Dark Grid (Book 1)

by David C. Waldron

  “Weeds still grow, machinery still breaks and needs to be fixed, plants need to be thinned out, and we’re gonna have a harvest here eventually. Harvey’s got a dairy herd that needs milking twice a day and he’s literally going to kill himself, his family, or half his herd trying to keep it up by himself--and there is only so much milk the rest of us can drink and cheese he can put up. Cameron and Bill both have commercial egg ranches and are used to getting rid of tens of thousands of eggs a week. Paul is pretty lucky as he recently had a major slaughter and his pig herd is fairly small, comparatively; he’s down to 3,000 head.”

  “My point is, well, I guess I already said it. We’re of two minds. We’ve got a lot, but we don’t actually need all that we have. Add in the fact that we’re awful spread out for being as close knit a bunch as we are. We worry about each other. We can come to each other’s aid in a crisis if we need to--we’ve got the CB’s—but…” Randy stopped, realizing he was really going into too much detail about how many people there were and where. Everything seemed to be going well, but right now it was just him sitting here, and he needed to watch it.

  “And to top it all off, we overheard some of the exchange over the CB yesterday between you and that group of semis. That seemed to go smoothly, and you all appeared to handle it well. There weren’t any suddenly cut off transmissions or calls for help or anything. No distress calls, although it’s only been a day, and I guess that doesn’t technically mean anything--not that I’m implying anything either.”

  “Ok, I guess I’m done; I’ll shut up now and let you go back to making your case. I’ve probably given too much away about our situation as it is,” Randy grinned. “Wife always did say I talked too much for my own good. God rest her soul.” “No, sir, I don’t think you did, and there isn’t much more I can say other than what I already have. If anything I think I’ve probably tipped our hand. I’m serious about what I said at the beginning though, we aren’t here to ‘appropriate’ anything. The phrase most of us have taken to using is ‘The lights will come back on eventually’, and when they do, well, the First Sergeant, Sergeant Jensen, she doesn’t want to have to apologize for or defend anything she or those under her command have done.”

  “I think the right thing to do, for all involved, would be to set up a working, equitable relationship where we can trade goods for labor, at the very least. We are looking to get power back up, slowly but surely, and that will include to the surrounding area. We’d like to include communication in that, and anyone we were working with would obviously be high on the list to get wired. I don’t say that as an incentive or a threat, though, just a fact that should be weighed when making the decision.

  “I’ll be honest, we didn’t expect to walk away from here with half a dozen trucks loaded up with supplies--which would be why we didn’t come with half a dozen empty trucks,” they all three laughed, “and I do appreciate your candor, because I think the last thing we need right now is people jerking each other around. If you can talk with everyone else you’ve been keeping in contact with and everyone can give it an honest, open chance, I think we can come to an agreement that will work for everyone.”

  “That much, Mr. Tripp, I’m willing to do.”

  They shook hands as they stood up, “I’ll be in touch as quick as I can, and for what it’s worth, I appreciate the lack of strong-arm tactics. Some folks don’t realize that while they might look like they’re working on the surface, they almost always backfire in the end.”

  “Mr. Carlisle, while I’m not in the Army anymore, I’ve been in a long time and in the position of needing to convince people to do what I thought was the right thing for too long not to have learned that lesson,” Eric smiled. “We’ll manage, one way or another, even if it means cutting down acres of that park and turning it into farmland, we’ll manage.”

  “I believe you will, but I don’t think it’ll come to that.”

  …

  “So, gentlemen, we are going to begin working for our daily bread,” Sergeant Stewart said to the assembled Staff Sergeants. “No more of this lollygagging and laying about.”

  “Thank you, I was getting so bored,” Kyle said half under his breath, with a hick drawl.

  “Can it, Ramirez,” Mallory said over the intercom.

  How’d she know it was me? he thought to himself.

  “I’m that good,” Mallory said out loud.

  “Right.” Ramirez muttered.

  “Top, all yours,” Stewart said.

  “Thank you, Sergeant Stewart. As you heard, we will be rotating through some of the farms and a couple of the ranches. Eric and Karen acted as my liaison with the representatives of the farmers and we’ve come to what we all feel is a very equitable agreement. There is one dairy, one pig ranch, one chicken farm, and a number of vegetable farms that we will be assisting with. Your initial assignment will be to identify those that may have any prior experience in any of these areas, and I do mean any prior experience.”

  “Of special importance, as in they will leave as soon as you identify anyone, as in I want them sent one at a time if necessary, is anyone with dairy herd and milking experience. Outside of that, shifts will start the day after tomorrow and will be squad in size, based around someone with prior experience wherever possible. I’m not going to gut the base, but we need to keep food on the table.”

  “We’ve already had two additional civilian groups radio in on the citizen band, one of which is going to be larger than the group of trucks we brought in. Assuming we allow them in, we’re going to put them to work fairly quickly, both in the rotation at the farms and ranches and here at the AA--which I assume is going to start looking more like a town. I say that because I don’t want anyone to start thinking that we’re going to be doing all the work while the civvies get all the benefit. They’ll be pulling their own weight, and I want that passed on down the line. I’m not going to keep you here any longer than necessary, though, because I’m serious about that skills inventory. If anyone already knows for sure about the dairy experience, talk to Sergeant Stewart now. Dismissed.”

  SergeantRamirez walked up to Sergeant Stewart as everyone filed out of the command tent, not that it was much of a tent with the walls rolled up during the heat of the day. “I already know the answer to one of Top’s questions.”

  Stewart looked at Ramirez and just barely kept from slapping his forehead. “Crap, that’s right. Grab the headset.”

  Once Mallory was back on the radio Ramirez started, “Top, we need to talk.”

  “I need to warn you, Ramirez, I don’t handle break-ups real well,” Mallory replied without missing a beat.

  Ramirez did, in fact, miss a beat. If he’d been walking he probably would have stumbled, “Sorry, say again?”

  “You said ‘we need to talk’. Isn’t that the girl’s line when she’s going to dump a guy?”

  “Top, you know I’d never dump you! You’d kick my ass!” Ramirez had recovered a bit of his equilibrium. He wasn’t used to Top being a smart-ass…that was his job.

  “Exactly my point, anyway you were saying.”

  “Well,” Kyle let out a noisy ‘horse-lips’ breath, “my aunt and uncle owned a dairy and I spent summers there growing up. I had hoped I’d never, ever have to do that again but needs must when the devil gives you lemons, or whatever.”

  “Great, not only have you threatened to dump me, you’ve gone and made a liar out of me too. I can’t send you immediately because I need you to go through your squad first. Let me guess, this is yet another of the many, many reasons that you…” they were both laughing as they finished the phrase together.

  …

  “Would anyone care to hazard a guess as to the name of this particular beast?” Harvey Litton asked the three men from the base.

  “It wouldn’t be, by chance, ‘Cow’, just like the previous however freaking many there’ve been,” said one of the two guardsmen that had accompanied Kyle.

  “At least we used some imagination whe
n we named them all ‘Leather’ back home,” said the other.

  “Knock it off, you two,” Ramirez snapped, “Go on, Mr. Litton.”

  “Nah, we’re just about done. I’m just being difficult now. You guys have obviously done this before. The next milking is in two hours. I can’t tell you how much of a relief it is just to have some additional hands to help out, even if I’d had to train you from scratch. Once you’ve done this, even if you’ve done it by hand, you know the basics. It’ll come back pretty quick, and heaven knows we needed the help.”

  “So, what do you need us to do first? You mentioned we’ve got a couple hours before the next milking. Is all the equipment working ok, anything needing repair, everything sanitized and ready for the next shift?”

  “Actually, everything’s ok for now, we haven’t had any problems with any of the equipment recently and everything was serviced about a month ago. If you guys would like to start by going around and making sure you don’t have any questions about the machinery, I think that would be a good place to start.”

  “Fair enough, you heard the man, move out.” Kyle barked.

  …

  “Stupid, fat, ugly, smelly, can’t even use you for steak, manure factory.”

  “That would be ‘milk factory’ Perkins,” Ramirez corrected, “and if push comes to shove, you can in fact use them for steak, but it’s far more likely that we would make hamburger as we can stretch that with filler. Other than that, nothing you said was incorrect--they are stupid, fat, fairly ugly, and they do usually stink, although how you can tell over your own foul stench right now is beyond me.”

  “However, I believe the problem has nothing to do with the cow, and everything to do with the fact that you haven’t turned on the milking machine. It helps to have the vacuum running when you put the teat-cup on the teat son,” Kyle said as he reached over and hit the ‘On’ switch.

  “Sorry Sergeant, no excuse.”

  “Don’t stress it. You do stink, though.”

  “Roger that, and I think the only reason I can smell her over myself is my nose is three inches away from, OH MAN!” Both Ramirez and Perkins had to jump back to keep from being, ‘christened’, as it were.

  “Careful, I think she heard you. She was just reminding you that female cows are ladies too, and don’t forget, they don’t fart--they get the vapors.” Kyle was having a hard time keeping a straight face, but he’d been crapped on by more cows during milking than he cared to remember.

  “Thanks, I’ll try to keep that in mind. Half a dozen more and I can start thinking about a shower,” Perkins mused.

  With the three guardsmen, including Ramirez, with experience identified, the immediacy at the Dairy had been lessened. Squads were being shuffled a bit based on who had what prior experience. Within the next couple of days they would be rotating people through what had been dubbed ‘The Co-op’, and would include about a third civilians in the mix. Ramirez himself had two civilians in the group at the Dairy right now who had at least worked with cows, although not with the automated milking equipment. So far, everyone was doing ok, and like he’d told Perkins just now, there really hadn’t been any problems that time doing the job wouldn’t fix.

  It helped that everyone understood, and not just at an intellectual level, that food didn’t come from the grocery store, it was stored there; which may very well be the root of the word in the first place. Nobody was slacking off, and the civilians who would be out working on the farms and ranches would all be volunteers.

  With the immediate crisis over at the dairy, Kyle now had to get back to the base and make sure it was ready to receive the remainder of the troops from the Armory.

  …

  By early Wednesday afternoon, there was officially 15% more capacity than needed to empty the Armory, and the final call was made by Sergeant Stewart, who had accompanied the last group out on Tuesday. There were still one-hundred and sixteen people left, guardsmen and families, including the First Sergeant who was technically a part of Fifth Platoon, First Headquarters Unit.

  “Attention all Nashville US Army National Guard Units still at location Romeo, this is Alpha Six.” Mallory had agonized over what to say and how to say it when the time came for the last convoy to leave the Armory. Now that the time had come, she was going to wing it. “Location Romeo is now closed. All units are to proceed to forward base ‘Papa Lima’, Alpha Six out,” she was not going to call it Promised Land! It had, however, graduated from Advance Area to Forward Base status.

  With those few words, the final vehicles began rolling out from the Nashville Armory, loaded literally to the running boards. Mallory had decided that she didn’t want to waste the time or the resources on empty vehicles for a return trip, so each truck, track, Humvee, and Jeep was loaded as full as it could be on the way out. They had ended up shuttling drivers simply because there were more vehicles than people qualified to drive them, but a few extra trips for a Humvee or two were acceptable.

  They had stripped everything usable and portable from the Armory, but were forced to leave too much behind, in her opinion. They locked as much up as they could, knowing that if things went on as long as it looked like they were going to, it wouldn’t be enough. The kitchen was virtually fully intact, though they had managed to pull out one oven and one stove. Almost the entire vehicle maintenance bay was left in place, minus tools and any parts they could carry.

  Office furniture had been left, as well as most of the furniture for the squad bays, but the bunk beds had been disassembled and the mattresses shipped out. You don’t leave a bed behind if you can help it. God gave you a padded butt so you could sit just about anywhere and be reasonably comfortable for a short period of time. He also gave us mattresses so we could be reasonably comfortable when we slept. You thank him for the food, and then show your gratitude by not turning your nose up at a bed, especially when you were going to be living in a tent!

  And then there’d been the ordinance and heavy weaponry, which didn’t necessarily go together. There were towed howitzer field guns and mortars that Mallory was not going to leave behind, even if it had meant leaving the beds. God would understand. They didn’t have munitions for them, but that didn’t mean that someone else didn’t, or couldn’t find some. For that matter Mallory knew exactly where to get it; they just hadn’t gotten to that stage of the plans yet.

  Then there were all of the personal weapons, rifles, handguns, bayonets, boot knives, tazers (yes, they had tazers), night sticks and the like, and all the ammunition that goes along with all of those firearms. Cases and cases and cases of ammunition, on pallet after pallet--literally tons of it. Small amounts of high explosive, C4, Willie Pete (White Phosphorous)--none of which would be left behind, period.

  Ordering the egress out of the Armory had been as close to an exercise in futility as Mallory had ever experienced. It seemed that every time she began to get one thing under control or wrapped up, another area came completely unglued. What needed to be moved out to the AA first, and how quickly could it be moved out? Was the AA ready? If we move too much at first, do we leave the Armory vulnerable?

  There was some radio chatter as everyone pulled out of the Armory in single file, every vehicle mounting either a .50 or an M60, loaded and manned. So far there hadn’t been a single incident reported by any Armory convoy meeting with any resistance or dealing with any problems along the way, but there was an SOP for a reason, and it didn’t cost anything to follow it and be prepared just in case.

  It was almost an hour and a half to the new base, and she would be coming up with questions with no real answers the entire time. She really needed to sit down face to face with some people, instead of over the radio, and hash some things out. It had been less than a week, but it felt like much longer, and she hoped that Karen, Rachael and Sheri had been able to put some time into the task she’d set them to. She also hoped that Joel had been using that frightening intellect of his to not only come up with worst case scenarios, but hopefully som
e solutions, or at least workarounds.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  She knew that Ramirez had been holding back, not in a bad way, but not really ‘being all that he could be’, as it were. He was an excellent Staff Sergeant, probably one of the best she’d ever worked with, and she liked him on a personal level as well. She knew that he was capable of motivating his men and practically working miracles, sometimes with a crew of some of the biggest screw-ups she’d ever seen--but this was impressive even for him.

  Some things in life you simply took for granted and a decent place to park was one of them. She’d heard the reports about not only the parking lot, but the AA, and then the base, and run them through her personal filter, as she usually did for things that got reported up the chain of command. Things got embellished, good and bad, every step of the way, and the more amazing the individual was made out to be, the bigger a dirt bag they probably were--or vice versa.

  She’d figured, based on the reports, that the base and everything that went along with it would be nice. Better than usable, because Ramirez wasn’t a slouch and he’d be living here too after all; but it wouldn’t be, couldn’t be, as nice as everyone was making it out to be. If the parking lot was any indication, she was about to be pleasantly surprised. “I can’t believe I’m getting the warm fuzzies because of a freaking parking lot. ” Mallory muttered to herself.

  “I’m sorry, First Sergeant, I missed that,” her driver said, ,wondering if he’d missed something important.

  “Nothing, really, just chastising myself. Nice lot, huh?”

  “Looks like it. I’d heard Sergeant Ramirez outdid himself on it, but then I’ve also heard the entire base is pretty well squared away too.”

  “Certainly looks that way. Let’s get parked and see what home’s going to look like for the foreseeable future, shall we, son?”

  “Roger that, Top.”

  They were being directed to their assigned space, which actually had a “6” on the ground, in what looked like toilet paper. Mallory was trying to decide if she was offended by the fact that Ramirez had used toilet paper to designate her parking space or pleased that he’d used something that could be cleaned up afterwards so as not to identify where her Humvee was parked. Probably pleased. At least there wasn’t a sign on a post.