Chapter 59: Pre-Flight Checklist

“You trading, or paying?” asked Bill.

“Paying.”

He rubbed his chin. “3 points.”

“Seems a little steep. Especially considering you weren’t able to sell it to him,” she gestured at me with a tilt of her head.

I was surprised she had been able to slip into the store without my noticing. Particularly since my senses were in overdrive from the recent bloodshed. She was disguised as a normal waster. She wore worn out rags and cracked sunglasses, along with an old rain poncho she’d cinched at the waist with a belt. She didn’t have her rifle, it was too big to hide easily and would give her up immediately, but I did notice a pistol and a knife at her side.

She finished her haggling, bought her book and walked outside without acknowledging me. I slid my purchases into my bag, gave a nod to Bill, and walked out. I spotted Leah just across from the store in a nearby alley. I walked over to her, and leaned against the wall.

“Leah.”

“Donovan,” she responded in her raspy voice. Her characteristic scar was covered by the rags around her throat. “I appreciate you getting the message to your people in Pott’s. Looks like mine and yours will be working together for a good long time.”

I nodded. “Looks that way.”

“In order to formalize things, and maybe do a bit to earn your trust and Pott’s, I wanted to formally invite you to meet them.”

“Them?”

“The Cabinet. The ones in charge of the Remnants.”

“They’re here?”

She shook her head. “No, but they’re going to be in STAR territory soon. You and I are going to rendezvous with them there.”

“Wouldn’t they be passing through Horde Territory?” I asked. I believed they’d be coming from the old capitol. I’d never met anyone from that far east, but given the technology I’d seen Leah and Graves bring to bare, I was certain that they’d have some method to get through all the deadzones, raiders, and would-be despots that covered the territory to the East of the Horde.

“No,” she answered, not elaborating beyond that.

I shook my head. “I don’t know that I have the time to make that kind of trip.” I gestured to the destruction that had been cut through the center of Jasper. “These raiders are due for a reckoning.” Beyond that, I wasn’t sure I should go alone to a meeting. I was curious, and wanted more information on the Remnants, but I was still wary to fully trust them. “Even if I took my bike, I would be leaving this problem to grow for more time than I should.”

Leah gave an amused smile. “If you come with me, I can have you at the meeting and back within the next 24 hours.”

“How?” I asked.

She tilted her neck, gesturing for me to follow her before she started walking out of the town. I hesitated, but fell in line behind her, keeping my nose active in scanning for any signs of ambush. We walked for a little under an hour before we came to the shelled out ruins of an old office building. She led me inside, and I saw Graves leaning against a half-destroyed wall. He gave me a small wave, the servos of his armor grinding slightly, and I returned the gesture.

Leah led me past the wall and when I turned the corner I saw her leaning against a large, sleek vehicle of some kind. It was colored black and had four wings, each of which contained a set of propellers.

“What is that?”

She smiled. “We call it a Shrike, it’s a silent aerial vehicle.”

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“You have planes? You can fly!?” That thought immediately pushed my mind into re-evaluating the power balance of the wastes.

Graves shook his head and his voice came out as a burst of static. “We have a plane.”

Leah added in. “Courses take a long time to plot due to the abundance of deadzones and weather variations. We were only able to chart a course here and back that would be safe for us due to the information provided by your maps and notes, which we received some of through Pott’s. The heavy fuel cost makes this something we can only utilize in specific circumstances. Manufacturing on a large scale is also…difficult.”

I nodded, making a mental note that if a deadman had been piloting, they likely could have gone through the majority of deadzones without much trouble. I could just picture Julian salivating over having one. I wasn’t sure I believed them when they mentioned they had only one, but the issues they mentioned made sense to me. I’d mention it to the Honored Dead next time I was in Pott’s to see what they made of it.

“So, will you accept the cabinet’s invitation?”

I thought for a moment. It made no sense to set a trap for me. If Leah wanted to attack me, it would make much more sense for her to use her rifle from a distance, or just send Graves at me in a straight line. This much of a runabout would be unnecessary in the extreme.

“I’ll go, but I’ll need to pick some things up from my deadzone and take care of a few things first. Give me three, possibly four hours.”

Leah nodded and smiled, patting her jacket pocket. “That’s fine. I just got a new book to kill time.”

Graves took a step forward. “New books?”

…

After loaning Graves one of the books I’d just bought from Bill’s, I headed back to my Deadzone. The first thing I did was store all of my excess ammo and books. After that I left a small note about where I was going in a black envelope I left out for Deux or Nico in order to ensure my bases were covered. Then I did a couple passes through the zone, hunting for meat to feed Gus. It would’ve been much easier to simply go back to Jasper, recover some raider corpses, and toss them into a pile, but the image of a deadman dragging human corpses into a deadzone wouldn’t exactly help my relations with the settlement nearest to my home.

I slogged to the furthest end of the zone, wading in some swampy mud until I finally found something worth hunting. It was a goose, at least that was the animal it looked the most like, with a thickly scaled neck and wings tinged bright orange. It was roughly the size of a small car. I lined up a shot with my rifle, aiming for center mass, and fired on it. The shot hit true, but instead of killing it, the goose simply whipped its head to look at me, let out an ear-piercing honk, and charged me.

I’d taken cover in some underbrush before firing on it, and let out a few more shots before it managed to close in on me. It didn’t bite or flail its wings at me, but rather used its neck as a flail, trying to beat me to death with it. Its armored neck smashed through the trunk of a tree as I dodge out of the way, and I drew my shotgun. It swung at me again, and I moved beneath its strike, and pressed the barrel of my gun into the soft down of the creature's chest. I pulled the trigger, and the beast’s neck straightened, then fell.

I let out a breath. That thing had been a helluvalot meaner than I’d been expecting. I grabbed it by the armored neck and got to work dragging it to the usual spot I fed Gus. I butchered it, taking some of the meat for myself to salt and dry, then when all that was finally done I grabbed my gear, along with the laser pistol just in case, and made my way back to Graves, Leah, and their plane.

They both looked to be roughly halfway through their respective books when I arrived. Leah closed hers immediately and glanced at Graves who held up a finger for us to wait and then slowly put it down, and closed the book.

“You ready to fly?” asked Leah.

Graves was already loading himself into the cockpit, which seemed to have been built with a person in armor like his in mind. Leah stood looking at me with a single foot into the Shrike.

“No, but let’s go anyway.”

Leah nodded and got the rest of the way in. Buckling herself into the seat next to Graves, and casually re-opening her book, as if what we were about to do was commonplace to her.

I climbed into the seat behind them. Noting that the Shrike could hold at least a dozen people at max capacity, possibly fewer if they were loaded down with gear or wearing armor. I braced myself, strapping into the seat, and felt a gentle vibration as the vehicle’s engine came to life.

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