Max Velocity - Patriot Dawn - The Resistance Rises

Jack stepped on the brakes and put the car into reverse, as he did so he saw the guard in the road shout, raising his weapon. The turret gunner popped his head up behind the armored glass shield and trained his weapon on Jack’s car. The troops at the roadblock opened fire.

The first burst from the turret gunner tore into the road in front of Jack, ripping up the asphalt in a storm of noise and violent impact. Jack ducked his head, using the wing mirror to reverse towards the bend. Rounds came cracking through his windshield, leaving white snowballs and cracks in the glass as they passed through.

Caitlin had been following Jack as they drove along. Andrew was scanning out to the sides. She had closed up a little to Jack given the close nature of the road in the trees and she did not want to lose sight of him. The tactical bound had shortened.

Sarah had started crying and Connor was asking for chocolate milk, which she didn’t have. She had turned in the seat to try and console the kids when Andrew yelled out. She turned, took in the sight of Jack stopped and the roadblock ahead, and slammed on the brakes.

The heavy SUV with the trailer came to a slewing stop and she put it into reverse as Jack started to reverse back towards her, the sound of gunfire erupting from the roadblock. In her haste, she forgot the trailer, and as she reversed it jackknifed behind her, slamming into the tailgate, stopping her. She had only managed to get partially back round the bend, and was still in line of sight of the roadblock. She slammed her palm onto the car horn to alert Jack.

Jack saw the Suburban stopped in his rear view and turned the wheel to the right to angle the minivan across the road, stopping right there. He grabbed his rifle with one hand and opened the door with the other, rolling out into the road, slamming the door and popping up behind the hood of the car, by the wheel well. He brought his weapon up and started to engage the roadblock with rapid fire.

Without turning he shouted “Contact front! Andy push out right! Cat, get the kids into the ditch!”

Andrew grabbed his rifle and sprinted out to the right. There was an embankment on the right of the road, on the inside of the bend, overgrown by trees and covered in leaf litter. He scrambled up the slope, using one hand to steady himself, until he found a good tree to use as cover. He got down behind it; his rifle pushed out round the right side of the tree, and got a sight picture on the roadblock, opening rapid fire to support Jack down on the road.

Meanwhile, Caitlin had exited out of the passenger side of the vehicle, opened the rear door, grabbed the kids and scrambled with them into the ditch on the right of the road. Jasper darted out of the vehicle and joined the kids in the ditch. She had forgotten her shotgun, so she ran back to the vehicle with high velocity rounds cracking past her, grabbed it, and ran back to the kids. She told them to crawl and they were able to move back in the ditch out of line of sight of the roadblock.

Jack emptied a magazine, crouched into cover behind the wheel, removed the mag and put it into his dump pouch before grabbing another and reloading his M4. He glanced back, heard Andrew firing and saw that the kids had got out safe.

“Cover me, moving!” he screamed as he sprinted for the embankment, rounds slamming into the hood of the car and cracking overhead around him.

What they really needed to do was get away. But the problem was that both their vehicles were now immobilized in the kill zone and under enemy fire. All their stores and equipment were on board and if they tried to head out on foot they would not get far.

Jack got up behind Andrew, who was still firing, and shouted down to Caitlin “Cat, I’m gonna assault! Get the kids back into the woods and hide!” She looked back up at him with wide desperate eyes, her head shaking slowly from side to side.

He turned back to Andrew. “I’m going right flanking, moving round to the right on the embankment. I’ll try and get into position above the Hummers to shoot down on them. Ok?”

Andrew nodded, took a bead on the turret of the nearest Humvee, and kept up his deliberate rate of suppressive fire.

Jack pulled back into dead ground away from the roadblock and moved around to the right, just out of sight on the other side of the slope. He pushed back up till he emerged on the summit behind a tree, looking down at the roadblock.

Both gun turrets were facing down the road towards his vehicles and there were also a couple of guys in fire positions behind each Hummer. They were firing at his minivan and also into the surrounding woods, where they had not yet identified Andrews’s position. Andrew was well in cover using the slope and the tree, with just the muzzle of his rifle exposed. Jack was happy with that.

Jack pulled back and moved down to the furthest Hummer; he pushed back up into a position where he could see the two guys behind it and also down into the turret. His position was elevated enough that he had an angle into the armored turret where the gunner was standing.

He brought his weapon up and opened rapid fire into the turret, striking the gunner in the back of the head and upper back; he then switched fire to the two at the back of the vehicle and shot them down, before switching fire again to the two at the back of the other Hummer.

As his buddy sprawled on the ground, one of the enemies realized what was going on, trying to spin and engage Jack. A last shout burst from the dying man as Jack unloaded the remaining rounds from his magazine into him.

The remaining turret gunner was alerted and tried to disengage the lever to spin the turret but was not fast enough to track onto Jack as he launched himself headlong down the slope, dropping his magazine and putting on a fresh one as he ran.

Jack ran to the rear of the hummer and the turret gunner could not track him, so he reached down and grabbed his M4 from inside the Humvee before standing up and trying to get an angle on Jack. Andrews’s bullet took the gunner in the base of his skull as he leaned up over the armored turret side, leaving him draped over the rim.

Jack quickly checked the vehicles were clear and went to check the enemy bodies. He saw one of them crawling away from the rear Hummer, a blood trail on the road surface.

Jack walked up to him, “Hey asshole!” he called and the guy rolled over onto his back, a handgun in his hand. Jack put his foot on the man’s wrist, trapping the pistol to the road, and pointed his M4 down at him.

He could see the man was not dressed in army uniform, but in the blue tactical uniform of the FEMA Homeland Corps. The man’s ID badge was laying on his body armor where he had it hung around his neck. He was maybe mid-thirties, fat with his belly protruding from under his tactical vest, a goatee grown over his double chins.

“Who are you?” Jack said to him.

“Go to hell.” whispered the thug with false bravado.

“Really?” said Jack, as he raised the rifle to point at the guy’s head. He saw the bravado evaporate, to be replaced by fear filling the man’s eyes.

“No, no, please.” whispered the Regime thug who had just tried to murder Jack’s family, just before the 5.56mm round hit him in the face. His head was raised as he pleaded and the bullet went in through his eye, exiting out the back of his skull in a mess of brains as it smacked into the asphalt.

Jack went to check the rest of the enemy before calling Andrew down.

They stripped the bodies and vehicles of useful weapons and ammunition. They had a collection by now. It appeared to be a National Guard roadblock run by the DHS agent. The National Guard guys were all basically kids, none of them wearing combat patches on their right arms. It was a tragedy that they had been used in this way.