Lost Roads (Benny Imura 7)

Ford asked, “Excuse me, but how can we be out of range of a satellite?”

“I was just going to ask that,” said Urrea.

“But you’re old and slow.”

“I’m only thirteen years older than you.”

“Sure,” said Ford, “but let’s face it—they haven’t been good years.”

Ledger, amused, said, “Satellites aren’t built to last forever. A lot of them had their electronics fried when the nukes went off. EMP waves go up as well as down. We probably lost eighty to ninety percent of the satellites over North America right there. Then we have natural failures like onboard computer navigation or systems failure, collisions with space junk, old age, whatever. The American Nation has managed to establish intermittent uplinks with four satellites, two in regular orbit and two geostationary. Problem is that they’re not linked, because they belonged to different telecom companies. Only one is military, and it’s a weather satellite we’ve piggybacked off of to bounce calls around.” He paused and looked around. “Is anyone following me on this?”

“Clinging on by my fingernails,” admitted Urrea.

“Gist is that it’s not easy to make a call,” said Ford.

“Nearly impossible from anywhere in Texas,” Ledger agreed. “We managed to get calls from Asheville to the base we had in Nevada and to the Nine Towns in Central California, but that’s about it. And that’s spotty. Clouds, rain, whatever—it all mucks it up, and you have to wait for the right times of day for the orbiting satellites to fly through the right zones in order to sync up with the ones in fixed orbit.”

“That’s a problem. What’s a solution?” said Alethea.

“Are you saying we can’t do it?” asked Gutsy.

“No, not from here we can’t,” said Ledger, “but your idea is pretty darned good, kid. If someone drives to California with the sat phone, I can give them a list of times and ranges where it might be possible to access the signal and make a call.” He paused. “It’s a gamble, though, and if it doesn’t work, then…”

“Then they can’t get back in time,” said Chong.

Ledger nodded.

“But if it does work,” insisted Gutsy, “then someone from your town could come out here with the drugs. It would cut the time in half.”

“Best-case scenario,” Ledger said thoughtfully, “is that Solomon Jones back in Reclamation sends the pills, and maybe a group of his Freedom Riders and my own rangers by air.”

“Air?” asked Spider, puzzled.

“We have a bunch of helicopters,” explained Ledger. “Of all the aircraft that were downed by the EMPs after the nukes were dropped, they were the easiest to repair. The American Nation has a fleet of them. Hundreds. Chinooks, Black Hawks, Apaches—the lot. And we have a bunch of Osprey tilt-rotors. There’s one in New Haven, which is south of Reclamation.”

“Surely the range is too far for helicopters,” said Ford.

“Sure, but we have refueling depots all over the place out there. In California, Nevada, and elsewhere along the route from there back to the capital in Asheville. Not saying they’ll send a bird to deliver pills, but Solomon likes these kids, and he’s a good guy. Bet you a shiny nickel that’s what he’ll do.”

“If whoever goes can make a call,” said Benny.

“Yeah,” said Ledger, and despite his words, there wasn’t a lot of optimism in his tone. “If.”

There was a long moment of silence as they all thought about that.

Then Benny stood up. “I’ll go.”

“No,” growled Lilah, jumping to her feet. “I’m going.” She said it with enough lethal intent that Benny held up his hands, palms out in a no-problem gesture.

“I can ride with you,” he said in a placating tone. “Watch the road. We can switch off driving to make better time.”

“No,” said Nix, “I’ll go with Lilah. And before you say anything, Benny, just think about it. If the quad can’t take a lot of weight, then who’s best? Lilah is about one twenty. I’m maybe a hundred. We’re not carrying a bunch of heavy machine guns and grenades and all that assault stuff. Two pistols, my sword, and Lilah’s spear, and some food in a trailer pod.”

“But… but…,” began Benny. Then he stopped. “Okay. For the record, I hate this plan.”

“Noted,” said Ledger. “Let’s do it anyway. And I mean right now.”

Chong carefully got to his feet and walked over to Gutsy. He wrapped his arms around her and gave her a long hug. “Thank you,” he said softly.