David Robbins - Liberty Run

ALPHA TRIAD

Blade

Hickok

Geronimo

BETA TRIAD

Rikki-Tikki-Tavi

Yama

Teucer

GAMMA TRIAD

Spartacus

Shane

Bertha

OMEGA TRIAD

Ares

Helen

Sundance

ZULU TRIAD

Samson

Sherry

Marcus

Three women emerged from the compound.

“Look!” exclaimed the stockiest of the five soldiers hidden in the forest to the west.

“I see,” said the leader of the quintet, a lean lieutenant with angular facial features. His brown eyes narrowed.

“Do we take them, Lieutenant Lysenko?” asked the third of the five men. Each of them wore a brown uniform; each of them was a seasoned professional; each carried an AK-47.

Lieutenant Lysenko nodded.

“It is big, is it not?” commented another soldier, a handsome, youthful trooper wearing his helmet cocked at an angle.

Lieutenant Lysenko, keeping his attention fixed on the trio of women 150 yards away, nodded. “The Home embraces a thirty-acre plot,” he noted absently.

“The Home!” The stocky soldier snickered. “What a stupid name!”

“I don’t know about that,” Lieutenant Lysenko remarked. “I sort of like it. The man responsible for constructing that walled compound knew what he was doing. His name was Kurt Carpenter, according to the files our informant turned over to us. Carpenter was no fool. He foresaw the inevitability of World War Three and took appropriate action. For an American, he was most unusual. Not at all like the typical capitalistic swine of his time. He used his wealth to build this place he called the Home, then gathered a select group here shortly before the war. He dubbed them his Family.”

“The Home! The Family!” the stocky soldier said, his tone laced with scorn. “I still think it’s stupid!”

Lieutenant Lysenko cast a disapproving glance at the trooper. “Were your feeble intellect the equal of your flippant mouth, Grozny, the Party Congress would hail you as a genius,” he stated acidly.

Private Grozny frowned, but held his tongue. He knew better than to match wits with the cerebral Lysenko. He also knew what would happen if he riled the officer.

The approaching women were 125 yards off.

“Was it stupid of Kurt Carpenter to surround his compound with twenty-foot-high brick walls?” Lieutenant Lysenko demanded. “And to cap those thick walls with barbed wire? Or to install a sturdy, massive drawbridge in the center of the west wall as the only means of entering or exiting to minimize hostile penetration? Was it stupid of him to initiate the practice of designating certain Family members as Warriors, superbly trained individuals responsible for preserving the Home and safeguarding the Family?”

“No,” Grozny admitted.

“It was very smart of them to clear the fields all around their Home,” interjected the youngest soldier.

“True,” Lysenko said. “Our task is that much more difficult.”

Grozny nodded at the women. “The mice come to the cats, eh?”

Lieutenant Lysenko studied one of the women. “But one of the mice sports fangs,” he observed.

One of the women was armed. She was a tall blonde with prominent cheekbones, thin lips, and an intent expression. A brown shirt and green pants, both patched in several spots, covered her athletic form. Moccasins adorned her small feet.

“What kind of guns are those?” asked the youthful trooper.

“I don’t know,” Lysenko acknowledged.

“They arm their women?” Grozny inquired.

“What is so surprising about that?” Lieutenant Lysenko countered. “We have female soldiers in our army.”

“Do you think the blonde is a Warrior?” queried the young soldier.

Lieutenant Lysenko scratched his chin, reflecting. He had not considered the possibility of the woman being a Warrior, and he mentally chided himself for his neglect. An officer could not afford to overlook any eventuality. The mission’s success and the lives of his squad depended on his perception and judgment.

“Orders?” Grozny questioned him.

The five soldiers were concealed behind trees and brush a few yards from the edge of the forest, from the end of the field.

“Move back,” Lysenko instructed them. “You know the drill. And remember. General Malenkov wants a live prisoner. We will take the blonde.”

“And the other two?” Grozny mentioned.

“Kill them,” Lysenko directed.

The quintet melted into the foliage, Grozny and the young trooper drawing their bayonets as they blended into the bushes.

The unsuspecting women neared the tree line, the blonde in the lead.

Her alert green eyes scanned the forest, probing for mutates, mutants, raiding scavengers, or any other menace. She detected a slight movement deep in the trees and stopped.

“Is something wrong?” asked one of the women behind her, a brunette wearing a faded yellow blouse and tan pants.

“I’ll tell you what’s wrong,” quipped the third woman. She was exceptionally slim and wore a blue shirt and pants, both garments having been constructed for her by the Family Weavers. “Sherry’s a Warrior.”

“What’s that have to do with anything?” inquired the brunette.

The third woman ran her right hand through her black hair. “Warriors are walking bundles of nerves,” she said. “They have to be, in their line of work. She probably heard a twig snap, and can’t decide if it’s a bunny rabbit or a monster!”

“Quiet,” Sherry declared.

“Give me a…” the black-haired woman started to speak, but the brunette gripped her right arm and motioned for silence.

Sherry raised her M.A.C. 10, listening. All she could hear was the breeze rustling the leaves of the trees, an unusually warm breeze for an October day. The leaves were red and yellow and orange, resplendent in their fall colors. She couldn’t see anything out of the ordinary, but her intuition was nagging at her mind, and over the years she’d learned to rely on her feminine intuition. It was seldom wrong.

“Should we return to the Home?” whispered the brunette.

Sherry bit her lower lip and glanced over her right shoulder at the Home. Blade’s orders had been specific: escort a pair of novice Healers into the forest and guard them while they searched for wild herbs. The assignment was far from critical. But how would Blade react when he learned she’d aborted the search because of a vague troubling premonition? She decided to proceed, but cautiously. “We’ll keep going,” she informed the pair behind her. “But stick close to me. Don’t wander off.”

The brunette nodded.

The third woman rolled her brown eyes skyward.

Sherry advanced toward the woods. She could feel the comforting pressure of her Smith and Wesson .357 Combat Magnum in its holster on her right hip.

Somewhere in the depths of the northwestern Minnesota forest a bird chirped.

Sherry paused when she reached the end of the field, peering between the trunks of the trees and into the shadows of the pines.

“Let’s get this over with,” said the black-haired woman. Like the brunette, she was 20 years of age. Unlike the brunette, she had applied to become a Healer at her mother’s insistence and not due to any innate sense of altruism.

Sherry stared at the impatient neophyte. “When I tell you to be quiet,” she informed her, “you’ll shut your mouth or I’ll shut it for you. Understand?”

The black-haired woman bristled. “Who do you think you are, talking to me like that?”

“As you pointed out,” Sherry said, “I’m a Warrior, Claudia. And as such, in times of danger, what I say goes.”