BETRAYAL

BETRAYAL

The continuation of The Future of Warfare

J. Croft

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FEDERAL FUSION CENTER

WARREN, OHIO

March 20, 2014

In the Command Center, there’s a LOT of activity.  The main holographic display in the center of the chamber… gutting out the 60’s era office building… has a display of Northern Ohio and Western Pennsylvania; movements of troops and planes are shown in real time-except for a 200 mile wide radius of the EM blackout zone centered on Pymatunig Lake.  There the display gets a lot more static, with troops moved suddenly from someplace to another; most of those in a huge circle of forces that’s going to converge more or less around that lake.   Air traffic going into the zone disappears from the real time display.

Major Charles Fox, U.S. Army, shakes his head in disgust.  The head of the Fusion Center comes up to him with a compilation of written reports.

“Like to get the nerd who came up with that blackout field in one of my interrogation rooms, I really… fucking… would.  Here, Major” and with that the Homeland Security apparatchik  gives Fox the reports.

Major Fox brings reports to General Warburg’s office… the General sits behind his desk, in field uniform rubbing his temples, “latest reports, General” and sets the stack down on the desk.

Warburg slowly looks upward at his adjutant, “written reports.  What the fuck?  Do you know how close I am to just hammering down on this entire state with nuclear weapons…”

“I’m sure it won’t come to that, General.”  One of Fox’s roles as adjutant was to gently, gently steer this German beast of a general from doing too much damage to the country.  “You took Greece without resorting to those things.”

“Oh?”  Warburg takes the written reports, starts skimming through them, “any particularly good news, Major?”

“We’re making better progress than projected.”

LORAIN, OHIO

A smaller, failed Midwest industrial town that’s just, just, getting by.   Patches of enclosed hydroponic greenhouses, windmills, garage shops in homes.  The downtown strip-mostly abandoned by business-is filled with entrepreneurs of all kinds, from repair shops to organic food vendors, to desperate families selling personal knic-knacks to even more desperate women obviously being prostitutes.   Bands of armed men and women of varying allegiances uneasily nodding at each other, keeping the peace.

Adrianne Verner stands on the roof of one of downtown’s high rises, with a computer and several homebuilt laser emitter/receiving devices hooked up to a solar powered laptop.  Adrianne looks out westward with a pair of ex-soviet binoculars at the near solid wall of smoke extending southward from Lake Erie. 

Her partner, an older gentleman-obviously a computer technician, goes through the messages-those lasers are working overtime!  “Amherst, South Amherst, Oberlin, Lagrange, Litchfield, Medina-all fallen!”

“Think there’s anyway through their lines?”  Adrianne turns, faces the old man.  Not for the first time was she scared, but what’s coming at them from the West…

“Adrianne, I want you to get out of here.  Get all the Alternates going, right now.”

“We can take this apart much quicker-“

“-We’re done for!  There’s an entire Army Corps from Detroit bearing down on us and there’s no stopping it-all we can do is save what we can!  I’m shutting us down.”

“Well, hurry up then Gary before they lob something on you.”  Adrianne seemed possessed and she goes over and hugs and kisses the computer tech on the mouth… they embrace.

“Hell if that’s what it took to get a kiss out of you, I’d have had Lorain attacked a long time ago!”

Adrianne laughs, playfully smacks Gary on the back.  She starts crying.  “Get out of here already!  I got work to do!” 

Adrianne starts to walk, looks back, then runs down the stairs, all twenty floors as the elevators weren’t trustworthy even with enough power to operate them-“CLEAR OUT!  CLEAR OUT!  CLEAR OUT!”  Adrianne shouted this all the way down the steps and runs outside, runs through the street vendors, beggars, prostitutes-“WE’RE UNDER ATTACK!”.  She runs up to the first pack of armed Americans, some gang members; “start getting everyone to shelter, there’s an entire army corps from Detroit coming down on us!”

“Shit!”  One gang member swore-“tanks an’ everything?”

At that a NATO Tornado fighter bomber pickles off a 500lb bomb on the laser communications node Adrianne had just been at-the building EXPLODES in a flash and shower of glass and concrete that go everywhere!  Adrianne’s world fades to black.

OBERLIN COLLEGE

OBERLIN, OHIO

A college town known for being a akin to a piece of San Francisco leftism in the middle of Ohio… or it was until a rain of artillery shells and air strikes bomb the improvised fortifications formed by the edges of town and the college… and the entire area in general… into utter devastation.

General Lee Daly, U.S. Army, is just outside his command vehicle, a Stryker command variant, watching with binoculars at the rain of fire being thrown at the rebel fortifications.  He looks at his adjutant, a German Colonel-this was a all NATO operation and interoperability was the theme; “are we in Lorain yet?”

“Almost, Herr General” Colonel Goetz was inside the Stryker.  The roof had been retrofitted to a production version of the laser communications hub that was atop the now blown Lorain high rise.

“We’re behind schedule!  Signal the assault, right now!”  With that the Colonel tells some Sargeant to give the assault order, walks out with a flare gun and shoots a red flare into the air…

Strykers and Bradleys and M-1 Abrams and HMMVs rev up forward of General Daly’s position.  They advance, even with the bombardment of Oberlin.  They charge forward line abreast, going through yards, streets, clumps of brush, farmland, and start shooting up the defenders… everyone… with 25mm autocannon, 105mm cannons on the Stryker gun units and 120mm Abrams armament.

Following them are federal, state and local law enforcement agents and SWAT teams going door to door to homes, businesses, or what’s left and brutally engage any survivors.  They can surrender and simply enter all the buses awaiting them, or they can die-right there.

MEDINA, OHIO

Medina has basically two sections; a smaller town some distance from the interstate highway, and the newer strip of businesses extending from the town to the interstate and beyond.  The area near the interstate was taken quick, with buses being filled rapidly by armed federal agents backed up by U.S. Army Bradleys and HMMVs, 50 cal and 25mm cannons aimed at the hapless Americans. 

To the west, Medina itself is being rapidly blown apart by everything from SMAW demolition rocket launchers to 120mm tank cannons to rocket and cannon fire from Apache gunships orbiting the town.

WOOSTER, OHIO

A larger college town, with Wooster College and the Ohio Agricultural Station, and from the West from the Interstate and South come a combined federal MJTF of law enforcement backed up by a Belgian Armored Brigade of Leopard II main battle tanks and U.S. Army Apache gunships overhead…

In Wooster City Hall there’s a command center; Jeri Dyson, the elected leader of the Wooster Resistance Front sits with Ted Jorgensen of the Central Ohio Militia… who hasn’t slept in days, desperately trying to stay awake.  Across from them is a U.S. Marine Colonel.  He speaks:

“Obviously the enemy’s found a way to shut down anything transmitting or receiving-radios, radar, television, microwave-and they’ve cut every landline as well.  …There’s a solid line of military and police curving from Lake Erie west of Cleveland someplace to here, to Dover to wherever else east and they’re squeezing the entire region.  Best we can do is buy you time to get out of here-we’re not going to be able to hold this town.  We’ll head to Akron, make a stand there-rate the enemy’s advancing, we’d just wind up in more trouble in Canton.  We’ll need volunteers to hold them.”

“I’ll stay myself” Ted Jorgensen rises to the occasion but-“you can barely stay awake Ted!”

“Jeri they’re going to need someone who can lead this Alamo.”

“Ain’t going to be you-I’ll stay.”  Jeri rises, “I’m the least trained, least experienced of us.  Don’t worry guys, I’ll give those fuckers something to remember us by.”

The Marine Colonel smiles at Jeri, “we’ll give you some support before we leave.  Meantime-need to get everything loaded up right now, so I’ll get to work on that.  Ted, get some rack time-that’s an order.”  Ted nods gets up heads out of the room they’re in to a cot… leaving him alone with Jeri.

“Please don’t stay Jeri.  Please.”

Jeri smiles warmly at the Colonel, “Akron’s going to love having you guys in town.”

Outside Wooster, the Belgian Leopard IIs advance to the outskirts of town, their turrents swinging, looking for targets in town… U.S. Army Apache gunships begin to advance ahead into town… behind them in a Stryker command vehicle a Belgian General monitors from inside.

From the East side of town there’s a strip of divided highway; from those several Marine Harrier VTOL jet fighters lumber down the cleared concrete way from hides made in the trees, abandoned homes, barns, businesses and take off.

The Harriers turn toward the attacking enemy; each have 2.75 inch rocket pods, 500lb bombs, and Sidewinder missiles.  Not having radar-nobody does today-they rely on sharp eyes and clear skies to spot the lumbering Apache gunships and engage at high subsonic speeds with their inboard cannons. 

The Apaches are armored up to resisting combloc 23mm antiaircraft cannon fire… resist and not be perfectly invulnerable; the Marine jets cannon fire causes the flight of helicopter gunships to outright flee if they don’t simply suffer catastrophic failures of rotors and engines and go down crashing.  The pilots save the Sidewinders for more dangerous aerial opponents…

…A pair of German Tornados heading back from a bomb run in Chesterland see the flashes and smoke of the battle below and dive.  The Tornado is a Mach 2 multirole fighter-bomber, and though the rebelling American States have managed to cobble together air forces, Ohio hadn’t managed to successfully secede completely.  The nearest enemy air force was in Michigan and they had enough problems of their own-so, no air to air missiles just bomb loads and cannon.

The Tornados dive down… see the rebel Marine Harriers; they charge in on one of the Harriers.

That Harrier turns tight, using thrust vectoring to make his turn much tighter than the two Tornados.

Those Tornados use their much greater speed to start to climb, hit afterburners…

…Which three other Harriers use to lock on with Sidewinders and each jump jet launches one.  Three Sidewinders climb up and take out one Tornado; the other one’s pilot drops chaff and tries to break away.

The first Harrier’s pilot sees the remaining German jet turn to him, engages with cannon and he goes down in flames.

Having swept through air resistance, the Marine Harriers turn their attention to the advancing NATO armored forces.  The Harriers use the bombs on the Leopard IIs-equivalent to an Abrams in protection and firepower, but there isn’t a tank on Earth that can withstand a hit from a 500lb bomb. 

In his command vehicle, the Belgian General looks in horror as his armored fist gets blown apart by jets.

“YOU” he points at a Sargeant “run to the landline right now and get some more fighters here!  GO!”  So the Sargeant leaves, commandeers a HUMMV and gets out of there… which saves his life as a Harrier streaks down on the Belgian command vehicle and looses a volley of 2.75 inch rocket fire that blows apart the softer skinned machines.

Streaks of missile trails from inside Wooster itself reach out and smash into any NATO armor the Harriers don’t get to, and as Marine and Central Ohio Militia missile teams reload their vehicle mounted TOW missile launchers the Harriers make a full vertical landing at designated points on the freeway, where ground crews made up of Marines, Militia and the Wooster Resistance Front reload rocket pods, bomb racks, feed fresh ammunition and fuel into the jump jets. 

The ground crews stand back and the Harriers take off-they orbit overhead as the ground crews mount their trucks and join a massive column of American resistance rolling toward Akron, blasting any Army or law enforcement in their way, leaving volunteers to make a sacrificial delaying stand at Wooster…  off to the east Ted Jorgensen is the first to see and hear a lot of flashes… at Canton.

CANTON, OHIO

Midsized city south of Akron, about as depressed as the rest of the region-was as NATO jets make mass bombing runs in the neighborhoods  west of the interstate, just bombing everything west to wipe out the pocket of resistance that had run that part of town.  They’re joined in by artillery fire from a Army Combat Brigade.

YOUNGSTOWN, OHIO

The entire town’s been written off; a scene similar to Lorain with militia and other groups of armed Americans look out from their urban frontlines as federal, state, and local paramilitary forces beat a panicked retreat…. The rebels however aren’t cheering as to a person they look up…

40,000 feet up, a dozen B-52 bombers line up to do a bomb run on the entire town-they drop hundreds of 2000lb dumb bombs, in a formation to get the entire town-whether friendly forces are out or not.

FEDERAL FUSION CENTER

WARREN, OHIO

General Warburg leads his adjutant Major Charles Fox and the leadership of the Fusion Center to the rooftop of the converted high rise office building to watch the carpet bombing of Youngstown just a few miles to the south.  The US Government officials and Major Fox look on, while the German General cackles with glee.

AURORA, OHIO

A resort town that features two now shuttered amusement parks.  Carrie Messing continues Southbound in the commandeered HUMMV-both Kayla and Avrim have changed into Army uniforms.

“Ha!  I’m a Captain now.  That means y’all have to do what the fuck I say-“

“-Like hell you scrawny little hip-hop bitch.” If Carrie had a sense of humor she wasn’t showing it.  Not now… but not Kayla.  “Can’t dwell on the dark shit forever, Staff Sargeant.  Wind up taking a pistol to your own dome.”

Avrim Heinz looks at his responsibility, sitting in the back… “How many times you cheat death today Kayla?”

“Shit” Kayla thinks “There was the bomb at that Chardon checkpoint, that British tank, the federal hitman.  Had one of Carrie’s people almost blast me with an SKS.  THEN, Carrie, this motherfucker here tries to deal me off to the motherfucker who tortured me when I was at Occupy Wall Street in 2012-I won’t even go into all that… but you didn’t realize your buddy and his butt-buddies had their way with me, did you Ketchup.

“Kayla I’m sorry.  I didn’t know… but I’d still try the same ploy given the same-“

“-Oh shut the fuck up before I shoot you myself.”  That was Carrie!  “Ketchup?  I like that!  That’s your name for now on, Mossad boy!”

Kayla embellishes: “Kosher Ketchup-“

“-STOP IT!”

“That yo’ full name.”  Carrie and Kayla have a laugh at the Israeli Agent’s expense, they find something in common to rag on.   “Dude its combat, get over it.”  Carrie looks forward… “aw fuck.  Checkpoint-get your game faces on!  Kayla you know how to act like a Army Officer?”  Yes there’s a Army checkpoint up ahead…

“A bad one.”

“Excellent.  Be the one that vaguely nods.  I’ll do the bullshitting here.”

“Kayla” Avrim turns to her fully, grave “these guys are going to be amped up, and paranoid.  They have none of the communication they’re used to, which works for us because they can’t check our stories-but they’re going to be extremely suspicious.”

“We’d best get this done an’ over with an get the fuck out-failing that give them something else to worry ‘bout an’ get the fuck out.”

“Exactly” Carrie pulls up to the Checkpoint; three HUMMVs with 2 M240s and a 40mm automatic grenade launcher.  16 soldiers.  Bad news. 

They’ve been busy too; behind freshly strung razor wire are about 40 Americans-men, older women, small children.   Any remotely attractive woman is inside a trailer, sobbing.

“Anything we can do for them?”  Kayla stares at the trailer.

“Not a fucking thing” Carrie growls out.  The Sargeant walks up to the rebel HMMV and it begins:

“Sargeant…  Krunz” Carrie/aka SGT BEDDOE starts, “I got to get to Command right away!  Got intel on that militia and we need to get to a place we can actually contact somebody!”

“Yeah, no shit” Sgt. Krunz chimes in, “like to know who the fuck came up with the bright ideal to yank our commo along with everybody elses.  Everything’s just fucked up!  Well, better get going then.  Sooner those fuckers get themselves killed the sooner shit can return to normal.”

“The fuck’s that?”  They laugh along with Kayla and Avrim playing soldier, and Sgt Krunz salutes Kayla “Captain.”  Kayla salutes and WHRAMM!  A large caliber round slams into the engine compartment of their HUMMV-they’re stuck here!

“WHAT THE FUCK?!”  Kayla explodes.

Then, more RIFLE SHOTS crack through the ranks-a M240 gunner and the grenade launcher gunner go down, dead.

“GET OUT!  GET OUT!  TAKE COVER!”  Sgt. Krunz yanks open the door of the HMMV, yanks Carrie out.  Avrim pushes Kayla out and they seek cover away from the body of troops-all finding cover behind engine blocks, stones, drainage ditches, whatever.  Kayla and Avrim seek cover behind a stone wall as rifle shots crack overhead!

“They’re going to want to assault through this ambush!”  Kayla looks around the side of the stone wall, sees a total of six dead or injured enemy soldiers, “no fucking way I’m going to shoot at patriots-no fucking way!”

Sgt. Krunz takes a risk, bolts to Kayla and Avrim’s position behind the stone wall… “Captain you have rank here; give the order an’ we’ll tear these Yoders up!” 

“Amish?”  Kayla replies, “Amish?  …Get up on that grenade launcher, lay some suppressing fire!”

“Where at, Sir?!”  Sgt. Krunz wasn’t going to just fire blindly.  Damn. 

“Lemme get to my Hummer Sarge; I got a scoped M14 off a sniper, I can spot for you!”

“I’ll get your rifle Sir” Sgt. Krunz, good to his word runs to the disabled rebel HMMV…

“C’mon, catch a bullet you motherfucker” Kayla grinds out but the Sgt. Is a combat vet, keeps low, moves fast, comes back with her M14 with one loaded magazine and her bag full of her militia gear!   Oh hell….

“Got yourself a militia sniper did you?”  Sgt. Krunz beams at Kayla.  Whew… kind of.

“Got lucky Sarge.  Now get up on that 40mm-Ah… you go to the other side there soldier(Avrim)and you relay my orders-get going people!”  The two get going over to the grenade launcher HMMV and Kayla URGENTLY WAVES CARRIE MESSING OVER!!! 

…Four hundred fifty yards away 55 year old Ezekiel Gould aims through his vintage scoped Mauser rifle at a soldier girl running back to a stone wall.  His spotter, his son Michael who is just beginning to have peach fuzz on his face is on a Bushnell spotting scope-“runner on the stone wall-“

“-Got her.”

…Carrie almost makes it to Kayla, gets SHOT in her ass!  She SCREAMS and Kayla YANKS Carrie behind cover!  “Goddamnit you had to get shot on me!”

“Agh, FUCK!”  Carrie tries to be quiet.  Kayla yanks Carrie’s BDU’s down, fumbles with a blowout kit-this was a battle rifle round hit on her left glutemus maximus, and there is a LOT of blown out meat in the front.

“Amish Front.  They use hunting ammo.  Sound like Mausers, Mosins, Enfields.”  Kayla analyzes the incoming rifle fire as she does the best she can to plug the gaping wound the hunting projectile caused her only single contact with the Summit County Rangers… “Swear to God Murphy must be proposing marriage to my ass today.”

“I’m going to need a stretcher,” Carrie breaks the worse news to Kayla as more rifle shots crack overhead.

“The second they finish up these fuckers will be focused on US!”  Kayla thinks… “I’ll order an attack.”

Carrie, in spite of her pain draws her M9 and tries to aim at Kayla but she intercepts her hand…

“I won’t get our own people killed Carrie.  To those fags I’m in command here, remember?  I’ll just be the Officer and fuck the attack up.  Shouldn’t be hard.”

Avrim Heinz runs over “are we going to have an attack or-oh hell.”

“Get back over there.  And find us a stretcher.”

“You can’t help carry her-you’re shot yourself!”

“No fucking shit!  Just leave the heavy thinking to me an’ get over there Ketchup-git!”  Avrim goes back to the 40mm equipped HMMV and Kayla props the M14 up on the stone wall-hope those Amish aren’t that good….

“Father!”  Michael looks through the spotting scope “sniper at the stone wall!”  Ezekiel has his sights on the 40mm gunner-Krunz-and swings back to the stone wall looking… “sniper on the stone wall!”

Kayla Miller looks through the M14’s rifle scope, spots two Amish looking blobs in a farmhouse, FIRES THREE TIMES-FFBAP, FFBAP, FFFBAP-rapid fire, hoping to take heat off her!

…Three near misses from the sniper’s M14 was enough persuasion; Ezekiel grabs his son, yanks him behind the wall.  “Next position boy-go!”  They shamble off with rifle, spotting scope out of the room.

Time to get these fuckers busy Kayla thinks, looking at a farmhouse, a clump of trees to her right about 500 yards; “TARGETS IN THE TREES, FOUR HUNDRED FIFTY YARDS!” 

At the 40mm equipped HMMV Avrim turns to Sgt. Krunz “TARGETS IN THE TREES, 450 METERS!”

Sgt. Krunz looks funkily at Avrim “You sure ‘bout that?”

Avrim nods.

From the stone wall Kayla watches the Sgt….

Sgt. Krunz gets two rifle rounds pinging off his HMMV so he adjusts the Mk19’s rear sight to 450 and FIRES, SWEEPING LEFT TO RIGHT FOR EFFECT.  The rounds fall short of the treeline.

Inside the treeline, several Amish Men of varying ages retreat back into the woods with their Enfield and Mosin rifles…

Sgt. Krunz looks nastily at the Captain with the sniper rifle… with suppressor… how did that bitch capture that-oh yeah, confiscated it off another soldier, can just barely shoot it.  He adjusts sights for longer range… 550 meters ought to do it….

Avrim catches this and goes to shoot him but Kayla, watching snaps a shot-FFBAP and blows the Sgt’s brains out.

The firing stops.  Kayla gets up to assert her assumed identity’s authority: “I WANT ALL BUT TWO OF YOU TO ADVANCE ON THAT TREELINE-YOU AND YOU” Kayla points to two Privates “YOU TWO CLEAR THIS HMMV GET A STRETCHER AND LOAD HER IN!”

The Privates in question approach Kayla, having never seen her before “pardon me Captain, but how do we-“ Kayla cuts him off before he asks his last question “YOU FORGET WHAT THESE FUCKING BARS MEAN-PRIVATE?”

“No Sir, Ma’am!”  At that the two go help Avrim clear the 40mm equipped HMMV of Sgt. Krunz’s corpse, grab a stretcher, load Carrie Messing onto it after some screaming by the woman, load her into the HMMV. 

None of the other soldiers have advanced.  Kayla looks for some rank in this crowd “You, Corporal; you’re in charge of the assault unit-get up to that treeline in the Hummers, we’ll stay back and provide fire support.”

Corporal nods, salutes.  “C’mon men!”  Corporal waves the eight soldiers and they board the HMMVs and advance on the treeline. 

As they roll out Kayla Miller regards the two privates who helped load Carrie Messing aboard the HMMV-and shoots them with the suppressed M14.  Avrim grabs the M240 and the drone plans from their former HMMV get aboard their new automatic grenade launcher equipped HMMV and…

…”No Avrim; them muthafuckas are NOT coming out of this alive.”  Avrim looks at Carrie Messing and she nods.  Avrim mans the MK19 Grenade Launcher, as Kayla takes her duffel bag, throws it on the hood of the HMMV, then lays her M14 on it.

“You called 450 meters for the Sargeant, what’s the real range?”

Kayla observes her command/victims through the Mildot scope… okay, the space between the hash marks equals one inch at 100 meters… yards-whatever.  She plants the crosshairs on a soldier, an average sized chump…

“Hurry up girl, before our guide bleeds out!”

“Shhh” …Throughout this damned war-hell since OWS-Kayla’s has surprised herself by how she adapted to a situation; doing math with a mildot riflescope she’d never used only maybe quarter-remembering what her instructor tried to tell her, should’ve torn the Burris Fulfield II off the Mosin and put it on this sweet thing but she was hurting… hurting like fucking hell now because of the drone strike and the battle… don’t think about Dad now damnit-motherfucker’s about 3/4ths the way to the treeline; she’d called the accurate range to the barn at 450 meters, the treeline’s 50 meters past that… 375 meters.

Crosshairs on her next victim in this war; average sized man is APPROXIMATELY 20 inches wide at the torso, about 25-30 inches at the shoulders.  Dude measure’s out now at 5 of those horizontal hash marks-aim up ten of those hash marks for the .308-oh yeah!

“FOUR!”  Kayla holds breath, aims, caresses the M14’s fine trigger-and fire FFBAP!  Finally figured out Mil-dots: learn something new every day.

100 meters from the treeline the Army checkpoint squad in the HMMVs open up on the treeline with their 240s hoping the 7.62 rounds will chew through to the snipers when one of the 240 gunners gets his head blown apart!

No time to even curse, just get those hickbillies and get back to having some therapeutic fun with the detainees… why’s the gore flying forward?  Amish are in front of them-the soldiers all look at each other when….

…Avrim finishes setting the sights at 400 meters, aims and lets loose the entire belt of 40mm high impulse grenades, the weapon bucking hard in his hands as he works the Mk19 from right to left along the Army skirmish line.  Rounds exploding among the HMMVs, the troops. 

Kayla uses the mayhem created by Avrim on the 40mm to pick off enemy door stompers-knowing the range its left to be a matter of putting the right mark on the enemy soldier-FFBAP.  Look, aim, breath in, out, caress the sweet ass trigger on this sweet ass rifle-FFBAP-another dead traitor… Avrim’s stopped shooting.

Kayla looks accusingly at the Mossad Agent as he frantically rips off the empty ammo box, frantically looks around the HMMV-“WHERE’S THE AMMO?!”

“What?!”  Kayla’s jaw drops in astonishment… “YOU MEAN THOSE CHEAP ARMY MUTHAFUCKAS ONLY GAVE THESE MUTHAFUCKAS ONE MOTHERFUCKING BOX OF 40MM?!”

7.62mm machine gun fire from the surviving M240 start impacting in and around them!

“KETCHUP!”

“NOT NOW!”  Avrim Heinz scrambles to get his M240 going on the remaining enemy-a Hummer and three soldiers.  Unfortunately most of the weak and incompetent on the battlefields of Ohio had already been killed off-these boys may have been fooled, but they weren’t inexperienced-their HMMV gets SHREDDED by the 7.62mm machine gun fire and both Kayla and Avrim take cover behind it!

“Fuck!  Carrie!”

“FUCK ALL WE DO FOR HER BUT SHOOT BACK!”  Avrim aims his 240 at the advancing enemy-how long until reinforcements hear the gun battle and converge?  He lets loose with his belt, long bursts as Kayla frantically engages the enemy infantry on foot-but combat veterans have a annoying habit of taking cover, and some even aim-CRAAACK!  Kayla’s mildot scope nearly EXPLODES from a bullet impact!  Kayla reels back instinctively holding her eye, SCREAMING!

Their HMMV now smokes from the engine compartment as the enemy stand off and rain down aimed rifle and machine gun fire on them, time not on their side, Avrim goes over to Kayla “stop!  Stop squirming girl and let me look!” 

Kayla goes for her Sig-Saur!  She actually is trying to draw down on Avrim!  He brutally knocks the pistol out of her hand, finally gets atop Kayla, pinning her down.

Kayla’s right eye… there’s some blood, certainly some glass-but she’s going crazy… even crazier than her ‘norm’. 

300 meters away, the Corporal Kayla Miller directed to assault through the treeline sees there’s no incoming fire… payback’s gonna cost that cunt, oh yes that fine filly’s gonna get ridden very hard.   

“ATTAC-CGHhhh!”  Corporal’s head explodes like a watermelon.  The rest of the soldiers nearly simultaneously fall to precisely placed rifle rounds.

Behind them, out of the woods emerge the Amish Front-eight Amish men, old and young, with a modest collection of well shot Mosin-Nagants, Enfields, Mausers-all with scopes.  They advance to the checkpoint.

Avrim pulls out his Seecamp and puts the .32ACP’s muzzle firmly on Kayla Miller’s temple.  “That was your last mistake, girl.  You hear me?”

“Kill me!  COME ON MOTHERFUCKER SHOW ME WHAT YOU FUCKING GOT!’

“Wha-“

“COME ON!  RAPE ME, CUT ME, BURN ME BITCH!  I BEEN DONE BY THE WORST AN’ I’M STILL HERE!  COME AN’ TAKE-“

Avrim busts Kayla in the jaw, knocking her out cold.

Rushed footsteps.  Avrim spins to see eight Amish gentlemen with their sporterized bolt action milsurp rifles-two of them bear a cart filing up with war booty.  Two of the armed Amish go to the razor wire enclosure, unlock the gate.

“Come on!  Before reinforcements arrive!”  The older Amish makes room, but only a few Americans gather the courage to leave the enclosure “What are you waiting for?”

A male, late 30’s, wearing clothes baggy on him now but was once a happily fat American states the obvious: “mister, we thank you for what you done, but we’d just get into even more trouble when they raid our homes.  Just let us be-maybe they’ll let us go!  Please!”

The Amish man slams the gate shut “Ah the hell with you!” and he and his son rush the trailer…

Ezekiel Gould approaches Avrim, Carrie and Kayla, “Easy, Friend.  Need some help?”

Avrim nods, takes a breath “we have wounded here.”

“Ah yes, the psychotic girl, the one who shot at me and my boy here.  Anyone else?”

“One Geauga County Volunteer who took one of your rounds in the hip.”

“Oh… that I am sorry about.  We need to get out of here, now.”

The two Amish emerge from the trailer with three women-all teenage girls-naked but for the blankets they found and all of them go with those two.

Avrim and Ezekiel work on bandaging Kayla’s eye up while the remaining Amish load the badly wounded Carrie Messing into their cart, load Kayla next to her, and get the hell out of there without a word as the sun sets.

FARMHOUSE

AURORA, OHIO

Avrim Heinz helps carry Carrie Messing on her stretcher with the help of Alan Horton; man in his 30’s well built, looks you straight in the eye.  “God Bless what did she get hit with?!”

“Hunting round it looks like” Avrim replies.

“Whose the chick layed out in the back?”

“Biggest pain I’ve ever had in my fucking ass” they haul Carrie inside.

Avrim comes out a moment later and grabs Kayla and Alan grabs her gear and rifle with its smashed rifle scope, “my God, she took a bullet to her rifle scope?”

“Oh yes” Avrim replies “she’s lucky it was a 5.56 instead of a .30.  Eye’s still messed up-she’s out of the war… probably for the best.”  They haul Kayla and her gear inside and upstairs to a bedroom.  Alan examines her gear:

“One National Match grade Fulton Armory M14 rifle with busted Leopold scope-have to find a replacement… good luck with that.  One Glock… 18-damn, with four 33 round magazines and two 17 rounders.  One magazine… .40 caliber Sig?  Where’s the rest?”

Avrim produces from his back Kayla’s Sig-Sauer.  “I recommend you keep her kit away from her while she’s here.  Had to knock her out when she went hysterical when her scope got shot in front of her.”

Alan nods.  Brie Horton enters; 40, curly blonde hair, big and expressive blue eyes.  “Okay, we’ll get Carrie stabilized-what’s this girl’s problem…”  Brie opens the emergency field bandage around her right eye, “oh my God.  Well, lucky she landed on our doorstep.”

“Why’s that?”

“We just got a shipment of stem cells in-don’t ask me how we got them cause I don’t ask myself but, I can get our Lady Freedom Fighter up and running in a week-at the outset.”  Brie looks at Kayla’s body looking for wounds… finds a lot of old ones, “oh my God this poor girl, just how much fighting has she done” finds her left shoulder gunshot wound, pulls back the dressing.  “Going to need maggot therapy on this one and… my God who did all this to her?!  Look at all this!”

All three look at the impressive collection of torture scars Kayla Miller bears, “help me get her undressed will you?”

FARMHOUSE

AURORA, OHIO

March 21, 2014

Kayla Miller awakes.

She’s in a very comfortable bed.  Faded pastel walls, very old dresser, one of those old school rabbit eared box televisions maybe her Gramps had… she looks to her right-wait…

Kayla puts her hand to her face, and there’s a ton of bandaging around her right eye!  She goes to rip it off with her good right arm but a very strong female hand reaches out to stop her… from her right side.

Her now blind side.

“No, you’re not going to aggravate that injury Miss; we had a helluva time removing all the little glass shards when that unlucky bullet took out your riflescope.  Could have been a lot unluckier and taken out your eye-course if it did that you’d likely not be here to begin with.” 

Kayla turns her head to see this woman; about 40 maybe.  Curly blonde hair, big blue expressive eyes, carries herself like a high school cheerleader.  Her hands though have seen a lot of work, but whose hasn’t lately?

“Can I see?”

“Not now if you want your eye to heal; got some stem cell treatment we managed to get in there and it’s best to let nature heal those wounds.  Only got one set of eyes.”

“How long?”

…”Depends.”

“Fucking great-“

“-Please don’t say that, we don’t use profanity in this house Miss.  I’m Brie, this is our home, and this is one of the rooms we use for wounded.”

“Kayla Miller, Pymatunig Militia.  Where’s Carrie Messing?”  Kayla had just remembered about her.

“Pretty bad.  I don’t know if we can save her right leg, that hunting bullet caused all kinds of damage to her hip.  Amish must be using explosive rounds or something-no wonder they’re so hated.  Well, she’s in God’s Hands now, all we can do is pray.” 

“You got anything to watch?”

“I’ll get you some DVDs.”

“Any of them Patriot?  Where I was in Ashtabula County we didn’t get too many from the Free States.”

Brie smiles, “just got a compilation in.  Been looking for a chance to watch them myself, I’ve been so busy.”

A few minutes later, Brie and Kayla are relaxed, watching a DVD; first up is the ALABAMA WAR REPORT; the flag of the State of Alabama flutters in the wind next to the US flag, with F-16s streaking overhead and actual army forces-but it rudely cuts to a Mike Vanderboegh, whose in a wheelchair, his legs gone, and very somber.

“Alabama, America; I regret to have to inform you that the mission of Task Force Steel has failed.  We were attempting to interdict shipments of NATO armor from Europe; the battleship Alabama which we and the people of the Second Texan Republic invested so much to reactivate has been lost at sea with all hands.  She did not go down however without a fight:”

Video footage, with mournful music, of Alabama Militiamen seizing the USS Alabama museum ship.

More footage; hundreds of workmen descend on the battleship, reactivating the 5 and 16 inch guns, getting the engines to work again, ripping out 40 and 20mm cannons and installing modern naval ordnance-20mm CIWS and missiles as well as radar.

Alabama steams out of Galveston, Texas under escort from rebelling US Navy ships; two Aegis Cruisers, six destroyers, and a Skipjack submarine.

Combat footage; Alabama and escorts launching missiles.  Drone video of 16 inch shells hitting merchant vessels westbound and a U.S. Navy aircraft carrier.  Alabama and escorts under attack from hundreds of missiles, one gets through and there’s a nuclear detonation!

News footage: the battleship, its radars, missiles, upper works scorched and blasted away finally succumbs to successive missile volleys and bomber attacks, goes down in the Atlantic fighting.

Mike Vanderboegh appears again: “we will remember the sacrifice of all the brave Americans of the Alabama and Task Force Steel.  We will remember and we will fight on.”

More combat footage: Republic of Alabama Army and Militia charge westward along I-20 westbound to Vicksburg, Mississsippi with everything  from pickup trucks with mounted machine guns to M-1 Abrams tanks.  The camera pans back east to Jackson, burning.

Brie observes, “if they can take Vicksburg, they can link up with Texas, take the Mississippi all the way to Memphis.”

“Let’s just hope the war don’t go nuclear again though.  Denver, Atlanta and Columbus are more than enough.”

Next the flag of the Republic of Jefferson appears with REPUBLIC OF JEFFERSON BROADCASTING. 

First segment: the intro to ‘Gospel Gabe…

“What the-“

There’s a red haired redneck caricaiture dancing around his trashy back yard with a can of paint thinner, being intercut with staged footage of Militia raping women while waving Bibles around a burning cross:

“Gospel Gabe, Gospel Gabe/

Full Jesus Gospel Country Fellur!

“YO, TURN THIS SHIT OFF!  WHAT THE FUCK?”

“LANGUAGE!”  Brie turns on Kayla pausing the video “Won’t warn you again.”  She restarts:

Title footage cuts to Gospel Gabe sodomizing some dude on an old style stockade, a rudely cut ‘Pa Wuz Har’ on his buttcheek.

Gospel Gabe, Gospel Gabe/

Anal buttfucking country fel-

Footage cuts mid intro to a basement where the Actor who plays the brutal rural caricaiture has his pasted beard ripped off him by a gloved hand.

“Gospel Gabe, Gospel Gabe: You like playing a caricaiture of us-BOY? “

That hand wields a big fucking knife and true to word guts the Actor and another begins administering a blowtorch to him.  Camera pans to a crew and they’re bound and done the same way: the woodland pattern clad, masked Militia-all bearing some strange new rifles.

“About time they shut that show down!” Kayla was happier now.

The next segment is a big, gruff bear of a man-early 40’s, in a clearing.  He holds a AR-15 type rifle.

“The AR series of rifles are a mainstay for both Patriot forces and OPFOR.  The critical failing for our forces is the comparative lack of ammunition manufacturing-recent exploits of the Republic of Michigan aside, it’s hard to ship ammunition through territory held by enemy forces.  So, this is a project I’ve been working on since before the war…”

The man aims at over a hundred targets of varying ranges out to 200 meters and engages with the AR with the 30 round magazine-he hits all of them.

He hands the AR offscreen and a new weapon is in his hands: the new rifles that Militia hit team used, looks kind of like a an industrial rendering of a super soaker water gun with a long magazine atop akin the caseless HK G11 rifle:

“This is our new generation assault rifle, the Jefferson Free Rifle.  Fires a 3mm dart an inch long, weight 100 grains, propelled by propane.  Each magazine holds 250 darts and the regulator of this rifle is set to get 1000 shots at 2500 feet per second.  Therefore you can get four magazines of fire from this weapon before having to change out the tank.  Iron sights along a pictinny rail allow for a range of optics.  We’re going to use iron sights for this demonstration.”

He aims, starts to engage all the remaining targets and again his accuracy is exemplary and starts with the far targets, works his way inward; a bunch of 20 he goes full auto and lays down fire like a belt-fed machine gun.

“I WANT!  I WANT!  I WANT!”  Kayla spazes.   Brie whistles… “Hear you got a new toy as well.”

“What?  Oh.  Oh yes.  And as much as I want a Jefferson rifle this trumps that.  Believe that.”

On the TV the Man demonstrating the Jefferson Free Rifle empties the magazine, reloads, and does a continuous spray of the targets-short bursts, long bursts.  This demonstration is intercut with combat footage of the Militia group that tortured the cast and crew of Pikkur Pace doing a raid on that production’s studio, hosing down the armed contractors and anyone in their way with Jeffersons. 

Brie stops the video.

“What did you make?”

“A drone.  Shot down two F-22 Raptors, a Reaper drone and two other low level drones.”

“You’re not joking?”

“Really, No.  You’d had to have been there.  We got footage, specs, parts-whatever you need to build one.”

“Really?” Brie a thought “maybe that’s why they’re going all out tearing the state apart to find you.”

Kayla… has to nod at that.  On the TV the Man finishes his demonstration; holds the Jefferson Rifle but Brie hits STOP on the remote.  “Kayla you do know why there’s been no communication whatsoever-no radio, TV, internet, right?”

“Yeah.”

“You also realize the government and NATO have formed a perimeter around this area, about 200 miles in diameter and are closing in?  I mean, they’re literally hand to hand searching every building, cave, clump of trees looking for you.”

Kayla closes her unbandaged eye, “how soon til’ they get here?”

“Don’t know.  From what I’m hearing they’re being most methodical; God knows they’ve thrown enough forces into this.” 

“I imagine they’ll slow down as they squeeze the area, force resistance into a smaller area.  Our People will make their stand.”

“Kayla, Canton and Youngstown were bombed off the map.”

“WHAT?!  When was this?!”

“Last night.  NATO jets, B-52s, B-1s.  They squeezed resistance into those cities and just wrote them off.”

“We’re not in a city are we?”

“No.  But I could see us being pushed into say, Akron or Cleveland and being bombed.  Wouldn’t be surprised if they went nuclear-“

“They wouldn’t!”  Kayla sat up.  Brie gets up, puts in another DVD; it’s Alex Jones but he’s not in the Infowars studio anymore-more like a concrete surfaced bunker somewhere.  He’s also lost a lot of weight, looks haggard, haunted and has streaks of grey in his rapidly balding hair:

“Now I need to go over the extreme danger we face with NATO forces involved.  According to sources, General Hans Warburg of the German Army has taken command of operations in Pennsylvania and Ohio and will be arriving any day now.”

Footage from Greece is shown:  German paratroopers, infantry and Leopard II tanks sweep through the ancient, rugged country past a lot of dead Greeks and a lot of dead Greek soldiers.  The Germans lead a NATO assault that pounds Athens without mercy.

“Warburg you will recall led the brutal NATO assault on the people of Greece-led the rape of that ancient land personally from the front!”

Footage-grainy I-phone video-shows from a distance General Warburg shout commands in German.  He takes a bound child from a captured family, draws his knife and slices his guts open, screaming at them in more scary German… then yanks his pants down-Brie stops the video.

“That explains a lot” Kayla admits, “but they couldn’t have moved all that armor and jets overseas so fast on account of our drone.”

“No they had to have been planning this for awhile.  Your drone just happened to be where they were planning a major offensive.”

Avrim Heinz enters the room.  Brie looks back at Avrim, “Ah, you’re up Avrim.  I think Avrim here has something to talk to you about, I’ll leave you alone for a few minutes while I cook something for you, you look like you could use some food.”  Brie leaves Avrim and Kayla alone.

“Well, come with it.  Ain’t like I’m gonna front about last night.”

Avrim Heinz takes a seat Brie had warmed.

“Post-traumatic stress disorder.”

“Yeah, I got that.  Imagine the whole country’s gonna have it if we don’t already.”

“No, not just from combat.  You were tortured.  Pretty badly from your reaction yesterday.”

“I’m not going there Heinz.  Certainly not if I don’t want to shoot yo’ ass dead for bringing it up.”

“That’s why there’s no guns in this room, Kayla.” 

Kayla looks around the room… no M14, no Glock 18, no Sig Sauer.

“Cute, Ketchup.”

“You drew down on me.  You have no idea how close I came to killing you yesterday.  So you’re going to tell me what you were reacting off of.”

Kayla had no words.  No words for Avrim Heinz, no words for the supervolcano of utter fury that’s going to erupt from her right now.

“I can knock you out just as easily as I did last night, but I don’t want to break your jaw.  Yet.”  Avrim pulls himself and the chair close to Kayla. 

Footsteps-more than one set and they enter:  a tall, well built man in his early 40’s, an older man maybe 60, some dude in his 40’s with a military bent to him, and a huge black man, maybe 50.  Brie Horton is behind with a bed tray full of food.  She sets it up on top of Kayla, pulling out the legs.  “Here you go, sweetie-got food for everyone here.”  Brie moves back, takes a corner; she wears her feelings on her face and there’s concern, pity, and fear there.  Of Kayla.

All of them do.  Nothing of which defuses Kayla in the least.

“You were right to disarm me Ketchup.  I most certainly would be shooting you right now.”

The man in his 40’s is first up to bat: “Kayla, I’m David Jenkins; Commander, Summit County Rangers.  The older gentleman is my 2^nd, Andrew Vachon, heads up the Portgage County Co-op.  This”-younger dude-“is Alan Horton, headed up the Ohio Oathkeepers until he got slid up the government’s black list for signing up with the Rangers.”

The big black man speaks up: “Me and Kayla have already made acquaintances.”

“Pastor Conrad.”  Kayla spits out, “you come all the way out of PA just to see me again?”

“I regret that’s not the only reason, but, yes.  I’m here for you Kayla.  I told you we would be talking again.”

“Naw.  Nope.  I’m not doing this.”

Jenkins announces: “then Heinz here will kill you.  Right here.”

Kayla looks at David Jenkins-he’s serious, and so is Ketchup!  She laughs, “have at it then!”

Pastor Conrad looks at Kayla, then turns to the group, “I’ll begin-“

“-Oh no you’re not,” Kayla declares.  She tries to rise but Avrim pulls out two pairs of handcuffs, binds her to the bedpost in bare seconds.  “NO!  I’M NOT FUCKING DOING THIS!”  Avrim backhands Kayla, rocking her into silence, but she glares at Avrim, not the least bit frightened.

“…This the way you treat a fellow Patriot, a fellow American?  Tie them up?  Smack them around a little?  I’ve been hit worse by the wind.”

Adrian Vachon speaks for the 1^st time, “this is what we do for a tribunal.  Pastor, would you care to continue?”

Pastor Conrad nods…

“Don’t…” Kayla tells the Pastor.

MILLER HOME

WARREN, OHIO

January 14, 2013

Brian Miller sits on his couch, alone.  No TV, no radio, nothing at all on.  The house is totally, deathly, silent.  Footsteps announce what he’s been waiting for, and a coded knock.  He gets up, opens the door-it’s Pastor Conrad; “Brian, I came as fast as I could.”

“Thank you.”  Brian shows Pastor Conrad in, “any word on who did Hillary Clinton?”

“No and I wish I did know, whoever did it deserves a medal-won’t bring back Ron Paul but you take what you can.  Think if a few more of them get perished things will cool down?”

Brian Miller is barely with the conversation, “I don’t’ see how; they’re invested too much in attacking Iran.  Even if we could get them all…” Brian Miller starts to cry and the big man holds him as he sobs, “look what they did to my beautiful daughter… look!” 

Pastor Conrad guides the grieving man to his couch, “I’ll look.  Where is she at, her room?”  Brian nods, helpless.  “Then I’ll be back,” and with that Pastor Dowell goes to Kayla’s room…

…He opens the door to find Kayla Miller in a corner-she had been cleaned up before from when she had been literally dropped at her father’s feet, but she hadn’t been clean since.  The Pastor saw the scars on her arms, legs, feet, the crazed horror in her eyes.  He wants to speak but… how?

Pastor Conrad returns to the living room, where Brian Miller still is sobbing, and he seats by him, gently getting his full attention, composes his thoughts…

“She was held since they broke up the Occupy Wall Street protest last May, wasn’t she?  They tortured her the entire time?!”

Brian nods.  “Pretty sure they knew she wasn’t involved, but they did her anyway-to get at me.”

Conrad steps back “…You gave them something.”

Brian Miller rises “I gave them everyone holding us back.  You know exactly what and who I mean.”

“Oh God” Pastor Conrad collects himself, his hands opening and closing.  “You realize it’s going to take years to rebuild the militias in this state?”

“Do nothings and sellouts.  Really being made to quote/unquote ‘rat’ on them?  Best thing in the long run, let the enemy clear out the rot.”

“It is going to take a long time to heal your daughter as well-years, decades.”

“What of the people that did this to her?”  Brian Miller looks up at the Pastor, anger over his horrifically violated daughter welling up.  Pastor Conrad has to reel back, choose his words with the utmost care…

“That is beyond anything you or I can do.  I mean, what are you going to do-bring charges before the US Attorney?  The Supreme Court?”

“I want them dead.”

“That’s a suicide mission Brian.  You think for one second you’d make it past the first battle?  Even IF; you think any of the cowards that make up the militias and the patriot movement would, or could, lift a finger for you?  I would… don’t know about the rest of my people.”

“No” Brian rises, a plan just formed “She will.”

“What?!”  Usually Pastor Conrad had something to say, and say it well-but he got the gist of what that poor girl’s father is thinking… and he knew the plan was horrific.

Brian Miller continues, “You’re going to do what you can, now, to break through to my daughter-I don’t care what you do, but she is NOT going to spend the REST OF HER FUCKING LIFE LIKE THAT!”  Brian punctuates his screaming words with a finger pointed towards Kayla’s room.

“She’s broken.  She’s broken like a bone, but do you know what you do with broken bones?  You break them again and set them.”

“We’re not talking about a broken bone you fool we’re talking about her Goddamn MIND!” 

“Which is gone.  She’s broken already.  My daughter, what she was, what she could’ve been-that’s dead.  Murdered.  We won’t be able to reverse the damage, nothing will and you know it.  What we can do is to, I don’t know, salvage what we can and remake her.”

“Into what?”

“Hopefully into the instrument of her own justice.  You have a PhD in psychology Pastor, a good line with God, that ought to help.  Just have to get through… I don’t know what all but maybe getting her to want to strike back, be able to strike back, maybe the rest can be pieced back together.  Somehow.”

“We do this, then what?”  Pastor Conrad already knew the answer…

“OUR war finally begins.”

FARMHOUSE

AURORA, OHIO

March 21, 2014

“Well, what?” Kayla spits out.  Nobody, not even Avrim Heinz the Mossad Agent couldn’t help but to look at her with pained expressions of compassion-something she could not stand.  Couldn’t stand it to the point she strains at her handcuffs to the point she starts to break the skin.

“You hating on my dad because he sold out all you do-nothing muthafuckas to get me out of that hell?  I’m a tell y’all something-you cammie clad, boot shining, keyboard pounding bitch mades were a fuckin’ joke.  And you know it.  Tell you something else:  whole bunch of assassinations of feds that happen just before the war started last April?  Remember the TSA Viper checkpoint?  …I did that.  I did that, and I know you remember how they all got tagged with yo’ punk ass militia symbols cuz’ I was the one that had to learn all your logos an’ made them mean something.”

Alan’s the first to verbalize his shock, “…you?”

“Yep.  Serve y’all right for doing nothing but play soldier instead of being soldiers.  My Dad about killed himself trying to get you muthafuckas to stand up for people, do like, defend people when the police attack them for no reason, do that recall elections thing he always talked about, and all the other things I myself wish I’d paid more attention to.  Fuck-y’all couldn’t even be bothered to defend your own, even selling off one of your 2,000 dollar guns for a lawyer…. Paid attention when y’all got caught up in the black list raids didn’t you?  That’s cause I helped pushed them to do it.  I’m glad my Dad sold y’all punk asses out-FUCK y’all.”

Alan turns to the group, “We need a recess right now.”

“Lets” David Jenkins announces.  Without word all of them file out of the room, leaving Kayla and go downstairs to the living room; David Jenkins is a man of some accomplishment and his walls have plaques from local civic organizations, Freemasons, some other organizations.  They all have seats.

Adrian Vachon starts, “you Pastor-you knew!  You knew what that son of a bitch did to us!”

“Yeah, I did” Pastor Conrad answers, looking Vachon in the eye, defiant.  “I got something to show you all; on this thumb drive… you got to really know why Brian Miller made Kayla what she is.”  Conrad gets out the thumb drive; Avrim sets up his laptop, plugs the media device in and they start watching movies of Kayla…

Pastor Conrad, what all do you know about Kayla?”  Brie sits down, earnestly looks into him.

“Kayla, you have to treat as two people” Pastor Conrad sighs, continues “there’s Kayla before the war, and Kayla after the war.  Not a whole lot of what made Kayla survived-I think, we were pretty desperate in trying to get her functional after she was kidnapped by Homeland Security at Occupy Wall Street…”

MILLER HOME

WARREN, OHIO

December 17, 2011

Brian Miller is at the family table, it’s late, and he’s pressing his hands against his ears as some locally made rap tunes blare out throughout his home.  Desperation turns to over with and Brian Miller marches up to Kayla’s room to find pre-torture Kayla in sweats and a top moving with incredible energy, stamina and rhythm to what in his ears is ghetto garbage.

“KAYLA!  ENOUGH FOR TONIGHT!”

Kayla doesn’t stop for a beat; she holds her right hand up for the camera, shakes her head HELL NO and moves on to the beat… Brian retreats in defeat back down to the kitchen table sits… notices something in the hutch…

…He rises, opens it and there is another video camera…

FARMHOUSE

AURORA OHIO

March 21, 2014

Pastor Conrad had played the video of that very rehearsal session by Kayla Miller from a thumb drive on Avrim’s laptop computer; it cuts in the footage she surreptitiously shot of her dad holding his ears as she does her dance for the camera in her room… him discovering the camera she had planted to catch his reaction, and finally as the music stops he has the camera in hand wondering at the thought his daughter had put into this her voice booms: ‘DAD, DON’T YOU TOUCH MY CAMERA!”  The camera jumps in his hand. 

The video ends.

“This one I want to show you, she was with us at a get together with the old Ashtabula Militia before the war started:

RIFLE RANGE

ASHTABULA COUNTY, OHIO

May 5, 2010

Brian Miller, Kayla, some other teens are gathered on camera around Pastor Conrad as he gives instruction on the M14 rifle he presents before them.

“Remember: make your shot, do the same thing exactly, every time-then adjust your sights for where you’re aiming at.  Who wants to go first?”

Brian Miller gently nudges his daughter forward-“Dad!  I’ve only shot airsoft!  That thing’s going to knock me on my butt!”

“Go on girl, try it.  On the shooting mat” and so Kayla Miller goes to lay down but the Pastor stops her-“Wait, don’t you want to sling up?”

“Oh.  Yeah, I better huh?”  So Pastor Conrad gently guides Kayla’s arm in a kneeling position through the loop of the M1907 sling, then unhooks and adjusts to her, and THEN she lays down.

“Ain’t there a faster way to do this?”

“Well, this is correct for the M1907 sling but there’s a sling out now where there’s a piece that’s on your bicep-you use a clasp to attach the rest of the sling to it.”

“You should get that one.  I’d hate to have to sling up if someone was shooting at me.”  Kayla sets down into Prone, building her position.

“Good, good, now-“

“-Pastor I got this” Kayla breathes in, out, sets sights on target and FIRES.  Brian Miller watches through a spotting scope.  “Okay Kay, take a second.”

Kayla FIRES again… looks at her dad whose squinting through the scope… “I can’t see it hon, take another shot for me okay?”

“Sure, it’s your ammo.”  Kayla breathes, aims, caresses the trigger and FIRES one more time.”

“Pastor, come look at this-can you make this out?”  Brian moves aside for Pastor Conrad to check out Kayla’s shooting… he looks…

“Think we better check out the target.”

“Hey!  I got seventeen shots left, what do I do?”

Brian and the Pastor look at each other… why not?  “Shoot them off Honey.”

“Sure.”  Kayla sets back into her position, then FIRES… aims… FIRES… FIRES… FIRES… FIRES, FIRES, FIRES, FIRES, FIRES, FIRES, FIRES…. FIRES… then safes the rifle by removing the magazine, opening the action to eject the live round, puts the safety on then rises to remove the shooting sling from her and sets the rifle on the shooting mat.  All the while Brian and the Pastor look at her target through the scope in astonishment.

Video cuts to the group gathered around Kayla’s target; it’s a 100 yard target and all the rounds have chewed out the X ring-there’s nothing there but a ragged hole.

“Seen shit like that before in the Army” Brian comments, “some farmer’s kid from Missouri shot just like that with a M-16 and next thing he’s whisked away.  Asked what happened to him and my CO said ‘don’t ask’.”

“Yeah, but it’s boring just shooting at the same target for a full clip” Kayla still was smiling, “I really did that!”

“You do have a way of surprising everyone” Brian held, hugged his daughter with pride.

Video cuts to later, with the group around Brian Miller-all are sitting on the ground, a fire before them and he cradles the M14 in his arms.  There’s laughter; they cut in late on Brian giving his recitation of the Conan the Barbarian Father to Son speech at the beginning of the movie after the opening credits where they made the sword:

“…not beasts, not men, not women-“

“-HEY!” Kayla cuts in.  The group laughs.

“This, you can trust.  Now that’s a speech in a movie, but there’s truth to it.  John Millius knew what he talked about and… I have to say this; people fail.  They will fail you.  People have in them any and all kinds of fear-fear of discomfort, of loss, of death.  Our enemies, who act united against us, they know what the levers of power are in this country and they wield them.  The only thing we equate with power is the gun-which is ultimately true but you have to have a strategy for the soft war as well as the hard war.  Americans as a whole have ceded the government to the enemy and will do nothing to take those levers of power back peacefully-so we will be forced to take them back by force of arms.  That is why our enemy wants to take fine weapons like John Garand’s Grandchild here, from our hands-your hands Kayla.”

“Mine?”

“Rifle’s yours now.  You obviously can handle it better than I can.”  Brian holds out the rifle for Kayla to take…

“I only shot it today-“

“-I know.  But I won’t be able to do this forever, and you’re the most fit to pass it onto.”

“Daddy… I know what this means to you.”  Kayla collects her thoughts… “I won’t say no to you because I’m pretty sure I don’t know what tomorrow’s gonna bring.  But we ain’t in that time.  You’re with your militia.  I’m just some B-girl from Warren y’know?  What I’m saying is, if it’s time and I can, I think… pretty sure I would-“

“Yeah I’ve bailed you out of enough police stations-you would!”  Pastor Conrad butts in, and there’s laughter.  No, Kayla’s no saint.

“Seriously, ah… seriously Pastor, Dad; I’m not the one to wield your Excalibur.  I believe in what you’re doing, I always have.  But this is still yours.”  Kayla gently guides the M-14 rifle back in her Dad’s arms.  They hug.

FARMHOUSE

AURORA, OHIO

March 21, 2014

Pastor Conrad, Avrim Heinz, David Jenkins, Brie Horton and Adrian Vachon still gathered around Avrim’s laptop computer; all of them looking at the Pastor.

“Pastor” Adrian looking hard at him “I still don’t get how someone like Brian Miller can sell out the entire Ohio Unified Militia to the feds!”

“I’ll show you” and with that Pastor Conrad clicks on another video…

…This is video he first made of Kayla Miller right after she had been brought home, cleaned up in January 2013-a broken, scarred, horrified nearly to death creature-the Pastor can’t look too long so he clicks on the next video…

…Video of Kayla screaming with uncontrollable rage-Pastor Conrad wrestles her, injects her with something and she goes out.

Pastor Conrad clicks on another video; Kayla’s up, moving, in woodland camo pants, boots, green top, being given knife fighting instruction by her Dad.  She’s focused, driven and penetrates his defenses to land a killing blow with the knife simulator.  Pastor clicks off that video…

Pastor Conrad stands, “yeah.  You know what, Brian Miller was right.  Things were done your way, and nothing got done.  We’re paying the price for it with this war.

“Listen up,” David Jenkins draws his pistol “I don’t know all what happened to that girl, but it does nothing to alter the fact that you and your friend started the war and got a lot of good people killed… I mean MY GOD he used his own daughter!” 

Pastor Conrad just looks at David Jenkins, “do what you’re gonna do.”  Jenkins raises his pistol and guides him to the back porch and shoots Pastor Conrad in the heart.  He falls, dead.  Jenkins returns, “we’ll take care of the girl later.”

Alan looked away, quietly furious, and indecisive-making for a lot of visible frustration.  “I need to get out to the field; word is we’re going to have new additions to our order of battle.”

David turns to Alan, “Who?”

“Central Ohio Militia, Wooster Resistance Front, a squadron of Marine Harrier jump jets plus support staff… or whatever’s left that makes it hereabouts.”

“Goddamn” David Jenkins swore, “don’t know what we’re going to do with a bunch of hippies-save use em’ as cannon fodder, but I know Ted Jorgensen he’s good people.   We can certainly use those Marines, that’s for certain.”

“Got what’s left of the Geauga County Volunteers as well here now,” Alan adds, “expended the last of themselves and their inventory getting that girl here, and her plans.”

“Plans?”  David looks at Alan, “what plans?”

“Plans for that drone that shot down those jet fighters and drones over Lake Pymatunig few days back” Avrim answers.

“Jet fighters?”  David isn’t believing this. 

“I know how you’re feeling, and I didn’t believe the Sheriff when he first showed me-but here:” Avrim pulls out his laptop, turns it on, accesses the drone file on the desktop, clicks on combat footage and sets the computer down for everyone in the room to watch the gun camera footage of the Minuteman drone literally rocket out of a mobile gantry, climb over Lake Pymatunig.  They watch a display and boxes coming over the pair of F-22 Raptors and the Reaper drone-both visual recognition and autio signature subroutines identifying them, then the gun recticle and ballistic flight path for a .50 M2 corrected for the drone’s flight performance  come on line and they watch the POV of a agile, fast, ruthless machine take on the half-billion dollar apiece stealth jets, avoiding their missile attacks, the swarms of missiles lobbed off by the Reaper Drone in its probably now dead controller’s desperate bid for survival, then picking all three of those Air Force machines off… then doing a sweep to find more targets and then engaging both the Ohio Highway and Ashtabula County Sheriff’s drones, crashing into the last when a MALFUCNTION warning came about its armament no longer works….

Avrim decides to add in… “Brian Miller, Kayla Miller and her militia group designed and built it out of what they could build and scrounge in Ashtabula County.  It operates with 100 percent autonomy and as you see is very highly effective.  Whatever her father did against your resistance, he did give back something that might turn the tide of your war.”  Avrim Heinz studied David Jenkins and the rest of the apparent leadership of the Summit County Rangers.

“No wonder Mossad’s interested in this.  Too bad you didn’t have this awhile back.”  David Jenkins shakes his head.

“Yes, it is” and Avrim makes a mental note to keep a much closer tab on Mr. Jenkins…

“Okay Alan: go see about coordinating with all our new forces, have them break through into Akron if they haven’t already… can’t tell since no kind of broadcast signals gonna work and they’ve literally cut every last line out of this area.  At least we know why now.  We’ll give you an update when you get back.”

“Ought to be very interesting…” Alan Horton walks off but Brie bounds up, hugs him.  They kiss and he leaves.  Brie turns to the group, “so what about Kayla?”

“This is going to sound bad but I say we keep her alive” Alan adds, “she’s the only one who had first hand experience building that drone.  Everything else aside, we have the time and her-let’s not waste the opportunity.”

“I have to agree” David Jenkins shakes his head, “unbelievable.  Bitch gets a reprieve.”

Adrian Vachon cuts in, “what about Brian Miller?  What about justice for what her Dad done to the militias in this state?  We’d be in a hell of a lot better position if we had Ohio.  So, if for nothing else, we have to find out what that girl knew of what her Dad did to us!”

“Do her after.”

“Mr. Vachon” Avrim enters the debate, “it’s obvious to anyone that Kayla isn’t responsible-the cause… no, the catalyst.  Yes, catalyst.  When your government broke her, they broke Brian Miller as well.  That is obvious!  I was looking at one of the toughbook we took from that diner in Chesterland; an agent named Tom Jager had a lot of video he kept doing what his type would consider ‘fun’ torturing her.  Believe me they were most thorough in breaking that kid down to nothing, and they made certain her father knew it.  No, I won’t show them to you.  Ever.”

Adrian Vachon considers… is about to say something but then slumps back down.  “God damn this war.”

“Amen” David Jenkins rises, “I’m calling this tribunal at an end.  I have to help with our patriot brothers retreating from Wooster-this will get interesting.  Don’t let Kayla around any kind of weapon, keep her cuffed to that bed: that’s an order.  Meeting’s adjourned.”  With that David Jenkins goes to exit the house… when what’s left of the Geauga County Volunteers is at the door:

Travis Dane-now the C.O. of the Volunteers, 30’s, obviously a veteran by his rigid bearing, “Jenkins,” he says simply, “Travis Dane, acting C.O., Geauga County Volunteers… or what’s left of us.  You got our girl here?”

“Carrie Messing?  Upstairs, far bedroom-we’re treating her” Jenkins replies.  They shake hands.

“Let me make introductions first: Jane Hammond, our now Second and I know you’ve dealt with her before.”

Jane Hammond and Jenkins simply nod at each other; she’s in her late 30’s, trim, and you can tell she was once a cop, “John’s dead David.”

“I heard.  I’m so sorry, John McLellan was a good Sheriff, good man.  This damned war… just takes the best of us and grinds them up.”  Jenkins hugs Jane Hammond, then:

“Joe Bielski, Geauga Voluteers, designated sniper”, Joe Bielski is plus 40 and fighting every bit of his aging, “and this” gesturing to a barely 20 year old, tall, gangly boy, “is my spotter and understudy Doug Heemeyer.  Kid was gearing up for the Olympics before the war started.”

“Shooting bad guys is more fulfilling though” Doug pipes in and there’s a brief and very needed chuckle.

Travis continues, gesturing to a petite 25 year old girl, “and we got Sabine Leerson” and the little cop chick smiles at David; she’s a charmer “and finally Adam Bent.”  Adam’s about 35, purely a civilian who got caught up in the war and chose a side and done his best.

“Honor to meet you Jenkins.  We’re all appreciative how you’ve kept us going this past year.”

“Uh, thanks.  God knows I’ve tried… am trying.  Look I gotta go; we got a lot of people coming in from the Wooster area and I got to figure out where to place them.”

“We heard; is it true there’s a Marine Harrier squadron that’s coming in?”  Doug Heemeyer was about spastic about the news.

“Oh yes, Son.  We’ll have some real firepower to beat the enemy back!”  David Jenkins was always good at mirroring people.  Part of being a good charmer-that and a smile.

“Awesome!”  Everyone’s happy at the news-happy for any kind of good news but especially Doug “I know good riflemen can only do so much, found that out the hard way.”

“Hardest way my boy” Joe Bielski adds, “we better let you get going then and see our girl upstairs-good meeting you Sir.”

“Same here.  Stick around we’ll have a lot of work for you, I promise.”  With that David Jenkins hops in his truck and is on his way.

Joe turns to his fellow Volunteers, “best man we got right there.”  Everyone nods in agreement.  Brie Horton appears at the door.  “Hello!  You must be the Volunteers; I have Carrie upstairs.  I’ll tell you her condition on the way.”  Brie leads the Volunteers inside and Travis spots Pastor Conrad’s corpse in the back porch.

“Hey!  Whose that in the back?  Is that” the Volunteers get a better look “Pastor Conrad?!”

“Whoa, whoa, whoa!”  Adrian Vachon approaches as the Volunteers go for their sidearms “wait!  Pastor Conrad’s a traitor!”

“WHAT?!”  That’s the blurted reaction of several Volunteers, they see Pastor Conrad’s cooling body.

Joe Bielski, Jane Hammond, and Travis Dane are first to draw down on Brie, Adrian Vachon, and Avrim.

“Doug, Sabine: go check the Pastor.  Adam: check up on Carrie!”  The three do as told by Travis; he aims at who he judges is the most dangerous… Avrim.  “You.  You’re a Israeli agent.”

“Yes, you know that” Avrim affirms, “you always have.  I have never done anything against you and-“

“-YOU FUCKING JUST DID TODAY!!”  Travis gets in Heinz’s face with his pistol…

Sabine calls out from the back porch “the Pastor’s dead Travis!  Gunshot: execution.”

“Jane” Adrian talks to her calmly “you don’t know what we just found out.”

“What could that possibly be?”  Jane’s about to just shoot Adrian Vachon’s old ass right there and be done with it.  About… “Pastor Conrad helped Brian Miller betray the militias in Ohio.”

Upstairs, Adam Bent, pistol out, runs to the far end of the hall, where Carrie Messing’s in bed-“HOLY SHIT BE CAREFUL WITH THAT!” 

“Apologies, Carrie” Adam holsters his pistol, goes to her “are you alright?”

“Not in the least; got shot in the butt-damned Amish load about took out my butt and leg but Brie’s militia group stole some stem cell treatments.”

“No shit.”

“Hey-check up on Kayla, she’s down the hall; something’s going on, I heard a gunshot.”

“Something definitely is going on-Pastor Conrad’s downstairs, dead.”

“What?!  Oh my God no.”  Carrie starts to weep.

“They executed him-wait Kayla, Kayla Miller of Pymatunig?”

Carrie nods, “you have to get her and her drone plans out of here.”

“Well we’re taking you as well!”

“I ain’t going nowhere.  I’m out of this now, it’s just… hell how many of you are left?”

“Myself, Sabine, Joe and Doug, Jane Hammond and Travis-he’s in command.”

“Take Kayla with you; her right eye caught some glass and cuts when her riflescope got shot and she’s wounded in her left shoulder-but she can still fight, trust me on that.   She’s got the stem cells going with her, she’ll heal fast.  Give her my regards.”  Adam nods at that, “go on-get going.”

Avrim tries to talk the Volunteers down from executing them off-hand “Brian Miller’s daughter Kayla was kidnapped by Homeland Security at Occupy Wall Street right before it was busted up.  They tortured her from May til’ January when she was given back to her father in exchange for turning on the Ohio militias.  She was broken, mentally and physically so he and Pastor Conrad, they remade her into what you know today.  They sold out all your people that had opposed them, and started the civil war.”   

Adam find Kayla in her room; she had about ripped the skin off getting out of one of her handcuffs, and was yanking hard on her left arm, trying not to use her shot left shoulder.

“I got a key y’know?  Where’s yours?”

Kayla looks at Adam Bent, smiles.  She has a big, wonderful smile, though her teeth need some cleaning.

Avrim concludes, “they took Kayla, the torture victim and made her into a psychopath, used her to start your civil war by killing feds, raiding checkpoints and tagging the scenes with Ohio militia emblems.  She false flagged you into a civil war.”

“No.”  Travis shook his head, too much. 

Kayla and Adam come bounding down the steps; Kayla’s got her M14 rifle, Glock 18, and gear back on.  Travis turns to Kayla: “is it true?  What Avrim here says?”

Kayla steps to Avrim, “what that I set up a bunch of traitors to the cause for the feds to take out they own?  I’ll owe up to that any day.  We really got time for this again?”

“We’re making the time,” Travis grinds out.

Kayla responds “Ketchup here thinks I’m like Humpty Dumpty and Dad and that Pastor couldn’t find all the pieces an’ I’m still cracked.  I’m a bit stronger in here than they give me credit for.  An’ you seriously are going to waste tears on a bunch of bum outfits that wouldn’t have aided you on yo’ best day?  Shit, they wouldn’t even help each other… you did note I left the real deal Patriots out of my tagging, right?”

Kayla turns, see Sabine and Doug’s hands inching towards their sidearms, “now you know I can out draw and outshoot the lot of you-you know that don’t you?”  Kayla sees the dead Pastor Conrad-“whoa you took out Conrad-good shooting!”

All of the Geauga County Volunteers draw down on Kayla!  Adrian Vachon does as well, but Avrim Heinz and Brie Horton don’t. 

Kayla’s in combat mode… seven shooters; three in front one to her left-damnit-two behind.

“A lot more than some supposed ‘bum outfits’ have fallen Kayla.”  Adam Bent cannot believe the young woman in front of him is even real.

Brie Horton steps up “I can tell you now that it’s safe: Brian Miller just used the feds to clean out the dry rot of the Ohio militias-it was David Jenkins that’s been selling us out.”

Travis turns on Adrian Vachon, “this true?  Is this true?!  Better start talking old man.”

“I don’t know anything about that!”  Vachon glares at Brie, “you know I just run the co-op!”

Kayla shoots Vachon with her suppressed Glock, loads a fresh round into her magazine.  The Volunteers to a member don’t know what to do.  “You going to holster those weapons or am I going to have to give y’all another demonstration on how good my word is?  God knows I done more than enough already.”

All of the Volunteers holster.

“Now, Brie, seriously: how long before I can take this goddamn, muthafucking eyepatch off, an use my M14?”

Brie has to force out the answer “I-I-I don’t know Kayla. This is the first time I’ve used that stuff, it’s supposed to act fast.  All you got are some cuts on the eyeball and I got that packed full of the stem cell treatment-“

“-ANSWER, BITCH!”

“D-days.”

“Fuck.  Well, beats being blinded, but I can’t fucking shoot my rifle-my shoulder wound get the cells?”

Brie nods.  “All your wounds.  Scars.”

“Whatever.  Just have to tough it out then.”  Brie looks around, “how you get here?”

Travis braves an answer “we got a Army truck; fits in about anywhere.”

“Good: we’ll pack my girl Carrie up, take her someplace that’s actually safe.”

“She said to leave her,” Adam Bent takes a breath as Kayla turns, loads the freshly topped magazine back into her Glock.  “I ain’t leaving her to some snitch, especially after Jenkins comes back to see his boy here dead.  Can we get a stretcher for Carrie, Brie?  Of course we can; I want all y’all to load her ass up in that truck.  Go on-you know I’m in charge now.”

The Volunteers go up to collect Carrie, “you too, Brie, you’re coming with us.”  Brie obeys Kayla without another word, happy for the respite from her presence.  She turns to confront Avrim Heinz.

“Maybe I can find a rifle scope…” Kayla glares at Avrim, “you’re not thinking of actually coming along with me are you-after what you did?”

“You pulled yo’ faggy assed Seecamp on me dude.”

“You pulled your Sig on me, when I was fucking trying to help you!”

“You cuffed me to that bed muthafucka!  Look at my wrists” to Brie “an’ bitch you better have some fuckin’ gauze n’ those stem cells for me!”

“I know Cleveland.  I know how to get you past I-271-“

“-An’ have you sell me out again?  I can figure it out.”  With that Kayla goes to shoot Avrim in the head but Brie was still there and stops her-“I don’t help Carrie, or YOU unless HE comes along!”

Kayla glares at Brie for even touching her; she flinches away.  She turns her murderous glare back at Avrim, holsters her pistol.

“What about Pastor Conrad?”

“What about him?  Let Jenkins handle his own trash.”

DINER

AURORA, OHIO

David Jenkins enters, goes directly through the dining room servicing Army and Police and heads to the back office; a U.S. Army soldier rises, nods at David Jenkins and he picks up the old style landline phone:

“Operator, Jenkins, David, 2075519; I need a direct line to the Fusion Center.”

A pause

“Fusion Center; operations.”

“Jenkins, David, 2075519, I have intel on the drone plans-“

“-I’ll put you directly to the Commander!”

FEDERAL FUSION CENTER

WARREN, OHIO

General Warburg is going through reports when his phone buzzes and he answers “Warburg.”

“General, got intel on the drone plans, from one of our operatives-“

“-Put him through already!”  General Warburg looks up Jenkin’s dossier on his laptop-ah, he’s been quite useful-almost as useful as Brian Miller was.  Warburg could read fast.  “Jenkins, report!”

“General I have the drone plans and the last living person around when it was constructed in my care.  You may be interested in her anyway, her name’s Kayla Miller.” 

Tom Jager looks very interested…

“You have the coordinates to the Horton home, my 2nd?  They’re both there.  Something else: Miller confessed that her dad Brian Miller double dealt you guys, and that she was the one who false flagged the militias; those attacks last April were all her.”

“Excellent Mr. Jenkins, excellent; you will be very rewarded.”  Warburg hangs up, looks up at his adjutant Major Charles Fox… and a man in a wheelchair… Tom Jager.

“I leave you Mr. Jager with a choice; we can send in a team to take the drone plans and the girl and you can have your way with her.”

“Again…” Tom Jager nodded savagely… “what’s the other option?”

“I’d like to use a nuclear weapon on American soil.  I’ve never had the opportunity to do so-my commanding officers wouldn’t let me during the Greek Operation but things are much more desperate here.”

Tom thought… “I’ve been there, done that with the girl, lots of times.  And although it would please me to see her fucking face when I rise out of this wheelchair to have my way with her again… well, I’ve already done that!  What I haven’t done is do someone in with a nuclear device!”

“I’m going to call Mr. Jenkins back then; good asset like that deserves a chance to get out of the bomb blast don’t you think?”  Warburg and Tom Jager look at each other-and laugh at the thought.

CHURCH

AURORA, OHIO

The Geauga County Volunteer’s stolen Army truck stops in front of a church; Joe Bielski is driving, Travis Dane rides shotgun with everyone else in the back; Carrie’s in the aisle with her IV fluids jury rigged, unconscious.  Kayla sits all the way in the back with Avrim but she might as well be alone.

Joe looks at Travis, “how long do we put up with the girl?”

“Until we can get rid of her” Travis looked out at the church as Brie steps out the back, heads inside, “we’ll know roughly the answer when she’s done.”

Brie Horton in Army digital cammo enters the humble old church, climbs to the steeple, unpacks from a weathered plastic case the same kind of laser communicator in Lorain, sets it up, calibrates, then types on the keyboard:

FLASH MESSAGE PRIORITY ONE: DRONE PLANS AND PRODUCTION PERSONNEL IN CUSTODY, NEED EXTRACTION ASAP

…The laser message gets automatically relayed to the next communications array line of sight, through several; eventually reaching ground not being hit by the electromagnetic null field and the communication travels… all the way to Michigan.

HIGH COMMAND BUNKER

HILLMAN, REPUBLIC OF MICHIGAN

Brie Horton’s message reaches the communications hub of the crudely dug, expedient underground bunker a few minutes later.  A Communications Specialist with the Army of Michigan relays it to a Command Room; a group of Generals are around a table with the head of the table empty, a picture of Mark Koernke hangs above with a black ribbon diagonal in the corner.  One of the Generals reads the message aloud.

“That’s a break.  How can we get to her though?  That EM blackout field they’re generating’s going to make communicating with Horton nearly impossible.”

“She managed to get this message out,” Don Vecher, Mark Koernke’s longtime former radio co host looks at a map before them of Ohio; there’s a 200 mile wide circle drawn around Lake Pymatunig.  Various small game pieces depicting government-loyal U.S. military forces are yellow, with most depicted in an enclosing perimeter going from Lorain to Elyria, to now Brunswick, the western outskirts of Akron, going through Canton, Alliance, going around Berlin Lake, then following I-80 to Windham, then roughly going Northeast to Pymatunig Lake and then Northwest to Asthtabula.

“They’ve made even more rapid progress than I thought they would,” another U.S. Army General comments, one of those who joined the resistance along with most of his mechanized infantry division.  “Their lines are weak because of their offensive in Ohio; we can punch through anywhere West of Detroit, swing around to Toledo-take that city and use their bridges to hit them from behind.  Not only will that divert enemy forces on their western lines it’ll allow us to take all of Southeastern Michigan and start relieving all these busted up Ohio forces.”

“You think we can go a bit further west-take Northwestern Ohio and not worry about crossing any bridges on the Maumee?”

“We got a time issue” the Army General fires back, “this pocket’s going to collapse even more rapidly in the East now that they’ve reinforced with European forces.  Akron won’t hold out for more than a day, but if our allies can coalesce in the Cleveland Metro and hold them, that could buy us the time we need to punch through; all their forces in the West?  They’re drawn from our Michigan lines and are already pretty chewed up.”

Another General-Militia-contributes: we can get that drone and if it lives up to its billing we can churn them out like so many China Mart goodies and turn this war around.  This could be a war winner.”

But Don Vecher has a thought, “couldn’t we just build our own version?   And not bother with this offensive?”

“I hope that’s a rhetorical question.”  The Army General looked right at him.

“Oh, it is but a lot of our people are going to wonder about expending all these resources just to get at a set of drone plans.  I know I wonder.  But-it’s better to hold off all the Germans, British, French, Belgians and all the rest of those Eurotrash at Cleveland or even Toledo than Flint.”

“Good,” Army General presses, “any way to get the Armored division from the Twin Cities front?”

Another Michigan Militia General digs out a larger map of the Great Lakes region, “provided we can keep bridges up over the St. Croix, it becomes a matter of sending them by ship from Green Bay to say, Muskegon, or have them try to put up the Mackinaw Bridge back up-and keep it up.”

“We can try” Vecher goes on to the next item, “There are patrols of heavily escorted B-52s circling the blackout zone like vultures-and I’m not talking about the raids on Youngstown and Canton either.  We have to commit our air force anyway if we’re going to have a hope of making a stand in Cleveland against all this,” Vecher gestures to the massive black formations of European forces on the East side of the cordon.

“What do we tell our operative then?”

CHURCH

AURORA, OHIO

Brie Horton gets a one word message. 

She puts the laser communications gear away carefully, packing everything back into its weathered container and camouflages it.

Brie gets in the back of the Army truck, “We’re going to Cleveland”.

Kayla closes her eyes.

“Here we go.”

END