Alice in Deadland Trilogy (30 page)

The positive side was that it had galvanized everyone into
action. The negative was that as the old saying went, every man’s home was his
castle, and now every man was trying to be his own commander. Arjun knew that
they would not survive long if they fought as small, isolated units, and he
began to realize just how badly the months of peace had hurt their
preparedness. A society at peace can be a wonderful one, but only if it never
forgets how to wage war if needed.

Arjun and his men were trying to rally people into fire
teams and create natural choke points among the buildings where they could trap
incoming forces. The boys who had attacked him and Satish were now standing
nearby, looking slightly sheepish. Arjun walked up to them. ‘What’s the
matter?’

One of them answered, ‘We all came into Wonderland with our
families a few months ago. We don’t know much about the tactics and tricks your
men talk about. Tell us what we can do.’

Arjun sized him up. ‘How many of you have killed a man or a
Biter?’

Every single one of them raised his hand. Nobody could have
grown into adolescence in the Deadland without knowing how to take a life.

‘Then you all know most of what you need to know. I’ll keep
the older folks inside the city, but you are young and fast. I need you to do
something that you don’t need much tactics for.’

The boy looked perplexed.

‘What do we need to do?’

Arjun smiled. ‘You need to run as fast as you can.’

***

‘White Rook, this is Looking Glass. Do you have a parking
space ready for our cars?’

Satish heard Danish and answered in the negative. From being
their window to the outside world, Danish and his Looking Glass had now
effectively become their command and control center. With his access to the Red
Guard Intranet and transmissions, he could provide some forewarning of what may
come their way. He also had the main radio switchboard, and so was vital for
team-to-team coordination. Danish had been asking where to send their only real
heavy land weapons: the three jeeps that had been fitted with rocket launchers
captured from downed Red Guard helicopters. Without a clear idea of where the
assault would come from, Satish did not want to risk exposing the jeeps to air
strikes, so they had been kept well hidden.

His group of six had already had a skirmish with a group of
Red Guards, leaving three Red Guards and one of his men dead. Now he was
waiting for the helicopter that was supposedly flying towards their position.

One of his men whispered to him, ‘Sir, I see it. There!’

He followed the man’s outstretched hand and saw a black
speck appear in the morning sky. Satish’s team had been closer to Wonderland’s
borders than Alice, so he had a SAM unit nearby and he radioed for them to come
in. Within a minute, two men jogged by, one of them carrying the large tube
shaped missile launcher.

‘Sir, I see three choppers.’

Satish began to reconsider his options. If there had been
only one helicopter, he would have ordered it shot down without a second
thought, but with three incoming choppers that would be a risky proposition.
Even if they managed to shoot one down with the first shot, the others would be
onto them before they managed to reload. He had mere seconds in which to
decide, and he barked to his men, ‘Everyone, take cover! We’ll get them when
they land.’

Now the helicopters were close enough that Satish could see
details. One was a black helicopter of the sort Vince had flown out to
Calcutta; another was a larger and noisier transport helicopter; and the third
was a smaller, sleek gunship. So far every indication had been that the Red
Queen and her Biters flew in on the stealthy helicopter, but he had no way of
knowing which of the choppers she’d be in now.

The two transport helicopters came down to land about five
hundred meters away from Satish’s position, but the gunship remained in the
air. Satish knew the Biters inside the transport helicopter were the primary
threat but if he attacked them first, he would be vulnerable to attack from the
air. Making a split second decision, he ordered his men to fire their SAM at
the gunship and ordered his man armed with the RPG launcher to fire at the
black helicopter.

The missile snaked up towards the helicopter, and while the
Red Guard pilot saw it and tried to evade, at such close range he really did
not have a chance. The gunship exploded from a direct hit and its wreckage came
falling down like a rainstorm of fire and metal.

On seeing the gunship fall, Red Guards began to troop out of
the black helicopter. Satish screamed at his men to stop, to redirect to the
other helicopter, which would hold the Red Queen and her Biters – but he was
too late. The RPG hit the helicopter near the door, obliterating the Red Guards
who were still trying to jump out. The few who had made it outside took cover
and began firing at Satish and his men.

In the distance, he saw a female form in a Red Guard uniform
run towards Wonderland, followed by dozens of Biters.

He had failed. The Red Queen had entered Wonderland.

***

‘People of Wonderland, this is an urgent message for you.
Stay in your houses and do not try and interfere with the ongoing security
operation against the intruding Biter hordes. Red Guards are coming to your
assistance.’

Danish sat upright as the message flashed on his screen. A
second later, he got a report on the radio that the same message was being
repeated on the TV news broadcasts. That could mean only one thing: that Alice
and Satish’s teams had somehow failed and hostile Biters were approaching
Wonderland. Now it would be up to Arjun to stop them and the Red Guards before
things got totally out of control. Alice had briefed him on what to do in a
situation like this and he patched her in on the radio so that she could
communicate directly with the frequency the Red Guard Commissar had been using
for his broadcasts lately.

Chen was sitting at the control center, thinking of the
conscripts running into an urban battleground for which they were neither
prepared nor trained. Many of the poor fools actually thought that they were
going to receive a hero’s welcome.

The radio operator took off his headset and beckoned to
Chen.

‘Comrade General, we have an incoming transmission from
Wonderland.’

Chen put on the headset.

‘This is General Chen of the Red Guards. Who am I speaking
with?’

The answer sent a shiver down his spine. It was a voice that
had haunted him since he had looked into the yellowed eyes of a young girl who
had become Queen.

‘General, you should remember me. My name is Alice
Gladwell.’

Hu had come up behind him and asked Chen to put the
broadcast on the speaker.

‘This is Commissar Hu. I want to speak to some legitimate
representative of the elected government of Wonderland, not an upstart
terrorist and counter-revolutionary.’

There came a laugh from the other end. ‘Commissar Hu, it is
rich of you to talk of democracy and elections. I have no time for small talk.
Tell your men to stay away from Wonderland while we destroy this Red Queen and
her Biters.’

‘The people of Wonderland –’

Alice cut him off. ‘They know what you have been plotting.
Arun is not dead. He became a Biter and is now with us. Now call off the Red
Guards or I will be forced to kill them all.’

With that Alice ended the call. Chen looked at Hu, feeling
numb with fear for what was to befall his men.

‘Comrade Commissar, the plan is failing. If they truly know
the truth then they will not be divided; elements among them will not welcome
our boys. It will be a death trap for them.’

Pulling Chen aside, Hu addressed him in a harsh growl. ‘Your
critics in the Central Committee were right. You had lost your courage in the
Deadland, and deserved to die in a labor camp. I resurrected your career
because I needed your experience, but now I see that you have no nerve left for
battle after all. That witch is just bluffing.’

The men in the control center looked at the two officers
with wide eyes. For a moment Chen just stood in shock; then he straightened.

‘Comrade Commissar, you plot in offices, pretending the
world is a chessboard and people pawns to be moved from one square to another.
I have news for you, Comrade. In the real world, those pawns bleed and die, and
one day that river of blood will drown you and the other old monsters in the
Central Committee.’

Hu looked like he had been slapped and then recovered. He
motioned to the four black-clad bodyguards he had bought with him from the
Mainland.

‘Comrade General Chen seems to be suffering from fatigue
brought on by his tireless efforts in driving forth the people’s revolution. I
think he needs some rest to recover his revolutionary fervor. Kindly escort him
to his quarters.’

Chen reached for the gun at his belt, but strong hands
grabbed him, and he was pulled away outside the room.

Hu looked around at the terrified looking Red Guards in the
room.

‘Comrades, does anyone else have any doubts about the war we
are waging against counter-revolutionaries and terrorists that I can help
dispel?’

Every single man looked down, unwilling to meet his gaze.

‘Very well. Now, let us see how long this witch lasts
against our own Red Queen.’

***

Neel watched the first Biters come into view from his second
floor window. He was more terrified than he had ever been, and he wondered if
the two boys with him were as scared as he was. Still, at sixteen he was the
oldest of the three and he could not appear weak in front of the others. He had
volunteered for sentry duty when Arjun had asked for volunteers and his job was
to watch for Biters who were supposed to be entering Wonderland. He had a
pistol in his hand, and while his father had taught him how to shoot, he had
not touched the gun in the last year that they had been living in Wonderland.
He now saw six or seven Biters almost directly below him and he knew that
shooting at them would achieve little. There was no way he could kill all of
them. He needed to get word to Arjun or one of the other adults nearby.

Suddenly the boy next to him keeled over, blood spurting
from a wound to the neck. The second boy screamed in terror, only to be
silenced by another bullet to the head. Neel crouched low, too scared to move.
Biters could never shoot like that. Then again, he had no idea that Li was just
behind the Biters, taking out targets with her rifle, clearing the path. Red
Guards were going to be just behind.

Hu’s plan was to let the Biters cause some mayhem before the
Red Guards got to the city center and placed Wonderland under ‘protective
custody’ until they could have an election where someone sympathetic to the
Central Committee could be installed as a puppet. With everything that had
happened, he hoped that enough people in Wonderland would see that allying with
the Central Committee was the only way to get security. As for Alice and her
followers, Hu had more than enough Red Guards headed for the Deadland to deal
with them. So far his plan had gone almost exactly as he had thought it would
unfold.

Arjun watched the first Biter appear on the scope of his
rifle. There were four; a good number. Just as they passed a building, Arjun
pressed down on a nearby plunger, detonating the improvised explosive device
inside the construction. The explosion tore off much of the side of the
building and obliterated the Biters.

There was no way to guard all of Wonderland’s many routes,
so Arjun and Satish had decided to essentially focus on defending the city
center. His scouts were in the outskirts in constant radio contact with the
Looking Glass, and Danish had managed to piece together a pretty comprehensive
picture of the battle as it unfolded. There seemed to be about fifty or so
Biters who had entered Wonderland, and other than a group of six spotted
traveling as a group with the Red Queen, the others were marauding at will.
That made them relatively easy targets to pick off, but it also meant that many
different teams were engaged in hunting them down, leaving precious few
defenders to guard against the Red Guards who were almost certainly now
entering Wonderland.

Captain Tso was leading his squad of eight Red Guards into
the ruins. They had been helidropped just two kilometers away and from what he
had already made out from the radio reports of other helicopters being shot
down, they had been lucky to not be ambushed as they landed. He motioned for
his men to stop as he scanned the buildings in front of him. His men had no
combat experience but Tso had spent two tours of duty in the Deadland and hated
having to go into such a congested area where an enemy sniper could be hiding
in every window. But his orders had been clear. They were to go into the city
and ensure safe passage for the armored carriers that were to soon follow,
carrying more Red Guards. He had discounted much of the propaganda that the
Commissar had spouted about them going into the city to save the hapless
citizens from Biters. He had spent enough time in the Deadland to know that the
people there had no love lost for Red Guards, especially since the Yellow Witch
had taken over command. But orders were orders, and he just hoped that he did
not lose too many of the boys walking behind him.

One of them shouted, ‘Comrade Captain, I see a young boy
sitting there. Maybe he needs our help.’

Tso looked to see a boy of no more than ten sitting calmly
by the roadside, watching them. Three of Tso’s men jogged over. Something did
not look right to Tso and he raised his riflescope to his eyes to take a closer
look. He saw the boy’s hand close around something and before he could shout a
warning to his men running towards the boy, a bomb exploded near them.