It had previously been decided that Fabio and I, fully armed, would follow the group for a short distance in case they decided to attempt some form of immediate retaliation. We were issued with a very sophisticated, spread spectrum, portable military, communication device, of a type that we considered secure from anything our opponents might be able to infiltrate or even detect, so that we could communicate safely while in direct line of sight of our team. Our communication partner would stay on the top of the hill above our primary shelter and, in addition, a vehicle was made ready in case we required rapid support.
By the end of the day we had covered nearly twenty five kilometres. This was very trying for us and we saw that the load bearing servants were very tired. The next day we followed for a further twenty kilometres. We now had difficulty with communication and camped on a hill overlooking the pursued. We decided we would return home when the pursued left their camp the following morning.
In the morning we watched their camp and noted some form of confrontation. The servants were being made to kneel separate from the masters and to our surprise the masters then proceeded to shoot them. This was a surprise and certainly unacceptable to us. We rapidly grabbed our rifles and fired into the leader group.
During our preparation time six of the servants had been shot but Fabio’s first shot brought down one of the leaders and I think my snap shot, at about four hundred meters, reduced the capability of another. Three of the leaders ran, one more slowly than the others, into the woods. The injured man was about twenty meters behind the others. During this retreat they shot two more of their servants but we prevented them from getting to their horses. The servants, who were able, were staggering towards us and were rapidly out of the range of the apparent ability of the leaders. During this time I brought down another of the leaders. He was apparently still alive as he ran deeper into the wood but left behind his weapon.
We called for assistance and medical support and prepared to move from our position. The leaders began firing at our then current position but their ability was poor. We decided not take any risks as even a poor shot can get lucky.
We moved quickly towards the camp to both better protect the valuable horses and support the servants. Our new site gave us ample escape routes and I used the telescope to look for our opponents. I saw what appeared to be the buttocks of a person about four hundred meters away near a tree. I believe he was looking at our previous position; possible with a rifle. Fortunately he was not wearing camouflage and his coloured jeans made him an easy target against the brown background.
Fabio took the shot and our opponent appeared to react rapidly to the red mist that appeared over his pants. He lost interest in his task and stumbled rapidly to a new position out of our visibility. Then we saw a shot being fired from a bush and a horse fell to the ground. Fabio had seen the shot and fired quickly at the bush and scored an obvious hit. That was the last shot fired and the surviving mobile servants had reached the protection of the woods near our position.
After ten minutes of quiet Fabio left me to watch for any further action from our opponents and I went to help the servants. There was always the possibility that our opponents would try to get behind us. Fortunately to achieve this they would have to go about two kilometres in one direction and a lesser distance in the other or cross about two hundred meters of slightly uphill open ground. This would not have been an option I would have considered. We had probably disabled at least three of them possibly all. One of the disabled leaders was still lying very still at the camp. Our intention was now to protect the three remaining valuable horses and to do what we could for the wounded servants.
Fabio now moved around the bushes with the intention of getting to the far side of their camp. He succeeded in crossing to the other side of the clearing without any reaction. It was very instructive to watch a trained man crossing that open ground. To me, who knew where he was, he was almost invisible through the telescope. If I had thought our opponents of similar calibre I would have been far more worried.
When Fabio returned about an hour later he told me that our three mobile opponents had left on foot. He had decided not to follow them more than a kilometre as two were bleeding heavily and he thought they were quite badly hurt hence of low risk to our group. He considered that they offered no further direct threat to us at that time. The possibility of them bringing, or trying to bring, retribution to our group he considered was, at that time, unlikely. Unfortunately it was also his opinion that a future attempt at retaliation was inevitable though we were very probably in a much better position than they as they were almost definitely unaware of our true situation.
Their shooting of the servants convinced us that the servant community would present us with no problem. Their military, if that was what we had met, did not appear to be well trained or capable. The servants were worried about their relatives but we would have had great difficulty in preventing the return of every surviving leader and as they had a short range radio they might already have been in contact with their base. In essence we had done what we could and we would await the reaction of our new opponents.
I went to see what I could do for the wounded servants. Two were dead and a further three were probably beyond to help. One was uninjured and three were injured but not very seriously. I stopped their bleeding and prepared them for the doctor. The three seriously injured I helped as much as I could and then looked at our downed member of their elite. He was seriously hurt, with a large part of his left shoulder joint destroyed, but I did my best to help him. This was partly out of humanity and partly because he would be able to give us much useful information.
At that moment our relief force arrived out of the woods. They had driven as fast as they could and arrived much earlier than I had expected. The doctor looked at the injured and decided that four were beyond help and gave the still living of this group some of our valuable painkillers. The last seriously injured servant he operated on under an anaesthetic and stated that he would probably live. The other injured servants required only extensive stitching to open wounds but would require further surgery at the shelter to remove damaged tissue. The injured leader would live but would lose his arm when he was returned to the shelter. He was stabilized and treated with pain relievers.
We buried the four dead servants, in a simple grave. The seriously injured was taken off in the vehicle. The four remaining servants, who were in no danger, were able to walk with us. Fabio and I walked, together, back to the village.
We took as booty the three remaining horses, upon which we placed the slightly injured servants. We also took with us some of the butchered meat from the dead horse though maintained this material at some distance from the horses: The rest went with the vehicle. We kept with us some of the rations of both the servants and masters. The remaining booty was two of the master’s weapons and a little ammunition all of which went with the vehicle. We saw no reason to waste anything and the rifles were good military units and, with the ammunition, they would be added to our local arsenal at the Martinez village.
As we walked we talked with the servants who were now free men. We gently interrogate them as we needed as much information as possible in order to make a stand with the minimum of casualties, to our side, against any possible attempted invasion by their ex masters. We were told that where we stopped was a bit more than a hard day’s walk to the master’s camp. As the masters were injured it would probably take them considerably longer to complete their journey. It was possible that one was uninjured and might be able to get to their camp to request assistance for his companions rather earlier; their use of their radios was also possible. The possibility of a rapidly arranged assault on our empire, however, we considered unlikely.
We were made aware that the masters had four small modern tanks but as these had not been maintained they were probably then immobile. As these weapons were very high technology it might even be that they were useless; unless considerably modified. They also had two old, but large,
howitzers which though immobile, as having no towing tractors, had considerable range; though fortunately this was very probably insufficient to reach the Martinez village. They also had two, very old, towable weapons of small calibre that, as the leaders had no mechanical means of moving these weapons, would have to be dragged by horse or man. In addition they were thought to have some small calibre mortars.
It appeared to us that they had little to worry us except for their remaining herd of about twenty six horses. With these animals they could potentially return with their small arms, the mortars and possibly the cannons within a relatively short period of time. We were advised that their remaining force consisted of about twenty five soldiers or guards and about twenty of the politicos with five male secretaries and their families who were living in their shelter.
This information increased our estimate of the personnel living in the shelter but the danger, implied by the number of soldiers, depended largely on their training. We would outnumber them and have the advantage of surprise as all they had seen was a low technology village supporting a few survivors. The servants stated that they considered the risk of any support for the master, by the remaining servant group, was low as they certainly had no reason to love their overlords.
The servant’s attachment to the politicians was merely one of need. Their concern was for their families and if they believed we provided them with a potentially better life their allegiance would be easily transferred. The servants, in our protection, considered they had been shot to prevent information regarding our superior potential way of life being passed to the politico’s servant group.
For safety sake we move our non-combatants out of the village. This was arranged on our return and put into practice a few days later. We moved our additional semi trained men into Martinez and the houses were prepared for defence. Fabio and I returned with a volunteer ex servant to watch the opposition’s reaction at their base. We took a vehicle and a radio, dragging some bushes behind to hide our tracks, to the place we had the altercation with the leaders. Previous experience had demonstrated that the path could be driven along hence our movement was easily completed in a single day. We hid the vehicle and walked to where we could safely watch our potential opponents.
On arrival we watched the military reaction. They were indeed preparing for action being was almost certainly directed against us. They were using their horses as both riding stock and beasts of burdens. I was interested to see the antics of our little fat politico who appeared uninjured. We had, unfortunately, missed this gentleman as we had been defending the servants. The fat politico had not been active in the act of shooting the servants and had, therefore, been considered a secondary target. He was moving around and appeared anxious to be on his way. There was another gentleman, also comfortably built, who was directing arrangements with an air of authority.
There were fifteen gentlemen with weapons and the servants were attaching each of the cannons to two horses. A group of twenty servants were loading the remaining horses and it appeared that they were almost ready to leave. This was somewhat quicker than I had expected but being far more mobile than they we were not unduly concerned.
In the early morning of the next day the force left. There were fifteen soldiers, twenty five horses, twenty five servants, the cannons and the fat politico. It would take them at least five days to get to the village so when they were out of sight we returned to our vehicle and that night were talking to our defence force.
We decided that our best option would be to ambush the enemy column about eight kilometres from the village where the path opened out into area about one hundred meters broad and two hundred meters long with a river on one side preventing any rapid retreat in that direction. We arranged for the bulk of our forces to front the expected approach of the enemy with some others to the same side paralleling the river. We arranged for a small force to be a few hundred meters behind the enemy column to cut off any retreat. This would mean that we would not risk injuring our own and should allow an extermination of the armed enemy if that proved necessary. We would do our best not to injure the servants or the horses and would accept any surrender immediately it was offered. We had no wish to kill unnecessarily as both animals and humans were of great value to us.
These tactics depended largely on a poorly organized enemy force having no, or at least incautious, scouts. To reduce the problem of scouts the side ambush party would remain about one hundred meters inside the tree line and watch carefully for infiltration into that area. They would then attack any scouts at the opening of the ambush or move rapidly forward to assist the ambush when they were able. Fabio, Pablo and I would scout to the rear of the invading group and later act as the blocking group across our enemy’s probable line of retreat.
Our radio system should only allow us to remain in contact with the ambush group from about ten kilometres due to the trees. The ambush group would not respond to our messages, unless this was directly requested, other than a gentle tap on the microphone advising us they had received our messages. This would insure that our scout group, relatively near the enemy, could limit the sound of any voices being heard by the opposition which would obviously be to our disadvantage.
Our small group followed the enemy convoy and we saw no attempt at scouting. They appeared to believe that they were invulnerable and would be dealing with only a few simple survivors that had the temerity to reject them. The two cannons were at the rear and I believed I saw two small mortars tied to the horses. In my opinion it would take several minutes to get them operational especially if involved in an ambush.
With luck the horses would become uncontrollably frightened during the ambush; if we could really surprise the group. In that case even a well organized group would have difficulty organising an effective defence and return of fire to a superior force. From our observation they were neither well disciplined nor organized. They had apparently become soft and careless dealing with only unarmed, passive, survivors. All those they had met had been cowed, dependent groups whom they had then collected as enforced servants.
Early on the fifth day of their walk, starting at about ten kilometres from the village, the enemy force sent out four scouts two each side of their convoy. Thankfully they did not, at that stage, send anyone to the front. This information was passed to those at the ambush site so that they were aware of the situation. When the convoy entered the clearing the left hand scouts stayed within the clearing and the river side scouts went about fifty meters ahead of the main body.
Our blocking group retreated as rapidly as possible to about two hundred meters down the path so as not to risk being shot by our own side. Our people had every advantage and could see their opponents hence a successful ambush was expected.
I was lying by a tree for protection when the shooting started. The volume rose rapidly and fell in the same manner. I looked out from my hide and a short time later saw three unknown persons running rapidly down the path. The first had a gun to the fore so I took him down with the assault rifle on single shot, I had been advised to double tap but having killed too many persons already I decided not to repeat that deed unless absolutely necessary. I believe Fabio took out the third. The second man was our fat friend the politico.
I foolishly rolled out from the tree and gave him a chance to surrender. Unfortunately the idiot thought he had a chance and raised his rifle. I shot him on single shot and was surprised when he did not go down. At such short range the small calibre high velocity bullets we used went right through a man if it failed to hit solid material. I had, unfortunately, given him a chance to pull a heavy semi automatic pistol which he then fired twice. One soft nose shot hit me in the left hand and another in the left ankle. I rolled to the side pulled my pistol and shot him one handed; the heavier shot threw him backwards and he did not move again.
Initially my ankle did not hurt but pain did not take long in making its presence felt. On my left hand I had lost two fingers and part of the hand. I s
tarted to feel very sorry for myself. Fabio and Pablo carefully went to examine our opponents. The politico was dead but the two soldiers were alive and still mobile: Again the small, high velocity, bullets we were using at short range limited the damage to those persons. They were examined for weapons which were removed and then made to get up and proceed, assisting eachother, towards the earlier action. I needed the assistance of Fabio as my ankle was a bit of a mess and I was unable to put any weight on it.
At the scene of the action our military opponents were rather knocked about. Only two were uninjured and some were very still. One horse had been slightly injured and the servants were very frightened, as one would expect, though all had remained undamaged. The village was contacted and the two vehicles we had stored there were requested to take the wounded, including myself, to the shelter hospital for treatment.
Of the enemy casualties five soldiers were dead and one seriously injured the other seven had relatively minor injuries. On our side I was the only one to carry an injury and this was due to my own stupidity. My injuries were serious but not dangerous and, at that time, the only solution was the amputation of the foot above the ankle. I was later fitted with a flexible ankled artificial foot manufactured by our metal, shoemaker and carpentry departments.
This new foot required time and patience for me to learn how to use it properly and for improvements to be made from experience. My left hand was tidied up in two operations and I ended up losing the middle two fingers and pretty much the use of the other two. This was a small loss under the circumstances. Within a month I was capable of going with our invasion party, in a vehicle, to take over the politico’s shelter: I was advised not to walk too much as the stump needed time to heal and callus properly. This visit, to our recent opponents camp, I had requested as I wanted to see those people that had so abused their position of power during the period both proceeding and after the disaster.
Our asteroid survival: A fictitional history of the ten year survival of a large ELE asteroid impact by a small, pre advised, group Page 36