Velocity

The news that the road was blocked startled me for a heartbeat. Then the thought settled in — this had always been coming — and my pulse actually steadied.

Tank's heavy voice came back over the radio, low and unhurried.

A moment later his voice bled faintly across the net as he started handing out orders to Gears.

I kept issuing orders without a pause.

Last, I keyed Bill.

A man-made barricade. It was a trap, built to pin our feet and split the column. This was not a moment to let firepower and manpower get scattered.

Over the radio, the sounds of Tank's team wrestling the wreckage came through in snatches. ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠In the gaps, Matthews' report landed.

Too quiet for what we were looking at. The hush before a storm. And then Cody's voice tore through my earpiece like a blade.

For a moment the air went out of me, a pressure that sat on my chest and would not lift. It was not the unknown column that did it. It was the despair of watching one thing after another snag our ankles at the exact instant we had to get off this irradiated ground or die trying.

The meter's display swam in front of my eyes. The number had already crossed 0.9 and was crowding 1.0. For a second I even thought, Is this what it feels like to be run down by a tiger?

Even so, we moved like meshed gears.

Bill's report came in calm, even through the chaos. I gave the order at once.

Gunner, hands on the wheel, flicked a glance at me.

"Hey. We can pull Cody's drone feed from here, can't we? Dual-operator function."

That snapped me awake. I dug the drone controller out of the passenger-side glove box and powered it on. The western flats filled the screen a moment later.

It was plainly not a refugee column. And yet something was off. They were not closing the distance. They simply shadowed us, holding a fixed gap, matching our direction the way a silhouette matches a man.

Whether they were taking our measure and declining to test us, or whether they had mistaken us for another raiding outfit and were giving us a wide berth, I could not tell. While I turned it over, the column shifted into a defensive formation of its own accord.

The armored vehicles and gun Humvees peeled onto the left shoulder and dressed into a line, throwing up a steel shield between the main body and the western flats. By the time the convoy reached the Interstate 15 on-ramp, the place had already become a working battlefield. The radio was a snarl of overlapping, urgent voices.

Tank and Gears' shouted traffic rode over the net as a spray of crimson sparks ate through the heavy chain lashing the wreckage together.

On the other side of the mess, Bulldog and Hammer were using rope and winch to drag the severed logs and farm-machine wreckage off the pavement. A roar went up and a cloud of dirt boiled into the air. And at the center of it sat Tank's Peterbilt.

Tank's truck hit like a bulldozer, driving the wrecked vehicle into the berm below the pavement. A long scream of tearing metal, and the huge steel carcass rolled over as if it had no strength left in it at all.

Division troopers clung to their backs, rifles slung.

They hauled on the ropes together, clearing debris, throwing their weight into the cut-through. Under a sky the color of ash, soldier and trucker ceased to ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠be separate things. Everyone moved toward a single purpose.

The relief lasted only a moment. Matthews was back on the net.

From the passenger seat, Gunner spoke, low.

"Boss. What about a warning broadcast?"

"How?"

"Frank grabbed something useful — right after the Bakersfield farm fight, or right before, I forget. That 100-watt 5Core megaphone."

"Right. He said the thing would carry two thousand yards."

"It's in my truck. The F-550."

That woke me up all over again. In the middle of that mess, Frank had still come away with a prize.

"Do it."

Gunner lifted his own radio at once.

Not long after, Carlos rolled Gunner's F-550 in beside my Kenworth. Gunner climbed down without a word and came back with the megaphone. I reached for it. He blocked my hand.

"You're not getting exposed."

Megaphone in hand, he moved back along the dry-van trailer, then a moment later hauled himself up through the second-level turret hatch onto the roof.

A sharp siren tore the barren desert air in two. When it died, Gunner's amplified voice rolled out across the flats.

He keyed the internal net again.

The words were barely out of his mouth before the steel giants dressed along the left shoulder began to move as one. The autocannon barrels of two Strykers, the armed FMTV, the Humvees — a dozen turrets swinging west on a mechanical growl — looked like a single enormous transforming machine, or like a sleeping predator turning its head in unison to fix its prey.

When those black muzzles aligned on one target, the pressure alone was enough to choke the field.

Gunner's voice came out of the megaphone again.

A suffocating silence stretched. When Gunner spoke again, his voice had gone colder and harder.

The words had barely landed when, far out on the western horizon, the vehicles that had been advancing in line abreast rolled to a stop and began to blink their headlights. Not just the lead truck — nearly every vehicle flashed, then swung their noses ninety degrees and halted.

It was a wordless signal: they had seen our guns, and they had no intention of firing first.

The breath I had been holding went out of me on its own. Whether they were a well-meaning local militia or raiders who had simply lost their nerve in front of our firepower did not matter. We had avoided a fight we did not need. That was enough.

Then Tank's voice exploded across the net, big as a drum.

I called Matthews at once.

The unidentified armed group falling back to the west would not leave my mind, but I had no time to spend on it. While we had been delayed, the radiation meter's display in my hand kept blinking its red numbers, as ominous as ever.

I did not know the cause. But one thing was certain. Death's shadow was coming down on us far faster than I had expected. As if it had found its acceleration.