These Dead Lands: Immolation

by Stephen Knight

  Hastings got to his feet in a hurry. “Good to meet you too, sir. I, uh, I hear your brother knows a thing or two about trains.”

  Jarmusch turned back to Victor, a quizzical expression on his face. “That’s an odd thing to have been talking about. Even for you, Dave.”

  Victor leaned back in his chair again. “It’s not as odd as it sounds. Hastings has been making suggestions on what steps we need to take to improve our position and what assets need to be put in place. So far, there are a few things that need to be worked out, but what Hastings presented to me makes sense. And I think we can get them done in time.”

  “Well, if Dave gives it a green light, go ahead and proceed, Captain Hastings. If you require anything, see my staff or Dave’s, and they’ll help you out. Fort Indiantown Gap might be out of the way, but we do have a good deal of resources at our disposal.”

  “Yes, sir. Colonel Victor and I were discussing them earlier. He also said you have a brother that works on the rail line.”

  “Yes, I do. My brother Steve lives over in Reading. Why do you ask?”

  “Sir, I need to find someone who knows how to drive and operate a rail engine. I intend to secure one if possible and use the rail line to help facilitate our stand here.”

  “I haven’t spoken to Steve much since this whole thing started, and he doesn’t know how to drive an engine, as far as I know. I don’t think my brother would be able to help. But I do have a few soldiers on my staff who worked the rail line in their civilian lives, and one of them is a conductor and can drive a train engine. I’ll send him over later, and you two can discuss your plan.”

  “Thank you, sir. That would help out immensely with what I have in mind,” Hastings said. “Sir, if I may ask, what is the current status of the United States and the military, specifically the National Guard, in all of this?”

  Colonel Jarmusch gave a slight smile. “Well, I hope you have a minute, because this is about as interesting as watching paint dry. Are you familiar with what is known as Defense Support of Civil Authorities?”

  “Yes, sir. I recall studying about it, but in all honesty, it’s been a while, and I’m pretty sure this kind of an event wasn’t covered.”

  “Well, when things first kicked off, it all went quicker than anyone could have anticipated. Typically, every state maintains an Emergency Operations Center that’s activated as needed to support local EOCs and provide multi-agency coordination. When local jurisdictions can’t contain an incident, the governor can declare a state of emergency and invoke the state’s emergency plan to augment individual and public resources as required. And that’s what happened here. The governor activated the National Guard to State Active Duty, and we assumed the civil law enforcement part as things continued to go south. Things progressed quicker than even we anticipated, and the governors from every state asked for federal assistance in the form of a Presidential Major Disaster Declaration. They also requested DoD support via the SecDef. The Title 10 and Title 32 issues got cloudy real quick as events started unfolding faster than phone calls could be made, and as you know, some people were no longer around to pick up the phone on the other end. The POTUS enacted a National Emergency Declaration under Articles II and IV of the Constitution since many members of Congress were already unaccounted for, and Congress could not convene. That’s when POTUS went on all broadcast media and issued an executive order directing the armed forces to enforce the law to protect federal facilities, property, and personnel. A joint task force was established, and I believe you and your men are all that remains of JTF New York. JTF Pennsylvania was doing okay for a while in the beginning but was eventually overrun. What remained of it fell back here to Indiantown Gap and regrouped.”

  Hastings already knew a lot of what the colonel had told him. His unit at Fort Drum had been placed under the operational control of US Northern Command then moved to the tactical control of Joint Task Force New York. He’d been only peripherally aware of the movements taken by the National Guard, and Jarmusch was doing a good job of filling in the blanks. It was disheartening to hear that the Guard hadn’t fared well in Pennsylvania, but it also wasn’t a complete shock. In fact, he had been more surprised to find that Fort Indiantown Gap was still up and operational.

  Jarmusch continued, “At any rate, things kept getting worse. Units tried to maintain cohesion, but they ended up falling back, farther and farther from the major population centers. Basically, everyone moved to the center of the state or, in this case, Indiantown Gap, at least, those that were able to make it here.

  “Communication is almost nonexistent with federal and other state entities; we don’t know the status of Governor O’Malley at this time. Last word we had from the POTUS and Governor O’Malley was that Dual Status Command was authorized for all fifty states, which allows a designated National Guard or federal military officers to command military personnel serving in a SAD, Title 32, or a Title 10 status. When Colonel Victor showed up with what remained of his unit and men he’d picked up along the way, we reconsolidated the force. Dave and I have dates of rank close enough that either one of us could have assumed command of the force here, but we realized that I, being the Indiantown Gap commander, already had a handle on how to run the base, so Colonel Victor, being Infantry Branch, assumed the position as the ground force commander of all the troops and units that made it back here and were still able to fight.”

  “Colonel Victor, you mentioned that there’s been no contact with POTUS or any other senior government officials. I have to ask, sir, are you sure there’s no one out there?”

  Colonel Victor’s expression turned grim. “We’re not a hundred percent sure, of course. But if they’re still alive, they simply are not answering the phone. However, we know there is a Continuity of Government plan that’s supposed to be enacted in situations like this. We simply don’t know if members of the government made it to their designated locations underground in time or not.” He studied Hastings for a moment then sighed. “Captain, what I am about to tell you does not go farther than this room. Do you understand me?”

  “Yes, sir, I understand you.”

  “As far as we know, the only surviving member of the US government that has been accounted for is here at Fort Indiantown Gap. Senator Henry Cornell, chair of the Senate Armed Services Committee and president pro tempore of the Senate. He was on his way to Washington, DC, when all of this was happening, but he got caught in Philadelphia when it was overrun and was evacuated to our location. We believe him to be the acting president of the United States at this time and, per his guidance, intend to proceed with the COG plan we discussed earlier. So you see, we have every intention of making sure Fort Indiantown Gap can stand up to what’s coming so the senator can proceed with reestablishing our government.”

  Hastings felt the blood drain from his face. Great. As if taking care of my people wasn’t enough stress, now I have to defend the potential new president of the United States of America against the reekers. No pressure or anything. “Senator Cornell, you say, sir? I know of him—he’s a Lightfighter Alumni. He spoke at a change-of-command ceremony when I was a first lieutenant back at Drum. He has a reputation as being one of the unit’s hard chargers from back in the day.”

  “Well then,” Victor said, “I’ll make sure you get to meet him. But right now, I want you to focus on putting the plan you briefed us on into place. You’re clear to proceed on that as soon as possible.”

  “Sir, when we arrived, all our equipment and weapons were confiscated. My men and Sergeant Ballantine’s family and the woman and child with me are all being held in a barracks separate from everyone else on base. I’d like to ask that the civilians we brought in be allowed to stay with my unit. And if the men can get their weapons and gear back, we can begin working on what we spoke about.”

  Victor looked to Jarmusch.

  The taller man gave a small shrug. “None of that’s a problem with me, so long as tending to your dependants doesn’t get in the way o
f the mission. I’ll see to it that your gear is returned. All ten classes of supply on post are available to you to carry out this plan. I’ll make sure my staff passes this word down so you don’t run into any issues around the base. If you do, let me know directly, Captain. My door is always open.”

  “As is mine,” Victor added. “Though Jarmusch is squatting on better furniture.”

  “Well, I was here first, you know,” Jarmusch said.

  *

  “Sir, we’ve identified several locations that meet the PIRs you gave me earlier,” Ballantine reported, using the acronym for Primary Intelligence Requirement. “In fact, we’ve located some local businesses just down Fisher Avenue that have either shipping containers or semitrailers. There’s also a good deal of them here on the base, including the usual ISU-90s that we can use. Farther out, in Reading and Rutherford, we’ve identified railcar switching yards. Older satellite imagery shows a significant number of cars sitting in the yards at each location. We would need to verify that they’re still there before doing anything, though.”

  Hastings looked over the map that had been annotated with the information Hastings had requested, as well as some other goodies he hadn’t. “Good job on knocking this out so fast, Carl.”

  If the praise registered, Ballantine didn’t allow it to show. “We’ve also annotated all the bridges that we could identify that cross a river or other terrain feature that could be considered a choke point. You mind telling me a bit more about what you plan to do, sir?”

  “My intent is to use the shipping containers and semitrailers as barriers to reinforce the perimeters around this base. We don’t have enough HESCO barriers to go around, and besides, the ghouls might be able to climb over them if we give them enough time. And we have a huge perimeter that needs to be fortified in a short period of time. Indiantown Gap is so spread out that it’s going to be impossible to secure everything we need in one perimeter, so I want to use the shipping containers to build walls by stacking them around critical portions of the base. That way, instead of giving up ground, we’ll have a lot of smaller perimeters around key facilities that can withstand the type of attack we saw in New York.” Hastings tapped the map, indicating one of the railheads. “I want to use the railroad to help move more of those shipping containers closer to this location. Not only that, it’ll give us a mode of transportation that’s less likely to be compromised by reekers or held up by abandoned vehicles on the road.”

  Ballantine grunted. “Nice. And what about the bridges? You want to bring them down?”

  “Not necessarily. I don’t think the command group would want that to happen, anyway. But I can see using more of the shipping containers or semitrailers to block them off. We don’t want any avenues of approach left open along the highways and secondary roads where the bridges cross the rivers. The goal is to channelize the reekers and force them into the countryside or use the rivers to keep them away from the post. I want to be able to do this in depth, which is why I gave you a radius.”

  Ballantine nodded. “Understood. So your thinking is, if we can keep them from converging on this location en masse and spread them out over a larger geographical area, we might be able to contain them.”

  “Or at least delay them, and we can fight off the assaults from smaller forces. I don’t see the fort surviving a mass attack like we saw in Manhattan, especially with how spread out this place is.” Hastings tapped the map again. “We’re going to ask the engineers to construct revetments and trenches in the areas where we can’t use containers. I’m hoping that will help channelize them into areas where we can deal with them. They’ll also have the task of building up the shipping containers once we have them in place to serve as fighting platforms. Remember the guard towers we built in Afghanistan with the CONEX containers? Same concept, just a bit bigger and longer.”

  Ballantine let out a sigh. “Sir, that’s a pretty big task to accomplish. Do you think we will be able to put this in place in time?”

  “If we start doing it and stop talking about it, yeah. I’m confident that we can at least get the perimeter reinforcements in place around Indiantown Gap’s critical structures.” Hastings reached into one of the cargo pockets on his combat uniform’s trousers and pulled out several sheets of neatly folded paper. He handed them over to Ballantine. “I’ve compiled a list off of the top of my head. Give it a look and make any additions you think are needed. Be sure you bounce it off of the locals in the TOC here, just to make sure we don’t overlook a key area or building that we’re unaware of. The airfield is the first priority and the largest to build up. The engineers will be using the HESCOs on hand to start reinforcing the chain-link fence line along Fisher Avenue and the ends of the runway. They’ll also be building secondary fighting positions in case we have to come off of the wall. The other key areas are in this vicinity but spread out. The POL point is critical because there’s a lot of fuel on base for both vehicles and the aircraft. The living areas and TOC are on there as well.”

  Ballantine unfolded the list and scanned it. “Got it.”

  “Make sure you find out where else they have people billeted. We may have to consolidate everyone into closer locations. The Ammunition Supply Point is pretty secure already, but I want to reinforce the gates so they can barricade themselves inside the wire if needed, since they’re the farthest away from all of this and they’re out there by themselves. I’m told we have an almost full ASP at the moment because there was a unit scheduled to train here before all this went down, so we have all your standard small arms ammo to include explosives and aviation ordnance. Speak to the ASP ammo manager and see if you can get an accurate inventory of what they have over there that we might be able to use. Did you have a chance to talk to the Shadow platoon mission planner?”

  Ballantine nodded. “Yes, sir. Along with the S2, the three of us identified your PIRs, and they’re ready to support us as soon as they get a mission. What do you want them to service first?”

  “Good deal. As soon as we’re done here, have them start planning on putting their ISR platform up as soon as possible. The first two locations I want them to look at are those two railcar-switching yards.” Hastings pointed at a spot on the map. “I want to know if they can identify if any engines are there, as well as shipping containers. The key thing is the engines; we have to find one. Even if there isn’t one in the yards, there has to be one somewhere along the rail line, so make sure that’s a priority task for the sensor operators anytime a platform is up.”

  “Roger that.”

  “Oh, yeah. Speaking of engines, we have a person here who is actually a railroad engineer. Ask around to find out who he is, and pick his brain on where we might find what we’re looking for. Brief him on the rail plan so he understands what we want to do.”

  “Sir, I don’t see any rails coming into the fort. The closest portion of the rail system is here”—Ballantine put his index finger on a point on the map above Fort Indiantown Gap—“just north of us about twenty miles away, near Tremont. And it’s just a bend in the track behind a water reclamation plant outside of the town. We’d have to clear the entire town since the rail goes right through it, but the S2 doesn’t think there’s any place along the line in town that would be better than the bend behind the reclamation plant. Satellite imagery supports that, and I have to say I agree with him.

  “The only other place we picked out as a possible good location is in West Hamburg, a town about thirty miles north on I-78.” Ballantine moved his finger to the location. “The rail line coming out of Reading, the highway, and the river all come together there. We’ll have to block the far side of the bridge there and the rail line comes right alongside of the river. There appears to be a shipping company in the vicinity of the bridge that we could use to load or off-load containers.”

  Hastings nodded. “All right. Let’s make these secondary targets for the ISR platforms. Let’s see if we can develop better situational awareness of what’s there right now befor
e we send guys out in helos or via ground movement. Also, have them determine if there are any abandoned vehicles or other obstacles that might keep us from moving via ground up the highways or secondary roads along the routes we’d have to take to get to those bridges.”

  “Will do, sir. And just so you know, the S2 tells me there’s a Cabelas outdoor store right by that bridge in Hamburg I was telling you about. It’s on the west side of the highway.”

  “Okay, that’s good to know. What did you have in mind?” Hastings asked.

  “Well, sir, if the S2 is correct, the shipping company will have rigs with trailers that we could fill up with supplies from Cabelas and bring back here with us. We just need to find someone who can drive a semi, and we should be good.”

  Hastings grunted. “It’s a long shot there’s going to be much left out there at this point, but I’ll let you work that. Don’t get too wrapped around the axle with it. The focus is on blocking off that bridge and recovering any containers or trailers. Hooah?”

  “Hooah, sir. Anything else?”

  “No, we should be good for now. I want to speak to the S3 to make sure we’re all on the same sheet of music and he knows what we need done. I’ll meet you back here in thirty mikes, then we’ll head back to the barracks to brief the rest of the guys. Oh yeah, that reminds me—senior staff has agreed to release all our gear to us, along with anything else we might need. And dependants stay with us, no separation.”

  Ballantine looked at Hastings directly. “Really, sir?”

  Hastings nodded. “Really. I don’t want anyone wondering what’s going on with the civilians, so they need to be where we can keep our eyes on them. If not us specifically, then at least some of the other guys.”

  “That’s… that’s outstanding, sir. Really. I want to thank you for that.”

  Hastings shrugged. He didn’t quite know how to feel about Ballantine’s gratitude, especially since the NCO’s family was alive and safe, while Hastings’s wife and kid were churning around in the guts of a bunch of reekers. “No sweat, Carl. I’ll see you in thirty mikes, right?”