Drilling holes through his back with her eyes, Dakota says nothing as she follows along behind the group, staying in the shadows as the plastique is carefully placed and then detonated. With a muted wuff, the door falls inward and, weapons drawn, the soldiers enter the prison two by two.

Two silent human chains flow along the interior walls, like water pouring into a basin.

“Down!” Andrews yells a split-second before gunfire erupts over their heads. As a group, they duck down, grabbing cover where they can find it. Overturned tables, shattered wooden boxes, and other less identifiable objects litter the floor.

“Remember,” Koda cautions as they ready their weapons in preparation for returning fire, “aim at their arms and hands. They can’t fire what they can’t hold.”

The others nod, deferring to her greater experience in fighting these droids.

“And if you can’t get a good shot there, aim for their optical sensors. Should throw their own aim off.”

Using hand signals, Andrews draws the others into position, and with a quiet command into his mic, the squad rises as one and begins the assault. Gunfire explodes in bursts of deathly hail as the soldiers rise from their positions and begin an inexorable march forward.

Two go down. Then a third. But the group marches onward, fingers depressed on the triggers of their high-powered weapons, never giving an inch of ground they’ve gained.

The first wave of droids, four in all, goes down relatively quickly as the group advances upon, and captures, the first set of steel risers that will lead them up to the cells where the women are being kept.

Koda makes it to the third step when something slams into her chest and blows her off her feet. She is driven back, and down, landing on the hard cement floor with a force enough to rob what little breath she has left from her lungs. Her gun flies from her hand, clattering along the rough concrete until it hits a wall and discharges, filling her world with its booming roar.

As she lies, stunned, she watches with something close to clinical interest—shock, she supposes—as Andrews swoops down upon her like some sort of gangly, prehistoric bird, shouting things that she can’t quite get her mind to unravel.

So, this is what dying feels like.

Not too bad, actually.

Andrews’ homely, freckled face looms over her like the pitted moon. His lips continue move in incomprehensible patterns, spitting out syllables she can’t seem to care enough to understand.

Suddenly, her vision is obscured as his body closes down over her. The force of his collapse fires the nerves in her diaphragm, releasing it from its paralysis. She can feel herself taking in great, heaving gasps of air, and the agony of expanding bruised and cracked ribs lets her know that she’s not quite dead yet.

A moment later, her vision clears and it’s his concerned face she sees once again.

“Are you alright?”

Finally, some words that make sense. Taking quick mental stock of her body, she nods.

A smile wreathes his face as he gently helps her to a sitting position. She looks down at her chest. A rather large hole has been ripped through the white flack jacket just below her heart, and she stares down at it with a sense of awed wonder.

“Amazing what they’re doing with ceramics these days, huh?” Andrews asks cheerfully.

“Damn,” is all Koda can think to reply.

Climbing slowly back to her feet, she allows Andrews to steady her as her legs become reaccustomed to the fact that they’re not going to be feeding the buzzards anytime soon.

“M-Maybe you should wait outside, Ma’am,” a concerned Andrews murmurs.

Koda shoots him a look that vaporizes the spit in his mouth. “Chesli.”

“Um—do I wanna know what that means, Ma’am?”

The look comes again.

“Didn’t think so.”

Prudently, the young man turns away for a moment, then back. “They—they’ve cleared the second and third tiers. Hobbs and Jackson have gone to the control room to try and get the doors opened.”

A loud buzz echoes through the building, indicating the venture’s success. Koda starts forward at a run, taking the steps two at a time. Andrews shakes his head and follows.

The scene on the second tier is controlled chaos. Several droids have been temporarily disabled, shoved in a cell, and the door manually locked behind them. Shell-shocked women, shabbily dressed, bruised, and in some cases bloodied, mill about like frightened cattle bound for slaughter. More stream down from the tiers above. Sporadic gunfire erupts, causing the women to scream and the soldiers to look around wildly in the hopes of spotting the remaining, elusive droids before they themselves are spotted.

“Hanson, Siebert and Reeves, start getting these women secure. Johnson and Larke, go on ahead, act as lookouts. Shoot anything that moves.”

Dakota’s orders are crisp and clear. The selected soldiers nod, faces set and grave.

Andrews and Koda spot the shadowed movement from the next tier up at the same time and, pushing soldiers and civilians down and away, begin firing. Two droids advance through the gunfire, mechanical fingers constantly depressed on the uzis they’re carrying. Bullets whiz by like hungry, deadly gnats, ricocheting off the steel of the cell doors.

“Move!” Koda yells to the soldiers guarding the women. “Now!!”

The shout breaks their paralysis and they begin herding the women down the stairs, weapons at the ready.

One droid falls to Koda’s blast to his optical sensors, but the second, continues its advance. Its uzi is firing sporadically now. They can almost feel the heat from the nearly spent weapon from where they stand.

“Die, you motherfucker!!!” Running up several stairs, Andrews pulls the pin on the granade he’s carrying and shoves it down the the tight, metallic singlet the droid is wearing.

Dakota catches the soldier as he leaps backward, and both are driven to their knees by the resulting explosion.

“That was the last one lieutenant!” a feminine voice calls through the smoke and falling debris.

Andrews and Koda come to their feet to the sound of boots hitting the steel steps. Bodies materialize through the smoke as the rest of the prisoners gather on the landing. Koda’s eyes narrow.

“Who are they?”

Martinez looks at the three dirt-covered men who stand in the group with the rest and shrugs. “Found ‘em with the others. They’re human.”

A stone mask drops over Koda’s face as she notices the women shying away from the men in question. “I wouldn’t be too sure about that,” she mutters, half under her breath. Ignoring Andrew’s questioning look, she searches the small crowd. A pair of dark, calm eyes meet her own, and she gestures the woman forward.

Older than the rest by almost a decade, the woman displays an almost regal bearing as she steps up to the vet. “Thank you,” she says in a voice heavy with sincerity.

“You’re welcome,” Dakota replies in kind before looking over her shoulder at the men. “What’s their story?”

“They were here when we were captured.” The woman’s voice is now a flat monotone, devoid of any emotion. “Prisoners, I’d guess.”

“And?” Koda asks, eyebrow raised.

“Our rapists.”

Hissing through his teeth, Andrews raises his weapon and gestures for the others to move away.

“Hold it,” Koda warns, one hand raised. She looks back to the woman. “All of you?”

“Yes.”

“Were they coerced?”

“No. They were quite willing.”

“The bitch lies!” one of the men shouts, struggling against the sudden grips of iron around his biceps. He might as well be tied between a boulder and a mountain for all the good his efforts net him. “She’s lying! Fucking bitch!”

He falls silent when the muzzle of a gun is pressed to his temple. Koda looks over at him, then lets her gaze trail down the line until she spies a young girl of no more than thirteen.

“Her too?”

The woman nods.

“Alright, that’s it,” Andrews growls, aiming his weapon. “Motherfucker dies now.”

“Hold it,” Koda warns again.

“But….”

“Please.”

Slowly, uncertainly, Andrews lowers his weapon, his eyes full of questions.

“Put them in those cells back there,” Koda orders. “One to a cell.”

As the soldiers move to do her bidding, Andrews turns to her, face ruddy with rage. “Why? Why are you letting these scumbags live?!?”

“Live?” Koda shrugs. “Oh, I suppose they’ll live. For awhile, anyway. Till they starve to death from lack of food and water.” Her smile is ice. “There won’t be anyone around to take care of them. Or let them out.”

Her voice carries easily to the men, and they begin their fruitless struggles anew, screaming and pleading for mercy. The pleas are cut short as the heavy steel doors slam shut for the final time.

Then Koda turns back to Andrews. “I think a quick death is too easy for them.” She eyes the woman standing before her. “Don’t you?”

After a moment, a rather predatory smile curves the lips of the woman. She nods as the other women surge forward, calling out their own thanks.

“Alright then. Let’s get the hell outta here.”

3

The convoy prepares to move out just after dawn. The tanker truck—a provisional battering ram, at need—stands in lead position, engine idling and belching fog into the freezing air. A couple pickups follow, one of them carrying Dan and Aidan, a pair of long guns riding in the rack behind the seat, just visible in silhouette. Kirsten’s van takes center position. Caitlin and Alan are immediately behind, with more pickups, the last one a camper packed with a half-dozen extra volunteers and twice as many weapons.

The world is faded to monochrome in the thin light, sky washed blue-white, snow dirty grey where tires and feet have churned its surface. Breath and steam from insulated mugs of coffee hang in the air about the company gathered in front of the common building to see them off. Toussaint and Micah, who seem to have been appointed coordinators of the project by some process unknown to Kirsten, make last minute checks up and down the line, satisfying themselves that weapons, food and other supplies are adequate and in due order.

Kirsten has made her own preparations. Her medicines have been offloaded, as have the cartons of Alpo and empty jerry cans. Their places have been taken by a thermal chest filled with what she has come to think of, reverently, as Real Food, more water, more gasoline. A couple of Pelican cases, no longer hidden under the mounds of other supplies, hold items that should help her get into Minot. The lingering sense that she has forgotten something will not leave her.

Stop it. Stop it, goddam it.

It is not what she has forgotten. It is who she has left behind.

And with him, she has left behind all her life before the uprising. Has abandoned, too, any pleasant fiction that she may just possibly survive. Her journey has been a suicide mission from the beginning.

Her thought is interrupted by the back door slamming open and a small packet thudding onto the truck’s floor. “My books,” Micah says, breathlessly. “I’ll drive if you’d like to keep your hands free.”

For a gun, he means.

“All right.”

Kirsten slides over to the passenger’s side. Micah gives a shout toward the tanker in the lead and swings up into the driver’s seat. A shout comes floating back as he settles himself and buckles the seatbelt. Kirsten says, smiling faintly, “Tell me I didn’t hear that.”

“Okay.” A grin splits Micah’s beard. “You didn’t hear that.”

But it comes again, loud and unmistakable on the clear air, “WAGG-O-O-NNS HO-O-O!” and she stares at him, disbelieving.

“Oh, yeah,” Micah answers her unasked question. “Toussaint is the last living Gunsmoke fan.”

The highway is snow-covered over a layer of ice. The tank truck up ahead takes the brunt of it, breaking a path for the rest. The going is slow, though, and a sense of urgency nags at Kirsten. The world beyond her window is white as far as she can see, wide flat expanses of fallow field, the occasional hump of a hill or low shed covered by the ten-days fall. Drifts lie deep along fence lines, completely burying some of the posts, leaving half a foot of others to jut up out of the snow in long, straight lines.

“Dragon bones,” says Micah, following her gaze.

It has been so quiet for the last several miles that Kirsten starts at the sound of Micah’s voice. “Pardon? Dragons?”

“Or dinosaurs.” Micah takes a sip from his coffee as the pace slows yet again. “I grew up in Lubbock, in the Texas Panhandle. Flattest place on earth. When I was a kid I’d pretend that the oil pumps were velociraptors. In the winter, the snow would drift up around them, and I’d imagine myself digging them up as fossils.” He grins. “Bob Bakker was my hero.”