Fire From The Sky | Book 12 | Embers

by Reed, N. C.

  “Roger that, Bossman,” Gillis sounded happy. “We’ll be here.”

  -

  “Rat, Scope, get the rides and bring ‘em this way,” Jose ordered. “Rest of you, spread out and look for anyone we may have missed. I’d prefer none of them escape, and certainly none to hide and wait. Move it.”

  The two commandos began running back to where their electric carts had been left while the other five began beating the metaphorical bushes for any enemies that remained. By the time the carts caught up to them, Jose was satisfied that no one was left of the force that had attacked the farm from their current direction.

  “Load up, back to base,” Jose ordered. “Sounds like we’re in a lull, at least. Maybe it’s over. We can comb this area later. Right now, security of the farm is the highest priority.”

  Without a word, the seven men loaded onto the carts and started down the road for home, leaving nothing but carnage behind them. A fit calling card if ever there was one.

  -

  “What is that?” Clay leaned forward in the passenger seat of the Hummer he was riding in.

  “That would be a Hummer,” Greg Holloway couldn’t contain his sarcasm even in the face of an attack. “It’s a military vehicle.”

  Clay had sent for Greg before going forward to see what Faron Gillis wanted.

  “He’s right,” Gleason, behind the wheel, added with a straight face. “Army uses them sometimes.”

  “Aren’t you two a pair of comedians,” Clay all but snarled. “A regular Laurel and Hardy.”

  “Dude, no need to get testy,” Greg chuckled. “You would have figured that out without our help.” He paused before adding: “Eventually.”

  The Hummer pulled to a halt behind Gillis’ Cougar before Clay could summon a response to that dig, so he didn’t bother to try. Gleason was the one who leaned forward this time, muttering under his breath.

  “What is it?” Clay asked, looking the same way.

  “That is Lieutenant Flores,” Gleason said flatly. “Sir,” he added as an afterthought. Seemed that Gleason really didn’t think any more of Flores than Clay did. How ‘bout that?

  “Well, shit,” Clay sighed. “Just when you thought things couldn’t get any worse.” Shaking his head, Clay dismounted, the other two following suit. Gillis saw them and jogged their way.

  “Mist-, Clay,” the young man caught himself, “they showed up during the final attack. Smeared the biggest attack so far across the highway from the rear. Probably saved us some casualties. Then Flores came through with a single Hummer and driver, no one on the gun. The rest of her folks are waiting on the highway.”

  “How many ‘folks’ are we talking about?” Clay asked, his stomach beginning to boil.

  “Gordy and Bodee have gone to check on that,” Gillis informed him.

  “What does she want?” Clay demanded.

  “All she asked for was to talk to you, Clay,” Gillis shrugged. “And she asked, not demanded. Whatever she has been through seems to have changed her quite a bit.”

  “Uh huh,” Clay grunted. “Well, we may as well get this over with,” he sighed. “Let’s go see what she wants.”

  Snow crunched beneath them as the four men walked to where Lieutenant Flores stood waiting. Clay had to admit she didn’t look like the arrogant little diva he had met before. She looked haggard and worn, tired even.

  “Mister Sanders,” Flores said softly, nodding her head. “Sergeant Gleason,” she smiled faintly at the NCO. “I’m glad to see you well.”

  “What can we do for you, Lieutenant?” Clay all but demanded. He hadn’t missed the fact that she apparently wasn’t happy to see him doing well.

  “I’m glad you seem to have made it through the virus, Mister Sanders,” Flores shocked him to his core. “I honestly had my doubts, though I had hoped that you were okay. I figured if anyone could escape the plague and the uprisings, it was you.”

  “Uprisings?” Clay asked, frowning.

  “After the plague, things turned into a free-for-all,” Flores nodded. “Most of the surviving soldiers have left, trying to get home to their families, or where they hope their families are. Some lost the family members they had with us and…well, they lost more than that, I’m afraid. Some seemed to have wandered away in the dark while others simply packed up and left, unable or unwilling to stay behind where children or spouses had died. Same for survivors of our people who died. Disappeared into the night without a word. I…I wouldn’t have tried to stop them, other than talking to them, but maybe they thought that I would.” She shook her head slowly.

  “I wouldn’t try to make anyone do anything now,” she said softly after a brief pause. “There are horrors out there, Mister Sanders. Things you couldn’t imagine-,”

  “I don’t have to imagine,” Clay cut her off, though not harshly. “I’ve seen them before. So, your men ran away, and you don’t care? That it?”

  “It’s not that I don’t care,” she continued shaking her head slowly. “If I could have, I’d probably have joined them.”

  “Why didn’t you?” Greg asked, speaking for the first time.

  “With the major, and probably the captain gone, I was the senior officer,” Flores shrugged, looking up at them all. “If I just…ran off, then someone else would have had to shoulder that burden. I may not be the best officer ever, but even I know that’s a chickenshit move.”

  Clay’s non-existent respect for Flores went up a notch at that.

  “So, I stayed,” she continued. “I stayed until there was nothing left that we could do. No one left to protect except ourselves. Everyone else decided to fend for themselves, melting into the woodwork. Like I said, I don’t blame them, and I hope they do well.”

  “How many are left?” Clay asked. He had a sudden inkling of what Flores might want.

  “Fifteen, counting me,” she told him flatly. “Fifteen,” she repeated in a whisper. “Just fifteen.”

  “And what brings you here?” Clay asked, his tone softening. Flores was in bad shape, he suddenly realized. Exhaustion for sure, and maybe more. “As I recall, I promised I’d have you shot if I saw you on my land again.”

  “I’m looking for a home for the people I have left,” she admitted. “We brought everything we could from the park, everything we could fit into a truck. Everyone driving a vehicle, alone. Five tractor trailers and six 939’s. All stuffed to the rafters with supplies, including the cab areas. One Hummer and one six-wheel Cougar to make it look as if we had at least some kind of escort. Both of them are full up, as well.”

  “What kind of supplies?” Clay asked. “And what do you plan on doing with them?”

  “Giving them to you if we can join your farm,” Flores said openly. “Like I said, we’re looking for a home. There is a little of everything, really. MREs, medical gear, tools, all our remaining weapons and ammunition and other munitions, what clothing, boots and gear we had left, the list is long. I’ve got it all catalogued for your supply group, assuming you agree,” she held up a thick sheaf of papers.

  “What is the breakdown of your personnel?” Clay asked her.

  “Most are officially listed as non-combatants, but that hasn’t really worked out for any of them,” Flores snorted. “Besides me, there is one Physician’s Assistant, one Registered Nurse, two combat medics, one supply specialist, three MPs, an armorer, a mechanic, a firefighter, a combat engineer and a carpentry and masonry specialist. We were running a small hospital at the park, but we don’t have an actual doctor. We do have the gear and remaining supplies of a field medical unit that we grabbed from Medical Command in Smyrna; we just didn’t have a doctor. The two medics were there assisting the PA, the park was the official duty station for the supply troops and the others. The MPs were part of our security.”

  “A lot we don’t have, gear wise and skill wise,” Greg whispered behind Clay’s head, and he nodded fractionally.

  “Is this some place to winter to you, Flores, or are you looking to stay here pe
rmanently?” Clay asked, keeping his voice carefully neutral.

  “We’re looking for somewhere permanent,” Flores told him without hesitation. “Those here with me are all without attachments and have no one to look for or go to. We’re all each other has. I brought us here because I’d been here, and I knew that if you were willing to let us in, we could make a good addition to your place. I know I didn’t make the best impression on you, Mister Sanders, but…you were right. I was still looking at things as if this were temporary and that things would return to normal, or at least some version of it. I’m sorry for the way I approached you before. The long and short of it was that I listened to the wrong Captain.”

  “There was a Captain in the Headquarters unit that…well, to be honest, she fed me a load of bullshit, as Major Whitten called it, and I ate it up. Told me that martial law changed things, made us the ultimate authority in the land. Convinced me that people in positions like yours had to be put ‘into check’, as she called it. I suppose she saw me as fertile ground to sow her line of crap in. It didn’t help me any that I had let my position go to my head and my attitude get the better of me. They try to teach us not to do that, but most of us do it at least once, anyway. Mine was more than once, I’m sorry to say, but it’s a weakness I no longer possess. I’m responsible for too much, even now.”

  “What I should have done was stick to Captain Adcock like glue,” she finished. “Course, if I had, I’d probably be dead now. Damned if you do, and if you don’t.”

  Clay was at a loss for words. Was this the same woman he had met…how long ago? It seemed like years, now. Humble, worn, tired, she looked almost but not quite defeated.

  Clay liked that. She was still going despite it all.

  “I’m impressed, Lieutenant,” Clay used her rank as a courtesy. “Not just with your actions, but also your determination, and your attitude. Owning up to past mistakes, even pointing out the cause without shifting the blame. I almost don’t know who I’m speaking to.” Flores snorted at that.

  “Major Whitten said the same thing,” she chuckled. “Before he died,” she added, her humor fleeing at that.

  “Might interest you to know that Captain Adcock had a high opinion of you when you all first got here. Bragged on your professional development a good bit,” Clay’s voice was gentle. “I assume you’re all clean? Health wise I mean?” he changed gears suddenly, trying to avoid embarrassing Flores any more than she was already.

  “We are, but I have blood samples already drawn from all of us if you want to look them over,” Flores nodded, back to business, the emotional part of their discussion behind them for now.

  “Let Mister Gillis collect those samples and take them in, then,” Clay ordered, nodding at Gillis. “You and I can continue our discussion in the meanwhile. You mentioned uprisings earlier. What did you mean by that?”

  “They’re in the back floorboard, in a sealed box, Faron,” Flores told Gillis.

  “Roger that,” Gillis nodded, hurrying to the Hummer. She turned back to Clay as Gillis departed.

  “Hunger, plague, loss, it all adds up after a while, I suppose,” Flores told him. “I don’t know what it was, Mister Sanders-,”

  “Okay, how about you just call me Clay from here on?” Clay cut her off, but not unkindly. “Mister Sanders is my father.”

  Flores surprised him with a smile, nodding her head. He could have sworn her face was flushed.

  “I don’t know what it was, Clay, that set things off,” she continued, looking more relaxed. “Any of the above, all of the above, or something entirely different that I’m unaware of. I doubt we’ll ever know. The cities were already a nightmare. Radio traffic from all around the region confirmed that, whether it was military bands, law enforcement and emergency services, or ham operators spreading the news. I don’t know how they could have been any worse, or gotten any worse I should say, but apparently, they did. Now, it’s like a huge riot that just rolls across the land. Almost scorched Earth from what little we’ve been able to hear.”

  “Is that what hit us today?” Clay wanted to know.

  “I’d have to guess, but probably,” Flores replied. “They don’t bother with talking or bartering, from what we know. They favor scouting for a day or two and then attacking all at once. A few have shown some tactical moves, using enfilades and flanking maneuvers and what have you, but all we’ve heard of were small unit stuff. I don’t think there’s any one group, or that there’s any real organization among them. But there are a lot of them. They’re effectively completing what the plague didn’t do. Wiping us out.”

  “We’ve experienced that today,” Clay nodded. “I have to thank you for sweeping up the mess on the interstate for us, by the way,” he added, and again she seemed to flush a bit in pleasure.

  “You’re welcome, Mis-, Clay,” she caught herself. “For a moment as we pulled up I feared the worst, but then I saw all the casualties and decided you were giving them all they could handle. We just cleaned up for you, as you said.”

  “It took a lot of strain off of us, Lieutenant-,” It was Flores’ turn to hold up a hand and interrupt.

  “If I’m calling you Clay, then you need to start calling me Triana,” she told him. Clay considered that for a second before nodding.

  “That’s fair, and doable,” he told her with a grin. “You guys took a lot of strain off us, Triana. While we would have stopped them, it would have hurt us more, and we’ve hurt enough, today.” Bitterness crept into his voice as he thought of Stacey Pryor and Corey Reynard lying under a tarp behind T2.

  “I’m sorry,” Flores said gently. “It’s like that everywhere. At least as far as we know. There’s no more contact with either coast, or the north outside of intermittent contact with Fort Knox. I’m sure there are still people out there with functioning units, but I think they’ve shut them off and hunkered down, hoping to wait it out. Being on the air draws attention, and attention is usually a death sentence.”

  “Seems that way,” Clay nodded, thinking of all the attention they had drawn to themselves since everything had begun. Gleason had used the Hummer to take Gillis to the clinic, so Clay leaned on the Cougar, then sat down on the bumper.

  “You’re welcome to share the bumper with me,” he told Flores and then Greg. The former looked both relieved and pleased at the offer and hurried to accept it. Greg hesitated, looking around.

  “I think I’m going to check on this line,” he told Clay. “Also see if Gordy and Kev have made it back.”

  “Okay,” Clay nodded. Greg walked away, the only sound being the crunch of snow and ice beneath his boots.

  “Thank you,” Flores said softly into the quiet.

  “For what?” Clay asked, looking her way.

  “For not throwing us out without giving me a chance to beg,” she replied. “It wasn’t for me. It was for the people following me. I would have left alone if you would have kept them and not me. They followed me because…because they looked to me for leadership and there was no one else. No one else and it was supposed to be my job, right? Only, I hadn’t done my job very well, I don’t think, no matter how pleased Major Whitten was with my improvement. There was no way to stay where we were, we just didn’t have the bodies to make it secure. And there was too much ordnance still there to let a bunch like this,” she waved toward the highway, “grab on to it.”

  “What kind of ordnance?” Clay asked, curious. In answer to his question, she reached into her tunic and withdrew a small notebook. Opening it, she began detailing what each truck was carrying. Clay listened with speaking, though his eyebrows did raise a few times at the mention of certain items. By the time she was half-way through her recitation, Gillis was returning, sliding to a stop a few vehicle lengths from the Cougar.

  “They’re all clean, sir,” the young officer reported. “No anti-bodies, either. None of them appear to have even been exposed, the doctor reports.”

  “That is good news,” Clay nodded. “Well, Lieutenant Flo
res, how about you go and get the rest of your folks. I’ll have someone move that trailer, and you can all pull down to the front of the Troy Farm, the place where you met me before,” he clarified at her frown. “I need to see about the rest of my folks and start…start seeing how badly we were hurt,” he finished sadly.

  “Yes, sir,” Flores snapped to and then headed for her own vehicle.

  “Faron, get Cliff or Roddy up here with something that will open the road,” Clay ordered. “Then have it closed up when they’re all through.”

  “Got it, Boss.”

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Jose and the others were arriving when Clay pulled in at the Troy farm. Dismounting, he looked at his friend questioningly.

  “I think we’re good,” Jose nodded. “We found their flank, including an attack angling for the Hill. Put paid to them all and walked our way down their line. No prisoners,” he added.

  “Good,” Clay nodded. “Get a crew of civies together, with a strong escort. We need to glean the field and then start getting those bodies in the ground. They’ll draw predators in this kind of weather where food is scarce.”

  “On it,” Jose agreed. “I thought I’d take this same bunch back as security, though I hadn’t started thinking on who would clean up.”

  “Use as many healthy civies as you can for the gathering, I guess,” Clay mused, frowning. “If I can get caught up, I’ll help, too. Try to leave the security troops in place for now. We may or may not have gotten them all. According to Flores, this is happening everywhere.”

  “Flores?” Jose frowned. “You’ve heard from the outside?”

  “In a manner,” Clay chuckled. He took the next few minutes to explain the events of the past hour. By the time Jose was caught up, a convoy of heavy vehicles was slowly moving up the road toward the farms.

  “Well,” Jose made a slightly sour face. “Wonders never cease, I guess. We’ll get on with the business. I will pull Gordy for the backhoe, assuming you don’t mind?”

  “Do it,” Clay agreed at once. “He needs a distraction after Corey died and Heath was wounded.”