STRYKER - OMNIBUS: BOOKS 3-5: A Post Apocalyptic Tale

by Bobby Andrews

  “PTSD?” Edwards said softly.

  “Me? Naw, I’m fine. I don’t have nightmares or any of that shit.”

  “We all have it,”

  “I don’t.”

  “I do.”

  “Really?”

  “I wasn’t always fearless and crazy, as you put it.”

  Stryker stared at Edwards and looked away. “I guess it’s possible,” he finally said, “But, it doesn’t feel like that to me. I normally feel fine and really don’t think that much about combat or the shit we saw.”

  “You might want to talk to the Doc about it.”

  “Did you?”

  “Over a year of treatments, three times a week.”

  “Did it help?”

  “Not really, but it was good just to talk about it. I usually felt a little better for a few days.”

  Stryker pushed the thought away and said, “Well, we don’t have a V.A. now, and we have other problems to take care of, so that probably isn’t going to happen.”

  Edwards looked at him with a sad expression. “You know the difference between us?”

  “Yeah, you’re short and ugly,” Stryker quipped.

  “No, it’s that you were in command and every loss you suffered cost you a small slice of your soul. I wasn’t. I was just a trigger puller that never had to send anyone to their death. You might want to think about that because you have been in command of our band of fools for the last few years and it has obviously cost you something.”

  “I will when we get done killing everyone that needs to die.”

  “That could take a while,” Edwards replied with a droll tone.

  “I got time.”

  “You might as long as Erin is around the next time you check out.”

  Stryker glared at him. Edwards stared back with a bland expression.

  “Fucker.” Stryker whispered.

  “Asshole,’ Edwards replied with a cheery grin.

  “We haven’t made much progress here and we can’t leave until we have a plan.”

  “Why don’t we just go to Alpine and surveille them and see if there’s a chance to take them out.”

  “You’re not going anywhere. You can’t even get out of bed. Jesus Edwards, get real.”

  “It’s only a flesh wound,” Edwards said in a Monty Python voice.

  “Go to sleep. I’ll deal with Erin.”

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  “I didn’t say it was a good plan,” Stryker protested when Erin fixed him with a stink-eye.

  “It’s no plan.”

  “Well, it’s the only one we have.”

  “It sucks.”

  “I know it sucks, but at least we can act on it, and if we have to fight them at the base, we can always do that. But, why not at least try to fight them somewhere else.”

  “Is that really the best you could come up with?”

  “Yes.”

  Erin sighed, “Okay, when do we leave?”

  “Tomorrow morning. We go to Alpine, set up at some high ground somewhere, and hope they have to gather together for food and water.”

  “If they don’t?”

  “Then we come back here and duke it out with them toe-to-toe. I want to avoid that, but without good intel, we have no way to know if it will come to that or not.” Stryker paused, and then added, “We will win it, but it will be at a cost, and I know I have said that a hundred times, but I just can’t accept the idea of having this place destroyed and having to start over again. Thomas feels the same way, and I’ve tried to lower his expectations, but he’s not willing to listen, so I guess I have to keep trying to find a way to win this fight away from the base.”

  “Something will come to you.”

  “I hope so,” he replied.

  Stryker stripped off his clothes and sat on the bottom bunk.

  Erin followed suit and nudged him over so she could lie next to him. She snuggled back, turned over, and faced him and then said, “Did you give it your best?”

  “I think so, but it’s hard to know how much thought to give something with so little information.”

  “You need to talk again tomorrow before we leave.”

  “We will, but I don’t think much will come of it.”

  “At least try.”

  “I will, but I want you to know something.”

  “Go ahead.”

  “Edward thinks I have PTSD.”

  “You probably do.”

  “You think so too?”

  “Yes, your irrational anger and lapses of judgement all point to that.”

  “Shit.”

  “Well, yes.”

  “What do you think I should do?”

  “Find a way to live with it. You are too proud and, at times, arrogant; to benefit much from treatment, but you can recognize that it’s a problem and try to deal with it.

  “I hate admitting weakness.”

  “Really? Let me text that newsflash out.”

  “Seriously, I don’t want to be screwed up when you and I are out there. I don’t want to get you hurt because I am not up to the task.”

  “You’re doing it again,” Erin sighed.

  “What?”

  “Engaging in self-doubt when you shouldn’t. You have to get over that stuff and understand that you are very good at what you do. You need to get by the bad decisions you’ve made, at least in your mind, put them behind you and focus on the future. Anything else is just dumb.”

  “Were you really going to shoot me?” Stryker mumbled.

  “Fucking A.”

  “Jesus.”

  “He can’t help you against me.”

  “Sleep,” Stryker murmured to the back of her head.

  Erin nudged him further back into the bunk and said, “You’re fine Stryker; you have to be for the rest of us.”

  “I know,” he replied in a sleepy voice,

  “You know we all love you?”

  “I love you all too.”

  “So, man up and get us out of this.”

  “I will.”

  “We’re counting on you.”

  “I know. Now go to sleep. I need to get some rest.”

  “In the morning, we’re making kids.”

  Stryker growled back at her and bucked his hips forward.

  “Sleep,” he said again. He hugged her once, and then started breathing more deeply.

  Erin wondered at the man behind her; He was seemingly indestructible. He had survived wars, the plague and had been in indefatigable leader for their group. Stryker had seen them through impossible situations, always leading from the front and never shirking responsibility.

  He rolled over on his back and started snoring softly. Erin turned to him, rose on one elbow, and studied his face as he slept. She continued thinking about him, wondering at the mystery he presented, and then considered his latest crisis.

  He was decisive and always leaned forward; aggressive to the point of recklessness, but seldom out of control. Yet, every time doubt entered his mind, he wavered and seemed frozen by indecision. His intellect was replaced by rage, and the calculating, coldly-analytical man was replaced by a man filled with anger and aggression.

  Then, the realization hit her.

  The thing that would ultimately kill him was not his enemies, but his friends. She understood he cared deeply about everyone with him and, at times, succumbed to emotion when he felt he let people down, or they expressed anger or disappointment with him. Stryker held himself to an uncompromising standard, but failed to understand that nobody else did the same with themselves and, when bad things happened, he presumed he was at fault even the blame laid elsewhere.

  She thought about Edward’s wound, and how Stryker had, again, salvaged a positive outcome from a negative situation, and then beat himself up about it and resorted to irrational behavior.

  She understood that Blaine was responsible for his own safety and probably was shot because he let his guard down or failed to pay attention. On the other hand, she also under
stood why Stryker felt bad about it, because she knew Edwards was not keen on going after the terrorists after he realized that the communications system was flawed. Stryker had all but forced him to continue the mission when he did not want to continue.

  Erin was gratified by the knowledge she gained from the time she contemplated the situation, but troubled by what it implied.

  Should she try to use it to manipulate him, and perhaps be able to better protect him?

  Or was that a deceitful and manipulative act that would ultimately fail when he realized what she was doing? And, she knew he eventually would.

  She sighed softly and continued staring at him. The one thing that she knew for sure was that fate always eventually delivered a reckoning to those who face evil with the unflinching courage that Stryker embraced.

  “Jesus,” Stryker signed. “I can smell your brain burning. What the hell are you thinking about now?” He rolled to his side and faced her.

  “Will you please stop doing that?” She hissed.

  “What.”

  “Making me think you’re asleep and I have a moment to my own thoughts, and then asking me questions when you shouldn’t even know I’m awake.”

  “I do that?”

  “Constantly.”

  “Sorry, but I woke up.”

  “That really pissed me off,” she signed, slumping back on her pillow.

  “I don’t do it to piss you off. I do it because I care about what you’re thinking about.”

  “It’s really annoying.”

  “You want to talk about it.”

  “Definitely not.”

  “You wondering if you should be honest with me?”

  “Go back to sleep,” Erin replied in an exasperated tone. “I’m going to start wearing aluminum foil on my head at night.”

  “That’s kind of kinky.”

  “Sleep.”

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  Erin was still wondering how much to tell Stryker when they left Edward’s room after yet another futile meeting that ended up with no real plan. They walked through the ship, down the gangway and across the pier, where they loaded their weapons into the Humvee and stopped to look at each other.

  “You want to tell me anything about last night?” Stryker asked.

  “Not yet, but I will. I’m still thinking on it.”

  “Fine, I’m checking in the with comms center. We need to know if there’s movement out there or if they are still hunkering down and doing God knows what.”

  “I’ll be here.”

  “Right back.”

  He disappeared into the building and emerged after a few minutes with a self-satisfied grin covering his face. A solution to the problem of how to kill a large group of terrorist had finally occurred to him. It wasn’t perfect, but Stryker thought it would do.

  “And?” Erin asked.

  “They’re moving and converging on Alpine. We might get a chance to take them there. A new drone is going up now and we have two F-18s with cluster bombs on alert.”

  “What’s a cluster bomb?”

  “These are the CBU-87 Combined Effects Munition. They’re “dumb bombs,” but if you use enough of them, they are very effective anti-personnel weapons. It’s designed to be dropped from an aircraft at any from any altitude and speed, and it relies on the pilot to aim it before it drops. It’s around 2 meters long and weighs over 400 kilos.”

  “Why is it so effective?” Erin asked.].

  Each CBU-87 has 202 bomblets that disperse when the primary munition is in the air. Since each has a shaped charge and fragmentation case, they basically operate as individual bombs as they approach the target.”

  “So they cover a large area? Is that what makes them so effective?”

  “Yes. Then, when the bomb leaves the aircraft, it starts spinning. After it drops to a certain altitude, the canister breaks open and the sub munitions are released. Each bomblet has a ring of tabs at the tail end, and they orient the bomblet and deploy an inflatable decelerator to decrease the falling speed of the smaller bombs. When the sub munitions hit the ground, they will cover a large area. Depending on the rate of spin and the altitude at which the canister opens, it can cover an area between 20x20 meters, if it’s a low release altitude. The same bomb can cover up to 120x240 meters with a high release altitude and higher high rate of spin.”

  “I take it you’re going with a high release?” Erin asked.

  “Yes, with four of them we can cover the entire town from end-to-end and take out a lot of them, even if they are dispersed.”

  “But, not all of them?”

  “That depends on what sort of spacing they maintain and if they go into town in small groups. But, with four bombs, one on each compass point, the blast radius is over 115,000 square meters. Even if they are spaced out the same way they were before, that should be enough to get at least half of them.”

  “What will happen to the town?”

  “Oh, its toast,” Stryker replied solemnly. “I just hope there are no survivors there.”

  Erin paused to think it over, and then asked, “Won’t the terrorists hear the planes coming?”

  “They’re taking off to the west, over the ocean, climbing and then turning toward the target at high altitude. They assured me that they will too high for them to hear the approach. And, we get the bonus of a wider dispersal of the bomblets.”

  “But, you said they were dumb bombs and how accurate are they from high altitude?”

  “Think of these bombs as shotguns. They can be effective if you just shoot it the right direction. So, accuracy is not as important as making sure they are spread out enough to cover the larger area.”

  “Have you used them before?”

  “Not in combat. I’ve seen demos of them being used at the range in Pendleton and they are fearsome weapons.”

  “You seem pretty confident.”

  “I wouldn’t say that. It’s more like I think we got a good shot at this if the pilots are any good.”

  “What are we doing?” Erin asked.

  “Damage assessment, and confirming the drop points for the pilots. The drone will give everyone the GPS coordinates, and we will confirm by identifying landmarks for the drops. So, the coordinates will give them the general locations, but they have to aim the weapons, so the landmarks are confirmation to make sure we get maximum coverage of the area.”

  “Gear?”

  “The usual.”

  They donned their vests and checked loads. Stryker looked thoughtfully at his messenger bag, which still contained several grenades. He shrugged once, and then placed the carrier on one shoulder and turned to Erin.

  “Good to go,” she said.

  “Let’s get the party started,” he replied, screwing his ear bud in.

  Erin got into the driver’s seat while Stryker walked back into the comms center. He came back out, sat in the passenger’s seat and said, “They’re still moving.”

  “Where are we going in Alpine,” Erin asked.

  “West side of town. They are approaching from the east, and there is a small high rise building there that we can use to get some elevation and see the battle field better. I’ll give you directions once we get close.”

  “All right, let’s get the party started.” Erin grinned at him.

  Stryker shrugged, nodded his agreement, and they drove past the guard’s Humvees and through the gates.

  After passing the same tired store fronts and abandoned gas stations and fast food joints, they turned north on Highway 15, and saw the San Diego International Airport to the west.

  “Interstate 8?” Erin asked as they passed the sign.

  “Yes, just head east and we’ll run into Alpine in about a half-hour.” He glanced off to the north and saw the large shopping center where he used to browse through high-end stores, unable to afford anything but a bite in the food court, then smiled at Erin.

  “What is it?” She asked.

  “When this is over, we’re going to go
to the mall and find what we need to get a real house set up.”

  “On the base?”

  “Yes, why not. There is a lot of nice housing there, it’s more secure and, at some point, we’re going to have to find something useful to do so we don’t die of boredom.”

  “I’ll settle for not dying today. We can think about the other stuff later. Right now, I just want to get this done.”

  “Me too.” Stryker looked to the south as they passed a Japanese steak house and other restaurants and retail stores. They were in the HOV lane, and seldom had to navigate around stalled vehicles.

  They passed two stadiums to the south, a golf course, and slowly the town turned into neat residential areas, all ghost towns now, but weirdly attractive even with the evident neglect. Finally, they were in more open geography, and began gaining elevation as they approached the town of Alpine.

  “What the hell is that,” Erin asked as she applied the brakes while staring at the road ahead. There was a large sandy clump of fur lying on the roadway ahead.

  “Hit the horn.” Stryker said.

  She tapped the horn a few times, and the clump stood up, stretched, than sat staring at them.

  “Looks like a lion,” Stryker said, narrowing his eyes, and then he brought the binoculars to his eyes. Yep, it’s a lion.”

  “Like an African lion,” she asked, her voice filled with disbelief.

  “Yes, it has a mane.”

  “What the hell is it doing here?”

  “It must be from the zoo or maybe some private animal exhibit around here.”

  “What do we do?”

  “Give me a second,” Stryker replied, again peering through the binoculars and adjusting the focus. He began to chuckle softly after a moment.”

  “What’ funny?”

  “That’s Izu. He was the male lion at the San Diego zoo. I used to take my daughter to see him about once a week. She loved looking at that beast.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Yep. He had a scar over his left eye that I noticed one time when he was walking around the exhibit. And that one has the same scar. That’s definitely Izu, and he looks like he’s been eating pretty well.”

  “How do you suppose he got out?”