by David Peters
He handed the bag back to Doc and nodded his understanding, “I didn’t know them well but they seemed like good people. I saw them around the camp occasionally. We weren’t close.”
“You did what you could. No one could have done any better,” Dylan said quietly.
Mike sank back into his pillow and stared quietly at the ceiling. He closed his eyes several times to try and push the tears away, “Guys, if you don’t mind, I could really use some rest.”
Doc stood, “You heard the man, everyone out.”
The four of them stood on the front porch and looked around the town. The work day was well underway as people moved about the various work sheds and shops. Raw logs were being dropped off behind the small mill while building ready timbers were being stacked in the front. Several people carried large bags of clothes down to the river for washing while others were hanging them to dry on lines near the turbine building.
The small group walked off the porch in silence and made their way into the busy town square. Mike had given them a wealth of information to digest.
Dylan stated the obvious, “There is no way in hell we can fight off numbers like that and we don’t have any way to evacuate like Folkesburg did. Even if we had the new defenses in place, we would be out of Dust before we could take half of them out.”
“If there was some magical way we could catch them in one of the valleys, we might be able to knock their numbers back but that would be a one-in-a-million shot. Not to mention it would leave whoever is fighting out there horribly exposed.”
“Could we use the last nuke in one of the valleys?”
“Which valley would we use? What if the winds aren’t in our favor? Nukes do some crazy stuff when hills are involved. Compression waves can move for miles and combine in some random place. We could mistakenly flatten the town.”
Dylan nodded in frustration.
“Besides,” Caperson added as he kicked at some moss on the steps, “even if we could catch them out in the open like that it would only delay the attack until they rebuilt their forces again. They would be back and they would be doubly pissed.”
“So what you are saying, Chris, is that we have to take out the nest. It’s simple as that. Do you think we could pull off another nuke attack like Sumter? Get the pack into the bottom of the hive and blow it?”
Caperson thought to himself. He tapped the ground near his feet with a small stick as he thought through the options, “It would take some serious long range scouting and I don’t think we have the legs for it. We would have to learn their patrol routes, the timings and then lay the trap. All while trying to hide in the same hills that we are attempting to scout. The logistics of trying that are crazy. It takes longer to make it happen then for them to get their forces put together and start marching. Not to mention we don’t know squat about how the bigger hives scout. If they use teams of four instead of two, it could be over before it started.”
“Would it be possible to stick it on one of the bodies that just got here and leave it where they could find it?” Niccole asked uncomfortably.
Caperson thought for several moments, “It’s more than four times the size of the Sumter hive from the sounds of it. Does that mean their patrols range four times further? Do they have four times as many patrols? If we are caught trying to get the body there, no one will survive to set it off. We could set it in the woods several miles away and watch but how long would that take? There just aren’t enough known variables to pull it off. We need something that has slightly better odds.”
“So direct assault it is,” Dylan added with a smile. “Grab the rifles! We storm the keep at dawn!”
Caperson smiled halfheartedly, “We have to come up with something or we are going to be looking for a new home.”
Niccole spoke up, “Jen and I charted out the times and locations that went off the air. It is very methodical and systematic.”
“So how much time do we have?”
“Ball park guess? One month tops. If they hurt the Corrupted as badly as Mike said they did, it buys us another two weeks at the most. They are coming and they are going to be here soon.”
~8~
Dylan leaned against the wall as Travis worked on some metal brackets. Even with the shed door open the room was uncomfortably warm.
“So you don’t see any way of making something like that? Even if we let you have whatever you needed from the town storage?”
“Dude, even if we had the parts I don’t think I could get all of the other requirements. The robot they had in Boulder sounds pretty damn powerful. The most I could put together would be a glorified race car, and there is no way it could carry the weight. Even if we had a car and fuel I could rig up, we would still have to get it there and it would be too damn big to get into the hive entrance. Besides, the robot didn’t work for them in Denver. It would be a pretty big waste of another nuke to just buy us six months to a year of safety.”
“So any kind of a robot attack is out of the picture. I think that rules out anything but a suicide mission to get the pack in there far enough.”
“No need to rush to suicide just yet, Dude. You have to let your brain simmer on it. I know the answer is there, we just coax it to the surface with a slow boil.”
“Travis, we have less than four weeks before all hell will break loose. How can you be so calm?”
“I do my best work under pressure. The more pressure the better the results.”
“So you come up with solutions by not thinking about the problem.”
He pointed his heavily gloved finger at Dylan, “Dude, you got it!”
Dylan leaned back against the wall and looked toward the ceiling.
“Watch it with the latch!” Travis yelled and reached for the latch that held the door open but missed.
The door slammed with a tremendous boom. Dylan jumped and thought his ears would pop from the pressure change.
“Damn, Travis! That scared the crap out of me.”
Travis said nothing as he slowly swung the heavy door back open. He paused as he held the door half open than began to close it until the breeze threatened to pull it out of his hands. He held it in place with the wind whistling through before pulling it all the way open again and dropped the latch back in place. He paced back and forth in the open doorway nodding his head as if lost in thought.
“You okay?”
Travis continued to stare at the door as he rocked slightly on his feet. He looked at the opening to the shed. He rubbed his small goatee as he slowly walked in and out of the shed. He backed all the way out the door and looked at the roof of the building then walked back inside. He finally nodded to himself and smiled, “Boss, if you don’t mind, my simmer has moved to a rolling boil. I have some work to do and not a whole lot of time to do it in.”
“Care to let me in on this?”
“Not yet. I need to put together a little package and make sure I have the concept right. Boss, I think I might have a solution to our problem. Give me a few days. I’m still not quite sure how I am going to pull this off. It isn’t going to be easy.”
Dylan tried not to get his hopes up but Travis had yet to ever let him down. He had seen this look in the young man’s eyes before. He was onto something.
~9~
Dylan shouted to the crew running the large delimber, “That’s good! We need to get the next load on here!”
They had built a fairly elaborate lumber mill in one of the back corners of the town. Dylan found the entire thing to be a work of art considering the limited heavy equipment they had. Nearly every aspect of it was manually powered but it was quick and, for the most part, safe. The delimber would strip the trees of limbs. At the end of the line the log was manually rolled onto the next machine that would cut them into useable building material. This allowed them to create lumber for building but it was nothing like what was available in the Old World. The boards were of varying thickness and length but they allowed them to build interior walls without havin
g to build entire log cabins.
Dylan hoisted several boards onto his shoulder and walked out of the lumber shed toward the storage yard. He could see Jeff running across the pasture waving his arms.
“Dylan! Dylan!”
He dropped the lumber next to the trail and wiped the sweat off of his forehead, “What’s up, Jeff?”
“We have a lot more movement down at that gas station. They are getting a lot more active now that the other ‘Rupts have shown up.”
“Are there Hunters?”
“Yeah, I saw two moving around the garage this morning. They walked around the building several times, even climbed up on the roof as they sniffed around. They seemed really curious to know if anyone was around. They’re up to something new.”
“Sounds like it’s time for us to head down there and clean house before it can get any worse. Let’s find Caperson and put his plan in motion. We were hoping we could wait until we figured out the other hive problem but that isn’t going to happen. The last thing I want to see is more Hunters lurking around town.”
The two men walked toward the courtyard where Caperson was working with Zeus to get the mortar position completed. The frame and top was in place and the three mortars were already on the top of the platform. A ladder was in place while the final stairs were being built out. Dylan waved and caught Cap-Cap’s attention.
Caperson was listening intently as Zeus explained how he wanted the mortars set up and how he was developing the grid system for targeting and calling in specific strikes.
“Hey, Chris, can I steal you away for a minute?”
“Sure! What’s up, Dylan?”
“Jeff saw more movement in town. We have Hunters now,” Dylan nodded to Jeff for him to continue.
“Yeah, same place as before but it was Hunters rooting around the garage. Two of them were all over the place smelling and looking around. Seemed like maybe they were making sure the coast was clear but I could just be imagining things.”
Caperson shook his head, “You aren’t imagining things. Where there are Hunters the ‘Rupts are up to something. So are we putting together a little field trip? Maybe stop on by and introduce ourselves to the neighbors?”
“That’s kind of what I was thinking. Pop in real quick and explain how things work around this part of town now.”
~10~
Travis stood in front of the group holding what appeared to be an industrial grade backpack mounted weed sprayer. He had a second one leaning against the cabin behind him. He adjusted the wide straps on his shoulders as Dylan knelt down to look at the second one.
Dylan turned the pack several times as he looked at the various hoses and chambers, “So this is the newest wonder weapon fresh out of the evil mind of Travis?”
“Sure is, Boss. Of course, I made a few major modifications.”
“You always do,” He interjected with a smile. “Where did you even find these things?”
“Daniel had picked them up at a swap meet pretty cheap way back when. He figured it would make it easier to keep the walkways clear. The moss played hell with our boardwalk. Only took about ten minutes for the greenies in town to find out about them. They had a cow when they heard about it so they stayed in a storage shed under a tarp ever since then.”
“Do I want to know how you found it?”
“Actually, Erica found it and thought it might have parts I could use for something.”
Dylan nodded.
“If you look at the air intake on the back,” Travis had Dylan spin the sprayer around, “I added this separate filter stage to try and remove any moisture in the air. I really don’t know how well that will work so I’m keeping these empty when not in use.” Travis then held up the sprayer from the one he was wearing, “I also heavily modified the sprayer end. In my initial tests I couldn’t get a stream to go more than three or four feet before it just kind of died. Didn’t think anyone would want to meet the ‘Rupts face to face like that so I played around with the nozzle shape and how the barrel feed works. It took a few tries but I like the results so far.”
Dylan started to slip the pack on but Travis reached out and took the pack, “You will need to charge it on the ground, I made few other changes to how the whole system works.”
Travis slid his off and unlocked the charge handle, “Before the modification you would pump four or five times and go on your merry weed killing way. I had to add this secondary bypass right here and this line here so the Dust is actually pulled into the vacuum created by the flowing air and it is also pushed by a secondary pressure bustle inside. I also added these metal bands around the main tank. It needs a lot more pressure to get the consistent results I wanted.” Travis proceeded to pump the handle several dozen times. The last few took nearly all his weight before a small pressure pin popped and locked the handle in place. “That will prevent you from blowing yourself up. You don’t need to pump it that many times but I didn’t picture anyone complaining about the Dust having too long of a range.”
“How much pressure is in there now?”
Travis shrugged, “Enough? I don’t really have any way to check to be honest. All of the pressure gauges we have are being used and I don’t have the tools to reconnect them if I remove them.”
“Guess I probably shouldn’t have asked that question,” Dylan said with a grimace.
Travis slung the pack over his shoulders and buckled the belt and chest harness. He grabbed the pistol grip that had been welded to the strengthened wand and leaned forward slightly. He smiled at Dylan and pulled the trigger. With the rushing sound of high pressure air, a thin blue stream of Dust arced out forty feet before dissipating into a heavy, slowly falling cloud. He released the trigger and turned to the assault group.
There was silence until one by one they began to clap.
“Travis, yet again, you have amazed me. How long can you run that stream?” Caperson asked as he stood to look at the device.
“I can hold enough air for about thirty continuous seconds of spraying but then you have to pump it back up. Second pump takes quite a few more cycles to get the pin to pop but it will give the same thirty second squirt.”
“How many of these do you have?”
“These are the only two. It’s all we ever had around the camp. We also don’t have any spare parts for these things so it would be great if no one dropped one off the wall or ran over it with a horse.”
Dylan laughed as he nodded his understanding. He turned back to the other three, “Well, folks, looks like we have some new toys to test out. Sumter is as good of a testing ground as we are going to get. Let’s go kill us some ‘Rupts.”
~11~
Five horses worked their way down the muddy trail toward the Sumter overlook. Dylan was in the lead, his old Marlin lever-action resting across his legs, a gloved hand resting on the rifle and keeping it in place. His rifle hadn’t missed a single patrol and he wouldn’t leave it behind on this one either. He couldn’t remember a single day since they left their home in Colfax that the rifle wasn’t either on his back or leaning next to him. He patted the rifle absently as he thought about it.
Caperson was several paces behind with his jet-black automatic rifle pointed skyward. He had the butt of the gun resting on his thigh and his hand locked on the black pistol grip. Caperson preferred the lighter round of the American made assault rifle. It was similar to the model he had used throughout the bulk of his military career and he saw no need to change what he knew.
Jokester and Travis were next in line, each leaning slightly forward with the heavy Dust tanks on their backs. Both had preferred not to carry a heavy rifle along with the tanks on their backs although each had a pistol in a holster on their hips. Jokester preferred a large caliber automatic pistol while Travis carried his usual magnum style revolver. His saying since the first days of the war had been ‘if I can’t do it in six, I ain’t going to do it in ten’.
Jeff brought up the rear of the group. His large caliber hunting rifle
rode in a modified saddle holster. The large scope made the weapon look even more ominous. Like Dylan, he was given this rifle by his father when he turned thirteen and never once entertained the thought of trading it for one of the military models so plentiful in the town armory. The heavy thirty caliber bullet was more than enough for any game in the area and the occasional Corrupted that wanted to meet its maker.
Above them the blue sky was blemished by a few puffy white clouds hanging motionless. The absence of any breeze moving the trees around them made the forest abnormally silent and the sound of the horses moving echoed around them. They sat silently in their saddles as Dylan used his field binoculars and slowly scanned from one end of the burned out town to the edge of Paradise Lake then back again. He stopped at the small burned out gas station and watched for several moments.
“I’m not seeing anything down there. That city looks like a graveyard,” Dylan said quietly as he continued to watch the town. “You got anything, Jeff?”
“It looks pretty quiet to me. Gas station doesn’t have any movement. I usually see them in that doorway there or by the pile of garbage on the right side but there isn’t anything there right now.”
“We’ll go in on foot from here. These horses just sound too damn loud to me.”
Dylan gave Buck a pat on the shoulder and the horses turned as one and made their way back toward the barn. All five horses knew this trail and could walk it in their sleep.
The men walked quietly down the muddy trail until it crossed the first paved street of the town. Both Travis and Jokester had to stop multiple times to adjust the packs. Now that they were fully loaded with Dust, they were considerably heavier than anticipated.
“I need to fix these up with a waist belt. I didn’t realize how heavy they would be a on long hike. These straps are digging into my shoulders like mad.”
