John Barnes - The Last President

Of course if they ever learn to make decent bows or slings, or start using guns, that fence is cover for them, and we’ll be in deep shit. But you have to take your bet and play it.

Abby spoke beside her. “Captain, rockets are—”

“Boats! Coming around the point to the east!” a voice shouted from the tower.

Abby whirled and ran toward the beach.

Highbotham looked over the reserve force on the patio. Confidence comes from seeing confidence, she reminded herself, and took an extra moment to tuck her dreads under her kerchief and tie it tighter. “Reminders, people,” she said. “Hair where it can’t fall into your eyes. Shoes on tight. Check all weapons again . Stick close to your squad leader; if you get separated, regroup here. If it all turns to—uh, if it all goes into the soup, this is where we’ll make our stand.”

They were all looking past her, down toward the landward fence. She turned to see a stream of tribals coming up the road, still too far away for the rifles or crossbows in the firing pits.

When she turned back, she saw boats rowing in across Punnett Bay. “All right, our guests are arriving,” she said to her reserve squads. “Showtime soon, but nothing we can do till the range closes. Stay loose till we’re needed, breathe, relax, check your weapon.”

Shit, how did Jebby Surdyke get into Squad Nine? She’s only twelve, she should have gone with the little ones.

Most of the kids at the Caribbean Academy of Mathematics were orphaned or separated from their families in the chaos after Daybreak; some had been street kids, back before. CAM offered hot meals, a safe place to sleep, and as much instruction as they could manage to children with mathematical talent. Highbotham privately defined “mathematical talent” as “homelessness and hunger,” but she thought phrasing it as a scholarship helped the kids find the pride they needed to work at their studies.

“One more order, everyone. No matter what happens tonight, live . The world needs your brains.”

“Br-r-rains,” an unidentifiable voice said, like a movie zombie.

She saw many of them freeze, anticipating one of the Captain’s famous tirades. Not tonight, guys. “ Right. Keep yours, don’t let anyone spill them. A famous general pointed out that you don’t win by dying for your country, you win by making the other son of a bitch die for his. He was right, despite his being Army and a West Pointer and a bigoted old asshole.” And I hope he was right that you use language like that to people going into battle.

The landward mob of Daybreakers was fanning out from the road as they rushed the fence. As they came into range of the firing pits, Newberry Standard rifles flared and banged. A few leaders carrying spirit sticks fell.

The Daybreaker swarm kept coming. Crossbow bolts flicked into the front ranks, now, and more fell, but still, losing leaders did nothing to slow the raiders. They all knew the plan: move toward the plaztatic enemies of Gaia and kill them where you find them.

At the fence, the first wave didn’t even try to take cover, grabbing and climbing till they hung up on wire, blades, and bottles. The ones behind piled against them until the human wave stalled, and bolts and bullets stabbed into the accumulating crowd.

If the Daybreakers had numbered in the thousands, as they had in the human waves that had swept away WTRC and threatened Pullman and Athens, they might have carried the fence and destroyed the observatory and CAM in a matter of minutes, but counting and guessing, Highbotham thought there were only four hundred at most. Still, that was enough sheer pressure to begin to crack the stone fence from its foundation, toppling stones set in the poorly cured, inadequate mortar.

Henry and two of his team leapt from their pit and ran toward the fence, each carrying a bottle bomb. Those had been Henry’s idea: guncotton made and dried in the bottle. While the guncotton was still wet and therefore safe, the little ones had scratched the glass all over with a cutter. Then they had dipped the bottle in animal glue, and rolled it in shredded metal, gravel, and broken glass as if breading a deadly chicken leg. A paper-wrapped squib of black powder—really just a big firecracker—glued into the neck a couple of weeks later, after long drying in the sun, had completed the process.

At about twenty yards from the wall, all three of them struck matches, touched the fuses, and threw the bottles into a high arc toward the screaming mob. One bottle bomb burst impressively, knocking down half a dozen people; in two seconds, the Daybreakers behind the dead and wounded stepped over and closed up the hole. Another bomb disappeared into the crowd without any effect. Henry threw so hard that his bomb sailed over the heads of the crowd, bounced, tumbled, ignited without bursting, and scooted around trailing hot white exhaust like a firework.

As Henry and his two grenadiers ran back to their pit, one fell, clutching her leg; Henry, turning back, fell beside her.

Instantly the other CAM students in Henry’s pit rushed forward. Shit, that’s a hole, gotta plug it. “Squads Nine, Ten, Eleven, follow me! Twelve and Thirteen, watch for Abby’s signal in case she needs you!”

Highbotham ran down the grassy slope with three squads just behind her. The pits on either side were firing, but Henry’s pit had been the center of the line, and Henry had been commanding this whole side of the defense. I hope he’s still alive so I can chew him out about excessive personal initiative.

A Daybreaker rose atop the stone fence, drawing his bow; he fell backward with a crossbow bolt in the eye. But the bowman that followed him leapt down into the cleared space and loosed an arrow into the press of Henry’s squad; someone screamed.

Highbotham’s small force flung themselves prone in the firing pit and wriggled forward to the mounded dirt at the front. Several Daybreaker bowmen were over the fence and shooting, and more were climbing in over their dead.

She drew her black-powder revolver, leveled it on crossed wrists, and brought down two bowmen on four shots. Homing missiles were a lot easier. Beside her, little Jebby was working her crossbow with grim efficiency. Okay, kid, from now on you can kill with the grown-ups.

“Squad Ten, hold this pit and keep up firing,” Highbotham’s voice was as unnaturally clear and calm as a language lesson. “Squad Nine! Squad Eleven! We’re going down there to bring our people in. Stick together. Nobody leaves early and nobody gets left. On my call, three, two, one, now .” She jumped, and felt them jump beside her.

With her revolver emptied and no time to reload, she pulled the cutlass from her scabbard. An old martial arts freak named Bobby had taught her the dhao , which was similar; she hoped—

On her right.

Raising an ax over his head.

Her hands were already moving in the bamboo cut. The blade tip bit into his neck and broke through his collarbone; he fell over backward, almost dragging her cutlass out of her hand. She glanced back, saw a man behind her raising a poleax to strike Jebby, and her cutlass turned in her hand as it passed low across her front, flew back past her thigh, and struck upward into the man’s lower ribs faster than she could think any of those words, jarring against her hand as if she’d hit a sandbag with a mallet. He froze and stared. Her blade continued up and around, the tip parting shirt and skin all the way to his shoulder, rose past his head, and came back in a neck-high slash that cut his windpipe and carotids. It felt like parting a rope.

Staying with her blade, she faced forward again, and seeing the way clear, advanced to Henry in two big leaps. Her cutlass beat down an enemy spear tip on her flank; in a two-handed grip, she let the cutlass ride up beside her body, then whipped it full force down across the man’s skull. She wrenched her sword clear of his head and whirled toward something moving in the corner of her eye.