Ash: Rise of the Republic Read Online Free Page A

me in the
morning. I headed inside to find the women beginning to inventory
our haul. I dove in and started counting cans and toilet paper.
After two hours we had a huge spreadsheet compiled, listing
essentially everything we had on hand. I made sure to print it out;
there was no way to know how long the power would last. After a
quick meal, I armed the security system and we all turned in.
Outside, the ash kept coming down.

Chapter 2
    May, 31 PC (2046 AD)
    *
    “ The rangers were the first line
of defense; ruthless men and women, barely more than criminals
themselves, riding through the dust to bring brutal justice to
brutal men.”
    -Daniel Galloway, ‘Risen From The Ash: A History of
the Republic’; RNT University Press, 50 PC (2065 AD);
    *
    Captain Grover B. McLelland, commanding officer of
the 1st New Texas Rangers, paused to take a long swig. He had
requisitioned the rotgut whiskey from the three outlaws they had
hanged that morning. The fiery liquid was foul, but it was better
than nothing.
    In a gravelly whisper, he continued, “We’ll
leave it there for tonight kiddos. I think everyone is finished
cleaning, bring your weapons up for inspection and then get some
rest. I want to make it all the way to the beltway tomorrow.”
    One by one, McLelland’s young ranger troop
brought him their freshly cleaned and oiled rifles. He was stern
with them, pointing out bits of ash they had missed in the dim
candlelight, but he was secretly proud at their attention to
detail. The new ashcovers were working as well as could be
expected, but nothing keeps a bolt moving smoother than good old
fashioned elbow grease. There were only a few jams during the
firefight earlier that day. He had seen much worse; plenty of men
and women under his command had died simply because they were too
lazy to take a rag to their weapons before hitting the sack.
    “Just remember,” he said as the last one
headed to her pallet, “bullets won’t do you any good if your rifle
can’t cycle. There are plenty of outlaws that can split you from
groin to gullet before you can even reach for your knife. Most of
them have been running wild longer than y’all have been alive. They
know their knives won’t jam up with ash. Better to put two in the
chest and one in the head and keep moving than to sit there pulling
on your charging handle while your guts spill out. Sweet
dreams.”
    He sipped the last of the raw whiskey as the
first snores drifted across the room. His troop was young; the boy
snoring peacefully nearest him was just barely sixteen. Just six
months ago the Governor’s office had sent him these kids as
replacements after his old troop was annihilated in a single
disastrous night. The veterans had been crushed when the roof of
their barracks collapsed after a heavy ashfall. The Captain and his
wife had been away on some well-deserved leave at the time. When he
had heard the sad news, he had tracked down the engineer in charge
of clearing structures for safe use and beat him bloody with length
of steel pipe. The engineer was a popular man, and the savage
assault had earned the Captain some powerful enemies within the
Republic bureaucracy. He had almost been stripped of his command,
but the Governor had stepped in. The RNT had an outlaw problem, and
McLelland knew better than most how to solve an outlaw problem.
Unable to get rid of him, his enemies tried to set him up for
failure by sending him a pack of raw children. It was widely
assumed that they would be slaughtered within a week. The kids were
part of a group slotted for service in the government construction
and maintenance crews. They were mostly orphans, all volunteers;
teenagers with no futures and little to lose. When they had
reported for duty, malnourished and untrained, the Captain had been
furious. His complaints to the War Department fell on deaf ears,
however, and he was left with little choice but to whip the
youngsters into fighting shape as fast as he could.
    For six