J.M. Dillard - War of Worlds: The Resurrection Read Online Free PDF Page A

panel. He set up the rocket launcher while Urick, the Uzi dancing on a strap slung over one shoulder, ran to the back of the trailer, unlatched the doors, and swung them wide. Inside the trailer, engines revved.
    Joshua in the battle of Jericho . ..
    Exhilaration replaced fear. She had done it—she had killed two men for the good of the revolution, and she had not shrunk from the task. If anything, she had enjoyed it. Urick peered inside the trailer, wanting to share that feeling with her four comrades, but Mossoud, Finney, Teal, and Einhorn were indistinguishable from one another. The visors of their black helmets were already down so that she couldn't catch their eyes. Urick ran to one side, out of the way as the four all-terrain vehicles roared out of the trailer.
    Standing by the side of the truck, Chambers aligned the sights on the launcher and located his target. A compact missile whined through the air; across the yard, the barracks building exploded. Urick covered her head as debris went flying, but she kept moving: what she was looking for would be on the sheltered bulletin board near the guard shack.
    Behind her came the fire of automatic weapons, but she wasn't frightened. The ATVs had machine guns mounted on their handlebars. She found the duty roster neatly stapled in a conspicuous spot on the bulletin board; she tore it off and ran back toward the truck. Something she saw on her way there made her stop.
    Down an aisle created by waste barrels, new ones stacked on top of ancient rusty ones, an ATV rider had been knocked from his vehicle by a soldier armed only with a piece of lumber. Two-by-four raised over his head, the soldier was moving in on the fallen rider to finish the job. If he managed to get to the weapon mounted on the AT
    Urick dropped the roster and began to run toward the ATV, her Uzi at the ready, without even thinking about what would happen if the soldier got there before she was close enough to take aim. She hadn't taken two steps before a second ATV appeared and fired at the soldier.
    The blast slammed him, mouth gaping, back against the barrels; another barrage held him there for an instant before he slid to the ground, leaving a bloody smear on the barrel behind him.
    Good, Urick thought, and realized with a sudden jolt that she was smiling. It had all been so easy . .. too easy. None of it had been real, she decided. The people they had killed were not real people. She turned and picked the roster up out of the dust and brushed it off.
    It was suddenly very quiet on the base; the four ATVs had returned to the truck and shut down their engines. Finney was the first one to take off his helmet, its visor spattered with blood. The others followed suit: Mossoud, tall and swarthy, not to be trusted; Teal, a short, wiry, serious man; Einhorn, with his many-times-broken nose. Finney laughed, running his fingers through his thick blond hair; he was wearing the same strange, slightly hysterical smile Urick knew was on her own lips.
    She had always despised Finney.
    As she approached, Finney was replying to something Chambers had asked.
    "None on our team," he said, still grinning. "But Mossoud got knocked for a loop."
    Mossoud wasn't smiling; his tone was more than a little defensive. "Just havin' me some fun." He rubbed his shoulder and grimaced. "Had that dude in my sights the whole time." Right. Arrogant fool, Mossoud. She knew he didn't believe in the revolution; he and Finney were doing this for the sport of it, and if things didn't work out the way they wanted, they would turn on Chambers in an instant. She'd tried to warn Chambers before about them, but he refused to listen. A pity that honest leaders like Chambers had to recruit such self-serving assholes.
    She stepped up next to Chambers, trying to make her expression more serious, like his. "Duty roster lists seventeen men. One officer"—she held it so he could see it—"four noncoms, twelve enlisted." The officer would have been the one