by Rob Buckman
Any doubt the girls had as to whether they could kill was put to rest. Decker could see that in the way they moved now. They had a purpose and confidence in what was possible. Even so, Decker went through a few more demonstrations and short lessons on how to respond in combat. This was definitely going to be an 'on the job' training project, as there was no way he could teach them all they needed to learn to survive, but it was a start. The march up country would teach them the rest, or they’d be dead. One item he paid special attention to was ropes. Thankfully, the depot had a lot in storage and Decker spent time cutting the reels of polyester rope into hundred foot coils. These he spliced, one end with a loop, the other and end splice. Each girl would carry one strapped over the top of her ‘Burgan’. It added to the load, but he knew that once they got into the mountains, they'd need every foot. He distributed the rest of the climbing gear between all the girls, so each carried a little. Other than that, the packs were loaded with MRE's, ammo, explosives, odds and ends of camp gear, cooking pots, cups, plates, salt, pepper, and vitamins supplied by Doc Mason.
Each girl carried a first aid kit, but very little else in the way of extra clothing, except underwear. They'd have to live in their BDU's until they got where they were going. Decker was more worried about how far they could travel before winter set in, and stopped them reaching Norden. Once the snow started falling, they wouldn't be able to move very far, and hoped they'd found a place to hole up until spring. That meant they'd have to hunt game to keep them supplied. Not an easy task at the best of times, and that was another worry. Feeding a hundred hungry people took a lot of supplies. For the moment he put that aside. There were towns and villages along the way, and maybe they could hole up in one of them with enough supplies left over for them to survive. At the end of the week, at least by his calculations they all had their packs ready for inspection. After that, he made them walk around all day carrying them so they could get the feel and fix any last-minute problems. Even after a day, just walking around gathering up last minute items had the girls flopping down to rest whenever they could.
"How the hell do men fight carrying all this shit around?" One girl grouched.
"We don't. The moment combat starts we drop the rucks." Decker responded.
"Oh."
“You’ll find out as we go. Listen to the orders of your team leader.”
That evening he went from person to person checking out the ghillie suits, and standing back upon completion, he smiled. The team looked like a bunch of odd-looking Wookies from 'Star Wars'. He switched on the active cammo in his suit to show them the difference, getting a few Ooo's and Arrr's from the group, as he seemed to vanish into the wall behind him.
"I'm sorry we don't have enough active cammo suits for all of you, just the point, flankers, and rear guard. But, as long as you go to the ground, and stay still wherever you are, the passive cammo will hide you almost as well. It’s moving where the active cammo comes into its own."
On what he thought of as Friday, just before dawn they waited for the regular patrol destroyer to pass up the highway, he gave the order to move out. He picked starting the ‘yomp’ during daylight hours due to the danger of losing people and injuries. He could feel the nervous tension and fear in the air, knowing they were about to leave the illusionary safety of the bombed out base and step into the unknown. He felt a little nervous himself. This had to be the craziest, bonehead maneuver of all time, and he dare not think about the four hundred miles they had to go. A thousand things could go wrong, and he could end up getting them all killed, including himself. Yet staying here wasn’t an option either. However, like the old Chinese proverb states, ‘a journey of a thousand miles begins with the first step.’
“All Teams move out!” Silently they moved passed him, high-fiving each other as they left. As they moved into their assigned positions, they checked in.
"Alpha team on point position."
"Beta team, in flanking position."
"Charley team in flanking position."
"Alright ladies. Let's move out. Delta team will take up the drag position five minutes after we leave."
"Copy that Team Leader. Five minutes after you leave."
Leading the remaining girls out of the building, Decker took the lead for the moment and headed straight up the road between the derelict buildings at a fast trot. Here they were exposed, and he wanted to get them into something resembling cover as quickly as possible. Once through the rusting fence and over the rise north of the base, he moved out into the desert shrubs and dried out grasses where they could hide. He breathed a sigh of relief when they made it without incident. He signaled for the team to spread out around him, keeping a twenty-foot interval between each other. Of the flanker and point teams, he could see nothing in the dim pre-dawn light, and it was going to be tricky for them to keep the main Pack in view until they learned how. Hopefully for the first part it wouldn't matter so much and give them time to settle in as they moved.
"All team leaders, move out, slow, and easy to start." One by one, they reported in, and the main Pack began to move slowly up the valley towards Tehachapi. The march up country was on, and if there was a kindly god that looked after little children, fools and village idiots, John ‘Wolfman’ Decker hoped he was paying special attention right about now, because he was the biggest village idiot of them all.
The first day was a 'Charlie Foxtrot' or cluster fuck as they say, with people tripping over anything in their path, flankers losing sight of the main Pack and going off in the wrong direction. The point team got too far ahead and the rear guard too far behind. In all they only made seven miles, paralleling rout 58 across country. Decker gritted his teeth and said nothing. As it turned out that was worse than chewing them out, and in a way had a more profound effect on all the teams. Private, off TAC chats, and meetings later by the team leaders after they camped for the night was profane, biting, to the point of bringing more than one girl to tears. Oblivious to all this, Decker found a quiet corner on the rocky ground and settled down to contemplate his sins, of which there were many and varied.
Arrogance was the first, thinking he could take over ninety-five out of condition women four hundred miles across country by himself. Hell, they couldn't travel ten miles in one day without crying about how hot it was under the ghillie suits, how sore their feet were, or how the back packs felt like a ton, and cut into their delicate skin. Forget the fact about freezing in place on command as an alien destroyer flew right over them had a few moaning and peeing their panties. He could only thank God or lady luck that none of them had panicked and started running. On the bright side, if there was one, they learned that lesson well, as seen by the look of amazement on their faces after the alien craft vanished up the valley.
On the other hand, more than one girl let out a scream of pure panic when they came across the assorted large spiders, snakes, or scorpion in their path. The odd thing about a ghillie suit is that snakes aren't sure where to strike, and if they do they get caught in the netting rather and sink their teeth into flesh, also combat BDU pant legs were tough enough to stop snake fangs anyway. It's the hand and face that might take the strike if you were lying down or crawling through the bush. They'd moved North East at first light until they reach the sparse cover at the foot of the Tehachapi Mountains, then North West up the valley. He did send two scouts to check out the Mountain Valley airport, but they reported back that the place had taken a real pasting and was of little use. All that remained of the main runway was a string of large holes in the ground. So much for the plan to use the runway to land the C130A, he thought hearing that. As he put his boots back on after changing his socks that evening, Kim came over with an MRE and offered it to him.
"Grace said you might want to eat."
"I will after I've checked everyone else has eaten, and seen by Doc Mason if necessary. Lots of cuts to take care of."
"It will be cold by then."
"You eat it, or find someone who hasn't eate
n yet and give it to them. I'll heat one up later.
Without another word, Decker took off to make his rounds with the dogs in tow. Kim stood there looking after him, and an odd expression on her face. As she said to Grace later, she wasn't accustomed to men ignoring her, or just walking away. Grace just smiled and told her to get used to it. She wasn't the high-priced lawyer any more, just one of Decker's Pack now.
"You mean one of his bitches, don't you?"
"You said it, I didn't." Grace laughed.
Even under the sparse cover offered by the widely spaced, scrubby trees, Decker slipped his ghillie suit back on but left the active cammo off. He started with the rear guard and it didn't take telepathy to see the Delta Team leader was hopping mad, and the rest of her team looked like whipped dogs.
"Everything cool here, Herriot?" He murmured, walking her off to the side.
"It is now, sir." She glared at her team, daring them to say a word.
"Anything unusual to report?"
"No, sir. I've already set the guard rotation, and made it clear what would happen if they fell asleep."
"Keep the rotation short, Herriot otherwise they will be dead on their feet tomorrow." He leaned over and whispered in Herriot’s ear. She nodded in response and shot him a quick smile.
With a nod, he left with instructions to meet him by the center fire after they’d eaten, and slowly made his way around the camp checking in with each team leader. He made sure everyone had eaten, and been looked at by Doc Mason. Most of them reported the same thing, but it was clear all the perimeter team leaders chewed their people out as they reported when they all came together around the fire.
“Not unexpected and about normal, but that’s why I picked you.”
“Really?”
“I’ve trained a lot of men over the years and can spot a leader, and that’s what you will have to be. It will be up to you to weld your team into a fighting unit so you each think and act without a lot of hand holding.”
“What if one of the girls can’t cut it?” Ester Costello, Baker team leader asked.
“In that case you rotate her out and pick another girl from Echo team. That goes if one of your team is injured and can’t keep up.” They nodded and looked at each other.
“It’s going to be tough for a while finding the right mix of kicking their ass, or a soft word and a helping hand. You also need to work out hand signals that you all agree on to reduce the amount of talking.” Decker demonstrated several to show them what he meant.
“Krista, as Alpha team leader I want you to pick three girls as soon as possible to act as forward scouts and blaze a trail, and be on the lookout for obstacles. If they spot something, have them switch to the all-hands push frequency and just say ‘Hold!’ If we hear that, it the signal for everyone to go to ground and stay there until instructed otherwise.”
“That will leave Alpha team shorthanded.”
“True, that’s why you’ll pick out three girls from Echo team you think will fit in with your team and bring them up to speed.”
“Got it. I know a couple of girls I’d like right now.”
“Change them out as you see fit.”
He gave them a few more instruction before sending them off to their teams, not wanting to load them down with too many instructions right off the bat. The net result of the butt chewing was a much better performance the next day. All the teams kept the right spacing and distance, and overall, they made better progress. He ordered the scout team to check out the CDC prison as they skirted the town of Tehachapi, but the place was a burned and blasted ruin with no sign of life. That brought up the question of what happened to the prisoners who survived and escaped. Decker was betting they headed for Bakersfield, as it was the next biggest city around here. Crossing route 202 they passed houses, but Decker told them to keep moving. The needed to get into the foothills where there was better cover. Invisibility was going to be their best weapons, so the longer they could stay in areas where there was good ground cover or trees they were reasonably safe. This wasn't a combat mission, they had no targets or tangos to take out, and every mile they crossed safely put them that much closer to their goal.
Paralleling route I-58 they kept a wary eye out for the regular alien patrol destroyer, only once getting caught unexpectedly by a ship that came out of nowhere. Everyone dropped and froze, but if the craft saw them, it made no effort to turn and come back to investigate. Gradually the girls settled in, but not without a lot of cursing and complaining, but what else was new. Soldiers had been cursing and complaining before JC was a carpenter. Other than being female, Decker doubted their complaints were any different from those of a Roman Legionnaire a couple of thousand years ago. All he could do was say the same thing the Centurion said to his men …'suck it up soldier'... And so it went, day after grueling day, up one mountain and down the other side, up one hill and down the next in a seemingly endless procession. They passed through Bear Valley Spring, only stopping long enough to refill their camel packs with water before moving on again. He held them until the sun set before crossing route I-58, again waiting for the alien destroyer to pass over. They skirted Bakersfield and headed up the right side of the valley towards Glenville, but as they did, Decker got his first big surprise. The area around Bakersfield was mostly flat. Now it was even flatter.
"What in the name of holy hell are those things?" June asked as she slid up beside him on a rise.
"You've got me beat. I don't have a clue." Decker studied the distant object through his visor on high zoom, but in the fading light, he couldn't make them out clearly.
"Jesus, they’re big." Grace muttered as she too peered at the thing through her glasses.
Off towards what use to be the center of Bakersfield, several huge black machines moved slowly around in a huge circle. The machine had to be half a mile long and a quarter of a mile wide. Big ugly black monstrosities the stood three storied high that were in the process of chewing their way across the countryside. Everything went into the gaping hole in the front end, buildings, cars, trucks, dirt, rocks, concrete, and anything and everything human vanished inside. It was hard to make out through the dust but it looked as if the machines were digging down below ground as well. That meant sewers; pipelines and any subsurface structure also vanished inside the ever-hungry mouth of the machines.
Even at the distance of five miles from the closest, the sound was deafening. The team lay in hiding and watched as the machines slowly turn to pass lengthwise in front of them. Whatever happened inside those monstrosities, what came out the rear end was a quarter mile wide, thick, flat, black ribbon of something. Decker couldn't see any junction between what had already been laid down and what the machine was producing. Inward towards the center of the gigantic circle, they could see buildings going up. In the center of the circle, a huge dome shaped building was being constructed that covered at least ten square miles of the newly laid surface. Just to the North of their position a tall round tower rose into the darkening California sky. Decker estimated the base to be at least half a mile across, with a graceful canopy curving down to the ground from a starting point a quarter of the way up the tower. It reminded him of something he’d saw somewhere, and for a moment, he wracked his brain to remember what. Then it came to him. The Australians were building something like this. A wind powered generating facility. Warm air under the canopy rose and cooler air flowed in from around the lower edge. Buried in the wall and of the tower itself where wind turbines powered by the up flowing hot air. The hotter the temperature under the canopy, the faster the hot air rose. It could get up to hurricane force at the lower end of the canopy and even one installation like this could produce thousands of kilowatts of electricity. From what he could see from his vantage point there had to be ten or more of these towers being built.
"Geez! That's a lot of power. I wonder what they need it for."
"Good question. Maybe that dome structure in the center is a habitat or base."
"It could be there equivalent of a city. Shit, the place his big enough."
"You could be right. Wish we could get a few photos to show the brass when we get there."
"We found a few of those throw away cameras, will they do?"
"Yes, yes, anything to let the brass know what's going on out here."
"Once those machines finished, there isn't going to be much left of human civilization around here."
"I suppose not. These assholes want to take the planet away from us and rebuild it to whatever they think of as cities. That means getting rid of anything human."
"Shit! I just wish there was something we could do to hurt these fuckers." June had the grace to blush when she said it. Decker just gave her a smile and a nod of agreement.
“What the hell…” June muttered, pointing further north. Decker swung his head and zoomed in, almost echoing June’s comment.
Being at a slightly higher elevation, they were able to look down on a depressing sight of a long line of dejected looking human prisoners, male and female of all ages being herded along by what he supposed were alien soldiers. The line had to be a quarter of a mile long and headed toward a group of low buildings in the distance. In all there had to be five to ten thousand prisoners, but where they were going, or what the aliens wanted with them was anyone’s guess. Slave labor was Decker’s first thought, but as bad as that was, they were still alive.
“Can we…” June started to ask.
“And what do we do with them if we did help them escape?” Decker snapped, answering her question even before she’d asked it.
“I know. Silly thought really, and you’re right.” She sighed.
She was right. He had to start thinking about hurting the aliens if and when they encountered them. How they could do that he didn't have a clue at the moment. He didn't even know if they could be hurt by conventional human weapons. He pushed that thought to the back of his mind and concentrated on getting the team moving again. It made him itchy just sitting out in the open like this even in the fading light. One look at that structure, and the number of alien craft flying north and south through the dust laidened, Californian skies gave him pause to rethink his original plan of traveling north along the foothills. Traveling up the coastal side of the Sierra Nevada Mountains looked like a good idea, with lots of small towns and hamlets to hide out in and scavenge for food and supplies. After seeing all the alien activity, and the amount of air traffic, that wasn’t such a good idea. The aliens were obviously hunting humans by the number of captives they’d seen. That meant alien ‘boots on the ground’ and the chance of running into them unexpectedly. Not a good idea with untrained troops. A short look at his map-pad and he changed the route of march to I-178. A short blast on his whistle and a soft word on the command push to all the team leaders got the team up and moving forward at a steady pace.