Apex Fallen

by C. A. Michaels

  Lance was staring at one of the large displays mounted on the wall. It was a street map, intended to assist the TOC in dispatching any emergency vehicles or to assist in traffic management, but it had enough detail for Lance to become immersed in it.

  Dan gave him a minute before trying to break the silence.

  “Is this where we are meant to be? For your mission, I mean?”

  “Yes, it is.” He pulled out a pager device that Dan hadn’t seen before.

  “Conplan Athena is pretty basic – we were to ensure that there was a secure part of the airfield for a second and third Herc to land and set up some refueling gear and a helicopter support forward area. We are, or were at least, one of six-or-so back up locations for any key government members, the President and Air Force One included, who may have needed to move to a secure, covert location. You know, bunker down sort of thing. They would fly in on an aircraft, we would provide a secure turn-around point for a helo to RV and pick them up and they would be gone again. Standard cold-war drills in the event Washington and the Pentagon get relocated, and revised after September 11th. We’ve rehearsed it a few times and it took out the need to scramble local forces that might be paralyzed or might stuff something up. It also preserved security, as my squad would be the only ones to actually see who was being cross-loaded, and the idea was we could push petty much anyone of importance into secure, hardened locations without anyone, the public included, knowing how serious things were. I was due to get a code-word and an ETA for when the second tap were inbound, so we could have an area set up and good-to-go for them. We should have received that warning well before we landed – I’m guessing that this – this thing – has thrown everyone’s plans. It’s thrown mine, and ours, that is for sure. The mission’s changed but damned if I know what it has changed to.” Lance fell silent again.

  Dan turned and addressed the room at large. “Any word on any aircraft traffic apart from our arrival?”

  The young woman, Melissa, shook her head.

  “We had warning from the control tower that there was a Herc landing with some soldiers aboard. That was before you guys arrived, and we’ve heard nothing since.”

  Lance grimaced. “That should have been quiet. You shouldn’t have even found out that much. We were supposed to be under the radar, so to speak, just turn up and do our own thing.”

  Melissa shrugged. “We didn’t know who you were or what you were doing, but we knew that there were soldiers, at any rate. That’s why we got the buses there.”

  “Yeah,” Lance said. “I thought something was up with that. We were supposed to be met by trucks with drop-down sides if we needed to move without being seen.” He turned to Dan.

  “My orders, if everything fell through, were to move to the HQ and establish comms. If there aren’t any follow-up planes then we still have our task, but the lack of any updates from my secure pager is telling me another story.” Lance paused, then turned back to the room.

  “Fort Carson. It’s close by. Have you got any contact with them?”

  “We have picked up some radio chatter from them, but we haven’t been able to get through. We did, though, notice that they had put up some drones shortly before you landed. Because we have systems linked onto the 21st Space Wing’s ops we are pretty much on receive-all for any Air Force or Army drones that are transmitting within range. We managed to patch the feed through to one of our screens, and we could at least see what they were looking at.”

  “And?” Lance asked.

  “We’ll have a track of it saved somewhere, so I could show you if you want, but they were checking out their own base. The drone, an RQ-7 Shadow type, one of their smaller sorts, stayed low but it was pretty obvious that their place is in uproar. Worse than Peterson is, by far. Their barracks were a scene, with a lot of fighting going one. Mostly unarmed, hand-to-hand, by the looks of things. The drone also scanned Colorado Springs, and that’s an order of magnitude worse. We saw the highways blocked at multiple points – huge, just huge pile-ups of hundreds of cars – and the suburbs themselves look like the apocalypse just hit.”

  “It has,” Lance said. “The apocalypse. It has just hit us.”

  CHAPTER THREE

  The Rangers were busy rigging up some of the portable comms equipment they had carried with them. Lieutenant Fredericks was helping them, putting his signals background to good use. The few signalers that had ended up in Dan Martin’s platoon were likewise volunteered to assist, and they were busy trying to patch together the existing satellite dishes and VHF antennas on top of Peterson AFB’s HQ so they could talk to Fort Carson’s units on the army nets.

  “Everything here is civilian,” Fredericks had explained, “for emergency and police stuff. Because of the link to Space Command all internal comms is hardened and underground, so no-one can eavesdrop or hack it. Wires, not radio. Which is useless to us, because Fort Carson can’t access those channels. We’re needing to set up a secure comms set to their means so we can pick up any army traffic going through on the standard radio nets.”

  Using the Ranger’s SINCGAR radio he eventually had some success. Dan had wanted to spend more time looking to the Space Wing units to see if they were able to shed any light on the situation, but Lance’s priorities were clear. Talk to people who could fight. Besides, Melissa told him, they hadn’t had any contact from the satellite-linked buildings in over two hours.

  “It’s up,” Fredericks announced after half an hour of tinkering. The building had been cleared and everyone was now secure inside, able to make use of the building’s toilets and water-coolers. It was two in the afternoon but it felt like days had gone by.

  After the initial excitement of establishing comms, Fredericks was left noting down details for the best part of 20 minutes. After establishing who they were, they had been told to transfer to the command net for Fort Carson’s 4th Infantry Division. No time was wasted in putting Martin’s platoon under their command.

  The mission is to re-establish control of Colorado Springs, were the first orders. Everyone that can act as a shooter is to be pushed out; we’re not going to leave Americans on their own right now. No matter how much we’re hurting, we’ll look to rest and recuperate later. Our bases, too, can wait. We must get into the city and provide an immediate presence, tonight. Even in the dark, our citizens must know we are there for them.

  It was a nice sentiment but, from what Dan could gather based on other messages flying around the net, the Brigade of 4th ID stationed in Carson were at less than half-strength after the events of the morning, and there was enough of a disaster to keep them busy on Peterson Base itself. Besides, he was tired, confused and not a little terrified, and he wanted to be able to spend a night processing his own thoughts before he had to head into the unknown again. But orders were orders, and even if – as Lance had flippantly muttered – it was the apocalypse, he still intended to follow them.

  The MP’s were staying behind and were going to do all they could to retain control of the main roads while securing the survivors within a few areas. The MP platoon commander, a young Lieutenant, had turned up at the TOC shortly after Dan received his orders from the 4th ID. He had been trying to coordinate the movement of the pockets of survivors to the hangars, and the news that the army were already sallying forth into Colorado Springs, leaving him and his men to deal with the base, seemed to fill his face with despair. It wasn’t easy on any of them. Even the Rangers were showing signs of exhaustion. Gunning down people – or what had been people, as of the morning – in American uniforms wasn’t what any of them had expected or been conditioned for. It was a unique kind of hell, and everyone was dealing with their own personal part of it quietly.

  Dan had dispatched one of the squads to grab as many vehicles as they could from a vehicle park the MP platoon commander had indicated to them on a map. He was happy to see that a line of ten humvees had returned. It turned out that they had to clear a small building to get access to the vehicle keys for the pa
rk, but once that was done they had access to as many as they could drive. Ten would be enough for his platoon, with each vehicle carrying up to five in it. It was a shame they didn’t have machine guns to mount on top but, given the threat, a soldier standing in the turret with an M4 would be sufficient. They didn’t need to suppress an enemy position, after all, they just needed to drop those things.

  Lance’s men, still wearing their sunglasses and having long since ditched their helmets for their baseball caps, went out as part of a second tap to get themselves some hummers of their own once they heard there were some up for the taking. Dan hadn’t asked him what his plans were and he kept himself busy studying maps of the area they were going to be heading into with his recently appointed squad commanders and with Fredericks. They could avoid the blocked highway by taking an underpass directly opposite the main entrance point into Peterson and then they would hit the first suburbs within a kilometer. Dan had drawn phase lines on his map. Each main road running east to west between the suburbs gave him a line to work to. First was Report Line Gold, then Silver, then Bronze. The last was Emerald, running on Constitution Avenue, which would see them having cleared a 10 by 2 kilometer square grid of suburbia. He wasn’t sure how easy it would be, and he had no idea if he had bitten off more than his men – and women, he had realized, having lately seeing a few female soldiers in his ranks – could chew. It was going to be a presence patrol. Lights on and slow moving, with dismounted soldiers out and walking alongside each vehicle. Maximum firepower and flexibility so they could adapt and overcome against their new enemy, no matter what the situation was on the ground.

  Dan sought clarification from the 4th ID command net and was told that the plan was to keep everyone they came across in their homes. Whether that was the plan before he’d asked or someone had just made that up after he posed the question, he didn’t know. Let them know we’re here; ensure there is freedom of movement along the roads and give everyone hope was the intent he’d received. Fine, then, Dan thought. No moving off the main roads. No entering buildings. Stick to the streets, clear them of any crashed vehicles so our own hummers can get through and shoot any threats on sight. Everyone else gets a wave, gets told to stay indoors and gets told that we’ll be back.

  The problem was that Dan didn’t have nearly enough men or vehicles to properly cover the area. After passing on the information in the form of a warning order, he and his recently assembled command team knocked out a quick plan. Two lines were drawn through the suburbs and Dan’s group would advance with three squads up. It would be impossible to control movement so they would sweep each suburb within their area up to the next Report Line before they propped or held on position. Once all three squads were in line again they would repeat up until the next Line. Simple, but without a reserve element, with no forward reconnaissance and with only a handful of radios in a few of the vehicles Dan couldn’t shake an ominous feeling he had about the whole patrol.

  Just as he’d established his basic patrol concept he got word from the command net that his area for clearance was going to be bigger. Substantially bigger – probably ten times than that he’d originally planned. Clear further North, and then swing to the West and clear South parallel to the route he’d advanced on. It didn’t make much change to Dan so he drew on a few more report lines, updated his squad commanders and then waited. The plan wouldn’t survive H-Hour at any rate so he’d simply improvise as the situation presented itself. That much he’d learnt during eight months in Afghanistan.

  While Dan thought his allocated patrol was ambitious the 4th ID’s was even crazier – they were going to clear 25 clicks to open up a line of communications to the Air Force Academy grounds to the north. Ambitious, certainly – Dan also thought it was crazy. Let’s get out on the ground and see what we can do without over-extending ourselves, he kept thinking.

  Lance must have though the same as he studied Dan’s patrol plan with a grim expression. “We’ll travel behind you in three hummers,” he said. “If I need to secure the airfield as part of my original mission I’ll be mobile enough to get back here and achieve it. Otherwise we might as well get some eyes on the situation. Besides, I think half my men would mutiny and go with you anyway if I tried to keep them here while America is bleeding.” That made Dan feel better. A lot better, he admitted to himself. He only had a dozen infantrymen spread across his three sections, and having the Rangers behind him meant that there was a pretty potent situational reserve to hand if they needed any reinforcements.

  They had two hours of sunlight left when they drove out the main gate at 1730 hours. They’d spent a lot longer preparing than he wanted to, and then they’d been ordered to hold location by the 4th ID HQ. Dan hadn’t bothered to ask why. Sometimes headquarters staff thought and worked in a different plane of reality to those on the ground – best to leave them to it, he thought.

  The squads had shaken out in their respective positions, ready to advance form the first phase line. Dan was riding in a humvee he had commandeered for himself and Lieutenant Fredericks, with one of his old C Company soldier driving. Fredericks was manning the radio for him.

  “Let’s go,” Dan said, absent any emotion or enthusiasm. Fredericks relayed the message to the squads and they slowly started to make progress.

  They had seen a large number of crashed cars on the highway when they took the underpass. The suburban main roads were pretty bad, too, but not impassable. The humvees used their bulk to nudge some of the vehicles out of the way, while others were simply driven around. The streets weren’t abandoned. The soldiers attracted plenty of attention, and every minute a civilian car driven, inevitably, by a terrified and confused man or woman, approached each squad. It seemed that the healthy, surviving people were gathered in a few houses on each street. They waved at the soldiers, with some walking out, carefully avoiding bushes and hedges, to find out what was going on. Most were subdued and fearful, a few were animated and screaming. Only one or two had to be shoved back into their houses in a hysterics.

  A large number of cowered, scared but bloodied figures were seen observing the platoon’s movement north. They scampered both inside houses, from windows to windows and outside, around bushes, while deliberately keeping their distance from the soldiers. It was difficult to make out whether they were aggressive and thus a threat or whether they were simply the scared, ape-like figures that could be left alone. The soldiers held their fire, engaging only a few aggressive forms that they surprised when reaching street corners. Each time a series of shots were fired the radio crackled to life with a quick contact report a few minutes later. Contact, Second Squad, corner Cree Drive, confronted single hostile at twenty meters, it’s dead now. Charlie Mike.” Charlie Mike. Continuing Mission. Dan stayed central with his hummer and followed their progress on a sketch map he had made of the streets. In between the isolated contact reports he simply stared out the window. He’d opted to keep as many soldiers as possible in the lead squads so his humvee didn’t have a gunner in the cupola turret. That was fine, though, as the Rangers with their vehicle gunners were right behind him.

  It sounded like the 4th ID elements that sallied out were making similar progress – slowly and methodical clearing the streets but not coming across anything that was testing them. Their radio chatter was less efficient and he could sense a lot more confusion on their end. Less time in preparation, he guessed. Maybe they’d had a rougher time this morning, and were still getting to grips with the new situation. That could explain why his group had been delayed, giving the 4th ID guys more time to mount up. All going to plan they’d be hitting some of the key East-West road points together, theoretically providing a better chance of mutual support between the various advancing forces and meaning that any one call-sign had less chance of getting stranded or cut-off if it advanced faster than the rest. Standard military operational-level tactics, although fighting a distorted version of humanity was different to fighting an enemy army or an insurgency, but it was a good
starting point for them to go off, at the very least. They were going to have to do some learning, though, and fast.

  Dan was lost in his thoughts as the sun started to set. The summer twilight enveloped the sky slowly. The colors along the skyline seemed to swell into a few different hues and the clouds cast off different pinks and oranges. The humvees all turned their lights on. Their progress was slow and everyone was tired. Dan had taken to walking outside his vehicle to stay awake. They’d reached Report Line Silver pretty much at the same time, and after a brief ten minute halt progress continued. At this rate, Dan thought, we will be barely making my original objective, let alone the objective indicated by the 4th ID’s planners. He couldn’t speed up progress either, as most of the time was taken up by soldiers having to yell out instructions to isolated groups of survivors to return and stay indoors, marking their home with bed-sheets out the window. Some of the people they saw were hunkered into vehicles, moving slowly through the streets, even though Dan wasn’t sure they had anywhere to go to. The next street was as bad as the next and Dan was willing to bet that each suburb was the same, America wide. At least the majority of survivors were hiding inside buildings, doors shut and windows barricaded, making their job easier.

  By 2000 hours it was dark. The street-lights came on and there was evidently power through-out the neighborhood. First squad on the east had just called in a multiple contact involving three aggros, as the platoon had taken to calling them, when Lance and another of his Rangers moved up to Dan. They both had NVG goggles raised on top of their helmets, ready in case they needed them. Dan hoped they wouldn’t – if the street lights went down then he and his men would be blind, as all they had was their old body-armor and M4s. They didn’t even have proper pouches to keep their M4 magazines in, let alone flash lights or night vision equipment.