John Ringo: When the Devil Dances

Up to this moment his resistance to the Posleen had consisted of telling the babe in the SheVa gun where they were. When they’d first gotten word the Posleen were coming up the pass he’d sent the wife — he only called her “squaw” when he wanted to get her really mad — up the road towards Knoxville. Then he’d gotten out his militia radio, his four wheeler and his rifle and headed up onto the ridges.

Now, though, it was looking touch and go. He hadn’t been able to see much of what was happening in the Gap, but the columns of smoke made most of it pretty obvious. He knew a spot where he could get a bead on the Posleen. But that was going to involve a technical violation of the laws of man.

In the rush to enact legislation at the beginning of the crisis, one of the big debates was over formation of militias. Finally the Congress had passed laws that effectively repealed most of the anti-weapons regulations that had grown up, substituting a series of laws to “regulate the several militias.” One of the laws had to do with militia boundaries, in that no member of a militia “formed in one territorial area should pass for militia purposes into another territorial area without the clear wishes of the government of the second territorial area.” What they meant was that if a group of, say, Virginia militiamen were practicing, they shouldn’t go into Maryland.

Unfortunately, the bureaucrats of the Bureau of Indian Affairs correctly interpreted that to mean that there would have to be a “Reservation” militia and the militia of the rest of North Carolina. And, technically, the only area that one Thomas Redman, sergeant in good standing of the North Carolina Cherokee Tribal Milita, could make war on the Posleen in was reservation territory. And he was just about to clear the reservation line.

A series of not particularly funny John Wayne movie jokes went through his head as the four wheeler crested the last bit of rock and rumbled onto the Blue Ridge Parkway headed to cut the Posleen off at the pass.

“Y’all better WATCH out!” he yelled to the night. “This Redman is off the reservation!”

“Sir, I’m in contact with Eastern Command,” Kitteket said, tapping rapidly for a moment then stopping.

“And what’s the word?” the colonel asked.

“I’m still giving them our situation, sir,” she continued, tapping again. “I have to set up the words three letters at a time, then wait for them to transmit then set up the next set of three letters. It’s a real pain.”

“We’ll get that fixed in the next upgrade,” Pruitt said, scrolling his tactical map around. “Assuming we’re here for the next upgrade.” Things were not looking so hot.

“Okay, what about the Posleen around Dillsboro?” Mitchell asked.

“That’s looking pretty bad. They’re having some trouble with the torn up road and about half of them headed up 441, but the rest are headed this way. There’s also a huge buildup across the river. The scouts can’t get a good estimate on the numbers in there, or they don’t want to believe their math. Either way, it’s a lot.”

“ETA?” Pruitt asked.

“About an hour, the way Posleen travel,” Kitteket said. “I’m telling Eastern that, too.”

“Oh, the hell with this,” Mitchell cursed. “No more Mister Nice-Bunny. There is no reason we should have to worry about getting overrun with Posleen. Pruitt, we’ve got three more rounds of area denial, right?”

“Yes, sir,” the gunner said. He tapped a control and the turret began to track smoothly to the rear. “And there ain’t no humans to worry about back there. Up on three one-hundred kiloton nukes, at your command… Sir!”

“Kitteket, find out where the main concentrations are and an estimate of where the leading forces will be in… oh, ten minutes,” Mitchell said. “And find out why it seems we’re the only ones fighting for this pass!”

The Blue Ridge Parkway is one of those American icons, like Route 66 or the Appalachian Trail. It runs along the crest of the Blue Ridge, which is really a series of smaller mountain ranges, from the Great Smoky Mountains in North Carolina to the Shenandoah Valley in Virginia. Along the way it passes through some of the prettiest, and most rugged, country in Eastern North America. Running, as it does, along the spine of various ridges, it is not easily accessed. Nor is it usually the quickest way to get from Point A to Point B.

But it was as good as it got for Thomas.

He’d gotten up on the parkway near Woodfin Creek, using a little known track that connected to the old parkway, and then up the hill onto the new one, and now was closing in on the Gap. But his target wasn’t actually in the Gap. From what the babe in the SheVa was saying, half the overpass was up. While it sounded sort of fun to climb out on it and fire down on the horses, it made more sense for him to get where he could fire under the overpass. There was a ridge running out from the parkway, the one that made the last bend in 23 necessary, that could be accessed from the road. From the end of it, if he could find a good hide, he thought he would be able to fire right under the bridge and take some of the pressure off the troops caught in the Gap.

He noticed the tops of trees gone as he rounded a curve then slowed down when he saw some of them in the road. Towards the end of the curve the parkway was littered with them and many of them were already beginning to wither and yellow from intense heat.

All things considered, it was good that those harbingers were present because as he rounded the curve, still doing nearly twenty miles per hour, he slammed into the first of thousands of fallen poplars blocking the road.

“Oh, shit!”

“Sir, I’ve got a message from Eastern Command,” Kittekut said. “More good news.”

“Go ahead,” Colonel Mitchell said, pointing to a spot on the map for Pruitt.

“There’s a reason we’re the only ones fighting for the pass, sir: Our nuke caused a rockslide on the road up to the pass on the Asheville side. The brigade that was supposed to be up there by now is blocked off. They’re clearing the road, but it will take at least another hour. There’s some light infantry trying to climb past it, but they’re going to be a while too.”

“Fine,” Mitchell replied, tapping in his secondary release codes. “Tell them we’re just about to clear the Scott Creek Valley of Posleen.”

Pruitt finished setting the firing commands and turned to look at the SheVa commander. “All three rounds, sir?”

“You were perhaps saving them for a more festive occasion, Pruitt?” the colonel asked. “All three rounds. One on the crossroads, one on the head of the Posleen and one on the mass backed up on the other side of the river. If that doesn’t slow them down, nothing will.”

“Yes, sir,” the gunner said, keying in the last command and hitting the firing sequence.

Between them, the BIA and the United States Congress may have come up with some really silly regulations, one of which Thomas was now limpingly in violation of, but they did spring for the militia’s equipment. Especially once it was pointed out that with the casino closed “for the duration,” the Nation didn’t have much in the way of income. And, being a government agency, they didn’t stint. Which was why he used to have a nice, camoflage painted Honda ATV.

But he’d survived the wreck and so had his rifle in its case, and his binoculars and his ammunition. So he was ahead of the game. Sort of. Getting to the ridge where he could fire down on the Posleen was going to be tougher than he’d expected; that nuke had really torn the place up.