Chapter 59 - Right to Defense

  If you ever get a chance to fly, and I mean really fly, take it. Walking everywhere is just so slow. Now that I'd had a chance to zip around in the air under my own power, I didn't want to spend much time on the ground anymore. Of all the crappy things that had happened to me since the Event, gaining my Flight power was something that almost balanced the scales.

  It took us a bit longer to get back to MacGregor than it would have if I'd been carrying Alex. Thornbill was trying his best, but the extra weight was clearly a burden for him. Still, he managed well enough. It was a lot faster than walking, which was a good thing because we were running out of time faster than I liked.

  I landed before the others, and MacGregor rushed over to check in with me.

  "I was hoping for good news, but from the look on your face, I'm not sure I'm going to get what I want," MacGregor said. "Let's hear it."

  "There's good news and bad," I replied. "We took down the towers. All three of them are destroyed."

  "Okay, that's the good news. What's the bad?" MacGregor replied.

  “The less good part is that Thornbill was right,” I said. “As soon as the Third Tower went down, we saw an enormous Karabos army making its way up the street toward us—big crabs and hundreds of their regular troops. Plus, they brought in the big guns this time. There's one titanic crab that looks like it would barely fit inside of Fenway Stadium, and it's got a bunch of high-tier Karabos riding shotgun. Long story short, we have the fight of our lives headed straight for us.”

  "Not great, but not a surprise, either," MacGregor said. "We were expecting something like that. So while you and Alex were off taking the towers down, the rest of us were back here preparing for what came next.”

  "What have you been doing?" I asked.

  I looked behind him as I spoke, out at the crowd. There were a lot more people there than I figured there ought to be—a much larger group of people than the remnants of MacGregor's police force. With a start, I realized a good chunk of those people milling around were from the group of captives I’d rescued earlier.

  I snapped my gaze back to MacGregor's face. "Those are the refugees I brought here this morning. What are they still doing here?"

  "We insisted on staying to help," a familiar voice said.

  I turned to my left and looked down toward the speaker. I wasn't surprised to see Claudia Grimm standing there.

  She was still wearing the same clothes she had been this morning, but she'd added some new accessories. She'd wrapped a torn piece of red cloth around her forehead, ‘Rambo’ style. And she had a shiny new spear held in both hands.

  "I thought you said you were going to lead all those people to safety?" I asked. The last thing I wanted was her and a bunch of other defenseless civilians in harm's way.

  "You won't win this argument, Castle," MacGregor said. "Believe me, I tried. Mrs. Grimm here is extremely persuasive."

  "This is our city too, young man. We're not giving it over to a bunch of sea monsters just because they think they can bully everyone out of their way. Don't worry. I sent all of the children away, along with their parents," Claudia replied. "But many of us wanted to stay on and fight for our homes. You are fighting for your home. Would you deny us the same thing?"

  "Claudia, I have a heaping pile of those stones powering me up. You saw me take on those monsters underwater. It's not the same thing at all."

  As we spoke, the Peristera landed nearby and dropped Alex off. He saw us talking and wandered his way over to join the conversation. As he approached, he caught a few words of our exchange. I watched as a wry smile appeared on his face. Clearly, I wasn't going to get any moral support from that avenue.

  I turned my attention back to Claudia. "If you are dead set on this path, there's nothing I can do to stop you. But maybe we can help. If we can find a way to equip you all better..."

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  MacGregor clapped a hand on my shoulder. “Over three hundred of them volunteered to stay. Claudia and I vetoed a few who were clearly too injured or weak to take that sort of risk, but that still left over two hundred and fifty new fighters."

  "Two hundred and sixty-two," Claudia piped in.

  "I stand corrected," MacGregor rumbled, smiling in spite of himself. "Anyway, we've done our best to equip them. A few of our people have gotten weapon-making crystals. They've been working all morning to churn out as many of those spears as they could. There still aren't enough to go around, but it's a start."

  So many people! I'd been thinking maybe I could yank a few of the spare stones out of my pocket and share them around, but all of those people who came out of the water had a tier one water breathing stone already slotted. I'd need to give them a tier two stone unless they were willing to take out the one they had. There just weren't enough of the crystals to go around. In another week? Sure. We'd have plenty of the things. At the rate where we were going, there would be enough to get everyone standing there set up properly. But for the time being, we had stark limits.

  "The Karabos coming at us aren't the same as the ones we've been facing before," I said. "Most of these are tier three. A bunch of tier one humans go running at them with spears, they're going to get chewed up and spat back out."

  Claudia took hold of my forearms, finally seeing the damage to my hands. "Oh, you poor boy. They hurt you, didn't they?"

  I pulled my arms back from her. "They did. The wounds are healing, but only because my Stamina is so high and I have a Regeneration power on top of that. If it hadn't been for my Natural Armor, I wouldn't have survived at all. Those crystals give me a shot out there. Even with them, I almost died taking down that third tower."

  "Cameron," Claudia said, lowering her voice and speaking as softly as only an old grandmother could. "I know that. They know it too. Everyone staying understands there will be losses today. No one standing behind me has delusions of immortality. And now, I think maybe you don't, either. Which is a good thing.

  "Often, it's the young people who go off to war. I've seen it so many times over my life. So many times." Claudia shook her head sadly. She was obviously seeing things from a long time ago, remembering a past from before I was even born, probably. "That's because it's young people who still think they're immortal. It's young people who figure the bad thing can't possibly happen to them. It's young people who are the easiest to manipulate into fighting for a cause that doesn't even really matter to them. But most of us here today? We're older. Most not quite as old as me, sure. But old enough to know better. Old enough to know not everyone's coming home from this fight, and wise enough to know that sometimes, when it really matters, you have to fight anyway."

  I thought about what she was saying. That was the decision I was making, right? I knew this wasn't a game. I'd almost died, just now. Hell, I'd had more close brushes with death in the last two days than in my entire life up to that point. In spite of all of that, I hadn't gone running for the hills. I was still here, still fighting, and still working to help people as best I could.

  How could I take that right away from other people and still keep my head high?

  I gave her a nod. "Okay. You've convinced me. Not like I could stop you, anyway!"

  Claudia flashed me a wicked grin. "Darn straight, you couldn't!"

  Then she turned away, marching back to her battalion of followers. To share the news? Maybe it was a little bit of that. But I had a feeling she already knew the direction the wind was going to blow on this one. Claudia moved from person to person as I watched, touching one on a shoulder, sharing gentle words with another. She was exactly the sort of leader these people needed.

  "Okay, now that that's resolved," Alex said, "what's the plan for dealing with this new invasion force? According to Thornbill here, this ought to be the Karabos leader coming at us. We take these guys down, we win. Right?"

  "Let's get Maggie over here," MacGregor said. "She can translate for Thornbill and maybe get us some more intelligence."

  A couple of his policemen went off to find her, while they searched, MacGregor turned to me. "Castle, what I need from you right now is surveillance. I want you to get eyes on that enemy force and find out exactly where they are, where they're headed, and how fast they're moving."

  "I think they're headed here," I said.

  He nodded. "Probably. I don't think you've ever been a soldier, have you?"

  I shook my head. "I haven't, no."

  "That's all right," MacGregor replied. "One of the things you learn from military service is that assuming you know what the enemy's up to is never a winning strategy. They don't have eyes on our camp here. I sent a bunch of our people out to make sure of that right after you left. They know where we were, but not where we are. They don't know what preparations we've made, how many people we have defending this place, and what the battlefield will look like when they arrive. That's all because I made sure to take out their scouts. They had half a dozen of them stationed right over there."

  He pointed toward the southeast.

  "I get it. I can do a quick scouting run for you," I said.

  "Good. Thank you," MacGregor said. "Mind that you just scout, though. I know you're going to be tempted to stir shit up while you're snooping on them. Don't. Get enough intel to give me an accurate report, and fly straight back here. It's not glamorous. It's just the job that needs doing right now."

  "How do you know me so well already?" I asked, grinning a little.

  "Because I was young once, too," MacGregor replied, matching my smile. "Go. Go fast, but be safe."

  I turned away from him, and with a nod to Alex, launched myself back into the air.

  one hundred THOUSAND words ahead on the Patreon! If you want to see what happens next, book two will be wrapping on Patreon before the end of the year.