by R A Peters
At least his requests for more aircraft hadn’t fallen on deaf ears. Unfortunately, the White House’s several hour delay, while they debated and dithered and hoped the situation would magically “clarify itself,” resulted in the unnecessary deaths of God knew how many federal troops. They were either unable or unwilling to wrap their minds around the air losses he’d suffered, and those were just a scratch compared to the ground casualties. He shook his head and pushed the thought down. It was time to extract the rest of his units.
On paper, they were screwed. Scattered, surrounded, cut off and under pressure from every side… Things looked bleak. Reality wasn’t as bad as that. The rebels holding Lake City didn’t appear to have any lust to leave the safety of town and fight out in the open. The Air Force’s now regular bombing runs helped to encourage that point of view. As for the regular rebel forces to his south, even after the losses his men suffered he outnumbered them easily 2 to 1.
The enemy had clearly suffered as well. Not nearly as bad, but they were so much smaller to begin with. Their cohesiveness must be nearing its limits. This was more than wishful thinking. Judging by how the enemy’s aggressiveness tapered off, and how little interest they seemed to have in finishing off his trapped units, they were probably at the end of their endurance as well.
The only success they’d enjoyed so far was being able to concentrate whole brigades against his individual battalions. Like so many senior leaders in the military or civilian world, he just chalked that up to bad luck and ignored the large role he played.
To the general’s credit, he didn’t cry over spilled milk. He began carefully extracting his maneuver units back north. With dark setting in, they were finally able to break contact with the National Guard forces clinging to them like so many ticks. From what they could tell, the rebels were terribly short on night vision and thermal imaging gear. If only they could be shorter on luck.
Back in town, when watching those armed civilians swarm over his base like a zombie horde, he’d fantasized about recalling his combat forces and stomping them out. It wouldn’t take long. As much as it stung, he was professional enough to realize that wasn’t the answer.
Those tanks and infantrymen might be too powerful to be overrun, but they sure wouldn’t be overrunning anyone else anytime soon. For the time being, he had no way to supply them. No minor inconvenience, since three modern brigades required an endless train of supplies to stay dangerous. The only solution was to get back across the nearby friendly border, or friendly enough border. They had to regroup, rearm and reorganize as soon as possible. The temptation to step on these irregulars on the way out of state was powerful, but it would have to wait a little.
No, the only logical, sound tactical decision was to retreat, no matter how much that pissed Washington off. He’d already stopped answering their calls. All the insane requests were funneled through trusted subordinates that could stall for time. He would have had his staff tell them he was dead, but then one of those armchair generals might try to take charge themselves. Though, how could that be any different from the current command structure?
Los Padres National Forest, California
7 March: 1030
Pop, pop, click.
Shit. Sophie had lost track of how many rounds were left. She slid out the magazine, locked the bolt to the rear and rested her peacemaker on the sandbags in front of her. Fighting the itch to stand up, she pushed the oversized helmet as far out of the way as she dared. Her instructor noticed; he caught everything, but let it go. He had a bigger annoyance. Everyone else on the line but her still carefully pumped out rounds downrange.
“Why the hell aren’t you firing, Kampbell?” Even over all the shooting, he was loud and clear.
“Out of ammo, Sergeant!” That clearly wasn’t the answer he wanted to hear. “Also out of targets, Sergeant!”
For a wonder, she caught him off guard. He straddled her firing pit, waved his red paddle at the range control tower and pointed down at her. A second later, all the targets in her lane flipped up, but then all went back down. The instructor looked as close to impressed as that scowling, jagged face ever could.
He blew a whistle. “Check fire! Clear and safe your weapons!”
Range control recocked everyone’s lanes but left up the plastic army men each missed.
“I’ll be damned. 40 out of 40 and finished 10 seconds before anyone else. Where did you learn how to shoot so well?”
Sophie licked her thin lips, but tried not to look too confused. “From you, Sergeant!”
What type of trick question was that? The instructors loved to trip trainees up with logic traps that had no correct answers. The truth made her look like a kiss ass and he’d sniff out a lie immediately.
Well, the right answer wasn’t the point. The whole game is a test to see if you hesitate. Right or wrong, so long as you sounded off good and strong they’d leave you alone. Show the slightest indecision though… Well, then you’d be doing pushups until the instructor grew tired.
He studied her with something verging on respect while preaching to the assembled squad. “You know what’s special about this soldier, eh? She actually listens! See what you can accomplish when you shut your cock holsters and open your minds?”
He smiled wide…something you never want to see a drill instructor do. “Listen up, all you good ‘ole boys out there who think you know everything there is to know about shooting, because your ‘grandiddy’ taught you. Look at these scores. Not one of you shot over 30 out of 40. You don’t want to listen to me when I show you the four fundamentals of marksmanship, fine. Maybe you’ll listen to her.”
He waved his painted ping-pong paddle at the tower. “Reload, we’re going again. Anyone who misses a single target will be personally coached by this little soldier until you’re less of a fuckup. What are you waiting on? Let’s go, let’s go! Move with a sense of fucking purpose!”
Sophie just received her first promotion. In her NCO’s eyes, she moved up from unidentifiable animal shit under your boot to a real human being. After only three weeks in this program, she was amazed at how much that respect meant to her. Her heart fluttered at what he called her as much as any of Ben’s pet names. It was a word she hated, until applied to her: soldier.
With colleges across the state temporarily closed, unemployment approaching 12% and, frankly, so many people pissed off, this private camp bustled. Their free curriculum helped. The shadowy organizers–some new non-profit foundation primarily funded by a LLC, which was itself a daughter firm of a shell corporation of an offshore holding company–hired only the best instructors. They even worked out an arrangement with some schools to provide “professional learning credits” to anyone who successfully completed a “proactive defense” program.
Everyone started in a weeklong dynamic self-defense class. Despite the hype, these classes trained people in a type of civil disobedience closer in spirit and practice to Che Guevara than Martin Luther King and Gandhi. However, since the BDU-clad teachers stopped short of issuing firearms, they could still play the non-violence card.
The real purpose of the course was far more than just teaching people how to protest more effectively. Each class was a large-scale recruiting event and actually cheaper, per head, than the US Army’s recruiting efforts. Less than 5% of attendees proved enough passion and drive to be invited to join “advanced lessons.” The ultimate reward being eventually able to join one of the hip, still-evolving Freedom Brigades. Recruits were also paid, and paid well, to volunteer for these non-profit “Constitutional Clubs.” At least that was the name on the tax forms and in friendly media coverage. Everyone else just called them “The Militia.”
A pair of National Guard observers conferred off to the side and critiqued them every step of the way. Originally, those uniforms represented the enemy, but my how things had changed over the last month! Acting Governor Salazar took a more contrarian position to the Federal Government every week. The hotter her rhetoric, the hi
gher she climbed in the opinion polls. Which meant she gave the people more of what they wanted. A strange cycle, but not terribly interesting to Sophie.
Sophie didn’t know who paid for all this, nor did she care. In all the clubs and causes she’d ever participated in, none gave her half the motivation as “The Brigades.” The friendships she forged out here in the woods would be lifelong. The memories of their hardships still fresh 50 years from now. She was part of something truly important, something bigger than herself.
These freedom fighters had no such impotent goals as “raising awareness.” No, their mission was to evoke real change. At the point of a gun, if need be. Not just to protect, but create freedom. Next to that sense of purpose, everything else in life had the volume turned down.
She hadn’t had contact with anyone outside the program in over three weeks. Some of the other guys were homesick, but she couldn’t feel more at home. Her friends back in L.A. thought it crazy that someone so socially conscious would join a paramilitary organization.
Sophie couldn’t understand why her civilian friends didn’t. Putting on the uniform was just another version of civic virtue. A semi-automatic rifle solves more problems than a picket sign. Those 5.56mm rounds deliver a lot more permanent social justice than any lawsuit. This girl, not even old enough to drink legally yet, wondered how you could expect a civilian to understand something like that?
Ocala, Florida
9 March: 1300
Even with the Feds temporarily thrown out of North Florida, the rebels had no chance to celebrate or take a load off. Despite the near hysterical excitement out West, they were far from happy. Everyone in uniform looked around at their shattered, bloodied units and wondered how they were supposed to stop the next attack.
There was too much cleanup and prep work for the next fight to be done. Too much work and, after that disastrous fight yesterday, too few survivors to do it all. In all this crap, Congressman Eliot was just a neat trophy.
The Florida Defense Forces didn’t have a detention center setup for high value prisoners. Such a need was pure fantasy at the start of the invasion. Most of the enemy soldiers they still held were severely wounded. They wouldn’t be leaving the crowded hospitals anytime soon. Those few hundred captured up in Lake City were crammed into a football stadium in Tampa. It didn’t seem appropriate to shove a politician in with them. None of the militiamen really knew what to do with a captured congressman.
Eliot’s almost comical “take me to your leader” demands eventually paid off. He and Jessica bounced around from one field headquarters to another before finally landing at the head command post in Ocala. Getting there was one thing. Getting someone to pay attention to her was much harder. Jessica wasn’t zip-tied like the congressman, but she sure wasn’t free to move around.
Way back when in J school they cautioned about getting too close to the story. Shit, she thought, I’m smack dab in the middle of it. Any closer and I’d be an obituary. She wasn’t terribly worried, mainly just annoyed that no one wanted to talk to her. What she could learn if the guard would let her go anywhere outside this little corner of the convention hall. What her editor would pay if she could get an exclusive from “the heart of the beast.”
She gazed with lust as General Cooper intensely conferred with a bunch of his officers only a few yards away. What she wouldn’t give to get in the middle of that! She even tried flirting with the guard, but he was far too focused on his hatred of Eliot to be interested in her. She pondered screaming “rape” when a tall, dark sergeant marched up to their glaring sentry.
“Private, can’t you see these detainees are hungry? Go get these civilians a couple of MRE’s. I’ll watch ‘em.” He unslung his M249.
The PFC looked him over skeptically. “I’m sorry, Sergeant. Major Gorgas ordered me to stay here until he personally said otherwise. I can’t abandon my post.” His words were respectful, but his tone implied, “Fetch your own shit.”
It was pretty obvious the sergeant wasn’t used to disobedience.
“Private, I don’t give a rat’s ass what some fucking officer told you! You’re in my headquarters; these prisoners are my responsibility. So get your ass in gear!” This buck sergeant, fairly old for an E-5, had an impressively refined command voice.
Every instinct in the poor kid told him to obey, but a strand of discipline held him in place. “Uh, I can’t. My orders…” a stray idea crossed his mind and gave him a little more confidence. “Um, what unit are you with, Sergeant? What do you do around here?”
If he thought this strange NCO was angry before, he wasn’t ready for this white-hot rage. The sergeant jumped right in his face. Curiously, he yelled just loud enough to scare the kid but not draw attention from the command staff on the other side of the large room.
“Boy, if you have to ask, you don’t belong here! Now, I gave you an order. Are we going to have a problem?”
The private’s endurance lasted two more seconds. Fuck it. “Hooah, Sergeant.” He left quickly, muttering under his breath about how the left hand never knows what the right hand is doing. He was sick and tired of always being in the wrong no matter what he did.
The moment the guardsman stepped outside, this curious fellow whipped out a blade and rushed up to the now terrified congressman. He cut the plastic cuffs, searched both faces, and spoke to the strongest one.
“Alright lady, take this dude and get out of here, right now. There’s a sentry outside the entrance, so stop when he yells or you’ll be shot in the back. The important thing is not to come back in here, no matter what you hear. Clear?”
Jessica had never seen such calm, yet focused intensity. She neither argued nor questioned. Just nodded and pushed the congressman towards the door. As soon as they were moving, Brown turned and strolled towards the center of the hall. No more time to waste. People were already throwing curious glances at him.
In normal circumstances he never could have pulled off this stunt. The two dead guardsmen in the trunk of his Humvee outside would have been missed much sooner. Even as swamped as these command staffers were, they should’ve known he wasn’t kosher. Could’ve, would’ve, should’ve. Too late for all that now.
Major Gorgas caught Brown’s strange movements out the corner of his eye. He didn’t understand any of it, but he didn’t waste time trying to.
“Frag out!” he screamed.
Gorgas dropped the map in his hand and yanked the general to the ground with him. A second later, both grenades detonated. He peeked around the old desk to see this stranger in a friendly uniform take a knee and blaze away with a SAW. No real tactics involved. Just stand in the middle of the room with an automatic weapon and kill everything that moves.
General Cooper was not thankful for the lifesaving. He drew his sidearm with a war whoop and popped straight up to engage this crazy fuck. He collapsed almost immediately without firing a shot, three holes in his gut and a trio of larger exit holes out his back. Gorgas yanked off his own ACU top and did the best he could to stop the bleeding.
Someone from somewhere chucked a flash bang grenade at the killer in the middle of the room. It might’ve seemed clever at the time, but it dazed those firing back more than it distracted him. The only effect was to allow the attacker a chance to slip away. Brown had shoved earplugs in before even tossing the grenades, which was probably unnecessary. His murderous focus couldn’t be thrown off by some non-lethal toy.
When the defenders could focus again, the enemy was gone. Like a killer dream. In just 20 seconds, a dozen officers and key staffers were either killed or seriously wounded. What the hell just happened? Someone noticed the side door still swinging. An only slightly wounded master sergeant lead a scratch squad of men out the door after him.
And straight into a bigger fight. That same grinning asshole stood in the turret of an up-armored Humvee and rocked a .50 cal. The master sergeant shoved his guys back under cover when the barrel swung their way. Half-inch slugs ripped easily through the bri
ck wall inches above his head. After a short burst, Brown swiveled back to his main target, the other Humvees around him.
He systematically shredded several occupied trucks whose gunners were a little too slow on the uptake. He hadn’t planned to make a last stand in the parking lot, but what are you going to do? How long did he have before they flanked him? Despite the big gun in his hands, he could only shoot one target at once. Any second they’d figure that out and hit him in the back. All he could do was make it costly.
It didn’t surprise him when he heard the truck’s doors open below. What a shame the guardsmen were so quick. Time for the big finale.
He stuck his thumb in the pin of his last grenade, which was already taped around a canister of homemade napalm. Just as he prepared to yank it out, he looked down to face his enemy for the last time. A mound of blonde hair stuck between his legs and smiled.
Jessica ignored the obvious erection next to her face. It was already there before she climbed into the driver’s seat. “So, you ready to get out of here, or are you having too much fun?”
She barked at the sobbing congressman to buckle up while she tried to figure out this military vehicle. The steering was simple enough, and even an automatic, but where were the fucking keys? How do you start this damn thing?
Luckily, the diesel’s glow plugs were still warm. The engine roared to life when she randomly flipped switches and got to the big green knob on the left of the steering wheel. She had no time to celebrate. Several something’s slammed the window next to her. Two big cracks appeared in the armored glass. More rounds hammered the outside of the truck all over. “Go! Go!” was the congressman’s advice. For once, she agreed with him.
Jessica peeled away as fast as the heavy truck could accelerate. She sideswiped another Humvee on the way out and nearly ran someone over, but they got clear. The suppressive fire from the gunner’s hatch above stopped only when they were nearly a mile distant.
