by Unknown
By 0400 the Army of Allah had entered the breach in the wall and was able to overcome the resistance but the National Guard had bugged out to where they didn’t know right now. This was disappointing as Steven was looking forward to capturing more of their weapons. He was aware they had capture two 155 howitzers but he didn’t find out until later there was no ammunition for them. Now he had to make a decision whether to take them with them or not; because they were not a lot of use to him with no rounds.
He wondered where the National Guard Soldiers had pulled back too he knew they would have to continue to deal with them unless they eliminated the threat. However, right now he needed to complete the securing of Detroit; there was a lot to do to get the city ready to convert to Islam and establishing Sharia Law. The city had been suffering greatly from the EMP event quite a few people had died because of lack of medical attention, starvation or thirst, or being murdered out right. He had another arm of the Army that would pacify the people and execute the conversions or execute those who refused. The morality police would also be accompanying the Army and would firmly establish themselves within the next few days.
While this was going on he was also planning further expansion and over to Ann Arbor where Islamic fighters had already started an uprising and were firmly in control of about half the city. They were asking for help from the Sultan who had granted it, Steven now needed to make it work. It was about forty-five miles away and he needed to get about two thousand men with equipment to Ann Arbor. He felt that this was actually going to be a good logistical exercise for him and his staff if they wanted the Caliphate to grow they would have to go through these exercises anyway so there was no time like the present.
They needed to evaluate the number of vehicles they would need to move the men, weapons, ammunition, food and water not to mention fuel for the vehicles. They also reasoned that as they advanced on Ann Arbor they would be able to incorporate all of the towns between Detroit and there, they would have the smaller enforcement companies which also included the morality police follow the Army and establish their presence in each town for now.
The planning lasted a few days, the enforcement companies had moved into Detroit and seemed to have a handle on it. Steven ordered a Brigade size element to move to Ann Arbor to help out their brethren there, they would use the trucks they had to move everyone. The fuel in the vehicles should carry them to Ann Arbor and back. One of the new modifications they had made to the trucks was that several were now outfitted with machine guns as moving gun platforms.
The plan was to attack the city from both ends at the same time, the brothers that were there fighting now would push from there end and as Army of Allah arrived they would attack from the other end forcing the enemy into a vice squeezing them from both directions until they were all dead. They expected a quick victory as approached.
The Sultan was receiving word from all over the region, in various cities and towns that brave Islamic fighters were taking to the streets and killing the infidels and taking over then announcing their allegiance to the Caliphate. Towns such as Toledo, Waterford, Sterling Heights, Battle Creek, Kalamazoo, and many others were falling to their Islamic Brothers. None of it would have been possible without Allah causing the event. Most of the towns and cities were thrown into chaos and the local authorities had no way to really enforce the laws especially when there was no food or water to be had. It was the same story every place the strong were rising up and taking what they wanted and the meek were either dying and being enslaved, it was their time.
The battle for Ann Arbor was over within days, the people that were fighting were local citizens that had set up a militia to try to stop the onslaught of gangs in the area. They were not prepared to fight a much larger and well-armed force such as the Army of Allah, within two days Ann Arbor fell. The Sultan then proclaimed the Caliphate stretching from Detroit to Fort Wayne, to Gary, and north to Grand Rapids and back east to Saginaw. He could claim pretty much anything but some of the cities within those boundaries hadn’t remotely been touched by any Islamic branch for instance Lansing which had several National Guard units there and would put up quite a fight. Then the further north they moved the closer they got to Camp Grayling and they really had no idea what was going on there. He was also proclaiming parts of Indiana as well as Wisconsin and he was dangerously close to Fort McCoy and again he had no idea what was going on there either.
Then there was Chicago which they had heard was having all sorts of issues with fighting by gangs, all sorts of militias you name it at this time the Sultan and the Army Commander thought it wise to abandoned Chicago for the time being. Let the residents slug it out and kill each other and what did they really need that was in Chicago anyway.
Chapter Seven
Over the past several weeks there had been an increasing amount of ham radio activity, many of the older radios used tubes with no solid state circuitry, also using hand cranked electrical power or generators to run them. It also took time to replace antennae’s that were up at the time the event hit and were fried. Most of the ham operators were looking for information or they were dispensing information about the area they lived in. The prevailing theory that was going around that it was an EMP event that had caused all the calamity but there still was no real consensus on what caused it. Most of the radio activity was about all of the doom and gloom going on throughout the nation. Now depending on the weather they were able to pick up ham operators from overseas, UK, Germany, Japan and it was clear whatever happened it was affecting everyone on the planet.
One of the bright spots in all of the reporting from the operators was that from Northern California the area surrounding San Francisco. Reports were that the US Military had cleaned out most if not all of the rift-raft and was establishing law and order. There was fuel, food, water and medical help and it was relatively safe. However, none of the operators had actually been there but had heard it second or third hand from other people.
There were other cities or towns that were reporting good news or people were reporting good news, whether it was firsthand accounts or not was truly known or were they trying to lure people in. Yet most of the news was death on massive scales the young and elderly dying who were in bad medical shape or were on various types of medication that they could no longer get. Reports of people that couldn’t cope in the new world because everything they did in their lives was tied to technology, they didn’t know how to camp, some couldn’t even pitch a tent to save their lives and died from exposure. Rapes were common or women selling their bodies to get food and water not to mention safety. The truly sad thing was that many women pre-event thought themselves to be independent and didn’t need a man around. When things went to shit they found out differently, certainly there were women who were tough enough and resourceful enough to get through it all, but most weren’t especially when it came to safety, if they had no man to help them then it was open season.
Additional reports talked about massive fatalities of downed commercial aircraft with dead bodies scattered all over fields and towns. There were some small towns there were hit by the aircraft which destroyed neighborhoods and then burnt the rest of the town down because there was no fire department and medical services to help.
They also talked about gangs and militias forming that took over towns and small cities that were enslaving the population. Murder was rampant with no law and order and some of the militias were joining together to form small armies. It was unknown outside of San Francisco area what was going on in areas that had large military presence. People were starving as much for information as they were for food and water.
The short wave or ham radios were not lost on Colonel John Clayton and Major General Ted Watkins. They had established a ham radio net throughout the area they were run by the Intelligence Company who worked with radio operators that were first civilian who taught some of the Soldiers how to use them and the protocols associated with it. These were unsecured radio nets so the
y were very careful about information they gave out. They were a bonanza of intelligence information and they could find out information about other areas of the country. What they were really looking for though was more information regarding other military units they could hook up with and coordinate. That hadn’t happened yet which they thought was unusual they couldn’t be the only ones who maintained order and discipline of the United States Military.
There was chatter about military units in Texas Fort Hood, Georgia Fort Benning and Fort Gordon, Fort Bragg in North Carolina, Camp Grayling in Michigan, Camp Lejeune North Carolina and several others but nothing concrete out of the actual bases. Once every hour the radio operators on the net stated, “Any United States Military units on this net please respond over” this was said five times in the clear. They repeated the message over several frequencies especially those used by the Military and Law Enforcement.
When other ham operators heard the message they tried to engage the Soldiers and asked for information, the Soldiers were very tight lipped. On the flip side the ham operators were very talkative and talked about everything that was going on in their area. Many if not most were lonely and scared reaching out into a world they no longer understood. Many of the operators had stopped transmitting over the weeks and months as their sites became compromised and probably over run by gangs or militia.
Months had passed before someone claiming to be from Fort Huachuca Arizona came over the net and responded to their call. In the event that happened there was a set procedure for them to follow. They had COI or communications operating instructions as well as call signs and net authentication codes. Each military site would have signal communication instructions that had authentication codes to verify units on the net these codes changed every 24 hours. The OIC and NCOIC came into the communications center where the radio set and operator were located. The Soldier challenged the other person on the far end with the authentication code and they made the correct response. With that they were certain it was a Soldier at Fort Huachuca, finally they made contact. The RTO or radio teletype operator asked for a sitrep a situation report for Fort Huachuca.
The Soldier identified himself as Staff Sergeant Juarez of the 11th Signal Brigade and all Soldiers were present and accounted for. The post itself was fairly remote part of southern Arizona located in the Huachuca Mountains the city that was just out the gate was Sierra Vista a small community that before the event had a population of 28,000 and that included the people who lived on post. Since the post was somewhat remote the town suffered a great deal when they found they were unable to be supplied with food and medical supplies. The post Commander wanted to help and they tried but couldn’t afford to let all of their supplies go to the town they still had a mission and that was to protect the southern border of the United States.
It took another hour or so for both sides to retrieve enough information to give them an idea of what was going on at each location. However, the RTO’s were under strict orders not to give out certain types of information as an example they weren’t allowed to mention anything about ongoing operations or that they had an Air Force or Navy which only include an Aircraft Carrier and several other small ships.
Once they signed off they agreed that they would talk again in four hours, presumably this was to give each side time to get the information to their respective commands. It was also agreed that some type of Senior Officer would be present for the next contact.
The OIC and NCOIC that had been in the communication center at the time and during the conversation with the RTO at Huachuca had taken quite a few notes. They quickly reviewed them, typed them up and sent them over to Colonel Clayton it was marked FLASH Classified Top Secret and read immediately. Colonel Clayton read through the information and certainly found it interesting but left a lot of unanswered questions. He called in his XO and spoke to him about it who proposed a mission to try to find out what might be going on. It would call for the C-47 to drop a Special Forces A-Team onto Huachuca to gather intel for several days then make their way to Sierra Vista Airport for extraction, plan B would call for using the runway on the fort but the A-Team would have to make that call and radio in their preference to the pilot just before extraction. Colonel Clayton told him to make it happen ASAP let’s see what’s going on there.
Colonel March wrote up the ops order and passed it on to the Special Operations Command who immediately implemented it. They were to HALO into Huachuca at 2300 that night, further ordering them to observe and collect Intel on the military garrisoned there, are they friend or foe. The Detachment commander was given discretion whether or not the forces there were friendly if he determined they were he could under his own authority make contact with those forces. If he determined they were not friendly they were to go to the extraction point and remain hidden until the extraction time.
Colonel Clayton ordered Colonel March to supervise the call with Huachuca that was to take place in the next couple of hours in the communication center. If they had what they determined an officer of equal or higher rank then he make take over the conversation himself. If not then continue to use the RTO present to drive the conversation while he supervised.
While the A-Team was winging its way to Fort Huachuca there was a conversation going on between the RTO at Camp Parks and the one at the Fort. On the Fort Huachuca side the Garrison Commander Colonel Tom Harkins and Major General Bob Utero the Commander from the Intelligence Center and the senior ranking member on post were present.
They went through the net authentication procedures and introductions before the men began to run through a series of question to ensure they were who they said they were. Although Major General Watkins wasn’t present, Major General Utero and Major General Watkins were friends and had served together at various posts. General Watkins had sent specific questions to ask the Intel Commander in the event he showed up. The questions were asked and answered successfully with no problems. What both sides wanted to know was who they were representing, in other words were they still loyal to the United States and to defend the Constitution or had they decided to maybe only defend the State of Arizona or gone rogue altogether, not that either side could trust the other at this point. That’s why the A-Team had been sent and their job to try to ascertain and hopefully soon.
There were no combat units at Fort Huachuca its primary mission was Military Intelligence and Signal Corps. Granted everyone was a Soldier first and they were all trained marksman but when it came to infantry tactics and weapons they didn’t have the training. Yet all of their equipment ceased to exist after the event. They heavily relied on modern technology to do their job, fortunately for them though the Signal Corp didn’t. Yes, the Signal Corps relied on modern technology as well but they could still run WD-1 wire and TA-312’s as well as use various types of radio sets that had not been affected by the pulse. They were still in pretty good shape compared to the MI units on post and that being the case the Commanders on post started in-depth training for Infantry tactics and weapons for all service members.
All military family members were moved out of Sierra Vista and onto main post where many of them lived anyway. It was a tight fit getting everyone on post but they managed to do it. Camp Parks and Fort Huachuca were similar in many ways as far as how they reacted to the event and subsequent actions. The Commanders at the Fort were astonished to learn just how far Camp Parks and Fort Irwin had come and their combat operations within the South Bay.
The Commanders at the Fort also assured the Commanders at Camp Parks that they were firmly under the command of the United States and weren’t going any place. As the discussion turned into hours over the radio net each side feeling out the other, there were chutes in the air of the Fort. The A-Team had made its jump, landed successfully. This A-Team was selected because they had done some training at the Fort in the past and knew the area fairly well.
It was 0400 as they made their way from the base of the Huachuca’s to a point where they could get a l
ook on what was going on at main post. The sun would be coming up soon and they needed to be in a place where they could observe and not be seen. One of the ops they planned on running was they were in fact US Soldiers themselves and had brought uniforms that had 11th Signal unit patch and as well as the various Intel units. Once they changed into them they would be able to wonder around the post and blend right in, well that was the plan.
Back at the communications center the Commanders on each side felt a bit more comfortable about the exchange. The Commanders at the Fort knew they would be outmatched and outgunned if for whatever reason they had to go up against the forces at Camp Parks and to top it off they had no way of verifying what was said between to two parties. The meeting had broken up with another one being scheduled at 1500 later on that day. Two of the biggest surprises that came out of the discussions with Camp Parks was that they had flyable aircraft and several running locomotives which they were actually using. This prompted and order by Major General Utero to find qualified pilots on post or Sierra Vista and then send a platoon sized element to the local Airport to see what they could find. If they found usable aircraft they were to secure the airport, send runners back and they would be right out to see what they needed to do.
Fort Huachuca did have an old rail line that ran on post, it hadn’t been used in a very very long time, sixty to seventy years, but for the sake of argument if they could get to Tucson seventy miles away they might be able to find themselves a train. In addition, they really needed to find out what was going on with the Air Force base it was a major installation and the national aircraft grave yard, he wondered if the Air Force had thought about trying to bring any of them back to life, so many questions. The General and Colonel Harkins decided it was time to break out of the Fort and get back into the game.