War Girls (The Juniper Wars Book 5) by Aaron Ritchey (best short novels .TXT) 📕

“What about the Bobby?” Pilate asked. “I think you called her the Heartbreaker. It seems like quite the warship. If they open fire—”

“I’ll worry about that.” I didn’t tell him the rest of my plan. He’d only try and talk me out of it, and we didn’t have the time for chatting. “Getting the zeppelin is my business. You worry about being a pain in the ass.”

Pilate chuckled. “Crap, Cavatica, you know I’m all about being a pain in the ass.”

Forced a grin out of me. A little of the horror faded, and I had to joke. “And you say God ain’t a man. Seems like if anyone, God likes being a pain in the ass.”

“You’re not wrong.”

“Until I am.” I strapped on Wren’s gun belt, heavy with both of her Colt Terminators. No, they weren’t hers anymore. They were all mine.

I owned them like I owned the war.

(ii)

I snuck back into Burlington. The cold had settled some of the fires; ash blew through the buildings as the flames seethed into smoke. Where once I played baseball games or Ultimate Frisbee was scorched earth, hissing like a demon chewing charcoal.

The devilish smoke hid me, but it also got me coughing, and me coughing at the wrong moment could get me killed. The U.S. peacekeepers would see me as part of the Meetchum raiding party since I looked Junie from my poncho to my cowgirl boots.

The U.S. thought they were liberating us from the horrors of an Outlaw Warlord, June Mai Angel, and were bringing law to a lawless land. Or at least that’s what President Jack said on the video feed.

I made it to the grain elevators, which acted as our zeppelin port. I wondered if Darla Patil still worked docking airships. When I first came to Burlington, at the beginning of my adventures, she had greeted me, but I figured she’d be long gone, either killed by June Mai Angel’s initial siege or escorted away by the U.S. military.

Guards stood by the long steel enclosed ladder that led up the side of the elevators to the very top, where the two ghostly shapes of the zeppelins drifted in the chill wind. I was lucky. Could’ve been a whole lot colder.

At first, I wasn’t sure how I could get past the two American soldiers guarding the ladder.

Then I knew. Again, they were in my hometown, and I knew the lay of the land: That old Leone house sat next to the grain elevators. They were huge cylinders that held corn, wheat, barley, sorghum, or soybeans until the train could take them east, which didn’t happen all that often. Iowa farmers did it cheaper and were closer. And most Juniper farms were small operations, so the elevators sat empty.

In my physics class we’d studied sound waves and how echoes worked. I got myself in the right space and judged where I could be the most effective.

Hated to do it, but I had to take off my boots and stuff them into my saddle bags. I stood on the asphalt in my Nferno stockings. I took in a deep breath. This was it.

“Hey!” I yelled and prayed to the God I hated that I’d gotten my vectors right.

My voice bounced off the Leone house, and then into the grain elevator doors on the west side. I knew, they’d be standing open.

Both soldier girls clicked the safeties on their MG21s. Could hear it plain as day.

And those clicks echoed into the elevators and bounced around, wall to wall.

“Can I get some help here?” I yelled.

“You will identify yourself!” one of the soldiers called.

A name drifted through my head—the same name Wren had used when we were running from the cops in Cleveland. “Private Willimina Carson, and I’m in the grain elevator. I’m stuck. Can you come and help me?”

Both guards shuffled away from the ladder to peer into the open door.

It was a dark night, smoky and crazy, perfect for sneaking. They were on boring guard duty on a night where the fighting had moved south. They didn’t have much of a mission.

I did.

In stocking feet, I ran across the street and started up the ladder, not looking down, not caring when both girls started yelling for Willimina Carson.

The filth I’d crawled through in the pipe, the layers of dirt on my clothes and face, both hid me as I scurried up the ladder. Either the guards would find me and shoot me, or I’d disappear into the smoke of the night.

No bullets came for me, no one yelled, and I made it to the top of the ladder. A bad blast of smoke hit me full in the face, and I wanted to cough, but I choked it down. Now I knew how Pilate felt.

Above me, I was close enough to see both the Moby Dick and the Heartbreaker, filling the sky. Neither had their rope ladders down.

“How you gonna climb aboard, Ms. Weller?” I asked myself.

I had to figure out something quick. Behind me, footsteps clattered up the ladder. Those women would be looking for Willie Carson.

I didn’t have much time and no real options.

Without a rope ladder, I had no way up to the zeppelins.

(iii)

I ran to Darla Patil’s shack. It was nearly empty, all of her stuff gone. Junk and cast-off clutter littered the floor next to a chest splintered open. A hooded sapropel lantern sat on what might’ve been a nice dining room table at one point but was now scored and weather-beaten.

I wouldn’t have long. I couldn’t crawl up the cabling holding the Moby to the grain elevator ’cause I didn’t have the upper body strength. And most likely, the U.S. peacekeepers would’ve sealed closed the hatchways making accessing the interior impossible.

My only hope? That Peeperz was onboard and was somewhere he could see me.

In Darla’s shack, I grabbed that sapropel lantern. From my saddle bags, I pulled out waterproof matches, required gear for Juniper travel.

It was a risk, but