Captain Jack Bowie
and the Steel Wolf
Renegades
Sean T. M. Stiennon
Captain
Jack Bowie accelerated his bike to fifty, making the engine growl louder and
the dust fly harder from his wheels as they ground at the dry grass. The breeze also intensified, helping to
wipe away the sweat that covered his bronzed skin. His Rough Riders accelerated to match his speed, and Bowie
heard someone–Abe, he thought–let out a whoop. The open plains stretched before them,
glowing beneath the light of the Texas sun.
The
war against New America had been going on for twenty years now, on and
off. Bowie hadn't been old enough
to vote when the split had happened, when Red and Blue had gone their separate
ways with plenty of venom on both sides over the election of '32, but he had
been a soldier all his adult life.
Now, hostilities with the Blushies had caught fire after almost a year
of quiet, and there was a jamming field laid down all over northern Texas that
stopped most long-range communications.
Just about every bike squadron in the Texas Regular Army was out
patrolling, and the border forts were on the alert. There were also rumors of Renegades in the area, bands of
lawless men who didn't care for anything but their own ideas of justice, which
generally involved murdering Blushies.
Bowie kept his eyes open for any sign of either enemy.
Suddenly,
something flashed at Bowie's eyes on the plain ahead, to the left of a broad
hill. Something metal besides the
Rough Rider motorcycles was out in the desert. Another group of Texas Regular Army bikers out on patrol,
some unmapped hermitage, or something more sinister?
He
spoke into his radio–no good trying to shout his orders.
"See
that flash? Move towards it,
y'all. B, swing far left and go
around from that direction. A, on
me, please. C, would you hang back
a mile or so? All of you, get your
guns out and be ready to fire them.
Greg, Dick, you unpack your launchers and load gas shells. If there's trouble, sirs, conk out the
ones causing it."
Affirmatives
came in from the squad leaders and the heavy weapons men. Keeping one hand on the steering bars
of his motorcycle, Bowie shifted his helmet down to cover his eyes a little
more. He had lived in Texas all
his life, and this light was too bright for even him. He couldn't tell how far off his target was–light like
this could set steel miles away flashing.
He
cranked his speed up to fifty-five, then sixty. Best not to give 'em too much warning if they weren't
friendly. His and his regiment's
engines grumbled, but they could handle it for a little while, even if the
Rough Riders' bikes were in need of some repairs, which they'd get next time
they went down to Amarillo.
A
little less then a third of Bowie's men peeled off to the side and accelerated
slightly to get ahead of the main group.
Bowie's radio growled, and he heard the voice of his squad A lieutenant
saying, "Cap'n, you think it could be Blushie scouts? Or a tank column?"
"Naw. Blushie tanks are too grimy to shine,
and that thing over there isn't movin' anyway. If it's scouts, well, Blushies do most of their scoutin' by
helicopter, so it'll be a crashed one.
If they have decided to give bikes a try, I hardly think they can
outride the Rough Riders."
"Right,
Cap'n, thank you."
As
they moved closer, Bowie could hear guns cocking. Other outfits might have started shooting the air by now,
but the Rough Riders were too well-trained for that. They'd save their bullets for Blushie game.
Bowie
could make out a distinctive shape now, and it was no armored column. Right now, it looked like a heap of
metal, possibly a shelter. No
bullets were flying yet, although the regiment's dust was visible for miles
around.
A
minute later, Bowie saw what it was: A helicopter wreck. Just one copter, as far as he could
tell, that had probably taken a hit in its aft and been forced to make a crash
landing. Closer, and he could see
that it was a Crow-class Blushie stealth copter. The Blushies had been jamming the area for days, and this
explained that nicely. Trying to
sneak something through, or was it a survey expedition, and this copter was
just one of many? And who had shot
it, anyway–one of the border fortresses?
The
Secession War had been going on for five years now, and it had gotten to the
point when a few border raids, some aircraft attacks, and some gunfire along
the borders didn't make anything more than a small, middle-page article in the
big papers. The Blue and Red sides
still hated each other as much as ever, and although as far as most folks knew
there weren't any big invasion plans, killing was a part of the daily routine
for men on both sides.
Bowie
ground his bike to a halt and dismounted a hundred yards away, unclipping his
rifle as he did so. There was also
a .50 caliber revolver in a holster on his right thigh and a Texas monster
Bowie knife strapped at the base of his spine. His toothpicks, a nice little pair of stickers with six inch
blades, were down in his boots.
The other boys in the Rough Riders had similar gear, though some of them
didn't have the same fondness for a good knife. The heavy weapons boys were hanging back with their
artillery, C squadron was back half a mile, and B was out to the west on a
blank stretch of searing grassland.
That left Bowie and thirty or so men to advance towards the downed
chopper, checking their ammunition chambers.
They
moved slowly, watching for any signs of living things. Even if no man was alive, this would be
a prime rattler stake-out. The
copter had skidded across the rocky ground for a few hundred yards, and a fair
portion of the underbelly was gone, leaving a nice shaded nook for anything or
anyone around to take advantage of it.
Bowie
fired a shot into the ground when he was thirty feet away. The sound echoed across the open
country. "If anyone's in
there," he shouted, "you better get your hides out, sirs, or I'll
have my boys unpin a few things you won't be wantin' down your hole."
There
was silence for a few seconds.
Bowie was about to have Jeb chuck a tear gas bomb when a voice with a
strong New American accent called out, "All right, we're coming! We're unarmed, so don't fire!"
"Right. Make it quick, please," called
Bowie. "If you need medicine, we've got enough aid kits for the lot of
you."
The
first head to emerge from beneath the chopper's wreck was sandy-blond and worn
long in the styles common in New York City, the Blushie capitol. A blue uniformed body followed, until a
man a couple inches under six feet appeared on the desert plain. He stood, blinking, and holding a hand
in front of his eyes. The patches
on his one-piece uniform showed that he was a pilot of some sort. "Don't shoot!" he rasped,
voice dry from lack of water. "The colonel's coming out."
Four
men followed. One was another
air-force man, three were New American Infantry soldiers: Two lieutenants and a
colonel. The last one was a tall
man with a fine sheaf of dark hair and a short beard that had probably been
trimmed only a couple days ago.
His eyes were a bright blue, and he couldn't have been much over
thirty. Bowie could imagine him as
the darling of Yorker parties.
His
sidearm holster was empty, and his uniform was tight enough to show if he had
any other weapons. Still, Bowie
ordered a couple men to search them all.
One of the other soldiers had been carrying a five-inch dagger. The Rough Rider who had found it
pocketed it with a chuckle.
"You're
the officer in charge of these men?" said the colonel to Bowie.
"That's
right, sir. Captain Jack Bowie of
the Texas Regular Army, at your service. You'll be taken as prisoners of war to Dallas, where you'll
be treated well enough. Names,
please?"
"Colonel
Shawn Sanders of the New American Infantry Corps, number F-70-896-771-B."
"Just
the name, please. No bar codes
necessary," said Bowie.
"Shawn
Sanders, then," said the man, smiling slightly.
The
other four gave their names and ranks, but not their labels. The boys at the POW camps could get
those down later if they wanted to.
"You
ever been hogtied before, sir?" he asked Sanders.
"No."
"Well,
it'll be a learnin' experience. Go ahead, boys," he said, nodding to a few
of his men who had unpacked ropes.
Sanders
nodded, looking perturbed.
"Is there any chance of an exchange, Captain?"
"Just
call me Bowie, and no, your boys aren't too keen on those. They prefer to torture any Texas
Alliance men they can get."
Sanders
frowned, his face flushing red.
"That's not true, Captain Bowie."
"Isn't
it? What about that man you sent
back with his fingers and toes gone?"
Sanders
clenched his teeth, and his fists curled for a moment. Then he seemed to relax a little. "Perhaps there have been isolated
instances."
"Right. Instances. Get 'em tied up and on the bikes, men–it'll take us at
least one night to get to the airstrip, and long-range communications are no
good with this jammin'."
Sanders
waved his hands in a distance-keeping gesture as Bowie's ropers came
forward. "Wait a minute. Is it really necessary to tie us? We're unarmed, and I'll give you my
word that neither I nor my men will attempt escape."
"Blushie
oaths, eh? You know they're dang
near proverbial around here?"
Sanders
lowered his hands, and the ropers stopped, glancing towards Bowie. "I
didn't," said Sanders, "but I can assure you that my promises don't
fit your proverb."
"So...you're
promising me your promise is good?
That doesn't sound much better to me. Better get a gag as well, boys," said Bowie.
"This
is insane!" yelped Sanders, holding up his hands again. "Don't you
have handcuffs?"
Bowie
sighed, reached up a hand to press his helmet further down on his head, and
said, "All right, if you
insist, I've got a few questions I'd like answered besides name, rank, and bar
code. You answer 'em, you can ride
sittin' straight up. You don't
answer 'em, you get roped. Now:
What's your mission, who shot you down, and why did you stay with your
wreck?"
Sanders
thought it over for a moment, pressing his lips together. His men kept their eyes on him and the
Rough Riders flicked their eyes between him and Bowie.
"I
can't answer the first question, and the answers I give to the other two might
not be to your satisfaction."
"Go
on, please. I'll decide about the
ropes when I've heard 'em."
"We
were hit by anti-aircraft fire a hundred miles north of here, near the
Texas-New Mexico border, a little after dawn, but we managed to preform some
evasive maneuvers and crash land here.
We stayed with our wreck because we thought being taken as POWs was
better than dying of thirst in the desert."
"Thank
you. What kind of AA fire?"
"There
wasn't any military installation or fortress, I know that much. It was a small gun emplacement in the
shadow of a mesa."
Bowie
removed his helmet, sighing. He
brushed a hand through his hair, and found it greasy–how long had it been
since his last bath, anyway?
"Renegades,"
he growled. "It had to be those scum."
"What?"
asked Sanders, frowning. He seemed
to like frowning.
"Renegades. Gangs of armed men who live in secret
camps along the borders of the Texas Alliance and make raids on Blushie holdings. You've heard of the Illinois
Slaughterhouse, haven't you? Well,
that wasn't done by the Texan kind–the Texan kind are worse."
"No...I,
I know what they are. But I
thought they were your allies."
Bowie
was tempted to unsheathe his knife to give what he was going to say some
thrust, but he decided otherwise.
"You damn Blushies think we'd join up with them? With robbin', murderin' hogs like them
Renegades?"
Sanders
said nothing. Bowie sighed. "Never mind, sir. Just remember that Renegades, from sea
to shining sea, are no friends of the Texas Alliance."
"Acknowledged,"
said Sanders. "Now, are we going to be tied...?"
"Naw. But if any of your men try and escape,
I'll shoot him and rope the rest of you.
Do we have a deal, sir?"
Sanders
and his men nodded–a little too quickly for Bowie's taste. But he couldn't afford to linger. The Renegades would be after their
prey, and they were known to attack TA forces in their thirst for Blushie
blood.
Bowie's
Rough Riders almost had to draw straws to decide who would be saddled with the
Blushies, but a few brave boys who owed demerits stepped forward, and Bowie
promised them each a bar of soap and a shower when they were back at barracks.
B
and C squadrons rejoined with A, and Bowie set off on a southern course,
towards the airstrip fifty miles out from Amarillo, where he could send his
POWs off toward the camps at Dallas on the next transport plane.
There
were only a few hours of daylight left, and Bowie had to cut his brigade's
speed to forty miles an hour–the bikes needed repairs, and the fast
speeds earlier in the day had strained them.
They
made camp early. Driving after
dark was dangerous business even in the plains, where a man could go over a
rock and snap his neck without realizing it until he woke up in Heaven–or
Hell, as the case may be. Bowie's
preacher had always told him that he was saved, but sometimes he had his
doubts, even if he didn't think he was enough of a coyote for the bad place.
The
Rough Riders preferred to light real fires when they could, but without fuel,
and with the dry grass just waiting to catch fire, they had to make do with
portable heat lamps–five men apiece, each of them with a self-heating
ration pack and a bottle of nutrient water which Bowie thought tasted like dog
piss. The Blushies were scattered
among them and given some of the spare rations and water, only they didn't get
any of the whiskey and cigarettes which were passed around after the meal, and
the Rough Riders always kept pistols trained on their ribs.
Bowie
ate with his three squad captains: Grant Hashmel for A, Abraham Ronson for B,
and Alonzo Tortilla for C. Sanders
was there too, without even a pair of handcuffs. Colonels weren't so precious that Bowie couldn't afford to
shoot him if he tried to escape–ranks were mighty inflated in New
America.
They
ate and drank their rations quickly, and afterwards Bowie's lieutenants swigged
from their hip flasks and lit cigarettes.
Bowie himself preferred a good pipe–more flavor–and as he
was stuffing it, he noticed Sanders grimacing and reaching a hand up to plug
his mouth.
"What's
wrong, sir?" Bowie asked, leaving his pipe unlit for a moment.
Sanders
swallowed. "Smoking's banned
in New America. Don't you realize
the cancer risks?"
Grant
Hashmel snorted. "We ain't in
Blushie country, in case you didn't know.
And in these parts, we ain't afraid of a little smoke."
He
blew a cloud of the stuff towards Sanders, and the colonel flinched. Bowie growled. "That's enough. Just enjoy your smoke, Grant."
Then
he said to Sanders, "I haven't got cancer yet, and one night with a little
smoke in your lungs isn't going to hurt you, whatever your doctor might
say."
Sanders
frowned. "It's still not
healthy."
Bowie
shrugged. "Better a few less
happy years than a few more miserable ones."
"You'll
be reading your Bibles next, I suppose."
"I
do carry a Bible," said Bowie, "but I'm not planning to thump it at
you, as you Blushies would say, nor do I aim to baptize you with the next
bottle of clean water I find. I'll
direct you to a good preacher if you want one, but I've never been good at that
kind of stuff myself."
Sanders
smiled faintly. "Thanks. And I'm not planning to try and start
an orgy once I get to the camp–I doubt my wife would like that."
Bowie
nodded. "Much obliged. Got a wife, do you? Children?"
Sanders
hesitated. Bowie grunted. "I don't want to get their
location out of you and go kidnap them, if that's what you're wondering. I'll go first: I've never had a wife
nor any children, but I've got a mean pair of god-sons who'll be able to
out-wrestle me in a couple years."
Sanders
smiled a little wider. "All
right. Two girls, one boy."
Bowie
raised his eyebrows.
"Three? I thought most
Blushies had a boy and a girl, no more."
"My
wife and I decided otherwise. And
we've got another coming."
Bowie
grimaced. Now, he almost hated to
have this man locked up. Maybe
they could get an exchange put together–Lucky Laz was in Madison POW
camp, wasn't he? He was a fellow
captain, if Bowie recalled correctly, and a Blushie colonel for a TA captain
was fair enough.
Something
flashed, off in the darkness of the desert. Bowie looked up and to his left, and he saw what looked like
a star turned bright orange and hurtling towards him. No, it was a flare.
It hit the dirt a few yards away from Bowie's lamp and lay there,
glowing. A message flare. Tarantulas and scorpions didn't tend to
use those, so he guessed it must be one of his fellow captains giving a report,
though he hadn't heard nor seen any other motorcycle regiments for a few days.
Bowie
got the message cylinder himself and tucked the heatless glowrod flare into his
pocket. He returned to his
officers and unrolled the message inside the cylinder. Bowie read it aloud.
"Dear
Texas Regular Army forces:
I know you've taken several Blushie
prisoners today. They are
ours. We won't let you take them
back to your prisoner hotels, where they'll be treated like software magnates
and practically rewarded for their slime.
They deserve justice, and we aim to give it to them. We're approaching your camp as your
read this. Hand them over and
drive away, and we'll do you no harm.
I warn you not to fight–we have generous patronage, and I have
over two hundred men with the best equipment money can get.
Signed, Zechariah
Hatcher, leader of the Steel Wolf Justice Brigade."
Bowie's
lieutenants were silent for a moment.
They could already hear the sounds of motors growling far across the
plain. "What do we do,
sir?" said Grant Hashmel. "Surrender? I've heard of the Steel Wolves, Cap'n–some say there's
a tech king in Houston who gives millions to any Renegades with grit. Their bikes must be better than
ours–I don't think we could outrun them, sir."
Hashmel
eyed Sanders nervously. Bowie
shook his head and stood. He
realized that he had never gotten around to lighting his pipe, so he dumped the
tobacco back into its pouch and stored it. "Get the boys together, please. We ride in five minutes."
"But
Cap'n–they won't be inclined to be nice to us, if we don't do like they
say," said Abe. "It's only five Blushies, anyhow."
"They'll
torture 'em to death, and I don't intend to tell the general that I left five
POWs to that because my men and I were too yellow to do anything else. Let's move along now, please."
Sanders
was taking it like a soldier, but Bowie could see the fear beneath his
expression. "Don't you worry, sir.
We'll be at the airstrip base and safe behind its cannons before dawn,
unless there's enough rocks in our path to choke a whale. Now get up, please, and you'll ride
behind the same man you did before."
Bowie's
Rough Riders were trained to break camp in three minutes, and this time it was
less. All ninety-seven men were
mounted, engines purring, before the Steel Wolves bothered to turn their
headlights on. Bowie raised his
hand, and they began accelerating across the grassy plain, kicking up dust
towards the clear sky, bright with stars.
The
Renegades figured out what was going on almost immediately, even though Bowie
had left several of the heat lamps behind to try and give himself a few minutes
of distance before the Wolves knew what was up.
No
luck. Gunshots started cracking,
the sounds going far in the open air.
Bowie leaned down to his radio.
"Squads, split up like a pack of coyotes with a grizzly chasin'
'em. A with me, and Colonel
Sanders as well. B, split off to
the west, and C, head away off to the east–we'll meet up later. I wouldn't suggest ridin' close
together, sirs. Keep your men
apart, and those Wolves won't be able to shoot you any better than a pack of
mosquitoes."
"Yes,
Cap'n," came the replies from his lieutenants.
"And
keep your headlights off–better to go over a rock in the darkness than to
make yourself a shootin' range target.
Decide for yourselves whether to lay coverin' fire, but I wouldn't
recommend it. It'd only make 'em
madder."
Despite
his urging against it, Bowie was powerfully tempted to unholster his revolver
and see if his marksmanship was as good as he hoped it was. A quick .50 caliber round in the chest
was a more merciful end for the Renegades than any they'd offer to prisoners.
Bowie
clicked his radio to a channel that included all of squad A and spoke into it,
"All right, Sanders? Not too
rough for you, I hope?"
"I'm
managing, Bowie, I'm managing," came the response after a moment.
Bowie
noticed that the "Captain" had been dropped. He didn't mind particularly, but it was
odd.
Then
there was a scream that could be heard even above the roar of the bike engines,
and Bowie turned to see one of his men drop. The soldier didn't have time to brake before he died, and
his bike kept going as his body went back over the tailpipe. Bowie's eyes went back to his own
driving. There was nothing he
could do for the man–he was dead.
Rough Riders who were only wounded clutched their handlebars until Death
himself had to cut their fingers away with his scythe.
"Spread
out! Spread out!" shouted
Bowie into his radio. "Go as
fast as you can without shaking your bikes apart."
To
illustrate, he yawed to the left and kicked his speed up another 5 mph.
"Grant,
Abe, Alonzo, how are you coming along?" he said, switching the channel
back to his squad leaders only.
Abe
of B squadron answered, "All right, Cap'n–but three of my men are
down. Those Wolves can shoot, and
they can ride too–I'd think they're using machine guns, from the sound of
it."
"Just
hold on, sir. We'll be at the
airstrip in a few hours at this rate."
Then
Alonzo's voice said, "Pardon me, Captain, but a pack of Renegades has broken
off from the main crowd, and they're coming after us. Orders, please?"
"Keep
runnin'. Once they get too close
for anything else, use grenades and bullets to keep them off you. Basically, Alonzo, do whatever you need
to keep from bein' captured. I'd
prefer you didn't engage them."
"Right,
Cap'n."
Now,
the nearest Rough Rider was twenty feet away from Bowie. Bullets were flying from the Steel
Wolves, but they weren't having much luck so far at hitting anything.
Bowie's
men rode on, eating up the miles between them and the airstrip.
It
wasn't long before Alonzo and his C squad were gone far to the west, out of
radio contact. B was a mile away
to the east, but they were being pursued by more or less the same Wolf pack
that was after Bowie and his A squadron.
A few men had been hit, but the Wolf fire had died down. They were gaining, foot by foot, and
were finally saving their bullets for when they wouldn't be wasted.
Bowie's
radio fizzed, and Sanders' voice said, "Bowie, look ahead."
Bowie
looked, and didn't see anything. "What is it, Colonel?" he asked.
"Isn't
that dust?"
Bowie
blinked. It had looked like a bank
of clouds on the horizon, but now he saw that it was indeed plains dust, kicked
up by another motorcycle squadron riding towards him. Another Texan regiment, or more Renegades? They were still too far away for radio
contact, what with the jamming the Blushies were laying across all of northern
Texas. Bowie was starting to
fervently hope that his preacher was right about his going to Heaven.
The
new group turned on their headlights, lighting the horizon afire, and opened up
on Bowie's squad. One man dropped
within the first few seconds.
"Evade,
boys!" roared Bowie into his general comm. "Keep moving! We'll break through 'em."
"If
you don't mind my saying so," said Grant Hashmel of A squadron over the
radio, "that dog won't hunt.
I suggest, sir, we leave the Blushies behind with a signal flare to mark
'em and let the Renegades have 'em.
Better a few lost prisoners than all our men dead, isn't it?"
For
a moment, Bowie considering trying to find Grant in the dark and chucking
something hard at him. "You
can stay behind and explain your feelin's to the Renegades if you're so
inclined, sir, but we're keepin' our prisoners. Say that to me again and I'll be forced to demote you."
Bowie
regretted his harshness almost as soon as the words left his mouth–Grant
always meant well–but his suggestion was crookeder than a dog's hind
leg. Bowie would put his revolver
to his head and squeeze the trigger before he left the prisoners behind to the
Renegade brands and knives. Some
folks said they had special prisons set up in hidden places all across the
Texas Alliance, where Blushies were tortured and killed over an unimaginable
period.
Bowie's
radio crackled–but it wasn't any of his officers, and the accent was New
Mexican. "Captain Bowie, this
is General Zechariah Hatcher. This
is your last chance to surrender yourselves. You and your men will be allowed to go free, without bikes
or weapons, and we will take the Blue demons for the administration of
justice. Otherwise, y'all will be
killed."
Bowie
was tempted to shoot the speaker, but that wouldn't do any good. Instead, he pulled his revolver, a
bulky gun with eight chambers, all of which contained .50 caliber bullets.
"Grant,"
he said into his radio, "Pass along the order to open fire. Grenades, heavy weapons, small
arms–everythin' we've got.
Don't shoot to confuse–tell 'em to kill as many Renegades as they
can."
"Aye,
Cap'n, if you're sure about it."
"I
am, sir," said Bowie.
Then
he opened a channel to all his men and said, "These are lawless coyotes
who hate the Texas Alliance as much as they do any Blushie ever born. Give 'em Hell."
Then
he lowered his revolver and fired the first shot. He could tell by the light of the Renegade's own headlamps
that it hit.
He
heard a whoop sound out from one of his men, and soon it was joined by
another. Bowie fired again and let
out his own call. Soon, it grew
into a thunderous rebel yell that echoed far across the plains, punctuated by
the thunder of gunfire. Steel
Wolves dropped and explosions blossomed as Bowie's men plugged grenades into
them using the launchers on their bikes.
"Drop
a few bombs behind and accelerate to attack speed!" roared Bowie, snapping
away two cartridges in quick succession.
Bullets flew between the two sides, and men dropped–more Wolves
than Rough Riders, thank God.
"Lights
on, boys!" shouted Bowie.
Light
flared, and the oncoming Renegades were blinded. They were a ragged looking posse, with their leather jackets
dirty and tattered. Most had
helmets or some kind of skullcap on their head. All of them had weapons–surprisingly good ones, given
the shape of their other possessions.
And their bikes were excellent, even if they weren't in great repair.
Bowie
shot two of them, emptying his revolver, then clapped both hands down on his
handlebars to steer between them.
A bullet cracked past his ear as he slid past the first two, then he
found one coming towards him with a machete held back to slash at his
chest. Bowie's namesake knife, as
trusty a hunk of steel as ever was sharpened, was in his hand within a
second. The blades met, steel
rang, and then Bowie ducked and the two bikes roared past each other. Bowie kept going, but glanced over his
shoulder to see if the machete man was inclined to chase him.
That
turned out to be a mistake. Bowie
felt a sharp jolt, and suddenly he was in the air, just barely managing to keep
a grip on his knife. Stars swirled
before his eyes for a moment before he thought to roll himself up for the
impact.
He
felt it a moment later. It started
as an unimaginably sharp pain in at the base of his spine, then spread to all
of him as he rolled. Until after
he stopped, he could only hope that a stray bike didn't hit him.
He
found his was able to stand and forced himself up. Pain was everywhere, and he suspected that the hard ground
had cracked his pelvis, but he could stand, and his knife was still in his
hand.
His
eyes saw only chaos–roaring bikes, thundering guns, dust and darkness and
head lights and stars. Then he
heard something grind to a halt off to his left, and he turned to see a pistol
muzzle aiming at him. He lurched
to one side, dodging, and threw his Bowie knife with a skill he had cultivated
since his boyhood. It hit
point-first in the Renegade's chest and dropped him. Bowie stumbled forward, recovered his knife, and looked for
the dead man's gun. It couldn't
have gotten far, could it?
His
search was cut short when the Renegade with the machete came staggering out of
the chaos, his left side smashed to bloody pulp and his arm hanging limp. Had one of Bowie's men got him? The chopping blade was still with him,
in his right hand. He and Bowie,
two wounded bulls going at each other–it seemed like a good match-up.
Bowie
didn't risk his knife with another throw–if he lost it, his throat would
probably be opened in seconds. The
bloody Renegade swung, and Bowie blocked with his knife. The impact made dark stars pulse in
front of his eyes, and he staggered back, boots tearing at the dry grass. The Renegade grinned–he didn't
seem to notice the pain at all.
"Not feeling so high now, eh, Captain?" he rasped, swinging
his machete again. The blow almost
took Bowie's arm off, but he caught it on the tip of his knife and flipped it
away. If only he could reach the
six-inch toothpicks down his boots–then this Renegade wouldn't be
grinning.
Bowie
couldn't get past the machete–its reach was too long. Again, he considered throwing his
knife, and again decided that without it nothing would keep him alive. Maybe he could keep fighting long
enough for the Renegade to die from the massive wounds on his
side–probably taken in a nasty fall only seconds ago–but the man didn't
seem to feel any pain. Either
Bowie would be chopped up, or some other Renegade would see them fighting and
empty a few cartridges into him.
A
heavy blow from the machete landed on the blunt edge of his knife, hard enough
to knock it out of his hand. Bowie
stumbled backward, body still throbbing from his fall. With a demonic grin, the Renegade
advanced, closing with him. Then
Bowie's heel struck something, and he felt himself falling. The impact slammed his bones, and for a
moment he felt like he was already dead.
He opened his eyes again, and there was the machete, hovering inches
above his neck. "Where's your
mercy got you now?" shouted the Renegade as he raised the blade for a
stroke that Bowie knew he wouldn't be able to avoid.
But
the blow never landed–first the Renegade was standing on both feet, and
then a splatter of hot liquid struck Bowie in the face, and his attacker was
tilting. The Renegade struck the
ground and lay still, machete hitting the earth harmlessly.
Bowie
scrambled to his feet, doing his best to ignore the pain that hammered through
him. The first thing he saw was
Shawn Sanders of the New American Army, mounted alone on a Rough Rider bike,
with a gun protruding from his forearm.
In his clouded state, it took Bowie a few seconds to realize what it
was: A cybernetic implant. He had
heard about them before. In the
great labs of Madison, the Blushies had concocted systems that plugged right
into a man's brain and could support everything from telephones to guns to
chainsaws. It was still
horrifically expensive, and heavily restricted, but some military officers were
said to have them. Apparently,
Sanders was one of those.
The
Blushie colonel gunned his engine and drove up next to him. "Bowie! Get on!"
He
reached down a hand, and Bowie took it and allowed Sanders to help him to his
feet. He wasn't sure quite how he
did it, but he managed to get his throbbing pelvis onto the bike behind Sanders
and cling there as the Blushie colonel accelerated away from the melee. Bowie saw that other Rough Riders had
apparently managed to do the same thing–they were racing away across the
plains now, still making for the airstrip. Bowie leaned towards the radio and spoke into it. "All
Rough Riders, this is Captain Bowie.
I'm alive and I've got the colonel. Try to get free and drive off wherever you can. We'll reform at the airstrip."
Then,
with both arms wrapped tightly around Sanders' waist, he gave in to
unconsciousness.
He
awoke in a sickbed, in his own room, with four gray walls surrounding him. Apparently, they had thought his rank
merited private quarters. What
surprised him was seeing Sanders at his bedside, without a guard.
"Good
morning, Bowie," said the colonel.
"What're
you doing here? Shouldn't you be
on your way to Dallas?" growled Bowie. He felt like a piece of husked corn all over.
"My
flight leaves in fifteen minutes, but they let me visit you when I requested
it, since I saved your life. I'm
glad you woke up when you did."
"Hm. That's right, isn't it? Thank you doesn't quite say it, but I'm
as grateful as a dog with his own steak.
You're a good man, Sanders.
Whatever happens in this war, you should remember that."
Bowie
was surprised to see a grimace on the colonel's face. "That's not as true as I'd like to be. I've come to give you something."
Bowie
was about to ask for more details when a panel of flesh on Sanders' left arm
began to rise up, showing metal beneath.
"Not a bullet, I hope?" asked Bowie.
"No. That's in my right arm. The left arm is a storage
chamber."
The
hatch lifted all the way, and Sanders reached into it. His hand came up with three metal
cylinders, all not much larger than Bowie's pinkie. There was a simple label on each one. Sanders picked one and held it up to
Bowie's eyes. He read two words:
"Smallpox QF6."
"That
was my mission," said Sanders, wearily. "To take this to Dallas and
release it. This is a new strain
of smallpox, grown from the samples of the original disease that we've been
keeping since it was isolated. Our
scientists claim that QF6 is the most destructive disease since the Black
Death."
Bowie's
throat was suddenly as dry as a horned lizard's back. "Wouldn't spies have been better?"
"The
Texan borders are heavily guarded, and all air travelers and immigrants,
wherever they come from, are put through scans that would have easily found my
implants. But my government
believed that, as POWs, we wouldn't be scanned that thoroughly before I had a
chance to release the smallpox among your military. From Dallas, it would have been carried all across the Texas
Alliance. We had intended to fake
a crash landing, actually, a few miles outside this airstrip, under cover of
the jamming that my military has been laying down–those Renegades just
made it real, and forced us to be less picky about our stop."
"Hmm...that's
why you didn't shoot me the first chance you got, eh? And why y'all stayed with your wreck? You wanted to be picked up?"
"That's
right. Within a year or two, the
modified smallpox would have killed millions, and the Texas Alliance would have
been shattered. In the meantime,
my government has been producing vaccines for some time, and all New Americans
would have them administered."
"So...hm...why
not go through with your plan? Why
give the disease to me? And what
do you want me to do with these?"
"I
didn't go through with the plan because I realized that I wouldn't be killing
the bloodthirsty slime we hear about on TV up in New America. I'd be killing real men every bit as
good as any in my country–and not just them, but women and children. Like I said yesterday, I had always
thought the Renegades–whose brutality is legendary where I
live–were your allies, funded by your government. But I saw firsthand that they were as
much your enemies as ours, and that you'd give your own life instead of turning
a few POWs over to them. For that,
I'm giving you the smallpox. Do
with it whatever you think best."
He
put the cylinders in Bowie's hand.
It was chilling to be holding the death of millions, innocuous-looking
as empty bullet cases.
Sanders
left then, saying he was going to declare his cybernetic implants to the
guards, and Bowie stowed the smallpox QF6 under the edge of his pillow until he
could get the nuclear reactor which refueled the planes using the
airstrip. It was better
destroyed–that was what Sanders had expected him to do, and neither
Blushies nor Texans should be subjected to such a holocaust. Bowie honestly didn't think his
government would use in much better than the New Americans had.
He'd
have to visit Sanders in the POW camp, maybe bring him some cigars, or a pipe
and some tobacco. He'd learn to
like them if he tried them enough.
With
that thought, Bowie lay back and starting waiting for his bruises and cracked
pelvis to heal.
Sean T. M. Stiennon is a student in Madison,
Wisconsin. Previously, his writing has been published in Deep
Magic, Deeper
Magic: The Second Collection, Amazing Journeys Magazine, and The Sword Review, and he recently won second place in
the 2004 SFReader.com Short Story Contest. He is currently a staff
book reviewer at Deep Magic, where he also helps read submissions, and his short story
collection Six with Flinteye was released on July 1, 2005 from Silver Lake
Publishing. For more information, visit his author page:
www.sfreader.com/authors/seanstiennon
Illustration: "Captain Jack Bowie: Texas Regular Army"
E. J. Mickels, II
Copyright 2005
Cover: "Sword Sorceress"
Melinda S. Reynolds
Copyright 2005
