by Lund, Dave
“Wait, how was he notified via shortwave radio and we didn’t know about it?”
“Encrypted transmissions. The radio stations play a continuous loop of voices reading numbers or letter or saying random words. All of those transmissions are for deep-cover operatives around the world and represent a number of different countries; we’ve used it too.”
“Oh. OK, and what else?”
“Madam President, I’ll have a full report coming to you by this afternoon, but we should prepare for a full-on battle here and more at Groom Lake. The PLA also know about the other facilities in Texas.”
“Wait, back up for a moment. First, what battle? More attacks?”
“Yes, the PLA should be getting men and material on shore soon for the full invasion; that much we know from Aymond’s crew of Marine Raiders. But the PLA are specifically targeting these facilities to convert to their use. I got the impression that they intend to take the facilities by force or destroy them so they can’t be used by any survivors or government factions.”
“Huh. Include recommendations with your written report, please. Now what other facilities?”
“Some of these I’m aware of, some I had heard rumors about, and a couple of them I had no idea they existed at all, but they make sense.”
“And?” Amanda was getting slightly impatient.
Chivo walked to a dry-erase board and drew a bad outline of Texas with a dot near Dallas. “This is us” and he pointed to the dot. Chivo drew another dot, this one in West Texas, near where Midland and Odessa would be. “This is an inland supply cache near Pecos.”
“Wait, a what?”
Eric interrupted, with his hand raised slightly for his question.
“During the 70s and 80s when the Soviet threat was the greatest, large underground facilities were constructed to serve our front lines in case of an invasion. They contain weapons, munitions, other supplies, and food. Some even have hospital facilities, others have command resources, but they all serve as a stop gap for our military for an invasion, before traditional war-fighting supply chains can get fully established.”
Chivo drew lines across the state. “This is I-20, this is I-10, this is I-35, and this is I-45.” He then drew a star for DFW, for Houston, San Antonio, Austin, El Paso, and Beaumont, labeling each. “Facilities were constructed on the major interstates, which is also near rail facilities to help with building and supplying the supply caches, but also for moving gear out and people in as needed.”
“El Paso doesn’t need one. They have Fort Bliss and the surrounding complex. Basically, anywhere there was already a base or a post, there isn’t a cache site there.” Chivo drew an X over El Paso and San Antonio. “But there are sites near them. This one in Pecos is where my crew resupplied on our way to get Bexar in Big Bend. There is another one here.” Chivo drew a circle on I-20 in East Texas.
“Is that all?”
“No, these three facilities on I-10 I hadn’t heard about. They are, or were, I guess, early warning tripwire stations: powerful listening posts to monitor and intercept transmissions from an invading force.”
“OK. To summarize, our friend who shot at me was an enemy spy, he was sent here to recon secret facilities in Texas as a prelude to war, and he was captured by two regular survivors? That doesn’t make any sense.”
“He made a stupid mistake by trying to kill you. He had been watching and monitoring activity topside for nearly a week and had rightly deduced that the facility was occupied but by a small force. He didn’t know how small, though.”
“Did he get that information back to his, um…?”
“Handlers? Yes.”
“Fuck.”
“Exactly.”
“What now, Chivo?”
“We have a lot of work to do, but we need manpower, we need people. We need able-bodied survivors to help us buildup defenses and to formulate a battle plan. It isn’t a question of if we will be attacked, it is a question as to if we have time to prepare!”
“We’re working on that already.”
Chivo nodded. “There’s more.”
Amanda stopped and listened. “I found his camp on the northern side of the lake in the woods. I brought his gear here. It’s in conference room C2002, you need to see it.”
“Oh? OK then, let’s go see it.”
Amanda walked out of the room, Chivo clambering to keep up with her fast, determined pace. Shortly, she opened the door to room C2002 and saw that the large twelve seat conference table had the chairs pushed away and the table was covered in equipment and gear.
“Was he carrying all of this?”
“Sort of. He had a motorcycle; it’s in the tunnel with the rest of the trucks. The obvious stuff, his shelter, sleeping bag, and similar items of no investigative value are piled over there.” Chivo pointed to a large mound of what appeared to be high-end backpacking gear. “None of it has any logos or manufacture information. It all also appears to be well-made copies of commercially available gear from manufacturers like North Face, Osprey, and such.”
Amanda sifted through some of the layers of nylon, all of which were muted earth-tone colors.
“The Chinese have been copying western goods forever, so have North Korea, but who cares? What is interesting is the gear on the table.”
“What is this?” Amanda pointed at a backpack-sized plastic case.
“That is a SATCOM—satellite communication. That’s how he was maintaining contact with his handlers.”
“So their SATCOM system works and ours doesn’t?”
“No, at least I don’t think that is the case. I need to get Bill here to help, or someone else who is a radio geek. It appears to use our—the United States’ military, that is—frequencies with different encryption keys.”
“So their system uses the same frequencies as ours. Why does that matter?”
“No, I think they are actually using our satellites, that they took them over somehow and denied us access.”
Amanda appeared surprised. “So…”
“Exactly, ma’am. Our assets might still be in place and usable. If we can overcome their control, or if we can simply use their keys or radios or something, I have a limited working man’s knowledge of how this all works. We need a radio guy.”
Amanda nodded. “Then add Bill to the message and order…what about this one? A spare radio?”
Amanda pointed at another plastic case, but this one had an odd-looking antenna and transmitter on a stand next to it.
“No, I think that is a man-portable radar truck, like the Zed zapper that Aymond acquired.”
Amanda’s eyebrows shot up in surprise.
North of Hillsboro, Texas
As the hippies drove, Ken sat in the back seat, his pistol out and in his hand. He didn’t trust hippies on principle, but these guys seemed harmless. The minute they had driven away, Keith had lit a joint and they were passing it back and forth. Ken’s initial reaction was one of anger and annoyance, but then he decided to try relaxing and letting it go. He knew that if his new acquaintances were stoned when they got to their camp, he could easily kill them and move on with his life. Besides, maybe things would go differently. For the first time in his life, Ken was OK with pot smoke wafting around him. He had punched a guy in his platoon in Vietnam out cold for smoking a joint while on patrol, but this was a different place and a very different time.
Off of I-35 and down a couple of farm-to-market roads about 10 minutes later, the car pulled to a stop in front of a cattle gate. The fencing was very taut and well-maintained. Ken noticed that someone had recently made repairs to the barbed wire strands, and it looked like a couple of posts were replaced near the gate, too.
Keith must have noticed Ken looking at the fence. “Yeah, man, the fucking dead, man. They ganged up and pushed against our fence. I had to spend an entire fucking day fixing
that mess. Very uncool, man.”
Carl laughed. “That’s their problem, the dead, they’re just…very un-dude. They do not abide, although I’m pretty sure they were mostly lawyers.”
Both Keith and Carl laughed heartily.
Ken was puzzled. “How did you know they were lawyers?”
Carl was giggling while trying to explain. “It’s hard to tell the difference. The zombies have a better personality and are less selfish than any attorney I know!”
Keith climbed out of the car, opened the gate, and remained until Carl had brought the Mercedes through before closing the gate behind them before lighting another joint after climbing back into the passenger seat.
Even Ken laughed along with their stories and jokes; Keith and Carl’s happy and relaxed attitude was contagious. They drove up the long dirt driveway, and Ken realized he was happier and more relaxed than he had been since the attack…and he was hungry. Ken didn’t notice that the windows of the car were rolled up and that the interior was thick with pot smoke.
At the end of the driveway was a small ranch home with some old oak trees swaying gently in the wind in the yard. There was a metal outbuilding, which was expected, but there were also two large greenhouses, each with its own well-built and maintained fence around them. In fact, each of the buildings and the home was individually fenced.
“What’s with all the fences?”
Keith answered, “Backups, man. If a zombie gets into place past the first fence, then we have more fences to slow them down while we pick them off one by one.”
Ken was a little surprised at the planning and strangely he was really craving some fast food. He then realized for the second time that the car smelled like french fries and asked why.
“It’s the grease fuel, man. This is an eco-friendly car. Instead of dinosaur bones, we’re burning old fryer grease.”
“Carl, how do you get fryer grease?”
“There are simply millions of gallons waiting for us in all the restaurants of the old world. Fast food joints are the best for it. They’re setup with tanks and outside access for trucks to come remove the cooking oil and such, so we pull up and get our grease from there. We have a truck in the barn we use for that, big tank you know, man.”
“Just like that? Put the oil in and drive?”
“No, man, we’ve got to refine it a little. Keith has us all setup in the barn; he’s the mad scientist.”
Ken looked at Keith, whose long hair and unkempt beard didn’t look very scientific in his mind.
“Not a mad scientist, a mad engineer. Aerospace engineer by training and trade.”
“No shit.” Ken was surprised and he didn’t do a very good job of hiding it.
Keith laughed loudly. “Yeah, well it doesn’t matter now, but all of that schooling, training, and experience is sort of handy to have. We’ve been able to get things really setup around here with what we can find.”
“What about you, Carl? Are you going to tell me you’re a heart surgeon or something?”
“Naw, man, I’m not anything but me.”
“He’s brilliant and an excellent farmer. He gets it—the earth and dirt and plants and nature. All of it just makes sense to him. He had a lot of different careers over his life, but has really found his purpose with the new world we live in.”
“Yeah, man, like we’re making bio-diesel, more than we could ever hope to use, and we have our grow operations.”
“Like corn and tomatoes or what?”
“Yes, sort of. Well, come on, let me just show you.”
They parked the car in the large metal outbuilding, which was more of an industrial building than a barn or equipment shed. The floor was concrete and the interior was kept clean and clutter free. Once again, Ken was quite surprised. Large tanks dominated the back wall, each of which had piping coming out and go to other tanks and through other parts of what looked like a bit like a winery opened by a Bond villain, just minus the secret lair in a volcano.
“That’s where we make the bio-diesel. These tanks over here we are small batching distilled spirits from grain. We cleaned out a farmers co-op recently and am currently making a corn whiskey.”
They walked outside and to the first greenhouse. Large fans hung from the rafters inside, although they weren’t spinning. Tubing hung from the ceiling and came down to where rows of green plants were in containers and on strange tables.
Carl began explaining, “Hydroponics, man. We keep the water circulating with nutrients and then keep the plants warm and sunned; they’re happy for it.”
One of the large fans kicked on with an electric whine. Ken looked up at stared at the fan for a moment. Keith answered his question before Ken could ask, “A combination of solar and wind power. We have a diesel generator we converted to run on bio-fuel, but we’ve only had to use it once so far.”
“Wow.”
Groom Lake, Nevada
Aymond peered through the binoculars, slowly and carefully scanning the scene from the mountain ridge west of Dreamland’s main grouping of hangars and buildings. The dormitories were practically destroyed. Luckily, Aymond thought, most of those survivors had been moved back below ground. But there would still be casualties from their destruction, he was sure of it. The CONEX metal wall and fighting positions lay in smoldering ruins with large holes and numerous bodies in all directions. Some had reanimated and shambled through the fire, smoke, ash, and twisted metal; others lay blissfully dead. The Chinese and Korean forces held skirmish lines well over a kilometer away and there was a lot of movement in their ranks, but they were mostly holding their position and waiting, which couldn’t be good.
An explosion erupted behind him and toward the north.
“Chief! Contact!”
The rest of the transmission was garbled, mixed with fast rapid fire. Happy tried to get the rest of the important information out, but fell silent. The explosion was the claymores they had set out along their perimeter for their observation post. This was not ideal, as the sun sat directly overhead. The safe blanket of darkness in the night would have been better, but it was far too late for wishful thinking now.
Aymond turned and, keeping on his belly, made his way toward the firefight, which was falling in intensity as quickly as it had started. It had been four hours since they left Nellis and it was as bad as Major Pearce had said, but now it was getting exponentially worse. Happy lay on the ground motionless, and Aymond saw Gonzo rip through an entire magazine and start on a second one before Aymond could get a target. They had the high ground and appeared to have stumbled into a security patrol, which would be the smart thing for the PLA to have done.
Rounds cracked as they tore through the air just inches overhead; other rounds impacted the dirt around Aymond, causing dirt to fly into the air like a geyser.
Fuck. Fuck all of this.
Aymond pulled a grenade from his carrier and yelled, “Gonzo! Cover fire! Grenade!”
Gonzo let loose with more multi-shot bursts, emptying one magazine and starting on yet another, which gave Aymond the chance to sit up slightly, pull the pin, and lob the grenade high over-head and down the mountain toward the enemy forces. After the explosion, they could hear pain-filled fearful screams mixed in with the hard clattering sound of their rifles firing on full auto.
The screaming subsided or was drowned out by a dramatic increase in the volume of rifle fire. Aymond heard Gonzo yell fuck as he pushed and began fighting Happy on the ground. Gonzo pushed and kicked Happy hard right in the face before moving his foot and firing a rifle burst into his friend’s face.
Aymond didn’t need an explanation; Happy had been killed and had reanimated.
Gonzo turned his attention back toward the firefight, emptying another magazine. Aymond was down to his last two loaded mags on his person. There were more in the truck, but that was a couple of hundred meters away, w
hich might as well be in the next state for how likely it would be for him to make it that far without being killed. Between shots, Aymond glanced at Gonzo again, pulling magazines from Happy’s gear; that did not bode well for their survival. Downrange, he could see that the PLA was advancing, a grenade exploding just a dozen meters from them, A small defilade protected Aymond from much of the blast and most of the shrapnel, but the situation was becoming dire. Aymond inserted his last rifle magazine and although he wasn’t religious, he felt the need to say a little prayer over his last mag. “Please don’t let me fuck this one up.”
Carefully, Aymond lined up each shot, like a carnival game. Enemy forces seemed to appear magically before his front sight and every squeeze of the trigger made them disappear. Movement, people walking, Aymond could see their legs through his optic. Shifting up, he could see that they were Korean forces who had been killed and reanimated. The others turned and disengaged mostly from the fight with Aymond and Gonzo to protect themselves from their comrades turned Zeds. Before he could process that information, his earpiece squawked: it was Major Pearce and she was coming on station.
Aymond felt like yelling, but quickly and professionally contained himself. “Troops in contact, need immediate assist, danger of being overrun, low ammo, one KIA, how copy?”
A JTAC he was not. He couldn’t give an accurate and fast 9-line, but he didn’t care. “Pearce, popping blue smoke, tangos 50 meters northwest.”
He couldn’t see her, he couldn’t hear her aircraft, but if Pearce said she was on station and was about to make a gun run on their position, he knew she meant it. From the south, Aymond saw a glint and looked: it was Pearce in her Hog flying low and fast across the desert floor to the west of the ridge where they were located. Aymond popped blue smoke.
Pearce climbed rapidly. Her gun with wings seemed to rip off the desert floor and into the clear blue sky, and the spec of her aircraft grew in size at a seemingly impossible rate before nosing over and diving toward his position with a lonesome scream from its two large engines. He could see the smoke from the huge canon of a gun before he heard the sound. A long brrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrt sound filled the valley, the sound echoing across the mountains and from the sky, the sound that every modern ground troop longs for when everything had gone to shit. The hog pulled up through the smoke of the big machine cannon, dropping flares and chafe as it did. Pearce worried about shoulder-fired SAMs after seeing one kill her wingman and friend.
