Within the first 10 seconds of this battle over half of the Sons in the convoy were dead or bleeding out. As most of those who still lived predictably ran around to the west side of their vehicles for cover, Tak pulled the pin on an incendiary grenade and threw it on the road 20 feet in front of him. Had the convoy been driving slower and paying more attention they might have noticed that the pavement on the west side of the road for about 50 yards north of where the downed tree fell was wet and covered in white powder. The officers had poured the contents of all 50 white phosphorus grenades on that side of the road and covered it in gasoline, preparing for this moment when the Sons sought cover on the driver’s sides of their trucks. Each truck except the last two in the convoy had stopped right where the trap had been laid. As the flames of his incendiary grenade touched the gasoline and phosphorus, hell erupted straight up out of the road. Flames shot over 10 feet high and quickly spread from south to north, engulfing the western side of the explosive covered road where each of the trapped vehicles sat, stopping just short of what had now become the last truck in the convoy. The raiders on the west side of their trucks screamed as jets of hot flames incinerated the flesh from their bodies. At that moment Lewis laid into the flaming and panicking raiders with his machine gun from his firing position to the south. He had a perfect in front of him to fire on the men caught in the firestorm. After sitting the expended AT-4 weapons system down Sergeant Allen aimed in with his M-16 A2 rifle and began firing to the south. Tak joined in with his rifle, firing north, next to Lewis. They had made sure that Tak and Lewis’ position were well west of Sergeant Allen’s so that wouldn’t be in the background of each other’s bullets as they each fired towards the convoy.
Between the horrible fire, Lewis’ and Tak’s gunfire to the south that covered the passenger sides of the trucks and the officers in the tree line to the east, the Sons were unable to find reprieve from the death that befell them on all sides. Displaying the results of proper training, each officer would yell “RELOADING” when their current magazine or box of ammo went empty and “GUN UP” when they were firing again, so that someone could constantly be firing in the direction of their targets while someone else was changing a mag. A man from the 5th truck made a run for it to the west, but he was cut down by Lewis’ merciless fully automatic onslaught.
As soon as the tree had fallen behind the lead vehicle, its driver slammed on the brakes and slid to a stop. Gunner, having seen the officer to his right sawing the tree down, lept out of the truck and ran directly towards him; his shotgun already in hand. Hoyt tossed his chainsaw down and went to draw his service pistol, but it was too late. At just 10 feet away gunner blasted his sawed off shotgun; which made Hoyt’s head look like a pumpkin exploding. Seeing and hearing the chaos behind them, Gunner ran back and jumped in the truck as he yelled at the driver “GO GO GO, GET THE HELL OUT OF HERE!” The driver floored it and sped away as they escaped the ambush.
Inside the bed of the 5th truck in the convoy, two of the Sons still lived as they used the bodies of two of their dead companions as shields on their eastern sides. One of those Sons was a disgruntled Army combat veteran named Brier, and he was staying cooler under fire than most of the raiders. He had just witnessed two Sons jump out of his vehicle and get mowed down about 15 feet to their west. A plan came to him. As the bullets flew he yelled to the other living Son in the back of the truck with him “Hey, Murphy; listen up! When I say now you are gonna pop up and shoot on our left side towards that tree line. I am going to jump out and take cover behind that body to our west and take out the ones in front of us. Once I take them out we might be able to escape to the west! Aim carefully or you won’t hit a damn thing! Take your time and get them in your sites or you’ll be dead in no time! You got that?! Answer me dammit; DO YOU UNDERSTAND?!” Murphy said and nodded that he understood. Briar yelled “NOW” and jumped up over the driver’s side of the bed of their truck and sprinted for less than two seconds to the nearest dead Son, lying just north of where the flaming section of the road ended. He propped up on the chest of the dead man and took careful aim in Tak and Lewis’ direction to their south. At the same time Murphy had popped up and begun firing towards the officers along the eastern tree line.
The sandbag reinforced firing positions provided cover for the officers to shoot and look out of a window that was about six inches tall by six inches wide. For them to be hit a round would have to go directly through that small space. Aiming in from about 50 yards to the 5th truck, even with no scope and iron sights; is a simply shot to make if one aims carefully first and can fire without taking a bullet himself. When the officers saw the Son on the driver’s side of the 5th truck start firing in their direction, Naff immediately began to direct his fire towards him. Botha and Stotlar continued to pick off any targets they could see that remained of the convoy in front of them; which were becoming few and far between. PFC Wright had turned his machine gun to his left, firing on the Sons who had been thrown out of the bed of the 2nd truck. Murphy aimed towards the gunfire he saw coming from the east, but he didn’t follow Briar’s directions and aim in properly. He began firing in that general direction in a panic, never hitting closer than five feet to any of the sandbags. As Naff walked his stream of automatic fire over towards him, Murphy suddenly took two rounds through his face; splattering Briar with blood and brains. Briar didn’t seem to notice as he stayed focused and aimed in on the small square shape that he recognized to be a peephole in the sandbag wall that the officer with a machine gun was firing through to the south. He focused on his front sight as he lined up the rear sights with it and his target for proper sight alignment and picture. He was one of the few Sons with proper firearms training and experience in actual combat. He held his breath and squeezed the trigger… The firing pin of his Kalashnikov assault rifle struck the primer of his 7.62 by 39 millimeter round, sending its lead projectile down range towards its now inevitable impact location. It was on a direct course to penetrate almost dead center through Lewis’ small sandbag window; where he head sat aimed in behind his SAW.
A few seconds earlier Tak had been searching for any Son that went to the west side of the vehicles seeking cover from his three officers on the eastern side of their trucks, and he had seen saw Briar pop up over side of the last truck and run to the cover of a dead body. He could see this man start to aim in his direction carefully while taking his time, which concerned him because he knew it wasn’t a hard shot to make by a good marksman. The moment Briar aimed in, Tak also aimed in at him… and he focused intently. As he called forth the predator within, time reduced to a crawl all around him. Tak lined up his sites at the top of the man’s forehead, just above the iron sights of Briar’s weapon, and went through the proper steps for firing an accurate shot. Once he had the front and rear sights lined up correctly he reminded himself of “BRASS”; the acronym the Marine Corps had taught him to use for proper trigger control. Breath, Relax, Aim, Stop… Squeeze. Tak inhaled through his nose and exhaled slowly through his mouth. Once his breath left him and he was at the bottom of his breathing cycle, Tak’s began his slow and steady squeeze of the trigger, with the intention that when the primer of his round exploded it would surprise him instead of jerking his trigger and thus his aim off target. Tak’s AR-15 rifle barked and he saw fire erupt slowly out of the three ports on each side of his compensator at the end of the barrel. He saw his round leave the barrel, speeding off towards Briar’s forehead. Just after his round left the barrel and he was about to relax his mind, he saw a flash from the man’s rifle who he was aiming in on, and a round began speeding towards his direction. Tak focused harder than he ever had, and time seemed to slow down for him even more. He saw the two rounds pass by each other about 25 yards away from his current position. Everything in Tak’s world was barely moving, except for those two speeding bullets. While they were greatly slowed, they were still moving quickly according to his perspective. All of his senses suddenly heightened… the smells around him flooded i
n. He could smell the sweat from several distinct raiders and the soap that Lewis had showered with the night before. The smell of the burning gasoline and white phosphorus became stronger than ever. He could hear the rounds of his fellow officers cutting through the air. He could even hear the brass thudding on the soft ground near the men along the eastern tree line, which was some 50 yards from his current position. His mind was processing information at an amazing speed; faster than it ever had. He knew Lewis’ life depended on it. His mind calculated the trajectory and velocity of the incoming round and Tak could see exactly where it was going to impact. It was going to kill Lewis as it punched through the center of his sandbag firing position’s aiming port and his forehead after that.
Tak only had as much time to act as if the round had been a baseball pitch thrown a hundred miles per hour by a pitcher some 25 yards away… a difficult, but not impossible task. He pulled his feet underneath him as he pulled his rifle in and sprung up off of the ground, diving to intercept the speeding round that would hit Lewis, some five feet to his left. He dove directly at him and extended his rifle in his farthest reaching stretch in front of Lewis’ face. As he just barely jutted his rifle in front of it, the round impacted below the ejection port in the hardened steel and disintegrated harmlessly into dozens of pieces.
Tak relaxed his focus and time returned to normal as he landed on Lewis’ right side. Lewis yelled “What are you doing?!”, not understanding at all what had just taken place. Tak didn’t have time to answer since the two surviving Sons who had been ejected from the back of the 2nd truck when it had crashed into the tree had spotted him and Lewis and were running their way. The closest Son - a stocky, balding white man with a teardrop tattoo under his left eye and prison ink covering both arms, charged him with a metal softball bat; intent on crushing his skull. The man just behind him was a heavy set but powerfully built man with a black Mohawk who wore brass knuckles on each fist. They were both obviously hopped up on some kind of drug. Tak rolled off of Lewis and tried to become Hoshoku, but his mind needed a few more seconds of rest before it could kick into high speed again. He stood up just in time for the first man to almost bash his head in with a huge right handed home-run swing. Tak quickly ducked under the strike and then sprung in towards the man, trapping his right hand with both of his own so he couldn’t follow up with a backswing strike. As he did so he circled right and drove into the man so that the other man with the brass knuckles couldn’t attack him at the same time.
Tak remembered the years of training against multiple opponents in his father’s dojo. The basic premise is to always keep one man between the other so that more than one can’t attack you at the same time. If you can move that man and use him as a shield; so be it. If he’s too difficult to move then you move yourself around him with proper footwork… but either way, you need to take him out of the fight quickly. The longer the fight goes on, the better the chances are that the multiple opponents will overwhelm you and win the fight. How do you take the first man out quickly? You don’t slug it out like a boxing match, but instead you attack soft and vital targets like the eyes, nose, throat and groin. Once you’ve disabled the first opponent, it’s a one on one fight and your odds of winning have greatly improved. Tak had spent hundreds of hours fighting 2, 3 and 4 trained opponents at the same time in the dojo throughout his life.
The 2nd man ran up to take a big right handed swing at Tak, but since Tak continued to circle to his right and use the first man as a shield between the two of them, he couldn’t land a punch on the elusive officer. Tak knew he had to take the first man out fast. He released his trapping hands off of the outside of the bat-wielding Son’s arm and shot them up behind the man’s head, jerking his head down as he smashed his own forehead into the center of his face. The raider’s nose exploded with a brutal crunch and he dropped the bat and began to instinctively lean backwards and cover his face with his hands, which left his groin defenseless. Tak followed the headbutt with a hard rear knee to his balls as he stayed latched onto the back of his head, pulling his whole body forward and into the strike. The man’s testicles ruptured from the brutal hit. Now he instinctively buckled forward in agony in response to the strike, as Tak had expected. The big man with the brass knuckles was still trying to hit Tak from around behind his closest opponent, but no matter which way he went Tak just moved and kept the first man constantly between then. As his first opponent leaned forward in response to the groin strike, he hands came off of his face and moved to cover his destroyed groin; leaving his head completely unguarded. As Tak withdrew his right knee after the strike, he stepped forward and to the right at a 45 degree angle and swung his left elbow across his body to make impact with the man’s head. The tip of Tak’s elbow struck the man’s temple with a crack, shattering the thin sphenoid bone there that protects a cluster of sensitive nerves behind it. Tak knew this was a knockout strike, and as the man’s knees buckled and his unconscious body began falling, Tak was already driving him into the big man with the brass knuckles.
Lewis had looked over at the melee and aimed his machine gun in their direction, but he couldn’t get off a shot for fear of hitting Tak. Once the first man dropped, Tak briefly looked over at Lewis and yelled “I got this; keep firing!” Lewis, hesitant to not give Tak help but confident in his hand to hand abilities, aimed back in at the convoy to finish off any Sons who might still be alive. Tak noticed that behind the mohawked raider most of the Sons seemed to be dead, and there wasn’t any fire being returned towards the officers. He could hear Naff, Stotlar, Botha and Wright’s continued gunfire, which had slowed to only a round every few seconds now.
The heavyset man with the Mohawk pushed his comrade’s unconscious body off and let him fall to the ground, as he then stepped over him. He said “You’re a dead man, cop” as he waded in towards Tak. He’d taken out dozens of men in bar fights, and he knew he only needed to land one strike with his brass knuckles to take this little cop out. Tak stood with his hands down at his sides, couldn’t hide a sideways grin as he said “I highly doubt that, tubby.” The big man grew enraged and charged with a huge right haymaker. As his arm pulled back to load up for the powerful swing, he came into range. Seeing the man telegraph his obvious and slow strike, Tak reacted by sprunging directly forward and towards the man in an unexpected direct line attack. His right hand lifted up towards his throat; the side of his hand a speeding missile that the man had no chance to block. The outside edge of Tak’s hand slammed hard into the big man’s voice box, crushing his larynx from front to rear. Tak smoothly stepped to the right and let the charging man’s weight continue to carry him forward, where he collapsed and grabbed his crushed throat with both hands. He tried to gasp for air, but he could not. Tak knew the man would be dead soon, so he walked over to his firing hole and retrieved his rifle as the man choked to death.
When the flames on the road died down to almost nothing, Tak and the men formed a line and walked through the battlefield, putting a bullet in each Son’s head just to be sure. They collected all of the firearms that were in working order, cleared the tree off of the road, collected Hoyt’s body and left. They drove to the National Guard Armory to return the borrowed equipment and soldiers. Once he and Amy were in Major Medina’s office, Tak told him how the ambush on the convoy went down. After taking it all in the Major said “Well Marine, it sounds like you did a hell of a job and most likely saved the lives of many of my soldiers back here at the Armory. While you were gone Martial Law has been enacted nationwide. The National Guard is supposed to be out enforcing a sunset curfew and arresting looters. However, most of the men assigned to this post haven’t shown up today and I can’t even get ahold of them. Likely they are dealing with their own family emergencies and refusing to report in. Right now we have ten soldiers here, including myself. I won’t leave this place unguarded with less than eight men. It sounds like you could use the manpower, so for now I’ll keep Sergeant Allen and PFC Wright assigned to you. That leaves me with jus
t enough men to guard the armory from a small attack, but not to go out patrolling the streets. I’d loan you more if I could. You can go ahead and hold on to the SAW’s for the time being. I’ll have my men swap them out for some clean ones and give you another 5,000 rounds for them. If you would like to use our Armory as your temporary Police Department since yours was destroyed, you are free to do so.”
Tak looked over at Amy as he considered the Major’s offer. “Major, I appreciate the loan of your men and weapons; they will be put to good use. I will consider your offer of relocating our PD here temporarily, but for now we are using my home for that purpose, which is pretty secluded in the country. We have the officer’s families there for safety; which I might suggest you offer the same to the families of your soldiers or you might find some then disappearing on you.” The Major replied “I’m a step ahead of you devil dog… some of their families are already here and more are on the way. They will be in our gymnasium on cots. If you and your men or their families need it we have more than enough room and over a hundred cots and sleeping bags.” Tak nodded his appreciation and said “That’s mighty kind of you Major. Right now were good but I will let you know if we need to take you up on that offer in the future. For now we’re heading out to finish off the rest of the sons, early in the morning when they are sleeping.” The Major stood and shook his hand, “You’re a good man officer Graves. Your father would be proud.” Then he shook Amy’s hand, saying “Mam; you take it easy and get all healed up now.” Amy smiled and thanked him for all of his assistance.
CHAPTER 25: BACK AT THE COMPOUND
HOSHOKU: IN THE APOCALYPSE, A HERO RISES (The Hoshoku Chronicles Book 1) Page 10