The Precipice: The Chronicles of Altor, page 19
Forster jogged over to him. “Thank you for the warning.”
“These idiots have been here for two days. They came in guns blazing. It was a pretty good battle, but they ended up killing more of us than we were able to kill of them. They took families hostage and said they’d kill ‘em one by one if we didn’t lay down our guns.”
“How many of them are there?”
“Started out with about seventy or eighty. There’s maybe twenty now.”
“Any idea how many of them were here in the town square when we rolled in?”
“That was just the guys on watch. They saw you coming and came back here to set a little ambush.” The man spat and said, “Who the hell tries to ambush tanks with rifles?” He shook his head. “Like I said, idiots.”
“Do you know where the rest of them are? Are they together or spread out?
“Most of ‘em are up in Mayor Hawkins’ place. He owned the biggest house in town.” The man pointed vaguely at a street that headed north out of the square. “Up there on the hill, about half a mile out of town. You’ll know it when you see it. They’ve got it decked out like a fortress.”
Forster considered asking what that meant but decided to wait until he saw it for himself.
“It looks like we’ve cleaned out the ones who were here. We’ll go finish the job.” He paused, then looked at the man. He had a neat white beard and a good face. “We won’t be able to stay, though. You’ll need to organize yourself so no one else can come in like these people did.”
The man nodded. “We’re already working on it. It would help if we could have whatever weapons and ammo they leave behind.”
“It’s all yours,” Stanton said with a wave. He retreated to the Humvee, where Brewster was waiting with a report.
“Blew the snot out of those buildings. Four dead up there.”
“I think I found the rest of them. Looks like they’re holed up in a big house half a mile up the road. Anything we can do for Smith?”
“Not a damned thing. We’ll load him in one of the trucks and take him back with us.”
This wasn’t just the first man Forster had ever lost, it was the only real injury sustained under his command. Previously, the worst had been a second-degree burn caused by a barbecue accident.
“Send the Griffins out first. We’ll follow in the Humvees. Leave the supply truck here. Put the extra men inside the Griffins.”
The light tank had a maximum cruising speed of fifty MPH, but there was no need to go that fast. The target was in easy range.
They ran into their first obstacle a hundred yards away. Two semi-tractor trailers were parked lengthwise across the road. But they were really no obstacle to the Griffin IVs. They slowed but hit the trucks at low speed, easily pushing them aside.
It soon became apparent that this was their primary deterrent to approaching vehicles. Trucks, cars, even boats on trailers were parked to block the road. The tanks pushed through all of them easily.
The Humvees trailed the Griffins by a hundred yards. The tanks could absorb anything that was likely to be thrown at them, while the Humvees, though steel-plated and with bullet-resistant glass, were not armored.
When the tanks pushed through the last of the blocking vehicles, they saw their objective—a large three-story house with tall columns at the front.
Forster had been uncertain what the man in town had meant when he said the place was decked out like a fortress. Now he saw. There was a long row of concertina wire, with another deployment of vehicles behind it. Impressive enough to stop civilians, but again not enough to pose any threat to the Griffins.
Forster and Brewster pulled their Humvees in behind the Griffins and unloaded, making sure to keep the tanks between them and the house. There were eyes on them, undoubtedly.
Forster once again grabbed his bullhorn and said, “This is your chance to come out of this alive. Lay down your weapons and we will take you into custody.”
There was no response for a long minute, then a man’s voice answered from within the house, carrying on the slight breeze. “We’ve got hostages in here. If you kill us, you’ll kill them.”
Brewster shook his head. “Twenty years ago, this would have been a problem.”
“To be fair,” Forster said, “it’s still a problem.”
“But if we’re smart, we can fix it.” Into his comm, Brewster said, “Henricks, activate the Xenon 2000.”
“Roger, sir,” the answer crackled back immediately.
The Xenon 2000 was a new and improved tech that used millimeter wave radar to see through any material—wood, concrete, even steel. The Xenon’s military uses were obvious, and every Griffin IV carried one on board. Earlier versions had required the device to be within inches of the wall. Improvements in the technology had allowed it to be deployed at greater and greater distances.
Now, the range was up to one hundred yards if there were no obstructions.
They were within that range, but the row of vehicles behind the wire blocked the view.
The Griffins rolled forward until they pushed the cars and trucks blocking their view out of the way.
The voice inside the house said, “Hey! Hey, goddamnit, I mean it. You come at us with those tanks and these people are all dead.”
“He sounds a little more panicked now,” Brewster said.
Once the tanks had a clear view of the house, they stopped.
“Good,” the voice inside the house screamed. “You just saved their lives. Now back the hell up and leave us alone!”
“Hendricks, report.”
“There are a lot of people in there, sir. I count twenty-four different bodies.”
“How many of them are holding weapons?”
There was silence for forty seconds, then Hendricks said, “I count nineteen holding guns.”
“These machines are unbelievable,” Brewster said. “I think if I asked what they had for breakfast, it could tell us that, too.” He clicked his comm back on and said, “Are the civilians all in one place?”
“Yes, sir. Five unarmed people sitting on the floor in the upper bedroom to the east.”
“What’s our move?” Forster asked.
Brewster was quiet for several heartbeats, then said, “Gregson, can you see where everyone is inside?”
“Yes, sir, I can.”
“Can the fifty caliber take out all armed personnel and leave the hostages unharmed?”
“No problem,” Gregson answered, as though he had been asked if he could pick up lunch for everyone.
Forster opened his comm line and said, “Do it.”
The quiet was shattered by the .50 caliber firing dozens of rounds into the house in just a few seconds.
“All armed personnel down, sir.” Gregson was as cool as the other side of the pillow.
“Gonzalez,” Brewster ordered, “take your men and search the house. Make sure everyone who is down, stays down.”
Two minutes later, Gonzalez escorted the hostages out of the house. All five were young women. They clung together and Forster approached them carefully. He could tell they had been through a lot by looking at them.
“We’ll get you back to town to your families.”
The oldest of the women, who looked like she might be in her early twenties, said, “They killed all our families. They took everything.”
Forster was at a loss for what to say, so helped them into the first Humvee and directed the driver to take them back to town.
The convoy made it back to base after dark. The guard at the gate radioed ahead and Colonel Brandt and Captain Michaels were waiting for them when they got to HQ.
It was a surreal scene as Forster briefed his superior officers on what had happened at Stanton. When he finished, he said, “As close as that town is to us, we never would have known what was happening if we hadn’t gotten that radio call. I wonder how many other towns are in our area where something similar is happening? Maybe not to the same extent, but in times of chaos, the strong tend to take what they want.”
“We’ve had this same conversation while you were gone. We can’t sit here, safe behind our fences and walls, while the people we’re supposed to be protecting are in danger. We’re going to form a special unit to go from town to town. We’ll make sure you’ve got plenty of firepower.”
Part Two
Welcome to the Future
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Dust City
Work inside the dome had essentially ceased. All focus and work hours had now been allocated to finishing things on the outside and finalizing the process for engaging the time lock.
There were still things to button up inside, but all systems were more or less operative. All life support systems were working five by five. Everything else inside could be finished once the door closed.
The greatest activity inside was admitting the new citizens of Altor. They arrived first in a trickle, then a steady flow. It was much more rushed than Quinn had wanted it to be, but they had been caught short by the events of the previous twelve hours. Even Janus got caught flat-footed sometimes.
They knew now that they didn’t have a year, or a month, or possibly even a week to get things finished and permanently shut out the outside world. The time they had until they needed to be safely locked inside the dome was now measured in hours. They were hopeful that it wasn’t measured in minutes, because if it was, they were going to be in trouble.
The person in charge of all weaponry in Altor was John Steele, known to everyone as simply General. Steele had led an interesting life. He had been a career military officer. He flew through the ranks and had attained the rank of colonel by the time he was forty-two. It was obvious to anyone who knew him that he was on track for general sooner rather than later.
And then, the event in Myanmar changed his life forever. One of the units that served under him took an ill-advised action that resulted in the loss of years of progress with several American allies. That action was taken without his knowledge, but Steele understood why those under him had made those choices. He had always flown in the face of tradition and focused on empowering those he chose to lead to make their own decisions. He wouldn’t turn his back on them for having done so, no matter how poorly things turned out.
The obvious thing to do would have been to let the resulting career damage fall on the head of the officer who made the decision. Steele did not do that but instead took full responsibility himself. That ended his fast track to generalship. Two years later, he left the service and went into the private sector.
Only those who worked under him knew the truth of the situation and the personal sacrifice he had made to protect them. Those soldiers were intensely loyal to Steele and many of them mustered out over the next half decade.
Unsurprisingly, many of them ended up working with Steele on the secret project with Quinn Starkweather in the Nevada desert. Those soldiers were the first to call Steele General, even though he never attained that rank. He initially objected to that, but eventually saw that it was a sign of respect from those who served with him. It spread, and now most everyone knew Steele simply by that title.
Steele was hired to be the practical liaison between the scientists who had devised weapons and defense systems and Starkweather and Marshall. They had done the near-impossible of developing cutting-edge weapons systems without the government knowing about it. Or so it seemed. Steele was convinced that at some point the government knew, but by then, it was too late to do much about it.
Governmental overreach was taken for granted, but it didn’t always happen instantly.
He was at the top of the chain of command when it came to the defense of Altor. The staff who served under him was small, but each of those people had specialized skills.
Until recently, very little thought had been given to Dust City and its residents. Quinn had originally thought that after Altor was finished, he would bring a large percentage of the Dust City residents into the dome and others would simply return home. Once he found that Janus had spit out a list that didn’t include many Dusters, as the residents of that thrown-together city called themselves, he didn’t want to abandon the rest to their fates.
He had directed Steele and his team of scientists and soldiers to quickly adapt the many defenses of Altor to extend protection to Dust City. With the chaos outside the dome increasing exponentially, Quinn knew that before long, many of the displaced and hungry people would seek out Altor.
He wasn’t concerned about the security of the domed city. He’d had a decade to work on and build the most advanced defensive systems any city had ever possessed. He believed Altor would survive almost any attack relatively unscathed. The exception of course, was if someone detonated a nuclear weapon directly on the city, or if it was exposed to relentless, constant pounding from artillery. There were no precautions for events like that, though they had taken care to find ways to flummox most missile homing systems.
Dust City was another case altogether. It was a gathering of temporary structures, tents, pole buildings, and manufactured homes that had sprung up organically to serve Altor.
Now that Quinn was using the list that Janus made to invite citizens into Altor, the vast majority of people in Dust City were going to be left outside the safety of the dome.
These were people who had given years of their life to building Altor to his exacting standards. It was impossible for him to bring them inside—that would doom everyone by placing too heavy a burden on Altor’s carefully calculated operating systems.
Quinn wouldn’t abandon them, though. He would do everything he could to give them a fighting chance.
At least half of the weaponry that served Altor was too specifically designed for that city and was useless for Dust City. There were a number of powerful weapons and systems that would aid them greatly, however.
Dust City would be better equipped to defend itself than virtually any city left in the nearly destroyed nation.
But first, they had to get the weaponry and systems installed, and Steele knew that someone had to break that news to the citizens of Dust City.
Marshall and the General sat in a small conference room in Altor.
Marshall shifted uncomfortably. He hated conflict. “This is going to be a bitch,”
“The best way out is always through,” Steele said.
“Robert Frost?”
“I suppose,” Steele said. “Him or Patton, probably. Either way, doesn’t matter. It’s true. We’ve got no time left and a tough job ahead. The only way to get it done is to push through it. Let’s go.”
Marshall and Steele walked out of the meeting room into the perfectly temperate dome. The air was clean and smelled slightly like a forest after a rainstorm, though there was no forest within five hundred miles and they hadn’t seen rain in six months.
Marshall glanced at Steele. “Are you going to be able to get used to this daily dose of perfection?”
Steele marched on, but said, “After the things I’ve seen, boring perfection is going to be pretty easy to adjust to.”
They climbed into an SUV that was parked just inside the opening to the dome. As soon as they were inside, the driver headed toward Dust City, which was slightly less than two miles away.
“I’ve called ahead and spoken to Pierce,” Marshall said. “All non-essential personnel are gathered and waiting for us. Would you like me to speak to them?”
Steele considered that. “These are not my men. They don’t know me, except perhaps by reputation. Most everyone there thinks you’re the CEO of the whole shebang. This should come from you. I’ll be there for backup.”
Marshall nodded. He was not much for public speaking, but he knew Steele was right. He snuck a quick glance at Steele out of the corner of his eye. He took in the buzz cut, fifty years out of style. The color of the hair that matched his name. The jaw line, barrel chest, and clear eyes that showed he was a leader of men. If he could choose someone to be his backup, Steele was a good choice.
They made the trip from Altor to Dust City in under five minutes, meeting several trucks hauling last-minute loads to Altor. Stepping out of the air-conditioned environment of the SUV and into the reality of the hundred-degree heat, dust and sun was always a bit of a shock for Marshall.
A tall, blond man with a cockeyed grin was leaning against a signpost. It was Adrian Pierce, often called The Mayor of Dust City, though there was no such office. Pierce controlled the flow of alcohol and oversaw the dice and VR games, though, so he was probably more powerful than any mayor might have been.
There were signs tacked haphazardly under a hand painted sign at the top that read: Dust City – Abandon cleanliness all who enter here. Below that were signs that read Hell – closer than you think, and The nearest place to spend your money is too far away. Stay here and gamble.
The blond man pushed off the sign and stood up straight when Marshall and Steele climbed out of the SUV.
“Marshall. General,” Pierce said. He lowered his reflective sunglasses and his piercing blue eyes showed that he did not miss much of anything. “It’s gotta be bad news if you wanted me to gather everybody together. But with everything that’s happened in the world, I don’t think there’s any other kind of news, is there?”
Marshall shrugged. “We’re gonna give it to you straight.”
“I was hoping for a little kiss and maybe some lube before you gave it to me straight,” Pierce said.
A small chortle escaped from Steele, but when Marshall looked at him, he was as straight-faced as ever.
“Well, it is what it is,” Pierce said. “Which is what folks like us always say when we’re about to have something given to us straight, right?”
Marshall didn’t answer.
“We’ve built you a little stage out of old pallets. The stairs are made out of wooden apple boxes. Only the best here in Dust City.” Pierce pointed to a small, raised platform that was perhaps ten feet by ten feet. There was a single microphone stand and two directional speakers. “Good luck.” He looked appraisingly at Steele, who, as always, had his sidearm on his hip and God-only-knew what other weapons hidden on his body. “You look like you can probably take anyone that wants to rush you guys.”
