Someone screamed in torment.
The Warrior rolled to a squatting posture, finding Locklin and other men and women in green near him. Three of the band had not been as fortunate, and their prone forms were visible sprawled in the weeds.
“Tuck!” Locklin cried.
Rikki peered upward at the aircraft as the plane climbed for a second run.
A squat, bearded man, hunched over at the waist, hastened to Locklin.
He held a crossbow in his muscular right hand. “Yes?”
“You know what to do,” Locklin said.
Tuck nodded and knelt, reaching for a small, brown leather pouch attached to his belt on his left hip. He opened the flap and extracted an unusually large arrowhead.
“That plane is history,” Locklin declared.
A crossbow against an aircraft? Rikki watched as Tuck shifted and revealed a quiver of crossbow bolts suspended from his belt on his right side. “You must be an outstanding archer,” Rikki commented.
Tuck looked at the man in black. “Have you ever seen this done before?”
He placed the black crossbow on the grass.
“I’ve never seen anyone shoot down a plane with an arrow.”
“Watch,” Tuck said. He extracted a bolt from the quiver, a short, green arrow lacking a tip. The end of the shaft was hollow. “These were all the rage before the war,” Tuck commented. “It’s easy to use different arrowheads this way.” He quickly inserted the threaded base of the oversized arrowhead into the hollow end of the bolt and screwed the arrowhead tight.
“We possess such arrows where I come from,” Rikki mentioned. “And I have a friend who is an excellent bowman. His name is Teucer. But I doubt even he could down a plane with a simple shaft.”
“Not so simple,” Tuck said, holding the bolt out for Rikki to examine.
“This is an explosive arrowhead, and it’s designed to detonate on impact.”
“Where did you obtain it?”
“We found an abandoned house in Redan. In the basement was a cache of weapons,” Tuck divulged. “The place must have belonged to a survivalist.”
“The plane is coming in for another run,” Locklin interjected.
Tuck scooped up his crossbow and stood. “Hold this,” he said, handing the bolt to Rikki. He extended a metal stirrup from under the front of the bow, then rested the stirrup on the turf and slid his right boot into it to act as a brace and keep the bow in position while he pulled on the string.
Using both hands, he gripped the string and pulled until there was a loud click. “The arrow,” Tuck said, and Rikki returned the bolt.
“Hurry,” Locklin ordered.
Tuck slid the bolt into a groove, aligning the shaft snugly. “I’m ready,” he announced.
Rikki peered skyward through the brush and spotted the aircraft banking in from the west. He glanced at the stand of trees, expecting to see a Storm Policeman or two, but instead he spied several men and women in green. The other half of Locklin’s band had circled and silently slain the remaining Storm Police.
Tuck was heading from cover, holding the crossbow with the stock pressed against his right shoulder.
Rikki followed for a better view.
“Stay hidden,” Locklin warned him.
Tuck crouched behind a bush, his gaze fixed on the plane.
The white aircraft was swooping low over the landscape, over the section of ground the Freedom Fighters had vacated.
Rikki could imagine the pilot and gunners scanning the terrain for the band. The green attire worn by the Freedom Fighters would be extremely difficult to see from the air.
Tuck was tracking the plane’s path with the crossbow.
“He’s the best man we have with a crossbow,” Locklin remarked from the Warrior’s right elbow.
The aircraft wasn’t more than 50 feet above tree level and 30 yards to the west when Tuck suddenly rose and sighted. He squeezed the trigger almost immediately, and the shaft was a blur as it sped to meet the plane.
“Hit the dirt!” Locklin yelled.
Rikki-Tikki-Tavi flattened as the forest rocked to a tremendous explosion. The aircraft was enveloped in a fiery ball, and the concussion snapped limbs from the tops of those trees nearest the blast. Debris flew in every direction, and a moment later the bulk of the plane, now a tangled, twisted, flaming mass of wreckage, plummeted to the field below with a resounding crash.
The Freedom Fighters voiced a collective cheer.
“We did it!” Locklin exclaimed happily, rising.
Rikki stood and regarded the black smoke billowing on the wind.
“That’s the third plane we’ve shot down this year,” Locklin boasted.
Big John and Dale were leading the other half of the band to rejoin Locklin.
“How did it go?” the rebel leader asked as they approached.
“No problem,” Big John said. “We didn’t lose anyone. They weren’t expecting us to jump them from behind.”
“How many did you bag?” Locklin inquired.
“Eight,” Big John replied. “Four more were already dead.”
“Should we collect their weapons?” Dale queried.
“Of course,” Locklin directed.
Dale selected a half-dozen band members and they hurried off.
“Did you hear that?” Locklin asked the Warrior. “We took down another Storm Police patrol. Twelve more bastards bite the dust.”
“You sound glad,” Rikki noted.
“Why shouldn’t I be?” Locklin retorted. “The Storm Police are our enemies.”
“The Storm Police are pawns,” Rikki stated. “If all that you have told me is true, your real enemies are the Peers.”
“Yeah. But the Storm Police are the enforcement arm of the Civil Council,” Locklin said.
“The Peers direct the Storm Police,” Rikki mentioned. “The Peers are the ones manipulating the people of Atlanta. The Peers, in a literal sense, are the brains behind the operation.”
“So?” Locklin responded. “What’s your point?”
Rikki stared at the blazing aircraft. “So for fourteen years you have been resisting the Peers by harassing the patrols they send outside the wall. For fourteen years you have killed pawn after pawn, downed a plane now and then, and prided yourselves on your great victories. But you’ve been deluding yourselves.”
The Freedom Fighters were listening to his every word.
“You think so, eh?” Locklin said.
“I know so,” Rikki declared emphatically. He looked at the rebel leader.
“Do you play chess?”
“I can play chess,” Locklin answered.
“Then you must be able to see the inconsistency in your strategy,” Rikki expounded. “A person does not win a chess match by concentrating exclusively on an opponent’s pawns. Taking pawns is not the point of the game, nor is taking pawns the point of your revolution. If you want to win a chess match, you must checkmate the king. If you want to win your revolution, if you want to free the people of Atlanta, you must checkmate the Peers.”
“He makes sense,” one of the band commented.
“Have you ever tried to assassinate the Peers?” Rikki asked Locklin.
The rebel leader sheepishly averted his eyes. “No,” he said softly.
“How else do you expect to win your revolution?” Rikki inquired. “You can wipe out Storm Trooper patrols for years to come, and I doubt the Peers will consider your band as much more than a petty annoyance. You may actually help them consolidate their power by giving them a threat they can arouse the populace against.”