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From: "Al Steiner" <steiner_al@hotmail.com>
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Subject: {ASSM} NEW: Aftermath by Al Steiner - Ch 14 (MFMF, nc) 1/1
Date: Sat, 24 Feb 2001 10:10:02 -0500
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AFTERMATH
By Al Steiner

Send all comments to steiner_al@hotmail.com
Previous Chapters can be found at www.storiesonline.net
If you are on AOL and reading this from the newsgroups and the entire text
has not come to you, please go to storiesonline to get the rest, do not ask
me to email it to you.  Blame AOL, not me.




CHAPTER 14



Guard position 1 sat atop Hill 4970 outside the northwest perimeter of
Garden Hill.  The hill itself was sparsely populated with pine and redwood
trees and rose five hundred feet above the rooftops of the town.  The guard
bunker was a four-foot trench that stretched thirty feet north to south at
the summit of the hill.  Sandbags lined the front and back of the trench and
a camouflaged cover had been placed over the top of it and covered with tree
branches and mud.  Openings in the sandbag walls allowed for visualization
of the post's area of responsibility - the Interstate stretching off to the
west and the low hills to the north and immediate south of it - and served
as firing ports if a battle ever became necessary.

Brett had designed the bunker so that a complete 10-person squad could
occupy it during a battle and pour fire down upon any invaders approaching
from the Interstate.  Now however, at 2:30 on the afternoon of January 5 (or
March 26 under Matt's calendar), it was staffed only by Maria Sanchez and
Leanette Benton who were two and a half hours into a standard 6-hour guard
shift.  They were armed with one of the automatic M-16 rifles and a
long-range, scoped hunting rifle in addition to their sidearms.  They also
had a fully charged portable radio and a set of expensive binoculars.

The inside of the trench was damp and muddy on the floor of it but
relatively free of dripping water or direct rainfall.  The two women were
dressed warmly in jeans and flannel shirts covered by black rain jackets and
hoods.  They sat side by side upon small stools near one of the sandbag
openings playing a game of cribbage that was set up on a small endtable
between them.  Every few minutes one of them would stand up and make a
complete scan of the area with the binoculars and then, after seeing
nothing, they would go back to their game.

Maria and Leanette had once been bitter enemies.  It had been they that
Chrissie had had to actually separate at post because of physical fighting
not too long before.  Those days were tentatively over, replaced by a
cautious friendship born out of their recent polygamous marriage to Hector.
After Paul's legitimization of the concept by participation in it, Hector
had been one of the first to jump on the bandwagon by suggesting that his
semi-permanent mistress Leanette officially join the union.  Maria had not
been too terribly wild about the idea but she had accepted it, knowing, as
most of the other women were learning, that her husband was going to sleep
with Leanette with or without official sanction anyway.  Since then the two
had become cautious friends with each other, well on their way to developing
the camaraderie with each other that marked most of the other triples.
Together they were attempting to keep their man in line and so far their
combined efforts seemed to be doing the trick.

"Fifteen-two, fifteen-four," Maria counted, laying down her latest hand,
"fifteen-six, a pair is eight, and a three-card run is eleven."  She picked
up her peg and advanced it well past the last hole on the board.  "And
that," she said with a small smile, "puts me out.  That's two in a row I've
whipped your ass."

"Yeah yeah," Leanette said with a good-natured grunt as she threw down her
uncounted cards.  "This is a stupid game."

"It sure is," Maria agreed.  "You wanna play again?"

"Screw that.  What else we got in here?"

"We have Monopoly," Maria, the veteran of this particular post told her.
"Chrissie actually replaced the Monopoly money inside of it with real money
from the grocery store."

"You mean there's real 100's and 50's and 20's in there?" Leanette asked.

"Everything except the 500's," she answered.  "It's kind of fun to play that
way until you remember that the real money is just as worthless as the
Monopoly money was."

"Okay," Leanette said, "let's do it."

"I'll kick your ass at that too," Maria warned.  "I'm the Monopoly master."

"Bring it on girl," Leanette told her with a smile.  "Why don't you start
setting it up and I'll make another check outside."

"It's a plan," she said, reaching under the endtable and into a plastic
garbage bag where the entertainment items were kept.

Leanette picked up the binoculars and stood up, taking two steps through the
mud to the opening.  Sometimes she wondered why they even bothered looking
out every five minutes.  Nothing was ever out there anymore, not even
isolated stragglers.   The last of them had apparently died out more than
six weeks ago, or at least they never showed themselves anymore.  But then,
when her boredom at guard duty would reach a peak, she would remind herself
of that terrifying day when armed invaders had come right in the wall, bent
on capturing the community center and kidnapping the women.  She had been
one of Brett's hastily assembled squad on that day and she always remembered
the horror she had felt when bullets had started whizzing in over her head,
when Dale and then Rick and then Sherrie had been felled right in front of
her.  Those thoughts always compelled her to perform as she was told on
guard duty and make her checks religiously.  Never again did she want to
feel the way she had at that moment.

She put the binoculars to her face and began her slow scan of the area,
starting from the far south of the zone of responsibility.  She looked at a
magnified view of the rolling hills, of the mud flats, of the trees and
shrubs.  She looked over the abandoned grocery store and the abandoned gas
station.  At the gas station a work crew of two women was using a siphon
hose to draw gasoline from the underground tank and fill up the Dodge truck
that served as the town's wood-gathering and general hauling vehicle.  She
held her gaze on them for a moment, not because she thought they were
invaders - she and Maria had been informed by radio a few minutes before
that a work-crew would be leaving the town - but only because they were
actual people in an otherwise sterile environment.  When she got her fill of
looking at them, she turned her head slowly to the right, spinning her view
to the north.  Soon she was looking at the abandoned lanes of Interstate 80,
the most likely avenue of any outsider advance.  She started at the signpost
that marked the official border of Garden Hill and then worked her way west,
towards the small rise some three miles distant where the lanes disappeared
from view.   So accustomed to seeing nothing was she that she actually
looked right over the two figures coming over this rise and kept scanning
before her brain finally gave her a little kick in the ass and told her to
pan back.

She did this quickly, the view jumping and bouncing for a moment before she
was able to steady it on the two people she had seen.  They were still
several miles out and therefore very difficult to catch any fine details of,
but they were unmistakably human beings.  They were walking sedately right
down the middle of the eastbound lanes, shoulder to shoulder, occasionally
leaning on each other for a moment.

"Maria," Leanette said, her voice excited.  "I've got two people out there
on the Interstate!"

"What?" Maria said, looking at her co-wife to see if she was joking or not.
She did not seem to be.

"Two people," she repeated.  "They just came over the rise to the west.
They're walking right down the freeway!"

Maria stood up quickly, pushing her face through the nearest opening.  Her
eyes were sharp and even without artificial magnification she was able to
spot two tiny specks making their way forward.  "Let me see those glasses,"
she said, holding out her hands for them.

Leanette handed them over to her and she put them to her face, getting the
close-in view.  "They don't look like they're carrying rifles," she said
doubtfully.  "They might be over their shoulders though.  Who do you think
they are?  Where are they coming from?"

"I don't know," Leanette said, picking up the scoped rifle.  She aimed it
out through the opening and peered through the scope.  The magnification
wasn't as much as the binoculars but it was considerably more than the naked
eye.  "They don't look like they're very heavily loaded.   You see anyone
else behind them or to the sides?"

"No one," Maria said, shaking her head.  "Goddammit, and Brett and Jason are
gone with the helicopter right now too.  They could've used the infra-red to
check behind them."

Leanette nodded as she remembered this.  Brett, Jason, Matt, and Paul had
flown off about an hour before to continue their recon mission of the
abandoned trucks on the Interstate.  They also planned to do some recon to
the north of the Interstate, on the secondary roads, as well.  "We'd better
tell Chrissie about this," she said, backing away from the rifle a little
and picking up the radio.  "Position one to base," she said into it.  "Are
you there Chrissie?"


+++++

Chrissie was upstairs in the community center's main office, going over the
schedule for the 6:00 PM crew change when the call came in.  She was
currently the only one in the office since Brett and Paul were both away on
the recon mission.  She wheeled her chair over to the shelf where the main
radio set rested and picked up the microphone.

"This is Chrissie," she said, already sensing - based on the tone of
Leanette's voice - that something out of the ordinary was in the works.
"What's happening Leanette?"

"Chrissie," Leanette said, "we have two people walking up the Interstate
towards us.  They're approximately two miles to the west at this time
walking in the eastbound lanes."

She felt a jolt of adrenaline surge through her as she heard this.  People
approaching the town?  Who were they?  What could they want?  Where had they
come from?  And Brett was out of radio range in the helicopter!  What if
they were hostile?

"Chrissie?" Leanette's voice said from the radio.  She sounded a little
worried.  "Did you copy my transmission?"

"I copy," Chrissie said slowly, her mind spinning up to overdrive.  "Where
uh... I mean, can you tell if they're armed or not?"

"Unsure at this point," Leanette replied. "They're still too far away for us
to make anything out.  They're not trying to hide from us or anything,
they're just walking down the roadway."

"No sign of others?" she asked next.

"Not so far," was the answer.  "We're keeping our eyes peeled."

She took a few breaths, trying to think through what she should do next.
Was this an emergency?  Well, not really, not at this point anyway.  But it
was unusual and there were certain things that should probably be done.
"Leanette," she said into the microphone, "keep watching them for the
moment.  Don't do anything until they get up to our sign.  At that point, if
they cross over, treat them like any other straggler."

"I copy that," Leanette replied.

"Positions 2, 3, and 4," Chrissie said next, "answer up in order please."

One by one the other guard posts all checked in with her.  None of them
reported anything unusual outside of their posts.  She told all of them to
increase their alertness until told to stand-down.  This meant that they all
dropped their games and conversations and picked up their guns and
binoculars.

"Are they still advancing?" she asked Leanette and Maria once that was
taking care of.

"That's affirmative," Leanette told her.  "We have a better view of them
now.  It looks like two women.  Still no weapons visible on them.  They have
packs on their backs that look like they're made out of garbage bags."

"How close to the border are they?"

"Still over a mile and a half out, but moving at a good pace."

"Copy, keep me updated."

The minutes dragged onward maddeningly.  Chrissie chewed her fingernails
nervously while she waited for updates, all sorts of evil possibilities
running through her head.  She envisioned the two women on the freeway as
some sort of diversionary tactic for a main group of invaders.  Maybe they
were even now creeping in on one of the other guard posts.  She wondered if
she should activate the fast action teams.  A quick blast of the fire engine
siren outside would bring them running from all directions to assemble in
the parking lot.  Should she call them up just so they were available?  Or
should she wait and see for a few more minutes first?  Finally, after
agonizing over this, she elected not to call them up unless she had some
concrete reason to think there were more than two people out there.

"They're still heading in," Leanette said after about fifteen minutes.
"Under a mile away now.  We can say for certain that they are two females
now.  They have no weapons that we can see on them."

"How do they look health-wise?" Chrissie asked.

"Not great," Leanette said, "but not bad either.  They don't seem to be
starving."

Another fifteen minutes crawled by, again with no new developments.  None of
the other guard posts reported seeing anyone or anything.  Nor did post 1
report seeing anything but the rapidly approaching women.

"They're coming up on the border sign now," Leanette said.  "They should be
able to read it at any time."

"Copy," Chrissie said.  "Let's see if they obey the sign."  The sign in
question read: THIS IS A SECURED AREA.  APPROACH NO CLOSER TO GARDEN HILL OR
YOU WILL BE FIRED UPON.  IF YOU ARE PASSING THROUGH, GO TO THE WESTBOUND
LANES AND WALK QUICKLY ALONG THE NORTH SHOULDER.  DO NOT STOP OR DEVIATE
UNTIL YOU HAVE PASSED THE CLIFFS 3 MILES TO THE EAST.  WE WILL HAVE YOU IN
SIGHT THE ENTIRE TIME.  IF YOU ATTEMPT TO LEAVE THE INTERSTATE AFTER
CROSSING OUR BORDER, YOU WILL BE FIRED UPON.

"They're slowing down," Leanette reported a minute later.  "It looks like
they've spotted the sign.  They're approaching it now."  A pause.  "Okay,
they're reading the sign now."

"I copy," Chrissie said.  "Remember, if they do what the sign says, let them
go peacefully."

"Understood," Leanette answered.  "They're still reading the sign.  Now they
seem to be talking to each other about something."  Another long pause.
"Chrissie, they're uh..." A click of the transmission closing.

"They're what Leanette?" she demanded.  "What are they doing?"

"They're waving at us," Leanette said slowly.

"Waving at you?"

"Affirm.  They're standing just on the other side of the border and both of
them are waving their hands back and forth at us.  It looks like they're
yelling something too but we can't hear them."

Waving? Chrissie thought.  What the hell was going on?  "I copy that
Leanette," she said.

"What should we do now?"

"Nothing," she said.  "Don't do anything for the moment unless they step
over the line."


+++++


Leanette and Maria watched the women wave at them for almost five minutes.
Leanette reported every minute or so that they were still there and Chrissie
told them just to follow protocol for the time being.

"It sounds like they're trying to make contact with us for whatever reason,"
Chrissie told them.  "It could be a trap of some sort so keep your eyes out
for anything else to the flanks.  I'm going to gather a couple of people
together in case we have to go out there."

"Copy," Leanette replied.  "We'll keep watching."

Before Chrissie was able to gather her small force together, the women
became impatient with the lack of response and tried a new tactic.  They
stopped waving their arms and instead held them high above their heads, as
in surrender.  They then slowly walked forward, crossing over the invisible
line that marked the Garden Hill border.  Leanette, still holding the rifle,
contacted Chrissie and reported this development to her before acting.

"Drive them back," Chrissie said.  "Be careful not to hit them unless they
insist on continuing in, but don't let them come any further."

"Copy," Leanette said.  "Driving them back."

She put the radio down and flipped the safety off on the hunting rifle.  She
peered through the scope, aiming at a spot about twenty feet in front of the
advancing females.  The angle insured that the ricocheting bullet would more
than likely not pose a danger to them.  As she had been taught by Brett
himself in the first training class after the attack on the town, she took a
deep breath, held it, and then squeezed the trigger softly.  The sound of
the rifle shot rolled across the landscape and she was able to clearly see
the chip of pavement flying into the air when the bullet impacted a second
and a half later.

"That got their attention," Maria, still watching through the binoculars,
noted.

Indeed it had.  The two women stopped instantly in their tracks and quickly
backed up until they were once again on the other side of the border.

"They backed off," Leanette reported to Chrissie.

"Copy," she replied.  "Good work.  What are they doing now?"

"They're still standing on the other side of the sign.  They've gone back to
waving their hands in the air."

There was a pause.  "All right," she said.  "It sounds like they're kind of
persistent.  Keep watching them.  I'm gonna take a small squad out there to
see what they want."


+++++


She gathered up Maggie, Michelle, and Mike Monahan, all of whom were off
duty and easily accessible at the time.  She armed them all up with
semi-automatic rifles and then commandeered the Dodge Ram truck that had
just come back from its fueling mission.

"Maggie, you drive," Chrissie instructed.  "Mike, Michelle, I want you in
the back of the truck with me."

"Chrissie," Michelle said a little doubtfully.  "Are you sure we should be
doing this?  Brett never told us to go out and talk to stragglers.  He just
told us to drive them away."

"That was when we had stragglers coming five times a day," she said.  "We
haven't had any in six weeks and now all of a sudden two women show up and
start signaling us.  Obviously they have something to say.  I think that
Brett would have probably done the same thing, don't you?"

"Well..." she said, knowing of course, that Chrissie was right.

"Well that's what I'm going to do," Chrissie told her.  "I've given my
orders.  Now let's mount up."

No one else questioned her.  Maggie climbed in the cab of the truck and
Michelle and Mike climbed in the back.  Chrissie jumped up as well and stood
up, her weapon resting on the roof of the cab.  "Get on either side of me,"
she told her companions.  "Keep your weapons trained outward.  Are we all
locked and loaded?"

Everyone confirmed that they were.

"All right," she said.  "Let's do it."  She craned her head down a little
and spoke through the opened sliding rear window into the cab.  "Move out
Mag," she said.  "Keep it slow.  We're standing up back here.  Drive out and
approach them at about twenty miles an hour.  Stop when you get into voice
range of them."

"Right," Maggie replied.  She dropped the truck into gear and started
driving.

They exited the gate of the subdivision a few minutes later and started
heading along Route 63 towards Interstate 80.  Chrissie checked with
Leanette via her portable radio several times during the trip to make sure
that the women were still there, that they were still waving their arms, and
that no one else had appeared on the scene.  Leanette reported each time
that everything remained as it had been.

"I'll get out and make contact with them," Chrissie said as they pulled up
the offramp in the wrong direction to access the eastbound lanes.  "You two
keep me covered.  I'll try to stay out of your line of fire as much as I
can.  If there's trouble, I'll dive to the ground.  If there's a lot of
trouble, like troops hiding in the flanks, then forget about me and get the
hell out."

"Chrissie," Michelle said, "we're not gonna leave you out there."

"If this is a large-scale attack, you're gonna have to and I expect you to
do it," she said.  "Is that clear?"

Michelle looked at her, the woman she loved as a sister, as a co-wife, as an
occasional lover.  "Yes," she said softly.  "It's clear."

They came around a small bend in the freeway surface and suddenly they were
able to see the two figures before them.  They were about a half of a mile
in front of them, standing just as Leanette had described.  They were still
waving their hands slowly back and forth in a gesture indicating they wanted
to communicate.  As soon as they saw the truck they stopped and put their
hands up as high as they could physically make them go.

"Nice and slow Mag," Chrissie said loud enough for the driver to hear.  "As
long as there's no trouble, stop just inside of voice range."

"Right," Maggie yelled back a little nervously.

"Stick to the right shoulder of the road," Chrissie said.  "Keep the
gearshift in drive and your foot on the brake.  If you have to get away
quick, you'll have room to make a fast U-turn."

Everyone tightened their grips on their weapons and took aim at the two
females as they approached.  Maggie slowly rolled forward, the powerful V-8
engine nearly at an idle, and came to a gentle stop about forty feet away
from the two women.  This close they were able to see that they were filthy
with mud - the mark of being outside for long periods.  It was hard to tell
hair color or even race so dirty were they.  They looked at the truck and
its occupants a little fearfully.

"Are you armed?" Chrissie yelled at them.

"No," shouted the woman on the left.  "We only have a few cans of food and a
video camera."

"A video camera?" Mike said softly.

Chrissie ignored him.  "Is there anyone else out there?"

"No," said the same woman.  "We're alone.  We came from Auburn."

"Auburn," Michelle said.  "Jesus."

Chrissie took a deep breath, her adrenaline pumping, her mind whizzing along
like mad as she considered what to do next.  "What is it that you want?" she
asked them.  "Are you just passing through?"

"We escaped from there a little more than a week ago," the woman said.  "We
wish sanctuary with your town.  We will trade information about Auburn and
their intentions towards you for safety."

"Escaped?" Michelle said loud enough for only Chrissie and Mike to hear.

"Intentions towards us?" Mike echoed.

"Please," said the other woman, her voice seemingly near tears.  "We don't
have anywhere else to go.  We're almost out of food.  Men from Auburn are
planning to attack you!  We can tell you about it but you have to take us
in!  If you don't take us in, we'll die and you'll die!"

"Attack us?" Mike and Michelle said in unison.

"Cover me," Chrissie said, coming to decision in her mind.  "I'm gonna go
out and talk them from a little closer."

"Right," Michelle and Mike said.

"Stay right where you are," Chrissie told the two women.  "I'm gonna
approach you.  Keep your hands up like you have them and don't make any
sudden moves."

The two women promised that they wouldn't and Chrissie jumped down out of
the truck.  She trotted over to the left shoulder of the Interstate and,
keeping her AR-15 trained on them, slowly walked forward.  She made sure
that her body did not cross between the truck and the women.  She stopped
about ten feet in front of them.

"What're your names?" she asked.

"I'm Anna," said the woman on the left, the first to have spoken.

"I'm Jean," said the second.

"What's this about an attack on our town?" Chrissie asked.

"There is one planned," Anna said.  "That's all I'll tell you unless you
give us sanctuary in your town."

"Uh huh," Chrissie said.  "And how do I know that you really have any
information?  How do I know that you're even from Auburn?"

"You recently exiled a woman named Jessica Blakely," Anna said.  "She showed
up in Auburn not too long before.  She was picked up by an attack force that
had been planning to attack your town but that pulled back when they heard
what Jessica had to tell them about your upgraded defenses.  Before Jessica
was exiled you were attacked by a group of men and you managed to repel
them.  In some strange way that I wasn't able to follow, this attack is what
led to the exile of Jessica."

Chrissie relaxed her grip on her weapon the slightest bit.  She knew that
these women were speaking the truth - she simply knew it.  "You have Jessica
huh?" she asked.  "Too bad for your town.  What do you mean you escaped from
Auburn?  Are you not allowed to come and go as you please?"

"No," said Anna.  "Women are slaves there.  The men control all of the guns
and they pass us around like joints.  Escape attempts are punished by
hanging.  We managed to get out by using a trick we learned from you - the
nightvision video camera."

Any doubts about the authenticity of their tale disappeared at that moment.
"I don't have the authority to grant you sanctuary," Chrissie told them.
"Our town leaders are uh... well... out of town at the moment.  I will take
you in and keep you under guard until they get back however.  You can
discuss this with them."

"Thank you," Anna said, sighing a little.  Jean repeated this sentiment.

"I want you two to slowly drop your packs to the ground and then lay down on
the pavement," Chrissie told them.  "Put your arms out in front of you and
spread your legs.  I'm gonna pat you down for weapons and then take you back
to town in the back of the truck."


+++++


"You did WHAT?" Brett asked upon hearing the news two hours later.  He,
Jason, Matt, and Paul were weary after their day of mapping the terrain and
poking through abandoned trucks on the highways and byways in the area.
Though they had found two more food sources - an abandoned big rig up near
the snowline that had been hauling Dennison's chili and another, deeper in
the back country, that had been hauling Skippy peanut butter - they had
checked more than twenty trucks in all.  And now, as they were approaching
Garden Hill at last, their fuel supply dwindling, their bodies grimy and
sweaty, Chrissie was telling them on the routine radio check-in that she had
brought two stragglers from Auburn into the town.  Brett's reaction to this
revelation was more instinctive than anything else.

"I brought them inside," Chrissie repeated, her tone daring him to challenge
this decision.  "Isn't that what you would have done, given the same
circumstances?"

Like Michelle earlier, these words had a sobering effect on him.  Yes, that
WAS what he would've done in the same circumstances.  These two women were
potentially valuable information sources and the very rarity of their
presence in the first place would have compelled him to bring them in - as
it had Chrissie apparently.  It was the thought of his young wife
deliberately putting herself into harm's way that caused the knee-jerk
reaction.  "Yes," he told her after a considerable delay.  "I suppose you're
right."

"So don't yell at me then Brett Adams," she said quite huffily.  "I was just
doing what I knew you wanted done anyway."

"I think she put you in your place quite nicely there," Paul, who was
listening in along with everyone else in the helicopter (as well as probably
half the town), noted with a smile.

 "It would seem so," Brett said, reluctantly smiling.  He keyed back up his
microphone.  "My sincere apologies Chrissie," he told her.  "You did the
right thing and I'm letting my emotions get in the way.  So where are our
guests now?"

"I have them under guard in one of the storage rooms in the community
center," she replied.  "I let them take baths and I've given them fresh
clothes.  Right now they're eating some of our leftovers from lunch.
They've been living on canned food for the past eight days now."

"We know what that feels like, don't we?" Brett replied.  "Good job.  Have
the guard posts reported anything unusual since you picked them up?"

"Negative," she said.  "I've had them on high-alert ever since the first
sighting and everything seems to be as it should be.  However, I would
suggest you make a pass around the perimeter and check everything on visual
and with the FLIR, just to make sure that there's not an attack force out
there."

"I concur," Brett said, taking a quick glance at his fuel gauge.  It was
getting pretty low but there was still enough for a quick run around the
area.  "We have just enough fuel to do that.  It should take about ten,
fifteen minutes or so.  We'll report anything to you as it comes up."

"Copy that Brett," she said.  "See you on the ground."


+++++


The aerial check of the area revealed nothing but hills and trees and mud.
There was no sign of a hidden attack force hiding anywhere within ten miles
of Garden Hill's borders.  With less than ten gallons of fuel in the tank,
Brett landed the helicopter its accustomed place.  He then allowed Jason,
his apprentice, to go through the power-down procedure as part of his
training.

"Good job," he told him after he had flipped all of the switches and turned
all of the dials.  "Do you think you can handle refueling by yourself?  I
wanna go meet our new friends as soon as I can."

"No problem," Jason assured him.

"You the man," Brett told him, opening his door and stepping out onto the
wet parking lot.  Behind him Matt and Paul had already gotten out.  They
carried their rifles, which were now safed and unloaded, over their
shoulders and their packs upon their backs.  Together, they all walked to
the side entrance of the community center, said hello to the guard stationed
there, and went inside.

First and foremost, Brett and Paul gave Chrissie a thorough debriefing on
her contact with the two women so far.  She only had a few details to share
that she hadn't already told them over the radio.  Basically the women were
offering to trade everything they knew about Auburn and its inhabitants for
sanctuary and citizenship in Garden Hill.  As proof of their identity they
had dropped Jessica's name and revealed the fact that she was now living in
Auburn.  As an enticement to take the deal, they had made vague assertions
regarding both an upcoming attack by Auburnites and an aborted earlier
attack.

"What do you think?" Paul asked Brett after hearing all this.

"I say we should go talk to them," he replied without hesitation.  "It sound
like they might be a wealth of valuable intelligence."

"Should we agree to their deal?"  Chrissie asked.

Paul shrugged.  "Why shouldn't we?  Truth be known, there's no real reason
to exclude people with the... uh... vigor that we used to.  Now that we have
access to enough food to carry us through, a few more mouths to feed is no
longer potentially the difference between survival and death.  I would
probably be inclined to offer them citizenship even if they didn't have
information for us.  As long as they don't pose a danger of any kind, why
not?"

"Jessica wouldn't be very happy with that attitude," Brett told him.

"No," Chrissie, who still had more than a little lingering hatred for
Jessica, said.  "I wouldn't think she would.  And she was president of the
homeowner's association you know."

"Yes," Paul said.  "And we all saw what that got her in life, didn't we?"
He silently dismissed the subject of Jessica and turned back to Brett.  "So
how do you want to handle this?  You're the expert at questioning people."

"I wouldn't say expert," Brett said, "but I did do my fair share of it back
in my patrol days.  If this were a criminal investigation, I would have them
separated from each other so they couldn't collaborate on stories, but in
this case, we might as well leave them together.  They've already had a
couple of weeks to get their details straight if they're planning on
scamming us in some way.  I'll do most of the questioning of them and
hopefully I'll be able to pick up if they're feeding us a bunch of bullshit.
If I start to feel that that is the case, then we'll separate them at that
time."

"Sounds like a plan," Paul said.

"Chrissie," Brett continued, "you should be in the room during the
questioning, just so they see a familiar face.  And you Paul, you should be
in there as well since you're the one that has the authority to grant
sanctuary or not.  But I'll ask both of you to keep your questions and
comments as minimal as you can."

"Okay," they both agreed.

"And we should videotape the interview," Brett added.  "That way we can go
over it slowly and in detail later if we need to.  We can also use it
against them if it turns out they're lying or misleading us in some way.  A
real good technique in interrogation is to confront your subject with
contradictory information that they gave earlier."

"It'll take a few minutes to rig up a power supply and the equipment," Paul
said.

"We have all night," Brett told him.

"True.  Chrissie, why don't you dig out the camera and I'll start running a
power supply?"


+++++


Brett started off very low key with the two women.  He introduced himself
and Paul and then reintroduced Chrissie to them as well.  Hands were shaken
all around.  He then explained to them that - if they had no objections -
the interview would be recorded for the town archives.  He strongly hinted
that this was a routine matter - as if every conversation that took place in
the community center was videotaped.  They both agreed to this stipulation
without debate.

As he went through these initial steps he looked the two of them up and
down, his sharp, observant eyes not missing a single detail of their
appearance.  Though they were now bathed and fed and dressed in designer
jeans and sweaters that had come from Garden Hill's abundant clothing stock,
it was quite obvious that they had been through quite an ordeal to get where
they now sat.  Their faces were somewhat gaunt, with a few premature lines
and crow's feet - factors which bespoke of both a considerable amount of
recent stress and near-starvation.  Their hands were callused and worn, the
surface marred by multiple cuts, scrapes, and abrasions.  Their fingers had
ground-in mud beneath the nails.  Most telling of all were the eyes - one
set brown, the other set blue - which were haunted and filled with desperate
hope.  Without even broaching the meat of the matter, Brett was able to
develop a pretty good idea that they were on the up and up.

"You say you came from Auburn," he asked them.  "Is that correct?"

"Yes," Anna, the apparent spokeswoman for the duo, replied.  "I lived in
Auburn before the comet.  Jean is from Meadow Vista."

"Meadow Vista huh?" Brett said, turning to the younger woman.  "We flew over
that in the helicopter once.  We saw bodies down on the ground everywhere."

"The militia attacked it," Jean said in a quiet voice.

"The militia?"

Jean opened her mouth to say more but was interrupted by Anna.  "Don't tell
them anything Jean," she said.  "Not until they agree to give us sanctuary."

"We've already agreed to do that," Brett said, unoffended by the
interruption.  "Even without your information, we more than likely would
have allowed you to stay.  As long as you don't prove to be dangerous or
spies or anything like that, you're in."

"Really?" Jean said, beaming.

Anna was a little more cynical however.  "How do we know that you're telling
us the truth?" she asked shrewdly.   "How do we know that you're not just
telling us what we want to hear to get our information from us?"

Brett smiled a little.  "Well," he said thoughtfully, "the truth of the
matter is, that you don't.  I have no way to prove to you that I'm sincere.
No way at all.  I could put it in writing for you if you want, but what good
would that do?  We seem to be a little short on courts and lawyers to
enforce verbal or written contracts now, don't we?"

"Yeah," Anna said.  "I guess we are, aren't we?"

"All we have is our word," Brett said.  "It might not mean much, but it's
all we got.  I promise you that as long as we don't discover some fact that
indicates that you are a danger to us, we will let you stay.  We have enough
food to feed two additional mouths.  We have enough houses to house two
more.  We have enough clothing to keep you dressed warmly.  And we most
certainly have enough work that needs to be done to appreciate two more sets
of hands to do it with.  So what do you say?  Shall we talk or what?"

Anna still seemed a little doubtful.

"Look," Brett told her, leaning forward and softening his voice a bit.  "I
was in your shoes not too terribly long before.  I led Chrissie here and her
brother through the woods after the comet fell just trying to get us all to
some place resembling safety.  I found this town and they were keeping out
all outsiders at that point.  I snuck across the bridge one night just to
prove to them that I had something valuable to offer them - namely, my
knowledge of security and military tactics.  I've sat in that same position
that you are now sitting and I've wondered and obsessed about the same
things.  I don't know how I can assure you that you're all right, but you
are."

Anna sighed, uncertain about how to feel but pressing on anyway.  "All
right," she said.  "I guess we'll have to take you at your word, won't we?
What other choice do we have?"

"I don't know," Brett said, leaning back a little once again.  "What choice
do you have?"

"None at all," she told him.  "None at all.  Let's talk."

"Right," Brett said with a smile.  "Let's talk."

They talked.  For more than two hours they talked.  Jean and Anna told their
story in semi-chronological order, starting with the comet fall and their
pre-comet lives and working through their eventual escape from the town that
had become a fascist prison camp.  They told about the militia and its early
missions to conquer and loot the surrounding towns.  They told of how the
men in these towns were then incorporated into the militia and the women
were then utilized as slaves, both for sexual and work purposes.  Brett
moved them along from point to point, place to place with his questions.
Occasionally, very occasionally, Paul or Chrissie would toss in a question
as well, unable to help but ask for some point to be clarified in the
horrible tale they were being told.  Brett was simply amazed at the quality
of the information that Jean and Anna possessed.  Had these men that ran
Auburn really been so dumb as to talk freely of these things in front of the
women and assume that they weren't absorbing any of it?  Did it never occur
to them what a potentially catastrophic information drain that represented?
Apparently not.

"So let me get this straight," Brett said after the descriptions of women's
rights in Auburn, such as they were.  "You're not allowed to carry a weapon
or participate in any sort of military training?"

"That's right," Anna confirmed.  "And the men are not allowed to do any sort
of cooking or cleaning chores - except for their weapons of course."

"They love to play with their weapons," Jean said with a hateful smirk.

"What an incredible waste of manpower," Brett said as he pondered this.
"The population of Auburn is around 3000, right?"

"Right," she replied, reiterating the answer to one of the first questions
asked in the interview.

"And of that number, more than 2200 are women?"

"Yes."

"Jesus," Brett said, shaking his head.  "In a way we're kind of lucky that
they're doing things this way.  Can you imagine how formidable of an army
they'd have if they trained up the women like we do?  They'd outnumber us by
more than twenty to one."

As shocking as the tales of life in Auburn were, more shocking was the plans
that the Auburn militia had for Garden Hill.  This portion of the talk took
up the most time.

"So they were watching us when we were attacked by those assholes the first
time, is that what you're saying?" Brett asked.

"From one of the hills overlooking town," Anna confirmed.  "There was just a
single platoon of forty men that had been sent out to observe your town.
Bracken was in charge of this mission, as he has been all of the follow-up
missions."

"And Bracken is the man that used to... that you were..." Chrissie said,
unable to think of a delicate way to put their former situation into words.

Jean had no problem.  "The man who used to rape us," she said bitterly.  "He
of the small dick and the big head."

"Uh... right," Chrissie said.

"So anyway," Brett said, steering the interview back on track, "this Bracken
was camped out on one of the hills?"

"Right," Anna said, nodding.  "He found that your defenses were pretty uh...
weak I guess you would say.  He was impressed by the way you handled the
attack once it started but he was disgusted by the fact that it happened in
the first place."

"Thank you Jessica," Paul said sourly.

"That's kind of what we found out once she was brought back to town," Jean
said.

"So what happened," Anna went on, "is that Bracken came back and made plans
to take your town.  Barnes gave him command of an entire company of 160 men
and off they marched."

"160 men?" Brett said with a shudder.

"But that was before he knew about your new defenses or your helicopter,"
Anna said.  "They ran into Jessica about three quarters of the way to town
and were able to get that information from her.  She told them about your
bunkers on the hills and about your training programs and about your
helicopter.  Bracken decided that he needed more men to make the attack and
turned everyone around."

"He aborted the mission?" Brett asked in disbelief.

"He said that your defenses would've murdered them if they had walked in
without knowing about them," Jean said.

"And even once he DID know about them he STILL decided not to press the
attack?"

"Right," said Anna.  "He thought that he probably would've taken the
town..."

"Goddamn right he would've," Brett said, envisioning trying to fight off
that many men.

"But he also thought that he would've taken too many casualties doing it.
The helicopter seemed to be the deciding factor.  He was afraid that you
would use it to direct the battle from the air and to harass the troops on
the ground."

"Which I would have," Brett said.  "But I still don't understand why he
didn't press onward.  Sure, casualties would've been a little higher on
their side, but they would've won.  No doubt about it."

"That's the thing," Anna said.  "The doctrine of the militia is NOT to take
casualties.  That will probably change in the future as more people are
added to it, but Barnes knows that he doesn't have an unlimited supply of
men right now.  Since there is no one to replace the dead and wounded, they
rely instead on overwhelming force to win their battles."

"Hmmmm," Brett said, thinking that this made quite a bit of sense, and was
something that could also be potentially exploited.  "So what happened once
he got back?"

"Once he got back," she said, "he managed to talk Barnes into authorizing a
new attack.  This was an attack that they were still planning and exercising
for when we got away."

"How many men?" Brett asked, afraid to hear the answer.

"Four hundred," Anna said almost apologetically.

There was a stunned silence around the table as this number worked its way
into everyone's brain.

"Four HUNDRED?" Brett said incredulously.  "But that's almost the entire
male population of Auburn!"

"It will leave only forty-five men in town," Anna confirmed.  "Barnes
stipulated that those left would be the most experienced and that most of
the automatic weapons would stay with them.  Bracken agreed to this since it
went along with the brute force doctrine."

"Holy Jesus," Paul said, actually trembling at the thought.

"Brett," Chrissie said fearfully, "we can't fight off that many people!"

"This is bad," Brett was forced to agree.  "But let's sift through this all
the way before we start coming to any rash decisions, shall we?"

"But..." Chrissie started.

"We still have some time," he said before she could go any further.  "Like I
said, let's sift through this."  He turned back to Anna.  "Do you know when
they were planning to make this attack?  Are they already on their way here
now?"

"They were planning to leave January 7," she said.  "There's a good chance
that our escape might've delayed that for a few days however.  They would've
used a good chunk of the troops to look for us."

"January 7?" Paul said, his eyes widening.  "That's tomorrow!  How long will
it take them to get here once they head off?"

"About ten days," Anna said, "maybe a little more.  We got here in only
seven days but we were moving as fast as we could physically go, they'll
just be ambling along to conserve their energy."

"So we're going to have 400 armed men coming down on us in less than two
weeks?"  Paul said, approaching the point of panic.

"Calm down," Brett said, his voice soft and soothing.

"Calm down?  How can I calm down when we're two weeks away from having
our..."

"You're looking at it the wrong way," Brett interrupted.

"What?"

"You're being a glass half-empty kind of guy," Brett told him.  "Let's try
to be glass half-full people instead.  Instead of saying that we ONLY have
two weeks, let's say that we've been blessed with two weeks of warning."

"What the hell difference does that make?"

"Maybe none," Brett admitted.  "But maybe everything.  If not for these two
young ladies here, we would've been hit pretty much by surprise.  Now we
have enough time to sit and calmly decide what, if anything, there is to be
done about this."

"What CAN be done?" Paul asked.  "You're not telling me that you think we
can fight off 400 men, are you?"

"I'm not telling you anything just yet," he said.  "All of the information
is not in at this time.  Why don't we finish the debriefing and then we'll
start discussing what is to be done?"

This served to calm Paul down a little bit.  "All right," he said, taking a
few deep breaths.  "Why don't we do that?"

Brett turned back towards Anna and Jean.  "What do you know about their
attack plans?" he asked them.  "Did they discuss that in front of you as
well?"

Anna smiled.  "They talked about everything in front of us," she said.
"Barnes is the mastermind of the attack plan.  He intends to divide the 400
men into 3 companies of 120 men apiece and one reserve platoon of 40.  He
will be overall commander and will direct the three main companies to attack
from three different directions simultaneously.  The reserve platoon will be
used to fill any holes that develop.  The plan is to quickly overwhelm your
defenses and get inside the perimeter before you have a chance to rally.  He
has high hopes that he can get to your community center before the
helicopter even has a chance to lift-off."

Brett stared slack-jawed at her for a moment, stunned at the quality of
detail she was providing.  He had been expecting, at best, an inexpert
summary of the plans.  Instead, she was giving him an overview that General
Patton would have been proud of.

Paul wasn't so impressed.  The information did nothing but scare him worse
than he already had been.  "I sure feel better," he said, "knowing HOW
they're going to massacre us.  I think I'll be able to sleep at night now."

Chrissie wasn't too keen on this either.  "Brett," she said nervously, "I
don't think we can counter something like that.  Our guards are pretty good
but... well... 400 people attacking at once?  We're not THAT good."

"And we're critically short on ammunition as well," Paul felt compelled to
add.

"All of that is true," Brett agreed, still speaking calmly, as if he were
addressing the subject of dinner that night.  "There IS no way we can fight
off 400 men attacking from three different directions.  And we ARE somewhat
short on ammunition."

"So what are you saying?" Anna, who had been patiently listening to this
exchange, wanted to know.

"I'm not saying anything just yet.  I still don't have all of the
information.  Let's finish talking about this attack plan for the moment.  I
want you to give me every detail that you can think of.  I want to hear
about the people that are leading these companies, what kind of weapons and
ammo they'll be in possession of, what kind of food they eat on their
marches, what kind of morale they typically show.  I want EVERYTHING."

And so Anna and Jean took turns telling all they knew about the attack.  It
was considerable and it took nearly an hour but Brett was able to get a
well-rounded view of just what he was facing.

"So now that you know everything," Paul said.  "What do you think?  Should
we start making plans to evacuate the town to somewhere else?"

"That's a possibility," Brett said doubtfully.  "And we'll keep that high on
our list of considerations of course, but you should realize that it is not
quite as simple as you seem to think."

"Why not?"

"In the first place, where would we go?  El Dorado Hills is maybe a
possibility but we don't know that for sure.  And even if they did agree to
take us in, moving everyone and everything there in a short period of time
is not as easy as it sounds."

"What do you mean?" Paul asked.

"We have more than two hundred people in this town," Brett said.  "We can
only fly four, maybe five out at a time.  That represents more than fifty
round trips in the helicopter.  That will almost exhaust our fuel supply and
will cause horrible wear and tear on the chopper itself.  I cannot even
guarantee that we would be able to make that many trips without losing some
vital component that I can't replace with the supplies I have.  And then
there's our food, weapon, and ammunition supplies.  How many more trips
would it take to move them over?  Another twenty?  Another thirty?"

"So you're saying that we can't evacuate?" Chrissie asked.

"No," he replied, "I'm saying that it's not a simple matter of just loading
everything and everyone up and flying off into the sunset.  If we try to go
that route, we're talking about an eight to ten day operation at best and
with a good possibility we won't be able to get everything and everyone
safely there."

"If we lose the chopper we could go on foot," Paul said.  "It's a long
march, sure, but..."

"A long march of about two weeks," Brett said.  "And we would be forced to
leave most of our food supplies here.  And if we don't have extra food or
this helicopter, why would El Dorado Hills take us in?"

Paul became extremely frustrated at this point. "So are you saying that we
should stay here and try to fight off 400 men?" he yelled.  "Because it sure
the hell sounds to me like that's what you're suggesting!  Do you want to
fight these people?"

"I don't WANT to do anything," Brett told him.  "And I'm not suggesting
anything either.  I'm only telling you the realities of the situation.  And
the realities are that evacuation will be costly and may very well cost us
our food and our bargaining power with other communities."

"Shit," Paul muttered, running his hands through his hair nervously.  "We
have a community meeting scheduled for tonight.  Tongues have been wagging
ever since these two arrived here.  What am I going to tell everyone?"

"Tell them the truth," Brett said.  "They have a right to know that trouble
is on the way and what our options are."

"And if they panic and decide to flee town?"

"I don't think they'll do that," Brett said.  "Just tell them what we know
and we'll work from there."


+++++


"Remember the days," Brett asked Jason at 10:00 PM that night, "when
community meetings used to be quick little affairs that took about twenty
minutes?  We used to gather, have a quick discussion on the matter and hand,
have a vote, and then it was all over.  Do you remember that?"

"I remember," Jason said wearily from his seat in the observer's chair of
the helicopter.  "It looks like those days are over."

"Yep," Brett said, applying power and getting the rotor turning.  "Lifting
off.  Is the FLIR up and on line?"

"Ready for action," Jason confirmed.

The meeting in question had ended only twenty minutes before after raging
for more than three solid hours.  In the course of those hours nearly every
adult in town, including those on guard detail, had had their say on the
matter of the coming attack.  The emotions of the meeting had run even
higher than they had during the recent El Dorado Hills contact debate.  This
time however, nothing was ultimately decided.  Brett, following Paul's
previous lead, had described the ramifications of the information in a
dispassionate and non-biased manner, advocating no particular course of
action.  He had explained that fighting off so many armed men attacking at
once was impossible - it simply could not be done.  He had also explained
that evacuating the entire town and its contents - even assuming El Dorado
Hills agreed to take them - was a risky venture at best without much chance
of succeeding.

The townspeople, scared, angry, and feeling helpless, had taken a lot of
their frustrations out on Brett.  What, they demanded, was there to do about
it then?  Were they just supposed to sit and wait for the attack to come?
Were they supposed to try to make the evacuation anyway?  What?  Brett had
few answers for them and, even after the hours of debate and discussion, no
course of action had been either suggested or voted upon.  The only thing
that had been pretty much unanimously agreed upon was that surrendering to
Auburn was not an option.  After hearing Anna and Jean's description of
Auburn life firsthand, that line of possibility was permanently shut down.
About the only thing Brett could do at the present time to make anyone feel
better was what he was now doing - flying out under cover of darkness to
make sure that the Auburn forces were not yet underway.

"Coming up on 5800 feet," Brett told Jason now, as he rose straight into the
night sky.  All of the instruments were dimmed down, allowing only a soft
red glow in the cockpit.  "Turning to heading two-five-eight."

"Right," Jason said, panning the FLIR forward.  "Everything clear in front
of you."

"Off we go then," he said, adjusting his controls and slowly building up
forward speed.  "Let's hope we don't find anything."

He flew the helicopter slowly, never exceeding 30 knots of airspeed and
often stopping and hovering so that Jason could take a better look around
the area.  They did not strictly follow the Interstate as they normally
would have on a flight to Auburn.  Instead, at each mudfall or washout that
they encountered, they made a wide circle, checking both north and south for
large groups of men off in the woods.

"Are you sure we'd be able to see them?" Jason asked at one point.  "What if
they hide themselves at night just in case we try to do what we're doing
now?"

"You'll see them if they're there," Brett told him.  "There's no way in hell
that they'd be able to conceal 400 warm bodies without a trace of heat
showing.  Besides, it doesn't sound like they even know about the FLIR's
capabilities.  They stick strictly to a..." Brett paused, a thought suddenly
occurring to him.

"Strictly to a what?" Jason asked after a moment.

"A daytime doctrine," Brett said slowly.  "They march and fight only during
the day.  Only during the day."

Jason, not following what Brett was getting at, simply nodded and went back
to his examination of the screen.  Brett however, suddenly had a lot to
think about.

In all, the first night recon mission of the area between Auburn and Garden
Hill took nearly three hours and an entire tank of fuel. They checked every
square mile of potential real estate between the outskirts of Auburn and the
border of Garden Hill.  Brett even made a few checks of the area south of
the canyon, just on the off-chance that they might have a force approaching
from that direction bent on a suicidal attack across the Garden Hill bridge.
They saw nothing at all, not a single person, not even an animal.

"This area is sterile," Brett said, stifling a yawn, as they neared home at
the end of the flight.

"So now we have at least ten days," Jason said.

"Right," he agreed.  "And starting tomorrow, the night flights will be a
routine thing.  We'll go out every evening at 9:00 PM and make another
check."

"You mean we're going to do this EVERY night?" Jason asked with a groan.
Though he loved flying in the helicopter almost as much as he loved having
sex with his wives, the thought of spending three grueling hours every night
peering through the FLIR scope was a bit much.

"No," Brett said, shaking his head.  "Now that we've completed a thorough
search, we'll only have to check the narrow area that the Auburn troops
could have potentially marched to during the previous day.  That's not much
more than a ten mile radius, or, right about the first mudfall east of
Auburn on the Interstate."

"Oh," Jason said, nodding.  "I see."

They reported in on the radio a minute later, making a point to let Chrissie
and Paul, who were manning the radio, know about the negative status of
their search.  By the time the chopper touched down five minutes later,
pretty much the entire town had been informed of the good news.


+++++


Jessica was beyond feeling humiliation at what was being done to her, was
beyond feeling shame or loathing or anything but tired resignation.  She was
naked on the couch, on her hands and knees, her ass sticking up into the
air.  She felt the greasy intrusion of three fingers being shoved in and out
of her anus.

"She DOES have a tight ass," said Sergeant Rosewood, who was naked and
kneeling behind her.  It was his fingers, lubed with Crisco shortening, that
were currently invading her back door.

"And it's a hoity-toity ass as well," said Sergeant Stinson, who was naked
in the recliner next to the couch, Linda kneeling between his legs and
slurping on his erect penis with her mouth.  "She used to be president of
the homeowners association you know."

"I heard that," said Rosewood, who removed his fingers and used them to coat
his turgid cock with a liberal amount of Crisco as well.  "This is the bitch
that ordered people to shoot at me and Doug when we tried to get into that
town."  Rosewood, who had moved up nicely in the ranks of the militia, was
one of the hunters that had met Brett, Chrissie, and Jason in the woods and
had been given life-sustaining food by them.

"Yep," said Stinson.  "She's the one all right.  I had to tame her quite a
bit when she first came here.  She wanted to go the hard way, that's for
sure."

"She seems nice and tame now," Rosewood said, grabbing Jessica by the hips
and putting his cock against her lubed asshole.  With a quick thrust he was
buried in the tightness of her back passage.  Jessica didn't even grunt at
the intrusion.  She was used to it by now.  Rosewood pushed and pulled in
and out of her a few times, getting the feel of the pleasure her orifice
could provide and then he began to slowly move, setting an unhurried pace.

"Taming high society bitches is my specialty," Stinson said with a grin.

Jessica endured the thrusting within her, feeling neither pain nor pleasure
from it.  It was simply a part of her life these days.  She made no noise
except when Rosewood seemed to expect some and then she gave him what she
thought he wanted to hear.  What was happening to her now was quickly
becoming a common thing in Auburn - although Barnes did not approve of it.
Gone were the days when men would get together and have a few beers with
their buddies and shoot the shit.  There were no more liquor stores or 7-11
stores to buy the beer in and the town's supply was accessed only for
special occasions.  Now when men socialized with each other, they
gang-banged the host's wives.  An actual system of etiquette had developed
for such occasions - the primary rule being that the highest-ranking guest
got to choose which wife he would fuck first.  Luckily Stinson was somewhat
of an odd-duck among the other men and he did not have very many friends.
And he had no friends at all among Stu's people - who were notoriously cruel
to their sexual partners (another rule of etiquette involved in such
gatherings was that the host not object to any act that his guest decided to
employ).

"Nothing like a good blow-job after a hard day of training," Stinson said as
he ran his fingers almost lovingly through Linda's hair.  "Helps relieve the
soreness from all that marching and shooting and crap."

"No shit," said Rosewood as he dribbled a little more Crisco on his cock on
each out-thrust.  "It'd be nice if we had some beer or something to go with
this, wouldn't it?"

"It would," Stinson agreed sourly.  "But Barnes and Bracken and the rest of
those pricks have probably drank it all by now."

"Yeah," said Rosewood, "those fuckers.  One of my bitches works in the admin
building and she told me that those pricks sit back at night and drink
fucking scotch on the rocks.  On the fucking ROCKS, can you believe that
shit?"

"I heard that too," Stinson said.  "They say that Barnes has a motherfuckin
freezer set up in there that don't do nothin' but make ice for his drinks.
And he has a fridge that does nothin but keep his beer cold."

"A cold beer," said Rosewood nostalgically, savoring that thought even more
than he was savoring the sensation of his cock in Jessica's ass.  "That
would be God's fucking law that Barnes is always spouting about, wouldn't
it?  Didn't God say that Barnes has the right to iced booze and cold beer?"

"I'm sure he fucking did," Stinson agreed with a hiss of disgust.

They each enjoyed the sensations they were feeling for a moment in silence.
Stinson directed Linda to suck a little harder while Rosewood began to
thrust a little harder.  Soon, not wanting to end their episode prematurely,
they slowed down and struck up conversation once again.

"So what's the word on when we move out?" Rosewood asked.

"No firm date," Stinson told him.  "But I think it'll be pretty soon.
Covington is chomping at the fucking bit to get marching and he has
Bracken's ear."

"Fucking Covington," Rosewood said.  "Why's he so fucking hot to walk all
the way to Garden Hill anyway?"

"He says it's for the bitches.  According to him there's some prime poontang
there."

"We got enough fucking poon here.  I'd just as soon leave those Garden Hill
assholes alone and kick it."

"And Barnes has got a hard-on for that helicopter," Stinson added.  "He
wants that thing and its pilot."

"Why?"  Rosewood said bitterly.  "They're not fucking with us.  Why should
we fuck with them?  Everything is cool here.  We have bitches, we have
enough food to last us until the sun comes out, and we have enough weapons,
ammo, and men to defend ourselves.  Life is good right now.  What the fuck
do we need to go to Garden Hill and possibly get shot for?"

"Orders," said Stinson with a bitter shrug.  "What can you do?"

"Fucking orders," Rosewood said, giving an extra-hard thrust into Jessica's
ass.

Soon the talk ended and the serious thrusting began.  While Stinson took the
can of Crisco and lubed up Linda's ass for penetration, Rosewood began to
pound in and out of Jessica's with a fever.  Soon he stiffened up and she
felt the familiar sensation of hot sperm shooting into her bowels.  As was
customary in such acts, she used her mouth to clean his cock off afterward
and then submitted to a more conventional fuck in the missionary position.
By the time he was done with her, Stinson was also done with Linda, having
shot his load all over her face.

"Go get yourselves cleaned up girls," Stinson ordered as they stood,
dripping and aching, from the furniture and the floor.  "And then help your
sister clean up that fucking bedroom."

The both answered as they were expected and retreated to the nearest
bathroom, leaving the two men to dress themselves and continue their gripe
session.

"So was that enjoyable?"  Jessica asked Linda when they were alone.  "Do you
enjoy having him fuck you up the ass and then blast you on the face?"

"Shut up," said Linda weakly as she dipped a washrag into a bucket of water
and wiped her face.  "I'll tell him what you're saying.  I swear I will."

"And what will that get you?"  Jessica asked her.  "He'll beat me a little
bit and he'll still be fucking you up the ass tomorrow.  Do you really think
ratting me out helps you in any way?  Do you really?"

"Fuck you," Linda said.  "You're a troublemaker."

"Nobody ever fucked me up the ass in Garden Hill," Jessica said, taking a
washrag of her own and wiping the greasy slime from her backside.

"Well you're not in Garden Hill now, are you?"

"No," Jessica said.  "I'm not.  And the reason I'm not is because I was just
like you are.  I've learned something from my mistakes.  Can you learn
anything?"

"Get the fuck outta my face," Linda said.

"Social climbing gets a woman nowhere in this town," Jessica said, careful
to keep her voice low.  "We're property here and they use us like property."

"So what?  That's the way things are."

"But it doesn't have to be that way," she whispered.

Something in the tone of her voice caught Linda's attention.  "What do you
mean?" she asked.

"Think about it," Jessica said.  "We have more than two thousand women in
this town.  Two thousand.  In a few days there is only going to be about
fifty men.  That's a twenty to one ratio.  Have you ever thought about just
what that means?"

"You'll be hanged for talking like this," Linda said fearfully.  "Or even
worse, you'll be burned."

"Only if someone tells the men," Jessica said.  "Whose side are you really
on anyway Linda?  Do you like the way things are in this town, or are you
just adapting to a reality?"

"What?"

"Be honest with yourself.  You don't really like being used like some
masturbatory device, do you?"

"No," Linda said.

Jessica smiled.  "I've had this discussion with Cathy already.  I've also
had it with a few other women at the high school.  Maybe its time that you
and I had it.  What do you say?"

Linda thought for a long time.  "You want to talk," she said at last, "then
talk."


+++++


"Nervous?"  Paul asked Anna early the next morning as the helicopter once
more lifted into the air, this time with Paul and Anna in the back of it.

"I've never flown in one of these before," she said with a voice that was
not quite steady.  Her hands were holding tight to the door handle next to
her as the chopper rattled and bounced its way through the take-off
maneuver.

"Don't worry," Paul assured her.  "It used to scare that crap out of me as
well.  Human beings are just not meant to fly, you know?

"I know," she said, cracking the briefest of smiles.

"But you're safe enough up here," Paul said.  "Brett hardly ever crashes
this thing."

"Hardly ever?" she asked, trying to figure out if he was joking or not.

"Hardly ever," Brett, who was listening in, confirmed with a straight face.
"However, I'd advise you not to pull too hard on the handle you're holding
on to.  You probably don't want to open the door in flight, do you?"

She looked at what she was grabbing and then jerked her hand away as if it
had been hot, visions of tumbling to her death in her head.

"It's okay," Jason assured her, hiding a smirk.  "Really.  You're in good
hands."

While Anna perspired and wrung her hands and while Paul found cold comfort
in the fact that someone else was more fearful than he was for once, Brett
headed at 90 knots for Cameron Park.  Once there he banked right and
followed the ribbon of Highway 50 to El Dorado Hills.  When they got close
Jason patched in the radio headsets to the frequency of the portable radio
they had dropped to the town five days before.

"Coming up on the town," Brett announced as he decreased his altitude and
airspeed.  Ahead of him the hills that guarded the town and part of the
township itself were visible.  "They've more than likely spotted us by now.
It looks like they've all hidden themselves again."

"Copy," Paul replied.  "Go into a hover just outside of weapons range of
them and I'll give them a call on the radio."

"Are you sure that these people really want to talk to us?" Anna asked
nervously, not liking at all the term "weapons range" or the fact that they
were hiding.

"We'll find out in a minute, won't we?" Brett asked her, bleeding away the
last of his forward speed.  "We're hovering," he told Paul.

"Right," Paul said, raising his hand to his key button.  He pressed it.  "El
Dorado Hills, El Dorado Hills, this is Paul Terra aboard the Garden Hill
helicopter.  Anyone down there?"

This time the response was almost immediate.  "Good morning Paul," said a
male voice.  "This is Pat.  You're a few days earlier than we expected you.
To what do we owe the honor of this visit?"

"Sorry for dropping in unexpected," Paul said.  "But we've had something of
fundamental importance occur in our town and we thought that it might be a
good idea to discuss it with you."

"Please explain what you mean," Pat answered back after a moment.

"We've had two women from Auburn find their way to our town," Paul
explained.  "They had quite a shocking tale to tell about life there.  It
seems that what we discussed the other day about our suspicions towards that
town were actually somewhat na ve compared to the truth.  They are in fact a
very militaristic society that makes a habit of attacking other groups of
survivors for their supplies."

There was a longer pause this time.  "I understand," Pat said at last.  "Do
you wish another face to face meeting today?  We are agreeable to that down
here."

"We do," Paul said.  "We have brought one of the women from Auburn with us
as well."

"Very well," Pat told them.  "I'll send a truck to go pick you up at the
location of your choice."

"Copy that," Paul said.  "Let me talk to Brett and I'll advise you where
that will be in a moment."  He turned to Brett.  "So how about it?  You
trust them enough to drop us in the same place as before?"

"I think," Brett said slowly, almost agonizingly, "that we're going to have
to learn to trust these guys even more than that.  And they're going to have
to learn to trust us.  What do you say we take this trust a giant leap
forward right now?"

"What do you mean?"

"Why don't we ask them if we can land in the town?"

Paul looked at him wide-eyed.  "Are you serious?"

"What've we got to lose?"  Brett asked.  "At worst they'll capture us and
have the chopper for their own.  At best, we'll prove to each other that
we're on the up and up.  A radical experiment, true, but at this point we're
running out of time to coddle this potential alliance along.  If there's any
help for our situation to be had here, we need to find out quickly."

Paul continued to look at him, trying to calmly evaluate what Brett was
suggesting and having a hard time at it.  In the end, he was forced to
simply go with a gut feeling.  "I think they're on the up and up," he said
at last.  "Let's ask."

Brett nodded, having his own mix of emotions about the decision.

Paul keyed up the microphone.  "Pat, are you still there?"

"Right here Paul," he answered.  "I have a team standing by in the truck.
Where will it be?"

"Well actually," he said, "we were wondering if maybe you would allow us to
land in the town."

The pause was about ten seconds this time.  "I'm sorry," Pat said.  "Did you
say you wanted to land in the town?"

"If you'll allow it," Paul replied.  "We promise we don't have an attack
force on board."

Another long silence.  Finally: "Will the parking lot outside of the
elementary school be sufficient?"


+++++


Brett touched down gently less than a hundred feet away from the cafeteria
building.  With hands that were trembling a little from nervous
anticipation, he went through the power-down procedure and turned off the
engine, allowing the rotor to slowly spin to a halt.   "Well now," he said,
watching as two men and three women, all of them carrying rifles, came out
of the building, "I guess we find out if we just made a big mistake or not,
don't we?"

"I guess we do," Paul replied, putting his headset down.  "Let's get these
guns off."

"No," Brett said, shaking his head.  "Leave them on."

"What?" Jason said.  "Won't that piss them off?"

"If they want us to disarm, they'll tell us," he said.  "Until then, leave
them on.  It's a trust issue."

"I see," Jason said, not understanding but obeying.

The group of El Dorado Hills residents walked closer to the helicopter,
their own faces reflecting the nervousness that the Garden Hill residents
were feeling.  Their rifles were slung over their shoulders, not pointed at
anything.  They stopped just outside the arc of the rotor and waited.

Brett and Jason both opened their door and stepped out, both taking care to
keep their hands in the open.  From the back of the helicopter, Paul and
Anna (who was looking a little green and was more than a little unsteady on
her feet) joined them.  Paul recognized Pat as one of the men and Bonnie as
one of the women.

"Thank you for allowing us to land," Paul said, walking a few steps forward.

"It's our pleasure," Pat said, giving a slight smile.

Brett watched all of this carefully, waiting for the guns of the El Dorado
people to swing upward, waiting to be taken into custody.  But they didn't
and they weren't.  Paul walked forward towards the crowd and Pat, after a
moment, stepped forward as well and met him halfway.  They exchanged a
handshake and a few words of greeting.  The guns on the waists of Paul,
Jason, and himself were looked at but not commented upon.

"Why don't we go inside out of the rain?"  Pat suggested.

"Yes," Paul agreed.  "Why don't we do that?  We have a lot to talk about."


+++++


An hour later Paul, Brett, Jason, Anna, Pat, Bonnie, and Renee were sitting
around a conference table in the same room that the meeting the other day
had taken place in.  All of them, with the exception of Jason, were sipping
from cups of herbal tea and occasionally chewing on small pieces of dried
fish.  Brett and Paul had just finished telling the tale of Auburn and the
coming attack to their hosts with occasional stories thrown in by Anna when
they were requested.

"So you can see," Brett said when the story was told, "why we're concerned."

"Four hundred men," Pat said contemplatively.  "That is quite an army in
this day and age.  And they are well armed you say?"

"They raided the sheriff's department, the Auburn Police Department, a large
gun store, and an army/navy surplus store after the comet," Anna replied
with a nod.  "They've also taken all of the weapons and all of the ammo from
every town that they've conquered since then.  They don't have a limitless
supply of ammo and guns, but they do have a lot, certainly enough that every
man marching on Garden Hill will have a rifle of some kind."

"And what about your own ammo supply?"  Renee asked.  "Forgive me for
prying, but will you be able to fight them off?"

"No," Brett said.  "We have quite a few guns, including a few automatic
assault rifles, but we're critically short on ammunition.  There is no way
that we could absorb a three-pronged attack such as the one they're planning
to hit us with."

"So what is it that you want from us?" Pat asked carefully.  "Obviously it
is something or you wouldn't be here.  Do you want to evacuate your people
here?  Is that what you want?"

"That is an option that has been discussed," Paul replied, "but Brett has
pointed out to me quite graphically that it is not a terribly viable
option."  He explained a little further as to just why this was so.

"So are you asking us to come to Garden Hill and help you fight then?" Pat
asked next.  "I'm not sure that any of our people would agree to that."

"No," Paul said, "that's not what we're asking either.  What we were hoping
for with this trip was to fast-track the discussions on trade that we
started on the last trip."

"What kind of trade?"

"Any kind of trade," Paul said.  "You see, our options in Garden Hill are to
either try to fight these people or to flee town for someplace else.  Since
fleeing town is not as easy as it sounds, that leaves us with the former
option.  We're going to have to fight."

"And to fight," Brett said, "we need ammunition and guns."

"And what makes you think that we have ammunition and guns to spare?" Pat
wanted to know.

"We don't know if you do or not," Paul told them.  "That's what we're here
to find out.  We DO know, from looking in the El Dorado County Yellow Pages,
that there used to be a gun store here in town.  Bob's Guns it was called if
I'm not mistaken.  So if you managed to salvage the stock from Bob's Guns,
maybe you would be willing to trade some of it for a few tons of bulk rice
and wheat."

Pat, Renee, and Bonnie all shared a look with each other, interest clearly
in their eyes.

"We also have access," Brett added, sweetening the pot a little, "to canned
spinach, canned chicken noodle soup, Gerber baby food, and, as of yesterday,
peanut butter and Dennison's chili."

"That does sound rather intriguing," Bonnie said, actually licking her lips
a little.

"But supposing that we DID have this ammunition," Pat said.  "How would we
know that you wouldn't use it against us?  How do we know that all of this
isn't some plot to deprive us of our own stock?"

"You don't," Paul said.  "That's where trust comes in.  This isn't some
corporate boardroom or some diplomatic chambers.  We're not businessmen or
ambassadors here.  We're human beings, just like you are.  You have
intuition and you have common sense.  Does it FEEL to you like we're setting
you up?"

"No," Pat said after a moment's consideration.  "It doesn't."  His
companions both agreed with this assessment.

"That's because we're not," Paul said.  "We're a scared, outnumbered group
of people that are facing a potential slaughter.  We came here to ask you if
you could help us and we're willing to help you with your food shortage
problem in return.  That's all there is to it."

Another look was shared among the El Dorado Hills group.  It was followed up
by a few more as an unspoken, telepathic type of communication occurred
between the three of them.  It went on for quite some time until finally,
careful, cautious nods were exchanged.

"We were able to get the entire inventory of the gun store up here before it
was washed away," Pat said.

The sigh of relief from the Garden Hill side of the table was clearly
audible.

"You have .30 caliber rounds?" Brett asked.  "We have more .30 caliber
rifles than anything else and we're down to less than 300 rounds."

Another look was exchanged among the El Dorado Hills group, this one
followed by a mutual shrug.  "In for a penny, in for a pound I guess," Pat
finally said.  He stood up.  "Why don't we go take a little tour of the
armory and then we'll work from there?"



+++++


"Oh my God," Brett said excitedly as he saw just what kind of firepower El
Dorado Hills was in possession of.  Like in Garden Hills, all of the weapons
and ammo that were not being used or had not been issued to a person were
stored in one place, in this case one of the larger classrooms of the
elementary school.  Shelves had been scavenged from other parts of the
school and installed in geometric rows from wall to wall in this room.
These shelves were all filled to near capacity with firearms of many
different types and boxes upon boxes of ammunition.  "I had no idea a gun
store carried so much inventory."

"They had quite a storeroom in the back," Pat said, leading him around the
room.  "Some of the stuff back there was not exactly legal."

"No?" Brett asked.

"No," Pat confirmed.  "The owner of the store was one of those militia types
and I think he had a few things from his personal collection in there.  We
found a few fully automatic Uzi's, a fully automatic Mac-10, ten military
issue M-16s, six fully automatic AK-47s, and nearly forty different illegal
assault weapons of varying type."

"It's a goddamn motherload," Paul, trailing a little in the rear, commented.
"What happened to the owner?"

"Apparently he was standing outside of the shop on the street when the
earthquake hit," Pat explained.  He must've been trying to get clear of the
building while the shaking was going on.  While he was doing that an
electrical pole snapped and fell down at the end of the block and the wire
hit him.  He died of electrocution probably only a minute or two before the
power went out for good."

"That's too bad," Jason said without much emotion.

"Maybe," Pat replied with a shrug.  "Or maybe it was just as well for the
rest of us.  Bob was someone that probably would've made a bid for town
leadership back in the organization phase.  I could easily envision him
allying with our politician friend and maybe turning this place into
something like Auburn.  I'm also quite certain that he wouldn't have just
quietly let us come and raid his store."

"Probably not," Brett allowed, looking at a shelf full of ammunition.  The
entire shelf, which ran from one end of the room to the other, was filled
with boxes of .30 caliber rounds.  There had to at least five hundred of
them.

"As you can see," Pat said, watching Brett lovingly caress the boxes, "we're
very heavy on .30 caliber.  Bob's store was a major stopping point for
hunters heading up into the hills and we were right smack in the middle of
hunting season.  At last count we had around twenty-six thousand rounds of
it.  Of course not all of that is from the store alone.  Just like you, we
scavenged the empty houses in town and took all the weapons and ammo from
them as well."

"What about 5.65 millimeter?" Brett asked.

"We're not as well set in that department," Pat told him.  "We only have
about twelve thousand rounds of that."

"Is that all?" Brett asked with humorous sarcasm.

Pat laughed.  "I guess that is quite a bit, isn't it?  I'm sure that we can
spare some of it for you in the interests of food exchange."

"What are these red boxes?" asked Jason, who was at the end of the shelf
that held the 5.65 ammo.  He was holding up one of a group of fifty or so
boxes that was colored differently from the others.  "It's not a different
brand or size, it's just a different color."

Brett and Pat both walked over to him and looked at what he was holding.
"Tracer rounds," Pat said.  "Bob had a pretty good supply of those as you
can see."

"Tracer rounds?" Jason asked.

"No shit," Brett said, taking the box from him.  He looked it over and
confirmed that that was what they were.  "They're treated with red
phosphorus so they'll glow red when you fire them."

"Cool," Jason said, impressed.

"All the better for home defense, right?" Pat cracked.

"How many boxes of those do you have?" Brett asked, an idea that he'd had
earlier reoccurring to him with this new discovery.

"About sixty," Pat said.  "We haven't found much of a use for them here as
far as defense goes, although they are useful for training purposes."

"Three thousand rounds of tracers," Brett said contemplatively, his idea
taking on a larger form in his head.  "Very intriguing."

"I've seen enough," Paul said.  "Why don't we go start negotiations?"

"Why don't we?" Pat agreed.

They left the room, with Pat locking it carefully behind them, and headed
back to the conference room.  Once there they resumed their previous seats
and began bartering.  It was perhaps the fastest diplomatic agreement in
modern history.

"Look," Paul said, "we're not much into haggling here.  We need what you
have and you need what we have.  I promise to be fair if you will."

"That's the only way to do it," Pat said, getting nods of agreement from
Renee and Bonnie.

"Good," Paul said.  He turned to Brett.  "You saw what they have and you
know what we need.  Why don't we get that figure out on the table first?"

"Okay," Brett said, looking across the table.  "If we're to have a prayer in
hell of driving these Auburn assholes back, we're going to need at least
seven thousand rounds of .30 caliber and five thousand rounds of 5.65.  Why
don't we start with that?"

The three El Dorado Hills negotiators all whistled softly as they heard
this.  "That's quite a bit," Pat said a little doubtfully.

"And four hundred people with guns are quite a bit as well," Brett replied.
"Like Paul said, we're being fair here.  That is honestly what I think it'll
take to put up any kind of defense that could be rated above hopeless."

"We COULD absorb that," Renee said.

"I suppose," Pat reluctantly allowed.  "What else?"

"That's the meat of our needs," Brett told them.  "If you agreed to nothing
else, I think we could get by with that alone.  However, there are a few
other things that would make my job a little easier."

"Such as?"

"We could use another four automatic weapons, either the M-16s or the
AK-47s, or a mixture of both.  And speaking of AK-47s, we have a few of
those in our inventory as well.  We could use about two thousand rounds of
ammo for them."

"Anything else?" Pat asked.

"Those tracer rounds," Brett said.  "All that you can spare.  All of them if
that's possible."

"The tracer rounds?" Paul asked.  "What do you want those for?"

"A little idea I'm having," Brett said, and he refused to say anymore about
it at that point.

"Okay," Pat, who had been making notes, said.  "Let me go over this real
quick just to make sure I have it right.  You want seven thousand rounds of
.30 caliber shells, five thousand rounds of 5.65 millimeter, two thousand
rounds of AK-47 shells, four automatic weapons, and three thousand rounds of
5.65 millimeter tracer rounds.  Is that correct?"

"That is correct," Brett confirmed.  "And again, that is what I believe to
be a fair assessment of our needs versus your supply."

"I think the first thing we should decide Pat," Renee said, "is whether or
not we can spare that much of our armory.  What do you think?"

"We could spare it," he said immediately.  "It will create a significant
dent in our holdings, that is true, but we'll still have enough to fight an
Auburn-sized force if we had to."  Or a Garden Hill sized force with aerial
assault capabilities, he did NOT say, but which was clearly on his mind.

"All right," Bonnie said.  "We can spare that amount.  That's decided.  So
now comes the good part.  What are you offering in return for this?"

Paul handled that part of the negotiation.  "We'll deliver to you two tons
of rice, two tons of wheat, and six thousand cans each of spinach, chicken
noodle soup, and Dennison's chili.  We'll be willing to throw in some baby
food and some peanut butter as well when we get around to making the
recovery of those items."

A quick discussion ensued among the El Dorado Hills team.  They whispered
back and forth and looked at Pat's notes.  Finally Pat said: "Those amounts
are acceptable.  How would delivery work?"

"We'll give you half of the grain right away and all of the canned food
except the chili.  After delivery of the weapons and ammo, we'll deliver the
rest of the grain.  The baby food, the chili, and the peanut butter, we'll
do when we get around to it.  Sorry, I can't give an exact date on that
one - recovering those supplies are not one of our priorities at the
moment."

"I understand," Pat said, looking at his companions.  "Any questions?"

"How will you get the grain to us?" Renee asked.

"We'll take it directly from the same train cars that we took it from,"
Brett said.  "It'll be an all day operation, maybe a two-day operation.
You'll need to strip enough water heaters out of abandoned houses to
transport and store it all."

"Water heaters?"

"You're not using them for anything else, are you?" Paul asked.  "They hold
five hundred pounds apiece and they're easy to fill and rig with ropes.  You
need to cut the tops open and put hinges and clasps on them.  Once you get
eight of them ready for us, we'll do the deed."

"And we would certainly," Brett added, not bothering to consult his leader
on this, "be open to further trade of our foodstocks for some of your fish
and especially some of your lobster and crabs."

"Assuming, of course," Paul said, "that we're still around to do that."

The El Dorado Hills team excused themselves for a minute and left the room
so they could discuss the deal in private.  They returned five minutes
later, their expressions neutral.

"It looks like you folks have yourselves a deal," Pat said, holding out his
hand.


+++++


"Okay," Paul said on the flight back to Garden Hill, "we have the ammunition
that we need, or at least we will.  Now what?  We still have the slight
problem of fighting off 400 men."

"One obstacle at a time," Brett said.  "The ammunition was a big one - maybe
the biggest one.  Now that we don't have a shortage to worry about, I think
I can come up with something."

"What are you going to come up with?"  Paul demanded.  "You told everyone
yourself that we can't fight off that many people hitting us from three
different directions.  Has that changed in some way that I'm not aware of?"

"No," Brett said.  "We can't fight off that many people at one time.  That
still holds true."

Paul gave a grunt of frustration.  "What am I missing here Brett?  You're
telling me that we'll slaughtered but you're implying that you have some
sort of plan.  Please clarify."

"I said that we can't fight off that many people at once," Brett explained.
"So what we'll have to do is make sure that there isn't that many people
when they get to us."

"What?"  Paul and Jason said together.

"We have a helicopter," Brett reminded them, just in case they had forgot.
"And they have a ten to fourteen day march to make before they get into
fighting range.  We know what their intentions are towards us, don't we?  So
why should we wait patiently for them to come to us?"

Paul looked at him carefully.  "What are you saying?"

"I'm saying that we need to harass them every step of their march.  We need
to fly squads out to do hit and run missions on them from the very day that
they leave Auburn."

"Hit and run missions?"  Paul asked.

"We fly a four-person squad out and drop them along their avenue of advance.
The squad rakes them with fire and then withdraws to the helicopter before
they can be engaged at close range.  We fly a little further down the line
and do it again.  We do that three or four times a day, every day, at random
intervals, and I think we'll have a very detrimental effect on them."

"Are you saying that four people will be able to significantly reduce their
numbers?" Paul asked.  "I find that very hard to believe.  I mean, what's
the best that we can hope for?  That they'll take out ten or twelve people
at a time at first."

"That would be a good figure," Brett said.  "Of course, as they get used to
the attacks they'll learn to react faster to them when they occur.  After
the first two days or so I'd be surprised if we could hit more than five or
six per attack."

"Okay," Paul said, "so we knock off a hundred or so before they get here.
That'll still leave 300 people to battle when they arrive, won't it?"

"No," Brett said, "you're missing the real value of this tactic.  It is not
so much the dwindling numbers that it will create through casualties that
will help us, it is the morale problem that we will create by doing this."

"Morale problem?"  Paul asked incredulously.  "You want to try to win a war
by making them mad?"

"Not mad," Brett said.  "Scared.  Terrified even.  I think that you're maybe
underestimating the power that demoralization has in a combat situation.  We
will be raining random death down upon these people constantly.  They will
never know where it is going to come from or whom it is going to strike.
They'll get antsy and nervous as they come closer to us.  If we can hit them
at night as well - and I have a pretty good idea of how we can do that -
than that will rob them of sleep.  Do you remember when Anna told us about
how some of the men are starting to question the wisdom of constantly
attacking everyone?"

"Yes," Paul said, sparing a glance at her.  She was listening intently to
the conversation.

"These militia people are mostly conscript types.  They are a part of this
army because of conquest, fear, and intimidation.  Right there is the
beginnings of the morale problem.  Things have not come to a head however
because they've never really lost a battle or even been significantly
challenged on the battlefield.  They think they're invincible.  We need to
show them that they are not, that they will have to pay a steep price for
taking us.  Once they start to see their friends blown away on the trail,
once they have to contend with being hit when they least expect it, even
while they're trying to sleep, that morale will break.  They won't feel safe
anywhere.  They'll start to have desertions and maybe even the fragging of
officers.  It's what the Vietcong did to us in Vietnam, it's what the
Afghans and the Chechens did to the Russians, it's what we did to the
British in the Revolutionary War.  It is a sound military tactic and I
intend to employ it to the best of my abilities here."

"And you think it'll help?" Paul asked.

"It'll help," Brett assured him.  "And with some upgraded defense plans at
the town itself, I think it just might be enough."

"I hope you're right," Paul said.  "Because it's damn sure going to have to
be."


+++++


The community meeting was called early that day, with Paul passing the word
that everyone except the guards on station drop whatever task they were
engaged in and report to the community center.  The guards on station, as
was becoming routine, had the meeting broadcast to them on the radio waves.
The mood of the town, which had been frightened and almost panicked, quickly
turned to optimism as Brett explained to them just what he had in mind.

"We can beat these fuckers people," he told them.  "And not only that, we
can beat them so hard that they'll never show their faces around here again.
We have the motivation to fight where they do not.  We now have the weapons
and the ammunition to fight them with.  I'm not going to go so far as to say
that we have God himself on our side, but I will tell you that our spirit
for success and our survival instinct is sure to prevail."

This speech was met with a round of spontaneous applause from the crowd and
even a few tears of emotion.

"But in order to do this," Brett said, "we're going to have to pull together
like we've never pulled together before.  We need to abandon just about
every other project that we have underway and start digging bunkers in those
hills outside of town.  We need to put up obstacles and make some sort of
landmines.  And most of all, I need some volunteers to undergo some
additional training and be part of the harassment force.  I need..."

He was forced to wait while hundreds of cries of "I volunteer!" were shouted
out.

"I'll pick the volunteers later," Brett said once they quieted down.  "For
ease of training, I'll only accept those that have been on the guard force
and undergone more than the basic firearms course."

There was a collective groan from those that had not gone through that.

"But the rest of you need not worry I think," Brett responded.  "You'll have
your chance to get in the battle.  Trust me on this.  Some other things that
we'll need to do are form up into squads and platoons so that we can
establish a firm chain of command for this battle.  We'll have to develop
radio procedures and codes to employ once the Auburn group gets close enough
to monitor our radio traffic.  We also have the obligation to start
delivering the promised grain and canned food to El Dorado Hills.  This is
going to be a very intense and busy two weeks or so, have no doubt about
that.  But if we do this right, and I have no reason to think that we won't,
this battle will be something that our distant descendants will read about
in their history books.  We WILL prevail!"

The applause this time lasted nearly five minutes.


+++++


It was an hour before dinner.  Jason and Hector were standing on ladders
next to the helicopter.  The engine compartment and the rotor housing were
both opened and they were changing fluids and checking the status of the
major components.  They were performing a complete maintenance regime on the
chopper even though it was not scheduled for one for another twenty flight
hours.  The helicopter was about to get a serious workout over the next few
days and Brett wanted it to be in tip-top operating condition.  Jason, who
had assisted in all of the previous maintenance of the machine was doing it
solo for the first time and training Hector, who had aspirations of one day
piloting the machine, in the routine.

Brett was very close by, though not watching what Jason was doing.  Though
Jason was only fourteen, actually fifteen now, he had every confidence in
his abilities.  Instead, Brett was underneath the nose of the helicopter
with Steve Kensington pointing out some features to him.  He had an unloaded
M-16 rifle from one of the guard posts in his hands.

"So what do you think?" Brett asked once they'd crawled back out and stood
up.  "Can it be done?"

Steve pulled a cigarette from his pack and sparked up, taking a thoughtful
drag.  "I can do it," he said confidently.  "It's just a matter of cutting a
hole in the bottom between the frame supports and welding a mount of some
sort into place."

"Can you make a mount though?" Brett wanted to know.  "That struck me as the
hard part."

"Oh no," Steve said, shaking his head.  "The mount will be the easy part.  I
won't even have to make it.  All I have to do is use the mount from a
telescope tripod.  I think that'll work nicely.  I'll install a receiving
port on the stock of the weapon and it'll screw in tighter than a nun's
cunt.  Of course, the weapon will be upside-down.  That won't matter, will
it?"

"Actually," Brett said, considering this, "that'll be better than having it
right side up.  The trigger will be inside the cockpit that way and the
shells will eject outside.  It'll also make reloading easier."

"Good enough," Steve said.  "I'll get right on it."

"I have to make the check of Auburn tonight at 9:00.  Will you have it done
by then?  If not, just wait until tomorrow morning to do it."

"I'll have it done in less than an hour," Steve promised.  "I'll go dig out
to the cutting torch and the welder right now."

"You the man," Brett said, patting him on the back.

Pleased by the praise, Steve headed off towards the maintenance shed with a
smile on his face.

Once he was gone Brett walked over to the ladder that Jason was standing on.
Currently he was pouring fresh lubricating oil into the rotor housing.  "You
okay here?" he asked.  "I need to go talk to Paul for a few minutes."

"We're on top of it," Jason assured him.

"You the man too," Brett said.

He found Paul in the community center office dictating some notes into a
battery operated tape recorder.  He shut the machine off when Brett came in.

"Everything going okay?" he asked.

"Perfect," Brett said.  "Jason and Hector are almost done with the
maintenance of the bird and Steve says it'll take him about an hour to
install a 16 on a mount beneath it."

"An hour?" Paul said.  "Really?"

"He's a fuckin' mechanical genius, I'm telling you.  Anyway, I wanted to
talk about a few special missions that I'd like to make and another work
crew that I'd like to raise when we have the time."

"Shoot," Paul said.

"When we're done making our deliveries to El Dorado, I think we should make
a few trips to recover some of the laundry soap in that truck trailer."

Paul looked at him as if he were mad.  "Tide?" he asked.  "What the hell do
you want to do that for?  Don't you think we can let our laundry concerns
ride for the time being?"

"I don't want it for laundry," Brett said.  "It can serve another purpose
for us."

"Oh?"

Brett explained what he meant.

"Remarkable," Paul replied, obviously impressed.  "And how will you do
this?"

"That's where the work crew comes in," Brett said.  "We need to get some
people to start pulling the gas tanks out of some of the vehicles that we're
not using.  I think a fifteen-gallon tank would work just perfectly.  It's
big enough to create the effect that we're after but small enough so that
dropping it from the helicopter won't spin me out of control."

"Wow," Paul said.  "I'll get a work crew together in the morning."  He
paused for a moment.  "Did I ever tell you Brett, that I'm really glad that
you're on our side?"

"You never did, but I'm kinda glad to be here."




Al Steiner - February 23, 2001
Chapter 15 to follow

-- 
Pursuant to the Berne Convention, this work is copyright with all rights
reserved by its author unless explicitly indicated.
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