by Billy Roper
Right behind the F-35s, a flight of four F-15s that had been used primarily for training purposes before Cinco Day came in to do their part. Stephen sure was glad that the Air Force had kept ordinance around for demonstration purposes and as a part of the joint readiness command, as he watched their cluster munitions crumple the flanks of the attacking army. A general retreat began on the other side of the island, but the smoke was so thick that he couldn’t see any details of what was going on. The bombs fell again, and again. Another flight of sleek jets, these looking different, zipped past at low level to unleash what looked like napalm on the other side of the river. They must be the Raptors from Tyndall, Stephen thought. Death rained from above, and he sure was glad to be a White man, that day. The only bad thing was that there were no enemies left in sight.
The ear-splitting roar of heavy munitions being dropped caused nearly everyone in the forest to throw themselves to the ground. One of the explosions came so close that it shook the earth, and shredded branches fell from the tops of trees, overhead. There were so many men packed into such a small area that there was almost no room to crawl without bumping into someone. Tears streamed down the Colonel’s face from the smoke, and he coughed uncontrollably as he crawled towards light. There was a clearing ahead. He stood up shakily, slapped Cooper on the helmet, and began to run forward. He could barely see five feet in front of him. As he loped around another tree towards the light, the earth suddenly gave way under his feet. For a heart-stopping moment, Strawn thought that another bomb had gone off, right underneath him, until his boots hit the water and he fell forward with a splash. Other men landed around him, so he didn’t feel like the only idiot. He got up as quickly as he could, so that nobody would kill their Colonel by landing on top of him. They had made it through.
The woods on the other side of the narrow river were on fire, and there were no New Africans to be seen. Strawn’s men stopped to catch their breath in the cleaner air of the river channel. He looked up to see the hundreds of defenders on the bridge staring down at them in disbelief. For no reason, he began to laugh. Slowly at first, a couple of his men began to laugh, as well. Then others joined in, almost hysterically. It was good to be alive.
By the time the bodies were all collected, it was determined that 2,873 New Africans had been killed or injured in the battle. Either way amounted to the same thing, since the militia didn’t take any prisoners. F-22 Raptors, along with F-15s and F-16s, all from Tyndall Air Base, pursued the routed black militants all the way back to Mobile, dropping ordinance and munitions on the rear of their column to keep them going and reducing their numbers by another eight to nine hundred, before they reached the city. Of the four hundred bridge defenders, only eight were killed, three of those due to friendly fire accidents and one due to a self-fired ricochet, and a handful wounded. Strawn’s reserve force had lost thirteen Air Force SOC personnel, one Marine, three deputies, and twenty-four militia in the fight for the flank in the woods. His authority over the White enclave from Pensacola to Panama City was never questioned again, and the New Africans stayed away for three years, after the Battle of the Two Bridges.
The Coast Guard’s three response boats stationed at Panama City, and the Naval Support Activity Center nearby, helped cobble together a navy of sorts out of commercial and private watercraft and shipping, to defend the region from any seaborne attack. Elgin, Hulburt, NAS Pensacola, and Tyndall rationed their fuel and maintained a deterrent from the air. For thirty-eight months they consolidated their strength, while New Africa starved on three sides around them. By the time Strawn made contact with Gen. Harrison and learned about the Unified Command, he was calling himself ‘General’, too, and held the 160 mile long stretch of coastline and sixty miles inland, with over a million souls, as an absolute ruler. The Republic of the Emerald Coast began negotiating with St. Louis to become a Territory of the Republic of New America around Thanksgiving in year four following Cinco Day. The first diplomatic overture was made right after the Second Battle of Loxley. The R.E.C. forces defeated the New Africans there and drove the pitiful remnants back across Mobile Bay, before blowing the bridges. Then, they erected a monument to the Rebels who had fallen heroically in the First Battle of Loxley, their own version of the Alamo.
Two weeks later, another front opened when the once-again advancing Cuban Army pushed the surviving blacks ahead of them, up and over and against the borders of the R.E.C. in a domino effect. While Kelly was showing Josh that White girls can cook Chinese food and Carolyn was telling John that she thought their baby was going to be a boy because it was kicking so hard, Stephen lay dying in a field hospital that had been a Pilot Travel Center parking lot, next to a vital I-10/90 crossroads west of Tallahassee that General Strawn had ordered his militia not to give up, at any cost. They hadn’t. The sky was a dull gray and the asphalt was cold and wet beneath him, as the Chaplain stopped beside him to pray. “It’s all right, preacher, I’m going to see my wife,” Stephen said. A doctor walked over from the patient next to Stephen that he was tending and lifted up the red-stained blanket covering his stomach. He looked at the Chaplain, nodded, and walked on. So did the Chaplain. Stephen lay there wondering how long this would take as the shock wore off and the pain came back, worse than before. He gritted his teeth and gave into it, crying and begging to go. He called out for his wife until the blood loss helped him pass out, sometime after dark. She’d waited for him, though, and it was all worth it.
Shed a tear cause I’m missin’ you, but I’m still alright to smile Girl I think about you every day now…
Sitting near their fire for warmth, the seven skinheads and three skinbyrds were almost shoulder to shoulder. Ghostgirl had to lean forward a bit to have room for her six string acoustic guitar, which she strummed while she sang. What she lacked in polish, she made up for with sincerity. All of them had heard the words before, since the song had been written long ago for another man.
“You’re gone with the breeze, just like the leaves on the trees, gone are the times with your family, with your family…”
This time, it was being sung for their comrade Squidbert. This was his memorial. There was no body to bury or ashes to scatter, because he’d been captured by the Chinese during a raid on one of the slanteyed invaders’ food warehouses in Davis. They were supposed to have already been gone, but a few had stayed behind to load up the last of the supplies as they redeployed. That rear guard had shot and captured Squiddie. The rest of them had to run, and that burned them.
Squidbert was just the most recent in a string of fallen comrades they’d held memorials for over the last few years since the invasion of the Mexicans had driven so much of California’s White population north. The top half of the state had seen a wave of refugees flood in, and then another following a couple of months later when the Chinese had taken the Bay Area and expanded outwards. A lot of people had gone hungry the first couple of years, and it had been a tough time. Many had moved on to Oregon, or died from starvation or lead poisoning. The Sacramento Skins had gone underground during the period of occupation by the ‘People’s Humanitarian Expeditionary Force’, fighting a furtive guerrilla campaign when possible but stealing food and supplies as necessary, more than anything. The skinheads’ base of operations was their campsite in the Yolo Bypass Wildlife Area. They’d started out with over thirty in the woodpile. Half had dropped out, and half of the rest were now dead. Despite their hard living and partying, none of them had been from natural causes. After nearly half a decade living this life, they barely remembered anything else.
These days, there were all kinds of new activity in the area. Organized militia wearing the starless flag of New America operated all over Northern California, sometimes right out in the open. Just last week they had bartered a case of 7.62x39 mm ammunition they had no use for to a group of uniformed New American irregulars for a 24 can flat of chicken and dumplings and a bag of apples from Washington. It had been a nervous exchange at the California Highway Patrol Acade
my the militia had taken over, but the deal had been straight. There would be more trades of larger amounts of material for greater amounts of food, in the future. So, they were no longer fighting alone. With victory in sight, every loss hurt more. They had no idea what kind of new world would arise from the ashes of the old one, but they hoped to be around to see it, after all they had been through.
When the song was over, Stomper stood up and gave the Roman salute to Squiddie, saying “Hail Squidbert!”. The rest of the group repeated his salute and exclamation. As the Alpha of the wolfpack, he had already given a speech about the fallen man’s bravery, and told a joke about how they’d met back in high school, before Cinco Day. Now it was time to bundle up in their sleeping bags and sleep through the coldest part of the night. Stomper and Valkie, his pregnant girlfriend, wrapped up together, spooning. The other two couples moved off a bit for privacy, and the other four single guys rolled dice to determine which of them would take the first watch.
There were four children with the group, ranging in age from six months to four years old. They were all the offspring of members of the skinhead crew, and had been born after the collapse. As Stomper lay thinking about Squiddie and wondering if maybe it was time to rejoin society and fight alongside the New American forces to finish off the Chinese, or maybe go south and take out some Mexicans below the Mormon Strip, the oldest girl began softly singing. Her song made no sense, but she must have been inspired by Ghostgirl’s song. Her words were lilting and weird: “Pal-meeto, Pal-metto, in the meadow, Palmetto,” over and over. It was almost a lullaby. They drifted off to sleep peacefully.
Deep in the cold night, a single shotgun blast roared out, waking the camp. The crew awoke to the sound of Valkie screaming. As more wood was thrown on the fire, the lighting increased. Stomper was found fatally shot, and Valkie had been wounded. There were no more shots, and no attacking enemy could be found. There were three shotguns in the camp, one of which was now missing. The remaining men suspected first the guard who’d been on duty, then another man, but nothing could ever be proven. They each had their own theories, and all vowed publicly to find out who was responsible and take vengeance. Without Stomper’s leadership, however, the group’s morale plummeted. Within a week the distrust led to a split within the crew. Two of the younger guys pledged to go berserker in Stomper’s name, and headed off to fight the Chinese. Valkie, Ghostgirl and her boyfriend Trevor, the other couple Karen and Pokey, and the two other single guys returned to West Sacramento and volunteered to join the Bear State Militia. They took the four children with them. During their probationary period, they were treated to a traditional Thanksgiving dinner shared with a company of the militia and a group of several New American Marine advisors who were helping train the irregulars. They all missed their old crew, and Valkie never was able to look any of them in the eye without wondering who knew what had happened to Stomper. Life did go on, though, and a new life came with her son. Valkie named him after his dad, and taught him well.
Another turning point, a fork stuck in the road Time grabs you by the wrist, directs you where to go…
Day after day, night after night onboard the loud, smelly, cold ship, and she wasn’t even outside of John’s reach yet! Hope would feel safer once she got officially out of New America, which claimed western New York…or western New York claimed it. The northern part of the state, and Vermont, New Hampshire, and Maine, depended on the French Expeditionary Force for law and order, and were really more a part of Quebec than anything else. Once she had almost given up and wanted to get off, but the ship didn’t stop for one person, no matter who she was, or who her dad might be. They’d gone up through Lake Michigan, then down again through Lake Huron, taken the St. Clair River to Lake St. Clair, and had a brief stop in Detroit for a day, where she’d gotten off the ship and taken a walk downtown to see the blasted stumps where the skyscrapers had been in this, the most war-devastated city in New America. When she made her way back to the British container ship, however, Hope found that there was a reason why people were moving back into Mo-Town. As a gesture of New American pride, a score of the new GMC Recoup utility trucks and Ford Progress multi-fuel hybrid sedans were being loaded onto the deck to re-introduce the brands to the European market.
She tried not to talk to the crew much, since they were all men and represented several different European countries. Some of them might want to hold her for ransom, or worse, if they figured out who she was. Before she’d come on board Hope had cut her hair off even with the bottom of her ears and started wearing shapeless men’s clothing, to lower the chance for drama. Her tiny cabin was boring, so she slept a lot, and drew. Her Advanced Anatomy Sketching Lab professor would be surprised at what her imagination came up with. She took her meals alone whenever possible, used a bucket for a chamberpot, and came out of her cabin to shower and walk around the deck only after dark.
From the Detroit River into Lake Erie, they travelled on. The next day they stopped in Cleveland to load several hundred tons of raw steel going out. That was the last place where Hope could expect to see the New American starless flag. At their next stop in Buffalo and from there on out to the Atlantic, it would all be the white cross on the blue field with the four flowers of Quebec. Lake Ontario’s shoreline was still badly eroded and misshapen by the Toronto tsunami. She was kind of disappointed that she didn’t get a chance to see the Niagara Falls because of the stupid canal detour, but Montreal more than made up for it. When they stopped there for final provisioning before heading out to sea, Hope couldn’t resist seeing the biggest city she’d ever been to, and the first foreign one, up close. Just sitting at the café and practicing the French Gerta had taught her during their tutoring made her momentarily homesick, but Nigel needed her. She was back on board before they pulled up the gangway stairs. There was no turning back, now.
From the moment she got on board until they hit the open Atlantic had taken eight days. By that time, John had postponed his meeting with the Argentinian President and flown to Chicago to carry out a search of the city. Nigel was found hiding out in the theatre in Millennium Park. He swore, even after hours of questioning, that he had not seen Hope, and had even tried to blow her off by telling her that he’d gone back home to England. As soon as the Speaker heard that, he got a sinking feeling and radioed the Port Authority for a list of all the ships bound for Britain which had left in the last week and a half. There were four. John began to give orders, and from the military end, Gen. Harrison made the Unified Command assets available, while Secretary of State Smith contacted the Quebecois and their French allies.
One surprised container ship Captain was stopped by a flotilla of fishing boats off Cheboygan. Another was stopped by a Republic of Quebec Coast Guard Cutter as it entered the Gulf of St. Lawrence. The other two had already entered the North Atlantic. All of New America’s major naval assets were in the Pacific. Carolyn was distraught, but they had to resign themselves to the fact that Hope would come home if and when she wanted to. The three dozen armed and plain-clothes Secret Service personnel who had been attempting to look after her in Chicago were redeployed to St. Louis to serve as Capital Police at the Old Courthouse. None of them were fired or disciplined for Hope’s escape. It had been her choice.
The Old Courthouse Christmas Dinner was a tad less festive than it would have been for Gen. McNabb, without Hope being there. That morning, Carolyn waddled from their bedroom to the bathroom and back, then rang Kip to tell him that the Speaker was already up and in the shower. When John was dressed he kissed his wife goodbye, first on the lips and then on the pregnant belly, before telling her that he would send a car around to pick her up for the dinner at four that evening. His security detail for the day met him in stages, one at the elevator, one at the front door, two outside, and two more at the new Chevy Transcend SUV he’d traded the Mercedes for to be patriotic. It sometimes still amazed the Speaker that it took a football team and an International MaxxPro MRAP (Mine Resistant Ambush Protected)
vehicle escort to take him twelve blocks to work in the morning. Two more S.S. guards, as Hope had called them, waited in the cab of the MRAP, which would also carry four of the other guards, leaving him with one guard and a driver. There was another platoon waiting at the capital.
Kip was there waiting for him when he got to his offices, too. The Chief of Staff had hardly left since Hope had flown the coop. John thought he looked like he hadn’t slept much, either, but he didn’t say so, instead he just ordered them some coffee and vaped a menthol while they started the morning briefing. He’d switched to vapor cigarettes recently due to Carolyn catching pregnancy. Kip gave him the outline: Ferguson’s New American Foreign Legions had defeated a numerically superior I.S. regular army group in Kars, but it had cost them half of their remaining armor and over two hundred killed and wounded. The Fifth fleet under Davidson with the Eisenhower had bluffed their way through the Suez and were cooling their jets in the southern Med waiting for the right time, and the Sixth around the Ford had basic utilities and infrastructure back together on Oahu. The Third fleet was wintering in Anchorage, and the Seventh fleet, God love’em, had the Lincoln at anchor in Seattle but had a presence in Portland and Coos Bay, too, where they were training and organizing guerrillas and militia against the Chinese in California.
An hour of signing declarations and proclamations and it was time for the ‘drawer’ meeting. That’s what he and Kip called it when they didn’t need the whole cabinet. Present were Secretary of State Smith, Attorney General Roberts, and Commander in Chief Gen. Harrison. Kip recapped the morning briefing with them, then John told Jason that he’d like the Attorney General to notify the nine surviving Federal judges they’d hand-picked about their nomination to sit on a re-constituted Supreme Court, and ask them to present themselves for confirmation hearings in the unicameral Congress on January 1st. He then asked for a progress report on the establishment of a Federal law enforcement and intelligence division. The Speaker would like for it to be built on his Secret Service, along with a Unified Command network of intelligence assets from that Petty Officer Tommy Bullens with the Seventh, his counterparts from the Third, Fifth, and Sixth, and Captain Rogers with the Legions, to their covert operatives in Deseret and the Republic of Texas.