The Hunger Rebellion

by G F Cusack

  “I can bring the information in a digital format.”

  “We do not have a need for advanced electronic equipment in the fighting pits. However, some of our trading partners have access to certain Company resources as required. Let Angus know what you require and we will source it.”

  Ideas were rushing through Zap’s head. “Yes, we will need a computer or some way for me to transfer the information. I will have a better idea tomorrow about what is required. “

  Karla motioned that the meeting was over. “Angus, take the boy and train him. Perhaps go easy on him today as I think he’s already had quite a workout, albeit mental.”

  As Zap was going back down the narrow stairs, he suddenly thought that it would be hard for a lot of people to get up here at once. He wondered if he was already starting to think like a resistance fighter or if he was just feeling claustrophobic.

  28

  Will’s view of the attack on the rebel stronghold

  12 September 2202

  Will was respected and feared as a hands-on commander who normally enjoyed leading his troops from the front. Today he was using technology to save him driving for days to initiate an attack on the rebels. Will smiled as he mused that he could get used to this.

  Despite the perception that the Company had resources that dwarfed those of the rest of the country, its bomber planes were limited in number. It was only because this target was seen as strategically important that he could use two bombers this time.

  The images on his monitor were not as crisp and clear as the ones that the Company transmitted on the evening newscasts. This discrepancy was due to the distance over which the planes were transmitting. It was rumoured that, before the Water Wars, mechanical satellites had been in the sky, allowing crystal-clear signals to be sent from one side of the planet to the other. Those satellites had apparently been destroyed during the Water Wars and so he had to make do with the technology at hand.

  He had sent a dozen scouts ahead with the devices that would mark the targets for the aircraft. This strategy would leave plenty of spare troops in case the scouts didn’t all make it. A mission this large would have normally required a larger strike force but, with the current unrest in the capital and other areas of the Sanctuary, deployment of troops for internal security was the higher priority. Although he was high up in the military food chain, Will still had to take orders from the civilian bureaucrats.

  They had already lost contact with some of his scouts but that was to be expected. That his scouts might be killed concerned him less than that they might be captured. In the brutal southern outlands, lawlessness was part of daily life, so even his best-armed scout could fall foul of a large group of bandits.

  An estimated six hundred plus rebels were in the stronghold. It was a sizeable force to engage but it also made it easy to infiltrate a spy into their midst.

  The most recent message that he had received from his spy was that the rebels had split their forces in half and that he was travelling with one group to the Farm. The Farm was the secondary target as its destruction would deprive any surviving rebels of food and also of the crops they used for their biofuels. This would limit their mobility and reduce the threat for his Company forces.

  Even with only half the rebel forces at the Farm, the number of Company troops in the area would not be able to win a ground battle. As soon as Will received the intelligence, he adapted his plans. He changed his timetable so that his troops on the ground would immediately take out the infrastructure at the Farm. They would also damage important resources such as the biofuel processing plant. The area was too large to destroy with only ground forces. For this reason, once the aircraft had struck the rebel compound, they would carry out a bombing run with their remaining cargo to decimate the Farm crops on their way home. The fuel bombs, as they were known, were different to the kind of bombs that would hit the rebel stronghold.

  The strategy in attacking the rebel compound was to use the density of the buildings against them. A well-placed bomb full of explosives and shrapnel would inflict the most damage here. For a wide-open space, such as the Farm, one well-placed shrapnel bomb might take out the leadership, but to guarantee maximum results they would need a different type of munition.

  Will had dispatched a hundred fighters to attack the Farm. Although he would have no view of the Farm until the bombers arrived, he had given control of the assault to one of his most trusted lieutenants. Dennis was certainly capable of the attack and, with a hundred troops under his control, he would have an advantage in numbers of an estimated three to one.

  That was Will’s initial plan and he’d had confidence in it until he learnt of the rebel convoy heading to the Farm. That was the last message that he’d received from his spy. If the spy was now dead, Will’s only concern was that he might have told the rebels of the attack plans first. Should the rebels arrive at the Farm before his forces, the odds would swing in their favour and then they would be the ones with the three to one advantage. He had to accelerate his plan.

  His troops needed to complete the assault and escape before the rebels arrived. He would have to wait for the aircraft to pass over the Farm before he could see if all of his plans had been successful. Hopefully the rebels would arrive at the same time and he would see them burned by the fuel bombs.

  In preparing for this mission, he had looked at pictures of the rebel stronghold. A compound that housed over six hundred people was more like a village than just one group of buildings. Although the construction had clearly been designed strategically, they had most likely expected an attack from ground forces. This was one of the main reasons for using the aircraft. The pictures had shown a limited number of tall buildings, which apparently had several levels below ground as well.

  When he’d begun planning for the task, he had been concerned that the rebels in the hidden levels would survive the attack. But his spy had communicated that the underground fortress had no external exit. When they brought the main buildings down, they would turn the stronghold into a tomb. Any rebels that didn’t die in the initial assault would be buried alive under tonnes of rubble, giving them a slow and painful end.

  As the planes got closer to the targets, the monitors showed Will what the bombers were seeing. It appeared that at least some of the scouts had been successful. The monitor displayed three digital signatures that were painting the targets for the bombs. He could hear chatter between the two pilots.

  “Red dog, this is Blue dog. Do you see the three signals, over?”

  “Hello Blue dog, this is Red dog. I see them, over.”

  “Red dog I will set two frags each to track frequency 56 and frequency 59, over.”

  “Blue dog, understood. I will set two frags to track frequency 47, over and out.”

  It always amazed Will how important these bombers felt that they were. In truth, they were hardly real soldiers, flying around the sky like birds and pressing a few buttons, killing people from a distance. These so-called commanders, who were revered by the elites, would probably vomit at the sight of some of the blood and guts that he had experienced in real combat.

  Their communications sounded overly formal, remnants from a time before the Water Wars. It seemed was only natural that, as well as techniques, systems and some of the manuals for servicing the vehicles and planes, communications, protocols and tactical books had survived.

  “Blue dog, weapons hot, over.”

  “Red dog, weapons hot, over.”

  “Blue dog, bombs away, over.”

  “Red dog, bombs away, over and out.”

  The signal on the monitors switched from an overview display showing the digital signatures of the targets to the view from the cameras of the actual bombs. Even though the images seemed a little shaky, it only added to the feeling that Will was riding the bombs down to the targets. The cameras showed a bright-green light on the ground. This was the work of the scouts: these lights painted the targets and allowed the bombs to automatically na
vigate straight to them.

  After the bombs hit, the monitor switched again, this time to the high-level view of the targets from the cameras on the outside of the planes. On this first pass, it was hard for Will to distinguish the buildings but, when the first bomb hit, the explosion could be seen from the plane’s 30,000-foot perch. On the second pass, the planes approached lower and observed the damage they had done.

  With a limited supply of bombs, the pilots would only drop an extra load if they felt it was required. The point of using the marking technology, though, was to complete the task with the first load.

  The monitor now gave a short close-up of the devastation below. The scene looked like a huge rubbish pile. From what Will observed from the planes’ two passes of the compound, very little was left of the buildings below. Later he would be able to review the damage on the video images from the ground scouts, if they returned. For the moment, his main concern was to ensure that rebels hadn’t escaped in large numbers.

  The planes completed one last pass of the surrounding area, checking for any vehicles exiting it, but could not pick up any sign of them. The images on the monitors changed again, giving a view similar to the initial images that had displayed the markers to guide the bombs.

  This time the blips on the screen had numbers next to them. This was a confirmation signal from the scouts on the ground. As well as transmitting a signal for the bombs to follow, the equipment could transmit a confirmation signal. Its information was limited but was enough to tell the pilots the bombs had been successful and it was not beneficial to waste any more munitions on this target.

  It felt like today was going be a good day. Will was looking forward to reporting the successes to Brand. In his eyes, the compound was the more difficult target and the Farm was more of a nice to have. All the same, he was cautious not to get ahead of himself, knowing Brand was not the forgiving type.

  Will was still concerned that the rebels might have reached the Farm before his troops had left. He’d had no communication with them since they arrived and, although he trusted Dennis’s skills, he was aware that anything could happen. An old saying he remembered as a young child press-ganged by the Company had been drilled into him years later during his training for the officer elite: “No plan survives first contact with the enemy!” He wasn't sure who was supposed to have said that – the Company claimed it was one of the heroes from the Water Wars – but, whoever the phrase came from, Will found it apt in any battle.

  “Red dog, this is Blue dog. Heading for secondary target, over.”

  “Blue dog, I’m right behind you, over and out.”

  With that, the screens switched to images of forests and open grounds and Will decided he’d seen enough. It was going to take the planes at least another hour to reach the Farm so he decided to have a break.

  On reflection, Will thought he would report his success to Brand. He felt it was worth getting ahead of events. After all, giving Brand good news now might give Will a chance to delay reporting any potential bad news later.

  He turned to the analyst who was sitting by the monitors. “I will only be gone for a maximum of thirty minutes but if the planes arrive at the Farm early or if there are any issues at all, I want you to beep me. Do you understand?”

  The analyst nodded. “Yes, sir, of course, sir.”

  Will looked at his name tag. “Jerome. I’m very good at remembering names, Jerome! How old are you, Jerome?”

  Jerome stammered out, “Twenty-two, sir.”

  “Twenty-two. You could have a lot of years still ahead of you. If anything happens with those planes, anything at all and you don’t contact me, you will not see your twenty-third birthday. You will take an early trip to the plants.” Will let that statement hang in the air as he left to brief Brand.

  Visibly shaking, Jerome vowed to himself that he would not to take his eyes off the monitors until Will returned.

  29

  Frank’s view of the attack on the rebel stronghold

  12 September 2202

  The warning from Flo had given the rebels time to escape. The Company’s plan to replace ground troops with an aerial attack had also worked in the rebels’ favour.

  Zap had been able to access the information on the assault. The knowledge of when it would come allowed the rebels to escape the stronghold while making it seem as if it was still manned.

  The main strategy was to make it look like all of the rebels had perished during the aerial bombardment. When Frank had first heard of the attack, he wasn’t sure if it was true but when the girl had read his mind, he started to take notice. Even with the advance notice, booby-trapping the buildings to make it hard for the Company to determine if anyone had survived was still a big task to finish in the time available.

  Frank’s knowledge of the hidden exit from the underground levels had been a secret held only by him and a trusted few.

  After the convoy had left for the Farm, he’d started to prepare his strategy in earnest. Apprehensive as he was and wanting to believe that this was all just a nightmare, his suspicions weren’t enough for him to sacrifice his people.

  His increased patrols had captured another six of the Company scouts, but even if they’d got them all, he assumed that the planes could still hit their targets without the guidance systems.

  If the bombs came on schedule, he would have his fighters slip secretly below and begin the evacuation as the first bombs fell. He already had rebels moving stores and vehicles to a secure place outside the compound. The vehicles were in a location chosen for its ability to be camouflaged from above.

  Although he hadn’t experienced an aerial assault before, he had set up this external staging post when rumours of aircraft attacks had spread through the rebel community. As with the underground exits, the location of the staging post was known only to a select few.

  With Zap’s advance warning of the planes leaving the Sanctuary, Frank had been able to schedule evacuating his people. They had strategically placed dummies and other fake figures out in the open in the hope that it would fool those watching from the planes. It was doubtful that the Company would have other troops in the area to check on the results of the attack.

  The main plan was to disappear unnoticed because, if the planes pursued them, they could wreak havoc from above.

  Interrogations of the scouts had gone well. They hadn’t known how many other scouts had been deployed but this was consistent with the usual strategy for scouts. If they didn’t know something, they couldn’t give up the information if they were caught.

  Frank was more interested in the information they had divulged about the technology that they carried. He now knew that it was only accurate when it was within five hundred metres of the target. True, it may have operated over a longer distance but he was sure that the scouts would want to ensure the success of their mission. He imagined how someone would feel after carrying this equipment for days, evading capture and possible death, only for their mission to fail because they were fifty metres or so too far away. No, these scouts would get as close as possible to their targets.

  He had therefore placed his own sentries as lookouts in the main areas that he expected a scout to be located. He didn’t expect to find all of the scouts and, although he hadn’t been trained by the Company, he had been involved in enough battles to develop his own tactical skills.

  It was clear to him that the scouts would wait until the last possible minute to set up their equipment. It would be a balancing act between being exposed for too long and getting within five hundred metres of the compound before the bombers’ arrival. Frank hoped that this would work in his favour. At the first sign of any of the scouts near the compound, the last rebels who were above ground would deploy to the lower-level chambers.

  He’d briefed everyone that remained after the convoy left for the Farm. It was a simple plan and, because so many resources had to be loaded into the trucks, he had to tell them what was going on. They trusted him and it was o
bvious to everyone that their choices were limited.

  He now had fifty fighters hidden in the woods, guarding the trucks to keep their escape route secure. If the trucks were discovered and destroyed by the planes, it would leave them out in the open without transport or resources and vulnerable to attack.

  One of the men guarding the vehicles had even captured a Company scout. His fighters were on high alert. Having stood guard himself in his youth, Frank knew that over time a sentry could become lax and complacent. Fortunately, as this was only the first day of their duties, his fighters were fuelled with the adrenaline that came with a sense of potential death.

  Following a thorough interrogation, the scout who they had captured had stated that the Company was unaware of the vehicle stash. This information could be unreliable, coming as it did from an interrogation. Even so, given the Company surely assumed its attack would be a surprise, it would have no reason to expect the rebels to initiate an escape plan like this.

  As the aircraft approached, the alarm was raised through hushed voices and hand signals.

  The secret exits had always been covered for security reasons and, once that Frank was sure that an attack was imminent, he had tasked them with uncovering the doors. It was back-breaking work to quickly remove the stores that had camouflaged the exits.

  Once through the first doors, his fighters would use the tunnels that led to the vehicles. It was expected that the tunnels were deep enough to withstand the bombardment. His main concern was that if the fighters weren’t in the tunnels when the planes arrived, the weight of the materials from the collapsed buildings would cause the other areas to collapse and stop them from reaching the tunnels in time. But, supposing they got there as planned, they would wait in the tunnels and would not breach the final exit doors until Frank ordered.