Reclamation (Best Laid Plans Book 4) (42 page)

Rick burst into a grin, while Pete's expression darkened. “What about me?” he demanded.

Matt was tempted to give some excuse, like not destabilizing the squads too much, but his friend deserved better than that. “You're staying with me,” he said simply.

The young man looked like he was going to explode, but somehow managed to contain it. “I should've realized you'd take his side,” he snapped, then turned to glare at Rick. “You're stupid if you think spending more time with her is going to improve your chances.” Without waiting for a response he stormed towards their camp.

Fantastic. No matter what he'd decided there'd be trouble for at least one person, and most decisions would've caused trouble for the squads too. If he'd sent Pete instead he'd be dumping a potential problem on Trev's head, and he wasn't about to do that.

Rick was shuffling uncomfortably. “I didn't mean for this to be an issue,” he apologized.

“I don't want it to be, after this.” Matt offered his hand. “Good luck in Trev's squad. He could use another experienced person. You'll join him training the new guys after lunch.”

“It's almost lunch now, I'll go find him.” Rick immediately broke away from the line and headed for where Trev had spent the morning running his volunteers through dry fire drills.

Matt hesitated, looking longingly at the breakfast line, then moved to follow so he could give Trev a heads up about how he was upsetting his squad. He supposed it
was
almost lunch, so he might as well eat then.

* * * * *

Trev had to admit he would've planned things differently if he'd known he was going to be spending the day training people. He supposed that was one of the reasons soldiers took regular shifts, so they wouldn't push themselves too hard and be complete wrecks when they were really needed. It wouldn't have strained his squad mates too much more to take some of his shifts so he could sleep, and he would've been much better off for it.

He needed to be smarter about things, or at this rate he was going to hit Lewis levels of sleep problems.

It wasn't fair to let the people who depended on him suffer for his mistake, so Trev did his best to give it his all even though he was almost nauseous from exhaustion. But by midafternoon his vision was starting to swim in the bright sunlight and he had that lightheaded, sweaty feeling that came from insufficient sleep, and at that point willpower just wasn't enough.

Thankfully Matt had given him Rick, although the details of exactly why were unclear. During lunch he'd heard a few of his squad mates talking about a fight that morning, but he'd been too focused on staying awake to pay attention.

Either way, he didn't feel too guilty about leaving the younger man to take over the training while he went and crashed. Hopefully if he got some good sleep today he'd be able to push through and get his sleeping schedule back in line by tomorrow.

It was probably his current state that made him extremely annoyed when Davis saw him passing the command tent and called him inside. He did his best to fight that as he followed the sergeant in.

“Looks like you jumped right in helping Larson train the new recruits,” Davis said, nodding his approval. “If you have no arguments I think we'll keep you doing that for the foreseeable future. In fact, once we put Larson's squad back in action you'll probably take over his training duties too.”

Trev nodded. “I can handle that. Starting tomorrow, once I've had a chance to crash.”

The sergeant gave him a closer look, frowning. “Yeah, do that. I shouldn't have to state the obvious, Smith, but sleep is a soldier's most important friend. You should be taking every opportunity to get as much as you need, so you're alert when you have to be awake in a crisis.”

Yes, that was obvious. Unfortunately sometimes obvious things were the easiest to miss. “Speaking of crises, is there any news?”

Davis sighed and moved around behind his table, leaning on it to stare down at his cobbled together map. “Nothing but news,” he said. “Lassiter and Erikson have been fighting nonstop since the blockheads arrived yesterday. The death toll is already in the thousands. We're punishing them hard for their aggression, but they've got enough bodies to throw at us that they can keep this up indefinitely until they wear us down and stomp right over us.”

His expression sharpened. “Which gets us back to getting sleep whenever possible. More blockheads are arriving in the valley by the hour, and at this rate we're going to have our own little Thermopylae in every canyon from I-70 to I-80. You need to teach our new irregulars which end of a gun to point at the enemy as quickly as possible.”

Trev nodded wearily and exited the tent, passing through the bustle of the ever growing camp without noticing it as he made his way to the Aspen Hill camp. He still had to put up the tent he'd failed to prepare that morning when the rest of his squad were doing theirs, but thankfully long practice let him set it up quickly, and he almost groaned in relief as he crawled inside.

He had a lot to do tomorrow.

Lewis had been wanting to spend more time with his wife ever since she'd started working overtime on patrols, while he concentrated on evacuating the town and organizing the defenses. It felt like he'd barely seen her at all the last few days, where even their sleeping schedules were different a lot of the time.

Although to be fair, taking a circuitous path down into the valley below along one of the game trails Jane had found, so they could spy on the enemy and decide whether they wanted to take the fight to them, wasn't exactly an ideal outing.

The blockheads had left their fallen men where they lay in the canyon, unwilling to take the risk of retrieving them. That had given the Aspen Hill defenders an opportunity to risk going back down themselves to gather their gear. Which they'd done, with lookouts posted at every vantage point with a good view of the valley and prepared to flee at the slightest activity from below.

Capturing that equipment had been an unenviable task, with more than one pale face among the volunteers who'd gone once they returned. But they'd picked up a lot of decent gear from it, which helped replace what they'd sent along with the volunteers.

A clear win, one that better prepared Aspen Hill's defenders for any future fighting, but even so Lewis wasn't willing to get too cocky when it came to using the canyon. He was certain the enemy constantly had eyes on it, so if they tried to sneak into the valley by that route they'd almost certainly get caught.

On the plus side this roundabout route along the game trail would also swing them around well north of the town, letting them look at things from that angle. It meant climbing down about twenty feet of cliff at one point, but there were plenty of handholds and footholds and the cliff was facing away from the town so they wouldn't draw any unfriendly eyes.

“What do you think about trying to besiege the town?” he asked his wife as they hiked down the narrow path.

Jane gave him a slightly confused look. “You already asked me that.”

“I know, and I'm glad you agreed it was something we should try. But what do you think about actually doing it?”

“Pretty much what you said. We've been on the other side of things and we know how Turner made life difficult for us. With a bit of luck we can use the same tactics against the blockheads. As for specifics?” She shrugged. “That's why we're going down there to look around, right?”

“Right.” Lewis hesitated. “Only, we thought it was just going to be a few hundred blockheads occupying the town, but more are coming by the hour. I don't want to bite off more than we can chew.”

Jane slowed to a stop and turned to look at him. “Even if we do, and things go badly for us, the rest of our people should be safe after we blow the charges and block the canyon. A few dozen defenders can guard every approach up into the mountains for miles, at least long enough for the military to send in help, so it's only our own lives we're risking. And we're risking them with the chance of making a real difference that could help us win this war.”

“All right then.” Lewis affectionately bumped her shoulder with his and continued on, feeling a bit better about things.

When they reached the cliff he found a good vantage overlooking the valley and kept watch while his wife climbed down. Once she reached the bottom she returned the favor, finding her own lookout spot so Lewis could descend.

Even though the climb was relatively easy he was glad he'd packed light, since he felt as exposed as a bug on a wall with a flyswatter hanging over his head as he worked his way down. He wasted no time, and even jumped down the last few feet.

While catching their breath they spent a moment looking at the nearby town and the valley beyond, but with the angle here the view was actually worse than from the top of the canyon. Anyway the point was to get in close, to pick up details that they couldn't get from far away even with quality binoculars. So as soon as they were sure there weren't any patrols deviating from their observed routes they began circling north around the town.

It took a couple hours to get to the spot they'd agreed on, which was actually near where the raiders' north camp had been and had a good vantage for observing the town. Once there they settled in for some extended watching, paying special attention to the places where vision was obscured from the canyon above, and more specific details about the soldiers and their movements, including their weapons and other equipment.

They appeared to be well supplied, which is to say they had standardized weapons and body armor and uniforms in good repair. They weren't exactly the walking array of high tech gadgets and useful tools that gave US soldiers, particularly Special Operations Forces, so many small but significant advantages in combat.

But from the looks of it they were disciplined, well organized, and most importantly there were a whole lot of them.

“What do you think?” he whispered after about a half hour.

Jane took a while to answer, still looking through her binoculars. “I think they're packing even more people in there than we had,” she answered. “And you know how Turner had a field day with us once he got set up on that east hill.”

Lewis nodded. “We're going to have trouble doing the same. Turner completely controlled the area surrounding the town, so it was hard for us to get at him. The blockheads control the town
and
the surrounding area.”

“And they're watching the canyon road.” She frowned. “We could try coming in fast with a vehicle and firing off a few missiles from a safe distance, and maybe strafing the more crowded areas with the M2, then get out before they have time to respond. Or we could try sneaking people in to create a distraction to the north, south, or east and then set up for a real attack.”

For several minutes after that he concentrated on his own inspection of the occupied town, feeling a leaden weight sinking in his gut. In spite of his earlier confident words about learning from their fight with the raiders to bring the same headaches to the blockheads, he was now facing serious doubts. The situations weren't the same at all, and the enemy seemed to hold every advantage.

After a few more minutes Jane tapped him on the shoulder. “Seen enough?”

He nodded and began packing up his binoculars, then followed as she shimmied out of sight of the town and slipped back the way they'd come. The initial plan had been to circle far around and approach from different angles to get a good idea of what they'd be facing, but given the heavy enemy patrols on foot
and
with vehicles, as well as the sheer number of blockheads in the area, Lewis didn't blame his wife for heading straight back to the trail they'd come down.

Maybe Uncle George was right. This might be way beyond what the town could manage and it would be better to just focus on holding the mountains, letting the military win the war for them. It was certainly the safe option. Then again, staying hunkered down in town while the raiders circled outside had also been the safe option, at least short term.

Whatever they did, they'd need to spend a long time thinking it over first.

Once they reached the cliff Lewis paused behind cover to check and make sure they hadn't been spotted, as well as cover his wife's climb. When he did he noticed an odd sight, and he motioned to Jane to come take a look too. She paused in her preparations to scale the rock wall and joined him.

It took her a while to spot it, since what he was looking at was beyond the town and slightly obscured by the same east hill they'd been talking about earlier. Lewis had been watching the whole time, as half a dozen troop transports disgorged a crowd of disheveled young men and women in filthy clothes. Once they were free of the trucks the troops began herding them together and sitting them down on the ground.

“Civilians,” she said thoughtfully. “Some of their settlers, maybe?”

Lewis watched one of the blockheads slam the butt of his rifle between the shoulder blades of a young woman who was favoring a hurt leg and moving too slow for his taste. From the haphazard way the vehicles were parked it also looked like they'd come from the south and were headed northward. “I don't think so. Prisoners.”

Jane gave him a worried look. “I thought they didn't take prisoners.”

He'd thought that too. Those poor people were all in their twenties and looked fairly strong and healthy, all things considered. There were no signs of elderly or children. “Whatever their reasons, I doubt they're sparing them out of kindness.”

That suspicion seemed confirmed by the callous way the soldiers went on to feed and water their charges, passing out pails of what he guessed was water from the town spring for them to share around, as well as what looked like scraps of leftovers or castoff food that the prisoners dug into ravenously. The blockheads also lazily curtained off a latrine area, not even bothering to dig a hole or put in a toilet seat or provide anything like toilet paper, and gave each person a limited time to use it.

Trev and his family had described the way they'd been treated at the internment camp, and while it had been impersonal and degrading in many ways it seemed like Southern hospitality compared to the treatment these poor people were receiving.