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

has come for the Daughter of Man to be glorified. Truly, truly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit. She who loves her life will lose it, and she who hates her life in this world will keep it for all eternity in the next.”

—The Gospel of John, Chapter 12, Verses 23-26, The Lincoln-Omaha Translation of the New Testament, Copyright 2061

(i)

Peeperz left for the crow’s nest above and the secret passageway out to the top of the canopy. I went to the weapon’s locker and got serious about my plan. I found an army haversack and loaded her up with supplies.

Then I moved to the boiler and pipes of the steam engine. In a little cabinet, I found a box of FireForge fire starters and a bottle of Fast Boil. After filling the firebox, I stuffed in a FireForge pad and poured Fast Boil into the tank. It would loosen the molecules of the water and decrease our boiling time. I lit the fire, but I’d configured the engine in such a way that it would be a slow pressure build, and it would take a bit for the auxiliary firebox to catch. Hopefully.

I did pause to touch the Kung-Pao set into a housing on the floor. I remembered the first time I saw the Moby’s Eterna battery—felt like ten years ago. In reality, it had only been a little over a year. Time got funny during wars.

I scrawled a note on a big piece of white paper and attached it to the Eterna battery. In the end, it was the least I could do.

Then I was off, running into the tubes leading through the interior of the zeppelin. Peeperz was already above me, in the crow’s nest up top. He had the harpoon gun ready as well as a hundred meters of cable and two lengths of chains.

He’d wait there until we were ready. I climbed down the ladder and into the crow’s basement. Once in the gunner seat, I stepped on the foot pedals to spin the turret, but the pressure from the engine wasn’t there yet. I went through the trigger mechanisms for the Triple Xs, fifty caliber, belt fed, with bullets that would turn cows into steaks. Would tear through a person and leave nothing upright but their spine.

People. We’d be shooting at people, American soldiers. I’d killed before, but never someone who hadn’t come out of an ARK laboratory. Could I kill a person who had a mother and father who would miss them? My heart grew cold. Yeah, I could. I’d hit Pilate with that stick as hard as I could while he was on the ground. If he would’ve gotten back up, I’d have hit him again.

Peeperz voice burst through a copper tube near my ear. “You ready, Cavvy?”

Made me jump, but I didn’t show any of my fear. “Yeah, Peep. I am but the pressure ain’t there yet.”

“You see anyone down there on the grain elevator?” the boy asked.

I twisted around, but I couldn’t get a good look. And I didn’t have enough pressure to work the turret. “Can’t turn to see,” I said. “But with all the smoke in the air, I don’t imagine they’ll see the smoke from the Moby’s engine. They won’t know we’re here until we show ’em.” I then asked a question that had been bothering me. “Hey, so if they had the rope ladder pulled up, how did they get down?”

“The Americans left and crossed to the Heartbreaker with long bridges they set up. Real cool. Collapsible, kind of like rope bridges. That Heartbreaker Bobby is full of troops.”

“Yeah,” I agreed. I thought I felt the air getting warmer in the turret.

“Hey, Cavvy, do we have to do this... this thing we’re gonna do. Is there any other way?”

Wrong name. He’d addressed the wrong girl. That girl Cavvy wouldn’t be able to do the chore in front of me. But I was Cavatica Weller. I’d do it and not look back ’cause it was only one nasty chore in a long list of nasty chores.

“Heartbreaker,” I whispered. “Good name for a zeppelin.” Then I raised my voice. “Peeperz, this is all I got. I’m sorry.”

“So am I.”

I heard the whir of his turret moving, up, down, around.

I tried my pedals. Right foot spun me right and left foot spun me left. Pulling back on the trigger arms aimed me up and pushing down sent my twin gun barrels pointing directly at the grain elevator.

“We’re hot enough to go,” I said into the copper pipe. “But wait for my signal and then shoot where I told you to. It’s gonna get crazy, but you got the plan?”

“Yes, Cavvy, I got it,” he said with a sniffle.

Goddamn boy was crying. Tears weren’t gonna help him shoot any straighter.

“Call me Cavatica,” I growled.

I maneuvered the reinforced plastic bubble around until my gun barrels found the moonlight gleaming off the top of the ladder, where I’d climbed up and where the soldiers had come, looking for Willimina Carson.

“Forgive me Sketchy,” I said, “for what I’m about to do.”

Then I triggered those demon guns and blasted the top of the grain elevator’s ladder into molten metal.

Above me, Peeperz opened his guns onto the Heartbreaker, peppering her Kevlar sides with bullets but being careful not to get her engine or her guns.

Then I spun and emptied the ammo boxes on the wooden platform on top of the grain elevator, splintering it into kindling. Tracers flashed with every third bullet, giving me a line of fire. The rattling shatter of the guns working shook my arms to jelly and the smell of gunfire filled my nose. Damn, but it smelled good, as did the scorched smell of wood and the stench of hot metal.

My gun barrels grew red hot, but I didn’t stop shooting. Neither did Peeperz.

Not a minute later, the alarms on