by Trent Reedy
“What’s our rules of engagement?” I added.
Kemp looked down for a moment like he was thinking it over. “We’re going to stay out of sight. If they spot us, we’ll run like hell, back toward Pale Horse. Maybe they’ll ignore us.”
“If they come after us?” TJ asked.
“Then we’ll have to take them out,” Becca said. “We can’t let them follow us back to our people.”
“Good thing we do these scavenging runs so far from the school,” JoBell said.
Kemp was all business. “Anything else?” Nobody said anything. “Right. I’m not kidding. Absolute noise discipline. Be ready for anything.”
I led us deeper into the woods at a pace just short of a run. We moved and moved, and when it got dark, we put in a radio call to Pale Horse, put on our night vision glasses, and kept pushing through the woods. I tried to stay focused on our mission, but after a few hours, I couldn’t stop my mind from wandering. Wasn’t this how it always went? As soon as things were going right — finding a house that had things we could use, JoBell talking about getting married — then it all fell apart.
When Kemp finally called a halt for the night, we were all fried, completely soaked in sweat, even though the night air was cool. Everybody pulled out what blankets they had and did their best to sleep. I took the first guard shift, knowing sleep wasn’t coming for me that night anyway. We were supposed to switch guards every hour, but I covered four shifts, until I actually didn’t think I could stay awake anymore. Becca got up to relieve me. I slipped under a blanket close to JoBell and closed my eyes.
In what seemed like an instant, JoBell was poking me awake with a stick and the morning light had begun to fill the woods. Kemp popped a can of baked beans and we passed it around, each of us taking a couple mouthfuls using the spoons from our mess kits. Kemp contacted the team back at Pale Horse to make sure they’d had a quiet night. Then we moved on.
“There weren’t any Brotherhood guys back at that house,” Cal said a while later. “There are probably none clear out here. We can maybe afford to slow down a little.”
But right then everybody in line in front of us threw up their fists with their arm bent at a right angle to signal a halt. We went to a knee, and TJ, who had been on point, rushed back to Kemp. “There’s something up there.”
“What is it?” Kemp said.
“I don’t know.” TJ looked scared. “I don’t think it’s on the map. You have to see this.”
We all crawled up to a line of small boulders. About thirty yards ahead was a huge clearing, with a twelve-foot-high chain-link fence topped with a coil of concertina wire.
“The hell is this?” Cal asked.
Any kid who’d grown up in Idaho knew exactly what it was. “What the hell is a field of potatoes doing way out here?” I asked.
“All fenced in like this?” JoBell added.
“It’s not on the map,” Kemp said quietly. “Unless we are way off course. But I don’t think we are.” He pointed across the clearing. “We were supposed to move through that valley. There shouldn’t be anything out here.”
“We can just go around it, right?” Sweeney said. “We can still get through the valley.”
“Yeah, but what the hell is this?” Cal asked again.
“Maybe we should cut through the fence and load up on potatoes,” Becca said.
JoBell looked through her rifle’s scope. “Buildings way down there. Something’s moving.” She slowly lowered her rifle. “I don’t believe it.”
“What?” I asked.
“This can’t be happening,” JoBell said.
“What is it?” said Sergeant Kemp.
Then we saw them coming over the top of the little hill. Four rows of about a dozen people each, moving slowly. Men walked beside the rows of people, some with rifles, some with whips. As they got closer, we saw the black armbands on the armed men. Metal chains jingled among the rows of people, forcing each person in line to take small steps.
“It’s a Brotherhood slave camp,” I said.
We watched in horror for a moment, until Cal started to stand up, beginning to draw his sword. Me and Becca pulled him back down.
“What’re you gonna do, Cal?” I whispered. “Cut through the fence and charge those guys? See any problems with that plan?”
“They’re human beings.” Cal looked at me all frantic and wide-eyed. “They got ’em chained up like animals. We gotta —”
JoBell rubbed his shoulders. “Cal, honey. It’s okay. Calm down. I know it’s tough.”
Cal crouched down behind a rock again. “I can’t … I can’t let these assholes get away with shit like this again. Not like last time. We have to do something.”
“But we’re pushing a bad position,” I said.
“We don’t have enough people or ammo to take this place down,” Becca said.
Kemp looked out at the field again. “And we don’t know enough about the place to plan an op. We stay down here, out of sight, until those — I guess you call them overseers? Until those Brotherhood guys are way back down at the far end of the field.”
So we used the oldest of all Army skills. We waited. We watched modern-day slaves work the potato field. Most of them were black, Hispanic, or Asian, but there were white people too. All men or boys.
“What are they doing?” Sweeney whispered.
“I think they’re pulling weeds,” Becca answered.
“By hand? In a field that big?” Sweeney said.
JoBell held her rifle tight, keeping it aimed at the Brotherhood. “Right, because it would be okay if the slaves had tools and the field was smaller.”
“I meant, they’re going to break their backs bending over all day like that,” said Sweeney.
“Oh no,” JoBell said, watching the workers. “That’s Kenny Palmer, the guy Becca said disappeared from Freedom Lake after he complained about the Brotherhood. Has he been here all this time?”
Kemp had put Cal and TJ on guard duty to make sure nobody sneaked up behind us. That was smart. I didn’t think Cal could handle watching this. Whenever one of the workers stood up straight, or took too long to stretch with his hands on his aching back, an overseer would be on him with a whip in an instant.
Cal crouched-ran over and dropped down behind the rocks with us. “Sergeant Kemp, I been thinking —”
“Oh shit,” Sweeney said.
“— that this here is a pretty big field. If we all picked a target and shot at the same time, we could bring all those Brotherhood bastards down at once before they had a chance to shoot back. The guys back at the base probably wouldn’t even hear us. Then we use our bolt cutters to cut through the fence and get those guys out —”
“You’re supposed to be covering our six,” Kemp said.
“I know, but I wanted to tell you about my plan for —”
“You left TJ by himself,” Kemp said. “No one goes alone. Always post a guard.”
“I know!” Cal said, a little too loud. Everybody hushed him, and we watched the camp to make sure nobody heard us. “I know the damned rules. But we gotta do something about this. We can’t just walk on by like we never saw nothing.”
“Riccon,” Kemp said. “We don’t know if we have enough resources for an assault on this place. For sure, right now, this squad is not equipped for that mission. We need more information.”
I’m not gonna lie. I’d done a lot of dumb things in my life. Right then, I had an idea for another one. “I’ll get us some information.”
I ran up ahead of the line of rocks, ducking under low-hanging pine branches to stay out of sight. I hooked around the back of a boulder, running toward the field, and then dove into a low crawl the last ten yards to hide behind a big tree trunk about ten feet from the fence. I’d noticed one of the chain gangs working its way close to the fence, while the Brotherhood scumbag overseeing them had gone over to one of his pals to bum a smoke, so I figured it was worth the risk.
Everybody behind the rocks wh
ispered my name real loud. I sat with my back to the tree and pushed down with my hand like, Quiet down. Cradling my rifle over my chest, I risked a look around the side of the trunk. The Brotherhood guys were far away, smoking and joking, as our drill sergeants used to say.
“Hey,” I said quietly, then, “Hey,” a little louder. That time a couple of the workers heard me. A black man started to stand up and look in my direction, but another guy pulled him back down so they could keep working.
“Who’s there?” said the closest man. He was white, wearing what looked like a tattered military flight suit.
“We’re friends. We’d like to get you out of there. My name’s Dan.”
Some of the people on the chain gang were whispering, elbowing one another, I think to keep everybody working. JoBell crawled up next to me with her rifle at the ready.
“Hey, babe.” I smiled.
“Don’t ‘Hey, babe’ me. I’m just making sure you live through this so I can kick your ass later for being so damned stupid.”
“That’s my girl,” I said.
“My name’s Doug,” said the flight suit guy.
I turned again to lean around the tree. “Doug, we want to get all of you out of there, but we need to know what’s up. How many guards? How many prisoners? What kind of weapons, commo, transportation they got?”
“Hard to say,” Doug said. “You can see they keep us locked down pretty tight. But I’ve talked to other prisoners when I can. My best estimate is that they have about fifty Brotherhood guards up here. Maybe a half dozen more work in the office trailer. Big radio field antenna, looks military grade. They have one semi-truck. They pack the trailer as full as they can with the people they capture. Some die on the trip here. I think they have one more pickup, but they hardly use it. There’s not much gas.”
JoBell said, “They’re only using men?”
“There are about thirty men here working the fields,” Doug said. “They keep the women locked in these big sheds. We don’t know how many there are.” He swallowed. “We hear their screams sometimes. We never see them unless we get put on detail to carry a woman’s body to the pit. Sometimes women are driven away. We think they’re selling them.”
“Damn,” JoBell whispered.
Doug went on, “Everyone in the Brotherhood has a rifle or shotgun. Some also have sidearms. Heaviest weapons I’ve seen here are at the main gate — a couple of M240 machine guns. I don’t know what they have for guns in the guard tower.”
The man next to Doug turned toward us again. “Can you help us? How many of you are there? Please. You gotta help us. They got my wife. They got my daughter. She’s only thirteen.”
“Hey!” one of the Brotherhood guys shouted. My instinct was to jump back behind the tree trunk, but I forced myself to be still. Movement attracted attention. “Get your lazy asses working!” I slowly eased myself back behind my tree, my whole body tense and shaking, ready for a fight if we were discovered. “Get. To. Work!” I heard the whip crack with each word. The man grunted a little. “Get up!” the overseer shouted.
“No, wait! He’s fine,” Doug called out. “He can work! You don’t need to whip —”
The whip cracked and Doug cried out in pain.
“Mr. Air Force Hero, you really gotta learn when to shut the hell up and stay out of things. You interfere again, and I’ll beat you so hard, the rest of the lazy pukes on your chain will have to drag your unconscious ass all the way back to the pit. Chuck you in there and let you bleed out with the rest of the bodies.”
Me and JoBell stared at each other. Finally, we saw Kemp motion for us to come back, like it was all clear. When we got back to our friends, Kemp chewed us out, but neither me or JoBell was listening.
“You said we needed information,” JoBell finally said. “We got it. It’s worse than we thought.”
—• And so, my fellow citizens, as Montana, Wyoming, and Idaho come together as one free nation, dedicated to protecting the lives, liberty, and property of all our people, I, James P. Montaine, accept the nomination as interim president of the Northwest Alliance. To our country I dedicate my entire life. I swear to you before God that we will win this war for our freedom. Unto us a great burden has fallen, and our sacrifices have been costly indeed, but I promise you, my fellow citizens, that victory is within our grasp. Rise up! Rise up! Rise up! Defeat the enemy! Onward to victory for the Northwest Alliance! •—
—• In the fifth Battle of Cheyenne, Northwest Alliance insurgents were able to gain temporary footholds in the area immediately north of the city and in nearby Laramie, but after two days of fierce fighting, the United States prevailed in keeping southern Wyoming free. While the official casualty report is still being compiled, the number of insurgent dead is estimated to be well over one thousand. You’re listening to the Unity Radio Network. Hope for a united America. •—
—• BBC now goes live to the House of Commons, where Prime Minister Carman is about to make an address.”
“Over eighty years ago, Mr. Speaker, another British prime minister had the duty of reporting difficult news to this chamber during a world war. I am no Winston Churchill, and I would that this duty fell on someone else, just as I wish this war fell on another people. But this is our hard lot, and never in our long, illustrious history have we the British people backed down.
“Nevertheless, the reports that many of you have seen through a variety of media are true. The German cities of Dresden, Leipzig, and Berlin are now occupied by Soviet military forces. The enemy deployed out of occupied Poland with remarkable speed and deadly precision. Their armored and infantry divisions, supported by an air force far superior to that which our intelligence community estimated, moved quickly first to Berlin, and then into many other cities in the eastern part of Germany. The Allied military faced particular danger from the Soviet Air Force, a large component of which had been expertly concealed from satellite surveillance. It would appear that these additional Soviet air assets had been kept in reserve as part of a coordinated effort toward a surprise attack. The enemy made no distinction between military and civilian targets, but unleashed near total devastation wherever they went.
“Doubtless the murderous Soviet leadership is celebrating what it believes to be a great triumph, what it believes to be a sign of its coming victory. But when Allied forces regrouped, we dealt decisive damage to the Soviet military, crushing any hope of their continuing advance. I spoke via video conference to German Chancellor Jutta Martell, who leads her government from a secure location. I do not think Chancellor Martell will mind me repeating her words, that the Soviets’ mistake of believing they can divide Germany again will cost them their lives.
“The Soviets have misjudged our allies. And I would suggest to you, to the whole British people, and to the world, that the Soviets have greatly misjudged us and our history if they believe, for one moment, that the people of the United Kingdom will ever capitulate. Sir Winston Churchill’s sentiment from so long ago rings no less true today. We shall fight in Germany and in Poland. We shall fight on the seas and oceans. We shall fight in the air. We shall fight on the beaches. We shall fight in the fields and in the streets. We. Shall. Never. Surrender! •—
—• Because the civil war has disrupted vaccination production and distribution, millions of parents no longer have the ability to protect their children against measles, mumps, and rubella, among other diseases. The result? An outbreak of measles affecting thousands of children. Worse, for the first time since polio was eradicated in the United States in 1979, the Pan American territory now faces the threat of an epidemic. Dr. Byron Hoffman of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta read a prepared statement today.”
“Our leader, General Jonathan Vogel, understands the importance of immunization and assures the Atlantican people that all Atlantican citizens will be fully vaccinated, by force if necessary. He is deeply saddened to hear of the children suffering from measles, and offers his condolences to the familie
s of those who have died. General Vogel is also disappointed to hear of so many suffering paralysis from polio. While the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has an ample supply of all vaccines needed to protect Atlantican citizens, those vaccines cannot be shared with any nation currently engaged in war against Atlantica. Full nation recognition as well as other military concessions must be made before the CDC can offer assistance in combating the growing health crisis in the United States and other Pan American countries. Atlantica is victory! •—
—• Soviet Television Online is proud to present this address from Soviet leader Vladimir Putin, translated into English for our supporters around the world.”
“Peter the Great once said that our military is paramount to the Fatherland’s defense, and this love and respect for our military is something that lives in the memory of every Soviet family. We will defend this truth from lies and from being forgotten.
“The courage, integrity, and professionalism of our great military is unparalleled, admired by our allies and feared by our enemies. It was the courage of our soldiers in battles for Moscow, Stalingrad, Kursk, Warsaw, Budapest, and finally Berlin that made it possible to defeat Nazism.
“Now the Germans have attacked Soviet forces again at our bases in Prague, Poznan, and even Warsaw. But our enemies should read their history books! They should know that those who serve beneath our battle banners will always look to the example of past Soviet victors and never flinch or retreat. No one should make the mistake of believing for one moment that it is possible to achieve military supremacy over the Soviet Union or to pressure us in any way or form. We will always offer the strongest response to any such reckless actions.
“Our response to the current aggression is much as it was decades ago. The Soviet Union will never surrender! We will never relinquish our right to defend ourselves, and if we are forced to seize the territory of our enemy aggressors to protect our families and loved ones, then that is what we will do! My comrades, in the coming struggle, in the great crusade before us, I wish you success! •—
