Children Of Fiends - Part 2 A Nation By Another Name: An Of Sudden Origin Novella by C. Chase Harwood Read Free Book Online Page A

O’Connor in the politically precarious position of trying to arrest the nation’s first real hero. “We must follow them,” he stated with pure conviction. “Colonel you will pin down their route. Major you will prepare a train to follow and put together the appropriate elements need to succeed. Lead the mission myself, I will.”
    The room went silent as everyone looked at their unelected leader, their private thoughts running the gamut from glee that the bastard was leaving and would likely die (Lawrence Ashton) to desperate fear over the potential loss of their guiding light (Martha Kincaid). Finally, Thompson spoke up and said, “The trains are our primary method for moving goods and people across The Shore – as well as military equipment and most importantly as a way to gather our needs from the dead zones. From a pure national security point of view, would it truly be prudent to risk one of only three assets of its kind?”
    Plimpton paused. It was practical, respectful reasoning like this that had caused him to come to love the major. “Yes, and lead you will, the military aspect of it.”
    Plimpton’s word was technically up for a vote within the council. In reality it was law. He had so rarely been wrong as he built and defended his nation that the rest of the people simply deferred to his opinions as final. This remained the case and the motion was accepted without further debate. Colonel Quale was already calculating his rule. Plimpton was an insufferable bastard. Quale was the leader that The Shore required.Plimpton’s need to escape aside, the quarry was rapidly getting away. Time was of the essence and Major Thompson was in top form putting the expedition together. Less than twenty-four hours after Plimpton had suggested the mission, the train was loaded and a small handpicked team ready to roll. Along with Plimpton, Hanson and the Major, there were four drone operators with two Sentinels and a two-man crew for the locomotive.
    The train was pulled by an old GE Evolution series ES44AC diesel electric. It was a heavy-duty locomotive that got fairly good fuel mileage. There was a passenger car and a boxcar built especially for drone storage and control. There was also one tanker car of spare fuel – precious fuel. In so many ways, The Shore had been a lucky place to survive Omega and the Russian nuclear winter: There was lots of wind power and they had been able to tap into the Hope Creek nuclear generating station across the Delaware in New Jersey, which was patrolled at all times by two Sentinels. Diesel fuel and gasoline were all together different. Despite extreme rationing, the existing stocks on The Shore had been used up within a year of the onset of nuclear winter. It wasn’t until the people there had truly gotten on their feet that they had begun to make raids with their valuable trains to the fuel storage facilities surrounding the island nation.  
    The population of The Shore had quickly learned to live inland from the northern border of their island where it met the ruined city of Wilmington. In the early days, when the nation was just getting on its feet, several unfortunate curiosity seekers had had their minds taken over by small groups of foraging devils on the far shore and had subsequently launched themselves into the water that separated the two worlds, to fates unknown. Despite this, caution was overruled by the desire for the goods that lay in abandoned abundance on the mainland. To that purpose, a single rail bridge was repaired and permanently guarded by drones. As the Shoremen ventured out in their searches for fuel and other valuable goods, the Sentinels and their drivers would occasionally cross paths with The Devil Children. These encounters were short lived; the Shoremen quick and merciless in their killing. No effort was made to parley with or capture any of these beings. With final say on all matters of the devil and his spawn, Vicar Wentworth overruled the few