Jeff Carlson - Plague War

Gilbride shook his head and gestured for him to follow.

“No,” Hernandez said. “I have to make at least one more run for more rock.”

“Please, sir.” Gilbride’s voice was rough and wet. His sinus tissues had reacted to the desiccated air by generating mucus, which was choking him.

That wasn’t what made Hernandez search his friend’s eyes. Sir. The formality was unlike Gilbride. He knew it wasn’t necessary when they were alone. Nathan Gilbride was one of the four Marines who’d †own into Sacramento with Hernandez, and even before then Gilbride had earned every privilege. They’d been together through the entire plague year. The guilt that Hernandez felt went deep, shot through with anger and more. Gilbride didn’t deserve to be out here, but Hernandez was glad to have him, which made him feel guilty in a different way. He trusted Gilbride even if the leadership in Leadville did not. He knew Gilbride was a good barometer of how the troops were doing, and Gilbride was nervous.

“You’re no good to us if you’re exhausted,” Gilbride said reasonably. “Come on. Take a break.”

Hernandez knew better than to ignore him, but he dug into a jacket pocket to check his watch. 1:21. It was early to quit for the day, and if he did, he’d have to get a runner out to tell everybody to stop. And then tomorrow’s shift had better be short, too, or people would bitch, which meant he’d lose two afternoons’ worth of work. Damn . “All right,” he said. “But then we need to pull everyone in.”

“Not a problem,” Gilbride said.

The command bunker was no different than the rest. It was simply a trench with two tents stitched together, surrounded by rock. They hadn’t been given lumber or steel. There had been an impossible amount of stuff to drag up the mountain anyway, so the bunkers had no roofs. That made them more vulnerable to rockets and guns — and snow. At this altitude, it wasn’t uncommon to see storms at any time of the year.

There was one bene‚t to the cold. As they laid down their rock walls, they shoveled dirt into the gaps and then poured urine on it. The freezing liquid cemented earth and stone together. Drinking water was too precious, even though they’d found eight good trickles and seeps in the area.

“I pulled some coffee for you,” Gilbride said, unzipping the †ap of the long tent.

Their home was dim and crowded with weapons, sleeping bags, a bucket for a toilet that gave off almost no smell at all in the thin, biting air. Still, Hernandez was surprised to see only Navy Communications Specialist McKay inside, sitting with a tattered paperback close to her face. It was torn in half to allow another trooper to read the other part. She barely glanced at them, but then looked up again. Hernandez realized there was something like fear in her brown eyes.

“Sir. Afternoon, sir,” she said.

“Was there a call on the radio?”

“No, sir.”

But she’s jumpy, too, he thought.

Their furniture consisted of steel ammo boxes and a wooden crate that served as his desk and their kitchen. Gilbride had their stove out, a civilian two-burner Coleman. It was unsafe to cook inside, not only due to the ‚re hazard but because of carbon monoxide poisoning, but no one stayed outdoors if they weren’t on duty. Hernandez hadn’t tried to enforce this rule, either, although he encouraged his noncoms to constantly harass the troops about opening a few vents before lighting a stove.

“McKay, I need a runner,” Gilbride said, rasping. “Tell everyone to knock off for the day. Short shift.”

McKay nodded. “Aye aye, Sarge.”

She’s too ready to go, Hernandez thought. And where is Anderson? He knew that only Bleeker and Wang were up the hill, mining rock. Gilbride was too ef‚cient. The setup was too perfect and now Hernandez was nervous himself.

It’s bad news, he thought.

Hernandez felt as if he’d walked into a mine‚eld. He could only wait. Lucy McKay stayed just long enough to get an insulated mug of coffee, then ducked through the †ap of the tent, the zipper rattling.

Gilbride tipped his head toward an assortment of MRE pouches. Most were slit open, their contents eaten or traded away. “Sugar?” Gilbride asked.

“Right. Thanks.” The whole sit-down was uncharacteristic, not the brotherly gesture itself but the extravagance of it, the using today what they wouldn’t have tomorrow. If there was a tomorrow. Sipping their mugs together in the chill green light of the tent, Hernandez deliberately gave voice to the thought. “Might as well live it up, right? If this is what you call living.”

“Yeah.” Gilbride ‚dgeted, moving two pots and a canteen for no reason except to move them. “This is already about the last of it, by the way, until we’re resupplied. The troops have been going through it fast.”

“Freeze your balls off,” Hernandez agreed.

“We will be resupplied, right?”

That must be the new rumor, that we’re on our own, Hernandez thought, and he was glad again for Gilbride’s friendship. His noncoms were the best way to get information to and from the rest of his command. “It could be a while before coffee makes their list,” he said, “but yes. Of course. They know we can’t live on moss.”

Leadville wouldn’t have dumped this much ‚repower on him if they were afraid his troops might come back with it, hungry and mad, and yet too many of their supplies had been pilfered before they opened the cases. Nearly every Meal, Ready to Eat packet had been cherry-picked of its best components: candy, coffee, toothpaste. Even some of the ammo cases had been light.

“They need us,” Hernandez said.

“Sure.”

“You know you can say anything to me,” he told Gilbride after another moment, curt now, even impatient. “It goes no further. Just you and me, Nate.”

Gilbride set his dirty mug on the board where Hernandez had tacked his area map, putting it down on the Utah border where there wasn’t any ‚ghting. No. Where it rested near the high region of the White River Plateau, where rumor said their own forces had used a nano weapon against the rebels, disintegrating two thousand men, women, and children for the crime of repairing a commercial airliner. White River had hoped to beat Leadville to the labs in Sacramento. Instead, they’d been annihilated as an object lesson to the other rebel forces.

North America resembled a different continent on his maps. Nothing lived in the East or Midwest or the long northern stretches of Canada. Even the surviving populations were limited to two spotty lines up and down the West. The band formed by the Rockies was much thicker than the Sierras. Otherwise there was nothing.

Red spearheads had been drawn to show air assaults out of Wyoming, Idaho, and British Columbia. Red squares showed advance armored units from Loveland Pass, plus circles and numbers for projected unit strength down in Arizona and New Mexico. A few of the numbers were black, from old Mexico. Leadville stood nearly alone against so much effort, except for three islands of loyalists.

“There are just a lot of people pissed off at things,” Gilbride said. He indicated the map, pretending that was what he meant.

Hernandez could see how much it cost his friend merely to edge around the idea. He respected Gilbride for it. Using their brains was the best of what the Marine Corps had schooled in them, after all, and the war scattered across the Continental Divide was no longer about food and resources. Not anymore. Everyone wanted the vaccine. He knew he should absolutely condemn Gilbride for even hinting at rebellion…but all he said was, “Yeah. Yeah, it’s a mess.” And that itself was a small kind of encouragement.