Nathan Jones - Determination

The command tent, mess tent, and the Marines’ sleeping tent were all burning bright, highlighting the dark silhouettes of people bolting in every direction towards the closest edges of the camp. Some made it before the approaching helicopter opened up with its heavy machine gun.

A hail of bullets peppered with tracers arced down, cutting a swath through the civilian camp before moving on to where the new volunteers had set up their tents. The line sheared through tents like wet paper and cut through several fleeing figures, adding to the screams of pain.

Davis was shouting through his bullhorn again, struggling to be heard over the din. “Take it down! Somebody take it down!”

Either in response to the order or due to good timing, a streak of fire abruptly lanced up at the sky from just outside the Aspen Hill camp. Gutierrez? The missile intersected the line of bullets piercing down towards camp and exploded brilliantly, briefly illuminating the dark shape of the helicopter as it broke off its attack and banked away, heading north.

It might’ve been backing away for another missile attack, but even if it really was leaving for good it had caused enough devastation already. All in under a minute.

Trev pushed himself shakily to his feet, looking around with the flashlight. Dozens of pale, frightened faces looked back at him from the darkness. He didn’t see all of his squad mates, but from the looks of it Matt’s squad was gathered a bit closer to their camp, near where Gutierrez had fired the missile. Maybe they were with him.

Time to sort out the confusion as best he could. “Everyone to me!” he shouted. “Gather in squads and report anyone who’s missing. Once we’re sure the chopper isn’t coming back we’re returning to camp to find our people. Then we’ll help out however we’re needed.”

Lewis jolted awake to shouted warnings from the camp outside.

Jane woke up at about the same time, and for a frantic few moments they wrestled to extricate themselves from their zipped together sleeping bags. Once free his wife went for her clothes, while he grabbed his night vision gear and crawled outside in just his boxers.

All those nights sleeping in his combat fatigues captured from the raiders, sometimes even in the body armor as well if he expected trouble. And always with his other gear neatly set aside so he could throw it on fast. Why did he choose tonight as the one to be caught with his pants down?

The camp was a confusion of defenders running around, a few shouting into their radios. “What’s going on?” he demanded. He wasn’t the only one shouting that.

Ten feet away Carl briefly lowered his radio to look at him. “We got a warning from the military. A helicopter’s headed our way fast from the south.”

Lewis felt his blood run cold. “Then why are we all still in this camp?” He raised his voice. “Everyone out! Make for the nearest cover!”

Ignoring his own advice, he ran for where they’d stowed the missile launchers after yesterday’s attack. Getting away from camp was a priority, but if the blockheads were sending an attack helicopter his way he wanted to be able to defend himself.

Tam seemed to have had the same idea. She already had a missile loaded in one of the launchers, and was struggling to lift the nearly 70lbs of weight to sling on her back.

“Here,” Lewis said, taking it from her and slinging it on his own back. The metal was cold against his bare skin, and there was an uncomfortable sharp edge he hadn’t noticed when carrying the thing with his clothes and body armor on.

Carl had followed him, and with his wife’s help the man got the other launcher loaded and slung. Jane joined them too, in her shoes without socks and her uniform shirt unbuttoned, but with effort carrying their radios, both their rifles, and their combat vests in her arms or slung on her back. “I didn’t think to bring your clothes,” she said apologetically.

“I can stand to lose those,” he said, taking his gear from her. Then with a curt gesture to follow he turned and bolted from camp, shouting again. “Everyone into the trees, now!”

He could hear the thudding rumble of the approaching chopper as they ran out from between the tents, bolting towards the cover along the canyon stream. Rocks underfoot cut and bruised his bare feet, but he didn’t let that slow him down.

He seriously hoped the helicopter didn’t have some sort of heat sensing gear. Just in case it did, he had everyone that was gathering to him in the trees spread out at least ten feet apart. Especially Carl with the other missile launcher. At the same time he verified that everyone who’d been in camp had made it out, including his dad and uncle.

Jane refused to leave his side, even ten feet. “We’ll both get blown up either way,” she pointed out. Lewis wanted to argue that that was a good reason to spread out even more . But honestly whether they were in huge trouble or not depended on what the enemy had, not on how well they hid.

As the aircraft continued to approach he set the missile launcher down long enough to put on his combat vest and radio headset, then lifted the heavy tube to his shoulder. Jane had a night vision scope and was already peering into the sky to the south. “Give me a target,” he whispered. She nodded.

But there was was no target for her to give. As best he could tell the helicopter flew by miles to the west of them. He saw two bright streaks of missiles arcing down from the sky, heard the distant thunderclap of explosions, and felt his gut clench wondering what they were shooting at. His family, huddled in the relocated refuge? Better if the enemy had come for his camp instead.

After that one volley the enemy aircraft kept on going north out of sight.

As the thudding noise of its rotors faded his radio crackled. “Refuge to defender camp,” Chauncey said, sounding on the verge of panic. “Are you guys okay?”

Lewis lowered the missile launcher to the ground and thumbed his mic. “We’re fine. They flew right past us.”

“Wish I could say the same. They lit us up.”

He felt his blood run cold. He’d been afraid of that ever since he saw those missiles shooting down. “I thought we’d finished breaking camp and moving everyone into the trees.”

“Not the trucks. Can’t really hide those on a forested slope, so we had them parked on the canyon road close by. The blockheads demolished them.”

Although it was a huge relief to hear that no one had been hurt, this was terrible news. They depended on those trucks if things went wrong and they had to move people fast. “What did we lose?”

There was a short pause. “Well the good news is that our Mayor responded quickly. When the warning came she managed to get some people to the truck with the mounted M2 and drove it to safety. Unfortunately that meant there were half a dozen townspeople around the other trucks when the missile strike came. Three were killed instantly, and Terry’s seeing to the others. It’s not looking good, though. As for the trucks, we’ll be lucky if we can cobble one together from the spare parts of all the wreckages. If not we’re down to one vehicle, although thankfully we were storing the fuel separately.”

Lewis grit his teeth. This attack was probably a direct retaliation for his raid on the shelter and yesterday’s missile attack. Those lives were on his head. “The helicopter came from the south, not the east. Any news from Davis or the other military units?”

“Just jumbled confusion. I can confirm there was an attack along Highway 31, and from the sounds of things it might still be going on. There’s some talk of ground troops gathering at the mouth of the canyon down there.”

So it wasn’t just the townspeople he had to worry about. If the chopper had swooped in and hit Davis’s camp like it hit the town’s trucks then Trev, Matt, and the others might’ve been caught in the middle of it. And a ground attack meant they might be fighting for their lives right now in nighttime conditions.