by G. R. Carter
“Fredericks should have been there to help Stillman. I’m still not buying Stillman’s story about him and the rest of my men being killed in a shootout with a gang. Was it the same group that took him out? Must be more than just a group of street thugs,” Walsh thought out loud.
As Walsh went through his thoughts and options, Eckert remained at attention.
“Could there possibly be something worse, Captain?” Walsh demanded, becoming irritated with his field commander now.
“Sir, our information is that this was an inside job on Major Stillman. That he was lured into the ambush by men of his own command, and that these troops are now in league with a group calling themselves the Okaw Valley Self Defense Cooperative. Apparently that’s an area down the highway about forty-five miles from Decatur. Small towns and farms, no major city. The National Guard base at Decatur is now under their control, as is the entire city government. That now means everything west all the way to the Mississippi River could be out of our sphere of influence,” Eckert said, confirming what Walsh had already calculated.
“And with the refusal of Old Main College to cede to the authority of New America, so is everything south,” Walsh added.
Eckert hesitated, not sure if he actually believed what he was about to report next. Steeling his nerve, he continued in a drawl now quite distinctly of the North Carolina mountain country.
“Sir, our sources also tell us that this trap was designed, commanded and executed by the traitor Martin Fredericks.”
Old Main
Crisp, new banners in red, white and blue snapped in the breeze. The brilliant styling of the Stars and Stripes offset the four drab gray-green Humvees they were mounted on. As one, they pulled up and stopped in front of the namesake building of Old Main College. The castle-like building rose above the circle drive, giving the feeling of arriving at an old English country estate instead of a Midwestern college. The potato hills in the yard leading up to the entrance told visitors that facade had long since ended.
Sharply dressed soldiers in gray combat fatigues stepped out of the matching vehicles and strode up to the entrance. Julia Ruff stepped out to meet them on the threshold step, allowing two Old Main Militia members to step to either side of her.
“President Ruff, I’m Captain Tyler Eckert, Executive Officer, New American Reconstruction Task Force. Thank you for seeing us on such short notice,” the man in the lead said as he approached the building. He appeared to be in his early thirties, with a haircut just slightly longer than Julia remembered seeing on most military men before the collapse. But the fitness was definitely there, and he moved with a confidence that only successful combat provides.
“I wasn’t aware that I had a choice, Captain. You showed up, I didn’t invite you. I have to warn you, we’re a little more on edge these days then the last time you visited. I apologize if we’re not quite as polite as we once were,” Ruff said.
“No offense taken, ma'am. I was sorry to hear about your loss. This is a dangerous world we find ourselves in. Colonel Walsh wanted me to send his sincerest condolences. When he found out what happened he wanted you to know New America is anxious to help find the evil men behind these vile acts,” Eckert said.
“News travels fast these days, Captain. It’s only been a week and your Colonel is already fully aware of what is going on in our backyard. Impressive intel you have,” Ruff said sternly.
“Yes, ma'am. The Colonel does value information. Just like he values the allies of New America. He wanted me to ask again if you would be willing to join us in our efforts to reconstruct our country. He is anxious for your expertise in administration.”
“He’s anxious to get his hands on the Applied Science faculty, you mean.”
“Yes ma’am, there’s no question Old Main would be a tremendous asset to New America. You would retain your role as President and be a fully autonomous province of the country as Reconstructed,” Eckert said.
“What you offer we already have. I’m waiting for the ‘or else’ moment, Captain.”
Eckert hid his emotions well. During New America’s recent conquests, usually the ultimatum was submit or be crushed. Only Old Main’s substantial assets kept this situation from being the same. Colonel Walsh wanted the people, the formulas and the equipment of the college, and he was willing to negotiate to get it.
“Madame President, you and I both know that refusing New America’s offer is bad for your community. Whatever grudges you had against the Federal government before the collapse are irrelevant now. You’ve experienced firsthand the terror that is happening all over the country. We can debate our ideas of perfect government later, but we have to stay alive before we can have that conversation,” Eckert said to her.
“I’ve made a similar argument myself recently,” Julia recounted. “Tell your Colonel that I appreciate his condolences and his offer. But our answer is ‘no.’ Oh, and by the way, tell him that we know where the men responsible for these acts of violence against our community are hiding out. So we won’t be needing your help for that either.”
Eckert stood motionless for a moment. Then with a simple nod he spun on one heel and returned to the passenger side of the lead Humvee. As the vehicles sped away, Julia prayed that she had made the right decision. Ceding to New America was the easy choice and the safe one. But over the long run Rebekah was right. They had to stand for something; mere survival from day to day just wasn’t good enough. And after speaking with Phillip Hamilton and Clark Olsen, she got the impression that Okaw Valley was going to be a very valuable ally.
The Okaw
Samuel Hamilton, the Founder’s younger son, parked his World War II-era jeep just outside the largest building in the sprawling complex holding the Wizard Academy. The rows of reconstructed metal buildings brought here from around SDC territory left enough space for gravel lanes, allowing large equipment to wind in and out. Each structure appeared as a bee hive, with workers filing in and out of overhead doors opened to expose the contents to the cool wet weather. Despite the temperature outside, heat came in waves from inside the large buildings. The only solace was a near-constant breeze in this part of the country. Workers utilized every door that could swing up or out to capture the air movements through their work space.
Sounds of engines and the clanking of tools forcing their will on metal ricocheted off the walls of the buildings. Sharp dings and clunks bounced back and forth, landing in the soft ear tissue of those not wearing protection, though few workers ignored the squishy plugs or plastic eye goggles provided in every work space. New arrivals quickly met those who had once let their guard down. Missing eyes and fingers provided examples that this was no game, object lessons of what happened when metal bit into soft body tissue.
The Wizard Academy began life as one machine shop on one retired engineer’s farm. Since then, a new building arose approximately every month. As the population of the Okaw Valley SDC grew, anyone deemed more valuable to the Wizards than to the Farms came to live and work here. The hours were infamous, and the burnout rate would have been atrocious if every day wasn’t a literal matter of life and death for the little cooperative trying to stay alive in a sea of chaos.
“Prince Hamilton, a pleasure to see you, sire!” Sam heard from just outside his line of sight.
“Save it, Delbert, I already use that prince stuff to annoy my big brother,” Samuel Hamilton replied to the leader of the Wizards, Delbert Kuhn.
“Huh, well I guess Founding Farmer, Jr. will just have to do then. That’s what I’ve always called your old man even before this all happened,” Delbert said with a wave of his arm.
“Quit dreaming about the way the world’s supposed to be, Delbert. And show me what we can use to defeat those Americans,” Sam said, pulling Delbert out of his brief lapse.
Delbert’s mood blackened and he shook a gnarled finger in Sam’s direction. “Watch it, boy. I know that’s funny to you young punks, but that’s still my country you’re talking about.”
“Your country is right here in this barn, out there in those fields, and in those grandchildren of yours. I might be young, but I know that the group waving the Stars and Stripes now would burn this place to the ground. They’d kill us all or make us work for them killing others. Now let’s move on and think about tomorrow, not yesterday.”
Delbert enjoyed a good fight, but this wasn’t one he was willing to take part in anymore. Okaw Valley leaders knew that soon New America would turn their attention west. Older folks still expected the red, white and blue flag to show up someday and bail them all out of this bad dream. The young men and women coming of age knew bad dreams began with the sight of that flag on your horizon.
“Alright, Prince,” Delbert continued gruffly, “come down this way and I’ll show you what the Germans used early in WW2 to win all those battles you learned about in Wizard Academy 101.”
Martin Fredericks stood smiling as Sam approached him with Delbert by his side. The commander’s crisp new khaki uniform was pressed and creased, sharp as always. All SDC officers now wore the new uniform, in contrast to the BDUs worn by soldiers in the American army. Trousers bloused over the lace up knee-high dark brown leather boots being made by a custom cobbler rescued in Decatur. Fredericks sported the summer-issue short-sleeve button-down shirt tucked in over his wide utility belt, dark blue eagle tattoo still visible on the inside of his left forearm.
“So good to see you, Sam. I see your brother and Dad all the time, but I don’t get to see you often enough,” Fredericks said warmly. They shared the handshake half-hug that denoted friendship among the men of Okaw Valley. Most of the older folks still stopped with the handshake, but anyone under fifty observed the new custom.
Fredericks turned to reveal an awkward-looking flying machine behind him. A long shark-like nose was interrupted by a squarish canopy attached about twenty feet behind a bright multi-blade propeller. A pilot sat inside the canopy, revealed by rectangle windows on both sides and a split screen in the front. A tall vertical tail perched a few feet behind, with a wire connecting the back of the canopy to the top of the hinged blade on the back. Short stubby wings jutted from the sides of the shark nose, beginning where the bottom sloped down to the fixed landing gear, and culminating just below the pilot’s station.
The entire ungainly mix of odd angles and shapes was entirely painted in a dark gray color save for the white teeth on red background adorning each side. The only other color being an aggressive representation of a hawk staring directly at the onlooker with talons thrust forward, the burnt red color a stark contrast to the dark color of the vertical tail stabilizer.
“Looks like someone put pieces of a plane in a blender, mixed with some glue, and then poured it out to dry,” Sam said to no one in particular. If he was impressed with what he faced, no one could tell.
“You, my fair prince, are looking at a former Air Tractor AT–802A, now known as a Raptor. Your esteemed father and Commander Fredericks here approved the design last week. Although, I will admit that the shark’s mouth on the front may not have been on the original drawings. Just something I remember from my youth,” Delbert said proudly. While not all the details were known, it was common knowledge that Delbert’s father had been a military man at some point, and Delbert could occasionally be counted on for pulling out some design from that part of history.
“This was the king of the crop dusters at one time. We found it in s hangar at the county airport. The owner was living on one of the Fortress Farms, but hadn’t thought about the plane being useful to us. Between the Reset and the Solar Storms, he figured he’d never fly again,” Delbert continued. “This is incredibly stable, can fly around a hundred miles an hour and stay aloft without stalling. It can carry ten thousand pounds up in the air, and has a range of about five hundred miles.”
Fredericks chimed in. “And it’s really operational in tough environments. Doesn’t need a real runway, just about a quarter of mile of flat ground or even field to take off from.”
Sam still didn’t look convinced. “OK, I’ll admit, this will be great for patrolling the frontiers. And scaring the heck out of any ditchmen still hanging around. But we’ve got thousands of square miles to defend. Shouldn’t our priority be more Turtles or the new Mark 3s?” he asked.
The Mark 3 was Okaw Valley SDC’s secret weapon. The vehicle itself began life as a piece of construction machinery called a track hoe. Set on caterpillar tracks, the main body of the machine could spin in a 360-degree turn. In place of the large scoop arm it was originally designed to move dirt with, a gun the Wizards modeled after the 20-millimeter cannons the Germans had used in WW2 sat attached to the machine.
Wizards discovered the plans for the cannon in the World History section in the old Shelbyville library – now referred to as the Archives – amidst piles of reference books from all over. It was one of their best finds, a simple but effective rapid fire weapon with the added benefit of being easily built and maintained in difficult conditions. The largest of the Mark 3s, referred to as “dreadnoughts,” or “dreads” for short, would be constructed with a larger cannon later next year in case the SDC came across anything tougher than light armored vehicles.
The Mark 3 could be driven and gunned by one man, though all new models allowed for two, driver and gunner tasks being separated. Both were protected in an armored canopy featuring multi-layer shatter resistant glass. These tracked shovels were in every old construction site, with thousands sitting idle all over the Midwest. Additionally, the area surrounding SDC territory held some of the largest construction equipment dealerships in the country, left mostly idle since the Reset. Even better, the modifications needed to create a Mark 3 were actually easier than the original Turtle.
Delbert and Fredericks smiled at each other and directed Sam out the service door behind the plane. Sam stepped into the dreary wall of wet humidity that marked Midwestern early spring days, nearly bumping into Celeste, Delbert’s granddaughter. She was on her way to becoming a full–fledged Wizard in the very near future. Sam was pretty sure that Celeste ranked as the most impressive work of the Creator he had ever seen. The smile they shared as the two passed each other suggested Celeste might feel the same way about him. Sam picked up the sweet scent of her hair as they headed in separate directions.
Distraction faded as his eyes adjusted to the light. Sitting wing to wing were nine identical copies of the plane located inside the assembly shop. The only difference between these and the one sitting inside were ugly-looking tubes sprouting from under each wing, about four feet from the joint where the wing joined the fuselage. Sam wasn’t totally sure, but those tubes resembled a weapon of some kind.
“Ok, now you have my attention,” Sam stuttered. “Would those nasty bits hanging from the wings just happen to be the new cannon that you’re putting on the Mark 3s?” he asked, pointing to two of the new tanks waiting to be loaded onto flatbed trucks.
The impact of the planes in front of him seemed to sink in more with every second, as he pondered what he was really looking at.
“Wait now, are you telling me that we now have our own air force? This isn’t just about a lookout telling us if something bad is coming… we can punch the bad guys first!”
Sam’s voice had reached a higher octave, noticeable when he was thinking of something amazing while not being able to shut up about it.
“Guys, this could change everything! How did you do this, especially without me knowing about it?”
“Operational security, Sam,” Fredericks said. “We weren’t keeping it from you; we were keeping it from everybody. And we just found the crop dusters a few weeks ago. That pilot up there was once an employee of a national company that specialized in aerial application.
“They purchased the last few manned aircraft comi
ng off the Ag Tractor assembly line. Everything built after these were remote-controlled drones. When the Reset happened, all ten of these beauties were sitting in hangars, ready to be used. We’ve found five pilots out of the Okaw Valley population, and they’re confident we can train five more with no problem.”
“What about the Air National Guard base we got in Decatur?” Samuel asked.
“Yep,” Delbert replied, “We found several other serviceable planes there, too. But these are our priority, because we can standardize the training and the service. We’re going to put three here, and then the rest will be based out of Decatur. That’s where we’ve got the remaining aviation fuel. We’re working on getting our soy diesel refined to work for future use. We’ll test that on some of the other planes that we found. The three Raptors based here will be for weapons testing and training. We’re hoping to find more at other small airports, now that we know what we’re looking for.”
Sam’s eyes glazed, his mind computing a million thoughts per second. A revelation occurred: that’s what Delbert was talking about when he mentioned the Germans in World War 2. Sam quickly remembered the lessons taught by the Ten Vets on combining mobile armor with air support. Those lessons always seemed so out of touch with reality to a little group that considered armored cavalry to be old farm trucks with plate steel welded on. What was the plane the Germans used in that…what, Lightning War?
As Sam mentally filed through old lessons, a buzz like a giant bumblebee rose from somewhere behind the buildings. A shark’s mouth flashed just a few feet over the buildings and began to climb into the sky at a steep angle. As he followed the path of the plane, Delbert nudged his arm and pointed at an old box truck sitting in front of a pile of brush and trees that had been pushed into a ten-foot-high mound. The truck and pile sat in the middle of a field well over two hundred yards away from where the nearest building stood. As the Air Tractor, or Raptor as Delbert called it, made a long slow semicircle, Sam realized the pilot’s intentions.