Chp. 2 - The Homefront

A woman sat at her desk, her face lit only by the dull yellow gleam of the desk lamp. She had lines on her face created by age and hours of brooding. She was shrewd, but powerful. She did not suffer fools, nor did she have empathy for those she considered beneath her. She had just hung up the phone with a man almost as cold-hearted as herself and she decided to cut off the loose end he had become. She picked up her phone and made a call. "Trace his phone. When he makes it to Kansas, have an ambush ready for him. But dress as Coalition. I want it to look like we were not involved." A deep voice replied, "It will be done," and hung up. She returned the phone to the receiver, a faint but cold smile on her lips. She enjoyed winning, and lately, she had done a lot of it.

*  *  *  *  *  *  *  *

Chris sat back in his rocking chair on the porch, taking in a deep hit from his blunt. He was of average build (perhaps a little husky) and about 5'8", 25 years old, long brown hair, an unkempt beard to match and had eyes as brown as the clay stuck to his boots. He had the bearing of a man who could have a bomb go off next him and he wouldn't flinch, not because he was brave, but just out of lack of caring. The porch was attached to a one story house, small and humble, but the porch was quite sizeable, almost too big for a house so small. It wrapped around the front and right side, and extended 8 feet from the walls, with lanterns on each support beam. It was a little past 3:00 a.m. and not a cloud in the sky. He exhaled slowly, his mind wrapping itself around the war front that wasn't even 40 miles from where he was. He and his friends had been in undercover reconnaissance ever since the government splintered and a faction had betrayed their people to the Coalition. Guess we picked a bad time to have a second revolution, he thought. We mighta been able to hold our own if we hadn't been so busy fighting ourselves. Even though the military was still fighting, and America had not fallen yet, it was a dire situation. The east coast had pockets of Russian and Iranian military activity, while the west had China and North Korea to worry about. And we still can't stop f*****g fightin' ourselves. Many of the rebellion factions that had emerged started assisting the military in the fight, but many more still chose to keep to themselves or continue to harass D.C. with protests and riots.

As Chris took another hit, Leo stepped out on the porch, sipping tea from a mug. He was about Chris's height, thinner, a year younger, and was of Italian descent (but not in the Fabio way). His face was darkened by stubble and his hair was black. His eyes were as dark as Chris's. "Hey, man. You want a hit?" Chris calmly reached his hand toward Leo. "No, I'm good. I don't smoke. But thanks anyway" Leo replied as he sat down in another chair.

"You stress out too much man, it'd be good for ya" Chris took a long puff. Leo looked over at him.

 "Yea, that's what Tyler always told me. Said I needed to let out some steam more often." He looked up at the sky, "but I don't think drugs are the way to deal with that." Chris shrugged and paused a moment before finally exhaling.

"Ain't like we gotta worry 'bout bein' arrested. It's a war. Cops got enough problems on their hands" Chris took a moment before adding in, "So do we."

Leo looked at him with a frown, "something new come up?" Chris nodded as he snubbed out his blunt. "Tyler got found"

Leo's eyes lit up in fear, "Is he…." he trailed off, not willing to finish the question, but Chris put his doubts to rest,

 "He's fine. I just got off the phone with him. Someone hired a professional hitman to kill him."

Leo nearly choked on his tea at that statement. "What?!? What the f**k do you mean a professional hitman? Why would the Coalition hire a hitman?? They're military they could send in special forces or something."

"I don't think it was Coalition." Tyler replied thoughtfully, "I think our old friend Mrs. Wildman is trying to take out rebel leaders to keep us from helping the military, and to keep us all divided."

"Do we have any proof of that?"

"Nah man. Just a gut feeling. It makes sense though. Tyler was working to unite all the factions, and we already know she doesn't want us being the heroes, especially since we know the truth about her treason. She can't have us being legitimized"

Leo stared out into the night for a moment to ponder this. "Yea, it would make sense. But she destroyed the disk with all the proof, what kind of threat would we be?"

Chris lit a cigarette before replying, "The smart thing fer her to do is get rid of any piece of opposition, so getting rid of Tyler and us would be the final nail in the coffin of this conspiracy"

"You're right. Any idea where he is right now?"

"He called me from Colorado and said he was on the way now. That's 23 hours on the highway but we know he'll take backroads to keep off grid, plus he's got one more stop to make. But he stole the hitman's Audi. He'll be going at least 100 mph on average. Ain't no cops around to stop him so sometime next day or so is the best guess I've got."

"Oh s**t, an Audi? He's going to have a little too much fun in that isn't he?"

"I know I would," Chris chuckled as he finished his cigarette and flicked away the butt. "Well, we ain't getting any sleep tonight, we got work to do." He stood and entered the front door, leaving only the screen door closed behind him.

 

Chris walked into the living room to find Fred and Mathew looking at several screens of news footage covering the front, and several laptops out looking at satellite images of the same area. Fred was only an inch taller than Chris, and he was a quite a large man, though it was not due to muscle, and had pale skin. Mathew on the other hand was considerably darker, 6'1" and a bean pole. Both poured over intelligence reports on separate laptops, the faint glow of the screens accentuating the bags under their eyes. Chris walked to the mini fridge and grabbed a monster before announcing, "alright fellas, Tyler's coming back. We gotta start pulling people off reconnaissance and start building back to effective combat numbers. We need ammo, and if we can get Church back to make some of those special bombs that'd be great." Both Fred and Matthew turned to look at Chris in bewilderment before Matthew responded, "He's coming back now? He hasn't been gone long enough yet, how many leaders did he get in contact with?" Chris sat in front of one of the laptops and began looking over the data. "He was attacked by a hitman, he's been found out. We're moving up our time table." He paused to compare the news reports of the front to the satellite images, "I see the media is still covering up how bad the situation is aren't they?" "Yea dude," Mathew replied, "pretty much all of the coast of S.C. is overtaken up to about 70 miles inland give or take a few depending on how far north or south you go. The military is faltering big time. It's a good thing we managed to get this fancy tech from them before s**t went south, otherwise we'd be even more screwed then we already are." He took a swig from his flask before going back to look at his laptop. Fred looked from one to the other with confusion, "Are we just gonna gloss over the fact you just said a hitman tried to kill Tyler? 'Cause that sounds like a pretty big f****n' deal." Chris took a sip from his own drink before responding, "Don’t worry, he's good. I just got off the phone with him a few minutes ago, he let me know he's on the way back. Managed to kill the dude and take his Audi. Guarantee you he won't go below 90 the whole way back." Fred chuckled, then said, "What the hell does it take to kill this guy? And now he's got a f****n' Audi? Why can't this s**t happen to me." 

Just then Leo walked through the door and exclaimed, "cuz you sit in the house all day drinking beers and taking naps," Chris and Mathew started laughing while Leo gave Fred a cheeky grin, and crossed the room to hand him another beer, relaying his jest had only been a tease and not an affront. Fred grinned and accepted the beer. "At least I can shoot something bigger than a .22 without screamin' " Chris and Mathew's faces were now red, and neither could breath well enough to continue laughing or talking. Leo shot back, "Hey, hearing protection is a very vital part of gun safety, and I will not be shamed just cause you rednecks lost your hearing and aren't bothered by it anymore." Chris giggled and yelled, "What? I didn't catch that?" Leo rolled his eyes and sat down at a computer, "oh whatever. Let's get to making those phone calls, we need to have as many people round up as possible before Tyler gets back" Fred knocked back his beer, belched, and then turned to Mathew, "To start off, you call up the guys we sent to Florence, Chris, get the guys in Orangeburg, I'll call up the group in Sumter, and Leo, you call up the group in Bamberg. Then as each of us finish our calls we'll go down the list til we've called everybody," Leo started typing numbers on his phone and whispered under his breath, "oh sure, you heard that."

As Chris predicted, no one got much sleep that night. People needed to be called, messages sent in person to more local contacts, and equipment acquired. The next day at around 6 p.m. found the group almost zombified, and on their 8th cup of coffee. As Chris stepped back outside to light another cigarette, a blue Chevy truck pulled into the driveway. The first recon team to arrive, as they packed up and left the moment they received the call, taking back roads to avoid unwanted attention. The vehicle pulled in front of the porch and parked. Before the engine had even gone quiet the driver of the truck was already hoping out to unload, with the other passengers following suit. The drivers name was Jake; he was shorter than Chris by half a foot, thin but well muscled, short cropped hair and a clean-shaven face, and 21 years old. His eyes were a lighter brown than Chris's and he had less bags under his lids, though he still had them. From the front passenger side emerged Samantha, his girlfriend. At 20, she was slightly taller than Chris, thin, had red hair and bright blue eyes.

The rest of the group totaled 9. The 3 in the back seat, Ryan, Terrence and Jacob, all taller and more muscled than Chris. Ryan was the shortest of the 3 at 5'11" with blonde hair, brown eyes, 22 years old, and a crooked nose from a childhood injury. Terrence and Jacob were twins, 20 years old, both with brown hair and brown eyes, and many freckles. They were neither very handsome nor especially ugly, though being 6'3" and buff certainly helped with the intimidation factor (and with the ladies). The best way to tell them apart is that Terrence had a small almost imperceptible scar just under his chin from a near miss by shrapnel. The other 6 sat in the bed of the truck on the drive, and were now unpacking their gear and taking it to the garage-turned-barracks/HQ. They were as follows: Chip, 26 years old, 5'8" athletic but thin build, brown hair, blue eyes, and a nose ring; Duncan, 23, 5'5", well muscled, black hair and green eyes, and a neatly groomed beard; Alex 20, 6'2" athletic but not very muscular, dyed red hair and brown eyes, he was the demolitions expert of this squad; Allan 27 year old woman, 5'9", not very big compared to most, but could hold her own in a fight, brown hair blue eyes, she was a graduate of MIT with a degree in mechanical and electrical engineering (she was the techie/mechanic); Mickey, 5'7" husky but healthy, dirty blonde hair with blue eyes, he had a scar on his cheek from a house fire caused by coalition forces before he joined the resistance, he is the youngest of the group at 15. Last was Tanner, 19, he was 5'9" and stocky, buzz cut brown hair, brown eyes, and a missing ear lobe on his left side (he won’t tell anyone how). These were the members of the alpha team.

The crew made their way to the garage which had 3 separate bays each wide enough to fit 3 cars, and a door leading between each. One bay was for gear, another for crew quarters, and another was a make shift command center. Jake and Samantha approached Chris while the others packed in.

Chris looked Jake up and down. "You look like s**t," he took a puff from his cigarette and added, "Need coffee?" Samantha didn't hesitate to reply with sarcasm, "no, I quite enjoy being tired, it's wonderful."

Jake grinned, "Hey, the lady said she's good, but I will take the whole damn pot please." They walked into the front door to be greeted by Leo, Fred, and Mathew. "Well look who finally showed up, y'all late as a sumbitch," yelled out Fred from his chair in jest. "So how was the drive up? What is the situation in Bamberg?" As everyone found a seat in the living room, Jake began relaying their report. "For the most part, the bulk of their forces have been closer to Columbia trying to overrun Fort Jackson. What forces they did have raided some small communities but didn't advance out of the county because they kept experiencing vehicular problems….meaning we blew them up."

"Okay," Chris spoke up, "we already knew they were amassing based on satellite imagery. Spread the news to our guys who haven't moved out yet, tell them to cause some damage before they leave so that the coalition can't bring in reinforcements." Fred was already typing up the message and pressing send as he spoke, "Way ahead of you buddy. Now what should we do about the larger force? Even if we collect every person we have, we can't take on a whole army." Mathew hopped in, "we can't do much, the army already knows they are massing, that's who we get our data from, it's second hand. But we can probably harass their operations enough to give the army time to prepare a counter. We can have our other groups who haven't moved out yet to move around and get behind their forces, and take out equipment, sabotage vehicles, the usual guerilla stuff. It won't do much, but it might buy some time." Chris was shaking his head before Mathew had even finished, "By the time they made it to the positions they'd need it would be too late. I don't think we should make any kind of moves until Tyler gets back, he should be here within the next two days." Everyone in the room nodded in agreement as the other members of the squad walked in and found seats.

Duncan asked, "so what's the word on Tyler anyway? Why's he coming back so early?" Chris answered, "he had a hitman come after him. I guess he decided he's waited long enough."

Everyone who hadn't already known turned to look at Chris in shock, then a cacophony of voices arose.

"Hitman? What kinda mafia bull s**t is this?"

"Who sends a hitman? Is it another rebel group? It can't be Coalition?"

"How did they even find him? People didn't start calling him The Ghost for nothing, man"

Leo raised his hand and gestured for everyone to calm down, then replied, "we don't know the full details, but we do suspect it was Mrs. Wildman. He's stopping in Kansas City on his way here to make one more connection, with The Bears, but he is on the way. "

Fred chimed in, "Our move right now is to get everything back to full operation and everyone here and ready to go, that way when Tyler gets here we can make our next move. We're looking at a rough couple of days and we need to put priority on some aerial recon, we're gonna need to fuel up the planes at our air strip and one of them is gonna need serious maintenance. Allan, can you get to work on that in the morning?"

Allan nodded, "Yea, I might need some help though. Mickey, you game?"

Mickey responded, "happy to help, whatever you need."

"Sweet. Next, we need to do some more supply runs and we need to get the shop back in order so we can start making our own ammo and bombs again. Jake, Leo, Tanner, and Chip do the supply runs while Chris, Alex, and Samantha get working on the munitions."

Just as Fred finished speaking, a black SUV pulled up next to Jakes truck.

"Look who finally showed up, it's bravo team," Leo spoke as he stood to walk outside. Chris got up and followed him out to greet the second group, who was already getting out of the vehicle. The drivers name was Tyrell, he was 5'8", lean but strong build, with black hair and brown eyes. Out of the front passenger seat was Courtney, 5'6", stout, with short blonde hair and brown eyes. Out of the back were Ben, 5'10", built like a linebacker (which, he used to be for the local high school), Joseph, 6'0" thin build, skilled in mechanics, and Quinton, 5'9", muscular build, he was one of the best shots in the whole unit, and was bravo teams sniper. Chris walked up to Tyrell, slapped his hand and touched shoulders, "hey, man. How was the drive?"

Tyrell responded, "it was aight man, didn't have too many problems. Is this all that's back so far?" he gestured to Jacks truck.

"Yea dude, everyone else had more gear to pack and a few last minute operations to carry out. We probably won't be back to full strength til next week." Chris pulled out his cigarettes, took one out for himself, then offered Tyrell one, who gladly accepted.

As the others took their gear to the garage, Leo helped them to get settled in. "You guys have any issues down in Sumter?" He asked. Courtney replied, "nothing we couldn't handle. In fact it was relatively quiet aside from a few small units and patrols, no large base of operations, I think they were mostly further north or south of us."

Leo looked at her perplexed as he sat down one of the ammo boxes on a crate, "yea, I remember the satellite imagery showed that part of the front to be pretty quiet, that's kinda strange. What do you think it was?"

Courtney paused a moment to consider this, "ya know, I have no clue. Maybe it just wasn't of any interest? There's not really a whole lot of military targets there, though there were plenty of civilians and they've made a point about killing as many civilians as possible. Maybe they were just spread thin since most of the forces were gathering near Columbia? "

"Yea, that's true," Anthony responded, "no sense in being worried about that I suppose."

As the gear was gathered and the rest of the crew filed into the house, the large living room was now beginning to feel rather packed with twenty people crowded in around large TVs and surveillance equipment.

Fred spoke up, "alright, Sumter group, we'll let everyone catch you up later, give us your report and then we can split y'all up to work on the stuff they were about to go do."

Tyrell, who was standing to the side answered, "Okay. So the coalition stayed mostly north or south of where we were, what little bit of resistance we met was small patrols. But we did manage to take some of their radios and hop on to their frequencies, we know that they plan to pincer Fort Jackson from behind. We know it’s a massive battle, but we can probably set up some blockage for the pincer forces, since they will be smaller, and we can disrupt their attack. That way we can lend a hand to the army without getting in way over our heads." The revelation of being able to help lifted the spirits of the room collectively.

"That's some good news," Matthew chimed in, "we were pretty sure we wouldn't be able to help since they are mobilizing in a few days and we won't be back to full muster. But with that info, we can probably direct the remaining units that haven't left to set up for some guerilla action, the army might actually stand a chance if they divide like that and the smaller units are stopped."

Fred agreed, "Oh yea. I'll go ahead and send out messages to let those who are near enough to stand by on returning and to create problems for those forces." Before he even finished speaking he was already typing away. "In the mean time, everyone get some rest, and then bright and early tomorrow, Joseph, you help Allan and Mickey, everyone else split off and help the other guys with their tasks." Everyone got up and began going to work.

 

After a few hours rest, the crew began on their tasks (now early in the morning). It was a grueling day for everyone. Allan, Mickey, and Joseph set to working on the aircraft in their possession, which only consisted of two single engine Cessna 172s and one two-engine Cessna 441 (hardly made for combat, but they had proved useful nonetheless). No one in the unit was an ace pilot (in fact only Allan actually knew how to fly a plane before the war) which is why these planes had mostly been used as ground support and reconnaissance rather than any dog fighting. Of course, few enemy jets had ever gotten very far past the coast anyway (and the ones that had were swiftly dealt with by the Air Force, which had managed to keep air superiority even through all the chaos). Despite this, Allan still managed to teach a few of the others how to fly, such as Mickey. The orphan boy was left for dead in the woods when Allan's team found him, and her heart immediately broke for him. In fact, as far as anyone else was concerned, and even though the local government had shut down and she wasn’t able to file the paper work, he was her adopted son. The late afternoon found the two working on a bay door modification to the bottom of the 441 plane to allow it to drop small improvised bombs in flight.

"hey kiddo, pass me the 1/2 inch socket wrench," Allan called out from under the plane to Mickey who began digging in the tool box.

"here ya go, is it almost done?" Mickey asked enthusiastically.

Allan shook her head, "not yet, I've still got to find a good seal to put on the outer door, other wise the wind will tear it open before it even takes off. Plus I need to reinforce the arms or when it opens to drop a bomb--" Mickey cut her off, "it'll tear it off?" Allan smiled at him, "yes. It'll do that." As the two worked on the project, she couldn't help but reminisce to the day she found him.

It was close to 3 years ago when the war was still a fresh storm that had taken everyone by surprise. Their group was focused on trying to save civilians trapped in the areas where Coalition and American forces were fighting heavily and couldn't evacuate. Allan was with Tyler, Chris, Tyrell, Jake and Matthew walking through partially destroyed rural neighborhoods, two miles from the main battlefield, but the line was ever shifting, constantly being pushed back and forth, neither side being able to hold onto what they had claimed for longer than a day or two, and thousands of civilians were killed in the crossfire. Allan was finding it hard to hold back the flood of emotions that raged in her. She couldn't separate the anger from the despair and sadness, so she tried her best to bottle it. What has become of the world? This is the stuff of nightmares. They had just cleared a partially burned house that was still smoldering. If it hadn't been for the heavy rain that had just lightened to a slight drizzle the house would still be engulfed in flames. While searching they had found four of the bodies of a family of five (although at the time they didn’t know there was a fifth) and were searching for any sign of life when they met back in what was left of the kitchen of the house. She looked at each of her friends trying to read their emotional states. Chris was always one to hide his emotion behind humor, but as she watched him sit in a chair and light a cigarette, there was no laughter in his eyes. He spoke quietly to Tyrell, "You wanna cig, man?" Tyrell nodded and took one from Chris, with a similar sullen expression on his face. Jake suddenly spoke up and Allan turned to look at him, his face twisted in anger, "What kind of monsters would gun down people in cold blood like this? Innocent people with no way to defend themselves. Its just sick!" As he spoke these last words he kicked a wall. Matthew was silent, and he had a distant look on his face, as if he was trying to escape the horrors he had witnessed by hiding in his own head. He was the youngest in the group at the time, and was the youngest brother of Tyler. Allan looked lastly at him, their fearless leader, dressed in his signature dark grey cargo pants, dark boots, black shirt and dark grey tactical vest. She had watched him many times risk his own life to save others, running into burning houses, charging enemy positions to keep fire off his team while they flanked, and he even had taken a few bullets for people, surviving by sheer will power and stubbornness. Or maybe even someone up above was watching out for him. She noticed his face was not in despair or anger, nor was he spacing out in attempt to escape. His face was focused and determined on the task at hand. Always keeping in mind what was going on. He almost seemed like a man who just could not be killed. Now I see why the Coalition call him the Grey Ghost, she thought.

  Suddenly his head shot to his left to look out the window into the backyard. "Get down!" he yelled, and dove under the window as bullets suddenly rained in from the wood line. Tyler immediately began giving orders, and his ability to take command and remain calm under pressure was the reason everyone revered him as a leader, and why a command from him was more than enough to snap them out of their emotional squalor and get them into focus. "Chris, Tyrell. Break left, into the dinning room, I made 4 total before they started firing, pop some smoke out the windows. Allan, with me, Jake and Matthew break right into the hall." As he spoke he was taking a grenade from his vest and pulling the pin, then as the last word left his mouth he turned and chucked it through the destroyed window near the assailants. The resulting explosion killed two, and knocked a tree down, forcing the other two Coalition soldiers to move back to escape. As they did so, a few well placed shots from Chris and Tyrell took them out as well. There was a pause in the fighting, and Allan could feel her heart beating so fast she feared Tyler could hear it. She took a few deep breaths to calm down, then peered up above the window sill to get eyes on any targets. She could see movement on the right through the pine trees. "Movement right," she called out, then ducked just as more gun fire hit the window. Jake and Tyler focused fire back and then all was silent again. Allan waited before viewing again. Tyler popped back up and saw nothing. "Okay, nice and careful, move out back." Allan found her courage and followed. They creeped up the hill to the tree line, finding five dead soldiers. "Jake, Tyrell, and Mathew, take their weapons and ammo back  to the truck outside the house, then look for their truck in the area and see if there's anything useful or if it's worth commandeering. Chris and Allan, with me, we're gonna see if there are anymore of them. The group split and began on their tasks, Allan followed close behind Tyler as they ventured further into the woods, looking for any signs of other soldiers. 

After a few minutes, Tyler gave the order to stop. Allan took this chance to take out her water bottle and take a few sips. The adrenaline surge from earlier was starting to subside and her throat was practically dry. "I don't see any signs of tracks of a unit, I think those soldiers were the ones who attacked the house," Tyler spoke, "They probably were leaving from the house into the woods, although I'm not sure why, there's nothing out here for them." Allan could see the look of confusion on Tyler's face. He was right, there was no reason for them to go traipsing into the woods, they should have been moving on to another house, after all this wasn't the first looting party they had found collecting supplies from dead civillians. Allan suddenly heard a soft shuffling in the leaves to her left. She saw no movement, but noticed a large tree stump that appeared to be partially hollowed out. She stood and touched Tyler on the shoulder, gesturing she heard something, and they slowly and quietly began creeping towards the sound. Before they got far, Allan heard what she thought was crying. Crying? Is their a crying soldier out here? But then she realized it didn't sound like an adult; it was a child. She gestured for Tyler to lower his weapon then called out softly, "Hey, is someone there? You can come out now, the bad guys are gone. We won't hurt you." After a few seconds of silence, a soft voiced replied from inside the tree stump, "the bad guys are all gone?" Allan replied, "yes, what's your name?" Then a young boy emerged from the top of the stump, his cheeks lined with tears, his hair and clothes dirty and matted. He climbed down and approached slowly. "My names Mickey." Allan kneeled down and offered him her water bottle, "hello Mickey, my name is Allan." She smiled warmly at him, and despite all the terrors she had experienced, she found that this smile was real, and not just a show for a scared kid. 

Allan didn't realize that as she was working and reminiscing, she had started subconsciously grinning. Mickey looked at her curiously, brows furrowed into a question, "What are you smiling at?" She looked at his grease covered face, still smiling, and replied, "Oh nothing. I think we're almost done here, go see if Joseph needs any help with the 172s, okay?" Mickey gave a salute and said, "okay, boss!" then rushed off to find Joseph. Well, Allan thought to herself, it's so odd to think that happiness can come from such a dark time, but I'm glad it did. 

Just then she got a call from Chris. She answered with her left hand "Hey, just about to wrap up here, what's up?" She said as she tightened one last bolt with the wrench in her right hand. Chris answered, "everyone needs to come on back to the HQ, Tyler just got back," as he spoke these words, he watched a dented and scratched jet black Audi pull down the drive way, with bullet holes in the wind shield and a partially missing front bumper. 

Author's Note

So, for the most part this rough draft is the completed chapter, but let me know if you think there are some plot holes that need to be addressed now before I continue with the next chapters (obviously some plot points will be explained later in the story, but any immediate info needed for flow please point out!) Was the dialogue easy to follow, did it seem realistic or too cheesy? Was it told in a way that wasn't confusing? Thoughts appreciated!!