Indivisible (Overlooked by Liberty) (29 page)

      
"We probably should have listened to Reverend Thoreau."

      
"We did.  We tried to negotiate but someone sabotaged it," said Chaos.  "Don't second guess.  That does no good.  I mean, what are our options: We could run or we could surrender.  How would either one help Colebrook or the nation?"

      
"I know, but--" Helen tried to say.

      
"It's too late."  Chaos softened his voice.  "When this thing goes away, I'll still be here.  I love you, Helen; understand that.  I don't know what your feelings are for me, but I'll wait as long as it takes."

      
Helen didn't respond in kind.  She wasn't sure how she felt about Chaos long term.  So much was left unsettled in her mired life.

      
Rain, which began at dusk and continued through the evening, shot from the sky as large droplets.  Small brooks gulped to swallow it all.  Tiny streams were now rivers Seven attack packs drudged solemnly down Roaring Brook toward Mohawk Creek.  They tugged makeshift rafts wrapped in plastic, loaded with motor-guns and shot.  Roaring Brook started at knee level at the source; by the time they got to Mohawk Creek they found themselves treading the liquid and hanging onto the edge of the rafts to stay afloat.  The maneuver worked.  By two o'clock in the morning, the advance team had collected at the edge of the Army Command Center located near Colebrook.

      
Helen hadn't seen Chaos the entire time.  He led the group.  With her backpack of medical supplies, she slogged along at the back of the detachment.  She stopped trying to remain dry.  Helen wondered if she could get lost from the group in this storm, at times holding on to the shirttail of the last young man in front of her.  Unknown to her, it was his task during this mission to watch over her--Chaos' orders.

      
They readied motor-guns for the assault on the compound.  Chaos worked with Wolfenstein's pack preparing the gun that would take out the Armdroid sentry.  Their new motor-gun would be mounted on a tripod to improve accuracy.  Mohawk Creek was at maximum distance for the Armdroid; the ceramic balls had to hit the same spot in succession to penetrate its skin.  When everyone whistled the signal that they were ready, Chaos and Wolf lifted the gun onto the bank; Wolf whaled away at the Armdroid from seventy meters out.  Luminous balls streaked out as a beam.  The gray, potbellied Armdroid sensed them and rotated toward their position.  Ceramic balls striking the metal gut flared sparks. When the contraption stopped to triangulate and fire, the consecutive balls burned a hole through its skin and penetrated its innards.  Smoke oozed from its seams.

      
"You got it!" yelled Bird Dog looking through a night scope.  On Chaos' whistle, four leg-men from each pack sprinted across the clearing past the smoldering sentry into the compound proper to the computer trailer monitoring the Armdroid sentries.  An Army Regular in the computer control trailer opened the door to see what might have downed their Armdroid.  Bird Dog popped her in the face with three rounds from his Glock and tossed an incendiary grenade through the trailer door.  From the cover of a neighboring trailer, Step-n-Time guarded the entrance until the explosive did its job.  That maneuver took eight seconds. 

      
At the same time, other leg-men attacked the trailer housing the satellite link, as well as the motor pool; the mortar batteries had a strategic position near the officers' trailers.  The ensuing packs lugged motor-guns.  Though visual range was limited in the drizzle, three snipers for each team positioned themselves to provide cover fire.

      
Myriad tractor-trailer trucks made up the encampment; the inner walls of each trailer were lined with plate steel to protect occupants inside.  Gunners of each pack who carried M-30 Strafers in the past, now brandished motor-guns; straps were attached to the weapons and looped over the shoulder to help distribute the weight.  They squatted behind the leg-men and began strafing the trailers.  The streams of ceramic balls fluffed holes through the aluminum skirt and burst through the three centimeters of steel that lined the inside.  Sometimes rear doors of the trucks would open with a soldier or two jumping out.  Their M-30 Strafers spewed out flames into the night--but only for a moment, a motor-gun ran a stream of glowing balls into Army Regulars.  More often, troops would crawl out of the trailer dragging friends, coughing uncontrollably in the mud beneath the truck.

      
Helen remained at the riverbank with a rebel.  She couldn't see a thing, only muzzle flashes and motor-gun streams.  When shot, the stream of luminescent balls looked like a white laser beam.  "Can I go yet?"  Helen was anxious to get into the compound and help with the wounded.

      
"No!" snapped the rebel.  It was the third time she had asked.  A flurry of Armdroid fire echoed across the valley, screams followed.  "See."  This time Helen went anyway.  The young man scurried to catch up.

      
Chaos and Wolfenstein, with attack packs, raced through the middle of the compound.  Leg-men secured positions ahead of them and pinned down Feds by shooting at door openings. Within minutes the Mountain Boys secured strategic positions in the compound by shooting streams of motor-gun shot into trailers until the occupants surrendered or until doors remained fixed with smoke bellowing out the cracks.  On hearing the attack with motor-guns, troops housed in the outer part of the compound ran toward the security perimeter to escape.  Waiting Armdroids, detached from their optic link, shot anything that moved.  Army Regulars who followed knew enough to return to the compound and surrender.  The entire operation lasted ten minutes.

      
Wolfenstein approached Chaos, "Sir, communications and Armdroids on the perimeter are cut off."

      
Chaos nodded.  Three other Mountain Boys brought Commander Serrac to him.

      
Random gunshots popped as rebels wounded captives by shooting them in the knee with small caliber pistols.  Chaos turned to Step-n-Time, "Go around and make sure our boys aren't using rhino bullets to do that.  We want to take them out of service not take their whole leg off."  Step acknowledged and left.

      
"I wouldn't call this humane," Serrac remarked to Chaos.  "Do you always shoot your prisoners?"

      
"You should feel lucky we don't randomly murder everyone like your weapon did at Dixville."

      
Step-n-Time checked the leg-men who were doing the maiming.  They were all using standard lead rounds.  He came upon Bird Dog with a communications officer sprawled below him.  Bird Dog aimed his pistol and lanced her with a bullet to the fleshy part of the calf.  She screamed and clutched the wound.  Step-n-Time reminded him in a whisper, "Bird Dog, you're supposed to shoot 'em in the knee."

      
Bird Dog held his gun out and stated glumly, "You want to do this?"  Step-n-Time shook his head no, rapidly.  "Then, shut-up!"

      
"Who's in charge here?" insisted Serrac.

      
"Are you the Akela?"  Serrac asked because the name Akela seemed to be connected to the figurehead of the Colebrook and Boston Covenants.  The name "The Wizard" had been linked to people from different regions.  Somehow intelligence reports linked allegiance to the word Akela to two different areas.  Serrac was hoping that by asking, some information might come out.

      
"No.  I'm Chaos.  I'm in charge of this raid."

      
"What are you going to do to me?" asked Serrac.  "Shooting me in the knee won't do.  I plan strategy around here."

      
"Not a thing," Chaos replied.  "If I shoot you, your soldiers might respect you more.  And I wouldn't want them to replace you."

      
"Stop shooting them!" Helen yelled to Chaos as she approached.  Bird Dog and Step-n-Time followed behind her.  They had already been scolded.  Helen was livid, "I can't believe you're doing this.  You shoot them up.  I fix them up.  I can't keep up with it."

      
Chaos pulled her aside to talk privately away from Serrac and the men.  "What the hell is wrong, Helen?  We're in a battle here.  We have no way of holding them prisoner.  If we just let them go we'll have to fight them again."

      
"It's wrong, that's why."  She said it loud enough so the others heard behind her.

      
Chaos tried to reason with her.  In a slower voice, "Then what do you propose we do to detain them if we don't maim them?"

      
Helen thought a moment.  "Send them off naked and destroy the compound."

      
Chaos looked around and reflected.  He didn't like having to maim prisoners, something immoral about it.  He returned to the group, "Bird Dog and Step, with the exception of the people we just maimed, go around and tell the boys to have all the prisoners strip naked and send them out of the perimeter of the compound where we downed the Armdriod.  We'll destroy everything here except for a place for them to keep their wounded.  Start by stripping Commander Serrac and showing him the way out," Chaos said with a restrained grin.

      
Serrac stood indignantly as rebels yanked his clothes off.  Before being tugged away by rebels, he pointed at Helen and asked Chaos, "Who's the woman?"

      
Chaos responded, "
That's
the Akela."

Chapter 16

Dixville Mountain, New Hampshire (August 6)

      
By midmorning, clouds moved off as excess moisture, smitten by sunlight, changed to fuzzy humidity that lingered on distant mountains.  The plush, green hills around Dixville Mountain looked desolate.  There was not a sign of human life in sight.  Route 26 passed the Balsams blast site and wound through the valley to the notch.  No traffic rode its back.  The usual critters who scamper about the leaves in the forest, huddled in their lairs.  The sparrow near Helen's medical bunker, who sang so freely earlier, could crouch no lower in her nest.  Domesticated animals, cows, pigs, and sheep, waded ankle deep in mud.  They dumbly munched on feed below the forest canopy, ignorant to a world of human predation.

Washington, D.C.

      
"Mr. President . . . Mr. President."  Lucas had trouble getting Winifred's attention.  He had Serrac on the phone and needed a confirmation from the Commander in Chief.  Though weeks had passed since the bombing of Balsams, the President had not recovered from the loss of his boy.  Winifred had led a superficial life, in his marriage, in politics; but Clifford genuinely loved his son William.  He had become a dysfunctional man, reflecting on the past, often coming out of his daze not recalling the conversation going on around him.  "Sir!  Cliff!"  The President looked up.  "Serrac wants to know--"

      
"Yeah.  Go ahead."

       
President Winifred hadn't heard the question but his answer agreed with Chief of Staff Lucas Bennett.  "You got the go-ahead," Lucas told Serrac on the other end.  "What!  How many?"  Serrac told Lucas about the surprise raid.  "Well, how many did
they
lose?" Lucas asked.  "Holy shit!  Only two?  They lost only two?  Yeah . . . Yeah . . . Okay . . . No . . . No, From now on, report the numbers of dead and injured of both sides directly to me."  Bennett listened to Serrac intently.  "Yes.  And whatever those numbers are, cut our casualties in half and double theirs . . . Yes . . . Yes.  That's what officially goes down in the record.  The media's
our
problem."  Bennett's voice became stern, "You worry about your own ass . . . and Serrac: You'd better not screw up again today."  Lucas hung up on him.

      
Bennett looked over and saw the President's eyes soaked.  Reminiscing again.  "Don't worry, Cliff.  Today those bastards will pay for what they did to your son."

Dixville Mountain, New Hampshire (August 6)

      
Ankle deep in mud, a Holstein cow bit into a pillow of hay and shook a cluster loose.  She chewed at it.  Paused.  Chewed some more.  Paused.  She looked up through the forest canopy at the whistling sounds.  A small, heat-guided bomb whisked through the treetops into the underworld and struck the cow solidly in the middle of its back.  Hide and body parts spattered in all directions, startling other nearby animals.  More bombs hit other animals with a splat.  The docile creatures, with swinging milk sacks, waddled away from the slaughter and stopped.  Quickly and with little pain, they received the same blast to the back.  The creatures exploded like melons, the forest floor became coated with a layer of gut and hide.

      
"Chaos, you should see this," Wolfenstein transmitted his signal to Chaos' bunker.  The Colebrook Covenant had built a complex system of bunkers over the past three months.  They used small backhoes to dig the tunnels and bunkers, topping that with logs, and dirt, concealing each complex with leaves and brush.  Unlike conventional bunkers, each hideout had a spider web of piping from its center to disperse the heat; the setup made them undetectable by heat-seeking bombs.  They trimmed the forest undergrowth for line-of-sight laser communication from bunker to bunker.