Feral Nation - Tenacity, page 1
part #12 of Feral Nation Series Series
FERAL NATION - TENACITY
BOOK TWELVE OF THE FERAL NATION SERIES
SCOTT B. WILLIAMS
FERAL NATION - TENACITY
Feral Nation Series
Book Twelve
Scott B. Williams
www.scottbwilliams.com
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters and events are all products of the author’s imagination and should not be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons living or dead is purely coincidental.
Copyright © 2023 by Scott B. Williams
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the author.
Cover and interior design © Scott B. Williams
04.21.23
Lightning Struck Press
Created with Vellum
SERIES ORDER
The Feral Nation series is an ongoing serial. Each book is an immediate continuation of the earlier story, so for the best reading experience the books should be read in order, starting with Book 1.
Here are the links to the current books in the series:
Feral Nation - Infiltration: Book 1
Feral Nation - Insurrection: Book 2
Feral Nation - Tribulation: Book 3
Feral Nation - The Divide: Book 4
Feral Nation - Perseverance: Book 5
Feral Nation - Convergence: Book 6
Feral Nation - Sabotage: Book 7
Feral Nation - Defiance: Book 8
Feral Nation - Alliances: Book 9
Feral Nation - Retaliation: Book 10
Feral Nation - Opposition: Book 11
Feral Nation - Tenacity: Book 12
Feral Nation - Consequences: Book 13 (coming soon)
These links will be updated as new books are added to the series. Be the first to know what’s coming next in this series as well as my newest series: In Times to Come, by signing up for my New Release Updates
CONTENTS
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Keep Reading
More by Scott B. Williams
About the Author
ONE
Matt Griggs shook off the heavy blow that almost knocked him unconscious as he pushed himself up to his hands and knees from the muddy, leaf littered ground upon which he’d fallen. The low murmur of whispered comments and chuckles among the other recruits compounded his humiliation. Griggs wanted to kill Keith Branson then and there, but he knew that any attempt to do so, even if he had the ability, would be futile. Branson had the full support of nearly all the other twenty-two men there, and he had the backup of the other two trainers, his father, Bart Branson, and another older man named Sam Necaise, both of whom carried rifles as they stood there watching the spectacle alongside the recruits.
That final vicious punch was the third time Keith Branson had effortlessly put him down hard after Griggs took his first swing at the man, and by now, Griggs admitted he’d had enough. Ignoring all the eyes that he knew were locked upon him, watching to see what he would do next, Griggs staggered the rest of the way to his feet and moved to the perimeter of the circle of onlookers. The men in his path stepped aside, and Griggs walked a short distance away to stare into the surrounding empty woods as he fumed.
“Anyone else?” Griggs heard Branson demand of the group. “Anyone else think they’ve got better ideas than I do about how to run this outfit? Anyone else man enough to step up here and prove it? If so, speak up now! If not, then shut up and fall back in line!”
Griggs didn’t expect anyone to make a move, and they didn’t. Some of the other guys had grumbled and complained, but none had the nerve to call Branson out the way Griggs had. They just followed orders like it was their only option and went right back to running the drills Branson had them working on out there in the expanse of bottomland hardwoods that bordered the nearby bayou. Griggs hated this environment almost as much as he hated Keith Branson. He hated the mud and stench of the swamp even more than he’d hated the scorching deserts in which he’d served most of his time in the Army. Matt Griggs was no stranger to the woods, but he was from the northwestern corner of Georgia, a region where the higher elevations at the southern end of the Appalachians made the air cool and refreshing, even in the summer. On those wooded slopes, the ground was rocky and solid beneath one’s feet, and the streams ran cold and clear, in stark contrast to the stagnant brown sloughs of this river-bottom lowland that stank of rotting vegetation, dead fish and mud.
Griggs missed those rugged hills and had figured all along that if he could make his way back there, he’d be a lot better off there than just about anywhere else he could think of in this country gone mad. He’d been attempting to do exactly that when he got caught up in all the chaos after finding himself stranded in Houston when it became impossible to get a flight back to Atlanta the moment things took a sharp turn for the worse. That was so many months ago it seemed like another life to him now though. Griggs still wasn’t sure how he would get to Georgia, but after he and most of the other men here with him were liberated from that C.R.I. work camp and talked into coming here, he knew the folks running this militia weren’t going to help him do it. Keith Branson and his cohorts were dug in here in the Atchafalaya Basin, and it was obvious they weren’t planning to leave.
From what he gathered, they had quite a few more people and considerable resources in the form of boats, weapons, and other supplies at some secret base camp nearby they called Sierra Zulu. Griggs didn’t know exactly where this hideout was located, because none of the new recruits were allowed to go there. The handful of refugees from the work camp that were taken there were all women and children that had nowhere else to go. But Griggs and those here with him hadn’t seen any of them since. Those like him, who volunteered to join the militia, were mostly unattached, or were at least separated by circumstance from the families they’d had before. Some of the detainees freed from that camp still had homes or family holding out in the region, and most of those folks chose to leave and go back to them, despite the warnings from Branson and the other leaders that it was a bad idea. While Griggs acknowledged that maybe that was true, after what he’d seen here, he thought being a part of this outfit was a far worse idea, and he had already made his decision to leave even before this most recent confrontation with Keith Branson today. It wasn’t their first dispute, but it was the first time one of their clashes had come to blows, and for Griggs, it was the final straw.
He was fed up and thoroughly done with this situation and there was no way he would stay there and put up with more of what he considered to be not only idiocy, but downright treason. He was confident of the illegitimacy of this so-called militia that Keith Branson, along with his brother, Eric and his father, Bart, had put together. While all three men were allegedly military veterans with extensive combat experience, as far as Griggs was concerned, they were also traitors to the nation that he himself had once served with honor.
It seemed to him that the Bransons and their co-conspirators were more interested in establishing control of the region for their own interests, despite what they told the new recruits to the contrary. To Griggs, that made them little different from the mercenaries working for the private contracting organization into whose hands he and his companions had fallen before. While this new ‘militia’ that rescued them hadn’t confined them or forced them to do hard labor the way the C.R.I. thugs had, they had expected them to fall in line for rigorous training and follow orders as if they were new conscripts that just landed in boot camp. And through it all, Branson and the others with him were talking of the dangerous operations in which they would soon be expected to participate—operations against forces that were far stronger and far better equipped than they could ever hope to be out here, hiding out in this swampy backwater.
Like the rest of the men there, Griggs was grateful to be away from that C.R.I. camp, and grateful to be armed and provided ammunition, provisions and the other basic essentials. He’d had high hopes for the entire enterprise at first, because he was as eager for revenge against those mercs that had detained them as the next man. But since they’d relocated here and got the training camp and routine established, Griggs quickly figured out he was going to have trouble fitting in. For one thing, Griggs felt like he knew as much or more about military operations as any of these three in charge now. He’d served in the U.S. Army for four years as a combat engineer, working his way up from the bottom to the rank of specialist. Moreover, most of those years were spent on deployments to the Middle East, where he’d seen his share of real combat against a determined enemy. It didn’t sit well to be taking orders from a couple of Marines, one of which hadn’t worn the uniform since the early 1970s, and the other that same man’s son who was a deputy here after doing his own short time overseas. The third guy working with them as an instructor was an old local backwoodsman named Sam Necaise, who had no military experience at all.
But worse still was the fo
Now the two of them were claiming that the same private military company that had been running that detention camp was working in conjunction with remnants of actual Army National Guard units! They claimed that those units were no longer serving the United States they’d sworn to defend, but Griggs didn't buy it. He didn’t believe it possible for entire garrisons of soldiers sworn to serve their country to be subverted or coerced into treason, no matter what these two jarheads and the other locals fighting with them claimed to have seen. Griggs knew individuals might do such a thing, but all the enlisted men and NCOs, as well as their superiors too? How was he supposed to believe that, coming from these two Marines that were actively discussing and planning operations against uniformed troops?
They were seriously preparing the recruits to set up ambushes and sniper hides, telling them that these rogue troops would be returning in larger numbers to the area and that it was imperative to go on the offense against them before they could establish a foothold in the river basin. Griggs understood how most of the civilian men among the recruits could be persuaded by this. They’d been displaced and mistreated by men in uniform and were ready to lash out at whoever they thought was responsible. But Griggs wasn’t having any part of it! He couldn’t imagine firing on soldiers wearing the same uniform he wore when he served in the Army. That was just madness, and besides, they wouldn’t stand a chance of success anyway, whether those soldiers were the good guys or the bad.
Griggs was determined to get away from it before any of those plans came to fruition, but he knew he couldn't leave immediately that afternoon. He had planning to do, and besides, he didn't intend to go alone. There was one other man in their small group that somewhat saw things the same way he did, and Griggs knew he wasn’t among those cracking jokes or suppressing laughter while watching him take that beating from Keith Branson. That one man was named Boyd Moreau, and after talking it over with him quietly that evening after they returned to camp, Griggs was certain Moreau would be willing to go with him when the time came.
“I’m with you on leaving. I want to get away from this mess too,” Moreau said, “but the thing I'm most concerned about is whether we’ll ever find anyone out there we can trust.”
“Don't worry about that,” Griggs assured him. “With my background in the Army, I’ll be able to figure out who’s who when the time comes. It's not hard to tell the difference between jokers like these guys running the show here and the real deal.”
“What if there aren’t any that are the real deal, though? What if they never send any more actual military troops to this area? If it's like Branson says it is, that mercenary outfit already controls everywhere west and north of here. You know that’s why his brother went east to look for help. Maybe we should go that way too.”
“I don't think so, even though I’ll have to go east eventually to get back to my hometown. Going that way right now isn’t feasible. It’s too far, and it involves crossing the Mississippi River. There’s no bridge anywhere near this area, so we’d have to steal one of the boats, and if we did that, it’d be easier for them to come looking for us than if we just bug out of here on foot.
“Besides, there are no military bases that I know of near the river over there anyway and even if there were, there’s no way to know if they are still operational, considering the situation. I think we’re better off going up there to that outpost where we know there were soldiers, whether Branson thinks they were legit or not. If they really killed as many of those men as he says they did and they were legit, I can guarantee you it won’t be long before more troops come rolling in there to investigate and figure out why they lost contact with them! Things may be chaotic right now, but all wars are chaos, and that’s what they’re trained to deal with.”
Griggs had expected it would take a bit of convincing to get Moreau to see his reasoning. He was just glad there was at least one man among the recruits that was open to considering what he had to say. He would go alone if he had to, but it was much better to have a companion. Two men could keep watch better than one, and when they did encounter the authorities, the two of them could vouch for each other, backing up each other’s stories if they were subjected to interrogation, which Griggs figured was probable.
While it was true that Moreau’s concerns were valid, Griggs didn’t believe this C.R.I. outfit controlled as much territory as Branson claimed. He didn’t doubt they’d set their sights on taking over this part of Louisiana, because he’d already seen evidence of that. They’d done pretty well at rounding up people and putting them in those detention camps, but Griggs knew it couldn't last long. The real military would be coming in to set things straight. He was sure that the only reason they hadn’t yet was because they had their hands full everywhere else at the moment and hadn’t been able to spare the resources to secure this region yet. And the main reason they had their hands so full was that people exactly like Keith Branson and his gang of outlaws were taking the law into their own hands and making up new laws as they went along. Griggs didn't know if reporting what they knew would do much good right now, but he knew that eventually, men like Keith Branson would be rounded up and brought to justice. And he had to convince Moreau that he didn’t want to be there among them when it happened, which proved simple enough.
“The way things have been in this situation; I wouldn't be surprised to see them line all these guys up and execute them on the spot. That includes the leaders and their followers. The last thing you want to do is get caught with a bunch of insurgents like them in a time of war. They will be considered enemy combatants in the field, and POWs if taken captive. But this isn’t a normal war and any NCO in this situation won’t have the time or resources to handle them, as a group or on a case-by-case basis. They’ll be interrogated to gain any intel that can be extracted from them to help round up their associates, and then they’ll be taken care of then and there.”
Griggs knew Moreau was convinced once he put it to him like that.
“Look, you’ll be serving your country by turning your back on this band of terrorists. I’d be willing to bet we’ll both get rewarded for any intel we can provide on these guys. We’ll get protection and a place to go, if nothing else.”
“We still don’t know where Branson and the rest go every time they leave here, though. Any soldiers we report to are going to want to know that.”
“We won’t get it by hanging around here any longer either, and you know it. But you also know it can’t be far from here. You said it yourself, that you figure it’s somewhere in the maze of bayous and canals to the southeast, and we know from hearing their boat motor every day that they’re coming and going from downriver. We don’t need the exact location. We can provide them enough to go on, and it’ll be easy enough for them to hunt them down.”
Moreau’s familiarity with the local area was another tremendous advantage to bringing him along. Moreau had told him he’d spent his childhood in Morgan City, which was located on the Atchafalaya some distance to the south, and he had spent a lot of time on the river back in those days. He knew many parts of the vast swamp and he knew something of the local culture even though he’d hardly been back in his adult life, and it was just an unfortunate circumstance that left him stranded there a few months prior.
