River of Night

by John Ringo

Freddo gulped, stood, and began to poke his way uphill.

  * * *

  “I’ve got a strong spike on inductor four,” Brandy said, as an open laptop started pinging. “More than flesh. Has to be metal.”

  “Where is…that?” Detkovic asked, flipping through the maps that littered the desk. He’d been rapidly briefed on the defenses the electricians had put into place but…these guys, and one lady, were more paranoid than most SF troopers. There were a lot of defenses. It was giving him wonderful ideas. For now though, he scrabbled among the layered papers on the ops desk.

  “Back on the peninsula,” Brandy replied, gesturing with her chin. “Right on the old campground road.”

  “That’s our boys,” Detkovic said then keyed his radio. “Thunderblast, it’s Butters. Buggery on campground road, over.”

  “Roger,” Smith replied. “Rolling.”

  “You sure you don’t want me to come along for old times?” Detkovic asked a little wistfully. He was annoyed at being remaindered to the control center.

  “What advantage do superior numbers afford the commander, Butters?”

  “The opportunity to pursue multiple avenues of attack, Tom,” Detkovic replied.

  “And that’s what these assholes are doing,” Tom said. “I’ll buy you guys the time to clear the bridge. Stay on station.”

  * * *

  Tom didn’t have many options. On the positive side of the ledger, he did have Rune on the team. He would have much preferred to add Kaplan or Detkovic as well. Or the National Guardsmen who were cooling their heels, however unwillingly, back at Site Blue. Any available professional, really. However, there was too much perimeter to cover and only so many people that he could trust to hold the line at the dam. Pascoe was down. Both Robbins kids were down, and wasn’t that going to be a fun conversation with their mother. Most of the families from Robbins’s ranch were back at Spring City, stiffening their defenses in exchange for technical support at the dam.

  What he’d started out with at the beginning of the defense of the dam was a pick-up team of a dozen shooters, counting himself, plus four engineers, including Mike and Brandy. Given the narrow frontage of the bridge and dam, their defensive preparations and their motivation, Tom had been confident that he could inflict casualties beyond the Gleaners’ appetite to continue, and force them to withdraw. However, Green’s little zombie surprise had significantly eroded their defenses. Worse, Green had brought more men to the fight than Tom’s worst case scenario.

  The casualties so far had cut the margin too thin. So, what they didn’t have was flexibility.

  If Tom was “lost,” as in the nice euphemism for the southern word “kilt,” then Kaplan, Robbins and Detkovic could continue to help the dam people with defenses. This wouldn’t be the last battle and while their resources were considerable, the engineers needed people with tactical background. As Detkovic had demonstrated with his last transmission, he was one of the few with that knowledge. All Tom’s forlorn hope had to do was delay the newest assault and buy the main defense time to launch the second surprise of the night. The survival of the rear guard was optional.

  Somebody had to go and somebody had to stay.

  He knew at a certain level that it should be Kap going and him staying. But he was tired of being the boss. He was tired of running away. He was done with letting others face the greatest risks. He was ready and past ready to stick it to the bastards that kept presenting an endless succession of problems when all Tom really wanted to do was put stuff back together. His anger had built all this time, and Tom was ready for payback.

  In short, it was time to just operate.

  Unfortunately, he didn’t have much in the way of a bench.

  He looked around at the scratch team and tried to think positively.

  Rune was right in his shadow. He’d made the deal, and he was going to put the mission first. He was rigged up and committed.

  Luke Connor. Teenager, nearly man-size. He’d been steady enough during the second team’s advance to Site Blue.

  And that was it for “experienced” personnel. He was so short on personnel he’d dipped into the NYC refugees.

  Emily Bloome. The more balanced of the two schoolteachers. Loyal, earnest. Likely to respond well to threats against her students.

  Katrin Jonsdottir. She was the steadiest of the teens and had plenty of moxie. If nothing else, she was an ammo bearer.

  Eric Swanson. Except for shitting himself he hadn’t fucked up on a trip where plenty of older and wiser people had made one balls up after another. Like Tom himself, for instance. Eric’s face was grim, and he had something to prove. Worst case, another ammo bearer and not to put too fine a point on it, another target for the hostiles to deal with.

  That was it, a scant fire team.

  The last three had a few days of weapons training and should be reasonably steady shooting from behind solid cover in a fixed position. All they had to do was give the appearance of a strong firing line. He wasn’t confident that all of his team could actually nerve themselves to shoot at a human target. The reality was they were all amateurs and most of all, they were disposable. If his entire scratch team was wiped out buying time, it wasn’t going to make a bit of difference in the long run. Between Kaplan, Robbins, Detkovic and the rest, there were plenty of highly trained, tactically proficient personnel to finish the Gleaners, as long as the defenders could deal with one attack at a time.

  And that meant stopping or at least slowing the suspected Gleaner push that threatened their flank. Green would’ve brought his best.

  Bloody buggery was right.

  “I’ll go over this one more time,” Tom said carefully, looking around at the camouflage-clad, rigged-up group of tyros. “We move into ambush position. You line up a target. You take your weapon off safe then. Not before. You wait for me to open fire. Then you fire one magazine. Try to stay on the target. Then we leave the way we came in, but much, much faster. If something happens to me, Paul is in charge. If something happens to Paul, Luke is charge. If something happens to Luke, drop your bloody gear and run back. Do not fall in the water. If this group catches you, the ladies at least will be raped to death and probably the lads. Do not hesitate to fire. God will not miss these misbegotten sons-of-bastards. Are we all clear?”

  He took in the series of nods, wide eyes and a single wink.

  The Regiment, this was not.

  “Then we roll,” Tom said. “And may victory anoint the right.”

  * * *

  Freddo knew that point was the most dangerous position, but he also considered himself ready. He’d been talking to Loki before the mission about what to look out for, so he was careful in his steps, trying to feel for tripwires that might indicate mines. The lights from the dam gave considerable vision to eyes adjusted to months of darkness. He scanned left and right, out to the limits of vision and hearing, taking his time just as Loki had coached.

  There weren’t any ambushers waiting for them in the darkness. Things were clear. The brush was thickening though, and combined with his caution, traversing up the hill was taking some time. He continued his deliberate scan.

  Like most people Freddo tended to rarely look up.

  Even if he had, he would’ve probably ignored the uninsulated ten gauge copper wire strung between two trees. Green, who did look up, had seen it and dismissed it. The area they were moving through had once been a campground and he assumed, like the many old foundations, that it was a remnant of that facility.

  It was not. It was a recent installation, much easier to make than a Tesla coil and, if less sparkly, just as dangerous. And it was capable of both delivering a message and sending one.

  * * *

  There was an easy walkway across the roadbed and onto the peninsula. However, it was potentially under observation. There was another way out, though, which crossed near the top of the dam, not actually in visual of the approaching force, then up onto the peninsula. Unfortunately, it was a very steep climb
up onto the peninsula from the top of the dam. Tom’s squad had to traverse a crumbly slope blanketed in wet leaves that hid the loose rocks underneath. On the upside, the path would be easy to find on their way out, since it was literally the last thing before the cliff’s yield to the ledge.

  Tom squinted into the intermittent rain.

  They made their way cautiously, holding onto trees to keep from slipping until they were about fifty meters beyond the road. There, by a straight bit of cliff wall, Katrin suddenly stumbled and began to slide over the edge. Tom stepped wide in order to grab her arm, and arrested her fall. He waited until she’d regained her footing before he let go.

  The turbulence of the near-shore generator intake was directly below the cliff. The swirling surface only hinted at the violence of the water as it entered the generator house. Katrin would have surely been sucked into the intake and made into bird food. The lights had begun attracting insects and awakened the terns and other seabirds so that during short breaks in the crackling weaponsfire, the birds’ twerps and tweets of delight provided a surreal counterpoint to the sounds of violence.

  “Watch your footing, lass,” Tom said, grinning in the dappled light. He shoved her back onto the path. “Be a bit of a b—”

  His well-planted foot slid out from under him as the wet soil gave way, and like a shot, he slipped immediately over the cliff. One scrabbling hand managed to grasp a tiny sapling for a bare moment.

  In the now clear light he looked Katrin in the eye for just one second then said:

  “Bugger.”

  With that he slipped over the edge into darkness.

  * * *

  “Smith!” Paul yelled, ignoring noise discipline. He didn’t care if they were spotted by the entire enemy force. He scooted up to the middle of the group and dropped to his stomach and looked over the edge into the black waters. “TOM! TOM!”

  He felt herself slipping as well and for a moment just didn’t care. Suicide mission. If they were all going to die anyway…

  Below, the dark waters swirled, throwing back highlights from the lights.

  “Mr. Rune,” Luke said. “What do we do?”

  Paul realized the only reason he wasn’t slipping over the side with Tom was that the teen had his hands firmly around one boot.

  “We gotta get on mission,” Luke said, more calmly than any teen should be in the situation. “We gotta push. We just gotta push.”

  Hanging head-down over the water that had just swallowed his commander, Paul gave himself a mental shake and then started wriggling backwards. It was a little embarrassing that the kid had to remind him.

  “Luke, grab my plate-carrier,” Paul said, scrabbling at the rocks. “Emily, grab Luke. Somebody else grab that somebody and a handy tree. Last one keep watch.”

  Gasping, he finally dragged himself up to reasonably stable ground. With the prospect of immediate death eased somewhat, he registered that the gunfire on the dam was picking up. He also saw the wide-open eyes of his new command staring back at him, waiting for his instructions.

  “We push,” Paul said when he was back upright. “Everyone back on the trail.”

  “But…” Emily said. “This is crazy. I know I said I’d do it, but without Tom this is crazy.”

  “We push,” Paul said, his voice firm. “Mission continues. Luke, take rear security. I’ll be up front.”

  “Roger,” Luke said. He carefully grabbed a tree and stepped of the trail to allow the next two to slip by.

  “Everyone watch your footing,” Paul added. “The first place that we can set up is just a bit further.”

  On the far side of the dam, the terns broke into excited squawking.

  * * *

  Tom took a maximum breath just as he executed a semi-controlled entry into the tenebrous depths. The hundred pounds of guns, ammo, armor and sundry nastiness that he bore immediately sucked him under. In combat slow-time he engaged in a rapid inventory of his issues and assets.

  Issues:

  • Entering deep water while wearing full combat kit.

  • Entering deep water in the immediate vicinity of a generating hydroelectric dam’s primary intake during near-flood conditions.

  • Entering deep water in an uncontrolled fall.

  • Generally, just entering deep water.

  • Also, a slamming gunfight only a few hundred meters away.

  Assets:

  • Extensive water experience. Grew up on station on the Australian coast. Former commander of the Australian SAS swim-unit.

  • Extensive experience in high stress situations including out-of-breath situations.

  • Profound desire not to be mince. Secondary desire to not die ignominiously of drowning. Tertiary desire to return to the unit before they all bloody killed themselves.

  He could feel the suction of the dam’s intakes from the moment he hit the water. It tugged him in precisely the direction he did not want to go.

  He was not entirely sure of the location of the intakes nor their precise design. There’d been a brief. Something about thousands of gallons of water per minute and missing trashracks. Still immersed in the long slow moment that occasions utter terror, Tom had the time to contemplate all the questions he’d failed to ask the TVA operators about the exact configuration of the dam. Trashracks sounded ungood. He had to admit the questions hadn’t really seemed germane in the short time they’d had to plan the op. Doing an upstream water entry was a third or fourth order contingency.

  Wrong again.

  Was there a large concrete lip? How far above the bottom of the lake did it extend? How deep was the lake in this immediate vicinity? Would he be fed through and minced or pinned to a grate until his breath ran out? Glorious and hopefully fast death by turbine or ignominious slow and torturous drowning?

  His immediate, trained, reaction on hitting the water was to ditch his gear. The advanced armor had a single-point quick release and his hand gripped it for a moment, then paused.

  If he hit the release now, he’d lose the weight of gear that was making him massively negatively buoyant—and potentially dragging him under, past the danger level of the intakes. If he were to suddenly stop sinking, well…he was a strong swimmer but the current was ferocious. Mince presumably. Very last choice. Perhaps drop a bit and hope for the best?

  His eardrums began to hurt which meant he was passing five meters or more. He swallowed and worked his jaw, performing the Valsalva maneuver that equalized the pressure.

  As he dropped, he felt the sideways suction reduce until he was in free-fall. The intake appeared to be shallow and placed near the surface of the lake. Ergo, he needed to be deep before trying to free swim.

  Might as well take the ride to the bottom then extract.

  As he continued to sink, he ran through his points of performance for his Free-Swim-Ascent, performing each as he thought of it. A textbook FSA this was not.

  • Ditch cranial. Done.

  • Ditch primary weapon to avoid entanglement with the sling. Done.

  • Retain plate carrier with heavy strike plate and full magazines to maintain his rate of descent, but prepare to ditch once on the bottom. Check.

  • Ditto secondary and pistol belt with Surefire and spare mags. Check.

  • Tomahawk on baldric under the plate. Stays. Oh, yeah, the RMJ stays.

  • Locate quick release with fingers of right hand. Done.

  Feet together, elbows in to streamline and speed up the bloody, how-long-is-this-going-to-go-on descent. Done.

  • Determine overhead obstacles. Massive bloody current suction into maw of death. Check.

  • Determine safe exit route. Go upstream away from aforementioned massive bloody current suction into maw of death. Still check.

  As he cleared his ears the second time, meaning he was passing about ten bloody meters plus, damnit, he considered his available breath-hold time. He determined that there might be a bit of a difficulty.

  HOW BLOODY DEEP IS THIS BLOODY LAKE?<
br />
  Remain calm.

  Note to self: In future when operating in potential water-hazard environment, include flotation equipment.

  Addendum, safety briefs might not be as stupid as they often seem.

  Well, it seems we’ve time to put a spare Surefire in our bloody cargo pocket.

  Clear ears again…Jesus!

  If it were only you know, not tenebrous depths and less, you know, wet, he’d consider reading a book. Say, War and Peace. Plenty of time, my lads…

  HOW DEEP IS THIS BLOODY…?

  As his feet hit the bottom, he almost breathed an assuredly fatal sigh of relief. Then the “bottom” took off from under said feet and he was swept off his legs while something very large struggled beneath him.

  Just one bloody thing…

  Then again, sometimes when you have several problems…

  * * *

  “They’re going to get out of the trap zone soon,” Brandy said. “And the ambush team doesn’t want to hit them in there. It would be…bad.”

  “Right,” Detkovic said. “Thunderblast, Butters.”

  “Rune,” Detkovic heard Smith’s right-hand man reply. “Thunder unavailable.”

  “Location?”

  “About Phase Line Two,” Rune said. “We got held up.”

  “Hold,” Detkovic said. “Going sparkly.”

  “Roger,” Rune replied. “Out.”

  “That sounded…sharp,” Brandy said. “They okay?”

  “You keep military messages short,” Detkovic replied, but he was bothered by the tone and that Smith had been “unavailable.” “They’re outside the hot zone. Fire it up.”

  “Not as much fun as my toys,” the engineer said. “Not going to be anything to see here.”

  “Probably not much to see there, either,” Detkovic said. He understood the physics and it wouldn’t actually be “sparkly.”

  “Not so much see as, you know, feel,” Brandy replied, raising one eyebrow. She flipped a toggle switch.

  “For a very brief second,” Detkovic said, grinning ferally.

  * * *

  Americans had long been accustomed to the familiar towers and wrist thick cables that carried industrial amounts of electrical current across vast distances. The movement of this current generated, or induced, an electrical field which, by the time it reached ground level, was perceptible only because of an audible but mild buzzing. Attenuated by the height of the towers, these weakened fields could impart enough charge to an ungrounded metal fencepost to startle the unwary civilian with a mild tingle. However, one of the preventable pre-Fall causes of death among high-tension linemen, accounting for an average of twenty fatalities annually, was exposure to induced current.