Tomorrow's Dawn (Book 5): Blood Bath (, page 1
part #5 of Tomorrow's Dawn Series
Blood Bath
TOMORROW’S DAWN | BOOK 5
JEFF WOHLRAB
Copyright © 2019 by Jeff Wohlrab All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
This is for all of my fellow silent warriors.
Chapter 1
Was it Independence Day yet? Or had that already passed? Jensen was pretty sure it was early July. Judging by the heat, it might be even later in the summer. The sensor on his console showed that it was only 84 degrees outside, but it had seemed far warmer the last time they’d stopped near a town called Mountain Home.
What was funny was that they’d just come down from the mountains near Lake Junaluska, past Asheville, and then headed southeast along Interstate 26, where the land flattened out considerably. Mountain Home was one of the least mountainy places he’d ever seen.
Former Army Captain Jensen Carlson didn’t notice the heat inside his air conditioned armored vehicle, affectionately known as a tub due to the armored tub surrounding the driver and operating system. It was modeled after the vintage A-10 Thunderbolt II, one of the most indestructible aircraft in history. Like his tub, it was better known by a nickname, the Warthog.
Unlike the A-10, his tub didn’t have a rotary cannon or twin turbofan engines. Instead, it was outfitted with two .50 caliber forward-facing machine guns located just above and to the side of the cockpit. On the very top of the vehicle was a grenade launcher for the really messy jobs where bullets just wouldn’t cut it. The A-10 had been introduced in 1977 and was still flying in 2032. His tub was only a couple years old, one of the newest weapons on the battlefield.
At each corner was a titanium-encased electric motor turning a bulky, off-road tire. The tub had been designed as an armored scout vehicle for the wars in India and Pakistan. The huge battery could be charged by plugging it into a quick charger, a normal household electrical outlet, or by deploying the advanced solar panels located either side of the grenade launcher on the top of the vehicle.
The electric capabilities gave him and his girlfriend, Jessica, who was driving a second tub at the rear of the convoy, an edge over just about anyone else they were likely to meet. Nothing short of an anti-tank missile, or a direct hit from a tank itself, was likely to pierce the titanium armor. The rest of the convoy was laughably exposed in comparison.
Aside from a gun truck in the center of the convoy that was protected by thick slabs of metal welded around the weapons mount, driver’s station, and the tanks of liquefied petroleum gas which allowed it to move, there was no armor on any of the vehicles traveling toward Spartanburg.
If it weren’t for the heat, Jensen might think the brown parcel delivery vehicles were making Christmas deliveries. Their mission wasn’t quite so festive. Instead, they were moving into South Carolina to help the state forces there hold off an attack from the Coalition of Southern States, which was a group of former Confederate states working together to create a new government after the fall of the United States the prior year.
After months of sickness which had wiped out 70% of the population and an exchange of nuclear weapons with several other former superpower nations, there was little left of the country Jensen had grown up in. While his group still believed in the United States and wanted to revive it as it was, the CSS had named their own president and was building a new capitol in Georgia.
That president was former Georgia Senator Bobby Snead, who they had evidence had started the deadly flu. His forces had attacked them in their hideout in the northern Georgia mountains and followed them northward into North Carolina, attacking them twice more near a town called Highlands.
The same man appeared to have directed his attention eastward toward South Carolina. Its governor, Janet Howe, had refused to join the Coalition of Southern States, evidently drawing the ire of the former senator. What Jensen didn’t know was how they’d manage to level much of Columbia, South Carolina.
The vehicles in the convoy behind him were using LPG because gasoline and diesel were almost impossible to find. Deliveries to gas stations had halted over the previous winter, and America was an automobile country. As the third largest country in the world, most travel was by automobile due to the great distances. Bullet trains, like those found in Europe, China, and Japan, weren’t feasible. The longest system in the world was only about 1,400 miles long, just over half the width of the United States.
Within a few weeks, most vehicles were out of fuel, so it was of great concern to Jensen how Snead had gotten all that firepower from Georgia seventy-five miles into South Carolina. The M1A2 Abrams main battle tank got less than half a mile to the gallon. Most of the heavy armor needed to cause destruction on the level he’d heard in the reports wasn’t much more efficient.
Somehow, the CSS had gotten all of that equipment up to the state border and then well into South Carolina. How? They had to be getting fuel from somewhere. Luckily, it didn’t appear to be refined well enough to make jet fuel since the attack had been by ground assets only. None of the survivors saw or heard an aircraft during the multi-day attack.
Aside from nine tubs spread out across a wide front and a few MRAPs—mine-resistant ambush protected armored vehicles with gun turrets—their vehicles were cobbled together delivery trucks or other vehicles converted to run on LPG. The MRAPs were stranded back at Lake Junaluska with no fuel.
Against an unarmored opponent, the two tubs and the gun truck in this convoy would be extremely threatening. Against typical American war machines, they’d be terribly outclassed. The tub was designed as a survivable scout vehicle, not as an offensive weapon. Newer ones were designed with a rocket launcher instead of a grenade launcher, but none of those had been fielded before production ended due to the virus.
A single man with a shoulder-launched, anti-tank missile had blown up one of the tubs a couple of months ago near Clayton, Georgia, nearly killing Jensen’s friends, Daniel and Marcy. Even the titanium armor of the tubs was only rated up to 30mm high explosive shells. Anything more than that and the protective nature of the tub became dodgy.
Speaking of dodgy, a convoy filled with men sitting atop explosive, pressurized containers certainly fit that description. For once, Jensen was glad to be at the front of the convoy. Generally, the first and last vehicle in the convoy were in the most danger. Common ambush tactics generally revolved around disabling both of those vehicles in order to entrap the rest, so the lead and follow vehicles were almost always in the most danger.
Right now, the four vehicles between the two tubs seemed far more dangerous. According to the engineer, Amanda, those LPG tanks were safer than gasoline, but Jensen couldn’t shake the idea that the people behind him were driving bombs.
His company commander, Justin Davis, was in the parcel truck immediately behind him. Jensen had offered the scout seat in his tub, but the CO had politely declined. He didn’t want the company to lose both of its leaders with one, well-executed shot. Justin had considered riding with Jessica, but it didn’t seem leader-like to bring up the rear of the convoy.
Jensen wasn’t sure just what to make of Justin yet. His CO wasn’t even an officer in the strictest sense of the word. He had been an Army Staff Sergeant, or E-6. Even as a fresh-faced butter bar, Jensen had outranked him, yet here he was, the Company Commander and Jensen’s boss.
He hadn’t questioned the colonel about it openly, but Strenke must have noticed the look on Jensen’s face when he found out, because he pulled him aside after the meeting about moving toward Spartanburg to help Howe’s forces. The colonel had gotten right to the point. “Jensen. Your rank before all of this shit doesn’t matter much anymore. It might when the country gets back on its feet, but at the moment, we’re all only as valuable as what we can do. Justin is as capable as you, and he’s got the trust of the men. You’re the operations officer because you understand battlefield tactics better than any of us. It’s got nothing to do with your rank before…well, before all this happened.”
Colonel Paul Strenke had looked him right in the eye and asked, “Are you willing to defer to Justin, or do I need to replace you?”
That had stunned Jensen a little bit. Sure, he thought he had accepted the new state of things, where the old military ways were gone and their militia group was a mix of former military and displaced persons, but he’d been reporting to Colonel Strenke and had been teaching people how to operate the tubs. In that moment, Jensen had been forced to realize he hadn’t fully given up his identity as an Army officer; he’d just been playing a role.
For just a second, he had actually considered telling Strenke to find someone else. If their ranks didn’t mean anything anymore, then who was the former colonel to be telling him what he could or couldn’t do?
He didn’t, because even with his sleep hangover the morning he’d met Justin, Jensen had seen how the men and women deferred to him and treated him with respect and familiarity. He was their leader, and Jensen would be an asshole if he tried to demand anything different.
Instead he asked, “Does he at least have a degree?”
Strenke shook his head. “Nope. Never went to college.”
Jensen shrugged. “That means he’s probably smarter than me, then. That shit’s a waste of time.”
The colonel clasped his hand on Jensen’s shoulder. “You’re pretty damn smart, and you’re a good leader. I need you to support Justin and to help him, teach him. Just do it behind closed doors, not in front of the company. It can’t seem like you’re belittling him or undermining him.”
“I wouldn’t do that to him. He seems like a really nice guy,” Jensen responded.
“I’m not saying it for his benefit. I’m saying it for yours. If the men and women in Alpha Company feel like you’re disrespecting Justin, they won’t follow you. He saved many of their lives, and they would follow him through hell,” Strenke told him. “But that’s their story to tell, if they want, not mine.”
Jensen’s reminiscing was halted when he saw a blue sign to the right of the highway saying ‘Welcome to South Carolina.’ Just below it, a smaller sign said ‘Janet Howe, Governor.’ He queued his radio and said, “All units, this is Canada. Next stop, three miles out. Pharaoh, fall back. Unicorn, on me.”
Jensen’s callsign was Canada. His first and middle names were after actors in his mother’s favorite television series, Jensen Ackles and Jared Padalecki. One of his soldiers had figured out the connection and suggested Canada, convinced they were both Canadian based on where the show was filmed. They later figured out both Jensen and Jared were Texans, but the name had already stuck.
Pharaoh was a young man named Michael who was driving the gun truck. To be quite honest, Jensen had no idea how he had gotten the name. When they came to a schedule stop, the gun truck was supposed to slide out from its position at third in line and drift to the rear. Once it was there to provide rear guard, Jessica, aka Unicorn, would speed to the front, and the two tubs would secure the stopping point.
In this case, it was an interstate rest area about three miles from the state border. Most rest areas were set up with a truck parking area and a car parking area. Jensen was to go in first to clear the truck parking area. Jessica would take the other side. Once the area seemed safe, Jensen would head to the exit ramp and Jessica would loop back to cover the other ramp.
They wouldn’t leave the convoy until everyone safely passed the town at exit one, at which point the rest of the convoy would slow down to give Jensen and Jessica time to clear the rest area. Jensen watched his monitors as the brightly colored tub moved up alongside the convoy to a position behind him and to his left.
Jessica had painted her tub in truly horrific pink and purple colors, which led Daniel to saying, “It looks like a unicorn took a shit on your vehicle and then tried to wipe it off with even more shit.” Despite a solid punch to his side, the name had stuck, so Unicorn it was.
They had chosen this place to stop because it was a couple miles away from the nearest small town, Landrum, which was off the exit they’d just passed. It was also inaccessible from any secondary roads. Jensen and Justin had debated simply stopping the convoy along the highway in an uninhabited area, but the tall grass on the sides of the highway and the median made them wonder if that would be even more dangerous.
Nobody had really appreciated how much work went into keeping those areas clear. Now it was almost like driving through a tunnel due to the tall grass crowding the roadway on each side. Between the overgrown grass and weeds interspersed with abandoned vehicles pushed to the side of the roadway, Jensen was giving himself a headache trying to watch out for any potential dangers. He was depending on the FLIR sensors at the front of the tub more than his own eyes, and he was ready for a break.
A short rest would do them all some good. They were only about ten miles from the northern suburbs of Spartanburg and the possible danger would increase dramatically once they were in a more populated area, partially because it was more congested with shorter sight lines, but mostly simply because there were more people. If there’s one thing Jensen had learned in the past few years, it was that people were inherently dangerous.
Once they hit the edge of town, it was another ten miles to their ultimate goal, Gibbs Stadium at Wofford College. Jensen certainly wasn’t looking forward to living without the luxuries of life he’d had in Lake Junaluska. Electricity, air conditioning, hot showers … why was it that every time he got set up in a beautiful, safe place with electricity he had to leave? It didn’t seem fair.
Then again, he had survived both the supervirus and the nuclear exchange, while most of the population had not. It sort of put things into perspective. On one hand, a gruesome and horrible death, on the other, being sweaty and uncomfortable. It seemed pretty clear which one was preferable. At least when you were dead, you didn’t have to deal with humidity.
As he approached the entrance to the rest area, Jensen looked down the highway to confirm nobody was visible in the distance. He eased the tub to the right and slowed down. There was no reason to rush into an unfamiliar area, armor or no.
More tall grass and a line of bushes behind the welcome sign obscured his vision as he took the right fork off the exit toward the truck parking area. He kept an eye on Jessica to his left as she eased forward slowly along the left fork toward the automobile parking. In a few more seconds, they would be on opposite sides of the building.
For some reason, this made Jensen feel even more tense. He was certain she could take care of herself, and they were unlikely to run into someone wielding an anti-tank missile at an out-of-the-way rest area along the North/South Carolina border, but he still felt nervous. He’d seen too many people die in those vehicles despite the armor.
Hell, he might be in one of the ones that once contained the corpse of a driver. All of the tubs they had now had undergone refit at the Anniston Army Depot in Alabama. At least one of them probably had a fatality if it had been damaged badly enough to be sent there rather than repaired in the field. The thought made his skin crawl.
Jensen realized he was getting distracted just when he needed to focus most and snapped his attention back to the job at hand. He was relieved to find the back lot clear aside from two tractor trailers which hadn’t been moved for months judging by the accumulated dust and flat tires. After a quick glance at the FLIR to verify his assessment, he hurried forward toward the exit and looked for the pink and purple tub in the other lot.
It was easy to see among the handful of cars present. It was certainly larger and brighter than the rest. Like the semis, these vehicles had clearly been sitting for a while. A Ford parked closest to the building had evidently been torched at some point. Jensen kept an eye on the onramp and highway while monitoring Jessica’s progress. When she was satisfied, she wheeled back toward the highway exit ramp and took up her station facing the way they’d come.
Jensen keyed his radio. “All units. The rest area looks clear. Come on in.”
Chapter 2
The destruction of Columbia had been far easier than President Snead had anticipated. He had been expecting some sort of trouble with the self-propelled artillery or the tanks due to issues with the fuel which was now flowing through the Colonial Pipeline into Georgia.
If his forces managed to make it, he anticipated heavy losses of men and equipment from a well-defended city once they arrived. It had been no secret that he was staging forces across the border with a direct shot into Columbia. They had plenty of time to prepare.
Either Janet Howe was a complete fool or this war thing was far easier than he had been led to believe. After thirty years of American forces fruitlessly fighting across countries ranging from North Africa to India, he had come to expect partial victories. Instead, the occupation of his neighboring state’s capital city had gone almost too smoothly.
Even now, his Sentry Group was setting up food distribution points and compiling rosters of his new subjects. In his view, full domination had two components. Show them the stick and then give them a carrot. Fear and dependence did more to change governments than any idealism in the history of the world.
“Trevor, I need you in here,” he said over the comms channel. Trevor Davis, his head of security and the leader of the Sentry Group was on call 24/7. In addition to keeping the rabble in line, the man took care of certain messy issues. The most recent problem was an Air Force General at Warner-Robins Air Force Base.
