by Marcus Sloss
“Loot, build, defend. We have two of the three gates fairly contained. Then again, the gate may roam from buxen territory to some rock monster territory. Have you seen the video of those snake people? Eww…” I shuddered at the thought. “However, I do not think the buxen are the forgiving type. I fear them.”
“Gross, snake people… I haven’t seen them yet, not sure if I want to. I really should study these potential species. Especially if I am going to need to shoot at them. These samurai turtle looking fellas need headshots only,” Willow said while gazing at her Gpad. She chuckled softly. “Apparently they taste delicious. Funny how someone added a food value table to their chart.”
Dedric slowed the RV. We arrived at the county vehicle storage lot. There was a single brown building with a flat roof. The single large bay door gave it more of a storage building appearance than that of an office. A medium sized parking area housed a half dozen large trucks. Barbed-wire fencing ran around the perimeter of the county outpost. The door was open with the chain-link gate busted down. I peered around with uncertainty. I was safe in the RV, so I was hesitant to get out.
“No one out of your vehicles yet, it has been raided,” I said on the radio. “Nice and slow. Let the RV take point; it is bulletproof, after all.”
“Taking us into the lot,” Dedric said in a professional tone.
“I see feet behind a truck. Second vehicle here still running,” Torrez said over the radio.
A gunshot split the air and smacked into our windshield, causing a chip. So much for playing nice.
“Engage targets, engage targets,” I said over the radio.
A hand shot around a dump truck tire. The automatic pistol fire caused me to raise an eyebrow. Amateurs. The bullets pinged, zinged, and cracked into the RV. 9mm at a hundred feet was not that much of a threat. They were also already out of ammo. The convoy diverted to flank around the building.
“We're just going to sit here?” Willow asked.
Nancy gently tugged her off my lap and started whispering to her. I did not like side chatter during combat situations. The first trucks got a flank on the targets. A few carbines snapping later, and the obvious threats were downed. I saw the bodies of teenagers or young adults pooling blood.
“Nice and slow. Maybe they were here to swap vehicles to something bigger. Still, if they were picking these up, there should be more than two. Anyone see any other vehicles that don’t belong?” I said smoothly into the radio.
Some of the new recruits might be agitated and eager. This was war. You did not knife fight your opponent in a gunfight. You did not haphazardly spill your entire magazine into a vehicle. If I were in the opposite position, caught in the open to a superior foe, I would bide my time and get to a more defensible…
Crack. Crack.
“Third target down. She was trying to get on the roof,” Torrez said.
“Does this thing have external speakers?” Nancy asked Dedric.
Dedric flicked a switch and said, “You’re broadcasting.” I gave him a ‘you’re just telling me this now?’ look that missed the mark when he said, “What? I read the manual.”
“I surrender!” A frightened man said with his hands in the air.
“To a manual reader?” I asked.
The man twisted his head in confusion while staring at our RV. I reached over and flicked the broadcast switch. I keyed up the radio and spoke softly, “One wrong move, he dies.”
I turned the switch back on to broadcast. “Lay down. Good. Crawl to the RV door.”
The man shook his head no. Wrong answer. His head exploded in a spray of gore. The last two men ran out with guns’ blazing. Not that it did them a lot of good. They were riddled with bullet holes, hitting nothing in return.
Even though I was ninety percent certain that was all of them, I still wanted to take it slow. We waited. Then we waited some more. I got calls from Eddy and Mclain asking if we needed backup. I said we were fine. We had vehicles to hide inside and superior numbers. I watched the Xgate more than the building. It stayed quiet while half an hour passed by.
“Team leaders, block the doors with vehicles. Assault top down,” I said into the radio. I turned to Dedric. “Park us alongside the roof.”
We rolled past the bodies until Torrez could jump onto the roof. Two trucks parked off to our sides. Soldiers used truck cabs to leap onto our RV top and then ran for the building roof. I heard the thump of a dead body being tossed onto our roof. Nancy went for the noise. A truck blocked the front entrance. Another blocked the rear exit. The assault lasted less than a minute and came up empty. Nancy handed me a radio. It was an EMT radio with Aspen engraved on it.
“No Gpad?” I asked the blonde babe. There was something about a woman not squeamish about getting blood on her hands.
“Nope, I am guessing they ditched them when they lost power. Maybe a different body has -”
Knuckles tapping on the RV resulted in Sergeant Havier opening the door. He was one of Slister’s men still with the convoy. He had a box of loot from the truck and bodies. Sidearms, Gpads, radios, and two drone cases. He dropped them off inside the RV and went back to work. I left my seat for a Gpad.
I crouched down to the pile and slapped a Gpad next to mine. My administrator fired up the device. Harold Mcdougal, father of two, who owned a home renovation company. Based on his text history, when the Xgates came down, he grouped up with a large Aspen community. They lost Gtower access when we lost the main net, which made sense. The closest Xgate was ours and they had not seen aliens yet. I could understand that, since our gate was mostly quiet. Residents of Denver swarmed them, seeking refuge. There were at least a dozen firefights with fleeing humans wanting sanctuary. That explains why Denver had been so quiet. Everyone was going to Aspen. The other factor was that northern Denver was lost to aliens that had been called XLroaches. That matched what Nancy had said. The Aspen stronghold was flipping huge. They had fortified every road in. The last report was they still had water and power, which were kept active by solar power. Made sense; if anywhere in the world was going to save the environment, it would be elitist skiers. Aspen was known to be huge on solar. I guess I could key up a mic and ask.
As if on cue, the radio said, “Aspen team seven, Aspen base over.”
“Go for seven,” I said into the radio.
“Put Mcdougal on, please, whoever you are,” the voice replied, as if offended.
“Hmm… So Mcdougal had a kid on his team. He looks about seventeen. The untrained lad started firing before we could talk. They tried to ambush us when we finally got to talking. Sorry to say, Mcdougal can’t talk anymore.”
“Whom am I speaking with?”
“A concerned military official with the US government. We have a heavily fortified base nearby. I am sure you saw the helicopters establishing our position from Carson,” I said with a hostile tone.
“One moment,” the voice said.
I returned to my comfy seat and keyed up my team’s radio. “All teams, extra caution. The drone has to watch the roads from Denver and the Xgate. That means spotty coverage. Keep looting, but be ready to bolt.”
I received the standard acknowledgments from my team leaders. Slister even sent a reply. She was off getting more construction sections with the firefighters, desperate for housing. I was expecting some sort of negative comments from Eddy or Bradley for defending ourselves. I was surprised when none came. I wondered how much of that was taking no casualties.
“This is Colonel Reinhardt. I am ordering you to surrender your munitions and food to Aspen,” the radio said with a squelch at the end.
I rolled my eyes. I heard some of my former members snickering.
“Pfft… Colonel, my orders are direct from the president herself. Which I can assure you, yours are not. When your Gpad lights up, you have entered our territory. I am not opposed to trading, but I sure as hell will defend what we have. As evident by the five dead civilians.”
Willow sat in my lap and I kis
sed her cheek. The first of the big trucks fired up. Torrez sent me a message that he had to apply his Gpad admin override to convince the startups to activate. Well, at least the batteries worked on the machines. I was worried they wouldn’t start.
“I am calling bullshit. However, we have decided to come to your Gtower line so you can verify President Hansen -”
“Growlen.”
“Okay, I am impressed. Not many know that. I will come to the line. Verify your story and we can go from there.”
“Hey, Colonel.”
“What?”
“You need to ask who I am.”
“It will be revealed. Either you got the drop on five untrained people trying to improve our situation, or maybe you are some spec ops commandos. I did see the helicopters; four or five flights of them. That is what landed you a real conversation with the boss.”
“Okay, that is fair. As I said, we did not want this violence. We defended ourselves and have already fought off one attack from the flapions.”
“Winged-scorpions? I have kept their existence quiet. We lost two night guards to them. They hit a small outpost and fled with their prizes. The drones saw them heading for Specter Gate 16232.”
“Xgate 232 as we call it, but I understand. Do not piss off the deermen, please. They have a full division, plus an army.”
“Huh, we have been avoiding the Specter Gate, as we are trying to consolidate. Colonel Reinhardt out.”
The radio went silent. I let his words stir in me. They obviously knew the gate was here. They also did not care about risking troops near it. This had me guessing that this team we killed were probably being sent further for supplies. Possibly as an initiation as well. Or maybe they were trying to gain esteem. I mulled over the reasoning. No, MacDougal was an Aspen resident. He built his own home and instantly made a million in equity by constructing something unique. The others though…
“Willow, babe. Hand me the other Gpads please.”
The last of the big rigs lurched forward when the driver applied too much electricity. I thought these were gas guzzlers, but only two of the six were. I guess the county taxes went into expensive machines. When the last truck rolled out, we joined the convoy for home.
“Hey Cap, you got a moment?” Eddy asked through the command talk on our Gpads.
“Go,” I replied.
“Hmm. News of Aspen will probably have others leaving,” Eddy said.
“And?”
“You are not worried?”
I sighed. I guess I had been through enough of the military bullshit to know what was going on with limited information. I checked over the Gpads Willow handed me and I had been right. The MacDougal was grooming potential recruits. The girl that died trying to get a shot on Torrez, she had a printed copy of enlistment papers. Five successful loot runs and she could join the Aspen army. Not the US Army. The Aspen army. Yeah...
I snapped some photos and sent him all the relevant data. “Hey Eddy,” I said with a sad chuckle.
“Yeah boss, this is bad. If this is how you get in, where are all the people being kept out staying?”
“That is my point. If people leave seeking refuge there, Aspen will not let them in. This screams of a pyramid scheme to me. Get five raids to feed the people already inside. Even if they were sitting on extra food, why force people to loot to get in?”
I released the mic as he and others in the command channel digested the latest information. Willow kissed me and frowned. “We did not bury the bodies.”
“We probably should have. I am sorry. That is a fair complaint. Knowing them now, I feel bad. That kid shot first, then they reacted violently. They were still humans with family and people they loved.”
I typed on my Gpad, asking for Mclain to bury the bodies on his way home. He confirmed he would and I thanked him. Torrez sent me a text; he was watching the tavers from up top and they seemed to be doing fine. The gunfire did not spook them. For all he could tell, they were enjoying the ride.
Eddy keyed back up his mic and said, “So… Do we want to rescue some of those outside Aspen? I guess I am asking how you want to spin this news.”
Willow frowned while Nancy chuckled. There was an animosity growing between the two. I keyed the mic. “Give me a few.”
“Nancy, Willow, back bedroom now,” I ordered.
Douglas grinned and lifted his goggles off. When he saw my angry red face, he shoved the goggles back on. That’s right, keep flying that drone.
The three of us went into the bedroom. Willow crossed her arms angrily. Nancy sat on the bed and patted it for Willow to sit. Both sets of blue eyes glared at me intently. Nancy was relaxed with a smirk, while Willow was flustered. Her face was twisted in a tight expression with red cheeks.
“Cap is great at diffusing tensions. We have tension. You’re being innocent and I know him… well, the situation better,” Nancy held up a hand to keep us from talking while shifting to sitting cross-legged. “I see the door is closed. I am going to call him Eric, who has immensely difficult decisions to make. I support him because he is my commander. He is your lover, which means you want him to do the right thing. News flash, girl, the right thing is not always the right thing.”
“Cut the condescending tone, Nancy,” I said with furled brows. Nancy was being snide.
“What the fuck does that even mean? I realize there are gray areas in life. Now I am getting angry and I am not sure why,” Willow said with crossed arms.
“Eric is the hero and the villain. It depends on which side of the story you fall on. It depends on how you view the situation. Stop fucking judging his decision or the crew will start to isolate you. We trusted him through the hell of the desert. Our harsh actions created such a reputation that the roving gangs left us the fuck alone. I know you want to be a warrior like us, but Willow,” Nancy said, throwing up her hands in the air. She was clearly getting flustered too. “The dark days have not even started. Saudi Arabia turned grim after about three weeks of no food. We still have weeks before ribs start to show and an inner beast inside humanity is unlocked.”
Willow looked to me and I opened my arms. She was confused, but accepted my gesture.
“We are going to lie to the citizens. We are going to leave bodies unburied sometimes. We are going to turn away good people if we have to. We are going to avoid rescuing those desperate for help when we cannot sustain them. We are going to do what it takes for the community,” I said, kissing her forehead. “I am with Nancy on this one. Control your poker face. Do not let the others see you as soft. You are being trained to be an officer and a leader. I have no problem with you shifting to a different job if you find the darkness of our new reality too consuming.”
“Okay, I get it. I just grew up thinking the military was all about saving the day. And hell no, I am not going to catch rabbits or till fields. I am your soldier in training. I will keep my reactions more neutral and supportive,” Willow said confidently. She then twirled a finger dramatically until it pointed at Nancy. “Your job is to keep him from pulling me to the side. Next time, you should be helping me.”
Nancy opened her mouth and I mouthed ‘no’ with mine. She snapped her mouth closed, hopped off the bed, and shooed me out of the room. I closed the door behind me, letting them chat. I called Eddy.
“Sorry about the delay, Eddy. Do we want to accept a lot more refugees? Long answer, absolutely. Short answer, hell no. We have three natural walls of mountains defending us. Lots of power, freshwater, and room to expand. Not until we build enough space. However…” I paused while sliding into my recliner seat. We turned left onto our dirt road. “We can move people into locations close to us and give them food, water, and a place to bathe. When we have more space, we can take them in. They can even drive over and work the day shift to build their own home. I merely do not want to take more people in. The mansion would be so packed that no one sleeps because we're standing inside a house that is a hundred degrees with no place to lay down.”
; “You said the short answer in a long spiel and the long answer in one word. Just saying,” Eddy said, and I caught Dedric snickering.
“You got me. I guess we deliver that idea to the council. If they approve, we can send a team out to give our offer. I personally would not risk it until they come to us. I bet the Colonel sends them flooding our way to relieve his problem now that they know we exist. It is best if we do not cross Aspen territory lines unless we are desperate.”
“You think a turf war can start?” Perci said. I knew she was listening to the command channel.
“One already has. We have a turf war with humans, alien bugs to our west, and then the Xgates. This is exactly why I am so desperate to forage now. The moment we get home, the teams are going back out to looting close range locations. Aspen will one hundred percent stop sending hunting parties this way if everything is picked clean. We have only been gone for five hours. I need more drone operators. I will wake up Peterson at six so we have more coverage. Mitchell, we’re twenty mikes out on the dirt road.”
“Roger,” Mitchell said.
“I just want to be clear. If someone says they want to go to Aspen, what are we saying to them?” Bradley the firefighter asked. I frowned, not realizing he was on the channel. It made sense to make him an officer since he was in charge of eighty plus people. “Hard facts or soft truths?”
“One moment.”
‘Aspen has a stronghold and a standing militia. They have solar power, probably water, and a military leader. They also are not accepting new people. Most of Denver flooded into Aspen, seeking fancy homes to squat in. I bet they have tons of space we do not have. They are already desperate for food. The source of information we have is that new recruits have to establish themselves with five raids for Aspen before they are allowed in. I am guessing here, but those raids will include alien planet raids once the surrounding area is picked clean. We are working with their leadership to establish trade and potentially joint raids. If you decide to go to Aspen, we at Stronghold Mansion will not stop you. You can leave with what you brought with you. Just know, you will very likely be scorned and denied entry. We already lost one good man who was trying to swap sides; he now has a widowed wife and two kids. There is a lesson here. Lastly, I get more information tonight. If anything new is established with Colonel Reinhardt, I will pass the message to you all.” - Captain King Eric
