Paul Kirk - Devastation Point

“Yes, sir.”

“Go with them, Keenan. I know you want to.”

“Yes, sir!”

“Can I go, Dad?”

Commander Bastin studied Georgie in the bright afternoon sun. Gangly and intense, his son was probably ready to be placed with a junior field team on just such a helicopter search mission. But, parental protectiveness kept intruding.

“No, Georgie. In a few years.”

“But…” The commander’s withering stare made Georgie swallow further protest.

Commander Bastin turned to Major Keenan McLoy. “Take Evan with you, he needs the field experience, major.”

“Sir. Yes, sir.” Keenan left with haste and anticipation.

Commander Bastin tugged his trousers at the knees and squatted down to face his son. “Georgie, You’ve got an important assignment right now. I want you to man this gate for the next four hours and try to catch further sight of the helicopter. You’ll do nothing else, but find me another view of what you got us into, am I clear?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Good. Carry on.”

“What about me, daddy?” asked Jacob.

The commander studied his youngest son. “Here Jacob, use my binoculars to help your brother relocate that helicopter you found.” The commander gently pulled his binoculars from around his neck and handed them to Jacob.

Reverently, Jacob took hold of the binoculars. “Okay, daddy… sir.” The binoculars looked huge in his hands.

“You drop them, son, and I’ll have your head on a platter. They were Pup-Pups.” The commander smiled to lessen the serious tone that came natural to him. As it was, the binoculars were prime Nikon 10x42 and given to him by his father only ten years ago during their last moose hunting trip together. He was quite fond of them, but knew of Jacob’s clear attachment to them.

“I won’t, sir.”

“See that you don’t… private .” He patted Jacob on the shoulder and squeezed Georgie’s shoulder as he passed in his return to the command center.

“Del, let me be blunt—you’ve got an angry and well-equipped army from Cleveland bearing down on Perryopolis.” Connor paused and glanced at John McLeod and Captain Daubney, before focusing on the commander. “They have at least 5000 men, armed to the teeth, mobile, and they’re not very nice guys.”

Del Re didn’t answer, but stared incredulous. Connor thought he might not have understood him.

“They’re a massive hoard of malicious deviants,” volunteered John McLeod.

“Nice description, John,” said Captain Daubney, “A bit overdone, but nice.”

“Anyway, Del,” said Connor, “they could be here in four or five hours. They have horsemen, I’m talking over 200 cavalry, and at least 160 men set up in Pride Brigades, as they like to call themselves, of forty men each.” He sought Captain Daubney’s confirmation of this fact to help explain the situation to the commander.

Captain Daubney nodded. “That’s right, commander.”

Connor continued. “They have over fifty armored pickup trucks with a driver and man riding shotgun, some dirt bikes, and four-wheelers and they have enough weapons to blow through this town like it’s soft butter.”

The commander paced a few steps away and returned to stand near the table. Stubbornly, he tensed his jaw muscles. “I don’t believe it,” said Del.

“Del, I’m sorry to spring this on ya.”

“Can we defend against them? We have 180 people here and all of ’em—even the children—are capable of shooting pretty well.”

“You can’t defend against them, Del. Not that you and your town are afraid to defend your own turf, but these guys are armed much better than what you guys seem to be. Unless I’m missing something. They got RPGs, fifty cals, and probably a whole host of other explosives and grenades. Put simply, Del, you should hide well away from here. Evacuate your people to safety. All of them. And come back when they’re gone and hope they haven’t destroyed your town.”

“Mac, are you sure we can’t defend against them. I know my guys won’t want to leave this place.”

“You can’t, Del. This army’s run by a sick fuck named Phoenix Justice. Trust me, he’ll plow through your town and he’ll kill all the men and enslave all the women. He’ll take whatever’s worth anything and burn the rest.”

“You say we have four or five hours?”

“Maybe a little longer, but to be on the safe side, yeah. You should figure on only four hours from now. Make sure anything valuable is hidden away and your people are gone.”

“Sonofabitch,” said Del matter-of-factly.

“I’m hoping you have a contingency plan in place for a bug out. Do you?”

“Sort of.”

“Whatta ya mean?”

“We got a cave—a small opening in a mountainside that’s about three-quarter mile from here. It goes into the mountain about 300 feet and it’s very defensible. You can only enter it single file. Even if somebody were to block us in, there’s a second exit—it’s a little dicey, but hidden much better.”

“That’s great, Del.”

“There’s enough room there for all of us and it’s stocked for a two week stay.”

“Is that where you keep your ale?” asked John.

“Now, how the hell did you know that?”

“It makes sense, Del. It’s cool. It’s secure. It’s away from damaging light.”

Connor jumped in. “Listen—you need to issue orders to evacuate. Tell ’em all to take only what they value and can effectively carry in their hands. There can be no easily visible trail and there’s no time to waste. Personally, I don’t think Phoenix will waste his time destroying much of anything here—he’s in too much of a hurry to locate my team. It’d take time for him to burn anything and he probably doesn’t want to invest the time.”

“This is our home , Mac.”

“And that army’s pure fucking evil, Del. I’m sorry—I am. We’ll help you out for the next three or four hours, but we’ll need to leave at that point.”

“So, Mac, he’s after you guys?”

“Yep.”

“So you brought ’em here?”

“Yeah, Del, I did. And I’m real sorry about that, but it wasn’t intentional. Next year—or maybe the year after—they woulda came here anyway. Or somebody else woulda knocked on your gate with hundreds of men. And, if we would have avoided this town, you wouldn’t have had any warning about them.”

“Thanks, Mac. I sure appreciate your warning.”

“Screw that, Del—I don’t have time for sarcasm.”

Del Re checked his anger. He sensed the effort that Connor was making to convey the situational status.

“Okay, Mac. I’m sorry. You’re right, we should clear out. It’d be nice to stay and defend this place, though. It’s our home.”

“That might sound good on paper, but it’s better to walk away and avoid this fight to live for another day.”

“Why they coming for you, Mac?”

“We pissed ’em off in Cleveland. You see, they were trying to kidnap the president and steal her helicopter.”

“Really?” asked Del.

“Yeah. In fact, we had a certain women with us and Phoenix was probably trying to kidnap her, too,” interjected Captain Daubney. A fury crept into his voice when recalling the surprise attack.

“So, we definitely still have a president?” asked Del.

“Yes, we do. Her name is Colonel Hannah Starkes,” chimed in Captain Daubney.

“I see.” Del Re took the information at face value. Nodding to himself, he came to a decision. He went to the door and opened it, stepping onto the porch. With a quick hand motion, he waved Josh and Russ onto the porch. When they were within hearing range, he yelled.