Indivisible (Overlooked by Liberty) (32 page)

      
Al looked around at the corpses littering the floor.  "Yes, sir."  He began sifting through a man's side-pack.

      
"Can I give up?  I'm just a reporter.  This isn't my fight!" Morrison protested.

      
Chaos stopped and looked at him.  "I thought you wanted to be in the thick of it?"

      
"But I don't want to die."

      
"Find something white and give it to me, but I can't guarantee you won't get shot surrendering."

      
Steve feverishly took off his pants to get to his underwear--the only white thing he had.  The reporter was reluctant to strip the dead.  Chaos placed the briefs on the tip of a Masada.  He poked it out the opening for all to see.  "You might want to put your pants back on," Chaos instructed to Morrison.  "There might be some females down there."  The jittery reporter noticed and complied.

      
An Army Regular yelled up, "It's okay.  The Armdroid is off."

      
Steve frantically gathered up his equipment in a knapsack.  "You're not coming with me?"

      
The Southerner answered flatly, "No."  Chaos turned to Al.  "You're not obligated to stay."

      
"If you're not going, I'm not going," the chubby Missourian answered.  He pulled a red memory disk from his side-pack and handed it to the reporter, "Give this to my niece, Chelsea.  Her name and address is written on the disk."

      
"When you get down there," Chaos told Steve, "tell them we're going to stay and fight. Don't say how many of us are left."

      
"Reporters are neutral.  I don't have to say anything."  Steve stopped before leaving and put out his hand, "Good luck, guys."  He shook Al's hand too.  Then he added regretfully, "I'll see you on the Evening News."

      
"I hope you find what you're looking for, Steve."

      
"Oh, I have my story."

      
"I was referring to home," Chaos concluded.  "You'll know you're home--"

      
"--when you're willing to fight for it."  Steve finished the familiar refrain with a restrained smile, waved goodbye and crawled out the opening.  That statement continued to haunt him.  Always on the move, Morrison hadn't formed commitments.  He had few friends.  The alliance with the rebels had been bittersweet, mutual survival the skilled mediator that bonded them.  Steve regretted walking out on them.  He couldn't look back.

      
Two soldiers escorted Steve Morrison to the base of the slope where two other Army Regulars were bunched up, one of them the commander of the squad; the Armdroid controller was in a world of his own with visor and command pad.

      
"Hey, I know you, don't I?"  The radio operator gawked at Steve.  "I've seen you on the news."  Morrison's red hair made him more memorable than other journalists.

      
"Yes.  I'm a reporter."  Steve cautiously pulled out his press card and displayed it to the officer in charge.   The commander promptly found his electronic note pad and slipped the card in its slot; Steve's picture and statistics came up on screen.

      
"At ease, gentlemen.  He's the real thing."  The soldiers stopped pointing weapons at him.

      
"Are we ready to start up again?" the Armdroid controller asked.

      
The commander asked Steve, "They're not surrendering?"

      
"I'm afraid they're not," Steve muttered.

      
Two troopers huffed and puffed up the slope carrying an elongated, plastic crate.  They sat it on the ground and flopped down beside it.

      
"How many up there?" asked the commander to Steve.  He noticed the reporter's hesitation.  "Doesn't matter."  The commander unlatched the crate and pulled out a rocket.  "Let's get 'em, soldiers."  He ordered the women who had escorted Steve down the hill to take a couple of rockets to the front line and prepare them.  Then he ordered the privates who lugged up the crate, "Get your asses over to each side.  The rebels might be sitting back hoping for help from somewhere, I don't want to be caught by surprise."

      
Steve Morrison watched the two women pick up the missiles and lug them out of sight in to the thick undergrowth.  Something gnawed at his stomach.  He had been with the Mountain Boys for five months, through danger and ecstasy--through desperate times with seemingly no escape.  He had always thought of himself as an unbiased reporter; yet familiarity tainted that self-image somehow.  Steve had not found the Mountain Boys to be the bigots his colleagues made them out to be.  Looking down at the red disk case Al had given him, he realized how real it was.  He read the name to himself,
Chelsea
.  It seemed as though everyone had someone but him.  Steve thought a moment, then spit out his gum.

      
"The women got there, sir," the Armdroid controller reported to the commander, "I can see them out my back ports. They're setting up the rockets."  The controller heard a thud and a grunt behind him, the words uttered, "You know you're home when . . . . "  He turned to look.  Steve cracked the controller across the side of the head with a rocket tube.

      
Steve Morrison's hands shook as he lifted the visor off the stunned Armdroid controller.  He studied the visor screen to see who encircled the Armdroid.  The controls were so easy, a child could figure it out.  He set the weapon to scan and shoot at the sloped side instead of the bunker.  Then Steve pulled the headset off, yanked the fiber-optic cord from its housing and smashed the command pad.  After a second of silence, the Armdroid began shooting Army Regulars behind it; the monster had turned on its own.  Steve thought of the two women who delivered the missiles,
God, what did I do?

      
Other than their skirmish with the kids, the Feds still thought Colebrook residents were neutral; meanwhile a group met at the American Legion Hall.  Mrs. Larson's faction wanted to fight, even though the Federal troops in town had been alerted and had scattered the Abrams tanks.

      
Harvey Madison and the older veterans at the meeting still spoke out against joining the fight with the rebels.  Harvey had the podium; the American and New Hampshire flags hung side-by-side on the wall behind him.  Neither group really knew whether the Mountain Boys or the Feds had the upper hand in the battle.  Government casualties flooded Colebrook's hospital--now a makeshift medical facility for wounded.  But the U.S. Government had the numbers to spare.  Madison's argument went well.  The bombing of Balsams Resort began the conflict; the Mountain Boys' preempted raid started the battle.  And the resulting casualties brought the notion of mortality closer to heart.  Mothers and older vets of the audience paid closer attention to Harvey's pleas to halt the fighting.

      
Vanessa Larson became impatient.  She tramped up to the podium and took the mike from him.  "Hold on here!  Aren't we going to get to hear the other side?"  Harvey leaned over to respond in the microphone.  Vanessa elbowed him in the shoulder.  "It's my turn.  This isn't about God and Country, it's about community, the rights of communities across the country to live in peace without oppressive government keeping their thumb on us.  It isn't just us.  Communities have been fighting for freedom off and on for years--all over the country."  She pointed toward Dixville Notch.  "Those Mountain Boys up there aren't just from New Hampshire and Vermont, they're from all over: Pennsylvania, Virginia, the Carolinas, Boston, Missouri, you name it."  Mrs. Larson stopped to take a breath.  Tears ran down her face during her speech.  "Those boys up there are fightin' for us."  Her voice finally cracked, "I don't care what the rest of you do, but my Josh and my Sam didn't die to look down and see you folks sittin' on your asses."

      
Harvey Madison stood by, waiting for the right moment to intervene.  He couldn't gauge the audience response; they sat looking beyond Mrs. Larson in stunned silence, maybe because of what she said, or possibly because of the events whirling around them, he couldn't tell.  Some in the audience cried.

      
"Like I said," Mrs. Larson said as she stomped to the exit at the back of the room, "I know what I'm doin--" she froze when she turned around to finish her sentence. 

      
Colebrook residents gazed to the front of the room.  Harvey turned to see what everyone looked at: Thad stood in the door behind him, bare-chested and smeared with dried blood.  He held the Pack 220 flag, a reminder of what had been lost in the Massacre. 
His very presence would sway the group to fight.  Harvey knew that; the silent gesture convinced even him.  There are things worth fighting for; community is one of them.  He walked up and hugged the expressionless boy.  "What have you done, Thad?"

      
A Volvo station wagon sped past the Abrams tank that sat in front of the Philbin house.  Mrs. Larson hit the brakes and spun 90 degrees.  Revving the engine, Vanessa drove the car head on into the front of the tank.  She got out holding her bleeding forehead with one hand and pointed a 22-caliber revolver with the other.  "Get out of there!  Get out of there, now!"

      
Soldiers near the Philbin house aimed their weapons at her.  A private in the tank uttered, "That bitch is crazy.  Are we supposed to take this, sir?" he yelled to his Captain.

      
More townspeople followed, some by vehicle, some on foot.  Harvey had grabbed the U.S. and New Hampshire flags from the Legion Hall.

      
Tiffany noticed Thad among the group.  Astounded, she uttered, "How'd he get out?"  She had already talked to the commander about her interview with the boy.  "Sir, what are you going to do?"

      
Both groups pointed weapons at each other.  The commander rubbed his stubbled face and tried to decide.  "I know one thing: We're not going to shoot the people we came up here to defend."

      
Tiffany pulled the pad from her side pouch and held out the note for the captain to see.  He had read the statement before but this time the stark print became an ominous threat:
"THE GHOST PACK HAS SWORN TO FIGHT THE FEDS UNTIL THEY GO, OR UNTIL THEY HAVE NO ONE TO RULE."

Dixville Notch, New Hampshire

      
With the Pack 220 flag mounted in the corner, Harvey Madison drove the lead tank up Route 26 toward Dixville Notch, at times topping fifty miles an hour with the sixty-one ton Abrams.  Vacant jeeps, left behind by officers and messengers, littered the roadside; victims of Masada snipers dangled from open doors--some sprawled on the ground.

      
A Mountain Boy stepped onto the road and waved down the tank carrying the Pack 220 Colors.  A message had been lasered up from an earlier lookout describing the tank activity.  As insurance, a motor-gunner sat in wait at the road's edge, ready to cut a hole through the armor of the Abrams.  Harvey stopped and opened the hatch.

      
"What's going on?" asked the rebel.  He looked uneasy standing in the open.  With clear skies, they were easy targets for the Federal satellites to shoot down on them.

      
"I'm Harvey Madison.  I'm in the Colebrook Covenant.  We got these tanks for you, and we need to get to Max's deer camp."

      
The rebel was skeptical that an older man had captured a tank; most elders in the community hadn't been enthusiastic about the cause.  "How did you get them?"  He glanced at the motor-gunner hidden along the roadside.

      
"The troops in Colebrook just took off.  They found out about the first Dixville Massacre and lost their loyalty to the military," Harvey answered.

      
The rebel still thought it looked suspicious--until Thad forced his head out the same hatch.  The rebel recognized him.  "Thad, you with them?"  The boy nodded yes.  The sentry finally waved a halt signal to the motor-gunner.  Harvey's story about the Colebrook outpost of troops pulling out surprised the rebel, "Is their communications center south of town still up?"  From the communication center, Federal troops could beam signals to a satellite for additional air support or supplies.  Loss of that link would isolate Federal troops, transforming them into a less adventurous bunch once they realized they might not have backup.

      
"I don't know," answered Harvey.  Thad tugged on Harvey's shirt as a reminder.  "Listen," Harv continued, "Thad needs to get an important message out."

      
"Can you run that thing?"

      
"Somewhat.  It's a little different from what I'm used to, but I'm learning."

      
The rebel climbed the tank.  "I'm Bondo.  We'll signal around and let everyone know you're in the area."  To Thad he said, "Can you and your brother guide him up to Table Rock."  Thad turned back to Harvey as Bondo spoke; he didn't have a brother to communicate for him anymore.  The rebel continued, "We'll laser in coordinates and use the gun on this thing to take out that communications hub down in Colebrook."  Thad nodded yes and edged below.