Dark Grid (26 page)

The three Sergeants behind Mallory smiled to themselves, each for their own reasons.  Yeah, they’d gotten him, and not in a bad way, but the man was good, he really, really was.

Mallory didn’t release him to his ease, “I have just completed a tour of this facility, Sergeant, and I must say, I am shocked, Shocked at what I have witnessed.” 
How thick do I spread this on?  He can’t think I’m mad, not really.  He knows I’m not stupid, and he knows how well he’s done.
  So instead she was just silent for a few seconds, and she watched him. 
Wow, he isn’t even clenching his jaw!  He’s not fighting a smile, he’s not sweating anymore, he’s blinking but just barely.  I wonder if he’s exhausted and just can’t feel right now.

“Sergeant, in my wildest dreams, I couldn’t have expected you to get this much done with ten times the people and twice as much time.”  Still no reaction, maybe he’s broken.  “At ease.”

Kyle changed his stance, and took a little deeper breath.

“Ramirez, how in the world did you get so much done?”

“Top, not getting it done wasn’t an option.  We had people who needed to be out of the Armory, and those people needed a place to come to.  We had trucks and drivers who wanted and needed a place to come to, and they needed a place to park.  I’ve never believed in ‘We don’t have time to do it right the first time but we have time to do it again’.  You and I know that’s BS.”

“In our line of work you do it right the first time or you die.  I’ll be honest with you, I can’t believe we haven’t lost a limb or a hand or even a finger to the chainsaws or the mills, but we haven’t somehow.  No fires, nobody crushed or run over, nobody fell into the holes we were digging or got buried under the piles we were pushing around.  No, I’m not going to knock on wood either, because that’s BS too.  It’s not luck, because luck is just skill and preparation meeting opportunity.”

“We got it done because not getting it done wasn’t an option.  Every single person here has done some pretty amazing stuff, including the kids.  Just the fact that the older ones are keeping the younger ones out of trouble is a huge help, and they are doing it without being asked.  You know that Joel came up with the saw mills; Terrence here is a carpenter and is already working on what to do with some of this wood outside of flooring and plank siding.”

“Those are just two specific examples based on where we’re standing right now, and frankly everyone is doing their level best to do the same, all because it absolutely had to be done.  Failure was, is, and will not be an option.”

Mallory had kept her face impassive up until this point, and although her face didn’t split in half with the grin, it was a genuine, teeth showing, happy smile.  “Sergeant Ramirez, thank you.   The job done here has been phenomenal, and you are to be commended.”

“If you truly wish to remain a Staff Sergeant for the time being, I don’t see any reason not to grant that wish, foolish though it may be.  Although ‘Them’s that do the best in combat see’s the most combat’, as it were.”

“Thank you, First Sergeant, I appreciate that.  The ‘thank you’ that is, and the remaining a Staff Sergeant part too, I guess, although I think you were kidding about that,” Kyle quirked an eyebrow.

Mallory made the universal ‘You’ll never know, will you?’ face that all women are either born knowing or learn from that special book that only girls get to check out from the library.

Kyle started to roll his eyes and then stopped himself.  Best not to push it, he was on her good side, maybe he’d try to stay there for the rest of the day at least.  “Thank you again, Top.  I’ll absolutely pass it on.”

“I know you will, Ramirez, after all, ‘there must be some reason you’re still a Staff Sergeant’.”

Interlude Three

The fires in Washington DC started earlier than elsewhere, but not by more than a few days.  It seems to be endemic to the human situation that when things don’t go according to plan, people riot.  Riots almost always lead to fires, either by accident or by design, and then things go from bad to worse when there’s nobody there to put the fires out.  In June of 2012, there was nobody there to put the fires out.

Mrs. O’Leary’s cow cannot be blamed for the fire that virtually destroyed Chicago, although it took substantially longer to burn the second time around.  Over one hundred and twenty separate fires were started inside the ‘Loop’ alone, and within twelve hours they had grown and merged with other fires throughout the city that would burn for almost two weeks.

Fort Worth, TX on the other hand, was gutted in less than eight hours by what was most likely a relatively small number of fires that started in the stockyards.  The stockyards in Fort Worth were still actually being used as, well, stockyards for livestock.   An untold number of cattle, horses, sheep, and goats were killed in addition to the almost literal burning to the ground of the entire city.  Contrary to popular belief, a skyscraper
will
melt if the fire is hot enough.

Denver, St. Louis, Salt Lake City, New York City, Cheyenne, Tulsa, Minneapolis, Nashville--they all suffered the same fate as almost every other major city in the U.S.  About the only structures that survived the fires were those made of stone or bricks.  Even then, brick buildings didn’t necessarily make it through.

To a lesser extent, the outlying areas surrounding the major cities were also affected by fires, but while entire neighborhoods were lost in many cases they were also spared in far more cases as neighborhoods aren’t always right next to each other.

While the loss of infrastructure was staggering, the loss of life was even more so.  Where the initial death toll was near 1% of the population or approximately 3.2 million people, the number of deaths caused either directly or indirectly by the fires during the first two weeks approached 13% of the pre-event population of the U.S., just over 41 million people. 

On the heels of the destruction of what little infrastructure remained came the inability to get any type of clean water and the introduction of airborne illness.  This was not a pandemic or a tailor made virus designed to wipe out the human race; it was simply the type of illness caused by things left to rot in the hot summer sun.  As human beings we need food, water, and shelter to survive.  As a civilized society, we’ve come to rely on a relatively clean environment and quick access to competent medical care as well.  Without our anti-microbial soap, hand sanitizers, and antibiotics our bodies don’t know what to do with the world around us and another 6% of the pre-event population was lost over the next month.

During that same month, more and more of those that remained began banding together for protection, to consolidate and conserve resources, to maintain a sense of community, and to attempt to restore some sort of order to the chaos.  Anyone who had any sort of survival plan in place, regardless of how rudimentary, and had at least attempted to implement it early on, had made it out of the major population centers before things came completely unraveled.  Those who waited longer found that they had waited until it was too late.

Chapter Twenty-Six

At about 10:30 in the morning on June 22
^nd
, two days after the Armory had been mothballed, Mallory’s portable radio squawked to life.  “Alpha Six this is Delta Two, over?”

Mallory responded right away, “Delta Two this is Six, over.”

“Six, your presence is requested at Comms for a discussion with a civilian group looking for a new place to call home.  Over.”

Wonderful.  How many are there? What can they do? Do they bring anything with them or are they looking for a handout? Are they going to be a fit, or even made to fit?  “On my way, be there in a couple, over.”

“Roger, Two out.”

Ever since the encounter with the group of semis at the weigh station, they’d been monitoring the citizen band, but this was the first time someone was sending out a specifically worded message for someone to pick up.  A small group was broadcasting, looking for “the military group from Nashville”, wanting to join up and consolidate.  It was the first time the base was being approached but she was sure it wouldn’t be the last.

Mallory walked into the tent just as the third repetition of the message finished.  “What have you got for me Sergeant Yates?”

“Well, Top, like I said it sounds like we have a group that wants a place to call home.  They aren’t broadcasting a huge amount of information yet, including size of their party, current location, etc. but that just makes sense with too many other folks potentially listening in.

“We haven’t responded yet, as it’s not my call to make.  We’ve discussed the eventuality but we don’t have a SOP for it yet and you said you wanted to be called directly if it happened.”

She’d really hoped to have more time than this, but it never seemed to work out that way.  “Ask me for anything but time,” Mallory said under her breath.

“Napoleon may have been a nasty little prick with an ego the size of the Alps, but he had a decent grasp of logistics…at least at the beginning.”

“That he did, Yates.  That he did.  Get my platoon Sergeants to the command tent for a pow-wow, and reply that the message has been received and that an additional response will follow in one hour.  If nothing else we’ll tell them to hold tight for another hour.  Now the fun begins…so much for boring.”

Afew minutes later, everyone was seated around a folding table in the command tent.  “So,” Mallory began, “the main question is how big a force do we send to meet with said group, and how do we bring them in, if we bring them in?  We’ve already established the fact that we are going to require them to become productive members of our little community, and we’d like them to bring
something
to the table.  We don’t have hard numbers for ratios of men to women to children, that’s why one of you needs to go along on the first few of these meetings to make that judgment call.  Suggestions?”

Halstead was nominally senior, so he went first.  “As this is the first group we’ve encountered, and we don’t know how they are situated yet, I’m already operating under the assumption that they are all traveling in a group and don’t have any leadership that would be able or willing to meet with a representative from us.  I would personally want to find out how large they are, meet that with a 25% increase in numbers and a sufficient force multiplier in hardware, and arrive at the designated meeting place ahead of time, prior to letting them know where that place would be--after proper recon of course.”

Mallory nodded, “Go on.”

 “If we did that, we could either determine what they had to offer and allow them to accompany us back on the spot, or we could reject the request, also on the spot, and have a sufficient force to deny any attempt to follow us.  I really think the show of force would keep them from trying too terribly hard when we told them ‘No’, too.”  Stewart looked at Jackson, who took up the train of thought.

“The first several of these groups looking for a place to go are likely to be fairly desperate, whether or not they have something to offer.  Picking the time and place, arriving ahead of time, and then letting the group know where to meet us will protect us in the short term.  We’ll need to let word get out that we aren’t ambushing people though, somehow.  We’ll also need to try to keep a lid on where we are for a while, too, otherwise we’ll just have people showing up, which could get hairy real quick.”

“So, exactly how much time have the three of you put into this behind my back?” Mallory asked.

Halstead smiled and answered for the three, “Actually, none.  It’s logical though, and it’s really no different from an unplanned evacuation of a friendly village or town in a hostile area.  As things start to settle down, groups will begin to coalesce, and we’ll probably have people willing to send ambassadors to meeting places to discuss coming in as a group.  We’ll need to have our people scope out the area beforehand, and we’ll probably have a totally different SOP for it, but I think we’ve got the basics for today or tomorrow ready once we get numbers from the group who called in today.”

 “Sounds like a plan.  Do we have a formula or are we going to make that up as we go along too?” Stewart asked.

“We’ll swag it.  I told Yates to tell them we’d get back to them in an hour and it’s been all of fifteen minutes.  I don’t want to appear too eager to meet with them.”

“So you make us suffer.  Nice.  You sure you’ve never been to OCS?”  Jackson asked.

“Far as you know.  I’ve trained more snot-nosed six-month wonders than I care to recall though, that’s for sure.”

“Amen.” All three platoon Sergeants chorused.

“So, numbers, how many of what…”

…

After the initial radio contact had been made and communications had been established, it was reported that the group only had twenty-five people.  Although time had not been on Mallory’s side, Mr. Murphy didn’t appear to have paid a visit yet, as the group had four couples and five families.  The youngest child was seven years old and the group at least claimed to have skills and a willingness to work and contribute.  They could provide tents and clothing for themselves, and all but one of the men had a serviceable firearm they were willing to use in defense of the base.

Three squads were sent out to secure a meeting area, as the initial assumption that the group was unwilling to separate and send out an advance meeting group had been correct.  Halstead, once again being nominally senior, drew the short straw and accompanied what he hoped would be a welcoming committee.  He also hoped it would be a short meeting, as full ‘battle rattle’ was
hot
.

There were eleven Humvees and LAVs parked in a semi-circle when the nine cars, trucks, and SUVs of the group looking for a new home showed up.  None of the heavy weapons were aimed at the incoming vehicles but they were menacing nonetheless.  Once all the vehicles came to a stop, everyone got out and three men and a woman came forward.  Halstead and three others met them in the middle of the slightly lopsided circle.