The Retreat #5: Crucible

by Stephen Knight

  It would be hell.

  Army forts were rarely as they were portrayed in movies. Unless located in a hostile environment on foreign soil, they were hardly impenetrable. Great swaths weren’t even fenced in. The most challenging security at several points were blunt warning signs that threatened interdiction and prosecution. But aside from those, anyone could literally walk right into a majority of Army posts inside the United States and do what they wished until they were detected and the MPs or special reaction teams picked them up. Fort Stewart wasn’t any different than most bases in that regard, and in fact, it was even less secure physically than, say, Fort Drum had been.

  As such, a massive klown force numbering at least ten thousand had lain siege to the fort for weeks. They had organized concentric defensive positions that kept them safe from counterattack while they in turn went on the warpath. Most of the buildings on the post had been torched or severely damaged, but it looked as if the defenders had been able to give back what they received. The terrain was scored with craters left from artillery and, tellingly, deep divots that could only have come from airstrikes. Lee estimated at least a dozen one- to two-thousand-pound bombs had been dropped on attacking klown formations in a bid to keep the post secure, and the hundreds and hundreds of dismembered bodies lying strewn about the landscape were testament to this. All of that was in the intelligence summary that had been forwarded to the battalion. Air Force elements out of Florida had launched a withering attack against the klowns over the course of four days, with special operators on the ground designating targets and quarterbacking the engagements. The bombardments had tapered off once the special operations forces in the area had been overrun and apparently infected. According to the INTSUM, this had been discovered only after the infected SOF troops had arranged for two low-level bombing runs which had resulted in the attack aircraft being shot down. That convinced the Air Force—and General Reynolds—that close air support in such an environment was too risky. Aircraft were at a premium, and their numbers were more finite than ever.

  In the absence of close air, the klowns had regained the upper hand. Fort Stewart and its attached military airport, Hunter Army Airfield, together served as the home of the Third Infantry Division and several other first-line military units. The post was established as the Army’s premier power projection point on the Atlantic Coast, so even in peacetime it was a busy place. The Third had been dispatched mainly to Atlanta, with some subordinate units sent farther north to back up the Eighty-Second Airborne in the defense of Washington. That would leave the usual hodgepodge of tenant units behind, mostly the garrison itself and some support and logistics units that weren’t battle rostered. To most soldiers, that would mean Stewart was a soft target. But the numerous bodies lying strewn about in the photo intel told a different story. Stewart wasn’t down for the count, at least not yet.

  “The road movement will have to be fast,” Lee said. “We can’t be too cautious in our approach. We have to get there fast, before the new swarms of enemy beat us to it.”

  “Agreed, sir,” Turner said.

  “We do need to conduct scouting operations,” Walker interjected. “We have to know what we’re rolling up on.”

  “With what, Major?” This came from Captain Beach, who had replaced the fallen Hayes as Lee’s battle captain. As much as Lee and Hayes had disagreed with each other, Hallelujah Hayes had been absolutely fearless when pressing the attack against the klowns. Beach, on the other hand, was more thoughtful and diligent. It was a night and day circumstance, but Beach would do well in the heat of the moment. “We lost the cavalry unit back in New York. We don’t have any organic scout units, and no aviation. We have the drones, but they’ve got short legs. We can’t scout for the main advance and provide enough movement intel to make it worthwhile.”

  Walker looked at Lee. “Reynolds has to be able to provide something for us, right?” He tapped the pictures on the table before the men. Not only were there photographs, but also a collection of radar and infrared imagery. “This looks like some serious Air Force technology to me.”

  “Navy,” Turner said.

  Lee raised a brow. “How do you know that, Sarmajor?”

  Turner pointed to the legend on one of the photographs. “See this right here? MQ-4C?”

  “Sure.”

  “Naval version of the Global Hawk,” Turner said. “There’s a unit out of Jacksonville. Pretty sweet devices, able to fly for a couple of days at over fifty thousand feet. Seems like it might be worth asking the general to chop one over to scout the route for us. We can get the surveillance updates in almost real time, if our C4I gear can receive it. We’d only need it for, what, twelve hours?”

  “It’s worth the ask, sir,” Walker said. “We could really use it, and if our objective is what the general says it is, then he’ll make something available to us.”

  “I’ll do that,” Lee said. “But we need to firm up the route first, and plan our approach. Based off the imagery and intel, we’ll have to find a way to infiltrate the objective without becoming decisively engaged—as we all know, we’re a bit low on manpower right now, so getting into a protracted engagement too early isn’t going to end well for us.” He pulled out one of the images that provided a high-altitude picture of the post, and pointed at one of the roads to the north of the installation. “Route One Forty-Four seems the best. We can dogleg over toward this range here and set up the assembly area there. It’s far enough away from the post that we might be able to approach unobserved, but close enough that if we have to react to a sudden incident we can do so in a timely manner.” Lee looked around the TOC. “Anyone here actually done time at Stewart?”

  Turner raised his hand. “Advanced NCO course about nine years ago, sir.”

  “You familiar with the lay of the land?”

  “Yes, sir. What you picked out is a pretty good spot. Lots of tree cover off the roads, and there are a thousand and one trails all over the place. We don’t need to encamp in plain sight, we can get under cover if it suits us to reduce our visible footprint.”

  “Walker? Beach?” Lee looked at the two men.

  “Seems like we’d have a couple options to retreat if things blow up in our faces, but they’re all linear,” Beach said, looking at the photo. “That can work to our advantage, but could work against us at the same time.”

  “It’s going to be a shit sandwich no matter how we play it, sir,” Turner said. “But we can’t stage to the east where there are more approaches—look at the concentration of klown forces there.”

  Lee looked at the imagery again. For certain, the eastern-facing side of the fort was more heavily exposed to the klowns. There was more civilian infrastructure there, including dwellings and roads that allowed the enemy to form more robust defenses—after all, structures such as buildings and the like afforded more protection from the remaining indirect fires coming from the troops that still held parts of Stewart. The infected were crazy, but they weren’t necessarily stupid. He could also see where Beach had a point. If the battalion had to move, there were only a few directions it could strike out in.

  “I’m thinking the forests will channelize any enemy attacks right into our firing lanes,” he said after a moment. “Sure, they can disperse into the woods and come at us that way, but moving through the brush is going to slow them down and make them less effective as a dismounted force. I think the sarmajor is right, the eastern approach to the post is too heavily defended. We could never get in and out that way without a fight. So while I understand and agree with your issues concerning the western approach, Beach, it’s the only show in town that I can see.”

  “Roger that, sir.”

  Lee regarded the intel materials on the table before him for a moment, then checked his watch. “All right, gentlemen. In ten minutes, I have to advise Reynolds and his staff of our planned movement. Let’s establish the final route so I can get that done before I beg for more resources.”

  TEN.

&nbs
p; For Colonel Kief Tackaberry, US Army retired, it was the beginning of a new life.

  Standing in the bright morning with the rest of his men, it wouldn’t have taken a lot to convince him it was just another day heading up another command. The troops were mustering, going over their gear, engaging in the usual grab-ass conversation endemic to all soldiers who were manning up and preparing to ride out into harm’s way. He felt twenty or thirty years younger. Retirement hadn’t really suited him all that well, though truth be told, there hadn’t been a lot to complain about. When the pandemic that turned good people into murderous maniacs had first begun to spread, Tackaberry had felt a small sliver of resentment; all the work he’d put in to secure a sedate life in his golden years was about to be swept away, sucked right out of his hands as if it had been caught up in some great whirlpool against which he had no hope. But then, as events worsened and the body count began to climb into the thousands, he heard it: the call to action. The last time it had happened was in the 1990s, when his aviation unit had been mobilized to support the LAPD during the Rodney King riots. It was hardly worthy duty, but it was duty, and Tackaberry had given it his best.

  And shortly thereafter, he had been passed over for promotion. The writing was on the wall. Promotion into the ranks of general officers was competitive, and over the course of his career Tackaberry had stomped on toes he shouldn’t have and deferred kissing asses he should have. The price for these transgressions was that he would retire as a full bird colonel and trade in his battle dress duty uniform for civilian duds. He’d enter the civilian work force as a middle-aged man who had more experience in life than virtually anyone around him, and he’d have to compete for low- or mid-level jobs with fresh-faced kids right out of college who were babbling about something called the Internet.

  It was a warrior’s worst nightmare.

  Then the pandemic began, and Tackaberry was suddenly restored. It was a grisly trade-off, of course. His opportunity to become an actual contributor to national security was offset by a mounting wave of tremendous destruction that decimated families and threatened the way of life he had become used to as an American. But he accepted it for what it was and set about getting back to work.

  He took a moment away from securing his own gear—a backpack full of supplies, tactical gear, clothing and ammunition, a LaRue PredAtor OBR rifle, and a Glock 23 pistol—to survey his current command. More than two dozen men just like him, ranging in age from fifty-nine to seventy-two years of age. Some fat, some skinny, almost all on some sort of medication. Some even had dentures, and their hair—those who still had any, at least on their heads—varied from salt-and-pepper to full-on white. But there was no hesitation in their movements, no fear in their eyes. They’d seen it all, spread across their various services. One of them, a surly-faced former Marine lieutenant colonel named Billy Haynes, was even humming “I Can’t Get No Satisfaction” by The Rolling Stones. Only Haynes’s version was different. Had he been singing aloud, as he often did during weekly poker games where tumblers of scotch served as the only real social lubricant, the verse would have been “I Can’t Get No Metamucil.” Tackaberry liked Haynes a lot. He was a tough old campaigner, but he still managed to salvage his sense of humor. Real humor, the kind that could bond men and women together and give them the opportunity to forget the pressures of the day, was in short supply. Especially now, given that a good deal of the American populace was being wiped out by crazy people who thought inflicting pain and mutilation and death were the gateways to hilarity.

  His men were all old, a few bordering on positively ancient. But they handled their weapons and gear with a surety that left Tackaberry impressed. Age hadn’t robbed them of the one asset that would be most valuable over the course of the coming days. They were still competent, and they still retained their skills.

  These men, these relics of another time…were still lethal.

  ELEVEN.

  “We’ve contrasted your planned axis of advance against the latest intel we have, Colonel Lee. We agree, it’s a good route,” General Armand Reynolds said over the video link.

  “Gratified to hear that, sir,” Lee replied. He was sitting in the communications room back inside the Underground Hotel. “We’ll be jumping out in an hour. Was wondering if you could provide us with real-time intel of the route, especially as we get closer to the objective.”

  “Believe it or not, Colonel, you’re not the only military asset we’re in contact with,” Reynolds said. “We’re wrangling a lot of cats right now.”

  “Are any of the other assets headed to Stewart to secure one of the Four Horsemen, sir?”

  Reynolds smiled thinly at that. “No, Colonel. Yours is the only assigned unit to that mission.”

  “Then, sir, you might want to chop some assets our way. That is, if you want the mission to be completed successfully.”

  Reynolds’s wan smile evaporated in an instant. “Lee, you think that we’re not dispatching assets under our command to where they’re needed most? You think the remains of your battalion are in such shit shape that they can’t go on for a moment longer? Is that what you’re bitching about, Colonel?”

  “Not bitching, General. Requesting. There’s a difference.”

  Reynolds regarded Lee for a long moment over the teleconference gear, then let out a dry chuckle. “Seems like you’ve more than earned your stripes, Harry. No one else stomps on my air hose like you have just now.”

  Lee remained silent.

  “Tell me what you want, Lee,” Reynolds said.

  “Real-time recce of the post before we roll up. My sergeant major tells me you have access to Merlin surveillance assets—I’d like one of those surveilling our entire route so we have some idea what we’re driving into. If we can arrange for CAS on short notice, that would be fantastic. We’re going to need that—we both know it, so if you can make some high-level attack assets available that we can direct onto target, that would help us a hell of a lot. I’ve got maybe three hundred guns available to me, and there are around ten thousand enemy surrounding Stewart. Our only chance is to infiltrate. If we try to fight our way in, we’ll get wiped off the map. But we’ll absolutely have to fight our way out. We’ll need your help on the egress, and if you can contribute mud movers, that’ll be a great help.”

  “No promises,” Reynolds said. “Aviation assets are scarce right now, and we can’t run them into the ground. Every airframe we lose is permanent at this point, Lee. Sorry to hear about your manpower issues, but that sounds like your problem. Not mine.”

  “General Reynolds? With all respect to you and your legendary status, go fuck yourself. You want the One Fifty-Fifth to execute this mission, you provide the tools necessary.”

  “Otherwise what, Lee? You and your battalion go off the grid?” Reynolds glared at Lee through the video camera on his side. “Won’t be the first time.”

  “Whatever remains of the Tenth Mountain Division under my command is ready and willing to execute the mission, General. But if you can’t be bothered to provide support, then that’s on you,” Lee shot back. “You need this objective delivered? Help us make that happen.”

  Reynolds was silent for a long moment, and from what Lee saw, he didn’t look around the conference room he was sitting in. Reynolds was making the decisions, without consulting his staff.

  “Lee, you’ve requisitioned the SATCOM gear from the facility?” Reynolds asked. High Point had a full suite of portable communications gear, including handheld satellite phones. Lee had already pulled five of the units and disbursed them to his senior staff so the battalion could remain in communication with Reynolds’s forces in Florida while on the move.

  “We have.”

  “I’ll try and dispatch a Merlin your way during the second half of your movement,” Reynolds said. “But for the next six hours, you’re on your own. You’ll have to do the best you can. We’re recovering one unit now, but it has to be refueled and inspected before it can be launched again. Like I sa
id earlier, aviation assets are precious, and that includes unmanned aircraft as well. You get that?”

  “Got it, sir.”

  “I’ll make sure you have additional eyes on target during your approach to Stewart. I can’t guarantee I’ll be able to provide close air; we have problems of our own right on our doorstep. But if I can, I’ll peel something your way. Don’t expect this to be an immediate response. If things are going pear-shaped and you think you need air support, then you make the call earlier rather than later. Understood?”

  “Understood, sir. Understood.”

  TWELVE.

  “So where we rolling out to, Duke?” Nutter shouted as the remains of the Bushmasters mounted up in one of the five-ton trucks.

  “Fucking Stewart, I heard,” Muldoon replied. “Next stop is the Peachtree state. Don’t worry, Colonel Nutter—you don’t have to get all dolled up. Carter isn’t there any longer.”

  “Aw shucks, I was gonna break out the No-Pest strips and hang ’em from my crotch.”

  Muldoon sniffed. “You won’t need to worry about those, Nutter. You smell like you haven’t wiped your ass in about four weeks. Even flies won’t want to come near you.”

  Nutter shrugged as he sat down on the bench seat opposite Muldoon. “Yeah, that’s about right. A man’s gotta get the appropriate amount of fermentation, you know.”

  “Since when you become a man?” asked the Guard girl, Campbell, as she clambered up the back of the truck. Muldoon noticed Rawlings was right behind her. He must’ve smiled or something, because Rawlings looked at him sternly for a moment as she hauled herself into the truck’s bed.