Captain Rockfort ordered his troops to hold their fire and stay hidden behind the defenses. I told my small company to do the same.
They were forced to stop at the mound of ash we had piled in the middle of the roadway. The reverend stared up at the towering buildings, growling in surprise at the fluorescent glow of electricity in the windows. He pointed and snarled orders, unintelligible from my perch at the top of the dorm nearest the road. A half dozen of his followers, wrapped in their dirty bedsheets, poured from one of the trucks and stumbled through the ash, heading for the base of my building. Flaming rags burned in the necks of the bottles in their hands. I waited for them to get close and then pressed down on the small switch in my hand.
The ash at the feet of the attackers erupted in flame and shrapnel. Jagged chunks of hot scrap iron tore through the marauders' filthy bedsheets in a gush of flame and blood. The gas-filled bottles in their hands shattered and burst into flame, adding to the carnage. I grunted in satisfaction as smoke drifted up at me. The homemade claymores had shredded the Fellowship goons. Nothing was left of them but torn cloth and smoldering viscera. Their blood glistened bright on the ash.
I heard a squeal of anger from the reverend's truck. Looking up, I saw that the boy was staring at me, a grimace of hate clouding his face. I was transfixed for a moment, surprised at the fear that the child invoked in me. The spell was broken by a terse shout from Captain Rockfort.
"Fire at will!"
A hundred rifle barrels sprouted from the dormitory windows. Their booming crackle was curiously muffled by the heavy ashfall. The cadets had been obsessively training on the makeshift firing range we had cut into the ash in a nearby field. Their practice paid off. Dozens of the reverend's men, sitting exposed in the beds of the nearest pickups, were mown down. Some screamed in pain and surprise, others slumped, dying quietly.
The reverend was screaming in rage now, waving his tattered bible at us, urging his remaining men to rally and return fire. I leveled my rifle, lining up the iron sights on his chest, eager to avenge my fallen friends. I held my breath and pulled the trigger. The rifle boomed and then the bolt jammed open, the action caked with gritty ash. I cursed, the shot had gone wide. Deb and the rest of my troop on the roof opened fire, but the reverend seemed charmed. Bullets thumped into the truck all around him but he was miraculously untouched as he flailed his arms and shouted with biblical fury.
The boy next to him kept a cooler head. As the gunfire erupted above him, he slipped over the side of the bed and huddled behind the rear wheel. I could hear his shrill youthful voice over the thunder of the guns, screaming at the men at the rear of the column to retreat. Somehow they heard the order and the tail of the convoy began to reverse, the men in the beds spilling over the sides to escape the shower of lead.
I was still struggling with my jammed rifle when Deb punched my arm. She pointed to the retreating trucks. I nodded and picked up another detonator, mashing on the contact. The mines we had embedded in the walls of the trench coughed their fire and metal at the slowly fleeing trucks. Burning chunks of jagged steel ripped through thin sheet metal and savaged the men inside. The rear-most truck erupted in flame, its gas tank pierced and ignited by the smoldering shrapnel. The men sheltering behind the vehicle ran up the opposite bank of the trench, screaming and swatting at the flames which suddenly enveloped them. When I closed the contact on the next switch, the survivors of the Fellowship broke and ran.
They threw down their weapons, scrambled in terror up the steep banks, and stumbled through deep ash to the perceived safety of the abandoned bars and restaurants across the street. The reverend ran behind them, screaming at them to turn and fight. I waited until the first of the terrified men reached the buildings before I hit the last detonator.
At the sight of their comrades disintegrating in clouds of flame and pink mist, the bulk of the fellowship army stopped in despair. They raised their hands in dejected surrender. Rockfort bellowed the ceasefire order and the cadets' guns fell silent. I heard the reverend screaming again. In the thick ashfall I could barely make out his filthy black suit. He was struggling wildly as two of his men were dragging him away. Two more rushed up to grab his legs and the group stumbled quickly out of sight. Before they disappeared, I saw that they were led by the boy, shouting orders from his perch on the shoulders of a huge man.
I jumped up and gestured for my troop to follow. We rushed down the stairs, taking them two and three at a time. I was desperate not to let them escape. We had hoped to crush the Fellowship here, and we had largely succeeded, but if the leaders broke free they would gather more men and return.
A platoon of cadets, detailed beforehand for the purpose, was already rounding up the prisoners when we burst from the doors. We sprinted after the retreating group, quickly gaining on them thanks to our superior footwear. As we drew close, Werner glanced behind and saw our approach. He screamed at his men to drop the reverend and fire on us.
We ducked for cover as bullets hummed past us. Jones and his men unleashed a storm of covering fire while Deb and I worked our way to flanks of the panicking, desperate men. Suddenly released from his captors, the reverend sprang up and shouted a challenge. He saw me creeping to his right and drew a rusty machete from the belt of the soldier nearest him. He charged at me, waving the blade over his head, screaming a fiery bible passage.
His eyes were wild, his face smeared with soot and ash and blood. I let him get close before I drew the pistol and calmly pulled the trigger. The reverend’s bodyguards moaned in despair as he slumped to his knees. Blood trickled slowly from the small hole in his forehead. He fell forward, revealing the ghastly exit wound. His brains were spread on the ash behind him in a wide fan of pink and red. His right leg thumped a sickening tattoo in the loose ash for a few seconds.
I stared at the twitching corpse for a moment, transfixed. Jones was already detaining the surrendered bodyguards by the time I remembered the boy. I peered into the blizzard of ash frantically, hoping for a glimpse of the fleeing pair. I shouted in frustration for Deb and the others to join me. We searched for hours. We never found him.
Chapter 8
June, 31 PC (2046 AD)
*
“The volunteer armies of the RNT, though rarely capably led, were usually superbly equipped and always enthusiastic. Given the right commander they were frequently victorious.”
-Robert Thibideaux, ‘Armed Citizenry: The Armies of the Republic’; RNT University Press, 48 PC (2063 AD);
*
The first day of the march brought them to the gates of Navasota. The small settlement, once a farming community, was now a hardscrabble gambling town. The brothels and saloons, catering to outlaws and homesteaders alike, outnumbered more wholesome businesses ten to one. The town was clustered between the banks of the old divided highway. Its boundaries, north and south, were palisades of roughly hewn pine logs stretching beneath towering concrete overpasses. The town guard, themselves barely better than the outlaws who frequented the filthy town, kept watch from the guardrails above the gates.
All afternoon they had watched a dusty cloud of ash inch toward them. When the first Bradley Fighting Vehicle crested the low hill in the distance, they followed their instructions and sent for the Mayor.
The Mayor, flanked by a party of the town's more affluent citizens, all dressed in their finest clothes, waited patiently in the middle of the road for the vanguard of the dusty, lumbering column.
The two rumbling armored vehicles squealed to halt a few yards in front of the welcoming party. Their tracks were caked in leaden ash. The sleek, business-like Stryker rolled up between them on its huge tires. The wide hatch at its rear slowly descended. The Mayor and his entourage coughed at the cloud of dust which slowly enveloped them.
A squat man, grossly fat, waddled down the ramp made by the open hatch with two be-medalled staff officers in tow. He ponderously trudged toward them, swollen feet throwing up white puffs of newly fallen ash. He was clearly out o
f breath when he arrived, so the Mayor spoke first.
"Good evening Colonel, we would like to welcome you to Navasota. Captain McLelland let us know you would be arriving today, but we expected you much earlier. I'm truly sorry sir, we had planned for a more elaborate welcome, but unfortunately the band has gone home."
"Yes, well, there were unforeseen difficulties this morning. You know, my good man, sometimes there are kinks in the logistics that must be worked out at the beginning of an expedition of this scale."
The Mayor did not know, but he nodded his head knowingly.
"Please, the Army of the Republic of New Texas is always welcome in our modest community. I'm sure your men are tired, we have arranged quarters and board for all of them. I’ve reserved our finest establishments for the use of the officers.
"Excellent, my good man. We will, of course, have to station guards at the rest of the taverns. I wouldn't want the boys to get too loose tonight, we've a long march tomorrow. Plus I’m sure you don’t want these ruffians running wild in the streets.”
The Mayor would actually have loved to have the rich Campus soldiers running wild through his town, but he held his tongue and nodded genially. "Of course sir, follow me."
The Captain and his troop had been firmly ensconced in one of the smaller saloons for hours. They were on their way to being thoroughly drunk by the time the Colonel entered the town.
The night before, in the final briefing, Captain had objected to a portion of the Colonel's plan. In retaliation, Garza had him report on the supply and logistics situation in great detail. Though McLelland's plans were perfectly adequate, the Colonel had torn them to shreds. Supply stores were shifted, shipping schedules were reorganized, and transport responsibilities were shuffled. The last minute changes had resulted in mass confusion.
The army, like every army in history, was entirely dependent on an efficient supply chain. The Captain had gone to great lengths to establish that chain over the previous week. The Colonel, in a petty tantrum, had managed to rip that delicate chain apart in a matter of minutes.
The army had orders to march from the Campus gates at dawn. While it was still dark, the men gathered in their companies, ready for a hard day's march. There they waited as the sun rose behind slate clouds. The Colonel's hasty re-organization of the supply companies had left a gap. No one knew who was responsible for fueling the three armored vehicles, so the three armored vehicles went unfueled. Panic ensued when the engines wouldn’t turn over. Mechanics were summoned and a team of them swarmed over the machines for two hours before one of them thought to unscrew a gas cap.
Even without the diesel fiasco, the army would have been late through the gates. Their intrepid commander, the rotund Colonel Peter Garza, forgot to set his alarm clock. His aides, fearing the fat man's lightening quick temper, had let him sleep, assuming there had been a change of plans.
By the time the Colonel had roused himself and the APC's had rumbled to life, the Captain and his small ranger troop had gone on ahead in disgust at the delay. The sun was already climbing the sky, though no one could see its orb through the thick grey clouds.
The rangers had made Navasota by noon. They found the town deserted. The taverns and brothels, normally vibrant with gamblers and prostitutes, were silent. Commerce had been chased from the region by the festering cancer to the Southeast. The growing outlaw army, raiding deeper into civilization every day, was burning homesteads and villages indiscriminately now. The gamblers, Navasota's lifeblood, had fled the scourge for safer towns like Waco and Bastrop. The prostitutes, their trade interrupted, either followed the horde of gamblers or went south to squeeze their living from the growing mob in the wastelands.
The troop, glad to find the town devoid of trouble for once, settled in to wait for their army. A few of the older, more adventurous rangers perused the thin selection of whores who remained after the exodus, but the bulk of the company were satisfied with copious drink and the odd game of cards.
By the time the first MPs were stationed at the doors of their saloon, the troop was thoroughly soused. The Captain and his wife were still sober enough to bribe the guards with a secreted bottle. The pair stood at the saloon's grimy window and watched as the army marched through the gates.
One of the tracked APCs was in the lead, its pair followed close behind. The two Bradleys were, unlike the cobbled together helicopters, in excellent repair. They had been found a few years before in covered storage at a National Guard armory, along with a multitude of spare parts. The boxy dual TOW launchers had been removed due to a lack of rockets, but the ammunition factory had been churning out explosive shells for its 25mm cannon. The Stryker came next. There was a fifty caliber remote control turret on the roof, slaved to the targeting reticle on the gunner's helmet. The gun rotated smoothly right and left as the man standing free of one of the hatches took in the sights.
The Colonel had commandeered the Stryker as his command vehicle, despite the superior armor and firepower of the tracked Bradleys. He claimed it was due to the Stryker's higher top speed, but the Captain suspected the real reason was that the troop compartments of the Bradleys were notoriously cramped. The good Colonel needed room for his prodigious gut.
The infantry followed a good distance behind. They were weary and dusty from a full day's march. Soon after they departed they had been forced to don their masks and statically seal the collars and cuffs of their suits. The recent ashfall had yet to be cleaned from the long highway, and the armored vehicles trundling slowly ahead of them had quickly churned up a choking cloud of the gritty dust.
The original plan was for the troops to ride in the canvas covered beds of a fleet of transport trucks, but the fuel situation was desperate. The fledgling Republic could not afford to run the trucks, so the men were forced to march to battle in a long column. They walked in a column of four files like an army out of the nineteenth century. Like those hardy ancestors, who had shouldered muskets and marched in column down hot dusty roads to bring battle to their countrymen nearly two hundred years before, these rough men were not fazed by hardship. Not a word of complaint was spoken all day as they had trudged through the dense cloud of dust, sweating. They were here to do their duty.
The Captain had spoken with the Mayor when he arrived. He had arranged billets for the army, four or five men to each of the small homes which were packed between the palisades at the tops of the highway embankments. Two of the Colonel's staff officers headed off each company as they marched into town and assigned groups of men to these temporary billets. The small army filled the town to bursting. A careful guard was placed at each saloon, tavern, or brothel to keep the men from sampling the town's offerings.
As the last of the companies were receiving their instructions, the big supply trucks roared through the gates. As part of his last minute reorganization of the supply logistics the night before, the Colonel had decreed that they would only have enough fuel to run three of the trucks, rather than five. An annoyed sergeant had kept his squad busy all night rearranging the loads so that it would all fit. Somehow they had managed to squeeze all of the spare ammunition, equipment, food, and fuel for the small army into the three truck beds. They were each piled high with a jumble of ammunition crates and fuel cans, pallets of rations and jugs of water.
The six vehicles were parked in a line on the main street, facing the south gate. A careful guard was set on them; the inhabitants of the small, rough town had an unsavory reputation amongst the men from the big city. Most of the men in the army had, at some point in their lives, walked or ridden the twenty five miles of highway to try their luck at the gaming tables or spend a relaxing weekend with the whores. More than one had been forced back to campus with his tail between his legs, pockets picked and penniless, sometimes even pantsless.
Navasota was not considered as bad as Huntsville. That dank thieves' den had been founded and was still inhabited by the former inmates of the now-defunct state prison. No respectable NRT citizen, unless
he had nothing to lose, would throw his life away by attempting a weekend of pleasure and gambling in Huntsville. Even the Captain avoided the place.
The show over, the Captain left his troop under Deb's watchful eye, nodded amicably to the MP's as he stepped into the street, and set off to find the Colonel. It was time to find out if the Governor's fat son had really learned his lesson after his last disastrous expedition.
Three years before, Governor Garza had arranged for an trade expedition to open relations with the various settlements and small city states which clustered in the ruins of the Dallas/Fort Worth metroplex. He had scraped together three hundred soldiers, placed them under his son's command, and ordered McLelland's ranger troop to guide them north. It had been a disaster almost from the first day. The younger Garza had largely ignored the advice of the more experienced men in the party at every turn. His poor decisions left them stranded in unfamiliar country, low on food and water, and under constant threat from outlaws. Morale plummeted as the men starved and suffered constant harassment from bandits in the night. They never reached their destination. Those few who had not deserted had straggled back to campus more than a month after their triumphant departure. Captain McLelland, knowing disaster was imminent, had finally deposed the blundering Garza and led the starving, terrified men to safety.
His son's incompetence had nearly cost the Governor his next election; he won by a razor thin margin. Determined that Peter would become a great general, the elder Garza had paid for private instruction in military history, strategy, and leadership. The boy had taken to the material with enthusiasm, desperate to please his powerful father. There was a rumor circulating that the Governor had promised his son a generalship if this campaign was successful.
Ash: Rise of the Republic Page 14