World of Ashes II

by J. K. Robinson

  “It’s for luck, don’t get ahead of yourself.” She said quickly, pushing him out of the tent.

  Already the men were throwing their riot gear on, some while wearing nothing but boxers, and forming their triangular battle line. The main generators were switched off and the floodlights that would illuminate the battlefield were aimed at the nearby coordinates. With hundreds of trailer parks and temporary housing in the area, that an outbreak might occur was just a matter of time rather than theory. Deep inside, everyone was waiting for this moment.

  Daniel found SSgt Kemper, who had magically gotten his uniform on in inspection worthy condition in mere seconds. “Fire watch has NVG’s on the East valley. Reports at least fifty contacts making their way toward us.”

  “Make sure everyone who might be itching to get the first kill knows, that if they shoot before I give the order, they will be the first kill I promise.” Kemper had been in the first clusterfuck with Daniel and voiced similar feelings about people breaking the formation. There should be no reason these tactics wouldn’t work against an unarmed enemy. No, scratch that, most of them still had arms. Those weren’t as easy to gnaw off as one might think.

  Kemper returned and had what looked like an Xbox remote in his hand. “Air Force has some bitchin’ toys, Sir. Watch this shit.” That was one of the most dangerous things any American Soldier has ever said, possibly followed closely by any 2nd Lieutenant saying “In my experience.” A nearby Hummer H2 painted in an adorable AF digital pattern and enough antenna to communicate with the moon, a package that must have cost the American Tax Payers millions, turned on remotely. It revealed an automated turret with a chain gun mounted to a variety of cameras. SSgt Kemper pulled down a headset that clipped onto a helmet he’d had to “borrow” from the Airman originally assigned and trained to use it, and started playing his new favorite video game.

  “Contacts at three hundred meters. No body-heat, no quick movements.” Kemper offered the first shot to Daniel, but he declined. “Permission to engage, Sir?”

  Daniel keyed his radio. “Valkyrie Six to Valhalla Base. Viral Threat at previously established coordinates: India Three through Seven, strength at battalion level, no heat signatures between unit location and targets. Permission to engage, Over.”

  The response was immediate, and thank God it was Major Sharp this time, back from his assignment to save the day. “Valkyrie Six this is Odin Actual. Permission to engage granted. Clear the board, Lieutenant.”

  “Don’t let those fucking Vics within a hundred meters of my camp, Sergeant.” Daniel ordered with a confident tone, propping the radio mike on his Kevlar. “Send it.”

  Daniel barely heard SSgt Kemper say “On the Way!” before the minigun burped out an uninterrupted stream of depleted uranium and flaming tracers. The Vics melted like plastic army men in a microwave, tracers igniting chest cavities and rotting clothes between popping gory looking flesh-balloons.

  “Hold fire.” Daniel had a thought. “How much ammunition do we have for this thing?”

  “Beats me, Sir.” Kemper responded, trying to hide his erection from using the gun.

  “Let’s assume it’s not a lot. I’m going to send Second Squad out to draw their attention back into a center stream. We’ll start stacking bodies at the hundred meter line and fall back toward the far side of the lake if we need to. I’m redirecting Third to keep our line of egress open. First and the mini-gun will stand here. We can use the floodlights while Second goes down into the firing line to tag those motherfuckers, but we’ll have to turn them off on their way back or they’ll be night-blind.” It was a lot to take in, a lot of different orders that would have to go out, but Kemper had his shit together and in no time was running with Second Squad down range while the other NCO’s held their lines. Third Squad’s sharp shooters were picking off Vics with infrared sights, three or four muzzle flashes at a time on the right flank as they kept up a methodically devastating rate of fire.

  Watching through a rifle mounted infrared scope, Daniel saw SSgt Kemper and a few other Soldiers who could run the fastest go right up to the first group of about a dozen rotters and literally tag them on the foreheads with as many IR* stickers as they could. This was daring, kinda stupid if you really thought about it, but brilliant in that now they had a clear marker for support aircraft and anyone wearing NODs to know where the badguys were. Once Second had made their bounding movement back to the line it was two squads of expert riflemen versus the horde of zombies. One side didn’t stand a chance, and it wasn’t Daniel’s.

  The Vics tagged with infrared stickers were allowed as close as the twenty meter line before being cut down, every other freezer-burned looking skeleton in the group was turn to rotting waste behind them. The stragglers of the group, those who seemed almost unmotivated to walk to their own slaughter, were picked off by the turret mounted mini-gun. A single solid line was formed by the men, and 1stVR swept the battlefield with blades and pistols for any that might be crawling around like so many large cockroaches.

  Sgt. Weldon came running up to Daniel and Kemper, holding a dirty looking shirt with blackened blood stains on it. “Sir, these Vics are old. This can’t be a fresh outbreak.”

  “Are they all like that?” Kemper asked, mild shock turning quickly to disappointment and disgust for a variety of reasons.

  “Yes, Sarn’t. Not a freshy among them. Forgive me, Sir, but I thought the perimeter of the Cheyenne Complex was more heavily guarded than the Korean DMZ. How could a group this size make it through?”

  “They couldn’t, Sergeant. Very astute, I expected nothing less from any of you.” Major Sharp said, stepping out from an Air Force truck no one had paid any mind to. Sharp keyed his radio. “Odin Six to Warren Range Control.”

  “Range Control, go ahead.” The radio chirped.

  “Index Live Fire Exercise ‘Round Top.’”

  “Copy index of Live Fire Exercise, support teams standing down. CentCom requests report at earliest convenience.”

  Sharp hadn’t broken eye contact with Daniel the entire time. “No friendly casualties, minimal resources consumed. ZQRF is returned to Green status.” He let go of the radio for the final time. “Good work, Lieutenant. Your men performed brilliantly.”

  “This was all an exercise, Sir?” Kemper had trouble keeping himself in line just then. He felt proud of himself just for remembering to say Sir.

  “Yes, Sergeant, it was. The mock battle with OpFor was a disaster, and I think that had as much to do with improper recruiting techniques as it did an unbelievable scenario. The men couldn’t take it seriously, and neither did the Vics. I convinced Major General Roland that because of the obvious fake elements of the battle the concept of using men and women who’d already been outside the wire failed. The Army had little problem coming up with an appropriate number of infected corpses for the fight, but not so many we were in any real danger of an infestation.” Sharp stepped up to Daniel and sat on the water-buffalo’s hitch.

  “Sir, with all due respect, some of my men might have been killed.” Daniel protested. He was feeling the early onset of the urge to punch a superior asshole in the face, and yes, he was waiting for the appropriate time to use that line too.

  “And the Army and Administration had a cover story for that.”

  “I’m sure.” Daniel’s disrespectful tone shone like a search light.

  Sharp stood, getting as close to Daniel as he could. “Congratulations, First Lieutenant. Your men have impressed the right people… Enjoy your time off here at the lake. It’ll be the last R&R you get before we retake DC.” Sharp didn’t bother saluting before he left, nor did he wait for Daniel to offer one. As much as he enjoyed his notoriety and position to further blackmail his mother, Daniel felt a deep personal responsibility to each and every one of his Soldiers. He would very definitely have taken each potential death as hard as the loss of a good friend, were he to find out they died for a lie. He’d kill, specifically Sharp, if it meant bringing any of them h
ome alive. But what was this pencil mustached dick going to do? Daniel was probably more untouchable than Sharp himself at this point, and he intended to make that foundation even more solid. DC was just the midway of this war. In that moment Daniel decided he wouldn’t stop killing Vic until he reached England.

  Lt. Hallstead found her way out of the tent where she’d gathered the four other Airmen there and took out a black marker from her clipboard. While Daniel was still seething she colored his yellow lieutenant’s bar black on his uniform. “Major Sharp showed up almost as soon as the bullets started flying. He wouldn’t let us warn you it was just a scenario, but he did have other units and air support ready.”

  Kemper gave them some room with the tip of his hat. “What’s this for?” Daniel wondered aloud. “I just made Second Lieutenant a month ago.”

  Shrugging, Daniel’s new (girl)friend popped the top on a can of root beer in a cooler next to the tent. “There are other trains of thought on how to deal with the plague. Your unit, it’s all an experiment. If you’d failed here the next best idea was to build a wall and wait ‘em out. They do rot, you know. Just slower than usual. It could all just be a waiting game, no need to risk lives.”

  Daniel didn’t agree with that logic at all. “We can’t live sustain this, Kelly. Have you seen how people are living off-post? I’m not talking about outside the wire, I mean here, in the Complex. The American Ghetto now stretches almost the entire length of the Rockies. You and I, we live good. Everyone else… this can’t be allowed to last forever. And that’s why the Viral Response teams are so vital. We’ll exhaust all the supplies this land has to offer, rationing, worse than it already is, will create a black market the police will have no chance of controlling, especially when they’re starving too.” Daniel could tell he was ranting, but Kelly was listening intently. “If we don’t reclaim the farmlands of the Midwest, we’re fucked. Vic won’t have to fight us, we’ll just… fade away.”

  “But Mankind will still go on.”

  “Maybe. But do you want to live in a world where the Stars and Stripes no longer fly? Where the rule of law and the Constitution mean nothing?” Daniel stood taller. “No. I will not go down without a fight. I won’t sit behind the wire and walls and wait to die. As much of a bastard as Major Sharp is, I’m following that man straight into the jaws of death with a smile on my face… I mean, if it’s down to me or him, I’m shooting him in the knee and running, but…”

  Someone outside, no doubt an individual who wasn’t on the detail to police up the bodies, popped open a bottle of beer. “Let’s fuckin’ do this!” The man shouted, starting a chugging contest with some of the others. The live fire exercise over, everyone was back in party mode, unwilling to waste what precious little time they had left.

  Before Hallstead left the tent, Daniel tried something. “So… do you prefer a man in a uniform?” He said with an impish smile.

  “I was wondering when you were going to ask.”

  Chapter 14

  …and the Army goes rolling along…

  Tracer rounds zipped over Daniel’s head, the zing-pop sound of a 5.56mm round taking out a branch from a bush next to him wasn’t one he was used to. Vic didn’t shoot back, he couldn’t even turn a doorknob, instead the first city the unit was sent to in order to liberate an Oregon Army National Guard post that had held out, was overrun by an organized and heavily armed gang. Daniel would later find out it wasn’t exactly a gang more than it was the combined and well regimented forces of Lead, Deadwood and Central City, South Dakota.

  The Rebels saw the FEMA/Army outpost on the edge of the nearby reservoir as symbol of oppression and dishonesty, the desperate and outgunned colonel in charge of the hastily made fortress was as a wannabe king in of his own adorable little discount empire, and needless to say he’d made some enemies conscripting, pillaging and allegedly raping his way through the nearby cities. The arrival of another “American” unit to aid their bitter enemy was enough to make the people take up arms against Daniel’s men without hesitation.

  Lacking a machine gun unit of their own, as zombies didn’t care if you shoot their body a hundred times or if you used a golf club, Daniel wasn’t in any position to order his men to subdue the attackers. The best he could do against an enemy that literally had tanks, two captured Abrams and four Armored Security Vehicles, was hold a small hill on the far side of a strip mine the town of Lead had grown around. The hill was on the opposite side of the town from the National Guard post-turned filthy castle, a thousand or more angry rebels between them and there. Daniel didn’t exactly blame the people for being pissed when a captive told them why they’d just starting shooting, but then again they hadn’t offered a parlay, and that was a good way to get shot in the face.

  “Odin Six, Valkyrie Six, respond.” Daniel keyed his IMBTTR radio.

  “Go ahead.” Sharp responded, the other three platoons of 1st Viral Response were in reserve on a temporary airfield ten miles away.

  “We’re meeting organized resistance, Odin Six. Unable to break through to town of Lead. How copy?” Daniel ducked down a little farther when gravel from ricochets landed on his head. Besides bite-proof plastic armor, nobody was wearing enough to stop a bullet. No one had envisioned a need for it when their enemy was functionally stupid.

  “Understood. Drop IR markers and prepare for incoming air support. Confirm grid coordinates and hold position.” Daniel confirmed his coordinates to Major Sharp and the line went silent. He checked the radio but it wasn’t dead. “Stay down!” Daniel yelled through the headsets. Supposedly everyone had one, but what with all the recent explosions it was hard to tell if everyone heard him. A moment later the unmistakable roaring thunder of a jet overhead, a small flickering light from its engine as the pilot increased thrust into afterburner and the almost silent whistle of an inbound bomb made everyone duck and cover. Everyone except Daniel and SSgt. Kemper, they wanted to see this, and their devil may care curiosity was rewarded with a series of four 500lbs JDAMs that wiped out a good portion of the center of Lead. An entire wall of top soil nearest the bomb fell down into the strip mine. In the early morning light it was a sight to behold. For the U.S. Soldiers it was awe inspiring and probably gave some of them wood. For the rebels of the three towns in was both a wakeup call, and a horrifying sign of the fight to come.

  Thinking that was it, Daniel was about to stand up when another three bombs fell on a sector just east of the first. The radio crackled again and Major Sharp informed him a company of the 101st Air Cavalry would be landing shortly, and that they’d handle the gangs while 1st VR held a defensive position in case there were infected in the area. As daylight started to break over the battlefield Daniel watched through his binoculars the people who’d held out in these hills. After the Air Force was done pounding the area with guided munitions the poor bastards were routed by the fast moving mechanized Cavalry. If these people hadn’t been attacking the Army from the get-go, Daniel might have felt a little bit sorrier for them. Though disappointed his first real combat action had ended in only five Vics pacified, mostly those trapped in vehicles. Hee was glad none of his men were killed as the evac choppers came in to retrieve the platoon. On the way back he wondered if other officers had felt this way before, sitting on the flanks while the center takes the hits. He wasn’t jealous, it was just another form of survivor’s guilt he’d have to learn to live with. Medics in wars past, stuck at a field hospital, might know this pain better than he.

  The next battle, though, cured him of that feeling entirely. On the outskirts of the fight for Lead was a municipal airfield in a valley named Clyde Ice Field. It was small, covered in wreckage and trash from the FEMA evacuation station that had fallen, but it seemed the large population of undead that had been reported there were all now meandering toward the Battle of Lead as the explosions echoed off the mountains. The Chinooks set down, drawing the walking puss-bag’s attention with M240’s mounted on the tail hatch. A third chopper dropped equipment Major Sharp
had sent, not the Hummer H2 with the awesome mini-gun on it, the Air Force hadn’t let them keep that, but they did get a bunch of specially rigged spike strips that could be deployed and retracted multiple times to keep Vic in place while someone dispatched him. Daniel handed out infrared glow sticks to a few of the privates and had them run the length of the airfield and mark where the tarmac actually was, and not where the grass had grown over it. The fences FEMA had left were still intact, but moving concertina wire that had dead bodies tangled in it was more effort than it was worth.

  Sgt. Hudson, the human brick shithouse in charge of Third Squad readjusted the lines to encompass the more intact embattlements just as a group of shambling zombies came within small arms range. For the next six hours it was one long line of gunshots, and a field of bodies laid out at a quarter mile all the way up to the fences, and then over them. They still had plenty of ammo as the men were ordered to eat MREs in place, and even when they’d stacked so many bodies the piles began to collapse over themselves there was little if any fear of being overrun. It wasn’t until individual rotters made it into the spaces between buildings and half collapsed tents that the unit was in direct danger. Just as Major Sharp had predicted, though, the survivor instinct in the selectees resulted in a berserker reaction to anything moving within arm’s reach. Because of cohesive team efforts and the threat of Daniel possibly shooting them himself, (it was an empty threat,) none of the men managed to attack one another. They kept the undead beyond bayonet range, but no amount of savagery can stop a tidal wave. Just as the light was beginning to fail again Daniel had to call a “strategic advance to the rear” and begin setting up shop on top of the hangars.