James Tarr - Dogsoldiers

“Grab as much as you can carry, and then grab some more,” Ed told them. He checked his watch. “We’re wheels up in one hour fifteen. Chug water until you feel like puking, eat all the Power Bars and beef jerky you can, then chug some more water. Sounds like the move is going to be all sorts of miserable, but at least we know it won’t last forever.”

He turned to Renny. “How many rounds do you have for your rifle?”

Renny was chewing at his lip. “I loaded one hundred, and fired five to confirm my zero. Came into the city with ninety-five. Left? Eighty-two, if I remember correctly. Which seemed like a ridiculous amount until I heard this plan.”

“Well, there’s no place in the city for you to get a resupply on your fancy caliber I’ve never even heard of, so eighty-two’ll have to do. At least you can grab some of that nine-millimeter for your pistol.” Renny grunted, back to chewing his lip.

Ed looked around, frowning. “Anyone seen Jason?”

Ten minutes later Ed Found Jason in a ground floor hallway of the complex. He was red-faced and looked guilty when he saw Ed. “Your gear squared away?” Ed asked him. “I didn’t think so. Go downstairs, get with Weasel or Quentin, and make sure you’re stocked up on everything you’re going to need. This is probably going to be the most dangerous thing we ever fucking do, and some people are going to die, maybe even you, so get your shit together, and your head on straight, or it’ll be the last thing you fucking do. You understand me?”

Jason swallowed. “Yes, sir.” He headed downstairs.

Ed turned to look at Brooke, who was just finishing buttoning up her blouse. She and Jason had just exited one of the rooms down the hall when Ed had spotted them. “Really?”

She shrugged and smiled. “Boy’s old enough pick up a gun and fight for his country, maybe die, seems only fair he should have a full and complete idea of what that freedom tastes like.” She had a glint in her eye. “Feels like.”

“Christ.” Ed sighed and shook his head and checked his watch. “When are you heading out?” Morris had the squads staggering their departure times.

Brooke checked her own watch. “Forty minutes. My guys are good to go, and all I’ve got to do is throw on my vest and pack. Which I’m not looking forward to, I think it weighs more than I do. And you’re leaving after us, right? So we had plenty of time. Hell, a jackrabbit his age, exploring new territory, I figured we had time to go twice.” She threw him a smile and headed for the stairs. “Turns out I was wrong,” she said, without looking back. She started down the stairs. “Boy was good for a hat trick,” he heard her say, voice echoing up the stairs and, behind it, her delighted laugh.

“Oh dear God,” Ed wheezed as he stood up under the weight of his backpack after climbing down the ladder. Between his backpack and body armor and rifle he normally carried forty to fifty pounds of gear, depending on how low the squad was on ammo and water. As he stood there it felt like his boots were sinking into the concrete beneath him, and he guessed his current load was pushing ninety pounds. Everyone on the squad was at least as heavily laden as he was, including the new addition to their squad. Sergeant Sarah Weaver certainly didn’t seem to be enjoying the weight on her muscled shoulders, but she bore it without complaint. He could see she was nervous, even though she hid it well.

The eighteen dogsoldiers of Theodore and Flintstone (including Morris’ loaners) stood at the bottom of a dry swimming pool at the other end of the sports complex from where Morris had done his briefing. The two squads would be making the move together, as the plan called for them to be working in tandem once they arrived at the objective.

“We took a week to travel twelve miles and now we’re supposed to do eight miles in as many hours, and none of this shit is going to get any lighter,” Weasel said, bowed under the weight of his backpack. As far as he was concerned it was piss poor planning. “Are we going or what?”

Morris had climbed down the ladder with them to see them off, as he had the three squads who’d departed before them. “I’ll be heading out with the remainder of my people in a couple hours,” he told them. “And I hope to hear from you soon.”

Ed gave the nod to Quentin, who would be on point for the first leg of the trip. Q turned on his handheld Surefire flashlight on its lowest setting, just five lumens, and moved out. At that output the batteries were supposed to last thirty hours, and the five lumens should be more than enough. If the batteries gave out early he had spares. They all did.

As they passed him, Morris shook each man’s hand, and gave Sarah a smile and a pat on the shoulder. George had more combat experience and seniority than anyone in Flintstone, and waved both squads past him before taking up position at the rear of the column. He watched as Hannibal ducked to walk inside the hole dug into the side of the pool. It was not quite six feet in diameter, hacked into the concrete wall of the pool with sledgehammers.

The men of Theodore and Flintstone had watched Sylvester disappear into the dark hole not quite half an hour earlier, then carefully lowered their gear into the pool. Then they double- and triple-checked their gear nervously while waiting to go.

“Good luck,” Morris told George.

“We’ll see,” George said through gritted teeth. He was carrying just over a hundred pounds of gear, but luckily didn’t have to stoop to fit through the hole. At its low setting his Streamlight flashlight put out ten lumens with a fifty-hour run time. The wide beam clearly illuminated the jagged edges of concrete as they gave way to the earth and clay beyond. Dug by hand, with pick and shovel.

The crude tunnel curved downward and to the left, heading northwest. Here and there it was reinforced with planking. The narrow shaft echoed with the muted sounds of heavily laden men moving as quickly as they could, the glow from several lights swinging back and forth as the men shuffled forward. George saw silhouettes of bodies in front of him as the smell of dirt filled his nostrils.

Forty feet in there was a sharp kink in the tunnel as it bent around a concrete pipe two and a half feet in diameter. Thirty feet past that there was a traffic jam as the men paused and very carefully stepped through the hole pounded through the huge reinforced concrete sewer pipe running directly north/south.

“We found an amazing amount of data online,” Morris had told the squad leaders during his briefing. “Maps of the entire water and sewer system. The first trunk line you’ll be using to travel, we knew within thirty feet or so where it was located, but weirdly enough none of the resources we found gave it a name. It is possibly the Hubbell-Southfield trunk line. The good news is that it’s twelve feet in diameter, and there’s only a small amount of gunk in the bottom of the pipe. The bad news is that if you want to stay out of sight as much as humanly possible, and trust me, you do, you’re going to be taking it in the wrong direction. North.”

Once through the four-foot-wide hole in the side of the pipe the men straightened up under their burdens. Quentin moved forward and waited while everyone made it through the hole into the sewer pipe. Ahead of him the pipe stretched straight and true, fading black beyond the beam of his flashlight.

The air in the pipe was stale, and Morris had told them breathable air had been a concern, but in addition to opening up the pipes to foot traffic—where possible—his engineers had made sure there were enough openings in the sewer lines to produce sufficient air flow.

“Smells more like dirt than shit,” Quentin said softly, playing his flashlight beam over the two-foot-wide stripe of organic material at the bottom of the big pipe. His voice, soft as it was, echoed ahead of him eerily.