He spoke quicker now, going over the fierce fighting to push the enemy back across the Mississippi. And finally how the 103rd had ended up here raiding across the river to free slaves.
Pete finished his story and fell silent, waiting to see if Kathleen had anything to say. It seemed she didn't, and with her eyes hidden behind the slight glare on her glasses he couldn't read her. After a long pause he cleared his throat. “How about you?”
The young woman laughed softly. “Me? I've been lucky.”
He nodded thoughtfully. “We all have. Bad as things are, they could've been so much worse.”
A cool, dry hand found his and held it as Kathleen shook her head. “No, I mean that for me they weren't bad. Hardly at all.” She seemed to sense his confusion and hurriedly continued. “My family owns a farm a bit east of here. Out in the boonies. We have for generations. My grandparents were always pretty self-sufficient, with the equipment needed to stay off the grid since it was cheaper and easier than running lines out to where we were. Even after my parents finally brought in power and running water we kept that other equipment in case of an emergency.
“Then after the Middle East Crisis my dad guessed things might get worse before they got better. He bought up the supplies and tools my family would need to live long term, and convinced us all to gather back home.” She laughed again. “The whole Feldmann clan, filling up the house and guest house and outbuildings. Those that didn't think he was crazy and actually accepted his invitation.”
Kathleen snuggled a bit closer to him, voice turning subdued. “Listening to everything you went through, Kid . . . I didn't go through any of that. Things barely changed for us during the shortages after the Gulf refineries attack, and no bandits or raiders ever found us out where we were. Same with the Gold Bloc invasion when it came, and we were far from any nuclear strikes or fallout zones during the Retaliation. I haven't suffered through anything. I've been safe and well provided for, surrounded by family, this whole time.”
Pete struggled to contain his disbelief. “So your house and everyone in your family are still out there, chilling in hiding while the rest of the world tears itself apart?”
She tensed slightly at his tone. “Yeah.”
“Then what are you doing here?” he demanded. “It sounds like you don't need the work.”
Kathleen pulled back, staring at him inscrutably for a moment. “I volunteered. I wanted to help out however I could, even if it was just washing dirty uniforms. I don't think I'd be a good soldier, and I don't really have the training or talent for administration, but at least I can do something. For all those people suffering out there who went through what I didn't.” She squeezed his hand and her voice became husky with feeling. “People like you, Pete.”
Pete fought to control his mounting anger. People like him. Why had she bothered to tell him all that, especially after hearing everything he'd lost? After hearing that he'd lost everything! It felt almost like she was bragging about how easy the end of the world had been for her.
Was she really that self absorbed and clueless, that she hadn't even considered how he'd feel about the things she said? Listening to her happily talk about family, home, safety, comfort, when he hadn't seen any of those things for at least a year, almost two?
Or was he just being incredibly unreasonable and bitter over the fact that his own life wasn't some fairy tale?
Even Lewis, the smartest person he knew, who'd seen all of this coming and prepared for it, had faced plenty of trouble when the SHTF. Had his friend just not been prepared enough, not thought ahead enough? Or did it all come down to luck, and Kathleen was literally one in a billion?
The young woman must've sensed at least some of what he was thinking, because she squeezed his hand again. “Kid?” she asked, sounding uncertain.
Pete sucked in a ragged breath. He was doing it again. Just like he had with Alice, back before he'd left. Resenting her for the fact that the Watsons had taken her in after she became an orphan, that the town circled around her to offer their support, while he was left out in the cold after his dad died and he found himself in the same situation.
Even more than that. He'd refused to take responsibility for his behavior after Matt took him out of combat and sent him back to the main camp. He'd shifted the responsibility onto Alice, demanded she get him into Trev's squad, and when she couldn't he'd pitched a fit that nearly ruined their relationship. Then when her squad was ambushed he'd lost it again, making it about himself when she was hurting from Tom Harding's death and Rick's injury trying to save her. All Pete could think about was that he should've been there, and it had finally finished destroying what he'd had with her.
And now he was making the same mistake. Not to mention he was the one who'd asked Kathleen to tell him about herself in the first place, so it wasn't like she'd heard his story and decided on her own that now was the time to gloat about her own life.
And here he thought he'd spent the last year growing up.
Well, experience wasn't worth much if you didn't make use of it. “I'm glad you were spared from all this,” he said quietly. In an odd incongruity he meant that with all his heart, while still resenting her good fortune at the same time. He cared about Kathleen even though he barely knew her. “I'm glad you were able to have a happy life through the worst of things.”
“Thank you,” Kathleen said quietly.
They returned to comfortable silence, and Pete did his best to recapture the mood he'd been feeling before she asked him for his life's story.
Then the young woman abruptly squirmed in the seat until she was facing him, almost all the way in his lap now. “Okay,” she said, an edge of mingled nervousness and excitement creeping into her tone. “Now that we know each other a bit better, I've got to admit it's been driving me crazy pressed up against you like this while trying to have a casual conversation.”
She was telling him. Pete did his best to keep his reply bantering. “Oh yeah? In a good way, or in-”
She cut him off by pressing her lips firmly to his, arms slipping up to wrap around his neck. The rim of her glasses pressed against his cheek, almost in his eye, but he wasn't about to complain.
Okay, that probably meant in a good way. Pete let his previous resentment and misgivings bleed away and lifted his own arms to wrap around her, pulling her closer as he returned the kiss.
* * * * *
The camp chair collapsed after about fifteen minutes, sending them both tumbling to the ground with twin yelps. Which dissolved into laughter once they'd gotten over their surprise and confirmed that both of them were okay.
It wasn't that they'd been particularly frisky. The stupid chair just couldn't handle their combined weight. Pete felt a bit bad for the owner as he and Kathleen bolted away, stifling fits of giggling.
Of course that left them in the awkward position that neither of them had a tent to themselves, or had any idea where to find privacy. Pete thought it was a bit soon for that anyway, not to mention he'd promised Lily he'd visit her that evening. So he suggested they head back to Kathleen's tent to hang out with the kid, stopping in the canteen to buy them all sodas and a bag of chips before they started for the civilian part of camp.
Kathleen seemed a bit disappointed with the idea, and he certainly agreed he wouldn't have minded picking up where they left off. But it was hard to begrudge the choice when he saw how happy Lily was to see them, especially when she saw the snacks.
The rest of the evening was enjoyable in its own way, hanging out playing various card games and just relaxing. Pete was having such a good time he lost track of the hour and almost stayed past light's out; he'd have to run to make it back before Branson took a chunk out of his hide.
Just outside the tent Kathleen intercepted him for a kiss goodnight, which came close to tempting him to ignore regs and stay a bit longer. He reluctantly broke away and sprinted for all he was worth, ducking into the tent just ahead of the sergeant.
By the time Branson
shoved through the flaps Pete was seated on his cot, taking off his boots. He was relieved to notice that most of his squad mates weren't ready for light's out either: Saunders was still fully clothed, sprawled across his cot with a clean sock over his eyes to block out the light. At least Pete hoped it was clean. A few others were in a circle playing cards, a couple were reading paperbacks, and the few lucky ones were fiddling around on electronics. Only Jerry was already asleep, head tucked into a sleeping bag that didn't quite muffle his snores.
“All right, ladies, time to get your beauty sleep!” Branson bellowed as the flaps fell closed behind him. “Need you well rested for the ball tomorrow.”
There was a bit of good-natured grumbling as the soldiers of Epsilon Squad reluctantly stowed their entertainment and started getting ready for bed. “More raiding tomorrow, Sarge?” Saunders asked, lifting the sock to peek out from under it with bleary eyes. He'd obviously had more than a few.
“Not for us, I'm afraid,” the sergeant said, sounding almost smug. The grumbling turned to questions and protests, at least until Branson put two fingers to his mouth and deafened everyone in the tent with a piercing whistle. Jerry jerked halfway off his cot, tugging at his bag to free his head so he could see what was going on.
“Sorry to burst your bubble, but it's not because we've finally earned a break,” Branson continued, in a calm tone that was in sharp contrast to his furious whistle. “The 103rd and 51st worked so well together that Captain Simard wants to try it again. So while everyone else in the Armed Forces of the US and Canada is slipping across the border to ventilate some slavers and free any slaves they find, we've got our own job to see to.”
Corporal Reed, Branson's second, set down the cards he'd been gathering up and stood. “Do we get to find out what that is now?”
“No time like the present.” The sergeant strode over to the cheap road maps of Illinois and Missouri hanging on one wall of the tent, pointing. “Here's the thing. If our CCZ buddies are quick on the uptake we sure haven't seen any sign of it. This joint operation between the US and Canada has had over ten thousands troops hitting slave camps all along the enemy's borders. It's completely caught the CCZ with its pants down.”
Branson idly ran his finger along the Mississippi marked on the edge of both maps. “The enemy is still scrambling to respond, spreading themselves thin plugging all the gaping holes in their borders to prevent any more raids, as well as reinforcing critical targets close to the border with as many soldiers as they can spare. They're also evacuating slave camps and sending the slaves to a more central location in the CCZ, to make them harder for us to get at and so they can guard them all with fewer troops.”
The sergeant looked around at the attentive soldiers with a feral grin. “Which means now seems like a great time to switch tactics again and launch a good old-fashioned attack to seize some territory.”
Pete frowned. “Where?” he blurted. It was a serious question; he wouldn't stick his neck out with Branson just to talk back.
Almost all the bridges across the Mississippi were down, which meant that any land they took west of it would be a major headache to hold, since it would be difficult to get troops across the river to reinforce their position.
It seemed like a logistical nightmare, which was why neither side had made more than a token effort to prepare against a major attack ever since the blockheads had been driven west of the Mississippi. The only real way to accomplish it would be to invest a huge number of forces in an area, enough to take and hold a large enough amount of territory to begin digging in, blockading the river, and building bridges or bringing in enough boats to move troops. That sort of investment would leave the aggressor open to retaliatory raids and smaller attacks everywhere else.
“Well I'm glad you asked, Private,” Branson said sarcastically. His pointing finger on the map slid along the Mississippi again, and he glanced over at it long enough to find a specific spot. Then, almost as if he was teasing them, he stopped almost on top of Camp Pearson, at the point where the Missouri River met the Mississippi just north of the gutted ruins of St. Louis. “Did you think we set up here just for a nice view of some burned skyscrapers?” he demanded. “Or even for the scavenging opportunities? The brass had more in mind than yanking copper pipes out of walls.”
At a look Pete could see that it wasn't the worst place to try to take: between the two converging rivers was a long, narrow spit of land that gradually widened for a ways, before the two rivers moved in dramatically different directions. Since the rivers provided a natural barrier only a small front would need to be pushed, and conversely defended.
In fact, if they caught the blockheads by surprise like Branson suggested they could probably push that front for miles before the enemy could scramble to mount any sort of defense. And the moment the enemy did fight back and plug the narrow front it would be easy for the 103rd and 51st to dig in and hold what they'd taken.
From what Pete could see, it was an attack that two companies' worth of troops could feasibly mount.
Over the next few minutes the sergeant laid out Captain Simard's plan, which turned out to draw basically the same conclusions Pete had guessed at. Although Branson did add a few insights he hadn't considered, such as that one of the benefits of holding that spit of land would be that the CCZ would have to defend not just the front between the rivers but also along the opposite bank of the Missouri all the way along, while if need be Canada could reinforce the two companies from across the Mississippi along the same stretch.
It would be easy for the Canadian and American troops holding that land to move a boat to any spot along the Missouri and send forces across to the northern outskirts of St. Louis to raid and harass, while conversely also easy to defend against any similar attacks the blockheads attempted.
Pete couldn't think of many instances where holding such a long stretch of land bordering enemy territory was a good thing, but in this case it meant the blockheads would have to invest far more soldiers into defending their side than Canada would need just to hold the spit. It was an ideal foothold on the western side of the Mississippi.
Where Simard's planning lost Pete was the end game: the captain hoped to keep pushing all the way along the Missouri and taking an ever increasing swath of territory between the two rivers, until the CCZ had been pushed back west of the Missouri as well.
That was too much land, and would become more and more difficult to hold the farther they expanded. Short of another all-out engagement between the combined US and Canadian forces and the CCZ, which nobody seemed ready for at the moment, he didn't see how it was possible.
Taking the spit was useful short term and long term, but anything more was wishful thinking.
Pete kept those thoughts to himself, though. He was just a private, and in some of his squad mates' eyes his age made him barely more than a mascot in spite of how many times he'd proven himself in combat. The 103rd might end up suffering while pursuing Simard's goal, but that was one of those things that happened in war, like rain or cold snaps.
And who knew, maybe it really would be possible to take that territory somewhere down the line. They were still assessing just how much damage the raids into the CCZ were causing, and how much they had and would continue to destabilize the enemy. If the strategy proved successful enough, combined with a few selective attacks like this one, at some point the blockheads might be weakened to the point that they couldn't hold that territory. Same as how they'd stretched themselves too thin trying to hold the eastern States, and ultimately couldn't stop the combined US and Canadian forces from pushing them back across the Mississippi.
The possibility was there. What was more immediately relevant to Pete and Epsilon Squad, and all of the 103rd, was that they were about to go from raiding to more serious pitched battles. Pete relished any opportunity to take the fight to the Gold Bloc remnants, but he wasn't blind to the fact that there were going to be a lot more casualties in that sort of fighting.
Branson was right, he should probably get the best sleep he could tonight.
Chapter Five
Invitation
Election Day arrived. Everyone in Aspen Hill lined up to enter the curtained off spaces in the town hall tent, write their full name, cast their votes, and affix their signatures to the sheets of paper they were using for ballots.
Not exactly the most foolproof process, but under the circumstances the best they could do. The town leaders were there to personally hand out blank ballots and accept the filled in ones in case anyone was inclined to try shenanigans, although that seemed unlikely. All the votes had been cast before noon, with very few townspeople abstaining, and after Chauncey reported the results to Manti a crowd gathered around the radio to listen as events unfolded throughout the reforming nation in the Utah Rockies.
When it came to the local elections the results were barely worth commenting on: as of today the town leaders had been officially voted in as members of the City Council, and Matt was now the elected Mayor of Aspen Hill. The election had been a mere formality, since they'd all run unopposed, but Matt did admit it felt good to have that legitimacy to his position, even if nothing had effectively changed.
He felt less good about the fact that he was going to have to do a lot more paperwork, since by the end of the day the town would officially be part of a nation with a government once again. And certainly a more pressing concern, as they'd been warned about for months now, the new government would mean that the people of Aspen Hill would finally have to start paying taxes again.
There'd been more than a little discontent about that, and Lewis had done more than his fair share of grumbling. But while Matt wasn't thrilled about it himself, especially once he'd looked over the numbers and seen just how little of that revenue the town would have for itself, and how much would be sent on to Manti, at least it meant he didn't have to wheedle donations from his neighbors to keep the town limping along.
Nuclear Winter | Book 3 | Chain Breakers Page 9
