Eden's Hammer (9 page)

Shortly before the hour was up, the talking slowed to a near stop. Adrian took that as his cue to resume, then stood up and walked back to his spot. “Most of you don’t know me, so personal questions are fair to ask. Who wants to go first?”

From the back of the crowd came a woman’s voice. “Is it true you sired bear cubs up there in the mountains?” Adrian’s face immediately turned bright red from embarrassment, and the tension of the last hour was broken with an uproar of laughter from the crowd. Adrian raised both hands in defeat and the laughter slowly died down. Adrian said, “I didn’t mean
that
personal.” It was the right reply, and the crowd roared with laughter again. Adrian, knowing they needed this break in tension, took it on the chin and waited, smiling.

A tall man with ramrod posture stood up in the back and said, “I have a question, but it’s not for you, it’s for everyone else. We need to get started on this, and I just want to see a show of hands of who’s willing to go out and fight.” He stuck his own hand up high and was quickly followed by every man, woman, and child in the village doing the same. Then he turned to Adrian and said, “Ok, now that that’s settled, General Bear, what do you want us to do and when do you want us to do it?” The crowd murmured in approval.

Adrian let them go on for a moment and then raised his hands for silence. The crowd quickly settled down, and for a brief moment, it was dead quiet. “Here’s the plan…”

March 10, early afternoon

Adrian counted the men. Ninety-seven able-bodied men with whatever arms they owned were in the town square. Nearly half were from outlying farms outside the village, but dependent on it in one way or another. Adrian addressed them, “Here’s the drill: we’re going to break up into five groups, each with a captain and a lieutenant. I’ve already selected the captains. They will immediately begin to train their groups. These ten captains are all solid leaders, some with previous military training. They will choose their own lieutenants from among their men. Every man’s name has been placed into a hat. The captains will take turns drawing names at random and calling them out. As your name is called, fall in behind the captain who called it. At the end of the process, I may switch some men around to even things out in terms physical fitness or fighting skills. I want each group to be as evenly balanced as possible. When that’s settled, you’ll go off and train in separate areas. At the end of the second day of training, your captain will choose one of you to be his lieutenant. Any questions? Okay, captains line up, pass the hat back and forth, and start calling out names.”

Adrian then walked over to the women’s group. Addressing them, he said, “I count forty-four able-bodied women. You’ll be under the command of Colonel Fremont. She will organize you however she sees fit. Once you’re organized, I’ll be in temporary command as your drill instructor. When the training regimen is underway, Colonel Fremont will take over full command again and continue the training. She will choose the captains and lieutenants in whatever manner she considers best. Colonel Fremont, you are in command. I’ll return in an hour to begin the training.”

Linda spoke. “General Bear, may I have a word with you?” She lowered her voice so that only Adrian could hear her. “Really, Adrian? Colonel? You only made captains of the men, and—” Adrian interrupted her. “Yes, Colonel. You will be acting autonomously; you will not have the benefit of counsel or a higher leader to turn to during battle. Your rank is higher than the men’s because they will have those two advantages and you will not. You’re going to make hard fast decisions without anyone to help you make them. You will be entirely on your own. These women need to know that you have a higher rank because you command a higher rank, given the situation that you and they will be in. Believe me, when the fighting starts, they will trust you with their lives, and they want to believe—have to believe—that you can be trusted; that you won’t do something stupid that will get them killed without reason. They’ll be watching you like a hawk in this training phase, and if you don’t act the part, they’ll get scared and won’t fight half as well. If you have to, fake complete confidence for their benefit.” Adrian didn’t add that he was doing the same.

Adrian took two steps back and snapped a salute to Linda, turned on his heel, and marched back over to the men. She watched him walk away with mixed feelings of doubt and confidence. She knew his advice was right; she would have to hide her doubts from her troops.

CHAPTER 8

March 10, late afternoon

A
drian had spent several hours
with Linda’s troops setting up a basic training regimen. He gave her a sheet of paper with the training plan he wanted her to carry out with the understanding that she could change it as she saw fit. Linda also watched the men training and realized quickly that there was little difference between the two regimens. The men spent more time on attack tactics than the women, who spent more time on defensive tactics. Given their respective assignments, it made sense.

Linda had chosen her second in command, Shirley—Sarah’s daughter—based on observation. Shirley was aggressive and confident, taking to the drills as though it were second nature to her.

Linda explained to Shirley, “The most important skill we can learn right now is firearms competence. Each person has to be able to use their weapon with enough skill that they can hit a man at a hundred yards. So we’ll spend enough time practicing to make that happen. First, we run them through the basics of shooting without ammunition. Dry firing because we need to conserve ammunition. After they have the basics down solidly, they’ll be issued twenty live rounds to sight in and to practice with. If they can’t make it with those twenty rounds, they’ll be washed out. Better to not have incompetent shooters when the time comes than to waste ammunition.”

After several hours of basic rifle and shooting instructions, Linda had a fair idea of who would be successful, and only four or five women that she didn’t expect to make the cut. Those women would become field medics, given different training from Jennifer’s medical group.

On the firing line, Linda shouted, “Remember BRASS:
Breathe
in and let half your breath back out and hold half in your lungs;
Relax
your major muscle groups, as tense muscles will cause you to miss;
Aim
by picking a small portion of the target you want to hit, aim for a button if you can see one, or choose the center of the largest part of the target, and do not aim at the whole target; your
Sight
picture should be the alignment of three things, the rear sight will be aligned correctly with the front sight, and the target point you have chosen will be directly above and sitting on top of the front sight; and
Squeeze
the trigger slowly while maintaining your sight picture until the rifle fires. If you do it correctly, you’ll be somewhat surprised when the rifle does fire. If you jerk the trigger, you will pull the rifle off of the target and waste the shot.

“Then put another round in the chamber unless you’re using a semi-automatic rifle, acquire another target, and repeat the process. It is critical that you do not rush or get panicked. Slow, consistent, accurate fire is far more effective than slinging bullets and hoping for the best. You’ll be under intense pressure—worse than anything you’ve ever experienced in your life—when they’re coming at you shooting. Your adrenaline will be pumping, your mind will be panicky, and your fine motor skills will be out the window. In the heat of battle, you may develop tunnel vision. Presence of mind is what will kill the bastards; the bullet you send will be the agent of your presence of mind. How accurate and deadly you are is a direct result of remaining calm and following a sound shooting procedure. Remaining calm and following procedure is the most powerful weapon you have. Any questions before we commence the dry firing exercise?”

One hand went up. “Yes? Your question?”

One of the women stood and said, “I’ve heard that dry firing can damage a gun, is that not true?”

Linda replied, “That’s a good question. Sometimes, yes, it will, but most times it won’t—it depends largely on the type of gun you have. To be on the safe side, we have taken an empty casing for each of your rifles and replaced the primer with a piece of melted plastic for the firing pin to hit. Those will be issued to you momentarily. Any other questions?” After a moment of silence, she said, “No? Captain, pass out the practice rounds.”

March 10, evening

Adrian, Linda, Jennifer, Sarah, and Roman were seated around Sarah’s dinner table. The dishes had been cleared and stacked in the sink. Adrian and Roman were sipping Roman’s reserve whisky without ice. The women had all chosen hot tea.

Adrian said, “Roman, this is the best ever. You’re a distilling genius.”

Roman replied, “Practice, practice, practice. That’s all it takes. Next year, I’m going to make wine from the wild mustang grapes, then distill that down into cognac. I think it’ll be good. How did the training go today?”

Adrian replied, “For the men, at least, it went well. We began covering advance and cover techniques. We only spent a little time on actual shooting technique because these men already know how to shoot. Hell, they’re all hunters, or they wouldn’t have survived this long. What we covered was taking the time to draw a bead and squeezing it off while under fire, not getting excited to the point that they get buck fever and just start banging away. Hunting is one thing; shooting while being shot at is something intensely different. We spent most of our shooting time on that concept. Tomorrow, we’re going to work on advance and cover some more, then start on simple ambush techniques. The men are extremely motivated, so the lessons are going faster than I had hoped they might.” Adrian looked at Linda and asked, “How about your troop, Linda?”

“It went quite well. As I had guessed, there were four who couldn’t hit the target to save their lives, literally speaking. What I intend to do is make them medics. It’s not that they aren’t brave, and with enough time and ammunition I’m sure they could learn to shoot well enough, but there isn’t enough time or ammunition for that. Jennifer, tomorrow those four will be at the hospital for basic trauma training. Would you see to it that they are versed in that and provide them with field kits to work with?”

Jennifer replied, “Certainly. I’ll need at least a week with them. But I thought the nurses and I would be performing that duty? Not that anyone said so, but I did assume it.”

Adrian spoke up. “Actually, what we will need you to do is act as a field M.A.S.H.-type unit. The field medics will do what they can in the field, and then the wounded will be carried to you for more advanced treatment. From there, they will be carried back here to the hospital for continued care. It’s a three-step system that will provide the best possible chance of recovery. My thinking is that you’ll set up a temporary field hospital between the battle site and the village. You’ll need to be at that field hospital to receive and treat the incoming wounded. Once they are stabilized, they’ll be carried to the village hospital for continued care in a better setting. What do you think?”

“Sounds reasonable, but who is going to do all that carrying? You’re going to be pulling able-bodied men away from the fighting to do that, aren’t you?”

“Yes, but just as Linda has recognized a better use for some of her soldiers, so have I. Just because they are male doesn’t mean they are automatically fierce fighters. Before the grid dropped, the majority of America’s men would not have made good fighters. After the grid dropped, those men mostly died off. The men who did survive, for the most part, were the ones who had the fighter instinct. Not all of them, though, and a few of the men would be more dangerous to us than to the enemy in a fight. I don’t have a lower opinion of those men than the others—they are just different, and it’s probably the result of factors they had no control over. As Linda said, it’s not that they aren’t brave or that they don’t want to fight. Medics are, in my estimation, the bravest of all. Their mission is as critical and necessary as any other, but they are even more exposed to a hostile line-of-fire environment and risk their own lives solely to help their comrades. So, in short, I’ll assign some of my men to act as medics and stretcher-bearers. I’ll have these men at your hospital in a couple of days after I’ve identified them all.”

March 11, morning

Matthew had taken a wood-gas-fired truck into Waco. He’d had an idea for the training and explained it to Adrian. Upon his return, he told Adrian, “We had good luck. No one has seen any use for these since the grid dropped, so there were plenty of them, and plenty of ammo, too. I’m afraid the paintballs may have hardened up over the years, but they will shoot, and perhaps sting all the more for it.”

Adrian replied, “When you first suggested it I thought it was pretty silly, but the idea grew and I realized it was a good one. Will we have any problems firing these things?”

“No. They work on compressed gas, and the gas cylinders hold their pressure nearly forever. I tried a few and they worked fine. Using the old phone book, I located three large supply sources and brought back a truckload. More than enough for several exercises. This was still a popular sport when the grid went down. I can go back for more if need be. I also looked for real guns and ammo, but didn’t find squat—those were picked off long ago.”

“All right, then, let’s get this show on the road—”

Matt interrupted. “I also picked up components for the pipe cannons. One of the ideas I’m going to try out is loading them with short pieces of chainsaw blade chain; they have wicked sharp teeth. I found loads of chainsaw chains at two of the home improvement chain stores—no pun intended,” Matt said with a big grin. “I can cut these short so they can then be curled up into tight little sections that will load easily into the cannon. When they’re shot out, they should straighten out and then fly through the air end over end, chopping through the raiders like crazy. My idea is to test this a couple of times, getting an idea of the spread pattern. Then the cannons will be spaced out to get a continuous field of shrapnel across the segment the raiders will approach and a specific distance where the maximum damage will occur. They’ll be fired with electronic igniters similar to the one I used in the hog gun I showed you. So picture this: the cannons are pre-set at the right distance apart. The distance where the chains spread out from each cannon to provide a continuous field of damage is marked on the ground with, say, green-painted rocks. The raiders come charging in, and when they get to those rocks, the women simultaneously fire the cannons.

“The chains come flying out, unfold, and zoom through the air at waist height, providing a solid line of flying steel across the width of the raiders. The result will be devastating. A lot will depend on the raiders being bunched together and we can’t completely control that, but the carnage will be horrendous. One downside the black powder will create a dense cloud of smoke. There will be a few moments where the women won’t be able to see the raiders, but the raiders won’t be able to see the women, either. How long that lasts depends on wind speed at the time. On a calm day, it could be two or three minutes. What do you think?”