War and Survival: A Post-Apocalyptic Survival Thriller (Falling Skies Book 5) Read online

  WAR AND SURVIVAL

  A POST APOCALYPTIC SURVIVAL THRILLER

  FALLING SKIES

  BOOK 5

  HARLEY TATE

  CONTENTS

  War and Survival

  Prologue

  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 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Epilogue

  Also by Harley Tate

  Acknowledgments

  About Harley Tate

  WAR AND SURVIVAL

  FALLING SKIES BOOK FIVE

  The promise of a future. A looming outside threat. A family caught in the middle.

  Welcome to Falling Skies. Do you have what it takes to survive?

  Caleb Machert and his family arrived in Springfield battered and bruised, but far from broken. With arable land for crops and a healthy amount of livestock, the town promises more than a respite; it promises a future.

  When an old friend helps Lana decrypt a laptop stolen from a private police force, everything changes. Springfield is hours away from an all-out attack. The Machert family must dig deep and find a way to persevere against seemingly impossible odds. If they don’t, it’s not just their lives at risk. It’s the future of the country.

  War and Survival is the final book in Falling Skies, a post-apocalyptic thriller series following ordinary people struggling to survive when a meteor strike plunges the United States into chaos.

  Subscribe to Harley’s newsletter to receive updates about new releases, free content, and more.

  www.harleytate.com/subscribe

  PROLOGUE

  Cheyenne Mountain, CO

  Monday July 30th, 9:00 am MST

  Flat affect. Unblinking eye contact. Perfect hair. Rena McAllister might be a robot. Made sense, given her boss was Trusk.

  Margaret Welcher stared at the phone for a moment longer, letting Rena stew in her own artificial-seeming stew as she got it together. Trusk was supposed to attend this meeting, not his assistant.

  Was he trying to put Margaret in her place? Let the President of the United States know she wasn’t really in charge? It was exactly the kind of power-play she’d dealt with as a state representative, a congresswoman, and a senator from men exactly like him, if only half as rich.

  But now?

  She picked up the phone and told her secretary to let the woman in. With a smile plastered on her face, she rose as the door opened. “Rena.” It came out cheerful and without a hint of malice. “What a pleasure to see you again. Alan running a bit late?”

  Rena accepted her handshake for a brief moment before sitting without the invitation. On the face of it, anyone might have thought the woman was guileless in the small breach of protocol, but Margaret knew better. She shoved down the rising hatred.

  “Mr. Trusk won’t be able to meet with you, Madam President,” Rena offered simply. “He sends his sincerest apologies. There are pressing matters to deal with on his end. But he’s briefed me on everything. Consider me his mouthpiece and a direct line to his ear.”

  Margaret took a seat on the opposite couch, crossing her legs at the knees to look as dignified but unconcerned as possible. It was meant to be a private meeting with Trusk, without even secret service in the room. What matters could possibly be more pressing than those of the United States?

  It was an effort to keep her voice polite. “Do those matters have anything to do with the state of the country?” She raised a single eyebrow. “Or has he got some new private project that’s taking up his attention?”

  If Rena perceived any venom in the question, it didn’t show on her smooth face. Margaret doubted the woman missed it, though, even if her response was simple and direct and, again, utterly blunt. “I’m not at liberty to discuss Mr. Trusk’s day-to-day work.”

  She laid the metal clipboard she’d been holding to one side of her chest on her lap and unlatched one side. “I understand you’ve asked for a statistical report on the engagements in Missouri, Kansas, and Iowa. I’ve compiled those reports per your request and printed brief summaries. Current residents at primary through tertiary Apex hub locations, distribution of age, gender, pre-fall citizenship status, and so on. It’s all on the front page.”

  “I’m sure it is,” Welcher murmured as the woman laid the report on the table between them. “I’ll have my chief of staff arrange a follow-up meeting with your employer to discuss what it all means.”

  Rena cocked her head slightly, a birdlike gesture that made her seem even less human. “I’m happy to provide context, if you’d like. We can go page by page, even. I’m in no hurry.”

  “I don’t think you understand me.” A bit of edge slid into Welcher’s tone. “I didn’t request a meeting with Alan. I let him know that we would be having a meeting. You are going to work with my chief of staff to arrange it. Thank you for dropping by.”

  Though it was a clear dismissal, Rena remained sitting. She folded her hands on her lap, her expression still unperturbed. “And as I explained, Madam President, graciously meeting with me is the equivalent of meeting with Mr. Trusk. I can assure you, any questions that you have of him, you can address to me and I will have the answers you require.”

  She managed a hint of a smile. “Mr. Trusk cannot spare the time needed to travel to Cheyenne Mountain from Apex One on any kind of regular basis at this particular juncture of the project. If you’ll give me a chance, I’m sure that I can assuage any worries you might have, answer any question, and provide guidance and context as you require.”

  It took all of Welcher’s self-control not to stand. Who did this woman think she was, informing the President of the United States, the leader of the free world, the terms of Trusk’s relationship with her? And for that matter, who did Trusk think he was sending his secretary to take this meeting in the first place?

  The President would not be treated like an…an…ordinary citizen.

  Her jaw trembled with the clenching of her teeth, but she kept her voice as even as possible. “Whatever juncture of the Apex project Alan is engaged with, the primary focus for both my administration’s current efforts and his should be Springfield, and I haven’t gotten a single update on Apex’s involvement with the next phase of that plan for days now.”

  Welcher inhaled sharply to control her tone. “I don’t need context from you, Miss McAllister. I need to speak with Alan directly, and I’m sure you can understand that given the sensitive nature of this matter and his clearance, which you do not share, it’s vitally important that I and this administration are able to coordinate efforts directly with the man himself. I simply cannot discuss certain classified matters with you.”

  “Ah.” Rena dipped her head as if to agree and see herself out. Instead, she gestured at the report she’d left on the table. “There are of course updates on the Springfield matter in my report, in the back three pages. But to summarize it in brief, you’ve got nothing to worry about on that front. Mr. Trusk has taken care of the problem.”

  This was the first Welcher had heard of Springfield being ‘taken care of’. “What is that supposed to mean?” she pressed, cautiously. “Taken care of how? And when?”

  Rena hesitated briefly, but it didn’t show on her face. “Apex has initiated the securing of Springfield, with an expected success margin of approaching ninety-eight percent. Mr. Trusk gave the order three days ago, and the repatriation of the settlement is underway. You have nothing to worry about on that front.”

  There was no uncertainty that Welcher could read in Rena’s voice, but it nagged all the same. She stared the woman down. “Why wasn’t I told?”

  Rena spread her hands. “Like you said, most of the initiative is classified, Madam President. So I’m afraid I can’t answer because I’m not privy to that specific information. However, I can assure you with total confidence that Springfield will be a repatriated asset of the United States Government within the next seventy-two hours. Possibly as soon as the next twenty-four.”

  Welcher wanted more than anything to order Marine One to fly straight to Trusk’s home in Apex One to demand an explanation. But it wasn’t unlike Alan to take matters into his own hands. Since the beginning of their partnership more than a decade ago, he’d been the type to make decisions without consulting her.

  In all cases, his choices had proven to be profitable and beneficial to them both. As much as she disliked being pawned off on his assistant, or secretary, or whatever Rena was to the man, her trust in the billionaire had never been misplaced.

  Ninety-eight percent was a near sure thing, and if she knew Alan, that two percent was just a conservative number meant to leave him room to account for ‘creative adaptation’ as he liked to call it.

  Whatever the case,
she was too busy to make the trip—and the President didn’t drop by to get an update. She wasn’t about to let anyone think that their arrangement was anything but her at the top, with Trusk serving as an adviser. Going to him would make it look like she was the one checking in, giving updates, asking for next steps.

  No. She’d simply have to ensure that this kind of thing didn’t happen in the future. There would be plenty of time for that once Springfield was back under government oversight and control. Supply lines that were quickly becoming the arteries connecting the recovering nation would be bolstered with the wealth of food the settlement produced and the nation would be on the road to recovery.

  In the end, no one outside Cheyenne mountain and Springfield itself would know how the task was accomplished. All anyone would know was that the US government was repairing the infrastructure of the nation under Welcher’s direction and careful guidance. That would be enough to secure her position, possibly for decades to come.

  “That’s good news,” she finally declared, staring Rena down and failing. “I’ll review the reports. You can go, Miss McAllister.”

  Rena gave her a flat but polite smile as she stood. “It was a pleasure to meet with you, Madam President. I’ll give Mr. Trusk your warm regards.”

  If she was a lesser woman, Margaret would have picked up one of the handfuls of little sculptures on the table and hurled it at the door behind Rena’s back. She’d give Trusk her warm regards? Condescending little...

  But that kind of outburst wasn’t productive. Welcher took a deep breath, calmed herself marginally, and considered the big picture. Springfield was almost handled. The Apex project was progressing on schedule.

  Whatever else it was, whatever annoyances came attached to it all—and, working with Trusk had always been an exercise in tested patience—at the very least it was also the turning point.

  It was the beginning of her final bid to take control of America and restore the rule of law that had slipped away under her predecessor’s watch. The start of what one day would be the longest chapter in history books about President Margaret Welcher’s long and prosperous reign.

  CHAPTER ONE

  Apex Headquarters, CO

  Monday July 30th, 9:00 am MST

  Trusk scrolled his tablet screen, ignoring the three Apex Security Force tactical commanders standing to his left. They waited patiently, hands clasped behind their backs, as he reviewed their reports. It was all happening too fast for his liking, but given that one of the field marshals lost a laptop filled with sensitive intelligence, there was no choice.

  Springfield had to be in his control within the next few days, or the chance to take it would slip through his fingers. Once given the new dataset, Apex’s coordinating artificial intelligence had returned some alarming success and failure numbers based on timing.

  There were other assets which might collectively replace Springfield, of course. But the disparity between the best possible outcome and the next best outcome was considerable. Everything had to be perfectly planned, perfectly executed, and done with both urgency and accuracy.

  Fast, good, and cheap. Only two of the three ever existed at once. For this, Trusk needed speed and quality. Cheap tended to be a non-issue for a man in his position, but his billions were currently not worth much. Instead, he’d made promises of position and location to many of the team leaders involved in the Springfield operation.

  Promises that would necessitate a considerable re-alignment of Apex’s limited resources. In exchange for those concessions, he expected excellence.

  And, as far as he could tell, he’d gotten it. TARA’s final analysis of the three-phase approach returned promising numbers. He set the tablet on the field table and turned to his tactical command.

  “Excellent work.” Each was at least an S-2, some of the most skilled, educated, and demonstrably dedicated individuals currently enlisted on the Apex project. They took his rare praise without much of a reaction, as expected. It was still early to celebrate anything.

  “The infiltration phase must begin within the next twenty-four hours. Frontal assault by seventy-two at the most. Can you implement that timeline with your current asset allocation?”

  One of the three men, a red-haired, slender, ex-navy officer named William Traeger, gave a curt nod. “That’s well within scope. My team has been briefed on the layout, population centers, critical infrastructure hubs, security details, and been given descriptions and photos of the people you identified. They’ll secure the laptop first, then pull the trigger on the rest. Simulations ran at an eighty-seven percent success rate.”

  Not ideal, but the final analysis on his tablet agreed. Without more granular data, TARA couldn’t provide a higher success score. In the end, as capable as his AI was, it didn’t have true intuition. Some things had to be left to boots on the ground who could be trusted to make decisions and feed new data into the system as it came available.

  “That will have to be good enough,” Trusk answered finally. “Get them going. No lost time on this. Especially if our noble ‘President’ has any surprises left in her arsenal.”

  He received a row of grim nods.

  All officers and field agents knew what was at stake and didn’t need reminding. After the nuking of St. Louis, it had become painfully clear that Maggie Welcher—while a very useful pawn for many years—was becoming more and more erratic. Enough that Trusk almost regretted not approaching President Daniels in days immediately following the impact.

  There wasn’t much data on Daniels, though, which made him a relative unknown. Then again, he had a mountain of data on Welcher, and hadn’t been able to accurately predict when she would pull that particular trigger; just that she would.

  It made the rest of her profile suspect. Unreliable as a model of the President’s potential future behavior. If there was anything in the world that Trusk hated, it was an unpredictable variable in an unreliable data model. Even TARA’s prediction certainty had dropped an average of fifteen percent when it came to that woman.

  Now, there was simply no telling if or when Margaret Welcher would unleash another nuclear weapon. It was entirely possible she considered it a potential answer to the Springfield problem.

  In a quest to maintain some semblance of authority and order, she’d destroy the region’s best source of stable biosphere for livestock and produce as a punitive measure. Certainly, she’d had little reason to destroy St. Louis. There were any number of alternative routes she might have taken to bring the city to heel. Trusk’s people could have managed it with only a few dozen casualties, most likely.

  But that was the other problem with Welcher. She was too hesitant to bring him in. She was overly concerned with the appearance of her own authority, and too cautious about seeming to be reliant on him. Ironic, given that she’d never have obtained her position without him.

  If there was a major obstacle left to Apex’s acquisition of Springfield, it wasn’t tactics or strategy, or Springfield’s leadership or security capabilities. It was Welcher herself.

  He’d already taken the first neutralizing step where she was concerned. He glanced at his watch. She was knee-deep in it right that moment, sensing his withdrawal and fostering the first stages of a panic that would grow in the coming days. Afterward, she would be more pliant, more amenable.

  “We’re as ready as we’re going to get, sir,” Traeger offered. “If you’re prepared to give the order, I can initiate my team’s phase in the next hour.”

  “Consider the order given, Commander. Upload regular reports. You’re dismissed.”