Moosehill Militia (Book 1): INFECTED (38 page)

Mike was piloting himself today with Jake as copilot, he was in training anyway. Plus he had two security Troopers as his escort too. He was quite surprised to find FBI Agent Bo Justice as one of his security men. He remembered when the Feds were inquiring about his activities and came to visit him. Stalling for time he took advantage of them and made a deal to take on their best in a fight right then, Bo was there choice to face him and he lasted about five seconds with a dislocated shoulder. As they were being escorted off the property he invited any of them to join his organization in the future. Apparently some took him up on his offer. When Mike realized it was Bo from the fight, he asked him why he joined up with MHM. Bo told him.

“Colonel, we realized that day that something unusual was going on. The way you handled Agent Milton was fantastic as far as most of us were concerned, he was bitch to work for. When things started to go downhill fast some of us realized that you were preparing for this, somehow knowing it was going to happen. Five of us took our equipment and family’s and drove arriving the evening before the event. I’ve spent the last few weeks as a Trooper in Captain Thornton's Company. He urged me to put myself forward as your security. Lt Colonel Mac approved it, and here I am.”

“Glad to have you Bo.” Mike told him as he checked his instruments one last time. Mike received clearance and pushed the throttle to the stops and the C-145A Skytruck accelerated down the runway. Mike gently pulled back on the controls and the nimble Skytruck leaped into the air, he gained about a thousand feet of altitude and banked to the east until they were on a heading southeast towards Cape Cod.

“Flight 145-1 to MHM ETA back here tomorrow should be about noon, Tell Mac to keep it to a dull roar, nothing too crazy.” Mike transmitted with a smile.

“Roger that Flight 145-1” the tower responded with chuckles heard in the background. Mike liked to hear laughter, to him it means moral is still decent.

“Okay, Jake you have the stick.” he told Jake. Nothing like the present for some practice Mike thought.

“I have the stick.” Jake replied, looking a little apprehensive.

“Nothing to worry about Jake. Just keep it straight and level use the Heading Indicator, the Altimeter and the Artificial Horizon Indicator, I’m here to keep an eye on you. For the next twenty minutes or so the aircraft flew alone in the early morning with the sun climbing the sky in the east with hardly a cloud to be seen. It was a very calming and relaxing flights. Mike took the controls back as they neared the Cape. Soon they had company.

“Flight 145-1 coming up on your right side.” Seconds later an E-2C Hawk eye AWE (airborne early warning) plane matched their speed of 168 mph at ten thousand feet. “Eagle flight to Flight 145-1 follow us in to Hyannis Airport to catch a ride to the Bush.” The pilot of the E-2C told them, then proceeded to pull ahead and start their decent, Mike piloted the Sky truck a half mile behind and followed them down.

“We’re passing over the Cape Cod Canal.” Mike directed his passengers to look out the window to the left. “The northern bridge is the Sagamore and the southern bridge is the Bourne Bridge.”

“Hyannis Control to Flight 145-1. We have you on radar come left five degrees, which will put you on the outer marker. Wind is from the northeast five knots. Welcome to the Cape.”

“Thanks Hyannis.” Mike replied back. Mike brought the plane in for a good landing and was directed to a parking apron where a SH-60F Seahawk based on the army’s Blackhawk helicopters, was waiting to take them aboard for the ten minute flight to the USS George Bush to meet with Admiral Aki Rin and others.

The pilot greeted Mike shaking hands and showed them safety features.

“Just like my own Lieutenant, pretty standard stuff, thanks anyway.” He said.

“Oh, who do you fly for Sir?” The lieutenant asked Mike.

“Myself, I own five Blackhawk's.” He told the Lieutenant, who looked on in amazement.

Soon they were winging it over Woods Hole heading out to Buzzards Bay where the Bush was anchored for the foreseeable future. Five minutes later they were touching down on the Bush’s flight deck. Where a commander met them escorting them into the Island and then down a ladder and before long they were hopelessly lost. The Commander brought them to two state rooms side by side for Mike and his guests.

“The Admiral wished you time to relax for an hour before commencing a series of meetings.” He told them. “I’ll be back in an hour to bring you to the meeting.

Exactly one hour later the Commander showed back up and escorted Mike and Jake his aide to the Admirals conference room. There were several people already present including the Admiral. Mike and Jake were dressed alike in the new MHM BDU’s with the MHM logo on the left shoulder and the American flag on the right shoulder, Mike wore no rank insignia except his Seal emblem on a subdued patch on his left breast.

“Ladies and Gentlemen, everybody has arrived so we can begin. First I’d like to introduce everyone, since I’m hosting this get together. I’ll introduce everyone. I’m Admiral Aki Rin of United States Navy’s Second Fleet, As far as I know I’m the senior ranking surviving officer on the east coast and this is my flag Captain and C.O. of the USS Bush Captain Donovan Sharp. I’d like to take this opportunity to do something long overdue in my opinion. Captain Sharp please stand up.” She announced more formally. “Everyone please stand.” Everyone stood with no idea what was going on. Mike guessed, having witnessed scenes like this while in the service before. I’m sorry Donovan that this is such a informal setting, but it’s more then I got. So, by the powers invested in me by the United States Congress and the President of the United States.” No one dared mention that he was probably dead with the rest of Congress.

“On this day by order of congress and the President of the United States, The Secretary of the Navy has on this day commissioned Donovan Sharp to the rank of Commodore O-7 effective immediately signed by the Secretary of the Navy’s representative in Second Fleet Admiral Aki Rin signed this date.” Admiral Rin shook Commodore Sharp’s hand and handed him a Certificate of promotion to be framed.

“Congratulations Commodore.” Admiral Rin said as she shook his hand. The rest of the audience politely applauded.

“Back to business. You have all been introduced to the new Commodore and myself. To my right is seated the Representatives from Portland Maine and Casco Bay Islands, Police Chief Robert Grady along with the city manager Stanford Bason. Portland has managed to stay afloat due to its location and determined citizens like Chief Grady, with a little help from our British task force led by Commodore Chase Hanford who flew down with the Portland delegation along with Colonel Truman Astbury of the Royal Marines.”

“Also we have Captain Bruce Ward of American Airlines who managed to land his plane after the power outage, on Nantasket Beach saving most of his passengers. The people of Hull which is another area that came off relatively easy due to it basically being an Island. The citizens cut the bridges early on and saved Hull. Captain Ward has been asked to represent the twelve thousand people from Hull. Too my left after Commodore Sharp is Brigadier of Marines John Frost my Commander of ground forces.”

“Our last representative is Mike Mohan who is the most exposed as he represents about twenty two thousand and growing from what I understand. Is that right Mr. Mohan.” she asked him.

“Yes Admiral that sounds about the right number of people.” He replied.

Mr. Mohan is instrumental in deciding to set up this meeting. We have had two Marine companies detached to Mr. Mohan’s command. Which has about two Battalions of very good infantry from what I heard. Mr. Mohan, I’m sure you’re not surprised that the mail you carried back from the US Marines detached to your command, sent me back lots of mail and several clips of video from Major Antonio DiCaprio. The Major had nothing but praise for Mr. Mohan. Mr. Mohan could you tell us about your command. Where all wondering how you have survived and thrived under the worst conditions.” The Admiral turned the floor over to Mr. Mohan.

“Thank you Admiral, I didn’t know I was going to be the keynote speaker or I would have been better prepared.” He smiled. “I’ll just have to do my best without notes. First off to get it out of the way. I’m the guy who won the one point five billion dollars three years ago. I’ve been a police officer for ten years or so, before that I was with seal team six. I was deployed to the Middle East eight times during the wars over there.”

“We have been hard a work since the Admiral visited us. We have increased our fleet of aircraft to eighty Huey helicopters, five Blackhawk, fifteen Chinooks, twenty C-130’s, six C-123 Providers, and eleven C-145A Sky trucks. We also have an assortment of civilian helicopters and plans that we have been using for observation and flying lessons for the last two years. We have about one hundred and thirty qualified pilots.” Mike paused to take a drink. “We can always use more pilots and have set up a flight school even before the Flare. If any of you have personnel who you’d like to send for training. We can accommodate them.”

“Now our ground forces are wearing this distinct patch on our left shoulder, A while ago group census decided we would be known as the Moosehill Militia, the men are fond of it. So no matter what happens out of this meeting we will not be changing uniforms.” He said half-jokingly.”

“After the Admiral visited we raided Westover Air Force base, hence the additional aircraft. Then we decided to start hitting the arms industry to keep those weapons out of the hands of rogue groups. We encountered one of those groups at Westover and had a little battle. Losing a Trooper, needless to say. No Gang members lived.”

“As of right now we have one and half Battalions of Mechanized Infantry and two company's specializing in airborne assaults. The MHM has four hundred M113A2’s, 300 M2 Fighting Bradley’s, 300 MRAP Cougars, and a hundred and fifty Humvee’s with another three hundred SUV’s or trucks that we have working. Basically enough equipment to field a Division. We are consolidating our gains in area, equipment and personnel. We do have plans to get Worcester Airport under our control soon. Once that happens we go back to Westover for some more equipment. We are using every old farm in our safe area to start growing, I’ve been stockpiling food for a few years and have enough to feed my people for about that same time. We need to grow and preserve food. MHM have been subsidizing the food we’ve stored by raiding every supermarket or distribution center in our area and beyond, and we’ll continue to do so. We have two satellite bases that are set up and running. Becker College in Leicester near the crossroads of Route 9 and Route 56. It’s mainly a forward jumping off point for moving further east and early warning. We have fought off a few infected incursions already.

The other base is west of Moosehill, St. Joseph's Abbey a Cisterns order known as Trappist. The monks living there have been very supportive. It was an old farm with several hundred acres in the fifty's before the Trappist took it over, now they produce Trappist jelly and Trappist Ale. It’s a rural area and we’re putting in a major farming effort there and other farms in that area. Housing is being put in and along with the existing facilities, can house about four thousand. Becker College about the same. We’re also increasing Moosehill living capacity to around ten or twelve thousand, along with the livable housing in the surrounding area that has been cleared and has access to power from the Moosehill Power company, mostly solar and wind turbines. Also we are looking into Hydro power with all the rivers and lakes in the area, they use to power the industrial revolution with that water. Our living capacity is up to around thirty thousand, within a few months we should be able to double that with just our clearing operations alone.

I’ll lay it out for everyone here. The world as we knew it is no more, the government is gone, social security is gone, handouts are gone, I see groups like us around the country and world making the best of their situations, some will succeed, some will fail. I intend to succeed. Luckily for all of us here, Admiral Rin and her people have preserved intact most of the US Navy on the eastern seaboard. I have some ideas about how we can cooperative and can discuss that after we hear from the Admiral and the Portland delegation.” Mike sat down ending on that.

“Thank you Mr. Mohan, that was very informative. I’d like to show some video taken from our Marine unit seconded to you recently, they were in the dispatch bag from Major DiCaprio. These scenes are very disturbing, so be warned. I’ve already looked at them and it greatly disturbed me.

The Admiral signaled to one of her aides who fiddled with a computer and the wall mounted sixty inch flat screen mounted on the wall behind her came to life. The first video scene Mike recognized as the Raid on Kahr Arms, one of Captain Yee’s Marines must have been filming. The scene started with the MHM and U.S. Marines forming a wall with the APC’s and starting the fight with the Infected coming through the woods from the housing development. It showed Major DiCaprio standing on top of APC firing down into the mob of Infected. Then shows him running over to the Moosehill section, the view switched to MHM Trooper running across the last APC and jumping off into the Infected and showing several Troopers follow him over the side. The camera view fumbles as the camera man climbs on top of the M113A2, then steady’s up. The view shows the Trooper and his men finishing off several Infected then lift an injured man up to the top of the APC, as the Troopers were lifted up one by one and the Infected were pushed back by intensive fire coming from the APC’s machine guns and rifle fire. The last one up was pulled up and the camera got a good look at his blood streaked face and Mike was clearly recognizable as that Trooper. Mike winced and others in the room did a double take looking at him then back to the screen.