AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“I thought I would be, but it’s more anxious to get started. They’ll be here soon, Mallick, Thomas, Troy, Mae Pickett, Boris, Charlie from back home, along with the New Hope Originals. It’s the first time all of them will have been in the same place, the same time.”
“And most of them are used to, more or less, running their own show.”
“There’s that.”
“We picked good people to lead, Fallon. Now it’s time for you to use their strengths, balance any weaknesses, and move forward for the whole.”
Will and Arlys arrived first, then others trickled in. She’d wait until leaders from every base came, begin with introductions, she thought. Acknowledgments. Some would fight together for the first time, or send those under their command to fight under another leader.
Acknowledgment mattered.
She stepped outside, thinking to gather herself and prepare for the diplomacy portion. Something her father was so much better at.
As she stood with the voices floating out through the open windows behind her, the first from outside New Hope flashed.
Thomas, Minh, with Sabine and Vick—two of the witches she’d asked to join the elf colony. And one more.
The last time she’d seen Mick he’d stood at the edge of the woods surrounding Mallick’s cottage, his hand lifted in farewell as she’d left for home.
He’d been her first friend away from home, the first elf she’d formed a bond with. He’d been her first kiss.
He grinned at her now, those leaf-green eyes alight. He’d grown his bronze-colored hair longer, had trios of thin braids on either side of his head to hold it back. His face had fined down, and he sported a triangle of beard on his chin.
But he looked so much the same.
“Mick!” She leaped forward to throw her arms around him. He swung her, laughing.
Stronger, she realized, and more solid. A soldier now who still wore the braided bracelet with the charms she’d made him as a parting gift.
“Fallon Swift.” He eased her back to study her face. “You look good.”
“You, too,” she said even as she tugged on the beard.
“Thomas, Minh.” She embraced them in turn, shook hands with the others. “You’re well? And everyone?”
“We are,” Thomas told her. “And prepared.”
“Let me take you inside. I want you to meet my parents, and the others.” She gripped Mick’s hand. “We need to catch up.”
Others arrived, and she did her best to greet each personally, to make those introductions. And gauge reactions, moods.
Then Mallick stepped in, alone.
She moved to him.
“Mallick the Sorcerer.”
“Fallon Swift.”
She kissed his cheek, stepped back. “You’re alone.”
“I am. I have the map of the base in Utah, and its surroundings.”
“All right.” She turned, took the map to the table to pin it with her own and the one Thomas had brought.
She looked at those gathered. Elves, faeries, witches, shifters, farmers, teachers, mothers, fathers, sons, daughters.
Soldiers all.
“We begin. Here, we work together to coordinate three simultaneous attacks on enemy bases. We will take those bases, free all prisoners, secure and fortify those bases and all assets within as our own. We will send a message to Jeremiah White and all who follow him that we will end their reign of fear and brutality. And that message will reach all who threaten the light and the lives of others. We stand here today, magickals and non-magickals, together for one purpose. To push back the dark.”
She paused. “Thomas,” she continued. “Will you report the results of your scouting mission?”
She listened to the details, watched as he pointed out areas on the map, gave his estimation on enemy numbers, prisoners.
Nodding, she added the information to the board. “How many troops, and support forces, will you need to take the base?”
To her surprise, Thomas looked at Mick, who took over.
“We can take it with sixty. Seventy would be better because it’s spread out. See, we’d . . .” He moved to the map, picked up one of the toy soldiers—grinned his Mick grin at it. “Cool. They’ve got sentry posts here, here, here.”
She didn’t comment he’d used the soldier toys for the enemy. No doubt Mick preferred to be represented by a lion or tiger.
But his strategy rang clear as he moved pieces.
“They’ve got four boats—two sail powered. We could cut off any escape attempts by water if we had, say, three to five merpeople.”
“We’ll get them,” Fallon told him.
“That cuts them off to the east,” he continued. “They keep the prisoners here—it’s basically a fortified hut on the beach. One guard. Slaves are on this level of the main base.”
“It was a hotel.”
“Lots of rooms,” he agreed. “The top PWs have the top floor.”
“For the views,” Poe put in. “And the status.”
“I guess.”
Mick went over the compound, point by point.
“How do they get power?” Fallon asked.
Sabine answered. “They have three generators, powered by battery and magicks.”
“They have DUs?”
“No.” She had golden skin and deep, dark eyes, wore her hair, black as a raven’s wing, in a straight fall to her waist. “It may be they tortured witches into helping them gain power, or used DUs at one time.”
“We cut the power. Can you do it?”
“I can countermand the magicks. I need one other witch to do it. But Minh says if the batteries are charged, they’d still o
perate. I don’t know how to deactivate them.”
“We’ll get someone who does to work with you.” Fallon wrote it down. “With the power down, after the initial attack, after they have time to send out the alarm, the leaders will have to get to the battle by the stairs.”
When Mick finished the report and plan, she moved back to the board.
“Seventy troops, including four of the mers, twelve support for medical and rescue transport. How many do you have ready for the mission?”
“Fifty,” Thomas told her. “We have the additional twelve, but only fifty seasoned enough for this kind of mission.”
“Another twenty needed. Mallick?”
She listened without comment as he reported. She didn’t allow herself to wonder for more than a moment why Duncan hadn’t come with him.
When he’d finished, she turned to the board. “You need fifty. How many do you have?”
“We have the fifty.”
“And the eight support?”
“We have them.”
“Good.” She drew a breath. “Arlington.”
Now she felt those doubts, a shift in mood from several corners.
“I gotta say.” John Little, a big man she’d recruited largely by kicking him in the balls, cleared his throat. “Hitting those two bases makes sense. One-two punch. And holding them gives us more room to spread out. But Arlington.” He shook his head. “It’s hard to see it, to tell the truth. Nobody’s put a dent in that base. The government’s tried, from what I hear.”
“We’re not the government,” she said over a few murmurs agreeing with Little. “Beyond freeing prisoners, Arlington is the purpose. It may not break the back of the Purity Warriors, but it cuts off an arm.”
“We get our asses killed trying, and lose? It cuts off both our arms. And legs.”
She’d expected objections, half hoped her father would take up the debate. But he remained silent, kept his gaze on hers.
Okay then, she thought.
“As long as Arlington remains in their hands, they hold an advantage. The strategic position, the sheer size of the base and its resources, its training ground. We need it in our hands. And we’ll have it.”
“Well.” Mae Pickett shifted in her seat, pushed back her long gray hair. “I get why you want it, but it seems to me you’re going after a hell of a lot, and you haven’t been at this very long. A lot of the rest of us have been at it less. Maybe we ought to take smaller bites for a while yet.”
