Nuclear Winter | Book 3 | Chain Breakers

by Jones, Nathan

  Not happening, at least not without calling in reinforcements and turning this into a messy standoff until then. A standoff where the enemy probably had a bunch of hostages in the settlers they'd been planning to take back as slaves.

  Or not . . . it turned out Chavez wasn't the shootout sort.

  As Pete got his people into position to begin picking off any enemies who popped into view from hiding, and Jack roared past with the machine gun sawing away at one spot of cover, the sergeant simply drove his truck into the small town from the other direction and dumped his half of the squad out to scatter among the houses and start clearing them, while Torm covered them in that truck's machine gun.

  The slavers were obviously just as surprised as Pete was, because they barely managed to get off a few potshots before they were suddenly getting swarmed by furious Chainbreakers. The piddling return fire against Pete's hidden soldiers disappeared, and many enemies actually popped into view as they moved around to take cover from the threat coming from the other direction.

  Pete gunned down one slaver who'd run around the side of a house for cover and practically ducked down right in his sights. Then he got on the radio and ordered Jack to pick them up. They roared into the settlement from the other direction, screeching to a halt behind one house where Pete hopped out with the other Chainbreakers to mimic the sergeant's insane attack.

  The house's roof was low enough that Nelson actually had a field of fire over it with the big gun, and as Pete darted forward to sweep the nearby houses in preparation to start clearing them the private opened fire and provided surprisingly effective cover.

  Dead weight, Jack had called the man on their first mission in Epsilon. But since then Nelson had proven himself a true Chainbreaker, and he'd just proven himself again as far as Pete was concerned.

  His radio crackled. “Be advised, Corporal,” Chavez snapped. “From what we saw on the way in this raiding party came light, only ten or so soldiers.”

  Ten? No wonder the attack had gone so smoothly. And that also meant they'd already taken out most of the enemy. Pete turned to his people. “Monty, with me! Take the houses in pairs!”

  He burst into the house they'd parked behind, finding it empty aside from the body of one of the settlers. “Clear!” he called, then ducked back out and bolted across the space to duck into the next house. It, too, was empty. “Clear!”

  He checked two more houses, while around him he heard his squad mates giving similar reports. Then he heard a burst of gunfire, a final “Clear!”, and Chavez's voice came over the radio again.

  “Childress, you got the houses on that side?”

  Pete glanced around a corner at Parkins, in the other team he'd sent out. The man nodded. “Three clear for me,” Parkins said.

  “And four for me,” Pete finished.

  “That's the entire place, then. Move in to the vehicles.”

  Pete cautiously left cover and approached the abandoned van and truck, his squad mates coming out of the woodwork in all directions to join him, looking around at the carnage of the settlement; they'd got there before the enemy left, but not in time it looked like. The bodies of dozens of slaughtered settlers, young and old, were lying where they'd fallen.

  He checked the cab of the pickup truck, finding it empty, peered underneath, and used the tip of his rifle to lift a tarp in the bed to make sure no enemies were hiding underneath it.

  Just supplies.

  Jack joined him as he checked the van. The cab was clear, and underneath it, while in the back Pete found a dozen or so surviving settlers bound and packed in tight, all young men and women waiting to be taken back to the CCZ as slaves.

  Pete and Jack helped untie the poor people and get them out of the van. As he did he noticed the bruises on the women's faces, their torn clothes and the hesitant, painful way they moved, and the way they flinched from his offered hand when he tried to help them down, electing to drop unsteadily to the ground on their own.

  That was probably the explanation for why the slavers had stuck around in this place instead of bolting back for the river as soon as they had their loot and prisoners, giving Epsilon time to catch up to them. And from the shamed, tormented expressions on the men's faces, the way they couldn't quite look anywhere near their female friends and relatives, they'd probably been forced to witness it, helpless to do anything to stop it.

  Although Pete had seen firsthand the depredations of the enemy on countless occasions, the sight always filled him with blind rage. This was why he didn't have trouble pulling the trigger to execute captured slavers. This was why-

  Chavez stepped in front of the surviving settlers to address them. “The threat is over, for now,” he said, surprisingly kindly considering, well, who he was. “I realize that's small consolation for you and your lost loved ones.” He motioned to the squad's vehicles. “You can come with us back to Lafayette if you want, and we'll do what we can to provide you with a fresh start.”

  One of the men, in his mid-twenties and built like a prizefighter, shook his head hollowly. “They didn't destroy the fields or our homes.” He spoke in a leaden voice, and his eyes were dead. “I'm staying to rebuild what I can and keep going. It's better than leaving it all behind.”

  Most of the settlers seemed to feel the same, and the few who seemed to want to leave lost their nerve when faced with the prospect of abandoning what was left of their community. In the end they all decided to stay.

  Pete couldn't imagine what their lives would be like now, living on in the place where they'd seen loved ones butchered and violated, or suffered that violation themselves. He thought of his own inability to even look at the Roy farm for all the time he'd been stationed at the settlement there, the pain of the sight too great to endure.

  That's what life was, he supposed. Even at its worst there wasn't much choice but to keep going, knowing the memories would never fade but hoping they'd at least become bearable. Unable to believe happiness was still possible, but hoping to find it all the same one day.

  The only survivor who agreed to go with them wasn't a settler, but a young man who turned out to be the owner of the delivery van, taken as a slave when the raiders hijacked the vehicle and forced to watch them murder his father and hide his body in the bushes. Chavez agreed to escort him back to his father's body and help him get it loaded up so he could take it home for a proper funeral, just as soon as they were finished up here.

  Epsilon spent the next hour doing their best to treat the injured, repair the damage the raiders had caused, and bury the bodies. The slavers were unceremoniously dumped in a deep pit far from town, which they filled in with rocks as much as loose dirt to save time. As for the slain settlers, the Chainbreakers contented themselves with digging graves where the survivors directed, and leaving them to prepare the bodies of their loved ones and hold their own funeral service.

  Then, after promising to alert the Canadian government to their plight so aid could be sent, Chavez ordered the squad to load up and head out.

  As his squad mates worked Pete moved over to stand beside the sergeant. “That attack was insane, Sarge,” he said. His squad mates within earshot all muttered their approval, thinking he'd meant it in a good way.

  Chavez seemed to think otherwise. He grinned coldly. “Was it? Slavers are cowards who attack settlements full of helpless people and flee at the first sight of conflict. The last thing they'd ever expect is for the enemy to show a bit of courage.” He waved around at the small cluster of humble homes. “And sure enough, we caught them with their pants down by doing just that.”

  “Maybe. Although they stayed to fight instead of running in the first place,” Pete argued.

  The sergeant snorted. “Count the roads into this place. Two, both in the direction we came from. Those ten SOBs weren't getting away and they knew it.”

  Pete frowned, a thought striking him. “Why do you think there was only a half squad here?”

  Again Chavez seemed to have an easy answer, waving
at the vehicles. “Look at what they were working with. They couldn't have brought twenty raiders and still had enough room to gather up enough loot and slaves to be worth it.” He glanced at the surrounding hills. “The squad probably split up, and the others went looking for more vehicles so they could mount their own raid. Wouldn't be the first time.”

  That made sense, and it certainly fit how raiders generally operated. “Well should we search around for the rest of the squad?”

  “We certainly should,” the sergeant agreed. “Just as soon as we help Mr. Randall pick up his dad's body and make sure he's safely on his way home.”

  That seemed like a fair enough idea. Pete joined Jack in the in their vehicle, which would be bringing up the rear on this leg of the trip with the delivery van in the middle, and the squad set out back the way they'd come.

  Or at least almost the same way; Randall pointed them to a more direct route back to where his truck had been hijacked, the route the slavers had taken to get to the settlement. Since it would give Epsilon Squad an opportunity to look for those missing slavers Chavez agreed they'd go that way, so while one of their squad mates drove the delivery van Randall joined the sergeant in the lead vehicle to point the way.

  In retrospect they probably should've worried more about finding the slavers than about not finding them; just a few miles away from Mr. Randall's body Jack followed the two vehicles ahead of them around a bend, only to find the road farther along blocked by fallen trees with several men taking cover behind them.

  Before any of them had time to react those men opened fire.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Evasion

  Jack swore and practically stood on the brakes, bringing the truck to a screeching halt barely in time to avoid slamming into the back of the delivery van.

  “Ambush!” one of their squad mates shouted unnecessarily over the radio.

  “Back us up!” Pete snapped.

  Jack was already manhandling the stick shift into reverse. The entire truck shuddered violently as he popped the clutch and slammed down the gas pedal too soon, the engine nearly dying, and then they were roaring backwards around the bend, swerving drunkenly into the other lane as his friend tried to maneuver using the rearview mirrors.

  This stretch of road ran through a large copse of trees, almost a small forest. If they could just get a bit farther back down the road they'd be out of sight of the roadblock up ahead, and would hopefully have time to safely turn around and get out of here.

  In front of them the van was also backing up fast, but for some reason the lead truck was still where it had stopped. Instead of trying to run Torm was up manning the machine gun and returning fire, at least until he ducked for some reason. Then Jack backed them far enough that the trees obscured their view of the stopped vehicle.

  Chavez still hadn't given any orders.

  An uneasy feeling swept over Pete. The fire from the ambush had been concentrated on the lead truck, and even with reinforced glass the windshield couldn't handle too much punishment. Under the circumstances he had to assume that Chavez, in the cab, had been killed along with the driver.

  Which meant he was in charge, and more importantly his squad mates in the lead vehicle were pinned down and taking fire. They couldn't run.

  As Pete was coming to this realization a series of sharp cracks and a prolonged, deep groaning noise came from behind them, loud enough to be heard over the roaring of the truck's engine. Pete was no stranger to woodcutting, and his heart sank as he looked out the rearview mirror in time to see a large tree crash down across the road, blocking their escape. Even worse, as the tree bounced and shuddered its way to stillness half a dozen men poured out of the forest to take up positions behind it and began opening fire.

  They couldn't run.

  “Team 1, report!” he snapped into his radio.

  “Sarge and Danny were in the cab,” Martin replied tersely. “I think they're down, and we're taking fire from the roadblock ahead and also the trees to either side.”

  Pete sucked in a breath. Well that confirmed why the lead truck hadn't backed up, forcing Torm to try to do what he could with the mounted gun. The enemy had picked this ambush spot well and set up effectively; everyone in Epsilon Squad was going to die here if he didn't act fast.

  From the looks of it that was more than a squad of enemies out there. Maybe the ten left over from the squad that had attacked the settlement, along with another full squad. But the ambushers weren't Chainbreakers, and if Epsilon could even the playing field Pete would put his people against any slavers the CCZ sent their way.

  “Abandon the vehicles on my mark,” he ordered tersely. “Into the woods on our right side. Torm, Nelson, cover our escape, then trash the machine guns and leave them behind. We'll cover you while you join us.”

  The plan was effectively suicide with the woods already full of who knew how many slavers, but it was less suicide than staying put. The rest of the squad seemed to realize it, too, since nobody raised an objection.

  Pete took a few deep breaths and clutched his rifle, glancing at Jack out of the corner of his eye. His friend nodded to him, also holding his weapon ready. “Go,” Pete snapped.

  The mounted machine guns roared to life again, tearing at the roadblocks ahead and behind and swiveling to rip through the woods on the right side. Pete threw his door open and dropped into a crouch, bolting for the cover of the trees twenty feet ahead. With every step he expected a bullet to tear into him. Or ten.

  In the woods ahead and to his right a slaver popped out from behind a tree, taking aim for Nelson. Pete dropped to one knee, his kneepad scraping across the rough surface of the road as he skidded to a halt, and fired off a burst from his M16. The slaver dropped, blood spraying across the foliage behind him.

  Pete didn't even pause to confirm the kill before shoving off one leg and surging forward again. But even fast as he'd stopped, aimed, fired, and started running again Jack still managed to catch up. His friend sprinted past to one side and took the lead in their scramble for cover.

  Just before the treeline Pete stumbled as a bullet clipped his vest, turned aside by the body armor. He slammed into a tree trunk and awkwardly twisted, spinning behind it before dropping to his knees. It hurt, but a quick patdown confirmed he wasn't bleeding, at least as far as he knew.

  His squad mates from the back of his truck had disappeared into the forest farther down the road, where he couldn't see them, although his eyes found Jack not far away. He nodded to his friend, who nodded back, and while Jack scanned the forest around them for potential threats Pete ducked out of cover to look across the road at the forest there.

  “Report,” he said tersely.

  A few moments later he'd confirmed that all surviving members of the squad aside from the mounted gunners were in the safety of the woods. “Nelson, Torm, go.”

  The roar of machine gun fire stopped. Pete ducked out a bit farther to fire a few bursts at the slavers hidden behind the fallen tree, keeping them down as Nelson kicked the machine gun's delicate mechanisms a few times until they were bent out of shape, then dropped down from the truck and sprinted their way.

  Bullets struck sparks around the private's feet, and Pete traced them to some muzzle flashes in the woods across the road and returned fire. The shooting from that source stopped, either down or scared into cover, giving Nelson enough time to dive into the trees and sprawl on his stomach near Pete, panting with relief.

  “Torm?” Pete asked over his radio.

  There was a worryingly long pause before Martin replied. “He's clear.”

  Pete let out a breath. He might not've liked the interrogator, but the man was his squad mate. “All right. Everyone push hard forward and try to get past any ambushers waiting in the trees. If you think you're clear turn and cover the rest of our escapes. We'll regroup on the far side of this forest, however big it is, and decide where to go from there.”

  Torm's voice crackled in his ears, calm and collected. “Double
check your targets to avoid friendly fire, people. Any of you morons shoot me and I'll hunt you down and gut you before the slavers can get to you.”

  And . . . back to caring a bit less whether the man survived this.

  Pete found Nelson and Jack again and motioned for them to start going. The two men slipped deeper into the woods, heads constantly swiveling for signs of any threat. Everyone in Epsilon knew not to fire and draw attention to themselves if at all necessary without him needing to tell them.

  Not that there wasn't plenty of gunfire all around. A lot of it was from the enemy, and some of it was from his squad mates returning fire or covering team members. Pete joined that latter party, ducking out to fire at the slavers behind the fallen tree again to keep them from rushing into the woods in pursuit.

  It wasn't until enemy fire was chewing up the bark on the trees all around him that Pete finally decided enough was enough and turned to follow the others at a crouching run. Hopefully he'd bought them some time to get clear, at least from that direction.

  He ducked through the trees, moving from cover to cover and trying to make himself a difficult target for enemies in any direction, since he had no idea where the attack would come from. Hopefully when he did find the enemy they'd be far enough away that he could shoot them before they rushed him.

  Which was a nice thought. Unfortunately he'd followed Jack and Nelson for less than twenty feet before stumbling across a slaver silently stalking them. The man whirled, then hesitated shooting for fear of alerting Pete's two squad mates up ahead.

  That gave Pete time to close the distance between them, dropping his rifle so he could grab the enemy's AK-47 and shove the muzzle aside. The slaver cursed and struggled to wrench his weapon free, and within moments the two of them were locked in a deadly tug-of-war to tear the gun away from the other person.