The Orion Plague Read Online Free PDF

two or three miles away. Hues were muted in the
drizzle but even in bright autumn sunlight it would have been a
dreary scene, devoid of color. Almost everything green had turned
brown, and rivers of black concrete-like ash had petrified in waves
and miniature dunes.
    She wondered why Commander Alkina or her
secret Psycho masters had programmed Belvoir in as a nuke target.
It was home to a lot of administrative and agency headquarters, and
the enormous hospital that had subsumed Walter Reed when it closed,
but nothing vital to the US military effort. Just a bunch of drones
in endless office cubicles, pushing electronic paper from one place
to another and getting in each other’s way.
    As far as you know, that is. Who
knows what the Unionists had hidden there? We’ll never find out
now. It’s just a smoking hole.
    “Donovan, check the IdentiFinder, will
you?”
    He pulled out their handheld radiation
detector and analyzer. “Looks well within limits for Edens, Top,”
he responded in his Appalachian drawl.
    “Should we go right in the front door or look
for another entrance?” asked Grusky.
    “I think the front door is it. What do you
see there at the gate?” She meant the space between the fence and
the shattered guardhouse, since there actually was no barrier
anymore.
    “Umm…nothing?”
    “Right you are. It doesn’t look like it’s
been used much or often in the last couple of months. I’m betting
that if anyone is still at the plant, they have another, more
discreet way in and out. US-1 is a main public route, and you will
notice it’s navigable. We haven’t seen any traffic but even in this
rain I can see where some people have pushed cars out of the way,
and some places where the crud has been rolled through, making a
driving lane. People may have survived in the hollows of the hills
around here; they must be salvaging from the grocery and shops.”
Repeth jerked a thumb over her shoulder at the strip mall behind
them.
    Grusky nodded acquiescence. “So if I was a
Shadow I’d not make it obvious that the plant was in use, so as not
to draw attention. Or maybe,” he stroked his chin, “there’s really
no one there.”
    “Only one way to find out. Lock and
load.”
    “Guess I'm Lock,” joked Lockerbie to Butler
at the gun, “and you're Load.”
    Grusky didn't laugh but instead looked
askance at Repeth. “We’re kicking in the front door?”
    She swiveled her head around to stare at him
with dead eyes. “You got a problem with that?”
    He blinked. “None whatsoever. Just want to be
clear on the plan, boss. No recon means we go in blind. Doesn’t
seem your style.”
    Repeth gritted her teeth. What the hell do
you know about my style? “It also means we go in with maximum
surprise. The plan is shock and awe. Butler, use whatever kind of
shells you need to cut our way in. We may end up driving the Beast
straight into a building to start the extract.” She reached down
between her knees and hefted a rotary grenade launcher, loading it
with baseball-sized shells.
    “You think Rick is in there?”
    “I’m hoping. And if not, they’ll damn well
tell us where he is.”
    “Understood.” When Repeth faced back to the
front, Grusky exchanged glances with Donovan, who shrugged.
    “Let’s go.”
    The Beast roared through the front entrance
to the Noman M. Cole Jr. Pollution Control Plant and almost
immediately faced a choice. “Right or left?” yelled Lockerbie over
the squadcomm.
    “Right,” ordered Repeth, choosing the smaller
of the roads, “and you don’t have to yell with these things.”
    “Right, right,” she acknowledged, and turned
right. They raced past shattered buildings with fried vehicles
melted in place in the parking lots. The nukes’ EMP had immobilized
them, then the thermal radiation had ignited almost everything that
would burn. Atmospheric shockwave had blown some of the fires out,
fed others.
    It was an ugly mess.
    Behind the buildings they could see