Typhoon of Steel

by Marshall Miller

  “Well, Big Guy or Gal upstairs, it’s in your hands now. Though I would really appreciate some help with this. Thanks. Amen.

  CHAPTER 9

  SALINA, KANSAS

  While Torbin and Abigail had been meeting with General Reed, John Talbot, Kraken Invasion Force Commander, was cursing up a storm. Ever since the Abrams had hit the tiger pit, things had gotten worse.

  Somehow, they had found a ladder to help get the bruised and shaken (but still alive) tank crew out of the pit. The Abrams sat at the bottom of the pit, the engine compartment flooded with icy water. When it had slammed into the far wall of the pit, the 120mm gun barrel had become jammed with semi-frozen dirt and muck. Even if it were removed from the pit, it would take a long time to bring the tank back to operational status. But Talbot had located the heavy duty tow vehicles needed to pull it from the pit, once they knocked down the near end to form a ramp.

  Then the sniping began.

  It appeared that it might be the same sniper who had set off the charges on the overpass, or at least the same caliber of weapon. One Kraken with some military experience said it sounded like a Barrett 50 caliber. Whoever was behind it, he (or she) was deadly. The first casualty was a Kraken with engine maintenance experience who was climbing back up the ladder after examining the tank’s turbine for any serious damage past the water immersion. Just as the man reached the top of the ladder and began to climb onto the side of the pit, he was blasted in half. Due to the size and velocity of the 50 Caliber round, a body hit with it was often blown into pieces. Death was instantaneous.

  Talbot had again tried prophylactic fire with a machine gun, using plunging fire in the direction from which the shot seemed to come. The sniper must have been set up well out of range of the 30 Caliber as ten minutes later, as one of the tow trucks drove up to stand by the tiger pit, a round through the driver’s side window redistributed the driver’s upper torso and its contained blood all over the exterior of the cab. It took an hour for Talbot to get someone to clean the mess out of the truck so they could move it.

  Talbot called for a Bradley to move up near the tiger pit. He had the vehicle commander fire a burst of 25mm toward the area the shot had apparently came from. Nothing. Maybe the sniper was scared away. No such luck. A SLAP depleted uranium round slammed into the barrel of the Bradley’s chain gun. During World War II, both the Germans and the Russians had quickly learned that if you were fighting a tank with a lot more armor than your tank gun can handle, you shoot and wreck the tank’s main armament barrel. Then they have to ram you to do any real damage until they get their gun fixed. This concept and the SLAP round worked perfectly, smashing and piercing the barrel a foot out from the turret mantle.

  Talbot screamed in anger. He called for patrols to swing out wide a mile or so out from the flanks of the lager and protective circle he had set up around the tiger pit. Then he called for his limited mortars to be brought up, and had them start throwing random rounds out beyond the perimeter. The patrols soon started taking fire from forward ,ilitia skirmishers, and ran into booby traps.

  The Chinese rockets began next.

  An odd screaming sound, and then large black powder rockets began exploding in and around his perimeter. Many of the five inch rockets’ warheads had been wrapped in nails and ball bearings thanks to strips of ubiquitous duct tape. Everyone went to ground, jumped into or behind armored vehicles. Then the barrage of some two dozen rockets stopped, and the screams of the wounded and dying began.

  A more rational man would have moved on, abandoning the tank in the pit. However, Talbot was now in a rage. He screamed for and received several cattle trucks brought up and used their metal sided trailers to encircle the pit. He ordered men and women to start knocking down the rear of the tiger pit, to form a ramp in order to tow the tank up and out of the pit. Everyone around the tiger pit and up and down the invasion column were then pelted by a front of ice rain for a quarter of an hour, bringing almost everything to a halt.

  This just was not Talbot’s day.

  CHAPTER 10

  WYOMING/IDAHO BORDER

  NORTH OF EVANSTON, WYOMING

  At Malmstrom, Aleks had made sure all his gear was ready to go. All Torbin had to do was pick up a Designated Marksman/Sniper .308 rifle that Pappy Gun had set up for him. Built on the AR-15 design, Torbin had just sighted it in the day before. For once, the Gods of Combat were smiling on him. Aleks kissed him and gave him a big hug.

  “If you get hurt, I’ll kick your ass, husband.”

  “Perish the thought, dearest. Pass this hug to our sons, tell him their father has gone a-soldiering.”

  She looked at him with moist eyes. “You had goddamn better come back to me. That’s an order.”

  He kissed her one last time. “Yes, Ma’am.” He then grabbed his gear and left for the chopper pad.

  Abigail had been able to leave a voicemail for Ichiro as he was on alert in a Japanese F-15. At the end of it, she’d used the “love” word, something that still made her blush. She knew that what she was about to do was far from safe, and the thought of not being able to see Ichiro again was not exactly something she wanted to consider.

  At the chopper pad, both Torbin and Abigail put on personalized Ghillie suits. There was a lot of snow on the ground so the suits were a montage of white and some pine green patches to fit in with the twisted and lodgepole pines, as well as other shorter bushes of the high plains and foothills to the Rockies. In a lot of areas, because man had moved out, forests and brush were making a big comeback. As they were loading their equipment, doing a quick function check, a figure approached.

  “Excuse me, my good friends,” Senior Instructor Stalin called out.

  Torbin laughed. “Come to stow away on the chopper with us?”

  “No, Major. I have something for each if you.” The granite bodied Russian walked up and handed each a fairly large bladed weapon.

  “Here. A Spetsnaz survival knife, or machete. It’s been called and used as both. Not to replace your Ka-Bar, Major. Just to supplement it.”

  Torbin hefted it. “Yeah, I’ve played with one before. Built like the proverbial brick craphouse.”

  Abigail took the one Stalin had handled her, and hefted it as well. She smiled. “I like this. Looks like it could chop through anything. Thank you, Comrade Stalin.”

  “Only the best for My Lady of Cold Steel.”

  Abigail looked at him, a fondness in her eyes. He had become like a crotchety uncle to her during training, always grumping at people, telling them how they screwed up. But his toughness helped to make others tough, and he was just as quick to acknowledge a job well done.

  “May I give you a hug, uncle?” she asked in Russian.

  A small smile formed on his lips. “Just this once, Captain. I cannot be accused of favoritism, or of being soft.”

  She hugged him firmly, resulting in a small grunt from him. She let him go.

  “You must tell me the secret of your iron strength, Captain. You always surprise me, being so strong.”

  Abigail grinned. “You mean strong for a woman. Just let this be a lesson to you that looks can be deceiving, Comrade Stalin.”

  With this, Stalin snapped to attention and saluted the two. “Godspeed, comrades. And return safe. Breaking in two more American trainers would be rough.” As usual, Stalin acted like he was the originator of everything. Torbin saluted back, grinning.

  “I will be sure to make it back so as not to burden you, Senior Training Instructor Stalin. Now, it’s time to go. Vaya con Dios. See you when we get back.”

  Some two hours later, and they were set down outside of Evanston. A former Customs and Border Protection Blackhawk helicopter inserted Torbin, Abigail and Fuzz onto the same flat field that Torbin had used for the Medevac copter months ago. The area around Evanston had just began to be repopulated last month. Eaterville still made all but the toughest locals nervous. And now this. By using the field, they did not have to fast rope down with Fuzz, though he
had seen Abigail do it. How she handled a dog that actually outweighed her and fast roped down with him was a mystery. Dynamite apparently came in medium sized packages also. They were down and moving north in sixty seconds. Abigail had been issued one of Pappy Gun’s 3D printer assault rifles just the other day as part of an ongoing test as to its stamina and toughness. She had sighted it in, practiced a bit with it. She would always prefer her lever action Marlin .44 Magnum rifle, but in the combat zone she was going into, she needed the added firepower of an automatic weapon.

  They had been moving for about five minutes when they heard faraway shots and what sounded like screams in the direction they were traveling. Almost immediately, they heard more shots and some screams one hundred and twenty degrees from the first sounds.

  “Fuck!” Torbin exclaimed in a low voice. “Of course we have to have two things at once. Well, we’ll hit this one first…”

  “No, Torbin we can’t.”

  “What? We can’t be in two places at once. It’s called triage. We do what we can.”

  “There are civilians, probably children in both places, being attacked, hurt. We have to hit both.”

  “Yeah, like I’m going to let you go by yourself, split up. Aleks will kill me…”

  “I am not alone. Sergeant Fuzz is with me. You’re the one who will be alone. And with him in the lead, scouting, I can move faster.”

  Torbin paused for a moment, seeing the determination in her eyes. She had a point. The thought of allowing some children to suffer the depravations that Krakens would visit on them made his blood boil. Plus he was used to working, doing by himself. Push comes to shove, he could snipe at any enemy until the promised militia showed up. Fuzz was also good at protecting people in his own right.

  “Okay, no time to argue. I’ll head back this way, you continue on. Stay frosty, little sister. Aleks will not like it if you get hurt.”

  Abigail smiled. “And you the same, big brother. Don’t get carried away. You may be a Marine, but you are still just one Marine.”

  Tobin looked at Fuzz. “You stay frosty also, Sergeant.”

  Fuzz looked back at Torbin as if to say, “Is there another way?”

  With that, they each headed in their own direction, toward their separate near futures.

  CHAPTER 11

  SALINA, KANSAS

  Benjamin Black used his Barrett’s powerful scope to survey the activity around the tiger pit. He had hunkered down under the shelter half he carried, keeping his weapon and Ghillie suit as dry as possible from the short freezing rain. With that past, he was out again, looking for targets. To say he was in a ‘target rich environment’ was an understatement, especially when you had a Barrett 50 Caliber. In the hands of a shooter like Sergeant Black, one could blow people apart at a mile away with little difficulty.

  Sergeant Black scanned the area, then saw a clump of people standing by a tow truck in a gap between the covering cattle trucks near the edge of the pit. There was one larger Kraken talking with what appeared to be authority. Good. An Officer, NCO, or a head mofo who’s in charge. Time to get back in the game. “Eenie meenie miney mo,” Sgt. Black said softly to himself. “Shoot a Kraken in the…toe.”

  The Barrett spoke with authority, the Kraken exploding into pieces in front of the people he was talking to, the sound of the weapons report catching up to the down range effect. Spattered with pieces of now just meat and flesh, the Krakens that had been standing together opened their mouths in screams and cries, and jumped back. One female fell backward into the tiger pit.

  “Nice. Time to move, Ben,” the sniper said to himself. They had tried to hit him with chain gun and mortar fire so far, but had missed. He was not going to give them an easy shot.

  CHAPTER 12

  NORTH OF EVANSTON, WYOMING

  The woman huddled with her two children, as the two Krakens finished stripping the bodies of the other man and woman with whom she had been fleeing.

  “Mommy, they hurt Daddy,” her little girl cried.

  “Shut that little shit up, bitch,” growled the smaller of the two Kraken males. “Can’t stand my food whining.” That set off a spate of laughter between the two hardcore Krakens, their faces covered by an entire tattoo of a Kraken octopus, marking them as the truest of True Believers.

  “Yeah, maybe we can cut off a small snack before we leave here.” The larger Kraken opined.

  The woman cast around with wild eyes for a weapon, some help. She would fight to the death for her two children. And death was near.

  “Yeah, they do look like sweet meat. Especially that little gir…” The Kraken never finished his thought as a brown colored blur slammed into him, steel jaws on his throat stopping further speech. Another part of the nearby foliage came to life as the second Kraken had his throat slashed out by a Spetsnaz survival machete. Blood spurted as the poor excuse for a human being toppled over. Both Squid-lovers died choking on their own blood.

  Abigail spat on the body of the one she had killed. “The wages of sin are death.” She turned to the woman and her two children, pulled back her head and face covering.

  “Are you hurt?”

  “Not yet. Not physically,” the mother answered.

  The little boy, the older of the two by a year but still only six years of age, looked at Fuzz in wide-eyed amazement.

  “Look, Mommy. It’s Sergeant Fuzz, from the television.”

  Recognition suddenly flooded his mother’s face. “My God. That means under all that stuff, you’re Abigail Young. You really do exist!”

  Abigail gave a little smile. “Guilty as charged. But we need to get moving. There are bound to be others…” Just as she said the words, someone whistled in the distance, as if looking for an answering sound.

  “Quick, we have to get moving.” Abigail retrieved the assault rifle from one of the dead Krakens. “Do you know how to use this?”

  “Yes, Ma’am.”

  “Good. Start moving that way…”

  Another whistle sounded, from a different angle.

  “Mommy, I’m scared,” the five year old girl said.

  Abigail removed her Ghillie head and face covering completely, handing it to her.

  “Here. This will help you hide, and give you good luck. But you can’t be afraid, can’t cry. Okay?”

  The little girl nodded, and took the offered head covering.

  “Okay. I’m going to stay here, to try to intercept, and draw the two groups to me. You follow Sergeant Fuzz out. There are some militia members headed this way, hopefully you’ll run into them. Got it?”

  “Got it,” the mother said.

  “Fuzz,” Abigail said in Romanian. “Lead, scout, protect.” She pointed to what looked like an animal trail to follow.

  Fuzz began to whine, as if to say, “Not without you.”

  “Fuzz, now. Lead, scout, protect.” With a final small whine, he began to go up the trail.

  “Go, Ma’am. Now.”

  The mother looked at Abigail as she moved. “You be careful.”

  “That’s my middle name.”

  As the three humans followed Fuzz, Abigail moved a few yards toward the location of the first whistle, then slipped back into the brush and shadows. She figured out a quick bug out route from her location, took a deep calming breath, and then crouched a bit. The wait began.

  Torbin, on his own, had not made as good as time as Abigail. However, he traveled a shorter distance when he heard voices. One of them sounded as if the person was in pain. Torbin slipped in behind the two people he saw in a small clearing in the brush and trees. Two militia members by their uniforms, a woman and a wounded man. He carefully approached them, removed his Ghillie face and head covering.

  “Friendly, don’t shoot,” Torbin said in a calm, low voice. The woman, a Sergeant, jerked around, grabbing for her rifle.

  “Whoa. Sergeant. Major Torbin Bender. Supposed to meet you militia, get civilians out.”

  The man lying injured on the ground spoke. “
Helen, it’s okay. The Hero of Key West.”

  The female Sergeant lowered her weapon, still visibly upset. She started rapidly spilling her story. “Sergeant Troy, Sir. Everything is fucked. We had a group of civvies, got ambushed. Only Sergeant Puller and I made it out. They killed the rest of my team, grabbed the civvies. We’re fucked. Can’t do anything, need to fix up Chaz here, need to get the civvies away from…” Her chin began to quiver so much she could no longer talk. Torbin walked up to her, put his face a few inches from hers.

  “Sergeant. Are you with me?”

  “S-S-Sir?”

  “I said, are you with me? ‘Cause I need you. Now. You can breakdown later. It is not an option right now. Do you understand, Sergeant?” He locked her eyes with his, his voice low, firm, unwavering.

  Sergeant Troy suddenly stopped quivering. She straightened up, looked back.

  “Yes Sir. Sorry Sir.”

  “Good. Cover my butt while I examine the good Sergeant Puller here.”

  The man called Chaz coughed out “That’s Gunny. Not some ex-army puke. Semper Fi.”

  Torbin smiled. “Semper Fi right back. Let me look at you.”

  He did not look good. He was leaking a lot of red stuff that his body needed. Torbin grabbed his first aid bandages, plugged the leaks as best he could. Then he heard the scream. Loud, chilling, several hundred yards away in the trees.

  Chaz coughed, spoke. “Fucking forget me. Get the women and kids. That’s who they have. Just get me my rifle.”

  Torbin looked into the eyes of the seriously wounded man. He saw what was once called old corp steel. Seeing that, he made a quick decision. He reached over, retrieved the man’s rifle, did a function check.