Apocalypse 3

by Matt J. Pike

  As I’d seen from way-too close range, both the North Tce and Rundle St trebuchets worked in tandem with the ballista to strike while the iron was hot. They couldn’t see the details I saw. People were mere shadows in the dark when looking at the flares from that range. They had no idea I was still in trouble near the ash sweeper when they started firing. They had no idea they’d flushed a shot onto the driver as he was flailing to douse the non-existent flair fire from his legs and no idea they had inflicted unthinkable damage on the other attacker with a spear, right when I needed it most.

  But they could see enough from the cabin to see the enemy was wrestling to put out the flare there. It was the same on top of the cabin. I had wedged that thing in tight and it must’ve been hot as all hell with the surrounding metal conducting the flare heat. That was Norwood’s current mission – kill the flare light and remove the ash sweeper from our sights once more.

  Trent, Alyce and Trav on rifles had the best view of the action through their scopes. They saw my hit on one of the cabin rescuers and reported it back to Shane and the others. That earned a round of cheers, I’m told.

  Trav even clipped another one before the cabin light was snuffed out once and for all.

  Then Asha managed to skewer the front grill with a spear. Not long after that Mark’s trebuchet team cleaned up the passenger’s side of the windscreen. The bowling ball shattered the entire shape of the framework of the cabin area.

  So, we had two weapons locked on to a direct hit aim when the enemy finally managed to kill off the last of the flares I’d planted. We continued to fire into the darkness, hoping we could disable it completely before they managed to move it away from our strike zone.

  Meanwhile, our enemies were playing their own move. They had numbers on foot headed to all the other flares we’d dotted across no-man’s land. Our rifles were trained on them as best they could, but it was only a matter of time before they’d have the darkness back again.

  *

  That was when I finally managed to get myself back over the wall to safety. I was exhausted and my eyes burned. Even when I looked back and saw the majority of our work had been undone I knew we’d struck a big blow.

  There was still a chance we could disable the ash sweeper before they got it moving again, but even if we couldn’t, we’d inflicted a hell of a lot of pain on it.

  If they did manage to get operational again, it’d be within range and in sight of the naked eye soon enough. That’d give us one final crack at it with the siege weapons before it was too close.

  By the time I’d gotten upstairs, Norwood had managed to deal with the last of our flares. Shane saw me first and smiled. Ye-jun and Kelly went in to reunite in an embrace but they would have to take a back seat while Alyce swooped in front of them and swallowed me in her essence.

  She smothered me in so much love I could barely breathe, but that was OK. She eventually backed away so we could make eye contact, gave me a smile, then backed away a little further so Ye-jun and Kelly could complete their embrace.

  Shane gathered everyone together. He was about to get us using our limited window of time to get prepared for the next phase of defence when...

  *

  Joyce was back on comms - crying. She was trying to keep it all together, but we knew something horrible had happened. Even with everything happening around us out east, and all the instructions and communications Lana had been delivering, well, it all went eerily dead. Everyone near a radio just listened.

  The mission into no-man’s land down south has been a disaster – worst-case scenario game-changing disaster. They’d gone over the top with a few flares each – same as us. They’d used the cover of ash to head far enough into the neutral zone to light up the dark to bring the trebuchets into play.

  Jonesy had no way of keeping contact with them once they were out of sight, but he had every available rifle aimed into the darkness ready to protect Dianne, David and Michael once the flares started firing.

  Then they just waited as the seconds passed. Before a single flare was lit there was a burst of gunfire. Immediately Jonesy feared the worst. There was another long gap before the first flare went off. It was followed a few seconds later by another nearly 100m away. Then came the sound of more gunfire – a

  variety of tones and tempos from different weapons. You’d assume everyone else down south knew what that most likely meant.

  The whole thing was over as quickly as it begun in the dark beyond them. It was followed by silence. Nor more gunfire. No more flares. Just ash and silence.

  Just horrible.

  Then the two lit flares were snuffed out.

  *

  Hearing Joyce report that in over comms was something too hard to fully digest at the time.

  The only thing I could barely let myself think, and certainly couldn’t let myself digest, was the part I had probably played in their deaths. While our plans were good, our comms were delayed. Norwood’s tactical change could only have happened if they knew we were coming. They were able to communicate in the conditions where we weren’t… or they were able to pass along messages faster. Whatever it was, it was a weakness we didn’t think of... all we looked at was our potential upper hand. It had cost three lives. And I was largely responsible.

  Then I remember the Fat Man’s voice coming in through the ash sweeper’s radio while it was swallowed by the ash cloud. I remember the sickening wave of nausea in my gut; it was horrifying.

  I equally remember refocusing – and fast. Maybe it was my way of coping – throwing everything I felt into my efforts to defend ourselves and destroy Norwood. Maybe… I don’t know… it’s just what I did. It worked in the moment and I was soon lost in my part of the battle.

  But that wasn’t a shortcut to avoid the full impact of what that moment meant and what role I played in it. Nor was diving into battle going to shortcut any of the other things I would soon see and face. It’s just what you do when you can’t really do anything, I guess.

  *

  Lana sent Joyce back with instructions to abandon the King William St lookout. It was now significantly unlikely they’d attack that far west now. She also directed them to stay behind the wall and follow the fallback plan as soon as the enemy got close.

  The extra numbers from King William would make up for the loss of Dianne, David and Michael, where it mattered most. It seemed a pretty smart and simple instruction, but I guess you can never be too sure of how straight thinking people are when they’re facing the type of things they were. It was a good call by Lana to spell it out really simply.

  I was ready to jump on comms if she sent Joyce away with any plan that was a potential set-up, given the comms disadvantage I now realised we had. But it wasn’t required and, well, I was too cut by it all to raise it. I know I should’ve mentioned it right there and then, but even saying it would lead everyone to the similar thought process I’d had. Right now I had the weight of contributing to their deaths on my shoulders… I didn’t want the others feeling that if they didn’t have to.

  Who knows, maybe others were thinking it, but no one was saying it. I figured, at the very least, Lana must’ve come to the same conclusion – she was too smart not to. Like me, she’d want to keep that sort of stuff off comms.

  *

  It sounded like a mess down south with no comms to base, to us, or even between the three (soon to be two) lookouts across the front. And with people missing in action in hostile territory and an enemy force closing in on them, well, I could only imagine what was going through their heads at that moment... and I still think about it now.

  Ashleigh’s boys had been ferrying messages between the lookouts. That task now became Jessie’s, with his older brother now on trebuchet duty with his dad. Jonesy also redeployed Johan to give them a hand.

  I just prayed they were all safe until the next update and ready to withdraw the second things got too hot.

  *

  Back where we were, the ballista and the trebuche
ts still fired with the same aim as they’d held on their successful hits. The ballista made a couple of successful hits, as did the trebuchets – all winning shots sending the sound of their success back to us from the night.

  But it wasn’t long before no more hits occurred. It meant either our aim had skewed over time or the ash sweeper was on the move again. Shane called a ceasefire and we watched and waited in the dark.

  There were a number of outcomes from that point, but we prepared for the worst. We knew if they had gotten the ash sweeper up and running again it’d only be a matter of minutes before it started to become visible through the ash fog – but this time they’d be right on our doorstep.

  *

  The wait seemed to take forever.

  Shane gathered everyone from the North Tce and Rundle St lookouts together. It was a pretty big group now that he’d called the extra numbers in – about half our entire population.

  I’ve never experienced anything like it. It was as if we were having some half time coach’s address during the big game. I mean, that’s how he was talking to us. Not in an angry coach way, but in a tone that was part strategy, part motivation and the rest inspiration.

  The strategy involved how we’d handle the next wave. We’d prepare by retargeting the siege weapons for the closer shot – a mix of removing some of the load from the counterweight box and repositioning how far under the throwing arm to place the ammo.

  Should the ash sweeper come into view and still be operating at the same level it was previously, he reckons we’d have 10 minutes tops to line it up with the trebuchets before it was too close for our weaponry to be effective.

  If that happened and we didn’t disable it, we’d have to move to ballista and guns only. Now, we had an entire strategy around phases of defence based on where the enemy was and what they were throwing at us. But it was good to hear it all again right there – in the battle zone right before it happened.

  It turned everything from theory into words.

  Listening was both reassuring and scary. When you thought about all the what-ifs – especially if the enemy were to get right to the wall, it was scary. Some of the things we had lined up for defence, well, they were unpleasant to think about.

  We were also well on top of a fallback plan. If they overpowered us at point 1, we’d fall to point 2 and so on. And once we’d fallen back as far as our defences were designed, well, then we’d run.

  No one wanted to run, but no one wanted to die even more. And if it did come to that, we had everything we needed to fight another day. But, this was all about holding what was ours and I don’t think I can put it any better than Shane did before we broke up to go to our various defensive posts and prepare.

  “This is our moment. This is everything. This is New Adelaide. We built this place from nothing. Now they want to come and take what we have made. From us – the people who saw a future in the ash and saw something when there was nothing. Well, I don’t know about you, but I’m gonna make damn sure that does not happen.”

  >Shane Field, New Adelaide, 2015 (it was worth the attribution)

  He’d worked everyone into a frenzy of positivity by that point. Then he followed up with, “Are you gonna let them take what’s yours?”

  We all yelled “Nooo!”

  Then he asked us the question again and we screamed it louder. By the third time he asked we were screaming at the top of our lungs.

  He waited until the din was just passing its peak and added, “Well, get out there and do something about it!!”

  With that, we roared back to our posts, full of energy, passion and belief. We could’ve taken on any army at the point.

  I returned to the lookout with Alyce on one side and Shane on the other. I gave him one of those looks, the one only us two co-founders will ever understand.

  I kissed Alyce before she headed for her gun and position at the window.

  *

  A minute later, the radios crackled into life as Joyce called through on the other end. They were doing as we were. Blinded by ash fog and just waiting. Lana, Shane and Joyce wished each other’s groups all the best and joked about how good the food and drinks were going to taste tonight. Shane told Joyce to tell Jonesy they would be a scotch waiting for him.

  Then it was over. There was nothing to do but face whatever awaited on the other side of the fog.

  This was it.

  *

  “I think I see something,” said Alyce from her view through the gun’s scope.

  Shane was by her side in an instant, tracking his binoculars across no-man’s land until he hit the same spot. “That’s them.”

  He ran out to the open roof space and shot a flare high into the air over the wall.

  I was already looking into the dark, waiting. It didn’t take long to spy the ash sweeper. Even at this range and in the poor light, you could see the deformed frame... and I was pretty sure I could make out smoke coming from it. I just remember thinking, how the hell is that thing still going?

  Which I was starting to think I said out aloud, before Shane re-entered the lookout and said, “It’s barely alive. A couple of good shots in the right spot and we’ll kill it.”

  I just nodded, then told him I was about to head downstairs to help the trebuchet crews.

  “There’s something else,” said Alyce, before I could reach the stairwell.

  Shane and I bolted for the remaining window space.

  Revealing itself out of the shadowy darkness was the big rig. It dwarfed the ash sweeper and all the external defence handiwork that had been welded onto the side cut a monstrous shape. My heart sunk.

  “Oh shit,” said Alyce and Shane in unison.

  I didn’t think I could add anything meaningful to that, so I didn’t bother. But seeing it there made the memories of that night in Norwood flood back. As frightening as this thing looked from here, I knew it was a whole different level up close.

  Before we had a chance to process this trump card play any further, the sound of audio feedback filled the air. It clunked in and out a couple of times, before a voice rang out – carried over no-man’s land through speakers – it was Fat Man’s.

  “City-dwellers, we thought it was time we came for another visit.”

  Then he let out this little dismissive laugh. Not sure if it was at his attempt at humour, or cool one-liners or at how scared he knew we must’ve been. Either way, I remember hating him even more at that moment – if that was possible.

  “This time,” he continued, “we’ve got more people, more weapons and, as you may have noticed, some new toys. We will destroy you, as we have everyone else. Surrender now... or die.

  “It makes no difference to me – the result will be the same.”

  I looked at Shane and he at me. I nodded to him, then he lifted the radio to his lips. “Open fire!”

  Before the second word had finished coming out of his mouth, I heard the ballista whip a spear into no-man’s land. I don’t know where or what it hit, but it hit something. There was a satisfying and distant rip of metal before the Fat Man screamed, “Attack!”

  “Let’s do this,” said Shane.

  I nodded to him once more and headed downstairs to help with the trebuchets, just as we had planned.

  As I made my way to ground level I heard the trebuchets launch bowling ball payloads at the enemy – separated by about 10 seconds. By the time I’d reached the North Tce trebuchet, Shane was on comms, giving us shot adjustments for both engines.

  I jumped on to help remove objects from the counterweight box until Mark was happy, then I helped his team rotate the weapon counter clockwise to compensate for the failings of the first shot. Once ready, I climbed a section of ash wall that allowed me a line of sight with the target. Once there I signalled Mark to fire.

  I had probably put myself in a pretty risky spot. I was probably a small chance of both a friendly fire accident from a misfired bowling ball and in potential line of an enemy bullet. But it was the onl
y place I could find that would give me eyes-on our shot. The shot sailed into the distance and came down just in front, and to the far side of the ash sweeper.

  *

  While all this was happening, Shane was updating trebuchet leaders with the results of each shot fired. Meanwhile, the enemy’s gunfire seemed to step up. A couple of shots planted into the window frame near Alyce, then a few more. Shane ordered her away from the her perch and told her to relocate to another window further along. She was ordered to fire a couple of shots, then move again, and again.

  In the meantime, Asha sunk a spear into the big rig. She’d taken a big piece out of the defence side panelling they’d added.

  Shane yelled, “Boom! Direct hit!” into the radio, then added. “Keep at ’em. Keep firing!”

  *

  I knew that with the tiniest piece of weight removed, the same shot as our previous one would connect when the ash sweeper was a couple of metres further forward. All we had to do was nail the timing. I jumped back down to help the team reload and pass on the info. I was soon back on my spot with hand aloft. When the ash sweeper hit the mark in my mind, I dropped my hand and Mark fired the weapon.

  This shot made a sweet and direct contact through the remains of the windshield. It didn’t hit the frame, just disappeared into the darkness of the cabin. I pumped my fist and gave out a “Yeah!”

  Mark watched my reaction from below and he and the team celebrated briefly before heading in to reload. Shane’s celebration on the radio trumped all of ours put together.

  I kept my eyes on the truck. It seemed to speed up, ploughing through more and more ash until it built up to unmanageable levels in front of the plough. It seemed to lift and angle off the ground and its wheels spun uselessly beneath it.

  I knew we’d killed the driver.

  “Brilliant,” said Shane through comms. And he was clearly thinking the same as me. “I want every gun aimed on the ash sweeper. Target anyone who goes near it.”

  I headed back down the hill and straight to Mark. I told him to keep firing same as the last shot, then I headed through the building ruins to the Rundle St trebuchet.