The front wheels land first. Kirsten’s head jerks forward, pounding against the steering wheel and slicing a large gash just above her hairline. Asimov yelps again as he is thrown against the glove compartment, rebounds into the seat, and collapses, panting and whining in pain.
The rear wheels hit then, and Kirsten’s head tips back. A rich fan of bright blood lays itself across the windshield and the ceiling. A second fan joins the first as the van drops down off the curb and shoots down a narrow side street, careening out of control.
The side street widens out, then curves gently, becoming a freeway onramp. Kirsten holds the curve, blinking the streaming blood from eyes big and round and white as saucers. She lets out a breath of relief as the van rockets onto the thankfully empty freeway, then sucks that breath back in as the tires hit another patch of black ice and slide across the lanes as if they’ve suddenly grown skate blades.
The sideways glide, almost balletic really, comes to an abrupt end as the van sideswipes a steel divider, further abusing the already crumpled driver’s side from fender to fender. More metal and paint are sacrificed to the gods of destruction, and the van gradually slows, half on and half off of the smoothly paved freeway.
If finally rolls to a complete stop, and Kirsten sits, staring through the window as her mind tries to wrap itself around the events just preceding. Her hand moves up to wipe her brow. It comes away bloody as she hisses at the sting. “You alright boy?” she asks Asimov. His ears perk, followed by his body as he comes to a sitting position and leans over to lick at her face. It tickles, and she giggles a little before pushing him away. The laugh sounds a little breathless, a little tremulous, and she knows that her system is just waiting out the shock she’s just given it. And if that happens….
Reaching into her pocket, she pulls out another handkerchief, dots gingerly at the blood on her brow, then ties it around her head just below the level of the cut. The mediocre first aid will have to do for now. She can’t spare time for anything else.
The battered van starts forward again, if grudgingly, and soon she’s driving west as if trying to outrun the dawn shading the eastern sky.
2
Setting her hat back on her head, Koda follows Allen to the back of the nearer troop trucks. She swings herself easily up onto the bumper, then ducks through the narrow door. Inside, the carrier has been transformed into a mobile field office. A table has been bolted to the floor between the two long side benches; over their heads—not more than a couple millimeters over Koda’s—a battery-powered fluorescent tube runs almost the length of the compartment.
A topo map of the area is taped by its corners to the table, which also holds a compact laptop no thicker than a weekly newsmagazine. Best of all, a camp stove backed by a wide reflector radiates heat through the entire space. The Colonel unbuttons her heavy parka and drops it onto a folding chair. Koda follows suit, adding hat and gloves to the pile.
The Colonel raises a mug with squadron logo on the side: a bobcat standing on its hind feet and twirling a six-gun in either paw, a crooked, very human grin spread across its whiskered face under a Stetson. Behind it is the shape of a steeply climbing fighter jet, with “Wildcats SR” in looping script across its tail. “Coffee?”
Koda settles on one of the benches, stretching her booted feet out to the stove. “Real?”
“Real.” Allen rummages in a thermal chest under the table and comes up with another cup and a vacuum jug. “Sugar? Creamer?”
“Black, thanks.”
She hands Koda the hot, fragrant drink and settles across from her. She is tall and spare, though not so tall as Koda, with elegant long hands. There is a scattering of grey in her hair, worn natural and close to her scalp. Her only ornament is a single gold ear cuff, also in the form of a bobcat. She smiles faintly, but her eyes remain sharp and more than a little wary. “So,” she says. “Truth or dare time. You want me to go first?”
Koda raises her mug in salute. “Be my guest, Colonel.”
“Maggie.”
“Koda, then.”
Maggie nods, then settles herself, leaning back against the wall of the truck. “Okay.
“We were in the air when we got word of the uprising. We’d only been up about half an hour or so—myself, half a dozen instructors with their student pilots. Flying echelon, doing some formation training on the way up to Minot. We were doing the tour, landings and takeoffs at half-a-dozen bases with mid-air refueling. Standard exercise.”
So they have planes. Koda lowers her eyes as she takes a sip from the cup, not quite quickly enough.
“Right,” Maggie confirms with a negligent wave of her hand. “When we heard, we turned around and put down on a long, straight stretch of farm road a couple miles from here. We found a ranch house that had already been hit. The folks there apparently kept a couple domestic droids, maybe a field hand or two. The men were all dead and the women all gone.”
She pauses, and Koda recognizes that it is her turn. “That’s the pattern we’ve seen. The night it happened, we destroyed a pair of droids that had gone to raid our neighbors’ ranch. We weren’t in time to help the men, but we got the women and girls away from them. Same at another place a few miles up the road, except that the things were long gone.”
“We?”
“My family and I. My dad has a large spread up near the Cheyenne. I have my own place next to it.”
“Can your people hold it?”
“So far.”
“Good. We need to find other resisters, too. Right now, we’re holding about fifteen square miles, closing off the roads and bridges and running a tight perimeter with relay patrols.”
“How many troops?”
Maggie ticked them off. “We have the fighter crews; that’s fourteen of us. Then we have another thirty, weekend infantry we picked up when we went to raid the National Guard armory at Box Elder for vehicles and small arms. Plus survivors and refugees that managed to get away from Ellsworth itself. Sixty-five of us altogether.”
“So what’s going on? It’s not just a mutiny. Hell,” Koda thumped her cup down on the table, sloshing the still-scalding liquid halfway up the side of the mug.” It’s a goddam third-rate science-fiction story: kill the men and carry off Earth’s Fairest Daughters. It’s worse than goddam Fay Wray with the goddam gorilla up on the goddam Empire State Building!”
“You’re right about that,” Maggie says softly. “Most of the men on the base were mutilated.”
Koda draws her breath in sharply, the air hissing between her teeth. “So.”
“But you suspected that, didn’t you?”
“Young, prime males, sure.” Koda shrugs. “Steers go to market; cows and heifers make more steers, with the bull or with the turkey baster. It does, however,” she says very carefully, “seem unlikely that the droids are raising beef. Or long pig.”
“Well, they haven’t eaten anybody yet. I’ve always hated the damn things. Hated the idea of them, the risk they just might not be controllable in a crisis. Hated making them humanoid.” A wry grin splits Maggie’s dark face. “But I don’t think they’ve gotten human enough to turn to cannibalism. No, it’s something else. Want to help us find out what?”
“What do you have in mind?”
“Some recon tomorrow, onto the base and maybe into Rapid City.”
It is what she had intended to do in any case. She had not expected to have allies. Koda nods. “Count me in.”
Half an hour later, Koda is back on the road toward the ranch house that serves as the guerilla force’s headquarters, part of the small convoy that has picked up the Colonel and the bridge guards and left others in their place. The driver ahead of her, one Corporal Lizzie Montoya, is a maniac, her tires spraying snow in arcing fountains as she bumps and crunches along through the ice at reckless speed. Koda drives with one foot half on the brake in case Montoya skids off the road or into the lead vehicle. Miraculously, the Corporal does not kill herself or anyone else.