Deadman

Flying was a strange and awful experience for me. I found myself gripping the seat with enough force that the fabric of it began to tear slightly. I took a breath and let it out slowly, relaxing my grip, and looking around the cabin I found myself in. Graves was silent, moving only slightly to make minute adjustments to our trajectory that caused his servos to whine almost in harmony with the sounds of the Shrike. Leah had given up on reading for now, and had drawn her hat down over her eyes, either sleeping or using one of her agent abilities for nefarious purposes.

I turned my attention to the window nearest to me. We were flying close enough to the ground that I could make out the details we were passing over. Looking down and examining the landmarks, I could tell exactly where I would have been on the map. It was interesting to have this perspective, and I found myself imagining what it would be like to move along the ground at the same speed we were flying over it. Picturing myself leaping over settlements, and running through swamps as we moved over them.

The Shrike made several adjustments that I could tell were being made to avoid deadzones and dust storms. I wasn’t sure how much of a threat deadzones would actually be to them in the air, particularly those that I knew were low in radiation, but contained land based threats. Either they knew something I didn’t, they hadn’t fully parsed the information they’d received from Pott’s, or that information was purposefully misleading.

Once the novelty of flight wore off, I pulled a book from my pack and spent the rest of the trip reading. It was ‘The Halfling’s Halving’, a story about a Halfling that’s cleaved in twain, and whose disparate parts somehow create two halflings. He was just about to mass produce himself into an army when I felt the Shrike gently slow to a stop. I looked outside. We were in STAR territory, but not anywhere that I recognized. It was a long flat plain that went on for miles in every direction. The only thing of note was the crowd that was gathered near where we seemed to be landing.

The Shrike descended slowly, and Leah, flicked her cap back up off her eyes before she began to stand, not bothering to wait for the full descent. I followed suit, unstrapping and flinging my pack over my shoulder. I had to be bent mostly over in order to stand, my hat brushing the ceiling even as I was crouched down. The Shrike landed almost eerily smoothly, and the side doors of it opened. Leah, and Graves walked out, and I followed them.

There was an immediate gasp as I stepped out and a man standing to the side of the door went to raise his rifle at me. I grabbed his arm before he could fully raise it, and pulled him in front of me, thinking it was some kind of ambush.

“Stand down!” yelled Leah, pointing at the man I moved rather than at me.

“But-” the man started, his eyes wild as I dangled him a foot off the ground.

“I told you I’d have a representative of Pott’s here. You're lucky he didn’t kill you.”

The man stopped struggling and I gently placed him down. I brushed his arm gently where I’d gripped him and smiled showing my teeth. “You’re very lucky.” I whispered, pushing my way past him. I looked around at the group that was gathered and took stock. The men with guns were all dressed in the STAR military uniform, which varied wildly aside from one thing, big black boots. Those without weapons were dressed in approximations of old world clothing, suits, bolo ties, dresses, and large wide brimmed hats.

Leah approached one of them, a thin older man with narrow features and dark gray hair, and shook his hand. “Boyd.”

He smiled. “Leah.”

I’d heard the name before. From what I understood, he was to STAR territory what the Khan was to the Horde. The only major difference was that he came to power ‘democratically’ which is to say, he used his authority to rig an election. He was something like the fifth Boyd to run the Sovereign Territory of America Resurrected, which was the phrase for which STAR had been named. It was such a wordy mouthful that I assumed they came up with the name STAR first and filled in the rest later. Though whether or not that was true, I suppose only Boyd’s ancestor’s knew for sure. STAR territory was a kingdom masquerading as a democracy. The Boyds had been in charge since the beginning, and spent all their time consolidating their territory and personal power. Even at the local level, all the mayors were in his pockets, and the entire territory was a sea of red tape and bureaucracy.

It was more secure than the Horde though. Since the Horde bordered no other major powers along its eastern and northern flanks, there tended to be more raider activity for settlements to deal with. STAR had the Cut to the West, which only occasionally spat out a mutant horror, and to the East, most raiders were taken care of within Horde territory. They had their own unique issue with The Republic, but it wasn’t like they raided them from within. Overall, the people who chose to live in STAR were those who valued security over freedom or integrity, and slavers. They preferred the red tape and lies of STAR to the violence and truth of the Horde.

I wondered what Leah and the Remnants had offered to Boyd that had made him turn over the keys to his fiefdom without resistance.

He looked at me and gave me a nod, not offering his hand as he had to Leah. “Nice to meet you Mr…?”

I let the question hang in the air, not bothering to answer, and fixing him with a red eyed stare.

I could see him hiding impotent rage behind a small smile, but he managed to keep his cool.

“This is Donovan,” offered Leah. “He’s here at the request of the cabinet.”

“Hrm. Of course. Any idea when they’ll be arriving?”

Leah smiled and looked up at the sky. “Very soon I think. Pull back any men nearby. Wouldn’t want them to get crushed.”

“Crushed?” I asked. “Your ‘cabinet’ wouldn’t be able to just avoid running them over?”

“I’m not worried about them running someone over. I’m worried about someone being landed on.”

“Landed on? I thought you said you only had the one Shrike?”

“We do.”

“Then what-?”

She smiled and pointed up at the sky.

I turned my gaze to where she was pointing and saw flickering lights. They were moving fast, and as I watched them I began to hear a kind of rumbling that reminded me of the engines being tested in the center of Fette. I could smell burnt fuel.

The lights, sounds, and smells grew and grew until I was able to tell that the lights were metal pods encased in fire. Soon, the lights and sounds from them were blinding and deafening. A flame suddenly exploded from the bottoms of the pods, and they began to slow down as they approached the ground. In spite of that, when they did finally hit, the entire ground shook and everyone but myself and Graves had to steady themselves in order to keep from falling over. The pods began to crack open, letting out a hiss of air as they did, and from each of the three pods emerged a dozen figures wearing the same armor as Graves. They lined up in two neat rows, and between those rows walked five of them, who approached the group with clear purpose.

Leah moved ahead of us, with Graves close behind, and extended her hand. “Welcome back from the station.”

The one in the lead took a step toward her, and his armor hissed, and opened at the face, revealing a man of about forty years, with short neat white hair, gray eyes, and strong features that were positioned in an easy smile. He extended his hand and gave hers a firm shake. “Thank you Leah, it’s good to see you again.” He looked left and right across the flat empty plains that surrounded us and took a deep breath. “It feels damned good to be on American soil.”

Boyd stepped up to stand next to Leah, offering his own hand. “It’s good to finally meet you, Secretary Masters.”

The man shot Boyd a wide smile and clasped his hand firmly in a handshake. “Boyd! Damn good to meet you too, and welcome back to the Union.”

“Glad you arrived safely,” said Boyd, doing his best not to lose his footing as his hand was shaken so vigorously.

“Well, luckily we got all the kinks worked out since the last time we sent people down.”

As he said that, I noticed Leah’s hand involuntarily moved to the scar on her throat and the servos in Graves’ hand whirred as he clenched a fist and relaxed it.

Masters’ eyes moved to me, and his smile didn’t dip a millimeter. He simply walked over and extended his hand again.

I felt a slight tug at my cheek as I involuntarily started to smile back, but I pushed that down. I did, however, take the hand he offered and shook it.

“And this must be Donovan. The man that’s going to help bring America back to life.”