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AFTERMATH
By Al Steiner

Send all comments to steiner_al@hotmail.com
Previous chapters can be found at www.storiesonline.net




CHAPTER 17





"Brad, this shit is fuckin' crazy.  I can't fuckin' take it anymore," said
Private Rodney Lexington, one of the most junior members of the Placer
County Militia.  He was talking to his best friend, Brad Zachary, also a
private and also a junior member.  The two men had grown up together in
Grass Valley and had been captured together there when the militia took that
particular town.  They had been assigned to entirely different platoons
within the militia at the beginning of the march but the high rate of
casualties had forced much reorganization and they were now both assigned to
Colby's platoon, though in different squads.

It was just before sunrise on January 20, the seventh night of their march.
The two twenty year olds were in the process of dragging one of the latest
victims of the ambushing helicopter from Garden Hill away from the main
group.  The corpse they hauled had once been corporal Enders.  He had taken
three slugs in the stomach and one in the hip during the strafing run,
wounding him severely enough so that a fifth bullet, this one to the head,
had been required to end his suffering.  As had become customary in the last
few days on the trail, Enders had supplied the lethal bullet himself, using
his own handgun.  It was perverse but it had somehow evolved as the final
test of manhood that wounded men perform the deed themselves.  Those that
did it were considered heroic, those that did not (therefore forcing a
sergeant or a lieutenant to do it for him) were considered pussies.

Both of the young privates dragged Enders by an armpit with one arm while
holding a flashlight before them with the other.  Both had their duty
weapons - semi-automatic AK-47s - over their shoulders.  They kept their
lights trained in front of them, not looking at their package.

"This shit just ain't right," Zachary said as they reached a small area
around the back side of a pile of fallen pine trees.  "I mean, we don't even
bury them.  We just leave them here for the fuckin animals to eat."

"And they'll do the same to us," Lexington said solemnly as he let go of the
body.  "If we get killed out here, they'll do the same to us.  They'll give
us a fuckin pistol to shoot ourselves with and then drag us off into the
trees."

"It ain't right," Zachary repeated.

They both looked at the rapidly stiffening corpse of Enders for a moment,
seeing the coagulating blood from the exiting .45 caliber bullet on the top
of his head.  Until the comet neither of them had even seen a dead body
before.  Now they were surrounded by them and forced to constantly worry
that they would be the next.

"I'm not gonna let this shit happen to me," Lexington said quietly.  "I'm
not gonna end up as some fuckin corpse in the woods because that asshole
Barnes wants to score some fresh pussy and his own personal helicopter."

"What do you mean?" Zachary asked.

"I'm gettin' my ass out of here," he said.  "Fuck this shit."

Zachary looked at him nervously, trying to read his face in the meager
backwash of their flashlights.  "What the hell you talking about?  Where are
you going to go?  There ain't nothing but Garden Hill and Auburn left."

Lexington shook his head.  "That's where you're wrong," he said.  "The
militia done took everything in the neighborhood, that's true.  But there's
more than just this neighborhood.  They haven't been past Grass Valley.
There's all kinds a little towns north of there.  Somewhere, some of them
have to still be alive."

"What if there is?  What makes you think they'll take you in?  And how will
you feed yourself long enough to get there?"

"Food ain't a problem," he replied, lowering his voice even further.  "I'm a
food supply carrier.  I have enough to last two men for more than three
weeks if we ration it."

"We?" Zachary said.  "You want ME to go with you?"

"You pack the ammo," he told him.  "And there's safety in numbers."

"I don't know," he said, shaking his head.  "What if we don't find nothing.
We'll die out there."

"And we'll probably die if we stay," Lexington reminded him.  "It's gotten
to the point that I think the devil we don't know is better than the one we
do.  If you wanna get blasted apart on the trail or have your fuckin nuts
blown off by one of those mines, than you just stay.  Me, I'm going.  I'd
rather starve to death twenty miles away from here than have to put a pistol
to my own head and get eaten by raccoons and rats."

Zachary was not convinced, but he was swaying.

"It's a better fuckin chance than what we got here," Lexington told him.
"We've been through some shit, you and I, you know that.  Come with me.
We'll make it.  And if we don't, we'll at least die like men."

He took a breath, lowering his head a little.  "How?" he finally said.


+++++



It was almost absurdly easy to get away.  The next morning, twenty minutes
into the day's march, just as everyone was starting to worry about when the
first hit and run attack would come, Lexington broke formation and trotted
over to Stinson.

"I gotta take a shit Sarge," he told him.  "I'm gonna lag back for a
minute."

Stinson, who, like everyone else was strung out with nervous fatigue, looked
at his private in annoyance.  "Why the fuck didn't you take one after
breakfast like everyone else?  Jesus Christ Lexington."

"I didn't have to go then," he said.  "I'll just be a few minutes."

Stinson shook his head.  "Hurry the fuck up," he said.  "We ain't slowing
down for your ass.  Be back in formation in ten minutes or I'm gonna cut
your lunch rations."

"You got it Sarge," Lexington told him reassuringly.  "Thanks."

With that, he trotted off to the side, his weapon held at the ready, his
sleeping bag and his fifty pound pack of rations on his back.  He darted
into the middle of a group of trees and squatted there, not bothering to
pull down his pants, just waiting while his comrades passed on both sides,
none of them even noticing his presence so widely were the troops kept
spaced.

Stinson's squad was near the rear of the formation that morning.  It took
less than five minutes before the rest of the group passed by him.  He
waited another five minutes and then stood up, edging out of his hiding area
and looking around.  No one else was in view.  He was alone.

Moving as quickly as he could, he moved back in the direction from which
they had come and then darted into an area of thicker trees near a minor
mudfall.  He then began to move north, quickly disappearing into the dense
forest.  He moved from tree to tree, over hills, through thick mud, pushing
himself to the limit of his physical limitations.  By the time Stinson
noticed that he had never returned to his place in the march twenty minutes
later, he was nearly a mile away.

He climbed to the top of a large, heavily wooded hill.  He and Zachary had
managed to meet briefly just after breakfast and had decided upon this
location as a rally point.  Once atop it he waited nervously for another ten
minutes before the sound of wet footsteps and a clanking rifle reached his
ears.  He trained his rifle out over the approach, vowing that if it were
the militia giving pursuit he would go down shooting.  It wasn't.  A minute
later the familiar form of his friend, very out of breath and moving only on
reserve energy, appeared.

Zachary had used the same ruse to escape from his squad, which had been
marching a little closer in towards the front.  Again, this was something
that probably would not have been possible had they been in a tight
formation such as the one they'd left Auburn in, but Bracken's rules were no
less than fifty feet between soldiers at all times.  This allowed many gaps
to be used and exploited.

The two men shook hands warmly at the top of the ridge.

"No one's behind you?" Lexington asked.

"No," Zachary breathed.  "Not as far as I know."

"Good.  Let's get moving before there are.  I don't think they'll bother
looking for us, but the farther away we can get, the better."

He nodded, exhausted from carrying his own sixty pound pack full of
ammunition, but determined.  They went down the far side of the hill and
then began to work their way north.


+++++


"Sir," Stinson said as he approached his lieutenant, "can I have a quick
word?"

"Sure," Colby said, slowing up a little.  "But make it fast.  God only knows
when those fucks are going to start hitting us and I don't want to be
standing next to anyone when they do."

"Well sir," Stinson said, trying to think if there was a delicate way to put
this.  There really wasn't.  "The fact is that one of my men... well..."

"What?" Colby demanded, in no mood for word games.  "One of your men is
what?"

"Missing sir."

"Missing?" he asked.  "You mean we missed a KIA from the attacks last
night?"

"No sir," Stinson told him.  "He wasn't killed last night.  It's Private
Lexington.  He was marching with us less than thirty minutes ago.  He told
me he was going to hold back for a minute to take a shit and then catch up.
He never did."

Colby scratched his head a little, his muddled brain trying to sort through
this.  "Thirty minutes ago?  Are you sure he didn't accidentally form up
with the wrong squad?  A lot of the guys are kinda loopy lately."

"I checked the squads immediately around mine sir," Stinson told him.  "He
wasn't there.  I'm wondering if maybe he... well... kind of ran off."

"Ran off?"

"Deserted sir," Stinson said.  "There hasn't been any gunfire from behind
us.  I simply can't think of any other reason that he wouldn't have come
back.  If he fell and injured himself or was attacked, he would've fired off
a shot, wouldn't you think?"

"Now let's not start jumping to conclusions," Colby said, although what
Stinson was saying made perfect sense given the current climate.  "Maybe
he's..."

"Sir," said Sergeant Standish from third squad as he came trotting up behind
them.  "Can I have a quick word with you?"

Colby looked at him, annoyed.  "Can it wait for a minute?  I'm already
dealing with something here."

"Not really sir," Standish said.  "You see, one of my men seems to have
wandered off."


+++++


Five minutes later the march had been halted and the two sergeants and their
lieutenant were talking with Bracken.  Bracken questioned them thoroughly
and, upon discovering that the two men had disappeared independently of each
other by using the exact same excuse convinced everyone that desertion was
what they were dealing with.

"Shall we try to find them?" Colby asked.  "They should be hanged as an
example to the other men."

"They should be," Bracken said, "but I don't think there's any point in
looking for them.  They could be miles away by now in any direction."

"So we just let them go?" Stinson asked.

"There's nothing else to do," Bracken told him.  "Let's get everyone moving
again.  I want to put some miles behind us.  In the meantime, keep this
quiet.  I don't want to give the other men any ideas."

Had he not been so tired he probably would have realized the futility of
this.  Already the word had been passed both up and down the ranks.


+++++


They lost seven more men to ambush attacks during the course of that day; a
little less than what had been average.  Though fatigue had slowed them down
in almost every other action, getting their asses down on the ground when
the bullets started coming in was not one of them.  Many times the people in
the vicinity of the attack were able to spot the flashes of the rifles shots
and hit the dirt even before the initial shots could take them out.  As a
result the average number fell a little each day, with this day being the
lowest yet.

At night too they had found a way to decrease the amount of people killed
and wounded by the strafing attacks.  Though they could not eliminate them
entirely, they had found that by setting up their camp against the base of
hills, they could at least cut in half the potential directions from which
those attacks came, therefore making them more predictable.  This served two
purposes.  One, it saved time when the guards returned fire.  Instead of
having to search 360 degrees of surrounding area to spot where the attack
was coming from, they only had to search 180 to 220 degrees.  This factor
led directly to the second advantage - that the helicopter had to fire from
further back to avoid being hit, thus decreasing the accuracy of the fire.
At night the Garden Hill helicopter was lucky if it could hit one person per
firing run, thus cutting the average men hit to around 6 or 8 per night.
That was still a considerable rate of attrition, but it was not nearly as
bad as the first few days had been.

But still, the threat and the reality of random, unpredictable death was
undeniably there as the militia made camp on this night.  They did not know
that Brett and Jason had stood down the helicopter at 4:00 PM that afternoon
for a maintenance regime and to get some much needed rest for themselves.
The militia only knew that they enjoyed an unheard of ten-hour period
without being attacked in any way, shape, or form.  Though nobody got much
rest because of the anticipation of attack, the tracers did not roll in for
the first time until just after 2:00 AM.  There were only two follow-up
attacks after this.  In all, only four men were killed and one slightly
wounded in the hours between sunset and sunrise.

But in the morning, as they pulled themselves out of their sleeping bags and
came off guard detail to face a new day, it was discovered that three more
men were missing nonetheless, they, their weapons, and their packs all
vanished, there whereabouts unknown.  With them had gone more ammunition,
another of the precious automatic weapons, and nearly seventy pounds of
rations.


+++++


It had been five days since the uprising that had placed Auburn in the hands
of Jessica and the rest of the women and still the town was a flurry of
activity.  Jessica had appointed Madeline - who had the most military
training and experience - as the commander of the Auburn defense forces and
her titular second-in-command.  Although Madeline had no real power to make
town decisions (Jessica had seen to that), she had almost complete autonomy
when it came to raising, training, and equipping those women who would be
responsible for firing the guns at the returning militia when that happened.

Luckily Barnes and company had already taken care of the most basic part of
the defenses: the fixed bunkers and trenches from which the battle would be
fought.  At every one of the major access points to the town was an
impressive array of sandbagged trenches atop of hills, many of which were
protected by barbed wire mazes.  These defenses had been constructed with
the purpose of repelling a group at least as large as the militia itself.
Would they think it ironic when those very defenses, those very
emplacements, those very guns, were used to chop them up?  Perhaps.  Or
perhaps they would be too busy dying to notice.

On this rainy, dreary morning, while Jessica pulled herself out of bed at
9:00 AM and made a mad dash to her private bathroom, the sound of gunfire
could be heard coming from the training ground out beyond the high school.
It was the popping of M-16s and AK-47s mostly.  Usually it was the single
pops of semi-automatic fire that went with basic aiming and shooting
practice but every once in a while there would be the extended bursts as the
women practiced on full automatic.  It was Maddie's intent to qualify as
many of the women as possible in the time that she had left (which was
estimated to be about three to four weeks).  From her best shooters and
leaders, she would then construct a chain of command by choosing lieutenants
and sergeants to lead the corporals and privates.

"Oh god," Jessica moaned as she dropped to her knees in her bathroom and put
her head into the toilet of water.  She retched several times, sweat
breaking out on her brow, but nothing more than a little bit of bile came
up.  She coughed and choked for a moment and then, almost as fast as it had
hit her, the nausea was gone, leaving her a little shaky but otherwise all
right.

She rubbed her stomach a few times and then stood up, wiping her forehead
with her forearm.  Her stomach had been very unstable lately, ever since
she'd taken the first overt steps towards the rebellion that was now over
and done with.  She would be going about her business as usual and then
suddenly, from out of nowhere, the nausea would hit, sometimes with enough
suddenness that she was unable to get to the nearest bathroom or garbage can
in time.  She had attributed these bouts to nervousness as her plan
approached the zero hour, but now that the plan had been successfully
carried out, why was she still having it?  It didn't make sense.  Barnes was
dead, his blackened but still recognizable skull hanging on a spike outside
the main entrance to the high school.  He wasn't a worry.  The other men
were firmly under control, used as slave labor during the day and locked
securely up in storage rooms under guard at night.  They weren't a worry
either.  Nor were her worries about acquiring and maintaining power in town.
That had certainly come to pass with unbelievable ease.  If there was one
thing Jessica knew how to do, it was take charge of and lead groups of
women.

So what was the problem?  Why was she still having crippling fits of nervous
nausea?

As she poured a bucket of water down into the toilet to flush it she figured
that it was the upcoming battle with the militia that had her worried.  That
MUST be it, she told herself.  She did not stop to think that there had been
one other time in her life that she had felt like this: a time three years
before the comet.


+++++


Jessica had taken over both Barnes' office in the principal's office and his
bedroom in the former vice-principal's office (although she had changed the
bed).  She brushed her teeth with water from the sink and then stepped out
to the doorway where Alice, her personal assistant, stood by with a gun
strapped to her waist.

"Good morning Ma'am," Alice addressed her, not actually saluting but
certainly coming to attention.  "How was your night?"

"Very good Alice," she told her.  "Who do you have on cleaning detail
today?"

"Pillows and Enders," she said.  "They're working on the downstairs right
now.  The rest of the men are out chopping firewood or hauling propane or
diesel fuel over."

"Good," Jessica said with a smile.  "I want to be sure to keep this building
heated and lighted.  I'm sick of sleeping in the damn cold.  And it's nice
to have a damn computer working again."

Alice nodded, not pointing out of course that Jessica was the only one in
town now that had the luxury of a propane fired furnace and electric lights.
She didn't feel a lot of resentment about this.  After all, Jessica was
their leader, the woman who had led them to this point, and didn't leaders
deserve special privileges?

"Have Pillows come in here right away and clean up my quarters," Jessica
said.  "And have that other asshole, who was it?"

"Enders Ma'am," she said.

"Right, have him run a hot bath for me in the bathing room.  I'll be down
there in ten minutes and I expect it to be ready when I get there."

"Right away," Alice said, picking up her portable radio.  She said a few
words into it and Jessica's orders were carried out.

Prior to the uprising there had been no baths in Auburn.  The men, when they
bothered at all, had used the shower attachments in the locker rooms which
had been set up to be powered by electric pumps run from the generator.  The
women had been forced, for the most part, to sponge-bath themselves with
cold water from collected rain barrels.  That had been one of the first
things to change.  Now the bathing area of the Auburn high school was in the
female locker room.  As in Garden Hill, a large marble bathtub had been
moved in from one of the nicer of the abandoned houses and placed with its
drain directly over the shower drain.  Unlike in Garden Hill the water was
heated with propane instead of firewood, but the principle was the same.
The town was under the impression that this innovation was Jessica's idea.
She felt no need to correct this notion since it was unlikely that Paul
would ever contradict her when he showed up here after the militia captured
him.

As she entered the room Enders, the former sergeant, was just finishing the
task of adding the hot water.  Bubbles covered the surface of the water and
steam rose lazily into the air.  The smell was of rose blossoms.  Cindy
Mahony and Laura Jones, two of the women who had been assigned to interior
guard detail, were standing close by, keeping their eyes on Enders' every
move.  To say that the women were nervous about having men walking around
free after their recent ordeal was a vast understatement.  Both women were
armed with semi-automatic rifles that they kept their hands on at all time.

"How's the water asshole?" Jessica asked him, stepping close.  She was still
wearing her pajamas and had an armful of clothing in her hand.  She set the
clothing down on a shelf near the tub.

"It's fine Ma'am," he replied, responding to her just as he had been taught
to respond to any woman in town now.  To not do so was to risk having a
rifle butt up the side of his head.  To fail to do so twice was to have it
swung into his testicles.

She reached over, taking no particular precautions to stay away from him,
and dipped her hand in.  It was steaming hot, nearly hot enough to bar
entry.  Just the way she liked it.  "Very good," she said, starting to undo
the buttons on her top.  She turned to the two women.  "Leave us."

They looked at her as if she were mad.  "I beg your pardon Ma'am," Cindy
said, "but I don't think that's a really good..."

"Don't worry," Jessica said.  "Put yourselves right outside the door.  If
there's trouble, I'll let you know."

"But..."

"Leave us," she said, more firmly this time.

They gave her one last look and then reluctantly did as she asked.  They
walked to the door and stepped out of it, shutting it behind them.  Enders
and Jessica were now alone.

She looked at the male who she had personally chosen to be a member of the
interior staff.  He was tall and very good looking, had been a personal
trainer at one of the local gyms before the comet.  His hair was blonde, his
features Nordic.  His arms and chest bulged with muscle.  He looked back at
her nervously, not knowing what to expect but thinking very uneasily of what
had happened to Barnes.

Jessica continued unbuttoning her top, letting it drop to the ground,
wincing a little as the material grazed across her nipples, which had been
ultra sensitive lately.  She then pushed her bottoms down, leaving her
standing only in a pair of cotton panties.  She dropped these as well,
revealing her sex.  Her pubic hair, which Stinson had insisted she kept
shaved, was just starting to grow back and was now a fine fuzz of black
hairs.  She sat on the edge of the tub.

Enders cast his eyes away from her as she undressed, not because he found
her unattractive - she was still quite appealing to look at - but because he
was deathly afraid of offending her.

"Look at me," she told him.

Trembling a little, he did.  Her legs were spread and he could see that she
did not seem to be in a state of particular arousal.  Her nipples were
flaccid against her breasts and her vagina was closed, the lips not the
least bit swollen or wet looking.

"You used to rape Cathy, Lorene, and Nancy, didn't you?" Jessica asked, her
fingers dropping down to her sex and beginning to idly play there, the tips
stroking up and down her dry lips.

Enders swallowed a little.  "They were... uh... my wives before..."

"You RAPED them," Jessica said, raising her voice a little.  "They were NOT
your wives.  They were assigned to you by a lottery or traded to you by the
other assholes in this town.  They never consented to sex from you, you
simply took it because your... species held the power.  Isn't that right?"

"Well... I suppose that's one way of looking at it," he finally stammered.
Was it only a short week ago when he could have had this woman hanged for
talking to him like this?

"They tell me that you were quite the ass man," Jessica said, continuing to
play with her vagina as she talked.  Now the lips were starting to moisten a
little.  "Stinson, that fuck, was like that as well.  He liked to put his
cock up my ass.  A lot of you were like that."

Enders had no answer for her.  It seemed safer somehow not to talk.

"Come over here," Jessica told him, spreading her legs a little wider.  Her
fingers began to pick up speed between her legs.  Her nipples finally
started to harden.  She was not the least bit attracted to Enders in a
physical sense, but the thought of what she was going to have him do, what
she was going to do to him, of the POWER that she held over him, was
starting to turn her on greatly.

Enders slowly walked over to her, stopping, as directed, three feet before
where she was splayed out obscenely on the edge of the tub.

"Take off you clothes," she said.  "All of them."

Enders nodded and then began to remove the shirt, jeans, and T-shirt he
wore.  His body was very impressive to behold but Jessica didn't waste much
time looking at it.  And despite his fear at what was to come, at the
bizarre circumstances that he found himself in, his cock had hardened.
Jessica saw this when he dropped his underwear.

"You will do exactly what I say without question," Jessica told him.  "If
you do not, or if you try any sort of violent move with me, I will scream
and those two armed women outside the door will be in here within a second.
They will drag you off and by nightfall you will meet the same fate as your
glorious commander did.  Do you understand?"

"Yes Ma'am," he said, looking at her a little more hungrily now.  After all,
if Jessica wanted him to fuck her, that wasn't the WORST duty in town, was
it?

But Jessica didn't want him to fuck her.  "Kneel down between my legs and
lick my ass," she said.

He looked at her, his mouth opening to give protest.

"Not a word," she said, glaring at him.  "Just do it.  You like asses so
much, it shouldn't be much of a problem for you, should it?  Of course, I
haven't had my bath yet and with the toilet paper shortage we've been having
in town, it's probably not the cleanest ass in the world.  But you don't
mind do you?"

"No Ma'am," he said, feeling his gorge wanting to rise a little.  He could
plainly see that her ass was indeed not terribly clean.  Nevertheless, he
sank to his knees before her, his face between her spread legs.  Her lips
were very swollen and wet now, exuding the powerful odor of feminine
arousal.

"Get to it," she told him, spreading her legs a little further, until they
were as wide as she could make them.  "And make sure it's sparkling clean."

He began to lick, plunging his tongue up and down through the crack of her
ass, over and under her anus.  The erection that he'd had wilted as he
tasted the disgusting flavor of dried feces, as he felt the surprisingly
unfeminine roughness of that area of her body.

Jessica, on the other hand, felt true pleasure at his work, enjoying it on a
physical level as well as a degradation level.  "Yes," she told him, her
hand grabbing a handful of his hair and jerking it roughly.  "That's a good
asshole, make it nice and clean.  Lick every little crumb off."

He licked up and down until it was clean and slick with his saliva.  But she
wasn't done with him yet.

"Now stick your tongue in it," she told him.  "As far as it will go.  Clean
the inside too."

He was able to get his tongue surprisingly far up into the orifice thanks to
the regular reaming of it that she'd received from Stinson and several of
his friends.  While he licked and probed at her she put her fingers back to
her pussy, playing with her clit.  Soon she was crying out in orgasm, the
first she'd had in a very long time.

"Now get up," she told him once the last of the spasms eased off.

He brought his wet and dirty face out of her crotch and stood before her
once more.  He was panting a little and still struggling with his gorge.
The TASTE of her shit was in his mouth!

"Just stand there," Jessica said, sliding backwards into the blessedly hot
water of the tub.  "I'm not done with you yet."

She luxuriated in the warmth of the bath, feeling the bubbles caress her
skin, feeling the heat draw away the aching in her muscles and the soreness
of her breasts.  While Enders stood there before her, she used a sponge to
cleanse her legs, her breasts, her arms.  At some point, while he was
watching her do this, the revulsion of what he had just done gave way a
little to arousal as he watched her glistening skin.  He began to stiffen
once more.

Jessica had been waiting for this, had deliberately encouraged it.
Wordlessly, she reached for his crotch and grabbed him by the testicles.
She squeezed as hard as she could, grinding them together and sending
immense pain shooting through Enders' body.  He squealed and dropped to the
floor, vomit spraying from his mouth.

No sooner had the scream come out of his mouth then the door slammed open
hard enough to nearly rip it off of its hinges.  Cindy and Laura bursting
through it, their weapons ready for action.

"It's all right," Jessica told them before they had a chance to get more
than three feet into the room.  "Enders just had himself a little accident.
Go back out."

"Are you sure?" Cindy asked, seeing the naked, curled up Enders on the
floor, writhing around.

"I'm sure," she smiled.  "It won't happen again.  Now leave us."

Once again they reluctantly exited the room and closed the door, where they
immediately began speculating on just what was going on in there.

"Stand up," Jessica told him.

"I... can't," he whined.  "My balls..."

"Will be cut off and fed to you if you don't stand up right now.  Now do
it!"

He pulled himself to his feet, standing before her once more, his legs
somewhat wobbly.  He was no longer erect.

"You ever get a hard-on watching me again, I'll twist those fucking things
right off your body," she said.  "How dare you.  And if you make so much as
a squeak again, I'll let those guards take you out to the scaffold and
execute you just like Barnes.  Do you understand?"

"Yes," he grunted, feeling agonizing pain still coiling in the pit of his
stomach.

"What?" Jessica said.

"Yes Ma'am," he corrected.

"Good," she said.  "Now fill up my bucket with water so I can wash my hair."

He filled up her bucket - walking somewhat with a limp now - and, at her
direction, poured it over her head, thoroughly wetting her blond with brown
roots hair.  She then had him pour shampoo onto her head and massage it into
her scalp.  He felt himself starting to get erect again despite the pain but
his mind, fearful of another attack on his balls, quickly countered with a
burst of adrenaline from the sympathetic nervous system.  In only one
episode of testicle twisting, a Pavlov type response had been formed.

"Now rinse me off," Jessica told him, closing her eyes while he brought a
fresh bucket of water.  She kept them closed for two rinses, confident that
he would try nothing violent towards her.  He was in her power now.

Once her hair was free of lingering soapsuds she picked up the shampoo
container and looked at it.  It was cylindrical, about three inches in
diameter and about nine or ten inches in length.  The lid was bullet shaped.
She held it in her hand for a moment, testing its weight and girth, hefting
it up and down a few times.  She smiled.

"Turn around and bend over," she told Enders.

He looked at the container in her hand nervously.  "What are you going..."

Her hand shot out as quick as lightning and grabbed him by the testicles
once again.  She gave a little squeeze, just enough to get his attention.
"Do we need another little lesson in obedience asshole?" she asked him.

"No Ma'am," he said instantly, feeling those powerful fingers ready to grind
and squeeze again.

"Then do as you were told," she said, releasing him.

Shaking and trembling, he turned around and bent over.

"Spread 'em," she said next.

He spread them, revealing his hairy, quite unattractive anal opening for her
perusal.  Jessica was not entirely without heart.  She opened the shampoo
first and squirted a considerable amount of it in the crack of his ass
before she crammed the shampoo container up there.  She inserted it in one
brutal stroke, the same way that Stinson used to insert himself into HER
back passage.  Enders grunted in pain at the intrusion but held still.

Jessica slammed the container in and out of his ass for the better part of
five minutes, until he was weak-kneed with pain and blood was dripping down
on the floor.  She sincerely hoped that Stinson would survive the battle of
Garden Hill and the subsequent battle with her own forces (she was already
thinking of them as HER forces).  She wanted to repeat this action with him,
only with something bigger and less smooth.

Finally she pulled the container free and dropped it on the floor.  It was
bloody and fecal stained.

"Pick that up," she told Enders, "and clean it off with your mouth.  Isn't
that how you used to make us women clean your cocks when you were done?"

Wordlessly he did as he was told, once again almost vomiting several times.

"Now get your clothes back on," she told him when he was finished.  "Once
you're dressed, you can return to your normal duties.  Be sure to come back
in here and clean up the mess later."

"Yes Ma'am," he said, his voice barely audible.

"And get yourself a tampon out of the supply room," she told him helpfully.
"It works good to stem up the blood.  I should know."

"Yes Ma'am," he said, picking up his jeans.

Once he was gone, Cindy and Laura came back in, looking at their leader a
little strangely.  Both noted the drops of blood on the floor and the fecal
odor in the air.

"Is everything okay?" Cindy asked carefully.

"Everything is just perfect," Jessica said with a smile.  "I was just
showing one of the assholes his new place in this town."

"I see," Cindy said, not failing to note the shampoo bottle on the floor as
well.  She had a pretty good idea of what had been done with it.

"I'm going to be in here for a while," Jessica said next, leaning back and
submerging everything but her head.  "Is there any of that canned tomato
juice left in supply?"

"Yes Ma'am," Laura said.

"Good," Jessica told them.  "Can you mix some of it with the vodka in the
supply room for me?  I can use a bloody Mary about now.  And be sure to put
in some of the ice from the freezer.  I hate warm drinks."

"Right away Ma'am," Cindy said.


+++++


Hatchling two, commanded by Michelle, had been in place atop of their hill
for a little more than an hour when the first of the militia came into view.
Their position was a good one.  An anonymous looking hill covered with
fallen and standing trees as well as mud hills and berms.  It was directly
in the path of the enemy advance although far enough to the edge of it so
that the soldiers would not pass on both sides.  It stood three hundred feet
above the ground where the enemy was marching.

It was the third drop of a team that day, although, if successful, it would
only be the first attack.  On day nine of the war, with the militia little
more than halfway to Garden Hill, it was becoming increasingly difficult to
keep up the pace of killing that they had enjoyed in the beginning.  The
militia had learned and adapted somewhat to the forces that were opposing
them.  They were now well beyond the first mudfall but they had not angled
back towards the Interstate, where the pickings would have been absurdly
easy.  Instead, they were sticking to a northeasterly course through the
thickest of the woods, spreading themselves widely out and frequently
zigzagging around to make predicting their march difficult.  It was now
taking at least two recon drops before an optimum attack position could be
found.  Though the attacks still continued, they were more difficult to pull
off and took much more advance planning - planning which was becoming more
difficult to do with the factor of their own fatigue thrown in.

In addition to the difficulty in planning and execution that the fatigue
caused, it was also taking its toll on the accuracy of the shooting that
they did.  Hands trembled a little more on weapons and eyes found it harder
to focus through scopes.  Target assignments were not always completely
understood and occasionally two people fired at the same man (on a few
occasions, BOTH of them missing him).  This, coupled with the fact that
militia were now hardened veterans of the hit and run attacks and therefore
much quicker in hitting the dirt and diving under cover, meant that the body
count was steadily dropping day by day.

But still, the two ambush teams kept their spirits high and carried on.
Though they were tired and somewhat disconcerted with their decreasing
effectiveness, they still were making hits and steadily decreasing the
numbers of troops that would eventually attack their town.  The difference
that they were making could easily be seen whenever the full force came into
view during the morning recon drops.  Though an accurate count was
impossible to achieve due to how widely spread the Auburnites kept
themselves, it was plain that well over a hundred of the original 400 were
no longer in the march.

"All right," Michelle said, watching through her binoculars and stifling a
yawn, "it looks like we have good positioning for this one.  If I'm reading
right, the closest of them are gonna pass a little under two hundred yards
from us."

"Just inside the safety margin," Hector said, telling her nothing that she
didn't know.

"If they're too close we'll abort," she said.  "There's always Chrissie's
team on the next hill."

"Where are we going to hit this time?" Leanette, gripping her rifle and
peering through a gap in the logs, asked.

"We'll hit about three-quarters back this time," Michelle answered.  "We've
pounded on the point squads and the rear guard and the middle pretty
consistently.  Let's shift a little and throw them off guard even more."

"Good idea," said Doris, stifling a yawn of her own.  "Those in the middle
of the middle might be thinking they're safe."

"Exactly."

Michelle updated Brett over the radio with their intention to attack, giving
an ETA of approximately fifteen minutes.  She promised that she would give
another update when they were less than five.  She talked in code of course
but they had long since figured out the either the militia was not capable
of monitoring their radio frequency or it had just not occurred to them to
do so.  Probably the former.  Though the Auburnites clearly had radios of
their own (Brett and Jason were able to routinely monitor THEIR
transmissions on the citizen's band) they probably did not have a VHF
scanner with them that was capable of picking up the fire department
tactical channel that Garden Hill used for their communications.

Group by group, squad by widely spread squad, the militia marched by.  Some
of them came very close indeed, well inside the hundred-yard range as they
passed the hill.  But as the formation continued to go by, its outside
elements were a little tighter, putting most of them about a hundred and
eighty yards distance.

"All right," Michelle said as one squad passed and the next started closing.
"Let's hit that bunch there.  Any disagreement?"

There was none so Michelle radioed to Brett that an attack was imminent and
that he should fire up the engine and lift off for the pick up.  The
pre-arranged extraction point was still valid and she let him know this as
well.

"Target time," Michelle said once this was done.  "Hector, you take that guy
on the far left, closest to us.  Leanette, you take the man to his right and
behind him.  Doris, you have the guy immediately behind him.  Everyone
clear?"

Everyone was clear.  They continued to wait, watching as their targets grew
closer and closer.  The men they were planning to attack edged to within 160
yards, well inside the safety margin, while those that would be supporting
them, stayed about 190 to 220 yards out, right on the safety margin.

"Be sure to hit your men," Michelle intoned in the final seconds.  "They're
a little too close for comfort."

Three faces that were glued to three riflescopes replied that they would.

Michelle, gripping her own weapon and ready to unleash her barrage, counted
to three.  When the magic number was reached, three rifles were fired,
sending three .30 caliber bullets out at supersonic speed towards three men.

As had been happening increasingly frequently lately, the targets saw the
flashes and tried to dive to the ground before the bullets came in.  They
did not have as much time to react however since the range was closer and
only one of them made it.  Michelle clearly saw one of the men's head rock
back in a spray of blood and the other take his shot in the upper chest.
The third - Doris' target, managed to get down quick enough so that the
bullet intended for him passed less than five inches above his head.  His
reprieve from death was only temporary however.  Before he could even fire
back, the bullets from Michelle's M-16 riddled his face and upper body.

Michelle switched fire to the man closest to Doris' target.  She expended
the rest of her clip taking him out and then rolled her left, popping her
magazine out and cramming it into her waistband.  Above them the return fire
was just starting to come in, the sound of bullets whizzing through the air
reaching their ears.  The militia was getting very fast indeed at responding
to the attacks.

"Let's get the hell out of here," Michelle said, reaching for a fresh
magazine.  She slammed it into place and then began to crawl down the
protected side of the hill, confident that her team members were doing the
same.

The plinking of bullets against the logs that they were using for cover
picked up in intensity as more of the squads below reacted to the attack.
Michelle's team all knew that those platoons behind and forward of the squad
that had been attacked were now rushing at top speed towards the rear of the
hill, trying to cut them off as they retreated.  It was something that they
had never even come close to doing yet but still they tried every time.

It was as Hector turned to begin his own trip down the hill that the
seemingly impossible happened.  A 5.56 millimeter bullet, fired randomly and
without even really being properly aimed by a squad sergeant down below,
just happened to pass perfectly through the same eight inch gap that Hector
had just fired through. Hector was, at that moment, on his hands and knees
facing downhill, just starting to crawl out of the danger zone.  The bullet
struck his left buttock, moving parallel to his torso.  It chewed through
the muscle tissue with ease, glanced off the curvature of his pelvis,
chipping a large bone segment off, and then drilled through his left kidney
before exiting in a spray of blood from his lower back.

"Ahh fuck!" Hector screamed, falling forward as he felt an intense burning
pain spreading through his lower body.  "I'm hit!  I'm hit!"

"Hector!" Leanette, his wife screamed, instantly abandoning her own egress
and crawling over to him.

"Goddammit!"  Michelle yelled, turning and taking a quick look at the
damage.  She saw a small blood stain on his butt and a larger one on his
back.  "Hector can you move?"

"Fuckin' aye!" he yelled, continuing to crawl down the hill, Leanette
pulling him by the arms.  Above them the bullets continued to slam into the
hill and pass overhead.  With Leanette and Doris' help, they managed to get
him lower down on the hill so that he could try to stand.  Here is where
real trouble struck.  He tried to stand to make the run to the chopper but
his left leg would not support him.  Searing, unbelievable pain went
shooting through his pelvis as soon as he put weight on that side.

"Leanette, get on the side of him!"  Michelle ordered.  "Come on, we need to
get out of here!"

Leanette got on his left side and allowed him to put his weight on her.
Together, they began to move down the hill, heading for the helicopter a
quarter mile away around the base of the next hill.  Unfortunately, they
were not moving very fast.

"Faster goddammit, FASTER!" Michelle screamed, firing a burst at a group of
Auburnites that were just appearing on the left flank.  Though they were
still well over three hundred yards away, her fire served its purpose.  They
all dove to the ground.

Doris grabbed Hector's other side and helped pull him along, thus increasing
the speed of their retreat.  Michelle trotted behind, constantly checking
the rear for more militia troops.  She pulled out her radio and keyed it up.
"Brett, Jason," she said into it, abandoning the code for the moment,
"Hector's been wounded by return fire.  We're slowed down a little.  Be
ready to launch the second we get there!"

"Copy," said Jason's remarkably calm voice.

Another group of militia came rushing around from the right side of the
hill.  They were less than 250 yards away.  Michelle sent them diving to the
ground with another burst of her weapon.  She cursed herself for going
forward with the attack when the support elements had been so close.
"Faster!" she intoned to her team.

They managed to gain a little ground but just as they got to the base of the
hill they had to go around, bullets began to whiz in from their pursuers.
They were poorly aimed shots - that was true - and most of them were well
off to the left or well over their heads, but a few went by close enough for
the team to hear their passage.  Michelle fired a few more bursts, falling a
little behind her team members.

Her fire was not as effective this time since all of the militia was now
proned out on the ground, having the advantage of a low profile.  They
ignored her ineffective bursts and continued to fire and eventually, just as
Hector and his supporters reached the turn around the hill, one of the
bullets found its mark.  It was a .30 caliber bullet from a hunting rifle
and it hit Leanette squarely in the center of her back.  It drilled through
her spine, snapping it and the spinal nerves that it protected, neatly in
two.  From there it was diverted slightly to the left and upward where it to
re the side of her descending aorta, punctured her left lung, and finally
left her body just below her left breast.  She dropped instantly to the
ground, dragging Hector and Doris down with her.

Hector screamed in pain at the sudden impact upon his wounded pelvis.  Doris
gave a startled squeal as the air was blasted out of her lungs by the impact
against the ground.  Leanette made no noise at all; she simply fell, already
feeling dizziness from blood loss and shortness of breath from her lung
injury.  But that was not the worst.  Below her belly button, she felt
nothing at all.

Michelle, seeing that another one of her squad had been hit, fired the rest
of her clip at their attackers and then rushed over to see how bad it was.
She saw the bloodstain spreading across Leanette's back and she feared the
worst, thoughts of Dale's injuries coming immediately to mind.  She knelt
down next to her team members, right in front of Hector and Leanette,
ignoring the bullets that were still passing all around them.

"Come on," she intoned, pulling her magazine free and dropping it to the
ground.  "Doris, help Hector, I'll help Leanette."

"Come one Len," Hector, panting with exertion, pain, and now worry, told his
wife.  "Let's go!  We gotta get the fuck out of here!"

Leanette's face was already pale and sweaty, her breathing ragged, obviously
each inspiration causing pain.  "No," she said.  "I'm done for.  Leave me
here.  Get Hecky out!"

"Stop talking like that!" Michelle yelled at her as a few bullets passed
alarmingly close.  "We'll have you in El Dorado Hills with the doc in
fifteen minutes.  Now let's go!"

"I can't move," Leanette said, the words coming between breaths.
"Everything from the stomach down is numb.  I can't move my legs and I... I
can't breathe."

"Len," Hector cried at her.  "The doc will fix you up.  Come on!"

"Nothing to fix up," she panted.  "I'm done for.  Now go!  Don't get killed
here with me."

"Leanette," Doris said, tears on her face.  "You can't..."

"I'm dying," she said frantically.  "I know it.  I can feel it.  Now go!
Please?"

"Len, I'm not gonna leave you here," Hector said, tears on his face as well.
"I can't leave you here!"

"You have to," she said.  "Take care of Maria."

"No Leanette!" Hector cried.  "No!"

"They'll capture you," Doris told her.  "God only knows what..."

"They won't... won't... capture me," she said, each word becoming
increasingly difficult.  "Leave me my pistol.  I'll... I'll hold them off
for you.  I'm done for.  Now GO!"

"Len..." Hector started.

"Get her weapon," Michelle, making one of the most agonizing decisions of
her life, told her team.  "Leave her the pistol."

"What the hell are you talking about?" Hector demanded.

Two bullets slammed into the ground less than four feet from them, kicking
up mud that sprayed in the air.  The militia was moving forward once again,
advancing upon them.  Soon they would be in range to accurately hit their
targets.

"We can't help her," Michelle said.  "Can't you see that.  We don't have any
other choice.  Now let's go!"

"Listen... to... her," Leanette said, blood now running from her mouth.
"Please Hecky.  Get away from here.  I... know... what I'm... doing."

"Oh god," he cried, bending down and kissing her face.  "I love you Lenny.
I'll always love you."

"I... know," she said, kissing him back, leaving bloody lip marks on his
face.  "And I love... you.  Now go."

They went.  They stripped Leanette of her rifle but left the .45 caliber
pistol.  Michelle took it out of its holster and put it in her hand.  "Don't
let them get close," she said, her tears falling on her friend's face.

"I won't."

With only a few looks back, the three members continued their trip to the
helicopter, Michelle and Doris helping to hold up the injured Hector.
Thirty seconds after leaving Leanette in the mud, they made it to the
backside of the hill and were dragging themselves towards the waiting
helicopter.


+++++


Leanette lay on the ground, breathing raggedly, the pain in her chest
increasing with each breath that she took.  The dizziness too continued to
worsen as her lifeblood leaked out of her main artery into her abdominal
cavity.  The .45 was gripped tightly in her right hand, which she kept
curled beneath her.  She feigned death, watching as the militia platoon
advanced towards her, their weapons out before them, most of them pointed at
her.

"Please," she whispered to herself.  "Just a few more seconds."

Either through random chance or answered prayers, she was granted that extra
few seconds.  The front elements of the militia continued to close with her,
walking carefully instead of running, allowing precious time for the rest of
the team to reach the safety of the helicopter.  Just as they closed to
within pistol range of her, she heard the gratifying sound, faint though
clearly audible, of the turbine engine winding up to takeoff speed.  The
sound grew and then faded as the helicopter flew away.

"Thank you," she breathed, watching the two closest members of the militia
through her partially opened eye.  "Oh my Lord, I thank thee.  Please
forgive my sins in the name of Jesus, amen."

With her final prayer articulated, she used the last of her energy to roll
her upper body up onto her side, leaving her useless legs to lie in place.
Her hand shot out and leveled the pistol on the closest of the men.  He was
close enough for her to see his eyes, which just had time to widen in
surprise before she pulled the trigger, sending a bullet right into his
chest.  She shifted her aim to the next closest, firing again and striking
this unfortunate in the knee.

Two seconds later the rest of the platoon opened up on her with a variety of
automatic, semi-automatic, and single shot weapons.  More than thirty
bullets slammed into her, obliterating her consciousness in an instant.


+++++


"Where the hell is Leanette?" Brett yelled as Hector was thrown into the
helicopter, Doris and Michelle following him inside.

"She's done for," Michelle said, tears still running down her face.  "We had
to leave her."

"Shit," Brett said.  "Is she dead?"

"She will be," she told him.  "There was no choice Brett.  No choice.  Now
get us out of here.  They're right fucking behind us!"

He lifted off, spinning the helicopter to the southwest and putting on the
speed, keeping low and passing between another group of hills before gaining
altitude.  Doris opened up a first-aid pack that Paul had prepared and began
to pull bandages and tape out.  Michelle helped her, leaving Brett in the
dark about what had happened because she didn't put on her headset right
away.

"Jason," Brett said, "call Chrissie on the radio and tell her to abort her
mission and hunker down.  We'll be back to pick her up later."

"Right," Jason said, his mind somewhat shocked, his eyes unable to drag
themselves away from the blood running down Hector's back or the tears
running down his companions' face.  He keyed up his radio.  "Mother bird to
hatchling one, do you copy?"

"Hatchling one here," Chrissie said a moment later.  "Go ahead."

"Abort your mission and hold in place.  I repeat, let the wolves pass and
hold in place.  We will be unable to extract you.  Hatchling two has taken
casualties and we need to fly to the MASH unit."

There was a long pause, long enough so that Jason was forced to ask his
sister if she had copied him.

"I copy," she said in a slow voice.  "What are the extent of the
casualties?"

Jason looked at Brett, quietly questioning whether he should provide this
information to them.  Brett, a believer in the truth, nodded.

"Leanette is dead," Jason said, his voice breaking a little.  "Hector is
wounded.  We'll get back to you as soon as we can."

Chrissie's voice was audibly upset when she answered.  "I copy that mother
bird.  We're holding in place."

Brett brought them up to an altitude of five thousand feet and accelerated
up to 110 knots, as fast as the helicopter could go.  He glanced back every
minute or so to check on the status of Hector, who, although he was now
bandaged up, was very pale and seemed to be flirting with unconsciousness.
Michelle had finally donned her headset and she was able to tearfully tell
Brett the story of what had happened.  It was quite obvious, listening to
her, that she blamed herself for what had happened.

"Michelle," he said, firmly, "this is NOT your fault.  You did the best you
could."

"Brett," she said, shaking her head violently, "one of my team is DEAD.  I
had to leave her out there with the militia!"

"You did what you had to do," he said.  "This is war hon, and things like
that happen in war."

"You told us that we had the safest fucking job!" she accused, looking for a
target to discharge her grief and anger upon.  "You told us that this
wouldn't happen!"

"I told you it SHOULDN'T happen," he corrected.  "And I'm sorry that it did.
But its over now and we have to take care of Hector."

She had no answer for him.  She simply buried her face in her hands and
cried.




+++++



"El Dorado Hills, this is Garden Hills helicopter, do you copy?" Jason asked
on the frequency assigned for that particular communication.  They were
currently passing over the eastern guard positions of the town, flying at a
relatively low 1500 feet above the ground, slowing, but still moving at well
over ninety knots.

The reply took a minute but at last the familiar voice of Pat came on the
frequency.  "This is El Dorado Hills," he said.  "Go ahead Garden Hills.  It
looks like you wish to land?"

"That's affirmative," Brett said, taking over the communications channel.
"We have a wounded man from a skirmish.  He has a gunshot in the back.  Can
you assist?"

"Bring him down," Pat said without hesitation.  "Go ahead and land in the
parking lot outside.  I'll get Renee moving."

By this point, nearly twenty minutes after being shot, Hector was barely
conscious, his usually dark complexion pale and clammy, his eyes glazed.
His breathing was rapid and deep, as if he couldn't get enough air.

Brett circled once around the parking lot just to make sure that there was
no one lingering near his landing zone, and then brought them down quickly,
almost as if he were doing a combat drop.  He quickly began the engine
shutdown procedure.  Before he was even halfway through it, a group of men
and women came running out of the school admin building.  The rolled a
gurney that looked as if it had come from an ambulance with them.  Renee the
doctor was among them.  By the time the engine wound down, leaving the rotor
blades spinning freely and silently to a halt above them, the group was at
the side door.

Michelle, still with tears running down her face, opened the door for them.
Renee was the first to stick her head in.

"Is he breathing?" she asked.

"Yes," Doris, who was cradling him and holding pressure on his bleeding
back, replied.  "He looks like he's working to do it, but he's breathing."

"Okay," Renee said, more to her people than to Brett's, "let's get him out
of there."

Three people, all of them wearing latex gloves upon their hands, reached in
and pulled Hector free of the helicopter, dragging him directly onto the
ambulance gurney.  No sooner was he out of the aircraft then Renee was
looking him over, her eyes searching for the source of the bleeding.  Brett,
watching all of this, noticed that her hands were shaking a little.

"How many shots?" Renee asked, addressing no one in particular.

"Just one," Michelle answered.  "It hit him in the butt and came out his
back it looks like."

"Any idea of the caliber?" she asked, feeling at his wrist for his pulse.
She frowned a little at what she felt.

"No," Michelle said.  "The militia uses M-16s, AK-47s, and hunting rifles
mostly.  It was a lucky shot."

"Okay," Renee said.  She looked at Hector's face.  "Are you with me?" she
asked him in a loud voice.

He mumbled back something that sounded like: "I think so," but his voice was
very weak, his words thick and slow.

"Let's get him into the treatment room," Renee told her people.  "Sally, get
some blood from him right away and put it through the type and cross, just
like I taught you.  Do it twice just to be sure and then start looking
through the index cards for a donor.  It looks like he's gonna need it."

While Sally told Renee that she would get right on that, the entire group
began trotting towards the front of the building, four of them holding onto
a corner of the gurney.  Within twenty seconds, Hector had disappeared
through the doorway, leaving his team and his pilots behind.

Pat had wandered out at some point during he activity and he remained
behind.  He was dressed in the customary rain gear and had a pistol strapped
to his waist, although he carried no rifle.  His face was concerned as he
walked over to the group of four climbing free of the helicopter.  He shook
hands with Brett.

"They'll give him the best care possible," he said to Brett, although his
words were meant for everyone.  "We've been drilling and preparing for just
such an emergency."

"It shows," Brett said.  He had been expecting a frantic clusterfuck upon
landing but had instead been treated to a well-disciplined and seemingly
competent medical team.  "We appreciate your help."

"It's the least we could do," Pat told them.  "Renee has been reading
through her texts on the treatment of traumatic injuries ever since we
agreed to help you.  She's also blood-typed everyone in town so we'll have
donors once we figure out what kind of blood your man has."

"Very smart," Michelle, seeming to calm a little, said.  "And again, thank
you very much."

"Why don't we go inside?" Pat suggested.  "We'll have some tea and wait for
the word to come down.  And you can tell us how your war is going.
Obviously it's started, right?"

"Oh yes," Brett said.  "It's started all right."


+++++

Hector was wheeled into what had once been the school nurse's office but was
now the primary treatment area for the town doctor.  It was a room that had
electric lights powered by the outside generator and cases and shelves of
medical equipment scavenged from Renee's office prior to it being washed
away in the first of the landslides.  They kept Hector on the gurney that
they had brought him in on, not wanting to risk moving him again.

Renee was terrified of what she was about to do here.  Though on the outside
she was doing an admirable job of projecting the calm, coolness that was
associated with a MD after her name, inside she was on pins and needles.
For some reason the public - meaning, to her, all those who had not been to
medical school - was under the impression that a doctor was a doctor was a
doctor and that no matter what they specialized in, they would automatically
know how to handle anything medical that crossed their path.  Some doctors
actually believed this themselves.  But it was simply not true.  She was a
goddamn family practice specialist, not a trauma surgeon!  True, she had
dissected cadavers in med school more than ten years before and true she
could tell the difference between a kidney and a spleen and a liver once she
was looking at them, but she had never done anything like operating on a
gunshot wound victim before.  She had never even cut into the abdominal
cavity of another human being before except to perform the occasional
C-section of a delivering mother.  She was not a goddamn surgeon.  Her
specialty had been treating runny noses, ear infections, sore throats,
hypertension, depressions.  She had diagnosed pregnancy and provided
pre-natal care, she had looked after babies and small children, she had
taken care of sore backs.  For everything more complicated than that, for
everyone that needed to be admitted to the hospital down in Folsom (a
hospital which had been washed away by the breaking of the dam), she had
referred people to specialists.

But now there WERE no more specialists.  There was only her and her
undertrained team and this man would live or die because of what she did
now.

"Renee, are you okay?" asked Jenny, who had been her office assistant in
pre-comet life.

Renee looked up at her, the second most highly trained medical specialist in
El Dorado Hills - a woman who had a six-week course from a tech school under
her belt.  Jesus help us.  "I'm okay," she said.  "Get him on his back and
let's put him out."

"Right."

"You get the IV," she said (that had been part of the training they had gone
over since learning they would be treating the Garden Hill casualties).  "Be
sure to use blood tubing and the largest diameter IV needle you can get into
him.  We'll use that line to sedate him so I can intubate him.  Once that's
done, I want you to start a second line in the other arm with more blood
tubing.  Sally's already working on cross and type.  Chances are, we'll need
to give him a lot."

"I'm on it," Jenny said, pleased to have something to do.

There were three other helpers in the room, none of them with previous
medical experience, all of them members of the crash course in emergency
medicine.  Renee had them strip off Hector's muddy clothing and then had
John, the only male member of the team, set up a ventilation bag while
someone else tried to get a blood pressure.  It was 70/24, not particularly
encouraging in light of a bleeding injury.

Jenny stabbed in a large gauge IV catheter and began running fluid into
Hector's damaged circulatory system.

Using this IV line, Renee injected a strong paralytic drug into Hector's
vein that rendered him completely unconscious and brought his breathing to a
halt.  Working quickly she opened his mouth with a laryngoscope and inserted
a breathing tube into his trachea.  She tied this down with a length of tape
and then had John attach a ventilation bag to it to begin forcing air down
into his lungs.  Since their oxygen supply was very limited she was stuck
with using only room air, which was not the desired method of ventilation
but you went with what you had in this world.  Once Hector was securely
intubated, she injected a more powerful, longer-lasting anesthetic
(something which had been part of her office inventory but she never, in a
million years had thought she'd ever actually use) into his IV to keep him
under indefinitely.

Renee spent a few minutes arranging instruments and supplies that she
thought she would need on a table next to the gurney.  She had scalpels,
retractors, sterile swabs, various varieties of stitching threads, a tissue
stapler, bottles of betadine and saline, an electric cauterizer.  As she
arranged them in the order she thought she would need them, her hands
continued to shake.  Everyone noticed this.  No one commented on it.

Finally she instructed her team to carefully roll Hector onto his stomach,
taking care to not dislodge the breathing tube.  She cleaned the area around
and between the two wounds - which were both steadily oozing small amounts
of blood - with betadine, sterilizing it.  And still her hands continued to
shake with nervous fear.

At last she was ready to begin.  This man would now have his life placed in
her hands, having to rely on skills and procedures that had been explained
to her during a few classes in med school but which she had not studied
since and which she had never practiced.  She picked up a scalpel and moved
it towards the larger of the two wounds, the one on his back.  That would be
where the worst injury was, probably the kidney, and that would be where the
blood loss was worst.  As she prepared herself to make the cut, a strange
calm seemed to come over her and her mind cleared.  Her hand stopped shaking
and she made the incision.


+++++


"A bitch!" Bracken said, looking down at the bloody mess that had once been
Leanette.  She was splayed out on her stomach, her face and head almost
unrecognizable since at least six of the bullets from the final barrage had
struck her there.  The .45 pistol that she had used to kill one of the men
and disable the other enough so that he had been forced to kill himself, was
lying two feet to the right of her, having been kicked from her lifeless
hand by the first soldier to reach her.  "They're using fucking bitches on
their hit teams?  Bitches!" he screamed, strangely offended by this fact.

"She wasn't the only one," said Livingston, whose squad had been in on the
final pursuit.  "I'm pretty sure that two of the other three were bitches as
well, including the one with the M-16."

Bracken shook his head.  "This is just unbelievable.  Not only are they
arming their bitches up, but they're using them as special forces teams as
well.  And they're fucking kicking our asses!"  In a rage he delivered a
stern kick to the bloody, lifeless head of Leanette, sending a good sized
chunk of her skull flying through the air.

"And look at this sir," Colby said, holding up the bullet-holed remains of
her backpack.  The fleeing hit team had stripped her of her rifle but had
not had time to take her pack with her.  He opened it up and carefully
pulled out two of the mines that had plagued them earlier.  "The shotgun
shells aren't in them but they're in the pack, just ready to be used.  And
look at this."  He pulled out a crumpled, bloodstained piece of paper and
unfolded it.  "It's a map of the area around here.  A very detailed map that
looks like it might even be to scale.  It's divided into very small grids."

Bracken took the map from him, unmindful of the blood that covered much of
it, and took a look.  Sure enough, there was the mudfall they had gone
around a few days before and there were the various hills around their
current position.  "They made this by taking aerial shots of the area," he
said.  "I'll bet you anything they're sending out a recon team in the
morning to plot our advance and then using their radios to drop the next
team right along it."

"Will those maps help us sir?" Livingston asked.

Bracken shook his head sadly.  "Not if we can't monitor their radios," he
said.  "Obviously they're not using the goddam CB bands or we would've
picked them up by now.  They're probably using a VHF direct band that links
to the fuckin helicopter."

"But we killed one," Stu, who had wandered over after bringing his platoon
back from the pursuit, said helpfully.  "Maybe two of them.  Livingston said
that they had a wounded man when they went around the hill.  At least we've
gotten on the fuckin scoreboard."

Bracken looked at him with disgust.  "The fuckin scoreboard?" he asked
viciously.  "You wanna hear about the fuckin scoreboard?  We had a head
count of 276 men this morning.  That's one hundred and fucking twenty-four
killed or deserted!  And in exchange for what?  For TWO of theirs!  Maybe
you think that's an acceptable ratio but it sounds suspiciously to me like
we're losing about seventy-five men for every one that we take of theirs!"

"They can't keep this up," Stu said, unoffended, at least visibly, by the
rebuff.  "They just can't.  And we're learning.  We lose less with each
attack.  We're almost there sir.  Almost fucking there.  And when we get
there, we'll make them pay for what they did.  We'll kill every man in that
town and rape every woman before we kill them too.  They're doing this
because they know they can't beat us!"

"They ARE beating us Covington," Bracken said.  "Can't you fucking see that?
They're kicking the shit out of us!"

"Sir," Stu said, "we HAVE to push on.  We have to.  At least give it a few
more days.  Like I said, now that they've taken casualties, they'll be more
cautious.  Our losses have been bad, that's true, but we're getting the
upper hand now.  Trust me, the attacks will slack off now."

"Shit," Bracken mumbled, shaking his head, uncertain what to do.  He looked
at the faces of the men around him.  It was obvious that THEY didn't want to
push on any further.

"Just a few more days," Stu repeated.

"All right," Bracken said.  "Let's move out.  Form up again and we'll get
the hell on our way.  We need to increase the rate of our zigzagging as we
march."

He didn't hear the groan of the men listening with his ears, but he heard it
with his mind.


+++++


An hour went by, and then another, still with no word on what was happening
with Hector in the makeshift operating room.  Pat and two other members of
the El Dorado Hills team sat in the conference room with them, all of them
sipping tea, Brett updating them on the status of the war so far, with
contributions from everyone but Michelle.  Michelle simply sat, staring at
the wall, occasionally crying softly to herself.

At one point, about twenty minutes into the operation, Sally, the girl who
had been ordered to test Hector's blood and find donors, shot by in the
hallway with four people, two women and two men in tow.  She took them to
the room next door and drew a pint of blood from each of them, storing it in
empty IV bags before carrying it next door to the operating suite.  Everyone
took this as a good sign that Hector was at least still hanging in there.

Finally, when conversation lapsed for a few minutes, Brett said, "I need to
go extract Chrissie and her team from their location.  The militia has
probably passed them by now."

Pat simply nodded and Jason, the designated radioman, started to get up.

"Why don't you stay here Jase," Brett suggested.  "I think Michelle should
come with me on this flight."

Jason didn't protest but Michelle certainly did.  "No," she said firmly.
"I'm staying here until I find out how Hector's doing."

"I'll bring you back with me," Brett promised.  "Come on.  I think we need
to talk."

It took a few more minutes of convincing and a direct order from Brett, who
as military commander of Garden Hill, technically had that right, but
finally she agreed.  They left the school building and went out to the
parking lot, climbing into the front of the helicopter.

Brett said nothing to her as he went through the start-up procedure and the
abbreviated pre-flight check.  He lifted off into the rainy sky and then
headed northeast, towards the hill where hatchling one had been dropped.  It
was only after leveling off that he began to speak.

"You want to quit being a hit team leader," he said, not phrasing it as a
question.

She looked over at him, this man that she loved, that she shared a bed with,
amazed at always at the ability he had to read her mind at times.  "I made
the decision to go ahead with the attack," she said.  "I knew that the
militia was inside the safety margin, but I went ahead anyway.  I fucked up
Brett.  I'm not fit to command a team."

He didn't contradict her, not directly.  "You made a decision," he said.
"Whether it was a fuck-up or not, who knows?  From what I understand, they
weren't that far inside the safety margin.  I can't say that I would've
chosen any differently."

"Brett," she said, "one of my people is dead!  We had to leave Leanette out
there to commit suicide in front of those fuckers.  And Hector might die as
well.  I made a decision and now I've lost half of my team!  I can't go back
out there and do that again.  I can't!"

"You can," he said.  "And you HAVE to."

"I can't!"

"You and Chrissie are the most experienced team leaders we have," he said.
"Our survival counts on you doing your job.  We NEED you out there Michelle.
Don't dwell on what happened today.  It's a part of war.  Think about the
thirty or so missions that you DID pull off successfully, where you DID get
your whole team out in one piece after leaving five or six of those fascist
fucks dead in the mud."

"You don't understand how I feel," she accused.  "You can't possibly!"

"Can't I?" he asked.  "Did you think that you were the first person that
something like this has happened to?  Do you think you're the first person
to make a decision in combat that you think cost someone their lives?"

"What do you mean?" she asked, wiping at a tear.

He sighed a little.  "January 27, 1991," he said.  "I was with the 3rd ACR
flying out of a forward air base in Saudi Arabia, just a few miles from the
Iraqi border.  I was the pilot of an Apache and Jim Summers was my gunner.
We flew out at 1:00 in the morning on a strike mission to try to take out
some Iraqi tanks that were supposed to be holed up in defensive positions
just on the other side of the border."

"Brett," she said, "I don't see what..."

"Just listen," he said, taking his eyes off the instruments and the
windshield for a moment to look at her.

She stopped talking and listened.

"We didn't have GPS in our Apache," he said.  "That was back in the days
before they had put them in every aircraft.  All we were using for
navigation was the inertial systems that operated by a computer tracking how
far we'd gone from our starting point.  These were not the perfect
navigation systems and what happened to me and Jim are a big part of the
reason that every attack craft did have GPS by the year 1996.

"It was a windy night, about twenty knots sustained with gusts up to forty
at times.  That should've clued us in to what was going to happen.  It
didn't.  We flew out to the target area just across the border and started
looking for those tanks or for anything else Iraqi that we could blow the
shit out of.  Visual navigation was pretty much a joke out in that desert,
especially at night looking through the FLIR since everything looked the
same.  A bunch of flat sand, scrub brush, and small hills and that was Iraq
and Saudi for you.  We couldn't find our targets so we went back and forth
along the border, staying just to the north side of it, inside Iraq.  We
would stop and hover for a long time, panning back and forth, trying to see
something, and then we'd do it again a few miles to the side.

"After about an hour or so of this, just as we were starting to give up hope
of finding anything, we spot four tanks moving right to left in the
distance, apparently shifting from one place to another.  It was hard to
identify the type exactly because the wind was kicking up sand and degrading
the effectiveness of the FLIR.  The image was a little blurry.  But we knew
they had to be Iraqi armor because they were north of the border, right?  I
mean, the ground war hadn't started yet and there was no reason that our
tanks would've been in Iraq.

"So Jim locks 'em up on the weapons panel and assigns them target numbers.
He arms up the Hellfires and gets ready to fire and we contact our
controller to tell him we're about to make an attack.  The controller asks
if we have positive ID on type and we have to reply that we don't, that the
image isn't clear.  But we give him our position, which, according to our
nav computer, is more than three kilometers inside of Iraq.  The controller
boots the decision to attack to us, which, as aircraft commander, falls to
me, even though Jim is the one that will actually be firing at them.  So,
confident that I'm looking at enemy tanks, I give him the go ahead to
launch.

Brett sighed again, feeling physical pain at the recall of this memory,
which he had fought long and hard to suppress over the years.  "The missiles
go flying out and blow the first tank all to shit.  The second one goes up
just as easily.  You could actually see the turret go flying into the air
from the explosion.  The third one takes a hit but is only disabled.  The
fourth one does the same.  Pretty soon, while we're watching these tanks
burn, we see the figures of the crews climbing out of the two disabled ones
and trying to run off into the desert."  Brett shook his head a little.
"They didn't have anywhere to hide.  I flew in closer and Jim fired up the
cannon on the nose of chopper.  The sight was hooked into his helmet display
so that everywhere he turned his head, the crosshairs for the gun followed.
He mowed those men down, one by one, blowing them into little pieces.  We
yelled and screamed in triumph over the radio that we had just
single-handedly taken out four Iraqi tanks and their crews."

"And then..." a long pause as he wiped a tear running from his own eye, "and
then the air controller put out a report that four American tanks had just
come under fire from an unknown source.  They said the report was several
miles south of our reported position but it was far too close to be a
coincidence."

"It was you?" Michelle asked, eyes wide.

"It was us," he confirmed.  "We didn't realize it at the time, but every
time that we had stopped and hovered to check for the Iraqi positions, that
wind was blowing us backwards and our nav computer didn't realize it.  By
the time we encountered the tanks we were back inside Saudi Arabia THINKING
that we were in Iraq.  We massacred four of our own tanks by mistake and
killed sixteen American soldiers."

"Jesus Brett," Michelle said.  "But you didn't know..."

"No," he said, "I didn't know.  I made a decision though and I sent sixteen
young kids home in coffins with American flags wrapped around them.  As soon
as I realized what had happened, I almost lost it.  I started babbling on
the radio, asking permission to land to check for survivors.  I was ordered
back to base but I could barely fly.  The controller had to calm me down and
talk me in, that's how bad I was.

"I was ready to turn my wings in that night, as soon as I landed.  I was
ready to get my court martial and go to Leavenworth.  I thought I deserved
it."

"But you kept flying," Michelle said, starting to see the point of his story
now.

"I kept flying.  During wartime the inquiries went fast.  It took them less
than three days to clear us of criminal negligence or any wrongdoing.  It
was just one of those things, was what we were basically told.  As soon as
we were cleared, my CO ordered me back into the air on another tank strike
mission."

"And you went?" Michelle asked.

"I didn't want to," he said.  "I didn't think I was fit to serve anymore.  I
was terrified of making the same mistake again, but he insisted and I went
up.  My hands shook and I nearly threw up as we crossed the border.  But I
did my job that night and I did it every other night and day until that
stupid war was over.  I learned from what had happened and I didn't quit
because I couldn't quit.  I just couldn't."

"And that's stayed with you ever since?" Michelle said.

He nodded.  "It's stayed with me ever since.  And what happened to your team
today will stay with you forever, don't think that it won't.  But you can't
quit babe.  We need you out there.  We NEED you.  So you have to put it
behind you for now."


+++++


The pick-up of Chrissie's team went off without a hitch.  They made radio
contact with them and learned that the militia had passed by their position
uneventfully more than forty minutes before.  Brett landed in the
pre-arranged pick-up location and they climbed aboard, their faces solemn,
their weapons unfired.  Maria in particular was taking it very hard.

"How did she go?" she asked tearfully as Brett lifted off.  Chrissie had
allowed her the use of the headset.

"She went like a warrior," Michelle said, crying again.  She told the story
of Leanette's last stand with a halting voice.

"She had a set of balls on her," Maria said, sniffing a little.  "I always
knew that, ever since she tried to steal Hector from me.  And how's Hector
doing?  You said he was wounded?"

"He's in El Dorado Hills," she said.  "He took one in the back.  The doctor
there is taking care of him."

The rest of the flight was strangely silent until they neared Garden Hills
and made radio contact with Paul, who was in the community center worried
sick about how long the helicopter had been out.  Michelle, taking on the
duties of radio operator in the absence of Jason, informed him of what had
happened.

"We're standing down the attacks for the rest of the day," she finished.
"We're going to refuel and then head back to El Dorado to check on Hector."

"I'm going too," Maria said.  "I want to be there with him."

Nobody disputed her.

Word spread quickly through the town about the casualties that had been
taken.  Almost before the rotors had wound down and the refueling process
had begun, everyone from the kitchen staff to the trench diggers and mine
layers knew what had happened out in the woods.  They took it harder than
they probably should have, the death and wounding of some of their people
bringing the unpleasant fact of their own mortality home to them in a way
that the previous attack on the town had not been able to.  Leanette was
dead, killed by Auburn bullets fired from the advancing militia.  If
Leanette could die in this war, then so could anyone else.  The work slowed
down a little as conversation, much of it angry and scared, took its place.

The helicopter stayed in town only long enough for Brett to refuel it and
for Michelle to give an extended debriefing to Paul.  Within thirty minutes
of landing, it lifted off once again, Michelle and Maria its passengers,
heading back to El Dorado Hills.

+++++


Brett addressed the town at an after dinner meeting that night.

"By now," he told them over the public address system, "I'm sure that all of
you have heard both about the death of Leanette and the wounding of Hector
in a hit and run battle this morning.  Let me start off by giving you the
good news about Hector, which I'm also sure that you've heard rumor of by
now.  It looks like he's going to make it."

A cheer went up from the crowd as they heard their first good news of the
day.

"Dr. Renee Sawyer, the physician in El Dorado Hills, spent nearly two hours
operating on him after we took him there.  You'll be pleased to hear that
she has taken her agreement seriously when she said she would treat our
wounded in this conflict.  What she has done has studied up extensively on
traumatic emergencies from her medical texts and trained up some of her
fellow townspeople as nurses and assistants.  She has also blood-typed every
person in that town so that she was instantly able to find donors for Hector
for the surgery.  This pre-training in advance of us actually bringing her
someone to work on is undoubtedly what saved Hector."

There was some babble of admiration for a moment that Brett let continue
until it quieted down.

"What I was told by Dr. Sawyer," he continued, "was that the bullet entered
Hector's derri re on the left cheek at an upward angle, fractured his
pelvis, and passed through his left kidney before exiting out of his body.
He was bleeding internally when she got to him and she was forced to remove
that kidney due to the damage. Fortunately the good Lord saw fit to give us
two of that particular organ so nothing vital was damaged.  Hector has a lot
of drains and tubes and a bunch of other shit coming out of his incision,
but he was awake and alert when we talked to him and, barring any
complications like infection, he should recover completely in time.  He'll
have to stay in El Dorado Hills for a while on IV antibiotics and such, but
that is to be expected."

Another cheer greeted this news.

"And then there's Leanette," Brett said next, instantly quieting everyone
down.  He took a few deep breaths and then slowly, mechanically described
what he had been told about Leanette's death in the field.  As was his
nature, he pulled no punches, letting these people know exactly what sort of
battle they were involved in.

"It was nasty," he said.  "There's no doubt about that.  And it was painful
to have to leave her out there, a decision that I know is preying upon the
minds of everyone in that squad, particularly Michelle's, the commander of
the mission.  But I'm here to tell you, as a man of military experience,
that there was no other choice in the matter.  Leanette was paralyzed and
mortally wounded.  To try to drag her out of there would not only have been
futile, but would have probably cost the other members of the team their
lives as well.  Michelle, Doris, and even Hector did what they had to do and
so did Leanette.  Her last request was that they leave her pistol with her
so that she could maybe take out a few more of those fucks before she went."

The silence continued as everyone solemnly considered his words, most of
them, once again, thinking of their own mortality.

"She died a hero as far as I'm concerned," Brett told them, "and I would be
lying to you if I said that she will probably be the only one.  Others WILL
die in this conflict, of that you can probably be sure.  We're fighting for
our very lives here people, remember that.

"It is my suggestion that we put a cross up in the school yard near the
graves of those killed in our first battle.  Though we don't have her body
to bury, we have her spirit and she, as well as anyone else that falls
fighting this menace, should be memorialized forever.  God willing, there
won't be many of those crosses when this is done and most of us will still
be here to look at them."

The silence was broken with encouraging agreement with his words.

"And now," Brett finished, "we should all get a little bit of sleep.
Perimeter teams, nothing has changed.  We have an enemy on the way and you
have work to do in the morning.  Hit and run teams," he said next, looking
at Michelle, who was sitting in the front of the room, and Maria, who had
reluctantly returned to Garden Hill to carry on at Hector's urging, "you
have your normal missions in the morning.  Michelle and Chrissie have called
up two replacements for Hector and Leanette.  And Jason," he shifted his
gaze towards his young prot g .  "We take off in three hours for our regular
nightly fun."


+++++


The militia enjoyed one entire day without being attacked after killing one
of the ambush "bitches".  Their morale actually improved a little as they
marched on, covering nearly six miles through the woods, without being
molested or shot at in any way.  People began to think that maybe Bracken
was right after all.  Maybe the Garden Hills fucks HAD been demoralized by
the death of one of their bitches.  Maybe, despite the loss of more than a
quarter of their soldiers, things had gotten as bad as they could get and
were now on the upswing.  No one deserted that day and a little of the
discipline returned to the ranks.

And then, at 9:10 that evening, just as everyone except the guards had
bedded down for the night and were anticipating what might be their first
uninterrupted sleep since their first night, the tracers came rolling in,
killing four with the first attack.  Follow-up attacks at 12:30 AM and 4:20
AM killed five more.  The next morning, at 9:50 AM, as they were marching
through a thin layer of woods, shots rang out from the hillside beyond them,
dropping two more and wounding one.

It seemed that their reprieve was over.

For the next four days they marched onward, moving only by force of will and
threats from their commanders.  They stuck to the heaviest woods they could
find and spread out as much as practical.  None of it did any good.  Always
when they were least expecting it, shots would ring out and people would
start to drop.  Pursuit would be launched, but never again did they hit
anyone, never again did they come even close.

And in addition, a new tactic was being used as they entered the heavier
woods.  The Garden Hill teams began randomly setting mines in the trees that
they were marching through.  They were similar to the ground mines that had
been planted at the bases of the hills from which ambush attacks had come
but they were smaller.  These mines were usually mounted at chest level and
camouflaged by branches.  Trip wires just under the layer of pine needles
and forest debris set them off.  When the wire was stepped on it would fire
a shell into the chest or abdomen of the man walking by, usually from a
range of less than five feet.  As a general rule, this shot would not kill
the man but would leave him gravely wounded and screaming - forced to kill
himself.  That the Garden Hills teams had deliberately set the mines to
wound instead of to kill (which putting them at head level would have done)
was quite obvious.  Though only a small percentage of the total casualty
count was because of these mines - either the ground version or the tree
version - it was they that the soldiers lived in fear of almost more than
anything else.  They could be anywhere and they were almost impossible to
detect before detonation.

The night attacks were also kept up, sometimes coming only twice but
sometimes coming as many as four times between the hours of 9:00 PM and 6:00
AM.  Though each run usually only killed a single person, two if they were
lucky, these numbers added up, steadily decreasing the force, night by
night.

Nor were the casualties the only thing bringing down the numbers as time
went on and the attacks continued.  Desertions began to occur with greater
frequency, usually during the night hours since Bracken had pretty much
closed the loophole by which Lexington and Zachary had wandered off
(requests to go take a shit while marching were greeted with much more
skepticism now).  At night the guards simply could not police every soldier
to make sure he was staying in place.  It was an impossible task considering
how widely spread everyone had to be to avoid being chopped up in the
helicopter attacks.  So what usually happened was a single deserter,
sometimes a pair, always taking his weapon and pack with him or them, would
quietly creep away in a pre-arranged direction, moving step by step until
they were far enough away to use their flashlights without detection.  They
would then put as many miles between themselves and the militia as they
could.

Each night they lost at least one person to desertion.  Most of them, having
the same idea as Lexington and Zachary, headed north, thinking of the
mountain towns beyond Grass Valley.  Others just wandered off with no
particular place in mind, knowing that they were probably going to die of
starvation soon, but glad to be free of random attack anyway.

It was as the sun left the sky on Jan 25 that Stu and Bracken sat down
together near the center of the formation.  They smoked from their dwindling
cigarette supply as they leaned against a redwood tree.  Both had their
weapons lying next to them and were, for all intents and purposes, alone.
Though intellectually the men knew that the first of the helicopter attacks
would not come for at least an hour, instinctively they did not want to be
anywhere near another person for fear of becoming an easy target.

"You heard the count we took just before dark?" Bracken asked, taking a
particularly deep drag.

"I heard it," Stu said.  It had been 221 men present and accounted for.

"We've lost almost half of our people Stu," Bracken told him.  "We've shot
up more than a third of our ammunition, consumed or just plain lost so much
food that it's debatable that we'll get back without severe rationing, and
we've lost nine of our automatic weapons to those Garden Hill teams and to
deserters."

"We still have the advantage though," Stu said.  "He still have more than
twenty automatics and a buttload of semi-autos.  And as for food, we'll just
use Garden Hill's rations to bring us home with."

Stu sighed.  "Do you remember what our objective was when we started out on
this march?" Bracken asked.  "Do you remember?"

"To take that fucking town," Stu said, seeing the worried expression on
Bracken's face in the glow of his cigarette.  "That's still the objective."

"The objective was to overwhelm them," Bracken corrected.  "We were supposed
to arrive there and take them by surprise, hopefully fast enough and with
enough power that they would surrender without a fight.  That's how we
always did it before and that's how we were going to do it here."  He took
another drag, blowing the smoke out into the rain.  "We don't have that
element of surprise anymore Stu.  And it's quite obvious that they're not
going to surrender.  And they've killed or driven off nearly half of our
force.  We still have at least three more days of marching before we even
get within range of that town.  We'll be lucky if we have a hundred and
eighty by then."

"And we'll still outnumber and outgun them," Stu said.  "They're bitches
that we're fighting, remember that?  There is no way in hell that bitches
can defeat 200 men with automatic weapons.  No fucking way!  This march is
going to be the worst part of this mission.  Once we're there, we'll kill
them in no time."

"No," Bracken said.  "We're not going to do that."

Stu couldn't believe his ears for a moment.  "What do you mean?" he finally
asked.

"We're defeated," Bracken said.  "We're approaching 50 percent casualties,
morale is falling apart, our squads and platoons are now jumbled up units
because of the attrition.  It's time to cut our losses and head back.
Tomorrow morning, we're going home."

"You can't be serious," Stu said.

"I'm as serious as I've ever been," Bracken assured him.

"What if they hit us on the way back?" Stu asked.  "What if they pound on us
and ambush all the way home?  We'll lose less by going three days forward
than we will by marching 10 days back.  Sir, we have to take that town, if
for nothing else just to put that helicopter out of commission."

"We're not going to be able to do it on this trip," Bracken said.  "I've
made up my mind Stu.  This is the way it's going to have to be.  I don't
believe that the Garden Hill people will attack us anymore if they see that
we're pulling back."

"Why wouldn't they?" Stu asked.  "They would have us vulnerable.  That's the
perfect time to attack us!"

Bracken shook his head.  "They're just not that kind of people," he said.
"They're reacting fiercely towards us because we're planning to invade their
homes.  They're willing to lay their lives on the line to protect that.  But
once they see us heading back the way we came, they'll have accomplished
their mission.  They won't risk themselves to hit us as we retreat."

"What are you, a fucking psychologist?" Stu asked.

"No," Bracken said, tossing his cigarette down into the nearest puddle of
water.  "I'm just a soldier."  He started to get up.  "I need to brief in
the other platoon commanders on my decision," he said.  "Why don't you head
off behind us and round the ones up over there.  I'll go get the ones up
near the front.  We'll meet back here in twenty minutes for a conference."

"Right," Stu said slowly, getting up as well.  He took one more puff on his
smoke, sucking on it hard enough so that the glowing of the tip provided
enough light to show him the outline of his commanding officer.  Armed with
this reference, he moved quickly, picking up the automatic M-16 he carried
and turning the butt towards Bracken's head.   He stepped forward and
slammed it into his skull as hard as he could.  It struck just above the
base of the neck, the weapon clanking loudly.  Bracken fell forward, his
consciousness instantly driven from him by the blow.  He landed face down in
the mud with an involuntary expellation of the air in his lungs.

"What the fuck was that?" someone yelled from about fifty feet away.

"Nothing," Stu calmly yelled back towards the unseen speaker.  "I tripped
over a fuckin rock.  I'm all right."

This was not questioned since it was something that happened many times a
night out in the woods.  The voice inquired no more.

Stu set his rifle down on the ground and then kneeled down by Bracken's
unconscious form.  Not being able to see, he felt his outline, finally
finding the wet, bloody mess that had become the back of his skull.  Bracken
was still breathing and starting to stir a little.  Soon he would wake up.

Taking his hands off of Bracken he felt along the ground around him until he
located a puddle of rainwater.  Thanks to the constant precipitation it did
not take him long to find one.  It was shallow - maybe only four or five
inches deep and about three feet square - but it would serve his purposes.
He grabbed Bracken by the shoulder and dragged him over to it.  Once he was
there, he pushed his face down into the water and held it there with both
hands.

Bracken struggled a little, but the blow had weakened him and it didn't last
long.  When he finally stopped moving, Stu continued to hold him under
there, counting slowly to himself until ten cycles of sixty seconds had gone
by.  Finally, satisfied that there would be no coming back, he rolled him
over onto his back again.

"Sorry I had to do that," he told the body of his commander.  "I really am.
But that town has simply got to go.  You understand, don't you?"

Bracken just lay there, unanswering.

"I thought you would," Stu said.  He grabbed Bracken by the armpits and
dragged him back towards the tree, where someone would be unlikely to
stumble upon him.

Stu sat there for the next ninety-three minutes, his M-16 in his hand, his
ears open for the sound of anyone searching for the commander.  He heard the
sound of men climbing into their sleeping bags (everyone had their own
theories on the best way to position your sleeping bag to ward off attack)
and men walking back and forth at the guard positions.  Nothing came up
during the course of that time that required Bracken's attention.

Finally, what Stu had been waiting for occurred.  From the south of them the
night's first helicopter attack came.  The stream of tracers blasted out in
two short jabs, impacting some sixty yards to the west of Stu and the
recently dead Bracken.

As with the daylight attacks, the response by the militia had evolved to the
point that it was very quick indeed.  The guards opened up on the place
where the tracers had come from, their guns echoing from all directions.
Even as they fired back, the rest of the militia was sitting up in their
sleeping bags, their own rifles in their hands, ready to join their fire
when the next attack occurred.

They did not have to wait long.  The next firing run came from a position
about an eighth of a mile from the first, again the stream of tracers
stabbing out, blasting some poor soul to bits, and then disappearing.  This
time the return fire was much louder, as nearly the triple the guns shot
back.  It was during this barrage that Stu acted.  He turned his own weapon
towards Bracken and, using the flashes from the rifles around him to sight
in, fired a three round burst directly into his chest.  He then moved as far
away from the body as he could possibly get.

The helicopter made one more firing run and then disappeared.  It was nearly
ten more minutes however before everyone was convinced that it was gone for
good and started taking count of the latest casualties.  Flashlights came on
as men moved towards the screams and cries of the wounded.  The scene was
not quite the chaos and confusion that had come with the first attacks from
the air, but it was not exactly a calm, cool, rational discourse either.

It was another five minutes before someone found Bracken's body lying in the
mud.  Corporal Waters basically stumbled across it by accident.  Until that
point no one had even realized that Bracken was missing.

"Hey," he yelled, shining his flashlight down at the body, seeing the holes.
"We got a problem here!"

It was yet another three minutes before he was able to find an officer and
drag him over there.  The officer in question happened to be the man who was
next in command: Lieutenant Colby.

"Holy shit," Colby said, looking down at the body.  He did not have the
least bit of suspicion that Bracken's death had been anything other than a
result of enemy fire.  Although none of the tracer streams had hit anywhere
near this place, Colby did not know that, nor did anyone else.  It was
impossible to remember just where the attacks had hit or even just how many
of them there had been.  And of course a forensic pathologist would have
taken one look at the body and known that the bullet wounds had been
inflicted post-mortum, but Colby was not a forensic pathologist.

Soon a fairly large crowd of soldiers was gathered around their fallen
commander.  Had the Garden Hills helicopter chosen that particular moment to
return, it would have found a tantalizingly close group to fire at.  They
stared down at him, illuminating him with their lights, looking at his dead
face, at the bullet holes in his chest, wondering what came next.  Many of
them were relieved.  Surely they couldn't go on now that their commanding
officer was dead, could they?

Stu wandered over, as if he was just happening across the scene.  He looked
down at Bracken, as if seeing him for the first time.  "Looks like you're in
charge now," he said to Colby.

"Me?" Colby said, terrified at the very thought of leading this beaten army
into battle.

"You," Stu confirmed.

Later he would take Colby aside privately to let him know that he would
offer any assistance necessary to carry on Bracken's plans.  "I'm here for
you," he told him.  "If you need help, just ask."

A grateful Colby thanked him graciously for his assistance.





Al Steiner
4-3-01
Chapter 18 to follow

-- 
Pursuant to the Berne Convention, this work is copyright with all rights
reserved by its author unless explicitly indicated.
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