by Blair Smith
At the same time, other leg-men attacked the trailer housing the satellite link, as well as the motor pool; the mortar batteries had a strategic position near the officers' trailers. The ensuing packs lugged motor-guns. Though visual range was limited in the drizzle, three snipers for each team positioned themselves to provide cover fire.
Myriad tractor-trailer trucks made up the encampment; the inner walls of each trailer were lined with plate steel to protect occupants inside. Gunners of each pack who carried M-30 Strafers in the past, now brandished motor-guns; straps were attached to the weapons and looped over the shoulder to help distribute the weight. They squatted behind the leg-men and began strafing the trailers. The streams of ceramic balls fluffed holes through the aluminum skirt and burst through the three centimeters of steel that lined the inside. Sometimes rear doors of the trucks would open with a soldier or two jumping out. Their M-30 Strafers spewed out flames into the night--but only for a moment, a motor-gun ran a stream of glowing balls into Army Regulars. More often, troops would crawl out of the trailer dragging friends, coughing uncontrollably in the mud beneath the truck.
Helen remained at the riverbank with a rebel. She couldn't see a thing, only muzzle flashes and motor-gun streams. When shot, the stream of luminescent balls looked like a white laser beam. "Can I go yet?" Helen was anxious to get into the compound and help with the wounded.
"No!" snapped the rebel. It was the third time she had asked. A flurry of Armdroid fire echoed across the valley, screams followed. "See." This time Helen went anyway. The young man scurried to catch up.
Chaos and Wolfenstein, with attack packs, raced through the middle of the compound. Leg-men secured positions ahead of them and pinned down Feds by shooting at door openings. Within minutes the Mountain Boys secured strategic positions in the compound by shooting streams of motor-gun shot into trailers until the occupants surrendered or until doors remained fixed with smoke bellowing out the cracks. On hearing the attack with motor-guns, troops housed in the outer part of the compound ran toward the security perimeter to escape. Waiting Armdroids, detached from their optic link, shot anything that moved. Army Regulars who followed knew enough to return to the compound and surrender. The entire operation lasted ten minutes.
Wolfenstein approached Chaos, "Sir, communications and Armdroids on the perimeter are cut off."
Chaos nodded. Three other Mountain Boys brought Commander Serrac to him.
Random gunshots popped as rebels wounded captives by shooting them in the knee with small caliber pistols. Chaos turned to Step-n-Time, "Go around and make sure our boys aren't using rhino bullets to do that. We want to take them out of service not take their whole leg off." Step acknowledged and left.
"I wouldn't call this humane," Serrac remarked to Chaos. "Do you always shoot your prisoners?"
"You should feel lucky we don't randomly murder everyone like your weapon did at Dixville."
Step-n-Time checked the leg-men who were doing the maiming. They were all using standard lead rounds. He came upon Bird Dog with a communications officer sprawled below him. Bird Dog aimed his pistol and lanced her with a bullet to the fleshy part of the calf. She screamed and clutched the wound. Step-n-Time reminded him in a whisper, "Bird Dog, you're supposed to shoot 'em in the knee."
Bird Dog held his gun out and stated glumly, "You want to do this?" Step-n-Time shook his head no, rapidly. "Then, shut-up!"
"Who's in charge here?" insisted Serrac.
"Are you the Akela?" Serrac asked because the name Akela seemed to be connected to the figurehead of the Colebrook and Boston Covenants. The name "The Wizard" had been linked to people from different regions. Somehow intelligence reports linked allegiance to the word Akela to two different areas. Serrac was hoping that by asking, some information might come out.
"No. I'm Chaos. I'm in charge of this raid."
"What are you going to do to me?" asked Serrac. "Shooting me in the knee won't do. I plan strategy around here."
"Not a thing," Chaos replied. "If I shoot you, your soldiers might respect you more. And I wouldn't want them to replace you."
"Stop shooting them!" Helen yelled to Chaos as she approached. Bird Dog and Step-n-Time followed behind her. They had already been scolded. Helen was livid, "I can't believe you're doing this. You shoot them up. I fix them up. I can't keep up with it."
Chaos pulled her aside to talk privately away from Serrac and the men. "What the hell is wrong, Helen? We're in a battle here. We have no way of holding them prisoner. If we just let them go we'll have to fight them again."
"It's wrong, that's why." She said it loud enough so the others heard behind her.
Chaos tried to reason with her. In a slower voice, "Then what do you propose we do to detain them if we don't maim them?"
Helen thought a moment. "Send them off naked and destroy the compound."
Chaos looked around and reflected. He didn't like having to maim prisoners, something immoral about it. He returned to the group, "Bird Dog and Step, with the exception of the people we just maimed, go around and tell the boys to have all the prisoners strip naked and send them out of the perimeter of the compound where we downed the Armdriod. We'll destroy everything here except for a place for them to keep their wounded. Start by stripping Commander Serrac and showing him the way out," Chaos said with a restrained grin.
Serrac stood indignantly as rebels yanked his clothes off. Before being tugged away by rebels, he pointed at Helen and asked Chaos, "Who's the woman?"
Chaos responded, "That's the Akela."
Chapter 16
Dixville Mountain, New Hampshire (August 6)
By midmorning, clouds moved off as excess moisture, smitten by sunlight, changed to fuzzy humidity that lingered on distant mountains. The plush, green hills around Dixville Mountain looked desolate. There was not a sign of human life in sight. Route 26 passed the Balsams blast site and wound through the valley to the notch. No traffic rode its back. The usual critters who scamper about the leaves in the forest, huddled in their lairs. The sparrow near Helen's medical bunker, who sang so freely earlier, could crouch no lower in her nest. Domesticated animals, cows, pigs, and sheep, waded ankle deep in mud. They dumbly munched on feed below the forest canopy, ignorant to a world of human predation.
Washington, D.C.
"Mr. President . . . Mr. President." Lucas had trouble getting Winifred's attention. He had Serrac on the phone and needed a confirmation from the Commander in Chief. Though weeks had passed since the bombing of Balsams, the President had not recovered from the loss of his boy. Winifred had led a superficial life, in his marriage, in politics; but Clifford genuinely loved his son William. He had become a dysfunctional man, reflecting on the past, often coming out of his daze not recalling the conversation going on around him. "Sir! Cliff!" The President looked up. "Serrac wants to know--"
"Yeah. Go ahead."
President Winifred hadn't heard the question but his answer agreed with Chief of Staff Lucas Bennett. "You got the go-ahead," Lucas told Serrac on the other end. "What! How many?" Serrac told Lucas about the surprise raid. "Well, how many did they lose?" Lucas asked. "Holy shit! Only two? They lost only two? Yeah . . . Yeah . . . Okay . . . No . . . No, From now on, report the numbers of dead and injured of both sides directly to me." Bennett listened to Serrac intently. "Yes. And whatever those numbers are, cut our casualties in half and double theirs . . . Yes . . . Yes. That's what officially goes down in the record. The media's our problem." Bennett's voice became stern, "You worry about your own ass . . . and Serrac: You'd better not screw up again today." Lucas hung up on him.
Bennett looked over and saw the President's eyes soaked. Reminiscing again. "Don't worry, Cliff. Today those bastards will pay for what they did to your son."
Dixville Mountain, New Hampshire (August 6)
Ankle deep in mud, a Holstein cow bit into
a pillow of hay and shook a cluster loose. She chewed at it. Paused. Chewed some more. Paused. She looked up through the forest canopy at the whistling sounds. A small, heat-guided bomb whisked through the treetops into the underworld and struck the cow solidly in the middle of its back. Hide and body parts spattered in all directions, startling other nearby animals. More bombs hit other animals with a splat. The docile creatures, with swinging milk sacks, waddled away from the slaughter and stopped. Quickly and with little pain, they received the same blast to the back. The creatures exploded like melons, the forest floor became coated with a layer of gut and hide.
"Chaos, you should see this," Wolfenstein transmitted his signal to Chaos' bunker. The Colebrook Covenant had built a complex system of bunkers over the past three months. They used small backhoes to dig the tunnels and bunkers, topping that with logs, and dirt, concealing each complex with leaves and brush. Unlike conventional bunkers, each hideout had a spider web of piping from its center to disperse the heat; the setup made them undetectable by heat-seeking bombs. They trimmed the forest undergrowth for line-of-sight laser communication from bunker to bunker.
"We've got the same thing here," Chaos said, responding to Wolf with a returning laser message. "Just sit tight. The plan is working. When this is over, expect some penetration bombing to go on for awhile; the Armdroids will follow with troops. Then it's our turn. The Army can't bomb their own positions when rebels moved in."
Colebrook Diner (The same day.)
With every blast that shook the earth, anxiety struck. The penetration bombing had begun. And for Harvey Madison, every jolt shook him to his core. "Why aren't you up there in the medical bunker?" He asked Mrs. Larson. She was all for the fighting.
Her tiny eyes stared back coldly, "I have my reasons and it ain't none of your business."
"I see," he said.
"You don't see. There's six tanks rowed up outside my diner with just a handful of soldiers looking after them. Look at those Army boys out there; they're ready to wet themselves. They don't want to be here. If you hang around long enough you'll see the shit hit the fan. When the bombing stops," Vanessa winked, "if you get my drift."
"You mean, you're planning some kind of attack in Colebrook?" Harvey asked.
"You got it. And if you open your big mouth, you'll find a blade in your back!" she spoke adamantly.
Harvey Madison turned his attention back to his bowl of corn chowder. He hadn't touched it. Just dipped up spoonfuls and ladled it back into the bowl.
Five Army Regulars entered the diner and seated themselves near the plate-glass window. They looked up toward Mrs. Larson for service. She stared back, her puffy eyes narrowed to slits.
Meanwhile, Butch and the boys of Colebrook's new Ghost Pack 220 squatted in a circle on the asphalt behind the Main Street drug store. Butch held a 400-gram propane canister with a three-inch pipe connection on the top. A drilled hole in the top housed a steel plunger used to detonate a shotgun shell inside. Some of the boys backed off, worried about Butch's bomb going off. Thad stayed, he knew better. "No. No," Butch explained, "there's no shell inside yet. "It won't go off unless it has a shotgun shell in it." The group moved back to the circle cautiously.
Twenty-four boys made up the huddle. They had all heard Butch's tale of Dixville and endured the thumb cut that sealed their loyalty to Ghost Pack 220. They were a proud lot, armed with kitchen and hunting knives; Sam Larson had a beer bottle stuffed with rags and filled with gas as an inflammatory device. They talked rugged as a group, but as individuals they were still boys. Their mission: To take a tank and drive it through the Feds perimeter and deliver it to the Mountain Boys by dusk. The cannon on the Abrams could be used by the rebels to fire on Army positions in the valley.
Butch spit in the middle. The bubbly saliva jiggled as penetration bombing continued on Dixville Notch ten miles away. "Denny's pack is going to throw a football up by them," instructed Butch, "as me, Sam, Thad, Charlie, and Billy come around on the street side." Billy, the newest member of Pack 220 had a bur-haircut with singed eyebrows and scalp. "They're going to tell you to 'get,' but ignore it. They won't shoot kids. While they're looking at you, we'll do our thing."
The children glanced at each other for weakness. Stony-eyed, they rose slowly from their crouched positions and split up into groups to their respective locations.
Thad never looked up from the ground as he followed his older brother Butch. It had been a year since the Dixville Massacre. Gnawing anxiety tied his stomach in knots, but he felt he had to do this for his friends slaughtered at Dixville. Though he had gone to the bathroom earlier, he felt he had to go again. Thad's long, thick legs beneath his light-boned physique carried the weight of the Dixville Massacre--the guilt of surviving. Thad wondered if he could follow through with his older brother's plan.
Vanessa Larson put the fifth burger on the bun; she spit on it before capping it with a sesame seed top. Waddling out to their table, she tossed the plates on the surface. Sarcastically she said, "Here. Enjoy." She stared down on the soldiers as they sheepishly lifted their burgers and bit into them. Her attention turned to the window as a group of boys tossed a football in the village green inching toward the tanks. She turned to Harvey to see if he saw; the children's presence might mess up her attack plan. Then Vanessa looked back through the window.
"Hey, get out of here." The soldier's voice carried across the park and was faintly heard by everyone inside. The soldiers seated in the diner turned to see. "This is a restricted area. Get out!" repeated the voice from outside. The boy with the ball deliberately tossed it over his partner's head to bounce near the guards.
From behind, Butch and Sam raced up from the alley and threw their explosives at the unsuspecting soldiers guarding the tanks. Sam's gasoline bomb splattered at the feet of one soldier and caught the man's pants on fire. The propane canister Butch had tossed shook downtown Colebrook and sent the other two sentries flying through the air.
Immediately following the blast, Butch climbed the back of a tank with Sam Larson following. The burning soldier saw Butch scrambling to the top of the tank; he lifted in M-30 Strafer and streamed six rounds at the boys. A bullet caught Butch on the thigh. A stray hit Sam in the stomach as he crawled over the top of the tank. Sam fell to the ground in a fetal position; Butch hugged the top of the tank moaning.
Billy and Charlie raced from the alley toward an M-30 Strafer a soldier had dropped in the blast. Charlie ran between the tanks and snatched the weapon up in a dead run.
Thad wasn't among them. He stood on the side street paralyzed with fear, and watched his brother's blood trickle down the side of the tank. The flaming guard caught sight of the boys running among the tanks with a rifle in-hand. He popped off several more rounds. One hit Charlie in the back. Billy continued without the weapon, glancing back only once in his dire race for cover on the other side of the green. Thad at last broke loose, streaking at top speed between the tanks. Adrenaline drove him, leaping over both dead soldiers and sprinting ten more meters, where he snatched the rifle Charlie had carried. Two soldiers in a nearby jeep lifted their weapons and took aim at the boy darting across the green. The rounds chased Thad and struck in the wet sod behind him. Thad caught up with Billy, and ran through the rest of the boys on the opposite end of the village green.
Soldiers in the diner sat stunned on viewing the scene through the window. One soldier remarked incredulously, "Why--they're shooting the boys!"
The fat lady's beady eyes widened from slits to golf ball size. "That's my boy!" She reached under her apron and pulled out a knife, wielding it into the back of the first soldier. As another trooper looked around, she caught him in the chest with the second strike. The third private, she paralyzed by a blade between the shoulders as he reached for his rifle. By then, the older Colebrook residents in the diner, overpowered the remaining two. Harvey Madison blocked the arm of Mrs. Larson as s
he tried to impale a fourth soldier. "Stop it Vanessa! For godsakes, stop it!" Harvey lowered his hand but stayed between her and the captives. He was no longer sure what she was capable of.
"They're murdering the rest of our boys." Vanessa was crying now. She stood hunched and in shock. Dark red blood dripped from the blade of her knife.
"What we have to do," stated Harvey, "is round up the boys and make sure they stay out of this."
Harvey had not realized Mrs. Larson's son was involved. She ran out the door and across the green, pushing a soldier to the ground en route to her child. Other Colebrook residents ran out to the wounded children. The village people scurried through the streets in confusion; boys were running through side streets every which-way as troops chased them to recover the stolen rifle.
Thad stashed the weapon under an outbuilding behind Sam Larson's place and darted back to the center of town to check on Butch.
The men from the jeep recognized him. "He's the one who had the weapon." They revved the engine and pursued him. Pulling up alongside of the boy, the soldier on the passenger side nabbed Thad's shirttail. Thad stumbled and was dragged beside the jeep until it stopped. In a flash, he slithered out of the shirt and ran barebacked through the center of town. Now two vehicles chased him across the green. The boy streaked into another side street and turned between houses. Soldiers honked in pursuit while women dragged their children out of harm's way. The jeeps crashed through fences to keep up. Thad knew the village. He cut through sections too cluttered for jeeps and doubled back the way he had come. Three times he evaded capture, cutting back through the center of town time after time. Infantry in the square tried to block his escape but found themselves outmaneuvered and nearly run over by the men in jeeps pursuing the boy.