The Caliphate Invasion Page 10

  Kadush. The short wing of the machine above burst apart, showering them both in shrapnel, but Kat didn’t care. She just gawked on as the enemy craft tumbled end over end and plowed tail-first into a sand berm nearby.

  Twenty yards to her right, Mr. Smith dropped his Rocket Propelled Grenade launcher and climbed down from the hood of a truck. He sauntered past them on the way to the wreckage and tossed Kat a sheepish grin.

  “Sorry it took so long, but I had to hit it just right so there’d be some salvage value.”

  “Salvage? Who cares? We’ve got casualties!”

  “Aren’t there always? But if we can learn something, maybe we’ll have fewer next time.”

  While Smith rooted around the remnants of the crashed ship, Kat searched the surviving vehicles for the biggest weapon that might let her feel safe again. After everything she’d witnessed, none of the large-caliber pop guns impressed her anymore. She fought the urge to rush over and check on the wounded. There were enough people on that detail. Instead, she only indulged in a whisper over her squad net radio while she secured the perimeter.

  “How’s Atkins? Is he the only one hurt?”

  Kat was taken aback at Michaels’s robotic, professional voice. “He has a bad abdominal wound, but Roland says he’ll make it. We have four more walking wounded, but all minor stuff. Nothing too serious. Guess we got off pretty light.”

  Captain Dore cut in and cut off their palaver. “Keep your head’s on tight, people. Michaels, sort through the surviving vehicles and pick eight in the best shape to take with us. We’re leaving in five mikes. Kat, fall in on me. Let’s go see what Smith caught.”

  By the time Kat and Dore ran up the dune, Smith and a pair of troopers had already pried off a hatch of the crashed ship. They ripped out and passed around exotic parts like frenzied grandmothers at a hot yard sale. Master Sergeant Tamayo, the unit’s designated armorer and Dore’s second-in-command, kicked something too heavy to move.

  “Just look at the placement. I’m telling you, the laser is a secondary weapon. These two boxes are their main armament. They’re some type of souped-up machine guns, but not so space-age.” He measured the muzzle snout. “Eight millimeters. Pretty close to the same caliber as ours.”

  Tamayo slid back a latch underneath and peered inside. “Only difference with this gun is a complete lack of moving parts. Clever bastards. The only moving piece is the bullet.” He stood back and shined a light as everyone shoved their faces into the breech.

  Smith snapped some quick photos. “Reminds me of the Metal Storm weapon program. I know it was canceled, but wasn’t that similar to this? Was supposed to use an electrical charge instead of a pin to ignite the propellant. The idea was to increase the rate of fire by orders of magnitude.”

  Tamayo pulled out a stick of a hundred shells rolled together like pointy dimes. “Nah. Metal Storm is to this what a flintlock musket is to my assault rifle. Just look at these rounds. There’s no brass, no propellant. This thing is essentially a miniaturized rail gun.”

  Captain Dore whistled. “That explains the absence of muzzle flash. Damn, talk about a game changer. What type of muzzle velocity could they achieve with this?”

  “Well, sir, assuming these liquid-filled muzzle brakes have some exotic recoil suppression properties, a safe bet since they’re freakin’ glowing blue, then probably whatever they want. Like a dial-the-yield kinetic energy function. Of course, they don’t even need to fire at full force. This likely has a rate of fire of thousands of rounds per second…”

  Kat stepped in and waved her radio. “Hey, I hate to be the one to break up this gun-nerd stroke fest, but those civilians are shitting bricks. Can you disconnect one of these weapons and carry it with us? Maybe mount it on a Humvee?”

  “Well, sure, but without duplicating whatever magical power source they’re using, it won’t do us much good. This thing needs a helluva lot more juice than any conventional generator could supply.”

  Captain Dore pointed at one of the few Iraqi vehicles left standing, a flatbed truck with onboard crane. “Then take the whole damn ship. We’ll figure out how to make things work later. We need to get the hell out of here.”

  Day Three

  Interstate 75

  5 miles northwest of Gainesville, Florida

  Dixon and Rachel crouched behind the tailfin of an Airbus jetliner. The rest of the scorched remains littered the cow pasture in every direction. One hundred yards to their west, on the northbound lanes of Interstate 75, another jumbo jet had better luck landing. The airliner left a dozen wrecked cars scattered in its wake, but the plane seemed fine. The emergency exit’s inflatable ramps were deployed. Someone had even popped open the luggage bay.

  Rachel whistled. “Talk about a traffic jam.”

  The southbound lanes were a Mobius Diagram of metallic chaos. Untold thousands of vehicles, whether heading north or south, twisted together in one chaotic cluster stretching to the horizon in both directions.

  “You know, it’s not the devastation that creeps me out. I guess I’m getting used to it, but where the hell is everyone?! There aren’t even bodies lying around.”

  Dixon raised his captured M16 and scanned the six-lane freeway with the 4x ACOG scope. He found a handful of corpses through the lens, but didn’t bother pointing them out to Rachel. Most were elderly folks who must have found the stress and heat too much, but not all of them. At least one bloodstained body was out there.

  The dead man wore a Highway Patrol uniform.

  Dixon dug around and forced some pep in his voice. “Well, you can tell from the crushed grass that plenty of them wandered off back into Gainesville.”

  “Perhaps. Maybe they were picked up by whoever swept this place with a bulldozer.”

  “Huh? Well, I’ll be… You’re right. Can’t believe I didn’t see it.” The southbound outer shoulder and far right lane were scrapped clear. It was obviously a recent and hasty development. Abandoned vehicles, luggage, scraps of tires and even a corpse… everything had just been shoved onto the grass.

  A distant grumble grew louder, proving the effort wasn’t wasted. Dixon raised his scope to the north in time to catch six semi’s crest the horizon. The convoy barreled down the clear lane at breakneck speed. They could afford to waste the gas, since the truck in the middle hauled a fuel tank. Quick as they rushed by, the convoy still wasn’t fast enough to get out of danger.

  Three State Trooper patrol cars raced up the nearest off-ramp and blocked the lane half a mile ahead of the newcomers. The grinding screech of air brakes filled the air, but the police cars stood their ground. The lead semi driver stopped his rig and jumped out before the rest of his convoy rolled to a stop.

  “Look! Cops. Thank God. We need to—”

  Dixon wrapped an arm around Rachel’s waist and pulled her down. He hissed in her ear. “Wait. Something’s off. Only two of them are in uniform.”

  The lead driver must have noticed too. He yanked some hand cannon out of his waistband. Before he could do anything stupid, one of the cops fired a warning shot. Other drivers and a few passengers poured out of the semis, all packing a shotgun or pistol. One of the supposed state troopers called out on the squad car’s intercom.

  “Everyone: stand down. We aren’t thieves, but a state of emergency has been declared. We need to inspect your cargo and possibly requisition humanitarian supplies. You’ll get receipts for whatever we take.”

  Dixon and Rachel couldn’t hear the trucker’s response from a few hundred yards away, but they didn’t need the details. With a raised middle finger, the lead driver climbed back into his cab.

  The narrow strip of open road was too small to turn around on. Unless they were going to drive in reverse all the way back to Georgia, there wasn’t anywhere for the convoy to go. With the way the civilian axillaries waiting behind the uniformed officers toyed with their weapons, pushing forward was suicidal.

  “Crazy bastards!” Dixon couldn’t pry his eyes away as the first two tru
cks pulled to the side. With an ear-splitting screech, they wedged their rigs against the abandoned cars and opened up just enough space for the third truck to pass.

  The five-thousand gallon fuel tanker revved its engine several times and inched forward. The driver crouched so low that Dixon only saw a pair of knuckles on the steering wheel. One of the civilians with the cops shouldered his shotgun, but a State Trooper knocked his gun away before he killed them all.

  The policeman kicked the tire of his cruiser and sagged his shoulders. He climbed behind the wheel and moved his vehicle out of the way before clicking on the intercom. “You win. You all can pass, but you’re going to regret this. Some of the checkpoints farther south are much more desperate and itching for a—”

  Something zinged over Dixon’s head. The car’s window shattered and the trooper slumped over the seat, motionless. Dixon slammed Rachel to the ground as more rounds cracked over their hidey-hole and headed towards the highway.

  “Shut up and play dead!”

  Dixon tucked the rifle under his body and scooped a few handfuls of dirt over both of them. He didn’t have time for more. Several sets of boots thumped around their corner of the wreckage, all shouting as they blazed away at the cops. Dixon didn’t move his head, but he risked peeking his left eye open.

  On the other side of the Airbus’s tail fin, a khaki-clad knee rested in the blackened soil only three feet away. Dixon snaked a finger against Rachel’s face to stop her panicked breathing before she gave them away. Her lips were perfectly still.

  He was the one on the verge of hyperventilating. The harder Dixon tried to hold his breath, the faster his heart pumped. If these attackers knew there were witnesses around… the newcomer suddenly cursed and opened fire.

  At the highway though. Spent brass clinked off the plane’s aluminum tail and landed on Dixon’s head. One scorching piece rolled down the back of Dixon’s shirt and stung his neck. He twisted his head to the side, hoping to dislodge the bronze casing fused to his skin.

  The pain vanished as he caught sight of the interstate. The surviving cop and his civilian deputies took cover behind their vehicles and returned fire. The firefight was rapidly turning into a stalemate.

  Until the fuel truck took advantage of the chaos and hit the gas. The tanker had almost cleared the cops when one of the attacker’s rounds slammed the driver’s door. The truck jackknifed as the dying driver struggled for control. He somehow managed to straighten out, but not before the trailer scrapped against an abandoned cement mixer. Dixon just closed his eyes as gasoline gushed out of the ruptured tank and soaked the gunfighters.

  The mysterious shooter to his left whooped as the sky went black. A shockwave pelted Dixon and Rachel with dirt a second later.

  “Let’s go, boys! It’s payday!”

  Dixon opened his eyes and propped up on an elbow as the last attacker charged the interstate. The squad cars were blown a good ten yards off the road and lay in mangled wrecks on the grass. Some charbroiled chunks of meat with bones sticking out were the only trace left of the cops and their civilian deputies.

  “What now?” Rachel sat up, but didn’t get on her feet. She coughed as the wind blew the acrid cloud in their direction.

  “We thank God for giving us smoke cover and get the hell out of here.” He ignored the sporadic shooting as the marauders swarmed the remaining semis and just yanked Rachel to her feet.

  “Peter, it’s a massacre. There’s women in that convoy. You’re just going to let this happen? Can’t we at least try to call more cops?”

  Dixon mounted his bike and held Rachel’s up for her. “Rachel, shut up and get the hell on your bike.”

  He turned his face away so she couldn’t see his shame, but his callousness snapped her back to reality. She hopped on and followed him farther south through the debris field. They found a quiet crossing a half-mile away from the slaughter, but had to walk their bikes through the traffic jam. Rachel pulled abreast of Dixon and huffed at him.

  “How can this happen so fast? It’s barely been three days and people are killing each other over nothing! I thought you always said we wouldn’t slip back into the Dark Ages if the shit hits the fan? What happened to your great theory that people will always band together in the face of disaster?”

  Dixon picked his bike up and stepped over the median’s guardrails. “Oh, they will. They are, just look at what happened. It’s only anarchy from a distance. Society follows the same natural laws as the rest of the world. Some new force will always fill a power vacuum. Mankind has a deep, instinctual need to cooperate with others and work together… just not necessarily for good.”

  He threaded his bike between debris and worked his way into the woods on the western side of the interstate. “Let’s just get out of here before an even larger militia comes along.”

  Rachel followed in silence, for all of five seconds. “Do you really think so? This is worse than any of your end-of-the-world fantasies. How much more organization can there be among the survivors?”

  “The bigger the disaster, the stronger the biological urge to find safety in numbers. And the larger the group, the tougher the leader must be that rises to the top.”

  He snapped his head around at gunshots from the distant city of Gainesville. Those were no random rifle blasts, but sustained machine gun fire.

  “Not to mention the more desperate his followers will be. Believe me, Rachel. We haven’t seen nothing yet.”

  Day Four

  “Mother Gaia Homestead”

  10 miles west of High Springs, Florida

  Rachel rolled her eyes as Dixon buried their only weapon in a shallow hole behind some scrub palm. Dixon wiped his hands, thoroughly blistered after a few days of hard pedaling, and shuffled back to the road.

  “Don’t start. We can always come back and get the rifle later. Believe me, this isn’t the type of party where you want to show up armed. Not that kind of crowd.”

  “Are you sure this is the right place then?”

  Dixon grunted and kept trudging up the hard-packed dirt road, walking his bike the whole way. Despite his longer stride, Rachel had no trouble matching his ageing pace.

  “I mean the right place for us. You’ve been hyping this collective or whatever up like the ‘promised land’ for two days, yet you don’t seem relieved now that we’re finally here. We can always turn back. There must be plenty of abandoned houses up for grabs in Gainesville. All sorts of food and stuff lying around. What’s the point of coming way out to the boonies?”

  “Rachel, think it through. Just the two of us, scratching a living out of a ghost town? We won’t be the only people with the same idea. We’ll have to sleep at some point. Or what if one of us gets sick? We’re sitting ducks all by ourselves. Easy pickings.”

  He could tell he wasn’t getting through to the invincible teenager. Dixon changed tack. “Besides, maybe they have some cute cowboys your own age, huh?”

  “Believe me, that’s the last thing on my mind. All I care about is getting something real to eat. Or even better, a hot shower!” Dixon grinned at her. It was hard to tell in the fading dusk, but he could have sworn she blushed a little.

  “Either way, the important thing is to get off the road. If we’re going to do anything more than just survive, if we want to rebuild and have a life, then we need something you can’t scavenge from any ruins. We need to be part of a community—”

  An arrow thwacked into the dirt at their feet. Rachel bolted, but Dixon grabbed her and forced them both to freeze.

  “That’s just far enough, you two. The arrow’s only a cheap warning shot. We have plenty of rifles tracking you. Turn around right now and no one gets hurt.”

  Rachel balled her fists with four days of pent-up rage. “Who the hell are you? Why don’t you step out of the shadows? Too scared to face an unarmed girl and an old man?”

  A large man’s silhouette stepped out of the woods, but he kept the fading sun at his back. He had a compound bow strung up a
nd held at the low ready, the string half-cocked back. At a range of only 10 yards, that broadhead arrow would strike with the same kinetic energy as a pistol round.

  “Darling, if you don’t know who we are, then you sure as hell don’t belong here.”

  Dixon resisted the natural urge to yank Rachel back. He put his hands up slowly, careful not to provoke anyone with an unexpected movement.

  “We aren’t bandit scouts or refugees. I’m just looking for my cousin, Neil Dixon. He invited us to visit, back before everything happened. I’m Peter and this is Rachel. He’s expecting us.”

  The sentry oozed skepticism, but his bow slipped down a tad. “Neil never mentioned he had a cousin. Much less invited anyone. This isn’t exactly a bed and breakfast inn, you know? Okay, what does Neil look like?”

  Thank God for Facebook. Dixon described the occasional photo he’d seen posted over the years, but never bothered commenting on.

  “Fine. You get a chance to come up and say your piece. Leave your bikes, keep your hands high and stay in front of me. At least double-arm interval.”

  Dixon complied quietly, not daring to push his luck, but Rachel found a new outlet for her frustration and prodded the towering sentry. The big bow looked like a toy in the blonde man’s massive hands and the hatchet in his belt only highlighted his Viking ancestry. Rachel craned her neck to stare up in his face.

  “What are you scared of? Can’t your snipers cover us? Or are they as real as your courage?”

  He followed behind them, still with his bow at the ready, and let out an exasperated chuckle.

  “My, aren’t you a charming young lady? Just shut up and walk.”

  ***

  A few minutes later, the woodland trail opened into a large clearing on the banks of the Suwannee River. Rachel sighed at their new sanctuary. There must have been a hundred acres of cropland cleared out, most of it already planted, but the only animals around were a pair of horses and a handful of sheep. Well, them and a million cats.