Storm Girls (The Juniper Wars Book 4), Aaron Ritchey [best beach reads txt] 📗

had the idea we had won. Didn’t know if we’d taken any casualties, but first things first.

“Let go of my sister,” I said to the Regio. “Let go, or you’ll die. I know you and your kind want life ’cause I’ve had to kill some of you before. Don’t make me do it again. Drop your weapon.”

I expected Wren to erupt in yelling at me, but she stayed quiet.

The eyes of the Regio locked onto something behind me. Most likely the Stanley.

I knew what was coming. The Regio knew she was beat. She was going to shoot my sister and run.

And that I couldn’t let happen.

Quick as a snap I brought the AZ3 up and fired. Three rounds.

The Regio slumped to her knees and pitched forward into the dirt. Wren blinked beside her.

Didn’t know if I hit that soldier girl with all three rounds or just one, and I wasn’t about to go and count wounds. Didn’t matter. She was dead, and I had killed her.

Thou shall not kill. It’s one of the ten basic rules God gave us, and I’d broke it not just once but over and over.

My hands were bloody and worse, but I didn’t care. It was either my sister or the Regio, and it wasn’t like she was human. She didn’t have a mama or a daddy. No, she’d come out of a vat.

De-humanizing the enemy. Soldiers have been doing it since the beginning of war. It makes the killing easier, and there I was doing it some more.

Wren took a long look at me, pale and a little shaky, and then, dang me, she started yelling. “What the hell, Cavvy? You didn’t even aim! You do know that if you’d have hit me in the head I’d die, right?”

The sleep, the war, the endless days of running, and nights afraid caught up to me. I yelled back. “Oh, no you don’t, Irene Marie Weller, you will not give me a ration of crap for saving you. You’ve been wanting me to take a shot like that since we first started our adventures, and finally, for once, I took it. So, don’t mess me with about the how and why of it, okay?”

“Jesus, Cavvy, you have to aim! You didn’t even aim!” She stood, breathing hard for a minute, and then she exploded into mad laughter. Came over and grabbed me in a headlock. “Well, aren’t you just a little warrior? You takin’ the shot. You shootin’ at them skanks with the Panzerfaust, and then you smashin’ up the tank with the zeppelin. Well, I’d just like to finally welcome you to the family. You a Weller now, goddammit.”

I shoved her off. “Yeah, well, I was a Weller before I killed people, and you might just love all this war, but I don’t.”

“Oh, you’ll learn to like it,” Wren said easily. “You kill them before they kill you. Law of the jungle.”

I’d heard those same words before, spoken by that racist, sexist piece of evil, Aces.

“I want to follow higher laws—”

I was cut off by the sound of diesel engines chasing off into the night. Only two of the vehicles had survived, a Humvee and an Athapasca troop carrier. Both were back on the road zooming south toward Aspen through the snow and sliding around in the mud.

The Audrey lifted an arm and sent a missile firing at them. It struck to the right, exploded, but by that time, the Humvee and the APC were gone.

“We gotta get after Edger,” Wren said. “I searched, and I ain’t seen her body. I know I didn’t kill her, but I reckon I will if we can get into the zeppelin and—”

The Kashmir IV exploded, hanging butt end up in the sky. In a slow-motion crash, it came careening into the dirt, the snow hissing, the flames roaring, melting the ice and giving my toes a little comfort.

All those guns, all those supplies, our easy way to Burlington—all consumed in an inferno of heat. The noxious smell of burning plastic made me wince, and I had to wipe my eyes and nose from the blistering stench.

The doors on the Marilyn and the Audrey burst open. Figures swung out on the ladders to watch the fire. Dutch was in Marilyn’s cockpit with Sharlotte above him in the gunner’s seat. Rachel had driven the Audrey while Marisol had worked the guns.

We all turned to watch the Kashmir IV burn.

We’d come close, but Praetor Gianna Edger had managed to slip away with Micaiah and Pilate. Our chase wasn’t done yet.

Worse, the ARK would come looking for their dirigible, for their convoy, and once they found their dead, they would know we’d come south.

We had to beat them over Independence Pass.

Which meant we couldn’t tarry. But I couldn’t move. Something was wrong with me, my legs, my arms ... It took me a minute to realize I was shaking something fierce.

I raised one of my trembling hands and made a fist. No, I wasn’t going to fall apart. We’d won. I calmed myself through sheer will. Dammit, I was a Weller like Wren had said.

And I needed better clothes.

Taking a deep, shuddering breath, I walked over to the body of the soldier I’d killed. My feet were tender from where I’d stomped on the zeppelin controls. But not too bad. Yet.

I wrestled her white-camo coat off her and slipped it on. It was too tight and ill-fitting, and I couldn’t possibly get it zippered, but it was better than nothing. I didn’t look at the corpse too long.

Right away, I knew the pants wouldn’t fit me nor Sharlotte ’cause the Regios had been engineered with slim hips since killing was their business and not babies.

Sinking down, I got to work on the soldier girl’s boots.

Wouldn’t you know it, they didn’t fit me either. And since all the Regios were bio-engineered the same, nothing but their coats would work for us, and those wouldn’t work too well.

My poor toes.

My poor soul.

The snow continued to