they couldn't fly anymore, Saul, Perlita and Lester jumped out of the Great Condor, Saul through the door on his left, the other two in the opposite direction. All were going for their sidearms.

But they had had to unbuckle their belts before they could do this, which gave Emilio time to be above Lester and Perlita as they emerged. He triggered a fresh burst of gravity repulsion from his Indian device; and since Lester and Perlita were beneath it, the force pushed them down into the dirt. While they were picking themselves up, Emilio circled around the grounded gunship; came at Saul from an unexpected direction, his rotor-wash kicking up an obscuring dust cloud; and thumped Saul's helmeted head with what was left of his landing gear. Saul O'Keefe dropped unconscious. Emilio flew back around to the other side, using his rotor-wash in the same way against Perlita and Lester, and stunned them in the same way as he had Saul.

Only then did he set down his own helicopter, which he saw had taken some bulletholes at the last moment. Using suspect-restraint binders from the supply he always kept on board 343, he tied the hands of his mind-altered friends behind their backs, tied each one's ankles together, and collected their guns. Then he took a hasty look at the Great Condor's external-ordnance points. The ground-attack weapons had never been dropped, and the rear-facing rotary cannon seemed to have its full belt of ammunition unused.

So they never did make their latest ordered attack, Emilio realized. Yet they did make real attacks previously. Whoever tampered with their brains, must not have been able to get a signal through to them earlier to turn against us. What method of tampering? Best guess is, an enemy agent slipped nanobots into Perdita before she came into the Enclave; she unknowingly passed them to the others she worked with....

He realized that his radio had been squawking while he had immobilized his assailants. Hurrying back to it, without even waiting to identify who was calling, he shouted, "Flapjack rendered harmless, but other tampering is possible! Take Roosevelt Hill into custody RIGHT NOW; get him scanned for injected nanobots A.S.A.P.! If he proves clean, get him to Point Fajita, and mechanics with him. Bring a replacement blade for Flapjack's top rotor!"

Once he had his acknowledgement, Emilio returned to the Great Condor. Apart from the question of who could be trusted to fly it, it would not fly again till its upper rotor was repaired. But since it had a fully-loaded automatic cannon to offer....

Fetching the toolbox which went with the gunship, Emilio detached the rotary gun, and hauled it with its ammo belt to the best spot he could find to shoot from -- at the enemy armored vehicles which would be on top of him in minutes. Spreading his flight jacket on the ground beside the gun, he set the ammo belt on the garment, so that the shells would not get dirty and jam the cannon barrels.

With all this going on, Emilio so far was oblivious to the capture of his father-in-law. Not that he would have been able to do anything about it now if he had known.
 
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Though seldom using it, the Texas Rangers at Natrona possessed a sleep-inducing helmet, like the one once used by the late Father Dunak Okigbo at the time of a secret meeting in Onitsha. Because of having been continuously awake for so long, Ranger Hill was now using the helmet. But when he was awakened by Dave Swims-In-Flood, the man who had just spoken with Emilio, he offered no resistance to having himself scanned for nanobots. The scanning device was one which the federal government had begrudged to the Texans; but Leroy Lincoln had had one, and had "accidentally" left it with Emilio's detachment when he was withdrawn from the Enclave.

Besides Dave and Roosevelt, the only Texas Rangers even at the airfield right now were two female mechanics. Transport Police Sergeant Pasquale was there too, with one other man from his own force, helping to guard the field. Other Rangers, those not airborne, were in scattered sniper posts, shooting at the Aztlano patrols which were spreading out over Wyoming Sector. Glenn Souter, deprived of his helo, had gone out on horseback to get a piece of this action. Dave wanted to be out south in the fighting with his Lieutenant; but the mechanics would be needed at Point Fajita, and _someone_ from among the Rangers had to man headquarters, whether Roosevelt was clean or--

Not.

"I swear, I'm not conscious of any change in myself," said Roosevelt, when the scanner showed nanobots inside his head. "But I know you don't dare trust me now. Unless you plan to shoot me, you can render me harmless by putting me back to sleep with the helmet, until you can get that Finnish guy's ultrasound array down here to kill the nanobots inside me."

It was as good a solution as any. But before being put back to sleep, Roosevelt told Dave, "Listen! Remind Emilio how the brain feed shifts to the corresponding firing solutions as the weapons officer _thinks_ about each weapon in turn; and when the black cross icon appears, it means that the weapon under consideration _can't_ currently hit the target under consideration!"

"Do you think Emilio can use the brain link _while_ also piloting the Condor solo?"

"Probably not; he hasn't had enough training with the link, he could get distracted. But if he can _borrow_ a pilot to fly him in the Condor, he'll do well enough on the weapons."

"Thanks, Roosevelt. Now, better get back to sleep, till we can guarantee that you still _are_ yourself." The temporary base commander assigned Frodo Von Spock to keep an eye on Roosevelt. When this was attended to, Dave ran to help the two women load the spare Condor rotor blade, with its fastening hardware, into a truck. He also had them take along two of the remaining air-to-air missiles for the combat helo. Even if no enemy planes showed up, those expanding-coil warheads would also play havoc with a surface target if shot straight into it.

Before proceeding any further, Dave scanned the women and even himself. No more nanobots, thank God for nano-favors. Then he got back on the radio, calling for a reserve squad of Grange hunters to deploy and give what support they could to Emilio's vulnerable position. He next put out inquiries for an available helo pilot. A _Forest_ Ranger proved to be available, a forty-something woman named Vesta Johnson. She had been flying a passenger helicopter, moving some elderly persons farther away from the combat zone; but she was a military veteran, who in pre-revolutionary times had flown an Apache Longbow. She would be able to get to Point Fajita soon, to offer her services as Emilio's pilot while he ran the Condor's weapons.

Meanwhile, the ambush party, with Buck Washburn, Peter Tomisaburo and some Grange members, ought to be making its own attack on the Aztlanos any minute now....
 
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There at the north end of Bear Trap Meadow Park were gathered the old Texan Buck Washburn and Peter Tomisaburo, managing the illusion device; Grange volunteers Alipang Havens, Henry Spafford, Ruby Vincent, Ladira Garvey, Chung Sun-Kim and Floyd Barrington, the last of these being from east of Casper; and three additional helpers named Jeff, Willard and Herb. These three, of whom Herb was just a teenager, were among the acqaintances whom Alipang had enlisted last year to search for clues regarding the rivalries between government agencies. Now, each was waiting to hurl a Molotov cocktail at the enemy; if they survived that action, they would by Washburn's orders be among the first to beat a retreat.

Alipang was as well armed as he had been the whole time he had lived in the Enclave. Besides his bow and arrows, hatchet and sheath knife, he had thrust through his belt a length of pipe about the size of an Escrima stick -- for luck, he told himself. And for extra luck, he had with him his gift from Brendan Hyland, the custom-made balisong knife. While not having so far found many occasions to use this balisong for anything of importance, he had examined its blade -- and had found that it seemed to be made, not of steel, but of a modern colloidal composite, possibly one of the new diamond-based synthetics. It could, at any rate, cut into a rock. So at close quarters, it might prove to be the next best thing to Peter's awe-inspiring micro-whip.

Henry, Sun-Kim and Floyd all carried the bows, knives and axes typical for Grange riders. Henry, in addition, had with him the steel-shafted spear he had made for himself. Ruby and Ladira, as was their habit, had crossbows: losing speed of shooting to gain more distance and penetration per shot. Floyd Barrington had once been a teacher of the deaf... till the Fairness Revolution had celebrated the completion of the lives of his students, as being "burdens to society." Now, in deaf-dumb sign language, his hands were praying for God to protect the ambush team.

The Aztlano column was approaching the point at which it would be closest to the holographic landscape-illusion behind which Peter Tomisaburo's party lurked. Ranger Washburn, reaching a hard-sinewed arm through the confusing mirage inside which they stood, tapped Alipang's shoulder twice. A moment later, with the hologram not yet switched off, Peter Tomisaburo sprinted out of it.

He had less than seven meters to cover, and he covered them as fast as was humanly possible. He dashed so fast that he actually ran _into_ the leading armored vehicle, cushioning the collison with one arm.... while his other arm swung the micro-whip, effortlessly slicing away a large section of the vehicle's armored body. This part fell forward, becoming a giant wedge which halted the machine's forward motion like a doorstop. Peter was already springing in front of the crippled vehicle, putting it between him and any hostiles farther back who might want to shoot him. His cutting of the forward armor left enough of an opening that he could see the astonished driver stupidly peering at the sudden window that had opened before him. This driver died an instant later, as Peter let out more length of micro-wire and made an inward flick which sliced away the top half of the man's head. Keeping the wire moving, he struck higher, cutting the mounted rail gun and its gunner to pieces. It would be good to capture one or more of these weapons intact, but at this early stage self-preservation trumped prizes.

Four Aztlano infantrymen riding in the back of the stricken vehicle also opted for self-preservation, diving out the rear door.

Peter's friends were not leaving him unaided. Four conventional arrows, and two crossbow bolts, had already flown to slay the first six enemy infantrymen who could be reached by the archers. After this volley, and while the male Grangers were nocking, drawing and loosing again, Ruby and Ladira ran southeastward out of the holo-mirage, together with Jeff, Willard and Herb. Alipang's three friends flung their firebombs into the middle of the Aztlano column, while the two women were cranking up their crossbows as quickly as they could. Screams went up from suddenly-charred footsoldiers, and two of the armored vehicles collided as one swerved in an attempt to avoid the flames.

But not every Aztlano was rendered ineffective by the surprise. A turret rail gun discharged -- and Ruby Vincent's body exploded from the impact of a projectile, which went on to shatter a tree behind her.

"Run!" Ladira Garvey ordered her companions; for it had been planned in any case that these five persons would run for safety once the Molotov cocktails had been used and a second crossbow volley had flown. Alas, even pausing for that second shot had been too long a stay for Ruby. But Ladira, killing an enemy infantryman with her own crossbow, scooped up Ruby's and killed another enemy for her, even while evading laterally. Then she joined the three men in fleeing. As it was, she and Willard both were wounded by ordinary bullets as they ran, but not fatally.

Not very many invaders had the leisure to react to the flank attack, because Peter Tomisaburo was upon them. The troops behind his first victims had never even heard of a micro-whip, and had no idea what had hit the lead vehicle. The crews of the second and third armored vehicles died still wondering, as Peter charged in with his weapon whirling. Impossibly, what seemed like an invisible sword sliced again and again, hindered no more by armor than by the flesh and bones of the evildoers sheltering behind that armor. These two vehicles were demolished in such a way that their rail guns would be intact for the salvaging, if this engagement ended successfully enough. But now, for the moment, Peter stopped attacking and took cover in the wreckage he had just created. While he was hiding, he saw and picked up a submachine gun from one of his dead foes, and there he waited for the first wave of retaliatory shooting in his direction to pass.

Henry hurled his steel spear like an Olympic javelin, destroying one wheel of the next fighting vehicle behind the wrecked ones; for these were not properly tanks, and they had wheels rather than treads. Alipang, Floyd and Sun-Kim went on shooting at infantrymen. When Henry resumed using his bow, he began sending high shots toward the very rear of the column, since his Everstrain bow had the longest range and could easily reach that far. This caused bewilderment to the enemy's rearguard.

But the most heroic of archers were not bulletproof. Buck Washburn, aware of this, played one more technical card before the enemy's reaction could get better organized: he caused the holographic projector to simulate a wall of flame, as if more Molotov cocktails had just exploded, and made this phantom flame advance against the enemy. Besides giving them a scare, this also masked the locations of the Grange huntsmen, who could thus _change_ locations. Buck changed his own location, too: figuring that he had achieved all he was going to achieve with mirages, he ran to the far side of the enemy column, which had not yet been attacked. With a Tek-Nine in his right hand and a hair-triggered revolver in his left, the old Texan began shooting down as many exposed enemy soldiers as he could. His aim was lethal; each bullet found a gap in its target's armor.

Peter saw his chance to move again. Rising from cover, he sprayed bullets from his borrowed gun into all of the space ahead of him that he was confident did not contain any of his friends. Then he dropped out of sight again, as two railgun projectiles ripped through the space where his head had been, and sprang to the east.

Alipang, Henry, Sun-Kim and Floyd poured arrows into the enemy, doing plenty of damage before they lost the benefit of the flame illusion. Some of the Aztlanos at the enemy rear had started shooting blindly in the wrong directions, convinced that the arrows falling among them had to have come from someplace other than the visible ambush. But a turret gunner in the middle was not wasting his fire; he put a railgun shot into Chung Sun-Kim, whose upper body disintegrated as Ruby's had done.

The last three Grange hunters realized that they, plus Peter who was making his way toward them, were all that was left. There was no sign of Buck, and no more sound of his shooting could be heard. So, having caused the enemy far more losses than the defending side had suffered, they felt themselves entitled to retreat. Floyd made as if to try to save the holographic unit, which was on a wheeled cart; but Alipang yanked him behind a tree. "Just get clear! But I'm going to try to see if Buck is alive."

 
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Fleeing halfway over, halfway around the hill overlooking Beartrap Meadow, Henry paused long enough to send another long-range arrow at the holograph unit they had been obliged to leave behind. His arrow struck it hard enough that he could feel sure the enemy would not be able to use the device. Changing cover, he put two more arrows through the bodies of Aztlano troopers who were threatening to overtake Peter. For his own part, Peter sliced the trunk of a tree on the hillside, at such an angle that the tree would immediately fall toward the pursuers, making them cautious.

In this manner, Peter, Henry and Floyd made it out of sight of the enemy; and half a kilometer to the northeast, they could see that Ladira and the men with her were also getting away. The next move was to head for a fallback position within Casper. At the same time, they would see what they could find out about the unexpected enemy appearance at the Merchandise Center, which had been called out so briefly over the radio. The need to counter this menace was the only reason why Henry was leaving Alipang to his own devices.

While running, Henry finally had leisure to grasp the fact that today, for the first time in his life, he had slain fellow human beings. He knew that his Amish friends, with the possible exception of Ransom Kramer, would want him to feel guilty and ashamed over it.... but the Fairness Party would _also_ demand that he feel ashamed, and to heck with _them!_

Meanwhile, Alipang was carefully circling around to pass behind the disrupted enemy column. He did not bother feeling even a flicker of guilt for slaying some of his foes today, for he had already been over that ground, half his lifetime ago. But if the truth were known, _fear_ was another matter. Every past time that he had ever been in any kind of combat, he had at least been able to see how many antagonists he had, able to see what they were doing. Today, by contrast, he had been in a battle with too _many_ foes to keep track of; he could at any instant have been felled by a chance bullet not even intended for him. That was scary, because of the randomness it introduced into fighting; he could do everything right, and still get killed. He had not let this fear prevent him from doing his part.... but as of now, he had an increased respect for his friends who were war veterans.

With only two arrows remaining, Alipang had one on his bowstring, and the other loosely held by his left hand at the same time as holding the bow. He was almost even, in north-south terms, with where the center of the Aztlano column had been, when four soldiers came into view from the trees, moving from his right to his left. They were probably looking for Ladira, Jeff, Willard and Herb.

What they found instead was Alipang's last two arrows, and his hatchet. Each arrow perfectly pierced a man's throat; the hatchet, flung as Alipang dropped his bow, struck the third soldier's helmet, failing to break through the helmet but stunning the wearer. On the run in an oblique approach during these three missile attacks, Alipang had his belt knife in one hand and his length of pipe in the other as he closed upon the fourth soldier. The improvised Escrima baton forced the man's gun barrel down just as he began to fire; the knife gashed a hand, making the man drop the rifle; and a second stroke of the pipe knocked him out.

Fleetingly, Alipang remembered all the times he had watched action movies, when an _unarmed_ hero infiltrated an enemy fortress... killed or knocked out a bad-guy sentry... and then _failed_ to take that man's gun. Alipang was not about to be so dumb, especially since his bow had run out of ammunition. There was no time to yank his last two arrows out of their victims' necks, for the moment of gunfire would attract more Aztlanos. Barely enough time to stick his hunting knife back into its sheath. At least the hostiles wouldn't immediately open up on Alipang with rail guns, because their own men were down-range.

Snatching up the nearest of the automatic rifles, Alipang ran several paces back in the direction he had come from. From there, he fired a long burst toward the main body of invaders. Then he threw the gun farther north, making as much noise by the throw as possible, while he dashed south again, staying as low as he could.

The man stunned by his hatchet was awake again and getting to his feet, even as others were shooting at Alipang's fake-out position. But this man's luck had just run out; Alipang swung the steel pipe so hard as to break his neck. The other stunned soldier had the good fortune to stay stunned, thus avoiding a finisher. Leaving the pipe behind in his haste, Alipang retrieved his hatchet and the latest dead man's rifle, and kept running southward, using any cover he could find.

= = = = = = = = = =

Emilio Vasquez counted only two railgun-bearing vehicles in the force that was coming toward him. Crossing open ground, these went abreast; and both were firing their EMRG's. Not at Emilio; with a little elevation of the weapons, they could easily hit the airfield behind him.

But not for long. They were already well inside rotary-cannon range. Emilio opened fire, and the whining stream of metal, if not flying as fast as railgun projectiles, flew fast enough to break both armored vehicles into scrap. Having controlled his bursts to use just enough shells on each target, he had more than enough ammo left to destroy all of the lesser enemy vehicles likewise; and then it was the turn of all Aztlano troops who had survived the destruction of their convoy.

Emilio didn't wait to see if any of them thought of offering to surrender. These were the thugs who thought it was a sport to cut open living victims on a replica of an ancient Aztec altar, and their friends had bombed Lubbock. When a few managed to find cover behind wreckage, he simply carried his weapon to a new firing position from which he could get at them. He kept on shooting until he had only ten or so rounds left on the belt, and was as sure as he could be that all of the enemies before him were dead.

When Forest Ranger Vesta Johnson arrived on the truck with the lady mechanics, Emilio hurried to ask whether they had stayed in contact with Dave at the mostly-deserted airfield. They had, and so could report that no lives at Natrona had been lost to the railgun attack, though a parked airplane had been destroyed and several buildings damaged.

Emilio had Vesta help the mechanics on the rotor change for the Great Condor, while he dragged the tied-up aviators to the truck and heaved them in. All three were conscious by now, but said nothing. Emilio checked that their bonds were still secure, saw that the three women working on repair were doing fine, then made a wide-swinging approach to the scene of carnage he had created. He carried with him not only his own pistol, but also those he had taken from Saul, Perdita and Lester. He also carried some of the tools from the regulation toolkit on board good old Number 343.

No one shot at him; his own surprise shooting had been too effective. One enemy soldier was alive and stirring; Emilio put a bullet through that man's head. Under less desperate conditions, he would have been prepared to take prisoners; but right now, the Enclave had so few defenders that none could be spared for guarding captives. Anyway, nobody in the Enclave had _asked_ the fluking Aztec-Maoists to invade. When he knew for a certainty that no one remained alive of this enemy platoon, he went to work to detach the railguns from the two armored vehicles.

One weapon was too tightly wedged into the wreckage of its mount for Emilio to free it, but the other was recoverable. Picking this up, with its electrical accumulator and as much ammunition as he could carry, he struggled back to his friends with it.

"I wish we could add this to the Condor's armament, since it's got no more than half a belt now for each forward cannon," Emilio told them. "But I realize that we don't have the means right now to program the rail gun into the ship's fire control."

"We can mount the railgun on a ground vehicle, though, just like the one that Inspector Lincoln found ammo for," said one of the mechanics. The other mechanic added, "And for the Condor, we brought you two air-to-air missiles."

"Sounds good," Emilio replied, after which he sat inside his damaged light helicopter, to get back on the radio and find out how things stood. This was how he finally learned that his well-loved father-in-law, Eric Havens, had encountered hostiles, was now missing, and was believed to be dead.

 
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Chapter 138: Things Fall Apart, The Center Cannot Hold

Camerawoman Freya Vanaheim was licensed to fly ultralight airplanes. This proved fortuitous, as most aircraft any larger than that were grounded. She and Denise Heathcock, the former Dynamo Earthquake, had previously gone from interviewing the Salisbury family to covering an erotic-dance festival in St. Louis; the latter activity had been in progress at the time the Diversity States lost most of its electricity. Denise and Freya had survived some frantic hours which both women would always wish to forget, as their efforts -- mainly Denise's efforts -- to calm the panicking citizens had yielded little result.

Helping each other to scale a fence whose alarms and shock-current were dead, they had used Freya's high-level DNA clearance for use of ultralights to commandeer one that was large for the type. After that, with Denise hanging on for dear life, Freya had coaxed the mini-plane just high enough to get away from the metropolitan area. The network supporting Denise's dataphone had electrical priority, so the star reporter was able to search for the whereabouts of someone she would sure like to see right now.

She remembered the no-nonsense conduct of Inspector Leroy Lincoln, on the day when Aztlano jets had flown over the border from Colorado to bomb Kansas. If _anyone_ in the dubious law-enforcement community of the Diversity States, not counting the Texas Rangers who were seceding, could lessen the present chaos, it would be Leroy Lincoln. Certainly _not_ Continental Marshal Yelena Gorshkovskaya, who had just been discovered to have left the country, along with every currently-serving Justice of the Supreme Court.

Right now, the vaunted Fairness Party wasn't even doing a credible job of cravenly surrendering. But Inspector Lincoln was indicated to be here in Missouri, within the ultralight's one-way flight range. Denise was thinking that, although she and Freya had been unable to get hysterical proletarians in St. Louis to listen to them, perhaps their efforts _combined_ with a police presence would avail to create an island of rationality, so that at least _some_ Americans might survive long enough to let themselves be conquered in an orderly fashion.

Northwest was their course. Inspector Lincoln and some of his officers were at or near the site of one of the deactivated concentration camps, though Denise could not find out why; she could not get a direct call through to the Inspector. But now, unlike the past, Denise _could_ pray to her Heavenly Father to protect them.

At around the time when Emilio Vasquez in Wyoming was ready to take the repaired Great Condor into action, Freya found the guidance of Denise's dataphone information leading them to descend, aiming to land on a street of a small town in north central Missouri. It was the closest normal population center to where the concentration camp had been. Had they known it, the abandoned camp was the same one where Darcie Beale the hazmat expert had once been interred. At last, there was contact with the Inspector -- in fact, he called them, his own dataphone being able to hail a wide spectrum of channels simultaneously. "Ultralight aircraft, this is Great Plains Federal District Police! Identify yourselves!"

Recognizing his voice, Denise nearly wept with relief. "Is that Inspector Lincoln? There are two of us, the same two journalists you babysat on the day when the Sky Rangers broke up a bombing attack!"

"Earth-- I mean Heathcock and Vanaheim? How about that!"

"It's us, up from St. Louis, where things are pretty bad."

"Not many places they're _good_ right now. Half the government is running away, including everyone ranking above me in my own police force! But come on in; the approach you seem to be making is as good as any right now. I'll send one of my ladies to meet you."

Landing the ultralight, Freya mentioned that they had flown the last twenty-odd kilometers on nothing but solar batteries; all fuel was expended. The ultralight wasn't going anywhere else anytime soon, so there seemed to be no point asking for someone to guard it. As soon as the policewoman sent by Leroy showed up -- on foot -- the two newswomen walked with her to the hardware store where Leroy had set up a command post.

Or a food bank. Hundreds of common citizens were lined up across the hardware store's pre-revolutionary parking lot, waiting their turn to come before a sort of serving table where some kind of food was being doled out to them. Leroy Lincoln was doing some of the feeding himself, but broke away when he saw Denise and Freya being escorted toward him.

"Citizen Heathcock! Citizen Vanaheim! Now I can ask you, are you bringing any news, or orders, from Washington? If orders, or seriously bad news, tell me in private."

Denise lowered her eyes despondently. "No orders, and the only news is the anarchy and misery that you already know about. There's probably no one managing any better now than you are. At least you came up with some food for the locals."

"Not much in the way of food, really. That stuff we're giving them was in a locked storage building still intact at the prison-camp site. All of it is made from those leftover gen-mod crops: the mutant corn that was all for making ethanol, and the mutant soy that was all for making biodiesel. Which means that I'm feeding these people _entirely_ on fat and sugar, not enough protein to create one fluking field mouse. But I've told them the truth about it, and they're eating the rations because even _that_ stuff is better than literally nothing. My officers and I are eating it too; we've given our own emergency rations to local children."

One middle-aged man who had just received his ration made so bold as to interject a word, since the police officers here had been behaving humanely enough that he wasn't afraid to speak. "The United Nations will help us. It's all a global village, right?"

"I hope so, Charlie," said Leroy, as the man made way for the next handout recipient. The Inspector then faced the newswomen again, lowering his voice. "The United States lavished disaster aid on every quarter of the world for decades, and got mighty slight gratitude for it in all that time. We can't assume we're getting outside help anytime soon. But many of the folks here will recognize you, Denise, and they respect you. God willing -- I might as well say that, since all the former Pinkshirts appear to have split for Venezuela -- you'll be able to help me to keep these citizens cooperating. Working together sure beats panicking, or having kinetic negotiations."

"At least it's not winter yet," Denise observed.

"Yeah. That gives us time to do what the old political poster used to say, but now in an absolutely literal sense: teach people to catch fish!"
 
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Fluttery Madsden, son of the former W.A.L.N.U.T. activist Burt Madsden, had been at Jane Fonda Peace College when the sudden electricity shortage occurred. But the emergency was not so immediately obvious to him and his companions as to the proletarians, because the Peace College was a priority recipient for the remaining electrical power. Fluttery had been facilitating a seminar for adolescent bioproducts of the elite, persons not much younger than himself. The subject was "How To Attach Blame To God-Fascists For Every Possible Adverse Event." The title was not a joke, it meant what it said.

One of young Madsden's first illustrations had been a television appearance by the famous Bill Maher, a man whose name the Fairness Party had bestowed on an elementary school in one federal district and on a high school in another district. Twenty-five years ago, in the context of the September 11 attacks on America, Maher had stated with a straight face that the mere fact of believing in life after death AT ALL was by nature likely to make a person violent toward others. *

The Jane Fonda campus had armed guards for the sake of the spoiled young aristocrats now present there. When the new crisis began, the nominal adults of the Fairness Party government had judged that their children were as safe there as anyplace; accordingly, on Thursday night after the seminar, Fluttery and his students had been left free to amuse themselves in the dorms all night as they would have done anyway -- with the understanding that giving pleasure to Citizen Madsden in particular would result in their being given a better academic evaluation for the seminar.

The Friday session of the seminar began as expected, with a lecture on how to cover up one's own bias when one cursed and condemned traditional families while praising every "progressive" alternative. But before lunch, it became apparent that the campus guards had run away. So had the college administrators.

Thousands of proletarians living farther out from the capital, but within bicycling distance, were converging on the Peace College because it had been seen to have lights during the night. Also because, like abused children still wanting to believe in the goodness of the abusive parent, these well-indoctrinated human cattle still believed that government was going to save them from whatever was going wrong.

Fluttery had the presence of mind to throw open the college's dining facilities and invite the people to eat. There was hardly any fighting. Everyone in the first wave of citizens, or very nearly everyone, managed to get at least a little food before it ran out. Then, inspired by the way his students were expecting him to take command, he held an impromptu rally on an outdoor stage. Since he still had electricity at his disposal, he was able to amplify his voice and project a giant hologram of himself as he improvised a speech. The crowd listened, for this was clearly a government figure speaking, and government was their provider and savior.

"Peace to you, citizens! The collective is all! From each according to her ability, and to each according to her needs! Always love yourselves! Distribution is the cure for all injustice!" Fluttery was able to recite those lines without thinking about them, buying time to put some actual thoughts together in his head. He continued:

"For five years now, you have all enjoyed the fruits of the Fairness Revolution. You have enjoyed protection from the primitive, hate-crazed Biblicals who resist all science and all progress. You have been freed FROM the fear of an imaginary Deity, so you would be free TO obey the erotic instincts given to you by Mother Universe. You promote peace in the realistic way, through the flesh rather than the spirit. Thus do you honor the memory of those champions of relational equality and economic justice who came before us, like Jessica Trevette and Trip Conklin. Today, all nations in the global village respect our oneness and harmony!

"But the reactionary forces of the nature-phobic tribal patriarchal capitalists do not go down easily. Driven by their hatred of everyone who is different from them, it was they who caused the recent outbreaks of fighting among unfortunate, deceived citizens. It is also they who have now caused failures in the usually-reliable national power grid, which the Department of Sustainable Energy and the energy-related unions have long maintained IN SPITE OF the frequent interference of oppositional defiant nonconformists.

"But I refuse to be intimidated. I call on all of you to love yourselves, and to love the collective effect of our loving ourselves. The towering menace of backward-looking theocracy will not overcome us! The vast armies of racist Bible-babblers will never defeat us! With our unity and our vision for the future, we will TAKE BACK AMERICA!"

The atheists of the Fairness party were always willing to explain away miracles as only coincidences. But right now, it happened that coincidence was about to produce a seeming miracle in Fluttery Madsden's favor. More than two thousand kilometers away, inside the Western Enclave, the Undersecretary of Sustainable Energy, leading by example, was working furiously to repair the missile-blasted power lines leading beyond the perimeter. And just as Fluttery was working his crowd up with a repeating chant of "The collective is all," the first re-connection was completed, sending restored current into the Washington, D.C. area.

Although Jane Fonda Peace College itself had never lost electricity, it did not take long for Fluttery and his crowd to discover that the power was coming back on in adjoining neighborhoods. This recovery having occurred after Fluttery had promised a "taking back of America," his audience committed the classical fallacy: Post hoc, ergo propter hoc. This representative of the government media, by sheer force of karma or something, had CAUSED the electricity to return.

Thus did Fluttery Madsden become an instant cult figure, for all the good it would do anyone.

* Maher actually did say exactly that!
 
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When Emilio Vasquez donned the brain-link headgear for the Great Condor's fire-control system, he could still see the world around him -- but it had changed to black and white. The only things with color were the displays that reported on his weapons inventory, his field of targets, and the automatically updated firing solutions. At his direction, Vesta Johnson switched on their holographic blur-projector and took them aloft. Their own sensors were filtered to see outward though enemies could not see in. The two mechanics, meanwhile, drove back to the airfield; with them went the three mind-altered Rangers, the detached rotary cannon, the salvaged rail gun, and Emilio's anti-gravity device. The last would be recharged, in the hope that its owner would live to use it again.

Before committing to any combat actions, Emilio picked up all reports he could about the scattered, ongoing battle. The first report of substance he heard was that, similarly to the sudden enemy appearance in Casper, other Aztlano raiders had just appeared inside a power station fifty kilometers west of the city. Forest Rangers led by Lyra Bender were exchanging gunfire with these hostiles, who must again have used utility-access tunnels. The power station in question was one that supplied electricity for users _within_ the Enclave. Although there were backups if that source were cut off, it was disquieting that the enemy apparently _knew_ this particular station to be serving the exiles. It was further confirmation that someone with knowledge of the Enclave was guiding the invasion.

Eric Havens still was missing; but now it could be said that if he had been killed, it had not been for nothing. Four teenage girls had just come upon Henry Spafford and his companions, and told of how Eric had saved them from what used to be called a fate worse than death.

A message relayed from Mark Terrell informed Emilio that President Atkinson was improvising. Since all members of the Supreme Court besides Tim Govinda had fled America, Meg Atkinson had begun declaring that those Justices had been part of a vast right-wing conspiracy, in league with the usual generic evil business corporations. This enabled her to characterize the Aztlanos as _rescuers,_ driving out the wealthy capitalistic reactionaries, in order to guarantee a future of blissful collective oneness.

Emilio, however, now had targets in sight. There was one more armored fighting vehicle with rail gun, the last one still operating anyplace in his view. Vesta, following prior instructions, kept the Condor's blur-cloaking asymmetrical: that is, she kept their aircraft well _away_ from the center of the blurred volume of space. Which was fortunate, for two railgun projectiles shot exactly through that center before Emilio put his air-to-surface missile on target. "There's your oneness!" he shouted, as the last major surface threat in the close vicinity blew up. Keeping his cannon shells, the two anti-air missiles and the two plain bombs in reserve, he swept over the fleeing infantrymen who had been accompanying the armored vehicle, blinded some with his ventral blinder laser, and stunned others with his sonic blaster. Those might be taken prisoner, if someone on the defending side could be found to _take_ them into custody.

Congratulating Vesta for good flying, Emilio ordered a return to base. Unless more fuel could be dug up, the Condor was good for only one more sortie; they needed to conserve that resource.

Meanwhile, in Casper, a new scouting party was forming: Floyd Barrington leading the female Grangers while Jeff, Willard, Herb and Ladira continued on toward relative safety. The teenage girls, ashamed of having accomplished so little while first Mrs. Cantu and then Dr. Havens were sacrificed, were determined to make some contribution yet, though it were only the gathering of information. The oldest of the girls had borrowed Ladira's crossbow with its remaining bolts.

As for Henry and Peter: now that the more vulnerable persons were clear of the most immediate peril, they wanted to go back and help Alipang if possible.

 
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Unaware that he had any reinforcements on the way, Alipang stalked south past the stalled enemy column with a wide separation. His latest captured rifle was slung on his back, no more of an encumbrance than a bow and and a full quiver had been. From his distance, it seemed to him as if many of the Aztlanos were trying to figure out what had turned their first three armored vehicles into metallic sliced bread, and their crews into cold cuts. Out of this confusion, action abruptly emerged: the surviving railgun vehicles opened fire across a broad arc centered north. Alipang shuddered at the realization that he had only just come far enough to be outside of that kill zone. He hoped that all of his friends were already on the far side of the hill.

His way had taken him past the mortal remains of Chung Sun-Kim and Ruby Vincent. He thought of trying to retrieve one of their bows, which would still have the advantage of silence; but that would bring him uncomfortably close to a lot of guns. As he continued south, he opened his special balisong. If he had to bring a knife to a gunfight, this was the knife to bring.

Whoever was commanding these invaders finally restored some discipline, and the column resumed its march against the evacuated city of Casper. Or most of them did. Four soldiers lingered behind, and Alipang soon realized that they were assigned to detach the salvageable rail guns from the second and third armored vehicles. Since they were so obliging as to do the work for him, Alipang allowed them to do so, while their friends moved out of sight. Four hostiles again, piece of cake.

Inching closer, he did his best to judge the right moment, when the complex weapons (which he would have had no idea how to de-install) were loose from their mountings, yet the four Aztlanos still had their hands full. Also doing his best to come from a direction where they weren't looking, Alipang ran at them with all the speed he could achieve, and vaulted onto the tail of one wrecked vehicle without stopping.

Held in his left hand, his knife severed the cervical vertebrae of the nearest man; almost simultaneously, his hatchet cracked the helmet of the next man. He then threw the hatchet at the man farthest from him; thrown, it did even less damage than when it had stunned a man in the previous encounter, but put this man off balance while Alipang pounced upon the fourth. This man was trying to raise a gun when the high-tech balisong severed his gun hand, and followed up with a disembowelling cut. The farthest man, who had been merely staggered by the hatchet hitting his body armor at an imperfect angle, panicked at the sight of how fast his friends had been killed, and tried to run away. This actually did him some good -- because Alipang made a split-second decision to risk taking one live prisoner.

Tackling the fleeing man, Alipang pulled his helmet off and punched him four times in the face, rapid fire. Then he glanced north to see if any adversaries were looking back his way. They weren't.

His captive, another of those types who were bravest against the weak and helpless, was crying and sobbing, begging for his life in Spanish: a language of which Alipang knew only a little. And the coward knew no English at all. But Alipang managed to remember how to say, "Carry those" in Spanish, gesturing to the ammunition boxes for the railguns. The man obeyed, and Alipang put forth his considerable strength to drag away both railguns.

On the way, he caught sight of the body of Buck Washburn. He _couldn't_ leave the old Ranger while there was any chance he was alive, so he went to look. Washburn was unmistakably dead. "We gave them better than we got," Alipang told him, and continued on with his prisoner and his loot, taking the more easterly course by which Ladira Garvey and the three civilians had gone, thus diverging away from the enemy column.

This was how Henry and Peter met him as they came looking for him; they had found Chung Sun-Kim's corpse, and Henry had salvaged his bow and quiver. "I see you've been busy," said Peter drily.

"Ranger Washburn?" asked Henry.

"Gone, but they've paid a price for that."

Just then, some noises reached their ears that suggested someone returning to see if the salvage crew had gotten the rail guns detached yet. "Let's gallop!" cried Henry, relieving the tired Alipang of one rail gun while Peter took the other. Alipang took one of the two ammunition boxes from his prisoner, and all four men fled.

The prisoner showed no sign of wanting to be found by his compadres. Alipang guessed that the troop commander would not give this man brownie points for letting himself be taken by surprise and letting the rail guns be captured.
 
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It seemed that they had given their enemies the slip for now. Finding their horses where they had left them, Alipang said to Peter, "You were awesome with your whip, but you don't have the same stalking experience as Henry and I have. I suggest that you take charge of our prisoner and the captured weapons. Tie one railgun with its ammo onto Sammy, another onto Cochise, put the prisoner on a horse, and mount one yourself. Here, take this rifle to make sure the prisoner behaves."

Peter nodded. "I'll join up with a police unit if I can, or failing that, I'll head up to the camp on Teapot Creek. These rail guns probably can't shoot more than two rounds apiece on their remaining internal charge, but that would sure discourage any hostiles trying to attack the camp." Henry, meanwhile, handed Sun-Kim's bow to Alipang, and placed the Korean's arrows in the empty quiver still attached to Alipang's belt.

The Chinese agent and his little caravan got underway without mishap. On the eastern outskirts of Casper, he sighted a squad of Commerce Inspectors who were hiding between two houses. They must have heard the recent shooting from more than one direction, but they obviously had not cared to go any closer to danger.

"Hello!" Peter hailed them, not bothering to call them cowards. "Here's a prisoner taken from the Aztlano force which is less than ten kilometers away. You must still have radios or dataphones, so report his capture to someone. And tell them that his armored column was badly damaged, and two rail guns were captured. Unless a competent authority has other ideas, I'm going to take them to a defensive position farther north."

The report transmitted by the Commerce Inspectors did one piece of good, at least. Brianna Wallace, still airborne in her four-engine plane (which had the virtue of long on-station endurance), heard that the enemy's center force had suffered losses, and decided to risk an attempt to hurt them still worse. Flying in from the east as low to the ground as she dared, she came upon the enemy column in an exposed position, and let them have all the charge that was left in her particle beams, taking care to hit the surviving armored vehicles first. All but one of the armored vehicles perished, as did at least another fifteen infantrymen. The last railgun mount scored on the airplane's wingtip; but Brianna kept her plane aloft long enough to get away and make a rough landing close to Natrona.

Once Brianna's crew was safe at the airfield, Emilio placed her in command there, making sure she knew what selection of weapons was now available, as well as explaining what had happened with Saul, Perdita and Lester. This freed Emilio to hop into a small fixed-wing plane with Dave Swims-In-Flood, so they could at last scout for any sign of what might have become of Eric. In case the Great Condor had to be used in Emilio's absence, Fu Hai-Sheng was to substitute for Emilio on weapons control, with Vesta Johnson piloting again.

Emilio wanted very much for his wife's father not to be dead.
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

As if to confirm further that they had prior knowledge of Casper, Eric's captors had brought him directly to The Church of the Faithful. The Asian-looking man who had made the actual capture of the stalwart old dentist here introduced himself as--

"Vinu Dandekar, special agent in the service of El Presidente Emilio Formentera. I'm told that you have an Emilio in your own family too. But I'm afraid that this is all you and I have in common. Well, maybe not all. With a little good karma, I hope also to have Cecilia Havens in common with you, and at least one of your daughters."

Eric refused to let the thug see him showing outrage or fear.

"You may not think of yourself as famous, Doctor Havens; but the forces of evolutionary progress have not forgotten your former activism on behalf of bandit capitalism, racism and theocracy. Besides which, your son Alipang once killed two men who were also part of the cause. A relative of one of those men is here with me, hoping to find your son." Dandekar nodded toward the young hoodlum from Los Coyotes Gordos. "I'm not sure what to do with you. La Bonita -- never mind that. Suffice it to say that leaving you alive, so that you can see what will happen to members of your family, has much to recommend it. Yet in case something might happen to take you OUT of my custody, I hate to leave you completely intact. So I think I'll just retire you from your dental profession; that is, unless your GOD plans to save you!" He laughed then, as if he had just made the cleverest joke in the history of humor.

"God has already saved me from things you can't even understand," replied Eric.

"Then I'll stick to things I do understand, like blood and pain!" exclaimed Vinu Dandekar. At a sign from him, the "Fat Coyote" grasped Eric's right arm and held it out straight. Then Dandekar severed Eric's hand raggedly with a large knife. Eric couldn't help letting out a cry of agony....

....which was heard by persons whose proximity was unsuspected by the raiders.
 
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