by J. L. Bourne
Savannah was still awake when I woke up, staring at the fire. She had fed the thing all night, keeping us warm. It was nice not having to rise and handle that for once.
It wasn’t until mid-morning that she spoke. “Take me with you to Bentonville,” she said, finally breaking her stare with the fire.
“I can’t,” I said flatly.
“I can handle myself, you bastard!” she said, near tears.
“It’s not about that. You’re too fat,” I said in a rare moment of bold gallows humor.
“What?!” She looked for something to throw at me.
“Wait, wait, relax! The ultralight only has a 275-pound payload. I weigh 200 pounds, and I need fifty pounds of gear. You’re about a hundred pounds too heavy,” I said, smiling.
She returned my smile and then began to cry, reaching out. I embraced her, pulling her close. I wasn’t very good at this sort of thing, but it felt like the right thing to do. She wept heavily and deeply for a long time before pulling away, looking at me with her red, teary eyes.
“You’re not going to be able to land that thing near where they’re holding your friend,” said Savannah. “Definitely not inside the perimeter where you need to be. If you land outside, you’ll be shot on sight trying to infiltrate.”
I expressed to her that I had to try to get my friend out of there and that if I died doing that, well, it would be better than living the rest of my life in regret.
She nodded like she understood, but I still think she thought I was crazy.
—————
2300
After breaking camp at sundown, Savannah brought me to another cache. I took some fuel and other things that could come in handy before we both headed back to where the ultralight was stored. It was about 1900 when we got close enough to see the lights. There was movement in the darkness of the camp site. I told Savannah to hang back with the horses while I checked it out and she reluctantly agreed.
“If I start that engine, you go back to where we camped and wait for me,” I told her.
I crunched through the top layer of frozen snow, trying not to make too much noise as I began to climb the grade to the ultralight. I could see the darker area where I’d concealed the plane with natural camouflage. Eventually, I made it to the plane undetected and began pulling the branches off the top and brushing the snow from the wing fabric. As I tugged and pulled the aircraft out of the edge of the trees, I could hear voices echoing from the camp.
The Chinese.
My legs strained and my muscles burned as I pulled the aircraft out into the clearing. I was unfolding the ultralight wings when a soldier walked into the clearing and looked right at me. The AK was slung across my back, making the MP5K the fastest draw. I brought the gun up and pulled down hard on the selector. Not knowing what position it ended up landing in, I squeezed the trigger, spraying a burst of 9mm at the soldier as he was leveling his AK. At least one round hit him, causing him to scream out in pain. I watched him as I worked, unfolding the wing and placing the lock pins in place. Through my NVD, I saw his AK come up off the snow, so I hit him with another burst, stopping his movement cold. My rounds were suppressed, but his screams from the first machine gun burst were not. I put my kit in the plane and strapped in before engaging the startup sequence.
The engine turned over on the first attempt. I could see flashlights beaming through the woods in my direction and some dark figures spilling out into the opening behind me. I went to firewall on the gas mixture, jerking the aircraft forward and down the hill. I pulled back the controls, waiting for enough speed to pick up my nosewheel, and found it at about forty knots. Not long after, my main wheels came off the snow and I was airborne once more.
It didn’t register at the time, but I was being shot at from the ground. Nothing that I could see hit the aircraft, but I could hear the distinct sound of automatic AK fire below. Looking over my shoulder, bright muzzle flashes peppered the darkness as the AK spit rounds at me.
It was all about the holdover, and I’m glad those soldiers didn’t seem to understand that.
I flew only about twenty minutes before starting my corkscrew descent to the valley floor. Landing was uneventful and I again strained my legs to pull the aircraft into cover, waiting on Savannah to show.
I didn’t stay at the rally point camp, choosing to set up an observation post a hundred yards up the hill so that I could look down from above and make sure she didn’t arrive with company.
She showed up at about 2200 with both horses. We are not sleeping.
Tonight we plan.
Tomorrow night, I fly.
FUSION CENTER
The past twenty-four hours went by in a flash. We relocated camp farther away near another NAI cache and planned for most of our time. Savannah expressed to me that she’d hope we’d run into a few of the cliff camp survivors here before we’d arrived. The children. We didn’t talk about them, but we both had grave concerns. After heavily gearing up, I began making calculations on exactly what I’d be bringing with me on the flight north into the occupied zone of Arkansas. I took my Glock, MP5K, and AK-47 along with spare mags for all. I also brought a few other things that might be needed.
Savannah had a bag full of IR firefly markers. If she wanted to mark something for me, all she’d need to do was connect a 9v battery to the IR firefly and drop it on the ground. The number of fireflies on the ground meant different things. The small devices would strobe for a couple days before dying.
She left several hours ago to gather intel. I’m taking off soon.
—————
I left under the light of a mostly full moon, hours after Savannah, speeding north high enough to not be detected from the ground. I flew slowly at near stall speed, conserving fuel. The landscape below could easily be some rural mountainscape somewhere until the lunar light bounced from abandoned buildings hit my NVD just right. Up ahead, I noticed an IR flash and a large pavilion covered with a bright tent structure came into view off the nose. It had to be the Amp. The firefly signal was strobing west of the Amp in the center of a large field. I temporarily kicked over to electric motor, killing the loud internal combustion engine. The quiet brushless electric motor allowed me to hear the rush of the propeller through the cold dense air behind me.
Looking at my display, I began to see the battery countdown percentages at the rate of about one percent every thirty seconds. I had about twenty minutes on battery reserves before the electrics couldn’t sustain altitude. Good to know.
I orbited overhead the signal for two minutes, losing 5 percent, when I saw a second firefly turn on near the first. The signal worked out with Savannah meant that it was now safe to land. When I dropped two thousand feet in altitude I could finally make the outline of two horses in the field below standing near the IR fireflies. After one more orbit overhead, I brought the aircraft down in the field and cut the engine as I flared, hit the ground, and came rolling to a stop about a hundred yards from the horses. Twisting the five-point buckle, I stepped out of the aircraft to Savannah’s dark silhouette.
“That thing was ghost quiet when you landed,” she said.
She helped me pull the aircraft out of plain view and handed me the gas can that was strapped to Molly on the trip north. I filled the aircraft’s fuel reservoir, then handed Savannah the empty plastic jug as I tossed over the plane some camo netting scavenged from the last NAI cache.
“I contacted a friend,” Savannah said as we began to walk away from the aircraft to gather the horses.
“Who?”
“Someone that’s heard of you; he’ll be here in an hour.”
“How’d you contact him?”
“Dead-drop chalk mark. NAI has allies, and our allies know our marks. Radio communications are completely compromised. SneakerNET is the only way to exchange information without being exploited and targeted. There’s a huge signal intercept vacuum cleaner apparatus still operating despite the grid being down and the GDP being reduced to zer
o.”
The bastards just couldn’t let go of their precious total surveillance state.
We set up a camp under a canopy of trees and began constructing the small, stealthy fire that Rich taught me how to build. Using my small latrine shovel, I laboriously dug an eight-inch hole in the ground, crushing through frozen earth and pulling rocks. Savannah gathered the small kindling and some inch thick branches. I used the last few drops of gasoline in the can to quickly start the fire. We built a small lean-to over the top so the flame couldn’t be observed from overhead. We warmed up and cooked some dehydrated food over the meager fire.
Finishing up, I was about to get up to find a tree when I heard the rumble of a diesel engine approaching from the road that ran east and west adjacent the field we were in.
I began to sprint to the edge of the field as Savannah yelled out, “It’s probably NAI, Max!”
“I don’t operate on probably!” I shouted back, hoping she’d follow me to concealment.
She didn’t.
I stayed there at the field’s edge with my AK pointed at the road, ready for the source of the engine noise to come into view. It was very odd, seeing Savannah standing out there in the open with her arms crossed, waiting on the vehicle to arrive. I felt as if I needed to do something, but she was her own person.
There were no headlights as the vehicle came into view. The foliage that lined the fence that followed the road covered everything but the top half of the vehicle.
MRAP.
A gunner manned the crew-served machine gun atop the machine, scanning it back and forth until Savannah picked up one of the fireflies and held it high. The gunner reacted, slewing his machine gun to Savannah.
It was at that moment I thought that the last surviving member of the Cliff Camp Cell of the NAI was about to be chewed to pieces.
That was until the MRAP lurched farther forward, into a break in the fence foliage.
I could see the white spray-painted letters as they appeared through the chain link fence.
#FIGHT
We were being visited by a ghost.
—————
I crept from cover, moving slowly to the MRAP. Seeing the #FIGHT painted on the side calmed my nerves somewhat, but anyone could be inside of that thing and the gunner on top could easily handle anything short of an EFP, something I was short on at the moment. My AK rounds would just chip the paint and windows of the beast.
I watched Savannah fearlessly approach the fence, and couldn’t help but ponder on whether or not that cavalier attitude among the NAI was what led to the fall of their cliff cell at the hands of the Chinese security forces. No. I shouldn’t think that way. More than likely it’s my own guilt talking.
Savannah scaled the fence and approached the driver side door. I heard the gunner greet her from up top at the same time. A man stepped out of the vehicle and walked around to the back. I recognized the gait from before.
Inky.
The former marine and OEF vet. He walked with a distinct limp from taking shrapnel somewhere in RC East back in the day. I dropped my gun, allowing it to hang on its sling as I ran to the fence and began to climb.
“Inky!” I shouted, forgetting to whisper.
He stopped in his tracks and just stood there for a moment before spinning around.
“Max . . . ? Holy shit, you’re alive! Where the hell have you been, man?!”
After embracing him and telling him how happy I was to see him, I told Inky that out in the open on the road wasn’t the best place to catch up. He agreed, opening the rear door and gesturing me and Savannah inside. It was warm in the vehicle, inviting. I could see the gunner’s torso as he turned left to right, scanning the area for any threats. Inky secured the aft door and climbed up into the rig.
We executed a turn and the MRAP began to travel back the way it had come for a few miles until turning onto a dirt road and through a rusted gate sitting ajar, which was probably used to keep trespassers from hunting out here.
After rolling through the gate, the MRAP’s brakes squeaked the giant to a stop. I saw Inky click a garage door opener and the old gate behind us began to slowly close. Covered in vines and weeds, it looked as if no one had been through in some time. The MRAP moved ahead as the metal gate met in the middle. I moved up closer to the front, asking Inky how he kept the wrong kind of people out of where we were headed.
“We keep wireless sensors under the ground on this road, and some pre-staged explosives. Anyone but us comes down and they get smoked and cleaned up by the people that are no doubt watching us from the edge of the road right now. We’ve got enough firepower to defend this place from ground assault. Hell, eventually, we’ll have enough to go on a limited offensive.”
After another mile, the MRAP pulled under another canopy of trees and into a large area covered by familiar surplus camo netting, placed there to fool any overhead sensors that might be watching. As soon as the big diesel engine shut down, I swung the aft door open, stepping back out into the cold, feeling a harsh, icy slap to my face.
Crates of Stinger missiles, fuel, and other interesting and useful items were neatly stacked, forming a sort of garage bay around the large armored vehicle. Fifty-five-gallon drums of diesel fuel were placed dozens of drums deep behind crates of ammunition. A makeshift sign carved into a pallet hung over the supplies.
LITTLE REDSTONE
I took a visual inventory of all the supplies, hoping that this wasn’t all the NAI had. One five hundred pound bomb and all this was gone via secondaries. I’d probably think about spreading this stuff out a little better if I were the supply guy.
After a few moments, Inky gestured me to follow and I did so, back into the woods, down a small deer path, and into the side of a hill.
Another damn cave, I thought as I ducked into the hole behind Inky.
As I began to take in my surroundings, I realized that it was really a man-made dugout structure that more resembled a mine, or one of those drug tunnels you’d see on the news at night coming from Mexico into the U.S. Two-by-four studs framed the tunnel, keeping the earth at bay all around us. LED lights were strung overhead, providing just enough light so you didn’t run into the person in front of you.
Inky turned left, left, right, and then I lost track until we parted some canvas curtains and entered what looked like a very expedient command center. Computers, maps, and even a small library adorned the eight-hundred-square-foot space. A large planning table made from plywood and more two-by-fours sat in the center, surrounded by people poring over plans and even copying things down from headphones connected to what looked like HAM radios.
One of those signal interceptors tore off a piece of paper from her notepad and handed it to someone who looked like a supervisor.
“Drone sighted over 540, Springdale,” she called out, passing the intel over to someone else who left the room with it.
Inky used that example to expound on the function of this small but effective command center. This node was capable of reception only, as transmitting here would soon bring down the full force of the provisional government and their henchmen. If there was a piece of actionable intelligence collected, it would be sent via horseback courier to a transmit post, where a designated field radioman would send the intel via low power signal relay to one of many hidden high-powered transmitters. The radioman was trained in guerrilla warfare, as the job was hazardous to say the least. This network of radiomen reported that every week they’d lose a hidden high-powered transmitter to provisional government SIGINT strike forces, but they still managed to place enough in the field to offset the losses.
So far, signal intercept to transmit was averaging about an hour because the horseback courier had to locate their radioman somewhere out in enemy-controlled areas. The notes that the courier carried were in code only known by the original interceptor and the radioman, meaning if they were captured, any messages they had on hand would be unreadable, by even the courier.
This was how
to communicate under hostile government surveillance. Encrypted handwritten notes and digital radio dead drops. The government owned any and all cellular and data networks as they were hardwired into the towers they powered and brought online. As another security measure, the radiomen carried dice so that random high-powered transmitter choices could be made in the field. When a transmission order was made, only the field radioman would know the tower to use based on the random role of the dice. Also, any government SIGINT operator would need to be on the right channel during the right few seconds to intercept the code worded communications meant for the receiving NAI cells.
Even then, the near unlimited power of the intelligence apparatus was still able to find and fix our people sometimes. This is why this station’s radiomen were trained in the arts of guerrilla combat. Inky has a few special operators on the team that defected from various bases, eventually making their way back to their home state of Arkansas. These pipe hitters had no problems training the radiomen on how to strike back hard if they were intercepted and attacked. Each radioman carried an M4 and two hundred rounds with a medium range optic, and some that operated in particularly hostile environments carried Stingers on horseback.
You can’t stop the signal.
I asked about the Chinese troops I’d seen. I needed answers.
“Oh, you mean the UN troops?” Inky responded.
UN troops? I thought to myself, shaking my head.
Seeing the confused look on my face, Inky went on to explain that the currency and subsequent economic collapse of the United States disintegrated our national and domestic security apparatus. Aircraft carriers were docked and scuttled when the good faith and confidence in the American dollar was lost. When military credit lines started declining, jet fuel procurement and canal passages were canceled, stranding our navy in every sea worldwide. Whole Army divisions were left to fend for themselves and find their own way home. Squadron after squadron of Air Force jets were abandoned in the desert, left there to erode in the winds as no one could afford to fly them.