Invasion (Best Laid Plans Book 3)

by Nathan Jones

  Terry shook his head with a sigh. “I don't know. But it has to be done.”

  “I'll go tell his family.” Matt rested his hand on Terry's shoulder as he made his way outside, where the rest of the Watsons were waiting on the unkempt strip of grass that ran along the front of town hall beside the sidewalk.

  Rick had been almost crazy with grief and worry for his dad on the drive back, to the point that Matt had suggested he take a walk outside to calm down while Terry saw to Chauncey. He looked a bit better now, Matt was relieved to see, sitting with a comforting arm around his mom's shoulders while Wes paced restlessly. On Edna's other side Alice Thornton also had her arms around the older woman's shoulders. Since the Watsons had taken the young woman in she'd practically become part of the family, and she looked as worried and grief-stricken as the others.

  All turned to look at Matt as he came out the door, a mixture of hope and dread on their faces. He hated what he had to tell them, but it was best to come straight out with it. “His leg will need to be amputated.”

  Edna gave a low moan, her head sinking until her chin rested on her collarbone. Alice looked sick, Rick's expression turned blank, and Wes froze in place like a deer in the headlights.

  After a moment Rick stood, a bit unsteadily. “Terry doesn't have anesthetics, does he?” Matt shook his head, frowning in slight confusion. “I'll come help hold Dad down while he operates.” Edna moaned again.

  Matt flinched. “I don't think . . . we can find people to help. You don't want to see that.”

  “He'll want family there with him.” Rick brushed past him into the auditorium.

  After giving Edna, Alice, and Wes the most reassuring look he could manage, Matt followed the younger man up to the stage where Chauncey lay behind a screen of curtains. The retired teacher was staring at the wall of cloth off to one side, looking barely lucid as Rick stepped into his line of sight and crouched, resting a hand on his shoulder. “I'm here, Dad.”

  Chauncey blinked slowly. “Son? How bad is it?” He took a shuddering breath. “Things don't, don't feel right, but I can't move enough to see.”

  Rick's grip on his dad's shoulder tightened slightly as anguish flashed across his features. ”It's your leg, Dad,” he said slowly and clearly. “Terry needs to take it off. I'll be here while he does.”

  Matt had to look away from the fear and confusion in the older man's eyes. To Chauncey this must all seem like a nightmare. “We can't offer you anything for the pain, Chauncey,” he said gently. “Me and Rick will hold you down, all right?”

  The retired teacher slowly closed his eyes, and his face got a shade paler. “Can't you just hit me really hard, knock me out?” he whispered.

  Terry stepped into the enclosed space, slipping on a pair of plastic gloves that had been soaked in alcohol. “You don't want that, Chauncey,” he said firmly. “You can't afford head trauma along with all your other injuries. I need you to be strong through this, all right?”

  For a moment Chauncey lay so still Matt thought he'd lost consciousness again, and then he nodded. “Do it.” He opened his eyes and looked at his son. “Go be with your mother. Matt can find someone else to help him hold me down.”

  Rick shook his head, eyes full of tears. “I don't want to leave you alone.”

  “Go,” the older man said, voice firm. “I don't want you to see this. I don't want you to hear me screaming.”

  After an agonizing moment Rick nodded and awkwardly hugged his dad, careful of all his injuries, then nearly bolted from the room. Matt brought Ben in to help, and while the refugee leader held Chauncey's shoulders Matt held his good leg and put weight on his hips, pinning him down.

  Looking more than a bit nervous, Terry double checked the tourniquet around the retired teacher's leg. Then, taking a deep breath, he picked up a long, sharp blade that didn't look as if it was intended for surgeries. At the sight of it Chauncey groaned and his muscles went rigid in anticipation of the coming trauma.

  Matt looked away as his brother-in-law got to work.

  * * * * *

  A half hour later Terry announced he'd done as much as he could think to do, not just for the leg but for Chauncey's other injuries. The poor man had passed out less than a minute into the amputation, a blessing Matt was sincerely grateful for on behalf of his friend, and hadn't come around yet. They left him in the curtained off space resting while Terry settled a clean blanket over him and went to bring his family to sit at his side.

  Matt wanted to pull up a cot next to his still-sleeping wife and pass out again, but instead he excused himself to turn his attention back to the town's defenses. The circumstances hadn't changed much when it came to defending the town, but he still did his best to prepare for when Turner inevitably hit back after the losses he'd suffered that morning.

  They didn't have long to wait, unfortunately.

  Every action had an equal and opposite reaction. The dawn attacks on the camps had been a heavy blow against the raiders, but they'd also kicked the hornet's nest. Just as Matt and Catherine had feared they would.

  Turner didn't storm the town with all his men and firepower like they'd assumed. That would've been bad, but at least it was something they'd planned for and could do their best to defend against. Instead the raider leader made use of the three missile launchers and nearly a hundred missiles he still had.

  Late in the morning a truck pulled up south of town in line of sight of the outer buildings, a mile or more away, and began launching missiles at one house after another. That initial surprise attack killed seven people and injured more than a dozen, a few defenders but mostly noncombatants, and before Matt could even organize a group to go out and stop them the raiders drove off again.

  A half hour or so later the same truck or another one pulled up a mile away on the western end of town and repeated the tactic, hitting a few houses and then driving away before the town could even begin to prepare a response. And a half hour later they did it again at a different location. And again, and again.

  Meanwhile the raider snipers were still out there to pick off anyone who tried to leave town, preventing them from going after the trucks even if they knew where they'd be striking from. And from inside the fortifications not even Aspen Hill's best marksmen had more than the slimmest hope of hitting a target a mile away.

  Catherine suggested that they pursue the raiders with their newly captured truck, but Matt heatedly argued that sending the vehicle against missiles would be suicide for anyone who tried it, and a waste of the truck on top of it.

  The best the town's defenders could do was get all of Aspen Hill's citizens into the buildings at the center of town where they'd be safe, and have people along the perimeter to give advance warning when the attacks came. At least that way firefighters could rush to the scene once the missiles stopped flying and do their best to put out the fires or keep them from spreading.

  The strategy was purely defensive but for the most part effective, since after that first surprise strike only one other person was killed and three injured, two as they tried to put out the flames rather than from the missiles themselves.

  But the attacks took their toll. By noon over two dozen houses had been destroyed. Turner had also taken another stab at their gardens, finding a vantage between the hills the plots were nestled behind to launch a few missiles at the precious crops. He destroyed almost half of their cultivated land that way before running out of convenient targets, and to hit the others he'd have to approach closer to get line of sight around the hills. He wasn't about to do that.

  Things were bad and looking worse by the hour. Matt had thought they were trapped in town when the snipers had chased his patrols back behind the fortifications, but now they had to almost entirely abandon those fortifications as the houses around the outside edges were destroyed, and they had to pack closer and closer together in the center of town with each attack.

  The only miniscule silver lining he could see to this gigantic cloud was that the missile
attacks were also scattering debris over the roads into town, making them even more impassable. At this point Turner would need a work crew and several hours of uninterrupted labor to bring any of his trucks in.

  Not that he needed to, since his trucks were as dangerous a mile out as they would be from ten feet away.

  Aspen Hill had basically been a war zone the entire time the raiders were attacking them, but now it really looked and felt like one. A low haze of smoke drifted over the area, those who'd been fighting the fires were blackened with soot and coughing from smoke inhalation, fires smouldered in a few places and more constantly sprang up as the missile attacks continued, and people had the shell-shocked look of soldiers on the front line.

  Matt tried to encourage everyone in spite of the grim situation. He could reassure them that Turner was using up a lot of fuel and a huge chunk of his supply of missiles for this shock and awe tactic. People were losing their homes and many of their crops were destroyed, sure, but at least they were no longer dying in the strikes. Callous as it sounded Turner wasn't doing much real damage with this strategy since houses could be rebuilt and crops replanted, as long as the people survived to do both.

  The purpose of Turner's new methods became clear at around midafternoon, while Matt was working at the southwest end of town to put out a fire from the most recent attack. His radio beeped with the call button in the prearranged signal that it was a townsperson trying to make contact in an emergency, and Matt paused in his work to turn up the volume.

  The moment he heard Turner's voice he immediately scowled, assuming it was more of the raider leader's usual vitriol. But to his surprise the man's tone was calm, almost monotone as he spoke. “Matt Larson. Lewis Halsson. Raul Gutierrez. Chauncey Watson. Catherine Tillman. I know you guys are there, maybe not on this channel but on one of them. You may not talk much but you still use your radios.”

  Yeah, and whenever we do you immediately jump on and start cussing us out, Matt thought. Did Turner seriously want to start a dialogue after spending all this time making them hate the sound of his voice?

  The raider leader continued relentlessly. “You know it makes me sad. I talk and talk and talk and nobody ever answers. But you really should answer now. You see, I've lost a lot of my boys recently, and frankly I'm getting sick of all the killing. And for what?”

  After a pause he continued again, the same message with slightly different words. Matt was inclined to turn his radio's volume back down, since he couldn't see what Turner could possibly say that would be worth listening to.

  But just as he was reaching for the knob Catherine's voice interrupted the raider leader's monologue. “We're listening.”

  There was a brief pause, then Turner replied with the sort of hearty good cheer that made Matt want to punch him through the radio. Not that he hadn't wanted to do that anyway. “Good! Now that we've had our pointless war I've decided I'm going to give you guys another chance to accept the deal Ferris offered you right at the start. Half your stuff left a safe distance outside of town, and we leave.”

  Matt cut in before the Mayor could respond. “By our count you've lost almost half of your “boys” in a fight none of you have much of a stake in. Maybe you guys are feeling generous like you say, but I'm guessing what's really going on is you're about to turn tail and are trying to talk us into giving you something before you run off.”

  Turner lost a bit of his friendly tone. “We've still got plenty of missiles, Larson. Maybe tomorrow we'll focus on blowing up every building along Main Street. You folks have nowhere to go now, and if we don't get what we want we'll demolish the entire town if we have to and kill you all in the rubble.”

  It was an empty threat. There were hundreds of houses and other buildings in Aspen Hill, and Turner couldn't have more than 50 or 60 missiles left at the most.

  Then again those missiles were enough to kill everyone in town if used right, and even if they managed to keep everyone out of the targeted buildings there was still the issue that every single building destroyed made things that much more difficult for the town.

  The question was whether the raiders wanted to use up their best weapon that way for no real benefit. They'd started this fight mostly for vengeance and greed, and most of Turner's men who couldn't care less about Aspen Hill other than as a potential target to raid had to be sick of it.

  No. Matt was growing more and more sure of his original idea. Turner's men were probably on the point of mutiny and demanding they give up on attacking the town to go looking for easier targets. This was just a ploy to try to intimidate Aspen Hill into giving up some free goodies before they left.

  He was lifting his radio to say just that when the Mayor spoke up. “We'll have to think it over.”

  Matt wanted to protest that decision, but he wasn't about to openly contradict Catherine in front of everyone listening on the radio. Especially not their enemies. Still, they were going to have words if she actually planned to give in to Turner's demands after everything the town had suffered. Especially when they had nothing to give.

  Turner sounded almost smug when he responded. “Sure, take your time. We'll just blow up a building every hour until we hear back from you. And just to show you I mean my offer I'll even keep the airwaves clear until then. Turner out.”

  The radio went blessedly silent, a state Matt hadn't heard it in for ages. He still wasn't about to communicate over it, even for mundane things, but he kept the volume up as he set his people to continuing their work on the fire while he made his way back to town hall.

  An olive branch from Turner might not mean anything had changed, but then again it might mean everything had changed.

  He'd reached the front of town hall and was about to make his way inside when a call from down Center street drew his attention. Matt stopped dead in front of the captured raider truck, part of the burden on his heart lifting at the familiar voice, and turned to see Lewis and Jane heading his way from the direction of Roadblock 2.

  They were both filthy and looked exhausted, the weight of their body armor and the gear they carried seeming to drag them towards the ground with every step, but other than that his friends seemed unharmed.

  Lewis even grinned when he saw the vehicle Matt was standing beside. “Whoa, you stole one of their trucks?” he asked in delight. “That explains why we saw only three driving around out there, along with the one we disabled in the southern camp that's now sitting in the eastern camp being used for parts. How much gas was in it?”

  “Forget that!” Matt nearly shouted, bolting forward to throw his arms around his friend. He'd feared the worst but hoped for the best at the southern camp, and now seeing that things had turned out all right for the two made him feel almost giddy with relief. “You guys are okay!”

  Lewis slapped him on the back a few times to acknowledge the reunion, but his eyes stayed on their new vehicle the entire time, his mind obviously going over the possibilities it represented.

  It looked like his friends hadn't realized how fearful the town had been for their safety, so this wasn't a big deal to them. But Matt was so happy to see his friends that he even shook Jane's hand while keeping one elbow hooked around Lewis's neck, in spite of knowing her dislike for that sort of thing. Somehow it didn't seem right to just stand around awkwardly grinning in relief at a time like this. The redheaded woman didn't seem to mind and even shook his hand back, although only long enough to be polite.

  “We were afraid you were dead even knowing your plan to lay low!” Matt said, finally stepping back to give them some space. “The town had almost reached the point of mourning you along with everyone else who died in the attack.”

  “Well radioing you guys to let you know we were trying to sneak in didn't seem like the best idea.” Lewis said, his flippant response seeming callously out of place given the grieving the town had done since that morning, some of it on his behalf.

  Matt was starting to get irritated with his friend in spite of himself when he abru
ptly realized that Lewis and Jane didn't know how the attack on the northern camp had gone. It was hard to dampen the joyful reunion with the bad news, but the two deserved to know sooner rather than later. So he quickly outlined the attack and the casualties they'd suffered, ending with how they'd escaped in the truck after Ben took out the driver and the passenger when the man tried to bail.

  After he finished Lewis looked away in grief and probably more than a little guilt. “I guess my idea wasn't such a good one after all, huh?”

  Matt hesitated. He wasn't about to blame Lewis for what had happened, even though he was still struggling not to blame himself. “How did your attack go?” he asked instead.

  It was his friend's turn to briefly describe their attack on the southern camp, and Matt was relieved to hear that it, at least, had gone well. Possibly even well enough to justify the disaster at the northern camp.

  “Some good's come of it, at least,” he said once his friend finished. “And maybe a lot of good, depending on how you look at it. Did you hear Turner over the radio?” Both shook their heads, looking puzzled, so he quickly told them about raider leader's offer. He also mentioned his guess that the raiders were pressing their leader to abandon the attack on Aspen Hill and go find an easier target.

  “We saw the missile attacks,” Jane said, nodding wearily. “They looked pretty bad.”

  “They were pretty bad,” Matt agreed grimly. “We lost several people in the first strike before we could evacuate everyone to safety in the center of town, and one person in later strikes along with sixteen wounded total. Other than that his missiles haven't done much but destroy abandoned houses, but at this rate he'll be able to start hitting buildings in the center of town that are packed full of people before too long. Crammed in like we are we don't have anywhere to run or hide, and it sounded like Catherine might actually be considering his offer.”

  “We don't have anything to give him,” Lewis argued. “If we gave him half of everything we'd lose more people to starvation than he'd kill if he pushed this fight to the bitter end. A few people are already starting to die of hunger as it is thanks to this siege.”