Ashes - Fury In The Ashes Part 33

The rain lessened in intensity and steadied down to a constant soft fall.

"Order half the people to stand down and get some rest,"

Ben told Corrie. "Sleep for a couple of hours and then switch with the others. It won't be enough rest, but it will help."

Ben looked around at his team. "And that order applies here, as well. Every other person lay down and get some rest."

"Fine," Dan said. "I will take over here while you get some rest, General."Ben didn't argue. To refuse would have been pointless; the Englishman would argue with a stump for hours.

Ben stretched out on the floor with the others, a bedroll for a pillow, and went to sleep, seemingly oblivious of the sniper fire going on around him.

Ben opened his eyes, checked his watch, and found he had been asleep for two and a half hours. He felt refreshed. He got to his boots and walked over to Dan.

"Now, you hit the floor and get some rest, Dan.

Right now."

It was a quarter till three in the morning.

Linda came to him and lay down behind the sandbagged window. "Corrie got through to the other battalions.

Ike is on the Oregon border. Seven and Eight are inspecting the state of Nevada, and Georgi is over in Utah. You don't appear to be ter ribly worried about this situation, Ben."

"I'm not. It's a d.a.m.n nuisance, that's all.

They missed any chance they might have had to overrun us. Now it's too late. We're too well dug in and have far superior firepower and armor. They could keep us pinned down here for several days, and probably will, but eventually we'll drive them back. If worse comes to worst, we'll use smoke to bust out. But I don't think it will come to that."

She looked at him. "What are you smiling about?"

"You noticed that Buddy is gone?"

"Yes. Where is he?"

"He and his Rat Team are out on the edges of our perimeters, laying out Claymores and other nasty little surprises for the creepies. The next time they hit us, they're going to be terribly upset by what they find waiting for them."

An hour slipped away. Linda dozed for a time, then awakened, and she and Ben quietly talked.

"I see now why the Rebels travel with so much ammunition. I couldn't understand it at first. It just seemed like so much to carry around."

"Here they come, General," Corrie said. "They're belly-crawling to us this time. Forward people say it looks like the entire ground, all the way around us, is covered with huge worms."

"That's a pretty good way of putting it. Ready flares."

"Flares ready."

"As soon as they hit the b.o.o.by traps, light up the night."

"Yes, sir."

"Wake everybody up."

Buddy and a few of his Rat Team slipped into the building. Buddy came to his father's side.

"The creepies are going to be very unhappy with us in a couple of minutes, Father."

"I hate that," Ben said with a straight face. "We try so hard be loved."Buddy choked back a laugh and slipped to his position.

Thunderous roars slammed the rainy night as creepies touched off Claymores and pressure mines. Mangled bodies were flung in all directions and wild screaming echoed through the rain.

Creepies leaped to their feet, jumped over the b.l.o.o.d.y chunks of body parts, and charged the Rebels, cursing the name of Ben Raines.

Hundreds of weapons, all set on full auto, turned the night into a muzzle-blasting and sparking shooting gallery. Flares cast their artificial brilliance on the land, turning the raindrops a metallic silver that was tinged with red from the splattering blood.

The Rebels stopped the advance cold. This time not one creepie made it into any building. The Rebels suffered one wounded, and no dead. The area around the perimeter was littered with dead and dying creepies.

The creepies fell back and began their hara.s.sing tactics against the Rebels. Their sniper fire inflicted no casualties.

"You reckon they'll try again?" Cooper asked.

"Oh, yes," Ben said. "The Judges will spend all day whipping the troops up into a murderous frenzy, and tonight they'll throw everything they've got at us. Stand down and get something to eat and some sleep.

Tonight is going to be the big one."

The day crawled by slowly, the Rebels eating and resting as the hours pa.s.sed. They cleaned weapons and filled clips and got ready. Tank crews swabbed out their cannon and mortar crews made ready their tubes. The Rebels behind the heavy machine guns checked their guns and belts.

The rain did not let up. It was not a heavy downpour, more a gentle, consistent falling.

Everyone waited for the night.

"General," Corrie called softly. "I need to see you."

Ben walked over to her. "What is it, Corrie?"

"The communications van took a hit last night.

It's out until we can get in there and really take the radios down and see what the matter is. Now this one is down." She patted the small tabletop model. "Panel is out and I don't have a spare.

I think I can reach Cecil with my backpack, but I'm going to have to stretch an antenna. And even then, it's going to be chancy."

Ben motioned his son over to him and quickly explained the situation.

"How high an antenna, Corrie?" Buddy asked.

"I don't know. It's going to have to be really high, and even then I don't even know if it will work.

We'll be able to receive from greater distances, but transmitting?" She shrugged her shoulders. "I don't know."

Ben nixed the idea. "Anybody who went up any distance would get picked off by creepie snipers. Sothat's out. I'm not going to risk sending anyone out to break through to the outside. Pull the communications van in tight and go to work on that radio.

Tell them to rebuild it if they have to. I know d.a.m.n well we carry the spare parts."

"We don't have them anymore," a communications man said from the doorway. "The van took a lot of hits last night. The radio is out. And the spare parts and extra panels were shot all to h.e.l.l."

Ben grunted. "Cut off. Well, people, let's kick the creepie a.s.ses tonight and get the h.e.l.l gone from here in the morning."

Chapter Eight.

The long afternoon dragged on, the silence and stillness broken only by occasional long bursts of cursing from those working on the radio in the communications van, which was pulled up close to Ben's location.

Ben inspected the huge ragged circle which his people held, darting from building to building, with Dan at his heels b.i.t.c.hing about what a ridiculous and totally unsafe idea this was.

"Hanging in there, Therm?" Ben asked.

"Oh, yeah. I'm just glad it's raining. If it was hot and sunny, those bodies out there would be hard to take."

"There must be five or six hundred of them," Emil said. Ben noticed he had put aside his turban for a helmet. "We gonna wrap this up tonight, aren't we, General?"

"We're going to do our best, Emil."

"Right on!" the little man said.

Ben moved over to the bikers' position. "I have seen and done and been a lot of things in my life,"

Frank said. "But I have never seen anything so disgusting as these d.a.m.n Believers."

Ben agreed with him, turned, and almost collided with Doctor Chase. "What the h.e.l.l are you doing out here, Lamar?"

"We've got to conclude this before the weather breaks, Ben. When the sun hits those bodies, the health hazard for us goes right off the scale."

"I hadn't thought of that, Lamar. You're right.

Corrie, have all cannon and mortars capable of tossing tear gas to make ready. Everybody check their masks. We've got to blind them, and we've got to punch through and get the h.e.l.l out of here, tonight. Start lobbing some sh.e.l.ls in their direction now and while that's going on, have the drivers check their engines. Check all rolling equipment and get ready to bug out."

"Toward the Interstate?" Buddy asked.

"No," Ben said with a smile. "They'll be expecting us to do that. We're going to bust out the rear of this base, heading east on this old secondary road that leads to I-15. Start laying out explosives now. When the last vehicle is clear of this area, this place is going to go up like a roman candle."

"You're a wicked, wicked man, Ben," Chase said with a satisfied grin.

"Yeah." Ben returned the grin. "Ain't I,though."

Those creepies watching the embattled perimeters of the Rebels through long lenses saw nothing that would indicate a Rebel bust-out. And they were not surprised when Rebel artillery began cras.h.i.+ng down on their heads. To their way of thinking, the Rebels were savages, and nothing they did came as any surprise.

"All rolling equipment checked out and ready to go,"

Corrie told Ben.

"Tell the gunners to cease fire in one minute."

A dozen more rounds were lobbed in and the guns fell silent.

"Gas canisters?" Ben asked.

"Enough to do the job," Dan told him. "But we've got to do it quickly. We're going to be cutting it fine."

"What Rebel unit was last reported to be the closest to Los Angeles?" Ben turned to Corrie, hoping against hope.

She shook her head. "None of them," she told him. "They're all at least four or five hundred miles away."

"All right. That's it. We have no way of knowing whether or not Cecil has put out the call for help, and we can't transmit. So we're going to have to operate under the a.s.sumption that we are all alone with no help coming. And so far as I know that is our situation. Make sure that every unit knows what to do and where to go before we start our bust-out. Any screw-ups mean capture and torture for stragglers. Let's get packed up. We bust out at full dark."

Buddy and the Rat Team and Dan and his Scouts were busy b.o.o.by-trapping the area. When the creepies pursued the Rebels following the bust-out, they were going to hit some nasty reminders of how the Rebels viewed warfare.

Ben checked his watch. Three o'clock. The rain showed no signs of abating. That was good. The moisture and high humidity would keep the tear gas close to the ground and prevent rapid dissipation. Lord knows the Rebels needed every break they could get.

At four o'clock, Buddy slipped into the building.

"That's it," he told his father. "We've used as many Claymores as we dare. We've got to keep some in reserve. We set some with trip-wires and others to be electronically detonated by us. We've laid out the pressure mines around the eastern edge of our perimeters. Any vehicle that leaves this one road"-he pointed out the route on a map-"won't make it. Tear gas is ready to bang. Big Thumpers have been set up on selected trucks.

Heavy machine-gun crews are moving their guns to trucks now. Everyone is packed up. We've done all we can do except pray." "And that wouldn't be a bad idea," Ben said.

Ben checked his watch, then checked the sky.

"Fifteen minutes to bug-out," he told Corrie. "Tell the people to start loading up.

We're getting the h.e.l.l out of here.""How do we know this old road is still serviceable?"

Linda asked.

Ben grinned at her. "We don't. We might be driving smack into a dead end."

"And if that's the case?"

"We dismount and fight."

She shook her head and walked away, muttering about her peaceful little valley.

Ben whistled softly at her and she laughed and kept on walking.

"Creepies on the move" Corrie called.

"Tell the forward teams to get back here and load up." Ben checked his watch. Thirteen minutes.