by N. C. Reed
“That's what she said,” Zach nodded.
“Oh, you're just a regular little smart ass, aren't you?” she teased.
“I'm not that little, but my ass is smarter than average.”
–
“Stay low, stay quiet,” Doc warned and Titus nodded. They were very close to the action now and had no cover other than the tree line. They were essentially crawling through scrub and sage. In front of them they could see the lingering flames from the truck that had exploded earlier and could see occasional signs of movement from the men trying to reform behind the wrecked vehicles.
Tandi flashed a hand sign to Titus then pointed to a downed tree that paralleled the road. Titus nodded and crept to that tree, taking position behind it and moving until he had the best possible view of the forces on the road. The recently downed tree still had leaves hanging in a few places and offered a good mix of cover and concealment.
Tandi took a position to the right, finding cover behind the roots of a tree that had been blown over in a past storm. This tree had been down so long it was already rotted partially away, but the roots had been upended when the tree went, taking a large circle of dirt with them. The roots would provide Tandi with good cover though the position would limit his movement. Still, beggars couldn't be choosy. It was funny how you could see things you had overlooked once the stress was on. They should have had a real fighting position built here to start with. The risk of friendly fire from firing across the road toward the ranch had been deemed unacceptable at the time.
At times such as this however, that risk seemed to be very acceptable. Funny how bullets flying could make a lot of things look more acceptable.
–
Clay felt frustration bubbling over as he tried to see what was happening. Action on his front had fallen to nothing, not even the occasional gunfire coming his way. He picked up the field phone and called Jody Thompson.
“What are you seeing, Jody?”
“All movement is located behind their vehicles,” the sniper reported. “It appears two men are trying to rally the survivors. I'm waiting for a clear shot.”
“Nothing other than them moving behind the trucks?” Clay asked.
“Nothing,” Jody confirmed. “They may have someone secreted away who has gone still, but I haven't spotted anyone.”
“Roger that,” Clay replied. “I'm going to ask Greg to come out here and take my position here. Be ready to provide him cover fire.”
“Will do.”
Clay rang off and called the radio room.
“Home Plate,” Leanne answered at once.
“Leanne, I need to speak to Greg,” Clay said at once. He waited while Leanne got Greg to the phone.
“What's up?” Greg asked.
“I need you to come out here to this post and take over for me,” Clay told his friend. “There's no action coming this way right now, but. . .that can change in a hurry. Right now, there's a gaggle of tangos across the road behind their wrecks. I need to be over toward the tower. I've lost sight of what's happening. But Tandi had to go and I can't leave this post unmanned.”
“Be there in just a minute,” Greg replied at once and then was gone. Less than a minute later the door opened and Greg came sprinting out of Building Two, running to where Clay waited. Seconds later he was inside, breathing a little hard but otherwise okay.
“Out of shape,” he shook his head ruefully.
“We can overlook it this once,” Clay grinned in spite of the situation. “Nate and Kade have the left covered, but Corey is down. Stable but out of the fight. Mark Webb is dead.”
“Aw, man,” Greg hadn't heard that. “That's a damn shame.”
“It is, but I'm afraid he won't be the only one if we can't put an end to this soon. Jody will be able to support your position, but you’ll be on your own otherwise.”
“I'm sure I can manage,” Greg snorted. “Get going.”
“Thanks,” Clay clapped his friend on the shoulder and then shuffled out of the foxhole. He took off at a run for the tower. He had an idea of how to end this, but he needed to see what was still out there first.
–
“How long are they going to wait?” Zach wondered aloud.
“Someone is over there trying to get the survivors fired up,” Vicki pointed. They could hear someone practically yelling from behind the trucks littering the road but couldn't make out what was being said.
Zach picked up the field telephone and rang the switchboard.
“Home Plate,” he heard Leanne answer.
“Leanne, get me Tower One please,” he asked. “I need to talk to Heath.” He heard a buzzing sound and a few clicks.
“Tower One,” Heath answered.
“Heath, it's Zach. Can you make out anything about them? Behind those trucks I mean?”
“There are at least twenty left, but I think there's more” Heath reported. “I just can't see them all at once. Movement is limited, they're laying low for the moment. There is one, maybe two guys trying to pump them up, get them back into the fight, but I haven't been able to get a good shot at them. They move too quick and there's no pattern.”
“So, they aren't showing any signs of preparing to hit us again?” Zach wanted to be sure.
“Not that I can see, but even from up here I can only see so much. They're doing a good job staying out of sight. That's one reason I'm not sure of the count.”
“Well, if there was a cannon sniping at me, I'd be laying low too,” Zach pointed out. “Thanks man.”
“Sure.” The line went dead and Zach replaced the handset.
“You were right,” Zach told Vicki. “They are trying to get them back up. Heath can see movement every so often but can't get a shot at the man, or men, who are trying to motivate the rest. He can't see any sign of an attack brewing at the moment either.”
“First of all, for the record? I am always right,” Vicki assured him. “Second, it's hard to rally beaten troops to try another attack, and that's when the troops are trained and reliable. They don't have 'troops' in the literal sense of the word. It's just a collection of thugs trying to take something that doesn't belong to them. And finally, just because you can't see signs of an attack coming doesn't mean it isn't there. If there's a brain over there that appreciates tactics in any way, then he will use this as a distraction to slip a smaller number of people around our flanks and take us by surprise.”
“Well, all righty then,” Zach nodded once she was finished. “Any other pearls of wisdom you want to share? I mean, you know, while you brighten up my cloudy day?”
“If you were just a little older I would eat you up,” Vicki grinned, pinching Zach's cheek.
“I’ll be a little older tomorrow,” Zach refused to be intimidated.
“So will I,” Vicki sighed. “Assuming we make it to tomorrow.”
“Now see? That right there. That's your problem, right there. You set the mood, and then crush it with the next breath,” Zach shook his head in mock sadness. “That's why you’ll die old and alone, too.”
“Well aren't you just a little sweet talker?”
–
Clay made it to the tower and thought about trying to make it up there but decided against it. While the tower itself was secure and safe from all but the heaviest weapons, climbing up there would leave him exposed to enemy fire. With that idea eliminated, his next choice was to join Vicki and Zach in Sentry Three and try to assess what was happening. It took another three minutes of careful movement until he dropped into the small bunker after alerting them to his presence.
“What's doing crew?” he asked, peering out the slit of the bunker.
“Quiet for the moment,” Vicki reported. “They're trying to get reorganized but it doesn't appear to be going well. That could be a feint, of course.”
“Could be,” Clay nodded. “I haven't seen any sign of real organization here, though. They came here expecting to steamroll over us with numbers. There were more of us than they e
xpected, and we're a lot better armed and trained than they could imagine. I'm not ruling out a move like that, but it would truly surprise me.”
“So, what are we going to do?” Vicki asked. “Right now, we're at a stalemate.”
“I think it's about time we called in the cavalry,” Clay grinned, reaching for his radio.
–
“This sucks,” Gordy bitched from behind the wheel of the Hummer.
“It does indeed,” Mitch Nolan agreed. The two had been sitting in Building Three in the Hummer, waiting for the call that would send them into the thick of things, machine gun hammering. Thus far that call had not happened. They had instead been forced to sit and listen to everyone else engaging in active defense of their home and family.
“It's funny,” Gordy continued after a minute. “You'd think I'd be glad to sit here, safe and out of danger. Instead, here I am wanting to be in the thick of things.”
“Think something's wrong with you because of that?” Mitch asked, the slightest tinge of humor in his voice.
“Well, no. At least I don't think so,” Gordy considered the question. “Just seems like I'd be more grateful not to have to be out there being shot at.”
“But at the same time, your friends and family are out there, being shot at,” the older man agreed. “That makes you feel useless. Like you're not doing your part.”
“Yeah, that's it. Exactly,” Gordy nodded even though Mitch couldn't see him.
“We are all where we need to be, kid,” Mitch explained. “If we aren't sitting here ready to go and suddenly someone needs help, and I mean help in a major way…like a ‘we're gonna lose if you don't do something right now’ kind of way, then what happens?”
“Well. . .we lose, I guess.”
“That's right,” Mitch said emphatically. “And if we lose, then we lose everything. So, we sit here and we wait. Because Clay right now is trying to defend this farm and knows he has us as a trump card to use if he needs it. We're ready to go at a second's notice if he sees a way that using us can end this battle in our favor.”
“I know it's not easy to sit still while others do the fighting for you,” the older man sympathized. “Been there before. But you have to learn and always remember that we each have a part to play. We aren't just throwing some random attack at someone. Your uncle is trying to inflict the maximum damage he can on the enemy with the minimum of loss to us. This is the way you fight to win in the long run. Remember it. One day it may be you doing it.”
Gordy had pondered those words in silence for the next little while, imagining being in charge of such a defense and wondering if he could manage it. He wasn't sure he could, even with more training and experience. Leading such an effort would require more than that. It would require something that couldn't be taught, at least not in his limited experience. It would require not only confidence, but the willingness to make hard and difficult decisions. Decisions that could very easily lead to the deaths of people you led, or where trying to protect. Gordy wasn't sure at all that he could make those decisions. Not the same way his Uncle Clay seemed-…
“Chip, Thug, how copy?” Clay's voice broke into his thinking.
“Go for Chip,” he replied at once.
“It's time for you guys to come out and play,” his uncle told him. “We are looking at the remainder of the aggressor force collected behind wrecked vehicles strung out down the road in front of the Troy farm. I want you to come at them from behind and chase them out of cover. Kill any you can but get them in the open for us. Be advised, me, Vee and Gunner are posted in Sentry Three, and Doc and T-Square are in the tree line to the enemy's left front, across the road from us. Avoid blue-on-blue. We have seen no signs of heavy weapons so far.”
“Roger that,” Mitchell Nolan replied to that one even as he racked a round into the big machine gun. “We're moving in ten.”
“Spin 'er up, kid!” he called down through the turret. “Take us across the ditch and behind wherever their trailing vehicle is, then up the road right on top of 'em!”
“Got it!” Gordy replied, starting the big Hummer and opening the overhead door by remote. It seemed to take forever for the big door to creep open, but in reality, it was up and out of the way in five seconds.
“Here we go!” he called and hit the gas. The big vehicle shot out of the building and into the open, headed straight for the road. They bounced across the pavement and then the concrete pad before hitting the grass in front of the farm. From there it was a short trip over to the tree lined road, where Gordy put them through a small opening in the trees that jumped the ditch and put them on the road. Turning to the right, Gordy lined them up on the far edge of the road, putting them in line to put the enemy vehicles between the Hummer and the farm.
“Go, go, go!” Mitch shouted as the enemy troops gathered behind the wrecks began to scatter. The big machine gun opened fire at once, spraying the fleeing 'soldiers' with heavy slugs. Unable to run in the direction they had come, the men on the ground ran to their own front in an effort to escape this new threat.
And right into the waiting rifles of their target's defenders.
–
“Light 'em up!” Clay called as he, Vicki and Zach opened fire on the fleeing enemy. Seconds later Tandi and Titus did the same, cutting off the only other avenue of retreat. Clay subconsciously estimated there were at least twenty men in the group, but they were caught in a three-way pincer with nowhere to go. The Hummer continued to force its way up the road, keeping the pressure on as the enemy broke and ran for their lives, no slightest hint of organization remaining. The withering fire from the defenders took a heavy toll on the fleeing enemy as they fell like grain before a scythe.
Even running toward the farm buildings provided no safety for the fleeing thugs as Jody Thompson and Heath Kelly were waiting and took a heavy toll on them. Those that evaded the snipers ran head long into Greg Holloway, still sitting in the emplacement known as Sentry Two. The former Marine proved the saying 'every Marine is a rifleman' in short order as he demonstrated his own skill.
As they continued to fall, a few threw down their guns and tried to surrender, but no one thought for a second that the farm's defenders would have been granted any mercy, and thus they showed none. Those trying to give up just became easier targets.
The battle was essentially over within five minutes. Another ten were spent running individual hold outs and survivors down, during which Titus had a bullet burn across his upper left arm. Nasty but not debilitating, Tandi dressed it in the field and the teen was up and moving in mere minute, but by the time he was, the action had ended.
The farm looked like a disaster area. Once the all clear was given, Jake Sidell and Greg Holloway used the small fire truck to extinguish the vehicle fire out in the road as well as the small spot fires it had caused along the roadside. Heavy smoke still permeated the air around the farm for the next hour or more, but the threat of fire was eliminated.
There were bodies lying across two hundred or more yards of road frontage and into the farm proper, plus ten more lying in the grass east of the cabin area. Buildings were pockmarked with bullet holes, glass was broken even behind heavy shutters and the landscape had been shredded by gunfire.
Corey was carted to the clinic as soon as the firing had stopped, Patricia and Kaitlin treating his gunshot wound and then starting the tedious process of removing the splinters from the teen's face and upper body. Corey tried to endure it in silence but occasionally would hiss in pain as a particularly large splinter was removed. The ampule of morphine he had gotten from Tandi had long since worn off.
“Here,” Kaitlin said, suddenly hitting the teem with one more ampule of the pain reliever. “This will help.”
“I'd like to believe that, but as bad as this hurts I doubt. . .heeey,” Corey's voice mellowed out suddenly. “That shit is aaawwlll riiight,” he smiled.
“It certainly is,” Kaitlin couldn't help but chuckle at Corey's antics. “Now lie still whil
e we fix you up.”
“Noooo problem,” Corey assured her.
–
“Carry him down to the clinic,” Clay ordered as the body of Mark Webb was pulled from the foxhole where he had died. Clay couldn't find anything else to say as he watched Zach and Gordy carefully load the body into the ATV and then slowly set off for the clinic.
“Here,” Mitchell Nolan said, holding up a hunting rifle. “Found this out here with them,” he pointed to the bodies. “.308. This is probably what got him. No way his vest would have stopped it. Or even slow it down, I imagine.”
They had managed to provide police level vests to all defenders, but those vests wouldn't stop a round like that. Clay nodded silently at Nolan's discovery. There was nothing he could have done differently, but that didn't make it any easier to accept.
“The Jessup boy was here with him,” Gary Meecham told Clay quietly. “He should have been somewhere else, or else there should have been another adult in here. That kid was so scared he couldn't even talk, let alone do anything to help Mark. In fact, I imagine Mark would have been better off alone.”
“Why put him down here?” Clay asked.
“All the family heads decided how to man the positions. There were only two in the other position and one in the building below us,” he pointed to the tower. “His father wanted him in the mix. I think they put him here because it was most likely to see action other than the tower, but I don't know that. I took Marcy George from the mess hall and came here so Brick could get back to Leon's. The kid was still chattering when we got here. Useless.”
“He's the same age as the George girl, right?” Clay couldn't understand.
“It's not just age, Clay. You of all people should know that.” Meecham looked him in the eye, perhaps conveying something in a look that words weren't explaining, but suddenly he got it. He understood. He didn't say anything else, but instead turned to survey the damage, and the refuse still littering the ground around them.
“Let’s get started cleaning this trash away,” Clay ordered, unable to think of anything else to say.
