The Last Full Measure

by Trent Reedy

  “It almost wasn’t,” I said.

  She looked up and smiled at me. “I knew you’d convince them.” But her smile told me she knew it was her speech that had swayed the vote.

  “Kemp and Crocker are drawing up the plan,” Sweeney said. “Kemp said he wanted to go in heavy, with a lot of guys. He’ll be asking for volunteers.”

  Attacking those Brotherhood bastards with a large force sounded like a good idea. Going in big would help us overwhelm the enemy and make sure we came out on top. But it also meant running the mission with a lot of people who didn’t have much experience. I worried about Jaclyn. The only action she’d seen was pulling guard duty on Pale Horse while my team ran scavenging missions. Who else on this op would have barely fired a weapon? I was still right about what I’d said about the tactical situation. The Brotherhood had the advantage.

  “You know, Jackie,” I said. “We already have pretty good coverage on this one.”

  Jaclyn slammed a magazine into one of her handguns. Another into the other. She set them down on the table with loud thunks. “Those bastards murdered my parents. I’m going to kill them back.” She fixed me with hard eyes that dared me to argue.

  It was so quiet that I jumped when someone knocked on the door. Brad Robinson poked his head in. “Danny, Sergeant Kemp and Sergeant Crocker are in the radio room. They sent me to get you.”

  “What do they want?” Becca asked.

  “Help planning the op,” Brad said.

  I gave the doorjamb a light punch. “Remember last year, when we were just kids?” I asked the room.

  Sweeney touched his mangled skin where he had been burned. Becca rubbed his back.

  “Last year was like ten years ago,” JoBell said quietly.

  * * *

  I went with Brad to the radio room in the Council Building. “I’m volunteering for the attack,” he said when we were outside. “I can shoot, and I’ve been working out all summer, push ups and curls with logs and stuff. I’m strong. You know, if we gotta carry some of those people out.”

  “I hope it won’t come to that,” I said.

  “Crystal’s mom is pissed about the whole thing,” Brad said. “She already told me I couldn’t go. But it’s like you were saying when we first moved to the school. We gotta stick together like in football, you know? A team. I got your back.”

  He fist-bumped me, but all I could think was that this mission wasn’t going to be like a damned football game.

  I joined Kemp and Crocker in the command center they’d set up around Crocker’s radios. “Sergeants.” I nodded at each of them, standing at something like parade rest out of force of habit, even though we’d ditched that kind of formality by now. Still, demonstrating proper respect to rank made it easier to criticize what I’d heard of the plan. “I heard you were asking for volunteers.”

  “Geez. At ease, Wright,” said Sergeant Crocker. “This isn’t basic training.”

  Sergeant Kemp leaned back in his folding chair. “Yeah, we’re taking volunteers. You signing up?”

  “Right. Would you let me stay out of it if I asked?”

  Kemp frowned. “I’d be disappointed, but I wouldn’t force you to go.”

  “I’m going,” I said. “But what about the others? It’s not like you’re picking trained soldiers from back in our unit. People with zero combat experience like Jaclyn Martinez are volunteering.”

  “How many battles were you in before this war started?” Crocker asked.

  “You know what I mean,” I said.

  “I hear you, Wright,” said Kemp. “But you make it sound like we’re going up against US Special Forces. It won’t be easy, and we’ll take every precaution, but we have to remember we’re taking out a bunch of barely trained, ignorant, overconfident, racist thugs. And if we charge in there with Pale Horse and then keep up the momentum, we’ll have surprise and overwhelming firepower on our side.”

  “Kill them all before they have time to react,” I said.

  “Exactly,” Kemp said. “Beat them with brutality.”

  We got down to planning the fight.

  * * *

  One thing I’d learned about the Army is that the nights before shipping out to training or for missions were always sleepless nights. The soldier lays there, loving his soft, warm bed, but unable to sleep, a little more fear coming with each hour that slips away. The best I could do on the night before our op was settle into that sort of half-sleep-half-waking-type rest.

  JoBell had been resting her head on my chest, but she slid up a little bit to reach the pillow. “Have you slept much?” she whispered in my ear.

  “A little,” I whispered back.

  Her arm was warm across my chest, and she squeezed me closer. “Liar.”

  We lay there in silence for a long time. There was something I wanted to talk to her about that I hadn’t found the guts to bring up yet. “JoBell, will you sit this one out?”

  “Mmm.” She took in a breath. She’d fallen asleep. “What?”

  “Will you sit out this mission?” I whispered. “Stay here and keep watch over things?”

  “You’re going to need me.” She breathed the words in my ear, and a hot tingle went down my spine. “The plan calls for snipers, and I’m the best shot you got.”

  I ran my hand down her soft blond hair, down her back, until I squeezed her ass and pulled her on top of me. “You are the best shot, which is why you should stay here in case someone attacks the school.”

  “There won’t be any attacks.” She moaned a little when I squeezed her again.

  I gave her a quick kiss. “We were going to get out of the war.”

  “One last mission,” she said.

  “You could stay here and get ready for our wedding. When I get back, we’ll get married. That day.”

  She propped herself up on her elbow, smiled in the faint moonlight, and pressed a finger to my lips. I kissed her finger, and she trailed it down my chin, down my chest. Down. Down. Then she kissed me, hot and hard, before we melted into each other. And we were so, so, so good. Together.

  * * *

  It took a long time to get into position for the op. I drove Pale Horse. Kemp worked the radio in the passenger seat. Cal ran the turret. TJ manned the right side .50 and Becca had the left. Sweeney covered our tail with the M240. JoBell and Jackie sat right behind the hatch between the cab and the ambulance pod. Brad and Dwight Robinson rode in back with Tim Macer. Our call sign was assault one.

  Assault two followed us. Norm had volunteered to drive our remaining bus. I was surprised when Mr. Grenke signed up too. He’d be backup for Norm, and he’d work the door, helping people who were escaping the camp to get on board. Dr. Nicole would be on the bus to take care of any wounded. Mr. Morgan, Lee Brooks, and Tim Macer’s dad would provide fire support out the bus windows. I worried about assault two. It didn’t have the armor or firepower that protected Pale Horse.

  The scariest part of the plan was assault three. Sergeant Crocker was leading a team on foot in the open, with Chaplain Carmichael, Chase Draper, Skylar Grenke, Aimee Hartling and her first stepdad, Darren, and about five other people. Mr. Shiratori had signed up too, quoting something about evil succeeding when good men chose to do nothing.

  The plan was simple. Pale Horse would ram through the gate and start blasting every Brotherhood bastard we saw. We’d hit just before dawn, so hopefully most of them would still be groggy with sleep. We’d take out the radio antenna to stop them from calling for help. We’d made contact with Doug, the former pilot. He was supposed to tell the rest of the prisoners in the camp to hit the dirt when the bullets started flying, and to make their way toward the potato field when they could.

  Eventually Kemp would take over driving, and me and everyone else not manning a gun in Pale Horse would dismount to help the prisoners get over to the bus. Assault three would be protecting us the whole time, and they would have holes cut in the fence for the prisoners to escape if things went wrong.

  My
stomach felt cold and tight, and the back of my throat burned as I sat behind the steering wheel in Pale Horse. Kemp had spent a lot of time with the paper maps of the area that we’d used to find the Alice Marshall School. He’d guided everyone to their positions. We were parked in our release area. The camp was up the dirt road ahead of us.

  “All assault elements. All assault elements. This is assault one. Assault one is go. I need a sit rep. Over,” Kemp radioed.

  “Assault one, this is assault two. We are go. Over.”

  “Assault one, assault three. We’re go. Over.”

  “All assault elements, all assault elements, this is … shepherd.” It was Chaplain Carmichael. He shouldn’t have been on the channel, but Sergeant Kemp didn’t seem to mind. “As the old hymn goes, ‘Onward, Christian soldiers.’ May God be with us in what we are about to do. Amen.”

  Kemp pressed the radio handset to his forehead. “Amen,” he whispered. Then he keyed the mike. “All assault elements. All assault elements. This is assault one.” He paused but kept the mike keyed and looked over at me. I nodded. “Execute the mission. Assault one. Out.”

  “Let’s kick some ass!” Cal called out from the turret.

  “Hit it,” Kemp said.

  I put her in drive and stomped on the gas, speeding up the dirt road faster and faster. The camp gates were a couple hundred yards ahead. The plan was to break through at full speed, firing on the way. Soon I could see the tall fence, the big chain-link gate with barbed wire on top, that damned flag of my bloody fist fluttering in the breeze. “Okay, assholes,” I said quietly. “I will give you a war.” Seventy yards out.

  “Are you going to do it?” Kemp asked.

  “Do what?” I said.

  “The thing.”

  “Oh, right,” I said. “And I looked!” I called out.

  “And behold a pale horse!” Sweeney, Becca, Cal, and TJ yelled back.

  Fifty yards. The gate guards had come out of their little shack. They were readying rifles.

  “And his name that sat on him was Death!” JoBell shouted.

  Twenty-five yards.

  “And hell followed with him!” Cal screamed.

  “Give it to ’em, Cal!” Kemp yelled.

  The .50-cal on our roof opened up. The gate guards’ bodies popped into pulpy meat and blood. We crashed through the gate, ripping it off its poles. I checked the side mirror and saw two more guys come out of the guard shack. Sweeney gunned them down, splitting one guy’s skull and sending more rounds slicing through the other’s crotch and chest. By the time we made it up the road toward the buildings, our bus had hooked off to the right, running behind some trees toward the potato field.

  About a dozen men that we’d caught off guard had come out of an RV and a larger trailer house, all in different stages of dress. They were firing back, most with rifles, but a few with shotguns and at least two with SAWs. We took fire from a tall guard tower on the far side of the cluster of buildings. Hot bullets thumped our armor like hard, short cracks of thunder.

  “I got the tower!” Cal yelled.

  “Get up here in the middle of these buildings!” Kemp shouted.

  “They’ll surround us!” I answered.

  “Get up there so we can use our side guns better!” Kemp said. “TJ, here you go! Mow ’em down!”

  “Eat it, you racist bastards!” TJ fired a series of five-second bursts.

  “Jo, I’m gonna need more ammo!” Cal yelled.

  “On it!”

  As I circled around in the middle of the ring of buildings, we took more bullets. I worried about Cal getting hit. Becca, TJ, Sweeney, and Cal were burning through rounds.

  A pickup rolled out from between a big aluminum shed and the trailer that must have been their barracks. One man fired a rifle from the passenger seat, but four guys standing in the bed of the truck were loading a .50-cal they had fixed to a custom mount. Once they started shooting, we’d be in trouble. I swung Pale Horse hard to the right to hit their front fender with our heavier front corner.

  “Jo, you got the gun,” Cal yelled.

  “Idiot! Don’t!” JoBell screamed.

  “What’s he doing?” Kemp called back.

  But we were too late. In the mirror, I saw Cal leap from the roof of our truck to the back of the enemy pickup. His sword speared one man in the throat, slashing out sideways and down to take off another’s hands. He kicked back to push a third man out of the truck before he brought the sword around to thrash open the guts of the fourth. The driver and the shooter in the passenger seat of the pickup were so distracted that the pickup rolled away from us.

  “Damn it!” JoBell shouted. “I can’t get a clear shot! Cal, get out of there!”

  Cal sheathed his sword and jumped to the ground, rolling like a commando. A second later, JoBell shredded the whole cab into a pink mist. The truck crashed into the corner of the big shed.

  “Get us around the back of that building,” Kemp said to me. He turned his head to yell back to the others, “Get ready to dismount! I want that radio antenna taken out!”

  The shed gave us a little cover from the guard tower, and our back door swung open. Me and Kemp jumped out. I ran with my M4 and joined Jackie, Tim Macer, and the two Robinsons.

  “We’ll never get to the antenna until we take out that tower!” I said. “Cover me. I’m going up there.”

  But when we rounded the corner, we saw the tower was already taking heavy machine gun fire. Cal had jumped on the pickup’s .50-cal. “Jackie, Macer, cover Cal. Robinsons, shoot the shit out of the cables on that antenna,” I said to my group. “I’ll get those bastards up there.” I ran like hell for the tower, slinging my rifle as I jumped to the ladder and scrambled up.

  “Go, buddy, go!” Cal shouted. My rifle slapped against my back as I flew up the ladder, focusing on every rung so I didn’t slip. “ ’Bout outta rounds!” Cal yelled.

  Near the top, some dumb bastard peeked over the side. Three rounds from Cal tore away his head, arms, and upper body. Blood rained down on me. Cal let off the machine gun. I pulled the remains of the body out of the tower and dropped it to the ground. I brought my rifle to the ready, held tight to the ladder rungs with my legs, and emptied fifteen rounds into the little room up there. When I climbed in, the guards’ bodies were huddled at the back of the shack. I grabbed their M240 machine gun and draped myself with belts of ammo.

  Cal had cross-loaded the pickup’s .50-cal ammo to Pale Horse. I think he’d cooked off the enemy gun’s barrel. Pale Horse made another run through the main camp, tearing up everything.

  From up here, I could see the whole compound. Four black men used their chains to choke a group of Brotherhood, then they used the captured guns to shoot their chains and break free. After that, they tore through whatever Brotherhood guys they saw.

  Another group of Brotherhood thugs were shooting at our other two teams from behind some junked-out cars near the field. Prisoners in ragged clothes were rushing to the bus as fast as they could while still chained together. It looked like a couple of our people were down. A few prisoners on one chain gang took rounds, falling, so the rest had to drag them.

  I aimed at the Brotherhood guys in the field and fired. Missed. “Jo!” I screamed down to Pale Horse. She never missed. She could hit those Brotherhood bastards from here. I yelled down to the others, “Get out to the field! The prisoners need help. JoBell, get up here! I need you!”

  Cal jumped up on Pale Horse’s hood, was on the roof in two steps, and hopped down into the turret to replace JoBell, who came out the back and sprinted for the tower. A fat, bearded man in that damned armband rushed out from behind some trees and fired twice.

  Blood erupted from my JoBell’s chest. Her thigh tore open. Her scream echoed over the roar of the whole fight as she fell.

  JoBell.

  I dropped the machine gun, slung my rifle, and climbed-fell-slid down the ladder. My legs stung when I landed. I slid to the ground next to JoBell. “You’re good. You’re oka
y.” My shirt was off and wrapped around her, but I couldn’t get it tight enough to stop the blood. “Jo. Jo. Jo. You’re okay. JoBell?” I kissed her. I had to stop the bleeding in her leg. “Somebody help me!”

  JoBell stared at me wide-eyed. Blood rose in the corner of her mouth. A smile came to her face. “I would … have made you … such a good wife.”

  Screams and bullets echoed around me. A wave of smoke passed as something burned somewhere. I should have screamed. Cried. I should have tried to save her. But I knew she was gone. My JoBell. My life. Was gone.

  I yanked the snap on my nine mil’s holster and pulled the gun out. I worked the slide, clicked off the safety, and put the barrel into my mouth, aiming up through my brain.

  The gun flew out of my mouth and my face hit the ground. A heavy weight crushed me. Was I dead?

  Then I was pulled up by my arms, being shaken around, my head flopping loose. “What are you doing?” Cal screamed, his spit in my face. A vein bulged on his forehead and tears ran down his cheeks. “You trying to kill yourself, you son of a bitch!? You try to kill yourself!?”

  There’s nothing left for me. No words would escape. Tim and Jackie were by our side. Tim heaved JoBell onto his shoulder, blood rolling down his body, dark red staining his T-shirt.

  Cal slapped me. “You wanna die!? Then we go out fighting! Let’s kill these bastards!” He hauled me to my feet.

  “Cal …” A tiny breath made it out of me. “I can’t …”

  “I’m with you all the way!” Cal said. “I’ll die with you if that’s what you want. But let’s die fighting. Let’s go!”

  He pulled me, and I ran with him. I think Jackie and Tim ran beside us. Some Brotherhood guys were up ahead, shooting at us from behind some pallets and fifty-gallon fuel drums.

  “Kill ’em, Wright!” Cal’s voice echoed in my skull. “We’ll kill ’em all!”

  I screamed, aimed my nine mil, and fired again and again. Then I was flying over a pallet, my boot landing on some guy’s throat. I shot three more of them. Cal slashed with his sword, opening one man, then another. Two men came out of a steel door in front of a big shed. I sprinted to them, shooting, shooting, shooting. I was in the shed. Full of cages, some beds with stained mattresses. Crying women huddled in the cold dark.