The Living Will Envy The Dead

by Nuttall, Christopher

  I nodded. “Yep,” I said. “It was something I kept from Schneider, just to make sure that he couldn’t betray that to the Warriors, even under torture. What he doesn’t know he can’t tell, but we should have at least one ace up our sleeves. Let’s just hope that the Prophet isn’t a poker player.”

  “It’s a sinful game anyway,” Mac said, deadpan. I rolled my eyes in his direction before checking out the horizon again. The Warriors might be on the verge of invading now and, therefore, had decided that Schneider was suddenly expendable. I couldn’t fault their logic. If he came back to Ingalls, aware that the assault was about to begin, he might have betrayed them to us. “He probably only plays holy games like Trivial Pursuit and Pin the Angel on the Pin.”

  “You’re not helping,” I said, shaking my head slowly. “There’s nothing in view.”

  I stood up and started to walk back towards the CP, now heavily protected beneath a mixture of earth, concrete and sheet metal, intended to protect it from a direct hit from enemy mortars, or even light artillery. Daniel had claimed that the Warriors had heavy weapons, although his ignorance of basic weapons had been so great that it was impossible to know if he was telling the truth or not. He thought that he was telling the truth, but he had no basis for knowing if he actually was. There was little point in torturing him further without feedback.

  “I’ve given orders that Schneider is to be let back through the defence line when he arrives – if he arrives,” I said, feeling tension echoing down my back. I could feel the presence of the Warrior Army so close to Ingalls, a sense that hostile forces were far too close for comfort, even if I couldn’t see or hear them. I’d heard some commanders talk about their ability to get a feel for the battlefield, but it was the first time I had developed anything of the sort myself. “I think, however, that we are on the verge of being attacked.”

  The workers had built up the defence lines to truly awesome levels. The first defence line was a simple wall, surrounding the entire town, seemingly easy to break. Anyone who broke through, however, would find themselves snared in the midst of other defences, while we poured fire down on them in pre-registered firing patterns. If they got through that, they'd hit the first inner defence wall…and the minefields covering it, along with buried IEDs and other nasty tricks. I allowed my gaze to drift over the walls, watching the soldiers and militia as they struggled to perfect the defences, knowing that many of them would die in the coming engagement.

  “I made sure that all of them have masks,” Mac said, grimly. “If they throw gas at us, we’ll be ready for it.”

  “Not completely,” I said, remembering the dreaded MOPP - Mission Oriented Protective Posture – suits we’d worn back when we’d been sure that Saddam had weapons of mass destruction. They had provided comprehensive protection, at a cost of being hot, sweaty and uncomfortable, but I would have sold my soul for more than a handful of them in Ingalls. There are some kinds of nerve gas that can be fatal even when touching bare skin; they don’t have to be breathed in by the victim. I hoped – prayed – that the Warriors wouldn’t have invented anything like that; they weren't easy to produce. If they had, however, they could kill thousands of us before we had time to react.

  “I know,” Mac said. Like most weapons of mass destruction, gas isn’t as bad as the media makes it sound…if you have time to prepare. We had prepared as best as we could, but the only MOPP suits in our armoury had been part of Sergeant Isaac Chang’s squad. The dangers of an industrial accident, to all intents and purposes, had been why I was unwilling to risk using gas ourselves. It was very much a weapon of last resort. “Do you think that the kids will be safe?”

  I’d gambled when I had sent them to Stonewall, gambled that the Warriors would see the town as their main target, not the prison. It wasn't as risky as it sounded – Ingalls would reward them richly for taking it, while the prison was useless as anything other than a fortress – but the Warriors might not be rational about it. The second danger was that the Warriors would simply lay siege to the prison, rather than trying to take it in a direct offensive. Stonewall didn’t have the food supplies to hold out forever.

  “Yes,” I said, as confidently as I could. Stonewall featured prominently in my plans for the future, after all. If Richard had a chance, he could turn it into the key stage for defeating the Warriors, once and for all. Judging from Biggles’ reports, the entire Warrior Army was on the move towards us; hell, if we were lucky, they’d even have a rebellion in their rear. “I’m certain of it.”

  My radio buzzed on my hip. “Sir, this is Danny in the observation balloon,” it said, through a haze of static. The electromagnetic distortion caused by the nukes had been fading for weeks now, although radio communication wasn't what it had been before the war. It would be a long time before we could fully trust the system, although we had had no choice, but to rely on our most powerful sets to talk to Stonewall and the other Principle Towns. “They’re on the move.”

  I glanced down at my watch. “Cutting it fine, aren’t they?” I said, puzzled. “It’s only a couple of hours until darkness.”

  “Perhaps they intend to assault us under cover of darkness,” Mac suggested. I shrugged. It would cost them if they did. My snipers and half of my defenders were equipped with night-vision scopes. The Iraqis had never appreciated just how capable our night-vision gear actually was, but I would have expected better from anyone with real military experience. “Or maybe they intend to try to intimidate us again.”

  “We shot the last person who tried to intimidate us,” I reminded him. Even the Prophet would have difficulty trying to convince someone to come forward to demand our surrender, even under the false cover of darkness. “Maybe they just think they can overrun us by sheer weight of numbers.”

  The next hour went slowly. I spent it inspecting the defences in minute detail, ensuring that everyone knew just what they were meant to be doing, and confirming that the observation balloon crew was ready to remain in the air overnight. We could – we would – replace them as quickly as possible, but if fighting broke out, we were going to need them. This wasn’t going to be a repeat of what had happened at the FOB in anything, but vague detail. They could assault all three of the entrances at once, or they could concentrate on one of the gates, or they could even assault over the rough terrain and into the teeth of our defences. I hoped they would try the latter. We’d prepared all kinds of interesting surprises for them if they did.

  And I gave a speech. Did I mention that I hate giving speeches? I had seriously considered borrowing some lines from Shakespeare, or even from a science-fiction show, but in the end, I tried to speak from the heart. I don’t know if it worked or not, but everyone cheered…

  “We are gathered here today to face the terrible threat of the false Warriors of the Lord,” I thundered. “Men who will destroy our town and civilisation, men who will kill us all, rape our women and take our children away to be raised as their own. We must not allow them to break through. We will not allow them to break through! They think that God gives them the strength to break into our town and ravish it, but we know that our defences are strong and if they charge at us, they will break against our might.”

  My voice softened. “If we win this day, we will determine the future of the new America, a land free from terror and oppression, where a man can hold his head high and say that it is his land, and he will not be moved. If we lose, we doom the entire eastern seaboard to permanent domination by the Warriors. They have brought their entire army to fight us…and we will break it! They will come at our defences and we will break them, and crush them, and liberate their captives from their unholy grip. This land is our land and we will not be moved!”

  They cheered. I still cringe to think of my speech being performed, time and time again, in plays and movies. They have an actor playing me who looks nothing like me, a man who looks handsome, strong and yes, you guessed it, muscles on his muscles. Idiots.

  I had already decided that I
was going to station myself at the southern command post, CP2. That was the closest road leading down towards Warrior-controlled territory and it was the most likely one to be attacked in the opening moves of their assault. The balloon would, I hoped, keep me informed of any developments elsewhere, but I would have to trust in my subordinates to handle them while I oversaw the entire battle. I would have traded places with any of the young and nervous conscripts, or the older veterans, in a heartbeat. They didn’t have to worry about losing the entire battle…and, in doing so, losing the entire town. When had America last fought such a battle? I couldn’t remember.

  “Here they come,” I breathed, as the Warriors finally came into view. Half-hidden in the growing darkness, they were still visible, not least because of the flaming torches some of their people carried. I watched and listened carefully, hearing snatches of their words drifting towards us in the still night air. “Pass the word, Mac; everyone stand to and prepare to repel attack.”

  “Yes, sir,” Mac said, tightly. “There’s an awful lot of the buggers, isn’t there?”

  I nodded. Daniel might not have been too far wrong after all. There were definitely thousands of Warriors coming towards us, backed up by an entire swarm of trucks and other vehicles, including a pair of older jeeps from the sixties. They were remaining out of range of most of our weapons – the snipers could have picked off a few, but held their fire – but they were taking care. I watched as a massive bulldozer lumbered forward, taking up a point position, and frowned. What the hell did they intend to do with that?

  A voice boomed out in the distance. I peered through the binoculars and finally saw a man dressed in black, standing on the top of a truck, haranguing the people below. It was a depressingly familiar sight, one I’d seen before when fighting other radical religious idiots, and somehow I knew that that man wouldn’t be leading the charge.

  “We have gathered here to face the terrible threat that faces our religion,” he bellowed. “Across yonder field lies the cursed army of the unbelievers, misguided fools and idiots who must be destroyed and their bodies hacked to pieces, their homes and businesses destroyed, their land salted and cursed, and a large fifty foot wall built around the area they call their territory so all that may know what happens when they assume they can break away from the True Faith!”

  “Well,” Mac said, into the silence, “that's us told.”

  I chuckled, although honestly it was more of a giggle. I’d just realised where those words came from…and it wasn't anything to do with God, any God. There had been a cult television series a few years before the war, one that had included hundreds of parodies of various other shows. The words had been stolen right from that show, although the producers, actors and writer chimps were probably too dead to care.

  “The unbelievers must be destroyed! They have lost the way! They are fools and they are idiots. We must wipe them from the earth! We must crush their bones and make our bread! We must burn their homes! We must raze their cities and cast them into the oceans! We must…”

  I found that I was whispering the words along with the speaker down below and caught myself, keying my radio. It was time to put an end to this. “Stacy, speak to me,” I said. “Tell me you can hit that bastard.”

  “Easy as convincing a guy that he wants to take you to bed,” Stacy said. A single gunshot rang out and the man tottered, before falling off the truck and crashing to the ground. “How’s that, boss?”

  “Excellent,” I said, watching as the darkness kept falling across the land. It would soon be too dark to see properly. “Let’s see what they do now…”

  There was a brief splatter of fire back in our general direction, more random shots rather than precisely aimed bullets, but the Warriors waited for orders. That was worrying; most religious nuts I’d fought would have charged us at once, outraged by the death of their leader. A mob is only half as smart as the stupidest person in it and…well, if you’re in a mob, you’re not the smartest person in the world anyway. The fact that they weren't charging in a wave that it would be easy to mow down was rather worrying. It suggested that they had prepared a battle plan and intended to stick to it. That wasn’t a good sign.

  “They’re not coming,” Mac said, as darkness fell. I reached for my night-vision goggles and pulled them on, transforming the world into a curious mixture of green and red. It had been a long time since I’d used them in combat, but it was starting to come back to me. The Warrior vehicles looked bright red in the goggles, a sign that their engines were running, which suggested that they intended to use them to attack us…

  “I know,” I said. The noise of someone preaching was increasing, but without the enemy loudspeaker, we couldn’t make out what they were saying. I suspected that it would be more of the same, but it could also have been assault instructions. “Mac…”

  Mac swore. “Ed,” he said, “they’re coming.”

  I nodded. “All stations,” I said, keying my radio. The darkness would make fighting a coherent battle harder, but hardly impossible. We could certainly track the enemy positions by the burning torches their leaders carried. “Engage at will.”

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  I distrust those people who know so well what God wants them to do because I notice it always coincides with their own desires.

  -Susan B. Anthony

  In the night time, the Warriors were almost invisible.

  In the night-vision goggles, they showed up clearly against the cooling landscape. They were much warmer than the surrounding air and their vehicles were warmer still, marking easy targets for our sharpshooters. It was easy to see, through the goggles, that there was a certain method in their madness after all; the Warriors who were carrying burning torches – and were thus visible even in the darkness – were not leading a platoon of assaulting Warriors, but were running on their own. Ironically, the heat from the torches was confusing the goggles, although we were able to tune that out and react.

  I keyed my radio, biting down the grin that was trying to plaster itself across my features. “Section One and Two, open fire on my command,” I ordered. “Single shots only; try not to miss.” I paused, watching as the enemy came closer, a swarm of heat signatures that were blending into one great mass. It was almost impossible, I was sure, for them to know where they were going – even the best NVG systems aren’t that good – and then I realised that they didn’t care. Their task was merely to seize the first wall and their orders, therefore, were just to keep going forward until they ran into it. “Fire!”

  A volley of carefully-controlled shots rang out. Most of my sharpshooters, the ones I’d had equipped with night-vision gear, had had literally years of hunting experience in the surrounding area, even if they had only been taking pot-shots at rabbits. They knew just what they were doing and, more importantly, just how limited the ammunition supply actually was. They aimed for the head and, one by one, Warriors started to fall.

  “We could give them a burst of machine gun fire,” Mac whispered in my ear. “In that kind of formation, they’d be mowed down like wheat.”

  “Not yet,” I muttered back. I wasn’t entirely sure why the Warriors had seen fit to open their campaign in such a manner, but I didn’t want to reveal one of my surprises yet, not when it might prove decisive. The machine gun nests should be completely invisible to them until they actually opened fire. “Tell them to hold fire and wait for orders.”

  “Yes, sir,” Mac said. Another round of shots rang out as the view through the NVG sets started to flicker. The Warriors were returning fire from positions all around the town, positions they’d occupied and secured under cover of darkness. Their shooting wasn't very accurate in the gloom – I guessed that they couldn’t have much in the way of night-vision gear themselves – but it forced us to try to keep our heads down. As a distraction, it worked beautifully. “I have reports from the other command posts, Ed; they’re repelling similar attacks from the surrounding area.”

  “So we’re s
urrounded,” I said, bleakly. It wasn't that big a surprise, but it meant that there would be nowhere for us to run to if we lost the battle. This wasn't a simple FOB, or even another town, but the centre of the new government. If it fell, the Warriors would destroy, in a stroke, much of our remaining manpower. They would destroy the remaining towns within the month. “Remind them to conserve firepower as much as possible…”

  “They know,” Mac reminded me. I recognised his mothering tone and nodded slightly. I had been overdoing the redundant orders, after all, and we hadn’t trained the men to be dumb cannon fodder. The best of them would have given my old Company a run for its money. “Do you hear that?”

  I listened and heard the sound of vehicles revving up their engines. A moment later, they came into view on the night vision goggles, a trio of large trucks advancing towards us. A shell burst in the sky and suddenly the entire scene was illuminated in ghostly green light, sending everything into sharp relief. I pulled off the goggles, cursing under my breath, and saw a set of trucks advancing towards the first line of defences. I hadn’t expected a star shell, although in hindsight it made a certain kind of sense. They were used by the police to hunt for missing people in certain kinds of terrain. The Warriors must have looted it from a police station. My mind refused to admit the possibility that some policemen had gone over to the Warriors.