Ash: Rise of the Republic

by Campbell Paul Young

  “Thats a hit. Nothing but feathers. Outstanding girls!” Deb was smiling now. “Let’s take a break now; my husband just clomped up the stairs.”

  The sniper team peeled back the netting they were hiding under, both turning to look back at the Captain. The two blond girls, Sam and Lee, were sisters, the newest members of the ranger company. Like the rest of his troop, their short lives had been filled with heartache and tragedy. Their mother had died when they were toddlers, a victim of the last big diphtheria epidemic. Their father had taken it hard, squeezing himself into a bottle and drinking himself and the girls out of a home. By the time he had answered the muster call two weeks before, the three of them had been living on the road, passing a few days at a time in various gambling towns. When they had arrived on Campus, their father had left them at their assigned barracks and disappeared to find a drink. When he still hadn’t returned the next morning, they set out to drag him out of whatever dive bar he had crawled into, just like they had a thousand times before. This time was different. They found him on his back at the base of the stairs in front of their building, his neck broken.

  A week later, Deb had come across them scrounging for food behind one of the mess halls and had taken them under her wing. The troop needed a new sharpshooter, and the girls had kept their small family alive for weeks at a time by shooting squirrels, rats, and birds with their father’s old single shot .22. They took to the larger rifle quickly.

  “You two are getting good with that thing.” The girls always seemed to make the Captain cheerful. “Are there any birds left on campus?”

  “No sir, that was the last one!” said Lee with a wink.

  “Well we’d better find some outlaws so you can keep practicing.”

  “Girls, go stretch your legs, I want to have a word with the Captain,” said Deb.

  The young sniper team obediently rushed down the stairs. Deb frowned at her husband.

  “I think we should leave them here when we deploy. They’re so young,” she began.

  “You’re just being overprotective,” the Captain replied. “Look, they can shoot better than either of us. Plus, after the life they’ve led, all those gambling dens, I bet they can take care of themselves. Didn't I see Legs teaching them some knife play yesterday?”

  “I know, but they’re just so young. Sam is only twelve for fuck’s sake. Every time I look at them I think of poor Mol.”

  “Well I’ll let you make the call. We’re leaving in two days, if you feel like they’re not ready just give me the word. I’m sure Beal can find some use for them with the Guard until we get back.”

  “Maybe I’m just getting soft.” Tears began to well up in Deb’s eyes.

  “Maybe we’ve both seen too many kids die,” said the Captain, moving to wrap his wife in a comforting hug. “Our plump Colonel has called for another general inspection in a few minutes over on the drill field, want to join me?”

  “No, you go, I want to keep working with the girls.”

  ****

  The camp became swollen with tough, grimy, drunken men. They still stumbled in every day in small bands, each more excited than the last to join up, eager for a share of the wealth that was being raked from the villages and homesteads. Between raids they grew bored and restless in the close confines of the camp. The proximity of so many independent, untamed men spawned a number of savage fights.

  The Chief’s justice was swift and violent. Two men caught fighting would be dragged before him for trial. Invariably he would sentence them to be tried by combat, and invariably he would be their judge. He would square off with each doomed man, both stripped to the waist, both armed with long knives. Invariably they would fight him, and invariably they would lose.

  A dozen men died screaming on his knife, steaming blue ropes spilling from their sliced bellies. To quell the boredom and stop the fights while he waited for more men to join his cause, he sent his cloaked strangers out in search of entertainment.

  Hundreds of prostitutes descended on the unruly cluster of huts and tents. The men, flush with the loot of a dozen plundered villages, cheered their Chief’s wisdom. The whores grew rich.

  ****

  The Republic’s small army was arranged neatly on the soggy drill field when McLelland arrived. There were nearly a thousand men standing bored on the torn grass, though only two hundred were regular soldiers. They had been arranged into two battalions, each with four companies of eighty or so men.

  The two hundred soldiers on loan from the Campus Guard were evenly dispersed amongst the fresh recruits. The volunteers had little military experience, but most of them were of the same hardy, reliable stock that could be found on any backwoods homestead. Just like the salty greenhouse farmers around the Refinery, the men from the homesteads and villages of Central Texas were all survivors of a harsh life. The majority of them were not crack shots or accomplished brawlers, but they could be relied upon to endure hardship and strife without complaint. They were willing to suffer, even to lay down their lives to give their glimmer of civilization a chance to flourish into something permanent.

  Most were middle-aged, and many had been outlaws themselves when they were young. Plenty of them had enjoyed the freedom and excitement that came with a savage, chaotic life, but boys grow into men, they marry and have children. It is difficult to feed and clothe a family on nothing but chaos and savagery. Food and clothing require civilization. So now they marched to protect not only their wives and children, but the civilization that kept a blissful domestic life possible.

  Having arrived early to the drill field, the Captain bypassed the reviewing stand from which the Colonel and his senior officers would inspect the troops, many of whom he knew from his travels through the region. He walked slowly down the ranks, stopping occasionally to speak with a platoon commander or inspect a weapon. He spoke softly, stern but encouraging. Words of praise were few but well deserved. A dirty rifle or a missing piece of kit earned a soldier a disapproving glance, but a man who showed discipline and attention to detail received an inspiring nod or a proud smile.

  The hastily assembled army bore a variety of weapons. A few of the volunteers had brought their own guns, many of them old AR-15s, the ubiquitous civilian version of that pre-pillar, US military standard, the M16. In order to simplify logistics, the Campus ammunition factory only produced two different rounds, the old NATO standard 5.56mmx45 and 9mm parabellum. For those volunteers who had shown up with weapons chambered in other rounds, or no weapons at all, the state provided new rifles. Manufactured on Campus, the R1 was not much more than a steel barrel and a plastic stock. For reliability and ease of manufacture, the engineers had forgone the complicated actions and mechanisms of most pre-pillar weapons and employed a tried and true bolt action design. They were dubbed 'muskets' by the Campus Guard veterans due to their primitive design, but in reality they were practical weapons. Their simple actions kept them reliable despite the ash, and their slow rate of fire conserved precious ammunition.

  The Guard troops were outfitted with the standard battle rifle of the NRT, the R2. These were also made on Campus, but were significantly more advanced. The design was cobbled together from a variety of pre-pillar weapons. Drawing together the best features of weapons like the M16 and the AK-47, the engineers had produced a formidable rifle. Its select-fire capability from single shot up to fully automatic, straight line design, and light weight made it popular with the troops. Its loose design tolerances and direct impingement gas system kept it reliable in the harsh post-pillar environment.

  A new feature, the ash cover, had recently been implemented. It was basically a plastic case with statically filtered air intakes. The only unfiltered opening in the case was the muzzle. Spent casings were collected in an integral hopper which could be emptied through a trap door activated by a small lever. The case served two vital purposes. Most importantly, the gun could breathe without ash accumulating in the mechanism. Secondly, bullet casings could be retained and recycled. The
R2 was considerably more complicated and therefore more time consuming to produce and difficult to use than the simpler R1, so only the veterans were equipped with them.

  In support of these individual armaments, every company had its own weapons platoon consisting of two light machine guns and a number of the new rocket launchers. The launchers were newly produced in one of the Campus factories; rough copies of the old Soviet RPG. They had not been tested in battle yet, but the hope was that they would give the green troops a much needed advantage against the seasoned cutthroats they were up against. The machine guns were relics found in one of the National Guard armories. They were complicated and therefore unreliable when the ash was in the air. The engineers were in the process of designing an ash cover for the old guns, but until it was produced the weapons’ effectiveness in battle was dubious.

  Though their weaponry varied, every soldier was issued a standard uniform, the ash suit. The ill-fitting coveralls were not particularly impressive to look at. They were dyed the same leaden gray as the thick cloud cover, and the wearer’s limbs seemed perpetually lost in the baggy sleeves. The lumpen garments gave the army the appearance of a legion of grim warrior-janitors. All they lacked were their battle brooms and they could sweep the enemy from the highway with prejudice. The Captain chuckled at the thought as he passed through the ranks.

  Despite the suits’ unimposing appearance, they were ruthlessly practicality. They were constructed from a lightweight, breathable, and waterproof fabric, the result of the most recent advances in textile manufacturing. They were perfectly suited for the harsh environment.

  The most impressive feature was a thin panel near the waist powered by flexible photovoltaic panels on the back. This allowed the wearer to control a variable static field generated in the mesh of thin wiring woven into the fabric. The soldiers could, at the push of a button, cause their suits to collect ash from the environment and then arrange it in different patterns for camouflage. Then, if needed, they could reverse the polarity of the charge and instantly repel even the most stubborn ash particle. The control panel also featured commands which would statically seal the sleeves, pant legs, and integral hoods to the standard issue gloves, boots, and filter-masks. Each soldier also wore a standard equipment harness and a large rucksack. The suits were a source of pride for the troops of the NRT. No other state produced such advanced equipment.

  The technology was derived from the repellor fields which kept corrosive ash from damaging vital electronic components in the power plants and the factories. The repellors were also employed to keep the ubiquitous and annoying ash from entering the doors, windows, and air vents of most of the buildings on Campus.

  RNT engineers had worked out the technique for generating the static fields nearly twenty years before. Until recently, it had been a closely guarded state secret. The repellors had been essential to the Republic’s growth in industry and science. Sophisticated electronics and machinery had proven to be extremely vulnerable to volcanic ash and were therefore exceedingly difficult to maintain without the protective static fields.

  The Republic’s rivals had known of the repellor’s existence almost since it was created. Though vast resources had been expended over the years, none of them had been able to duplicate it. Finally, in an act of vile espionage, an RNT technician named Veron Bayfield had defected to the Texan Union and sold them the repellor designs. The TU engineers had quickly produced their own.

  Once the secret was out, the Republic had quickly capitalized on the loss. There was no longer any reason to keep the technology in-house, so the repellors became one of the most lucrative trade goods in the RNT’s arsenal. The ash suits had once been reserved only for the rangers and a few elite troops in the Campus Guard, but an enterprising upstart in the Trade Development Department saw them as a gold mine. A demilitarized version of the suit was now a top seller among the various trade partners in the region. One entire textile factory was converted to producing them to fuel the demand. This fortuitous capacity was what allowed the army to be outfitted so quickly. There were only a few modifications needed to convert the suits back to military specifications.

  As the Captain was making his rounds, the Colonel arrived, climbed to the reviewing stand, and took the opportunity to address the troops. Peter Garza was, like his father, more of a career politician than a soldier. He was characteristically long winded and never passed up an opportunity for oration. He stepped up to the microphone on the reviewing stand and launched into a prolonged diatribe on the virtues of selfless service and duty, the importance of preserving civilization and of proliferating technology, and the struggle between good and evil. After a few minutes of this, the Captain noticed the troops growing restless. They were proud men, here on their own accord, eager to be done with the endless training and drills. He could tell they resented being lectured by the plump windbag. Out of mercy, he threaded his way through the Colonel's staff and politely edged him away from the microphone. Garza stopped mid-harangue and backed away stammering in surprise at his audacity. He could see the men perk up as he cleared his throat. He didn’t like to acknowledge it, but ‘Cap’n Mac’ was a legend amongst the hardy citizens of the Republic.

  "Thank you for those inspirational words, Colonel Garza." The Colonel tried to avoid embarrassment by playing along as if the interruption had been planned. He nodded and gestured at the Captain to continue. McLellan ignored him and turned back to his audience. "Men, we won't waste much more of your time with speeches. I know you don't need to be reminded why you're here. I won't patronize you, every man here knows his duty. I'll leave you with this: two days from now we'll march south to kill some outlaws. I won't lie to you, it's gonna be bad. Some of you are going to die. When the bullets start flying and there's blood all around you, some of you, no, most of you are going to get scared. You're going to want to turn and run. There's no shame in fear, fear keeps you alive if you use it right. In those moments of doubt I want you to picture your families, your homes. I want you to picture the things you love, and then I want you to think about what those savage motherfuckers who are shooting at you would do to those things you love if you don't kill them first. I want you to picture that and then I want you to kill those bastards before that can happen. You do that for me and we'll make it through this just fine. That's all."

  The Captain snapped a salute, turned, and stepped off the reviewing stand. After a few steps he stopped, remembering something. He jogged back to the microphone and shouted:

  "One more thing: you boys can kill as many of those bastards as you want, but the leader, Werner, that one's mine!"

  At this the army erupted in a roar of approval and excitement. The air was filled with piercing war whoops and battle cries. Soon, they began chanting the famous ranger's name.

  "Cap’n Mac, Cap’n Mac, Cap’n Mac..." the crowd roared.

  He turned to look at the Colonel. The young man had turned bright red. His ample cheeks quivered indignantly. The Captain gave him an ironic salute and left the reviewing stand. He smiled once his back was turned. The insult that the Garza had served him by putting him in charge the supply logistics was now repaid. He could hear the chant all the way back to his office.

  ****

  As the thin grey light began to wane that evening, the Captain settled with a sigh into the cracked leather of an old armchair in the lobby of the rangers’ billet. He sipped a glass of whiskey, the endless lists and ledgers forgotten for a time. His troop, after a week of overindulgence in rest and relaxation, mostly of the liquid variety, had decided to take a night off. The nine of them were spread around the lobby on the aging furniture, in various states of repose. Most of them were cradling bowls heaped with a thick, meaty stew that the two new recruits had worked on all afternoon. Deb was curled up in the chair next to him, dozing, her empty bowl at her feet.

  The Captain enjoyed his whiskey for a time, his mind blank for the first time in days. The half dozen conversations in the room merged in a soft, chao
tic murmur. Before long, however, one conversation in particular jumped out at him. He risked a glance at the source. The two new girls, Lee and Sam, were arguing with the twins. Pirate was snickering and shaking his head, his big hoop earrings and facial piercings glinting in the dim light.

  “What do you mean? It was a volcano, stupid! How can you not know that?” he asked.

  “I know that’s what they say, but it can’t be true!” replied Lee indignantly, “Look, we might not have grown up at the University, but we had plenty of books at home, at least we did before Momma died. Sam doesn’t remember it that well, but I do! Momma was a school teacher, she told me to read everything I could. One of the books we had was about geology. There was a whole chapter on volcanoes. They’re big, yeah, big as a mountain, but not big enough to cover the whole world in ash! Yeah, some of them erupt and throw ash and melted rock all over the place, but it’s localized. A few towns nearby might get covered in it, but then it’s over. The eruption stops until the pressure builds back up and it does it all over again. Then there are other volcanoes that just ooze lava all the time. I think it has something to do with what kind of rocks get melted underground.”

  “Look, I don’t care what momma taught you out there in the woods, we learned here, at the goddam University, that…”

  “Actually, she’s right Pirate.” The Captain cut in suddenly. “Well, mostly.”

  “But Captain…” Casper began, jumping in to help his brother.

  The Captain waved him off, “Sometimes I forget how young you all are. With all the rangering, there hasn’t been much time any of you to get a proper education. That’s my fault. I’ll tell you what: Not two hundred yards from here there is a building filled with some of the best geologists in Texas. Why don’t we all head over there? I bet I can arrange a lecture.” The troop groaned at the idea.

  “I think that’s a great idea.” The exchange had disturbed Deb’s nap. “Pack it up rangers, we’re heading to class. If you’re gonna waste your youth as hired killers, you might as well be educated hired killers.”