Dark New World (Book 3): EMP Deadfall (19 page)

South of the Jungle lay more food forest, stretched across the southern border of the homestead. Though it could provide Peter’s attackers with a less disorienting route to the house than the Jungle, it lay downhill from the living complex and wouldn’t be much real use as cover for the attackers, since the Jungle still blocked any clear line of sight between the forest and the complex.

So, as Michael had explained it, the enemy would likely be channeled to attack either en masse in a wave from the south, or haphazardly from the north. The foxholes—or “fighting pits”—lay mostly between the Jungle and the house, with a couple to the north as well for good measure. These would be the front-line defense for Cassy’s people so it was strictly a volunteer posting, but Michael had no shortage of volunteers. He made sure all were well trained to use their M4s, and he often took Choony with him on these tours of the fighting pits, both to drill the small Asian on the routes between the pits and to make sure all their fighters knew Choony would restock them with supplies during any fight. Choony’s support would be psychological as well as tactically necessary to the defense.

Roughly two-thirds of their fighting force was in the foxholes or other cover, while Michael held the final third in reserve at the house, where they could respond to threats and defend the house itself if Peter’s people pushed that far through the defenses. The kids were hidden well inside the earthbag house, as safe as any place could be in combat, and a few people would stay there with shotguns as a last line of defense if it all went bad.

Cassy, without turning to look at him, told Michael, “Ethan should be in the bunker by now, manning radios. That was a great idea, by the way, but he’s a good fighter, too. I wish he could be more active in the fight.” She sighed. “We have so few people, compared to Peter. But I guess we’re as ready as we’re going to be—now we wait.” Then she turned to regard Michael directly and added, “I have huge respect for you now, knowing you did this every day in the Sandbox. It amazes me. It’s torture. I almost hope Peter shows up soon just so we can get this over with.”

Michael only nodded, and Cassy was sure the warrior knew just how she felt.

* * *

In an abandoned farmhouse not far north of the Clan, Peter stared at his scout’s map, and his fingers dug into the edge of the dinner table where it lay. “So you’re telling me,” he said to Jim, “they’re all wearing the same outfit? Hunting camouflage BDUs, with matching hats. We have no way to tell which one is Cassy when we start the fun.”

“Sorry, boss, but no we don’t. I can’t tell her from any of the others, even though I met her before.”

Peter saw Jim’s slight shudder as he recalled his early encounter with Cassy. It had nearly cost him his life, and Cassy hadn’t even toughened up yet before the ’vaders started killing their countryside. It wouldn’t do to underestimate her.

Peter continued: “We know the southern route is booby-trapped, and we know they’ve added lethal stuff to the early warning devices they had already planted there. After that, we’ll have to go through that weird overgrown crop area, which is also laced with traps, or follow the trails that lead through it. They might also be trapped, but those trails only let us approach from a couple places even without any traps. They’re sure to have some sort of crossfire set up there by now, covering all those exits.”

“Kill zones, yeah boss. I’m sure they do. But what about from north of the farm, where we snatched their animals?”

“I don’t much like coming from that way, either. The wooded area has to be trapped, and we know they have some bunker-holes built up between the bulletproof house and the woods.”

Jim said, “I hope you aren’t thinking of crossing those ponds. There isn’t much defense there, but there’s zero cover. It would be a slow crossing right out in the open.”

“No…” Peter said, voice trailing off. “I think we’ll have to risk a northern attack. Come in through the forest and just expect some casualties along the way. If we can get through the woods and bum-rush the bunkers, we can overwhelm them and come right up to the house itself. I think if we take the house with all those kids in it, the rest of them will surrender just to protect the kids.”

Jim nodded, a smile on his face. “Then we take all their stuff, not just half, and the farm is ours.”

Peter grinned back at him. “You’re an idiot, Jim, my friend. I was never going to honor that deal anyway. If she’d been stupid enough to surrender, all it would have done is thrown the defenders into some confusion. Made them less effective. I offered it just in case they’d fall for it, not because it was a real deal.”

Jim smiled and nodded. Ass-kissing psycho. Still, Jim was useful in so many ways, and Peter didn’t give two shakes what he did to the prisoners. Or to the White Stag people for that matter—the more scared they were, the more they followed orders without any back-talk. It was all coming together beautifully.

“Alright, it’s almost time. Get our people together, groups of four, and line ’em up on the back side of the hill where we got the livestock off of. When I’m ready, we’re gonna run their asses south, right through the woods and into those bunker things. I mean, they can’t
all
get killed by two guys in dirt holes, right?”

* * *

0845 HOURS - ZERO DAY +28

Cassy sat at a window in her loft bedroom with Michael at another, each armed with a 7mm hunting rifle. Their roles during the impending attack would be primarily to direct the flow of battle via Ethan’s radios, but also act as snipers for any “targets of opportunity,” as Michael called them.

Michael said, “If they’re smart, we’ll get hit at dusk or dawn. But controlling the pace of conflict is hard enough in broad daylight, so we’ll probably be engaged soon. Peter’s a farmer, not a military man, from what that scout said. He might make some stupid mistakes.”

At the mention of the scout, Cassy was flooded with gruesome images of Michael’s handiwork, and shuddered. Michael was such a good person. How could she reconcile the man before her now with the savage warrior who could do such things? She fought back the images and reminded herself that Michael had been right. The information they got probably saved lives, and if they won the fight for the farm it would only be because Michael had stacked the deck in their favor with the knowledge he’d gained.

Cassy said, “I hope it’s soon. The wait is killing me. But I’m terrified, as well.”

Michael looked at Cassy intently, no doubt sizing her up. He must have been okay with what he saw, because he looked away and back out the window once again. “We’re all terrified. Don’t fight it, channel it. Use it. We feel fear for a reason. You
can
channel it so that it helps rather than hinders you. Adrenaline is a hell of a combat drug, and we all make our own,” he said, and shrugged.

Cassy didn’t reply. There was no need. She wasn’t in the mood for chatter anyway, and Michael probably wasn’t either, though he was too much the good warrior, loyal subordinate, to say so to the Clan leader. Cassy looked out the windows, gazing first out the north window and then the east, looking over one of the ponds. At least the pond was peaceful. Michael had the other two windows covered. She could focus on just these two.
 

Well, the window to the north didn’t show much, just the foxholes and the patch of food forest between the house and the hilltop. The woods blocked her view farther uphill. So she found herself gazing east, at the pond. It looked so peaceful, like life used to be before the invasion. The foliage around the pond was beautiful; half were useful plants and water-loving things like foxtails, but the other half were flowers and little fruit-bearing shrubs. The water was still, save for the ripples left in the wake of three ducks, who paddled around looking for food. Good luck, little ducks.

Two loud bangs ripped Cassy out of her daydreaming. Adrenaline spiked for a second, and her mind reeled to catch up. Michael was saying something, but it just sounded like gibberish. He furrowed his brow in irritation and repeated himself, and Cassy understood this time. The enemy was coming, and from the north. Dammit, that was
not
what they’d wanted.

A radio crackled to life: “Sniper One to base. Multiple incoming hostiles, at least fifty, with small arms.” There was another
bang
of rifle fire, and another. “Four down, they’re still coming. Retreating to fighting positions November One and Two, request reinforcements
now!
Over.”

Cassy moved to grab another radio, but Michael was faster and she heard his steady, hard voice saying, “All units, all units. September positions move to reinforce November One and Two,
even numbers only.
”

So, they’d bet wrong putting most of their defenses on the south side, and Michael was diverting half of the southern units north to back up the fighting positions there. Cassy knew she’d soon have plenty to shoot at.

Three seconds later, Cassy saw the two people who’d been in the sniper stands sprinting out of the woods toward the foxholes, and they literally dove into the positions, landing in a jumble of arms and legs with the people already in those foxholes. Just as they landed, Cassy heard what a real firefight sounded like when at least a dozen spots in the dark woods lit up from the muzzle flashes of Peter’s people. She was in shock and stared for a few seconds, but in every second she saw another muzzle flash joining the first ones. So, they were keeping in cover in the woods, for the moment. Good.

Michael grabbed her shoulder. “Cassy! Engage the damn enemy!”

Cassy shook her head to clear it and then brought up her rifle. She scanned the tree line through her scope but saw nothing at first. Then she heard Michael’s calm voice again. “Cassy, look for the muzzle flash. Fire at the flashes.” Okay, that made sense even to her adrenaline-fogged brain.

There! A flash! She fired at it, but was either hasty or shaking—she couldn’t tell which—because the shot went wide. But now that she’d focused on a flash, she could see the person behind it. She counted to three as she sighted in, took a deep breath, exhaled halfway and then held it. In that second, she lightly squeezed the trigger.
Just like hunting…
There was a deafening sound when her rifle went off, and the scope view jiggled from the recoil, but she saw enough to realize she’d practically decapitated an attacker. Holy shit. She’d never killed anyone before, and the realization that she had just ended a life hit her like a hammer. She’d tried to kill Jim in the first days of the EMP, but that was different. That was personal. This was just… some person following orders.

And then she was struck by the realization that, despite the shock of it, killing that man didn’t actually bother her. Would she feel it later? She’d have to ask Michael about that when this was over, if they both lived through this. But for now she shoved the thought away and sighted in on another muzzle flash in the woods.

* * *

1100 HOURS - ZERO DAY +28

Peter walked with his people back to their farmhouse headquarters and fumed. It just didn’t make any damn sense. How could a few dozen people hold off his army like that? They’d exchanged fire for maybe half an hour before Peter called the retreat. He could have kept going, of course, but once all those other Clan fighters had joined the battle, he knew a simple rush to overrun the foxholes would have seen his people slaughtered. He outnumbered the Clan three-to-one by his scouts’ estimates, yet they’d held him off.

Worse, Peter lost half a dozen people—three to Clan rifles, and three were lost to booby traps in the woods. Another half dozen were wounded. He hadn’t expected so many traps. The bastards had littered the woods with them. Time to reevaluate his strategy.

Peter caught sight of the prisoner, Jaz, tied to the tree out front. Normally her condition would have mildly disgusted him—Jim was a bastard, that was certain—but after the defeat he’d just suffered, it brought him a measure of savage joy. Her clothes were torn, nose probably broken, lower lip torn open, left eye swollen completely shut, and she was covered in dirt, bruises, blood, and other things Peter preferred not to think about. After Jim had finished “questioning” her the night before, he’d returned to the house full of smiles. All Jaz had done since then was sit curled up into a ball, back against the tree to which she was bound.
 

All the rage he felt toward the Clan for embarrassing him today was somewhat cooled by the thought of what Jim had done to Jaz. It was actually
satisfying
to see one of the Clan so thoroughly defeated, as long as he didn’t think much about how she’d got that way. Yep, good ol’ Jim. And he figured that his people seeing Jaz in that condition would help keep them in line.

“Okay, enough of that,” Peter mumbled. He turned to Jim and said, “The plan didn’t work. I figured we had the people to just smash through, and if we’d had another dozen, I might have tried. Even if we’d lost half our people, we’d still have had twice what the Clan has now. But you know what they say about wishes and fishes. We didn’t have another dozen, and we have even fewer fighters now. We need a new plan, Jim.”

Jim lowered his eyes, avoiding Peter’s gaze. “We all thought it would work, boss. It isn’t anyone’s fault but the Clan’s. Jaz says they got some Marines with them, and they must be the ones who figured out how to set up for a north attack like that. I wish we had some Marines of our own, but the closest we got is a guy who was a County Sheriff, an Army Reservist who was basically a file clerk, and a retired Navy guy. You know he never saw any ground action.”