RESURRECTION
by Steph Burke

Ranger Chief Commander Mark Verrick was pissed off. On the one hand, he was relieved that pusball Balo was dead. He had hoped fervently that all the Dewmont Rangers, a random collection of TCA-imposed misfits that gave the whole corps a bad name, would be good enough to get themselves offed with equal dispatch. On the other hand, a Ranger was dead. Killed, it was being whispered about, for perfidy in office. Killed, it was said, by an alleged ghost, no less. A Junker even put in a claim for scrap. Verrick had squelched that, right enough. Of course, the radiation in that Dakota valley where Balo hit meltdown, as well as longstanding Ranger tradition, had added greatly to his arguments.

Ranger Kills were always left as monuments to the fallen. The catch phrases were "Still on Patrol" and "They Haunt the Road". Only now, there was someone, already dubbed "the Silver Ghost" by an idiot Junker captain, really haunting the road, using one of the Rangers' own best propaganda ploys against the organization that had spawned it. Oh, yes, he was pissed off.

Of course, there was no hard evidence that Balo had been killed by this "Silver Ghost". Actually, it looked as though the imbecile had been trying to extort a rather sizable bribe in techno-scrap out of a Junker airship when it was downed in an electric storm. Balo's own final broadcast stated that he had inadvertently driven directly under the crippled airship and was trying to extricate himself. A cruiser is fast, but nothing on wheels is faster than its driver, and Balo was the archetype for "Slow". Even the televids admitted all this. Admitted it as they condemned Balo's attempt at grand larceny through malfeasance of office, and finally told of the ghostly cruiser that had been seen following the downed Junker for weeks beforehand. Verrick wanted to personally castrate the politico who had made that log public.

Could matters be worse? Of course, they could. Verrick had interrogated the one survivor personally, trying to get to the bottom of the mystery surrounding what should have been a straightforward event. Six hours of questioning had produced no new facts. The former first officer of the downed aircraft had left the ship due to illness shortly before Balo and a storm had converged on that cursed valley. The man had not seen the "Silver Ghost" himself nor been on duty when the log entries had been made. The damned Junker didn't even believe in the cruiser apparition. All that whole session did was provoke the press. Turns out the Junker is Brian Hooker, a cause celebre for the fourth estate from way back.

Hooker should have been a Ranger himself. His was the class the Traffic Control Agency had sprung the Dewmont scale on, forevermore compromising the integrity of the TCA's academy, Traffic Central, and degrading the Rangers at the same time. Hooker, Junker Captain by right of survival, claimed to harbor no bitterness against the TCA or the Rangers, but this very week his new ship, TCAAS Vengeance Aborne began her maiden voyage with a crew made up of should-have-been Rangers from that selfsame Dewmont class. The first officer, Carol Marlow, had even better scores than Hooker on the old Landers scale, not an easy thing to do. All those most victimized by the TCA were on that Junker. If this wasn't bitter ill-will, Verrick didn't know what was.

Now Verrick had another problem.

When the stink had hit the rotors over Balo, Verrick had used every possible pretext, including some highly improbable ones, to pull the Dewmont Rangers in, the worst of them, anyway, and saddle them to desks. Unfortunately they were just as inept there as on the long road. Standard inventory was turning up discrepancies, a lot of discrepancies. Many involving sensitive weaponry. The worst part of the problem was that no one knew for sure if the stuff was really missing, misplaced, misfiled, or nonexistent. One wrong keypunch at a warehouse terminal could have the entire corps searching for years for, say, a missile fire cap which had never been there in the first place. As far as anyone could tell as yet, there seemed to have been several thousand incorrect keypunches. There also seemed to be a few hundred thousand credits in the wrong accounts, and perhaps, just perhaps, a middle to large arsenal of cruiser-level weapons, weapon systems, spare parts, fuel rods, and ammo missing. It almost seemed like the reassigned Dewmonts were trying to build an illegal cruiser. Which was ridiculous. Over and above the fact that each Dewmont had a cruiser, which, by law, Verrick could not take them away even after reassigning the dummies, it was supposed to be impoosible to jury-rig a cruiser out of parts.

The benched Dewmonts were not allowed to drive their cruisers. The televids called it "the mothballed fleet".

Verrick sighed deeply. He did that more and more often these days. It hurt his bones. God, he was getting old. Time was he'd climb into his Mark VI and take to the road when he needed to clear his head. He couldn't do that now. He had responsibilities. His cruiser was also collecting dust in drydock. His old Mark VI-A didn't have the speed or maneuvering abilities of the Mark VII-B, but what it lacked in those categories it made up for in Nutrino plate and sheer brute force. At least, Verrick had always thought so. But a good Ranger goes where the Mad Dogs are, and the Mad Dogs had gone for speed this last generation. The VII-Bs were a reflection of the everchanging life of a Ranger. More change than he could handle. When the choice had come between trading up his Mark VI or taking a station, he'd kept his cruiser, and let them commission him a desk. Kate had never approved. He was Ranger Chief Commander now, a minor infinity away from road rats and battle fatigues, but he had the distinct impression that if he could talk to Kate out there on the long road, she'd still disapprove.

"You're a Ranger first and foremost," she had said to him that last night in Barracks Three. "You've got no business driving a desk."

Kate O, the legend of the Rangers, his one-time lover, had racked up the most impressive strike record in the corps, and almost half of the kills that had made her a demigoddess to the press and public had occurred in the six angry months after that last face-to-face argument.

Back then you were allowed to customize your cruiser. Each Ranger was as distinctive as the Mad Dogs and Wild Packs they went up against. That had also changed with time and the coming of the first teardrop cruisers; the Mark VI-D's configuration didn't lend itself to the loud personalizations of times past. Everything was now uniform. The Rangers, themselves, in their pale blue crash suits, were uniform, no longer rugged individualists.

What would the public say if they knew Kate O was still alive? Still out there for them? Still on the long road? Her actual strike record was about ten times what they thought it was. But they couldn't know; Rangers were interchangeable these days. "Yes, ma'am." "No, sir." By general order of the TCA, there were no more heroes, only a "heroic organization." The parades were over. The Dewmonts were here.

Yes, he was getting very old. Old and sick to death of the pencil pushers, himself included, who were ruining his Rangers.

His Rangers? Now there was a laugh. They hadn't been his Rangers in years. Not since he'd started up the mountain of command looking for the summit. Well, he'd gotten here, only to find that a summit was an especially uncomfortable place to sit. Particularly with hemorrhoids. Did cruiser jockeys get piles? Or were they caused by a virus that could only survive on woodform plastic office furniture.

He sighed again. Devil take the ache in his soul. Gnarled fingers shook hardly at all when he thumbed the intercom. His decision was made.

"Yes, sir," his secretary's voice floated musically from the call box.

"Kyoto, put out a call on the memo board to Kate O. I want her to take a look at that badlands mess."

"Yes, sir." The lieutenant, more an administrative aide than a secretary, broke the connection. He wondered who won the office pool this time. Probably Kyoto, she knew him best.

Hooker saw the memo first. His Junker airship was patched into every law enforcement memo board extant, thanks to "Tinker" Marlow's expertise with all manner of technology. At the time Verrick's memo came in, Hooker's crew was busily cleaning up a seven-car mess on old I-95, south of Baltimore, a clear profit salvage growing out of a challenge rebuttal on the Olds/Caddy match-up that had started everything and had put him in the captain's chair.

His own expertise with computer hacking had allowed him to destroy an airship and a cruiser and blame it on an electrical storm. The record showed he was several states away when that happened. The record was wrong. Those people had been Mad Dogs in official uniforms and he had destroyed them. So much was legal. It was the method of their destruction and what he did after that was a little questionable.

His away team belowships was new to the Junker game, having trained, like Hooker, to become Rangers. They learned fast, but they were still neophytes, tyros; as he had been when he started out among the sharks. The difference was, the crew he'd been with weren't all Ranger-class personnel. This type of work distressed them worse than it had him with a crew of cutthroat Junkers teaching him callousness. News of the memo would hearten them; they'd been expecting it. As had he. You don't have a Ranger Kill without a Ranger Inquiry. It just wasn't done. SOP.

The freak crash theory would stand up, he knew, thanks to some quick work on the part of Vengeance Aborne. Hooker had seen to it a radjunk cargo bay was installed on the newly outfitted airship before her commission. Their first junkfall had been the scene of Balo's demise. The crew had swept the valley clean of useful techo-scrap and parts, especially those which might tend to disprove the scenario Hooker had so carefully created; other crushed and irradiated parts were left in place of evidence removed. They'd even gotten the liquified mass that had been Balo into its proper place with something Tinker called a magnetic blotter.

Sipping his coffee, Hooker smiled. Thoughts of Carol Marlow usually brought smiles. Just as she could contrive almost anything from scrap, her enthusiasm had taken his ideas and shaped them into firm reality. At her suggestion, they had swept the Balo mess, and had bought or stolen parts, fuel rods and the like from Dewmont Ranger warehouses. They were now building a second cruiser.

The Silver's twin was already half-completed when the expected order had come down to abandon the wreck site as a Ranger memorial. They'd been finished with that mess anyhow.

Now if only the away team would give the hook to the mess below. He checked their progress on the opscan while thumbing an assist-of-inquiry into the memo board.

"That'll give us a reason for being there," he said. Hooker looked around the otherwise empty aft radio shack sheepishly to assure himself no one had heard him speaking to an empty room. The self-contradictions never occurred to him. It was an unconscious habit, leftovers from childhood, part of a pattern which was Hooker. Like watching over the mess work from the aft radio shack. A habit developed in his early days as a Junker.

Shocking himself back to reality, he plugged into the comnet. "Give those bumpers a swift kick, Marlow. We're expected elsewhere." He cut out of the loop before the cheers of his crew could deafen him.

A glance at the opscan showed two wrecks miraculously hooked and flying with a third in preparation. It also showed Marlow riding a wreck up to the ship. Catching a cable was not a mode of transit of which his number one generally approved, to do it herself while her away team was still working meant she was in a very large hurry. Marlow was only in a hurry whe she had something that needed to be dealt with, usually by him, or when Slim Tim Jones had galley duty. Hooker had already learned not to let Slim near food preparation areas, so he assumed she was on her way to see him. Carol was an excellent first officer but had an annoying tendency to save objections, suggestions, and observations until near critical mass, then deliver them en masse.

He checked the memo board while awaiting the latest "Marlovian Onslaught" and found a confirmation of his assist-of-inquiry. He saw the signature "Ranger Katherine O'Callahan" on the scanplate and spilled coffee all over the panel. Marlow caught him mopping it up with a grease rag.

"I've told the crew not to drink coffee in here. That spill could have shorted out the whole memo board. They take the bait?"

"They accepted our assist, yes." Hooker was chagrined. Marlow had that effect on him.

"But?"

"What?" He gave up the rag as a bad job and, shunting data to auxiliary, shut down the main panel for cleaning.

"I said, 'But?'. Your answer implied a problem."

"Take a look."

"Yeah, so? Just what we planned. A Ranger Inquiry would..." She froze, looked again. "Kate O?" It can't be. Isn't she dead? No, of course not. It would have been plastered all over the tabloids. Wow!"

"'Wow', that's it? How about, 'Gee, Captain, maybe this isn't such a hot idea after all'?"

"She's a hero of yours, I know. She's also above reproach. But the idea was to call attention to TCA corruption, particularly Dewmont Rangers. Balo's our Judas goat. We lead them into the brown and nasty until the stink doesn't just hit the rotors, it fouls them right up." Her face was hard, her voice just short of cracking, a dichotomy that fascinated Hooker. "We need our Rangers back. The real thing. Or we can write off the whole damn country to the Mad Dogs and Wild Packs."

"I don't want to see our crew become a Wild Pack. We're rogues, Carol, playing long road Ranger."

"We may be the only real Rangers left. You'll keep us that way, Captain. You're our conscience. As for the great Kate O, I've been running something through my head since yesterday."

"When you saw the decom stats?"

She smiled. Hooker could always backtrack her reasoning to its source. "Decom puts the rads as flat. We can road test."

"And then double team a Ranger?" Hooker gestured for her to sit. They'd work out the details between them. The conscience of the ship? He felt more like its original sin, but he'd keep Vengeance Aborne from the wild path with Carol's help. More than he, she was the guiding light, the spirit of the ship. He'd recruited her to make his dream work. Sacred duty can become profane habit with the loss of innocence, of spirit. Carol kept him honest, and on the path they'd both chosen.

"I've been working on a scrambler," she told him.

"Aren't those illegal?" he asked. She stuck her tongue out at him.

Katherine O'Callahan wanted to strangle Verrick once and for all. She would have done so years before if he hadn't been so darned cute.

The day had started off well enough. Kate had firmly caught up with a Mad Dog she'd been chasing for two months. He'd been suspected of using illegal tactics and weapons in road duels. That had been confirmed by an Arizona State Police helicopter just before it was whacked out of the sky by a BRX from the perp's chopshop special. The BRX (British Royal, experimental) used a series of shaped charges in rapid sequence to inflict a greater cumulative devastation ratio than was possible with a single like charge of commensurate force/weight. Its use was common but questionable, its legality not yet established by the TCAs Permanent Arms Control Committee. Rangers used them as part of "fact finding research" for the committee. How BRXs were getting into private hands was supposedly unknown, although many pointed to the TCA itself. As there was no ruling yet, however, if you had them, you could use them.

What you could not do was convert them to surface-to-air capabilities. That was a usage felony. Firing such weapons on law enforcement airpower carried instant capital retaliation penalties. The Mad Dog was a rolling dead man. Emphasis on "rolling".

He'd already set out for Nevada when Kate had gotten to the kill site. She followed immediately. It was at that point her progress began to be impeded by various local agencies. The Mad Dog, it turned out, was Roadmaster. Not some young punk using the name, but the original. The hero of the Civilization War. Verrick's friend, Roadmaster.

He had been one of those hit-and-run resistance leaders used so extensively under Ranger guidance to slow the Alliance advances until US Armed Forces could be brought to bear. There wasn't much to bring: since the outbreak of peace some years earlier, all branches of service had been drastically reduced. A fact that the Civilization Alliance, mostly a NATO-Warsaw Pact retread, had counted on. They invaded on several narrow fronts from reluctant Canadian bases to "re-educate the United States in civilized behavior."

The decision was made to organize resistance groups into loose militia which could more effectively engage the enemy, and from which replacements for the regulars would be drawn. Regular forces attacked with massed firepower each enemy advance in turn, moving swiftly on to blunt the next arrow on the map. The militia plugged the holes, killing and waiting to kill.

The war eventually had been won. Alliance force had set out "to end the road warfare in America". That same road war had played a very large part in kicking the Alliance out; young punks had become heroes. A violent phase of American life, the road challenge, which experts had said would die out in a few more years, had suddenly become a vital mainstay of Americana. The only true import the Alliance had was to take kids who flaunted minor challenge regulations and change them into combat-trained-and-blooded professionals. The resultant Mad Dogs and Wild Packs had revitalized the long road Rangers, increasing the numbers and arbitrary "judicial arms usage" powers of Verrick's organization.

And it was Verrick's organization, though no one understood that at the time, least of all the bloody Ranger Chief Commander. The suggestions he made carried the force of law, but he didn't seem to realize just how powerful he was, or could have been. He stayed on the long road.

Verrick's first suggestion had been the establishment of a Ranger academy. Kate had been in the first graduating class during that height of Ranger inflation. Back then, the Academy was one year, followed by one year on the road paired with a veteran. She drew Verrick. The great man was no older than she. That had surprised her. They fell in love. That pleased her. He finally chose to leave the road. That infuriated her.

She knew now he should have left sooner. Without some one to guide it, the TCA had grown from a government advisory board into a bloated bureaucracy that very nearly was the government. Not even Verrick could change that now. Was that why Roadmaster had refused a Ranger commission, Kate wondered. Then what brought him back to the road?

Kate was close to sixty-five years old; Roadmaster had to be in his seventies. Was that it? An old man trying to recapture his past? She could almost understand that, and why, at his age, he'd gone for an illegal edge, even why he'd shot down a state trooper. She could understand it, but she couldn't condone it. Not while she wore the Ranger uniform.

In the wake of the Dewmont Rangers, however, she found that many others could condone it quite easily. The mayor of one town had ripped up all the streets in his jurisdiction "for repairs" rather than let her pass through. Roadmaster had been a day ahead of her; her detour increased his lead enough to let him make it over the Rockies. She'd finally caught up to him this morning in California to find that he'd gathered quite a Wild pack around himself. If she'd been slower, he might even have been able to train his pack into a true descendant of the militia. The old man just hadn't the time.

When Verrick's memo came in she was crying. Roadmaster was dead. He'd been outclassed from the start. One quick mode A manuever, and she had triggered railguns into his side. Hunter missiles would have been a safer attack, but she'd kept them sheathed. He'd earned that much, she thought, as the tears rolled down her cheeks. She would enjoy a good cry, have a cup of tea, and let her targeting computer finish out the Wild Pack. To Roadmaster's credit, and their own, not one tried to surrender or run. They were good kids, and she hated having to kill them. Inner conflicts like that, she knew, had led to the rift between herself and her daughter. She'd always taken it out on the poor girl.

Thinking of her daughter brought more tears. She wondered if she'd ever tell Verrick what their night in Barracks Three had wrought. Then the memo board buzzed, and she dropped her tea into her lap. Kate O'Callahan could truly curse like a Ranger.

While Hooker was reading the memo, Kate O was changing into a clean crash suit and telling her memo board to "shut up and shove it." There is not much room in a cruiser cockpit. The crash couch can be slept on in full horizontal and had full combat and control access in vertical, as well as built-in sanitation facilities. Changing a full-length body support crash suit while in combat was not easy, even for a veteran, but it could be managed with difficulty. She banged her elbow twice and her head once before she managed. Then she saw Verrick's name on the scanplate; that was when she wanted to kill him. She still took her frustrations out on those she cared for.

So what dirty little task did Verrick have for her now? Long ago she had realized he wasn't trying to punish her for leaving. Her choice was the road, his the desk. They had both accepted that. These special jobs of his might bust her chops, but were only his childish way of saying, "I still remember. I still care." When a problem came across his desk that needed special handling, the office pool wasn't if he'd call in Kate O, but when. His secretary usually won. Sweet girl, Kate liked Kyoto immediately--immediately after she was sure Verrick wasn't sleeping with the little bimbo. Well, you couldn't love a man, have his daughter, and not continue to feel something for him. Maybe a great deal.

If she felt less, she might have forgiven more, but when he left the long road it felt as if he were leaving her. It took her years to realize it was she who had left. He'd all but begged her to stay, but she'd piled up her platitudes and left anyway. For the road. Where a "true" Ranger belongs. Right next to those Dewmonts.

God damn Raphael Dewmont anyway!

Kate asked the dispenser for a new cup of tea before reading the memo. It didn't help. Inquiry of a Ranger Kill? It's never so easy. What was Verrick up to? Before she could call up known particulars of the case, an assist-of-inquiry logged in. From a Junker. Curiouser and curiouser. Junkers were rightly known for skill in avoiding such time-consuming encumbrances as official inquiries in their constant scramble for techo-scrap profit. Here was one volunteering, the Vegeance Aborne.

Oh, yes, Brian Hooker's ship. He and his crew were top Landers scale personnel kept from the road by Dewmontism. The were the youngest, most over-qualified crew in the Junker fleet. What a waste.

She signaled her acceptance of the assist-of-inquiry. Kate O'Callahan didn't need such assistance, but she did want to meet Hooker. The televids had twice fallen over each other to make him out a martyr to the TCA. Why? That he'd been in the right wouldn't mean much to the press. Why did they beatify him? Well, he was a peripheral witness. She could question him at leisure during the inquiry.

Her cruiser was standing down. Roadmaster's Wild Pack was finished. After one quick scan for life signs, she fed her homing drive a destination in the Dakota badlands and turned to her log. She entered the final Roadmaster update under the heading, "Battle at San Jose". Ranger HQ would probably downgrade "Battle" to "Incident", but at least it would avoid the term "Showdown". Roadmaster had been a decorated officer of the militia. Kate wanted to spare his name the term reserved for outlaws.

She finished her log and engaged her food dispenser, which choked up a Fully Prepared Meal. Kate hated FPMs, vacuum-packed leftovers, which had never been firsts, that would last until the next Ice Age. They invariably tasted like garbage when they had any taste at all and only rarely required chewing.

Kate dozed about 4pm each afternoon during the low ebb of her cruiser's heat exchange system's efficiency. When she awoke, about six, she was ready to work, needing no more sleep for at least eight hours. She had 50 electronic display pages of data to scan before Dakota. By midnight, she was sure of two things: no one was really certain what had happened in that badlands amphitheater, and the FPM had given her heartburn.

The late hours weren't helping. Her mind was in a fever, second-guessing every turn in the road, questioning every new direction. Her thoughts and her cruiser raced on relentlessly. It seemed her entire life was spent at high speeds on the edge of existence, flirting with death. In an hour, she crammed more experiences in sharper relief than a townie could guess in a lifetime. At the speeds she traveled, life couldn't pass her by, just follow her around from one kill to the next.

Tears came more easily these days. It seemed sometimes like she was always crying. She felt too much for the children and old men she was blasting off the road. For what? To keep the long road clear? The last American freedoms: frontier wanderlust and guns. Why did she still do it? It was past time she quit, tried to pick up the scattered pieces of her life: Verrick, her daughter, the granddaughter she'd only seen once while hiding at a distance. Did her life need death to give it meaning?

Her computer buzzed to remind her to sleep. It was two in the morning. Time was getting away from her again. She reset the crash couch and lay back. She'd have to watch that woolgathering; she'd been daydreaming for two hours. Not a good sign. The cockpit light went out automatically as it sensed her entering REM sleep.

Verrick was also contemplating sleep, but not yet. Just a few minutes more. He stood on the enclosed rear observation porch of a private magtrain car, looking out at his old Mark VI-A Avenger class cruiser. The words "Live Free or Die", the militia motto during the war, was painted on her armor-plated side. She was lashed to a flatbed directly behind his mobile headquarters.

He scared the hell out of his aides when he'd ordered them to break his Mark VI out of mothballs and to ready her for travel. Scared himself silly, too, if truth be known, but he needed to do this. Kyoto had pointed out the flaws in his plan.

"You can't drive all the way to Dakota," she'd said. "One, you'll never make it. You're not used to it anymore. Two, it takes thirty-six hours to load fuel and power up the reactor on a Mark VI; by the time you get there everyone will have left. Three, it's undignified for the commander of all the Rangers to be seen clanking out of here in an obsolete machine. It's no matter telling me you love it--I know how a Ranger feels about his cruiser. But it's just not practical. The press would pick you apart and so you are not doing it."

He had glowered at her, and she laughed at him. No one else would have dared. It took her a minute to catch her breath. "We can order up a flatbed and pack up the office. While your cruiser gets ready, you, it, and the entire staff will ride the magtrain to Dakota. That's not only dignified, it looks to the press like you're doing something constructive, we keep the office running smoothly, and I can finally see the Badlands." His shocked look of surprise got her laughing again. "Well, you don't think I'm completely altruistic, do you?"

Verrick had done it her way. His Avenger was now three-quarters underpower, and he was nearing his destination. She was his destination, Kate. He would, by God, bring her back with him this time. He rang for a porter, ordered an Irish and bitters with a twist of lime as a nightcap, and toasted the night. Kate was out in that night somewhere, heading for the same place as he. They were both too old to play these silly games anyway.

It had been Kate's Roadmaster report that had gotten him out here, the kill report. It had come in so soon after his ordering her to Dakota, he thought it was her preliminary data evaluation, or perhaps a personal reply defaming his ancestors back to Adam's idiot son Ishgrits the Horny. He loved those.

Instead, he found Roadmaster's epitaph, a knife in the wet hollows of his heart. Damn the man's eyes. Why didn't he call? They'd been friends for more than fifty years. They had fought together. It had shaped Verrick's entire life as a Ranger.

Verrick had lied about his age to join the Rangers, passed his Landers, and been on the road in twenty-four hours in an obsolete Mark III Maxitank. He earned the name "Wild Bill", after James Butler Hickok, by taking on "Suicide Alley", a pre-war Wild Pack led by "The Duke of Cincinnati". The frenzied two-hour showdown brought him to the attention of TCA bigwigs. When war broke, Verrick was assigned liaison duty for six different militia groups and given his Mark VI. Wild Bill nearly collapsed trying to carry out his assignment.

Roadmaster was leader of Verrick's largest group; three years Verrick's senior, full of piss and vinegar, he became the Ranger's closest friend during the killing time. It had been that friendship that held Verrick together in those early days and Roadmaster's advice that solved his problems. They banded the six groups together into one command with Verrick playing Robin Hood to Roadmaster's Little John. They were two very young men leading about five hundred rapid- deployment armored units with equipment stolen in the morning, rigged to unintended uses in the afternoon, and used to kill those from whom it was stolen in the evening.

They called themselves "Thunder Road", painting the words "Live Free or Die" on their warwagons. Their ambushes were bloody, their losses few, their failures nonexistent. Thunder Road was almost too successful, attracting recruits faster than supplies could be "liberated" from the Alliance. Eventually, theft and ambush weren't enough to supply the food and ordnance they needed. Verrick and Roadmaster changed tactics; they went on full offensive.

Their first assault at Fort Necessary hit just as a relief column was entering the gates; Thunder Road poured through instead, wiping out both enemy forces in one stroke. They stripped the fort and faded back into Snowshoe Woods. After several such massacres, the Alliance forces came after them in strength. An entire division plus support groups were sent to take out what Alliance propaganda called Wild Bill's Go-cart Killers.

Snowshoe Woods, however, was like nothing the Alliance had ever seen. A wilderness preserve long abandoned to nature by budgetary constraints, it was an overgrown, mountainous nightmare to logistic planning. The only maps of the area, other than the hand-drawn topical maps of Thunder Road, were tourist guides some forty years out of date, drawn out of scale by a long gone Park Service. The Alliance forces were lost most of the time, their numbers decreased steadily by an unforgiving nature, and an insane militia. After six weeks of running engagements, the Alliance forces were stretched out over the worst, most inhospitable sections of the forest with no reserve capabilities and a supply line that lost more than it delivered. Their commander was forced to call for reinforcements; he added a plea for air support. The Alliance commander was relieved of duty.

The new commander of the invading forces brought with him Alliance High Command's own plan for Snowshoe Woods and Thunder Road. Roadmaster's sister, Eveleen, posing as a camp follower, was able to obtain the entire attack specifications and pass them on before the MPs raided the party she had crashed to obtain the information. She and four others were hanged for prostitution. That night Roadmaster slipped into the Alliance camp and assassinated five general officers in their sleep. Eveleen, his sister, had been fourteen.

Verrick was also busy that night. Using the Alliance plan as a guide, he had his men plant radio-delayed mines throughout those areas the invaders would move into in the morning. His engineers constructed an auto-launch, anti-aircraft missile battery a mile long, down the enemy's chosen air approach. In the canyon where the enemy believed his camp to be, he set up a long prepared trap: the empty hulls of dead vehicles salvaged from past engagements. Within these cadavers were hidden enough remote weapon capabilities to convince the enemy to attack a shadow. It was a trick he'd used before, but never in such numbers. He had to use all the wrecks: enemy estimates of his strength were based on an aerial surveillance photo of Thunder Road's junkyard, mistakenly identified as their camp.

Toward morning, Verrick sent Roadmaster and about two-fifths of their light armor in a long, flanking movement to the Alliance rear. They were to secure or destroy all enemy fuel, ordnance and sundry supplies, kill support personnel, and prevent any enemy retreat. Foward ambush units moved into fire positions around areas which would soon be enemy communication centers. Verrick's own comm centers were set to broadcast in enemy codes the orders which would destroy Thunder Road's adversaries by commanding them into a trap.

At dawn, the first Alliance scouts were ambushed by one of Verrick's flying squads. The squad then retreated toward the booby-trapped canyon until out of Alliance surveillance range, then veered off to joined second wave attack forces on the path of the Alliance's left flank. All was now in readiness for the air attack which was to proceed the main Alliance advance. The air attack had been planned in two waves: first, fighter-bombers were to defecate high explosives on the canyon, followed by helicopter gunships and Air-Cav which could seal off escape from the valley so Alliance ground forces could capture or kill any survivors.

The planes roared down their approach corridor, what came to be known throughout the US as "the Miracle Mile". Seven seconds of fire and death. Not a single plane escaped the missiles that their own engine noise had caused to auto-launch. As they burned and fell, Verrick's forward units took out all Alliance communications, and Thunder Road took over command of the enemy advance. Roadmaster's first wave moved in to begin an indiscriminate slaughter of Alliance rear echelon. Verrick, himself, triggered the explosives buried beneath Alliance General Staff Headquarters. The second phase of the air attack had begun.

Attack copters unleashed heavy cannon fire at the decoys to little effect; the decoys were unarmed and fuelless. Air-Cav began to land as the first enemy tanks began pouring into the valley. Decoy weapons were triggered by remote. Few tanks were damaged in the ground fire. The ground-to-air attack had had better luck; radio-guided missiles took out eighty percent of the attack copters and more than half of the unlanded cavalry -- most of the cavalry that had already landed was hit in the decoy-to-tank fire, a bonus unlooked for.

As the forwardmost tanks approached the decoys, Verrick ordered all mines radio-live, then crashed his second wave into the enemies left flank. The third wave, in camouflage positions around the canyon, simultaneously opened up on the remaining helicopter force and the invasion tanks in the valley. The mines in the canyon floor also began erupting. The world became an iron dream within that canyon; whatever moved exploded. Nothing survived.

The fight outside was the same: short, bloody, vicious. It was like killing a headless serpent, far too easy. Verrick's comm group sent orders to the invaders to surrender; thinking it was their own HQ, they complied. But Thunder Road took no prisoners that day. When it was over, they left Alliance dead unburied, stripped of all they had, naked to the scavengers of Snowshoe Woods. Their own dead they consigned to a place beneath a grass-covered knoll some short way distant. At the very top, they buried Eveleen, overlooking their dead. Around her they lay the six men killed early in the fighting trying to cut her down.

Verrick didn't kid himself; these were not the enemies' best. You don't send your best to capture a wilderness. You might send them after a militia who had decimated your worst and come away almost unscathed though.

He and Roadmaster wasted no time picking over salvageable ordnance. They grabbed everything in sight and moved north. In the next few months, Thunder Road earned its name, moving behind enemy lines, hitting supply lines and storage depots, ambushing Alliance patrols, burning whatever they couldn't carry. At each new battle site, they had to leave behind some equipment they needed but were unequipped to recycle back into use. It was at this time the idea of the Junkers was born, and America's 100% recycling goal conceived.

Thunder Road was the first US force to enter Canada that winter; they weren't the last. Verrick found out quickly that most Canadians had opposed the invasion, as had Ottawa. The Alliance had used its forces based in Canada to seize the government and place the nation under martial law. Washington hadn't known; Congress had dissolved the various intelligence agencies in the same budget crunch that had taken the Park Service. The counter-invasion started less than a month later.

It had all been luck and anger. It had made Verrick's career. He offered Roadmaster a Ranger commission after the war, but he had refused. Memories of Eveleen. Eventually, Kate O'Callahan had come from the Academy for field training, and Verrick put the war behind him.

The night was ebbing outside the magtrain. Verrick finished his drink and returned to his berth. The morning was too near, the past too real, and Kate too far. That would change.

Carol Marlow put the second Silver Ghost through its paces. Hooker watched her over opscan, evaluating her work. Her execution was flawless, but uninspired. He turned to Anton Mason, his ship's physician.

"Well?" Hooker asked.

Mason shook his head. "Pedantic. By the book. She looks like she's driving a hearse. Hers."

"She's not that bad."

"You're prejudiced. She has no surprises up her sleeve and couldn't handle one when its thrown at her."

"Her Landers was higher than mine."

"The cumulative score, yes. But look at her. There's an art to taking a cruiser off-road. It takes a certain ease of handling, an interfacing of Ranger and machine. It demands trust. Look at her."

Carol bulled her way over rough ground, pushing the cruiser to its limit. In combat, without a reserve, she'd be dead. He thumbed the commstat.

"Hanger Deck. Have Chief Toliner get The Silver warmed up." Hooker smiled. "The other Silver. I think I'll pay Marlow a visit. Ten minutes." He drank his coffee and looked at Mason. "Alright, I'll beat the pants off her and show her what she's doing wrong." An odd looked passed over Hooker's face.

"What's the matter?" Mason asked. "Afraid she'll beat the pants off you?"

"No, I just got a mental image of Marlow with her pants beat off."

"A little healthy lust never hurt anyone, if you keep it in your pants."

Hooker laughed. "I'm not sure it's just lust."

"Don't," Mason scowled, "let it get in your way."

"Carol," Hooker's voice floated out of the commstat; she loved the way his voice did that. "Turn on your targeting computer."

"Right, Bri-- Captain!" She smiled at her slip as she thumbed the computer on. She checked her board. "What the hell? This says I'm dead."

"You are."

"I hadn't noticed."

"Com-Sim only, Carol, or you'd be in too many pieces to hear my voice. We're driving unmarked cruisers here, Marlow; automatic wetworks stuff. We have to be twice as aware as other Rangers because we have no recourse in law but a bullet when our time comes."

"What makes you so sure it will come."

"Sloppy driving?"

"Is that a challenge?"

"Com-Sim-Bat."

"No top."

"You're on."

"Any bets?"

"None that I could collect as an officer and a gentleman. Thirty seconds, Number One; out!"

Now what was that all about? Why had he become more formal as the message grew more personal? Suddenly, her targeting computer buzzed twice: once to tell her thirty seconds were up, once to tell her she was "bleeding". A theoretical cluster pack "exploding" on a ridge above her had dropped a nonexistent forty-ton boulder on her cruiser. Her computer claimed she'd cut her head open and sustained a mild concussion. Hull integrity was down, stats off 40%.

"Tag. I'm it," she thought. "First blood to Brian. Last blood is what counts."

She peeled off to port, "arming" her railguns. Her computer buzzed again. And again. Where the devil was he? Why didn't he show on her instruments? Where...?

"Hooker, you townie. You're using my scrambler."

"Of course," he said. "Aren't you?"

The computer buzzed mournfully and began to play the Funeral March. His rail guns had opened her up--"Like a two-dollar whore"? Those were the words on her screen. Masters had programmed it, of course. A chauvinistic computer? She'd have to talk with Lt. Alice Masters. Damn it!

"Another, Carol?"

Hooker's voice didn't seem so loveable just now. "Damn right, Hooker. And this time let's make it last." She engaged her scrambler.

He took her through it a dozen times, the end result was always the same.

"What is it, Brian? What am I doing wrong?"

"It's not a simulator, Carol. It's five tons of high-tech rolling iron, and it's burning a hole in your ass. Stop pushing. Remember our instructors? It's a symbiosis between human and machine. Accept that or accept the fact you'll never be any good."

"I am good. I scored as high as you on Landers, better on tactical. Why can't I get a hit? Just one hit?"

"Where did I outscore you every time?"

"Reaction scale."

"On a simulator, its not enough to make a difference. Simulators are not cruisers. Follow me down the hill."

He shot by on air cushion mode, extended track and rolled over loose scree using momentum and skid to turn 180, then grabbed traction and climbed for the ridge. "Down the hill" became a series of complicated, dangerous manuevers, executed for risk's sake alone, but she followed him. Haltingly at first, then with more and more conviction. Soon she was anticipating him. In one sudden move, she popped her air cushion and roared by to starboard.

"Follow me, now," she said.

It was as easy as that. First, teacher to student then master to master. They made artwork on the rocks.

Kate woke to the screaming of her comm board. She'd left her sensors on full after Roadmaster's death, like a rookie leaving on a light. She cursed herself and checked the screen.

Good God! Someone, no two someones were pushing a pair of cruisers very close to the edge. Over the eastern horizon, they had to have the reactors up to 90% for them to register like that at this distance. She turned to the memo board to file an incidence report when her commstat fell silent. Now, what the hell...? No way they could have read her on automatic over their own "noise". Two hotshots practicing manuevers, most likely.

Still, she hesitated over the memo board. A report on such actions was SOP, one of those idiots could hve triggered a meltdown. But the TCA would issue them a warning, a black mark on their records. Did she want that? Those were Rangers out there. Real long road Rangers. No Dewmont could handle a cruiser like that.

Screw it! She shut down long-range sensors and turned from her memo board. She ordered a cup of tea and went back to last night's reading, about halfway through the prelim on Balo. She found her place easily. It was clean of underlining. Her hardcopy was always a mess, electronic pages not much better. Light pencil or felt pen, she'd fill every blank space imaginable with marginalia. Corrections made andd deleted, instinct and logic, everything was brought to bear; it was her way. Especially when something tickled at the corners of her brain. Something that stank like a cancer gone gangrenous.

But what?

So far, everything jibed. Nothing was out of place. It was the most perfect report she'd ever seen. So why had Verrick sent her out here? What was his purpose, and by extension, hers? Why was a Dewmont blowing himself to Hell a problem anyway?

Then it clicked. Prelim reports just don't fall in like this; it's why they're called prelims. There has to be a follow up. This sucker was finished as is, and that's what stank.

Kate slowed her cruiser to give herself more time before Dakota and began to read more carefully.

"But life is short and only the road is long..."

by John Coalton, Ranger Poet Laureate

"That bloody, stupid psychodoc invented the sliding scale which, he claimed, was fairer than for testing would-be Rangers than the Landers system. Where Dewmont found the unique qualifications that make a Ranger, he claimed maladjustment. But an idiot who thinks his butt is a railgun, that Dewmont found normal and, therefore, Ranger material. He forgot it's the differences that make Rangers strong and capable of their jobs."

Andrew Pickman, Network News Commentator

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