Reclamation (Best Laid Plans Book 4) (15 page)

“Is this nuclear winter?” Linda asked, shivering as the family broke out their cold weather clothes in preparation for a ride in the drafty tarp-covered back of the truck.

The question drew uncomfortable looks from soldiers close enough to hear it, and Lucas paused in putting on his coat. “That's a hard question to answer.”

“You mean you don't know?” Mary translated.

Lucas gave his daughter a slightly annoyed look. “I mean that since it hasn't happened, the best predictions we can make are models based on much smaller phenomena, like firestorms or volcanic eruptions. Even the Middle East Crisis, the largest nuclear exchange in history, amounted to roughly the equivalent of 50 Hiroshima-sized explosions. Most of the nuclear winter effects of that exchange were localized to the Middle East, with a drop of less than one degree celsius worldwide. The old models and forecasts imputed what we learned from that, but didn't have time to really flesh out their predictions before the Gulf burned.”

The blond young woman hummed for a few moments, a song Trev didn't recognize. “Then what do all the experts guess, Dad? In words people besides you can understand, please.”

Trev's uncle gave them all a long-suffering look. “It means that given the scale of the Retaliation, the temperature could drop anywhere from 1 to 20 degrees celsius. Maybe even more. We just don't know.”

“Celsius?” Linda complained.

Their dad was frowning slightly in concentration. “A change of 20 degrees celsius would be 36 degrees fahrenheit, if I'm remembering my conversions right.”

Trev frowned as he did his own math. With a drop that severe the previously hottest day of summer would drop into the 60s in most places, like spring. Spring would become winter, and winter . . . would be brutal.

“So is this nuclear winter or not?” Linda asked, a bit impatiently.

Lucas blinked. He'd obviously been lost in his own grim thoughts about the future. “Probably not. I'm not sure exactly how long it would take for nuclear winter to set in, but I don't think the ash in the upper atmosphere has had enough time to spread far enough to really begin affecting things.” He pointed at the sun peeking up over the horizon. “The sun doesn't seem any darker. I'd say this is just spring in Wyoming.”

“Thanks for the lesson, Professor Scientist,” a dry voice said from behind them. Trev jumped slightly and turned to see that Davis had made his way over to their camp. Satisfied he had their attention, the sergeant jerked a thumb towards the truck. “Time to pack up. Convoy probably won't be ready to leave for another half hour, if we're lucky, but the General wants everyone good to go
before
then. Just so that the inevitable delays aren't added to by idiots slowing us all down because they decided to drag their feet when they didn't need to.”

As Davis turned to walk away Trev's dad hurriedly caught up to him. “The convoy's going to reach where it's going today, isn't it? As long as there aren't any delays?”

The sergeant paused and gave them a broad smile. “Why yes, yes we are. But that depends on where “it's” going. We're splitting up, sending about half the convoy south to Denver to begin setting up defenses for the portion of the Rockies that stretch through Colorado. The other half, including General Lassiter and my squad, will continue on into Utah. Salt Lake City, to start with, although well south of the fallout zone near Hill Air Force Base. It'll be a good starting point, as we get the lay of the land and begin gathering up survivors and sending them to safe places.”

Trev felt his heart sink. He'd made that hike before, and that had been when FETF and the Armed Forces assisting them had been patrolling the roads. Going now, with his family dragging an overloaded cart and wagons, the trip would be even more slow and dangerous. “We're closer to central Utah.”

Davis's smile widened. “So you told me. Luckily the General was looking for volunteers for a scouting detail to break off from the convoy and head south down Highway 191, following it to Highway 6 and from there to Provo.”

“You're kidding!” Aunt Eva nearly shouted. “191 meets 6 just north of Helper. That takes us within 10 or so miles of Aspen Hill!”

The sergeant looked a bit surprised. “It does? Wow, I figured I was doing you guys a favor getting you a bit closer, but I didn't realize we'd be going
that
close.” His grin returned. “Never say I didn't do anything for you, I guess.”

“A favor?” Trev's mom replied, looking a bit overwhelmed. “You're a godsend!”

Davis shrugged, embarrassed. “I was just looking for something a bit more interesting than riding along with the convoy, and it happened to help you too. Don't read too much into it.” He turned and started back towards his squad's camp, snapping an order to one of his soldiers. But after a few steps he turned back. “Pack up. I want the camps down and everyone in my truck in ten minutes.”

* * * * *

They continued west, traveling more and more on I-80 over mountainous terrain where there was no room for smaller highways or roads to run alongside the interstate. A few of the soldiers seemed worried that the blockheads would suddenly swoop down on them from the north like a tide, but the area was remote enough that that didn't seem likely.

Davis continued to be more than forthcoming about the military's plans for the Rockies, although he was conscientious and didn't go into too much specific detail about locations and other sensitive information.

The idea was to take and hold the passes and high country in the ranges of the Rockies going through Utah and Colorado. Those passes would create natural choke points and easily defensible positions that would not only let them hold the mountains but, with any luck, defend the lowlands in between. That would give them a reasonably large territory in eastern Utah and western Colorado for civilian populations that they had some hope of defending.

If it turned out they couldn't defend that entire area, say if a significant enough attack came from the north or south, then as a last resort they'd pull back to whichever section of the Rockies was suffering the mildest attacks by the enemy and hunker down in the mountains there with whatever civilians they could escort to safety.

In that situation the Gold Bloc would find it almost impossible to dig them out or mount any successful attack, but the downside was that they'd have to surrender pretty much the entire rest of the country and abandon any hope of staging a significant counterattack. They'd be effectively besieged and forced to wait out their besiegers.

Ultimately the strategy cooked up by the two generals was pretty straightforward: delay the enemy, hold easily defensible territory and withdraw only when necessary, and if all else failed find the most remote, difficult to reach places up in the mountains and hopefully hold out until the Gold Bloc forces ran out of supplies and were forced to withdraw.

It wasn't the most inspiring plan, but outnumbered and outgunned it was the best they had. Davis confessed that part of the hope was that the invaders would be facing pockets of resistance all over the country in the territory they'd already taken, making those areas difficult and unsafe to hold and requiring constant attention to keep under control.

Facing a determined holdout in the middle of the country acting as a barrier between Russian and Chinese forces easily joining up, as well as small groups of insurgents striking targets of opportunity throughout the conquered regions, eventually the blockheads would fail just like every conquerer did when trying to deal with a well armed, unruly populace.

It would be bloody, savage, and ugly, and US citizens all over the country would suffer terribly, but eventually the enemy would have no choice but to withdraw back to more securely held areas of the US, at which point the remaining US Armed Forces could go on the offensive and keep pushing until the enemy was driven all the way back into Canada.

Trev had to admit that it was a little disheartening, when even the most optimistic plan painted a grim picture. But he was glad someone was fighting back: at this point there wasn't much choice but to beat the enemy by pure stubbornness.

The convoy took almost 7 hours to reach Rock Springs, arriving in the midafternoon. Not far beyond that Davis's scouting group split off on Highway 191, half a dozen vehicles and two motorcycles. The smaller group traveled a bit faster than the convoy as a whole, making better time.

They stopped four times along the way. The first was soon after splitting off from the convoy, to investigate a fire a few miles off the road while idling on a hilltop, using their binoculars to see if it posed a threat. There seemed to be no human presence near the fire, so although the circumstances were suspicious they continued on.

The other times were at the few towns along the highway that still had people living in them. The scouts didn't do any recruiting, but they did inform the residents of the general situation. Since all the towns were nominally in the area the military intended to try to protect Davis didn't try to persuade the people to leave.

He did alert them to what was going on, however, as well as handing out a few shortwave radios and giving information on how to contact the military on them. Last of all he asked them to consider what they'd be willing to do to help the military protect their homes and their loved ones the next time a convoy specifically came to visit the town.

The sun wasn't far from setting by the time the scouts reached Highway 6, after about six hours of driving from Rock Springs. Trev could've probably done the math on how long it would've taken his family to walk that distance, even going the slightly faster route through Denver, but just thinking about it made him tired.

Besides, even though they were almost home they still had almost a full day's journey ahead of them, of awkwardly hauling over a ton of grain on a single handcart and two wagons.

The scouts stopped for a break at the junction as Davis's Marines helped take down the cart and load it up, piling it until the tires began to sag. Trev sincerely hoped it could take the weight, and briefly considered slinging a couple sacks over his shoulders as a precaution. He quickly dismissed the idea, realizing it wouldn't do much other than exhaust him and keep him from being free to help pull the cart.

“Well, from your expressions it looks like you've got a bit of a walk ahead of you,” the sergeant said, standing with the family watching as his men worked. “Sorry we couldn't drop you off any closer.”

“Are you kidding?” Trev asked, grinning ruefully. “You gave us help when we really needed it, which might've saved all our lives. I can't thank you enough.”

Davis shrugged. “Well we had extra room and you paid your way.” He hesitated, then continued. “Listen, at some point we're probably going to be setting up in this area, and if we do General Lassiter will want to contact the remaining towns around here. To offer our protection, but also for recruiting and other aid from the locals that we'll need if we want to beat the blockheads. Where's this Aspen Hill you're headed to?”

Trev opened his mouth to answer, then it was his turn to hesitate.

The sergeant scowled when he saw it. “Seriously? If you can't trust us at this point-”

“It's not that,” Lucas cut in hastily, stepping over next to Trev. “We can certainly trust you, and we're in your debt. It's just that my nephew's been through a lot . . .”

Trev spoke up, a bit annoyed. “Actually it's not that, either. I'd be happy to tell you if it was just us, but I don't know if it's my place to speak on behalf of the town. We've had more than a little trouble since the Gulf burned, and some of it came from . . .” he trailed off, realizing that mentioning the trouble with Ferris and FETF probably wouldn't get a good reception with the sergeant. He found himself regretting even bringing any of it up.

Davis sighed. “Listen, I don't blame you for looking out for your people. And I certainly don't want to sound like we had an ulterior motive for giving you guys a lift. But did you wonder how I justified doing that when the General's been refusing to take on refugees at every town we've visited?”

Trev hesitated. “I didn't really,” he admitted. “Mostly we're just grateful you did.”

“Well listen. When we heard you were heading home to a town in Utah we viewed it as an opportunity. Like I said, we're going to need the support of the locals when we get to the Rockies, and we also need to coordinate with them on using nearby roads without having potshots taken at us. Not to mention making arrangements so they can contact us for aid if they come under attack.”

The sergeant shrugged. “We just figured that you could let your town know the situation, see if anyone wants to join up with us to defend their homes. And once we get set up and seek you out you can sort of be an intermediary for us. Small price to pay for giving you a safe, speedy ride for 600 or so miles.”

That was all pretty reasonable. And anyway Davis already knew the name of the town and it would show up on any map of the area. It really wasn't worth alienating the soldiers who'd soon be fighting for their lives to protect them over pointless paranoia.

Lucas had been nodding throughout that entire spiel. “If you've got a map I can show you, and we'll definitely make sure the town knows what your help means and that you can't do it alone.”

“Fair enough.” Davis got out his map, grunting in surprise when Lucas marked a dot on an area a bit northwest of Carbonville. Aspen Hill was too small to show up, but the location was accurate.

“According to my nephew the signs pointing you to town along Highway 6 were taken down to deter refugees,” Lucas finished as he handed the map back. “But the roads are easy enough to spot, and there are three of them if you miss the first couple. I imagine you'll want to visit Helper, Carbonville, and especially Price as well. We'll contact them on the radio and let them know what to expect.”

“Appreciate it.” The sergeant abruptly noticed that his men had finished piling the sacks of wheat on and around the cart. Heading to the back of the truck, he retrieved the three AK-47s he'd temporarily confiscated. He also motioned to one of his men to retrieve the body armor and few other crowd control tools the family had been carrying.