Determination

by Nathan Jones

  He hoped whatever preparations they'd made were enough.

  “All right, everyone,” he shouted. “Our job is to move the camp before it's completely destroyed, so let's get going!”

  * * * * *

  Trev crouched halfway up the southern slope, behind a pile of deadfall up to his chest that stretched for nearly a hundred yards in a diagonal northeast to southwest slant. He had Deb and Grant with him, while the rest of his squad was in three more teams behind similar woodpiles, scattered all the way along the mile of territory they were assigned to guard.

  Thanks to Lewis, Trev was fairly confident the Aspen Hill volunteers would be able to defend their stretch of forested slope south of Highway 31. Although admittedly this was an ideal spot for the blockheads to push in large numbers, through the thick cover provided by the trees, so the danger was very real.

  That plentiful cover would favor the enemy nearly as much as Lewis's volunteers in a firefight, as long as the blockheads didn't walk into any outright ambushes. Which meant that even with prepared emplacements the fighting would be brutal, and the enemy would almost certainly win in the end. Probably with far fewer losses than acceptable.

  Unfortunately for the blockheads, nature was on Lewis's side.

  Specifically, after facing one attack after another in the last few weeks his cousin had begun seriously considering what would happen if the enemy came with more than probes of one or two squads. He'd brainstormed with Trev, Jane, and the other squad leaders, and none of them had liked the obvious answers, so they'd begun looking at a way of turning the terrain in their favor.

  That terrain was a slope densely treed with evergreens and a few small pockets of aspen, and about half of those evergreens had been killed off by the wave of bark beetles that had ravaged the area over the last decade or so. The insects had left ugly swaths of dead gray trees across mountainsides throughout the Manti-La Sal National Forest, still standing but ready to topple with a strong wind or winter conditions. Many had toppled, contributing to the thick tangle of deadfall blanketing the forest floor.

  It created dangerous conditions for fires, several of which had already run rampant through the National Forest area. The amount of work it would've taken to clear away the dead trees had been daunting even before the Gulf burned, and now the area seemed doomed to devastation by wildfires at any time.

  Lewis had decided that, for this particular slope and assuming the blockheads decided to try their luck sending large numbers of troops up it, that time was now.

  Whenever they'd had spare time Trev and the other leaders had put their squads to work, piling branches and armfuls of dead pine needles beneath carefully positioned and stacked piles of deadfall in optimal places. While planning those piles they'd done their best to judge the prevailing winds and lay of the land, to guess where the fire would go once started. That was impossible to predict with perfect accuracy, but they'd done their best.

  Lewis also had them clear away the upper slopes and create firebreaks that would hopefully push the flames downslope, leaving the area untouched where the Aspen Hill volunteers had set up to defend in earnest. They'd alerted the squads under Sergeant Thompson to the south of them of their plans, leaving them with a choice of what they wanted: to set up conditions so the fire would burn their terrain as well, or to create their own firebreaks to contain the fire to the southern slope.

  Thompson's people had opted for firebreaks, and Trev didn't exactly blame them. Fire could spread with frightening speed, especially on a windy day, and especially helped along with a bit of planning and preparation. Once it got started they'd have to hope their efforts to contain it would be enough, because none of them were in a position to attempt major firefighting operations. Especially not during an attack.

  By the same token, when Lewis sprung his trap the blockheads would have to either try to outrun the fire's spread to reach the safety of the upper slopes, walking right into ambushes they wouldn't have time to approach carefully, or fight the spreading flames even as they fought the Aspen Hill volunteers. As their least desirable option they could back away and let the wildfire run its course, then try again after the flames had out. Which could take hours or even days.

  If the enemy went for that last option they'd then find themselves attacking up a bare, blackened slope where hiding would be next to impossible. Their only choice would be to charge uphill into a withering hail of automatic fire, firing back at an entrenched enemy shooting at them from behind the safety of emplacements. Brutal didn't begin to describe the prospect.

  No, Trev didn't expect to have too much trouble defending this forested slope. Sure, it was possible things might go wrong and the wildfire wouldn't burn as they hoped, especially since it was harder to get a fire burning downslope than upslope. But even so he was fairly confident his people had done enough to match this threat.

  Although he didn't look forward to the coming hours or even days.

  Time dragged by at a crawl hidden behind the deadfall, waiting for Lewis to give the signal to start the fires. That was going to be dangerous, because his cousin wanted the blockheads to advance as far up the slope as possible before springing the trap. That meant that after Trev's squad lit these fire lines they'd have to bolt for safety upslope, probably while eluding an enemy that could see the whites of their eyes. Lewis and Jane's squads would cover them, but that was dubious consolation.

  As for Gutierrez and Ben, their squads were on the other side of the ridge, defending the south slope of Highway 31's canyon with Harmon's squad. They'd have their own challenges to face, so Trev couldn't really hope for backup from them if things went wrong here. He'd just have to make sure they didn't.

  Slow as time seemed to pass, it didn't feel like long at all before Lewis's voice came through his earbuds. “All right, Trev, the blockheads are moving. We've got a few hundred headed directly for us. Make sure your people have their escape routes planned and are ready on my mark.”

  “Team one, ready,” Trev said. Rick, Trent, and Hans, the other team leaders, reported ready as well.

  Trev unslung his rifle and carefully moved to a spot where he could look over the deadfall, seeing down the slope without being seen. The trees were too thick here to see all the way the valley below, and he didn't hear any sounds from the approaching enemy either. Not yet, at least.

  Grant remained hidden behind the deadfall, one of their last Molotov cocktails in hand. Trent and Hans each had one as well, while Rick would have to make do with balls of cloth soaked in some of the gasoline from the Molotovs.

  The idea would be to set fires, using the dead pine needles and some paper as kindling, along the middle and top parts of the four lines of piled deadwood. Then, once those fires had really started, they'd lob the incendiaries downslope to the lowest part of the line, where the fire needed to grow the fastest and burn the hottest.

  Hopefully the rising flames would distract the blockheads from Trev's teams, all bolting like mad up the slope for safety.

  Rather than wait with Grant, Deb picked a spot beside Trev where she could also watch down the slope, standing on one of the lower logs. “Trev?” she said quietly after about a minute.

  He glanced over and saw she wasn't looking his way, eyes locked on the trees below. He also noticed that she was sweating more than the cool, windy morning could account for. In spite of her determination she was obviously terrified, but her hands were steady on her AK-47.

  “I'm here,” he said.

  She finally glanced at him. “I just, um, well, I wanted to thank you. For saving me, of course, and for letting me join your squad. But also for making sure I had the training I needed before you'd let me.” The brown-haired woman chewed her lower lip. “I know I've only been with you for a few days, but I wanted you to know that I'm glad there are still people out there I can depend on. I'd lost that after Vernon ditched us.”

  He felt his face flushing with embarrassment, although he was touched by her words. He only hoped he
could live up to that trust. “That means a lot,” he said quietly.

  Deb flushed with embarrassment too for some reason, and they both focused on the trees downslope of them. Maybe ten minutes later Trev finally caught the first flash of an enemy soldier, then another, then a whole line of them, with more coming behind. All moving cautiously from cover to cover below, with the inexorable inevitability of spilled molasses spreading across a tablecloth.

  Trev slowly lowered his head, motioning for Deb to do the same. “Get up to the top and get ready to light the fire there,” he whispered as he moved in a crouch back to where Grant waited.

  The brown-haired woman nodded, clutching her rifle tight to her chest with one hand as she cautiously crept her way up the slope. Trev got his balled paper and matches out and began setting them up in the nests of kindling and dry sticks he'd prepared.

  “Hold,” Lewis whispered in his earbuds. “Let them get closer.”

  Over the ridge behind him he heard the sound of gunfire and explosions start up, followed moments later by Harmon's voice. “We've engaged the enemy along Highway 31.”

  A few other volunteers radioed in to report similar engagements, one already asking for help. Trev wasn't sure if that was panic or they really were in trouble, but Davis replied that he was coming with reinforcements. He didn't sound happy about it, though.

  “Hold,” Lewis said again. “All but you, Trev; the blockheads are farthest up the slope near your team. Start your fires now.”

  Trev struck the match and began touching it to paper, crouch-walking his way along to hit every spot. Upslope Deb had also gotten to work, cursing softly when she accidentally dropped a match but wasting no time lighting a new one. Behind Trev Grant lit the Molotov and held it ready.

  “Everyone else, light your fires now,” Lewis said. “Trev, you need to toss your cocktail and get out now. Now!”

  A soft whoosh behind him signaled his teammate throwing the firebomb down the slope. Grant had assured him his aim was good, and he lived up to his word. The gas-filled jar smashed into the middle of the nest of sticks and needles they'd piled on top of the deadfall, down at the very bottom of the line.

  The bottle shattered into a spray of liquid fire, splashing across the dry wood and kindling and starting it up like a torch. From there it immediately began spreading through the densely packed trees and deadfall downslope and to the south, and Trev heard alarmed shouts from enemy soldiers.

  He grabbed Grant by the shoulder and hauled him into a sprint upslope, keeping behind the cover of the deadfall line. Deb, following orders, had bolted as soon as she set her fires, and was already thirty feet up the slope ahead.

  Behind him gunfire sounded, and he instinctively ducked down even though he was confident he was covered. They reached the end of the fire line, where Deb's lit fires were already larger than campfires and spreading fast, and Trev led the way through the dense trees along the path they'd cleared ahead of time.

  There was no need to worry about the enemy using that clear path against them, since within minutes this place would be an inferno, and within hours it would be a wasteland of ash and blackened stumps.

  He barely heard Lewis's voice in his earbuds as he continued his mad scramble to safety. “Everyone else, throw your cocktails and get out!”

  To the south and downslope, at the very edge of his vision when he glanced that way, he saw two more brilliant explosions of liquid flame. Hopefully Rick, farthest south, had managed to throw his cloth balls to similar, if not quite as spectacular, effect. They'd set up his fire line to burn quickest, so that might make up for it.

  After a frantic couple minutes of scrambling he reached the firebreak near the top of the slope. Deb was waiting there, hands on her knees as she panted to get her breath back. Trev caught up to her and offered a helping hand, and together his team climbed the rest of the way to the nearest of the emplacements they'd built there.

  Judging by the haphazardly stacked piles of hastily gathered supplies and equipment, Lewis and Jane's squads had managed to move the camp in time. The emplacements were also stocked with shovels, buckets of water, and other firefighting tools. Just in case.

  Lewis was waiting in the emplacement with a team, and as Trev's team stumbled in he came over and clapped Trev on the shoulder. “Good job, guys.”

  Trev sucked in enough breath to ask. “The other teams?”

  “All safely away.” His cousin smiled. “Mostly because the blockheads discovered the greater part of valor. They bolted back downslope as soon as they realized they were walking into the beginning of a wildfire.”

  That was mixed news. “So we don't get to burn up hundreds of them, or send them running into our ambushes.”

  “No. But they won't be doing anything along this slope for a while, so our people are safe.” Lewis clapped him on the shoulder again. “I'm taking my squad to help Gutierrez and Ben. Jane's taking hers to help Thompson's people south of here. I want you to keep your squad up here watching the fire, to alert us when and if any blockheads make their move on this slope. While you're at it finish moving our stuff over the ridge and out of the way.”

  “Gotcha.” Trev let himself collapse to the ground and pant for a bit, while Lewis's team got together their gear and headed out. They were joined by their squad mates from the other emplacements, and quickly slipped out of view towards 31.

  He toggled his radio. “My squad, post sentries to watch the slope while we move our supplies the rest of the way to safety. After that we're splitting into two man teams to watch the emplacements. All but Rick and Trent . . . you guys have solo duty.”

  “So we've got fire watch?” Alice asked. “Is that a good or bad thing?”

  Trev glanced downslope at what could now officially be classified as bonfires, which were spreading in all directions and starting to leap where the wind caught them. “It's a vacation, as long as the fire goes where we want it.”

  * * * * *

  Over the next five hours, until roughly noon, Lewis and his squad fought in the canyon above 31.

  He'd survived plenty of fights since the Gulf burned, but few compared to that experience. For one thing the tanks stationed in Huntington rolled out, and to cover the blockheads approaching on foot they began shelling the emplacements along the road from a distance. If they hadn't already known Davis's fighters were out of antitank missiles, they had to know it after that provocation produced zero response.

  Several people died in the first few hits, after which the fighters were forced to abandon the emplacements and scatter along the slopes. Without the cover of the fortifications the hundreds of blockheads streaming into the canyon were far more of a threat, and holding them back became a serious challenge. Even using their few remaining grenades barely slowed the enemy.

  As the hours passed they were forced to give ground yard by yard, until they'd been pushed back almost half a mile up the canyon. The fighters desperately holding the ridges to either side became surrounded, and it was all they could do to keep the enemy back until Davis and his reinforcements managed to push in and hold the north ridge.

  On the south ridge Trev and everyone in his squad but Alice and Deb, who remained as lookouts, came up and over to help out. Some of that help came in the form of holding the emplacement alongside the beleaguered fighters. But more importantly, at the same time Trev worked to bridge the firebreak they'd created along the ridge, which was keeping the wildfire from getting into the canyon itself.

  It was an incredibly risky maneuver, but since the canyon was already nearly lost there were few other options. Once freed, the fire swept around and raged across the south slope in the canyon, engulfing dozens of blockheads in flames and forcing the rest to flee right at Lewis and the other canyon fighters.

  The fighting had become beyond fierce at that point, but eventually they killed or captured the enemy soldiers or drove them back into the flames. In the meantime Davis managed to take and hold the north ridge, and working together hi
s and Harmon's fighters pushed the blockheads back to the mouth of the canyon again.

  The blockheads backed away for a while after that. Davis's fighters used the time to halt the wildfire's advance on the south slope, then regroup and prepare for the next wave of the attack.

  That was the good news. The fighting wasn't going so great along other fronts, and Gold Bloc forces had managed to break through in several spots. The military forces there, routed and panicking, had all they could do to withdraw and set up new positions. In the meantime enemy soldiers were drawing perilously close to two different refugee camps, which were undergoing emergency evacuation while soldiers scrambled to plug the gaps.

  Lewis didn't have time to worry about any of that, though, since just after noon Trev radioed in to announce that the wildfire had died down along parts of the southern slope. The enemy wasn't wasting a moment responding to the opportunity, and once again hundreds of blockheads were massing down below to try pushing their way up. At the same time the tanks resumed their shelling of the canyon, and hundreds more blockheads pushed up the road for another attack.

  “Go,” Harmon told Lewis when he heard the news. Lewis nodded, shook the sergeant's hand, then gathered his squad. He'd lost two men in the canyon, but with the rest at his back he rushed to circle around the fires still raging on the south slope, hoping to get to his cousin in time to help. Jane had already pulled her squad back from helping Thompson's fighters, who weren't doing so great either but had managed to hold so far.

  Rather than making their way down from the ridge, they followed along it to where it connected to the main ridge the southern slope ran down from, in a fairly continuous hillside all the way to the valley below. A hillside that was still an inferno in many places.

  Near the top Trev, Jane, and their squads waited in the emplacements. It looked as if they'd lost three fighters from Jane's squad and one from Trev's, so the Aspen Hill volunteers had now lost six people in total.