[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
the General on the news back then, although she was
younger and a captain at the time. She had pushed
for more to be done, but she didn t have the power
then that she had as both a General and a Council
member currently, and the event had faded into the
past for most people outside of their Nation.
The captain ordered the remaining soldiers to
ready the mobile command center to move out and
then got to work himself stowing away anything that
they had used while there that wasn t nailed down.
There wasn t much, but order was the military way
and it was never worth the risk of coming across a
higher-ranking officer in a really bad mood.
They were actually road ready in a few minutes
with most of the command center s components being
automated. The jumbo tires on the rig then pulled
157
the command center out of the muddy field like it
was an empty cardboard box. The Jaagés weren t
doing as well with a couple of the media vans, the
news crews having buried them even deeper in a
frantic effort to follow the General earlier as she
whipped out of the field. The soldiers were now to
the point of using two Jaagés at a time to drag the
last vans out and the first media crews to be
pulled out were laughing and filming the spectacle
like they had never been stuck themselves. With
the power of two military Jaagés in tandem
potentially capable of ripping a van in half, the
event was pretty entertaining to the soldiers as
well and it was over before they had gotten a
chance to enjoy it enough. What they were heading
to would be light duty though, so they were still
happy as they hit the old road in route to the
search.
CHAPTER 13
The drive to the little Shawnee Nation town of
Hawthorne only took a half an hour, but felt longer
because they had to slow down frequently for sharp
curves in the old road. It seemed to the General
at times that the road had been made to curve
around every tree that stood in its way. The roads
were different in the desert. She would be back
there soon.
When she hit the outskirts of the town, she
was amused to see people standing in their yards
watching them like the few military Jaagés were a
parade. The town had been carved out of the
Shawnee Forest and was molded to the hills in the
area like a wet piece of cloth. Some people would
have described it as quaint, but the General wasn t
one of those people. Except for one clothing store
they passed on the main road through town, the
place was about as lively as a morgue. It would
take a strange breed of people to live there and
she was glad she wouldn t be there long.
The small caravan of Jaagés crept through the
town behind the SNIU vehicle that had caught up to
158
on the way and were soon pulling off the road near
what she initially thought was a tree lined field.
The General didn t realize that the field was the
lawn of some large dark building set back pretty
far from the road until she climbed out of the
Jaagé and looked around. The whole area was lit by
the multistrobe effect of numerous police car
lights scattered around the perimeter of the
property. Every police car in the town along with
any the SNIU had scraped up had to already be
there, and the situation was obviously writhing in
chaos.
The arrival of the four Apache military Jaagés
caught the attention of the local law enforcement
like it had the town people along the road, and
every one of them stood whispering and staring like
little children.
Great, the General thought, they were the new
dog and pony show in town. The locals would be too
busy gawking to be of any help and she didn t know
a damn thing about the stupid little town. The
stares intensified as she and her soldiers strapped
on their weapons and stood around the Jaagés like
they were piles of lost Inca gold. The two SNIU
agents that had been with them in the farm field
finally crawled out of their vehicle and she
watched as they swaggered over to what had to be
their SNIU cohorts. Within seconds they were also
all gawking at the soldiers and it appeared to the
General that the supposed search had just switched
off like a dim and dying little bulb. This
wouldn t do, this wouldn t do at all, she thought
immediately and motioned for two of her soldiers to
follow her over to the SNIU agents she was already
thinking of as boys. Unlike the Shawnee Nation
medical examiner, these boys were nearing her own
age and some were probably even older. But the
attitudes and lack of discipline were juvenile, and
she would prefer that they just stayed the hell out
of her way. She had come there with her soldiers
to take care of business and if she had to take
over for it to be done right, so be it.
On reaching the agents with her two Apache
soldiers in her wake, she immediately addressed one
of the agents who had been at the dig site, the one
159
in particular who had insinuated that she was
incapable of using a computer.
Agent Green, she began in a curt and
commanding voice that practically brought the
agents to attention. Military wanna-bes, she
thought. They had probably all washed out and fled
back to the Shawnee Nation to pick up SNIU jobs,
all of them except Green of course who now
responded to her the same way he had in the command
center. He was an idiot who didn t realize he was
an idiot, dangerous on the battlefield and a pain
in the ass to deal with on a good day. Knowing his
measure already, she didn t waste time with him.
We have limited time, but you have our
services. We need to get to it and find these
kids.
Agent Green looked at her with his continued
bad attitude, but he wasn t the senior agent at the
scene and a slightly older man with the stance of
someone who had at least made it through boot camp
spoke up.
General Cochise, I m agent Rivers. I m in
command of the search at this point and I
gratefully accept your assistance. As he said this
he glanced at agent Green with a look that told him
to back off, and then said, I can brief you on the
situation unless agent Green has already done so.
Without looking back at Green, she said, I
would appreciate the information, Agent Rivers. We
are here to help you and anything you can tell us
that will allow us to help you in the most
efficient way will be valuable.
Agent Rivers now glanced back at agent Green
with a look that said stand back you incompetent
idiot, and immediately began to describe the
situation to the General. Green needed a serious
reprimand for his arrogant disregard for the
General s status in the Nations, the Shawnee Nation
included. He would deal with that later. Council
member Rand had spoken to Rivers directly when the
General had entered the Shawnee Nation. Rand was
not someone you crossed. People who had crossed
him in the past left the Nation, and they always
left no matter who they were.
As Agent Rivers discussed the case with the
160
General, she caught the arrival of several news
vans out of the corner of her eye. The parasites
had trailed them to the town. The sooner they got
this over with the better. In a situation not
controlled by her military, they would run rampant
and she couldn t tolerate that even on reportedly
private property in another Nation. The locals
wouldn t and couldn t understand.
But then Agent Rivers surprised her in the way
that most positive things in her pessimistic life
surprised her. He ordered the other SNIU agents to
tape off the area and keep the reporters both away
and in the dark in terms of their progress in the
search. While he was doing this she noticed
something she rarely saw outside of her own Nation.
The agent had the emblem of the Apache military
inscribed in black across the back of his right
hand. He had served in the Middle East War as an
Apache soldier. The insignia was universally
inscribed in that way for that war and only that
war. Looking at the back of her own right hand,
memories of the war crept back and she felt a [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
zanotowane.pl doc.pisz.pl pdf.pisz.pl exclamation.htw.pl
the General on the news back then, although she was
younger and a captain at the time. She had pushed
for more to be done, but she didn t have the power
then that she had as both a General and a Council
member currently, and the event had faded into the
past for most people outside of their Nation.
The captain ordered the remaining soldiers to
ready the mobile command center to move out and
then got to work himself stowing away anything that
they had used while there that wasn t nailed down.
There wasn t much, but order was the military way
and it was never worth the risk of coming across a
higher-ranking officer in a really bad mood.
They were actually road ready in a few minutes
with most of the command center s components being
automated. The jumbo tires on the rig then pulled
157
the command center out of the muddy field like it
was an empty cardboard box. The Jaagés weren t
doing as well with a couple of the media vans, the
news crews having buried them even deeper in a
frantic effort to follow the General earlier as she
whipped out of the field. The soldiers were now to
the point of using two Jaagés at a time to drag the
last vans out and the first media crews to be
pulled out were laughing and filming the spectacle
like they had never been stuck themselves. With
the power of two military Jaagés in tandem
potentially capable of ripping a van in half, the
event was pretty entertaining to the soldiers as
well and it was over before they had gotten a
chance to enjoy it enough. What they were heading
to would be light duty though, so they were still
happy as they hit the old road in route to the
search.
CHAPTER 13
The drive to the little Shawnee Nation town of
Hawthorne only took a half an hour, but felt longer
because they had to slow down frequently for sharp
curves in the old road. It seemed to the General
at times that the road had been made to curve
around every tree that stood in its way. The roads
were different in the desert. She would be back
there soon.
When she hit the outskirts of the town, she
was amused to see people standing in their yards
watching them like the few military Jaagés were a
parade. The town had been carved out of the
Shawnee Forest and was molded to the hills in the
area like a wet piece of cloth. Some people would
have described it as quaint, but the General wasn t
one of those people. Except for one clothing store
they passed on the main road through town, the
place was about as lively as a morgue. It would
take a strange breed of people to live there and
she was glad she wouldn t be there long.
The small caravan of Jaagés crept through the
town behind the SNIU vehicle that had caught up to
158
on the way and were soon pulling off the road near
what she initially thought was a tree lined field.
The General didn t realize that the field was the
lawn of some large dark building set back pretty
far from the road until she climbed out of the
Jaagé and looked around. The whole area was lit by
the multistrobe effect of numerous police car
lights scattered around the perimeter of the
property. Every police car in the town along with
any the SNIU had scraped up had to already be
there, and the situation was obviously writhing in
chaos.
The arrival of the four Apache military Jaagés
caught the attention of the local law enforcement
like it had the town people along the road, and
every one of them stood whispering and staring like
little children.
Great, the General thought, they were the new
dog and pony show in town. The locals would be too
busy gawking to be of any help and she didn t know
a damn thing about the stupid little town. The
stares intensified as she and her soldiers strapped
on their weapons and stood around the Jaagés like
they were piles of lost Inca gold. The two SNIU
agents that had been with them in the farm field
finally crawled out of their vehicle and she
watched as they swaggered over to what had to be
their SNIU cohorts. Within seconds they were also
all gawking at the soldiers and it appeared to the
General that the supposed search had just switched
off like a dim and dying little bulb. This
wouldn t do, this wouldn t do at all, she thought
immediately and motioned for two of her soldiers to
follow her over to the SNIU agents she was already
thinking of as boys. Unlike the Shawnee Nation
medical examiner, these boys were nearing her own
age and some were probably even older. But the
attitudes and lack of discipline were juvenile, and
she would prefer that they just stayed the hell out
of her way. She had come there with her soldiers
to take care of business and if she had to take
over for it to be done right, so be it.
On reaching the agents with her two Apache
soldiers in her wake, she immediately addressed one
of the agents who had been at the dig site, the one
159
in particular who had insinuated that she was
incapable of using a computer.
Agent Green, she began in a curt and
commanding voice that practically brought the
agents to attention. Military wanna-bes, she
thought. They had probably all washed out and fled
back to the Shawnee Nation to pick up SNIU jobs,
all of them except Green of course who now
responded to her the same way he had in the command
center. He was an idiot who didn t realize he was
an idiot, dangerous on the battlefield and a pain
in the ass to deal with on a good day. Knowing his
measure already, she didn t waste time with him.
We have limited time, but you have our
services. We need to get to it and find these
kids.
Agent Green looked at her with his continued
bad attitude, but he wasn t the senior agent at the
scene and a slightly older man with the stance of
someone who had at least made it through boot camp
spoke up.
General Cochise, I m agent Rivers. I m in
command of the search at this point and I
gratefully accept your assistance. As he said this
he glanced at agent Green with a look that told him
to back off, and then said, I can brief you on the
situation unless agent Green has already done so.
Without looking back at Green, she said, I
would appreciate the information, Agent Rivers. We
are here to help you and anything you can tell us
that will allow us to help you in the most
efficient way will be valuable.
Agent Rivers now glanced back at agent Green
with a look that said stand back you incompetent
idiot, and immediately began to describe the
situation to the General. Green needed a serious
reprimand for his arrogant disregard for the
General s status in the Nations, the Shawnee Nation
included. He would deal with that later. Council
member Rand had spoken to Rivers directly when the
General had entered the Shawnee Nation. Rand was
not someone you crossed. People who had crossed
him in the past left the Nation, and they always
left no matter who they were.
As Agent Rivers discussed the case with the
160
General, she caught the arrival of several news
vans out of the corner of her eye. The parasites
had trailed them to the town. The sooner they got
this over with the better. In a situation not
controlled by her military, they would run rampant
and she couldn t tolerate that even on reportedly
private property in another Nation. The locals
wouldn t and couldn t understand.
But then Agent Rivers surprised her in the way
that most positive things in her pessimistic life
surprised her. He ordered the other SNIU agents to
tape off the area and keep the reporters both away
and in the dark in terms of their progress in the
search. While he was doing this she noticed
something she rarely saw outside of her own Nation.
The agent had the emblem of the Apache military
inscribed in black across the back of his right
hand. He had served in the Middle East War as an
Apache soldier. The insignia was universally
inscribed in that way for that war and only that
war. Looking at the back of her own right hand,
memories of the war crept back and she felt a [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]