The Colony

by Lang, Christopher

  Mark stood up and walked to his Ute and used the two way radio. Tim signalled the soldiers and they got out of the trucks and sat at the picnic table nearer to the trucks.

  A Toyota Landcruiser drove down from the school buildings with a woman and a man. They parked near the last Hawkei. The man joined the soldiers and they started talking, and the woman approached Daniel, Tim, and Mark who had now joined the table again.

  “This is the Mayor of our town, Kim Anderson. Kim, this is Daniel and Tim. Daniel was just about to tell us why he’s making contact.”

  Kim smiled and Daniel continued, “We sent a team to Donaldson a few days ago. Our numbers are growing, and we need solar panels. One of our guys is a Queensland Cop and came up through there before he joined us. We knew the town was empty. Even the PVs are dead in that town.

  “We had also sent a team previously through there to pick someone up who’d been in contact.

  “Anyhow, long story short. We were attacked. One of our people was shot. He’s okay, but we killed one of theirs, a young lady. Anne, who pulled the trigger, did the right thing, but she’s really upset about it.”

  “These people just ambushed us. We had a Hawkei there and they fucking ambushed us.” Daniel addressed Kim, “sorry.”

  “That’s okay. I’ve got three kids, so I’ve done that word before. How can we help you Daniel?”

  “We don’t really need help with them. We’re ready for them. I’ve upped security even more, that’s why we’re travelling with the two Hawkeis. Holy shit we have two Abram Tanks. We’re feeling secure but we’re not going outside the walls unnecessarily. We’ve come to warn you and to give you the Bushmaster.”

  “We were going to contact you anyhow. We had planned it for five days from now combined with a run to Corfe. We wanted the power from the roofs in Donaldson first, but that’s on hold. We’re using the satellites to look for these arseholes, but no luck so far.”

  “Daniel, we’re grateful for the gifts. Perhaps you can show us how it all works.”

  Daniel and the soldiers spent the next half hour showing the three residents of Firestone how the radio and other equipment worked. They used the radio to contact the Colony and Kim spoke to Valerie for a few minutes about trading some goods.

  After they returned to the benches, Kim asked a question. “What does she mean about Juan’s adventures?”

  “Did you see the item on the news about the woman in the Landcruiser running over the PV at the Marine Park?”

  When they acknowledged, he continued. “That was Valerie. The two men jumping the fence and swimming to the yacht were her husband and son, and Juan was the man in the yacht.”

  Tim laughed. “It’s fucking crazy. No one left in the world, and now she’s famous.”

  “So Matthew, Valerie and all of their kids end up at the Colony, but Juan sails off back to New Caledonia. He’s hardly even out of Moreton Bay when he finds out his is home full of PVs.”

  “Juan and Michelle sail off to Lord Howe Island, rescue two people there and then onto Kauri where they rescue one fella off the pier, then the five of them live on some deserted island until they got low on water.”

  “They then sailed back to Australia, up the river to Tapscott, where we picked them up. Valerie and he contacted each other daily on the satellite phones. We told him he was out of options. There aren’t any Colonies around, so he came to us.”

  “That’s an amazing story Daniel. You mentioned Corfe.”

  “Yes, we’ll wait until we’re sure these bikers aren’t around anymore, and then we’ll do a run out to Corfe.”

  “Look, the other thing we need to do is let you know where we are.”

  The location of the Colony was provided and both Kim and Mark had previously visited the National Park and understood exactly where the Colony was.

  “We’re the only three large groups around, but we’ve picked up eleven people, including Juan’s group. We’re putting up signs with UHF channels. We’d like you to get involved with that also, but I think we need to discuss your security. Let me tell you about our security barriers.”

  - 50 -

  Private Richard Potter and Sharon Cairns had set off from the Corfe Army Base with a specific route in mind. They'd waited ten days at the boss’ request, but once the wait was over, he supplied them with what they needed.

  They planned to bypass Toowoomba and head straight to Firestone. From there, they were going to McPherson, where Richard's Sergeant had asked them to check out the Army Base. The first leg of the trip was less than two hours in the old days. They were allowing four, and a further two hours to get to McPherson by three in the afternoon.

  The Sergeant offered them an Army Land Rover with a high-powered radio. The encrypted radio would reach to Firestone, but from there on they'd be on their own.

  They headed off at nine. Just before twelve, they came to the barrier on the road leading into Firestone.

  - 51 -

  The person on the barrier waved them forward until they were close. Then she signalled for them to turn off the truck.

  “Please hop out of the truck where we can see you properly”, the woman shouted down to them.

  “Are you with the other lot?”, she asked.

  “What other lot?”, asked Sharon.

  “Three army trucks arrived at the other barrier forty minutes ago. Are you with them?”, asked the woman.

  “No, we're from Corfe. We're heading to McPherson to check out the Army Base”, said the Private.

  “Well I can save you some time. They're here.”

  The gate opened and a man approached them. “Is it okay if I hop in the back and direct you to the meet? I'm Micky, and that beautiful girl up there is Clare. That ugly dude over there is her husband, Samuel.”

  After greetings, they started the truck and Micky directed them to the High School grounds. There Sharon was shocked to see three enormous military vehicles parked in the middle of the sports oval. She assumed they’d be in Land Rovers also.

  The meeting had been put on hold when the guards radioed through, they decided to wait for the Corfe people. As they approached in the Land Rover, they stood up and approached to meet the new arrivals.

  The private parked the Land Rover and saluted the Sergeant as they approached.

  “Don't salute me Private. I work for a living.” the Sergeant walked up to the Private, shook his hand and then hugged him.

  “Private, it is so good to meet another soldier. They tell me you're from Corfe?”, said Sergeant Daniels.

  “Micky, is there someone with Clare?”, Mark asked while the soldiers were hugging.

  “Just Samuel.”

  “Okay, it might be an idea if you get back there. Here, take the keys to my Ute. I'll come and get it later.”

  As he drove off, Mark turned back to the soldier from Corfe and the visitors from the Colony.

  Daniel filled him in, “Mark, it looks like there are people at Corfe Base. This young lady thinks her mother and father are about one fifty clicks south of the border with a small group.”

  “Sir, with your permission, may I contact my Sergeant at Corfe and let him know that we're here? And that we're safe?”, Richard was addressing Mark.

  When Mark nodded, Daniel spoke, “Perhaps you could try from the Bushmaster? I'd love to know that you can contact them. Then you could relay messages between us.”

  Richard contacted his boss on the radio and let him know what he'd found at Firestone. Daniel got on the radio and spoke to the Corfe Sergeant. It turned out they'd been on a course together at the Australian Defence Force Academy in Canberra years earlier.

  - 52 -

  At 11:45, Raymond was cooking up some eggs. He was pissed. Sara made good eggs, one of the two things that she excelled at. He had to kill that bitch on the machine gun, just had to.

  He heard a bike approach, and wondered who was coming back early. ‘Rocky and Luke? What the fuck? Rocky was brainless, but obedient, why would he be back
early?’

  Ten minutes later, Raymond was far from unhappy. He sent three of his team to retrieve the other scouts. He had what he needed. Somewhere between Rocky’s point next to the car wreck on the highway and the scout two kilometres north of McPherson, three army vehicles had joined the highway. The woman wasn’t with them and all the soldiers had left. Somewhere in that seven-kilometre strip, there was a turn-off, a farm or a track, and then he'd have her, all her protection was gone. Her death was going to be slow. Real slow.

  - 53 -

  Sharon and Richard explained about Sharon's parents and asked to travel as far as the Colony with them.

  “I assumed you were going to do that. We've been looking for a group of hotheads down that way. They tried to kill some of our people in Buckworth a couple of days ago”, said Sergeant Burrows. “We're going to do a run down as far as the Zoo, putting our contact signs up and looking for these bozos.”

  Sharon looked at him with panic in her eyes. “My parents are staying not far from the Zoo.”

  “It's a big place. Don't worry too much about your parents. At least, not yet. But I can't let you go down there looking by yourselves. We'll take you down tomorrow. We only go out with a minimum of two Hawkeis.”

  When it was time to leave, they decided to leave the Land Rover at Firestone until they returned to Corfe.

  - 54 -

  The return trip was uneventful until they were almost back. Five kilometres from home, a radio message from the Colony told them that the Colony was under attack from Mobiles.

  They had come in the southern entrance at a very fast pace, fifteen men on motorbikes.

  They were demanding to see the Colony's women, he wanted to kill that bitch.

  - 55 -

  Sharon travelled in the second Hawkei with Richard when the radio call came through and the trucks accelerated.

  As they turned into the turnoff, she crashed into the side of one of the soldiers. She could hear the chatter on the radio and was petrified of what was about to happen.

  “Richard, I'm scared”, she said to her boyfriend as they went into the track through the farms.

  “Don't worry Ma’am”, the other soldier responded. “We're the second vehicle and probably won't fire a shot. It would take an Abrams Tank to take this vehicle out.”

  He looked at the young couple and smiled, “we have two of those, by the way.”

  “Our home is a fortress. We have a ditch and a barrier made from shipping containers around our Colony. One of the civilians in the Colony is an engineer. She designed the barrier. Shipping containers filled with hundreds of wicker baskets filled with sand, granite pebbles, and gravel. Some of it is two stories high to eliminate line of sight from the outside. She put thirty-millimetre steel in the rear of each. When we arrived, we added Chobham Armour from the underground bunker at McPherson, but it’s not really needed. That barrier isn’t just bullet proof; a Rocket Propelled Grenade won’t get through it. Even the 12.5mm can’t penetrate the multiple layers of protection. We tried it.”

  Richard asked if he was serious.

  “Yes, deadly serious. We tried it on a sample just containing the wicker baskets.”

  He paused for a moment.

  “We take this shit really seriously; my kids are inside that barrier. The barrier looks like a line of shipping containers with a ditch in front of it, the sort of thing a bunch of farmers might build. It is in fact the sort of thing someone with an interest in Roman Fortifications, an engineering degree, and military grade materials would build.”

  - 56 -

  The Private was mad at herself. The bikers had come up the southern roadway when she was in a three-way conversation with the Colony and Sergeant Burrows. The engine noise from the Hawkei had masked their sound. The thirty-second warning she was supposed to give the wall didn't occur.

  From the perch, she could see the Colony and she could see the bikers. The Private picked up the sniper rifle and focused on the head of the man who was talking on the loud hailer. ‘I haven't seen one of those since high school’, she thought. She’d forgotten that they have one attached to the top of the Hawkeis.

  The speech from the biker was muffled but she plainly heard the response from the barrier speaker system, “No way arsehole.”

  One of the bikers laid on the ground behind the motorbikes, the private now had him in scope. “There is one of them behind the bikes, looks like he has a Steyr”, the Private said on the radio.

  “Thanks Anne, we'll take cover”, advised the man on the wall.

  “I have him in my crosshairs.”

  “Hold for now, Anne. Our ETA is three minutes.”

  “Sergeant, this is McWilliams. I am one minute from my Charlie station.”

  “Jones here, I'm in position Delta.”

  “Corporal McNish, how long until you reach the barrier, over.”

  “Eleven minutes Sergeant, over.”

  “Return to McPherson, this will be over before you get there.”

  “Roger, retiring to the bunker, over and out.”

  Daniel was excited. The bikers had walked straight into his trap, it was even better than he’d planned for. The truck from McPherson was not needed. This would be over in a few minutes.

  - 57 -

  Private Anne Ankara watched as the motorcyclist started firing towards the barrier. His head filled her scope, but she stayed his execution, watching as he fired at the steel on the barrier. The holes punched through the 2mm skin like a knife punctures a drink can.

  “Fucking amateur”, she said under her breath. The outside of the barrier is only there so people can't climb it. The real protective work is inside the containers.

  The specifications of the wall went through the Private's mind as she watched the firing. She knew her people were safe and out of the danger zones, but it still took all of her will to reframe from pulling the trigger and blowing that fuckers brains out. Her daughter and husband were behind that barrier, both at the school where she learnt and he taught.

  The Sergeant wanted to bring massive firepower on the Mobiles in a single hit. The Private knew the drill that had been practiced.

  Their leader was on the speaker again, “Come out come out where ever you are!” The Private didn't hear, but McWilliams in Charlie Station did.

  “Get everyone on the wall into the bunker, over”, ordered Sergeant Daniels. “Already there, Daniel”, was the reply.

  “Why is it so noisy?”, wondered the Private. That was when she realised that the bikers still had their motors running. Why? For a fast get away? Because they thought they were going to be let in? They won’t hear the Hawkeis approaching.

  “Nearly there. Over”, said the Sergeant. The Private looked to her left and saw the Hawkeis turn into a driveway at speed, go cross country to the Orchard and back onto the road.

  “One minute Charlie and Delta”, announced the Private.

  “Ok Anne, as drilled”, ordered the Sergeant.

  The first Hawkei turned the left-hand corner below the Private's perch, followed closely by the second. As it did, she lined up the man with the Steyr, his head as large as a watermelon in the crosshairs. In the valley where they lived, she didn't need to worry too much about the wind. The shot was only six hundred meters. Her sniper rifle could do at least twice that distance.

  “Crest, crest, crest”, the Sergeant spoke on the headphones for the last time before it was all over.

  The private pulled the trigger and the amateur gunner's head exploded in a vapour of gore. Two others went down as Charlie and Delta took their predetermined shots. Now that the far left, far right and centre people were down as pre-determined, they were all looking for other shots.

  The Private focused on the man with the bullhorn. He had heard the shots, perhaps seen someone go down, and was slowly turning around. His face appeared in her crosshairs, a handsome face with a handlebar moustache. Anne didn't care who this was, didn't care that he'd raped and killed his way across the co
untry over the past few weeks. She didn't care that his time had come, she didn't care at all about Raymond McKenzie, he was a target, she was the trigger, his handsome face exploded.

  Charlie and Delta also took targets from the top of the enormous boulders that circled the entrance to the Colony. The rest of the work was done by the 12.7mm HMG on top of the Hawkei. The remaining men and their motorbikes were destroyed. As predicted, the second Hawkei hadn't fired a shot.

  “Sergeant Daniels to all, cease fire, cease fire.”