by gerald hall
I remember seeing a news report about those airliner boneyards a few years ago. Most of those aircraft were still completely flightworthy. They would just be retired so that the airlines could buy another aircraft with better fuel economy or newer frills. The Islamists must have gotten some of those aircraft flying again and are using them to ferry troops to the front lines.
Since those aircraft can easily carry three to six hundred people in a single flight, it wouldn’t take many aircraft to heavily reinforce the enemy troop strength here.” Chad explained. He was not only into short wave radios. Chad was also an aircraft buff who loved to go to airshows like the big one that was held in Cleveland every year until the nuclear autumn occurred.
“Well, at least they can’t fly tanks here so easily in a 747.” Jeff noted.
“The boneyard at Davis-Monthan does have some old C-5A’s there, I’m afraid.”
“Well, aren’t you full of good news? Hopefully, those cargo birds aren’t nearly as ready to fly as the mothballed airliners seem to have been.” Jeff wryly responded.
“I wonder what the jihadists are going to do next with all of those fresh troops that have just arrived?” Chad asked.
The sound of explosions rocked the ground as jihadi artillery fire began to fall just to the west of town. Members of the Ashley militia quickly ran to their defensive positions.
“I didn’t think that the jihadists would get here this quickly, even if they had flown into Dayton and Toledo.”
“The Caliphate must be trying to push through between Marion and Marysville to find a weak point in our defensive lines and flank those population centers. The Guard had reinforced both cities with small numbers of armored vehicles after Lima was captured last week.”
“There’s certainly a lot of empty territory out there. A lot of those rural areas never really recovered after the nuclear autumn. The people still living on the small farms in Western Ohio certainly wouldn’t have the means to effectively fight against the Islamists.”
“It’s a shame that the very reason why we have so many farms around here is also the reason why the Caliphate has decided to make central Ohio one of its central axis of advance. The terrain around here is very flat and relatively easy to travel over.”
“Marysville and Marion are both major obstacles for the jihadists though. The main highways going east go right through them. Columbus is blocking access through I-70 fortunately. That is going to lead to a major fight down there eventually unless the jihadist can get through and starve them out.”
“Yes, it will. But if the Caliphate can get through here and punch through across I-71, they will cut off Columbus from Cleveland. I heard that they are trying to do the same thing between Columbus and Dayton. Dayton and Cincinnati are so close together that they might as well be considered one entity, even after the death toll of the big freeze.”
“Unfortunately, we are a lot more spread out up here. If anyone on those little farms tries to fight back, he going to be overrun in no time flat.”
“The good news is that the jihadists don’t have very many of those guns that we are hearing now. That is maybe a four gun battery of 155mm howitzers with the extended range barrels. We heard that they brought some towed artillery pieces with them.”
“I hope that they don’t have a lot of ammunition for those things. Artillery scares the hell out of me. You just never know when one of those big shells is going to land right in your lap.”
“That’s why we put overhead cover on top of so many of our defensive positions around here.”
“I hate being cooped up inside though. I would much rather be outside on the move. We should be taking the fight to the enemy, not waiting on them to come to us.”
“If we can, we will do that. But going out on raids carries with it a lot more risk. If the jihadists have drones and night vision gear, they can easily spot you long before you can hit them.”
“We must do something. Otherwise, we will just wait here until they gather enough forces to utterly overwhelm us no matter what we do.”
“You need to stay put, Chad. We can’t afford to lose anyone more people at this point.”
A few hours passed by before Chad came back with some additional information that he had picked up from his shortwave network of friends.
“Hi, there. I just got word from our friends in Marion. The jihadists just reached Prospect. That just puts them a little more than a dozen miles from here.”
“They must be trying to push through 229 North of the Delaware State Park to get here. Is there any way that we are going to get any support from the Guard?” Jeff asked.
“I don’t think so. It sounds like they have their hands full just trying to keep the major road junctions at Marion from being overrun. The tanks that our Guardsmen have are very good, having appeared with the First Event. But there just aren’t enough of them to stop every enemy attack. The fools in the Western Republic must have handed the Caliphate the keys to every tank, truck and armored car in the entire region.”
“How are they getting enough fuel to run everything?”
“West Texas. When that was overrun, the Caliphate got a hold of all of the oil and gas wells there. Remember, those folks know what to do with oil too. The Dutch drilled a lot of oil wells out there in the East Indies in places like Borneo and Sumatra. It didn’t take much for the Caliphate to dig up some of their own oil experts and fly them to Texas to get the wells and refineries up and running again as the mujahedeen moved east. They are even using some of our pipelines to move fuel to the enemy frontline troops.”
“I would have thought that the Texans would have held out longer than that. They are supposed to be some pretty tough hombre’s. ”
“They tried. But they got hit hard from both the west and by heavy Arab Brotherhood forces coming up north from the Gulf of Mexico. Say what you might about the Islamists, they managed to get some smart ones running this show this time. They knew that oil was going to be critical for us. That’s probably one of the reasons why they are pushing so hard through Ohio too. We have a lot of oil and gas wells out there in the eastern part of the state. If we lose those too, we won’t have a lot of fuel available for our forces throughout the entire Alliance.”
“I knew that our tanks were pretty short of fuel. That is why they haven’t tried to use their mobility and firepower to cut the Islamist forces to ribbons already. Maybe we will be able to get some locally produced fuel out to our people soon so that we can do some ‘Shock and Awe’ against these Islamic assholes trying to take over our country.”
“I certainly hope so.”
“Your short-wave radio friends better be very careful then. I would not be surprised if the Islamists haven’t already started monitoring the airwaves to hear who is talking out there. I’m sure that our ‘guests’ don’t want folks passing along intelligence about their movements. Either they will fire artillery at the transmitters or they will send armed troops to pay the radio’s owner a very unwelcome visit.
You also need to start working on keeping the Islamists from determining the location of your transmitter too. I’m sure that you can find some material on one of your databases on how to prevent someone from intercepting your transmissions. But the very first thing that I would suggest that you do is get a long line of coaxial cable and move that big antenna of yours moved as far away from your house as possible. Otherwise, the next artillery rounds coming our way might just end up landing right on your lap.”
“Already working on it even as we speak, Jeff. Thanks for the advice though.” Chad replied before turning to head back to his home.
Just after dawn the next day, Jeff saw that several of the militia members were missing from the morning meeting that all of the militia attended who weren’t on duty. Jeff had started having these meetings outside the eastern side of the Barnes factory a couple of weeks earlier now that the Caliphate had crossed over the Mississippi River and was continuing their advance eastward.
“Anyone know where George and his ‘cohorts’ went to?” An annoyed Jeff asked the assembly of militiamen and women.
“I heard them talking last night about going out to check out how close the bad guys were now.” One of the other militiamen sheepishly said.
“Idiots. They are going to get themselves killed for no good reason, I swear.” Jeff growled.
They all were startled to hear several high-velocity rifle shots out to the west, followed by a pair of explosions. Everyone scrambled to get their guns and find some cover.
A few seconds later, they heard a fusillade of automatic fire in reply coming from further away. Several more of the more distinctive rifle shots were again heard that were clearly from bolt-action or semi-automatic weapons. There was a delay for a few moments before more explosions were heard again, including one that was much larger than the others and brightened the sky for a minute or two. Automatic weapons opened fire once again and fired almost without interruption for several minutes. That automatic fire didn’t appear to be focused upon any particular target though.
About fifteen minutes later, a pair of four-wheel drive pickups came racing up from the west in the early morning light. A pair of infrared chemlights hung on each of their front fenders showed up in the militiamen’s night vision scopes.
“Don’t fire. They’re friendlies.” Jeff called out to the militiamen in their foxholes. The pickups raced past them until they turned in behind one of the warehouses. Half a dozen men and women piled out of each of the vehicles and ran towards the town center where the militia headquarters was located.
Jeff grabbed his rifle and ran back to the headquarters to see what the raiders had accomplished.
“Did everyone make it back alright?” Jeff quickly asked the small group of militia soldiers that had gone out against his advice.
“Yes, but I think that Julia caught a couple of fragments on the way out. She wasn’t hit badly though. Most of the frags were caught by her flak vest.” The leader of the little group replied.
“George, that was damned foolish of all of you to do, you know.”
“Maybe so, but we hit them hard while we were out there, Sir. We managed to blow up one of their ammunition trucks and shot several of the mujahedeen soldiers, possibly including one of their commanders. I don’t think that they will be firing so much artillery at us for a while until they get another ammunition truck.”
“What else did you see out there?” Jeff asked.
“The jihadist laager site is at least big enough to hold an entire battalion. We couldn’t get close enough to knock out the artillery itself. We saw at least twenty armored vehicles of various types out there. It’s a pretty mixed bag, mostly light stuff. But they do have at least a platoon of main battle tanks with them.”
“That’s something that we didn’t need to hear. I’m not sure that we have anything for sure that we can use to knock those out with.”
“Well, hopefully the Barnes kids have come up with something from their ‘toy box’ that can help us out here.”
“I’m sure that they will. A lot of what we are armed with now came from their factory. We certainly wouldn’t have had a chance to hold them off with just the guns out of our gun safes. We would have had to surrender the town right away and either submitted to the jihadists, or went out into the woods to try to wage a guerilla war against tanks and bombers.”
The Afghanis and Iraqis managed to keep the fight going for years against more modern forces than these.”
“Yes, but they paid one hell of a price doing so. Trust me, I know because I was out there once upon a time. They still haven’t recovered from the war either.” Jeff bitterly replied.
“Yes, but a lot of that was because of the corruption in both of their nations’ societies. I’d like to think that America is a lot better than that. We were founded on truths, not the words of the ‘greatest of schemers’. So we can rebuild from the ashes into something much better, I have to believe.” An older man interjected, referring to America’s Founding Fathers versus how the Quran referred to Allah.
“Don’t do another stupid stunt like that, guys. I shouldn’t have to tell you a second time. We can’t afford to lose a single one of you on a fool’s errand. Do you understand?”
“Yes, Sir. We understand.” A contrite George answered.
“Good. Now, get back to work. We have a lot to do before the jihadists come calling.” Jeff replied before turning to go back to the militia headquarters.
It was just after midnight a couple of days later when Jeff received a phone call at the basement that had become his and Melanie’s home with the continuing threat from Caliphate air and artillery strikes. Ashley had managed to keep their landline phone system running so that its residents could remain in contact without having to rely upon cell phones whose transmissions could be intercepted by the Caliphate.
“One of our video drones just picked up advanced elements of the Caliphate force approaching town, Melanie. You better call Marilyn and tell her know that it is time to get into position. Things are going to get hot pretty soon, so neither of you want to get caught moving out in the open.” Jeff told his wife of over thirty years.
“It will be just like that hunting trip that we did in Alaska a couple of years before the nuclear autumn.” Melanie said with a predatory smile.
“Only this time, the bears are not only lethal, but can also shoot back along with their friends. You better make sure to wear some body armor underneath your ghilie suit.”
“It will slow me down, Sweetheart.”
“True, but it will also keep you alive if someone targets you.” Jeff chided.
“I know…..I know….”
It was still dark when Melanie trudged up the stairs from the basement to go outside. After stepping out aboveground, the old tom girl went to a prearranged meeting point just west of town where she would meet her fellow sniper.
“Hello, Melanie. I’m glad to see that Jeff let you out to play.” Marilyn Barnes quietly said in the darkness as Melanie walked up to the meeting point.
“He wasn’t overly happy about this, but now that I am not flying any longer, he really didn’t complain all that much about this.”
“Well, we better get going before it gets light.”
Marilyn and Melanie both took up concealed positions as they prepared to snipe into the approaching enemy force. They had selected these sites months earlier and carefully prepared them. Both locations were on slight rises in the terrain that gave the two snipers commanding fields of view without being overt. They had also been carefully camouflaged with vines and other plants situated to provide natural, living cover. The two women had also made their own ghilie suits during the months since the Caliphate takeover of the Western Republic, anticipating that this day would eventually come.
Both had world-class sniper rifles chambered in 338 Lapua Magnum that Marilyn had built herself using her years of experience doing gunsmithing in her store’s basement. Marilyn had designed her own specialized match-grade armor-piercing ammunition that was then manufactured by her children in their factory. The two rifles were semi-automatic, magazine-fed weapons that could easily hit targets over one thousand meters away. To achieve the best accuracy possible, both rifles had been fitted with advanced Israeli-designed SMASH electronic sniper sights customized to match with the new rifles and ammunition.
Now they waited. The one concession that they made was that they kept in constant contact via short-range radio headsets that they had wired into noise suppression headphones. These were very low power units that could only be heard a few hundred meters away. Melanie and Marilyn had practiced using them with a couple of other militia members using some electronic equipment to attempt to intercept their transmissions and determine their location. The tests convinced the two women that they could afford to use the radios when the enemy appeared.
“Mel, how are you doing out there?” Marilyn called over her radio.
“I’m doing fine. I am still receiving you up very well also. I hope that you put down a tarp to lay on out there. The ground around here is still pretty soggy.”
“Yes, I did. That thunderstorm that rolled through the other night really drenched the ground quite a bit. That should keep any dust on the ground from blowing up into the air in front of us from our muzzle blasts. Hopefully, it will also make it harder for the jihadists to move quickly over the fields as well.”
“In case that I forgot, I wanted to thank you for making this rifle for me. I knew that you had been gunsmithing for a long time along with all of the other services that you provided from that little shop of yours. But this is really a superlative weapon that you made here.”
“Thank you, Mel. I always wanted to make something that was a lot lighter than a Barrett fifty-caliber rifle, but had a lot more range and punch than a standard thirty-caliber sniper rifle. The Lapua cartridge seemed to be the best of both worlds for that weapon. The rounds that my kids created in their factory are absolutely the best match-grade rounds that I have ever fired.”
“Oh, I agree completely. Once I got this rifle dialed in with this Israeli electronic sighting system, it was hard not to hit the target. It would have been nice to have taken this rifle up to the Rockies or even Canada and hunted some elk or caribou with it.” Melanie replied, the wistful enthusiasm that she perennially had leaking through even in this dark time.
“Well, we are going to be hunting the most dangerous game there is on this planet, Mel. They are not going to take it lightly either.”
“I have a score to settle with those jihadist bastards in any event, Marilyn. One of their damned artillery rounds hit my barn and wrecked my precious ultralight plane. I really loved flying that plane. But now, we get to find out who really is the best shot, won’t we?”
