Enoa belted herself into a crash-seat bolted to the skimmer’s wall. Jaleel and Teddy sat on her either side, while Orson helped the crew of the skimmer bring the dune buggy aboard. They eased the buggy up the vehicle’s loading ramp, the one place where the craft touched the ground. Cathy Hawkins secured the buggy with magnetic clamps, built into the floor.
The deluge obscured everything outside the glow from the skimmer’s lights, but the craft was nearly the size of the Aesir, mostly empty, and large enough to dock a car.
Cathy and her two crewmembers wore full armor, sky-blue, over yellow jumpsuits. Their helmets were similar in design to Helmont’s knights’, thick in the face and forehead, with a slit visor. Cathy’s helmet bore the same bird-over-sun symbol as the nose of the skimmer.
“What were you doing calling from Roger’s?” Cathy tested the clamps, checking their strength with her gloved hands. “Theodore’s a lot closer to us than to the relay.” She removed her helmet and returned to the front of the skimmer, where the rest of her crew was already seated. “Let’s get moving.”
“Roger’s main gig is encryption.” Orson didn’t sit. His repulsor boot secured him to the deck, even in motion. “And you don’t need any of our trouble. There’s a bounty on me and my crew.”
“We know.” The woman in the driver’s seat called. “We thought that’s why you came to hide out at Teddy’s.”
“Partly,” Orson said. “We’re planning an operation against the Liberty Corps, and we need to buy information. A lot of information. So we’re also here to see you.”
“We had to raise our rates, just so you know.” Cathy ran a gloved hand through her chin-length graying hair.
“I already told him,” Teddy said.
“I’m sorry, Orson.” Cathy’s chair rotated, so she could look back at the passengers. “But it’s expensive to grow a nation. We only have this because of the technology the dead feds left on our land.”
“How’s it going?” Orson asked. “We saw the welcome center on the drive in. Must be pretty good.”
“It is… pretty good,” Cathy said.
“Except when it sucks.” The pilot said.
“Except a lot of the time,” Cathy conceded. “You don’t want to get me started. I’m just reclamations. I don’t have to worry about alliances or drawing the new maps, but… It was fun when we were scooping up abandoned Hierarchia tech. But that’s not what we get to do anymore.”
“We do have a lot of great toys now.” The copilot said. He was a massive man, so broad he barely fit in his seat. When he’d helped them aboard, Enoa could see the sections where armor had been added to his gear, to extend beyond his too-small breastplate. “That’s pretty nice.”
“I like your skimmer,” Jaleel said. “It banks better than the one the Liberty Corps used to chase us.”
“Does it?” the copilot asked. “Did we modify the repulsor at all?”
“Not that I know of,” the pilot said.
“If Jaleel says it’s better,” Orson said. “He’s probably right. Oh yeah, right, this is the new Aesir crew, Jaleel Yaye and Enoa Cloud.”
“Good to meet you,” Cathy said. “I’m Catherine Hawkins. My pilot here is Violet Munoz, and her little sidekick is David Gardner.” Both waved over their shoulders.
Cathy stood, her own boots also gripping the deck. “I read your wanted posters. You’re the inventor.” She nodded to Jaleel. “We have a list of things that need doing. If you can help us, it’ll earn some credit for your crew, so Captain Orson won’t be so cheap with his long-distance calls.”
“It’s not about cheap,” Orson groaned. “Our current business is totally pro bono, and quests are expensive. Hopefully, we’ll all still have a need to eat once this is over. That’s not even getting into how tough it is to move funds, with everything fragmented. If you’ll need more than ten thousand dollars in Pacific Alliance money, this could take a lot longer.”
“It all depends what help you’re looking for,” Cathy said. “But we have time to figure that out. We’re not working for ourselves this week, either. Everyone’s going to be helping the Council with the flooding and the damage. This shit used to be once a century.”
Cathy pressed her hand to the wall opposite the seated Aesir crew. It lit up, showing a view from outside.
They coasted above the flow of floodwater, the new river that had formed in the valley and swallowed the road. The rushing water looked deep enough and fast enough to carry cars along in its wake.
“Oh,” Teddy gasped. “This is worse than last year! Why does this keep happening?”
“The changing of seasons is dangerous now,” Cathy said. “We want to get a climate satellite running, but so many of those didn’t survive the last few years. The Inyo tribe has access to a Weather Service observatory. They say this is all climate change, but it stinks like the Hierarchia to me.”
“They really loved messing with shit,” Orson said. “I wouldn’t be surprised.”
“Here we go,” Violet called back. “The two paranoid nuts on the same road trip. This’ll be fun.”
“My miserable view of the world is why I’m not dead yet,” Orson laughed.
“And it’s why we take your jobs,” Cathy said. “I wouldn’t help some random asshat against the Liberty Corps. Not yet. We’re not going against them until we have an agreement with the Pacific Alliance.”
“What agreement?” Orson asked. “Can I talk about that?”
“It’s no secret what we want,” Cathy said. “What we need.” She looked out at the rushing flood. The skimmer coasted away from the road, toward higher ground. They flew over mud instead of water. The hills had the texture of melting ice cream, as the ground oozed toward the deep water.
“This was our home for thousands of years,” Cathy said. “And it will be ours again. We might agree to a fairly-elected federal government, maybe, but we won’t be swallowed by another one of their states. We’ll keep the Liberty Corps out for them. We’re almost strong enough. More money, more ships, more weapons – soon we’ll be too entrenched. We learned more about the high desert than the United States, or their Hierarchia, or their Groom Lake dogs could ever learn in their bases or their mines. And Thunderworks showed us what a small force with better technology can do. The Pacific Alliance can have Vegas and Reno and the other colonial towns. The rest is ours.”
Violet and David cheered in the front – almost on cue, like this was a pep talk they’d heard before. They knew their parts, how and when to respond. But Enoa thought she heard true happiness mingled with it, and joy, even relief.
How would she feel if Nimauk had been a village only of her own people? There were too few, of course, far too few cultural Nimauk to make a true town. And she could not imagine her home without her friends and everyone who cared about her, most who shared none of her ancestry or culture.
But it was impossible not to wonder. She realized then that this was the most contact she’d had with other indigenous people since shutdown. She’d gotten used to being the only one, to standing out, to standing alone. How fast she’d forgotten. Her life on the road had made it normal. As comfortable as it was with Jaleel and Orson, everything about their lives was unique. Each in their own way, they all stood alone, three travelers who fit in best on the road.
“I wouldn’t mention Thunderworks in your negotiations,” Orson said.
“You know what I mean,” Cathy said. “You’re the same way with your ship and your sword.” She opened a seat at the far wall and sat down. “What do you say, Enoa Cloud? If this became a home for all of us, would you come here?”
“I, uh…” She wasn’t ready to answer that. “I’ve never really thought about going anywhere or living somewhere but the home I already have. I miss it, a little bit. I grew up around hills and forests and lots of water… water, that’s supposed to be there. I don’t know.”
“Your people are…” Cathy began.
“The Nimauk,” Enoa said.
“I don’t know the Nimauk.” Cathy turned her helmet and absently began to scrape grime from its visor. “It’s good to meet you, Enoa. You’ll have to tell me about your home. I’ve never left my own country. Everything I know about other places I’ve learned second-hand.”
“There were never many of us,” Enoa said. “And we were never recognized by the United States. So I’m not surprised you don’t know. I think most of us were absorbed into other tribes. My ancestors stayed in the east, but it’s not like here… It’s not a big community. A lot of the people I know with Nimauk ancestry, it’s like how tons of Americans say they’re Irish or they’re Italian or something, but they’re really not, are they? They’re, like, standard Americans.”
Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.
“I feel personally attacked,” Orson chuckled.
“I want to restart my family business after the Liberty Corps destroyed it,” Enoa said. “That’s my home. I’m the last Cloud. There’s no one else to rebuild.”
“My uncle says that we all have two homes,” Cathy continued. “The land we know best and the people we love most.”
“How is Chief Hawkins?” Orson asked. “I don’t think I’ve seen him more than twice since I went off on my own.”
“He was on the Council,” Cathy said. “But only briefly. It’s been difficult. Until the last year or so, there so were many groups who thought they had rights to the technology we’ve claimed. It put us all at risk. But it’s better. We’re better enough to reach out to others, other tribes. We’ll be strong here together.” She turned back to Enoa.
“Next month, if the weather improves,” she continued. “We’re having a celebration to begin welcoming new citizens. We have three hundred moving here. They were all displaced by Thunderworks attacks. It’s finally safe for them here. Enoa, we’d love to have you. We all should’ve united five hundred years ago. Now, we have a second chance.”
“I don’t know where we’ll be.” Enoa imagined Nimauk, both people and place, armed well enough to fight off the Liberty Corps. She imagined her home, her shop whole again, a place she could remain, without learning about Shaping and without the Dreamside Road. “I’d like to go to your celebration. Thanks for inviting me.”
“Great!” Cathy smiled. “You’re welcome.” Then she looked up at Orson, still on his feet. “Do you know where you’ll be?”
“That depends on the information we can get,” Orson said. “I want to buy day-to-day reports on every Hierarchia base the Liberty Corps is using in the Rocky Mountains. Anywhere they’ve got more than a hundred guys. That way no one will know where we’re really looking. If any information gets out that I’m digging, I don’t want to tip them off.”
“That might cost you more than ten thousand,” Cathy said. “The Liberty Corps has at least five locations in the region. There’s a group we’ve worked with before who can get you what you want, but it’ll be pricy. I’ll set up a meeting as soon as I can. Then I’ll have more specifics.”
“Good,” Orson said. “Thanks. And hey, if we manage what we’re trying to do, you’ll have an easier time with the Liberty Corps.”
“You’re so secretive,” Cathy said. “What is this? Theodore, what’s he up to?”
“Huh?” Teddy sat up. He rubbed at his eyes like he’d been napping. “Uh, my lips are sealed. I’m sorry!”
“If we’re lucky,” Orson said. “It’ll just be one less thing for you to worry about.”
“Hmm.” Cathy nodded. “Why wouldn’t you tell us? What would you keep to yourself?”
Before Orson could do more than smile in response, a small chirping sounded at the front of the skimmer. Cathy stood.
“We’re getting a call from Last Bough,” Violet called back. “They have more trapped, ten on the roof of one of those hillside bunkers the preppers make out there.”
“They’re calling us?” Cathy walked to the front of the skimmer. “On purpose?” She sat behind Violet. “Maybe we do have some friends over there. Show me.”
“They sound pretty desperate,” David said. “Those hill houses must be crap, like we thought. What do you want to do?”
“We’ll check on them.” Cathy said. “We’ll write to the village that we can’t take anyone aboard. We have a full load of passengers we rescued already, but we can wait with them and keep them safe until our Council sends another skimmer. Is that alright?” She looked back at the Aesir crew. “We won’t risk exposing you.”
“We’re fine with that, aren’t we?” Orson asked. Enoa nodded.
“April knows where I am, man,” Teddy said. “So no hurry with me.”
“I’m not doing anything.” Jaleel shrugged. “What kind of hill houses do these people have? Are they trying to do the Hobbit thing or…?”
“Hardly,” David laughed.
“Get their coordinates.” Cathy nodded too. “Let’s be good neighbors. And Captain Orson, please sit down. I don’t want to scrub you off of my nice, clean walls. And I’d also prefer not to explain our reckless driving or your untimely splattering to a murderous fire woman.”
“I really doubt this thing can go fast enough to shake the boot,” Orson took the seat she’d vacated. “But I’ll be safe. You wouldn’t collect the bounty on me, if I went splat? I’m probably worth more dead than alive. And Sirona wouldn’t go into doom-fire vengeance-mode if I do something stupid. I’m sure she assumes I’ll die in some moronic, messed-up way.”
“Maybe,” Cathy said. “But she wouldn’t take kindly to any bounty on you. And besides, you say you’re good at not dying. Over the course of your whole career, I’ll make more than a million Liberty Coin on you. Liberty Coin is shit anyway. Alright.” She pointed to the dash. “Let’s surprise them how fast we can get there. Davey, write back to Last Bough, and then send the Council a call for backup.”
The skimmer accelerated far beyond what its minimal inertial cushion could absorb. Enoa felt her restraints tighten. On the wall monitor, above Orson’s head, she saw the rain whip past the window. So many drops fell – so fast, all reflecting the skimmer’s lights, that the world outside looked like unintelligible abstract art.
Enoa thought again about high technology skimmers guarding the hills into Nimauk, defending them the way Daniel Tucker believed he’d done. She imagined holding the valley against the Liberty Corps, forcing independence from anything. How many would it take to stand against all of those weapons? She had no idea. None of them even knew what the Liberty Corps had, waiting in reserve. More giant ships? But Enoa could not shake the fantasy, and it stayed with her until the skimmer slowed again.
“Okay.” Cathy stood. “I’m going to let them know what the plan is, but be ready to get out of here.”
“Always,” Violet said.
Cathy walked to the side hatch, helmet under one arm. She opened the door and shouted out into the wind. “Hello! Your village called us. We’re going to…”
“Robber!” A high voice screamed. “Thief! Thief from the American people!”
“Freedom and might!”
Enoa heard several voices now, almost at once.
“Liberty Corps forever!”
Violet sent them flying away. Cathy shut the door without another word or another attempt at argument. She clung to a handle at the doorframe.
Before they escaped, Enoa felt the drumming of bullets or other projectiles against the other side of the hull. Some of the strikes were strong enough to make the hull reverberate. Cathy held the doorframe until they slowed again. Then she silently returned to the front of the skimmer. She sat.
“You expected that, didn’t you?” Orson asked. “What is this? The Liberty Corps has a presence out here? We’re right against the Pacific Alliance.”
“I was afraid that might be our welcome,” Cathy said. “The Liberty Corps turned one of the local Hierarchia number stations into an AM radio channel. It’s their propaganda machine, the only news some of the locals get. They’re trying to stop Nevada from joining the Alliance and trying to build chapters in remote California settlements. They say that we’re forcing out every non-native person, and how racist we are, and how we’ll destroy their homes and every town and city we didn’t build.” She removed her gloves. “It’s made our treaty with the Alliance harder to finish. It’s made it dangerous to keep contact with our friends and allies in those communities. And it’s made it much tougher to get supplies that we don’t make ourselves. The more powerful we are, the worse it gets, but who believes this? The Liberty Corps that’s openly taking over, versus us who just took back territory the government stole from us.”
“Divide and conquer,” Orson said. “It’s good for the Liberty Corps to have those people scared of you and dependent on them. We saw it back east, a whole town turned cult.”
“What did you do?” Cathy asked.
“What do you think?” Orson shrugged. “I fight people for a living.”
“We didn’t hurt anyone,” Enoa said. “We just hit them with a stink bomb and ran away.”
Cathy laughed. “We’re back over our territory. We’ll be at Ted’s soon.”
Enoa watched the rain, watched it slow and change and freeze. She felt it too, felt the moisture in the sky solidify, felt the downpour of droplets each and all clench into ice. Rain mixed with sleet, mixed with snow, until all the precipitation became crisp, swirling flakes. Enoa had never felt such a change, transmutation on a mass scale. The sensation occupied her whole mind. She barely noticed the gasps from Teddy and the skimmer crew.
“Damn!” David yelled. “Lotta folks are gonna need us this week.”
“Have we ever had snow this late in the year?” Teddy asked.
“Once a century seems to arrive every other week, these days,” Cathy said. “It will be a long time before we understand how our world has changed. We have some salt and snow plows from our trade with the Denver Coalition. This won’t last. It’ll warm up.”
“I hope so,” Teddy said. “If it snows like it was raining and it doesn’t heat up, I’ll have to cancel all of my deliveries.” He stood from his seat and walked to the monitor. “I can’t believe it, man. What’s going to happen to us if we have this kinda weather all the time.”
“The Aesir’s never done a stealth pie delivery,” Orson said. “First time for everything. We’ll figure it out for you. Maybe this storm is widespread enough that your customers will expect delays.”
“If there are deliveries you can’t make,” Jaleel said. “I won’t let anything go to waste.”
“You can call me too!” David said.
Enoa didn’t have the heart to mention the quantity of moisture she still felt in the sky. The storm moved at a lumbering pace, slowly unburdening itself onto the desert below. She could not feel the size of the mass. It was too great, but she knew the storm’s strength.
When they arrived at Teddy’s earthship, and Enoa stepped from the skimmer, the snow already rose well above the tips of her boots.
Teddy backed the dune buggy down the ramp from the skimmer. He climbed out and pulled a comm from his jeans pocket. He typed out a message. “I let April know we’re back. Are you folks coming in for a minute? I’m sure she wants to thank you.”
“You can thank us for her and make us one of those lemon pies you do.” Violet stepped back into the skimmer.
“We need to get moving,” Cathy said. “Our Davey will be half-asleep by the time we’re back, and if the cold doesn’t break we’ll all be working before dawn.”
“I had my coffee!” David yelled. “Stop telling people I fall asleep on the job!”
“We’ll talk soon,” Cathy laughed. “As soon as we can. Oh, I almost forgot.” She turned back into the skimmer and returned with a small black box. “Plug this into your system, Theodore. You’ll have all of our protections. If you keep the messages short, it shouldn’t be much pricier to use than Roger’s system, and you won’t have him yelling at you.”
“Pick your!” Teddy shuddered.
“Are you still upset about that?” Cathy asked. “You got Roger to apologize. I don’t know what more you could want.”
“I want peace from that sound,” Teddy said. “It haunts me, in my dreams and in my waking life. Just hearing Roger’s voice today brought it all back.”
“There you go,” Orson said. “You got him started. Now your ship’ll get buried in the snow and you’ll be stuck here with us.” Teddy stooped down and grabbed a lump of snow. He tossed it into the side of Orson’s coat.
“I spin an excellent yarn,” Teddy said.
“I didn’t say your stories aren’t good!” Orson said. “Thanks for saving us back there, Cathy. If we were stuck in there with Roger’s cartoon man, I would’ve cut his whole little building apart. ”
“Are we going, or not?” Violet yelled.
“Right now!” Cathy replied. “Jaleel, we’ll send you the information about the repairs we need.”
“I’m looking forward to being the breadwinner for the team.” Jaleel smiled at Orson. “Thanks!”
With a wave, Cathy shut the skimmer’s hatch.
“What a weird day, man,” Teddy brushed the snow from the hood of his dune buggy. “And it was all for basically no reason.” He waved to the skimmer as it flew away. “Now we’re gonna let a bunch of snow in my new garage!”
“It wasn’t for no reason,” Orson said. “We took in the lay of the land out here and set the ground work for the heist. In a few weeks, we’ll earn our bounties from the Liberty Corps.”