by Franks, JK
They checked another building, heard electrical arcing in the back and went to see what it was. A frayed wire from a falling light fixture was making contact with a metal shelving unit. Bartos found the old circuit box and pulled the main lever to disconnect it. “I have a feeling we will be doing this for days.”
“It’s a good problem to have,” Scott added. “So, what are the main buildings getting power?” They had discussed priorities previously, but Scott wasn’t sure it had been finalized.
“The shop and the warehouse.”
Scott knew that was the old county shop just outside of town and the boat storage warehouse down at the marina. That was where a lot of the vehicles were stored as well as the armory for weaponry and ammo that had been acquired.
“Waterworks in da next day or two, so we can get more fresh water and have some working toilets again. Beyond that, I’m not sure. Scoots and da guys can help do that. I’m going to finish up on da refinery boilers, now that I have power, that should go a lot faster.”
The day's hard work briefly took Scott’s mind off the fact that Gia was gone and the even more amazing fact that she was going to be his wife. Every few minutes it would occur to him again, and he would find himself grinning like a school kid. Everyone started referring to it as his G-face. “Screw you all to hell,” he would say in mock anger.
It was dark when Scott and Bartos walked back to the cruise ship. The cabin lights were shining through many of the windows and portholes. “That’s a beautiful sight,” Scott said. “Hey, look,” he pointed down the coast where several of the abandoned beach houses had lights on.
“Shit,” Bartos said. “I’ll get some guys down there tomorrow to shut them off. They must be off the same leg of the grid as us.”
Scott shook his head no. One of those houses had been the one he and Kaylie had used up until the hurricane. After that, and her reunion with her dad, they’d never gone back. “Leave ‘em on for now.”
Bartos shrugged, “Yeah, sure. We got the juice to spare. It does kind of look like old times seeing lights down the coast.”
How much difference having light meant was simply amazing. It was a case of man defeating nature, light beating back the darkness. It was a small victory, but in the nearly two years since the blackout, it was a huge triumph for the town. Scott walked through the offices of the ship seeing Kaylie working late in the lighted clinic, Tahir setting up computers in the conference room, and he nearly fell over when he heard the sound of cartoons playing on a flat screen TV in the common area. Angel was there with a group of kids, moms and a few dads. She held up a DVD case as he waved and grinned at her. As desperate as the situation was, a bit of hope had returned to Harris Springs.
DeVonte came out of the communications room just as Scott started through the corridor. “Hey, man, just coming to get you. Skybox is on the radio—looks like it’s go time.”
Damn, well at least he and the others would get one night’s sleep in the air conditioning before jumping into all the fun in Yokena. He knew he should have told Gia what was going on. He also knew she would want him to stay, but it was his friends out there. Those farmers were people he had worked with personally. Despite everything, he knew he had to be a part of whatever went down.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Yokena, Mississippi
The men looked haggard, most had not eaten in days, and adding to the arduous workdays that lasted from dawn until well after dark, most were getting by on only a few hours’ sleep. Harsh punishment was dealt out for even the most minor of infractions. From time in a tin covered ‘sweat box’ to sleep deprivation to good old-fashioned beatings. Sadly, this was not a life in a prison camp…not as such. This was life on the men’s own farms. Family land that they had farmed for generations producing some of the best crops, cattle and pork in the country. The Yokena area was the food producer for multiple states, and these men had kept a large portion of the area alive even after the blackout. Now, they were indentured servants, farming the land for the benefit of a bunch of assholes in black uniforms with Security Force armbands. Someone had given them the authority to do all this. Probably someone on the receiving end of where all the crops went. Little of which was winding up on the prisoners’ trays.
Jack watched through the night vision goggles and made a sound of disgust as the line of men were lined up next to a communal trench latrine. The farmers were shackled together at the end of the workday like chain gangs of an earlier time. The guards were taunting the men; like normal, they were hoping to provoke some of them into action just to break the monotony. Lt. Garret’s voice sounded in his small earbud.
“That is all of them. We count thirty-eight tangos, total.”
They had spent weeks covertly learning the shifts, guard rotations, meal schedules and, most importantly, the supply runs. No one left the farming commune to get supplies; instead, the convoys came here. They dropped off what was needed and added whatever crops or meat was ready for pickup. The next run was just a few days away, and they had to be ready. Jack dropped back down into concealment. He knew what would happen next. The farmers would be hosed off and marched off to the barn that was now used as a bunkhouse.
These farmers weren’t random strangers. They were friends, allies and trading partners of the AG community. Seeing the abuse they were going through was more than he could deal with. Since the first day he had seen what was going on, he had been ready to take action. Garret and his men showed up a few days later and convinced him of the wisdom in waiting. He hated it but did understand the logic. Now, though, the time to finally free the captives and exact revenge was fast approaching.
“Jack, make the call,” Garret said quietly.
Jack silently scrambled down the bank eager to get the rest of the men heading up from the coast. The team here with the younger Garret was tough but small, eight men in total, including him and Skybox, who was off at another location. While they felt confident they could easily take out the relatively small security force guarding the farms, they were not confident in doing it with no civilian casualties. They would wait for the back-up to arrive. The other real need for Scott, Todd and the others from the AG was to lay a trap for the incoming supply mission. If they could capture a convoy of supplies, that would go a long way toward prepping the AG to launch.
He radioed it into Bobby who would pass it along to the others. A rendezvous point had been established well outside the NSF patrols. If all went to plan, the assault would launch in two days, the resupply mission would be here end of the week, so that gave them almost three days to evac the farmers, hopefully, find their families and prep for the ambush. The sudden sound of gunfire let him know, it will not be going to plan.
As the only non-soldier in the group, Jack stayed off the tactical channel. The chatter coming over the earbud was professional but anxious. Someone had fired; no one seemed sure of which side, but everyone was given the green-light to engage. The angry sound of suppressed automatic weapons cut through the still night, and rounds lit up the darkness of the compound.
Garret didn’t lead the SEALs, they had their own line of command, and each moved like a precision machine. “Rollins, bird’s up now, feed IR and NV to all goggles.” Garret handed Jack his pair of the special optics as he slid back in close.
“We have a target-rich environment, gentleman. Open it up np boys, move, shoot, communicate.” the deep Texas accent identified the speaker as the SEAL team commander. From off to the right, an ear-splitting sound erupted as a fixed mount .50 caliber machine gun began unleashing hell on the scene below. The BRRTTTTT came in waves and seemed to suck all other sound away as it fired.
Garret was firing, but Jack couldn’t see at whom. The original plan had been for him to work his way down to the bunkhouse and attempt release and then protect the farmers. He grabbed his gear bag and headed down. The NSF troops had mostly been gathered around the large house they used for a mess hall and offices. That was now under a barrage of weap
ons fire. The barn where Jack was heading had only two guards visible, both taking shelter behind large farm equipment.
A bullet hit the tree to Jack’s right causing him to duck down and simultaneously realize two things. One: he’d removed his armored tactical vest when he’d called the AG, and two: his rifle was still slung on his back. I make a lousy soldier, he thought.
Through the greenish night vision displaying on the goggles, he saw an invisible light laser briefly land on one of the guards. A splash of darkness suddenly painted the man’s face, and he collapsed. The second guard retreated inside the bunkhouse. Jack rose and ran toward the barn. He knew there was another entryway on the far side, so he moved in that direction. Through the earbud, he heard Rollins.
“Hey, Preach, might wanna turn your IR strobe on so we can keep all the players straight.”
Shit, shit, shit, shit, he thought as he fumbled for the small emitter on the helmet he was wearing. He had just run right through a battle zone without letting his team know it was him. They had been over this countless times, but in the here and now with adrenaline pumping, he’d forgotten it completely.
He gave a small wave toward the location of the SEAL sniper who was charged with overwatch on this part of the mission. He assumed that was who took out the first guard, but nothing else about the mission was sticking to the script this night. The famous quote about all plans failing once you meet the enemy came to mind…How true.
Jack grabbed the door and pulled. Nothing. He tried again with the same result. It was secured well, that had been expected, too, they were keeping prisoners inside. He propped the M16 against the wall and lowered his gear bag removing a heavy-duty tactical prybar. The metal tool had pronged forks at one end with a stub sticking out to use for leverage. The opposite end was a modified ax head. He worked his way to the far side of the door, inserted the tool and began to wedge the door open.
Chapter Twenty-Four
“Jack, this is Overwatch, be advised, we have no visual on you.”
“Yeah, yeah,” he muttered as he strained against the wood. It was bowing out, just a little…bit…more. The door frame came apart in a shower of splinters, and the momentum of the now freed tool carried Jack inside the building. He looked up just in time to see two soldiers. One was raising a stubby rifle to fire at him, the other had something in his hand and was racing toward a line of wooden racks. Jack dove to one side as the soldier began firing rapidly. The idiot obviously had it on full auto, and the weapon clicked empty in a couple of seconds.
Jack stayed in the crouch and rushed the man who had stopped fumbling trying to load another clip and instead, swung the butt of the gun at his head. It knocked his helmet off, but Jack ducked and pulled the man's arm holding the gun toward and then past him in one fluid motion. Despite his appearance, Jack was a martial arts expert and had used the skills to kill and maim in the past. He jabbed a fist into the man’s throat then looped the strap that was holding the useless gun around the man's neck as he went down. Jack leaned in and braced his feet to arrest the man's fall. All of the soldier’s weight centered on the strap around his neck. There was no sound as Jack released the strap and the dead man slumped to the dirt floor.
The other man was doing something near the wooden racks. Not racks, beds, he now realized. Rows of eyes were silently watching him. Jack briefly thought of stepping back outside to get his gun, but the realization of what the other soldier was doing quickly ended that thought.
Jack had been a troubled kid, went to prison, in fact. That was before he discovered preaching and a childhood friend named Todd Hansen who had shown him a better way. What he saw now reminded him of the very worst of prison. A guard who would end it for everyone rather than lose. He recognized the man in the faint light. He was the hard-ass that was by far the most abusive of the black-clad troops. “Hey, you stupid fuck,” Jack yelled to get his attention. The man looked up from the padlock. Fear and rage painted the man with madness. Jack’s insight into the brutality reached a new low at realizing the man’s intentions. The locked cage the man hovered over covered an electrical power switch. Jack’s eyes quickly followed the crude wiring which ran to long metal poles running down the entire length of the bunk racks. Each of the farmers was chained to one of the metal poles. After surviving a blackout for two years, they were going to be electrocuted. The universe does have a dark and brutal sense of irony, it would seem.
Jack withdrew the fixed blade Ka-Bar knife from his ankle sheaf and hurtled it at the man. You were never supposed to voluntarily give up a weapon, but he needed to buy time for the real attack. The blade of the knife punched into the man’s shoulder and stayed. Jack sprinted faster than a big man should ever be able to do. When he got within ten feet, he launched himself at the guard. Jack pivoted in mid-air and landed both feet against the man’s chest.
This should have ended the struggle, but in the dimly lit building, he’d failed to realize the sheer size of the guard. Jack lay on the ground, panting to regain his breath as the other man stood back up and grinned. Shit. “You know, dude,” Jack said wheezing, “you don’t look that big from a distance.”
The soldier erupted from the spot enraged. Thankfully for Jack, he was too angry to grab anything as a weapon, including the handgun strapped in his drop holster. He fell on top of Jack pounding away with a huge meaty fist. Jack had just a moment to get his arms up in a protective manner around his head. The fists still felt like sledgehammers; he knew he had to do something fast before one of the man’s fists got through.
Jack worked to pull his feet into his body, raising his knees up against the man’s lower back. He then moved his left leg over trapping the man's right leg. In jiu-jitsui, working from a mount position like this was preferred. Jack wasn’t so sure now. The sheer weight of the man was going to make the next part difficult. Jack ignored the blows and reached up to the man's collar and pulled him down as forcibly as he could while rolling him off and to the side. As the huge man began to roll, he drove an elbow into the side of his head, and he felt something give in the man’s skull.
What felt like ages had only been seconds. Jack knew the next few seconds would determine his fate. Unlike Jack, the big man didn’t know how to fight from his back and immediately started trying to get up. Jack lashed out with open palm strikes to both ears, then threw an elbow into the man’s broad nose. Out of the corner of his eye, he began to see the prisoners leaning over their bunks, they appeared to be yelling and cheering, but Jack heard none of it. He was attuned to only one thing—finishing this man.
The soldier had other ideas. He’d finally remembered the pistol, and he went for it. Jack saw and began a countermove, but the man was fast as well as strong. Jack had anticipated the man trying to shoot him. Instead, the other man whipped the gun against the side of Jack’s head.
His vision began to darken, he rolled off the soldier and reflexively clutched at his head. Oh, my God, he’d never been hit so hard. He couldn’t focus, hell, he couldn’t manage to open his eyes. He felt the dirt beneath his fingers and realized he had to get up. Move, fight, run…do something! He managed to partially open one eye and saw the other man staggering backward. One hand holding the gun, the other holding the side of his head. He was raising the gun to fire. Jack had no time to move. This is it.
Then, hands reached down and tore at the guard’s face. First one, then more. The farmers began to exact their own revenge. The NSF guard managed to get off one wild shot before being pulled off his feet. The farmers were still chained and restrained by the long iron bar, but they managed to work together to first disable their former tormentor, then deliver their own brand of punishment.
Jack’s vision was coming in and going, but he stumbled to what appeared to be a release lever for the iron bar and pulled it down. All of the men in the bunks could now slip their chains off the bar and go after the guard. There was one man in particular, his gaunt, but familiar, face leaned over an upper bunk.
“Hey, P
reacher, nice of ya to stop by.”
The friendly greeting didn’t match the carnage his fellow inmates were enacting on the guard who was obviously long dead. Jack just shook his head.
Chapter Twenty-Five
“You have eyes on?”
“Roger that,” came the gruff, but familiar, voice. “Movement—hold position.”
Scott froze, knowing full well that detection now would ruin all the weeks of recon and planning by Garret, Jack and Skybox. So much had changed, both in the world and for him, within. At some point along this path, just surviving had stopped being enough. The gangs had taught them to work together, the Messengers had forced them to be brutal. What they faced now required them to risk everything.
He’d been engaged now less than two weeks, and he was probably going to die. The call from Jack to get this op going had put everything else on hold. Jack’s original feeling about what was happening at the farms had been correct. The farmers had been denigrated to forced labor, and all of their crops were being confiscated for NSF use. The team from the AG had attacked the previous day, wiping out the relatively small number of NSF guards. The farmers were already on a transport going south toward the AG along with every tool, seed and supply they could stow.
“Overwatch, what you got?”
Todd sat in a hide, high above the compound. The scene he was watching through the Nightforce NXS scope made his trigger finger itch. Bastards. “Get ready, guys, this is a full assault force. We got three APCs rolling in. First one is the Black Team NSF regulars, the next two could be foreign. Shit, they look Asian, maybe even some of the Red Army regulars.”
Man, this was some seriously deep shit. The radio call from Jack had set them on a course no one expected. His message had changed everything. Skybox, Rollins and several of the SEAL team had remained behind, eventually making their way here to meet up with Jack. The commercial farming district was just outside Yokena on the western edge of Mississippi.
