Nathan Jones - Determination

Lewis struggled to get his thoughts together, just long enough to tear off his night vision goggles and shove them at the man leaning over him. “Man the gun!” he shouted.

The defender abruptly went silent. “You’re alive!” he said, sounding shocked. Then he raised his voice. “He’s alive!” There were a few shouts of relief from the other men in the truck as they jounced along.

“Man the gun!” Lewis shouted again. His hand was waving wildly due to the truck’s motion, maybe a bit due to his dizziness, and the goggles slapped the man in the chest. That finally got the defender’s attention and he hastily snatched the night vision gear away, lurching to his feet and grabbing at the M2’s mountings to get behind it.

As soon as Lewis was alone, relatively speaking, he lifted trembling fingers to feel at his helmet. There was a deep dent there, which started less than an inch above the rim and dug a furrow up towards the top.

Less than an inch. Just a bit lower and the bullet would’ve destroyed the night vision goggles. And scattered his brains across the other defenders in the back of the truck. Lewis had to hold back a slightly hysterical laugh at how his mind, just for a moment, had prioritized the goggles first.

He had to get his act together, quick. He had no idea how the fight was going, but what he did know was that the truck had stopped and the defender above him had opened fire with the M2.

Who was that? Billy Yates, maybe? Whoever it was that should be Lewis up there, not him. Lewis wasn’t injured, not really, and he had no right to order anyone else to take the riskiest position when he could do it himself. He tried to push to his feet, and suddenly it felt like the truck was lurching beneath him again as another wave of dizziness struck.

Okay, maybe he wasn’t just fine. He let himself sink back down and closed his eyes, listening to the shouting, the sounds of gunfire and explosions, and the screams of injured and dying men. At least he had his noise canceling earphones, or the racket might’ve been overwhelming. He could only imagine how the defenders around him were handling it.

His radio abruptly crackled with the welcome sound of Jane’s voice. Although her news wasn’t so welcome. “The blockhead snipers are moving.”

Lewis fumbled for the transmit button. “Just yours?”

“And mine,” Tam spoke up. “And the ones farther south. Almost fifty in all. It looks like they’re using the distraction to try to sneak up. And blockheads are starting to come out from the emplacements farther east and head our way, too. Hundreds. There are signs of those stationed in Aspen Hill getting ready for something big, too.”

He cursed. “Scare them off, and make sure whoever’s got the detonator is ready to take out the canyon if they have to. Things are going bad here… we can’t handle a major attack.”

It was rare to hear his wife sound uncertain, but Jane definitely sounded that. “I’ll do my best. But you do know what “hundreds” means, right?”

From only a few feet away he heard the rattling, pinging noise of bullets bouncing off or piercing the truck’s side. The engine roared to life as Catherine moved them again, and Lewis determinedly grabbed the side of the truck and dragged himself up.

As they bounced along he lifted his head enough to search through the darkness for signs of the enemy. The moment they stopped he fumbled his G3 off his shoulder and began shooting at the closest muzzle flashes.

He might not be able to man the M2 in his condition, but at least he could provide Billy some cover fire. Maybe keep him from taking a bullet to the dome.

The blockheads were behind the cover of some trees and more deadfall, making his shots difficult. Since the Browning M2 could chew through even logs eventually, and Billy definitely seemed to be trying, Lewis focused on keeping the enemy pinned down until the heavy machine gun did its work. He just hoped it would do it quick.

In spite of his best best efforts, and the efforts of the other defenders in the truck bed, before too long enemy soldiers behind other cover began popping out shooting directly at Billy. And to a lesser extent at the rest of them. Still jittery from his near brush with death, Lewis ducked down and sprayed his bullets wildly at the spot of cover they’d been trying to clear. If nothing else maybe those blockheads would stay pinned down, at least.

To his relief half a minute later the idling truck lurched into gear, and the Mayor drove them away in search of a new vantage point.

He’d been so occupied with the fighting that he hadn’t even paid attention to what was going on over the radio. “Lewis?” Jane asked for the second time. “Lewis, are you okay? What do you mean it’s going bad?”

He dropped down into the safety of the truck bed with the others, including Billy, and hit the transmit button. But not to answer his wife. “Wes, radio Grimes.” The colonel had promised reinforcements, but Lewis had sent them to the refuge. That wasn’t going to be very useful for them in this fight. “Most of our defenders are in a genuine shootout here, and the blockheads are getting ready to push up from the valley. We need some sort of show of force or we could end up losing this area.”

There was no answer, which Lewis hoped meant the young man was already complying. Jane had stopped asking after him, maybe comforted by the sound of his voice verifying that he was still okay. Or maybe she had her own problems to deal with.

Either way he was distracted from the radio as they screeched to a stop. Billy started to rise, but Lewis put a hand on his shoulder to keep him down, retrieved his night vision, and went after the M2 himself. He still felt like the world was spinning slowly around him, and any movement quicker than a sloth’s made him want to puke his guts out, but he could man the machine gun.

There were certainly plenty of enemies. After what felt like way too long Lewis found the more extensive cover he’d been targeting before Catherine moved them, and he turned the gun that way. They had a better angle on it now, and he was able to mow down a few blockheads as the others scrambled for new hiding spots. Which put many of them in the sights of the defenders farther down the rise.

“Um, Lewis?” Wes’s voice, confused, uncertain. It sounded completely out of place in the nightmare battle around him.

Lewis kept firing even as he used his shoulder to tap his mic. “What?” Harsher than he’d intended, but who could blame him?

“Grimes’s people want to know where you are.”

Letting his hands drop to his sides, Lewis ducked down and stared blankly ahead. “Where we… what?”

“Are you to the north or to the south of the fight? East or west? What terrain? Who’s you and who’s the enemy?”

After what felt like too long, his dazed mind processing the question, Lewis answered. “We’re spread out on a rise to the south of the enemy, being attacked by two groups to the northwest and northeast.”

“Okay.”

For a confusing moment Lewis waited for more, but that was it. Why did Grimes want to know the specifics of their location? If he’d sent people to the refuge the directions weren’t really necessary, since the defenders there would be able to point the reinforcements the right way.

Not that it really mattered. At best the soldiers coming to help would arrive in time to mop up, assuming there were any defenders left by that point. Lewis shrugged off that unpleasant thought and continued firing at the enemy’s crude cover. If he could only get past that stupid pile of logs…

A blockhead popped out from behind a tree not far from where he was shooting, raising his rifle to aim at the truck. But before Lewis could target him the man abruptly dropped like a marionette with its strings cut. Almost at the same time, the racket of gunfire became even more disorienting as dozens more weapons joined in.