The day after: An apocalyptic morning

by Jessy Cruise

  "Hey," he yelled, shining his flashlight down at the body, seeing the holes. "We got a problem here!"

  It was yet another three minutes before he was able to find an officer and drag him over there. The officer in question happened to be the man who was next in command: Lieutenant Colby.

  "Holy shit," Colby said, looking down at the body. He did not have the least bit of suspicion that Bracken's death had been anything other than a result of enemy fire. Although none of the tracer streams had hit anywhere near this place, Colby did not know that, nor did anyone else. It was impossible to remember just where the attacks had hit or even just how many of them there had been. And of course a forensic pathologist would have taken one look at the body and known that the bullet wounds had been inflicted post-mortem, but Colby was not a forensic pathologist.

  Soon a fairly large crowd of soldiers was gathered around their fallen commander. Had the Garden Hills helicopter chosen that particular moment to return, it would have found a tantalizingly close group to fire at. They stared down at him, illuminating him with their lights, looking at his dead face, at the bullet holes in his chest, wondering what came next. Many of them were relieved. Surely they couldn't go on now that their commanding officer was dead, could they?

  Stu wandered over, as if he was just happening across the scene. He looked down at Bracken, as if seeing him for the first time. "Looks like you're in charge now," he said to Colby.

  "Me?" Colby said, terrified at the very thought of leading this beaten army into battle.

  "You," Stu confirmed.

  Later he would take Colby aside privately to let him know that he would offer any assistance necessary to carry on Bracken's plans. "I'm here for you," he told him. "If you need help, just ask."

  A grateful Colby thanked him graciously for his assistance.

  Part 18

  The altimeter on the helicopter's instrument panel read 6300 feet above sea level, about three hundred feet above the point where the rain turned to snow. This put him almost two thousand feet above the rooftops of Garden Hill, high enough to see the entire subdivision and the surrounding landscape. Of course what he was doing would not have been possible even a month ago. The snow would have quickly iced up on his rotor blades, degrading their aerodynamics, eventually enough so that they would no longer be capable of providing the necessary lift to hold up the aircraft. Nor would he have been able to see anything, even before the icing became a problem. But over the past month the precipitation had slacked off some. Not a lot. It was still a moderate rainfall down in Garden Hill and a moderate snowfall at elevations above 6000 feet, but it was certainly not the heavy rain that had been the norm since the crash of Stendell and the aftermath. It was moderate enough that Skip could risk being up above the snow level for a while.

  "We've been some busy people down there," Skip said in admiration as he hovered in place and looked below at the impressive array of trenches and fortifications that the townspeople had been digging and constructing since the news of the Auburn attack force had reached them.

  "No kidding," said Jack, who was also looking down from his position in the navigator's chair. He had a large map of the area around Garden Hill, an update of the one that Skip had used to brief everyone in before the attacks had begun, unfolded on his lap.

  The reason for this flight this morning was no more or no less than an area familiarization. The remains of the Placer County Militia were just breaking camp a little more than seven miles to the east of them. After being harassed and hindered for the past fifteen days and nights, they were now in striking distance - about to enter the ring of the Garden Hill main defenses. Skip would be responsible for directing the battle that was imminent in no more than a day or two and - so busy had he been ferrying strike teams and flying night missions - he had not been able to keep as close an eye on the new defenses as he would have liked. He and Jack were now comparing the terrain below them with the map, making sure the two were compatible with each other and that Skip would be able to reference correctly when a troop movement needed to be made.

  The work done by the women and men of the trench teams was admirable indeed. To the north of the wall, towards the interstate, was the area that Skip had always considered their most vulnerable to mass attack. The landscape between the wall and the lanes of the highway was marked by gently rolling hills dotted with pine trees and the occasional redwood. To the far east of this area and to the far west of it, close in towards the wall, were the taller hills that served as the main guard positions. Between these two hills, which were not close enough to each other to provide overlapping fields of fire, the majority of the trenches had been dug, starting from just south of the freeway and stretching all the way to within fifty yards of the wall itself. Each trench was, of course, atop of a hill and well covered by trees and fallen logs. The trenches themselves were lined with sandbags made out of dirt and pillowcases for the most part and could hold ten to fifteen troops. If the militia chose to advance through this corridor - which would seem the easiest route to them - they would meet some very nasty surprises.

  To the west - their second most vulnerable avenue of attack - the hills were a little higher and steeper, covered with denser layers of trees. The going would be somewhat rougher for the militia over on this side but there was also a much wider corridor through which they could potentially travel. It was also the closest approach to the wall and the community center, around which the final defense lines were even now being dug. There were not as many trenches dug over on this side and they were both smaller and with greater distance between them. The trade off was that if the militia attacked from this direction, many of the defending troops could station themselves atop of the various hills and snipe at them as they advanced before falling back into a solid network of bunkers a quarter-mile from the roadway and the western wall.

  Unfortunately, Skip saw that there were a few large gaps that could potentially be exploited if the militia knew about them. Though it was almost impossible to approach the town from the east due to the cliffs on that side, a group could conceivably hook around from the north and penetrate along the east side of the subdivision between the wall and the cliffs. They would have to pass very close to the large hill on that side of the town to do this and would take considerable casualties from that alone, but once past that hill, no trenches had been dug and a defense would be very difficult indeed. Another such gap was along the southwest corner of the subdivision, near the canyon itself. If a group marched along the rim of the canyon and penetrated from this direction they would once again find their only major obstacle to be the hill that guarded the southern tip of town.

  Skip was uncomfortable about these gaps and, had he been given the time, he would have done his best to close them, but he had not been given the time and he had felt it more important to shore up the areas where the militia probably would attack from. He took a little comfort in the fact that it was unlikely that the men commanding the Auburnites would attempt such feats in the absence of any intelligence that such a thing was actually their best bet. It was a gamble, but Skip was reasonably certain that the attack would come from one of the two predictable directions. Nevertheless, trying to cover all of his bases, his mind began turning over just how he would react if they did do the unexpected.

  "What about the old grocery store and the gas station and all that?" Jack asked, looking at the roofs of those buildings off to the northwest. The entire strip-mall, home to the hair salon and the Starbucks and the Raley's, was still there, just outside the wall and across the road. Though a few of the roofs had collapsed from the constant rain, the buildings would still make an ideal cover point for an attacking army if they could reach it.

  "Hopefully they'll never get that far," Skip said. "If they do, you can see there's a final network of trenches just on the north and east of it. The troops will hold them from there and then retreat inside the wall if they manage to close. Paul and his team have rigged up the inside of tho
se buildings with more than a few of Steve's mines and some other booby-traps he came up with. The militia would find that occupying those buildings would be a rather bad mistake."

  "Cool," Jack said, smiling a little at the thought.

  "My feelings exactly," Skip said. "So how's that map looking? Are you able to figure out the trench numbers and compare them with the actual ground?"

  "Yeah," he said, looking from one to the other. "They did a good job on this map. It's almost perfect."

  "Good, because when we're in the middle of this thing, I'm going to be relying on you quite a bit. Both of us are going to have to multi-task up here big time. I'll need you to report to me what trenches our troops are in and where the militia is advancing. I'll need you to give me this information by map grid and trench number as soon as I ask for it and then, while I'm looking at the map, I'm going to need you to keep an eye on the instruments for me to make sure I'm staying in a hover."

  "No problem," Jack assured him.

  "Goddammit, I wish we would've had time to get you checked out on flying this thing," Skip said, shaking his head a little in frustration. "That would've made things so much easier. I could've had you fly while I watched everything from your chair."

  "I know everything about this helicopter," Jack said, his tone sending a message. "You've taught me all of the instruments and what they do, you've taught me how it flies, why it flies, and how you make it fly. All I haven't done is actually put the controls in my hand."

  Skip looked over at him for a moment. He shook his head, answering the unasked question. "Unfortunately, that's the most important part," he said. "You can't just jump behind the controls of this thing and start flying it, no Micker how much you've watched someone else do it. There's just no margin for error. If we had even a week to practice up, I'd get you up to speed. But we don't."

  "It was just a thought," Jack said, disappointed but not terribly surprised either.

  "And a good one, I'll admit, but there's just too much risk. You could probably fly this thing right now straight and level and you could probably make turns without too much problem either, but hovering in place for a long time is one of the more difficult maneuvers and that's how a lot of the ops in this battle are going to be done."

  "Like I said, just a thought. But as soon as we kick these assholes out of here, how about we have some hands-on lessons."

  "It'll be the first thing," Skip said. "Now lets get finished up here. We still have one more day of hit and run drops to make."

  The hit and run teams were only able to hit the militia twice during that day, costing them only four men. This close to Garden Hill there simply wasn't all that many places that drops could be made safely without their enemy being able to see and/or hear the helicopter. But still, despite the relative break that the militia got, the main function of the hit and run strikes - that of slowing down the advance - was accomplished. Though they had started the day off only seven miles away from the wall itself, by nightfall they had only marched a little more than four miles. The main lines of defense started a mile and half outside the wall on the west and two miles out on the north. The militia made camp that night to the northwest of town, still more than a mile away from where their real resistance would start.

  Skip stood down the helicopter after one final high altitude flight at 5:00 PM. Dinner was served in the cafeteria and, as mad as it seemed, all of the traditional guard posts were left unmanned for the duration of the briefing after it. It was another gamble. Skip thought it unlikely that the militia would be able to move in on them in the darkness and he did not want them listening in on the transmissions from the radios that were used to transmit such meetings to the guards.

  As such the cafeteria seemed unusually full that night. Every table was full of men, women, and children, many of them dirty and looking tired. Dinner was yet another batch of canned soup and spinach, served cold of course, and baked bread that had been made two days before.

  "Okay, everyone," Skip, looking more than exhausted himself, said into the public address system. "Let's call this meeting to order. In all likelihood, this will be the final briefing before the real fun starts. As I'm sure you've heard by now, the militia is camped out a little more than three miles to the northwest. From their current position it is but a short march to our defense lines and I expect that contact will be made sometime around 10:00 AM tomorrow."

  Some nervous chatter met these words.

  "Jack and I went over the tapes from our recon missions of the militia tonight," Skip went on. "While it is impossible for us to get a completely accurate count of their numbers, we do have a very good estimate of their current strength. It appears that there are about two hundred of them facing us."

  There was some more nervous chatter as well as many expressions of disbelief at that number. "Two hundred?" several people groaned. "Jesus. Two fucking hundred?"

  Skip called for quiet before the grumbling could get out of control. "All right, you pessimists," he said. "You're looking at the glass as half empty. You're saying to yourselves, 'my God, there are two hundred of them out there'. But remember, when they started their march, there were four hundred of them. Four hundred fairly well disciplined men with guns bearing down on us. In the past fifteen days our two groups of hit teams and Jack and I on the night missions - at the cost of only one death and one injury - have killed or caused to desert half of that force. Not only have we done that, but you can bet your ass that those remaining troops are demoralized, exhausted, and not able to think very clearly. By no means are they looking at a pushover. And also keep in mind that two hundred remaining troops is a conservative estimate on my part. The actual number may be even lower.

  "Now back when we first heard about Auburn's apparent vendetta against us, we knew that they once sent an attack force of one hundred and sixty people which they turned around at the last minute. You may recall that I've said on multiple occasions that if they had attacked us with that force at that time, they would have beaten us. Maybe some of you out there are thinking that that same thing applies here, that the militia now has forty more people so that maybe they'll be even more likely to come away the victors." He shook his head strenuously. "That is simply not the case. Had those one hundred and sixty men attacked us the first time, they would have found nothing but our basic defenses. Now, they will find trenches and a coordinated defense and some women and men that are ready to kick some fucking ass!"

  His words stirred them up a little, alleviating some of the doubts.

  "Now I know the numbers don't sound all that great," he said. "We have a town population of one hundred and seventy-nine people at this moment, not including Hector over in El Dorado Hills. That's eighteen men, one hundred and four women, and fifty-seven children under the age of seven. What that leaves us with is one hundred and twenty-two people that are capable of fighting these fuckers. Only, as you're aware, we can't all do that at the same time since we only have eighty-six rifles, semi-automatic weapons, or automatic weapons to fight with.

  "But people, you've trained to fight with those numbers and those disadvantages. You've been formed up into squads and you know what your job out there is going to be. One of the most important rules of warfare that you need to remember is: the advantage goes to the defender. That is certainly true in this case. Though the militia has a better than two to one numerical advantage, they are going to have to fight their way across open ground while you will be concealed in trenches. In addition to that, you will have Jack and myself in the air above you, feeding you information on their movements and concentrations. While we won't be able to provide fire support during the daylight hours - the danger of having them bring us down is too great - we will be able to deliver some of our other nasty little surprises to them.

  "But most important of all perhaps, is the fact that we have the will to fight. We are defending our homes, our town, our children while they are just following orders. They don't have a lot to gain by fighting us
and they have much to lose - namely their lives. We, on the other hand, don't have much to lose by fighting since we know the fate that awaits us if we are defeated and we have everything to gain by fighting as fiercely as we are capable.

  "Ladies and gentlemen - we will prevail."

  A large cheer rose up at this. Skip almost felt ashamed at it, thinking that he would've made a good recruiter had he stayed in the army. Now that the patriotic, morale-instilling part of the speech was over, he got into the meat of the Micker.

  "Now everyone already knows their jobs," he said. "But why don't we go over the main battle plan one more time, just for clarity. From this point on until this thing is over with, I want everyone to stay here in the community center. If you need to make a quick trip home after the meeting for some essential supplies, by all means, do so, but everyone sleeps in here tonight, okay?"

  There was a little bit of good-natured grumbling but no one disagreed with this.

  "In here you're all within reach of the weapons and we're all within instant, unmonitored communication with each other. Now Jack and I plan to hit them from the air several times during the night. There's no sense in letting them get much sleep now, is there? But you folks, I want you to get to sleep as soon as you can tonight. Get as much rest as you possibly can. Tomorrow is apt to be a long day. We will get up before dawn in the morning and those of you in the primary squads - those that will be carrying the weapons - will assemble and get ready. Paul will get his medical teams ready to help any wounded and then we will do what the majority of warfare consists of: we will wait.

  "We will need to wait so that we can see how the enemy is going to attack us. At this point we do not know from which direction the attack will come or if it will come from two directions at once. If I were the commander of that group, I would hit us from the north and the west simultaneously, therefore splitting the defenders in two, but there's no telling what their leadership is thinking. We can be pretty certain that they will not be able to hit us from three directions as Jean and Anna, our newest citizens, have told us they planned. They simply do not have enough troops for that any more.