Chapter 54
The steady pop pop of gunfire, peppered with the louder, less routine sound of blasts going off and bombs whizzing through the air before they crashed into the buildings in front of them was invigorating to White in a way she couldn’t put into words. The sting of smoke hit her nostrils the way florals enticed most women; the battle raging in front of her was as comforting to her as a warm blanket to a babe on a harsh winter night. She’d been born to wage war; it was in her blood. Though she hadn’t had nearly enough opportunities to stand across the battlefield from a foreign aggressor in her forty-five years, she was here now, having finally talked President Violet in to allowing her to go, and the idea that Dal’s forces would crumble before them so that they could continue in pursuit of the rebels had her full of energy, despite the fact that she hadn’t slept in days.
The helios were staying far back from the line, their only purpose to drop supplies and personnel, but Dal had still managed to send some sort of heat-seeking weapon in their direction, striking one of them in the tail. It had spiraled around a few times before the pilot managed to get it back under control and took off toward Michaelanburg. The trail of smoke following the bird made her think it wouldn’t make it all the way home, but perhaps a crash site further in the forest would prevent Dal and his goons from getting their hands on the equipment. “Make sure I am informed immediately if that helio goes down,” White said to Jaguar, who hadn’t been happy to see White get off of the bird a few hours ago.
“Yes, Mother,” she said, her voice still showing her annoyance at having her command taken from her. It wasn’t necessarily that Jaguar was doing a poor job; it was simply that White needed to be here, to oversee the attack, as much as she needed to breathe.
Not that anyone was particularly impressed with Jaguar’s performance, either. She hadn’t managed to catch up to the four renegades, after all, even though over a week had passed since the insurrection began. White was confident she would’ve already brought them in, had she been the one to initially give chase, but there was no going back in time to fix that now. The task before them was simple enough. Get past Dal and his meager guns so that they could continue their pursuit. It was simple enough. While going around Dafo would be simpler, this was faster, and more entertaining.
Looking through a pair of hand-held magnifiers, White watched as the long-range explosions were hurled through the air at the remains of what used to be powerful skyscrapers, now leaning and broken, only their rusty frames sticking out of the ground, colossal remnants of what used to be a powerful nation. If she could tell where the return fire was coming from, she’d have a much better handle on the situation, but it seemed to float from building to building. Whenever her artillery took out one location, it simply moved to another. It made little sense, unless Dal had so many guns trained on them, he could afford to fire at them one at a time. Perhaps that was what he was doing.
He hadn’t done any major damage, though, other than the shot to the bird. Taking out a couple dozen Mothers here and there wasn’t going to slow them down. If he wanted to stop them, he’d have to hit their transporters, and she didn’t think he had the fire power left to do that. The larger vehicles were kept back away from the city proper, finding routes around the enemy territory rather than through it.
Invading Dafo and finding Dal’s hiding spot would bring her nothing but pure bliss; she’d love to watch the Mothers line his followers up and execute them one by one, in a similar fashion to the way she’d taken out that rebel at the beginning of the insurgence. But she didn’t have that sort of time on her hands at the moment. She needed to get through this hellhole and find Rain and the others. “Press ahead,” she said, leaving it to Jaguar to actually pass the order along. “I want all units to move straight ahead, converging on the road that leads north out of town. Make sure that all tracking devices are turned off on the lead elements. If they have tech that can read our location, we’ll need to make it obsolete.” Something that girl in the holding cell back at headquarters had said made her wonder if there wasn’t a device giving their location away. She’d be leading her troops slightly blind without following them on her own tablet, but it was worth the risk to make sure they weren’t announcing their presence to the renegades.
“Yes, Mother White,” Jaguar said, stepping away to speak to her commanders. Night had fallen, bright flashes from explosions lighting the sky, mostly those fired from the Mothers into the buildings across the way.
Before the women even began to move forward, a loud explosion sounded from the building in front of her, about six hundred yards away, as one of their larger artillery shots hit its mark. The building groaned for a second and then, in a rumble of fury, sank quickly in a ripple, the collision of concrete into the earth shaking the ground beneath her feet as a plume of dust and ash filled the air, slowly drifting their direction. Whether or not that had wounded Dal’s forces remained to be see, but it couldn’t have helped his cause. “Move forward--now!” White shouted. Jaguar’s commanders reacted, and a steady stream of Mothers stepped out of the trees, land riders and motorbikes hurrying some closer to the front. White wanted to get through Dafo and on her way to catching up with the rebels within an hour; the time for playing games had long passed. She was going to find Rain and her companions and put an end to this before they reached the River Red--before the sun rose again.
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