Nathan Jones - Determination

Not to rest, though. He needed to see to the wounded and the dead, especially giving their loved ones the bad news. Then he’d need Catherine’s help rounding up more volunteers, and he’d have to see to their training.

Thankfully his dad decided to come along and help with all that, as well as to make sure their family and friends from the shelter group were doing all right. It was a relief to have him there, although they walked in silence for a while.

The other defenders had gone on ahead, eager to get some rest, and once he was alone with his dad Lewis cleared his throat. “Tonight was bad.”

His dad nodded. “Might not be the last time it’s bad. It’ll probably get worse, even.”

Well he’d started the doom and gloom talk, but partly because he’d hoped his dad would offer reassurance. “Yeah, probably. We couldn’t expect the blockheads to sit around in the valley forever.” He let his shoulders slump. “So what do we do?”

After a moment his dad’s hand rested heavily on his shoulder, somehow bolstering him rather than weighing him down even more. “Nothing to do but fight and win.”

Lewis snorted. “That easy, huh?”

“Not easy, but doable. When the Romans fought the Carthaginians the whole world thought they were going to lose. In fact, at many points the world thought they had lost, when their defeats grew too costly and the wisest course was to admit defeat and end the war.

“Instead they fought on, refusing to give up and surprising their enemies with their determination. In the end Carthage lost due to the sheer stubbornness of the Romans refusing to allow themselves to be beaten, even when it seemed like there was no hope of victory.”

His dad took a deep breath, looking ahead at the defenders still barely in sight. “If we have any hope of saving our country, of even surviving the coming months, we’ll have to be just as stubborn. We’ll have to fight on until it’s too costly for the enemy to keep up the war and they leave. Even if it’s just as costly for us.”

The words were stirring, and Lewis appreciated the sentiment. But he couldn’t help but think that the Punic Wars had ended with Rome completely annihilating Carthage. In spite of the death and suffering the Gold Bloc had caused with their invasion, he hoped it wouldn’t come to that here. He would be content if the enemy simply left, never to return, so they could get on with their lives.

Rome had fought Carthage thousands of years ago. He had to believe humanity had grown more civilized since then.

Of course, the cynical side of him could argue that they already had annihilated the Gold Bloc with the Retaliation, on a scale that the ancient Romans couldn’t even conceive of. So maybe they hadn’t learned anything after all. Either way this was all philosophical; his job was to defend his home and the people of Aspen Hill, and that was what he was going to do.

But his dad had the right idea… Lewis was going to stubbornly fight to the end for that goal. He picked up his pace. “Come on. We’ve got a lot to do.”

“Unbelievable,” Rick, beside him, whispered. “Are they going to walk right up into the canyon?”

Trev shook his head. “This is what we’ve been waiting for. Get our team into position, I’ll let Tom know we’re doing this.”

His friend nodded and slipped down the far side of the foothill, waiting until he was out of sight of the dirt path below before breaking into a trot, the rest of their team following him. Trev gave the blockhead patrol and the area around them a final once-over with his binoculars. Once he was satisfied it all looked good he hurried to catch up, whispering into his radio as he went.

It had been three days since Davis gave the order to wait and watch the enemy to see what they did. In that time Gold Bloc patrols had encroached deeper and deeper into the foothills, usually going vaguely north-northwest or south-southwest in a way that clearly suggested they weren’t planning on suddenly bolting up the slope in a suicidal charge.

Not that their increasingly bold patrols weren’t suicidal in their own right. The twenty blockheads below were only five hundred or so yards from the mouth of Cedar Creek Canyon, following a rough ATV trail that led directly there. Were they getting sloppy, or did they honestly think that their enemies wouldn’t open fire once they finally wandered close enough?

Maybe they had orders of their own, to keep going until they did come under attack. Trev had no idea what strategies the blockhead leaders running this war were using, aside from the obvious goal of breaking through their defenses somewhere and killing every US citizen in the Utah Rockies. Maybe right now they were just trying to push for as much territory as they could hold, to give Davis and his people less room to work with.

Or maybe they just wanted to feel like they were doing something, even if what they were doing was getting their soldiers killed.

Sure, it wasn’t like the blockheads were just strolling down the path. They were moving cautiously from cover to cover, watching for signs of attack. But that alertness wouldn’t save them when they walked right into an ambush.

Whatever their reasoning, the time had come to punish them for it. Ever since picking up on the patrol an hour or so ago and following their progress, Trev had been getting his squad into position for an attack that would take place well after sundown. Just as it was starting to get dark.

They’d left Susan Donnell at a sentry post to the north where she could cover their entire area, just in case. Meanwhile Tom had circled his team of six north and east to get on the other side of the blockheads, to cut them off if they tried to bolt back to the valley, while Trev’s team of five prepared to hit them from the northwest.

Which meant the only way the blockheads could go to escape the ambush was into Cedar Creek Canyon, where Vernon’s people would be waiting for them if they got that far.

Unless of course the former sheriff didn’t want to wait, and was willing to join the attack. Trev toggled his radio to the appropriate channel. “Vernon, this is Smith.”

There was a long pause as Trev continued jogging after Rick. There was no way the group guarding the canyon wasn’t getting his signal, not from this distance. Finally he heard the amiable, hated voice. “Vernon here.”

“There’s a blockhead patrol heading for the mouth of your canyon.”

The tone became a bit more businesslike. “Does it look like they’re going to attack?”

“No, they’ve been edging their way farther and farther west like the other patrols, without ever committing. They just came close enough this time that I think we should attack them.”

Another pause. “We?” the former sheriff asked flatly.

Trev frowned at the tone. “It’s a perfect opportunity. If you come out of the canyon and hit them from the front while we hit them from the northeast and northwest, we’ll mow them all down before they even know what’s going on.”

“Yeah, no, Smith. There are a lot of things I don’t like about what you just said. Among them being “come out of the canyon”, “hit them from the front”, and “it’s a perfect opportunity”. Our orders are to guard the canyon, not go looking for trouble. And your orders are to scout for possible threats, not ambush enemy patrols unless you absolutely have to.”

Trev tried to shove down his impatience. “Davis told us to take any targets of opportunity, if it wasn’t too big a risk and didn’t go against our other orders.”

“What part of leaving the canyon we’re supposed to guard doesn’t go against orders?” the former sheriff shot back.