by G. R. Carter
“Prince Hamilton, a pleasure to see you, sire!” Sam heard from just outside his line of sight.
“Save it, Delbert, I already use that prince stuff to annoy my big brother,” Samuel Hamilton replied to the leader of the Wizards, Delbert Kuhn.
“Huh, well I guess Founding Farmer, Jr. will just have to do then. That’s what I’ve always called your old man even before this all happened,” Delbert said with a wave of his arm.
“Quit dreaming about the way the world’s supposed to be, Delbert. And show me what we can use to defeat those Americans,” Sam said, pulling Delbert out of his brief lapse.
“Watch it, boy. I know that’s funny to you young punks, but that’s still my country you’re talking about,” Delbert said sternly, shaking a gnarled old finger in Sam’s direction.
“Not anymore, Mr. Wizard and you know it. I remember how you and Dad used to talk about the United States not being the place it was intended to be. Now it’s just more real, not a theory any more.
“Your country is right here in this barn, out there in those fields, and in those grandchildren of yours. I might be young, but I know that the group waving the Stars and Stripes now would burn this place to the ground. They’d kill us all or make us work for them killing others. Now let’s move on and think about tomorrow, not yesterday.”
Delbert enjoyed a good fight, but this wasn’t one he was willing to take part in anymore. Okaw Valley leaders knew that soon New America would turn their attention west. Older folks still expected the red, white and blue flag to show up someday and bail them all out of this bad dream. The young men and women coming of age knew bad dreams began with the sight of that flag on your horizon.
“Alright, Prince,” Delbert continued gruffly, “come down this way and I’ll show you what the Germans used early in WW2 to win all those battles you learned about in Wizard Academy 101.”
Fredericks stood smiling as Sam approached him with Delbert by his side. The commander’s crisp new khaki uniform was pressed and creased as always. All SDC officers now wore the new uniform, in contrast to the BDUs worn by soldiers in the American army. Trousers bloused over the lace up knee-high dark brown leather boots being made now in Decatur cobbler shops. Fredericks sported the summer-issue short-sleeve button-down shirt tucked in over his wide utility belt, dark blue eagle tattoo still visible on the inside of his left forearm.
“So good to see you, Sam. I see your brother and Dad all the time, but I don’t get to see you often enough,” Fredericks said warmly. They shared the handshake half-hug that denoted friendship among the men of Okaw Valley. Most of the older folks still stopped with the handshake, but anyone under fifty observed the new custom.
Fredericks turned to reveal an awkward-looking flying machine behind him. A long shark-like nose was interrupted by a squarish canopy attached about twenty feet behind a bright multi-blade propeller. A pilot sat inside the canopy, revealed by rectangle windows on both sides and a split screen in the front. A tall vertical tail perched a few feet behind, with a wire connecting the back of the canopy to the top of the hinged blade on the back. Short stubby wings jutted from the sides of the shark nose, beginning where the bottom sloped down to the fixed landing gear, and culminating just below the pilot’s station.
The entire ungainly mix of odd angles and shapes was entirely painted in a dark gray color save for the white teeth on red background adorning each side. The only other color being an aggressive representation of a hawk staring directly at the onlooker with talons thrust forward, the burnt red color a stark contrast to the dark color of the vertical tail stabilizer.
“Looks like someone put pieces of a plane in a blender, mixed with some glue, and then poured it out to dry,” Sam said to no one in particular. If he was impressed with what he faced, no one could tell.
“You, my fair prince, are looking at a former Air Tractor AT–802A, now known as a Raptor 3000. Your esteemed father and Commander Fredericks here approved the design last week. Although, I will admit that the shark’s mouth on the front may not have been on the original drawings. Just something I remember from my youth,” Delbert said proudly. While not all the details were known, it was common knowledge that Delbert’s father had been a military man at some point, and Delbert could occasionally be counted on for pulling out some design from that part of history.
“This was the king of the crop dusters at one point. We found it in one of the hangars at the county airport. The owner was living on one of the Fortress Farms, but hadn’t thought about the plane being useful to us. Between the Reset and the Solar Storms, he figured he’d never fly again,” Delbert continued. “This is incredibly stable, can fly around a hundred miles an hour and stay aloft without stalling. It can carry ten thousand pounds up in the air, and has a range of about five hundred miles.”
Fredericks agreed, “And it’s really operational in tough environments. Doesn’t need a real runway, just about a quarter of mile of flat ground or even field to take off from.”
Sam still didn’t look convinced. “OK, I’ll admit, this will be great for patrolling the frontiers. And scaring the heck out of any Ditchmen still hanging around. But we’ve got thousands of square miles to defend. Shouldn’t our priority be more Turtles or the new Mark 3s?” he asked.
The Mark 3 was Okaw Valley SDC’s secret weapon. The vehicle itself began life as a piece of construction machinery called a track hoe. Set on caterpillar tracks, the main body of the machine could spin in a 360-degree turn. In place of the large scoop arm it was originally designed to move dirt with, a gun the Wizards modeled after the 20-millimeter cannons the Germans had used in WW2 sat attached to the machine.
Wizards discovered the plans for the cannon in the World History section in the Archives, and it was a simple but effective rapid fire weapon with the added benefit of being easily built and maintained in difficult conditions. The largest of the Mark 3s, referred to as “dreadnoughts,” or “dreads” for short, would be constructed with a larger cannon later next year in case the SDC came across anything tougher than light armored vehicles.
The Mark 3 could be driven and gunned by one man, though all new models allowed for two, driver and gunner tasks being separated. Both were protected in an armored canopy underplayed with multi-layer shatter resistant glass. These tracked shovels were in every old construction site, with thousands sitting idle all over the Midwest. Additionally, the area surrounding SDC territory held some of the largest construction equipment dealerships in the country, left mostly idle since the Reset. Even better, the modifications needed to create a Mark 3 were actually easier than the original Turtle.
Delbert and Fredericks smiled at each other and directed Sam out the service door behind the plane. Sam stepped into the dreary wall of wet humidity that marked Midwestern early spring days, nearly bumping into Celeste, Delbert’s granddaughter. She was on her way to becoming a full–fledged Wizard herself, though she still had two more years of apprenticeship to go before being assigned a project of her own. Sam was pretty sure that Celeste ranked as the most impressive work of the Creator he had ever seen. The smile they shared as the two passed each other suggested Celeste might feel the same way about him. Sam picked up the sweet scent of her hair as they headed in separate directions.
Distraction faded as his eyes adjusted to the light. Sitting wing to wing were nine identical copies of the plane located inside the assembly shop. The only difference between these and the one sitting inside were ugly-looking tubes sprouting from under each wing, about four feet from the joint where the wing joined the fuselage. Sam wasn’t totally sure, but those tubes resembled a weapon of some kind.
“Ok, now you have my attention,” Sam stuttered. “Would those nasty bits hanging from the wings just happen to be the new cannon that you’re putting on the Mark 3s?” he asked, pointing to two of the new tanks waiting to be loaded onto flatbed trucks.
The impact of the planes in front of him seemed to sink in more with every second, as he pondered what
he was really looking at.
“Wait now, are you telling me that we now have our own air force? This isn’t just about a lookout telling us if something bad is coming, this is a fist we can punch the bad guys with?”
Sam’s voice had reached a higher octave, noticeable when he was thinking of something amazing while not being able to shut up about it.
“Guys, this could change everything! How did you do this, especially without me knowing about it?”
“Operational security, Sam,” Fredericks said. “We weren’t keeping it from you; we were keeping it from everybody. And we just found them a few weeks ago. That pilot up there was once an employee of a national company that specialized in crop dusting.
“They purchased the last few manned aircraft coming off the Ag Tractor assembly line. Everything built after these were remote-controlled drones. When the Reset happened, all ten of these beauties were sitting in hangars around the county, ready to be used. We’ve found five pilots out of the Okaw Valley population, and they’re confident we can train five more with no problem.”
“What about the Air National Guard base we got in Decatur?” Samuel asked.
“Yep,” Delbert replied, “We found several other serviceable planes there, too. But these are our priority, because we can standardize the training and the service. We’re going to put three here, and then the rest will be based out of the airstrip up there. That’s where we’ve got the remaining aviation fuel. We’re working on getting our soy diesel refined to work for future use. We’ll test that on some of the other planes that we found. The three Raptors left here will be for weapons testing and training. We’re hoping to find more at other small airports, now that we know what we’re looking for.”
Sam’s eyes glazed, his mind computing a million thoughts per second. A revelation occurred: that’s what Delbert was talking about when he mentioned the Germans in World War 2. Sam quickly remembered the lessons taught by the Ten Vets on combining mobile armor with air support. Those lessons always seemed so out of touch with reality to a little group that considered armored cavalry to be old farm trucks with plate steel welded on. What was the plane the Germans used in that...what, Lightning War?
As Sam mentally filed through old lessons, a buzz like a giant bumblebee rose from somewhere behind the buildings. Suddenly, a shark’s mouth flashed just a few feet over the buildings and began to climb into the sky at a steep angle. As he followed the path of the plane, Delbert nudged his arm and pointed at an old box truck sitting in front of a pile of brush and trees that had been pushed into a ten-foot-high mound. The truck and pile sat in the middle of a field well over two hundred yards away from where the nearest building stood. As the Air Tractor, or Raptor as Delbert called it, made a long slow semicircle, Sam suddenly realized the pilot’s intentions.
The Raptor lined up the brush pile with its nose, then orange bursts leapt from the wing tubes that Sam made note of earlier. He could see intermittent flashes streak out towards the brush pile. Most went high and low, left and right, and quickly Sam understood why the target was so far away. Clearly this wasn’t like sighting a rifle, fired by taking a deep breath and squeezing a trigger.
Though the Air Tractor provided a very stable platform to make a Raptor from, it looked like there was still a lot of flying the pilot needed to do in addition to aiming a weapons system. The slightest extra movement of the wings resulted in shots missing the target by yards after taking distance into account.
“Still too durn inaccurate,” Delbert murmured in disgust. “The angle just screws us up.”
“Don’t be too hard on yourself, Delbert,” Fredericks said.
“Me? I wasn’t talking about me, big-time army man. The gun sights aren’t right and the pilot is a farmer, not an ace,” Delbert grunted.
“Okay, okay,” Fredericks said, laughing at the old man. “Don’t be too hard on them either. Most of the Ditchmen we’ll be facing in the near term aren’t really soldiers at all. They’ll be used to pushing around scared Tenants. Those cannon shells start landing around them, and I mean anywhere close, and they’ll be trying to surrender to the Creator Himself!”
As the ungainly bird climbed again to take another pass, the older men heard Sam blurt out an unfamiliar word.
“Stuka,” Sam said louder as they craned their heads to hear his voice.
“You taught us about the Stuka dive bomber when we discussed Blitzkrieg tactics. Using airborne artillery as an armored fist to punch through an entrenched enemy. Then you break out to get deep behind his lines. Make him lose his discipline and then he has to stop you on your terms,” Sam repeated like a walking military encyclopedia. “If we attack from above, at a sharper angle, the accuracy of our weapons will increase.”
He continued: “I remember the lesson because we all laughed at the thought of having an air force to help us and our little farm truck army. Now I understand why you were teaching us all this. You knew some day we’d develop more advanced weapons and tactics.”
“I'd like to think that’s true, Sam,” Fredericks said. “Although most of the time it just seems like survival day to day. But to build a warrior culture, we have to start teaching our future leaders early.”
I want in,” Sam blurted out, stone-faced and looking back and forth at the crusty old Wizard and the SDC Commander with the confidence only a leader’s son can convey.
Fredericks looked shocked, but not Delbert. “I had a feeling you’d see it that way, Prince,” Delbert snorted.
“I can’t believe it, Sam,” Fredericks interjected. “The farm has always been your focus. I thought your dream was to keep building the original Fortress Farm into its own commerce center, then teaching others to do the same.”
“I know, Commander. But just think about all the possibilities this opens for the Cooperative! With you and Alex leading the Mark 3s and the ground forces, and me being up in the air with these beautiful birds, there’s no way the Americans will mess with us,” Sam said, beginning to raise his voice again.
The two older men winced, still sensitive to hearing the name of their former country used harshly.
“Sammy, it’s just not that simple. There are months of training that form tactics and strategy. I agree this is a game-changer, that’s why we wanted you to see them. But you’ve been groomed to run the farming side of our county. Our food and diesel production is the most important task for all our survival. The SDC exists to safeguard food production and our people. With more people streaming into our School Shelters every week, we can’t afford to miss our production targets by one bushel,” Fredericks insisted, using Sam’s own reports against him.
Delbert stood smiling, watching the young bull strain against his duties to home. Sam had evidently caught the flying bug; Delbert and Fredericks had seen it before. There were just some guys who lived and breathed it.
“Commander, I understand what my duties are to my country,” Sam insisted. The emphasized use of Frank’s proper title brought both the older men to attention. “But if those farms are burning because of the Americans, or the Ditchmen, or any other group of crazies that go rampaging across our vast territories, there won’t be any food production. There won’t be anything to feed to the people, or any diesel to feed our generators or tractors. You know as well as I do the defensive challenges we’re facing. If we don’t figure out a way to fight back against much larger enemies, we won’t survive as a free people. Or even survive at all,” Sam concluded.
Fredericks stood proud of the young man, remembering him as a scrawny teenager when he first met him. No, not just a young man, but a warrior, and a leader among warriors. A warrior with a completely different mindset than the teenagers Fredericks first went into the Service with years before. Young people coming of age after the trauma of the last couple of years seemed to live by their own code of ethics; one that demanded time in harm’s way. They weren’t doing it for a paycheck or free college. They didn’t even do it for some misplaced sense of duty to an e
mpire that barely knew they existed. This was more primal, or maybe better described as tribal. The duty felt by a young knight to defend his home and family from dangers real or imagined.
Fredericks sighed, “Well, you know it’s your Dad you have to convince at the end of this. Or more importantly, your Mom.”
Chapter Eight– Shield of the Okaw
Schoolhouse Hill Fortress Farm
One Year and Six Months after the Great Reset
Alexander Jefferson Hamilton, still known as AJ to his family and friends, sat bundled up in the loft office of a forty-year-old metal machine shed. He could hear the light rain tap against the roof panels just a few feet above his head. Crazy stupid weather, Alex lamented. Staying too cool too long to get an early crop in. From this small office, he ran what history teachers of the past may have called a plantation. Originally a country elevator built for a group of farmers to sell their grain, everyone for miles around now knew this place as the Schoolhouse Hill Fortress Farm. The model for a modern concrete fortress, flanked by support buildings and surrounded by earthen and concrete walls, replicated dozens or even hundreds of times in this county and surrounding area.
He made one last adjustment to the labor allocations for the weekly tasks around the farm. Soon, this would be his brother Sam’s responsibility while Alex would begin his two-year training tour as an officer in the Okaw Valley SDC.
He thought of his father and mother, off somewhere meeting with someone about something. To Alex, it seemed as though this farm was the only place in the Okaw lacking his parents' attention. Phil and Anna were in constant motion among the Fortress Farms and small towns that made up the Okaw Valley SDC. I’m proud they trust me, but I’d also like just a little help and guidance sometimes. Sam helped immensely, and they rapidly became best friends as well as brothers. I’m thankful for that; a lot of brothers end up struggling for control.
