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

wrapped me in an embrace. Kasey kissed my cheek. Yeah, those two were a couple now, and I was glad Nikki could find love again after losing Tenisha Keys.

Allie Chambers sang a happy song as she hugged me. That girl, she could sing, though her left hand ended in a stump. That was new. A smile brightened her freckled face and green eyes. Sharlotte had also lost a limb, and she clipped along with a prosthetic leg Micaiah had bought her before the ill-fated news conference. It was far better than the dining room table leg I’d carved for her.

Nichola Nichols approached me carefully, a little shy. We hadn’t seen each other for a long, long time.

“Hi, Cavatica,” she said.

I held her for prolly too long—my hero—the brilliant woman who’d engineered the Stanleys and who’d saved our lives. We’d struggled out of Aces’ kingdom of evil oh-so-long ago. I still loved that we’d leveled Glenwood Springs and freed the women there.

Once we parted, Sharlotte introduced me to Jan Scarsdale, our doctor. Jan wore makeup and had long hair, but I could see clearly her Adam’s apple. She wasn’t a woman, or put more accurately, she’d not been born with a woman’s body, though she was female inside.

“You’re from Trinidad,” I said.

“I am indeed,” Jan said.

Before the Knockout, Trinidad, Colorado, had been one of the gender-reassignment capitals of the world. I’d heard transgendered people had gathered there once the New Morality took over the U.S. Sure, they fled to the Juniper ’cause of the intolerance. One more reason how the Juniper had taken care of people.

“Thanks for helping with my sister,” I said. “And the other Gammas.”

Jan nodded.” It was my pleasure.”

I saw other women like Jan around, armed and gauging my reaction.

I walked over and gave Jan a hug ’cause a simple thank you wasn’t going to do it.

June Mai Angel walked up to Sharlotte and slid her hand into my sister’s. June watched me as she did it. To see what I would do.

“You taking care of my sister?” I asked.

June Mai nodded, that clever face of hers, so bright and so smart, and yet hard, ’cause of what she had to do. I noticed a good portion of her outlaws were with us as well—those who had survived the fight with the ARK when we’d broken through to bring the chalkdrive out into the world.

“Welcome to the family,” I said, though my words weren’t as warm as I would’ve liked them to be.

June Mai shrugged and didn’t give me much more.

(iv)

Sharlotte and June Mai parted. My sister led me outside. That was where Wren stood, hulking and quiet.

“I have to go and see about Pilate,” Sharlotte said. “but Wren can show you where the Gammas are. And our Stanleys.”

Our big sister left, and Wren walked with me past garages near the main bays of the fire fighter training facility. June Mai had lost all her zeppelins in various battles, but she had still three Cargadors left. All three had the grappling hooks, spools of thick cable, and cannons on top, just like the one I’d destroyed when June had tried to grab the Moby Dick. I’d softened up to June Mai when we’d been headed for the Nebraska border. I’d told her I’d forgiven her many sins against us. Now, though, my heart had flipped back. I didn’t want to forgive her a thing.

Then again, I was the one who finally took the Moby Dick down.

The main bay doors were open, so Wren and I walked in. Instead of fire engines, Gammas sat in the truck bays. They looked at me balefully. Again, I was struck by the misshapen flesh, scars, and eczema. Some had long filthy hair, others none at all. Still others had boils bubbling across scalps, or pink skulls flecked with spines or protruding boney ridges. The smell of them, strong to stifling, an animal-woman smell, unwashed and gone crazy.

Most of the Gammas slumped against the walls, huge chins on chests, sleeping or trying to. Others stared lost in space. The antipsychotics seemed to be working. Kind of. Some gathered around a dark shape in the middle and that was where I went ’cause I knew what I’d find.

Sitting on a stained sofa, taking up the whole thing, sat the fattest woman I’d ever seen. Queen of the Gammas, Dizzymona, otherwise known as Sergeant Major Desdemona Rodriguez, was holding court.

She sat with a bag of rice and a jug of Karo corn syrup. She crunched on the raw rice then took big swigs from the syrup. Behind her was a demon of a weapon, an M134 Minigun. It’s a 7.62×51mm NATO, six-barrel rotary machine gun that could withstand a sustained rate of fire, nearly indefinitely. Boxes of ammunition surrounded it. Yeah, you’d need boxes, ’cause it ate bullets like Dizzymona ate donuts.

“You,” Dizzymona said with a grumble. “You ’scaped us. You sent Alice to come fetch us. Now we in a mess ’cause of you.”

Wren silently stalked behind me.

I fired back. “And it’s ’cause of you that these women are Gammas in the first place!”

“Oh, so we Gammas? You no call us hogs?” Queen Dizzymona asked.

“Never,” I said.

“’Cause yer sissy behind,” Dizzymona said. “You like us now ’cause of Wrenny and ’cause we help June Mai Devil now.”

“That’s not what this is about,” I said. “The ARK is trying to kill you all, and we’re trying to protect you. And get our cause known. And for a whole passel of reasons. But I didn’t come here to fight with you, Dizzymona. Where’s LaTanya? You gassed her along with fifty other women.”

“LaTanya dead,” Dizzymona grunted.

The news put a pit into my stomach. The woman I’d promised to help was dead. I hoped she’d found peace with her Jesus in Heaven. Along with Alice. I’d have to tell Sharlotte and Wren about Alice. I wasn’t looking forward to that.

Dizzymona snarled, “Most of us, dead, in your bad war. And in here, we aren’t dead, but we are, inside.