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

of shadowy houses fallen to rot and dust and decay. Those houses had been hit hard by salvage monkeys, and sometimes Mama referred to them as the Highlands Goldmine—not only for the raw materials, but also for the rich people who gathered up expensive artifacts as well as junk, glitter, and garbage.

Everything inside the campfire cage was darkness, ominously black. We simply couldn’t know the situation until our boots hit the ground.

The gash on my leg didn’t need stitches, just some water and bandages, a little antibiotic cream out of a medical kit we found. For once in our war, we had all the gear we could want. Guns, medical supplies, MREs, water bottles.

Of course, the medical kits had EMAT, emergency medical adhesive tape, and when I loaded up my go-bag, I threw some in. I was sorely tempted to slap one on me. I knew what the Skye6 could do for me. It turned my feelings into marshmallow pudding, sweet and sticky and oh-so-nice.

Tempted, so tempted, but I fought it off. Didn’t pray, but thought of Pilate, and how he’d seen me, drunk, stoned, in our awful life being dead in Hays, Kansas.

It was a little after 4:00 a.m. when we drifted down into clouds and the darkness on the edge of town, southside, near Chatfield Reservoir, the chink in the perimeter, a line of darkness. We’d parachute down into the fields on the east side of Chatfield Dam. We’d get to the Platte River and float into Denver. Baptista found a raft, compressed down to a tight bundle, and quite a cool piece of tech.

Clustered around the bottom hatch of the Heartbreaker, it felt like old times. Tech was there to guide us out, but this time we weren’t leaping onto a train, climbing down a ladder, or any of that. We were parachuting into a field. Pilate and I had changed into American-made ninja outfits, tight-fitting black gear. We painted our faces with black grease.

We looked the part of soldiers on a suicide mission. I chose a G18, otherwise known as a needlegun. It was lightweight and perfect for me.

Pilate strapped on a Beijing Homewrecker, just like old times, and an MG21 ’cause he’d fought so much with one in the Sino. Baptista painted her face as well, and she carried a new AZ3 assault rifle. She’d given us lessons on the basics of parachuting and we went through drills. We were ready.

Baptista released an auto-chute with the box of ammunition and the raft. The black parachute opened and drifted down.

“Alpha go,” Baptista said and she dropped out the hatch. The wind swept her away.

Chatfield Reservoir was a circle of ink under the dark sky. The wind blowing across the Heartbreaker would freeze our fingers immediately despite the light Nferno gloves, so we’d have to be ready.

“Bravo go,” Pilate said, like we practiced. And he dropped through.

I was last. Charlie. Me.

I’d never been a fan of heights, but it was my turn. I put my hand on the rip cord and found the auxiliary chute, just in case.

“You need to go, Cavatica,” Tech said. “You can do this.”

And I thought of Peeperz. He hadn’t had anyone to encourage him high up on top of the Moby.

I felt shame, then fear, and then anger broke through both.

“Charlie go!” I yelled.

I dropped into the freezing wind. It caught me. I fell into a spin and my hand slipped from the ripcord.

Black sky and black earth whirled into a confusing mix of wind and blowing and panic.

My mind blanked. In the whistling freeze and the whirling tumble, I couldn’t think of anything, other than how every bone in me would shatter if I didn’t pop my parachute, if I didn’t think.

Couldn’t think.

Couldn’t feel nothing except the horror, couldn’t see, could only taste the tang of my adrenaline.

Mama’s voice hit my ears, and like always, I felt her. I heard her. “Do one thing at a time, Cavatica.”

I only had one job. Pull the ripcord.

Didn’t matter if I was spinning or whatever, I had one job.

Do it quick.

My hand fell onto the handle across my chest and I pulled.

Noise of the fabric unfurling screamed into my ears and for one mad minute I thought it was tangled and I continued to fall.

But I’d done my one job.

Whatever happened after that... I did my one job, Mama.

One more nasty task.

The snap of the parachute felt like it shattered my spine and ripped my lungs from my body.

I was still falling, and it felt fast. We’d missed our target. That wind had swept us away from the field at the bottom of Chatfield Dam and toward massive cottonwoods, reaching for us like skeleton hands tipped with the unyielding spikes of their sharp branches.

I hit a big limb, kept going, and I thought of jumping off I-70 with Micaiah, falling into cottonwoods, but those had been budded with spring. Still, I’d done something similar before.

Bashing through more branches, I went limp and let it all happen to me.

Tech said to surrender, and I surrendered into the fall.

But I knew, I had to land right, or snap an ankle, which I’d done before when I’d jumped from the train.

One thing at a time. One job. Land right. Land and roll. Don’t break an ankle.

I hit grass and ground—rolled until I struck the trunk of a cottonwood, so thick I wouldn’t have been able to get my arms around it.

For several long minutes, I laid there, until I flexed my legs. My shrapnel wound stung, but nothing else hurt.

Tried my arms and shoulders and I was okay.

Moved my head, and my neck was okay.

Above me, a shape was caught in the trees. Baptista, I could tell by her figure. She cut her chute off and started the climb down the tree.

But where was Pilate?

The wind let up, and I listened. Heard the ruffle and rustle of Pilate’s parachute and then the sharp crack of cottonwood branches snapping. He came crashing through the heart of the cottonwood