by Lund, Dave
“Chief, I took a lot of small arms fire. Coming back around for another pass.”
“Roger. Extracting toward the south to the truck during next run.”
“Gonzo!” Aymond yelled across the battlefield, but Gonzo knew what was going on. He flashed a thumbs up and waited, coiled and ready. The A-10 banked back up and came screaming down on their position. Aymond leapt to his feet and sprinted toward Gonzo. They both grabbed Happy’s armor carrier and pulled as a team, dragging his body with them back to the M-ATV. The sound of another gun run finished behind them and some sporadic small arms fire followed their exit. Once in the armored truck, Aymond pushed the button to start the engine and began driving down the mountain as quickly as he could. They would have to regroup and formulate a plan. What that could be, he had no idea yet, but he needed a little time to think it through.
“Chief, we have an unknown aircraft inbound, big one, four engine and its high, maybe angels-40.”
Shit, Aymond thought. He was mostly confident that if this was a bombing run, it wouldn’t be nuclear, since it would kill the PLA forces on the ground, but nothing good could come from this. This was also probably why the PLA forces had backed off so far.
“Pearce, do you have enough to make another run at the primary forces before bugging out?”
“Roger, Chief, can do.”
Aymond drove as hard as he could and as quickly as he could. Gonzo began passing loaded magazines up from what they had brought in the truck, which Aymond took and began passing back empties from his dump pouch. Happy’s body lay in the floor in the back. The floor was slick and the cabin was filled with the metallic smell of a large quantity of thick blood.
They couldn’t hear the last run that Major Pearce took, but they saw her scream past overhead only a few dozen meters above them as she pointed back toward Nellis.
“OK, I’m winchester and headed back. See you all in a little bit.”
Winchester; she was out of ammo that was fast. “Major, if you have the fuel, could you remain near for a bomb damage assessment?”
“Roger, only for ten minutes, then I’ll be running on fumes when I land.”
A few moments later, the shockwave, a single large shockwave, rocked the truck. They were on the backside of the mountains from Groom Lake and whatever the PLA had detonated had rippled through it all to them. A few minutes after that, he saw Pearce zoom past. “Total loss. I’ll brief you when you get to the hangar,” was all she said on the radio. Aymond replied affirmatively and drove in silence. Things were not going well.
Near Ennis, Texas
The home was clear, the barn was clear, and the FJ was parked by the front door. Jessie hobbled around their new home while Bexar unloaded the essentials and put them in the house. They weren’t comfortable moving completely in yet. After their experiences, Jessie and Bexar both agreed that they should be ready to immediately bug out. Eventually, they would load out the FJ with bug-out gear and have their day-to-day stuff in the house, but it would take time to build confidence in their location and that they wouldn’t be overrun by some crazy local religious cult—which seemed to be a strong possibility in their post-normal world.
Sweat dripped from Bexar’s face as he bent over to get another shovel of dirt. With the rest of their needs currently handled, security improvements moved to the top of the list. Most of the windows were covered with sandbags with small gaps to fire a rifle through, but now Bexar was trying to bag the doors, which took more effort. All Bexar knew about how to build fighting positions with sandbags is what he had seen in documentaries about war, so Bexar wasn’t even sure if he was doing anything right. It looked good, but he wouldn’t know.
Maybe I can get word to Chivo and he can visit to help. At the very least, he’ll probably want to visit after the baby is born.
For the first time in months, since they had been in Big Bend with Jack and Sandra, Bexar felt himself relax slightly. He couldn’t relax completely because of how their stay in Big Bend had ended, but Bexar hadn’t felt hopeful since the very beginning. Hope was a powerful state of being, but it was also fragile, cracking, and failing to despair with alarming quickness.
The sun was already nearing the western horizon; this would be the first night in their new home. When they had purchased their home in Brazos County, they went and sat in their new house the day they closed on it with no furniture. Jessie and Bexar had brought folding chairs, ordered a pizza, and watched a movie on a laptop to celebrate becoming real adults while enjoying the first dinner and a movie in their new home. Well, that, and they christened their new bedroom together. Bexar heard Jessie coming through the house. She stepped into the open doorway, using the door frame for support and keeping the weight off her ankle. It was still swollen and a sickly yellow bruised color, but it was getting significantly better.
Jessie was completely nude with a hungry “come hither” look on her face. “Are you almost done, lover? I could use some of your help inside.”
Bexar laid his shovel on the ground and walked to his impatiently waiting wife. “I’m nasty, dirty, and sweaty, baby.”
“I’m prepared for that, sexy husband. Come inside and let me help you get cleaned up.” Jessie tugged on Bexar’s T-shirt, which clung to his body. Bexar peeled his shirt off and draped it over a low sandbag wall.
Jessie tugged at his belt buckle. “Your pants are dirty too. You should lay them out to dry in the sun with your shirt.”
Bexar grinned widely and did as he was told before following his pregnant and limping wife inside, helping her walk back to their bedroom. Jessie had worked really hard on cleaning up the house while he had been outside working. It wasn’t that he expected his wife to take care of housework, quite the opposite, but Jessie wasn’t able to fill sandbags and do the outside work with her ankle still injured. Soon, thoughts of sandbags and Zeds melted from their minds as they once again christened a new home together, restarting their family.
Groom Lake, Nevada
Dusk settled across the dry lakebed. Andrew flew over the mountain range and descended toward the lake bed and runways, excited and anxious to be reunited with Oreo. With his mission done, he was going to pick up his four-legged friend and haul ass back to the SSC in the morning. Andrew noticed a large group of vehicles and people moving on the surface near the hangars, except that the hangars were demolished, most of the buildings were in ruins, and smoke billowed into the sky.
“What the fuck happened?”
Where the four large hangars and the entrance below ground had been was only a significantly large crater. A flash and then a glowing orange ball raced toward Andrew from the ground. He stared at it for a split second.
“Fuck!” Andrew opened the Husky’s throttle all the way open, retracted the flaps, and dove toward the ground. The orange ball screamed past at an incredible speed just past his port side wingtip. Andrew banked hard away from the missile and dove further toward the ground, nearly skimming his tires on the ground. Flying south, Andrew’s mind raced.
Area 51 is a fucking crater; did something explode underground? Did the Koreans kill it, but how? Who cares how? They just did…like a bunker-buster bomb from the Gulf War.
Then the realization that Oreo was most likely dead and buried in the pile of rubble washed over him. Anger burned deep in the pit of Andrew’s being. He was angry at Lampton, angry at Chivo, and most of all, angry at himself. Tears streamed down his face, mingling with his beard. Andrew pulled up gently on the controls and climbed out of the lakebed area to clear the mountains. He didn’t see any more ground forces and he couldn’t see any other aircraft. He leveled off and reduced power to save fuel. He wasn’t sure where to go, he couldn’t think clearly at all, so he let his mind go blank in grief while his hands and feet flew the aircraft to some other destination he wasn’t sure of yet.
SCC
Amanda sat by the radio with her di
nner. Chivo was still topside with Eric working on forming a battle plan for the attack they were now sure was coming and maybe coming soon. The radio was buzzing with talk about Groom Lake. The shortwave radio broadcasts were interrupted earlier that day and the last transmission from Bill was that they were under siege by Chinese and Korean forces, but now they had gone dark. Amanda hoped it was due to their ability to transmit being broken or blocked, but in the pit of her stomach, she had a feeling that they were all dead. She had no idea why, but dread waved over her. They had no way to verify anything quickly. Some chatter from other survivors in the general area—still a day’s travel away from Groom Lake though—said that they were going to go check it out and help if needed, but so far no one had taken the literal first step out their door.
Worried and also considering the survivability of her own underground facility, Amanda waited for a break in the radio traffic and keyed the warning that a message from POTUS was about to transmit. After a few moments, the buzzing and crackling chatter was silent, her radio humming pleasantly.
Amanda began keying her message. “SAFE BASE IN TEXAS—OPEN FOR ALL—CLEAN SAFE UNDERGROUND STOCKED MEDICAL…”
She continued with her transmission and announcement that the SSC was open for business and welcoming all survivors, followed by directions from I-35 to the main gate. She was now making a considerable effort to get survivors to come to the facility. If the PLA had successfully destroyed Groom Lake, they would need all the help they could get to prevent a scenario where they would be under siege. Amanda had a realization: the reason why Clint wanted to keep the facility closed and secret wasn’t for her safety, but so it could be taken over by the PLA with no fight. So they could have control of the facility. They could abandon and try to destroy the facility or they could try to recruit fellow citizen survivors to fight for the survival of what was left of their country. Her realization came too late, as the second option was what had just started, assuming people would want to come here. There were a thousand metaphors about trains, balls rolling, and all sorts of other colorful expressions that described her situation, but none of them fully described the weight of what had just happened that day.
Amanda signed off the radio, stood, and heard the radio erupt with transmissions walking all over each other. She felt nauseous. Amanda took a deep breath and looked around. I pray that this won’t be a modern Alamo. I don’t know who would be left to fight a new battle of San Jacinto if we fail.
Nellis Air Force Base, Las Vegas, Nevada
Andrew wasn’t sure why he flew southwest and past the Tonopah range. His mind was in a fog and he hadn’t realized where he was until he saw the sprawling desert city stretch out in front of his windscreen. This was not a city he would have enjoyed visiting before the attack and now he had even less of a desire to do so. However, he needed fuel and would need to put down somewhere, even to just fuel and lift off again. The afternoon had slipped away and there were only a couple of hours until sunset, so he didn’t have much time to waste.
The small yellow plane banked over the expansive runways of the large air force base. He could practically land on the width of the main runway with room to spare, so Andrew took his time to attempt clearing his head enough to figure out where to put down to be near unleaded fuel or AvGas. AvGas wouldn’t be found unless there was a general aviation side of the airbase, which Andrew didn’t think there was. That feeling was reinforced with his flyover. Andrew didn’t see any general aviation aircraft or tanks or an FBO that he could notice at least. A truck driving fast across the northern end of the runways caught Andrew’s attention. It was a military truck and looked like the ones that he had seen at Groom Lake with Aymond’s crew. He watched it stop at a large hangar. After a few moments, the hangar doors opened, the truck drove in, and the doors shut behind them. It was almost like watching the Batmobile driving into the Batcave and at this point, Andrew didn’t really care if he found hostiles. He was angry, and he was sad; he felt the need to take ridiculous chances and feel the rush of life as it adventured by instead of the pain and darkness he felt closing around him.
Andrew pulled power and descended toward the hangar. There were a few Zeds shambling through the flight line, but they weren’t grouped together and didn’t seem to be aroused by anything or anyone. Andrew knew that was about to change with the noise from his engine and prop as he landed. He turned toward the north and came back around for a short approach to land on the flight line instead of the runways. After turning onto final for landing, Andrew lowered the flaps and killed the engine. The propeller turned a few last slow revolutions before engine compression kept it from spinning anymore. The only sound Andrew could hear now was the soft rush and swish of the aircraft gliding through the air. Compared to the engine and propeller noise, this was like hitting the mute button.
Andrew set down with a gentle thud and stayed off the brakes to coast to a stop near the hangar he saw the truck go into. As he climbed out of his plane, he heard a voice sternly whisper, “Do not move or I will kill you.”
“Can I turn around?”
“Sure, bud, but slowly with your hands out and away from your body.”
Andrew turned slowly while he held his hands out away from his side. He recognized the Marine as one of the ones from Groom Lake, but couldn’t remember his name. The Marine spoke first, “Pilot guy…Andrew, right?”
The Marine lowered his rifle. His chest carrier was spattered with blood, and it did not appear to be his own. “Is Oreo with you?”
“No, he was at Groom Lake with the others; we were just there trying to figure out how to help because they’re under siege by the PLA. We’re re-arming and coming up with a plan to go back.”
“There’s no use. It’s a huge fucking crater now and the PLA are still there. They shot a fucking missile at me.”
“Crater, like craters along the ground? That’s OK, there should be survivors safe underground.”
“No, crater. Singular. It looked like the shit from the first Gulf War TV footage of bunker-buster bombs.”
“Shit…get inside. Wait, we need to get your neon yellow ‘come fuck with us’ sign out of the open and hidden. Let me get the doors. Do you need help pushing it?”
“No, I can…”Andrew stopped speaking; his frazzled-looking Marine friend had walked off at a quick pace. After getting ready, Andrew waited for a few moments for the hangar doors to begin opening before he started pushing his plane inside. As Andrew’s eyes adjusted to the darkness, he saw a hurried mess of activity around an A-10. The hangar door rattled closed behind him. A person, a woman in a dirty-green flight suit, hunched under a wing, pointing to each mounting location and explaining something to another. The Marine from outside stood next to Aymond. Aymond looked exhausted and a little angry; he looked up and glanced at Andrew before walking toward him.
“Gonzo says you flew over Groom Lake after we had left to re-arm and regroup and can give us a bomb damage assessment. Major Pearce warned us that a bombing run appeared to be en route as we bugged out, but we felt a single hard shockwave on the backside of the mountains from the base and we have no idea what happened yet. We’re about an hour out from getting pointed back toward Groom Lake.”
Andrew shook his head. “I only saw one crater. It stretched from past the far runways toward the east and nearly to the mountains to the west. The center appeared to be where the hangar with below-ground access was and the crater was really deep. No idea how deep, but I wouldn’t want to try to climb down it!”
“What about enemy forces?”
“They were near the crater and very active. They fired a missile at me that I barely avoided.”
Aymond stood silently for a moment. “It wouldn’t have been nuclear if the PLA were at the crater’s edge. At least I don’t think even the Koreans are evil enough to radiate their own forces for no reason…fuck!”
Andrew stood quietly for a moment, and
Aymond shook his hand. “Glad you made it. Now check in with Jones and get to work; we need to move quickly.”
Aymond walked off and toward the pilot. Another man waved Andrew toward where he stood near the front of the aircraft. A large cart with odd-looking equipment was apparently rearming the machine canon, which was the only way Andrew could think to describe it now that he saw the scale and size of it in person.
“Hey, welcome back to our merry band of mismatched warriors.”
Andrew nodded, numb by all the sudden changes, tragedy, and the loss of Oreo.
“Well, since you’re a pilot, I think you would be best used to assist the major and what she needs to get back in the air to chew up some Korean and Chinese ass.”
Jones pointed toward Major Pearce, who was now half hanging out of her cockpit. Andrew looked up. “Uh, Major?”
“Just a second.”
A few moments later, Pearce lifted herself out of the cockpit and back onto the platform pushed next to it. “Jones, nothing appears to have penetrated fully into the cockpit, the armor held, so that’s a plus.”
“Major, this is Andrew the pilot.”
“Oh, hi. What do you fly? Are you in the service?”
“Hi there, Miss, uh, Major. I have a Husky and no, I’m a civilian pilot.”
“A Husky…bush plane? You have it with you, here?”
“Yeah, I had been flying around the country looking for survivors and places to lay low for a while with Oreo, but got sidetracked helping the president take a scary dude up to Montana and back.”
“Oreo? Is he your dog?”