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[Trip]

In the 24 hours following the “Event” it was determined that the TV and most radio stations were off the air, for how long nobody knew, for most of the folks in this part of the country there wasn’t a real panic, the heads up from the TV news and the Col’s pre planning softened the blow a great deal, a lot of people had contacted friends while the phone lines were up and passed on some info, as much as they knew, so that helped a lot of folks, also a lot of family’s that were in driving distance and could make it before the proposed deadline moved in with friends and relatives here, When asked about this the Col simply said, that before it all ended we would need all the help we could get.

A town hall meeting was called and at the appointed time the school gym was filled as was the halls, the pa system was turned on.

The Col. Again took the stage and reintroduced himself for the benefit of any who weren’t at the first meeting.

He again laid out all the info he had at hand, holding nothing back. He again told them that while there was ample food to survive for quite a while , it had been decided that it would be smarter to set up “mess halls” to feed the population, and that the rules were, if you worked for the common good you ate, if you chose to not work and were able, then you would be escorted out of town and that was that. Children and the elderly and infirm will be feed regardless, but if they could and wish to they may do any job they can as long as it don’t impede the overall efforts of the community.

Again this caused a bit of a stir. He held his hand up and said, folks I’m here for one reason and purpose, that is to train and equip the militia force we are building, when the time is right, That force will be moving out into the area, scouting for outlaws and others who endanger the safety of decent people and also to restore our nation to a place where good and decent people can live in safety and prosper if they are willing to work.

The local government such as it is will be made up of people who are known to most of you and who are local citizens. Yes martial law has been declared by the Government such as it is, and I am the local military officer in charge, that being said, my purpose, is to train and as well as I can to equip the local militia who are in training as we speak.

I will not interfere in the affairs of the civilian population unless asked to by the emergency council. That council is made up of the following.
The Chairman of the council is Mr. Bart Jones, the vice chairman is Mr. George Davis, the remaining three members are Sheriff J.B. Lee, Dr. William Lane and Mrs. Sandra Reed . They will conduct all business of running the area, again from a civilian perspective. The Chairman Mr. Jones will be the tie breaker in any voting that need to be done.

These five will handle all of the details that don’t involve military action, and their decisions are in fact law.

As stated in the last meeting, everybody “HAS TO” get involved in some manner in the protection and safety of the community.

If you can carry a weapon you will be expected to do guard duty if your not on a scout or reaction team, those people will all be going out into the countryside looking for trouble and dealing with it, they will not be standing guard duty when they are on stand down. Their jobs will be dangerous, some will kill and be killed, never doubt that for a moment. They will be exempt from work details when in from patrol, they will have enough to do to get ready for the next patrol. BUT!! This isn’t an open invitation for slackers who think patrolling means less work, If you join the Rangers you will work your butts off .

Now I know it’s hard for you to feel a real sense of emergency, because here things are quiet and peaceful, but beyond the state lines, in the bigger city’s it’s very bad, rioting, looting, rape, murder, gangs running wild, our borders have been breached by thousands of Mexican troops and outlaws working together.
They have been joined by middle eastern invaders who were allowed to build up in Mexico, and yes we knew they were there but we couldn’t do a thing without declaring war on Mexico.
Which in my opinion should have been the first option, but I wasn’t in charge. Also I fear that some of those in charge sold out for big bucks from the drug cartels.
When these people are found and they will be, they will get a fair trial and then they will be executed. This brought out a lot of nods and no outcry about rights.
Right now, the roads into this area are being closed to all traffic, nobody goes out nobody gets in without first my approval, and then the approval of the Emergency Council.

You will not be required to stay in town, if you live outside of town and wish to stay in your home that’s fine, when your food or fuel runs out you will have to move into town.

There will be no fuel allowed for running back and forth, if you wish to ride a bike or walk in that’s fine, but remember, you will be required to report daily to work on whatever projects that your assigned to.

I know all of this is hard for some to accept but this is the way it is. Nothing can change it right now except hard work and fighting.

America has been knocked to her knees but she’s still fighting, and so are we. Now I don’t have all the answers, that’s what your council is for, but I will accept questions one at a time and starting with the front row left to right.

The offer was waved off by most people as it came to them, the first question was a woman who stood and said, if there’s no fuel how am I to get my children to their activities such as soccer practice? After the groans from the crowd quieted down the Col. Looked at Bart and smiled.

Bart stood and said. I’m sorry but which part of all this did you not understand?? Our country is at war, our country, our people are being destroyed and killed as we speak, and you want gas to take kids to a game??

The woman was getting angry and spoke up saying well there’s no war here right now!! And I have things to do while my sons are at practice!
Bart just shook his head and said, what do you have to do that’s more important then saving the country?
She said, well that’s when I get my nails and hair done, I meet friends for coffee and do some shopping.
Bart just shook his head and said well perhaps if you wait a bit you will manage to get your answer by listening to others questions.

Col. Patton then pointed to the next person who only shook his head it went on a while until a man stood and asked if the Militia would be issued arms or provide their own as set forth by the second amendment, The Col. Said good question sir!

Yes folks, This is what the Founding Fathers meant with the Second Amendment, when doing duty as a Militia member you will be required to bring your own weapons and ammo if you have any.

If and when things get really bad there will be other weapons available to use, but until then, only training with them will be done.

As stated before, prior military people are needed to help in training those who haven’t served, if you have experience as a firearms instructor, please get with my Sgt Major after the meeting, tomorrow we start training.

Next question? Further back a man stood and said, Col. I’m a farmer, I assume we will be trying to grow our own food, will we have fuel for the equipment needed to do the job? Also will we farmers be able to remain at our home places?

The Col again deferred to Bart who addressing the room said, If your job requires you to be outside town there will be no restrictions on you, if somebody working with the farmer or rancher then you may stay at the place your working, but daily travel back and forth will burn too much fuel.

A Man further back raised his hand and Bart nodded at him. He said why not use some of the school bus’ to haul the work parties to wherever they need to go? That’s better then 25 people driving themselves.

Bart asked the man what he did before this, he replied that he was the dispatcher for the bus drivers. Bart said well sir, you now have a new title!! Work Travel coordinator! Which drew a laugh, the man nodded and said he would work out a plan with the farmers and ranchers if they would meet him after the meeting broke up.

The next question came from a lady seated toward the back of the gym, she stood and said, Mr. Jones, I’m the dietitian for the school meals program, will we be using the schools cafeterias and kitchens as mess halls? And if so I would assume the staff of those places will be needed to do the work for feeding the community??
Bart smiled and said you are right and I expect you will be continuing your duty’s as will the staff of the new mess halls, can you handle coordinating those people and get with George Davis as he’s the new grocery king. This brought a nice laugh and the lady nodded and said she would get with those people and then contact George to set up a daily supply setup.
The next question was from the president of the local flying club who stood and introduced himself as a former Air Force officer and offered the flying clubs planes and pilots for aerial Recon work and to fly cover for the patrols, he also said that he had a former air cav weapons man in the club and that they had some ideas for arming some of the air craft.
This brought a big smile for the Col who had the Sgt Major and the man step off to the side and work out a plan for getting together.
For the moment there were no more questions so the col. Said he had a few announcements to make. First that the patrols would start soon as some of the first volunteers were ready to start on the job training, and he needed some time with the car dealers.
Secondly he was leaving the rest of these type meeting to the Emergency committee which would from now on be called the “ECom”

He then asked for quiet and after he had everybody’s attention he said, It is with great regret I must report that despite the preemptive EMP event, 2 of the weapons that were placed by the enemy did in fact go off, I’m sorry to have to report to you that the city’s of New York and San Francisco were both hit with nuclear strikes, the extent of the damage isn’t known, and the one in San Francisco did in fact trigger a 7.5 earthquake that cause even more damage far beyond the blast radius of the weapon. The loss of life was tremendous despite the fact that people had been leaving the city’s for days.

If and when I receive more information I will let the ECOM people know. I can also say the city of LA is being destroyed as we speak by fires burning out of control, as the fire dept’s tried to respond they were fired upon by snipers placed just for that purpose by the enemies of our country, many firemen were killed as well as police officers .

This type of action is spreading all over the nation by the hour, soon we will be the main stay of the nation, and on our shoulders will fall the task of saving the nation. Our troops in the middle east are in the act of withdrawing to ships and airports to return to the country, before the President was killed he issued an order to the military and a notice that any country that interferes with the withdrawal would be on the list for a visit from our b-52 fleet, and they would not be dropping standard payloads. So far only Iran tried to test the President. The Capital of Iran Teheran is now a wasteland of glassified sand. Since then there have been no further attempts to interfere with our people. The room was buzzing with the news, the Col. Called for quiet and said, also it was announced this morning to all the world that “when” not “if” we found who planted the bombs, those people will have signed the death warrant of their own countries, in effect, America took off the gloves and has decided to show the Islamic fools that just because somebody treats you nice don’t mean they are weak and to think so is a deadly game to play.
Folks when the dust settles , and it will some day, a completely different America will emerge. For some this will be a bad thing, for most of us, this is what we have called for all our lives.

From now on, from every flag pole in this area ,The American flag will fly. English is the language we speak. No matter what country you may have come from, if you are here you’re an American.

No more Native Americans, African Americans, Irish Americans, only AMERICANS!! Period ! If you have a problem with this, please say so, then pack you car or truck and get your tank filled before you leave.

The cheer that sounded brought the dust down form the rafters. When it quieted down, the Col. Said the ECOM was now in charge. One person was waving his arms and yelling Col. Col.!!! The Col asked for quiet and said Yes sir?? The man raised his voice and said his name and that he was a reporter, the Col. Said fine sir, what’s your question? The reporter said. Just when was the elections held for the ECOM members ? There was no election said Col. Patton, the reporter smiled a very nasty smile and said well sir then how were they selected for the job? The Col. Smiled and said, I appointed them. You can’t do that! You have to have elections for things like that!
The Col. Said well sir, and I am using the work sir very loosely, If I were to tell my Sgt Major here to shoot you, he would do so. Why? Because you stupid [censored] fool, We are at war! The country is under martial law, as the military commander of this district, I am the single power unless I appoint others to such authority, which I have done. Is that clear enough even for a liberal leftest news hack?
The reporter sat down as if his legs had lost all strength and his mouth was opening and closing like a fish, and out of it was a string of butbutbut’s the crowd in the room was laughing at him by now so he shut up. The Col. Looked at him and said well sir, what are you signed up to do since there is no news paper now? The man just looked at him and then said why I’m a reporter, and to whom will you be reporting whatever it is you think you have to report he was asked? When he didn’t answer he was then asked what work crew he was signed up for, he looked stunned and said why none, I have a degree in journalism, why should I work in anything else? Well said the Col. In a gentle voice as if he were talking to a spoiled child, do you like to eat? Well of course came the reply, so I ask you again, where will you be working? The fool still didn’t get it, he replied I’m a reporter, that’s what I do!! OK said the Col. Would somebody please escort this man to his residence and assist him in packing whatever fits in his car and take him to the nearest gas station and get his car filled and escort him out of town in whichever direction he wishes to go? 2 men came over and said well come on son, you heard the man! The reporter was led from the room still trying to figure out why he wasn’t being understood.
OK Folks!! Lets go to work! Those having business with ECOM please line up over here, the rest go to wherever your going to be working.

Contractors on me!! With that the meeting broke up, Bart said well sir, you have a way with words and a way at Pi**ing some folks off! But it was delivered with a smile. Col. Patton said yea and I have a degree in public relations!! And both busted up laughing!

[Trip]

It was now 10 days since all the madness started, that was as hard to believe as the fact it was happening at all.
Things within the community area which meant the area 20 miles out from the town were going well,

The gardens were being planted, the people for the most part had slipped into the new life style very well, one thing that helped was the fact there was no TV to watch all night, people were tired from doing actual work, so bed times came earlier.

Another big help was shutting down the bars, nobody was stopped from drinking but they did it at home.
The court system was in place but a lot had changed, drunk driving now carried a 90 day jail sentence and the 90 days was served doing hard labor at very nasty jobs.

Chain gangs were back in style in the sense that nobody sat on their butt in a cell watching TV all day.
It soon became apparent that breaking even a simple law wasn’t worth it.

Since nobody had committed a felony it wasn’t decided just what to do with the felon but most assumed it would be very unpleasant.

As surprising as anything was how well people were working together.

The news seen on TV before the Event had shown the people just how lucky they were to be living here and they knew for the most part that things were going to go bad really fast once they started to.

There are always a few who either won’t or can’t get the big picture, life for those people wasn’t going well, they found themselves shoved aside when they tried to raise issues that weren’t pertinent to the job at hand.

Those who didn’t seem to want to work were ignored because everybody knew their day was coming, because soon the food in their homes would run out and then as the Col. Had said, no work, no eat.

The construction crews were working on solid bunkers, designed by local architects, and engineers and they were state of the art. These were set up as support for the people who would man the road blocks when called upon.

The people who manned them in rotating shifts would find very comfortable quarters.
Local electrical engineers using available supplies were making security sensors that could be placed out in a extended perimeter to give early warning to the on duty personnel who would have night vision equipment provided by the Ranger supply depot.

Animals would trigger the devices but that was fine as it kept the crew on their toes, also there was always 3 people on duty in the main bunker so staying awake was easier

When an animal set off a warning, it came as a red flashing light and a beeper.

The high ground around the area had hidden out posts (OP’s) that were only visible from the back these were manned 24/7 by 2 people working 8 hr shifts.

All of these op’s had communication with the main comm. center at the Sheriffs office and each other thru the phone system built and installed by the former phone company workers.
There was a good supply of star shells and launchers, again compliments of the Ranger Supply depot. But those were reserved for need in an attack at night.

A great deal of work had been accomplished in the 10 days, mostly because of the pre planning done by the military planners and then by the Col’s ability to pick a good ECOM group, everybody worked hard but with the right tools it went fairly easy.

The traffic from outside the area had gotten heavy but as the off ramps were closed by road blocks manned with armed men, the travelers just kept going unless they were returning home from a trip or had relatives who were called to the roadblock to talk to and identify them and who then sat them down and explained how the system worked here, those who were willing were allowed to enter, those who balked in the slightest were moved on.

Exceptions were made for the elderly. Those with small children where given an over night permit in which case as a rule by morning they had decided that working and fighting in a safe community beat the hell out of running scared and hungry.

But just as surprising was the numbers of people who just wanted to be allowed to stay but not have to earn the right. It was noted that these were people from bigger city’s that had been on some form of aid in the best of times, they were politely escorted on their way. There was a new face of America emerging very fast.

The people weren’t being hard hearted, but everybody knew that those who wouldn’t work would still eat, and while food wasn’t an issue at the moment it very well could be in the future, also those who weren’t useful in peace were going to become a major liability when it came to fighting for their very lives. As our founding fathers had found, sometimes times are hard and you have to be harder to survive.

In a sense it was still hard to believe how well the people had fallen into the new life style, maybe it showed how really senseless the way of life had become in America, or maybe it was that now for the first time in over a hundred years there was new frontiers to conquer right here, maybe man need that objective to live up to his real potential, at any rate that’s the way it was now and seemingly into the distant future.

At day break of the 11th day of the war, The new ranger patrols were formed at the base. They were drawn up in ranks of 12 men and women to each squad, which made up one patrol unit of 4 people to each patrol vehicle, 3 vehicles to each squad .

The Scout/patrol veh’s. were all 4x4 quad cab trucks with toppers on them, the back’s were filled with extra weapons, ammo, food and overnight gear so they were self contained units, all were radio equipped .

Of course 10 days wasn’t by any means enough time for the right amount of training needed, but with the added skills of prior service people the rookies were getting on the job training, even while moving the older men were teaching the younger unskilled people. Time was short and they need to be out and about .

Hopefully in another week or so they would have air cover provided by small two seater aircraft, the addition of wing mounted weapons was taking a while longer because the civilian aircraft had no hard points to mount them. But the ever practical Rangers had fallen back on an idea used by some of the search and rescue choppers in Viet Nam, which was simply taking a wide mouth canning jar and after pulling the pin on a hand grenade it was slipped into the jar and the lid screwed back on, these became small bombs that the observer in the aircraft could toss out onto the enemy and the jar upon breaking would allow the grenade spoon to fly off thus causing a very satisfying “KABOOM”, the old KISS principal at it’s best.

One of the younger Rangers had asked the older Sgt Major is anybody had ever tried adding some jellied gasoline to the jar. He looked at the young man and said son, you have a very nasty mind, I like that, lets go try it, so they proceeded to the range and after placing a jar with the proper components inside it, tied a very long string to the jar placed it on a boulder, and backing off a goodly distance and crouching behind a berm with helmets and goggles on the two acting like school boys pulling a prank gave a jerk to the string and witnessed a very nasty, very satisfying “KABOOMWHOOSH”!!! both were jumping around laughing when the Col. Drove up to see what the hell was going on, when told, he insisted on seeing another display, after it was rigged, he said that RHIP and he got to yank the cord, another fiery blast filled the air, and the Col. was also instantly converted to a young boy who jumped around and in general had a great time, it was decided that some how they would only add the liquid fuel just before dropping the new toys .
The Col. was so impressed by the idea from one of his young rangers that he asked the young mans first name and was told it was William Bird, so the new weapon was now called the "Bird" and of course by night fall the use of the new weapon was called “flipping the Bird at the enemy” and it was too late to try to rename it so the Col. didn’t bother, the sensitive would just have to live with it!! Besides the troops loved it.

And of course the pilot and observer would both have M-16’s so they could also shoot out of the side windows to help the patrol that ran into trouble.

As the first 2 patrols got ready to head out the Col. And Sgt Major both arrived see them off, The trucks were not the slick shiny rig’s they had been on the lots. They were now painted with a combo of flat primer type paints that made them blend in very nicely and when sitting still they had netting that looked like a very large Sniper gillie suit which made them look like a brush covered boulder. Each had been “hardened” by the unsightly addition of steel plating to the doors and roof , also a steel grill guard that would hopefully stop most anything they might encounter while allowing the radiator to do it’s job . Also an 8000 lb winch was added to each rig and heavy duty mud and snow tires with extra heavy shocks. Each had a 100 gal bulk tank mounted in the back, which gave them a range of about 1000 miles as they wouldn’t be driving fast they should conserve fuel a bit or so it was hoped .

Each scout had an M-16, a handgun that they were proficient with, and each patrol had mounts for 2 shotguns one each front and back. There was a case of grenades but they wouldn’t be used unless the patrol was being over run by a larger force. There was also one designated sniper in each rig whose weapon was in a padded case beside him.

For a short time there had been a race to see who among the new recruits could find the biggest knife to carry, but the training cadre had put a stop to that by showing just how much better and faster a smaller knife could be used as opposed to a big hacker, also if needed a small knife was useful for eating with if you lost your plastic spoon, try that with a bowie knife they said.

The plan was to head out on the interstate for about 20 miles and then loop around their area on back roads, stopping to talk with people they encountered and to tell them where to go for shelter , a letter with an explanation of the rules and expectations were also to be handed out.

At 0700 they rolled out, after a mile or so the comm. person made a comm. check, when that was completed they were ready to head out into the more or less unknown.

The first squad included Jeff who road in the point veh. Because of his time in the area he knew some of the back roads, another team mate of his had been born and raised here and knew the area even better.

They passed thru the last roadblock and then went on the alert for any sign of life. They were going out further then the other patrol simply because their route bisected another interstate 35 miles out.

They saw nothing until they got to the junction of the two highways, there they saw trucks and cars sitting where they had been when the EMP hit. None of the vehicles had any people in them and no bodies as none had wrecked but had just coasted to a stop.

The lead patrol rig stopped and over the short range handheld radio the patrol leader who was in the second rig told the lead to check out some of the trucks to see what they were carrying at the time of the emp.

Scout # 1 drove down the ramp and moved slowly to the first truck which surprisingly was still locked, taking a set of bolt cutters one man cut the lock while the rest faced out providing cover.

When the doors opened they found it seemed to be carrying clothing type cargo for a dept store someplace that wouldn’t get their new winter line.

This wasn’t something they had expected, they called back to base and informed them of the find, The Col. Decided they would send a tractor to hook onto the trailers and haul them back and for the patrol to check out the other trucks along the route.

Several trucks later they had found just about everything a town could need, the trucks had treasures for people who had no means to acquire more.

One truck was a gold mine, from the marking it was hauling explosives, and that’s what it had in it, it was full of explosives most useful in large scale mining.

By this time there was a fleet of tractors heading out, each with a guard and another patrol escorting them. It was decided that Patrol # 1 and 2 who was finding the pickings slim would cont. on their way the follow up patrol would check the trucks that were noted by P-1.

Now they were making time and miles rolled past until they had covered almost 50 miles without seeing any sign of life except cattle and horses scattered around. They made note of the livestock in case it ever became an issue as far as food was concerned or in the advent of the need for mounted patrols.

They spotted a farm house in the distance and decided to get off the highway and check it out, when they got there it was empty and looked as if the people had left in a hurry. There was no food or weapons around and not much in the way of clothing. The barn had a tractor and some farm implements so they noted that in their log.

They cont. on the frontage road and stopped at a few more places with no sign of life, then they came up on a place that had the gate blocked and signs of life in the house.

The driver of the lead rig blew the horn a long blast and then they waited. After a bit the door opened and a man peered out, when he saw what he assumed was military vehicles he started walking to the gate when he got close he took in how the 3 vehicles were stationed and then said, howdy, you folks army?

The Squad leader got out and approached the man and said yes sir, we’re a patrol from a town about 80 mile from here and just checking out the area.
So when is the [censored] government gonna get things workin again the man demanded?

The patrol members looked at him and the leader said, sir do you have any idea what has happened in the country? The man said sure I saw it all on the TV, but that don’t mean the government can just ignore the folks what needs them.

I see said the Patrol leader, and so you’ve been waiting for the government to come take care of you? Yep said the man, if they can take care of all them folks in the south from a storm well I say they can by god care for us out here.

The Sgt. Looked at the man and said well sir your sure right, I’ll make a note of your location and I’m sure some help will arrive soon. With this the man smiled and said well until then how about leavin me some food and supplies?
The Patrol leader said well sir all we carry is MRE’s enough for us for 3 days so we have nothing to leave. This didn’t set well wit the man, who said well I have a family and they need to eat!

The Patrol leader asked him how they survived before the war, he said they got by with food stamps which the [censored] gov. hadn’t sent and the mail man sure wasn’t doin his job.

I see said the Sgt. Well we will get right on that sir, and you’ll soon be getting just what you have coming!

Good and bout [censored] time said the man who turned away without another word. The Sgt looked at his crew and said, mount up lets roll. What are we going to do for him ask a young lady in the back seat?
Not a [censored] thing said the Sgt. And looking back at her said, Jane, haven’t you learned a thing in the last week and a half? Your eating because your putting your life on the line out here, he’s sitting on his butt waiting for free handouts, so who’s food should we leave here? Your’s? She blushed and said no Sgt. And I’m sorry, it was a holdover from my liberal days, they other 3 laughed and then she did too.

The map showed a small town about 10 miles further down the road but when they asked for permission to head there they were told to return to base ( RTB) they headed back and saw the truckers had cleaned up behind them, nothing of value was left, they knew the escort patrol had checked the other direction so they headed back and cut off on a dirt road that wondered over the hills and valleys until they were back onto the main highway into the area.
Stopping at the main roadblock to check in and clear their weapons chambers they talked to the guards who congratulated them on the gold mine they had found parked on the highways.

They headed on into the main base which was what they now called the town, it sounded professional not to mention “way cool” as one of the youngsters had said .

After they had checked in with the main HQ which was the Col's Office they were dismissed and headed off to clean their weapons and prepare gear for the next patrol.

[Trip]

Alpha & Omega

Jeff had to admit he was getting bored with the patrols, driving out 20 miles or so then back, sometimes to kill the boredom they would come back on one of the many dirt roads around the area.

After the loot from the stranded trucks was inventoried it was stored in the school class rooms, a lot was summer clothing which would soon be useless but summer would be back

The explosives truck was the biggie, it yielded tons of explosives, the Ranger demo tech was like a kid in a candy store, he of course was called Boomer, not a lot of originality among the Rangers but that was fine.

This was the 5th patrol in as many days and Jeff commented they should take an obscure road he knew of that led to some back country cabins and after looping around the hills came out on the other side of the base.

His Squad leader Matt was very interested in this road, any road that would allow BG’s to circle around them was of great interest.

Jeff showed Matt on the map just where it was, except there was no road there, Jeff said well there is, trust me, Fine said Matt, showing the driver where he wanted to go they headed there.

And sure enough there was a goat path road, matt stopped the driver and got out and looked at the road, there were a lot of recent traffic on it.

Not liking this too well he contacted P-2 to move toward them, and as it worked out they were on the other side of the hills where the road passed thru a small valley, after telling them to head out he told his driver to go.

After about 3 miles he stopped the Hummer and stepped out signaling the driver to cut the engine as did the others . He stood listening for motor sounds and was just turning back when he heard a gunshot from around the bend ahead, looking around he saw the route up the hill was doable so he guided his driver up the hill, as he got to the top he eased onto his belly and slid up to the top, down in the little valley stood a cabin with about 10 to 15 old beater trucks and cars and a couple of old bikes

Standing all around the cabin was the filthiest bunch of scumbags he had ever seen, biker trash would have been a compliment to them. He touched the button on the band around his neck and said, listen up we have a lot of trash in the valley over this hill, there is what looks like a body in the yard and 2 women and a boy kneeling in front of the man

He took a second and said, ok I want the 4 snipers up here now, I want the 2nd squad to ease down to the road and form a blocking force, 3rd squad, move to my right to the wash , ease down it until your as close as you can get, wait for the first shot, squad 2 no escapers, save the wounded for integration. Move it people, as they moved out he looked at his snipers who were really just the best shots not trained in the craft, but all could shoot, but would they??

He got them placed where he wanted them and assigned the first 4 targets. Jeff was in the middle. He told the shooters on the ends to take down their targets from the outside working in.

He kept watching a bit then picked out the leader because he was the one waving his arms and yelling a lot, dumb move in combat, with a cold smile Matt thought well, they just don’t know they are in combat….yet

He said Jeff, when I give you the word you nail loud mouth there. Ok, sure Jeff said causing Matt to look at him, there wasn’t a sign of worry or confusion on Jeff’s face. Which made happy but sad at the same time. The really neat boy was about to become a man in the “other” way then usual.

When the leader turned to one of the men standing beside him and said something the man laughed, Matt said, Tommy, you see the loudmouths pal?? Yep said Tommy who was a former Marine, when Jeff takes the leader you pop that s**Thead, Tommy just said ok. He didn’t say much but he could shoot boy could he shoot.

Matt’s ear bud chirped and he said clear, then again and he said clear again, he then told the snipers to stand by, on my mark….MARK!! 4 shots sounded like one, the BG leader’s head just evaporated as did his LT. all four made their shots then working their bolts fired again 4 more BG’s dropped as they spun around to look up the hill 4 more dropped, he told the shooters to shoot their bolt guns dry and then switch to their 16’s, the Ranger armoire had converted the ar 15’s Jeff had gotten from Bart and while FA was a hoot he agreed it was a waste of ammo.

After the sniper fire slowed down to a stop the BG’s still standing started running up the hill, blasting away with their very sawed off shotguns and a few hand guns.

Not being able to shoot was not their only weakness, being in real bad shape was worst , about half way up the hill they started running out of breath and bending over gasping for air.

Which of course gave the 4 snipers standing targets, so they simply opened up in semi auto and like a weed eater at a weed convention just cut a swat thru the BG’s, most started running down the hill.

At Matt’s signal the 4 stopped shooting and slid back from the top of the hill and kept down, then it was like the doors of hell slammed shut, when the shooting stopped matt spoke into his radio, saying Sqd. 3 cease firing, he then stood up and walked to the top.

Some of the smarter BG’s had jumped into their wheels and split. As they roared around the corner they were hit with a wall of fire, when it got silent the SQD 2 moved forward to check them out, about 10 had made the run all but 2 had died in the ambush.

After dragging them out of their truck they tossed them into a truck that was still running and drove back the way they came.

In the door yard the woman and her kids were kneeling over the man crying . The medic ( a male nurse from town before the war) ran forward and checked the man, after a moment he told matt, if we can get him evacted to base they can save him.

Matt told his commo man to call base and tell then to send the dust off plane to where the dirt met the pavement. In 20 seconds he told Matt the plane would be wheels up in less then 5 minutes. He told the medic to do all he could right now and to get him ready to move, He then turned to the woman and said we will get him to a hospital asap.
But now I need to know just what you know about these people here. She was almost in shock, but the daughter who was about 17 said we went over to the highway to scrounge for food in the trucks but most had been taken. That’s when we saw this bunch coming our way so we took off and thought we had lost them so we drove back to the cabin and then they showed up, my dad went out to talk to them and they just shot him like a dog.

They were about to kill my brother when one of them said he wanted the kid for a pet, the others laughed so nastily it left nothing to the imagination. They said something about raping mom but saving me to sell to some warlord who was coming up here soon from down near the border.

Then you showed up and this, she waved her hand. Where do you think they came from matt asked her, They came from a town about 20 mile from here that’s a way’s off the highway , Jeff spoke up, I know the place, it was always a biker slum, mostly old trailers and a couple of bars, it’s not in our county so Sheriff JB couldn’t do anything about it except make it hard on them when they came thru our town, I think they hate JB about all a person can hate.

Matt told them to saddle up and head to the pavement. When they got there they made sure the road was clear of trash and waited, Matt was sitting away from the others doing some hard thinking.

Soon they heard the sound of the plane and then spotted it, Matt had a smoke grenade popped to show the wind direction, The pilot circled around and came right in, setting down as smooth as silk, after taxing to the patrol the pilot stopped and yelled out to get the vic into the plane on the stretcher.

After getting him into the bird and strapped in the pilot said he could take the wife if she wished, she was torn about it but Matt told her to go, her kids would be safe and back at the base in a couple of hours.

She tried a smile and tears ran down her cheeks, grabbing her kids in a hug she climbed into the plane and the pilot just gave it power and zipped away and lifted off and was gone.

Matt called the Patrol members around and said, I have an idea that just might do some good ar at least give us a laugh, after explaining his plan all of them started grinning, loading up they rolled back to the cabin, where they loaded all the bodies up in their trucks and with Rangers driving they headed out and onto the highway, the lead patrol rig move out faster until there was a couple of miles gap between them.

When they got to within a couple of miles of the turn off to the town they just stopped in the middle of the road, and then pulling body’s out of the back they put one behind the wheel and on in the passenger seat,The two wounded were so far gone they couldn't be questioned and with the rest were sat up in the back. With that done they took off and headed back to the base.

After reporting to the Col. Who thanked them all for a good job and told them that if they had any problems with what they did to see the Chaplin who would be of help.

Jeff headed home, there he found the girls fixing dinner and his brother sitting at the family PC, riffling Silas’s hair he said, surfin the web bro? knowing the web was gone.

Silas said no, before all this came along I downloaded just about every thing I could find on growing commercial size gardens , I will print off the information and make pamphlets for the gardening crews when we start that job.

I burned it all onto disks and now they are like treasure!! Jeff just shook his head and patted his brother on the head and went to the kitchen to harasses the twins.

When he walked in they both turned and said, OK, spill, what did you guys get into? What do you mean he asked, they both started advancing at him and smiling sweetly began a list of thing that were going to start going wrong in his life if he didn’t wise up, the first being no dinner.

He looked at them and thought where did my little sisters go? Where did these two very confident women come from? He was mystified at the change in such a short time.

The now looked older and more poised and capable. He wasn’t sure he liked the change but knew he liked it at the same time.

He said, ok, I’m going to take a shower and when dad gets home and after dinner we can sit and I’ll talk, but it’s not conversation for dinner ok? Both looked at him closely, and both saw something had changed in him, it was like a new man stood there one with a touch of sadness in him.

After dinner Jeff and the rest of the family met again in the dining room, and after a moment thinking where to start he decide from the first and that’s what he did, when he told of making the shot for the start of the ambush his dad looked sharply at him but didn’t interrupt, before he could go on, Sam grabbed his hand and said, just tell me Matt’s ok!! He said Matt who ? which won him a smack up beside his head, Sam’s face was red and tears were trying to run, Jeff took her hand and said he’s fine cupcake, she smiled and blinked away tears and said don’t call me cupcake!! He knew then she was ok. That was their on going battle.

He then finished the talk up to the part about leaving the convoy of dead trash on the road. His father said, Sy-opps, and nodded, Jeff looked at his dad and said, that’s what Matt said it was.

After he had told all his dad motioned him outside with a couple of beers in his hand, Jeff was mildly surprised because his dad had never offered him a beer.
George sat at the table on the deck across from Jeff, and said, how do you feel about what you did today? Jeff knew better then to try a flip remark, so he said, well I saw that woman’s husband laying on the ground and I just stopped thinking about it.

I knew this day would come and I had thought a lot about it, I even prayed about it in advance. When the time came I just did my job as did the others and I guess the training from the Rangers worked because we all seemed to perform fine.

I was intrigued with the sy opp thing, that was a strange thing to do, do you think it will have results.

George said yes I think so, it will either fill the remainder with fear or rage and either emotion will undo them in time.

[Trip]

# 22

The next morning Jeff reported in at the Ranger Compound as it was now called and was told by the guard at the gate that the Col. Wanted to see him.
That was a surprise as they usually just loaded their gear and rolled out after a heads up meeting with Matt,

He walked into the office and the Col’s clerk called out that he was there, Jeff heard the Col’s voice telling him to come in. When he got inside the office he saw that Matt was there too, The Col. Stood and offered his hand and as they shook told Jeff it was good to see him again.

After being seated the Col. Told him how proud he was of how the patrol had handled the fight yesterday and how Jeff had handled himself in it.

He asked Jeff how he felt about being part of a 4 man team going in to scout out the BG’s hideout, Jeff said he was ready to go right now.

The Col. Nodded and looked at Matt and said well better now then later that’s for sure, this is a den of snakes that need cleaning out asap.

As the two men were heading out the door Matt said come with me a minute Jeff, he then headed to the armory, where they found the Ranger team a weapons man.
He looked up and said hello to Matt and stood to shake hands with Jeff telling him that he heard good things about Jeff and the fight the day before.

He said wait right here and left the room, shortly he was back with a padded rifle case, he laid it on the front counter and unzipped it, inside was a rifle unlike anything Jeff Had ever seen.

The weapons Sgt picked it up and after clearing it handed it to Jeff who took it and slowly looked it over, it was heavy and had a very high tech looking scope on it, he saw it was made by Springfield Armory and was a mod. M1A1 in 308 cal. He looked at Matt and raised his eyebrows, matt smiled and said after watching how cool you handled yourself yesterday I had Sgt. Collins dig this beauty out of the weapons bunker and prep it for you. Jeff’s mouth fell open at that and said cool but why me? We all did good yesterday.

Matt said yes that’s true, but you’re the only one who didn’t miss a shot, and you did as well when you switched over to the AR, you’re a natural rifleman Jeff and this rifle will do it’s job best in your hands.

After signing out the weapon and agreeing to see Sgt. Collins after they returned from the scouting mission to get some hands on training in the finer art of sniping they left the Weapons bunker.

They spent another hour getting ready to go, the other 2 members of the team were both Rangers in place of the regular sqd members. They were on the road out at the end of that hour, after consulting the maps of the area and the off road possibilities they took a compass reading and headed out, after 2 hours of slow going they took another bearing and figured they were within a mile of the town, they moved out on foot and easing up on the last ridge line saw the place in a small valley it was nothing more then a slum with trash all over the place and old rusting vehicles parked wherever they died.

They were about ¼ mile from the place and with glass’ could see everything, the first thing they saw was the trucks that had been left with the bodies on the highway, there were no bodies present and the scouts figured their good buddy’s had just tossed them out and kept the trucks, there was a large bunch milling around below, as near as they could tell there were about 75 to 100 of the BG’s there were a few women scattered in the bunch who looked as mean and dirty as their men, all were armed with an assortment of weapons, nothing looked military, mostly just shotguns and some rifles most of which were lever actions.

It was obvious that they were angry and upset from all the arm waving and shouting going on, finely a big man swaggered out of a shack and climbed into the back of a truck and yelled out for silence, when it was quiet he started a rant that went on for 10 minutes, the crowd them burst out in shouts and much gun waving over their heads.

The leader pointed out to several men and gave some orders. It was easy to see that the order wasn’t well received by some of the men as they moved slowly to several trucks.

Driving out of the town slowly they made their way toward the highway.
Taking that as their hint to leave, after getting back to their scout truck they decided to head cross country to the junction where the 2 highways met and observe if the BG’s headed toward the base. There wasn’t much doubt that the BG’s knew of the town but hadn’t come around as they would have run into the first road block.

Going cross country the scouts made it to the highway junction faster then the old beater trucks the BG’s had, sitting behind a small hill about 300 yards from the junction they bellied down behind the sage brush and waited, after about 30 minutes the lead truck rolled into sight followed by the others for a total of 4 trucks with 4 men in each.

The BG’s stopped at the junction where an argument started between the men, some wanting to keep going down the interstate and some wanting to move on the road to the base.

It seemed reasonable to the 4 scouts watching them that they were new to the area and hadn’t been down the highway leading to the base, after a bit more arguing and a couple of pushing and shoving match’s they split up and 2 trucks heading away and 2 rolling on toward the base.

Matt called into the base and asked the Col what they should do, after a pause the Col. Replied that they should try to take some prisoners and sweat them for more info.

Matt called the roadblock team and told them that his team would shadow the BG’s and after they drove around the blind curve to within sight of the blockade at the bridge his team would close in and they would have them between a rock wall and a wet place and guns front and rear, he reminded the bridge team that while they wanted a prisoner or two to not take chances, he also said he did not believe the BG’s had radio contact but to have a sniper ready to take out any comm. man they might have.

After the 2 truck convoy had driven past matt and his team rolled down onto the highway and eased along until they just spotted the tail end of the back truck disappearing around the curve, they sped up and at the curve slowed a bit as they came around they saw the two trucks jerking to a stop with the BG’s bailing out and running for the ditch. When his team was in position Matt radioed the bunker team to hail the BG’s and tell them to lay down their weapons, upon hearing the message on of the BG’s screamed a curse at the blockade team and jumped up shooting, he went down with one shot, the others stayed low while they tried to figure it all out.

The voice again told them to lay down their weapons and stand up after talking amongst themselves a bit 4 of the remaining 7 stood up and walked out into the open, matt had to shake his head that these fools didn’t think their numbers had been counted as they unloaded.

The 4 were told to kneel on the ground which they did and put their hands behind their heads which all did so well it was obvious they had all been in this position many times.

The ones behind the rock were so intent on their stupid ambush plan they didn’t hear Matt’s team walk up behind them until each felt a gun barrel in the ear, that froze them in place.

After securing them all and clearing the road they took the prisoners a ways off the road behind some rocks. Matt called into the Col. Who said he was on his way with Sgt Major Jenks.

Jeff noticed the looks between the 3 rangers and wondered what it was about, 20 minutes later the Col’s Hummer drove up to the bridge and he and the Sgt Major got out and walked over, he looked the creeps over and said Who’s in charge of the herd? The only one who spoke up said he wanted to call his lawyer causing the others to laugh, The Col. Nodded to the Sgt Major who pulled his .45ut and pointed it at the funny guy, the rest just laughed harder while the comedian said S**t dude, quit playing games and call me a lawyer.

Sgt Major Jenks smiled a cold smile and said well Dude his numbers busy, sorry, and then pulled the trigger, the big slug hit the creep between the eyes, he just fell over without a sound, The Sgt major walked to the next man and said can I call your lawyer? This man was shaking so hard he couldn’t talk and the crotch of his filthy jeans were suddenly wet. When the
Man stopped shaking the Sgt Major again asked if he wanted to talk without a lawyer, the man nodded so hard his neck almost snapped, he was turned over to one of the Rangers who walked him away from the rest and out of sight, Next said Jenks , at which all the men’s heads were nodding wildly. After splitting them up the questioning started from a prepared list the Col had brought along, each interrogator had one, and wrote down the answers they were given. After 30 minutes of it the rangers got together and read the answers they had gotten, 5 sets of answers all said the same where as 3 sets were all BS.

While this was going on Jeff who had been watching walked over behind one of the prisoners and looked him over closely, he then went to Matt and talked to him a moment, Matt then followed Jeff over to the man and looked him over, Matt then went to the Col and pulling him aside talked to him a moment, he too looked at the prisoner and walked to the Sgt Major and looked thru the list of q&e’s and found the one for that man. He stepped aside and read the answers, what he found was that this man had give very detailed information, in fact his answers were so complete that the Col was surprised, he took Matt and Jeff and they walked over to the man, The Col told him to stand up which he did into a position of attention. Col. Patten took in his hair cut, and the condition of his clothing and the fact his shoes were still shined despite the rough living.

He looked the man over again and then said at ease, the man moved from attention to ease in a snap. The Col then said, well son do ya wanna tell me how an obvious military man got mixed in with this trash?

The man took a deep breath and said yes sir, My name is Cpl. Watkins ,Peter J sir, USMC, I was home on leave when the SHTF, I was trying to make it back to my unit in California when things really went to hell, I had gotten my old truck running because it didn’t have any chips in it. I was running short of fuel when I saw a sign about a town back a ways off the freeway, so without thinking for a second I just drove right into that biker trash hang out.

By the time I realized what I had done I was surrounded. It seems they didn’t have a thing that would run but some old Harleys, their leader asked me how I got my truck running and figuring this might just save my life I explained that in the Corps I’m a mechanic and that I knew what was wrong with the vehicles and some could be fixed.

Well sir, they sorta took me in, or maybe I should say they let me live as long as I could get another old truck or car running for them. That’s what I’ve been doing for the last couple of weeks.

What were you doing here today asked matt, I was brought along to make sure the trucks kept running, there was some trouble yesterday and some of the vehicles were damaged and what they have are need badly.

What was the purpose of this group being here asked the Col. Asked him, They were looking for what has to be your people said the young man, your’s is the only group that’s stood up to them in any way, you killed a lot of them yesterday but there is a lot more where they came from Col.

As you well know sir, s**t floats to the top, the Col burst out laughing and said well it’s easy to see you’re a Marine!! Have any proof on you he asked ? Like an ID card?

No sir, they took everything I had on me when they grabbed me, but it’s all in the leaders house. But if your going to do what I think your going to do I can be of help because they are holding several young girls captive waiting to sell them to some mex dude who’s headed this way checking out the area for later settlement by the Mex people. As if we Americans are going to let that happen.

The Col. Had Matt and Jeff take the man to the road block bunker and to get all the Intel he had to give, he drew maps for them and pinned down as good as possible how many people were staying in the old trailers and houses, He indicated the house where the girls were kept, and assured them that none of the girls had been touched because the big shot mex dude wouldn’t pay for spoiled goods, when Jeff asked what the market value was for young girls, the Marine said that for girls between 10 and 15 it was $300.00 each, if they were still virgins it brought $100.00 more, and from 15 up to early 20’s it was $200.00.

Both Matt and Jeff were shocked by this but Watkins told them this was a small part of the trade that had popped up with advent of all the problems in the country. He also said the Mexican warlord was willing to trade ak-47’s for the girls if that was preferred.


The leader of the biker gang who was only called by his nickname of “Mar’s” because somebody told him that Mars was the god of war and he fancied himself as just that. Was planning to take half the payment in guns and the rest in drugs. With the new weapons he was going to spread out his “Empire” and become the War Lord of this area.

When asked if Mars knew of their base area he said that they knew there was a town there but they weren’t strong enough to check it out and that a lot of the older bikers still hanging around there had a bad hate for the Sheriff and had plans for him when the time came.

When asked how many fighters there was in there Watkins said it changed daily but that as a rule there was always about 100 of them, when asked how they feed that many he said that they had been taking food from the 18 wheelers stranded by the EMP event but recently all the trailers were hauled off by somebody which had really PO’d Mars, but he couldn’t do a thing without the guns coming from down south, and they weren’t due for another week.

When asked how the BG’s communicated with the Mex BG’s he said that they had to use couriers on bikes to make round trips. Also that the Mex had a large force with him, numbering about 300 shooters, and all were well armed. He suspected they were in real life, Mexican Army troops on a recon of the northern states prior to an all out invasion and the girls for guns deal was just a side business deal for some fat cat general with a taste for young girls.

Shortly the Col. Entered the bunker and they all talked about what they had gotten from the rest, none of it close to the intel Watkins provided. When asked how long before the BG’s would be missed Watkins said that their orders were to stay out until they had something to report, and to not come back before then.

Well said the Col, we need a plan, should we take the trash out now or wait for the Border trash to show up? Matt and Jeff thought about it for a moment.

But Watkins spoke up and said Col. If it were me making the plans I’d say hit them now, get them dead and buried and then really prep the area for the Mex BG’s, they think their rolling into a weak biker trash town, and before they find out different it will be too late. 300 shooters is a lot and you can’t give them a chance or all you’ve built here is gone!

Col. Patton looked at the young marine and smiled and said son, your not sounding like a mechanic to me. Watkins said, Sir with all due respect I was a Marine before I became a gear head, and all Marines are riflemen .

The Col laughed and said point taken. So we hit them at dawn? Watkins said well sir I’d say about an hour before dawn, say 0400? It’s darkest and no moon tonight and they drink themselves blind and are more passed out then asleep. If you handled it right you could kill them all without a shot fired but that’s not likely, so I’d say burn them out into the open and shoot em down like the mad dogs they are.

Col Patton looked at the young man for a moment and said well son how would you feel about leading my recon teams into the place tomorrow morning at 0400 as you suggested? Cpl Peter Watkins USMC said well sir try to stop me!! They all laughed , then the Col said now what to do with the trash we have?

They all knew there was really only one thing they could do but ….
Finely Matt said sir, I have an idea, let’s turn Boomer loose on a truck and set them free to go after roughing them up a little and when they get far enough away Boomer hit’s the banger button and poof, no more BG’s.

The Col laughed at that idea and called for Boomer to come up right away and to bring some goodies to send a truck and a load “away”, Yes sir ! On my way… Matt said that sounds like it made his day, yea said the Col, you know boomer, no bang a day is a bad day!!

When Boomer arrived he was led over to one of the trucks and told to set it up to blow with a remote signal, he got right to it and in 30 minutes was done. He advised that the button pusher should be a ways away, when asked if he wanted to do the pushing he said sure, and looking at the BG’s said if they were the load he’s push the button twice.

After asking a few more questions and slapping the BG’s around they marched them to their truck, with two dragging their dead buddy the clown and after tossing him in they all loaded up and were told the next time they would be killed, none said a word and they drove away, Matt and his team followed them along with Boomer who was like a kid with a day off school, they followed the BG’s to the interstate where they turned toward the town 10 miles away, parked on the over pass they watched till they were about ¼ mile away when Boomer said fire in the hole and BYE.!!!!! The blast almost knocked them down and with “stuff” falling all around them they bailed into the truck.

Matt screamed What in the hell did you use!! You [censored] fool, you tryin to kill us?? Boomer was all smiles and said oh just a little special cocktail I dreamed up and been waiting to try out!

Matt just shook his head and said you crazy SOB, I should have let you bleed out in the “Stan” 5 years ago, Boomer smiled and said well you got me shot so you hadda save me, now your responsible for me for ever !! Matt shook his head and then laughed and said, yea I did get you shot!! In the [azz]!! Then they all burst out laughing…except Matt who thought getting shot and almost bleeding out wasn’t real funny.

When they returned to the bridge the Col was looking at Boomer and said [censored] it!! Boomer!! I am gonna kick your [azz] some day so hard it’s gonna open up the place Doc stitched it after you got shot!! Boomer said with a hurt look, But Col, it was Matt what got me shot and you said to make sure it did the job. And it did!! He said again smiling big. Col Patton shook his head and asked Matt if there was a hole in the highway, Matt said I don’t know sir, I was trying to get the truck off the over pass before it collapsed! Bummer looking hurt again said Col the over pass may have got a couple of chips out of it from stuff falling outta the sky but it’s still there !ain’t that right Jeff??? Jeff looking for a hole to crawl into decided it was best to stand up and be a man to the end, he said well sir, yes the overpass is up and no sir there is no hole in the highway and it really was a rather spectacular boom sir!!
The Col looked at him a moment and said S**T! I thought you had the making of a fine young man but it’s easy to see your easily lead by your companions, Jeff wasn’t sure what to say so he didn’t. the Col looked at him and said WELL!! Yes sir , sir!!.

Yes sir what asked the Col? Uh well sir uh whatever the Col was saying sir is fine with me sir. Sgt major Jenks said, want me to shot both them sir??? Jeff remembering the dead clown BG felt something crawling up his spine then saw the twinkle in the older mans eyes, No said The Col, if you do those hellions he calls sisters will come for both of us, that even got the Sgt Majors attention.

well sir we could make him hang out with Boomer for a while sir, that should be punishment enough! The Col looked at me a moment and said, no that’s to harsh, just shoot him!

Then they all broke up laughing except Boomer who felt under appreciated by it all, Col Patton threw his arm over Boomers shoulder and said Boomer I’m not mad, I just thought you’d managed to kill yourself at long last and took these fine lads with you. That blast was heard clear to hell and gone, Boomer smiled and big smile and said YES SIR!! I took about 25 lbs of….the Col stopped him and said, Boomer don’t make me a part of your follies ok, when you finally do blow yourself up I want to have deniability when they come to investigate!

Boomer walked away wondering how anybody could be so uncaring when an artist was trying to explain his art, then he realized it wasn’t the Col’s fault that he wasn’t able to appreciate the fine art of explosives, being an officer and all took a lot of time away from the finer things in life. Feeling better about it he headed to his rig and drove back to base.

Watching him go the Col turned to Jeff and said there goes the best demo man in the us army, bar none!! And you just saw him at his best, Jeff said uh sir, if that’s so why did you guys lay it on so hard.

The old Sgt major laughed out loud and said, son, if we don’t sit on him he’s gonne figure a way to take a roll of duck tape and two paper clips and make a small nuke and that’s just too scary to think about!!

The others while smiling were nodding and agreeing with Sgt major Jenks. Matt said , it’s true Jeff, Boomers the best but he can be dangerous to be around, his idea of a nice day is blowing something to tiny bits. And if he gets excited he gets so into it he forgets where he is and who his friends are!! So be careful ok?? Jeff made a point of remembering that.

Turning back to their newest addition Cpl Pete Watkins was watching all of this with a slight smile on his face, when the Col asked why the smile he said Col, this is the first time in 2 weeks I’ve felt among my own kind, even if you guys are only Army types, which brought out a groan from the Sgt Major, who said sir, can I shoot him?

The Col smiled and said naa, lets keep him around, hell we might make him into a human again once we get the brain washing cleaned out.

Cpl Watkins smiled a big one and said well sir if you need a good wrench I’m your man, other wise I’d kinda like working with that Boomer dude. That got all heads snapping around to stare, the Sgt major said you got a death wish lad?

No Sgt major, I think I understand Boomer quite well, I think he’s a Marine that got lost and wondered into your camp. I believe in time I can awaken him. That really set the others back on their heels, your gonna awaken Boomer?? Said the Col? Son he’s almost crazy, you can see that, yes sir I can, but I think he just needs a friend who understands him and I think we’re kindred spirits.
Now that scares the crap outta me said Matt, Col let this crazy jar head go play with Boomer, they deserve each other. With that Pete became boomers keeper with the admonishment to not join him in his search for the biggest boom for the buck!
That agreed on they loaded up to head back to plan the next days strike.

While driving back Jeff asked Matt about the Sgt Major just coldly shooting the BG, matt said Jeff , sometimes you do what you have to if you need the info to save lives, the BG was gonna die either way and his death broke the other’s and allowed us to get the intel to prepare to save the lives of a lot of innocent people, and he was no great loss to human kind, would you agree?

Jeff, without needing to think about it, said of course your right, I’m not sure I could do it is all, Well I’m not wild about it either, but if you have to you do it, regret it later if you need to but get the job done first.

Jeff said he understood that, then he asked about the new man Watkins, Matt said well he’s right, him and Boomer are two of a kind, all Marines are crazy, they have to be to be brainwashed as they are, not that they aren’t great to have on your side in a fight, but they will sometimes get crazy and get themselves and others killed over something simple like running out into a killing field to drag in a dead Marine, brave? for sure, smart? Not really, but that kind of thing is pounded into their brains from day one, never leave a Marine, dead or wounded, everybody goes home. Which is a good thing, but sometimes you need to look at it with an open mind. Maybe there is a better time to pick up your dead, as for the wounded, losing 3 people to get one is bad math.

Jeff thought a bit and said, and if it were you laying out there Matt? Or Sgt major? And what did you do when Boomer got hit? Who went out and got him??

Matt smiled at him and said, Jeff I never said Rangers were any smarter them Marines, I just said they were brainwashed. And Rangers asked Jeff? Well I guess Rangers have this brotherhood……. Crap said Matt, your confusing me, making me sound like a [censored] jar head! Jeff laughed long and hard while Matt just sputtered, the other 2 in the truck just shook their heads and smiled. Lets just say that Boomer has a buddy and if we’re lucky they won’t kill all of us when they get to playing wag the dog!!

[Trip]

With a ton of things needing done and only a few hours of daylight to get it done the Raid team was brought together. All the Scout teams for a total of 10 squads of 12 people each gave them 120 warm bodies, most still in the training process but all at least able to shoot well .

With the local’s who weren’t in the Ranger Scout force but who had taken basic defensive training from the Rangers, the town could form a very good fighting force.

It was decided that the Scouts could handle the raid, and the rest of the trained people would be on alert and beefing up the road blocking bunkers and in town mobile patrols until the raid was over.

The two exceptions on the raid team being George and Bart, both having had prior training would gain good experience for helping with the training program that was on going.

It was decided that the raid team would move cross country as had the scout team earlier.
After stopping their transport a mile away and walking in, they would be met by a 4 man scout team that was leaving very soon to observe thing before dark and line out routes into the fighting positions and to find good fields of fire, wearing gillie suits they would be free to move about if care was taken.

A blocking force made up of Vets and a few of the trainees would move into position blocking the way out of the town just before the shooting started, even if they were spotted by a lookout there wouldn’t be time for the BG’s to rally and run.

After everybody knew their place and had gone over it , The Scout team moved out, The Col was using 4 of his Rangers because all had many year of training in this type action not to mention having combat experience

Matt was going in on the scout team and turned his squad over Jeff who had gained a lot of experience in 2 day, more in fact then most people got in years.

Jeff was filled with doubts but sucked up and said I’ll need a body to replace me while I’m filling in for you, Matt said all taken care of bud and slapped him on the shoulder, you’ll do fine you’ve had a great trainer, which made them both laugh!

Jeff called the squad together and said listen up people, we will be moving out in a few hours, get some chow and rest, it’s going to be a long night and a longer day.

I want everybody here by 2300, in full gear, cammo and war paint. Also, everybody carry extra mag’s. Move out!

Dam*! He thought, I’m starting to sound like one of these real Rangers, now there was a sobering thought .

At 2300 the Scout squads all formed up and an equipment was made. As Jeff checked his squad he came to his replacement who was in full cammo and had his war face on, he looked good and squared away, had a bag of spare mag’s .

Matt stopped and stuck his hand out and said Jeff Davis, the new man returned the shake and said cool, just call me dad ok? Jeff took a step back and looked hard, in the dark and with full cammo he had failed to recognize his own father!

The two looked at each other and both smiled and hugged then Jeff told them to mount up.

The trip cross country was done in low and slow gear, no loud engine sounds to alert the BG’s , the patrol rigs all had their headlights off but parking lights were on but the top half were taped over as were the tail lights which had only a thin strip showing, making it easier to follow the lead rig. Also following the trail made thru the wild grass by two patrols made it easier.

After what seemed hours they came to the parking area and shut down, everybody got out into a very dark night, of course none of the patrol rigs had interior lights so night vision wasn’t an issue. After whispered orders the squads they formed up in single files and followed one after the other all had the florescent tabs on the back of their caps which just barely helped to see the person ahead . After quietly and slowly moving across the open country they were met by a Scout who led them into the area where they would pre stage. The squad leader were called forward to a meeting,

Matt took charge of the meeting and with the aid of a pin light with a red lens pointed out the location of the BG’s town and then where each squad would be, they would move into their area an hour before the show started.

The 4 scouts had had plenty of time to scope the place out, they had counted about 100 BG’s but there had to be more. There were 2 guards on the prison house, more to keep the girls from becoming damaged goods then to stop an escape.

While watching the place the four had decided that it would be smart to slip in and just before the attack started they would use their silenced weapons to take down the guards, every half hour they walked around the house chatting and smoking, and they always lit their smokes when out of sight of the head BG’s dump, an easy hit and then they would slip in and warn the girls to get down and get behind cover if there was any.

This also placed two people inside to help if the creeps tried to get hostages, which was very likely to happen. With all this done they all crashed to try to nap before the fight, but of course most were nervous as few had been involved in the 2 fights that had led to this moment.

Jeff sat down with his squad and told them what was going to happen, then laid back beside his father and looked up at the stars, they were both quiet for a bit then George said in a very low voice, Not what we had planned for our summer is it son? Jeff took a deep breath and letting it out slowly said no sir it sure isn’t.

He asked his dad how he was with the raid, George said well I’m like everybody I guess, I’d rather be home watching the TV and thinking about bed. But the reality of it is what it is, so we deal with it and maybe in a few months or years life will go back to the boring way it was and they both chuckled.

Both became still and just enjoyed the time together, with all the training and patrolling Jeff had almost no time for any family time, He missed that .
He missed his brother but the twins he missed the most. They were such a force within the family and even a short time away from them meant he had lost something irreplaceable , such was the impact the two imps had on all lives around them, he smiled at the thought of how more grown up they seemed now , but then realized it was because of the absents of their mother who it seemed none of them had missed for even a minute, his dad was happier then Jeff had ever seen him, and Silas , the steady rock it seemed in the rapid flow of events.

He was amazed that the absents of their mother made such a difference in the family, like a long shuttered window had been opened and sunshine was coming in.

Wow he thought , deep thoughts at a time like this. Best get my game face on!
George lay beside his son having the same thoughts, how had he been so blind too the darkness Marge had brought to their lives , maybe that was too harsh, but she was a negative source in the presents of so much that was so positive. And he knew he would never let her back into the family, courts or not, she was out.

Jeff woke to Matt tapping his boot, he looked up and said time? Matt said yes but I also need you to plan on giving precession rifle fire to protect the prison house , We can handle a frontal assault but if somebody make it behind us we might get caught.

Jeff thought a moment and said fine but I haven’t had a chance to shoot the new rifle, Matt said it was zeroed by laser and I would think it will work for the fairly close range, I figure it’s a 200 yd shot from where I need you ok? Sure Jeff said and if it’s not on I know my AR will do it easy, Fine said Matt with a smile just don’t go to rock and roll. Jeff returned the smile and said I’ve given that order to the squad already.

Jeff got his people up and ready, then followed Matt into the dark, after a short walk Matt stopped and said space your people about 25 yards apart starting here, the top of the ridge is just a few yards up, they can crawl into possession now but no noise! Jeff passed that on to each person as he paced off the spacing , after they were all in place he followed Matt about 25 yards further and got down when Matt did and slid up the hill, after breaking the top he looked down into an area lit by a few dying fires people were sprawled all around them in sleeping bags or old blankets, He could just make out the prison house and waited and then saw a match light and a smoke light then the fire moved to another face and lit up. They watched the two guards loafing behind the house until they were done smoking, they then walked back around to the front.

Matt said well that’s my signal to move out, shoot well bud and I’ll see you after the smoke clears. With that he was gone, Jeff prayed that his plan worked well.

After a bit he took his rifle from the case and resting it across the folded case he laid his cheek against the stock and looked thru the scope, he was really surprised at how clear the area looked, he could clearly see the people sleeping near the fires. He looked at the prison house and put the cross hairs on the one guard he could see thinking if this thing had a suppressor I could take that one out right now. He wondered for a moment how a boy 2 weeks ago who was only worried about getting good grades and playing foot ball was now laying on a hill with a snipers weapon about to use it to kill others? He figured every young man entering battle thought the same thing and so would the ones to follow until there were either no more wars or no more young men, a sobering thought.

He was watching the two guards as they walked around the house and watched them light their last smoke, thinking well there’s proof that smoking will kill you. He saw the match flare and a second later saw it fly thru the air, in the scope he could just make out two bulky shadows doing a weird dance, then they disappeared, slowly two more rose up, he waited for a shout or something to blow the deal but nothing happened, the shadows moved around the house and never reappeared.

Now they waited for the ball to start. There had be some talk of trying to build some flares that could be dropped by one of the small planes but there wasn’t time. Hauling the wounded man in was the first time they had used one, and Jeff was astonished to remember that it was only yesterday! All that had happened since then made it feel life a month had passed .

At long last the sky started to change from black to a lighter black then grey and soon it was full day light, still nothing moved until a man staggered out of a trailer and stopped to take a leak while scratching his butt. Matt heard one of his squad giggle quietly, it was kinda funny but he still made a shhhh sound…the giggling stopped .

The man walked over to the fire and kicked a sleeping form and said something, his voice carried to the watchers but the words weren’t clear but it angered the form on the ground who yelled something back and was rewarded with another kick, this time he came up swinging and a fight was on, both were throwing round house punches but few were hitting but they were falling over the other bodies who set up a yell and soon the whole camp was up, people falling out of beds and from under porches to watch the days first entertainment,keeping the scope lined up on the house where they thought the head BG was and they had milked a description out of the captives. Jeff had decided if he saw the man he would drop him, the plan was for the few Rangers who had grenade launchers attached to their M-16’s were going to open the ball, but now it looked like fate had smiled on them as the whole camp was standing in a big circle yelling their favorite champion on.

Jeff saw the big man who fit the description to a tee he lined the cross hairs on his chest and waited a moment then squeezed the shot off, the rifle jerked into his shoulder and he heard the thump of the grenades being launched, it wasn’t even a fight, the 5 rifle grenades landed right in the middle of the crowd, body’s were almost flying , it looked like a movie instead of real life, Jeff searched for the man he had shot and saw him sitting against the wall his chest all covered in blood , his eyes open and staring, Jeff became aware of the crashing roar of rifles all around him and searched for a target, he saw a man on an old Harley heading for the road, laying the cross hairs on him he touched the trigger a second time and watched the man just fall off the bike.

Firing was coming from all the houses and bullets were hitting below the raiders, before they could find the range a loud tearing sound filled the air and Jeff looked over at two Squad Automatic Weapons ( saw’s) systematically cutting the houses apart the return fire was slowing and soon sputtered to a stop, It grew quiet and a white sheet started waving out a window.
A loud speaker blasted out from the center of the lines, the voice said come out, hands in the air, anybody with a weapon will be killed . Jeff recognized the Sheriffs voice, No way was JB going to miss this fight, he had problems with this snake den for years and now he was going to burn it out for good!

Down below people started filing out the doors into the clear area, all had their hands up, several were women, after being told to kneel and to place their hand on their heads 10 raiders got up and headed down the hill with plastic cuffs, approaching the prisoners care fully they made them all lay down and keep their hand on the back of their heads, 5 raiders moved toward the BG’s while the rest covered them.

But just as they reached the edge of the crowd a shot rocked the quiet and a raider fell over, then some of the BG’s jumped up and started pulling hidden pistols, the raiders on the spot opened up and sprayed the entire bunch, several then ran to the fallen raider while others came down the hill, they located the shooter inside a house and finished his hash on the spot even after he dropped the gun and started screaming for a lawyer.

After that the raider force went thru the entire town and checked everything, when the all clear was given, the prison house door opened and Matt shouted out to get the medical teams inside.

When the doc’s arrived Matt came out and walked across the yard to where Jeff was standing looking at the leader who wasn’t looking big or bad or mean, he just looked dead. Matt said good riddance to bad trash and nice shot! well timed, how’d ya do it? Jeff said I just took the shot when I made him, it was just luck that my bullet got here with the grenades.

Matt looked over at the fallen raider who was being placed in a body bag , who was it Jeff? I don’t know he replied and I’m sacred to go find out. Matt said he agreed, there would be plenty of time to mourn later, now was time to care for the living, one raider had a bullet graze across her arm, nothing bad but she would always have a scar to remind her of the price of freedom.

Now the clean up would commence, out of the gang in the town 10 were unhurt, 15 were wounded but would live, 4 were as good as dead.

Jeff suddenly was so tired he had to just drop where he was and fell back against a wall where his dad saw him and came running, Jeff realized his dad thought he was hit so he waved and smiled, his dad slowed to a walk and sat down.

[Trip]

George sat with his son and watched the clean up going on, they didn’t talk just shared the moment together . Soon Matt joined them and said they had questioned the survivors and found that the Mexican Warlord was expected in about a week, they were to have sent out a rider to meet them and let them know all was well and find out the terms of the meet as the Mexican didn’t wish to conduct business in the confines of a town.

They were moving slowly because they were raiding and looting as well as stealing more young women to sell back in Mexico.

After they had milked them dry of info they were going to be released in an old school bus that they had gotten running.

Jeff raised his eyes at matt who smiled and said well it’s got to be tuned up by Boomer and Watkins but it should last long enough to get them where they’re going !! George looked at the glances traded by the two young men and decided maybe he didn’t want to know just what was going unsaid.

Matt asked who got killed and Matt told them the name and thank god they didn’t know him, he had only been in town for a year or so and was single, both Jeff and his dad said thank god for that at the same time, but both felt bad because the man was the first of what might be a lot of causalities and they all had to face that.

Only more training would help solve these type problems, there was lots better ways to have handled the prisoners and they would be working out a plan for it.

George asked Matt how bad it was in the prison house, matt said that except for being dirty and in a few cases had been slapped around they were ok, none had been raped but some had been felt up a lot, all were between about 17 down to maybe 12, George’s eyes got hard and he said maybe I do want to hear about this bus ride, Matt and Jeff both smiled and Matt said well sir, for sure your gonna hear about it!! And then he and Jeff burst out laughing .

Later that day George would indeed hear about it, and would then be bothered by the fact he wasn’t bothered nor was he bothered that his son and Matt both thought it was funny.
He would think the famous words “ War is hell “ and agree completely.

The three were surprised to see some of their scout rigs driving in and out of the first one stepped the Col and Bart, both walked straight to the body bag, where they both dropped to a knee and the Col unzipped the bag, he took the still warm hand and bowed his head followed by Bart, both men prayed and all around them the Scouts stopped what they were doing and bowed their heads until the 2 men were done.

When he was done he looked at Matt and walked over, Matt and the other two jumped to their feet, the Col waving his hand then stuck it out to Matt where he said to him, Son, you will not blame yourself for this, war happens, people die, we have just started, more will die, so you need to understand that, face up to it and file it away and get on with the job.

He then shook with the Davis’s and then asked Matt what his orders were about the enemy dead, Jeff said they were going into the empty houses and drenched with fuel and burned .

The Col. Said well that’s too good for them but I guess we don’t want to poison the local predators which they surely would, and the live ones he asked ?

Matt looked him in the eye and said as soon as Boomer and his Keeper get here and get the old bus tuned up and running they will head out to where they are going.

The Col looked at Matt and then Jeff and George and said to nobody , well I hope they have a good trip, then turned away and went to look over the battle…well to call it a battle was an overstatement by far, but beat no name so.

Bart came over and said George they will be moving out in about 20 minutes shall we roll now or wait and convoy with them, after talking it over they decided to go with the troops, Bart had been with the blocking force and had hoped some of the trash would make a run for it so the people wouldn’t feel left out . But he knew before too long they all would see more then they would wish too.

Four hours after the last shot stopped echoing around the hills the task was done, it was a dirty job, dragging bodies that had been ripped apart by machinegun fore wasn’t pleasant but all wanted a hand in it.

The Ranger trucks and one old school bus pulled out then Boomer and Keeper set a few timed flash bangs to go in 5 minutes and then they drove out, about the time they hit the interstate the dull thump of the fuel soaked houses sounded and the flames shot high, good riddance to bad garbage was the general thought of all the raiders.

The raider rigs turned and headed for the road home all except three they parked on top of the overpass and watched the old bus being pushed as fast as it would go, the BG’s hoping to never see that bunch again. And they soon got their wish, Keeper hit a red button and a moment later the bus vanished in a blast of fire and an extremely loud bang. At least it was further from the watchers then the last time , the main body of the bus was melting down as they watched.

Matt asked Boomer and keeper just what they had used , boomer , in an abnormally for him quiet calm voice said well Keeper and I used several blocks of c-4 and keeper had a great idea of taping some white phosphorus grenades too the blocks as a booster, and it worked !! Everybody looked at Boomer and then at Watkins, it was hard to believe that in one day he had calmed Boomer down but there it was.

Matt said well done guys, now I have a request, both men perked up and Matt said can you make some Claymores ? The two looked at each other then started a deeply involved conversation so complicated that Matt said, I’ll see you at base guys lets go.

As he drove off he looked in the rear view and saw the two climbing into the BOOMMOBLIE as they were calling it. Both still talking about the request.

Matt wondered if he had opened Pandora’s box but decided that whatever the two cooked up would be better then nothing.

After the Raiders made it back to town they found the road into town lined solid with what looked like everybody in the county, It took a moment to realize the people had come out to stand and pay respects to their fallen companion , It was very touching and they all felt humbled by the turn out.

They rolled into town and stopped at the school where even more people were waiting , after they all parked and had gotten out it was obvious the people wanted and needed to know what had happened.

The Col. Waited until all the people who had wait along the road into town had arrived and then he climbed into the back of a raider rig and raised his hand, the hush was immediate and so quiet that he didn’t need a loud speaker.

I and the raid team thank you for the out pouring of support we have just witnessed. I will start by saying that while it was a short fight and we won, we did lose a member of our community and Raider team. It is with sadness I say that Thomas smith, a fairly new member of the community fell in battle, war is never a good thing, but peace and freedom do have a price, today Tom paid the price, he is the first of us to do so, he will not be the last. These men and women who you see in their uniforms have chosen to go into harms way for you and I and our home. All the people here have a job, some work harder then others but every job has to be done.

These brave men and women are doing a job they know can and will bring death to some, but they face it willingly and bravely, today’s action has shown that. The results of today’s fight was the elimination of over 100 very bad people. In doing away with them we also save 35 young girls who were to be sold to a Mexican gangster who was going to trade guns and dope for these girls so he could sell into slavery back in Mexico .

Each and every one of us may someday be called to man the wall’s so to speak of our community to repel those who would take it from us and enslave some and kill others. I want all of you to look around and ask yourselves if your doing all you can to help keep us all safe.

We will be starting the next training class’s because one thing we learned today is that in less then a week we will be fighting again. A force of those who would kill us and take they which is ours is moving this way to meet up with those we destroyed today, it is our plan to meet them and stop them and then to finish them.

At that a great roar went up and fists were being shook to the sky, after a moment it quieted down and the Col. Continued. We need to be able to field a force of at least 400 people who can handle a weapon if we are to win and defeat is not a possibility.

I would remind you all of the 300 Spartans’ who led by their King stopped an army of ten’s of thousands by picking their battle ground, we shall do the same, but we will not lose the day!!

All who feel they can face up to the challenges of being a Ranger and willing to go into harms way please be here tomorrow at daybreak to begin a week of training which will last from first to last light, it will be hard and it will hurt, but We in the Rangers need you, your community needs you, and never forget your country needs you!!

This time the roar was off the scale and lasted over a couple of minutes. At last the Col. Held up his hands and said, tomorrow an hour before sunset we will bury our first fallen comrade because of the crowd it will be at the cemetery. I hope most can come. Good day and God bless us all!!

After the crowd broke up the Col. And the Sgt Major met with George , Bart JB and the other 2 members of the ECOMM. Right in the parking lot.

Col Patton gave them a blow by blow description of the battle, and what had been learned from the prisoners about the trouble headed right at them. And while not going into his plan did say that the intent was to face them at least 2 days drive away from here.

After that meeting was over he asked Matt to gather all the squad leaders back at the Ranger base mess hall to talk out a plan of action. In also invited the ECOMM members if they wished to come, only George and Bart and JB took him up on it. So they all mounted up and headed that way.

At the Ranger mess hall they found coffee and food waiting. After eating and after the mess was cleared , the Col. Called the meeting to attention. He told the squad leaders that he wanted them all to study the maps of the area 2 days drive away, he asked them to spend a few hours on their ideas of the best place for a ambush .

He asked The Sgt Major to contact the Ranger “Air Force” to meet with them with ideas of what air to ground fire support they could provide and to be prepared to meet here the next day, after the memorial service.

He wanted his weapons specialist to report on just what he might have to beef up the air teams. He told the transport people to see what they could do for handling the large movements of troops and supplies. He then told them to get to brain storming. He joined the Ecomm members and asked them what he might be forgetting?

Bart said well I think we need a real MASH unit to handle the wounded right there as it’s to far back to here, many would die from the trip. The Col. Said see that’s what I need form you folks, think! Keep me on my toes, He asked George and Bart to meet with their fellow Ecomm member Dr. Lane to start working on that.

He asked JB how things were going in town trouble wise, he laughed and said well them folks is working so [censored] hard they ain’t interested in drinking and fighting and things are very peaceful, so much so I may hand in my badge and come be a ranger! Col. Patton said well I don’t see why you can’t wear both hats if you want to. That got a grin out of all of them.

After that the Davis’s headed home to pick up the rest of the family and head for the nearest chow hall, they found nobody home and a note saying come on the chow hall at the Middle school.

So after Jeff and his dad grabbed showers they took off . Arriving at the Middle school, they saw a lot of cars and wondered what was on beside dinner, getting inside they were directed to a table across the room where they found Matt and Mike Morgan sitting at a table with several settings placed around it. Matt and Mike stood and all shook hands, George said well I see the evil twins handy work here.

Mike and Matt both got a bit red faced and Matt said uh yes sir, we got a message to come here for dinner but there was no name on it, but I believe it’s pretty obvious now.

Shortly after they had gotten settled the twins walked in from the kitchen area, both were dressed very nicely but not over done, they came to the table where the men stood and then waiting to be seated by the two red faced young men standing by the only 2 empty chairs at the table, both girls smiled and were seated. After the men had sat they both looked around the table and Sam said, thank you all for coming, Bob said yes it was so nice of you to do so. Jeff looked at them and said listen you two refugees from a nut house, you set this up so stop with making with the Southern Belle thing. Both the girls just smiled at their brother and said shall we go to dinner now? And both stood with Matt and Mike both falling over themselves trying to beat them up, George and Jeff both just sat and looked at the hellions and shook their heads.

They then stood and headed for the line to get their food cafeteria style, after they had filled their trays they returned to again be seated by the two awe struck young men.

George sat down and just watched the show, feeling sorry for the young men and at the same time feeling sorry for himself, how could he be losing this battle?

How could two sharp young men allow themselves to be sucked into this trap. Then he looked at the twins again and saw them as did Matt and Mike, as two very beautiful and very desirable young women, and for the first time in his life he didn’t know what to do, they were so young yet in the world they all now lived in life could be over so fast. How do you put the breaks on this train wreck he was watching?

I have to do something about this he thought but what?? Jeff helped by saying to them, ok , you two set this up now why? The twins both smiled shyly and said, we want to be able to see Matt and Mike, Matt and Mike proceeded to choke on their water.

George finely spoke up and said Matt how old are you, Matt said 22 sir, and you Mike? 19 sir, George said to the girls, and how old are you two? Sam said dad you know we will be 15 in a week, Yes I do know that, and even if I were to agree with this it would be against the law for them to see you because of your age, so, to keep you two happy they should risk jail?

Matt and Mike’s heads were moving back and forth like a tennis match, both were so fascinated by all this that they had forgotten to be appalled .

Sam watched her dad closely and wait to trump his hand, when he sat back she leaned forward and said, Daddy yes it would be against the law, not against the law to see us, nor to spend time with us, or have dinner with us, sleep with us yes, but I’m not talking about sex, I’m talking about 4 people who like each other spending time together in broad day light in front of the world. There is a difference dad, and Roberta and I know the difference, boy’s have been looking at us that way for the last 2 years, neither Matt nor Mike has ever looked at us or treated us with anything but respect.

Now I ask you if we are being adult about this and we know what we will and will not do, then maybe you should realize that and give these two young men the opportunity to refuse our offer. She then sat back and said well?

All four of the men at the table knew they had just been had by a pair of experts , George looked at the two victims of this revolt and shook his head and said Matt, you first, Do you feel about Sam this way? do you think you can keep Sam’s hands off you if you spend time with her?

Matt looked at Sam and said you know I find you very attractive, and yes desirable, and I’ll be the first to say that the flesh is weak, and Samantha, I am only a man and if you even push a little bit it will end badly , so yes I would love to see you, spend time with you and all that that means, but you can not play games with me for a moment because if you do it’s over, I really care for your family, I feel towards Jeff as my own brother, and I admire and respect your father. And before I would jeopardize that I will stop seeing you in a heart beat, can you deal with that?

Sam smiled at him as if he were the only man in the world and said yes I can deal with that, and when I can’t I’ll tell you and we will see my father again and deal with it together.

But understand this Matt, your stuck with me and your not going anywhere, your mine and when I’m ready we will be married! So if your going to run now’s the time, all I know is that time has sped up and life’s getting short by the moment and if we are going to live we need to get started.

All the men at the table were stunned, and nobody could speak, Sam said so gonna run for it? Matt just sat and looked at her swallowed, then tried to talk, and could only croak, Sam handed him his water which he gulped down , and finally said ok Sam you win, I’ve been in love with you from the first moment I saw you and figured if I can stay alive for another few years I might have a chance. Sam then threw her arms around him and burst into tears, When she pulled back Matt wiped her eyes and sat back and just looked at her.
George and Jeff looked at Sam and Matt and both knew right then there was going to be a wedding and not far away, how could this be happening to his little girl??

He then remembered the other one and looked at Roberta and said I suppose you have a speech ready. She looked at her dad and said no daddy I don’t, she looked at Mike and said so, you gonna run? Because everything Sam said is the same as if I said it, and not one word is changed, now’s your chance to walk away.

Mike just looked at her and after a moment said ok but get this straight, I wear the pants! And they all burst out laughing at such a silly and futile statement. Roberta then threw her arms around Mike and said right.

George said to Jeff, well have you got anything to say? Jeff said yes I do, can we eat now? Which got another laugh, and then it was like some switch was flipped and all the tension left the table and all was right.

George knew then that all was right, and looked at the two young men who had captured his baby’s hearts and thought oh you poor suckers, your lives are never going to be the same, but also thought his girls had been very mature and laid it all out right up front, much better then women 10 years their senior. And with this much honesty in the beginning there was little room for anything else.

After dinner they all went to the Davis home and sat on the deck and the girls brought them cold beer and then sat beside their men, the guys sat a moment and didn’t know where to start and it was Sam who said.

I’d like to know what will be happening in the next week, what’s the plan to deal with this bunch coming up here ? And that opened the conversation on the next step of this battle.

Matt said, well first we need to find them then fix them and then we finish them. So, that means we need to get a scout team out and running to observe them. And of all people it was Bob that said, well why not let one of the planes go out, and if he stays as high as possible and has an observer they can locate the BG’s and report back to guide the scout team in. The men just sat there until Jeff said where did you get this idea? Bob just smiled at her future brother in law and said , well it is obvious isn’t it?

Matt said yes it is and I should have said “was” but none of us great warriors thought of it, so why did you ? Sam laughed and said, boys, we want to keep you safe so it’s up to us to find ways to make your work safer and still be productive.

Also we were thinking that if once found you could then find a perfect place to ambush them with less chance of losing anybody like today. Mike said to Matt, I hate to admit this but these two should maybe be working in logistics with the Col. They have uncluttered minds, and see things we might miss for a while, we have a great deal of stuff flowing around in there where as they hear the problem and see it as just that a single problem, am I making sense here? Jeff said yea I can see that, I don’t know if it’s something that will work in every case but this time, yes! I never thought of that airplane idea for a second because I’m locked into seeing things thru the windshield of the scout rigs. I think it would work and we know they are following the interstate so if the scout bird stayed a ways off to the side they should not be noticed or heard over the vehicle noise.

Well Matt said, this will be brought up in the morning meeting, and sir he said to George would you please let the girls come in with Jeff? I think they should sit in on the meeting, and to them he said if you sit quietly and listen to all the things that come up you might spot another gap in the planning stage.
George said he would bring them because he was planning to sit in as the Ecomm would be there.

That said, the two young rangers said they needed to go as they still had gear to square away, the girls stood and said we will walk you out, and that they did, when the came back in the house their lipstick was a bit smeared and they were both a bit breathless.

George decided to take a shower and sleep it off, Jeff opted to follow his dad’s idea, leaving the twins to clean up and give them space to talk over all that had happened.

Morning found them all in the school cafeteria having breakfast , Silas had come home late and didn’t have much to say and was quiet while eating. George asked his son what was eating on him and Silas said nothing I’m just working thru something, the garden farms are going well and the women’s groups are collecting all the canning jars in the entire country side and setting up a big bank of cooking stoves in the school near the kitchen and will be using that as a food processing plant. One of the ladies told about how they had root cellars when she was a girl and how well they worked so there’s teams with backhoes and building materials building root cellars right outside all the chow halls for easy access. And the big reefers at the schools are all set up to keep foods at just above freezing. I think we’re going to be in good shape when it all comes together, Both Sam and Bob said they wanted to be involved in learning to can foods, which surprised Silas, who wasn’t at the surprise dinner so had no idea that things were at the stage that the girls were already wanting to learn how to care for their homes and husbands.

After breakfast they headed to the ranger base, Silas headed to his garden farms, after they got there and got settled in they found Matt had already explained to the Col what Bob had brought up, and he was delighted to have them there, he was going to make a wonderful grandfather Sam thought. And he had no idea!

When all were seated he told them what Bob had come up with and that they would be monitoring the meeting, nobody seemed to feel that was a problem .

The Col had called and the pilots were present and agreed it was a good idea and figured they could locate the BG convoy within hours, they decided to fly a reverse course so that if they were spotted the BG’s would assume their airfield was back behind them .


The Sgt major asked the head pilot about the guns program, he said they had come up with a way to mount a SAW under the center of the plane between the front landing gear, and figured with a simple grease pencil crosshair on the wind screen and some practice runs to get it all lined up they could deliver accurate fire. The Col told his armor man to get them what they needed and to assist them.

The Sgt major told the gun guy to also make up some “Bird Bombs” to practice air drops from real high figuring that just as the BG’s hit the ambush the Birds started falling among them it would be over very quickly.

It was decided that 2 scout squads would roll out the next day fully loaded to stay out until the ambush was over, the Air Scout ship could find them and radio to the Scouts who could then ease in from off the roads and observe them, and see how they set up their night defenses and if possible maybe another dawn raid as before with the biker town. All agreed that would be better then hitting them on the move .

George brought up about the possibility of prisoners held by the BG’s and what to do about that. It was a very good point and needed to be figured out by the scouts in the weeds.

Nothing more was needed at this time, the training at the school had started and the Col almost laughed when he told them that almost 400 men and some boys had shown up ready to become fighters. Training had started and would be going all day from 0600 to dark, with every thing from physical fitness to shooting to scouting or as it was being called “Snooping and Pooping”.

The meeting came to an end and George left for town while the twins settled in at the Col’s office and started handling the phones and anything else the Col had for them, Silas showed up later to help out so there was more hands then were needed. So he asked the Col if he could get back to his heated green house project that was in the design stage and took off. At lunch time they went to the small mess hall the rangers had where they found their men and joined them, after seeing the food Sam said she was going to do something to help them out. They all had a fun lunch with the rangers stealing glances at the 4 of them sitting and laughing together. It wouldn’t be long before the word was out that the two Sgts had been snagged by the two beauties who now worked for their Col. Life had sure changed in a hurry.

After lunch Sam made a call to the middle school and made arrangements for one of the cooks and a couple of helpers to take over the cooking duties from the Ranger who had been stuck doing it because he had worked in a Burger King when he was a kid. At the evening meal Sam would become the darling of the ranger group, they had forgotten what real food was, now they remembered. All were in love with the cook who was a 60 year old mother of 5 grown boys, the 2 helpers were a different story, they were both so cute that the Col had to stop the excess coffee breaks in the mess hall.

At dawn the next day the 1st and 2nd squads pulled out for their recon , Matt was the patrol leader and Jeff remained the squad leader of the 1st sqd. The plan was to hit the highway hard and fast to gain all the ground they could, the scout plane would make it’s first flight just about dark figuring the BG’s would be setting up camp and to busy to hear them on their flyby. Matt sent one of the 1st sqd rigs well ahead to provide an early warning in case the BG’s had scouts out.

The miles rolled by quickly and soon they were further out then they had been since before the war started. It seemed funny to be rolling along seeing stranded vehicles here and there. One of the scouts in Matt truck that was between the 2 squads asked if a plan had been devised to remove the fuel from all the vehicles on the interstate, again it was something everybody had been to busy to even give a thought to.

Matt waited until his next radio check and had the idea relayed to the Col . Who replied that it would be looked into immediately. It amazed them all how the simplest things were forgotten.

After they had been on the road about 2 hours the lead scout unit called in to report signs of life off the road, They were told to wait for the main patrol, upon arrival they saw a small town in the distance with people moving around, it was decided to send in one patrol unit with the rest in view to sort of appear non threatening .

After approaching to within a ¼ mile of the small village the front scout came to a road block, they stopped and held out a white flag made for just this sort of thing. A man stepped into view and after looking them over came half way and stopped, one of the scouts got out and laid his rifle across the hood of the truck and walked to the man , who was clean and shaven and looked friendly but alert. He said well son, first there are several rifles on you , that aside he stuck out his hand and they shared names, The man indicated that the place was not a town but some buildings that a rancher had used for holding pens and shelter for his hands while working with the cattle before shipping.

They were all folks who became stranded with the EMP and had walked to what they thought was a tiny town. They settled in and had survived off of food stuffs removed from the truck one of the refugees had been driving.

The scout asked how many of them there was but the man didn’t want to reveal that just yet, The scout told the man about the base and that if they wished to he was sure they could move there.

This got the mans attention so he invited the young ranger to approach the road block and speak to the others, he said fine but he needed first to call into his patrol leader, he walked back and called Matt and explained, matt headed that way and stopped at the first truck where he got out and approached the two men waiting for him they then walked to the road block.

They found there was 2 more men there each armed but just barely. After talking to Matt they said they would be happy to move if the rest of their group wanted to.

Matt went back to call into Base and reported their presents to the Col. Who said he would send some people and transport and deal with it while the recon patrol moved on, bidding the people good luck they rolled on. More miles passed they did stop to check out a few truck and trailer rigs for supplies, some had not been touched, some had, it was strange what some people walked off with and what they left.

Matt had his commo man call in the location of all of them which would be retrieved , almost anything was useful . And for the moment irreplaceable!

They moved on racing the sun , an hour before dark they pulled over in an open area where they could have security in all directions and set up to have something to eat. About dark they got their first contact with the scout plane, who said he was in “the” area, meaning where they believed they would find the BG convoy, but hadn’t seen the “cattle” yet but were seeing lots of sign . Matt said good hunting and cleared off .

They settled in till dark then slowly moved on a bit with no lights in case they were being watched , after a few miles they again pulled over into the center divider and hunkered down . About 10 minutes passed when “Air Force One” as they had taken to calling the scout plane called in and said they would like to drop in for a bit if that was ok with them, after a few minutes conversation the Scouts lined up along both sides of the empty lane of the interstates and told him to come on in, when he was real close they turned on their lights which lit up a big strip of pavement, the pilot set down smooth and after turning around taxied back and shut down on the shoulder of the roadway.

The Pilot climbed out and was followed by the observer who turned out to be the Col. Which surprised almost nobody.

They al sat down in the center of the trucks on folding lawn chairs and offered the two some MRE’s the Col. Said no thank you as did the pilot. Col. Patton then told his troops the BG’s were about 75 miles ahead and seemed to be moving slowly as if waiting for somebody, that was when Matt remembered one of the prisoners saying the Mex group wanted a messenger to meet them with a location out in the open country for the meeting and exchange of goods,.

The Col asked how they could pull off a meet with this guy. After a few minutes it was decided that the plane would take off and head home where they would meet with the Sheriff and discuss who in the community could carry off such a meeting.

The air team then told the scouts there was about 250 or so ppl in the BG convoy and that they did see some heavy machine guns on mounts in the back of a few of the trucks and that if possible to not damage them in the ambush as they were good things to have.

They said the vehicle they thought might be the prisoner truck was at the back of the convoy with a heavy weapons truck front and back and seemed to be a former Gray hound bus but they couldn’t see much from the altitude they were at, when asked if they had been spotted the pilot said he doubted it as he had shut down his engine well away and just glided along and turned away before lighting up again, with that they discussed where they could meet up with these people and still have an advantage but still look open and no threat. It was decided to fall back to an area where the scouts had passed thru a few miles back, it had some low hills far enough away to be non threatening yet a good place to have some snipers for long range accurate fire. The rest of the force would move in and dig three lines of spider holes in the tall grass beside the roadway, when the fight started the BG’s would take cover on what appeared to be the safe side of the vehicles away from the firing , allowing the snipers to have clear shots at them . All the ambushers would be at least 200 yards from the BG’s and as soon as the fight started a small group would take out the two BG rigs guarding the prisoners allowing somebody to board the bus and back it away from the battle after it was well clear the Air assets would start their war, they would come in at a few hundred feet strafing the BG’s then pull up and at higher altitude fly back over and the observer would toss out box’s of the Birds which would be kinda like cluster bomb units with a touch of napalm, which should be interesting .

The rest of the ambush units were on the way and would arrive shortly so the pilot and the Col mounted up and with the lights on took off again for home.

The scouts cleaned their area and moved out to the ambush area, driving past it slowly they kept going until they were a good ½ mile past then swung off the road and drove about 400 yds and then headed back to the area where they unloaded and started digging their 2 man spider holes about 25 yards apart, the dirt was placed in sand bags which were placed in front of the holes and then covered with grass cut from back aways so it wouldn’t stand out , the trucks were then driven back into a low spot where they were out of sight, the scouts moved back and settled in for the night to await the reinforcements who should arrive in a few hours .

About 0200 the attack force called in to say they were close, they were running with taped over parking lights after stopping them back beyond where the first rigs left the road, Matt and Jeff went to meet them and show them the way off the road, after getting them into the low spots behind the very low swells in the land the force unloaded and lit into digging their holes after that was done and all were settled in to get a bit of rest the “Messenger” showed them his “ride” it was an old Harley salvaged from the BG town and worked over at the motor pool at base .

The bike ticked like a watch and the rider looked like a real biker which it turned out he was, a former outlaw biker he had decided he was lucky to be alive and not in prison so he moved away from his old hang outs and settled down in the community working as a bike mechanic of course!

He still had his old colors and the long hair and beard and looked every inch what he was supposed to look like, the only thing they could do to help him was to feed him the info the BG’s had given them. He said he would be ok and said he would leave at first light .

After all had quieted down Matt and Jeff crossed the road and picked out the spots for the snipers which Jeff was going to be operating with under control of a seasoned ranger sniper trainer, they walked the ground behind the gentle rise of ground that looked almost flat but behind the rise was a gradual drop off were the sniper team could stand up right and not be seen all would be in gillie suits and only their shoulders and head would be visible and from 200 or so yards would be very hard to make out with the hats to match the suits. The amount of fire power the ambush team could put down was going to be awesome and should break the back of the Bg’s in the first 20 to 30 seconds then the air strike would be a capper it was hoped that the “Birds” wouldn’t be needed because they wanted to go thru all the vehicles and papers for Intel which would be hard to do if they were in flames.

The long night passed slowly and they all managed some sleep with dawn about to break the Biker moved out , he would clock his distance and tell the BG’s to meet right at the site then he would head back with any message the Head BG had .

After he was gone they waited for the air assets to arrive near by , they would shadow the BG’s from a distance and give advanced warning if any scouts left to move ahead.


After the sun was well up Matt had everybody get into position then he walked up and down the roadway looking for anything out of place, he saw several bits of fresh turned earth and had the people in that hole clean it up. Some of the grass that was placed over the sand bags needed a touch up but all in all it looked good he checked in with the sniper detail and asked them to scope it out, one of two small blemish’s were spotted and corrected , soon all was as good as they could make it things quieted down and soon only the breeze and a few insects were heard .

Near noon the sound of a motor cycle was heard coming down the highway near the site he slowed down and stopped the bike, got off and did a few squats as if to loosen up the legs, then while facing towards the way he came he unzipped and started taking a leak and talking out loud .

Ok listen up people they are headed this way I told them to stop right here and that the other BG’s would be along shortly as their wheels are in very bad shape, also it’s my thoughts that these dudes are planning a rip off so be aware they may start looking for a place to hide some shooters, be prepared to open up as soon as they stop and if they should keep rolling you’ll have to take out the front and rear vehicles to bottle them up.

Well I expect they are watching me from a ways back so I best get moving, good hunting! With that he kicked the old bike over and rolled on.

After the sounds of his bike had passed on it again got quiet Matt used the quiet to call out last minute instructions to his people .

The radio made a sound then the voice of the head pilot came thru, he said hey you cowboys the strays are heading home, should be within sight in a few minutes, they are all bunched up and headed home, so relax and let them come on home.

With that they all started laying out extra magazines and making sure their weapons were ready with charged chambers.

With in 20 minutes they heard the sound of the convoy approaching and then heard another noise and saw one coming from the direction of the old BG town, this was a surprise, then matt heard the Cols voice saying that they would stop about 50 yards from the edge of the ambush that was the last minute change to insure the BG’s stopped in the right place.
When the Ranger convoy showed up it was driving the most beat up motley bunch of smoking rattling wrecks from around the base .

Matt thought how did we forget to think of making sure the BG’s stopped where we wanted them too ? Man we need to have an operation that gives us time to think and plan, but then again this was a good learning experience for the new rangers and hopefully nobody would get killed !!

At about 50 yards before the edge of the ambush the old beaters slowed and stopped, the Biker from last night was with them and parked his bike right out in open sight to be seen .

The people getting out of the trucks and cars were all dirty and long haired and looked like what they were supposed to be.

Jeff watching from across the road wondered who these people were, nobody in town looked this bad, even the old biker had to roll around in the dirt to help his looks and smeared grease all over his old ratty jeans. All were armed with an assortment of garbage weapons, but from his elevation Jeff could see the trucks had loads of M-16’s he hoped the new comers knew where the good guys were.

He then looked closer at the older looking biker type with the long gray hair and filthy jeans and beat up boots, he looked so much like somebody he knew but he was not able to figure it out.

The BG’s convoy rolled into the leading edge of the ambush and slowed, then crept forward slowly and as if a magic wand was waved they stopped just short of the end of the holes.

It was a really tough looking bunch who unloaded from the truck, all were armed with AK-47’s and a few shotguns, most had pistols, all looked like they knew their business but all were fixated on the sight ahead of them, out of a van back a ways in the convoy they started pulling young women , all were wearing a minimum of clothing which all looked soiled and torn, one very good looking girl had one breast showing and all the BG’s were cat calling and telling her what she could expect .

Jeff was shocked because none of this had been in the plans, and where did the girls come from? All looked scared and huddled together. The older man with the long gray hair walked a few feet forward and said , Well? You gonna sit there on your fat Mexican a** or you gonna get out here and do business like a man?

At that Jeff jumped and looked again at the man, It was the Col!! How in the hell had he changed so much?

With the insult the vehicle with the smoked windows two back from the lead opened and a fat Mexican stepped out, he was dressed like a movie version of a Mexican bandit, he slowly moved out a bit and said in heavily accented English, “Senor, I will keel jou eff jou talk to me like thees again!! Jou uneer stan ??”

Yea yea yea Poco whatever you say, get your trade goods out and lets get this done. The fat man looked at the man who was insulting him and said, I gots 300 men here , jou gots 50 you should geet smart eh?

Matt heard a beep 3 times in his ear and pressed his radio 3 times and Matt who was zeroed in on the fat man touched the trigger and the fat man seemed to dissolve into a cloud of red mist , Jeff was already setting the cross hairs on his next target when all the other snipers opened up, the BG’s were dropping like flies, Jeff found the new rifle to be really sweet in a target rich environment , he blew thru 20 rounds in half as many seconds,

By now the Bg’s had all made it to the other side of their trucks and were starting to really lay down a lot of fire. The Col. And his band of reject looking road trash had grabbed their 16’s and were raising hell from the front, Jeff took a second to look and saw the girls who were on parade a few minutes ago were banging away too.

Jeff felt a sting and herd a loud crack at the same instant but didn’t pay any attention to it whatever it was , He heard the radio click again and yelled at his snipers to get back from the crest of their rise, they had just dropped back when all hell broke loose again as the hidden rangers opened fire on the BG’s from behind , There was no battle to it now, it was just cleansing the earth of bad rubbish. The few BG’s who were still on their feet tossed away their weapons and raised their hands only to die standing there .

The Rangers were learning that no prisoners was the order of the day. A few BG’s made it to the back side of their trucks only to be met by sniper fire, a few took off running down the roadway,

That was a short trip for all of them, soon there was only sporadic firing as the ones moving were mopped up , but nobody moved from cover remembering the fate of their fellow Ranger.

After a bit two rangers got up from their holes and started from the front walking to the rear with 22 pistols and shot each BG in the head. As they cleared the way the other rangers came out behind them and started collecting weapons and other gear that was useful and placing it in the back of some of the trucks that were still running.

Other’s were dragging the dead into the ditch , some of the new troops were not to comfortable yet with it but by the time they finished they would be forever changed.

When the first shot was fired the special team at the back took out the Bg’s guarding the prison bus , fast and simple the guys on the machinegun mounts never heard a sound, they just died that fast, the driver of the buss had opened the door and climbed out when they stopped and he dropped before his boots hit the road bed .

The special squad was all women and several were aboard the bus before the guards were thru falling over. The found no guards on the bus and about 25 to 30 young women and girls. The girls all started screaming until a female ranger yell “SHUT UP”!! we’re here to save you, be quiet and remain seated, they ranger’s then took up positions around the bus and waited until the disposal team had finished their deadly work.

They then allowed the captives to unload and moved them to the rear area away from the gore . One young woman walked to the front looking at the dead BG’s and stopped by one body, she then proceeded to kick him in the head until she was too tired to keep going.

One of the ranger women approached her and said want me to kick him a while? The girl looked at her a minute and then laughed and said naa, I think I got him. Then started crying and the woman shifted her M-16 to be able to hug the girl to her and pat her back. After a bit she pulled back and said, your safe now, nobody’s left alive in this bunch to hurt you anymore.

The base medical people arrived to take over from the combat types and checked over all the girls, after asking them if riding in the bus a while longer would bother them they all loaded up and this tile with the windows open started the drive to Base Town , as the buss slowly eased past the mess the girls started hanging out the windows shouting “Thank you” !! over and over until they were gone.

Matt walked up with one of the medics and said Jeff are you trying to make my life miserable with Sam? Jeff just looked at him and said no bro, your on your on with that she cat , why do ya ask? The Medic told him to set down and Jeff looked at him like he was crazy, then realized his shirt and neck were wet, he touched it and saw it was blood.

He looked at matt and said have I been hit? The medic answered and said yep and if you had an ear ring in that ear it’s gone. He held up a polished stainless mirror for Jeff to look into, the whole side of his head , neck and shoulder was covered in blood .

He sat down rather abruptly and got a panicked look on his face , the doc said it’s really just a flesh wound Jeff, head wounds bleed all out of proportion so relax and I’ll fix it. Which he proceeded to do in short order.

The Col came over and watched the doc and said just cut it off Doc, can’t hurt his looks any more then mother nature did, which got a good laugh from all but Jeff. He was told to drop by sick bay the next day to get it cleaned up again and check for infection.

The Col said well son that’s as close as they come without punching your ticket and slapped Jeff on the shoulder and then said lets get em saddled up and rolling home. Tomorrow I’m sending a dozer on a lowboy with a security squad to bury this trash.

Also we will have a squad leaders debrief tomorrow at 0700 in the Ranger mess hall, now that Sam has the food problems fixed, Jeff looked at Matt then the Col who said Matt can explain it, I want you in the road in 5 minutes.
After getting every body loaded up and drivers for the better of the BG’s trucks loaded down with all the guns and ammo and useable gear they rolled out. Jeff’s squad looked at him like he was 10 feet tall and covered with blood he was an impressive sight. The hero nodded off in less then a minute and slept all the way home. When they reached the ranger base they were told hot chow was waiting for them , Matt and Jeff were both starved and almost ran a foot race to get there ahead of the pack, as they shoved each other getting thru the door and were laughing, there was a loud crash and a scream, Jeff looked up to see Sam and Bob running across the mess hall, he turned to see what was wrong . Both girls threw themselves at him crying, Bob was saying over and over OH GOD OH GOD and Sam was crying “HE”S SHOT IN THE HEAD!!!” Jeff eased back away from them both and said HEY!! I’m fine but I starving to death!! Feed me! Sam looked at him a second then turned on Matt and said , You let my brother get shot??? And with fire in her eyes started to move at Matt, so Jeff reached out and grabbed her around the waist and carried her kicking and yelling back into the mess hall where he sat her down and went with Matt to get some food , by the time they came back Sam and Bob were fine and Sam put her arms around Matt’s neck and laid her head on his chest and said I’m sorry , I didn’t mean it. Matt smiled at her and said sure you did Kitten, and it’s ok, he’s your brother and you should worry.

She looked at him and said are you ok? He smiled again and said, I’m fine baby and will likely live till morning if you’ll let me eat!

They all sat down eating then Bob bounced up and headed toward the door where Mike was coming in, she hugged him and whispered in his ear, he just laughed and said uh, not yet baby. And joined the rest for dinner, he looked at Jeff and said I heard you had a close one , lucky!!

[Trip]

George and Bart were meeting with the other Ecomm members a few days after the interstate battle , they were going over a long list business concerning the town.

The garden projects were in full swing, Silas and the folks who owned the local landscaping business and a big bunch of volunteers had that moving as smooth as silk , in fact it was so organized that nobody was working themselves to death, food production was exceeding all expectations .

The Green house project was humming right along, they were building them off the south facing wall of the high school, a door way was cut thru the walls from every class room wall that was part of the GH construction.

The plan was to heat the school building and use the rooms as apartments for the over flow of people who had moved into town, and the ones allowed to become part of the community.

The showers and restrooms would easily handle the peoples needs, there was even a plan or thought at least to use the indoor pool for recreation and the gym for basketball leagues with teams made up of the population to keep people busy and entertained .

The rooms that adjoined the greenhouse all had windows that were opened all the time which allowed them to install reversible fans to pull the excess heat from the passive solar during the day into the school building and at night the fans would draw heat from the building back into the greenhouse , it wasn’t cold enough to need them as of yet but the whole project would be on line before winter set in and it was believed the heating arrangement would provide all that was needed.

With food production moving along well and the women’s canning groups all set and ready to hit that project when the food started coming in from the gardens that job was moving well ahead of the projected time line .

The Ecomm could spend time on other projects that needed doing. One was to get as many of the people in the outlying areas to move into town if they wished to at least for the winter, but most felt they could do as well staying home and tending to their own chores, all were growing gardens as a part of the community effort , and since the problem at the first meeting with some not wanting to be a part of the community effort there had been no problems, it seemed that people were working well together and yet had more free time it appeared . It was amazing that as a whole the community had come together and were working as a solid group. Even the few old grumps in town were getting along better then ever before.

It was also amazing how much help the elderly were, it seemed that the war emergency had take years off of a lot of them, most remembered pulling together during the dark days after the start of WW 2 and it seemed to revitalize them to once again be a part of something for the greater good .

Of course most from that era were very elderly, but it seemed to not matter, they were working as day care helpers, and helping the younger women learn to can, a lot of them were knitting warm mittens and scarves at a pace hard to believe. Maybe for the first time in years they all felt useful.

Another thing that was changing was the youths, gone were the baggie gangsta styles, gone the jarring thump of cars with giant bass speakers , kids were more polite then before maybe because they understood nobody would put up with the crap they did before.

Life was getting too short to put up with bad manners , in fact, to many people, things were more peaceful and more friendly then they could remember in their lives .

Folks were speaking to strangers, and strangers were almost a thing of the past as folks found they had time to stop and chat for a moment, also the fact that most people were walking everywhere seemed to help .

A good sized barter fair had started on Sat and Sundays , with people displaying things they had no use for and to somebody else was a treasure. Canning jars were donated to the canning groups .

A large group of young men, 15 to 18 along with a number of adults were going into the mountains with big trucks and trailers to cut firewood for the community as a whole to use. It was being split and stacked at the homes of those who had wood heat to ease the burden of the utility’s that were still working. One plan brought up by a logger now working as a ranger was to use the few logging trucks in town and haul the trees into town to cut up as it would save a lot of fuel by using a lot fewer trucks, this would depend on getting them to run, but it was being worked on.

Gas was still flowing but other plans were made to take over if that stopped . Everybody knew that sooner or later the power such as it was would stop so the power people were looking into installing small turbines that could be installed in the local river and creeks, small dam could be built to create a head of water to turn them .

There was even talk of having a water wheel to do some of that. The power people felt wonderful being able to think and do without OSHA or the EPA watching over their shoulders .

There was so much that could be done with moving water if you didn’t have to take 5 years of paper pushing against the law suits thrown up by the “Greenies”

And speaking of the local greenies, most had come out and jumped right into the gardening and greenhouse projects . They all seemed to be good workers and seemed to know a lot about what they were doing.

The only problem was a couple of local “Peace at any price” types made loud noises about not trying to talk to the BG’s and make them see the error of their ways.

After calling a ranger a baby killer and then getting a free visit to the community health clinic for a set for the broken jaw, the rest saw that the old days were in fact gone and shut up.

Not that free speech wasn’t allowed, but there was a soap box set up on the local court house lawn , and anybody who had a complaint could air it everyday starting at 6:00 pm , almost the whole town came down with lawn chairs , pop corn and drinks and sat and either cheered or booed whichever seemed to make them happy at the moment, in fact it was a great release valve and more fun then TV ever was, no commercials and everybody seemed to enjoy it. Afterward everybody went home, walking with neighbors and chatting and laughing about some of the speakers , discussing new ideas and projects they had in mind.

A lot of people in town now had chickens in their back yards and the sound of roosters crowing in the dawn was heard, with no complaints as people were working harder and going to bed earlier and getting up earlier .

The Doctors, said Dr Lane, were predicting a baby boom because folks were getting healthy from all the fresh air and work and as a result felt more like indulging in activities that were more interesting then TV ever was.

The Ecomm was overall very pleased with the progress being made, Mrs. Reed of the Ecomm said in a lot of ways she liked the way things were better then before .

All the others agreed that it seemed like life was so much more fulfilling then it had been in years.

Sheriff JB said he loved the peace and quiet , and other then the occasional fight which was settled with fists , there wasn’t a thing for him to do. He told how the guy who called the Ranger a baby killer had come in to press charges and when asked why he felt he had the right to call a man that .

He said it was his right under the first amendment as free speech so the Sheriff said he asked the dummy if he felt calling a man a name was free speech then the mans response could only be called free speech too, right?

Of course the idiot didn’t get it so the Sheriff told him that we were living in a more polite times now and that folks best be learning manners now. That the old way’s were gone and he hoped they never came back.

When asked by Mrs. Reed if it was true that Georges daughters were dating two older men, he laughed and said, well …no, and explained the arrangement and the rules, Mrs. Lane said well I think that’s fine , she said her husband who had died a few years before had been 15 years older then she and they got married when she was 15, and folks looked at them as weird, but she said, I loved that man from the day I met him and vowed he wouldn’t get away, then he died and go away, but one day I’ll die too and then I’ll catch up with him, he ain’t gonna get away again!!!

The men all laughed at that and George felt better having heard that story, he didn’t want to lose his little girls but he had to decide that he wasn’t losing them, he would be going two wonderful new sons to go with the other two .

After the meeting was over they all decided to head for the nearest place to get lunch having worked up an appetite what with all the work of talking about the community.

At the Ranger base the Col was meeting with his squad leaders, the topic of the moment was that he was relieving Matt as 1st squad leader and promoting him to scout Platoon Leader and a promotion to 1st Lt. , The troops all boooed him as well as applauding loudly .

The Col then announced that Jeff was taking over 1st squad with Sgt stripes to go with it. Again the booing and loud applause rang out .

Most of the original Rangers were now relieved of scout work because the trainees had passed their tests with flying colors and new squad leaders were being placed to replace the Rangers who were taking over as training cadre , to get the new people up to speed, the big fire fight gave them some experience but was not real training, standing in a hole and spraying people in an ambush wasn’t the same as working as a well trained unit. This was the time to get them up to speed.

The original 10 squads of 3 patrol rigs and 12 people were going to be scouts, the rest were a react force to deal with anything that the scouts might run into, half of them were on 5 minute call out 24/7 with trucks and gear loaded, weapons and personal equipment was within arms reach regardless, it the ranger was in the head or the mess hall, they had it all with them.

The trucks were kept warmed up and full of fuel at all times, the trucks were set up to haul 6 people I the cabs and 4 in the back in bolted in bucket seats under a topper with head room plus all the equipment they needed to go right into a major fire fight.

Several follow up trucks were set up to haul extra fuel and all the supplies to remain out for up to 2 weeks .
All vehicle’s had radios in them set up to talk to base and each other plus the tach air flights if required , the follow up rigs were served by 2 man teams of which one was a demo man and a radio tech.

The Demo people were the ones who graduated from Boomer school of instant bang with all their fingers and eyes, so far nobody had failed.

As the days slipped into weeks and summer died off and fall fell, the community braced for winter. The freezers were getting filled with meat, hunting was now a serious thing .there were plenty of cattle but it was thought best to supplement with wild meat too , There had been a big growth in the chicken raising business as more and more rediscovered the wonders of rural life, children found gathering eggs to be the new Nintendo of the new age . Folks were turning back to the kind of people who made America great, and all in a few short but frantic months. Most seemed to be happier.

Few thought of how hard it would have been were it not for the foresight of just a few people, Bart, George, JB, col. Patton .

These few saw the problem and set about fixing it before most people even knew there was a problem.
They had not had to live the horrors of the majority of the country all because a few smart men had placed all they had on the line to prepare for what they knew was coming .
Men most likely dead because duty demanded they stay at their posts while the rest ran for cover.

And then one day winter did hit, the roads closed with deep drifts without the snowplows to keep things cleared, in town they still plowed.

Long range patrols were sent out in all directions to spot smoke plumes and to mark where there were people. Plans were made to check on them with the air wing as soon as weather allowed.

The patrols all came back safe, one had ran into a few folks with small children trying to make it in an old cabin by trapping rabbits and other small game, they had gotten snowed in there while trying to head south, the scout team decided to bring them in because they were as good as dead if they stayed there.

Upon arrival back at base the newcomers were taken to the school and showed their quarters and the hot showers, the women broke down crying, the men were just stunned by the generosity of the townspeople . After they were settled in and fed and the children put to bed the adults were brought to the teachers conference room to meet with the Ecomm and the Col.

After the newcomers were settled George ask them to tell their story. They were an extended family . The two men were brothers Roger and Marcus Slade . Two of the women were married two them and the third was a 17 year old girl who was the daughter of a brother to one of the women . Her parents were both dead . Killed by the people who had driven them from their homes.

They told how they lived in a small town in eastern Montana, and while the town was very small the people had all pulled together, pooling what they had and were doing good . They had gotten some vehicles running and had a pretty good stash of fuel which they had treated.

All in all they were doing good, there was only 15 people in town and none had much in the way of weapons . There problems began one day about dark when a convoy of vehicles approached the town , the trucks were all painted in Military OD green and the men and women riding in them were all wearing “Army cloths” meaning camo.

All need shaves and looked dirty but they said they had been on the road a while and were carrying dispatch’s from the west coast to the east coast because there was no communications, their town leader said it was their duty to help with fuel and let them into the town thru the barricades

As soon as they were inside they piled out and started shooting, all the towns men went down fast without a chance,

Roger said that their “home” was at the end of the street and he and his brother weren’t there when the fools let the BG’s in, and were about to head there when the first shots rang out, seeing what was happening they ran back home grabbed their wives and kids and headed outside to the barn and got into an old car they had gotten running, it had a full tank and 4, 5gal cans in the back, they knew they only had minutes to get loaded, grabbing what they called their BOB’s and tossing them into the car they got it going and eased out of the barn, taking a back way out they cleared town on a snow drifted road that most didn’t even know about, they made it to the highway and took off, they never saw the “Army” people again, during their drive away from home they did all they could to conserve their fuel, and had made it to the cabin before the worst snow storm stopped them, the men while not prepared did have some basic stuff in their bob’s and were able to cut small wood to keep the old Franklin stove going which kept the drafty old cabin just above freezing, for this they were grateful , after a few days their small stash of food was playing out so they set some snares that were shown in a Special forces field manual that one of them had in his bob along with some snare wire, that brought in some rabbits which kept them alive a few more days, but the rabbit population was getting thin and it was looking real bad when the Ranger patrol found them, they were ready to fight to the death with some home made spears when they saw the color of the trucks and the camo’s but the people who got out were very professional looking, so they had no choice but to accept whatever fate had in store for them. After they put up a fight with sharp sticks against guns. But that wasn’t in the cards.

The two wives had nothing to add to the story and they were escorted back to their quarters for the night , a guard was posted in the hall just in case. They were told to not go wondering around.

The next morning the newcomers were shown into the mess hall and sat with George and Bart , shortly after they were seated and eating , the young lady who was with the Slade’s who had been introduced as Sandy Raines gave a startled look past Georges head, he turned and saw Jeff walking across the room, dressed in his camo’s and carrying his weapon.

He headed towards his dad and took a stutter step and walked into a chair which clattered away. Everybody nearby looked at him and then at the focus of his attention and all started making friendly sounds calling attention to him which further froze him like a deer in the head lights.

He finely gathered his wits and came over and sat down by his dad who introduced him the Slade’s and their niece , Jeff just sat there nodding like a toy dog in the back window of a barrio low rider , finely George said Jeff have you had breakfast yet? Jeff jerked back and stammered uh yes er no,,,and jumped up and headed for the chow line .

George sat back a took his first real look at the young lady sitting across from him, and was astounded that he hadn’t really looked at her, she was absolutely beautiful in an understated way , tall and nicely put together as the boys would say.

He could see that Jeff had affected her as much as she did him , this was going to be an interesting breakfast that was for sure. If the Slade’s had noticed the by play between them they didn’t show it.

After Jeff came back he sat right across from Sandy and started eating while looking at her , she was looking back and neither was talking or seeming to realize that all conversation had stopped at the table.

Finally George said Uh Jeff? With a lot of difficulty Jeff moved his eyes away from Sandy’s and then shook his head and said uh yes dad ? George said what’s on your agenda today ? Jeff thought for a moment and said uh not much , we are looking at the claymores Boomer and Keep came up with this afternoon, that’s about it, why?

Oh said George, I was thinking a tour of the base town would be nice for Sandy while we old fogies figure out what’s what. Can you handle that or should I ask Silas to do it?

Jeff broke all records for getting the message and replying well I think I can squeeze her in, then thought about how that sounded and turned scarlet , which brought a smile to all concerned except Sandy who also turned red.

With that breakfast ended and Jeff and Sandy headed out to Jeff’s Patrol rig, where he assisted her in closing her seat belt while she acted as if she had never seen one before .

Jeff then proceeded to drive her all over the entire town showing her anything and every thing he could think of and described to her how it was growing up here. She seemed to take it all in while never taking her eyes off him.

By the end of the day both knew something had happened, neither knew just what but both knew whatever it was it was wonderful.

[Trip]

The next morning Jeff picked Sandy up for breakfast at the Ranger base, when they walked in all eyes turned toward them and soon the cat calls came from everybody, even the servers, there were several young women these days having one or all meals at the base, young love seemed to be in the air. Or the cooking was that much better , whatever, it made for much more festive meals in the former all male domain. Jeff and Sandy got their food and headed to a table to the side with some privacy which lasted all of 2 minutes as Matt and Mike and the twins walked in , seeing Jeff and Sandy they moved in and pulling tables together made room, then all went to get their food, after their return Jeff did the intros to all, Sandy who had been staring hard at the girls smiled when she found they were Jeff’s sisters, that explained the resemblance which she has seen right away . The girls nudged Jeff over and surrounded Sandy and soon the guys were being left to their on .
Jeff asked Matt how being an officer was going, Same ol same ol said Matt , The Col get an idea and I get the job of making it happen, and seeing as none of us are being paid there isn’t anything from the bars that I didn’t have before , which got him an elbow from Sam who said, Hey bud!! That makes me an officers lady!! Don’t forget that. Matt smiled and said Kitten when you become a lady I want to be the first to know. Which got him another poke in the ribs.

After breakfast the twins kidnapped Sandy and headed to the Col’s office to show her around their new “Empire”, soon Sandy was involved in helping them do whatever she could to help,

The Col and Sgt Major came in and the Sgt was introduced to Sandy who had already met the Col. When asked what was going on in the “Empire” as he had taken to calling it the Col was told that the weapons Sgt need to see him asap so the Col said track him down and have him come over, and tell him that a big thermos of hot coffee will make his Col much more receptive to whatever it was he was trying to get away with.

Sandy jumped up and said I’ll be right back and took off, a few minutes later she returned with the hot coffee and took it into the Col’s office where he and Jenks both jumped to help her with the heavy can .

Within minutes the Weps Sgt came in without coffee but with a big batch of cookies hot from the ovens at the mess hall , which made him welcome by all, going thru the outer office cost him half the cookies but earned beautiful smiles from the girls, when he got to the door of the Col’s office he said good morning to the two men .

I stopped to get some coffee to bribe you with sir but heard I was beat out by a beautiful lady so I stole cookies , with that he sat them on the desk, the Col and Jenks both looked at the half empty container and Jenks leaned back to look out the door and started laughing.

Had to pay toll did you Sgt? He asked , yea they ganged me as soon as they saw the dish , The Sgt major smiled and said ya know I kinda like havin them little hellions here, whys that asked the Col? Well if they are here we know what they’re up to at the moment, all three men looked thoughtful and agreed, yea keeps them out of trouble for sure and they do brighten up the old dump huh?

So guns what you have for me that brought you out of the grease pit you call an office asked the Col.

Well sir, I’ve spent a few days going over the weapons and gear the BG’s had and it’s all [censored] near new, but the real thing is that they had 4 new Ma deuces ( 50 cal MG’s bad news!!) and that’s not all , in that big van trailer they had along was enough parts and ammo to fight a long war! And still in the crates were a lot of new squad auto weapons ( SAW’s) and about 50 cases of grenades, these people had to have taken a base of some sort.

The Sgt major spoke up, I can’t believe that, they were to stupid and inept in the war business . Somebody someplace sold them the stuff, they were useless even with the AK’s they carried.

And that means out there someplace somebody’s got a lot of stuff to cause a lot of people grief , and we need to know who and when and where.

The Col. Said well there’s only one way to find out and that’s to send out long range patrols as soon as the weather clears enough, the other two agreed with that assessment .

Bob came to the door and said Col. My dad is on his way to see you and he’s bringing the Slade brothers . The Col said thank you Roberta .
He was one of a very few who couldn’t call the two beauties by their boy nick names, He didn’t comment on the information because the other two heard what he did and since none had any idea what was going on there wasn’t any sense to speculate.

The Col asked the Weapons Sgt is he had any other good news and was told that Boomer and Keep were going great guns on the new claymores they were working on .

The Col got a worried look on his face and the Sgt major, said Sir, I have an eye on them and they aren’t allowed to work on anything here or in town, they are spending all their time at the rifle range behind some earth berms the construction crews pushed up for them. And other then the booming going on they haven’t killed anybody …yet,

I put a pair of gate guards on the gate going into the area where the two are working. To protect the general public who might get too close .

And I must say they have been doing a great job so far, they were working with metal bread pans as containers but the lady’s in the bread baking section blew a cork at them and made them bring back the pans that remained , seems they “borrowed “ them at night .

What are they using now asked the Col, well sir they decided to look around in the hardware store and took some 8 foot sections of PVE pipe and a bunch of end caps and sawed the pipe into 12” sections then caped both ends and glued them on , then ran the thing length ways thru a band saw in the school shop which left 2 sections with ends and that was the basis for their new weapon platform I guess it would be called .

And how is it working ? The Col asked. Well sir from what I’ve seen it’s working really well , I can’t really tell you how they are making it work but work it does, they have a few bugs to iron out like legs to stick into the ground etc but they will have a complete working unit later in the week. After you approve that we can go into production.

That’s great news , let me know when the real test is, I think we should be there to show support for their hard work.

They heard a commotion in the outer office and then George appeared in the doorway . The Col said come on in ,but George said Col we have some good news and need to have a meeting with you and these two gents here pointing at the two Sgts in the office , and with the Slades and myself, your office is a bit small.

Well then lets walk over to the mess hall and have an early lunch at the same time, how’s that? Fine sir George said. With that they all headed out, with the Col telling the girls to go eat too .

Once in the mess hall the Col pointed to an area off to the side and said we can push two tables together now lets get some chow.

The girls headed off the look for their men who trooped in a short time later all looking at the meeting going on, but the girls won out over that.

George introduced the two Sgt’s to the two brothers after all were settled down at the table. Without any more delay George told the Col that the Slade’s were both Chopper pilots and had been working at crop dusting and had kept their chopper at a remote farm in the area where they had been when the attack took place on their small town.

The Col asked them if they had any idea if the bird was useful after the Emp event , both said they thought it could be fixed with a few new parts, Then George told the Col the rest of the news, it seems there was a near new chopper at the airport, it was in a private hanger and the owner was a wealthy man who had bought a ranch more as a private hunting reserve then for raising cattle, and the base air force had not bothered with it because there was nobody who could fly it, that was now changed!

This was great news and they all started planning how to use the blessing that had fallen into their laps, The brothers said they had already been to look at the one at the airport but hadn’t tried to fire it up yet, but said if it did fire up they could use it to go and get their own bird giving them 2 choppers.

The Weapons Sergeant said Sir, I have those Saw’s we took off the BG’s and with little effort they can be mounted on the choppers as door guns and that’s a really good thing!! He was excited at the thought.
They all thought it was a great find and decided to get on it as soon as the weather broke, in the mean time the two brothers would team up with the plane mechanics and the weps sgt get the bird going and guns mounted on it. Then when it was clear they could head to the other bird which was a couple hundred miles away as the crow flies.

George looked across the room at Jeff and the twins with their companions and felt a touch of sadness to think there were all going up so fast , His Son who just a few short months ago was throwing pass with a foot ball trying to hit a moving target was now one of the better snipers in their unit and had made several one shot kills , he was surprised at his pride in his son for that

He looked at the twins who seemed to over night gone from his delightful babies to young girls to almost full blown women and he was shocked at how mature they were now, both intermingling with the man of their choice as if they had all been married for years instead of just having lunch with them daily and spending time with them at home with their dad and brothers, which brought Silas to mind, something was for sure wrong lately with him and his dad had no idea where to start but knew he needed to sit down and talk it out with him.

Silas had always been the quiet steady one, big for his age and strong enough that nobody wanted to pi** him off, but he was really a gentle giant. Well whatever it was would play out in time.

George decided that maybe tonight he would sit down with Silas and try to talk it out. And hopefully whatever was wrong could be dealt with openly and with maturity.

He decided that he would also scrounge up some food stuffs and have all the “kids” over for a dinner, inside of course, grill some steaks that he still had in the big locker at the warehouse.

He walked over to the table and told all the young people what he had in mind and that was instantly a success . The twins said they would come home early and start on the side dish’s, Sandy said she would like to help with that , the guys were going to stay and spend time on their squad trucks and make sure all was ready on a moments notice. Then clean up and head home before dark.

[Trip]

That after noon George put out the word that he wanted to see Silas if anybody ran into him , about 3:30 Silas came by the warehouse and found his dad. George told Silas he was planning on having a dinner for all the family and their guests and he wanted to be sure Silas got the word.

Silas sat down with his dad and said I guess I’ve been gone a lot and getting home late and not helping around the house and I’m sorry dad , George smiled at his son and said , Silas, nobody in this town works as hard as you, nobody has done more to ensure a steady supply of fresh foods as you . you’ve taken on the load of a grown man looking after his big family which in this case is the whole community. Nobody can short you for a second nor do they.

Silas looked at his dad a moment and then shook his head a bit like a man trying to throw off a bad thought. George sat quietly while his son worked thru the problem he was facing , after a bit Silas looked up at his dad with tears in his eyes, and said I’m so happy for the family I have, I’m glad the girls have found what appears to be their soul mates. I haven’t met Jeff’s girl but everybody is laughing about how they both crashed into each other like twin bolts of lightning , he smiled thru the tears .

He paused a moment and said dad I have found somebody too, and it’s the hardest thing in the world to tell you but here goes. His name is Ben .

George sat a moment and while stunned he for the first time felt a small missing piece of a puzzle had fallen into place , it was so clear now.

He stood and placed his hands on his sons shoulders and pulling him to his feet hugged him to his chest and held him while Silas cried it out, after the tears stopped they both sat down and George asked Silas when he had first known he was gay? Silas said it was when he was about 13, when all the boys were talking about which girl had the biggest boobs or sexiest walk . And he hadn’t felt any of it , but found in gym class in the showers he did feel . It scared him almost to death and he just knew his family and friends would hate him and banish him for life from them.

George didn’t know how he felt about his son being gay but he sure as hell knew how he felt about his son and told him so, That no matter what the future might bring from some people his family would always be there for him. Silas told his dad that while working with the garden projects he had found himself drawn to another young man he was working with and that one day the man had walked up to him and said, look Silas, your big as a house and could snap me like a twig and I hope I’m not wrong but are you attracted to me ?

Silas at first was going to deny it but then said yes I am. The young man smiled and said, good cause I feel the same about you. They started talking and found that both had been hiding their feelings and felt nobody would understand, they weren’t worried about violence as both were big strong men and this was a much more enlightened age then years past. Both were scared of losing the love of their family’s.

Now it was Georges turn to blink tears away , Silas my son he said, I could no more turn away from you then from myself, you’re my son, my blood, I love you now and will tomorrow it’s a life time commitment so never worry about it again.

But I do have a question, does any of the others know he asked? No sir, I’ve never said or done a thing to give a hint. George thought a moment and said ok, do you want to bring your friend to dinner tonight? Silas sat a moment and said yes I would if he will come.

But if the others don’t accept it then I will be moving out and Ben and I will be sharing a place that’s empty outside of town where we have been turning all the former lawn into future garden spaces as well as building a green house attached to the south side of the house , the place belonged to Ben’s aunt who was in San Francisco when the war started .

After that was all said, Silas left to get Ben and to prepare for what might be fireworks , but he was fairly sure his siblings would if not understand not be abusive towards he and Ben.

George collected the items he needed for the dinner and headed home to get started . Shortly after he arrived the twins came home, he was torn about telling them and decided that for better or worse it was Silas’s place to do so.

After the girls took over he headed up to shower and shave and while there he took a moment to do something he seldom ever did, he prayed that his family would not be torn apart by this and that life could be normal for his son and Ben .

At the appointed time the troops showed up dressed in jeans and flannel shirts looking like high school kids, he was often amazed at how young the two Rangers were for all that they had seen, then he looked at Jeff who seemed to be one of them .

Maybe this was what was meant by “ A band of brothers” whatever it was they had it, he again prayed that things would at least be calm tonight,

The guys all sat down in the living room with a cold beer and talked about the days events, the new “gun ships” they were going to have to play with and how the plan was to use the Slade brothers as trainers to teach others to fly the choppers. Also how they could start reaching out further in their scouting and maybe find other left behind air craft.

America might be reeling from the punch but she wasn’t out of the fight by a long shot.

Just before George was ready to start the steaks he heard Silas’s old truck drive up. He went into the kitchen and asked the girls to come in and sit down for a family meeting, they looked puzzled but followed along.

Shortly the door opened and Silas walked in followed by another young man who wasn’t quite as big as Silas but ever bit a tough looking.

In the quiet that lasted a moment Jeff jumped up and walked to his brother and hugged him and said we’ve been missing you bro ! the twins did the same. There was a short pause and Silas took a deep breath and stood taller and said, well here goes nothing, I’m coming out of the closet and this is my friend Ben.

For about 10 long seconds it was as quiet as it could be, then Matt stood and walked over to Ben and stuck his hand out and said I’m Matt and while I too am an adopted member of this mess that’s mostly called a family and seems to be terrorized by the two young lady’s over there I think I can say for my part welcome Ben.

Mike had jumped up and was right behind Matt and said whatever you do try to avoid any conflict with those two he nodded at the girls, and in a stage whisper said I think they’re witch’s and can cast spells and stuff. Ben by now was laughing as was Silas, Jeff stuck out his hand and said welcome Ben.

The twins walked over to Silas and Ben and stood looking them over , heads moving to the right and then to the left slowly and in perfect timing. George and Silas both said Stop that!

At the same time, the girls both laughed and hugged Ben and said welcome Ben, and then turned to Silas and Bob took first shot and said, well it’s about time bro !

Sam said yea, what took so long? All the men in the room just looked at them like they were speaking a alien language.

Silas said you knew? Sure we knew silly, but how he asked ? Because you never looked at our girl friends like Jeff did when they came over, and because of your gentle nature and all kinds of things!

Sandy came over and said Hello Silas , Ben, I’m Sandy ,a new camp follower myself and shook hands with both, then turned to Jeff and said, care to talk about leering at your sisters friends big boy?

Jeff back peddled and said that’s just so untrue!! Which got laughs and elbows. After things had settled down and the steaks were cooked and all were eating the conversation turned to normal chatter between friends and family, Ben felt as if was born into this mad house as did Sandy.

George sat back and watched his new extended family and thought of how bad it would have gone if their mother had still been here.

He wondered if maybe his daughters were maybe a little bit witchy , they always seemed to know things ahead of others , even the Col had noticed that he would sometimes be thinking of something like needing a note pad and one of them would walk in with one and say something like I noticed you need a note pad Col. Or even a cup of fresh coffee which he would never ask them to get and there would come one with it and a smile, he was smitten also.
As a joke the Sgt Major had taken to making the sign of the cross whenever they came around and got a laugh every time . The Col wasn’t sure it was a joke but wasn’t about to ask the Sgt major for fear he might tell the truth.

Later after the Girls had dragged the men to the basement to watch a chick flick on the DVD player he sat with Silas and Ben and talked about the future from their point of view.

Both the boys said they knew of a few other gays in the community who were pretty well out in the open and that nobody seemed to be bothered by them, and that with the new problems facing them all it was a minor thing.

All they wanted to do was be left alone with their private lives, both were hard workers in the community and well liked and they were going to just let the facts slowly seep into the fabric of the town. They both had plans for the future and what they wanted to make out of the place Bens aunt had left by default.

They were more excited about turning the place into a self sustaining Freehold that anybody who needed shelter could come too and stay if they were willing to share the load of work.

Ben told George that he was really into trying to get involved with bio diesel and it’s development, George held his hand up and said Ben you learn all you can and then come to the Ecomm meeting and we will help you get all the stuff you need, but I know nothing about this stuff and in fact don’t want to learn!! I’m too [censored] old! All three laughed and Ben said it’s a deal sir.

Later after the young men had left, Ben in Silas’s truck with a promise to pick him up in the morning .

Sandy settling in with the girls who promised their dad they would keep and eye out for Jeff trying to sneak in to find her , which got a protest out of Jeff which got him an elbow from Sandy who said OH?? I’m not worth sneaking in for ?

They all settled down to visit and get reacquainted as most were too busy to spend time together like they used too. Silas asked Sandy about her ordeal that had brought her to the community, she was sad about her parents but knew they were in a better place, also she knew that there was a plan in the works to return to the area in the new gunship and she knew that if the people were still there who murdered her folks that they would die.

After things quieted down they all decided to go to bed it had been a long day with many surprises, and more to come…poor George.

[Trip]

As the winter slowly passed life in the community seemed to settle into a pattern that most people liked, a slower paced way of living, things that before seemed to be so important no longer were. People had more time to visit, more time to make new friends .

The town had never had any real crime but now it was so crime free that the Sheriff and his deputies were so bored they all kind of wondered into other things to do while still being on call.

The Ecomm board members had talked about it and JB thought it had to do with it being a closed society , where everybody was armed , and contrary to all the pre war hype by the liberal anti gun crowd there was no wild west shootouts, nobody was getting murdered every few minutes. In fact as the old saying went , “An armed society was in fact a polite society.”

People were doing fine mostly because of the leadership that had fallen into place at the very beginning of the war . People like George , Bart , JB and all the others who had stepped up and took over, also the heads up from the Ranger unit helped a great deal, as well as having the time to get people trained to fight . And the lack of crime . There were no riots, no looting or burning, in fact none of the things that went on outside of the northwest in the bigger population areas happened here.

The Col had explained that was the reason the units like his were almost all in the northwest , room to operate, far from the southern border meant time to train the future militia army’ to take back the country.

The people were more independent and didn’t need or want government hovering over them as it did in the big city’s . also most people here were armed and knew how to use their arms. All in all it was the best place to set up this kind of operation .

Yes there had been the 3 clash’ with the gang of biker trash and the BG’s from down south but with careful planning and very well placed ambush’ they were all wiped out, but everybody knew that others were out there and one day it would be the job , no… the duty of the community to head out and start cleansing the country side. And that day was coming soon with the spring , but for now everybody worked at whatever they felt like doing each day , some bounced from greenhouse gardening to wood cutting to night patrolling the town to acting as life guards at the pool which was a god sent as it gave the youngsters a chance to burn off extra energy found by not sitting in front of a computer game.

There were night class’s at the school, and several adults had come out of the wood work and admitted they couldn’t read much. Now all were proud of being able to say they could read and were learning other subjects that they couldn’t handle before.

Silas and Ben were holding class’s on building Solar units for greenhouses and home heat , they also had turned Ben’s aunts home and 20 acres into a habitat for people who for one reason or another needed to be a part of a group that lived in a commune type home and life style.

Several of their friends , straight and gay had joined in to make it a comfortable happy place to live and work . It was almost totally self sufficient , they had found an old wind mill and set it up to pump water from the main well for non house uses and were working on other projects.

The community never seemed to care or notice that Silas and Ben had come out and everybody was so busy they didn’t have time to worry about who was sleeping where and with whom , several of the older singles had migrated into couples and were happy for the company and the help.

The Ecomm board members often talked about how they liked things this way , and how wonderful the citizens were at pulling together and getting along.

Many new romances were popping up as the people come to understand that some young people wanted to be together and why wait for a date or age that had been set years past by whom nobody knew . And marriage was back in vogue among the younger set .

This of course was scaring the h**l out of George because he could see his girls were running head first into becoming women and he knew that soon one or both would be coming to see him, dragging a red faced young Ranger by the hand, and he wasn’t ready to face that, but he also knew his girls would respect the deal they had set down in the beginning , and when they could no longer do so would tell him up front.
George was scared for them because of how his own marriage had gone with their mother , but he could see there was none of the problems in their relationships, he just didn’t want to lose his babies. Has any Father ever wanted to see his daughter leaving with another man?

George and Bart had become very close friends since the “ Problem “ as they called it started. Both were clear headed and could see that their community was truly blessed with good fortune by virtue of being so isolated from the rest of the state.

The Slade brothers working with the “Air Force” had gotten the chopper working, mostly because there wasn’t much wrong with it, it had suffered no damage due to the way it had been stored . Mostly just doing to normal maintenance had done the most good , on the day of the first flight the whole town showed up to see it as if nobody had ever seen a helicopter before , but anything new in town called for a big show of support.

When the craft was rolled out of it’s hanger there was a lot of ohhing ahhhing and other such sounds.

When Roger Slade gave his brother Marcus the wind it up hand signal to start it up there was no hesitation , the rotor started turning and soon was running nice and smooth.

Marcus slowly increased the power and lifted her off the skids and tilting her forward started moving and slowly took her up to about a hundred feet where he waved at Roger and then headed up and away .

The ship flew just as advertised and he buzzed over the town where people were running out to wave , kids were running along as if trying to keep up . After about 15 minutes he brought her back to the hanger and gently set it down . After shutting down and securing her they all rolled the bird into the hanger.

After everybody had headed back to their business the Col and Sgt Major met with the brothers and the others involved in getting the ship up and running, they set about a plan of action to arm the bird and prep her for combat as much as possible. The Ranger weapons man brought out the two SAW’s he had been working on to mount on the chopper, it was decided to set them up as much as possible as door guns and use the existing view ports by removing the windows and using removable Plexiglas as covers for in flight . It was going to be a jury rigged affair but it would work and that’s all that mattered .

The Slade’s were anxious to get going to get their chopper , so it was planned that the work would be done in 3 days whit all the help they had and after a test run with the guns they would figure what they needed to get there and back, parts would be needed but the fuel should be there if nobody had found the place .

By removing all the seats it was figured that the craft could haul the parts and tools and the Slade’s and 2 gunners and 2 more security troopers with full gear, for now that was all they wanted to risk.

The Col. After checking over his troop list called for 4 volunteers to go on the recovery flight, matt and Jeff were ready and the first to jump forward , 2 others seeing them jump made the next move and won out over the slower ones.

The trip was planned to last until either the chopper was up and headed home or they had to give up. And giving up wasn’t high on anybody’s list, they wanted and needed the chopper .

That evening when they all gathered in the Ranger mess all the talk was about the flight the next day . Jeff and Matt were excited about going, Mike was Po’d that he wasn’t there to get in on it. The Sam and Sandy weren’t happy at all , Bob was hanging on to Mike like he would float away.

George was watching the girls and their reactions and knew how they were feeling, he too was worried about this, although it wasn’t any different then driving out on a scouting mission, but it involved more danger because choppers were known to fall out of the sky at any given moment.

After dinner they all headed to the Davis house to spend time before the morning flight . George said he was going to bed early to give them all time to be together. Without feeling he was disapproving which he was happy to say he wasn’t . His daughters and their men had all acted very adult and he wasn’t worried. About Jeff and Sandy he wasn’t sure but figured they would work it out in time. With that he went to bed and slept well. In the basement things weren’t going as well, Sam and Sandy were both angry that the men had jumped at the chance to ride off on a wild crazy adventure and were feeling like they weren’t important to the guys , Both Jeff and Matt were trying to explain it to them but it wasn’t working, so they gave up, they plugged in a DVD and with the lights out just held each other .

When Matt and Mike said they had to leave the twins ask them to stay the night , both tried to explain they couldn’t because they all knew what would happen . Both girls said that’s fine , we want it to happen , matt looked at Sam and said, Baby, I gave my word to your dad I will not break it , I can’t , I care too much about him , he’s like my own father and that’s that. Mike ,always short on talk said, Me too babe. When we get back we will all sit down and talk about this if you still feel like you do now. And with that kissed them good night and left. The twins looked at Sandy and said you ready to head up ? Sandy said no, I’m sleeping down here with Jeff, I never made any promises to your dad . Jeff just looked at her and knew he was lost so why fight it anymore. The twins hugged them both and headed up stairs . Jeff looked at Sandy and said are you sure about this? She smiled and took his hand and led him into his room and shut the door.

The next morning Jeff was up before anybody, Sandy lay quietly pretending to be asleep while he headed to the shower, as soon as he got in and was enjoying the steam, the door slid open and Sandy stepped in with him. They discovered another wonderful thing about being a couple, showering together!

When they came up stairs, George looked at them both and their damp hair, and said well wonderful…did you two leave any hot water for the rest of us? And smiled and pulled Sandy into a hug and said welcome to the family. Can I assume there is need for the preacher? Both blushed and said yes.

As soon as Jeff left the twins dragged Sandy off to tell them all about “it” she just smiled and said, well I’m glad I waited for Mr. Right and he waited for me. And anything else you need to know you can learn the same way I did and they all laughed , but the twins weren’t laughing to hard, they were already thinking about the talk with their dad that was coming a lot sooner then he was ready for.

At the air port the bird was out and warmed up ,the guns had been tested the day before, all was ready, the parts were loaded and the 4 four rangers with their gear were on board , ht Col and Sgt major were there along with a lot of the troops , as the bird went light on the skids and lifted up Jeff looked out and saw his dad with the three girls standing away from the crowd . He nudged matt and nodded out the glass, both men waved at their ladies and then the craft banked a bit and was gone .

After setting up the flight route 2 days before the Col had sent a heavy squad of scouts out to follow the route as best they could with a fuel truck along to help out if it should be needed . At least they could stop and refuel if need be.

After being airborne an hour they passed over the scout convoy and headed to the landing zone an hour or so away. Jeff commented on how the scouts had taken almost a day and a half to get to what was an hours flight for them. Matt said if we can use these two choppers to find more and the flight training program works out we could become air mobile scouts and cover a lot of country while vectoring the ground units into whatever needs looking into .

Jeff thought about that a while and said, I’d miss the patrol rigs I guess, matt smiled and said, yea me too so I guess we don’t join the air force huh?

Jeff grinned and said deal, besides I can’t take the tears anymore. Matt looked at Jeff and said you know this trip brought out a lot of things with Sam don’t you? Jeff said oh yea, and you got your job cut out for you cause those two always get what they want .

Matt just nodded and tried to smile but seemed to be having trouble doing it. Jeff leaned over and said Matt, I need a best man . Matt looked at him and said uh huh , last night sealed your fate did it . Jeff could only blush and nod , Matt said congrats bro, I’d be proud too , do the twins know? Jeff nodded and Matt said Oh S**t .

After about 90 minutes of airtime Marcus gave them a heads up and they pulled the gun ports open , dropping down to about 300 ft they flew around the remains of a very small town, the building had been burned , they could see the remains of body’s laying in a group where they had fallen just as the Slade brothers had described it nothing was moving around the area so they flew off for about 2 miles and followed a snowed in road to an old farm house .nothing moved there either after circling around to try to bait anybody into showing they landed off to the side of the barn the 4 Rangers jumped out with weapons and spread out and approached the barn , after clearing the area they motioned the Slade’s to come on in.

Inside was a chopper , not as nice and plush as the new one but a bigger one and sat up to haul heavy crop dusting stuff , The brothers walked around it touching it as if it were an old friend , which it was kind of .

They set to work immediately by draining out the fuel and pulling the fuel lines and filters , then they lubed anything that needed it They pulled the batteries and replaced them with new ones they had brought , they checked the fuel tank that held their stored fuel and found it was still good and after putting in a new filter using a hand pump they fueled the bird .

By this time it was getting a bit late so they decided to stay in the barn and build a fire in the old wood burner , after that they made contact with the scout group and checked in, all was well with them , after that they all pitched in getting the chopper tied down and covered with a dirty white and black netting they had brought for that purpose , they also pulled the SAW’s and moved into the barn , after scouting around it was decided that a look out in the loft could see the only road in and that if need be they could set up a gun nest in the house , they settled in to sleep , whoever woke up could toss in a log and when the guards changed every 2 hours they did the same .

The long cold night passed quietly until the guard thought he heard something on the wind, he claimed down and eased outside and listened , sure enough he could hear motor sounds but saw no lights , after a bit he could hear the sounds a bit better and decided it was coming from the road into the farm , moving inside he woke the others who all grabbed their weapons and LBE and throwing their parkas on and the their white smocks over that they moved into pre located locations .

As an after thought Matt ran to the house and in the living room lit a few small candles then came back on the run . 2 of the Rangers eased out to good cover on each side of the barn to provide cover fire to the rear or the front .
Shortly a bunch of vehicles eased into sight and rolled slowly toward the house where the faint glow of light could be seen .

The trucks spread out and then all turned on their lights and a voice yelled out. You in the house come out this is the US Army. Marcus and Roger both jumped and whispered that’s the same thing they did to us!

The voice again called out , I’m not waiting much longer!! Word has it there is some infiltrators in the area so yawl best be gittin yer butts outta that house before we have at shoot the s**t outta you !

That did it for matt who was manning a SAW , he whispered into his throat mike that as soon as they opened fire to hammer them.

After one more warning the voice said ok your askin fer it!! , another voice was heard to say , maybe we should wait a few minutes, maybe they gots some young stuff in there .

The apparent leader said ok we gonna open far , if yawl wants to send yer wimin folk out that ok, we will spare em. When nothing was heard the leader said Billy boy give em a taste of that big boomer, followed by a loud rapid 3 shots from what had to be a 10 ga auto shotgun , the windows blew in and the front door was splintered.

Matt said light em up!! And hell came to town , the fools never knew what hit them , they had always won by fooling people into letting them in close or scaring them into giving up, most didn’t even have a weapon in hand and had their hands in their coat pockets , 30 seconds after matt said go it was done.

Two of the men moved around to the side then Matt lit off a large spot light all were down and only a few were moving. The two scouts moved in slowly and carefully shot each one in the head, Matt called out to save one .

After all were dead but one they carried him into the barn while the 2 flankers stayed hid outside. They checked the creep for weapons and then his wound which was in the belly . Matt squatted over him and started asking questions, the man was filthy and smelled like a wet dog. Matt said help us out here and we will give you something for the pain , the man started babbling the whole story out about the fake army unit and how many time they had used it , when asked if they had a place where they hold up he said yea and named another small town 50 miles away . Marcus nodded that he was aware of it.

When asked if there were more people there he said no, that this was all, when asked if there was any prisoners the slob said yea we locks em up and leave em. Who are they Matt asked , just broads we kept from a small town we took a while back . We was lookin for fresh meat when we thought we heard a engine sound bout an hour afor dark.

Feeling braver now the man said are you gonna give me something fer this pain? Matt said yes we are and shot him in the forehead.

They dragged the body out and settled down to a restless few hours before the dawn.
When they could see better they took a look at the pile of trash out in the barn yard ,they didn’t find much in the way of good weapons, a few filthy AR-15’s that could render parts and a 10 ga auto shotgun and several boxes of ammo . One of the Slade’s wanted that and took it over to the vice and proceeded to cut the long bbl down to 20 inches then tried it out and it still functioned just find, great LZ gun said Roger .

They loaded the bodies into their trucks and drove them off into the trees and dumped them. Then moved the trucks to the barn to be parked inside after the chopper was taken out.

When they did roll the bird out and Marcus went thru the check list it fired right up and since he knew it like his own wife he gave her a thumbs up , Roger had already lit up the other bird so when both were warmed up they lifted off , with Roger leading the way they flew to the little town the BG told them about , after buzzing it several times , Marcus landed with Roger flying cover with the gunship , with one man on a gun , the Three rangers jumped out and ran to cover ,they started yelling Rangers , where are you , they soon heard muffled yelling and headed toward the small building behind a house , finding the door locked they pried it off and threw the door open , inside were 4 women all about 18 to 25 , all were naked except for old blankets wrapped around them all were half frozen .

Matt quickly ran out and motioned to Marcus who ran to the building and as soon as he was seen the 4 women started hugging him and crying. They decided the women could go in the ship outside and Roger could pick up the 3 remaining rangers.

As soon as Marcus cleared the LZ Roger dropped in and the team loaded up and he hit it lifting off like it was a hot LZ , he was laughing and yelled just practicing !

They flew back the same way they came and found the scout convoy in a clearing so they set down and topped off their fuel , the scouts found warm things for the women to wear and then the birds took off for base while the scout team changed course and started returning in a round about manner.

As the two birds were coming in they could see two ambulances waiting for the women who were whisked away as soon as they birds touched dirt . They shut down and moved both birds into the hanger where the Air Force people started prepping them for flight . The rescue team headed out to find the nearest mess hall as they were starving , on the way in they saw George’s truck coming with the girls bouncing up and down smiling , Matt said no tears now huh , Jeff said I’d not say that out loud bro. Matt said I heard that bro…

After telling George to follow them they headed to the school figuring there they could get fed . When they got out of the rig they were hit by Sandy and Sam who threw themselves into their arms, matt hugged Sam and said if you don’t let me eat I’m gonna die, she looked shocked and dragged him into the mess hall where they pushed the men into seats and ran to get treys of food , both could hardly carry the treys and sat happy watching their men gorging it down .

After they sat back with hot coffee George asked about the run, they told him all the details including the would be raid by the BG’s and their end as food for the wild life. George nodded and said good , that’s less to deal with when we start rolling out in force come spring.

They then loaded up and headed to the Davis home where the guys took showers , Jeff with company , he wondered if matt had company , he kinda of hoped so . It was coming and soon, Sam was going to push it plainly
After their showers which seemed to take Jeff longer they met up in the kitchen for coffee . Bob was at the Ranger office covering for the other two girls so they could relax .

Watching Sam with matt George could see that the battle was lost and being the kind of father he was said , well I think we need to talk about things yes? Matt was stunned and Sam said yes we do , I’m tired of waiting and I’m not going to so how do we play it now? George said well Matt? Matt just looked at Sam and said I’m tired of the game too if we are going to have a life lets get to it.

It was decided that there would be a double wedding when Jeff and Sandy tied the knot , And that George was going to move to the warehouse , but the 4 of them vetoed that by saying that there was plenty of room in the house for all of them , each girl had their own room and nobody was putting George out of his home. Unless it would bother him being with them in which case they would find places to move . George didn’t want that , he never wanted to be away from his family , so that was settled.

At 4:00 Bob showed with Mike and seeing the others sitting in the dining room marched in and said daddy, I’m not waiting any more, I’m not going to see the man I love riding off to a fight and not be able to hold him the night before, so what do you have to say ?

She was stunned when they all burst into laughter and Sam said get in line little sister , Sam was born 2 minutes ahead of Bob. When it was explained to Mike and Bob it became a triple wedding which was going to be a first for this town , the date was set for a week from that day .

The men then got out of the way and the girls took over the whole affair which needed a lot of planning as far as they were concerned , the guys felt a preacher and a keg of beer was plenty, they lost that argument in 2 seconds flat. it was the beginning of many arguments they were going to lose.

George offered to give Sandy away but she said her uncles would be hurt if they didn’t get to, then it was decided that Jeff and Sandy should go to the Slade’s and tell them before they heard it as second hand news.

[Trip]

After visiting the Slade’s who were delighted that Sandy and Jeff were getting married and both men wanted to give her away , Jeff and Sandy headed home so the girls could get the plan into motion for a triple wedding.

The men were more or less pushed aside and left to sweat the wait, now that a date was set Sandy decided to get shy and moved back in with the girls which Jeff didn’t care for a bit but Matt and Mike thought was funny .

George was just stunned into disbelief , his babies were about to get married and his son which wasn’t as bad a shock, the girls were only just 15 years old, but had matured at light speed since the war started. Neither were little girls anymore, even to his eyes it was clear they were women and handling a woman’s responsibility’s , far better then their mother ever had , George was hit by the thought that his wife had been gone since the troubles started and nobody missed her even a moment , He knew that for him she had been gone many years , and to his mind if he never thought of her again it would be way too soon .

The week moved for some at light speed, for others at a snails pace . It had been decided by the girls that for the first few days after the wedding they would stay at a rustic camp ground outside the edge of town with some nice cabins with wood heat and propane cook stoves and modern bathrooms, the place had been winterized by the owner and he was happy to open two of the cabins for them, then three because the girls decided Jeff and Sandy needed to be close .

The big day dawned as if god had decided to bless this event with all his powers, the day had warmed nicely, blue skis and plenty of sunshine . At the appointed hour the entire community came out to witness the event . The Ranger detachment and the Col and Sgt Major all showed up in their full dress uniforms . Mike and Matt wore their’s also , Jeff dressed in his suit from graduation which he hated but none of the women involved would allow jeans , he could see the end of life as he knew it but wouldn’t change it for anything such was the power of the hold of Sandy .

When the men arrived at the High School and entered the Gym they were stunned at the number of people there, it looked as if they were the main event some sports event. Which in a way they were. They were the Christians, the lioness’s would arrive shortly.

The women of the community had taken over in full force to make the gym over into a place befitting such an occasion as a triple wedding . The place was filled with fresh flowers , Jeff looked around for his new best man since Jeff was now a victim of the event himself , Silas came over and hugged Jeff with Ben at his side , Ben stuck out his hand but Jeff hugged him too which surprised him but brought a smile.

All the flowers were grown in the green house at the commune as it was now called where Ben and Silas had built their home.

After a wait longer then eternity the organ player hit her stride and played a medley of wedding type music, and at last there was a pause where the Preacher told the men to take their places and the doomed did so.

With the first sounds of the music had started the double door’s opened and a very long string of brides maids and grooms men walked in arm in arm, made up of Rangers and Jeff’s high school buddies .

When the others were in their places the organ player hit the first tune of the wedding march and thru the door came the twins each on an arm of their father who couldn’t believe it yet , right behind them came Sandy with an uncle on each arm . As they made their way to the front where their future awaited the girls all looked beautiful , all three wore white dress’s that matched , made by the ladies of the sewing club.

When George handed his babies off to their future he felt lost for a moment then felt the hand of Bart on his arm and looked into the smiling face of his friend it was suddenly ok.

The preacher looked lost in trying to iron out which twin was which but it worked out because the girls had little cards in their hand with their name, but nobody was sure they hadn’t switched just to keep in form.

In less time then it seemed it should George watched his three children begin a new life of their own . As he watched h the girls kiss their husbands and saw the radiant glow on their faces he was happy and knew that all was well.

The wedding reception was a excuse for a big BIG community party which went on all day and into the night , George was danced with by almost every woman there plus the three brides , he was so busy he almost missed their leaving , but got hugs and tears from all three including his new daughter.

After they had driven off George was lost for a bit but then the ladies too over and he never got to sit down again . And after catching a ride home because of a few too many toasts he crawled into bed and went to sleep.

In the morning he was hit by the sounds of an empty house for the first time in 20 years. It scared him to death, only the thought that in a few days all of them would be back to live made it easier to get up and start the day.

After a shower with of all things all the hot water he needed also for the first time since the girls started showering on their own he headed to the school to get fed, finding no wheels outside he remembered his truck was at the school, so he started walking, feeling better by the minute , he got about half way when a hummer pulled up and the Col asked if an old man could use a ride, he gladly accepted and they went to breakfast together.

The Col and George were sitting and enjoying a good meal when George noticed a woman looking at him from across the room but he couldn’t remember ever seeing her but she was a stunning redhead with bright green eyes, he smiled and then blushed and looked away.

After breakfast he and the Col walked out and George looked at the redhead again and she smiled at him , he returned it and nodded at her feeling like a kid with his first look at a girl as a girl… down boy he thought your still married even if you don’t want to be.

Climbing into his truck he was struck with the fact he had no place to go , so he drove out to the commune to see Silas and Ben’s works. When he arrived he found a bustling community in miniature , about 20 people were in sight, all working at something.

He walked around until he found Silas up on a tall ladder doing something with a fan , Silas saw his dad and climbed down and hugged him and then took him on the cooks tour of the whole place .

George was blown away with all that they had accomplished in so short of a time. Al their work showed and most amazing is that most of it was performed after a lot of them had worked for the community at one job or another .

And after a visit from Matt and Jeff a week or so past Silas and Ben saw the need for having security because they were out of town a ways and there were back roads that trouble could use to gain entry to the valley . Unlikely as that was.

They had built bunkers outside that were reachable thru short roofed over tunnels from the basement walls to the bunkers ,all in all a very good set up and all were either ranger trained or going thru the training which was now much more then the first class that Jeff had taken.

George was very impressed with the whole operation and the fact that it was a small self sufficient community within a small community .

And he felt there was something to be learned if this war went on into the years , then the word he was looking for came to him, it was “Outposts” as in the old west. Then a whole string of thoughts flashed thru his mind.

He hugged his son and said he needed to get moving but would be back soon and then headed right to the ranger base to see the Col.

Walking into the Ranger office was a new experience, another pair of young ladies were working at whatever at Sam and Bob’s desks . And Sandy’s spot was empty, which reminded George of his empty home and that almost depressed him.

One of the girls announced him as Mr. Davis which made him smile and he was glad to hear the Col holler come on in George! Inside he found the Col sitting alone with a cup of coffee, after a moment he called out to the girls to please bring George a cup, and smiled and shook his head and said, God I miss em too! George gave a small laugh and was glad to know he wasn’t alone.

How long will they be gone he asked George who smiled and said well sir, I’d say until they wear out those new toys they have, the Col choked on his coffee and both men burst out laughing, I never heard it quite put that way by the father of the bride or brides I should say but I see your point, and now I wonder if my 3 best men will be effective for a while?

George said Col I know I don’t have your experience with military affairs but I had a thought today , in fact a few minutes ago at Silas and Bens commune.

What about setting up outposts? All the small communities out there struggling to survive, we could go in and arm them , god knows we have the weapons just from the 3 fights we’ve had with BG’s and send in an Engineer team to build fortifications, in fact lets ride out to the commune and you can see what a very few can do.

The Col yelled for the Sgt Major and when he appeared said come on John we pros are getting a lesson from civilians. They road with George while the Hummer followed, George explained the idea to Jenks .

When they arrived at the commune Silas and Ben came out to meet them, after hearing what they had in mind they got the guided in-depth tour after which both Rangers just shook their heads , The Col said you know we did this in Nam with the strategic hamlets, and it did work except when the commies really wanted to make a statement and rolled one up with a couple of battalions at a great loss of life to their own men, which they didn’t care about at all.

Jenks wondered off with Ben to look at the bunker systems again and the crawl space/basement tunnels to man them without going out side , He asked Ben where they got the idea and he said from some Army field manuals we found in the used book store, Jenks walked away muttering about the mouths of babes with Ben smiling .

After getting back to the Ranger base the Col sent for his top senior rangers since Mat and Mike were gone, he sent them out to the commune to look it over and told them he wanted a report of the whole outpost idea on his desk in 24 hours. They just said Yes Sir and bolted for the door.

By this time the day had advanced to lunch time so he and the 2 ranger boss’s headed for the Ranger mess hall which was now called “Sam’s place” in honor of the one who got the great cook and the hottie wait staff . After they had their treys they sat down and were about to start when George looked up to see the stunning redhead walk in with another woman who had to be her sister if a few years older , who was a looker herself but was wearing rings.

The older sister looked over and smiling started walking over to their table, both men stood as they arrived, The Col said George please allow me to introduce my sister Joanne and her daughter Jolene , George without even thinking blurted out your daughter??? Which caused all three to laugh, the Col seated his sister while George after a slow start jumped to help the younger lady. The Col said I’ll go round of some food for you girls while you get acquainted with my right hand man .

Joanne smiled and said if he’s calling you the right hand man then he’s promoted John to his left hand . George , realizing he was smiling like an idiot at Jolene got himself under control and said well it’s news to me! Joanne said well not to me , he talks about you all the time as one of the sharper tacks in the box that’s full of sharp tacks. Plus he really likes you. George was happy to hear that because along with Bart the Col was one of his best friends .

The Col returned leading two of the serving beauties who were happy to help out although their job wasn’t to “ wait” on anybody, but this time an exception was made .

After they were settled in eating George looked at the Col and raised an eyebrow , John looked a bit embarrassed and said having advanced knowledge of what was coming I contacted my sister and asked her to move here as she was alone since her husband uh left , left asked George? Joanne smiled and said well George he decided his 21 year old secretary was more fun then an old broad like me.

Without even blinking George said the mans a [censored] fool ,which brought laughs from the others, I agree said Joanne !! Thru all this Jolene sat quietly watching, when George looked at her she smiled shyly and said it was a wonderful wedding! George said where were you, I’ve never seen you before today ??

The Col spoke up and said George they have been staying in a house I rented for them just before the blow up , they have been working around on projects that caught their attention and as you know there’s so many that nobody knows where anybody is.

Joanne said George John was embarrassed because he used special knowledge to help his family when so many others didn’t have advanced notice , and with the difference in names nobody knew who we were. But Joanne said today we decided to come out of hiding and if people didn’t understand it then screw em !!

George choked on his food and then burst out laughing and said I’ll drink to that!! Then he turned his attention to Jolene and said and I saw you this morning at the school dining hall , she said yes I went there hoping to see and meet you but was scared to just walk over to say hi. Scared? Why asked George ?

Well I guess I was too embarrassed to just walk up and sit down. George said well then I expect to see you for dinner tonight and breakfast tomorrow morning is that ok? He was shocked at his openness with her , she gave him a beautiful smile and said well can I call it a date? She then looked at his ring finger , George sat a moment and pulled the ring off and added it to the trash on his tray , she looked at him in shock and said it’s don’t mean any more then your moms . Joanne sat there a moment and took hers off and added them to the trash on the tray saying , new beginnings !!

After the ladies left George looked at the Col and asked was this a Ranger ambush? John laughed and said you ain’t seen nothing yet, wait till my sister baits her hooks, some poor man is doomed. George asked how old Jolene was and found she was 29 and had never been married, had a PHD in dentistry and was planning to set up a free clinic .

All in all it was such a busy day that George hadn’t missed his girls until he started home where he found the place looking like a parking lot, he went in and found the brides in the kitchen cooking dinner and the husbands sitting in the dining room looking at maps .

His spirits jumped a mile and he met the rush of the girls, all three and was wrapped in a giant hug that seemed to never end. After they let him go and wiped their tears off they all started talking at once , then the twins took turns talking to explain that they had sold 1/3rd interest in their dad to Sandy so he now had three daughters , when asked how much 1/3 was worth Sam said well we said $2.50 but she beat us down to a buck and 25 cents . All of them were laughing so hard that tears were flowing again, tears of happiness George was included in the tears of joy.

George then remembered he had a dinner date and then had another thought , he asked the girls if there was enough for 4 more guests , Sam said, dad we’re married women , Bob said yea to men that don’t make squat, both girls looked at Sandy who was blank for a second then smiled and said we’re used to making something out of nothing!

All the males groaned and glared at Jeff as if it were his fault that there was now three of them to contend with, all he could say was “ WHAT !!”

After high fiveing each other Sam said sure dad who’s coming? He said well I’m not sure but I’ll see, he went to the phone in his den and hoped it was working as a lot of the time it was down, this time the gods smiled, he called the Col and after going thru the new girl routine got John who when invited to dinner if he picked up his family agreed in a flash.

George then called the bunker complex at the main entrance where his brother Jim had taken up residence and getting him on the line invited him to the new wives first home cooked meal, Jim was pleased as he had spent almost no time with family since becoming involved in the home security force. George said Jim, dress nice it’s for the girls ok? Jim laughed and said still wrapped huh? George said and your not? Both laughed and hung up.

Going back to the dining room he said add four to the dinner list, no probe pop said Sandy accompanied by hoots and more high fiving , the guys then banished them to the kitchen.

George said ok what’s going on? The guys peeked at the kitchen and Jeff said quietly, well we went for a drive today and stopped at the commune and the guys told us about all the visiting by the “brass” today and what you guys were talking about and we put two and two together and decided we might be smart to hang around close.

Honeymoon over already he asked, No! said all three, we just thought some input from us was useful because we’ve been out there patrolling and have some ideas now that you had the biggie. So, think we can get invited to the party? WHAT party said Bob walking in and grabbing Mikes ear causing him to say BABYYY ouch!! She refused to let go for a few more seconds but by then his painful bellowing brought the other two in on it, and they would not be left out.

The guys tried talking around it but in less then 30 seconds they gave it up and ratted themselves out. The girls looked at them and each other and Sam said did you think you fooled us with all the whispering going on at the commune? Yea said Bob, we took Ben aside and terrified him into spilling the beans. Sandy then leaned over and smiled at Jeff and asked softly, and when were you going to tell me about it …dumpling? Jeff went from white to scarlet in a nano second , which brought more smiles, then Bob said I want to know something? Ok honey what? Mike asked, we want to know why if you three are the big macho Rambo’s , asked Sam, then why did it take dad to think of this really grand idea? Asked Sandy? George was used to Sam and Bob playing this game but not with a third player in the mix, Jeff wasn’t surprised at Sandy’s getting in on it, but Matt and Mike were just floored. The Girls savoring their victory went to the kitchen where they were laughing and having a good old time. The four men could see the hand writing on the wall, Jeff said can we find a way to separate them? Followed by a loud “NO” from the three new wives, ok I give up now, said matt, Mike nodded and Jeff shook his head and George laughed and enjoyed their expressions.

At 6:00 on the nose the door bell rang and the twins both ran to answer it , beating George by a mile , soon they were back with the Col and his ladies where John began the introductions .

The twins walked over and stood looking at Jolene doing the synchronized head turning thing until all five of the men said STOP THAT !! At the Sam time, Jolene was smiling and said I’ll bet you’ve done that to your dad since you could walk right? Both girls laughed out loud and said come on we’ll tell you all the deep dark secrets, who’s ? Jolene asked, His the twins said together pointing at George, Sandy said he’s the one your interested in right? Jolene didn’t blink and said can I help with dinner? Sure come on, we can open a bottle of wine!! George without thinking said NO you can’t but both said ask our husbands daddy dear ! And again slapping hands left the men sitting shaking their heads. Joann said well I’m staying out of this so I’m getting a glass of wine, see yaw!! And left to join the other plotters, John looked at George and said your screwed , blued, and tattooed buddy! The new husbands just sat and felt like they were losing, what they didn’t know but they were losing some thing.

They then got the maps back out and explained to the Col what they were thinking and soon all of them were into the plan, so much so they didn’t even think when they were handed cold beer by the ladies , George was very aware that Jolene handed him his accompanied by smirks from the triplets as it seem to now be.

The door bell rang again and the girls took off again and with loud squeals of delight escorted in their Uncle Jim who was drawn into the introductions and was soon handed a cold beer by Joanne who smiled at him and said well sailor do you come here often, Jim looked her up and down and said well not as much as I intend honey setting off more laughter , to say the evening was a rousing success was an understatement .

But the big surprise was when George was told by the girls that they weren’t going back to that old cabins , they wanted to be home as one big family, George was so happy but also had thoughts about his daughters climbing into bed with a man in their old bedrooms, but when Jolene patted him on the arm and said it’s ok, you’ll be fine ,it was in fact fine.

The last thing George wanted was for Jolene to leave but she did stop on the way out and kissed him on the cheek and while hugging him said it’s ok hon, we’ll get there soon enough which knocked him over. But he just grinned like a fool and hugged her back, and headed to bed and slept like a baby.

[Trip]

Bright and early the next morning George was down stairs making coffee for the men before they all left for the mess hall. Mike and Matt were the first to come in, both looked a bit embarrassed by the fact their new father in law was waiting for them with coffee, they sat down and George asked what the plans were for the next few days, Matt said they were all going to work, which surprised George and he said so.

Well Sir began Mike who was stopped by his new FIL who said, it’s either George or Dad, your choice ok? Both laughed and said yes sir! He shook his head and said fine, so?

Mike started again and said well the girls and us talked it over and we decided that the Col and our units need us, and god knows after the Col had a few in him last night and bitched about us taking the best office staff he ever had which of course blew the girls heads up really big so they figure that without them to guide all of us the human race is doomed,, so we go back to work today.

George looked at the two and smiled real big and said uh huh, what you really mean is there was no discussion about it, the “girls” told you how it was and you two caved in, right??

Matt and Mike both just sat and looked at George who was by now laughing out loud while Jeff stood in the door dressed in his camies , George looked at him and said ,and you and your little bride decided the universe couldn’t survive without you too right???

Jeff looked at the other two and said busted? They nodded, he sighed and sat down and said yea dad you got it, but I’d stop being smug if I were you. Oh whys that his dad asked ? Because your daughters and my wife are already working on Jolene and Joanne , so you and uncle James can both just get in line because your nice little world is going to get hammered ! And Jeff then smiled as did the other two..

George on the other hand got a worried look and said “ They” wouldn’t would they? And the answer walked into the room smiling big and said They?? Daddy, when you say “they” like that it means your talking about us, all three girls were standing there, dressed in Cammies, but not like the men’s, oh no, theirs were tailored, nicely, too nicely for any of the men who all started objecting but were just ignored, Sandy asked Jeff what was wrong with her uniform, he said not a [censored] thing but I don’t want every man on the base chasing after you , you’re a married lady now !

Sandy got a big grin and walked over to him and leaned up against him and purred “and don’t I know it” !! causing a lose of blood to Jeff’s heart because it was all in his face.

The other two new grooms just sat there with their mouths shut, Matt getting a pat on the head and a good boy from Sam, and Mike getting a kiss on the cheek and a ,you too Mikie baby….

This war was fought and lost in less then 30 seconds, a new record even for the twins. Who now asked if they could go eat as they were all starved from the extra activity in their lives, causing all of the males to blush.

When they entered the mess hall the men were surprised to see all the ladies wearing Cammies, tailored, even the head cook. Even the female rangers were now sporting tailored cammies,

The Col was sitting with the Sgt Major and looking grim, George joined them while the younger ones went to sit together, Col P looked at George and said ahh, I see you lost the battle too?? No sir said George, it was over before I knew there was a battle and the way I see it, if I didn’t know there was a battle I couldn’t lose could I??

Both the older Rangers laughed out loud causing heads to turn and Sgt Major Jenks said well Sir I do believe he’s got one up on us. Col John just scowled at his senior Sgt who laughed at him.

Well Col J said I guess we just let them do what they want because we can’t stop it, right? Sgt / Maj John said well sir, why not just ignore it and it will ease the taste of defeat a bit ? Both the others just nodded and went to eating their breakfast.

So the first mutiny in the newly formed Wyo all volunteer Ranger Battalion was won with no wounded and no loss of face and not a shot was fired , it would be the first of many small battles the men would lose but they just didn’t know it yet.

[Trip]

On the first day of spring the Col requested a town hall meeting and requested that all who could please be there.

On the appointed date the entire gym was full with people standing and sitting in the aisles, the over flow was tuned in with the school pa system.

The small stage in front was occupied by the Ecomm. 5 as they were called , At 0800 on the second the Col followed by Sgt Major Jenks walked out in front of the people and waited for the buzz of voices to stop as people noticed them, soon it was quiet.

The Col acknowledged the people and launched right into his message, I’ve asked you all here today to make you aware of the fact that in one week from today the entire Ranger Scout company beefed up by the heavy weapons sections will move out into the country side spreading out to the south east , south, south west in a fan so to speak.

they will follow the secondary roads as much as possible, while a heavy unit will pace them following on the interstate system. They will also have air scouts out in front to guide them to any areas of concentration of survivors , or in some cases groups who may be preying on the innocent who are just trying to stay alive.

We know that our troops have landed in Baja and are meeting a good bit of resistance from middle easterners and Chinese troops who have in a sense occupied Mexico.

Not all of the Mexican people are behind this move, most in fact are proving willing to fight if armed and led, our troops are doing that as we speak .

What this means is that units like ours will be slowly moving toward the border, mopping up any foreign troops we encounter plus dealing with those who have used the war to engage in murder , rape and slavery of our citizens, they will all be dealt with in a very expedient manner.

This brought some laughter and some frowns. But he kept speaking , We will push the invaders back as we move forward until they are caught between us and a hard place where they will be dealt with in an expedient manner . When we reach the border we will either hold there or we will move across, Whichever the command authority decides to do. I can say that when we get done the face of Mexico and several other South American country’s will be changed , hopefully forever.

In the next week we will be loading our equipment and prepping our rolling stock for this journey. It will require a great deal of effort on all our parts to be up and running at the jump off time.

Now I will answer such questions as I can, but please listen to the question and my answer because we haven’t time to get the same questions over and over, I’ve asked the Ecomm. Members to handle the order of the questions.

Sheriff JB stood and walked out in front and said we will do this as we have other meetings, starting at the front row and moving left to right, with this he pointed at the person on the far left, who shook his head no and the sheriff pointed to the next, this went on for almost a dozen people when it came to a woman who said I’m uncomfortable with your statement about dealing with people in an “expedient manner” would you please explain that manner?

The Col smiled like a wolf at a sheep convention and said what I mean by that is that after we have taken over their strongholds we will shoot the survivors who have been pointed out by the people they held captive who survived their ordeal . Next question?

The sheriff started to move on and was stopped by the same woman who said excuse me but where will they be tried and who will defend them? And what if they only need some time in jail?

The Col looked at her and said madam, I assure you that if they shoot at our troops there will be little doubt as to guilt and the fact they are shooting at us is the trial and as to their having a lawyer well instead of shooting at our troops they could just call their lawyer. Baring that they will be dealt with, on the spot and permanently .

Next question? The woman said I’m not done!! Whereby the Col said yes you are, sit down or leave and if you leave then keep going all the way out of town, I’m surprised your still here, somehow you slipped thru a crack. In fact I think the Ecomm. Officers need to find out just who you are and where you’ve been working all this time. “IF” you have been working and contributing to the common effort. At that she sat down and got very quiet.

The Sheriff kept moving until another question was asked by an older man who said, Col is there a place in your troop s for some of us old farts? Followed by a lot of laughter , the Col joined in and said sir, if you can shoot and don’t slow us down you can come along with the main group I’m afraid most of us old farts can’t keep up with the scout teams so we will be slowly driving along to provide heavy back up.

Any of you men who felt you were over the hill that want to come on this little spring break road trip meet with Sgt Major Jenks as soon as we finish here and he will get you lined out.

All the rest of the questions were about logistics and things of that nature, one man asked what the plan was for handling the wounded,

The Col spoke on that a bit explaining that the wounded would be cared for on the spot by the medical corps people trained by the hospital staff and that any badly wounded would be picked up in aircraft for the trip home to the base/town hospital .

The dead would be flown home for burial unless it was just flat impossible and then would be buried for the moment and recorded with GPS for later when it was possible to then bring them home.

This sobered the meeting and the Col called an end to it asking everybody to donate time to helping in any way to get the units ready to roll. Sgt major called out for the old farts platoon to meet him outside by the track field.

After all had left the Sheriff was questioning the woman who was so worried about the BG’s getting a fair trial, it seemed she was a Former public defender and social worker who had strong ties to the old ACLU , but other then that she had been a good worker at several projects and was involved in the day care program, which caused Bart to raise an eyebrow ,he asked her point blank if she was involved in teaching the smaller kids and she said she had tried to be but the staff wouldn’t let her because they didn’t approve of her ideas of what made a “good citizen” which was to coin a word a “Sheeple” who would let the government handle their lives. Bart made a point of seeing to it she remained far away from the kids of any age. But other wise let her go back to her own why of believing, seems she heard the words shut up a lot…


At the end of the week the work was done, all the scout rigs were tuned to the max, fuel tanks full , all were sporting new tires and all carried 2 spares also in each squad of 3 scout trucks there was a forth one ton set up as a supply / repair truck driven by scout qualified mechanics with about every thing needed to rebuild an engine or tranny on the spot . There was a fifth scout rig with a Ma duce 50 cal machine gun mounted in the back and a trailer with spare ammo for it.

With the main group were some 2 ton trucks that were flat beds with grain sides covered with steel plating, inside were barrels filled with sand , between the plating and the sand they could absorb a lot of hits. In the back were more heavy machine guns captured from the Mexican drug / slave dealer they had wiped out. Other trucks carried spare weapons to use for setting up the outposts and last in line fuel tankers .

All was ready on time and the tie to leave was the next day at 0600, advanced scouts were to roll out at 0400 to clear the way if need be.

The night before they left it was a quiet supper at the Davis house hold and as soon as supper was over the young people headed to their rooms. Where behind closed doors the girls cried and then made love to their men and cried some more .

George ,to give them privacy had taken dinner with Jolene and his brother and Joanne , they too were quiet with the thought of the young men leaving for what might be months.

After dinner James and Joanne left for Jims house , without a word Jolene took Georges hand and led him to his truck and then said take me home love. He drove her home and at the door she pulled him in and locked the door, George didn’t go home that night .

At 0400 they were all at the Ranger base along with several hundred others who lined the road from the Ranger base to the place where the groups would split up , half going one way the second half heading the other. With the advanced scouts leaving well ahead of the others there was a break in the flow of traffic .

Matt and his scout Platoon were leading the main body to the south east and as 0400 arrived they started to load up, the girls hung onto their husbands for the last few minutes then stepped back and tried to smile as the men walked to their trucks and mounted up, with a last look Jeff , Matt and Mike rolled away. The war had become very close and personal .

[Trip]

As the advance scout units rolled at a good clip to cover as many miles as possible before the main unit headed out , the air scouts were up and flying ahead of them to spot any signs of life .

By noon they had moved far beyond the areas they had scouted before , upon reaching the interstate they had headed south east at a slower pace, the scout plane called “Bird dog” was covering a lot of ground and had reported some signs of life in the back country but nothing like a small town that was fortified . It had been decided to by pass the very small hold outs for now as a back up team would do a follow up to make contact ,

At noon the convoy pulled over so the bird dog could land on the highway for fuel and to give the pilot a break. A few miles ahead of them was a fairly large town that the pilot reported seemed to be empty but would have to be checked it was only a mile off the interstate and wouldn’t cause any delays .

After the plane was back up they rolled toward their first contact point , after turning off on to the off ramp they headed toward the town , just outside it they found the remains of a road block of cars and trucks , all had been burned and from the looks of it was after a fire fight from the empty cartridge cases found all over and the remains of people , mostly a few bones and rags of clothing , after the winter and the scavengers there wasn’t much . From the looks of it the road block had be over run by a much larger force .

Matt looked it over and said he thought it had been hit by the Mexican bandits they had wiped out several months back . Which made sense but they still needed to check out the town.

As they rolled in Jeff felt chill bumps forming on his arms, there was something about this place that wasn’t right. He clicked the mike 3 times to stop the squad , then he eased out of the truck and signaled his whole squad to get out and move to the rear of their trucks, then his two team leaders moved to him as the rest covered the buildings at the edge of town.

Jeff called Matt and told him they were stopping for a bit and told him why, matt said to hold up and the whole convoy would come in and surround the town.

After a few minutes Jeff’s squad could see the main unit coming up behind them and then eased around them and around the edge of the town, as soon as the place was surrounded they moved in slowly tightening the noose, Then each squad sent a team of four forward to check the out lying buildings , as soon as they were clear the rest moved in slowly, nothing was moving anywhere .

One of Jeff’s 2nd squad members clicked his throat mike and whispered to the open net, everybody ease into cover, we are being watched, with that the troops all faded into nothing, the scout who had spoken said ok I’m going to head toward the place I saw movement be ready to cover me.

With that he stepped out into the open and slowly looking all around moved toward a house a short distance away. As he walked he was so tense he swore he could hear his joints squeak..

Just as everybody was about to relax the trooper hit the dirt half a second before a wild volley of rifle fire erupted fro the house followed by firing from several other homes the Rangers opened fire with every thing they had causing the BG’s to hit the deck. Then the Rangers charged at the houses , kicking in doors they started checking rooms, until at last they came to rooms that were sealed and had reinforced doors , standing in front of the doors to try to kick them open seemed like a bad idea so they held up until the leaders could figure out what to do.

After a bit Matt and Jeff got together and decided to try talking to the people hold up in the houses , Matt got down behind the burned remains of a truck and yelled out . The is Sgt. Matt Taylor ,United States Army Rangers .

we mean you no harm and as of now nobody’s been hurt on our side, if this keeps up and one of my men get’s killed or wounded we will burn this place down on your heads , so how about I walk out in the open and one of you come out here and we talk this over? With that Matt stood up and laid his weapon on the truck hood and walked out into the open.

After a bit a door slowly opened and out stepped a young girl about 15 years old, filthy dirty and half starved looking , she stood looking at him and said, I’m here just don’t be trying to get me outtalk my cloths and don’t be getting no ideas about selling me for somebody’s toy like the last bunch that come here. Matt looked at her and said, wait one, then spoke into his mike and one of the Lady rangers came slowly out of hiding and laid her weapon down , took her hat off and shook out her hair, then took off her cambia shirt to stand in her sports bra, removing all doubt that she was a female, she then slowly walked to the girl and then sat down on the ground and looked up and said Hi, my names Kim and I too am a Ranger. And we are here to help you not hurt you .

The girl looked at her a moment and said, you travel with these men? Kim said yes I do , a lot of us are girls, some not much older then you. The girl looked around a bit and said do you have any food? Yes we do said Kim, she touched her throat mike and said can we set up a kitchen? At that a scout rig slowly rolled into the street and the 4 rangers in it got out and began to set up a field kitchen and with in a 30 minutes the smell of hot stew was pouring out of the big pots on the propane stove on the tail gate, there was coffee perking , Jeff walked out into the open and setting his rifle near to hand got a cup of coffee and walked over to sit down with Matt. The girl watched all this then stood and said I’ll return in a bit.

She walked back into the house she had come from and shut the door, Matt and Jeff were both feeling naked, Matt said, If we make it out of this I’ll promise to not tell Sandy if you never mention it to Sam . Jeff said Bro, I’m not stupid, after Sam finished you off she’d come for me, course Sandy would have me roasting over a slow fire, so…Peace brother !!

After about 20 more minutes the door opened and the girl came back out followed by a few smaller children who hid behind her. Matt asked her to sit down and food would be brought, the kids all sat and he waved the rangers who fixed the meal to bring a pot over, the kids were all handed a bowl of stew and after looking at it began to slowly eat it, proof enough that they were near to starving.

After they had been eating a bit the door opened again and more kids came out and they too were given stew, this went on until there were about 40 kids eating, there was no noise no talking nothing of joy.

Matt asked the girl her name, she looked at him a moment and said it’s Sara Beal , this is my flock , matt said well Sara why not call out the rest so they too can eat. She looked at him in surprise and said how did you know? He just smiled and said because I’d do the same thing you did . The girl looked at him and then waved her arm and slowly all around the Rangers older kids armed with an odd assortment of weapons stepped out into the open they slowly came forward until a boy of about 17 stood by the seated girl , he looked around and then sat down and laid his rifle down . Soon all the Rangers were out in the open and having stew also .

As soon as all were fed matt asked the girl who was in charge she nodded at the boy sitting next to her and stuck out his hand and said Hi I’m matt Taylor , the young man looked at the hand and then took it and said I’m Brian Williams, this is my sister Beth . Matt smiled at them both and said would you tell us what’s’ been going on here?

Beth said after the lights went out and our school bus stopped running about 4 miles from here we all started walking until we got here , since the oil boom ended this place has been almost empty of people but there were a few hanging on , they took us in and we started trying to figure out how to get home but for almost all of us it was just too far to walk so we decided to wait until somebody’s parents found us , which never happened .

As time went by and winter came some of the old folks died off but not before telling us what to do about defending this place . So we started digging from house to house and have tunnels going everywhere .

As time passed we were doing ok when we saw a bunch of cars coming so we hid and waited . When they got here one of the older men went out to see what they wanted and they just shot him, then they called out that they were the army and we had to come out , So we waited until they were all out in the open and we opened fire , they all died way to fast , she said this as a matter of fact .

She continued , we gathered all their stuff, every thing we could use and then made a fake road block and torched the cars, with their bodies in them and made it look like the town was abandoned

Matt asked about why she had yelled out about selling her to somebody, she told them that one of the BG’s was slow dying and wanted help so they made him talk and after his story they had finished him off .

He said they were part of an army from Mexico and they were after young girls and even boys for sex trade also they were selling dope . After that we hid if anybody came here and we watched, but you’re the only ones who figured it out . But that also they hadn’t really seen anybody and never allowed lights at night. The had basically lived like tunnel rats .

Matt and Jeff had an aside for a bit then went back and asked the kids if they were interested in moving to the base or wanted to remain here, the older ones looked at each other and nodded, Beth looked at them and said ok, we will move, and thank you, another bad few months and the little ones would die.

Matt called base and relayed the story and the location and was told to hang loose for the night and a unit would be there by daybreak. So they settled down for the night and for the first time the kids had a fire to snuggle with at night.

Come morning they heard a number of motors headed for them, Jeff sent his truck to make sure it was the base group, it was and shortly they rolled into the small bunch of houses. All the rangers were surprised to see several of the older women and some of the nurses in the convoy, but soon realized that the kids were very responsive to the older granny looking women. And ladies with stethoscopes around their necks were very trustworthy. Somebody at home had a smart idea.

Within 2 hours all was ready for the move and the Rangers followed the base unit to the interstate. With their escort units front and back the convoy prepared to roll, Beth came to Jeff and Matt and said thank you for saving us, and after hugging them both left and boarded the bus brought for this task .

Soon the Ranger unit was rolling to catch up with the main group and the bird dog was above them, so they could let down a bit, by night fall the whole group was together and made night camp together. With a few sentries out they all managed to get a good nights sleep.

Morning found them washing bread and cheese down with hot coffee and ready to roll in a short time, today the plan was to let the bird dog do the hard work while they just tooled along, holding their speed down to a crawl

[Trip]

With nothing to do but ride along and watch the grass blow in the breeze Matt sat thinking, something was bothering him and it was like an itch that can’t be reached, it just wouldn’t go away.

So he closed his eyes and slowly went thru the time since they rolled out of the base, like an old slide show, one picture clicked off at a time thru the hours since they started, he passed thru the recovery of the kids and on a bit when it hit him that it had to do with the kids and their small village , it was like a knot in a boot lace, he had to keep worrying it till it loosened . Then all of a sudden it was there right in front of him. He grabbed the radio mike and told the lead unit to find a safe place to pull over .

After they pulled over and guards out he walked back to Jeff and said walk with me motioning for Mike to join them, after they were a ways away he said have either of you been bothered by anything? Both looked at him for a minute and then Mike said , I’ve been thinking about those kids from yesterday , Jeff nodded and said yea something about that place was wrong but I can’t pin it down .

Matt said ok here’s what was bothering me . First of all where were all the adults? Also just how did they manage to survive? I saw no attempt to garden , water from the old wind mill yea but nothing planted . And I can’t believe this but we never checked a thing about the place, we just loaded up and rolled.

Mike and Jeff both nodded and Jeff said that clears up what was bothering me, which was why no parents showed up looking for their kids ? My father would have walked across this state to find his kids as would any parent . And in that area just where did they all live? There’s no town and farm kids would have headed for home even if it was 20 miles away. Something’s wrong with this picture .

Matt headed for the big comm. unit and told the operator to contact the main Ranger base , when he was in contact he asked for the Col who was there in 20 seconds flat, Matt told the Col what they had come up with and apologized for be so slow off the mark . He offered to back track to check it out but the Col said no I’ll handle it from here and I agree with your thoughts and to be on the safe side I’ll have those kids placed in a more secure location with security personnel on them. I’ll get back to you .
That done the unit got on the road again , in the afternoon the bird dog called to say they were approaching a fairly good sized town about 20 miles ahead and about 5 miles off the interstate. Be aware I saw a road block at the off ramp with some people moving around.

Matt acknowledged the message and told the pilot to stay high and watch as they approached . About an hour later the lead scout unit a few miles out in front called to say they could see the barricade and some people watching them. He told the scout to show the colors meaning the American flag and to hold in place.

He took Jeff and mikes teams and headed out a good clip arriving in a few minutes to find the scouting unit hold up behind their rigs, the team leader said there had been no contact yet.

Matt stood up and taking a white flag on a staff mounted it on his rig and told the others to hold in place, Jeff offered to go but Matt said not this time bro. mounting up with just his driver and two security people headed slowly at the road block at the top of the off ramp when he was about 100 yards away he stopped his driver and eased out of the truck and said I’m Lt. Matt Taylor US Army Rangers !! Can we talk?

A man slowly stood up and walked out in the open he and Matt started walking toward each other , when they met they looked each other over. Matt was looking at a man of about 40 who was dressed like a farmer but was clean looking and sported a neatly trimmed beard . He also wore a cop style pistol belt and had a badge on his chest.

After sizing each other up the man stuck out his hand and said I’m Bill Jennings who are you folks? Matt told him briefly who they were what they were doing and why .

Jennings nodded and said we got an old Halicrafter receiver working and have been listening to the chatter from all over the country so we have a fair idea of what’s going on out there and we heard a bit of your talk between that air plane and your base so we were watching for you . I’m the county Sheriff, or was when we had a county which we never had much of even before the war. Now we control this town and a bit of farm ground outside town .


He told Matt to bring in his patrol that his town council was waiting, Matt said that was ok that they could remain where they were with one exception he walked to his rig and told his comm. man ( who was a woman) to call for Jeff and Mike to come up in one rig to go into town, then had her notify the main group to move out and close the gap.

After the other two were there they all took one truck into the town after a car was pushed out of the way .
Bill Jennings got into an older pickup and led the way, the town had at one time held about 400 people according to the sign at the city limits .

Matt saw that in smaller ways they had mostly done what his community had done , gardens everywhere, people working in them, others doing other tasks .

They arrived at what had been a small community center where there were a lot of people waiting for them, most were armed but looked friendly . After being escorted into the building they met the 3 women and 2 men who made up the town council .

After introductions they each told their story, Matt went first leaving out some stuff like the gun ships and the defenses of the community .

The story of Holden was simple it was a small farm community and county seat , at the time the problems started they had a population of about 500 the sign had not be replaced yet .

After the lights went out , sort of , they still had some lights on and off because the EMP hadn’t been completely successful in shutting down the grid , at least here.

Being a farm community they had a lot of older cars and trucks around, some ran on their own, some needed some work but that was an easy fix. Same for the farm tractors , they had at first waited for the government to step up and help out but after the old transceiver had been found to work they got scraps of news also the lawlessness going on, so they held a meeting and elected officers to lead, got people off their butts and went to work getting the place up and working . They had inventoried all the weapons and ammo and made sure all the people who could shoot were armed, they also built bunkers and prepared for the worse , as time passed their numbers grew as folks wondered in, most were travelers who were stranded, most were welcome additions some were sent packing for one reason or another.

None with children were ordered to move on but were forced to accept that if they stayed they would work and be expected to share in the hardships as well as the bounties of being a citizen .

All in all they had done very well with what they had to work with. When asked how it was they had been bypassed by the Mexican gang they said they had advanced warning from listening to radio chatter and shut down every sign of life and set wrecked cars on the off ramp and burned some and made it look like a waste of time to move the junk. After they had heard the chatter about the big battle they just hunkered down to await what or who was coming .

After Matt explained the Outpost concept the council called a town meeting and after telling everybody what and who the visitors were asked Matt to explain the plan for the outposts , it was accepted with open arms by all . Matt asked about their weapons and found it was mostly hunting rifles and shotguns.

He asked the sheriff if he had many men with military experience and if so how many, he was surprised to find that a large number were vets. But then the heart land had always been the provider of most of the young men who joined the service.

Matt told the people that they had weapons to spare and would work to set up a training program with the Sheriff and his new “army” . After leaving the town meeting matt called the main unit and told them to roll into town and set up at the edge in a small city park.

After settling in for the night matt called in his report to the Col who was very pleased with the results so far and said he would come in early the next day in a bird dog and to meet him at the plane. Matt closed down the unit then and they settled in for the night.

Next morning they were up early getting ready for the day when the Sheriff stopped by and had coffee with them, he was so happy to see coffee that matt sent a bunch to the community mess hall so everybody could enjoy some. He told the Sheriff that his Col was flying in that morning and asked if he would like to ride out to meet him , they took off and got to the highway in time to see the small plane zipping in for a smooth landing, the Sheriff said wonder if I could cite the pilot for speeding? They all laughed .

After the Col crawled out of the tight fitting cabin and twisted the kinks out of his back he told the pilot to go have some chow and relax and walked to where Matt and the others were standing.

After introduction they headed back into the village where they all met in the town hall where almost all the people were, after meeting the council members they all got quiet as the Col brought them up to date on what was going on , where it was going on and who was winning.

He then opened the floor for questions, almost wanted more news of distant cities where their families were, He told them he had no good news from the big cities, that San Francisco was a waste land as was New York due to the two nukes that made life very bad there.

He was asked about other countries coming to our aid, he told them the EMP was world wide and that most countries that could help were busy trying to stay alive themselves .

People ,we Americans are on our on, there will be no UN coming to help us and if they showed up they wouldn’t be here to help us, but rather to take us over so no, they won’t be here regardless if they show up or not .

As for you, you are being given the opportunity to rejoin your countrymen in rebuilding this land, we can arm you better, we can help with some food stuffs and we can bring in some medical help, but it’s not a free ride, those days are over, if you join us you will be a part of the fighting force that rebuilds this country. If you are opposed to fighting for the country then you had best be willing to work in a job that does help, if your so opposed to war that you won’t life a finger to do anything to help then for my part you can starve or freeze your a**off here in the dark. Your choice .

The council members asked to be left with the community members and the Col and his people left to wait outside, the Sheriff went with them, he said Col regardless of what they say, I’m going with you folks , I was in the army 25 years ago and ain’t a spring chicken but I’ll fight. The Rangers started laughing and then had to tell him about the new O.F. scouts when asked what OF stood for they all said Old farts !! And burst out laughing, then told him the story of the old guy who said it in their meeting.

The Sheriff said I’m signing up now and I have some OF buddies who will ask me where and when and how, The Col said well we hadn’t thought about that but I can see that we might send a team here to train your people up and help you get up to speed if your willing to work at it cause it ain’t easy . Done deal said the Sheriff.

The door opened in the town hall and they were asked to come in, The head of the council said well we have a mixed bag here, some want to move to your base of operations some want to stay here and form a sort of roving militia unit to scout out the countryside and a few are flat out against any pact with the military . And also won’t work in any way with your plan.

The Col looked around the room and said well if those of you who wish to move to our base are the ones willing to work with us and become a pert of us then that’s fine but we will not take any of the objectors .

This caused a long haired man with a long beard to stand up and say and why is that man? You represent the government and it’s your job to take care of the people man and it’s our right !

The Col walked over to the man and said uh huh, I see you have your peace signs sewed onto your filthy jeans and you’re a left over hippy I’d say , so no you have no rights to anything from me or us, you have the right to work for food, you have the right to take a bath and cut off some of the filthy growth on your head, you have the right to sit on you’re a** and starve for all I care, but as for having the right to anything from me? I’ll give you a swift kick in the a** but that’s all I’ll “GIVE” you, you can earn a lot, you can receive a lot from us, but the right to anything you haven’t earned by being a part of us, NO !!..Never again. So sit here and starve in the dark while freezing you stupid a**hole while we true Americans get on with saving our country but for what it’s worth when it’s over I’m coming back here and by chance if you have survived I will shoot you myself . I have no time nor use for cowards who want freedom earned by others blood . So maybe you should rethink your position here cause I assure you I will not rethink mine. And the same goes for any like minded of you, there is a new word it called “TANSTAAFL” it means There ain’t no such thing as a free lunch , engrave that on your foreheads people, the free ride ended a year ago, now we all pay the piper. If your not joining us your against us and we will offer no help to you, but we leave in an hour, so those who can live under our way of life prepare to move out those who can’t good luck.

With that he walked out of the meeting and meet with all his people and told the comm. Man to contact base to prepare for sending transport to either move people or bring supplies.

There were some raised voices coming from the hall and some people led by the old hippie left, soon the Sheriff came to the door and asked them to come in.

The Head of the council said Col you’re a hard man but these are hard times and it takes hard people to survive, the man you spoke to was never really a member of this community, him and his people arrived in an old bus covered with hippy peace signs.

We took them in and fed them and for the most part they did work enough to earn their food, but we never had any luck introducing them to soap and water . They built a commune out of town a bit in an old barn where they seem to enjoy their life, I think they grow more pot then food to be honest.

Well said the Col, I figure their days are numbered, so where do your people stand he asked? Do you want our help or not ? Yes we do Col. And the rest of the folks agree with your conditions . We are all true blue Americans, even the elderly will do all they can. And as for the hippy bunch they won’t be a part of this community anymore, in fact I believe if they can get their old bus running they will head someplace else which is fine .

Do they have any children with them he asked? Yes they do, some small kids that we try to feed and care for, they walk to town alone to be fed because they’re to stoned out there to care.

The Col with rage in his eyes turned to Matt and said take two squads out there and remove the children, take no back talk, I’ll get the medical crew moving right now. He looked at the comm. Man who was already talking into his head mike , within about 10 to 15 hours there will be a medical crew here to care for you and yours also trucks with food and whatever you may need give a list to my radio man,

Matt took Mike and Jeff’s squads to the old barn where the stoners lived, they walked in and found the place a vast haze of pot smoke, the people in the stinking place were all zoned out, the kids too, Matt told them to start carrying the kids out, he and the two squad leaders stood guard over the bunch, there weren’t many small kids and all looked under fed, there were a couple of older girls maybe 12 yo , both of whom were watching they got up and came to Matt and said are you taking the little ones? Matt said yes, do you want to go? Both said yes and grabbed some things and tossed them into packs and headed for the door, one of the scraggly trash stumbled to his feet and staggered up to Mike and said hey man, where’s the chicks goin, they belong to me.

Mike just hit him in the mouth with a shotgun butt, that was the only notice paid to them, they closed the door and left, all were fuzzy headed with a contact high but it wore off quickly in the fresh air , the kids were wrapped up in blankets in the truck cabs the rangers road in the back , they headed to the city hall where they unloaded the kids and called in the unit medics to look them over.

After dropping the kids off they reported to the Col who was about to head for the plane, when he heard that Mike dropped one and why, he said did you kick the SOB after putting him down? No sir said Mike, the Col looked at him and said Ranger don’t ever leave a job half done!! He patted Mike on the arm and took off .

There was no more trouble from the hippy camp and 2 days later when they checked they were all gone, none had cared enough to look for their kids . That said it all . The medical unit had arrived the day before and had brought the bus with a ranger squad as protection. They had moved cots into the city hall and gone right to work on the kids first then the locals who needed looking after.

The kids were all being looked after by the whole town and it looked as if all would have homes, the two older girls had been talking to a couple of the
Younger female Rangers and had decided to go back to the main base to get involved with training and to start getting over the way their lives had gone, They said their mothers had just walked off one night a couple of years ago and never been seen again, the men all wanted to break them in but held off for some reason, then one night the guy who had claimed them had stated that they were his property and soon he was going to make them his old lady’s that was a couple of week ago but he had never gotten sober enough to get anything done short of touching them , Mike was all for going back and shooting him but by then they were gone.

Jeff used the radio to contact the base and told the Comm. people that when the girls got there to turn them over to the triplets to care for and to help get them pulled from the shell they had grown as protection.

That taken care of, the town was booming with activity, the men were all armed with AK 47’s with enough ammo to fight a good little war, the men who wanted to join the Rangers moved to the main base for training and several others wanted to go to the base to live and work. The town still had plenty of man power and with fewer people it would be easier on their food growing capabilities , all in all it was a good operation , the Col sent a message saying that when they reached the state line to head back on a different route checking all the isolated towns and then they were to return to base, that there was a new plan developing . This was great news to the new husbands and they were hard put to not speed up to much .

The trip on to the state line was thru the open empty rolling hills that were sparsely populate at the best of time much now days, after they had reached the state line they turned to the north and moved onto narrow back country paved roads, only isolated farm houses sat in the distance, they saw few with signs of life and after looking them over decided to bypass them . Most looked like one family units that were doing ok on their on. They came across a few small towns of 40 to 50 people who were doing very well and who welcomed them and accepted some medical help, some they armed with AK’s some had plenty of weapons, none wanted to move on with the Rangers but all had a few young men who said they were up for training and joining the rangers and said they would make their way to the base in their old cars and trucks, all needed fuel so the Rangers filled all their tanks and moved on.
As the days passed the were amazed at how few people there were living out in the back country , But Jeff said that this area of Wyo. had never had very many people anyway because it took so much land to run cows and there was no reason for towns to grow up in the area and as there were no industry to lure people here was the reason, a nice wide open quiet place to live if you were tough enough to eek out a living.

As the days rolled into weeks they were now heading more or less toward home , all wanted to get there to see their wives and to hear the new plan the Col alluded to but business was first.

They were about 100 miles north of the base area when the lead scouts radio broke into excited voices calling we’re under fire, we’re under fire !!!! Their all around us!! The main unit nailed it and roared down the small highway, toward the scout unit . When they tried calling back they got no answer , coming up over the top of a hill they were greeted with the sight of a large band of men dragging the scouts from their truck, all looked dead, the lead scout truck gunner opened fire with the saw spraying the outer edges of the bunch trying to not hit a ranger, the bunch looked up in shock when the other trucks poured over the hill and opened fire , the BG’s tried to run but were cut down like grass with a mower , at last some dropped their weapons and put their hands on their heads, some kept running but the snipers were out of the trucks and were nailing the runners at long range, only a few looked to have made it to a gully from which the roar of engines and then dust rose up above the gully, Matt sent a full squad after them with a heavy weapons truck trying to keep up , Jeff ‘s squad headed down the hill in a hurry, they found 3 Rangers dead and one a girl slightly wounded , they got the medic to work on her while they checked the Bg’s there were 3 who were taking a slow time dying and 2 that had slight wounds , two of the rangers went ahead of the others shooting the dead ones again with 22 pistols .

Matt looked at the ones who were dying slowly and nodded to a ranger who pulled a 22 pistol and shot them in the head behind the ear , it was called the light switch by the rangers because it really turned out your lights for good and fast .

The Scout team that chased to Bg’s reported over their radio that the BG’s were holed up in a complex of buildings with heavy re-enforced bunkers all over the place and that they were holding back watching from cover.
Matt told them to stay that way and he would be there soon, he walked over to one of the wounded BG’s and asked what the He** was going on. The man just spit at him and told him to get ****** , Matt looked at the Ranger who had dealt with the badly wounded BG’s and held out his hand the ranger handed him the 22 pistol , Matt asked the same question again the man gave the same reply, Matt just shot him in the kneecap, when he stopped screaming he started babbling fast.

Theirs was a bike gang that had been roaming the back roads when the lights went out and most of them had old bikes so they weren’t effected, also they had some old trucks that hauled broke down bikes and bros recovering from fights and wrecks.

As soon as they figured out that the lights were gone for good they raided a small town near where they were holed up, it had a gun store and gas station and a general store, they just took over, killed the men and played with the women till they got bored with them and killed them too, they saved the young girls and a few of the boys the rest they killed , when they got worried about somebody coming along they took everything that wasn’t nailed down loaded up all the wheels they could get running and headed south, they had come across the farm house about a week ago and slipped in during the night and took out the watchmen and took the place over, the folks there were a bunch of holy rollers but they had some good looking women so they repeated the actions of the town, killed the men and old women and were still enjoying the younger women.

When Matt asked about the girls the man said they hadn’t touched them cause there was a big time mex warlord/drug king buying young stuff but it had to be fresh , not used at all, virgins only…

Matt asked him how many men were in the town , the man stopped talking and matt figured the pain had stopped a lot so he shot his other knee, after all the screaming the man said there was about 40 to 50 in the town, that their bunch just happened to see the scout truck coming and decided to ambush it .

Matt looked around for a moment and said load him up along with this one and lets move out . The wounded lady ranger was cared for , she had a in and out thru the shoulder, clean hole the medic said she would be fine and gave her a pain pill and wrapped her in a blanket . The unit moved out and soon came to the over look where the squad team was , looking down on the place matt could see that this was going to be a tough nut to crack , he got on the radio and called base, The Col told him to find a place where planes could land and to hold in place, He sent a truck back a ways to a flat stretch of road and told the Col the GPS on it , 2 hours later they heard the planes arriving over head , Matt sent an empty truck to fetch the boss and then went back to eye balling the farm and the bunkers.

After a bit the Col and Sgt Major arrived, he told the medic to get the lady ranger to the plane for med evac , the lady, girl was more like it said no sir, those bastards killed my team and by god I’m gonna be here shooting when we go in.
The Col looked at her , looked at the medic who nodded and shrugged at the same time. The Col said ok but you rest till we hit them ok? She smiled and said you got it sir and promptly went to sleep . The Col looked down on her and shook his head and looked at the three new husbands and said, well I may as well tell you now, the girls have started ranger training and there isn’t a thing I can do about it. All three looked stunned and Jeff started to open his mouth then stopped , the Col smiled and said yea son I know how you feel …he patted Jeff on the shoulder and said give me some glass’s son.

He then walked over to the over look and stood watching the farm , he had just turned away when a sharp crack of a passing bullet by them, they all stepped back behind the edge . He looked at Jeff and said son get a few of your best shooters and ease up a ways over there in your gillie suits and see if you spot that smarta** with rifle , Jeff pointed to 3 of the snipers then ran for his M1a1 and G suit.
When they were ready they all eased forward behind small bushes and slowly eased the burlap wrapped rifles under the bush, with bi-pods out they watched thru the scopes when they were ready the Col stepped into plain sight and stood still looking at the house , at the count of about 5 or 6 he suddenly dropped just as the rifle cracked again, there was a lot of yelling and happy sounds from below , Jeff hurriedly looked to make sure the Col was ok it was so convincing.

The older man was dusting himself off when of all stupid things several men in leathers came running out and pulling their pants down mooned the hillside, the snipers opened fire and none made it back, it is a fact you can’t run with your pants down around your ankles. This brought a blast of gunfire toward the hill , Jeff watched until he saw a rifle barrel ease out from a window and then the head came up a bit, as soon as the eyes appeared he touched the shot off, the head blew up , at the same time all three of his fellow rangers had fired too and all got their hit.

Now it was wait them out or get a plan to get in, Matt headed back to the two wounded biker trash and asked how to get into the place both just looked at him, the one with both knees shot out was almost out so he asked the other who swallowed and said if I tell you can I go? Matt said nope, but how slow you die depends on your answers .

The man looked at him and said ok, he then explained that the gang had found a tunnel that was just big enough for one man at a time to crawl thru and that it came up behind the barn in a brushy gully . Matt asked if they kept it guarded and he said no, that only a few knew about it and the plan was if they were ever hit by a bigger unit while the rest were fighting it out the leaders would slide on out and had stashed bikes in the gully . Nice bunch you belong to huh? The guy just shrugged and shut up . Matt asked about the girls they were holding the man said they were locked in a room in the basement that had a bunch of veggies in it. It had stone walls and a heavy door.

Matt and the Col and Sgt major got their heads together and came up with a plan of action .

The main unit would open fire full blast with all guns , the big 50’s would hammer the walls to a pulp while this was going on a small team would wait at the tunnel exit for the BG leaders to come thru after that a few would enter thru the tunnel and come in behind the BG’s still alive inside . When they were in the basement and ready they would contact the hill top to stop firing , they would then toss some grenades into the house and bunker doors. If they had to they could fall back to the basement and hold out until the main unit finished the fight.

Jeff and Matt were too big to be crawling around the tunnel so Mike would lead the team in but Matt and Jeff were in the gully raiding party they all had 22 pistols to avoid a lot of noise .

Right on time the doors to h*ll slammed open and fire and brimstone rained down on the farm house , Jeff and the rest looked at each other and just got lower in the brush , they had never heard all those .50’s going at the same time, it was …Awesome!!

After about 20 minutes they heard noise coming from the tunnel, shortly 4 bikers crawled out each dragging a young girl all of whom were scared to death and crying and trying to jerk away but weren’t strong enough too . The bikers tied the girls and started dragging bikes out from a pile of brush. None heard the 22 that turned out their lights , they just dropped, one ranger came out and popped them in the head again then making a shhhh sound at the girls got them moving out of the way , shortly they heard more sounds coming out from the tunnel and out popped another biker dragging another girl he never even saw the 4 dead one before he joined them.

Jeff asked the last girl out if more were coming out she stared at him wide eyed and shook her head no. Matt pointed to Mike’s team and the smallest person who was a female crawled into the hole followed by the rest of the tunnel rats as they decided to call themselves .

After about 20 minutes both Matt and Jeff were ready to head into the tunnel when they heard more sounds coming, they backed off and raised their pistols and waited , soon the female ranger crawled out followed by about 10 girls from about 10 to 17 all were dirty and looked like they had missed too many meals lately but moved well, they rushed to the other 5 girls and stared at the rangers.

About that time there came several sounds that had to be grenade blasts they all looked over the top of the gully and saw several BG’s heading right at them it was over fast. All went down loose and dead . The armored trucks roared down the hill and stopped at the house, several rangers wearing heavy body armor went inside followed by shots soon they came back out and one gave a thumbs up sign.

The Col and Sgt major walked into the house and looked at everything in it, it had been a nice well run place till the trash took it over , A ranger called out for a medic and the Col headed to the back bed room, where he found 4 women all in their late 20’s to early 30’s chained to beds all were naked and showed signs of beatings.

The Col turned and said to the Sgt Major, collect the one who surrendered and the wounded ones we questioned bring them to the front door.

He asked the medic to hurry up and get them ready to move and to bring them out where they had dressed. He went outside and told the trash to line up then waited until the women came out, he looked at them then said ladies do you see anybody here that raped you or any one else, one woman said sir they all did, these here were as bad as the worse of the bad .

The Col looked at the trash and said any of you have anything to say? None would look at him , he asked the ranger in charge of clearing the house if they had removed everything of use , the ranger said yes sir, all weapons and stuff these trash stole or looted is in bags and loaded and we double checked every room . After the dead BG’s had been tossed into the house the Col ordered it fired. They all pulled back ways and two rangers went in and poured gas over the while house then came out and one tossed a flare into the place which went up with a loud whoosh.

The Col then turned to the 6 who had surrendered as well as the 2 wounded , he looked around and pointed to a large tree with a big limb hanging out over the farm yard. Over there with them he said, the 8 were moved over to the tree where several Rangers carried ropes all set with the right knot , the creeps seeing the nooses started yelling about rights and lawyers , the Col stood in front of them and said you lost all rights when you murdered the people in the town you raided, then your deeds here in this once peaceful home put you way past the minus mark for rights, and your raping and plan to sell young girls into slavery put you so far over the line I can’t stand it, I wish I could hang you all 3 times over but I can’t so I’m going to hang you one at a time so the rest can watch you dancing the hang mans dance.

He pointed to the first one who started begging and fighting spitting and kicking until his legs were tied he was then hoisted up on the back of a truck tail gate and the rope placed over his head , any last words asked the Col/ the man was trying to fall down but that pulled the rope tighter, the Col nodded and the truck was driven forward the man started fighting and kicking as he slowly strangled to death , when he stopped kicking the truck backed up and another rope tossed over the same limb, the next man just dropped and had to be carried to the truck where he had to be held up until the truck drove forward he too was unlucky that the rope didn’t break his neck, and on it went until the last one , except the one shot in the knees and the one who talked freely , walked over to the truck and managed to get himself up and on his feet without help.

When the noose was placed over his head the Col asked him if he had any last words, he looked at all of them and said well, I have to say that all my life I’ve been headed to this tree and I never once gave it a thought and I can say that if you hung me over and over I’d still not be even with the man so I guess I can’t complain , but to you Col I will say this, this country needs men like you and your men and it needs a lot of them , the only way to ever get this country on the right track is to do just what your doing right now, so if you don’t mind I’ll just take care of it myself and with that he jumped up and off the truck, at the end of the drop his neck broke loud and clear . The Col looked at the kneecapped biker and started to say finish it when Matt walked up behind him and shot him in the head two times so fast he was gone before he knew he was going. The Col raised an eye brow and Matt said I figured he paid a price and so did this one here he pointed at the one who talked without being shot in the kneecaps who was promised a quick trip, Matt walked over to him and shot him two times they were then hung with the others. The Col had a big sign painted with the words murderers , slavers, rapist . It was nailed to the tree and they loaded up and headed out, the wounded girl ranger was then loaded into the plane and it took off to the base.

The other plane hauled the worst off of the girl’s the rest mounted up and with their dead they headed home . It was a quiet sad road they headed down , and all knew it could one day be them in the back of the truck, but that was the price of freedom and all were prepared to pay it.

[Trip]

After landing back at the base the Col. Called a town hall meeting for the next day.
At 0800 he was standing tall in the front of the hall with his Sgt major as always standing at his left side and back a step.

Almost all the town had turned out because they knew of the fight earlier the day before.
The Col. first said in a quiet voice that three rangers had been killed in an ambush, but most everybody knew that as the families had to be told and word spread.
He then told them that the team had killed about 75 BG’s and that a bunch had been hanged.
This caused a stir in the crowd and then one man started clapping his hands and then the whole room joined in.
The Col. held up his hands and when all was quiet he reminded them that while hanging the BG’s wasn’t a bad idea it still wasn’t fun for those who did it. But that there was no choice. But that he did have an idea that he would run past the Ecomm folks later.

He told them that the team should be rolling in later today or else the next but that there shouldn’t be any contact made with anybody cause the pilots had flown all over the area to scout out any bg’s.

With that he ended the public part of the meeting and joined the Ecomm people in the conference room.

After they were settled in and all had coffee he told them that while he didn’t mind hanging the BG’s they took alive he had a better idea, that they be brought back to the town and put on trial and then put on chain gangs and worked in the fields and green houses, that killing them was to quick of an out for them and that their labor would be worth way more then the effort of keeping them. And with the noose awaiting them they would most likely not be any trouble.

Mrs. Reed being the only lady on the Ecomm group asked if that wasn’t slavery? The Sheriff JB lee said no Sandy it’s always been a practice in this country to use convict labor, this was of course before the left wing liberal ACLU came along and started all the things that led to bigger and more prisons.
That seemed to clear things a bit for Mrs. Reed who was anything but a liberal. She did ask one more question and that was is it worth our time and effort to guard them and feed them?

The Col. Said well yea it is, I have no faith in rehabilitating them but it is possible that some might become useful citizens . I guess we just have to look at it with the thought in mind that transporting them all the way back here would take extra fuel and effort on our part , but it would give some of them a chance of living as opposed to hanging around in a tree. Which got a laugh from JB, the others looked a bit squeamish at the mental picture.

After talking about it they decided that it would be left up to the teams that captured the prisoners and that if they were caught in the act of committing capital crimes then don’t bother with bringing them back.

At 1600 the radio room reported that the Scout teams were half an hour out and the word passed like wild fire.

When matt rolled thru the bunker lines before the bridge all of the guards were standing at attention on both sides of the road.

Matt had his driver pull over and he stepped out and let the next truck lead the way.

As the truck carrying the dead rangers slowly drove past the formation each ranger saluted as it passed him or her. Most had tears running down their faces.

When the rest of the teams passed Matt Saluted the formation and then drove past them.

The convoy slowed even more as it came to the base limits where the streets were lined with people some holding flags of many sizes , all had their hats off and hands over their hearts excepting those who chose to salute as the convoy passed.

When they had reached the School which had become the town meeting center they parked on each side of the entrance after passing thru it. The truck carrying the dead parked in front of the building.
Slowly the parking lot filled with people some walking some hitching rides on flat bed trucks that had become public transportation as long as it was empty, the drivers slowing to pick up riders if they stuck out a thumb.

When the gym was filled the 3 body bags were brought in and laid side by side on tables from the dining hall.

The Chaplin then stood at the head of the middle table and asked for a moment of silence. Then he offered a simple prayer asking that the lord accept these young men who had given their all for their community, country, and family’s , he then announced that the burial would be the next day at 1000 hrs.
All the people filed by the body’s and paused a moment to make a silent prayer and gave thanks for their sacrifice .

After all were gone Matt and the rest once again carried their fallen comrade’s out to the truck and they were taken to the town funeral home. There the attendants were told that it would be a closed coffin service as all had been shot in the face several times by the BG’s.

Jeff and his two brothers in law headed home, they were aware that the girls weren’t at the service and they understood that.
At the Davis home they all unloaded their gear and headed for the door expecting to here the sound of running feet, but when they entered they found the house empty which was a surprise but welcome as they all three wanted a hot shower, so after grabbing 3 cold beers from the fridge they split up and headed to their rooms to do that.

Jeff stood in the hot water with steam swirling around him, feeling the soreness leaving his muscles , he felt a slight movement and arms reached around him and he felt a warm female body pressed against him, he turned and pulled Sandy closer still and held her while just looking at her for a long time before he kissed her. When the water got cool they got out and dried off and went to their bed where they reacquainted themselves.

Later after a nap Jeff and Sandy headed upstairs to find George and Jolene fixing dinner that appeared to be enough to feed an army. After greeting his son George nodded outside and they went out where they found the Col and Sgt Major and Bart , all drinking a beer from a wash tub filled with bottles and ice and a few bottles of wine , after grabbing a fresh beer and a chair Jeff settled in with a groan and slumped down. The Col made a comment about how young men weren’t as tough as in his day, the Sgt major snorted and said S**t Col. You can’t remember that far back neither can I , which brought a laugh to which the Col. Made a rude gesture at his old friend. Which prolonged the laugh. Jeff realized what the two old warriors were doing, they were bringing him back from the gloom of the services for the fallen rangers, and it worked, such was the way life had become, remember your fallen comrade’s but move on , Life must go forward or the price they paid for the living becomes smaller.

Soon Matt and Mike joined the rest and they could hear the girls chattering away like magpies. But soon they too joined the men and opening a bottle of wine each filled a glass, poor George seemed at a loss trying to think of his little baby girls coming fresh and happy from sharing a bed with a man and then settling in as adults and drinking wine, but Jolene elbowed him until he smiled at her and shrugged .

The subject came up about the girls taking the full ranger training course and they began to babble at the same time. All excited about it, Jeff commented that Sandy was so buff that he didn’t recognize her when she got in the shower and he thought he had won the lottery!! Which drew a grunt as his ribs seemed to cave in.
She smiled at him and said be nice sweetie or I’ll really have to hurt you…bad…then laughed and hugged him and kissed him all over his face.

After things had quitted down the Col. Said to the group that his radio team at the base manning the units big radio and scanning all frequencies had picked some chatter in a lower freq that was almost never used by any Military unit and few civilians , It wasn’t like it was secret but just seldom used as were many others.

After the Col was informed he had a second radio set up just to monitor that freq which seemed to have netted a fish, how big of a fish he didn’t know but was going to find out and soon.

He then explained that in two weeks time he was sending out a patrol of 2 squads ( 6 trucks making up 2 squads of 24 people) with a heavy weapons unit and a med crew . For this operation they would themselves use a different band to communicate with base in the assumption that they had been located long before by the “others” as they were going to be referred to on the air to confuse them if they should pick up the freq the scout patrol was using , also they would maintain radio silence except in an emergency in which case they would blast out on the main freq.

The idea was to travel in a westerly direction scanning the “other’s” freq to see if the were getting closer by the strength of their signal . When they had closed the gap on them they would split in two and get far enough apart that they could get a triangulation , not having the third team or time to split into three parts they would just have to do the best they could. The point being to get as close as they could to the others and look them over to try to ascertain their intentions. And then if it seemed to be ok they were to ease in one truck with two people in it to make contact with the rest of the patrol holding back a mile to provide fairly close back up .

The three young men knew what was coming next as did their wives who maintained their silence to everybody’s surprise .George had cringed when he realized what was coming , but the twins + 1 had nothing to say…yet

The Col. Finely looked at the three and said I’m not going to order you to go, you’ve only just gotten home but you’re the best I have and I know I can trust you all three to use your heads and not go off half cocked .

So , Will you accept this job? He then set back and waited while the guys looked at each other , then Sam spoke up and said , Of course their going their rangers and they will do a super job. BUT! We get the next two weeks off to spend with them and they get it off or they can’t go play war for you…Sir .

The Col. Sat back and looked at all three girls, no he thought not girls they are long past that , these are women , strong women and “almost” rangers. No he thought they are the wives of Spartans .

He then answered Sam and the other two, yes of course your all excused for 2 weeks, the Sgt Major and I can handle the logistics for the trip and get the trucks all gone thru in that time , we will expect you three to ask your teams to all meet at the base mess hall in the morning at 0700 is that ok he asked smiling at Sam who cocked her head over and along with the other 2 started that staring back and forth between the two older Rangers until all the men at the same time said “Stop it”!! which cracked up the girls who then high fived each other and poured another glass of wine and toasted each other while the men just sat and wondered what had just happened.

The Col. Having the last word said and before you three young witches ask, no you may not be assigned to the two squads ! Which brought a look of indignation to their faces, Bob asked how could you think such a silly thought Col. Sir? Which got a laugh from the males around the table.

After dinner and some evening talk the Col and Sgt Major left and the rest started for bed, George and Jolene headed to his room which caused raised eye brows among the guys, the girls explained later in their own rooms that it had all happened the day the last patrols rolled out. Which was fine with all of them because their dad needed somebody .

The next morning at 0700 the two squads and Matt were all in the mess hall in a far corner where Matt explained the mission to them and after assuring them all that it was strictly voluntary . And then answered questions as much as he could .

Only one ranger asked to be allowed to stay because his wife was expecting their baby about 2 weeks after the patrol had rolled out . He was of course excused and nobody thought a thing about it. They talked about a replacement for the man and ended up selecting a female ranger that was operating in another squad, she was sent for and when the mission was explained she jumped at it .

The excused ranger went to her squad for the mission duration , that settled Matt told them all to stand down and spend time with their loved ones , several of the teams were single and had nobody to worry about and said they would assist the Col in getting things ready.

With that settled they stopped in the office and asked to see the Col who welcomed them in where they all poured coffee while awaiting the Sgt Major who was attending a dangerous mission of his own . He was at the range meeting with Boomer and keeper to see their latest idea for ending all life on the planet .

When he walked into the office he was covered with dust and was shaking his head when the Col. Raised an eye brow the Sgt just said you don’t want to know…trust me you don’t .

But he then added that between those two they might all be killed one day by default of being within a 10 mile radius of the two dark angles as he had taken to calling them .

He also told the Col. He was late because the Cols. Jeep had to be towed back to base as it now needed a new windshield and new paint and maybe the Chaplin could perform an exorcism on the jeep to be sure .

Now they were all dying of curiosity but respected the Sgt Major too much to pry. Matt sat a moment and said well we could take them on the mission with us…

This got a cool reception from the Col who said Matt the idea is to make contact to forge a common bond, not to start a war with the others due to those two .

Matt said well sir we could maybe use them and they are good at what they do, right sir? After looking at the state of his top Sgt he said well if you think you can control them??? Yes sir we can Matt said and I think they just might earn their keep .

Fine said the Col. Just be careful and make them park the Bat Mobile always from the rest of you at night , say on the other side of a tall hill
which got smiles from all .

[Trip]

The 2 weeks off passed too quickly for the three young couples but they stayed busy, spending a lot of time at the commune with Silas and Ben, working with them on a few projects.

The rangers were surprised at some of the things they saw, the bunker complex now looked able to withstand about anything that could be thrown at them.

The big surprise was the green houses that were in the process of construction , the “Moonies” as folks had taken to calling them in a good way had scrounged every place in the area for glass and old windows with frames, they then framed their structures with lumber and built removable windows that were also double paned . They had poured concrete walls up to a 4 foot height with heavy black color pigment in it to help gather the suns heat during the day, inside they laid black stone work for the floors to absorb the suns heat during the short winter days, they then made quilted drop shades to fit over each of the windows that would help hold the heat at night, each had a small wood heater for added heat when needed . The whole thing was geared to absorb the passive solar rays during the day and use it to keep their fresh foods happy .
When Jeff asked how they had learned all this stuff, Ben laughed and said he had been saving and collection the old Mother Earth magazines most of his life and that none of this was new, it had been around for ages but modern man shoved it aside for modern ways, which were now going the way of the dinosaurs , and the old was becoming the new.

With all the work they had done it was obvious that this commune could grow enough fresh veggies to keep the whole town healthy in the winter, the Moonies also had plans to build more of the green houses at the locations of all the mess halls so as to slow the use of fuels which weren’t going to last at the rate they were using them.

Ben said he was working on a distilling project to make fuel grade alcohol and also a bio diesel project and that by next year they could be self supporting with fuels to run vehicles and that the town auto shops were working with them on the project and that the “Air Force” was interested in making sure their aircraft would be able to use the fuel.

All in all the people of the commune who a few years ago would have been laughed at , scorned by some, and made to feel very unwelcome were in fact among the most respected workers in the town.
As the day approached to begin the operation all the young couples were becoming more inclined to be alone and spend their time in private as had men and women throughout history in time of war.

On the last night before they would leave they decided to hold a big dinner party and invited all their extended families .
The guys were in charge of procuring the meat and Ben and Silas were in charge of the fresh foods .

The girls were baking breads and pies and cakes which surprised their man who while thinking them very beautiful rangers didn’t know that they had also been learning to be good homemakers.

A trip to the Warehouse garnered some steaks from the freezers where all the beef that was consumed in the town was now hung to cure and then cut and wrapped by the butchers of the town .

It was commented on by many that the quality of life in the town was better now then before and crime was nonexistent because everybody knew each other and all were armed that wanted to be, which was most of the town.

With everybody working together there was plenty for all and nobody was hungry or cold or even having to work to hard, the older folks did what they could, when they could and nobody thought a thing about them taking off for a nap in the afternoon, in fact on the real hot days most of the town adopted the afternoon siesta approach of the people further south.

The dinner brought out Bart and his wife and children and uncle James and Joanne, now married , and the Col. And Sgt Major , who surprising everybody brought lady friends !
Nobody commented on how the Sgt Major was like a little boy around Angie his “friend” who was close to his age and just about as tough as him .

The Col’s lady friend MaryAnne was , surprising nobody , one of the single lady’s who had decided to work in the Ranger mess hall , she was a widow who’s husband had been killed in the war . Which war wasn’t clear but most assumed it must have been Viet Nam as she and the Col were about the same age , she and the Col. Seemed to be very comfortable in their skins and happy with the arrangement and all were happy for them. the dinner was a huge sucess and all refrained from talking about the forthcoming mission.

It was hard for George sitting back and watching the give and take of all these people how much he had missed in life with Marge due mostly to her attitude about everything. He looked at his beautiful daughters and his newest daughter Sandy and felt only a growing pride at how they had grown so fast and so well and true and all three were an assett to the community as a whole,He wasn't to sure about them doing the Ranger thing but kept his mouth shut mostly because everytime he started to open it to say something Jolene kissed him and shut him up, which he decided wasn't a bad way to stop an argument, maybe diplomates should kiss more often which made him laugh out loud and spit beer everywhere, everybody looked at him and he just shook his head and coughed while Sandy pounded his back. he decided to keep that thought to himself.

After the mess was cleaned up and all the goodnights were spoken hugs exchanged the Davis clan all headed to bed to share the last night for maybe a long time.

[Trip]

The Scout rigs were loaded , all were in top condition , extra fuel stored in a covered pull behind trailer . Another trailer held extra ammo and food . It had been decided that their rollout time would be well before the dawn to further confuse any possible watchers while making it appear like any other scouting patrol .
After heading out in a north easterly direction they would travel slowly until they reached a road running west which was their intended direction.

Matt’s rig was in the middle of the group and a lone scout was out in front about a mile , The Bat truck as they called it was bringing up the rear as a matter of safety,the old state highway was in bad repair but they still maintained a good pace , their goal was to cover the several hundred miles to the search area then slow down and ease into the area as quietly as possible.

The first 2 days they traveled thru country they had scouted on other missions and were able to move freely , after the second day the Col sent out a bird dog to over fly the road ahead so they could move at a good pace ,this was the plan until they reached the point where the bird dog was using half his fuel just to reach them before having to turn back, there had been thoughts of refueling the plane on the roadway but it was decided that at this point an air craft was a give away to their plan so they were on their own . They still made good time thru the empty country, they saw signs of life every day at remote ranch’s and farms , they made contact with some of the people who were the folks who had lived in the area before the war , they had mostly come together for safety and to co-op in feeding them selves, most seemed content with their life style . It seemed that several small towns had pretty much done what they themselves had done on a smaller scale but were well organized and well defended .

When they approached anybody they had the colors flying proudly and were generally welcomed without to much suspicion . Most folks were starving for news as many had no working radios , when told the whole story many wanted to join the outpost system, a few young men and women wanted to join the rangers, the patrol would then call in the location and the base would send in a heavy patrol to set the outpost up and set up a comm. link. Some folks didn’t want anything to do with the war or the government and were left on their own , some wanted to know why FEMA hadn’t shown up yet and when the government was going to come in and take charge, but those were in very small numbers, most felt they were truly free of the Gov. for the first time in their lives and liked it this way. Nobody blamed them a bit, they were the types who said, ok the lights don’t work, so lets get to it and help ourselves and then did it. They were all doing well and needed little help, all were well armed as was the norm for this part of the country and most didn’t expect any handouts from anybody .

While moving west they did meet people who said they knew there was some type of group further to the west because they had some form of short wave and were able to hear them, and all said it sounded like a military group due to the way they communicated more professional then say the good ol boys chattering back and forth on cb’s that were still working. But nobody knew who they were or where they might be as there was never a reference to any location .

So day after day the patrol moved further west with their own comm. People scanning the air waves. They had been out for 2 weeks when they hit gold so to speak , there was a short transmission on the same freq they first heard the others, it wasn’t much but they could tell it was closer and decided to set up a base camp and would post 2 LP ( listening post) several miles out from the base and in that manner for a triangle sort of and then wait.

Their wait was short as they started picking up chatter almost right away and it was for sure some force with military gear and training as the short bursts were just a few words and usually a double click of a mike to acknowledge the message, this was the norm for military and police units in the days before the war.

After correlating the information gained from triangulating the signals they figured they were within 200 miles more or less and needed to keep moving west and maybe a bit south as they were further north then when they started as they were also scouting the area as they went .

At daybreak on the 18th day they headed off across country which was mostly grassy high country plains , they could see cattle everywhere as fences fell or were knocked by the cattle or heavy snow, by now the cattle were wild and mostly had never seen a man or a vehicle , to preserve their rations and to change their diet Jeff picked out a fat calf and knocked it down with a bolt gun with a suppressor on it, compliments of the ranger armory , that evening they had fresh steaks and wrapped the rest to have the next day as that was about all they could expect without a cooler , but with over 30 hungry troopers it wasn’t going to waste that was for sure .

The next day they saw a sight to make one smile, BUFFALO !! Hundreds of them moving slowly grazing as they went , young calves were running around butting heads and in general just being kids. Matt said to Jeff , you know in 20 years if it stays like this we will be living in the old days as it was before.

Jeff watching the young Buffalo said it might not be a bad thing , maybe life would be better if we could roll back the clock on some of it, think? Before Matt could answer they saw a man on horse back moving along with the herd but well away, just keeping pace like he was herding them along. But that wasn’t it because Buffalo go where they want not where anybody else wants.

They had eased back off the ridgeline and were glassing the man who looked like a cowboy from the past. They kept a watch until the herd and man road out of sight and then decided to sit in place for a day then follow the path the herd made to see where it headed.

That evening they ate early then moved on after dark to a spot better suited to spend the night in unknown country, with guards out they all hit their beds early and had a quiet night.

The next day they sent one vehicle out to follow two scouts on foot who had moved out an hour earlier and were flanking the spot where the herds path was very plain in the soft grassy plains. The foot scouts switched off at noon with the follow up rig and the new foot patrol moved out while the rest had their noon break.

By late afternoon they had cover only a few miles as the herd was moving at it’s own pace but the rider had disappeared , after a bit of looking they cut his trail and decided to follow him.
The next two days were spent slowly moving cross country with the foot scouts out a couple of miles ahead of the vehicles, they were still heading in the same direction as the radio signals seemed to come from so it wasn’t out of their way.
They saw that they were climbing up into the lower foothills of the mountains with pine and fir trees becoming thicker making it harder for the vehicles to follow in the foot prints of the scouts as they were having to move around more and more areas that weren’t open to vehicle travel.

After another night of no fire they moved out and almost immediately lost the horseman’s trail, they found where he had built his fire and ate , it was clear that he had banked the fire for the night and was settling down when the scouts dropped back to report , but they found no spot where he had rolled out his bed roll . They knew then that he was aware of being followed and had slipped away after dark and headed up into the rocky country where following wasn’t possible, Matt and Mike and Jeff the squad leaders talked it over and after consulting their map saw that the rider had held to a straight line course until he took to the hills , so they decided to keep moving in the same direction .

Late in the afternoon the radio in the scout cars came to life with the foot scouts who were out about a mile breaking radio silence, the radio man asked for Matt to come on, Matt replied and was told by an anxious sounding trooper to come up to them and to bring only one vehicle and one other person then the radio went off the air.

Matt and Jeff looked at each other and Matt said well bro lets go see what’s got you boys spooked. Jeff agreed and both got into Jeff’s truck after having the others get out.

They slowly eased up to where the scouts trail led thru the grass and trees when they eased over the hill they met a sight that stopped them in their tracks and left them with open mouths.

There sitting on the ground were the scouts , their weapons were laid a few feet away. They were unharmed and both looked around with relief when they saw Matt and Jeff stepping out of the scout rig keeping their rifles pointed down .

There in front of the was a sight to behold. At least 20 Indians right out of a movie sat their ponies with the breeze fanning their tails, all were armed with modern weapons but also lances and bows .
The strangest sight was the man in front who was white, looking like he was right out of 1880 and sitting a big black horse, his big hat shaded his eyes and he had what was called a gunfighter mustache that covered his mouth and drooped down both sides . He wore a gun belt loaded with shiny brass rounds and a old lever action rifle sat butt down on his knee .

The Rangers could only stare at the sight in front of them feeling like they had driven thru a time warp. Nobody spoke a word, Matt watched as the breeze moved the eagle feathers adorning the hair of some of the Indians who’s hair fell to their shoulders . Some of the others were dressed more like the white man , all sat with rifles on their knee or across their thighs , none were smiling but none looked hostile either.

Finally Matt took a step forward and said I’m Lt. Matt Taylor, this is Sgt. Jeff Davis . United States Army Rangers. And you sir ? he addressed the white man.

The man just stared at them as if they were from another planet. Then said in a slow quiet voice , you boys got any money? Matt was taken aback with that but said well yes sir we do.

The cowboy said well before we get to bein all friendly like I spect you best be payin me for the calf you killed and ate a few days back. Seein as how times is changed I figger you own me 25 dollars . How’s that sound? Matt and Jeff looked at each other and shrugged and Jeff took out a 20 and a five and handed it to Matt who held it out. The man smiled and said son that crap aint worth the paper it writ on.

Before Matt could open his mouth he heard the sound of another horse being ridden pretty fast . All the heads turned as the rider burst over the top of the hill.
The two rangers were stunned to see a beautiful blond woman ride up to the cowboy and grab him by the bandanna around his neck and shake it.

She then turned to the young rangers and said please excuse the lack of manners being displayed by these silly men and my childish husband !

My name is Mary Buck, this fool is my husband Joe Buck and these are his partners in crime ,our ranch crew and a few friends of theirs who think it’s 1880, welcome to our ranch. The men all looked like kids looking to hide.

[Trip]

Well sir, time just stopped for a bit there on that hillside in Montana, the Rangers were all staring at the blond lady who it seemed had a lot of power over these men, and some slowly started easing their horses back like they were trying to sneak off, but this Miss Mary lady froze them with a glare that seemed to bring winter to the air.

She looked around and said you boy just stay right here cause if even one of you sneaks off I will be telling you know who!

Well to the Rangers it looked like they all turned to stone, even the horses tails seemed to stop blowing in the breeze, Matt wanted to look up and see if the Hawk that had been overhead was stopped in mid flight but he found he didn’t think moving was a good idea.

At last the Blond let go of her mans scarf and shook her head back and forth and said I swear I never seen such a bunch of children in my life!

The cowboy looked as if he was about to say something but decided to just sit there in defeat.

Mary looked around and then pinned a look at one of the Indians dressed like a cowboy and said, Tom I swear if you keep allowing this [censored] fool to drag you into things like this I’m not going to let you two play together anymore. The object of her look turned red which was quite a thing to see !! Seeing as he was an Indian!!

After a bit she seemed to relax and said now, all of you except Tom and this little boy here go about your work, you wild Indians go hunt some meat or whatever you do all day besides follow this throw back to bygone days, with that the hill emptied like smoke blowing before the wind. just poof and they were gone.

The Rangers all just stood there and looked at each other and wondered if they had really seen this or were all dreaming..

Mary looked at them and snapped out, Now!! Which made the rangers jump, I want you men to follow us home and we will have a nice lunch and talk over whatever brought you here and smiled a smile that melted all of them, they were all in love in an instant, even the fairly newly weds!

Matt made the hand signs to mount up and told the comm. man to call up the rest of the troops that they were to keep sharp but nobody to fire a shot for any reason.

After they were rolling slowly along behind the 3 horseman Matt blew out a long breath and said what do you guys make of this??

Jeff just sat there and tried to believe what just happened, at last the youngest ranger in the rig said God I hope she has a sister!! Which made them all bust out laughing, Jeff said, ya know Matt we need to never let the girls meet this lady , that would be a bad thing, Matt looked at him and said I agree!

After about an hour of slowly grinding up and down the rolling hills which were covered with cattle and buffalo they came over a hill and there spread out in the valley was a beautiful ranch, built on a fast running stream, a horse heard was grazing in the valley on the far side, with what looked like a bunch of boys riding around the heard.

The Female ranger in the rig said Oh my God!! It’s like a fairy tail of the old west! I love it! The guys all just nodded.

They pulled into the ranch yard where Tom the foreman told the drivers to park near the barn and showed them all where to wash up and then he headed to one of the houses.

Mary and Joe came over and asked the team leaders to come with them, Matt, Jeff and Mike all trooped along behind the couple to the ranch house.

When they walked into the home they were all blown away with the place, it looked like a movie set, including the big bearskin on the floor in front of the fire place.

There was a rifle rack inside the door where Tom stood his rifle and motioned to the rangers to use it too, they were a bit slow about it and Tom just laughed and said boys if we weren’t friends you wouldn’t be here in my home, that settled it so they too racked their weapons.

After shaking hands all around Tom confessed that he had staged that little joke and that it was fun till Mary showed up and that she had a way of ruining his fun, from the back of the house came her voice saying , Joseph !! I heard that!!

She then walked in with two children toddling along with her who when seeing their dad both squealed and ran for him, tripping over each other and falling down and then struggling to get up again and race to him.

Matt and the other two looked at the way the man and the kids related and all smiled and saw his whole persona was one big show.. He was rolling around on the bear rug with them crawling all over him laughing.

It was something the younger men had not seen and realized if their wives saw it there was going to be a big war to see who could have the first baby which scared the hell out of the young rangers.

Mary brought in a tray of iced tea and sandwiches which looked wonderful to the Rangers , but Matt said I’m sorry but I have to make sure my men are fed before I can eat . Mary smiled and said well Matt that’s wonderful of you and shows you’re a good leader, something that sometimes is lacking around here…causing Joe to look sheepish but Mary went on and said the foreman’s wife and the other ladies were feeding your men and ladies before I even got these made so please. Eat!

They all dove into the food with gusto causing Joe to remark it was no wonder his calf had gone down so fast, Mary gave him that look and he just chewed a lot…the rangers were figuring out just who really ran the place.

After eating Mary asked what brought the US Army to their little bit of the world.

[Trip]

Matt sat there thinking how much he should tell and watched a smile come across Mary’s face and he just started talking, he told the entire story of their base/town about the battles with the road trash and slavers which made Joe sit up and ask a few questions then Matt went on, at the end of the tail Mary and of course Joe knew all there was to know.

Matt sat there and felt his face turn red until Joe said with a smile, Son don’t let it bother you, she does it to everybody regardless of their gender, she’s really a witch!! Which earned him a smack on the back of his head and a laugh from the twins who were tearing apart their sandwiches and throwing them to a big rather mean looking dog, who to the young rangers seemed to be smiling at Joe, but none of them said a thing and it was obvious Joe was biting his tongue to avoid making a peep.

The Rangers all wondered what it was this woman had that made men both act like small boys caught in the cookie jar and run like hell to do anything she might ask of them.

Jeff had a question and cleared his throat as a means of saying he wanted to speak, Mary turned the smile on him and he felt like he was under a scope, but bravely went on.

Miz Mary when you met us out there you mentioned somebody as She whose name shall not be mentioned??? Joe sit right up and said NO!! never mention her …ever. She really is a witc……… which is where the hand found his head again. He looked mad but they all knew it was something else.

Mary said well one of “OUR” ( looking at her husband) dearest friends a wonderful lady named Spring Morning, and she has a wonderful way about her that seems to bring out a response in some people , smiling at her man who was red in the face and looked to be again biting his tongue, while glaring at the dog who was still seemingly smiling…

The Rangers were all thinking this was a strange, but very nice couple, and that while Joe seemed to be a cantankerous sort was obviously deeply in love with his wife. And the twins were as cute as their mom was beautiful, on the surface things seemed to be wonderful here on this lonely ranch.

About that time Tom knocked on the door and came in and nodding to the men addressed Mary, he told her that his brother in law was dropping out to meet the visitors, Joe asked if he was alone, Tom got a look and said uh no I think my sister in law is coming along.

In a flash Joe was up and grabbing his hat telling Tom they needed to ride the south fence, he almost made it to the door when Mary said, “Boy’s” we have company and more coming, why don’t you just sit down and entertain our guests while I make sure all the ladies are on the same page as to dinner tonight? And then smiling a sweet as butter smile walked out the door saying and Joe, I can here smoke falling all the way to the houses…

The men just sat there and stared, Tom asked what happened and Joe pointed at Jeff and said it’s his fault! He just had to ask who the “She” was who wasn’t mentioned… Tom looked pale and asked Jeff if it was true, Jeff could only nod. Tom sit back and looked like a man who was waiting for the firing squad to reload.

Matt asked if they could talk about what was going on in this part of the country but Joe said lets all go out and sit on the porch and get comfortable while we can and all your questions will get answered when the Col gets here.

The Rangers looked at each other and shrugged and followed Joe and Tom out onto the porch.

After they were all settled in with Joe and watching his son pour dirt over his sisters head which got him a smack on the head just like their mom dealt out to their dad, the little boy didn’t seem fazed by the smack and proceeded to do it again which caused a brawl which ended when Mary came across the yard, shaking her head and looking at her man with both a frown and a smile… picking up the little girl she sat her in Joes lap and handed the boy to Tom who seemed delighted to hold the baby 0hile the boy fought to get down and won and was soon back in the dirt playing .

To the young rangers it looked like a wonderful life here in the valley, so far they hadn’t seen any sign of anything that looked like a war had been fought in the nation and was still going on.

All three were sure there was more to see and learn but were happy to just be out of the bouncing trucks for a while.

Matt was dozing in the deep chair when Jeff said his name, looking around he saw his commo. Man walking over to them. Matt got up and met him half way and talked quietly for a few minutes then came back and sat down and resumed his nap.

Jeff and Mike both knew it had to be a message from their base opcenter with questions and orders but didn’t ask. Knowing they would be told in time.

After about an hour they could hear the roar of incoming vehicles and weren’t to surprised to see Military vehicles coming into the yard, while they were painted a strange camo pattern to Jeff both Mike and Matt knew in an instant that the new arrivals were Marines, all stood up and as the first Hummv stopped they watched a very big very black Marine Col step out, all three snapped to attention and saluted causing Joe to shake his head and look at Tom who was getting up also.

The Col walked over to the three Rangers and returned their salute and nodded at Tom while looking hard at Joe and said well it’s good to see that “some” people haven’t forgotten their roots, which cause Joe to burst out laughing, before the Col could shake hands the door flew open and Mary came out and threw a big hug on the Col. Asking where his wife was, he nodded at the Hummer and then the door opened and out stepped a very slender beautiful Indian woman who seemed to float to the porch she moved so gracefully , Tom and Joe both jerked their hats off which surprised the three rangers who decided to do the same.

With that the lady walked up to each Ranger and looked deeply into their eyes and then smiled and said Welcome to our land, and hugged each which was a big surprise, she then turned to Joe and tom and said boys something tells me you’ve been bad, have you??? Neither could speak and just smiled small smiles which caused the big Col to burst out laughing a deep belly laugh then say Joe Joe Joe, when will you ever learn?? And you Tom must you follow the sinful ways of the demon white man? Which got him a look from the woman which didn’t seem to bother him as he was used to it.