From the Ashes Read online

  “Both,” Ayame interjected, joining us on the square. “Definitely both. Daimyo Rikimaru, may I formally introduce my top covert operative, Lieutenant Ajay Kumar? Ajay, this is Rick.”

  * * *

  Understanding the why, the how, and the when made my head hurt. Ayame had always been good at relationships, motivation, using levers to prod people in the right direction, and giving suggestions and hints at the right time to the right people. She was a master of social engineering, manipulation, and intelligence gathering.

  Kael and I were more direct. If I had been in Ajay’s position and gotten wind of Tarl’s plot, I probably would have cut his throat the following night and been done with it.

  We’d retired to the base Ops Center, an old EA-44 Manta hangar. As Ayame and Ajay debriefed the Shogun, Kael, and me, I wheeled in our olde tymey paper map covered in yellow and red push pins. (Bless the Navy, they never throw anything out.) As they filled me in, I made notes on little pieces of paper and pinned them to the map. Pencils and paper were valuable, now that the world had fallen, and this map was our primary org chart for the entire archipelago.

  “So, in summary, the people of Orcas Island are feeling isolated, vulnerable, and resentful. Two of their rebellion’s leaders are dead, the one who was shanghaied into cooperating is in the infirmary with a broken nose and a concussion, and the last one was a good guy all along. What do we do about it? If we were on the mainland, I imagine the answer would be, ‘put them to the torch and be done with it,’ but that’s not an option here.”

  “Daimyo, they feel like they’re an afterthought. Orcas is vulnerable to Victorian raiders. San Juan can see them coming the moment they set sail. It gives them plenty of time to rally a hundred archers and distribute lit braziers. And if they close to within two hundred yards, we can torch their sails with fire arrows.” Ajay traced a series of islands that began near the tip of the Saanich peninsula, from island to rocky island, until he pointed at Eastsound, the main fishing village on Orcas. “But if they launch from the west side of their peninsula, they stay behind these uninhabited islands until they’re only a few minutes out. By the time we spot their sails, it’s too late to form a response or intercept them on the water. With respect, sir, Shogun Kojima’s instruction that we not respond with punitive raids leaves the Orcas residents feeling very much like they’re a speedbump,” he finished lamely.

  “Let’s tour the island and scheme. The Victorians are a pain in the ass, but the city didn’t eat a cluster-nuke, so for the first time in two hundred years, their old fleet is a threat.”

  “I think calling it a fleet is a bit much,” Ayame disagreed. “They’re a bunch of feral pirates in stolen equipment. Not one of them ever swore an oath to the British King.”

  “Irrelevant.” Shogun Kojima spoke for the first time. “They threaten our stability; they threaten our way of life. We must honor that threat. Daimyo Rikimaru, Samurai Mikael, Samurai Ayame, you will take this…resentment—this anger—and focus it. Train it. Anyone willing to raise a blade will help destroy the Victorian fleet. I had hoped we could resolve our differences with the Victorians, in time, but this…betrayal makes matters more urgent. I, too, have the courage to admit when I make a mistake, Rikimaru,” the Shogun said, a hint of a smile on his lips. “Ajay, Mikael is commander of the Komainu, our militia forces. The Komainu are the lion-dogs that guard the Shinto shrines, and they guard our homes. As commander of the Satori, Ayame is our spymaster. Satori are named for yōkai that can read minds, and it is the Satori’s job to know what everyone is thinking. Your position within the Satori has been compromised after this morning’s trial, but to send you back to the Komainu, I believe, would be a waste.

  “Therefore, I hereby grant you the title of Samurai, Commander of…” the Shogun looked thoughtful. “Commander of the Onamazu. Onamazu was a giant catfish restrained by the god Kashima, and whenever Onamazu was freed, he thrashed and caused earthquakes. I say, in this case, I am Kashima—and I will restrain you no more. We will establish fortifications and concealed observation posts on the rocky islands that have shielded the Victorians from your view. Once our island nation is secure, your marines will seize every Victorian ship they can and scuttle the rest. The Japanese were warriors of the sea once upon a time, and we will be so again.”

  It was the single largest policy shift Kojima had made since we’d occupied the islands twenty years before.

  * * *

  I can’t speak for whoever launched the attack, but it would have been nice to get some fucking advance notice. For all I knew, Obsidian hacked our launch codes. I was just a Specialist, not a decision-maker. I carried out the decisions. Everyone with a place, everyone in their place—and I knew my place. Maybe someone above Shogun Kojima heard about this new “Agent” program Obsidian had and panicked. I’m betting it was the latter. We have all kinds of mad science mods, direct from the Teledyne labs, but all the nanites in the world weren’t worth a ball of sticky rice if the Specialist wasn’t trained. And the moment you could copy fully trained supersoldiers, all bets were off. If what they were saying was true, Obsidian’s last big development was true skill and memory overlays. They bottled and distilled pure badass and injected it wholesale into bodies that were just as tuned up as mine, except they hadn’t had to put in the years of practice; they were shake ‘n bake special forces.

  Maybe that’s why they launched the nukes. Maybe it was a world-ending glitch. All I know is we got about thirty minutes’ warning when the counterattack came. Grimstaadt was in the lead car, and I was Tail-End Charlie as we raced north on the I-5, trying to get clear of the city, when the first bomb airburst and fried our cars’ onboard electronics, killing them, half a mile short of that old chicken restaurant with all the cows on the walls. On May 1st, 2067, fifty hungry, scared Teledyne employees and three heavily armed escorts took everything they had that was cooked, and we headed for the waterfront. I told the staff they should probably be home with their families, the world was gonna end soon. (Spoiler…it did.)

  One good thing about the sprawl was that there were marinas and ferry terminals all over. Getting three sailboats into open water with no motor, no electronics, and no help from the execs was a pain, but we managed. We sailed north, to get away from the city, and put ashore right where Ayame docked. I think the restaurant was wiped out that night when the sprawl got hit by a cluster of fifty-kilotonners from Everett to Olympia. We were already thirty miles away by then, ashore at the Naval base, but the night sky was lit with glowing mushroom clouds far off on the horizon.

  The nuclear exchange was over quickly, but the ash, dust and smoke darkened the skies for weeks. Months. We didn’t track time very carefully, since nobody’s electronics worked. I don’t think the dust really settled until the winter rains came and the streets ran gray with soot. It took some time, some carefully applied leverage, and some rather forcefully applied violence, but eventually, everyone in the archipelago agreed that Shogun Kojima was the man in charge, I was his right-hand war leader, and Ayame and Kael handled the day-to-day things. We fortified the bridges at Deception Pass Park, a natural chokepoint, and we formed the Komainu to patrol the islands, guard the bridges, and provide manpower for any major “public” works. Forming the Satori, the listeners, happened at nearly the same time, but nobody realized what my young recruit was doing, because her work was entirely invisible. Eventually, somebody suggested the Shogun had an army of Satori working for him, since he always seemed to know what was going on, and the name stuck.

  I have been his Daimyo since day one. But Specialists like Kael, Ayame, and me are a dying breed. It’s trite, and it’s cliché, but it’s accurate: they just don’t make us like they used to. Ajay was the first non-Specialist to be made a Samurai. Let’s be honest; it’s been nasty, brutish, and dangerous since the world fell. One of us was going to go someday, and we needed a succession plan.

  * * *

  The next week was busy. Our goal—secure Orcas from raiders—
had to be broken down into milestones, milestones had to become tasks, tasks had to be put in priority order and assigned to the people who would actually do them, etcetera etcetera. It wasn’t until we were ready to sail back to Orcas that I got to finish my sword. Ayame skippered while Dan and Derek ran the lines, which allowed me to sit down at a worktable and pin the hilt onto my katana and wrap it. Ajay watched, quietly, until I pulled out a hockey bag and unzipped it. I pulled wooden pieces, painted snow white, out of the bag and placed them on the table. Ajay picked one up, puzzled.

  “What’s this?” he asked.

  “That is a kusazuri,” I said, “armor, for the waist and hips. Sode, pauldrons. Kote, forearm guards. Do, haidate, sune-ate, chest, thigh, and shin guards. Plywood armor, aluminum backing, based on the old Samurai design. It has maximum mobility, minimal tech, and a functionality that’s useless against firearms but allows for sword work and archery, and since it’s plywood, it’s far more effective against blades than it has any right to be. Most importantly, it floats. This will be the basis for your marines’ armor, after we’re done. I’ll teach you and your top two picks for your Onamazu to make it—it will be up to you to teach the rest. Each marine will have to fabricate their own armor before graduating from your basic course.” I slipped the first sune-ate on over the leg of my black pants and cinched the straps. We were almost to the dock, and the next bit of theatre was about to begin.

  * * *

  The island’s council knew what was going on. Ayame’s team taking down our four prisoners hadn’t exactly been subtle. She and her team were regarded less as samurai and more like shinobi—whispered about in rumors that were usually wrong. Most people still thought ninja wore black pajamas and masked hoodies, having long forgotten that true ninja dressed as anonymous peasants, and that suited me just fine.

  Dan brought the Seas the Day across the end of the pier. We jumped off, and he pulled away to make room at the dock. A dozen boats followed us into the sound, loaded with Komainu from all over the archipelago.

  Councillor Miller, full of bluster and indignation, led the group meeting us at the dock. Ajay had warned us about him, and some of Ayame’s sources had confirmed, independently, that he’d tiptoed right up to the line without quite joining Tarl’s band of saboteurs.

  “What is the meaning of this?” he demanded. “This looks like an invasi—”

  Ajay buried a fist in Miller’s too-soft belly, and he folded like an origami crane.

  “Mister Miller, you are hereby removed from the council,” I said, looking down at him as he gasped for breath. “The people of this island will vote at the next meeting to replace you. You will never be part of our leadership again. I have detailed reports about your part in last week’s troubles, and I have further reports that you knew Carlos Rodrigues was a victim of coercion, and you failed to act as your title, office, and honor demanded. If you wish to appeal, I have a knife with me, and we can work this out right here, right now,” I finished, offering him a blade, hilt-first.

  The shock of being so abruptly and violently removed from office stunned him for a moment, and he worked his mouth silently, unable to protest.

  “You’re soft, and you’re fat. That’s a rare thing, these days, when everyone around you is calloused, rough, and ready. My team and I will be addressing the island’s security vulnerabilities, likely until autumn, and I suggest you find a crew to work for, because you certainly don’t want to work for me. Make sure you can trust them, because it would be the easiest thing in the world for someone to put a knife in your gut and dump you overboard.”

  Miller stood there shaking and glaring at me but said nothing. I took a half-step toward him, and he fled. Breaking him meant the rest of the council would straighten up and do their jobs, rather than obstruct and bitch.

  * * *

  Another week on Orcas and the surrounding tiny islands flew by.

  I wanted fortifications on any island where we maintained a presence, and hauling that many rocks and boulders was back-breaking work. In a lot of cases, we had to drive a wooden wedge into a pre-existing crack in a rock, add a larger wedge, and drive it harder. Eventually, the rock would shatter into bits we could move. We had no mortar and no cement, and hand-laying brick walls using shattered boulders was exhausting. The Komainu accepted the task with stoicism, knowing they would be the ones keeping watch. Having a sturdy wall as defense against Victorian fire arrows and being able to fire back were crucial. It was tough work, and I was proud of them. There were only a few minor disciplinary issues, and Mikael handled them easily. “Ajay Kumar” quickly became “Akuma” to his subordinates, and he identified several he wanted in his core cadre of marines. They created a banner with the most vicious Onamazu catfish I had ever seen, and it proved hugely popular.

  Once we had observational security and had addressed a quick escape for any scouts stationed to the north, we four Samurai took our fastest skiff for a cruise closer to the Victorians’ turf. I wanted to scout the islands closest to the abandoned ferry terminal. There were no new structures. A few feral-looking Victorians were diving in the coastal waters, looking for whatever bounty the sea offered, but we saw little else. It takes a certain force of personality to get more than a dozen or two people to work cooperatively together on the ragged edge of civilization. Tribalism was a survival trait up to a certain point, and these people weren’t there yet.

  The sun was low in the sky when a brilliant white light silently popped high on the horizon far to our south. Red flares from all our little villages and towns followed moments later, rebroadcasting the message without confusing which location needed assistance.

  Deception Base.

  “Akuma, rally all the Komainu not already dispatched to the smaller islands and get them aboard ship. Send them on as soon as the boat’s full. Don’t wait to set off as a group. Try to flank them at Bowman Bay.”

  “By your orders,” Akuma said.

  * * *

  We cut south and leaned hard into the evening breeze, running for home as fast as we could. As we closed on Deception Pass, we saw one of Kael’s scouts on the bridge waving flags. It was another dead comms technique we’d revived, another skill we’d had to re-learn. Flag semaphore had worked for sailors hundreds of years ago, and we were using it now. The scout on the bridge was signaling:

  RDR—XL—MLD—LOC2.

  Raiders, lots of them, from the mainland, at the Swinomish bridge. We’d been hit often enough in the early years that we knew the approximate marching times from certain features or landmarks. If they were just at the bridge, we had about two hours before they reached Deception Pass. Less, if they were running. More, if our guys were harassing them along the way.

  “I’ve got all I need. Get me underneath, and I can catch a lift up. Rip back down to the base as fast as you can, rally the troops, and get back here with every Komainu we’ve got,” I said. Kael looked like he wanted to object, but we’d been playing Good Samurai/Bad Daimyo, and he’d left his armor behind. I suppose we should have known better.

  Accessing the bridge was very difficult from the water. It sat 150 feet above water level, with near-sheer cliffs beneath. Pass Island had a tiny low point where people foolish or brave enough could cross from a ship to the rocks, but not in significant numbers and not without being pelted by arrows from our guardians above. We’d anticipated there might come a time when we’d need to use the low point to rescue someone from the water or, as in this case, to access the bridge in an emergency, and we’d attached long ropes to a winch with a built-in belay system and a five-point rope harness at the end. Ayame brought us in close, Kael dropped the bow anchor, and I caught the lowered rope with a gaff. Snugging the rope and harness tight around my shoulders, waist, and legs, I hefted my armor bag and blade, and gave two sharp tugs on the rope. The rope went taut, and began to pull...

  Then I was sitting in the air. The wind caught me and blew me as though I were on the world’s longest rope swing. I vaguely remembered
people bungie jumping for fun before the world fell, and I wondered if this was a little bit like that.

  The higher I rose, the less I swung, until I reached the underside of the bridge trusses closest to the middle and walked up the girders as the rope kept winding me in. Finally, I reached the edge of the road’s surface and hauled myself over. A pair of scouts were there, ready to assist me, and we were all relieved when I was finally up and over the side.

  The winch was run off bicycle power, and the young lady on the stationary bike looked sweaty but elated.

  “Well done, Karisa,” I said. “Let’s never do that again.”

  “I’m good with that, Daimyo Rikimaru,” she said. The rope had a safety to ensure it didn’t back slide.

  The bridges had been repaired over and over, without being expanded or improved, since the 20th century. One lane north, one south, and pedestrian foot paths to either side. Now, the two lanes were piled high with wrecks to plug the roadway. We’d spent a fair bit of time using jacks and chains, dragging cars into place hedgehog-style, then spiking the tires to fix them to their spots.

  “Christoph rode down to the base to bring up the Komainu,” she said, gesturing toward the bike rack. We’d stationed a handful of bicycles up top so we could ride down the hill to the base when needed. “Marcus’ platoon went north to draw them toward Anacortes, but the raiders only sent a chase force. The main group is still on its way here.”

  “They’re chasing a platoon?” I asked. Our platoons were six squads of six, plus the platoon commander. Marcus had been a re-enactor, skilled with swords, pikes, shields, and bows. His expertise had helped us develop a training program for the Komainu that had been tested, refined, and improved over the years.