The Blastlands Saga

by DK Williamson

  Jack offered the new Ranger his hand. “See you in the morning, Ranger.”

  Baker walked to the barracks with a smile on his face.

  . . . . .

  Jack knew Baker would be in early, so he made it a point to be there even earlier. It still wasn’t enough to be in before Amanda. She was reading from one of the 3-ring binders Jack had recovered.

  “Do you sleep in here?”

  She glared at him. “Sometimes. We still have documents to look at. We’ve looked over everything, but not with the scrutiny we want. Besides, you have a new guy to get up to speed, right?”

  He nodded. “I guess I understated your contribution to Geneva’s Ranger mission.”

  “What you said yesterday was one of the nicest things anyone ever said about me. Thanks.”

  “And I get a cracked rib for it,” he said with a smile. “You have a job that doesn’t have flashing lights that say, ‘mission accomplished.’ You don’t have the bad guy in handcuffs or raiders running for the horizon to show for your work, but you are a big part of getting the cuffs on there or the raiders running, even if most don’t see it.”

  “Thanks. I know that, but sometimes it just feels like I’m pushing paper.”

  Jack looked over her shoulder at a map stand. He pointed at it. “That for Baker?”

  She glanced at the map and nodded.

  “Pushing paper that might help a young Ranger perform better than he might otherwise, or maybe stay alive if things get rough. Besides, you’ve thrown lead at bad guys, and you did it as a trainee. Most people wait until they’re Rangers before they do that. Stop beating yourself up over this. Speaking as an expert on the subject of self-pugilism, you’re not very good at it. Leave it to the pros. What you need is a few days off.”

  “When we’ve concluded this Blastlands business.” She smiled with moist eyes. “Lay off the compliments now. You’ll make me cry again.”

  “It always takes two rounds to get through to you.”

  She glared, then smiled and pointed at the door. “Baker’s here.”

  Jack used the map Amanda had prepared to give Baker an overview of the mission. The techniques and tactics the unit had been practicing were all things he was already familiar with, training had seen to that. Meshing with the rest of the unit would take some time, a commodity that was running short.

  Jack had spoken with Sean, Thomas, and Ralph about the situation. They said they would do everything they could to get him ready.

  “We’ll make Tony feel welcome. I’d complain about Sean being our team leader, but he’d kick my ass,” Thomas said with a smile.

  The morning was spent drilling, the afternoon at the range, where Baker’s scoped bolt-action rifle presented an issue. A purpose-built target rifle, it was superbly accurate, but long and heavy. Jack questioned whether Baker would want to carry it on a mission that might find the unit ranging far and fast.

  “If I had a lighter rifle that could do a comparable job, I’d take it, but I don’t,” Baker said. “I doubt my pay as a trainee and whatever one day as a Ranger is will allow me to buy a replacement.”

  Jack nodded. “Buy? No. Borrow? Yes. Follow me.” Jack led the way to his house, into and through the living room, the kitchen, and finally, the utility room. He unlocked a wood covered security cabinet and swung one of the doors open. Inside was a row of rifles and shotguns. He removed a scoped bolt-action rifle from its place, opened the bolt to ensure it was unloaded, and passed it to Baker.

  “Think that will suffice?”

  “It’s certainly lighter than mine.” Baker looked in the chamber and closed the bolt. He hefted the rifle in both hands, getting a sense for its balance. He ran a finger over the brown laminated wood stock, then removed the scope cover. He pulled the butt into the pocket of his shoulder and looked through the scope.

  “Four power with duplex reticle,” Jack said.

  Baker pulled the trigger and smiled, then lowered the rifle. “Nice. Never handled a Browning before. This yours?”

  He nodded as he closed the cabinet. “Was saving it for my nephew, but he’s a few years from growing into it.” He went to another cabinet and opened it, pulling five boxes from a shelf. “C’mon, we’ll see if it fits you.”

  The two men were soon back at the range. They went to the rightmost lane, set up for longer ranged shooting with large target boards set up in one hundred yard increments out to six hundred yards. Each board had several rows of bull’s-eyes.

  Jack placed the boxes on a nearby table. “These are match grade loads. Forty rounds of one hundred and fifty grain, sixty rounds of one sixty-eight grain. I’ll go get some NATO loads and a telescope from the range shack. Get settled in and we’ll see how you do.”

  Jack had Tony zero the rifle at 200 yards with 168-grain bullets, and then had the young Ranger fire rounds at every other range and note his point of impact as seen through the telescope. Baker was a fine shooter and required a minimum of shots to accomplish this.

  “We’ll use that as your baseline,” Jack said when Baker was finished.” As you know, the other match loads will have a different trajectory and different point of impact, so note those, then do the same with the NATO rounds. They’re milspec, so they will be much less consistent than the other loads. If things get hairy, you might need to use NATO rounds, so it pays to record all of that. Note your holdover as it appears in the scope also. Under stress, you might forget. Notes don’t stress, so you’ll have access to the information even if your brain isn’t functioning at a hundred percent. We’ll do some range finding exercises with the duplex reticle when you’re finished shooting and note those as well. I’d imagine you understand how hard it can be to determine range under field conditions.”

  Baker smiled. “You’ve done this a time or two I’d guess.”

  Jack laughed. “When most guys were chasing girls, I was usually here doing what you’re doing now. Life of the party was I. Give me a yell when you’re finished.”

  . . . . .

  Training continued for several days, with briefings by Barlo and Amanda as needed. Jack came to fully appreciate what it took to lead a unit the size he would be taking into the Blastlands. It wasn’t overwhelming, but he felt stressed at times. He was in and out of the HQ several times a day, but as the mission’s commencement neared he saw a new addition to the board in the briefing room, UNIT: TRAIPSE(14) - THE BLASTLANDS. It made him recall how many times he’d seen similar postings on the board growing up, how proud he was to see Traipse or Sierra on there and know it was his father or uncle. Now it’s me. I think I’m up to the task, but if I’m wrong, some of my people might die. He felt the weight of responsibility bearing down. Let’s do what we can to keep that from happening. That means you do whatever it takes.

  Jack’s expedition would leave in two days.

  . . . . .

  15

  A Stroll Into Hell

  . . . . .

  McCarty put foot to pedal and started Flour Power rolling at first light. Jack and his thirteen Rangers rode in the bed with Art Sierra riding in the cab with McCarty. A trailer hitched to the truck carried a fuel tank, the unit’s two handcarts, rucksacks, and other gear.

  Their destination was less than three hours travel time to the northeast, a Ranger encampment set up by Sergeant Tucker the day before near a bridge over the notorious Marais des Cygnes River. Known for its vicious flash floods even before European settlement, little had changed its behavior over the years, Calamity or not.

  Flour Power maintained a steady twenty miles per hour over the roads along the route, her softly sprung suspension helped dampen rough spots and the exhaust system was equipped with mufflers, much to the passengers’ relief.

  They didn’t stay long at the encampment, just time enough to pick up a four-Ranger horse patrol and a pair of Rangers to man rifles in the truck on the return trip. Soon they were on their way to Old Drexel, arriving less than an hour later.

  They offloaded their gear and
arranged the items to be loaded on the handcarts just as they had drilled dozens of times in Geneva. One per cart, M60 machine guns placed on top for easy access, loaded and ready if trouble should arise during the journey. Within minutes, they were ready to depart.

  Jack looked at Art. “If you suddenly find yourself swimming in Rangers in Geneva, I doubt anyone here would complain if you put together a relief force and led them over here.”

  “You have more than a dozen Rangers. It’d take a hundred rads or Greater Good ops to match you.” Art smiled. “Hell I trained most of you. That makes you nigh on invincible. Mention that to whoever you meet out there.”

  Jack laughed. “You’re our secret weapon.”

  Art put a hand on Jack’s shoulder. “Get this thing done quickly and get the hell out, got me?”

  Jack nodded. “It’s not too late for you join the fun.”

  “ Ha. I’m getting a little too old to be traipsing the Blastlands. Maybe I’ll get McCarty to be my… what do you call it?”

  “Chauffer?”

  He pointed. “That. You know what you’re doing and you have a host of able Rangers at your back, kiddo. Y’all will be fine.”

  “Then we’ll see you when we see you.”

  The unit moved east past the concrete wall emblazoned with THE BLASTLANDS reminding them where they were going. “Only the stupid, the greedy, the crazy, and Rangers would walk into a place like this willingly,” Jerry Michaels said.

  “The latter two are the same thing,” Beth replied.

  “You volunteered for this. Traveled up from Hell just to be a part of it,” Al Dunn said.

  She nodded. “See what I mean.”

  . . . . .

  McCarty pulled Flour Power into the Ranger encampment along the Marais de Cygnes nearly four hours later, far later than intended. The truck and its four occupants accompanied the horse patrol north on a reconnaissance that was to take about an hour. Two detours and a horse extrication from barrel deep mud caused the patrol to return far behind schedule. A radio call let the force at the bridge know they were in no real peril, but the late return meant McCarty and Sierra would not be returning to Geneva until the following day.

  Sergeant Tucker was there to greet Art when he climbed from the cab.

  “Sorry you got hung up. The team, they off okay?”

  “Without a hitch.”

  “You look worried. Jack?”

  “He’s the last one I’d worry about. I just have a feeling.”

  “Art, when you have one of your feelings, it means something. What is it? Raiders? Rads? What?”

  Art shook his head. “Can’t say ‘cause I don’t know. Something Jack said. It’s like a buzzing in the back of my head.”

  “And…?”

  “I’m thinking that if we have any spare Rangers, they just might need’em over east.”

  “You have something in mind?” Tucker waved his hand around. “Maybe you noticed, we have quite a few Rangers right here and right now.”

  “Yeah. Rangers due back in Geneva soon enough. Plus you have horses that’ll have to cared for. Can’t take’em into the Blastlands.”

  “Anybody else said they had a bad feeling and I say we head on home. You ain’t anybody else. You’re Art Sierra. You have a plan, let’s hear it.”

  “Not so much a plan, more an idea. I’m thinking of having McCarty run me back down to Geneva so I can have a talk with the Captain. If he’ll go for it, and McCarty agrees to come back, I’ll be back with a few Rangers.”

  Tucker nodded. “You can take some of this group. We’re equipped for a long-range mounted patrol.” He smiled. “Means we can stay here for awhile just as well. We can ride east and encamp closer to the Blastlands too if need be. Tell the Captain we’re operating over there. Maybe we found something worth looking into. Hell, tell him what you have in mind. Drake will go for it. We’re here already.”

  Art smiled. “Ed will see through it as soon as I open my mouth, but you’re right. He’ll go for it. Who do you have that’s irreplaceable?”

  “No one. You take what passes for my medic, bring me back somebody with similar skills from Geneva. Commo, same. Take two of mine and an M60 for your trip down and return.”

  “Will do.” He walked to the truck and stuck his head inside. “Hey, McCarty. You owe me a few, right?”

  McCarty smiled. “Figure I do. What you got in mind?”

  . . . . .

  Jack’s patrol made good time down the road, slowing as they neared the site of the missile silo called L-10. Optics allowed them to see the area near the site from a distance. There was no sign of anyone, nevertheless, they closed with caution.

  As they neared the silo, they could see remnants of the chain link fence that once surrounded the site. They drew closer and could see the silo was open, its missile thirty years gone. The Launch Closure, the massive concrete and steel cover for the silo, was dozens of yards away, launched down metal rails by Ballistic Gas Generators into the adjacent field.

  “This isn’t the one,” Ralph said.

  “You didn’t think we’d be that lucky, did you?” Thomas said.

  “No. Just stating the obvious.”

  They continued east, following a route that would take them to the next nearest silo, L-11, north-northeast of L-10. Along the old highway, they passed what were still distinguishable as old farm fields, many with crops still growing wild in them, the unharvested remnants of the past season still recognizable.

  “Turkey Red,” Tanner muttered as they passed one such field.

  “What’s that?” Sean said.

  “The wheat. That was Turkey Red hard winter wheat. Best there is.” He smiled and pointed. “Still doing its thing unattended and in a place like this.”

  “Farmer?” Stan said.

  “No, Ranger. Everyone else in the family is though. It didn’t take with me. Growing and harvesting that stuff was too much like work, so I found an easier job.”

  “One that takes you into the Blastlands.”

  “Yep. I’d take this over farming any day, except for some of the real bad ones… maybe.”

  The unit continued west, moving cautiously. Jerry Michaels trotted forward to walk beside Jack.

  “Sergeant, you should hear this,” he said with a gesture at the TROG he carried. He passed the earpiece to Jack who pushed into his left ear.

  The sounds were odd, interference, but nothing like he had ever heard before.

  “It’s like that on every frequency, all bands,” Jerry said. “Shortwave, CB, all of them. Some variations, but it’s there.”

  “Could it be the TROG?”

  “Beth checked hers. Same thing.”

  “Just to be sure, let’s check them all.”

  Jack called a halt and gathered all of those carrying TROGs together. Every one of the devices was functioning correctly and each one picked up the same interference. Michaels unplugged the earpiece and let the sounds play over the external speakers.

  “Any idea what this is?” Jack asked.

  Jerry grimaced at the TROG. “This has to be what Barlo and Tibbs were talking about.”

  The noise was strange, unlike any radio interference Michaels or any of the other Rangers had heard before.

  Jerry shook his head, baffled by what might generate such interference. “It almost sounds like a broadcast, but it’s… I don’t know.”

  “Creepy?” Beth said.

  Jerry smiled and nodded. “That’s the word. Otherworldly too maybe.”

  “We’re in another world, aren’t we?” Jack said.

  “And now the hair on the back of my neck is standing up,” Thomas said. “Thanks, everybody.”

  “I’m thinking it’s an alien broadcast calling home for help. ‘These humans were tougher than we thought,’” Ralph said. “Ten thousand years from now they’ll show up.”

  “It’ll suck for the Rangers that have to deal with that,” Sean said.

  Everyone laughed quietly.

&nb
sp; Jack looked at Michaels. “If this is the sort of thing we were told about, we ought to get clear of it eventually, right?”

  “Yes. If that’s what we’re dealing with.”

  Jack nodded. “Let’s get moving then.”

  A few miles east, the interference began to fade and by the time they reached their turning point two hours later, it was completely gone.

  Ahead they could see the remnants of a city as they passed another old field, this one also with crops still growing within, but the plants were not like any of them had ever seen. The crop was wheat, but the stalks were thick and ridged with deformed leaves, the heads bulbous and twisted with impossibly long beards dangling.

  Al Dunn pointed at the plants. “Hey, Tanner. What the hell kind of wheat is that?”

  Jim grimaced at the sight of it. “No kind fit for anything but this place.”

  Al laughed. “You’n me ought to go into business together. You harvest the stuff, grind it into flour, and I’ll sell it to the rads.”

  Jim laughed. “And what do we call it, this company?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Father Atomic Flour Company,” Jack said. “A lifetime’s worth of strontium and cesium in every serving.”

  “That’s it. Jack’s our ad man,” Al said. “So, what do you say?”

  Jim shook his head and laughed. “I’ll get back to you on that.”

  A short while later, the unit moved into the ruins of a city the map labeled as Archie. They moved slowly, spread out on both sides of the road keeping ten yards between one another. They saw no evidence of anyone having been there recently until they were well into the town.

  Jack walked in the lead position on the right side of the road, Sean on the left. Jack noticed the needle on his rad meter edging higher as they walked. He signaled a stop and compared his readings with Sean’s meter. They were the same.

  “Let’s keep a close eye on this,” Jack said.

  They continued on, the radiation reading continued upward, but still within the safe zone, when Sean pointed ahead at something on Jack’s side of the street.