“Major?” I asked.
“Sir, what are our plans?”
Without pause, I said, “We have perhaps five hundred people to hold off ten thousand. We’ve been lucky so far. Do you have any ideas?”
“I do,” Sue said before he could respond in the negative. She continued, “Five hundred against ten thousand isn’t fair. We need more. Dispatch the sailboats, send motorcycles and send radio messages to everyone in the northwest. Tell them whoever is in on those ships sent the blight that killed our friends and families. If they want a piece of them, get their asses here with whatever weapons they have and fight alongside us.”
Major Dundee looked from her to me. “Sort of like sending a hundred Paul Reveres to alert the citizens the British are coming. I like it.”
She smiled sweetly, but her eyes were hard. She said, “We’ll have another thousand here by dawn, and more by the end of tomorrow. In two or three days, we’ll outnumber them.”
The major turned to me. “Do I have your permission to do as she says?”
“Yes. Tell everyone to spread the word. Those who came on motorcycles should head out, stop and tell everyone they encounter. We need help. Lots of it.”
“And you think they will come?”
“I do,” I told him, as certain of that statement as any I’d ever made.
He rushed away. Ten minutes later, over the intermittent gunshots, the roar of thirty motorcycles was music to my ears.
More gunboats joined the others still on the water circling fast and sweeping in close and firing, before retreating. They broke into three smaller groups, about ten boats in each. I suspected what would happen next but couldn’t prevent it. Part of them went north of us, others south, and the last group came directly at us on the pier. While we could hold the pier, at least for a while, there were not enough of us to control the entire waterfront. They would land hundreds of troops to our left, a few hundred more to our right, and hundreds of others would attack directly at us.
I considered withdrawing.
The white-haired SEAL was striding my way. He placed a hand on my shoulder and said, “Don’t do it. If they take this pier, it’s over.”
“We don’t have enough to stop them. I can’t order all these people to stay and be killed.”
He looked out at the ships—and beyond. At the sun that was almost touching the tops of the Olympic mountains. “Can you spread the word for them to stay until midnight?”
That gave them six hours to escape before dawn. “I can do that.”
In appreciation, he pounded my shoulder with his balled fist so hard my knees almost buckled. He turned and hurried to where his group was gathered, still talking and planning and issuing orders I didn’t understand. He didn’t seem worried and the men with the kayaks were in good spirits.
Sue took me a few steps away from everyone else. We stood beside a rusted Buick as she said, “Remain calm. You have to set an example. You’re doing great.”
“I have no right to be giving orders. If these people ever find out I’m just a geek who lived in a basement, they won’t do anything I say. I don’t know what I’m doing or how this happened to put me in charge. You and Steve are doing ten times what I am.”
“Stand tall. You are the figurehead, Captain. You have us to support you. Steve, Major Dundee, the SEAL, and me. And others. Just take a few deep breaths and watch what’s going to happen.”
I turned to the setting sun but could only see seventeen ships filled with ten thousand troops between the sun and me. And of course, the gunboats they kept sending our way. “At midnight, I’m sending everyone away.”
She gave me a faint smile but didn’t argue.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
The sun went down as more clouds moved in. The gunfire decreased as the targets became invisible or at least, harder to see. Hopefully, that would help the SEAL and the kayakers, too. The major found me and said that he’d heard many more people had arrived or were in transit. The motorcycles had splint up onto small groups were spreading the word.
They were riding into every part of the city and even the small towns nearby. I wondered if they had recruited the same guys on motorcycles in Marysville who had chased us. And the Indians guarding their reservation. Even those in Darrington would come if the word reached them—and if they were sober enough.
He said, “When the survivors heard about what’s happening here, they got so pissed some are running on foot to reach us before the main attack.”
“There are still ten-thousands of the those on the ships,” I said. “They are better armed and trained, so don’t get your hopes up that we’re going to win. Issue the order that unless told otherwise, we all leave here at midnight.”
He snorted, then straightened. “Sir, not to attempt to correct you, but I think you’re wrong. From what I hear, nobody has refused to help. They insist on it. And despite what you say, nobody is leaving.”
Steve, who hadn’t said anything for quite a while, leaned closer. “How are you going to feed all of them?”
Major Dundee said, “I forgot to mention it in all the excitement. When we broke into the armory, there were pallets of MREs. We loaded case after and case into that second duce-and-a-half truck, a hundred-and-forty-four dehydrated meals in foil packs in each. Should we distribute them?”
I knew the letters stood for dehydrated meals in foil packs. Meals, Ready to Eat, MREs. Those video games were coming in handy. “One per fighter. Honor system. We don’t have the resources to control who takes more. Pass the word.”
“The people up on the hill, too?” he asked.
Without hesitation, I said, “They’re here to fight with us and just as hungry.”
He turned and gave orders to pass out the meals, one to a person, to everyone who had come to help us. He sent men with cases balanced on their shoulders up the roads and to the hill where folks were located. It was up to them to find water to mix with the meals, but that shouldn’t be too hard. Many carried water bottles or canteens.
People kept coming to me for orders. Oddly, they already knew most of the answers and just wanted confirmation. Sue and Steve responded to many of them for me, as they shielded me from making hard choices. They kept me from making stupid ones, too. I walked to the radio tent and entered. To my dismay, all five operators leaped to their feet. It startled me to look around for what had caused their reaction.
The answer came in a hot flash of understanding. It was me. I ordered them to sit and continue, as I asked questions. Yes, they’d all reached others, and those who were within thirty miles or so, should arrive by daylight to provide help. None could provide an accurate guess as to how many that might be. All were bringing whatever weapons could muster.
What was more important, one radio operator with a bad leg and a bandage with blood seeping through told me, the Paul Reveres were still out there passing the word to others and beyond that, others had taken up the call. We now firmly suspected the flu, or blight as it was beginning to commonly be called, had been inflicted on us by another nation, not nature. The reaction was instant hate. People demanded revenge and wanted to be part of it.
A radio operator said he had spoken with another one in Seattle and the word was spreading there. They had already formed a convoy of pickups, SUVs, and motorcycles, amounting to more than three hundred vehicles, each loaded with men and weapons heading up the interstate. They were only a little more than an hour away. There was no gang along the way that would attempt to stop them, but some might hear the story join up with them.