John Ringo: The Road to Damascus

No one had any.

“All right, people, let’s get to work.”

It took Sonny an hour to reach them.

Kafari put that hour to good use, organizing her survivors, putting them to work at critical tasks, and trying to hack into the government’s military database, looking for information about the gas that had hit them. The one thing she didn’t dare do was try to contact civilian households, searching for survivors. Sonny would’ve homed in on any broadcasts from farmhouses or shelters under barns and turned them into blackened cinders.

When the Bolo reached visual distance from the opening to Dead-End Gorge, Yalena and Phil went up to the top of the dam, to monitor Sonny’s arrival. Kafari wanted to be up there, as well, but she was the only trained computer engineer left. She was the best chance they had for hacking into Vittori’s computer system. She was also aware that Sonny would not dare open fire on the dam, so she steeled herself to stay in it and continue the exacting work.

She was trying yet another attempt to break the security when Yalena shouted into her comm-link. “It’s stopped! The Bolo’s stopped!”

Kafari sat up straight. “ What? ”

“It’s just sitting there, in the middle of the road. It’s—” she paused, gulping audibly. “It’s the little boy. Dinny’s little boy. He’s alive. He’s standing in front of the Bolo. Talking to it.”

Kafari was halfway down the corridor before her chair finished falling. Careful, she told herself, slowing down to open the outer-access door with exaggerated caution. The last thing you need is to rip open your suit, now.

She reached the top of the dam and found Rachel at the edge, hands gripping her battle rifle so hard, they shook. Phil and Yalena were standing between her and the platform that would lower her to the ground — and the tableau just beyond the gorge.

“Soldier!” Kafari snarled. “Report!”

Rachel jumped and whirled around. “S-sir!” She struggled to salute.

“Are you trying to desert your post, soldier?” Kafari snarled, trying to jolt Rachel out of her suicidal anguish.

One unsteady hand came up, pointing. “He’s alive, sir!” Her voice shook. “God, he’s alive and all alone down there and that shrieking, murdering thing —”

“Has stopped dead in its tracks!” Kafari gripped the woman’s shoulder, hard. Ruthlessly shoved aside her own tearing agony, her own desperate desire to rush down there and pull Dinny’s son to safety. She couldn’t. No one could. And she had to make the boy’s aunt understand why. “It hasn’t fired a single shot. It hasn’t crushed him. Do you have the slightest idea how strange that is?”

Rachel shook her head. “All I know about Bolos is what that thing has done, in POPPA’s pay.”

“Well, I’m a psychotronic engineer and I’ve worked on Bolos and I’m telling you, that’s damned peculiar behavior. I don’t know what’s going through that flintsteel mind, but he’s stopped. And it looks like it’s Dinny’s little boy that’s done it. You know how I feel about Dinny…” Her voice went dangerously unsteady. The “Commodore’s” deeper voice made the sudden catch even more powerful.

Rachel paused in her own wild panic and terror to stare at her commander. Then she whispered, “I’m sorry, sir. I know you thought the world of him.”

“He saved my life,” Kafari said bluntly. “He and his mother. Back during the Deng War.”

“I didn’t know you were here during the Deng War.”

“There’s a lot you don’t know about me, soldier. Right now, there’s nothing we can do to help Dinny’s son. If anyone goes near that Bolo, he will fire and there will be hell to pay before the smoke clears. It’s possible — just possible — that the idea of running over a lone, helpless child is more daunting than running over potentially armed rioters in Darconi Street. Even if he’s just thinking about it, we’re ahead of the game. We’ve gained a few more minutes and that’s how I’m measuring our lifespans, right now, in minutes. The more of them he spends sitting there, thinking, the more of them I’ll have to figure our way out of this mess.”

“Yes, sir,” Rachel whispered. Then, voice breaking, “Thank you, sir. For stopping me. For… trying…”

Kafari gripped her shoulder again. “We’re doing what we can to give Dinny’s son — and the rest of us — a chance. What I need from you is vigilance. Stand guard here. Stand guard all night, it that’s what it takes. Keep watch and report instantly if that machine so much as twitches.”

“Yes, sir!” Rachel saluted crisply.

Kafari began to relax, just a few muscles here and there. “Good work, soldier. Keep me posted. Phil, I need someone to monitor military and civilian broadcasts. Things are heating up in Madison and I don’t have time to monitor what’s happening.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Lena,” she said, “I need someone to act as liaison with the urban units. The students and combat vets know you. I want you dedicated to full-time radio duty.”

“Yes, sir.”

They followed her back to the access door. Rachel, on guard at the end of the dam, was standing straight and tall again, focused on her job, not her panic. Kafari nodded to herself, satisfied, then headed for her office. “Black Dog, this is Red Dog, come in.”

“This is Black Dog, go ahead.”

She told Simon what had happened.

He whistled softly. “Now that’s unexpected. Why would Sonny stop? And why is that child alive?”

“I want to know the answer to that more than anything in this universe. I’m still trying to hack into their network to find out what they hit us with.”

“I may be able to shed some light on that, from my end. Do me a favor, Red Dog. Turn the power back on.”

“Turn it on ?”

“Yeah. Trust me, it’ll be worth it.”

Kafari said, “Okay, babe, you got it.”

She relayed a message to her engineer, who was on permanent duty in the power plant. “Turn it on?” he echoed her confusion.

“That’s right. We’ve had an official request from our urban partners.”

“Well, okay. Whatever you want, sir, we’ll get it done.”

Simon’s voice came through again just as they reached her office. “Grid’s back up. Good work. I’ll keep you posted.”

“Thanks,” Kafari said, voice dry.

He chuckled, then signed off.

She put Phil and Yalena to work, then dove back into her own efforts to break into POPPA’s computers. She was so involved, Phil’s abupt yell nearly brought her out of her chair.

“Look-it this!” he shouted, yanking up the volume on a P-News broadcast. “Holy mother-pissin’…”

When Kafari saw the screen, she understood his shock. Somebody had blown a hole through the dome of Vittori Santorini’s Palace. A really big hole. As in, the dome was gone. It was still smouldering, lurid against the night sky. Federal army units had surrounded the Palace in a defensive ring, bristling with artillery and lesser weaponry. The reporter on the scene was babbling into the camera.

“—unclear on President Santorini’s location. He is believed to be in the Palace, as he was broadcasting from the studio when the missile struck the dome. Security is unbelievably tight. A curfew has been declared city-wide. Anyone trying to approach within a kilometer of the Palace will be shot on sight.

“A group of urban rebels has taken full credit for the strike, in retaliation for the brutal massacre of half a million helpless refugees in Klameth Canyon, tonight. It is not yet known what the full situation in Klameth Canyon is, but reports are coming in that a war gas was released in the canyon on orders from Vittori Santorini, himself. Other reports indicate that Commodore Oroton is still at large and that the Bolo has stopped moving and is refusing to obey any orders issued to it. We’ll have more on that situation when we can make contact with the federal troops at Maze Gap…”