Patriot Dawn: The Resistance Rises (28 page)

T
he charges began to detonate, the concussive boom of the explosions massive even after the firefight. The fuel in the Apaches caught fire and the flames lit that side of the FOB with an orange flickering glow, punctuated by the continuing sound of the detonations

Jack move
d the trucks out and they burst out of the gate and headed back towards the assembly area, covered by the resumption of fire from the guns up on the ridge. The MFC also brought the mortars back into action, the crump of the mortar bombs landing combined with the detonations of the demolition charges.

             
As soon as they were clear past the junction, Jack called for the guns to cease fire and the gunners started to break them down and move back to the vehicles. The mortars remained in place, bringing a steady barrage down onto the FOB. Then, once the gunners were clear the mortars finally ceased fire and the whole fire base mounted up into the vehicles and started to extract back to the assembly area.

             
Caleb’s platoon had several walking wounded casualties in the back of the dump truck. Another of them was seriously wounded and he died on the drive back to the assembly area. He had been hit several times under his body armor in the abdominal area and it looked like he had bled out internally; it was possible that his aorta had been nicked by the bullets causing massive internal hemorrhage. There was nothing they could do in such a case.

             
As soon as they got back to the assembly area they were marshaled in and placed out in all round defense. The casualties were moved to Megan at the mobile aid station and she quickly went to work on them with her team, including Dr. Davis.

             
As the elements came in, they were accounted for and as soon as the exfiltration packets were complete they were sent on their way back to the designated rally point. The serious casualties were loaded into the ambulance vans where the medical staff could work on them while they moved. Soon, they were all gone into the pre-dawn darkness.

Once the Regime QRF sent back their situation report they were ordered to move their remaining vehicles around to the south where Route 11 crossed the river further down. They had to take a long route to the south and back up towards the FOB. Another QRF was dispatched to the ambush area to aid the stricken convoy and check for any survivors.

By the time the
initial QRF reached the FOB, it was daylight and a few of the surviving defenders were walking around exhausted and dazed. The FOB was burning, the remains of the Apaches black stricken hulks sitting on the scorched tarmac. Some supplies of aviation fuel in bladders had apparently caught fire and added to the chaos. It was going to take the Regime forces a couple of days to clean up the mess, searching through the remains of the FOB for survivors and bodies.

Chapter Thirteen

T
he attack had been an amazing success. The Company was euphoric. They had taken video footage from the fire support base using a night vision camera. It had caught the massive weight of tracer fire pouring down onto the FOB, the crashing assault of the two dump trucks and the destruction of the Apaches. Before the cameraman had moved out with the machine-gun teams, he had caught footage of the continuing detonations and the fires raging throughout the FOB.

Given the resource problems posed by the
possible Chinese attack on the west coast, the fighters were hoping that there were not sufficient Apaches available to replace the ones they had destroyed. It was likely that if Apaches continued to be deployed on operations in the valley, they would have to be based outside of it. Clearly they had demonstrated that they could not be protected even on a heavily fortified FOB in the valley.

In the weeks that followed, this allowed the ramping up of the small team IED patrols, with attacks and ambushes along the route
s through the valley. They did not see any more Apaches, although occasionally other helicopters, of the utility type such as the Blackhawk and the Chinook, would fly top cover. They were not as deadly as the Apache, but not to be underestimated; if the fighters were spotted these aircraft with their door gunners were still a potent threat.

             
Jack got a message from Bill confirming that the Chinese had apparently invaded the west coast, the Russians crossing into Alaska to seize oil resources. The reports were sketchy but it appeared that the Chinese had landed in California, coming ashore in a combined amphibious and airborne operation launched from their Pacific fleet and the toehold they had in the Pacific on Hawaii.

There were mixed feelings to the whole Chinese invasion piece. Clearly, it was America
n soil and the Chinese had no place invading. Some of the guys commented that it was only California, broke and socialist, so the Chinese could keep the place, but they didn’t really mean it.

Bills message alluded to huge battles in California between Regime forces and the Chinese. Caleb joked
sarcastically about whose side the Chinese population in California would be on, going on to paint Chinese restaurant owners as Chinese sleeper agents and domestic terrorists, to the great amusement of all.

The Chinese invasion was bleeding combat resources from the Regime. Bill speculated
based on the information from his sources about an alliance between the Chinese and the Russians. Russia appeared to be primarily after the oil resources in Alaska, while China wanted land resources to solve their massive over-population and scarce resource problems.

One of the odd things that Bill put in the report was that there was a ‘feeling’
amongst his contacts that the Regime leadership, and in particular The Leader himself, were not really putting in a great effort to defeat the Chinese invasion. It was odd, and there were talks about divisions within the military leadership over this.

Indeed, it seemed that in the
USPACOM region, the commanding general had not so much been appointed by the Regime, as he had risen internally through USPACOM to his position due to his competence, which was a most unusual development in the political game of general officer selection.

The current
USPACOM commander was General Wall. It appeared the usual preening careerists had proved unequal to the task when faced by hordes of advancing mechanized Chinese forces, plastering the American positions with fire. It was a different animal from espousing COIN doctrine, rules of engagement, health & safety and the wearing of luminous safety belts from a safe FOB in Kabul. The sycophants had peeled away, mostly back to the Pentagon, and General Wall was taking the fight to the Chinese in California.

Reports said that p
otentially General Wall would be striking out with USPACOM on his own campaign strategy to defeat the invasion, despite such disloyalty to the Regime being likely to result in an ‘accident’ fatally impacting his health. Some generals, it appeared, were true Patriots deep down below the political careerism.

It was summertime now and the Virginia heat and humidity lay like a blanket over the valley, the ridges and amongst the forests. Insects, mosquitoes and no-see-ums abounded in the woods. The constant humidity was unpleasant but it had to be borne. The Resistance and their families had gone through the harsh winter and now the challenge was a different one, such was the temperature range in the region.

             
One of the problems they were facing was shortage of food. They were still getting supplies through the network but it was becoming generally harder as the country suffered through the aftermath of the collapse, the power grid outage, and the ongoing strangulation by the Regime.

             
Jack never ceased to be amazed by the lack of common sense, the almost mental illness, in the thinking of the progressives. It was all about agenda and nothing about practicality. What really needed to be happening was that production, in particular of food, needed to be a priority. But instead the Regime focused on the subjugation of the people and trampling of liberty and self-determination.

             
The Regime tried to mandate food production, in a similar way to the Soviet five year plans, but they were squashed by their own bureaucracy and cronyism. Much property in the ‘safer’ areas in the federal controlled zones had been seized and reallocated to loyal Regime bureaucrats. Other farms on the edges of those same zones had been redistributed and settled by groups of the entitled. Of course, it went the way of the Zimbabwe farm seizures, the new sitting tenants having no idea how to run the land.

Val was a twenty eight year old army veteran. Her MOS, or military operating specialty, had been civil affairs. She had deployed to both Afghanistan and Iraq and because it was the job of civil affairs units to get out on the ground and interact with the local populace she had seen plenty of action.

             
She had a four year degree and had been pushed towards a commission as an officer, but by then she was over the whole army thing. She was tired of the endless bureaucratic incompetence, the power games, and the reverse discrimination.

As for being an officer, she saw most of them as a joke. She felt that the commissioning process left a lot to be desired in the U
.S. Army simply because there was no real selection for aptitude, character, and leadership ability. Basically, if you had a four year degree, you were in.

             
Of course, she would never have said this to anyone for fear of reprisal, but she could also never figure out why there were so many Chinese officers, particularly in the military intelligence field. And by Chinese, she meant real Chinese ‘straight off the boat’. These were the characters whose first language was Chinese, whose Facebook accounts and phones were in Chinese, and whose families were in China. What sort of security procedures gave these jokers top secret clearances?

Hello, elephant in the room anyone?

             
So she had stayed enlisted, never getting further than E4 Specialist, which she had been given at basic training anyway due to her degree. She had a bright future ahead, and had submitted her packet for promotion to E5 Sergeant after her last tour to Afghanistan. It had gone wrong after that.

She had gotten out after the attempted rape. It was true that the military system in general was
simply broke, and that all the talk of equal opportunities was just ticking the box. Sexual discrimination was rampant.

The night the drunken battle buddy had tried to rape her had been awful.
It was a violent drunken assault that would have succeeded if she had not successfully fought back. She had reported it, but of course the black eye he was wearing went against her.

Remember, self-
defense will always get you in trouble, better to be the victim hey?

             
The assailant was a black NCO, who she thought she could trust, but he was rising through the ranks on the unspoken ‘reverse discrimination’ policy and the case was quashed. After that, the harassment had begun; the petty bullying from the NCO buddies of her assailant. She had even faced disciplinary action for failing to clear her mail from the mail room. It was petty and vindictive, using the bureaucracy to award her negative counseling statements and punish her for being a victim.

             
The thing was she was not the victim type. Val was not her real name; it was shortened from her nickname, which was The Valkyrie, awarded to her during the training at Victor Foxtrot over the winter. She was now either Val or ‘The Val’ to some. She was a big muscular blonde, beautiful and all woman. She had played rugby before the collapse and had been a rising star on the USA Rugby scene. Her nickname then had been ‘The Bombshell’.

             
Val could run, carry a ruck, fight and go on forever. She had fought stalwartly in the Battle of Harrisonburg and been part of the assault on the Apache FOB. Some of the females in the Company who ‘batted for the other side’ had mistaken her for one of them, but she was not. One of the guys in her training squad had also made the mistake of getting too fresh, and ended up on his ass with a bleeding nose. He was moved.

             
Val had become a team leader, despite her lack of infantry experience. She got it, she understood tactics, she had balls, and her team loved her for it. She drove them hard and did not tolerate bullshit, but at the same time they knew she loved them back and would do anything for them. She was utterly selfless.

Sergeant First Class John Cobb was from the 82
nd
Airborne Division, and he originally hailed from South Carolina. His platoon had been attached to the mechanized battle group in the valley to make up for casualties sustained in the Battle of Harrisonburg. They were occupying a platoon sized COP in the northern end of the valley, overlooking the I-81. The platoon was responsible for patrolling an area of operations, including a stretch of the I-81 and surrounding countryside.