Storm Girls (The Juniper Wars Book 4) by Aaron Ritchey (best books to read for teens .txt) 📗

drifted in: a Jonesy on fire and smoking, a big Johnny with guns blazing, and a big Bobby dropping bombs. I noticed June Mai’s troops had come from a fight; they were bashed up, but they were coming.

Pilate ran and stood over me, launching grenades into the fray, blasting the hell out the Regios. He yelled out, “John!” then picked me up. He was battle drunk, laughing and muttering, “A battle of four armies. We’d need the eagles to make it five, but I don’t believe they are coming.”

More Lord of the Rings references. More stories.

“Pilate!” I shouted above the din. “Marie Atlas took the chalkdrive! She’s a Severin!”

No time for him to do anything more than grow pale. Four Regios came charging up, guns leveled to wipe us out.

Pilate had yelled John, which meant he was out of shells to fire.

I squinted against the coming pain.

But I didn’t die right then. Again, I was saved by a sister.

Alice came up, hunched over both me and Pilate, and took the bullets. Some pinged off the pieces of battle armor she had thrown over her shoulder. Pretty sure she was wearing a side panel from a 1967 Chevy Impala.

She grunted, then hugged me to her. “Alice love ’Teeca. Alice go coco, but I came back. I found other sisters who didn’t like Dizzymona. They wanted cure, too! Alice come for you, but meet other sissies, Wren and Shar. Alice love all her family now.”

However stinky, however monstrous, I hugged Alice to me. “And I love you, Alice.”

The Moby roared over us. A ladder dropped.

Micaiah rode up on his horse as we took shelter behind Alice again.

He put out a hand, offering me a ride. Pilate reloaded his Beijing homewrecker, and Alice continued to take fire for us. I touched a rough piece of wool, and my fingers came away wet with blood. We needed to get out of there and get to Marie Atlas.

But how?

Micaiah was on horseback. We had the Moby offering help. But in the end, I knew neither was the best option. Especially if those Regios saw us climbing that ladder. They’d pick us off easily.

Then an old diesel BMW—a 6-Series 640d convertible—roared up, and the driver, one of June Mai’s girls, got out, yelling for June Mai Angel. Didn’t know where she was, but I was going to steal her ride.

I kissed Alice’s stomach. “Thanks, Sissy, I gotta go, but I’ll see you again. Meet us in Plainville. It’s just north. Gather up the troops and meet us there. We’ll get the chalkdrive back.”

“Go,” she roared, “go ’Teeca! We give you cover!”

Pilate stepped out from behind Alice and yelled, “Matthew!”—as in the book of Matthew—and another blast erupted from his gospel gun. “Like Alice said, go, Cavatica! Now!”

The soldier girl from the BMW took a bullet in the head. She dropped to her knees, slumped down over, dead. Never thought I’d feel bad about one of June Mai’s outlaws meeting her fate, but I did for a split second.

“In the car!” I yelled for Micaiah and slid in behind the wheel. Micaiah jumped from his horse into the back seat. I slammed her into gear, the old canola-oil-guzzling diesel engine stalled for a minute, and my heart trembled, before the engine caught again and we roared off.

The Marilyn Monroe and another Stanley, both standing together, peppered Regios with bullets, sparking as they themselves were hit.

I couldn’t see inside any of the cockpits, couldn’t tell who was driving and who was gunning, but it had to be my people. Had to be.

I wanted to drive over to see Sharlotte and Rachel one more time. Heck, I’d even give Dutch a hug, but I had no time. This was our chance. The Regios were engaged. Now or never.

In the BMW, we could outrun Marie Atlas on Miley, but we had to get to her before she got to the salvage yards. There was no time to gather up any guns. Micaiah and I had to do it ourselves.

A surface-to-air missile, something big and powerful, hit the struggling Bobby, and the zeppelin dropped down, down, and hit the plain, throwing up dirt and grass, sagebrush and debris, then exploded. The heat felt like a fist, slamming our faces.

Another of the zeppelins was hit, taken out of the sky by the ARK.

The Moby swung around, covering us, and I was glad. We needed all the help we could get retrieving the chalkdrive.

Bouncing over the plain, smashing up the body—but hopefully not the undercarriage—I sped onward, avoiding ditches and divots. Grass and sagebrush smacked under the body. We were throwing up a cloud of dust. It swirled around in the wind under the dark clouds above that were trying hard to bring in a cold night.

Marie Atlas, on my pony, was ahead of us, driving Miley toward the salvage yards.

We hurled after her, through the battle, and I caught glimpses of the fighting. The Acevedos and the APCs with more ARK troops had reached the main battlefield. As had our own reinforcements, the steam trucks and Cargadors from June Mai. Some had machine guns mounted in the back, others had girls shooting from the bed, and two of the Cargadors had heavy cannons mounted over the driver’s cage. June Mai’s troops started demolishing the Acevedos and Regios with shells.

Though not for long. The tanks responded. A Cargador was sent rolling end over end from an explosion. An old Mercedes Benz ignited from some sort of thermite charge. The Acevedos boomed again, blowing through cars, trucks, women, and horses. But we couldn’t stay to help.

I wondered for a moment who June Mai’s outlaws had been fighting. More ARK soldiers? Or the United States military?

No way to know. No one to ask.

While June Mai’s forces fought on, so did the Stanleys. One of the steam-powered battle machines, with a Chevy Camaro’s yellow hood, was on top of a tank. With its arm guns, the Stanley blew off the turret, then machine-gunned open the top