Guerrilla (The Invasion of Miraval Book 2)

by Justin Bohardt

  He sent the dozen men he had under his command into the woods to start gathering fallen trees to be used as barricades and to turn smaller trees and large limbs into rampart pikes. More and more militiamen and women arrived as the National Guard bus and five more vehicles full of soldiers pulled up next to the tank and unloaded their forces. Alex immediately set them to digging trenches three hundred and two hundred yards down the hill into the ravine to serve as traps for the tanks. He ordered their few captured mortar cannons and their rocket propelled grenade launchers to be placed at the ends of a semi-circular formation he was designing with Tangrit’s tank and the recently arrived smaller tank being the centerpieces of the defense. They would be able to rain fire down upon the advancing force from a decent distance and would help protect the Miravallian flank in case the Dommies decided to charge up the gentler slopes to the right and left sides of the defensive formation rather than making a charge at the center.

  Alex set the new arrivals to filling empty flour bags with mud and earth to provide defense to the wings of his formation. As more Miravallians arrived, he set them to creating massive earthworks, reinforced by felled trees to serve as additional protection for the center of their formation and for the lynchpin of their defense, the two tanks. Tangrit respectfully disagreed with turning the tanks into nothing but large stationary mortar cannons as he felt maneuverability was the tank’s greatest weapon. Captain Beaurigar had arrived and he walked up to where Tangrit and Alex were discussing it.

  “I understand your position, Tangrit, but we aren’t on a battlefield and we’re not on the attack,” Alex said. “If we were fighting conventionally, you would be correct.”

  “Is there a problem?” Beaurigar asked.

  “No, sir,” both men answered as they saluted the National Guard commander.

  “Good, then please let me have a moment alone with the lieutenant,” Beaurigar said as he steered Alex away from the tank and walked him back toward where a new batch of militia were being dropped off by the bullet riddled jeep. “I hear more congratulations are in order for you, lieutenant.”

  “Got lucky, sir,” he replied. “And I lost five good people.”

  “If we have to sacrifice five of ours to kill and capture fifty of theirs, then so be it, lieutenant,” Beaurigar said, not unkindly. “That’s the only way that we win this war. We make them bleed for every inch they take. We kill a dozen of them for every one of us they get.”

  “Yes, sir,” Alex agreed.

  “Buck up, Alex,” Beaurigar said. “You got the job done. Now, we just need to get the next one done. Right? No looking back.”

  Alex nodded.

  “Defenses seem to be proceeding nicely,” he said. “How long?”

  “We should be ready before the Dommies can get here, sir,” he said.

  Beaurigar held up his hand to the rain that was falling down on him and said, “This bloody weather is going to make things difficult. An army soaked, powder wet, digging through water sodden mud instead of light dirt to build fortifications. It’s going to hamper our efforts considerably if it doesn’t let up.”

  “At least it put the fires out,” Alex said, nodding toward the woods. “And it could slow down the Dommies as well. Tanks don’t tend to do well in the mud.”

  “All the same, I think you should come and talk to the commodore,” Beaurigar said. “He has an interesting idea for slowing the Dommies down.”

  11

  Commodore Jefferson Hyerdahl was the better part of seventy years old and had a neatly trimmed snowy white beard to match slightly longer than normal white hair. He tended to wear a mariner’s cap and navy blue blazers, but had never actually served in the Miravallian navy. He had been a merchant mariner who had retired to Harren Falls once his life at sea was complete, but to hear him tell the stories in the pub, he had fought against pirates, privateers, and Dominion vessels during the Great Strife. He demanded a great deal of respect and refused to be addressed by anything other than Commodore, even though it was purely a ceremonial title that had been given to him a few months before retirement.

  “Commodore,” Alex said as he approached the mariner.

  “Lieutenant,” he said condescendingly, and he apprised Alex coolly as if he were expecting to be saluted.

  Alex had never liked the man personally, as he was the kind of man to terrorize neighborhood children for being overly ebullient and he called the constabulary for noise violations, curfew violations, building code violations, and anything else he could dream up as a principal hobby. Alex returned the cool stare and pointedly put both of his hands into his pockets.

  “You’re a private in this army, Commodore,” Beaurigar pointed out, cleverly reading the situation. “I suggest you show some respect toward the chain of command.”

  “Yes… sir,” the Commodore responded.

  “You had a suggestion you wanted to make in regard to our defense, Commodore?” Alex asked.

  “Yes, yes, I did,” he said. “Boats.”

  Alex exchanged looks with Beaurigar. “I don’t think we have any,” he said as politely as he could. “We don’t exactly have or require a navy up here.”

  The Commodore made a noise the conveyed pure annoyance and irascibility. “Is that not a river to the port there?” he demanded.

  “Your point?” the captain asked without glancing over at the water.

  “A few boats headed down river could do a lot of damage to the approaching forces,” he said as if that clarified everything.

  Alex looked to Beaurigar and said sarcastically, “Well, there are one or two concerns I have.”

  “Commodore, we don’t have any boats,” Beaurigar said. “Even if we did, we would need armored battle boats if we wanted our men to have a chance against tanks and the Dominion infantry.”

  “I don’t intend for there to be any men on the boats,” the Commodore said. “Just give me some men, and I can get them built.”

  “You’re not making any sense,” Alex nearly shouted.

  The Commodore rolled his eyes. “We build some makeshift rafts, pack them with explosives, send them down the river with a timed charge and let them blow the Dommies to the depths,” he spat angrily.

  “Why didn’t you say so before?” Alex countered before pausing for a moment and muttering, “It’s a hell of an idea.”

  “How many men do you need?” Beaurigar asked.

  “As many as can be spared,” he replied. “Good workers and strong lads though. No women. No whelps.”

  Alex’s eyebrows rose up into his forehead and he felt a solid argument building in his mind, but Beaurigar cut any idea of starting a fight with the Commodore off. “Go speak with Tangrit and see what we can do as far as explosives are concerned,” he said. “I’ll get you as many men as I can. The boats will need to be launched at night, so they need to be ready as soon as possible.”

  “Fine,” the Commodore said. “I suppose I shall just let the lieutenant know if I need anything else.”

  The Commodore stalked away toward the river and Alex was filled with a strong desire to tackle him. Biting it down, he turned smartly on his heel and marched back toward the forward defensive area where Tangrit was sharing an alcoholic beverage with his two nephews. That boded well, he thought sarcastically to himself, as he summoned the town drunk to join him so they could work on some explosives.

  12

  The town of Craven Bluffs sat atop a series of high hills that were so steeply sloped that bridges connected the four main parts of the city. The southern approach was the only way to get into the city without climbing gear and Dag had his team circle around through the woods to where the Bluffs Road entered the town.

  The National Guard had set up barricades across the road and had a jeep mounted machine gun trained down it. About twelve men were standing behind the fortifications, where the Guardsmen had filled bags of sand and had dug a ditch across the road. Dag hissed a whispered order to his squad to halt at the edge of the woods. The
last thing he wanted to do was get shot by nervous and trigger happy Miravallians.

  “Ho there!” he shouted loudly and watched as the soldiers immediately took cover and brought their weapons to bear, covering the road and looking for targets. “Hold your fire!” Dag bellowed. “We’re Miravallian militia! We were sent here from Harren Falls.”

  “Come out into the center of the road with your hands on your head! Anyone goes for a weapon and we fire!” one of the soldiers shouted back.

  Dag nodded to Aria, slung his rifle over his shoulder and stepped out into the road with his hands on his head. “I’m not giving up my weapons,” Dag said as he strode forward and he felt the rifles training on him. “But I’m not carrying them.”

  “Where are the rest?” the same voice demanded.

  “They’re waiting to make sure you don’t shoot me before they reveal themselves,” he replied.

  “How do we know you’re Miravallian?” the same one demanded.

  Now that he was closer, Dag could see that he was shorter and rather young with a bushy black moustache. All of the soldiers were wearing standard issue Miravallian fatigues and were carrying newer ANP-14 assault rifles. Apparently the Craven Bluffs armory was better supplied by the government than that belonging to Harren Falls. The man who kept speaking had the only uniform with sergeant stripes on his arm.

  “I’m not dressed in black and gray and I don’t outnumber you severely, sergeant,” he pointed out. “My accent should be a giveaway, but I also have my orders from Captain Aroldis Beaurigar in Harren Falls.” After a pause during he which he stopped walking about ten yards from the barricade, he added, “Of course, you’re going to have to let me reach into my pocket to show you those.”

  “What’s your name?” the sergeant asked.

  “Raslan Dagenham,” he replied.

  The National Guardsmen looked at each other. They recognized his name. “Did you really drop a whole armored division into the drink?” a hare-lipped woman asked as the aim on her assault rifle dropped from where she had been aiming at Dag’s chest.

  “It was a decent number of them,” he said. “Their tanks may be impressive, but they sure as hell don’t swim.”

  This drew some derisive laughter from the Miravallians as the rest of the men and women seemed to have accepted Dag as one of their own. The sergeant was still hesitant though. “Let’s see your orders, Lieutenant,” he said. “Nice and slow, okay.”

  Dag nodded and withdrew the folded parchment. Beaurigar had printed the orders on paper that had a raised seal of the Miravallian military emblem- crossed swords in a circular crest with a hawk perched atop the circle. The sergeant perused the orders for a moment and then nodded, passing the papers back to Dag.

  “Welcome to Craven Bluffs, lieutenant,” he said as he saluted. “I’m Sergeant Tomas Kryski. Your squad can come forward at your discretion.”

  Dag whistled and the scouts moved out of the woods and started heading down the road to meet him. He turned back to Kryski and led, “I’m supposed to take command of a squad and lead them into the Rock Maze. You know where I can find them.”

  “You’re looking at them, sir,” Kryski said. “We drew the watch for the day. Night will fall in a few hours though, and I assume you don’t want to move out until tomorrow morning.”

  “Safe assumption,” he said as the others arrived. “We’ve been marching for several days, and I’m sure we could all use a good meal and a roof over our heads for the night.”

  “Very well,” Kryski nodded. “I’ll escort your people to lodgings for the evening, and we’ll be ready to march at first light.”

  Kryski turned and began marching down the road as Dag weaved his way through the barricades and jogged to catch up with the sergeant, the rest of his squad not far behind. They passed a few homes as the road began to slant distinctively upward, small subsistence farms with small herds. Dag knew there were a few larger farms and ranches to the outskirts of the city, but Craven Bluffs was a mining town first and foremost. The area was riddled with coal mines and even a few precious aurastone mines. Aurastones existed as a metal in nature, but once heated and melted to a liquid, it stayed as a liquid even at room temperature. Aura diesel was the primary fuel for most vehicles, some heating sources, and was even used in power plants in larger cities.

  “How many men under your command are coming with us, Sergeant?” Dag asked they continued their march forward.

  “Two dozen, give or take,” he said. “The rest need to be held back to protect the town, sir.”

  Dag shook his head. There would be roughly thirty of them to hold the entire western flank of the Crest. Regardless of the terrain difficulties that the Rock Maze imposed, it would not be the most impossible thing in the world for the Dommies to try to slip through there. With only thirty men as the eyes and ears, the Dominion could march a couple of regiments through the Rock Maze without the Miravallians ever catching sight of them.

  “You don’t like the numbers,” Kryski observed. “I don’t blame you necessarily, sir. But I am going to hazard a guess and assume that you’ve never been to Stonewater or down into the Maze.”

  “Not really,” Dag admitted.

  “The canyons to the west are a maze true to the name,” Kryski said. “A lot of ways to get lost and several paths to get out and into the Crest, but only one real entrance- an entrance that is commanded by Stonewater, which is nigh impregnable. The Dommies can’t get to the Crest without taking that fortress.”

  “Let’s hope you’re right,” Dag said.

  He honestly was not comforted by Kryski’s words. The idea of Stonewater being impregnable went back a thousand years, but the last time it had been besieged was three hundred years ago. It might survive a catapult easily enough or even a cannon, but Dag doubted it could withstand the type of barrage that modern militaries could bring to bear against a stationary object.

  The road twisted around, passing more small houses as it climbed one of the hills. They arrived at the city walls and the main gate just as it was being opened to allow a convoy of several pick-up trucks to pass through. There were four more men in militia garb at the gate and they waved Kryski and his new companions through.

  “Off to the front?” Dag asked, nodding in the direction of the trucks that were disappearing down the road.

  “Off to the mines,” Kryski replied. “If what Captain Yonson said is true, we’re completely cut off from the rest of Miraval at the moment. Assuming we’re not all conquered in the next few days, we can’t expect any supplies or relief to come from the south.”

  “The cars and tanks will need diesel,” Dag said knowingly. “Homes will need to be heated.”

  “I don’t know if fifty or a hundred more men on the lines will make all the difference,” he acknowledged. “But I do know that Mother Nature brings forth an army unlike anything the Dommies can match each winter. We can’t fight them if we’re fighting her.”

  They crossed under a tunnel through the wall, Kryski nodding to the men stationed on the parapets and walked across a bridge. About fifty feet below them, Dag could see the unit that was holding the road still in place. They passed through another tunnel and into a market district that seemed entirely abandoned.

  “We had to implement rationing,” he said.

  “You can’t eat diesel,” Aria muttered from where she had been walking behind Dag.

  “No, we can’t,” Kryski agreed as he led them through the empty streets. “Many fled when the fighting started and others raced to Harren Falls to join the fight there. Only miners and soldiers are left in the town.”

  The National Guard Headquarters for Craven Bluffs was a newer three story brick building surrounded by barbed wire fencing sitting atop the most eastward point of the hill it sat upon. A massive cannon was mounted atop the roof and was aimed toward the roadway, but the height of the hill and the building would have allowed the rooftop gun crew to command any approach to the city without fear of damaging Craven
Bluffs.

  They entered the building and Dag was immediately reminded of a pub as they strode into the large entrance room. An abundantly stocked bar was pushed back against the far wall and there were a half dozen men in fatigues sitting at stools, chatting idly and smoking. About ten couches and twice that number of tables were spread throughout the room and about half were occupied by men playing cards or eating dinner. A Silver Songstress tune was playing on the Hi-Fi at an annoying loud volume, and a couple of men were seated in front of the television watching news broadcasts of the victories in the Bolero Valley and the more impressive one at Ava’s Gorge.

  “They keep waiting for the news to change,” Kryski observed. “But the government only allows a new story to come on when it’s good news. When we don’t hear anything new, then we know the war is going badly. Although no one knows just how badly.”

  “They’re still broadcasting, so the capital must still be safe,” Aria commented.

  “Right,” Kryski said. “Why don’t you have a seat and I’ll have the barman send over some rations?”

  They took a seat and soon they had a small meal of stale bread and hard cheese, but there was plenty of ale on tap. Logan and Pendelton seemed appreciative of that fact and soon they were toasting with the soldiers from Craven Bluffs, singing the Miravallian national anthem, and offering more than one or two creative ideas as to what they would do with any Dommies they came across. The two men had gotten up and were now standing in a group with some of their new friends, having even got Kayleigh to join them, belting pub standards and sometimes singing along with the Hi-Fi.