by Nathan Jones
Of course if the idiot was inviting limitless refugees it seemed there were limits to his smart planning, although it certainly meant he'd need every square foot of the extra space his foresight had provided.
With the new arrivals seen to Robert was happy to let Matt drag him aside, out of earshot of everyone. Which was probably a good thing considering Matt's mood. “You're taking all comers?” he hissed. “Are you insane?”
The carpenter gave him a sheepish look. “Look, I get you're irritated that they found their way to you and not to us. I'm sorry about the mixup, and especially for not giving you a heads up about my plans.”
“Oh, we'll definitely get to that,” Matt snapped. “But first . . .” He pointed at the longhouse Randy and the others had disappeared into. “Why are you doing this? You've got to know Aspen Hill's had issues with refugees almost from the first. You were there for probably some of the worst of it, with Rogers and the men he sent our way.”
“It's not like that,” Robert insisted. “I've already made a deal with Lassiter's administration. They're giving us food for all the refugees we take in, and throwing in a bit for us as well. It's a temporary thing, one to three months depending on circumstances, but it's enough to get these people started providing for themselves in a new community, which is what the new President desperately wants.”
Matt listened in growing disbelief. “How the blazes does that seem like a good idea to you?” he demanded. “That food will barely get you through the summer, and then what do you do when the second nuclear winter rolls in?”
“Now that we've got trade opportunities with Mexico food isn't a worry,” Robert replied, although he didn't look quite as confident as he had.
Matt snorted. “You don't have trade opportunities,” he pointed out. “You don't have anything to trade or a vehicle to trade with.”
Robert hunched his shoulders defensively. “I'm working on that. The vehicle's only a problem of scavenging parts and finding a good mechanic. As for trade goods, I'm going to get all these newcomers settled into useful work; even if they have no useful skills they can still do manual labor. I'll train people in making furniture, Hailey will get them making cloth, and we'll scavenge everything of value for ten miles. Soon enough we'll have more to trade than you.”
So that was the man's plan. It wasn't a terrible one, but it wasn't a great one either for multiple reasons.
“You're obviously on the radio,” Matt said. “Haven't you heard about the warehouses they've been finding in the nearby cities and surrounding areas? The blockheads didn't have time to destroy everything, and rioters weren't interested in anything but food or obvious valuables. Scavengers are finding truckloads of furniture, clothes, and other stuff still in its packaging, mostly in pristine shape even after a couple years. You think the small handful of tools you've got to make junk furniture out of softwood and homemade textiles is going to compete with that?”
For a moment Robert teetered between deep hurt and cold anger. Finally the hurt won out. “Why are you being like this?” he asked quietly. “I mean, I get you resent that we chose to leave new Aspen Hill and make a start somewhere else, but I thought you supported us.”
The words hit Matt like a blow, and he blinked and visibly checked himself. “I-I didn't mean to be quite that harsh,” he admitted. “I guess I'm a bit annoyed that you made this decision without even talking to us, using Aspen Hill's name.”
“We're Aspen Hill, too,” Robert pointed out sharply.
“You are. But you have to admit that after Lassiter's visit, when people think Aspen Hill they're not going to be thinking of you. They're going to be thinking of the rosy picture he painted of our town, absent all the struggles we've been through. So when you invite them to come live in Aspen Hill with you, you may be giving them false expectations.”
It was the man's turn to pause in surprise. “I . . . didn't think of that.”
Matt smiled wryly. “Which is another reason it might've been smart to talk to us beforehand.”
The carpenter threw up his hands, although he was smiling in goodnatured defeat. “All right, all right! I get it.” He sobered. “Do you really think taking in all these refugees is a bad idea?” He pointed at the longhouses. “We've got the space, and we can build more. We've got food for the present and a plan for the future. We're offering these people a hand up, not just a hand out.”
It was tempting to go with his knee jerk response, but Matt seriously considered it. “The refugees we invited into Aspen Hill so far have mostly worked out,” he finally said. “But we were very careful and selective when we had a choice, and when we didn't it was a painful process that wasn't all happy endings. Did you know my family was attacked by some of Ben's people the town took in, the first winter after the Gulf burned?”
Robert blinked. “I had no idea. What happened?”
“We were living in a defensible place and were able to hold them off until the defenders arrived. It didn't turn out so well for them, though.” Matt rested a hand on the man's shoulder. “I'm not trying to be all doom and gloom. The government's willing to help you out, which counts for something. If you have a plan for these people, and you're careful, and you make sure they know what they're getting into and that they'll be expected to pull their own weight, it might work out for the best.”
“Thanks.” Robert gave him a sincere smile. “I'd appreciate your input, and advice from the rest of the leaders in new Aspen Hill. You've got a lot of experience I don't have, and you know I respect you.”
Matt was happy to offer advice, although he was going to have to be firm in insisting that his town wouldn't bail Robert's out if this situation got out of control. They may have both been Aspen Hill in name, but the man hadn't asked new Aspen Hill if they wanted to be responsible for his mistakes, and Matt wasn't going to let Robert shove that responsibility on them after the fact.
“If you'll accept some advice right now, let me suggest you start out taking in a few refugees at a time. A trickle rather than a flood. That way if the situation does start spiraling out of control it'll do so slowly enough that you have time to find a solution and turn it around. Hopefully.”
“Got it.” Robert hesitated. “Although I did, um, offer to take in all comers. Going on Aspen Hill's reputation that may be a lot.”
Matt resisted the urge to rub between his eyes. “You've probably figured out by now that leading a town is a lot of work. I hope you're ready to really be swamped.”
The carpenter nodded glumly, as if finally willing to accept the possibility that he might've made a mistake with his open invitation. “Yeah.” Straightening his shoulders, he glanced over at the longhouse Randy and the others had disappeared into. “Speaking of which, I should get going. Thanks for giving these people a ride down, Matt, and for the advice.”
Before Robert could leave Matt called after him. “I'll talk to the town leaders about helping new refugees make their way down to you if they show up in the valley. And we'll also discuss ways we can put your people to work if the town has any large projects. Logging especially seems like good paid labor. The two Aspen Hills can find ways to help each other out.”
The carpenter paused. “I appreciate that.”
“Then if you'd return the favor, from now on when you're talking to people over the radio be sure they know they're going to the new old Aspen Hill down in the valley, and have directions for getting here. You owe it to them as much as us to make sure they're clear on the situation.”
Matt spent a little more time in the town, talking to people and finding out how things were going and what everyone's plans were. His departure was amicable, although as he drove back up to new Aspen Hill he couldn't help but feel a bit of foreboding.
This situation with Robert served as a reminder that Aspen Hill had been folded back into a United States that was home to hundreds of thousands of refugees and others barely managing to survive day by day. It was hard not to feel that as a crushing weight, one that
might flatten his town no matter how well Aspen Hill did, if things didn't stabilize as everyone hoped.
He decided the first thing he'd do when he got back was find Lewis and seriously discuss ways to produce trade goods. Important as paperwork ostensibly was, it was also a cloud of gnats distracting him from very real issues the town still faced and that needed to be addressed sooner rather than later.
Chapter Six
Incoming
“Incoming!” Branson roared. “From the southwest!”
Cursing, Pete rolled out of his sleeping bag and dove for his foxhole, grabbing his body armor and helmet as he went. From experience he didn't try to put them on, just piled the flak jacket on top of him and pulled the helmet over his head as he huddled in the almost six inches of cold, muddy water at the bottom of the deep hole, ignoring how it soaked into his clothes. Last of all he clapped his hands over his ears.
A moment later he heard the shrill whistle of an incoming shell, quickly followed by the roar of an explosion. Through the muffling his hands provided Pete listened for screams to join the other ruckus of the shelling, but thankfully this time there were none.
Epsilon Squad hadn't always been so lucky. During the first attack, before they even knew what was going on, Griggs's arm had been blown clean off by a nearby explosion. They'd found their squad mate sprawled in a pool of his own blood, laughing hysterically at the sight of the spurting stump. He'd mercifully passed out as they moved him to triage, then back to Camp Pearson for real treatment.
They hadn't seen him since, although word got back to them that he was recovering as well as could be expected.
And Jerry, the poor unlucky SOB, had dug himself a nice foxhole, complete with cover on all sides to block shrapnel from any hits that were practically on top of him. Only to lose Murphy's lottery and have a one-in-a-million shell fall directly into his hole.
Considering how little was left of their fellow soldier afterwards, they'd opted to fill the hole in and mark it as his grave rather than try to retrieve his remains. Needless to say, after that even the deepest hole didn't feel like enough. And on the land between the Mississippi and Missouri rivers, “deepest” turned out to not be all that deep before the foxhole became a well.
Pete found it hard to believe it had only been 16 days since they mounted their attack to take this stupid spit of land, and even more incredibly only 6 since the blockheads brought in artillery. Being shelled at random, day and night, was a nightmare that made every day into an eternity.
At first the assault had gone every bit as well as Captain Simard had anticipated. Two full companies of battle-hardened veterans, crossing the Mississippi in stealth the night of May 26th, their advance units picking off patrols and sentries using night vision. Then with the dawn, sun at their backs, they roared into the few emplacements the blockheads had set up and overwhelmed them, then kept going to push as far as they could.
They'd managed to go for miles before the CCZ mounted any sort of defense. And then all the enemy managed was to flood the area ahead of the attacking companies with soldiers toting AK-47s and big machine guns, hunkered behind hastily dug fortifications.
After a brief powwow with their officers Captains Simard and Tremblay agreed they could afford to push those slipshod defenses. They might not manage to break through, and anyways they'd almost reached the point where the spit of land widened out and it would be much harder to defend, so they didn't particularly want to take much more territory.
But while the enemy was scrambling like this, before they managed to dig in, was the perfect time to rack up a body count. And more importantly, keeping the enemy pinned in that location would allow the specialists of the 51st and 103rd plenty of space to prepare their own fortifications a modest distance back from the enemy's.
So Pete had joined his fellow soldiers storming emplacements defended by automatic weapons, coming from multiple angles and using all the explosives they had available to soften their targets.
It was a bloody day, and while they'd definitely caused far more casualties to the unprepared enemy their two companies had suffered as well. But by the time they pulled back behind the lines of carefully raised earthworks and sandbags, mounting their heavy weapons on the prepared emplacements, there was no denying that the Chainbreakers and soldiers of the 51st had definitely won a victory.
More than that, by their scouts' best estimates the CCZ had sent over a thousand soldiers to stop their assault. That left the border open wide for a hundred miles to the north and south, and the Canadian military and US support troops took full advantage of it by mounting another round of raids, almost as vicious and effective as the very first ones they'd done after the trade summit convoys were attacked. Back when they'd been able to catch the blockheads by surprise.
The following days had been trying, no argument. The blockheads had tried numerous times to attack along the new front, and when those attacks failed they tried sending soldiers along the south side of the Missouri to cross and attack the two embattled companies from behind. Since Simard had been expecting just this tactic, and the spit of land was so narrow and easily defensible, the 51st and 103rd had no trouble throwing these attacks back, either.
Still, while each individual attack counted as a victory they took their toll: outnumbered and constantly harried, the two companies were being stretched ragged. It wasn't yet to the point where Simard considered it necessary to call for reinforcements, since those reinforcements were currently having so much success raiding and they didn't want to cut that short, but they all knew they couldn't keep going like this indefinitely.
Then the attacks had stopped, and Pete allowed himself to hope that the CCZ had given up and was letting them have this stupid spit of soggy land that really wasn't worth fighting over.
A day later the shelling began.
Pete had to admit that he hadn't even considered the possibility. From the perspective of infantry troops and vehicles the two large rivers to the north and south were ideal barriers, and made the land between almost pathetically easy to hold. Unfortunately if an enemy happened to plant artillery on the other side of one of those barriers, specifically along the south side of the Missouri River, then they could blow everyone on that narrow spit of land to smithereens, and their soldiers could easily gun down anyone who tried to cross the river to get at them.
The wide river that had been a major advantage for the 103rd and 51st suddenly became a critical liability, trapping them in with nowhere to go and no way to strike back.
Of course why should Pete have seen the possibility? The US and Canadian militaries had long since run through most of the ammunition for their heavy weaponry, and were saving what remained to use when they could really change the tide of a major battle. Pete wasn't the only one who naturally assumed the enemy was running into the same problem.
Obviously they weren't, if they could afford a prolonged shelling of two companies staging what was ultimately a fairly minor offensive. Who knew, maybe they'd managed to get one or more of the United States' munitions factories in their territory operational and were pumping out explosives by the ton. The US and Canada were both desperately trying to do the same, although were months if not longer away from any sort of results.
Either way it didn't matter if the enemy was making munitions, had saved a larger stockpile than anyone thought, had braved the irradiated wastelands of their home countries for anything that remained there, or were desperately wasting everything they had left. Whatever the reason, they had artillery and were using it to batter the 51st and 103rd.
Pete wondered if Simard, in all his wisdom, had also failed to anticipate this possibility.
So here they were, effectively target practice for enemy gunners. At the very least the blockheads faced the same problem militaries had in World War I, that being that even if they shelled the enemy's defensive emplacements and then immediately mounted an attack on them, the fact that the defending side had automatic weapons meant tha
t they could hunker in foxholes and trenches until the shelling stopped, then pop up and mow down their attackers with a hail of bullets before they even got close.
Of course, it was only a matter of time before the embattled 51st and 103rd ran out of supplies and ammunition, and the enemy could just walk over them. Or until the blockheads managed to scrape enough troops together to attack from the front, across the Missouri from the south, or possibly even over the Mississippi from the north if Canada didn't guard the border there properly, overwhelming them with sheer numbers.
Pete could only hope that someone in charge decided to send them help long before that happened. Preferably sooner rather than later.
As it turned out his wish came partly true, although not in the way he would've expected. The shelling finally ended, and after several minutes when the shaken soldiers of Epsilon Squad finally decided it was safe and crawled out of their foxholes to dry out and return to their sleeping bags, to get whatever rest they could before the next bombardment.
Which was when Sergeant Branson called everyone over. “I hope you enjoyed what sleep you got, people,” he said as Pete joined the others gathering around him. “It's the last you'll get tonight . . . we've got new orders.”
The news was met with a chorus of groans. Pete wondered which misbegotten emplacement they were being reassigned to man, to relieve the unlucky blighters there who probably desperately needed a break.
Branson chuckled. “Relax, this is good news. We're finally getting resupply.” The groans stopped immediately and everyone perked up at that. “Word is that the 102nd rolled into Fort Pearson today protecting a convoy full of goodies for us.”
“They're going to be bringing it over?” Pete blurted. “And reinforcing us?” Another company of fresh soldiers would be a huge relief to everyone.