Lethal Strike

by Nick S. Thomas

  Ortiz look flustered and once again looked to Ross for support.

  “Don’t look to him for answers. You started this, so you end it. You want to keep starting fights, well, here I am. Fight me!”

  “Enough of this! We aren’t here to hurt you. We don’t even know what the hell is going on. Please, stop!” Lucy pleaded.

  Ortiz backed down, but Ross could see he had to say or do something. “Everyone is a little wired. I get that, but let’s save this energy for the enemy, huh?”

  Ortiz opened his mouth to press his argument once more, but Ross got there first.

  “I know. I heard what you had to say. It’s risky trusting strangers, but we have to do it. We can’t go it alone in this world. I have to believe the people we meet. The survivors, that they want the same thing, even the Travers in this world. We may not agree on how things should be done, but we want the same thing. I don’t want to fight each other anymore. I’ve spent my life fighting against people, and now we have a real, credible threat against us all. We stand together, or we all lose.”

  “And if I’m right?”

  “Then there was never any hope for us anyway, Ortiz.”

  Chapter 4

  “Why is he still following us?” Lee looked back cautiously at Travers and the two with him. They were not far behind.

  “I guess he had his world rocked. He thought he was invincible,” replied Donny.

  “He’s not gonna change, though, is he?”

  “Not a chance. Soon as he gets enough of his people together, he’ll be taking charge again.”

  “We can’t let that happen. He’s insane.”

  “He’s not insane. He’s just no leader. Or not the kind we need anyway.”

  “We need to find Ross and the others.”

  “Ain’t that the truth, but I don’t even know where we are. I’ve not been around these parts for years.”

  Donny wearily stopped to survey the area. All he could see were trees and mountains for as far as the eye could see. He remembered driving through the area, but little of the geography of it. The tall trees limited visibility, and the hill and mountain peaks disguised all that were in the valleys below.

  “I’d give anything for GPS right about now.”

  Lee tried to smile but winced as pain surged through his body. He looked weak, and Donny stepped over to support him.

  “You okay there?”

  Lee shook his head. He very much wasn’t okay, but he tried to keep it together.

  “We’re really in the shit here, aren’t we?”

  “No doubt about that, up to our eyeballs in it.”

  “Think we can find Ross again? Think he’ll still be alive?”

  “Why wouldn’t he be?”

  “After what we saw back at that facility. It was far beyond anything we could handle. You’d need thousands of soldiers to take that.”

  “And air support,” he replied wearily.

  “Yeah, well what if any of that headed Ross’ way? We thought we had it bad when our camp was hit, but with the resources these assholes have, they could wipe us all out, easy.”

  “Not so easy, we’re still standing.”

  “Barely.”

  He wasn’t wrong, but Donny tried not to dwell on it too much.

  “Ross will still be alive and fighting. He’s a stubborn son of a bitch. I doubt there’s much in this world could kill him. The things he’s seen and been through. I’ve only scratched the surface, but if there’s one soldier who could bring us through this and out the other side, it’s him.”

  “Then what are we doing out here with them?” He gestured towards Travers with his eyes.

  “I’ve been asking myself that over and over. Honestly? We fucked up, but it isn’t the first time, and won’t be the last.”

  “Do you think he’ll take us back?”

  Donny looked surprised he even had to ask.

  “Of course he will, because he’s not an asshole,” he replied in an obvious dig at Travers without actually naming him.

  “Do you boys know where you’re heading?” The militia leader came up behind them.

  “Sure.”

  Donny had to lie. He couldn’t risk Travers taking over and running them into the ground once again. But he didn’t look entirely convinced. Donny needed to get them a win soon, or Travers would know the truth.

  “Come on, we should keep moving. We’ve got a long way to go without wheels.” He gestured for his brother to go on.

  Lee was walking unaided, but the pain was obvious through his body language. He was fighting through it best he could. Donny wished they could find some transport, although they were much safer on foot. They couldn’t afford to be spotted by the enemy. Not now. They were too weak, and the enemy in far too great a number for them to fight off.

  * * *

  The sun was going down quickly. Ross was sitting on the edge of the porch of their cabin watching the last light fade away. He’d been thinking and planning what to do next, but soon fell into an almost dream-like state as he ran out of ideas. He let his mind wander back to the times before the invasion.

  It wasn’t long ago, but it sure feels like it. They weren’t always better times, and I spent a great deal of time in dangerous and life-threatening situations, but there had always been an escape from it. Somewhere to go home, or at least relax in peace. There’s no peace here anymore.

  His mind wandered to friends and family, and all the best times they’d had. But it rapidly dawned on him that they were simply not enough. He’d spent too much of his life working and fighting. He’d taken every extra piece of work or operation he ever could. It had gotten him where he was today, the best of the best, but that no longer mattered.

  My unit and my rank all seem redundant, although at least my training has kept me alive, kept me free when so many have been killed or imprisoned.

  He began to wonder more about the fate of other people back home. People he knew, but hardly close friends. That’s when he came out of the dream-like state and noticed Ramos and Ortiz talking. These were his closest friends. His family. They were right there with him, something few had the luxury of anymore.

  “You look deep in thought.” Burns sat down beside him.

  “Just reminiscing about better times.”

  Burns smiled. “Easy to remember all the good, and forget the bad that went along with it.”

  “Yeah, well, that’s a good thing, isn’t it?”

  “I suppose so.”

  “So how about you? Why did you get out?”

  “It was my time. I’d done enough, seen enough. I’d do it all over again in a heartbeat given a second chance, or most of it anyway. But I’d done enough. But I guess some of us are in it for a little more, can take more.”

  “This is pretty much all I ever knew. Or not this, but what came before it. I have no idea what I’d do without it.”

  “Well, that’s one problem off your hands.”

  Ross looked confused.

  “No need to worry about what you’d do after. Your life is tied up for as long as any of us can see. You’ve got plenty of work to do here.”

  “For however long we can keep this going, sure.”

  “You underestimate yourself, and all of us. Sure, we’ve been hit hard, more than a few times. But we got back up, and we’re still moving forward.”

  “Are we?”

  Burns shrugged. He wanted to believe it, but it was a hard sell even to himself.

  “Still standing and still free. I’d call that progress. Damn sight better off than a lot of folks.”

  “Doesn’t make it good, though, does it?”

  “All a matter of perspective. What’s the point in looking back and comparing to a life you don’t and can’t live anymore? Only question is, are you better off than yesterday, last week, last month? That’s what really matters.”

  “Well, are we?”

  “Not gonna lie, it didn’t go great, but nobody died. In fact, very much the
opposite, our number just climbed a little.”

  “Them? What good are they gonna be?”

  “Don’t be too quick to write them off. You’ve done more with a lot worse. You made a handful of high school football kids into soldiers.”

  “Come on. Basic training and a rifle in hand…”

  “That’s as much as many soldiers ever got, and they didn’t have a teacher like you.”

  “I’m no teacher. That’s your job.”

  “That’s where you’re wrong. You’ve been a mentor to these people throughout, whether you realise it or not. You inspire them.”

  “By getting my ass kicked?”

  “You’ve given as good as you got. We all have.”

  They both fell silent, reflecting on all they had seen.

  “How’d you think Donny, Emma, and the rest of them are getting on?”

  Ross sighed.

  “I’d hope they’re kicking ass, but Travers is gonna walk into a shitstorm before long. He has to. You’ve seen this enemy we’re facing. They’re powerful, like nothing we’ve ever known. You really care for them, don’t you?”

  “Sure. They’ve been my students, Donny included, even Miles as well. But I taught a whole lot of kids. Most of them are probably locked up now. We have to find some way to get them out.”

  “We’ll do what we can, but we need fighters.”

  “You’ve seen what my kids can do. They’ve saved all our asses as many times as you saved theirs. They want to fight for their homes, same as the rest of us, and they already are.”

  Ross began to reply when they heard a rackety sound of a diesel engine running rough and heading their way. He grabbed his rifle and shot up, looking to Dunn for information. He was posted high up in a tree ahead.

  “One Humvee. Looks like one of Travers’!”

  Ross relaxed a little but went forward to greet the vehicle with caution and concern. The low light hid the true extent of the damage to the vehicle until it got close. One door was missing and there were holes in the body, wing, and hood. The driver’s window was blown out, and as they came to a halt, the engine cut out and steam poured from it.

  “This doesn’t look good,” Kim stepped up beside them.

  The driver’s door was flung open, and Ross felt his hands clench about his rifle. He expected trouble, yet was curious to know any news. He wanted to know the fate of the teenagers he had come to call friends. The driver leapt out, a woman in her thirties. She was battered and bloody and looked like she had been through hell. Ross vaguely remembered her as one of Travers’ Minutemen, but he’d not shared any words with her.

  “What the hell happened to you guys?” Kim asked, as the driver rushed around to the passenger side to help a man out. He looked even worse than she did. Another two got out from the rear, hauling out one who was already dead. Ross didn’t know any of their names, but he felt for them. They could as easily have been fighting alongside him as Travers in this insane new existence they were living.

  “We hit that base Travers wanted us to. He said we could handle it. It would be like any other op. But it wasn’t. It was hellfire in there,” she said in a thick southern accent as she helped the wounded man down to the ground. Burns and Ramos went to assist. She got back up once she was content he was being cared for.

  “It was like nothing we’d ever seen. Towers and walls bigger than you ever saw. Hundreds of soldiers, aircraft, everything, and they shot us down like we was nothing. We didn’t stand a chance. Lambs to the slaughter.”

  “It was really that bad?”

  She shot Ramos a look as if to ask if he dared to question her.

  “It was worse. We never stood a chance. Not for even a second. They ripped us apart.”

  “And Travers, what did he do?” Ross asked.

  “Nothing he could do. We were taken apart in no time. We scattered to the wind, and tried to make it out as best we could.”

  “And other survivors?” Kim asked.

  She shook her head.

  “No idea, but we saw a lot killed. Not many could have made it out.”

  “Donny and Lee? Emma?” Burns asked desperately.

  “No idea. Everyone ran for it. Stuff was blowing up all over the place. They were pursuing us for a few miles. There was a truck with us for the first half of that, but it went up in smoke.”

  The newcomers among them looked horrified, frozen as if unable to digest what they were being told. Even Ross was stunned. He expected Travers to take a fall, but not this badly.

  “Any idea where any of the others would have gone?”

  “No, we…”

  “You didn’t have any rendezvous areas set up? Anywhere you’d bug out to and hold up if things went south?”

  She shook her head as if Ramos were talking in a foreign tongue.

  “I mean, maybe they could have headed back to a couple of the farms we’ve been using. But everyone scattered. It was chaos. So much blood, so many lost…” Her face went blank in horror as she relived moments of it.

  “What’s your name?” Ross asked gently.

  The prompt caused her to snap back to reality.

  “Tammy.”

  “All right, Tammy. We want to help you, but we need to know everything possible about this operation. Your target, exactly what you saw, enemy strength, and possible locations of any survivors; we need to know everything.”

  “And then what? What can you do?”

  “More than you can imagine,” replied Kim in support of him, “Ross has pulled off the impossible. I’ve seen him do it.”

  “Look, you came to us, has to be a good reason for that.”

  “Yeah, because we had nowhere else to go.”

  * * *

  “Down,” said Donny as he knelt down and checked that the others were doing the same. But Travers didn’t. He stayed put. He would not take orders from the young soldier. Donny gestured for them all to get down once more, but still he refused. He turned away and muttered to himself, “Fucking asshole.”

  He was kicking himself over how easily he’d been reeled in by Travers, but not anymore. But this wasn’t the time to fret over it. He’d brought them down for a reason. He ambled cautiously forward to the base of a tree where he could get a good view ahead.

  “What is it?” Lee asked.

  He pointed for him to stay put. He’d spotted a vehicle of some sort, but not had time to identify what or who it was. Diesel fumes wafted past, and that was a good sign. The chlorine smell was ever present amongst the enemy. As he reached the tree, he could see it was one of the REO trucks they had attacked the enemy facility with. It was shot to hell, and the fuel tank was leaking out. There was a huge hole through the grill and radiator and many more through the cab and bed. Travers was growing impatient as Donny surveyed the scene, and finally came up beside him.

  “What have we got here?” he asked loudly.

  Donny sighed at the brashness and foolishness of how he acted. He was clearly a man who’d got by in life by blundering through everything he encountered. Now it all made sense to Donny. This was how he came to be so powerful, and how he had lost it all.

  “That’s one of mine,” he said, rushing forward and out of cover.

  “Travers,” Donny called in a vain attempt to stop him.

  “What’s he doing?”

  “What he always does, Lee, come on.”

  He didn’t want to go out until he’d had time to assess and study more of the scene, but they had to stick together to have any chance of making it out of this mess. He wished Travers understood that. There was no sign of life, and that was concerning, but Travers had rushed in at such speed Donny had no choice but to follow. He covered all angles as best he could and followed on after him.

  “This doesn’t look good.” Lee hobbled after them. They were about to reach the truck when they heard a voice cry out.

  “Stop right there!”

  Donny froze. He looked around for the source of the command, but there was no
body. Finally, a figure stepped out from some foliage. It was Miles. He looked shaken, but relieved to see Donny. He lowered his weapon.

  “You made it, too,” he gasped.

  He strode up to Donny and hugged him. Donny didn’t know how to respond, and yet he felt much the same. They went around the truck and found Travers in front of Emma and a handful of others, including two wounded. She smiled as she saw the two brothers approach.

  “Praise the heavens, you made it,” she said, rushing to hug them both.

  “We got hit pretty hard. Everyone did. It’s a miracle any of us made it out,” said Miles.

  “There must be more,” added Lee.

  “Maybe, but you’re the first we’ve seen,” she replied.

  Donny was relieved, not just that they had found their friends alive, but it would give them the ability to maintain control before Travers took over. Travers clearly didn’t see it that way.

  “Grab your gear. We’re moving out,” he ordered.

  Nobody made a move.

  “You heard me.”

  “You aren’t in command here,” said Miles.

  Travers looked to each of their faces, seeing who might support him. Only Randy and Faith were with him, and even they didn’t look too enthusiastic.

  “I’m here to fight, and that’s what I’m gonna do.”

  “Fight? We’ve got to survive first,” replied Miles.

  “Then I wish you luck. Come on, let’s move.” Travers turned about and set off with the last two who were with him.

  “Let him go,” said Emma.

  Donny shook his head.

  “We can’t afford to. There are too few of us as it is. We have to stick together, whether we like each other or not. We have to set our differences aside.”

  “He led us into that disaster. He led many to their deaths, and you still want him around?”

  “He’s not perfect, none of us are, but he is a fighter.”

  “He’s made mistakes. That’s what you’re going with?”

  “All I am saying is we need him. We need every fighter we can get.”

  He ran after the Minutemen leader. He went past and blocked his path, forcing him to come to a stop and listen to what he had to say.