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

That night we did two things. First, Wren ran reconnaissance. We had to know how many bridges were still on Cherry Creek. Secondly, we moved the fencing material to warehouses on Colfax near I-25. Watching the Gammas work, my plan seemed less stupid. Those hulking four-meter tall, muscled women handled the tons of chain-link and razor wire like they were rolls of wrapping paper.

I was grateful to be working at night. Sleep felt more dangerous than the mission. Those nightmares.

And yet, I kept thinking about Crete coming back to me, all shot up. I’d been cruel to her in life, and I didn’t want to make the same mistake with June Mai. Yet every time I got near the outlaw, I’d be so vile.

Sneaking around, I saw the past, the present, and the future of Colorado’s capital city. Denver lay covered in a thick layer of her own trash, and what wasn’t covered with the remnants of better times, nature had decided to take over. Trees broke up concrete with persevering roots. Grass, sage, and brush colonized where they could. Hard to tell what had been an old road or a parking lot ’cause it all looked like nothing now and the rising snow made it even harder to tell.

Before dawn, we returned to the fire station and training center at Hampden and Kipling. Good news: Wren only found two bridges, Larimer Street and Wewatta Street, that hadn’t been torn apart by Cherry Creek. She’d set charges on both and managed to do it without being seen by the Regios patrolling the streets. That left the Platte River bridges that needed to be take care of—the one for I-25 and the Speer Boulevard bridge.

I thought Wren would stay, but she didn’t. She pulled me aside outside the storage units. The Marilyn had become my home away from home.

“Me. Go.” Her huge jaw muscles clenched at her lack of speech. “Can’t stay. Losing it. Cavvy. Going. Coco.”

“You need more myal-olanzapine, Wren.” I touched her hairy arm knotted with muscles. “It helps you.”

“Must. Save. It. For others. I be okay.” She winced at her grammar. “I am. Okay.”

“But you’re not.”

My sister grinned showing huge, yellow teeth. “Never. Have been. Okay. Always will be. Okay. Faith.” Then she frowned. “You. You take care. Of yourself. You tough now. But it’s sad. To see you. So like me.” She pushed my coat aside and touched one of her Colt Terminators, in a holster on my hip.

She grimaced and came close to roaring or hitting something and then...she pulled me close before running off into the storm. Thank God for Colorado snowstorms.

“Bye, Wren,” I whispered. I wouldn’t see her again until we really needed her.

Jesus might not save me. Wren always would.

(ii)

We had two more nights until President Jack flew in.

That first night, March 15th, we needed to rig charges on the two Platte River bridges. We’d use the river itself to float in.

The second night, March 16th, we’d build our wall. On the morning of the 17th, we’d sneak our way into the Pepsi Center. That was when those bridges would fall.

I spent the day sleeping, cleaning my G18, and gathering the big bricks of RDX-5 plastic explosives. I did catch a few catnaps, trying to use sleep as a weapon, like Pilate suggested. He wanted to come, but he was still healing up from his ill-fated parachute crash.

After spending time with Baptista, June Mai finally relented. Baptista wasn’t a Severin.

The minutes crawled to midnight.

In the darkness and cold, Sharlotte, June Mai, Baptista, and I floated down the Platte heading toward the Speer Avenue bridge. I wasn’t exactly happy to be back on the river, and it wasn’t like it was a pleasure cruise. The snow still came down, covering us with white, but then, everything was white, near and around the river. Most likely, we looked like just more flotsam bobbing around in the black water.

ARK zeppelins were doing some bombing, trying to flush us out. The airships drifted over Arvada, Westminster, even Brighton, releasing their payloads. We felt the dull thrum of the explosions. We could see the fires glowing in the distance. We could smell the smoke and destruction as we drifted along the South Platte, going north. The trickling sound of the river running was hushed by all the snow. We passed under the I-25 bridge. Some of June Mai’s girls were already running wire, working on the explosives.

We passed underneath all that cement and got our first view of the prison we were trying to create.

The U.S. had already started pulling in the troops for President Jack’s big speech less than forty-eight hours away. Campfires lit up the Auraria College campus and the Pepsi Center parking lots. The remnants of Elitch Gardens, the amusement park, had been scattered around in great big bundles of steel, wood, and gearing. Encamped among the skeletons of roller coasters and thrill rides were U.S. troops, battalions of them. I didn’t see any Acevedo tanks. They did have air support. A few Blackhawks sat grounded while others buzzed around the sky. Luckily, they weren’t flying over the Platte.

Many of the Americans were sleeping, but not all.

Two soldiers stood on the bank of the river, keeping watch. They were partially hidden by the weeds on the bank, but we saw them before they saw us.

“We can’t float past them,” Sharlotte whispered. “We have to abandon the mission. Maybe go around on foot.”

That wasn’t going to happen. We had hundreds of kilograms of RDX-5 tucked away in waterproof bags. No, we had to prep the bridges that night. There would only be more troops if we waited for the next night.

Baptista and June Mai oared us quickly over to the western shore. We pulled the raft into the reeds. But I wasn’t going to give up. And I had to act quickly before anyone could stop me.

I stepped into the river and it froze my feet immediately and made me gasp.

Dang, but water sure can get