EMP Sabotage, page 50
“I’m so sorry it came to this,” Ruth said, putting an arm around her granddaughter’s shoulders.
“It could have been worse,” Stella replied. “A lot worse.”
“Stella won’t say it,” Curtis added, “but she’s the one who made sure it didn’t turn out a lot worse.”
Curtis led them to the old supply closet, pulled out a key, and unlocked the door. When he swung it open, Ruth saw a figure seated in a corner near the empty shelves. He was a large man, with an enormous head and neck, but Curtis’s flashlight beam revealed massive welts and wounds on his face. Both eyes were swollen, and he had a bandage wrapped around his head. He looked up slowly as Curtis, Stella, and Ruth stepped through the door.
“Yep, we’ve got us a captive,” Curtis said. “He fought like a demon, but we finally overpowered him thanks to Ignacio’s well-timed attack.”
Ruth stepped past Curtis and Stella and knelt in front of the man. He was handcuffed, then his wrists and ankles were chained to a pipe in the corner. Multiple chains had been used, but Ruth wondered if this man would be trouble once he’d healed.
“Tell us about your leader,” Ruth said. “Who is in charge of AILS, and what is her plan?”
The main cleared his throat, sniffed, and lowered his head again. “Don’t bother,” he said in a rough and damaged voice. “Your friends already tried to get me to talk. It’ll never happen. Never in a thousand years, no matter what you to do me.”
“So you’re protecting her, then?” Ruth said. “Hiding information?”
“You could flay me alive and hang me from the crane, and you’ll never get anything out of me,” the man said. He looked up again with his eyes swollen and half-shut, peering at her from beneath a heavy brow. “She’s coming back. When Captain Tyra sets her mind to something, she doesn’t accept defeat. Ever. And when she does come, you can bet that the next fight will be even worse. You might think you struck a blow today, but all you did was fuel her determination. Now, leave me alone or kill me. I’m tired.”
Ruth lingered for a few seconds. Though she was tempted to keep trying to interrogate him, she was also exhausted and disturbed that she couldn’t dredge up the energy to do it. It seemed like a futile effort anyway. It was clear that they had another fight on their hands at some point in the future. Finally, she rose and turned, striding out of the closet without another word.
Once Curtis shut and locked the door, everyone gathered around her. She looked from face to face: Stella, John, Curtis, Ignacio, Kay, and sweet Bestie. So few remained. Curtis and Stella were holding hands.
“We have what we need to take the Mako down,” she said. “AILS will not set up a base here. They might regroup and attack again, but we’re more prepared than they realize.” She gestured at the dolly with the plastic tub, which John was pulling. “AILS has no idea what we’re capable of.”
John reached out, and she took his hand. “Well, we’re all in this together.”
“That Captain Tyra needs to die,” Ignacio said softly, “for what she did to my cousin. I’ll keep fighting that maniac until it happens.”
“Let’s blow them all off this planet,” Kay said. She reached up and touched the hollow of her throat. Ruth noticed a red mark across the front of her neck, as if she’d been nearly strangled.
“We will,” Ruth said. “We will.”
32
Tyra spotted the other ships coming in from the starboard side, moving as if to intercept them in the large inlet on the island’s western shore.
“They probably think they faced our entire force,” Dana said. “They probably think these few ships are all we have left. That’ll make them too confident when we come against them again. Don’t you think, Captain?”
“Shut up and concentrate on what you’re doing,” Tyra said, rising from her seat beside the helm. “We will discuss this when everyone is together. It’s not a private conversation for you and me.”
Dana ducked her head and grimaced at the chastisement. Perhaps she thought that being one of the survivors of the initial assault made her more special to the leader of AILS. Indeed, as far as Tyra knew, Dana was the only one who’d made it off the burning Mind Maiden alive. But if she thought that made her special, she was dead wrong. If anything, Dana was a reminder, a remnant, of an embarrassing setback, and Tyra could barely stand the sight of her. The magnitude of the loss was bad enough, but the hit to her reputation troubled her even more.
“Where would you like me to dock the ship, sir?” Dana asked.
Ahead, a crude concrete wharf stretched along about half a mile of shoreline on the far side of the inlet. Dozens of boats of various sizes were docked there now, but Tyra couldn’t help noticing the large gaps where the lost ships would have been. This filled her with a terrible, soul-quaking rage. The people on the Mako had gotten lucky. Nothing more.
“There,” Tyra said, pointing to a spot on the wharf near the center. Many AILS members were gathered on the walkway beyond.
As Dana guided the boat to the wharf, more AILS members came from other ships, from tents and buildings on the shore, gathering to meet the returning ship. They already knew about the loss. It had been radioed ahead. Things were shaky at the moment. How Tyra responded next would make all the difference. She knew that.
As the boat slowed and turned to port, pulling in along the wharf, Tyra strode out onto the foredeck and stood tall. She planted her hands on her hips, settling her expression to something cold and unaffected. Some men and women came running to meet the boat. They jumped on board and began tossing ropes to others on the wharf. But most of the people waited, tense and quiet, clearly wanting to hear what Captain Tyra would say.
She waited until the boat was securely fastened to the mooring and the gangplank was in place. Only then did she turn and slowly, deliberately make her way back down the starboard walkway and over the gangplank. Dana was waiting with the others now on the wharf, and as Tyra approached, they formed a semicircle around her. She carefully considered her next words.
“Forget what you’ve heard about our assault on the Mako,” she said with as much sharpness and authority as she could muster. “You all know the risks. A small bit of debris on a railroad track can derail an entire freight train, but even the heaviest train can be righted. This isn’t the setback some of you think it is. I will have my father’s oil rig firmly in my possession soon enough.”
She let these words linger for a minute, as she stared hard from face to face. There were at least fifty people gathered around her now, and more coming from the other ships and buildings. Dana was standing with her head bowed, wringing her hands. Tyra would have smacked her and pulled her hands apart, but she didn’t want to draw more attention to her.
Dana needs to learn how to master her emotions, Tyra thought. She looks weak when she displays her feelings like that.
Finally, a man stepped forward. He was one of the oldest members of AILS, with flecks of gray in his hair along his temples and sideburns, deep lines across a dark forehead, splashes of gray in a well-trimmed beard. Lieutenant Charles Kyron, one of her closest and most trusted advisors. She’d left him on the island to look after things in her absence.
“A few returned on jet skis,” he said, in a deep and impressive voice. “The special ops team failed to bring back the platform documents, and we haven’t heard from Miri. Can’t we put the blame for this unintended outcome on them?”
“We can,” Captain Tyra said. “Any word since we lost radio contact?”
“We don’t know if they died or got lost,” Kyron said. “Two came back early. They brought a prisoner. The others returned to the farm to continue the search, and we haven’t heard from them.”
“And where is the prisoner?” Tyra said.
Kyron turned and pointed to a sturdy log cabin built on a low hill above the shoreline. A large red line had been painted across the door, and two armed guards were posted just outside. Tyra nodded.
“Very well,” she said. She spread her arms wide, taking in the entire group surrounding her on the wharf. Behind her, the small fishing boat creaked and strained against its mooring lines. “Now, I want you all to listen to me very carefully. We made some small tactical mistakes on the assault, but as a result, we now know everything we need to know. The next attack will be a full-force attack, and victory will be swift and decisive. If you can’t believe this, then you have no business being here. Is that clear?”
All heads nodded. Even Dana finally looked up, pulled her hands apart, and gave the captain a single nod.
I wonder if she realizes that single head nod probably saved her life, Tyra wondered, staring hard at Dana for a few seconds. The woman withered before her and quickly looked away.
“I’m going to speak to our prisoner,” Tyra said. “I want the rest of you to be ready to depart within the hour.”
She clapped her hands, and the group immediately dispersed, like roaches suddenly exposed by bright lights. However, this was no random departure. They went in groups, some headed to boats, others headed to supply buildings. They had drilled a sudden departure hundreds of times, and they moved now like a well-oiled machine. Even Dana trotted off with her appointed group.
Only Lieutenant Kyron lingered, his hands stiffly at his sides. He wore his uniform well. It was tailored and showed off a trim and athletic physique.
“Take me to him,” she said.
He saluted, turned crisply, and led her across the wharf and up the hill. She strode with purpose, trying to look confident rather than enraged. Too much anger would only make her seem volatile and unsteady. In her mind, she saw the face of the young woman who had turned the tide on the Mako. They’d called her Stella. Somehow, she’d snuck onto the lower deck and started the first fire, then radioed Tyra’s people to get them on the flagship. It was the only explanation.
The kid was smart and lucky, Tyra thought. I will reserve my worst punishment for her.
When they approached the heavy door of the cabin, the guards saluted her and moved aside. One of them reached over and grabbed the big metal door latch, turning it and pulling the door open. The interior was dim and dusty, dominated by a row of large iron cages along the back wall. Currently, only one of the cages was occupied. A man was sitting on the floor, his hands in his lap, but he looked at Tyra when the door opened, squinting at the sudden sunlight.
He was absolutely filthy, dressed in a button-up shirt so dirty that it was impossible to tell its original color. His jeans were frayed at the knees, his boots badly scuffed, and his long gray-brown beard was horribly unkempt. He had bandages taped to his forehead, his right cheek, and the side of his neck. A long bandage was wrapped from elbow to wrist of his right arm, and two of his fingers on that hand were in a makeshift wooden splint.
“That’s him,” Lieutenant Kyron said, approaching the cage and grabbing one of the bars. “That’s the man who designed the Mako oil platform.”
Captain Tyra strode up to the cage, taking slow, heavy steps. The man gave her a flat, unfriendly look but said nothing.
“So this is Ronny Garber,” Captain Tyra said, squatting in front of the cage to be at the same eye level as this haggard old coot. The man looked half-mad. “Looks like you put up a hell of a fight.”
“I reckon I did,” he replied, his voice cracking. “But your people didn’t get what they wanted, and they never will. I burned those papers in my fireplace years ago.”
“It doesn’t matter,” Tyra said. “We have something a whole lot better than a stack of documents, old man.” She paused a beat, forced a smile, and said, “We have you.”
At this he bared his hideous yellow teeth. “I won’t say nothing more!”
“You have a lot more bones to break,” Tyra said. “Anyway, you’ll be with us.” At this, his eyebrows went up. “Oh, yeah, that’s right. You’re joining us on the next attack. The designer of the Mako will be there with the rightful owner of the Mako—that’s me—as I retake what belongs to my family. Oh, I’ve learned who my enemy is. It was a hard lesson, but the next attack will be a sight to behold. And you’re going to be right there to see it, Grandpa.”
“I can’t hardly walk after the way I was beat,” he said. “How do you expect to get me there?”
“By any means at our disposal, of course.” Captain Tyra laughed, though it was mostly forced. She turned to Lieutenant Kyron and nodded at him. “Get these guards to help you. I want the prisoner chained and secured and dragged onto one of the boats. He’s coming with us to the Mako.” She turned to leave, then added, “Hurt him as much as you need to. Make him compliant. But don’t kill him.”
Kyron saluted her, and she strode back to the door. As soon as she left the building, she heard the guards enter. But she headed down to the shoreline. She saw sails being unfurled, supplies being loaded. They were bringing everything and the kitchen sink this time. No more mistakes. No more assumptions.
Every man, woman, and child I find on the Mako is going to die, she thought. And after Ronny has told us what we need to know, when he’s little more than a tortured, quivering mass, he’ll join them at the bottom of the ocean, I swear AILS will repay a hundredfold for every person we lost.
Burning with rage, she headed to her fleet.
END OF NO RELIEF
EMP SABOTAGE BOOK TWO
BLURB
The world ended. But the final battle has just begun…
The world has grown even more dangerous for the survivors of the EMP strikes that crippled the United States. Ronny is a prisoner of AILS, a terrorist group planning to remake the world to suit their twisted vision. He’ll do whatever it takes to stop them, even if it costs him his life.
Ruth and the others remain on the offshore drilling platform. But AILS has set their sights on the facility, and are coming to take it by force. If their plan succeeds, there will be nowhere left to hide. Fleeing for their lives, the survivors must somehow mount a counter strike, before the terrorist cabal grows even more powerful.
The platform that has been their refuge must be destroyed. But demolishing a drilling rig is no simple task. And as AILS forces close in, a deadly storm looms on the horizon. Surrounded by danger, the survivors must make a final stand to stop these deadly fanatics once and for all.
The fate of humanity—and their own survival—hang in the balance.
Great news! This book was updated and edited in September 2023.
1
As prison cells went, it was definitely an improvement. The iron cage in the log cabin had been cold, cramped, and uncomfortable, although some of Ronny’s discomfort could be attributed to the beating he’d taken. Now, he was imprisoned in some kind of crew cabin down in the belly of a stolen deep-sea trawler. It was a purely functional ship with a red hull and an enormous, raised boom for the trawl nets. The cabin was bare bones and they’d chained him to the bed, but they’d left him with a small bottle of water to quench his thirst. That was better than he’d had in the log cabin as well.
Even so, Ronny was fuming in the dark. One violent, hateful thought after another. His face hurt. His eyes were still swollen. He had bruises all over, and even his hands ached from all the punches he’d thrown. To be fair, the AILS crew had had a slight advantage in their much younger ages. They moved and reacted a lot faster than he’d been able to. Heck, he hadn’t even managed to shoot a single one of them during their assault on his home.
Pulled the damned shotgun right out of my hands, he thought bitterly. I busted his lip, but he had some kind of hand-to-hand training, I guess.
“They got lucky,” he muttered. “I was outnumbered, and I missed my clearest shot. That’s all.”
He heard a bang on his cabin door, and a gruff voice said, “Keep it down in there!”
“All I did was mutter,” he grumbled. “A man can mutter.”
He could feel the rocking of the boat. They’d hit some choppy water. But he had no idea where they were going. He’d assumed they would head straight for the Mako to mount another assault, but they’d wound up somewhere else to pick up additional boats.
He glanced around the room. The only furniture in the cabin was the bed he was sitting on. There was nothing he could use as a weapon.
If I could just get my hands around the throat of one of these people, it would be weapon enough, he thought. I could create a hostage situation and maybe barter for my escape.
The door flew open then, shoved so hard it banged off the wall.
“Watch it, now,” he said. “You’re going to break something if you’re not careful.”
He couldn’t help being sarcastic with these people. His contempt for them, for AILS, for their whole cause, knew no bounds. Billionaire Llewellyn Hall had been a businessman with his finger in many pies, funding projects across a vast array of industries. One of those projects had been the Mako oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico. Ronny had met the man, talked with him a few times during the early stages of building the rig. Now, his daughter, Tyra, was running some kind of cult terrorist group, and she wanted daddy’s property back. It boggled the mind.
Ronny turned toward the open door. One of the people standing there was a young, fidgety blonde woman. He’d met her before. Dana. She was a mean little lackey of Captain Tyra who craved the approval of her fearless leader. That made her dangerous.
Accompanying her was a pair of big, beefy guys with dull expressions and shaved heads, one short and the other quite tall. They were all dressed in black, but the two guys were lugging canvas bags with them as they entered the room.
Oh, I see where this is going, Ronny thought.
“Our session doesn’t have to be long and drawn out today,” Dana said. She approached the bed but came to a stop just out of reach. “You’ll save yourself a lot of pain and heartache if you go ahead and tell us what we want to know, Mr. Garber.”
