Nathan Jones - Determination

The run wasn’t exactly easy, but at least it was mostly downhill. Although in the dark that wasn’t completely a good thing; a greater danger than getting winded was twisting an ankle on the treacherous ground, and that kept Trev from moving as fast as he would’ve liked.

Not to mention that even though his night vision was fairly high quality, it was still sometimes hard to judge the ground he ran across. At the speed he was going he didn’t always recognize things in time, so he stumbled more than once on dips he thought were juts, and vice versa. At least his two squad mates were watching him and avoiding the same obstacles; as long as he didn’t break his neck, they probably wouldn’t either.

The climb down to the lower ridge was the trickiest part. The ground wasn’t any more treacherous, but it was steeper, and a thick stand of evergreens began halfway down that they’d have to find a way through.

Halfway down an immense rumbling blast to their left made them all drop into a protective crouch. Trev had to squint as a bright light momentarily blinded his night vision, and he lifted his goggles to watch the tail end of the explosion.

“Vernon blew it,” Tom said in a slightly loud voice. With the racket of collapsing rock there was no danger of an enemy overhearing, and actually Trev barely heard him from three feet away.

He nodded. If the former sheriff had taken out the Cedar Creek road, that meant the only way left into the mountains in this area was through Aspen Hill Canyon. Assuming Lewis and the others weren’t facing their own attack and hadn’t been forced to detonate as well.

It wasn’t a terrible loss, since their trucks could still transport supplies and reinforcements behind the lines, along a spiderweb of small mountain roads. But it meant they were close to being as trapped in the mountains as the blockheads were barred from reaching them, and if they did have a reason to bring their trucks into the valley they couldn’t do it. At least not without the same painstaking clearing and repairs they were depending on to slow the blockheads, in case they ever broke through. But even then they’d have to do it on foot.

At the moment he hardly cared. It meant the the blockheads would have that much harder of a time in tonight’s attack, and he was all for that. Motioning to his squad mates, he straightened and continued picking his way down the treacherous slope.

Williams had a Marine waiting for them just inside the stand of trees, his demolitions specialist Graham. “So you’re what we get?” the man grumbled.

“We’ve got night vision and explosives,” Trev replied.

“Fair enough.” Graham gestured for them to follow and led on into the trees. “Come on. The blockheads are pushing up Cedar Creek Canyon and Vernon’s boys are making them pay big time. Our job is to eliminate anyone who gets close to us on this range, and from the looks of things we’ve got our work cut out for us. You’re with me.”

“Where do you want us?” Tom asked.

“Just beyond these trees, actually. We’ll probably see the least action here, but if anyone does reach us it’s important we play mop-up. Think of us as the last line of defense, and if anyone gets past us they’ll be in a position to cause some serious problems.”

The Marine motioned to the south. “We’ll mostly be worrying about the southern slope of this ridge. Vernon’s boys are stationed lower down Cedar Creek Canyon, and Williams isn’t letting anyone past on the northern slope. I’d be flabbergasted if a blockhead managed to reach us on that side.”

“So we should probably keep half an eye on it just in case,” Trev said.

Graham snorted. “I like the way you think.” He sped up a bit. “Come on. If you’ve got night vision we might as well take advantage of it. Time’s a-wastin’.”

Trev hurried to catch up, still leading his squad mates. He had to duck branches just about every step, some whipping back at him as Graham shoved them aside, not a care for anyone following behind. But at least the Marine had found a decent path through the trees.

Before too long they reached a crudely dug out emplacement where they could hide behind stacked deadfall. Graham was already peeking over the top when they arrived, and he cursed. “1 stSquad missed some people on their side,” he hissed, pointing across to near the bottom of the opposite slope of the V-shaped valley. “Glad you guys showed up when you did.”

Trev crouched beside him and peeked over, using his scope to follow the man’s pointing finger. Sure enough there were half a dozen blockheads creeping from cover, seemingly beyond the point of intermittent gunfire he heard to the east and southeast. They were nearly to the point where the two ridges met at the bottom, an area blanketed by a dense thicket of scrub oak leading almost all the way up to the top.

If they reached it then taking them out would be much, much harder.

His squad mates were also peeking over the makeshift cover. “I got this,” Tom said. He’d already pulled out a Molotov and had a lighter in his other hand.

A small flame flared to life, down low out of sight of the enemy below. As the older man began to move the lighter towards the firebomb’s makeshift fuse, a gas-soaked cloth stuffed into the lid of the glass jar full of gasoline, Trev caught his hand. “You realize if you pop up holding a burning Molotov every single blockhead in range is going to shoot you, right?”

Tom snorted. “That’s why I checked my target beforehand and am planning on tossing it from behind cover.” He tugged his hand free. “As long as you don’t delay me so much they’ve moved by the time I throw.”

Trev relented. Outside of family there weren’t many people he trusted more than the older man. “Best of luck with it, then.”

With another snort Tom lit the rag, which flared to life with almost painful intensity in Trev’s night vision. The older man raised in a half crouch, still behind cover, and with a look of concentration tensed up and hurled the firebomb with all his strength. From below voices raised in sudden alarm, speaking in an unfamiliar language. Then, with a whumph that undercut the distant sound of gunfire, the valley below lit up with the fireball.

Trev popped up from cover to see that Tom’s aim had been pretty good. He hadn’t hit the blockheads directly, but the firebomb had exploded just in front of them, spreading flames through the nearest trees in the scrub oak thicket. The enemy soldiers were backing away from the cover they’d been making for, completely exposed as Trev’s squad mates and Graham popped up as well and lined up their targets.

Blinded, surprised, and some on fire, the blockheads quickly fell to precise shots from only a couple hundred yards away. Most didn’t even have time to locate the muzzle flashes of the people shooting them, and the single soldier who did point his gun their way was immediately hit by three different shots by Trev, Mason, and Graham.

The Marine was laughing as they dropped back down to move to another position. “You know how much the explosives I work with cost? And just look at the fun you can have with a quart of gasoline. I love it when guests bring their own drinks to the party.”

After that first bit of excitement there wasn’t much more. Graham hadn’t been lying about them being back behind the action. They watched the slopes to either side, and tried helping the Marines farther along the ridges by shooting at targets at extreme ranges, even though they had barely a hope of hitting anything. At least until Graham told them they should probably stop wasting ammo.

Mostly Trev listened to reports on the fighting over the radio. There were a few spots where the blockheads threatened to break through, like on the forested slope south of the main canyon, where Matt’s squad patrolled during the day. Trev didn’t know who was over there now, a few squads of volunteers, but they were having some trouble. The main canyon itself was also having trouble, mostly because it was where the largest number of blockheads were trying to push through.