Dux Bellorum (Future History of America Book 3) (69 page)

Hughes noted the civilians—mostly minorities but with a sprinkling of just about every race he could imagine thrown in—received treatment from a group of medics as they worked their way through the injured.
 

In the opposite direction, a line of soldiers kept their weapons trained on a small group of Russians. They looked beat to hell, exhausted, and bloodied. Not a single medic was near them.

Hughes looked back at the collection of rebels. There
had
to be a story behind this. He just finished fighting for his life against these bastards in New York, chased them a thousand miles down the eastern seaboard and nearly had his ass blown out of the air by them. Now they'd just shared the battlefield with the American army against the Russians and were being treated surprisingly then they deserved.

Hughes shook his head. He would never understand generals.
 

One thing he
did
understand was that the Russians were finished. Their invasion of America had come to nothing. If he knew Stapleton, the general would resupply and regroup the Division as fast as possible then march straight into the heart of occupied Florida.

His XO adjusted the bloody bandage on his right leg. He stretched his leg out in the sun and groaned. "Well, that was fun. Now what do we do?"

Hughes turned and looked south. Through the smoke obscuring the horizon, past the pine trees and a few scattered, charred palms along the road, he stared toward the remaining Russian army.

"Now we take our country back."

Chapter 74

Strategy

E
RIK
LOOKED
AT
THE
ragtag group of seven senior citizens gathered around the table in front of him. Five old men, a woman he didn't know, and Maggie. All that was left of the town of Ticonderoga still willing to fight.

"I'm all for going in there as the underdog," Erik whispered to Ted, "but…I mean, is this really gonna work?"

Ted regarded the recruits with a dubious eye. "I don't know. Whatever happens—”

"It's got to work," said Maggie, silencing the others. "We don't have a choice."

"She's right," added Dan, in his usual gruff voice. "Those of us still living here don't have much of a chance to make it through winter without electricity and heat. That group over in the fort damn well knows that, too. They can sit back and let us die.
 
Come spring, they can pick through the whole town without risking anything."

"In fact, if they decide to attack now," said one of the newcomers, "there's not enough of us left to make much of a difference. They probably know
that
, too—i's got to be the only reason why they haven't attacked again."

"These are the only weapons left in town?" asked Ted.

Erik looked over the assortment of hunting rifles and shotguns.
 
Here and there a pistol worn on a shrunken hip rounded out the bulk of their hardware. Erik looked at Ted and noticed the marine looked genuinely worried. It was not comforting sight.

"That we know of," said Maggie. "After the last attack, they took pretty much everything."

Ted nodded. "I want to make sure you all understand the risk that you're going to be taking."

"Some of us have lost everything: our homes, even our families. Not everyone has lost loved ones, but we've all lost
something
. We understand the risks, Mr. Jensen.
 
Time is running out for us to do something—in more ways than one."

"I ain't gettin' any younger, that's for sure," muttered one of the men.

"I appreciate you all volunteering to help, I really do," said Erik. All eyes shifted to him. His voice caught in his still-sore throat. Instead of a group of hardened soldiers—or even a bunch of average citizens banded together to defend the Freehold—grandparents with wrinkled hands and emaciated arms stared back at him.

"Let me guess, you want to warn us that this is a suicide mission, right?" asked Dan.

Erik cleared his throat and glanced at Ted. "Well, that's not exactly how I would put it, but yes something along those lines."

"Son," the old man said, his voice softening, "when you make it to our age, sometimes just going to check the mail can be considered a suicide mission." He waited for the others to stop laughing.
 

"In all seriousness, if we don't do something now, we're as good as dead come spring. And I don't know about all of you, but I don't intend for my story to be over yet."

"That settles it then," said Ted. "Let's go over the plan one more time."

"Right," agreed Maggie.

"Tonight, the nine of us will—”

"You mean ten of us," said Brin from the background.
 

Erik turned and faced his wife. "No way—you can't—”

"I can and I will. I have just as much at stake in this as you."

Erik stared at her, trying to communicate his fears and worries through his eyes. "Brin," he said stepping closer. "This is going to be rough. You should—”

"Don't treat me like I'm some sort of glass rose," she said. A frown creased her brow. "You're the one walking in there
unarmed
. At least I'll have a shotgun."

"But, you're—"

"I
know
," she said quickly, cutting him off before he could make the announcement inadvertently to the entire group. "That doesn't change anything. It's not a guarantee, anyway. What
is
guaranteed is that if we fail, then we're all doomed."
 

She lowered her voice and stepped close to him, looking up at him with her big dark eyes. "This new world is scary, Erik," she whispered. "If you don't come back, I won't either."

Erik hugged Brin, the argument on the tip of his tongue fading as he sighed in her embrace. "I still don't like it," he muttered into her hair. He didn't have much choice in the matter—it's not like he could forbid her from going. He stepped back and looked at her. With her martial arts training, even unarmed she would be a formidable opponent—one a bunch of convicts wouldn't likely suspect. They'd probably be too busy ogling her.
 

Erik frowned. That is exactly the kind of attention he did
not
want her gathering. On the other hand if someone were to focus on her it might give the others just enough of an opening to dispatch them. Erik chided himself for thinking of his wife as bait, but it beat thinking of her as vulnerable and helpless.

Ted cleared his throat and brought order back to the table. "All right, Dillon, Norm, and Ben—you're going to be my sharpshooters. Your rifles zeroed in?"

The three men across the table nodded, all of them sporting bolt action hunting rifles that appeared in a range of conditions from pristine to absolutely filthy and covered and scratches.
 

"Okay, review your mission for me," said Ted, arms folded across his chest.

Norm, the man in the middle, cleared his throat and spoke up. "We fire when you fire, but pick our targets and start from the outside, working our way in, taking out the guards with long guns first."

Ted nodded and pointed at the map. "You three comfortable with the positions I set up for you?" He moved his finger from position to position along the fort's western flank, where the surrounding land rose into the hills that surrounded the lake.
 

"You'll be under cover with good shooting lanes, though it's not as close as I would like.
 
How are you all with the range?"

"I'm okay," said the Dillon.

"Me too," said Ben amiably, "but Norman might have a hard time finding his target—”

"Hogwash," grumbled Norm. "That buck I took last year was further away than this."

"That buck gets bigger and farther way every time you tell the story," replied Dillon.

"And these bucks'll be shooting back," added Maggie in a somber tone.

Norm's face flushed, but he nodded. "Don't worry about me. I'll hit my target." He cleared his throat. "They burned down my grandson's house—my daughter-in-law was inside."
 
His eyes narrowed.
 
"I've been waiting for this."

Ted held the man's gaze for a few moments before turning to the rest of the group. "You four will slip into position tonight in the Shanty Town. Here," he said pointing at the eastern edge of the ramshackle cluster of hastily built huts south of the main entrance the fort.

Ted moved his finger to strategic points around the perimeter.
 
Clumps of trees and bushes would hide a shooter just 20 yards from the shore.
 
"Here, here, and here."

"That's pretty spread out," muttered Dan.

"It is," replied Ted.
 
"From each one of these positions you'll be able to cover Erik and pick off any guards that try to come up to the main entrance. Our guest—"

"Is that what you Marines call a prisoner?" asked Ben.
 
"In my day we called 'em targets."

Ted nodded.
 
"It's the kindler, gentler Marines."
 
After the chuckles subsided, he continued.
 
"Our
prisoner—"

"Jeffrey," Erik added with a smile.

Ted glared at him.
 
"
Jeffery
informed us that on occasion the guards like to spend the night visiting women who live in Shanty Town."
 
He frowned.

"Disgusting pigs," mumbled Brin.

Ted continued.
 
"There's no way to know if anyone will be there at all, so keep your eyes open and be ready for any guards that pop up and try to take Erik from behind."

Erik stepped forward. "The guard or guards stationed directly over the main gate—they're going to be hard to see from any angle. The little guard shacks that they have up there for the tourists are going to block your view from every direction except straight on."

"I've been thinking about that," Ted added. "Anyone that tries to take out the guards on top of the gate from inside Shanty Town won't be able to do so because the angle will be too steep. All the guards have to do is duck behind the wall and disappear."

Erik folded his arms.
 
"Well, without a canon or something there's no way we’re going to breach those walls—no one ever took Ticonderoga through direct assault with siege weapons."

Ted nodded. "That means every time it was captured it was done by treaty or trickery. I vote trickery. I'll cover your approach from the water—”

"What?" asked Brin. "The water's got to be barely above freezing."

Ted shook his head. "It's fine—I won't be in it very long," Ted said gesturing at one of the older men. "When I went out to set up the positions for the shooters I scoped out the shore. It looks like there's enough new brush along the banks of the lake that's grown in since the collapse—I should be able to slip down and wade through."
 
He put his hands on his hips.
 

"The water probably won't get above my knees and I can handle it for a few hours. That will give me enough distance to make the angle so I can take out the guards on top of the gate."

Erik looked down at the Colonel's map. "The Colonel has a pistol which he's going to use at my back, pretending I'm a prisoner." Erik looked up at the others. "His shot will be your signal to start the attack."

"Hope that means he shoots someone else, not you?" asked Ben.
 
The others chuckled nervously.

Erik smiled but didn't respond.

"What if they don’t take you inside the fort?" asked Brin, her hand squeezing his.

Erik shook his head. "It won't happen. Once I reach the gate, the Colonel's going to start a ruckus."

"I don't like how exposed you're going to be," Brin said, slipping an arm around Erik's. "Everyone's going to be shooting toward that gate and you're going to be standing right in the middle."

"I'm not going to be standing still for long," he said with a smile.
 
"Soon as the Colonel starts firing, I'm heading inside. He's going to be blasting away as long as he can to clear a path to the officer’s barracks," Erik said pointing at the Colonel’s most detailed map.
 

"Soon as I take out the guards on the gate house, I'll advance and meet you inside,” said Ted. He turned to the four people assigned to cover the main gate.
 

"It's going to be up to you all to clear Shanty Town and make sure there's no counterattack coming from behind us,” Ted said to Maggie’s group. “We know there's 20 to 30 guards. At any given time, there's usually six or seven up on the walls. If we do this right, we'll even the odds with the first volley."

“We’ll do our part,” Maggie replied, her face emotionless.

"The quicker we all get inside the buildings the better," added Erik.

Ted nodded. "That's right, the prisoner said—”

"Jeffrey," interrupted Erik.

"Right,
Jeffrey
said they're running low on ammo—the raids across the lake into Vermont have been meeting stiffer resistance as they approach winter. They had to use more of their ammunition to gather supplies and workers. When we caught those two on the road, only one of them had any ammunition, and
Jeffrey,
" Ted said with a look at Erik, "only had two shells for his scatter gun."

"Hell, we don't have much more than that," muttered one of the elderly snipers.

"It'll be enough," said Ted. "We'll have the element of surprise and your rifles will punch a lot harder than their shotguns.
 
If we pick our targets, take our time, and make each shot count the element of surprise is going to be a major force multiplier here. These guys are convicts, not Marines—"

"Well, we're not Marines either—” said Dan.

"Not everyone is good enough for the army," muttered Ben.

"Agreed," said Ted with a smile. "But they're going to panic when the shit hits the fan and I guarantee more than one is going to blow through their ammo before they actually find a target. It's the classic spray and pray response."

"There's going to be a lot of innocent people in the way," observed Brin, staring down at the map.
 
"There's kids in Shanty Town, remember?"