Nathan Jones - Determination

Davis and Harmon stood not far away talking over an unencrypted channel on the radio. They were having a heated conversation with some officer on the Gold Bloc side, and Lewis was barely getting their side of the conversation.

But from the sounds of it the negotiation wasn’t going well. The sergeants were getting angrier and angrier, doing their best to control their tempers because they knew it wasn’t them who’d end up suffering for a careless word. It was Williams, Peterson, and Anders on the rise.

Finally, though, Davis toggled his radio off and slumped down onto the rock he’d been using as a seat for the last hour. “No exchange,” he said wearily. “No concessions, no hope of an agreement. They want our people to die, and they want us to watch.”

Nearly fifty fighters had joined them on the hilltop. A handful of medics were tending to Graham and the other wounded, while everyone else swapped binoculars or used rifle scopes to follow the horrific events unfolding on the rise. In response to the arrival of so many fighters the blockheads had brought in another six trucks, dumping a hopeless number of troops onto the rise and even some heavy weaponry. It was obvious they didn’t intend for their message to be interrupted.

Graham looked up from where he’d been dozing against a rock padded by his combat vest. “Will they execute them?” he whispered.

“In a manner of speaking,” Harmon spat. “Those monsters are going to leave them up there to die of thirst or their injuries, whichever comes first. All to send a message to us.”

“What message?” Abrams demanded, clenching his hands around his rifle. “That they’re merciless SOBs who deserve to be gut shot and left to die? We already know that.”

A bitter silence fell. “What do we do?” Trev asked quietly. He and Jane were standing with Lewis and their squad mates near the wounded Marines.

Davis looked away, jaw clenched in helpless rage. “We can’t go after them and they know it,” he snarled. “The way they’re set up, we could send every fighter we had against that rise with barely a chance of taking it. Even if we somehow won they’d kill Williams, Peterson, and Anders just to spite us. Our people are dead no matter what, they’re just going to force us to watch them suffer first.”

Harmon jammed the binoculars back to his face and scoped the hill again, cursing under his breath. After about a minute Lewis cleared his throat awkwardly. “So we just watch? There’s nothing we can do?”

“No, there’s something,” Davis snapped, whirling to face him. “How many missiles you got left, Halsson?”

Lewis blinked in surprise, and took a moment to find the answer. “Seven.”

“Well if you don’t mind I’d like to borrow them, and your launcher.”

“You’re going to bombard the rise?” Trev demanded.

The sergeant looked over at him with a frightening gleam in his eyes. “They’re sending us a message with this stunt,” he said quietly. “They expect us to just sit and watch our people die because we know we can’t do anything. Well Williams and the others are going to die over there, but when they do we’ll give them a proper sendoff. However long we have to wait.”

Lewis nodded and motioned for the Aspen Hill volunteers to get ready to move. “I’ll get them to you as fast as I can.”

“Do that.” Davis turned back to watching the rise. By that point Lewis’s people were ready, and he led the way down the back of the hill and started up the southern slope.

Trev and Jane walked beside him, with the implied suggestion that they could support him if he needed it. “So we just do nothing?” Trev asked. “The blockheads are going to torture those guys to death right in front of us, and our response will be to blow some of them up afterwards?”

“Trying to rescue them would be suicide,” Lewis said quietly. “But that doesn’t mean we do nothing.”

Jane gave him a sharp look. “Tonight?” she asked.

Lewis nodded, glancing up at the sky. Still a few hours to dark. “Everyone’s attention is down here, and will be for however long Williams and the others can hold out. Now’s the perfect time to hit the depot armory. We’ll circle around north instead of south, that alternate route you mapped out. The armory’s on the north end of the camp anyway, so even if it’s more dangerous it’s also more direct.”

Trev frowned doubtfully. “Won’t all this going on with Williams mean that they’ll really be on guard right now?”

“In a way.” Lewis grimaced slightly as vertigo made him stumble. “They’re provoking us, so they expect a certain type of response. Like Davis with the missiles, or some sort of full scale attack. What they won’t be expecting is a small team sneaking into their camp and blowing up their munitions.”

“You hope,” Trent said from behind.

Lewis didn’t even try to turn his head enough to look over his shoulder. He was fine, not fit as a fiddle. “I hope,” he agreed. “But don’t you think they’ll be just as on guard a week from now, if not more? Everyone knows revenge is a dish best served cold, and that’s when they’ll be expecting the sneaky sorts of retribution. Now’s as good a time as any.”

“I’m in,” Jane said. “Let’s get our team together.”

Trev sighed. “It seems a bit messed up to not help Williams and the others, but it’s better than doing nothing. I’m in. Rick told me this morning he thinks he’s in good enough shape to hold a gun, so he’s in too. And Gutierrez has been chomping at the bit since you suggested this four days ago.”

“And me,” Trent said, sounding a bit miffed. Now Lewis did turn to look at him, and the man hunched his shoulders slightly. “Hey, even if it’s more dangerous I’m still going.”

Lewis shrugged. “That should do it, then. We’ll have the other volunteers sneak as close to the perimeter as we can get them, standing by in case something goes wrong. Let’s get ready.”

Williams died an hour after full dark.

It wasn’t unexpected, given the severity of his wounds. Actually it was a tribute to his determination that he’d held on so long, hanging from his bound wrists on a hilltop being randomly pelted by rocks from bored blockheads.

That also happened to be the time when Trev joined Lewis and the other volunteers setting out on their raid. It helped that in response to the corporal’s death Davis and his Marines began making minor incursions towards the rise to pick off blockhead patrols, trying to bunch the enemy up in preparation for the missile barrage following the deaths of the other two Marines. Trev just hoped it would provide a distraction to the south.

Lewis’s revised plan called for them to circle north around Huntington and approach the depot from the northeast. It meant they’d have to hike twice as far, but it took them well away from the rise and the action happening there. More importantly, going on Trev’s earlier observations while patrolling the area north of Cedar Creek Canyon, the blockhead patrols were less vigilant east of the town.

“We’ve all had experience with this,” Lewis whispered before the team of six set out. “We go slow, we watch in all directions, and we be ready to seek cover or even just freeze where we are if there’s even a hint of attention in our direction.”

Trev nodded with the others, then followed his cousin as he set off.

Behind them the squad of volunteers went a different direction. Lewis’s plan was for his raiding team to get in and out by the same route circling north of town, but just in case something went wrong the volunteers would be waiting due west of the depot, close enough that they could take out the sentries and patrols and provide an avenue of escape for the team.