Ash: Rise of the Republic (10 page)

“Ruben,” replied the Captain, “you know
you’ve had me out west watching our border with the Texan Union. I
can’t be in two places at once. I don’t see how Tom and his 2nd
Rangers couldn’t stumble across that nest of snakes. Hell maybe the
crooked bastards have been stopping their patrols early to gamble
in Navasota. All we had to do was follow the smoke. Anyone could
have followed the trail they left.”

“Well there’ll be hell to pay if that’s
true.” He sat heavily at his desk, his chair creaked in protest.
“Here’s the problem: The last three fuel shipments were destroyed.
We haven’t received a drop of gas for a month. You know we keep a
reserve, but that won’t last long. If we can’t open that highway
this whole thing we’ve built comes grinding to a halt in a month.
If we can’t get that fuel through we’re back to the stone-age.”

He shuffled through the papers on his desk.
“I’ve got the factories running overtime right now, by next week
we’ll be able to arm a thousand men. I’ve set aside a strategic
diesel reserve so that we can mobilize the armor. The mechanics say
the jet engines in the tanks are shot, but we’ve got the two
Bradleys and the Stryker. As you noticed this morning, we’re
risking one of the helicopters to shuttle ammo down to Brian. They
should be on the way with the second load now.

“In terms of manpower, we’ve had an
overwhelming response to the muster orders. There are nearly eight
hundred men and women packed into one of the old cadet dorms
already. We’ve been drilling them daily, but most of them are
green, I don’t expect much from them. Beal can spare two hundred
veterans from the Guard. They’re down there now working with the
volunteers, organizing them into companies.

The Captain whistled. “With Brian’s troops
we’ll have nearly twelve hundred. We haven’t raised an army that
big in twenty years.”

Garza ignored him. “I’ll need the rangers as
scouts, all three companies. You’ll be in charge; I’ve already
broken the news to Reid and Collier. They took it about as well as
you would expect, but they’re on board. The outlying settlements
will just have to fend for themselves for a few weeks until we can
get this thing under control.”

Captains Tom Collier and Bill “Buddy” Reid
led the two other ranger troops which patrolled the Republic’s
borders. They were both competent, experienced men. McLelland knew
their pride would be wounded by his appointment. He hoped they
would accept his command without much trouble.

“I bumped in to Old Beal downstairs; he
looks like he’s falling apart. He can barely manage the Guard, let
alone an army that size. The logistics alone would give him a
stroke. So who’s in command of this new army?” The Captain asked
warily, suspecting what was coming.

“Colonel Garza, of course.”

A dark look crossed the Captain’s face, he
moved as if to speak. The Governor moved closer to ward off the
protest, leaning over the desk and looking the Captain in the
eye.

“I know you don’t think much of my son, but
he deserves a chance to prove himself. This is happening, whether
you go along or not. Just say the word and you can help General
Beal protect the campus walls. I don’t want that though. I need you
McLelland, the Republic needs you. My son will need your counsel.
You helped build this thing, now help us fight for it.”

McLelland bristled, but Deb laid her hand on
his arm. He spoke, formal now. “With all due respect sir, your son
is not fit to lead this army. Do I need to remind you of the Dallas
Expedition? He was in charge of a force less than half the size
and…”

Garza cut him off with a curt wave.
Annoyance flared in his eyes.

"There is no need to dredge up the past,
Captain. Peter has learned from his mistakes and I believe he is
ready for the responsibility. Need I remind you Captain, that you
have never led more than fifty men? You are hardly in the position
to judge my son’s capabilities."

The Captain sighed in resignation and
glanced at his wife. After a calculated pause he acquiesced. "I’ll
scout for him, and I’ll even follow his orders, but Governor, I do
this under protest. I think this is a bad decision. I’ve already
played your son’s safety net once. I won’t be there to catch him if
he falls again.”

“I am confident it won’t be an issue.” The
Governor was relieved. He had expected more of a fight.

“We'll need to arrange a recon flight or two
with the RNTAF of course."

"Anything you need."

****

Two days later, the Captain stood in the dim,
cavernous, lecture hall at the center of the old geoscience
building. Fifty clean-shaven men in smartly pressed grey uniforms
were arrayed in front of him. They were the best NCOs and junior
officers of the regular army, the Campus Guard. The 1st Rangers
lounged to the side, uniforms ragged, looking grim and intimidating
while they sharpened knives and fidgeted with their rifles. The two
other ranger companies were on patrol, scouring the settlements for
news of the army of outlaws.

Colonel Peter Garza was at the podium,
addressing his officers. The portly commander was still young,
barely thirty five. He was only a hair over five feet tall, but his
small frame carried a surprising bulk. The Captain thought he
probably tipped the scales at over three hundred and fifty pounds.
The rotund man stood out in a world in which countless souls
starved to death in the stark wastelands every day. His weight was
the product of a comfortable life as the son of an important man in
the most affluent city-state in the known world. To the Captain, he
was a symbol of the softness that is often produced by successful
civilizations. He represented the lack of discipline and competence
that had made the aftermath of the pillar so devastating for
society. He was decadence incarnate to the Captain, and he was now
in charge.

“…is going to go over what intelligence we
have available at this point. Captain?”

McLelland took his cue and walked to the
podium. He peered out over the assembly, cleared his throat, and
advanced to the first slide with the small remote in his hand.

"Good morning gentlemen. The fly-boys took
this yesterday. Note the burned warehouse here. As you can see,
they've set up camp nearby. Judging by the number of shelters
they've put up and the campfires, we're looking at nearly five
hundred of them. Werner must have been planning this for a while.
He's probably gathered every gang of outlaws in a thousand miles.
If their numbers continue to grow at this rate we might be looking
at close to a thousand men by the time we’re ready to march. We
know they're well-armed but we don't know the extent. They have at
least one heavy machine gun: they tried to light our boys up just
after this picture was taken. If they have one we should assume
they have more. I'm worried about how much ammunition they seem to
have. I've never seen bandits use it so freely. I'm worried they
might have stumbled on some old national guard armory or something.
If that's the case, we might have to worry about anti-tank weapons
and explosives. The 2nd and 3rd rangers are on the ground,
shadowing them. We’ll know if they make any moves.”

The Captain relinquished the podium, and the
Colonel gave his closing remarks.

"Thank you Captain. Needless to say, we need
to move on this as soon as we can. I need each of you to return to
your companies and speed up training however you can. Rely on the
older volunteers to help with the younger ones. They might not be
trained soldiers but if they've lived for long they're not
incompetent. I want them ready for inspection in two days. By
tomorrow I want a detailed supply and equipment request for each
company. We move out in a week people, we'll have a final briefing
before we deploy. You're dismissed."

After the officers had shuffled out, the
Captain beckoned at his troop to take the front row.

"The rangers are going to be to be taking on
the brunt of the scouting work. These garrison troops aren’t good
for much more than looking pretty. Since you’ll be up close and
personal it’s important that you know what you're up against. You
need to hear the rest of Werner's story. We never did find him
after he killed our people that morning, but he did find us..."

Chapter 5

August, 0 PC (2015 AD)

*

“
Overall, religion played a
positive role amongst the survivors, but there were a number of
sects which took advantage of the disaster. Evangelical Christians
were particularly dangerous to the fragile remnants of
civilization. They believed the rapture had come…”

-Colleen Greenheld , ‘Survivors In The Dust”; RNT
University Press, 39 PC (2054 AD);

*

A month after the ash started falling, the lights
finally went out. We woke up one morning to blank clocks and silent
refrigerators. It was not unexpected, we had been preparing for it
since the beginning. Freezers were quickly emptied and all the
frozen meat in the neighborhood was strung up in the new smokehouse
or cooked on propane stoves. Canned food was set aside so that we
could eat everything that might spoil.

We weren't too concerned about the food. It
had been a productive month. The group in charge of food production
had taken over one of the vacant houses and nicknamed it ‘the
farm’. Its empty rooms were quickly filled with their projects.

A large inflatable pool was set up in the
living room and a group of neighborhood kids had been put to work
with fishing poles and cast nets around the small communal pond in
the center of the subdivision. They had stocked the small pool with
dozens of catfish, bass, and crappie.

A dozen skinny chickens and a rooster had
been found scratching in futility at the ash on an abandoned farm
nearby. One of the bedrooms was set up as a coop for them. The
children took turns gathering their eggs each morning.

Eight pigs were housed in the garage. Every
night, the families brought their scraps and poured them in a
makeshift trough. We were excited for bacon and chops, but they
were scrawny when we found them, we were forced to let them fatten
for a few weeks.

Two had also been found in a nearby pasture.
These we initially kept under the large covered back porch of ‘the
farm’, hoping for fresh milk. After a week of scouring the area for
clean bales of hay to feed them, we decided we would rather have
fresh beef.

Our main worry was water. Without
electricity, the pumps on the municipal wells wouldn't run. Knowing
it was only a matter of time before our faucets ran dry, everyone
filled their bathtubs and sinks to the brim. Every empty container
in the neighborhood was filled and stored with the supplies in the
meeting house. The crew in charge of digging the well had made
progress, but they had yet to pull more than a few buckets of muddy
water from their hole. The small pond was an option, but we were
worried that the ash had tainted it. Soon after the children had
stocked the pool in ‘the farm’, the remaining fish had begun
floating to the surface, belly up. We decided we would use the
questionable water source only as a last resort.

As we hurried around cooking meat and
filling bottles, we heard the alarm from the central guard post.
The four of us who were on duty as the quick response team rushed
to investigate. The sentry on the roof beckoned me up, waving his
binoculars. From his vantage point, I could see a figure stumbling
across the pasture on the other side of the thicket behind my
house. I ordered all the guard posts manned and led my well-armed
team to intercept the intruder.

By the time the four of us filtered through
the twisted yaupons at the edge of the pasture, the figure had
fallen forward. He lay in the ash, face down. We approached
cautiously. He groaned softly as we gently turned him over. It took
me a moment to see past the grime and blood on his face, but his
torn uniform sparked recognition. I shook the exhausted man by the
shoulder until he opened his eyes.

"If you're here, who's guarding the power
plant?" I asked the security guard.

"They're all dead," he said with a frenzied
wheeze, "Those fuckers came in force, took the fence out with a
truck. They were all over us before we could respond. Must have
been fifty of them.” He paused for a deep, rattling cough. “They
weren't lookin’ for food either. They just killed everybody and
tore the place up. I got a few of them but there was too many.” His
eyes darted between our faces. “I jumped in the lake to get away. I
swam all the way across. I was hoping I could find your place,
wanted to warn you." The cough wracked his body again. "I hope
you're ready for 'em, they'll damn sure be here soon.”

We helped him up and rushed him up the hill
to the vet, hoping she could do something for him. As we walked,
his arm draped over my shoulder, I realized, "Hey I never caught
your name, boss."

"Beal, Andy Beal. Glad to meet you."

****

While the vet was patching up the shaken security
guard, I sent word around for everyone to drop what they were
doing, arm themselves, and report to the meeting house. We decided
to increase security immediately. Except a few kids who would be in
charge of running the smokehouse and feeding the livestock, every
man, woman, and child strong enough to pull a trigger was sent to a
guardpost. Pickets with flare guns were set a few hundred yards
away on each of the main roads. Their instructions were to launch
their flares and retreat to the perimeter the second they saw
anyone coming up the road. We split into two twelve hour watches to
keep the maximum number of eyes open at any given time. Even
counting kids, we were less than sixty strong. If Beal’s estimate
on the enemy strength was accurate, we would be in for a close
fight.

The flare came sooner than we expected.
Early in the evening the following day those of us in the central
guard post heard the whoosh and watched with sudden dread as the
bright spot of magnesium flame began floating slowly back to earth.
In a rush of adrenaline, I trained my binoculars down the highway
with shaking hands. A line of trucks was moving slowly through the
trench we had cleared a few weeks before. I recognized the lead
vehicle immediately: my red Toyota. A man was standing in the bed
waving a white bath towel tied to a mop handle over his head. I
asked the sentry behind me to sound the alarm.