The Retreat #5: Crucible

by Stephen Knight

  Of course, the klowns weren’t really worried about death. That was one of the casualties of insanity. Rational thought went out the window.

  So under the cover of darkness, and while using as much stealth as a motorized force could, the battalion set up near the rail marshaling area. As Stewart was one of the premier force projection posts in the eastern United States, it had its own rail head, where all manner of equipment and troops could be loaded onto trains for transportation elsewhere. The RMA was essentially a gigantic clearing, and using the trees as a screen, the battalion’s soldiers were able to watch without being easily seen. Lee positioned the fighting elements closer to the RMA, while the support units were displaced to the northeast where they hid in the trees around one of the artillery training fields. This way they were farther away from the klown formations, but still close enough to provide supporting fires if necessary. Even though Thunder only had mortars, essentially the entire post was within their effective range of just over two miles. So long as the required fires were concentrated in one region, Thunder would be able to produce enough steel rain to make the klowns have to walk through a shit storm.

  Because of his rank, Lee would have to occupy the TOC to the west of the artillery training range. Like the RMA, it was a wide field, essentially devoid of any remarkable features after having been routinely pummeled by the big guns for a century or so. He dispatched several squads to patrol the tree line and ensure the support groups were safe for the time being, and as they melded into the darkness, he hoped they would report negative enemy contact. The last thing he wanted was for the First Fifty-Fifth to be setting up in the middle of klown central.

  He assigned Captain Beach the commander of the direct action units positioned at the rail head. While Beach wasn’t the most senior commander he had available, he was adroit enough to be able to direct fires onto target and support the units that would actually be journeying into Indian Country. Beach would be Lee’s conduit to the lightfighters that would be facing down the enemy. While he instinctively wanted the mission for himself, his position as battalion commander dictated that he remain behind and orchestrate resources as needed by his troops in contact. It was still foreign to him; Lee was a field operator at heart, and sticking to the relative safety of the tactical operations center felt almost profane. Even though there was not an ounce of cowardice to it, Lee still felt a gulf was forming between himself and the rest of the light infantry under his command. The distance of rank and the measure of responsibility.

  It left a bitter taste in his mouth and a peculiar hollowness in his chest.

  The heavy lifting fell to Lieutenant Cassidy. He would lead the remainders of the Bushmasters down the railroad tracks and closer to the fort, leading the element designated Eyes. Eyes would conduct special reconnaissance of the western approaches to the post. Upon ascertaining enemy strength and movements, essentially confirming what was being transmitted by the large Navy UAV orbiting downrange, Lee would direct Beach to launch two offenses. One would be a distraction that would hopefully draw the klowns to the south; this unit’s call sign was Inveigle. The second movement would be the actual operation itself, with an entire company of dismounted troops surging in through the void left behind. This element, call sign Desperado, would link up with Eyes and together the two elements would penetrate the klown lines and establish contact with friendly forces still holding Fort Stewart. As of the moment, no contact had been established with Stewart. This was due to the fact that Lee had no idea who to talk to, and if that contact was friendly or hostile. Reynolds’s command in Florida would handle that. The plan was that Reynolds’s staff would initiate contact with Stewart, inform them of a friendly attack from the south, and tell him to prepare to hammer the klown forces as they split up to deal with the threat. If the forces at Stewart counterattacked the klowns, then Reynolds would repurpose them to support the advance of Lee’s troops. If they didn’t, then stealthy infiltration would be the only way to gain access to the fort.

  Still, there was an enormous amount of setup to do. Advance teams scouted the intended assembly areas, and then the vehicles had to be brought in. Even though they were a few miles from Fort Stewart proper, ensuring low observability was paramount. That meant everything was done at half speed, without lights, and under cover of darkness. Vehicles had to be unloaded, troops positioned, and defenses erected. Neither staging area was intended to be held for long, and once the sun rose, the battalion was living on borrowed time. While the remnants of the First Fifty-Fifth had the training and seasoning along with the necessary tools of war, the klowns had the mass. Though Lee’s troops could wipe out a thousand of the enemy in less than ten minutes, the klowns knew no fear and had no hesitation at committing everything they had to wiping out what was left of the Tenth Mountain Division.

  Or infecting it, which was immeasurably worse.

  Lee went in with the headquarters group after the advance team signalled the intended deployment site was secure. As they slowly rolled their vehicles into the area and began setting up, Lee conferred with Beach and the command sergeant major. One last meeting before the captain was sent off to oversee the meatier part of the operation.

  “Beach, you have everything you need?” Lee asked. “Are Cassidy’s people ready to go? You’ve spoken with Thunder Six to ensure you have all the grids identified?”

  “Done, sir. We’re all good. That resupply from Florida really helped out, but…well, if you can get more of it, that would be a good thing.” Beach was maybe two or three years younger than Lee, a narrow-shouldered sort who hailed from Utah. Lee had heard he was a devout Mormon, which meant he must’ve been tough as nails to handle all the foul-mouthed grab ass that went on during a day in the life of the United States Army.

  “I don’t think that’s going to happen, Beach,” Lee said. “Not this close to the klown formations. Reynolds has already lost aircraft in a close support role, so air drops aren’t something he’s going to want to be coordinating—especially in daylight.”

  “Got that, sir.”

  “Captain, fighting in daytime’s going to be a tough proposition,” Turner said. “Remember, son, you need to keep your head down but your eyes out. There’s a lot of cover out here, but that goes both ways. The enemy has sufficient force to encircle you without you knowing about it, so keep your sentries posted at all times.”

  “Roger that, Sarmajor. I know this isn’t Boston or Drum. If the Killer Klowns come my way, I’ll have plenty warning.”

  “From your lips to God’s ear, Captain,” Turner said.

  “You good with the M-TOE?” Lee asked. “Once you deploy forward, pushing stuff out to you is going to be tough once we’re in contact.”

  “Good to go on that, sir. Seriously, we’re ready.”

  Lee felt Beach’s desire to jump out and start work. The sooner his element set up for movement, the sooner they could get things underway, hopefully before the sun came up. He nodded and clapped the captain on the shoulder.

  “Get to it, bro,” he said.

  Beach smiled. “‘Bro’? You sound like a captain again, Colonel.”

  “Ah, happy memories,” Lee said with a shrug.

  Beach saluted as his smile faded away. “Good luck, sir.”

  Lee returned the salute. “And to you, Beach. Give ’em hell.”

  FIFTEEN.

  Weapons at the ready, the Bushmasters pushed through the forests that surrounded the rail line extending from the rail marshaling area to Fort Stewart proper. The klowns had pushed through here several days ago; the troops came across obvious signs of use, including several bodies that had been left behind to decay in the summer heat. The stench was unbearable, and Rawlings was thankful for the MOPP gear she had finally been issued. She was reasonably safe from any biological contaminants, and while the reduced vision and hearing were bothersome, she figured she’d make that trade-off all day long.

  The forests were still black, trapped in deep shadow dark enough for h
er light-sensitive night vision gear to be entirely useful. The eastern horizon was beginning to brighten, and the faint illumination gave the night vision gear more than enough light to see by. While the field of vision was narrow, the light-intensifying tube of her monocle revealed virtually everything. If infected were lurking nearby, they’d be seen.

  Just the same, stealth was the name of the game. Branches snapped and twigs cracked as the troops slowly pushed through the brush, so if infected were in the vicinity, they’d likely have enough warning to respond. It was difficult to mask the noise of a dozen of heavily armed soldiers moving through forest topography, and in a bid to prevent the enemy from getting a premature heads-up, Lieutenant Cassidy had ordered a reasonably slow approach.

  In the near distance, gunfire erupted. The troops halted dead in their tracks and crouched, listening to the rhythmic pulses of heavy machine guns firing. Explosions tore through the predawn gloom. Rawlings recognized the din as coming from forty-millimeter grenades. Someone was having a field day with one or more Mk40 grenade launchers. Rawlings crouched and waited with the rest of the soldiers, sweating beneath her uniform as the heat and humidity began to rise...not to mention the terror as the din of combat continued to rage away.

  It became obvious after a few moments that the lightfighters weren’t the target. Slowly, laboriously, the troops got back to their feet and continued pushing through the foliage. Ahead, Muldoon turned and faced her. He pumped his fist in the air, urging her and those troops behind her to move forward at a faster pace. Rawlings replicated the gesture and hurried forward, pulling the stock of her rifle against her shoulder. The gunfire grew louder. The lightfighters were obviously rolling into a fight, and they were going to join it.

  The tree line began to clear ahead, and through gaps in the foliage Rawlings glimpsed a series of defensive revetments across the rail line. Hundreds if not thousands of bodies lay on the ground, many of them swollen and bloated from days of baking in the hot, humid Georgia summer. Many of them were in the remains of uniforms, but from where Rawlings was, she could tell many of the slain were klowns. There had been more soldiers here, she knew, guarding the same approach the lightfighters were now trying to exploit, and they had fallen in battle. Sandbagged fighting positions had been set up across the rail line, and to her surprise, Rawlings saw several of them were still manned. Fifty-caliber and Squad Automatic Weapons roared, firing into the forest downrange from where the Bushmasters were rallying. A lone Mk40 grenade launcher was the star of the show, though—it hurled death at its full cyclic rate, and explosions tore through the trees a couple hundred yards from her position. As she hurried toward the rest of the troops, Muldoon was there, waving the soldiers to adopt a wedge formation. Rawlings pushed around a tree and crouched down.

  Campbell dropped down beside her. “So what the fuck is going on?” She had to half-shout because of the firing and because of her mask.

  “Looks like some local troops are engaging a klown element downrange,” Rawlings said.

  “How the hell you know that, girl? For all we know, the dudes in the revetments are the fucking klowns!”

  Rawlings considered that, then shrugged beneath her battle rattle. The truth of the matter was, she didn’t have the foggiest clue what was going on.

  To her right, two soldiers clustered around Lieutenant Cassidy. They were the first shirts, Urena and the one called Boats. The men had a quick pow-wow before the group evaporated. Cassidy and his first sergeant started waving the rest of the troops up. Rawlings stayed in place and waited for Muldoon to mimic the movement, which he did after a long moment. He stood up and shouldered his rifle, shouting something to the rest of the soldiers as they pushed past him.

  “Klowns in the trees, on our side! Form up on Cassidy and Urena!” Muldoon bellowed at her through his mask. He repeated the words to Campbell, and to the soldier who filed up after her. With all the noise, Rawlings was finally free to move at more than a snail’s pace. While she didn’t go running through the forest, she was able to make great progress. In less than a minute, she joined the line abreast formation that Cassidy and Urena were arranging. The plan was clear; they would open up on the klowns from a slant, keeping them out of the defenders’ fire lanes.

  Something roared, and the Mk40 in one section of the revetments disappeared in a thunderclap. Through the explosion of dust and ripped sandbags, Rawlings actually saw the weapon fly into the air, tumbling barrel over handgrips. It was either an AT-4 strike or a hit from a Carl Gustav; either way, it had taken the teeth out of the defenders’ position, and that was something to worry about it.

  From the forest, raucous jeers erupted. In the near distance, Rawlings saw people rising from their fighting positions—some within several meters of Cassidy’s skirmish line.

  The lieutenant himself fired the first shot, and the rest of the unit responded in kind.

  SIXTEEN.

  “Eyes is in contact,” Lee heard over the TOC radio net. It was Beach reporting in. His elements had just gotten settled in over at the rail marshaling area and were still spooling up their operations. Inveigle had just jumped out, while Desperado was assembling before commencing its advance. The news that Eyes had just gone hot, while not entirely unexpected, was unwelcome nevertheless. Lee looked at the displays that framed the aerial intel being pushed down from the MQ-4, orbiting almost fifty thousand feet overhead. He studied the imagery for a moment, but it did not seem that the klown forces were reacting to the firefight. There were several klown attacks going on at the moment as they continued to harass Fort Stewart’s defenders. It was possible that the noise being generated by the Eyes element wasn’t enough to attract any special attention.

  “Find out if we can get an estimate of the size of the OPFOR,” he said to Walker. “If Eyes is walking into a substantial element, we’re going to need to adjust some things.”

  “On it, sir,” Walker said. He was on the radio an instant later, relaying the request.

  “Sir, we’re in it. And we’re in it good,” Turner said. “Doesn’t matter what the size of the enemy element is, they’re going to have to fight their way through it.”

  Lee gritted his teeth. “I know, Sarmajor. I know.”

  SEVENTEEN.

  The Bushmasters caught the klown element in a slanting engagement from their rear quarter. There were only twenty to thirty of the enemy in the woods firing on the Army revetments across the rail tracks, and they’d had absolutely no rear guards posted. When Cassidy gave the orders to roll up and start dispensing hot hate, the klowns were caught completely off guard. A lot of that was due to the tenacity of the troops manning the fighting positions they were attacking. But a good deal of that was due to the fact the lightfighters knew how to do their job, and Muldoon made sure everyone was up and on a rifle before the bullets began to fly.

  They cut through the klowns with a practiced efficiency that made even Muldoon proud. The newbies like the girl Campbell were as proficient as the most seasoned of the lightfighters, and that left the hulking sergeant with a case of the warm glows. His people were ready, they were experienced, they were fucking killers. When the enemy lay before them, they did not hesitate. They weren’t bound up by emotion or thought. It didn’t matter if the person they were snuffing out had been a gold star dad, a movie star, a renowned scientist who was within an eighth of an inch of discovering a cure for cancer, the first woman CEO to lead a Fortune 20 company, an activist who managed to capture the attention of the media for a nanosecond, a fucking Kardashian. They hosed them all, and did so with discipline and an economy of force that told Muldoon they weren’t just thinking about this engagement, they were thinking about the next one, and the one after that.

  Warriors, all.

  Muldoon was impressed.

  Even the old fucker Boats was a juggernaut, slashing through the infected like a total force of nature. There was no holding him back. He stood and delivered, up to and including war howls that Muldoon was certain would
have raised the hairs on the back of even the hardiest mujahedin’s neck. For an old guy—hell, even for a young guy—Boats gave hell like no other, cutting a deep swath into the enemy ranks through which the rest of the lightfighters poured, raining hell on anyone who opposed them. It was beautiful.

  It was fucking art.

  “Come on, let’s move it out! Smoke ’em where you find ’em!” Muldoon bellowed behind his mask. “Don’t leave any of them alive!” It was a gruesome order, but it was a correct and sane one in the wake of a world gone mad. He was rewarded with a smattering of rifle shots as the troops came forward and dispatched those klowns who were only wounded in the initial assault. They lay writhing on the forest floor, cackling and chortling, even as they choked on their own blood.

  Muldoon bounded forward but kept an eye on the killing floor before him, traipsing through the dead and dying. A haggard woman with wild hair and bloodied tattoos scraped across her cheeks reached for him, giggling even though a froth of blood eddied out of her mouth like a weird red foam, twigs and ribbons in her salt-and-pepper hair. He brought his rifle around and fired a single shot through her dirty forehead. She shuddered for a moment after the bullet had done its job, obliterating whatever remained of her brain, but her body held on. Reluctant to die. For a fraction of an instant, Muldoon wondered if that was a sign she had a fighter’s spirit, or if it was just the bug doing what it did before finally being snuffed out. He dismissed the wonder almost immediately. It wasn’t important, and it distracted him from doing what needed to be done.