Life Goes On | Book 4 | If Not Us [Surviving The Evacuation] Tayell, Frank (classic books to read .TXT) 📖

“Already?” Avalon asked, sounding pleasantly surprised. She handed Zach one of the dollar-ration-bars, which explained how she’d managed to get him to undertake a test, just after a battle.

“Are we going to Colombia, Commish?” Zach asked.

“I don’t know. I don’t think the captain has decided,” I said. “There’s something odd going on in these waters. We don’t want a hostile ship following us back to Robben Island, but we’re not sure who is hostile and who isn’t.”

“But we’re not going to Ascension,” Zach said. “So if we don’t turn back tomorrow, we’ll have to go on.”

“We’ll know tomorrow,” I said.

“Zachary, these are all completely incorrect,” Avalon said.

“Yeah, but you didn’t say I had to get them right,” Zach said. “Only that I had to finish them. You want me to do them right, that’ll cost a lot more than one oat-bar.”

27th March

Chapter 28 - Axe and Stone

The captain made the announcement at midday: “You all know why the scientists are aboard. In South America, we can serve justice on those responsible for the murder of billions. We could find the key to creating a weapon to restore safety to the living. Or we could find another crater. But if we don’t go, someone else will be sent. There’s a war being fought in these waters. There’s a risk to any ship, and we can’t pass that risk on to someone else. We can’t return to Robben Island without chancing that risk follows us. There is a danger to us in being unable to refuel in South America, but there are other ways home, and we will be home again soon.”

Something about the announcement troubled me. Unable to place what, I went looking for Bruce. I found Clyde and Zach first, in the armoury, sharpening axes.

“Aren’t you supposed to be helping Dr Avalon?” I asked.

“Yeah, she sent me away. Her and Doc Leo wanted the cabin for private work.”

“What kind of work?” I asked, my suspicions rising.

“I don’t think they’re really working,” Zach said. “They just wanted me gone.”

“Understood,” I said. “Anyway, I was looking for Bruce.”

“He’s running another close-combat session,” Clyde said. “But I’ve been thrown on my face enough times not to need the practice. Is there trouble?”

“I wanted to discuss what we’ll do when we get to Colombia,” I said.

“Until we’ve refuelled, it’s too soon to plan an attack,” Clyde said. “Assuming we can refuel.”

“Yeah, and no worries if we can’t,” Zach said. “We’re going to fly back from South America, all the way to Auckland. Direct.”

“Where did you hear that?” I asked.

“Glenn told me. Glenn Mackay.”

“The petty officer? Who told him?”

“Dunno,” Zach said. “But it’s obvious. All those Americans, I mean North Americans, States-Americans, they’ll have flown south, right? So we’ve just got to find the planes. Airports will have tons of fuel, because there was nowhere for the South Americans to fly. They wouldn’t go north, would they? Because that’s where the zoms were.”

“But they’d have flown to New Zealand if it was within range,” I said.

“I bet some did,” he said. “But not many, or we’d have known about it in Canberra, right? So that’s where the planes are, and that’s how we’ll get back. It could be like in six days’ time.”

His logic was cloudy, but I’d let him realise it for himself, and bask in optimism until then. “What’s with the axes?” I asked. “Are we that low on ammo?”

“Long-handle, short axe-head,” Clyde said, holding his up. “Spike at the top, and another at the base.”

“It’s for killing zoms,” Zach said. “Clyde made them.”

“You did?” I asked.

“I designed them,” Clyde said. “Mr Dickenson’s making them in his machine-shop.”

I took the axe from him. With the ship forever lurching back and forth, I wasn’t going to risk a practice swing, but it felt well balanced as I tested the weight. “You missed your calling, Clyde,” I said.

“Jace wanted me to take up a hobby,” he said. “This was after I took the lobbying job. I found wearing a tie suffocating, and was a tad vocal in letting my feelings be known. He suggested restoring clocks, but I didn’t want to be stuck indoors, so I bought a couple of rust buckets to repair.”

“That was after Somalia, right?” Zach asked.

“What happened in Somalia?” I asked.

“One of my teams was kidnapped,” Clyde said. “That’s back when I was running in-country field-ops for the charity. We’d agreed on the ransom, but this other bunch of terrorists rushed the exchange. They took the money, and took out the crims’ bag-man. The price for the hostages doubled, and the insurance wouldn’t cover it.”

“Yeah, but he got them out,” Zach said. “Tell her how.”

Clyde picked up the axe. “The hard way,” he said, running a sharpening stone along its rough blade. “There were two of us in-country who’d served, me and Hailey. I’d bumped into a couple of old mates who’d turned merc, and who’d been propping up a bar waiting for work. So I set them up as over-watch. I called in a favour and got sat-coverage of the warehouse. Went in hard and fast, me at the front, Hailey at the side. But inside were rows of crates which reduced visibility. We were one second too slow in taking out their last man. Hailey jumped on the grenade. But we got the aid-workers out. I was down as Hailey’s next-of-kin, so me and Jace adopted Hailey’s son, Wilbur. That was the last straw for Jace. Now we had a son, he couldn’t have me travelling places where it was fifty-fifty I’d come back in a coffin. I took the promotion to Canberra, lobbying for the umbrella group overseeing the charity, trying to squeeze a bit of funding and a lot of policy change