I need Thomas or whoever you can spare to come in, give me full reports.
Once we’re fully secured. The standard of The One flies here now.
Do you have control of their comms?
Yeah, we do, and the IT guy’s all over them.
I need you to send a message on my signal.
What and where?
She told him, then went back in to relay the same to Tonia to give to Duncan.
“Can you set it up so I can send out a message?” she asked Chuck.
“You bet your fine ass I can. No offense.”
“None taken. Can you send it so it goes out to whoever can listen? Whoever has communication abilities?”
“With what I’ve got here, I’ve got a pretty long reach. You and Tonia could boost that. You probably don’t remember how you and Duncan boosted our first broadcast from New Hope.”
“I actually do, at least a little.”
“Tell Duncan to do the same on his end,” Fallon said as she communicated the idea to Mick. “How long do you need, Chuck?”
He was already working controls. “Just a second. Do you want visual or just audio?”
“All. Wait.” She held her hands to her face, did a glamour to mask blood, bruising, burns. “Not vanity,” she began.
“You’re unhurt,” Tonia said. “Untouched. Any blood on The One is enemy blood. That’s good tactics.”
“Ten seconds from my mark,” she told Tonia, Chuck, and Mick. “Boost it.”
As controls lit up, monitors flashed, Chuck laughed. “Don’t get too crazy, girls. We’re up when you are.”
“Mark,” she said.
“Ten, nine, eight,” Chuck counted it off, then opened the channels.
“To all who gather together in peace, to all who wish for peace, who protect, defend, who have suffered or shed blood to protect or defend, hear my voice and know there is hope. Know the light is with you, all of you, magickal and non. To the farmers, the builders, the teachers, the soldiers, the mothers, the sons, the fathers and daughters, know the light stands for you, fights for you. Rise up, rise up against those who oppress, against those who persecute and enslave. Know that for every one who seeks to destroy, we send twenty to stop them.
“Hear my voice, persecutors, oppressors. Hear and know, Purity Warriors, Dark Uncanny, bounty hunters, Raiders, any who hunt and imprison, who torture and kill, your time is ending. What comes from the dark will die in the dark.”
She drew her sword, filled it with light. “The light will burn you out. Tonight, the light has broken the chains of those held on the beaches of Carolina, in the desert of Utah, driven out the dark to claim those places in its name. Tonight, the light burned bright through the dark of Arlington, and it is ours. Fear me, all who shed innocent blood, all who seek to live on the fat, on the backs of slaves, fear me, all who have chosen the dark. Fear me and all who follow the light, for we will end you.”
She held up her free hand, and in her palm a ball of fire blazed. “Here is the fire to burn through the dark, and all who follow it.” She closed her hand around the flames, opened it again. She held a white dove. “And here is the hope offered to all the rest.
“I pledge both, the flame and the dove.
“I am Fallon Swift. I am The One.”
She nodded to Chuck. His hand shook a little as he ended the broadcast.
“Some speech,” he managed.
“Yeah. Some trick.” Tonia touched a fingertip to the dove’s breast.
“It just came to me.” Fallon released the dove, waved it to freedom through the broken door. “Too much?”
“I can tell you, if I was one of the bad guys?” Chuck let out a laugh. “I’d have shit my pants.”
“Good.” Fallon laid a hand on his shoulder. “That’s what I was aiming for.”
“Direct hit.”
CHAPTER EIGHT
While Fallon set up a headquarters at Arlington, Duncan did the same in Utah. He didn’t have the fine things, as she did, and had already started a list of what he’d need to build and maintain a viable base of operations.
They’d need supplies to build better shelters, an agrodome for growing fruit. More chickens, cows, some goats, pigs, which meant pens and paddocks, some sort of barn. While he knew how to deal with livestock, there had to be somebody on base who’d have a better handle on that.
He’d delegate faeries to start growing vegetables, herbs,