Wasteland Rules: A New Dawn (The World After Book 3) Read online

  Wasteland Rules:

  A New Dawn

  (The World After #3)

  April 2014

  Dedication

  I want to dedicate this to my mom who taught me how to put a sentence together correctly. And who always encouraged my creativity and imagination even when I asked a million questions.

  Available Books

  Book 1 – Wasteland Rules: Kill or Be Killed – Available via Amazon

  Book 2 – Wasteland Rules: Born to Fight – Available via Amazon

  Book 3 – Wasteland Rules: A New Dawn – Available via Amazon

  Book 4 – Wasteland Rules: Die Fighting – Available Amazon Winter 2014

  Wasteland Angel – Novella Available FREE via Amazon, Smashwords, Barnes & Noble,

  Table of Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Author’s Note

  The Rules

  Wasteland Rules Glossary

  Chapter 1

  June 25, 2029

  Olympus Space Station, Near Earth Orbit

  The second Rora pushed the button, an ear piercing high pitched electronic scream blasted out of every speaker in the control room. The sound was deafening and sent daggers of pain into her head like she was being stabbed in both ears. It forced her to drop to the ground involuntarily clutching her ears. Her vision actually blurred and she felt as if she was going to black out from the pain. She could see the soldiers reacting the same way, and watched them sink to their knees clutching their heads.

  Several of them opened fire spasmodically, their fingers tightening reflexively on the triggers of their rifles. The bullets sprayed indiscriminately around the room, the rifles swinging wildly without any guidance from their owner. Screens shattered and sparked and ricochets bounced all around. The lights started to pulse randomly, but Rora couldn’t tell if that was in her head. Just as she began to pass out, the horrible screeching ended. It had only lasted a few seconds but the effects had been devastating.

  She couldn’t even gather her thoughts she was so rattled. At least it had affected everyone equally; the soldiers were also stunned and barely functional. But they were starting to recover and she could see the furious look on their captain’s face. He raised his rifle and pointed it directly at her.

  As he squeezed the trigger Derek grabbed her and picked her up, snatching her away as the bullets from the captain’s gun peppered the control console. She could feel a round pass through her suit without hitting her, they were so close. She heard Derek grunt as he must have taken a round or two. The spot where she had been seconds before was demolished. The device and screen were destroyed in the fusillade of bullets.

  The device was gone. They had spent the better part of two weeks avoiding hundreds of killers who were trying to get their hands on it, and in seconds it was gone. That didn’t matter though. The mission had been completed, and the device had served its purpose. Doors was eliminated and the LINC destroyed. Looking back as Derek carried her through an access door; she could see his face on the monitors melt off into a skull, and then disintegrate to nothing. She smiled in triumph as she watched his virtual demise.

  Derek put her down as soon as they got in the corridor and yelled for her to follow him. He took off running at full speed and she struggled to keep up. His superior genetic abilities allowed him to run much faster and longer than she could. This was even after he had sustained several gunshot wounds during the fight in the control room. He had patched them as they ran and already they had stopped bleeding and he seemed unaffected.

  That wasn’t a surprise, but what did surprise her was how fast he had recovered from the sonic attack. His enhanced hearing should have made the effect more devastating to him. Yet he had been the first to recover and act. Again, Rora made a mental note not to underestimate him.

  As they ran, she realized the lights flickering had not been in her head. The lights were pulsing and then they went out. There was a brief moment of darkness before the emergency lights kicked on. Derek only hesitated to make sure she was keeping up. They raced through the corridors retracing their steps back to the shuttle. The soldiers would recover and be after them soon, and they needed to be at the shuttle and decouple before that happened.

  They were about halfway to the shuttle when they felt the station shift. It was a sudden lurching movement followed by loud creaking noises. Then Rora found it was a little easier to run, her steps seemed to be taking her slightly farther forward with each step. Uh oh, that probably meant the station was shutting down.

  “We’re losing gravity!” She shouted to Derek. “The station is shutting down and I think it has stopped spinning.”

  “What do we do?” He called back.

  “Stay against the outer wall so we have something to brace against.” She told him. “We will probably end up in zero g and be ‘swimming’ for the shuttle.”

  “What about the environmental systems?”

  “We should be off the station before the air runs out, but we have to hurry. If the thrusters holding the station in orbit stop working, it will descend into the atmosphere.” She warned.

  “You mean it will crash into the Earth?” He asked excitedly.

  “Yes, but it will take some time for the orbit to decay. We need to be on the shuttle and decouple before it gets too bad.”

  The gravity continued to decrease and shortly they were both floating in the corridor. They used the door frames as leverage and were almost running along the outside wall as they made their way towards where the shuttle was docked. Rora gasped in horror as she saw the bulkhead door was closed ahead of them. A red light indicated it was locked. The doors were designed to close in an emergency and the station shutting down certainly qualified.

  Derek reached the door first and tried to pry it open to no avail. She reached the console and looked for a way to hack it, but the panel was shut down. The station was on emergency lockdown and now they were trapped. Miraculously, the door suddenly slid open.

  “You’re welcome.” A familiar voice grunted in Derek’s ear.

  “You’re alive?” Derek said with surprise.

  “Barely.” Came the reply.

  “We’re almost to the shuttle; if you hurry you can join us.” Derek told him.

  “Unfortunately, I cannot.” The Voice told him resignedly. “I need to stay here to manually control the station’s functions so you can escape. I was only able to gain partial control, so I can open the doors for you and keep the emergency thrusters working for a short time. But that will only buy you a little time to escape.”

  “Can’t you set some sort of program to do that for you?” Derek asked anxiously.

  “No, everything must
be done from here.”

  “What about the drones?” Derek inquired.

  “All dead.” The Voice informed them. “The feedback from Doors’ ‘death’ fried their chips, making them brain dead.”

  “So you are sacrificing yourself for us?” Rora yelled, knowing that he could hear her.

  Derek switched the phone to speaker mode so she could hear the reply. “Yes, but I wouldn’t want to return home like this, I would be a freak. My mission is over and there is nothing left for me on Earth. Good luck. It has been an honor working with you.”

  “The honor was ours.” Derek said brokenly. “We will never forget what you did for us, my friend.”

  “Don’t waste the opportunity you have been given…” The Voice replied seriously and then disconnected.

  Rora couldn’t see Derek too closely, but it looked like he had a tear in his eye. The Voice’s sacrifice had apparently struck an emotional chord with him. Yet again, she was surprised by Derek. She had not thought him capable of that emotion. He was a surprisingly complex man, and that made him even more dangerous.

  With the Voice clearing the way, they quickly reached the airlock to the shuttle and scrambled on board. Rora could see they had cleaned up the mess from the Faceless spy’s melted body. The remaining two crew members and the Commander were already strapped in. There was an anxious look on Anna’s face that eased when Rora and Derek came on board. The Commander and the pilot still looked worried.

  “What happened?” Commander Khodorov demanded as soon as they got on board.

  “We completed the mission, but shutting down Doors shut down the station.” Derek informed him quickly. “Its orbit is starting to degrade. We need to get out of here ASAP!”

  Chapter 2

  June 25, 2029

  Olympus Station, Near Earth Orbit

  Derek and Rora strapped in while the colonel quickly disengaged the shuttle from the station and began slowly maneuvering away. They could see small thrusters firing on the station, but it was obvious they wouldn’t be enough to keep the station in orbit. The station was now dark and was only lit by the pale glow of the sun reflecting off of it. It seemed like forever, but they finally cleared the station and the pilot maneuvered them away. They turned and headed back towards the atmosphere to make re-entry.

  The shuttle was suddenly rocked by several large impacts and they were all thrown around hard in their harnesses. Warning lights lit up the console and both Anna and the Commander began frantically working on the controls. A second set of impacts struck them and the shuttle slewed sideways.

  “What is that?” Derek yelled at them.

  “Something is striking the shuttle and it is causing serious damage.” Anna yelled back in a panic.

  “Major.” The Voice suddenly spoke. The phone was still on speaker so the whole cabin heard it. “There is an armed spaceplane in pursuit of you. It has stealth properties so I didn’t see it until it fired.”

  “Who is that?” The Commander asked, perplexed.

  “A friend.” Derek snapped. “What do we do about the spaceplane?”

  “It’s the Prometheus.” The Commander moaned as the pilot started evasive maneuvers.

  “What is the Prometheus?” Derek asked.

  “Our last project for the DoD.” The Commander explained. “I assumed it was scrapped during the Collapse.”

  “Obviously not.” Rora yelled. “How do we get away from it?”

  “We can’t.” The pilot answered as he struggled with the controls. “It’s faster and more maneuverable, and oh yeah, it’s armed.”

  “Let me see if I can help.” The Voice offered. “Try to get some distance between you by turning ninety degrees in thirty seconds and then accelerating.”

  Colonel Brandt shrugged as if to wonder how that would help, but he did it anyway. They were still rocked by another set of impacts as the turned, but now they could see their pursuer. It was much sleeker than the shuttle and had a much thinner profile. The tiles on its surface were a matte black which made it hard to see, but the glow of the station behind it caused the outline to be visible.

  Rora was about to ask what good the maneuver had done when the rail guns on the station opened fire. The fire seemed indiscriminate as it blanketed the area of space around the spaceplane, but she realized the stealth capabilities were keeping the targeting for the guns from locking on. So the Voice was filling the area with metal in hopes of hitting the stealthy craft. He had wanted them to turn so they would be clear of his line of fire.

  It was hard to tell, but some of the projectiles must have struck home before the guns fell silent. The spaceplane suddenly veered off and headed away from the shuttle back towards Earth. It swiftly vanished into space. Anna, the Commander, and the pilot all gave a little cheer as they saw it pull away. Rora and Derek gave each other a wary glance. The shuttle was still in bad shape based on the amount of lights lit up on the console.

  “Make sure your harnesses are tight, it’s going to be a bumpy ride.” The commander informed them.

  After a while, Rora wanted to ask them how it was going, but didn’t dare interrupt their frantic work. So she just sat back and grabbed hold of the seat. She could see Derek doing the same thing out of the corner of her eye. The shuttle was rapidly descending into the atmosphere and it was really starting to shake violently. The front of the shuttle began to glow as they began to encounter resistance from the re-entry. She knew it was normal for the shuttle to heat up, just like anything does when entering Earth’s atmosphere. The tiles on the shuttle should protect against the heat and keep the shuttle from burning up, but they had taken some damage and if the tiles were compromised too much…

  “We are going in too sharp!” The commander called out.

  “It’s the best I can do.” The pilot replied through gritted teeth. “The stabilizers were heavily damaged by the attack.”

  “We are getting too hot!” Anna screamed in a panic.

  “Just hang on!” The pilot yelled. “I can do this!”

  They all held tight as the shuttle shook more and more. It felt to Rora like it was going to come apart around them. The glow had gotten intense and they could actually feel the temperature in the shuttle rising. Suddenly the shuttle was rocked by an explosion and an alarm started blaring.

  “What was that?” The pilot asked in a panic.

  “One of the fuel tanks just caught fire!” Anna screamed.

  “Dump the fuel! Dump the fuel!” The commander yelled at them.

  “I won’t have enough to land if you vent it!” The pilot yelled in concern.

  “JUST DO IT!” The commander ordered. “If we burn up, landing would be the least of our problems!”

  Anna did as ordered and dumped the fuel. A couple of lights went off on the control panel and the alarm stopped. They all breathed a sigh of relief, but the shuttle was still getting insanely hot. Rora was starting to sweat inside the space suit. She wanted to take off the helmet, but she knew they could lose cabin pressure at any minute. And then, just as suddenly as it started, it was all over.

  They were through the outer layers and the resistance normalized. The temperature began to fall rapidly as the shuttle cooled. Everyone congratulated Colonel Brandt and relaxed a little. They still had to land, but they had survived the most dangerous part. Commander Khodorov actually slapped the pilot on the back and laughed.

  “Well that was something.” He said jovially. “You can’t practice that in a simulator, can you?”

  They all laughed the nervous laugh of those who have cheated death and are trying to make light of it. Rora was glad the suits had been designed to wick away sweat because she must have dumped a gallon of it. Her mission had almost ended in the cold vacuum of space. That would have been a tragedy, since she was born for a purpose. This one trip was enough of space for her. But they still had to land before she would be on solid ground again.

  “Mission Control, do you read?” The commander radioed.

  �
��We read you.” Mission Control replied. “That was a tough re-entry. What is your status?”

  “We suffered a lot of damage, but we are structurally intact. We are low on fuel.” Anna informed them.

  “That is unfortunate…” Mission Control replied after a pause.

  “Why?” Commander Khodorov growled.

  “You will need to land at Edwards Air Force Base.”

  “Are you freaking kidding me?” Colonel Brandt interrupted angrily. “I specifically asked about this in the briefing and was assured we could land in Texas!”

  “Texas won’t grant us the right to land.” Mission Control replied calmly. “They are worried that our landing there will trigger a shooting war with the U.S.T.G.”

  “How are we going to get back from Edwards?” The commander asked. “L.A. is G-21 territory and I’m sure they aren’t going to like us landing there.”

  “We will send a plane to pick you up. They should be waiting on the tarmac when you get there. The base is far enough outside the city that you should be able to land and then take off again before any of the gangs can get there.” Mission Control assured them.

  “Wait. You have a plane?” Derek asked pointedly. “What about the navigation problems and the weather?”

  “Everything looks fine for now. The plane is already on its way. Mission Control out.”

  The crew and Derek all looked at each other and exchanged looks of concern. “What?” Rora demanded.

  “We are very low on fuel.” Colonel Brandt informed her. “I think we have just enough to get to Edwards but it will be close. But that isn’t our real problem.”

  “The air base is just outside of Los Angeles.” Derek told her. “That’s where our friend the Pope calls home, but he isn’t our real concern. It’s G-21.”

  “What is G-21?”

  “It’s an alliance of twenty one gangs that took control of the city during the Collapse.” Derek explained. “When civil order broke down the police stopped controlling the gangs. They went on a bloody rampage throughout the city. They raped, killed, and looted with abandon. Fired broke out and since the fire department didn’t feel safe, the fires burned out of control. Entire sections of the city burned down. Once the rampage had more or less run its course, the gangs turned on each other. Resources were limited and there were decades old hatreds and perceived wrongs to avenge. So they started fighting each other all throughout the city.”