“But you didn’t find them armed with these shotguns,” Padma Rosenfeld said.
“There’s two possibilities to consider, I think,” KC spoke up. “First, this group was on a stealth mission, and they left their shotguns behind so that they wouldn’t be tempted to use them. Second, it’s kinda like the Russians at Stalingrad during World War 2. They didn’t have enough rifles to issue to every soldier, so they’d give a loaded rifle to one guy, and the next four guys behind him would be given a single reload of ammo with the idea being when the first guy fell, the second guy would pick up his rifle, reload, and start shooting until he was killed, and then the cycle would start again with the third guy in line until they ran out of bullets or they ran out of guys.”
Mack had opened the other pouch and removed the magazine within it, examining the ammo contained in each one. “In case you were wondering, I don’t think these are actually .410 shotgun shells. I think they’re .40 caliber caseless rifle bullets.”
“I don’t understand what you mean by ‘caseless’,” Teddy stated with a chorus of agreement from some of the others.
“Instead of a brass case or plastic shell, the propellant is a solid block that encases the projectile. It’s solid until it’s set off in the chamber,” Mack explained. “They also call ‘em ‘self-consuming’ cases.”
“And what’s the advantage of that?” Teddy asked.
“Theoretically, it reduces weight and cost and simplifies the operation of the firing mechanism by eliminating the need to eject that expensive brass case. The G-11 prototype by Heckler & Koch showed that caseless rounds could be shot at an extremely high cyclic rate. It had a three-round burst that cycled at twenty-one hundred rounds per minute. That means the third round was already on the way to the target before you began to feel the recoil from the first round,” Mack said with a look of glee in his eye.
“Then, why ain’t all guns using this stuff?” Samuels wondered aloud.
“Because they’re shit,” Liam snorted. “Caseless ammo is notoriously sensitive to heat; it’s fragile as hell, and instead of being cheaper, the crap was more expensive; not to mention it only worked in light calibers. The G-11 was chambered in a 4.73mm. That’s smaller than a .223! That’s like a, uh...”
“Point-one-eight-six,” KC supplied. “Slightly larger than a standard sized air gun pellet.”
“Well, whoever’s equipping these critters they seem to have overcome those problems,” Mack said. “Like I said, the slug is easily .40 caliber, which means it’ll hit a lot harder than a .308 or a 7.62x39.”
“Isn’t .40 caliber the same as 10mm?” Pilar asked. She’d been rummaging through one of the fanny bags.
“Yeah, why?”
“Wasn’t that the caliber of the pulse rifles in Aliens? Ten millimeter caseless?”
“Yeah, it was a, um, 10x23mm caseless with a 30mm grenade launcher, but they built it with a .45 ACP Thompson submachine gun and a Remington 870 12 gauge shotgun.”
“Your knowledge of movie gun trivia is impressive,” Teddy chuckled.
“His knowledge of trivia is impressive, which is why he’s banned from trivia night as anything other than a judge,” Liam cackled.
“What are you getting at, Pilar?” Mack asked, ignoring the dig.
“I found a box of actual shotgun shells,” Pilar said, holding up the plain brown box. It had no manufacturer’s name listed. Instead, it simply read: 12 ga. Grenade, High Explosive.
“We are so very in trouble,” Teddy sighed.
SAMECH-ASSARA EFES-Echad’s chest still burned where the giant warrior’s bullets had impacted his body armor. He resisted the urge to massage the large bruises or to touch the bandage where a third bullet had gouged a furrow in the left side of his head. Had Samech-Assara not already been diving away from the incoming fire, that third bullet would have gone through his left eye, and four dead warriors would have been added to the Rolls of the Fallen Heroes instead of three. Recovering those three warriors, including his could-have-been mate Vav-Tishasar Efes-Shnayim, was his current mission.
The young warrior did not understand how the hyoo-man warrior had detected them. The warriors of The People had been well camouflaged. In fact, Samech-Assara and his cohorts had been sitting in that spot, wrapped in their ponchos, long enough for falling snow to have completely covered their bodies, just waiting for the chance to surprise and kill more of the hyoo-mans. They had only broken cover and flung their darts on the hissed command of their Rishon, Gimel-Shisha Achadasar-Tisha. The old warrior had been the first the giant hyoo-man killed. The second had been the Sheni, Dalet-Chamichasar Arbaa-Esrim, and the third, of course, was Vav-Tishasar Efes-Shnayim. Eight warriors of The People had attacked. Three had died; four had been wounded. The lone warrior who’d escaped injury, Qof-Shlosha Shloshim-Shiva-Shiva, now crouched by his side.
“We attack?” Qof-Shlosha signed.
Samech-Assara shook his head and signed, “We creep.”
Qof-Shlosha nodded understanding and passed the signs back to their comrades, a group of ten fresh warriors who had not been blooded yet.
Looking back and seeing the nodding heads of the warriors he’d been placed in charge of, Samech-Assara made the sign for “execute order” and began his own painstaking creep toward the building where the bodies of their slain comrades had been taken.
SAMUELS LISTENED TO the group speculate more about the monsters, but he didn’t care. Speculation wasn’t the same as facts in evidence. He could speculate, too, and he speculated that the monsters were tools, either of their government or somebody else’s, and the real villains in this story were just as human as he was. MacDuff and his bossy wife, MacMurray, were really smart. In fact, Samuels had the bossy wife pegged as an honest to goodness genius, but MacDuff was surprisingly smart, too. Probably self-educated from the way he mispronounced a couple of words. At least, Samuels assumed they were mispronounced based on his own beliefs about how those words should be said.
He wandered away from the group. Their blue pickup had been backed into the repair bay area, and the large doors were partially open. Samuels was feeling a little overheated and in desperate need of a smoke. He leaned up against the side of the truck and started to shake a cigarette out of the pack of Camels that he always carried in his shirt pocket.
That was when it happened. He just happened to glance toward the group as he was patting his pockets trying to remember where he’d put his Bic lighter when he saw three heads snap in his directions simultaneously. The wind had turned in just that moment, blowing into the repair bay, and as Samuels laid his hand on his lighter, MacDuff, MacMurray, and Mexican Velma, whose real name he could never recall, all turned and peered intently at him.
Samuels pocketed the lighter and took the cig out of his mouth with a heavy sigh, but then he realized they weren’t staring at him but past him. MacDuff came striding over with MacMurray close on his heels, Mexican Velma right on hers. They all stopped next to him, and Samuels would forever after swear on the same stack of Bibles as Natty Moon swore by that the three of them sniffed the air like a pack of hound dogs.
MacDuff glanced over at Samuels. “You still got my shotgun?”
Samuels nodded and patted the sling across his shoulder. He’d made time to stop and grab his own long gun, a Winchester XPR bolt action rifle in .308, which was propped against the truck next to him. Mack held his hand out, and Samuels passed the weapon over.
“Why the XPR?”
Samuels started at the question. “Oh! Uh, well, it’s got a detachable box magazine. It’s only three rounds, but I can reload it faster than a rifle with an internal mag.”
“You have extra mags for it?”
Samuels nodded. “Not a lot; just two extra.”
Mack nodded while listening to Samuels. He was also swiftly unloading the Mossberg, catching and pocketing each shell as he ejected it. “Then, you’ll definitely need to hold onto this until we can get you something better suited for this kind of battle.
”
“Huh?”
Mack pulled a box of the monsters’ 12 gauge grenades from another pocket and began loading the shotgun with them. “Good thing Mossberg makes all the 590s with a three inch chamber, otherwise we wouldn’t be able to use their own ammo against them. Hm, only four rounds per box.”
“Here,” Pilar said, offering him one of the other boxes of shotgun grenades.
“Thanks.” Mack loaded three more rounds into the magazine, pumped one into the chamber, and topped the magazine off with the last round. Then, he handed the shotgun back to Samuels. “Please be careful with that. We don’t know how powerful the grenade rounds are yet.”
“Y-yeah, sure,” Samuels stammered. “Uh, why the reload?”
“Two reasons. First, I had it loaded with kitchen sink rounds. Just think of it as really expensive buckshot that we don’t need here and now. Second, there’s a party of ten to twelve trogs sneaking up on us right now.”
Samuels’ eyes bulged.
“Stay. Calm.”
Samuels nodded his head.
“Good. Now, I want you to stay here with Pilar and Liam. She’s gonna call targets, and the two of you are gonna shoot where she tells you. Use the grenades first. You don’t even have to be as accurate with a grenade as you do with buckshot. First, though, we’re gonna get Teddy and the egg heads out of here. Then, KC and I are going up to the roof. When you hear us open fire, you open fire. This is our chance to ambush them.”
“Right on, boss,” Samuels growled in agreement. “Right on.”
Chapter Six
Twin Lakes, Colorado
Thursday, March 14, 2019
SAMECH-ASSARA FELT a weird itch between his shoulder blades. Not a natural itch. A feeling of impending doom. He wondered if his encounter with the hyoo-man warrior had affected his confidence. The giant had done amazing things: caught a dart in flight and used it to swat other darts out of the air; fired upon The People with a blaster with near perfect accuracy; moved across the snow laden landscape with the grace and ease of one of The People. Hyoo-mans were not supposed to be able to do that. Only luck and the Great Ones’ body armor had saved his own life.
Qof-Shlosha hissed softly to gain Samech-Assara’s attention. The other veteran pointed toward a tree and made the signs for “shelter” and “rest”. Creeping was an intensive exercise. It required supreme discipline to move so slowly so as to avoid detection. In fact, moving to the tree Qof-Shlosha had indicated would require many minutes of effort, but Samech-Assara agreed with a nod. His head wound was aching, and the rest period would do him some good.
Minutes later, the two People crouched in the lee of a large pine tree. Qof-Shlosha opened his own first aid pouch and began changing the bandage on Samech-Assara’s head without being told to do so. Samech-Assara appreciated his comrade’s kindness. While Qof-Shlosha attended to changing the bandage, Samech-Assara took the pause to check on the progress of the rest of the warriors given to his command. Being named Rishon for the first time was a great honor. The title was not permanent, not yet, but success in this mission could earn him that place. The young warriors, though inexperienced, were proceeding through the Creep with good efficiency.
This mission was a stealth task, which meant the warriors were armed with stealth weapons. Four of the warriors carried atlatls and three darts each. Another four were armed with crossbows, powerful compound weapons that actually had a magazine of three bolts. The crossbows could be relatively quickly re-cocked and reloaded with a pumping action. Not nearly as close to silent as an atlatl, the crossbows were significantly more powerful, and those warriors carried a quiver of thirty bolts to reload the weapon.
The final four warriors, including himself and Qof-Shlosha, were armed with blasters. While the Great Ones were generous with weapons like atlatls, crossbows, daggers, and hand-axes, they were rather stingy with blasters. The Great Ones’ armory held enough blasters to equip every one of The People from the adolescents to the doddering elders, but they rarely issued more than four per ten warriors. Even then only the most loyal warriors were honored to be called “blaster warriors.”
The blaster was an incredibly powerful weapon. The weapon sported five barrels. The smallest barrel was on top, fed from the magazine which was inserted behind the handle. In front of the handle, beneath the small barrel was a cluster of four large barrels. That whole assembly would slide forward allowing four of the explosive grenade rounds to be loaded. Then, it would lock back into place.
The handle had a full hand guard, and the trigger for the four-barrel grenade launcher was mounted in front of it within a second guard. A blaster warrior would grip the handle guard in order to reach the grenade launcher trigger with their firing hand. The blaster’s small barrel was it’s primary projectile launcher, and the magazine that fed it held thirty bullets. The primary weapon could fire single shots, three-round bursts, or continuously. Well, continuously until the bullets ran out. The People had been taught by the Great Ones’ Paladins to only use single shots or three-round bursts unless engaging in suppression fire. As Rishon of this mission, only Samech-Assara could authorize suppressive fire. Otherwise, his warriors would engage in single shot or three-round fire.
Every warrior carried spare ammunition for the blaster warriors. Even with good discipline, a blaster warrior could quickly run out of bullets or grenades in a prolonged fight. Blaster warriors carried more ammunition than their comrades, four extra magazines and eight extra grenades, but even then the feeling was that having more munitions available was always good, whether requesting it from a live comrade or looting a dead one. Besides, should a blaster warrior fall in battle, another warrior could retrieve his blaster and continue the fight.
Qof-Shlosha finished his task and patted Samech-Assara’s shoulder. Samech-Assara signed his thanks. Then, the world exploded.
“TEDDY, IT’S TIME FOR you all to vamoose,” Mack interrupted the conversation going on between the Mayor, the Livery manager, the biologist, the town medic, and the Female King of the Mountain Men.
“What’s up?” Natty Moon asked. The way she was fondling her old shotgun suggested that she was eager for some action.
“There’s a raiding party incoming,” Mack replied bluntly.
“How do you know?” Ole Alstrom and Roland Rounds asked nearly in unison.
“I’m a psychic,” KC blurted. “Yeah, prophetic dreams and visions, ESP, the whole annoying nine yards. I have a, uh, ‘vibe’ that we’re in danger.”
Teddy looked to Mack for confirmation. The Marine sighed and nodded. “Yeah, she’s ‘psychic’, and she’s uncomfortably accurate. Look, the point is we’re in immediate danger here. We’re setting up an ambush, but I’ll feel better if you folks are under cover when the fuse gets lit, and on that note, Teddy, I think it’d be a really good idea to stuff as many kids and old folks as you can fit into that panic room of yours.”
Teddy snickered and shook his head. The Englishman, who’d previously owned the Bank and converted it into a home, had turned the Bank’s old vault into a panic room for himself to retreat to in case he ever came under attack while at home.
“The panic room isn’t that large,” Teddy sighed. Then, he grinned. “The bunker, on the other hand...”
“What bunker?” Mack demanded ahead of the other demands for clarification.
“The Englishman was, apparently, one really paranoid bastard. There’s a hatch in the panic room that leads down to an underground bunker, and it is nice, let me tell you. I could keep my whole family safe down there for a couple of years just on what the Englishman stocked for himself for a decade or two. Here’s the good news about the bunker: it has an escape tunnel.”
“Really? Where’s it come out?”
“That’s the bad news. You know that bend in the drive between the first and second notches? Yeah, that’s where it comes out.”
Mack heaved a sigh of disappointment. The hatch itself was likely under a couple of feet of snow, which wo
uldn’t be hard to shove aside even for somebody with normal human strength. The problem was that the lower notch would be buried under six or seven feet of snow by now making it impassable. Something tingled at the back of Mack’s mind.
“There’s a hiking trail near there that bypasses the notches.”
“I know right where you’re talking about,” Natty spoke up. “That trail is kinda rough, if you’re thinking about sending kids and old folks on a hike down to the highway, but it does come out just down the road from the gas station.”
“Great minds think alike, Natty, and so do ours,” Mack winked. “For right now, though, get as many kids and old folks down into the bunker as you can. Anybody willing to fight needs to hang out in the Bank. That’s our most defendable building thanks to our paranoid Englishman. For now, though, KC and I have to get to the roof for our part in the ambush.”
“What if the tourists balk at going into the bunker?” Teddy asked.
Mack pointed to the trog bodies. “Take a couple of those with you and toss ‘em down where folks can see them. That should shut people up. Maybe give Ole and Padma a chance to really examine the bodies for other clues we can use to survive.”
“Sounds good to me,” Ole declared. “Come on, Roland, you grab one end of the tarp, and I’ll take the other. We can drag them with us.”
“I’ll help, too,” Teddy offered.
“I’ll be your watcher,” Natty declared, racking a round into the chamber of her gun.
ONCE ON THE ROOF, MACK and KC crouched down behind a low wall that marked the edge.
“Does Natty scare you sometimes?” KC asked as she readied her AR556.
“Kinda,” Mack agreed. “But in a good way.”
He set the Hammer on the edge of the low wall. For a moment he considered swapping the 25-round mag for a 50-round drum, but decided against it for now. Then, he closed his eyes and listened. Although scent had alerted him to the presence of the trogs, his hearing was how he knew precisely how many of them were stealthily sneaking up on them. He could make out heart beats, even at this range. For the last four months, he’d been teaching Pilar the same technique, so he knew that she would be able to call the shots for Samuels and Liam.
Cassandra Case Files Page 13
