“Daisy,” Leah said, commanding the dog into the Jeep. Once the dog was in, she secured her rifle and looked back at the others.
Mary started the El Camino, and Violet somberly slid in to the passenger seat of her late husband’s vehicle. Adam, Anna, Joshua, and Grace were all on horseback. Ian put the Jeep in gear and started down the gravel drive of the Tiller Farm.
“Everyone with us?” Ian asked two minutes later as they got to the two-lane road.
“Yeah,” Leah answered. “And Joshua wants to check in with you.”
Ian watched the man ride his horse up to the driver’s side of the Jeep.
“I think they are circling around on the other side of the hill. Probably near the pipeline terminal.”
“Yeah, it’s only a matter of time before they fly high enough to see your farm. Alright, we will see you at the rally point in twelve hours.”
“Yes, sir. And, good luck.”
“You too, son.”
Joshua watched the vehicles pull away down the road. They were headed northeast to the rally point. They needed to move quickly. He kicked his horse into motion and heard the others do the same.
“Looks like we’re on our own again,” Grace said, riding up next to the oldest Tiller boy.
“I thought that’s what you wanted?” He spurred his horse a little faster down the shade tree lined two-lane road.
“I did,” Grace answered between breaths and bounces. It had been a couple of years since she had ridden a horse. Both she and Anna had taken hunter/jumper classes for several years, but the call of teenage life, boys, and an active extracurricular life lured them away. She wondered why. Riding horses was one of her first loves, and you never really get over your first love.
“But?” Joshua asked, drawing out the word.
“But, we had already proved that we could look after ourselves,” she said, still adjusting to the Western saddle style. She was used to the English style.
“I think it was a good call,” Joshua said, he moved effortlessly in the saddle. “Besides, separated, we don’t make as large of a target. There would have been no way to tow the horses and bug out.”
“Doesn’t really matter anymore,” Adam said, adding his 2-cents to the conversation.
“Guys! Guys! Hey!” Anna yelled from the back of the pack. Everyone turned to look, but didn’t slow down.
“What?” Grace yelled.
“I hear the choppers!”
Joshua put his hand up to stop the ride and moved his horse deeper into the shadows of the large oaks that lined the rural state road. The other three did the same. All four pulled out their rifles. Anna was still unsure of exactly how to handle hers but just mimicked the others.
“The horses might spook if we start shooting, so make sure you have a hold on to them if it starts to go down,” Adam warned.
“Let’s hope we don’t have to shoot,” Joshua remarked, listening to the thumping whirl of the helicopters circle his family’s farm a mile behind them.
“Should we go scout them out?” Adam asked.
“No,” both Grace and Joshua said together.
“I like that idea,” Anna offered.
“Let’s just sit tight here for a second to see if they are coming our way before we keep moving.”
No one said anything. The tension was thick. The noises seemed to reverberate off the surrounding hills, making it difficult to pin down if they were coming or going.
“Sounds like it landed,” Adam surmised as the chopper noises gave way. They could hear the distant rumblings of heavy trucks.
“I think they’ve brought in troops. We should really get out of here,” Grace advised.
“Agreed,” Joshua responded, and kicked his horse into motion after slinging his rifle across his back.
The others followed suit, and they began to trot again.
“You know,” Adam said, “that truck sound didn’t really sound like it was coming from behind us.”
A shot of hot panic ripped through the group as Adam’s words came to life in front of them. One hundred yards ahead of the group, a half-ton truck, like the one destroyed at the pipeline terminal, pulled to an intersection.
“Shit!” Joshua exclaimed, and they all came to a stop.
The truck sat at the three-way intersection, its diesel engine clanking. The driver had his window down and seemed to be trying to decide which way to go.
“Is there another way?” Grace asked. Her breathing quickened, and she felt a cold sweat break out across her skin.
Joshua looked around. “Yes, Wolf Creek,” he said.
“Dude, that’s closer to the truck!” Adam scolded.
They were stuck. If they crossed the street, out of the protection of the shadows, they would be seen. They couldn’t go backwards because of what was at the farm. They couldn’t go deeper into the woods because of a fence line.
“It’s our only hope at getting around them,” Joshua insisted, spurring his horse ahead slowly, and the others fell into a single line. They stayed in the shadows of the large oaks, but that would not shield them if the truck turned towards their direction.
“This isn’t going to work,” Adam mumbled. He was the last horse in the row.
“I can hear you,” Joshua hissed. “And shut up!”
The four slowly rode their horses closer towards the Chinese truck filled with soldiers.
“This is freaking suicide,” Anna whispered.
“Shhh,” Grace responded.
Joshua was watching the driver and the passenger in the cab; they were arguing. He assumed it was about which way to go. Joshua hoped they would keep arguing. He pulled his handgun and held it in his free hand.
“Josh!” It was Adam again, his voice barely audible.
“What?”
“Dad said that when they engaged the last truck, that he noticed that they carried extra fuel tanks on the side of the truck. Can you see any?”
“Yea, but they are probably diesel,” he said, using logic.
“Yea, but he didn’t think so since the other truck exploded.”
“What are you saying?”
“I think you can use your armor piercing to light them up.”
They were now about 50 yards from the truck and 25 yards from the entrance to the creek. The creek flowed under the road, and would give them a hiding place from trucks or helicopters. If they could get there undetected.
“I’ve got the tank on the right,” Grace said, onboard with the plan. She held her rifle at the ready.
“But,” Joshua said. “We might be able to…”
The driver of the truck turned his head and looked directly at them. He yelled something to the passenger and pointed at the four American’s
“Shoot, Grace! Shoot!” Joshua yelled.
The driver turned the wheel and started moving before Grace squeezed her trigger.
The fuel tank hanging on the side of the truck exploded, covering the canvas covered rear portion of the truck with fuel driven fire. Another tank exploded, rocking the truck further, but not enough to knock it over. Grace kept firing, her horse was jumping, and she fought to hang on. A third armor piercing round found the third tank. The truck recoiled with the explosion and tipped over.
Joshua kicked the horse into a run while bringing his pistol hand up and firing.
Several of the soldiers were trying to escape from the back of the toppled burning vehicle. They were shocked and unprepared to fight. Josh pushed his horse and closed the distance quickly, firing his .40 caliber. The hollow point rounds punched devastating holes into any person that he hit. With skill, sharpened by anger, he shot two soldiers the instant they climbed out of the wreckage.
“How does it feel?” he said in between gritted teeth.
A few more soldiers stumbled from around the back of the truck, flames consuming their clothes. They were screaming in a language that was alien to Joshua. He rode up to the intersection and stopped his horse. The exploded fuel had pain
ted the overhanging trees, catching them on fire and spreading the flaming death.
“Don’t get too close,” Grace said, keeping her horse back from Joshua’s.
There were men still trapped in the back of the burning truck. They could hear them screaming.
“What is that they are saying?” Adam asked Grace.
“Bāng wǒ,” she said.
“What does that mean?”
“Help me,” she said, softly.
“Holy shit,” Adam whispered. The scene looked like the Devil was having a revival.
One of the men from the back of the truck found a way to burst through the flames and onto the road. He was on fire and ran in circles yelling. He then fell to the ground trying to roll the fire out.
Joshua raised his pistol at the burning soldier and fired a single shot. There was no more screaming coming from the man on the ground or truck. Josh shot the man again…and then again.
“Josh! Josh! Stop! They’ll hear you!” Adam yelled at his brother.
Joshua looked back at his brother, his eyes wide and sweat pouring down his face. “They killed our father, Adam.”
“I know,” his voice soft with understanding.
Joshua looked around for anyone else to shoot as Grace edged her horse up next to his. She put her hand on his outstretched arm and helped him lower the pistol. “We need to go,” she said softly, echoing Adam’s words.
“They killed my dad.”
“I know,” she squeezed his hand. “This can’t consume you now. We need to go if we are going to live. It’s what your dad wanted, for all of us to live. We need to go, Joshua.”
He squeezed her hand. She raised his hand to her lips and kissed it. He looked at her.
“We’ll get through this, but today, we have to live,” she said.
He nodded, wiping the tears off of his face with his sleeve.
“Adam, lead us down the creek. They can’t pick up our tracks there.” Joshua looked back at the truck, the billowing smoke filtering through the giant oaks, surely giving away their position.
Without a word, Adam turned his horse towards the creek bed and led them into the shallow creek.
Grace keyed her two-way radio.
“This is Tardis Blue. We’re not going to make the rally point on time. Will advise. Over.”
CHAPTER 4
Former Senator Payne’s personal helicopter circled over the farm. The shells of Chinese built helicopters littered the field; and where a house once stood, there was a smoldering remains of a life. “It looks like your forces were defeated, Colonel.”
Colonel Xu shifted nervously in his seat in the executive helicopter. He was the leader of the State’s forces pushing up from the Gulf of Mexico. Rising out of cargo ships from the port city of Mobile, his troops had swarmed over the confused and disorganized American military on their march to Birmingham.
“Yes, sir, it does,” Xu allowed.
Today was the day that the new PNA was supposed to make an example out of one of the US states. Xu though that the honor was going to fall to him and his troops to inflict chaos on Alabama, but, once the Senator, now Provincial Governor arrived, all he talked about was making sure that a certain CIA agent was dead. The Governor handed Xu coordinates and ordered him to kill everyone in the area. It was a fluke that his headquarters received intelligence from a soldier in the field who had been attacked by people at the same location. Xu had dispatched three helicopter gun ships to deal with the Governor’s pet project, and the results were scattered in the field below.
“Take us down,” Xu commanded the pilot.
“Sir, our back up platoon is…is, delayed. It might not be safe, sir, ” the pilot warned. He kept eyeing the destroyed birds on the ground and did not want to be the next sacrifice.
“You mean they are lost, Captain,” the colonel scolded. “Take us down, and you two need to be prepared to fight,” Xu cautioned, pointing two fingers at the pilots. He then un-holstered his personal side arm, chambered a round, and slammed it back in his holster.
“I feel safer already,” Payne sneered. “Honestly, Colonel, I wonder how your men made it this far?”
“We have fought America’s Army!” Xu protested. “And we have won!”
Payne shook his head and watched out the window as the helo descended. “You fought a neutered ghost of our military. Without the chaos of the EMP and the nuked cities, you would not have stood a chance!” Payne did not give him a chance to respond. “And tell me, Colonel, how can a modern fighting force with an edge in technology get lost trying to protect their commander?”
Xu bit his tongue and debated whether to resound but declined, thinking it would just be wasted words. He made a mental note that the man had slipped in his phraseology, and said, ‘You fought a neutered ghost of our military,’ instead of their military. People had been sentenced to death for lesser slips of the tongue.
The helicopter touched down, and the co-pilot hopped out and opened the side door for the VIPs. He then pulled his seldom-used side arm and followed behind the two men as they walked towards the burned structure of the house.
“What are you looking for, sir?” Xu asked, his eyes scanning the area continuously. He couldn’t believe that this politician was allowing them to be exposed in such a way. But then, he had been around long enough to know that most politicians thought about the needs of themselves first, regardless of which country they represented.
Payne walked to the edge of the smoldering structure. “Evidence,” Payne simply responded. He had been a district attorney earlier in his career and knew that being able to visit a crime scene was golden to his understanding of what really happened.
“What kind of evidence, sir? It looks like everyone died in the fire.”
Payne smiled. He was about to school his military friend in looking at the details and the assumptions that lead to fact. “So, Colonel, if everyone died in the fire, why is there three burning helicopters in that field? Where are the horses? The gate is closed. Why are we standing in mud? Why are two hose pipes still running water on the ground?”
Xu looked down at his combat boots. A pool of moving water glimmered around the rubber of his sole.
Payne continued, “Why is there an American flag sticking out of the ground on a mound of fresh dirt under that oak tree over there?” Payne lazily waved his arm towards the shade tree before turning to face the officer. “And why, Colonel, are there no vehicles here?”
Xu opened his mouth to say something when a nearby explosion rocked the peacefulness of the farm. The co-pilot moved in front of the men, his weapon out and ready to protect his passengers.
“Put that away!” Payne ordered. “They’re long gone, but not before finding and destroying your lost platoon!” The Governor turned his back on the scene and headed back to the helicopter.
A plume of black smoke floated up above the trees from a forested area about a mile away.
CHAPTER 5
One hour after receiving the transmission from his daughter, Ian approached the rally point, an abandoned farmhouse on the other side of the hill from Talladega Super Speedway.
He pulled the Jeep off the road and through an open gate to a field. Mary followed in the El Camino.
“You don’t want to go down to the track?” Leah asked, but she knew that it was not a good idea too.
“It’s not that I don’t want to go down to the track, its just I want to scope out what’s at the track first,” Ian responded in a casual Rangers lead the way protocol.
“Roger that.”
Mary pulled up beside the parked Jeep. “Is this the pit-stop?” she asked.
“Looks that way,” Leah answered.
“Good, ‘cause I had to pee, like, 30 minutes ago,” she said, leaping out of the vintage Chevrolet and walking quickly for the woods.
Ian and Leah watched her walk to the woods in front of the vehicles. “You really know how to pick’em,” Leah said, her mouth turning into a smile with the
sarcastic comment.
Ian’s mouth did the same. “That I do, babe. That I do.” He lovingly smacked her on the knee as she keyed the radio. “Tardis Blue, Iron Horse is at rally point, over.”
Grace stretched her shoulders and tried to pop her neck before answering. She had forgotten how tough it was to ride a horse for an extended period of time. “Momma B, that’s affirmative. Trojan Horse is still making way via alternate routes. They haven’t dogged us since the troop carrier, so we still expect to be at rally point by tomorrow morning.”
“Tomorrow morning,” Leah said, repeating her daughter’s voice on the radio. “Roger that, T-Blue, we’re here for you. Over and out.”
After Leah ended the transmission, Ian got out of the Jeep and scouted around as best as he could. He didn’t see anyone around but knew that the view from the top of the wooded hill would be different from what he was seeing now. He walked back to Leah and the Jeep to get his binoculars.
“I’m going to take Mary with me to the top of the hill. See if you can get Violet onto a task…we need her, and her boys need her, in the now.”
Leah and Ian had talked about Mary and Violet’s role moving forward in the militia. They were important keys to the success, and they agreed to divide the responsibility of training each of them for the new reality.
“Got it.”
“Thanks, Hun.”
“You bet.”
“Mary,” Ian called, as he turned towards the El Camino.
“Yeah?”
“Leah and Violet are going to pitch camp. Can you help me scout?” It was a question, not an order.
Mary finished removing the box of ammunition from the back of the El Camino and nodded at Ian. “Sure.”
Mary had found another hurdle in her new life as a newly widowed lesbian lawyer turned mad bitch with the enemy for screwing up her perfect life. She fought the urge to charge out the door each day to find someone that was foreign to her, and kill them on the spot. For the first time, unbelievably, she grasped the thought process behind those that hated gays. She didn’t condone it, but somewhere deep inside, she seemed to get it…there were people that had changed everything about her life, without her consent, and against her will. Some powerful minority of people, an invading force that didn’t believe the way she believed, had altered her and America’s way of life. This change directly impacted her all the way down to her soul, and she had no say in it. “But I have revenge,” she kept telling herself. At every opportunity, she practiced shooting and learning how to kill more effectively. She had turned into a very deadly sniper in a short amount of time and planned on using that new skill at the first opportunity.
Worst Case Scenario - Book 5: Militia Page 2
