Dan and the Bottle Ch. 12

Bob Sharpe and his team of scouts were patrolling to the west of the Cave when they made a startling discovery... it appeared to be a small, old US military base, and was being patrolled by people in uniform.

Americans.

In very old US Air Force uniforms.... and carrying M16 rifles.

He spread out his twelve man team to both sides, moving around the fenced in area of the field to get better looks at all sides of the small base, noting huge areas of gardens, an airstrip a bit over a mile and a half long, numerous hangers and barracks, multiple guard towers, and not one but two control towers. On one side of the long runway were more than forty solar panels, set to catch the morning sunlight; along the other side was what appeared to be a cornfield.

Outside of the fence, the ground had been kept clear for at least two hundred yards out, giving them a good view of anyone approaching from all sides.... but the space wasn't going to waste; a small herd of cows and another, of sheep, were busily grazing in pastures separated by chain link fences about six feet tall.

Other areas outside the fences were cultivated, growing dozens of types of vegetables. They even had a small orchard of apple trees.

Sharpe left his rifle with one of his team members, walking up to the main gate of the base alone. He got to within fifty yards of the gate before yelling out "Hello, the base!"

A man came to the front gate, which opened just wide enough for him to slip through.

"Just hold it right there, mister! Who are you, and what do you want?"

"Lieutenant Bob Sharpe, Wyoming State Constitutional Militia.... I'd like to speak to someone in charge. I mean no harm."

Within two minutes, an older man came to the gate, and looked Bob over carefully, noting the old camo pattern and the absence of insignia denoting rank.

"Young man. Jones tells me you're a soldier?"

"A scout, actually. A member of the Wyoming militia, Sir."

"I see... are you the ones stirring up the Chinese?"

"I suppose you could call it that... if you mean wiping out some of the bases of those scumbags."

The older man nodded, extending his right hand. "Rick Jamison... I suppose you could call us the last remnants of the US Air Force in this area, although we don't have any fuel left for our planes."

Bob arched an eyebrow. "I'm surprised you have planes left."

"They were in bunkers, pretty deep underground. Not many.... this wasn't that big of a base... more helicopters than anything else. From what my grand dad told me, they did more training and search and rescue from here than anything."

Bob nodded... he'd read about such small bases. Only the best pilots were trained at such bases.

"Anyhow.... what can we do for you, Lieutenant?"

"Not much, really, at the moment.... my team and I are scouting the countryside, getting an idea of who's still out in this area.... we're from a city about forty miles from here. We're.... working on restoring the country, Y'see."

The old man arched an eyebrow at this. "You know that there's a pretty tall order?"

"Yes Sir, it is... but it has to be done. The civilians in the villages we've liberated so far have been mistreated horribly by the Communist Chinese... and we ain't havin' it. This here is Our country, Not Theirs. We're going to take it back, and we don't give a shit if we have to kill every Chinaman on American soil to do it. We're recruiting and looking for allies. We don't ask for handouts; we have, pretty much, everything we need... except for enough people."

"What, exactly, are you proposing, young man?"

"Well, Sir, we need places to train, places for our excess population, people to trade with, help training the villagers we're rescuing.... we have our own base, a small city, actually, but we're running out of room. We have weapons, and we just got a bunch more, took 'em off a Chinese base, so we can trade some of them, too. If you folks would be interested, we can put you in communication with our commander, let you guys figure it out. In the meanwhile, me and my men need a place to lay our heads for the night. We have our own food, tents, bedrolls, that sort of thing.... we're a foot patrol, and we've done forty miles or so today, so we're about tuckered out. It would be nice to set up camp someplace where we only have to post one or two guards."

It was at that moment that the satellite phone at his hip started to vibrate. He pulled it from the waterproof pouch at his belt and pushed the button.

"Yes Sir?"

It was Jim Archer. "Lieutenant, how's the patrol going?"

"Quite well, Sir... we've located half a dozen villages, so far, most of which seemed to be in half decent shape. We haven't found much in the way of Chinese out here, just a few roving patrols which didn't put up much of a fight. We also found, well, hold on a second... I just met a man I think you should speak to." He handed off the phone to Jamison, saying "My Commander, Sir... James Archer."

Jamison took the phone tentatively and held it to his ear. "Hello, Mister Archer, is it?"

"Yes, it is, but you can call me Jim... to whom am I speaking, please?"

"Rick Jamison, Sir...survivor at Juniper Training base."

"Juniper? I haven't heard of that one... it isn't on any of the old maps."

Jamison chuckled at this. "Not surprising.... I don't think this place was what you'd call a high priority base, back before the war. We're, basically, the descendants of the staff of this base, from back before the war... plus a few civilians who've trickled in, over the years."

"I see.... well, good, you're the kind of folks we're looking for, Sir. Tell me... is there anything you'd want to trade for?"

Within a week, a relatively secure trade route was established; the base known as Juniper field had a vast store of old, but still good, electronic parts, a small warehouse full of .50 cal. machine gun rounds in belts, and better than fifty tons of castable lead. They also had a good sized fleet of aircraft in the underground hangers.

The Cave, on the other hand, had an enormous storage tank of aircraft grade fuel that could be useful in getting their choppers and a few of their old F-16 trainers back in the air, and had kept the art of airframe and powerplant mechanics alive.

Pete Coswell climbed down from the wing of the aging F-16 fighter jet, shaking his head. Taking careful note of the tail numbers, he added this one to his list of planes which were in desparate need of repairs and rebuilding before walking to the office of their host, where Jamison and Jim Archer were sharing coffee while figuring out a 'trade agreement' of sorts. Luckily, this one hadn't ended up on the 'scrap for parts' list, which was already entirely too long.

Reporting to his commander and their host, he grabbed a cup of coffee, from the brewer they'd brought with them, and settled at the table with the two men.

"Well, Gentlemen, I have bad news, and I have good news."

Jim nodded.... "Ok, let's get the bad news out of the way first."

Pete nodded. "None of these planes are really in any kind of shape to fly again... there's just too much corrosion in the frames, the seals in the engines leak like a seive, the instruments are way out of date..."

"Ok... what's the good news?"

"Give me both of my teams, a few good mechanical draftsmen who can work from laptops, and all of the machine shops back at the base, I think I could salvage.... maybe five or six of the twenty planes in their fleet. It'll take, oh... maybe five months per plane, cannibalizing the other planes for some of the parts I'll need, and having the rest made at the shops back at the base and trucked over here."

"As for the choppers, another six, maybe seven months per bird, and we could salvage maybe half of the fleet-twelve of the twenty six birds they have here."

Jamison gave the young man a long, appraising, but skeptical look.

"Are you sure about this, young man?"

Archer smiled at this, waiting for Pete's answer, which, when it came, would be a bit amusing.

"Yes, Sir, I am."

"What makes you so certain?"

"Sir, I've been studying airframe and powerplant mechanical work since I was twelve years old. I've been maintaining our planes for the past ten years. I've been an airplane nerd all of my life. If you have anyone here that can match my record, please, by all means, point him out.... I'll be happy to consult with him."

Jamison just sat and stared for a few minutes, then gave a rueful grin. "Ok, young man... I'll defer to your judgment."

Pete nodded. "On the bright side, we have quite a few of the necessary engine seals and whatnot at our base... and they've been stored in Argon gas atmospheres, so they haven't really aged, as yours have here. That's a huge plus; the factory that made them, well, it was in Ohio.... I kinda doubt it survived the war."

Bob Gunderson and the rest of the adults from his former village sat back in the great hall of the Cave, content with their day's work.... they'd managed to get the old field outside of their village harvested and nearly twenty five bushels of assorted vegetables back here without incident, and everyone had earned a double credit day... a full day's pay for their labors, plus credit for the food they'd contributed to the Cave economy. They had also gathered up the village's chickens and gotten them into cages and added them in to the Cave's flocks.

The few cows, on the other hand, were a different story. Nobody had thought to bring along a cattle trailer, so it was decided to just leave them for another day. The barn doors were left open, though, and there was plenty of grassy pastureland surrounding the small village, not to mention a small spring fed pond at one end with clean water.

Herb Dixon and his villagers did the same, bringing in their crops, a dozen pigs, several litters of piglets, and several dozen more chickens. Over the course of two days, they also managed to get the Cave's three cattle trailers loaded up, with the full load of cows, several calves, and their lone bull.

Their kids, meanwhile, spent the days gathering up several pickup loads of fresh cut grass, most of which had grown waist high. It would be spread in the fields they had laying fallow at the moment, and the Cave's herd of cattle would be turned loose in there to feed upon it and make their own 'deposits'.

Jim and his council were meeting in the offices again, looking over the reports and surveillance photos from the several enemy bases again.... the big one to the south west worried him the most; Gene's thoughts, of taking out the guard towers and barracks from the air with a few of the choppers, then moving in foot troops to mop up, was looking a lot better, in fact.

He was worried about the slave barracks, though... he, too, didn't like the thought of killing innocent women if it could be avoided, and no matter how many hours they'd logged on simulators, the fact remained that none of his 'pilots' had ever left the ground.

Counting on them to take out guard towers and soldier's barracks while not hitting a building full of female slaves was a bit too much to ask.

Then there was the troubling news that the Chinese knew when someone approached the fences around their compound; it sounded to him like they were either using motion sensors of some sort, tripwires, pressure pads, or some kind of in-ground vibration sensors. That would be a problem.

Johnny Corcoran stepped over to the big video monitor, on which the enemy base was depicted, reading the tags that Jan had added to denote which buildings were soldier's barracks, and which one was used for the female slaves. Jim stepped up next to him.

"This is gonna be a tough one."

Jim nodded. "Saving those women might not be an option."

Johnny shook his head at this. "Do you really want to get that kind of reputation? There's a way... we're just not seeing it. There has to be. We've got every kind of weapon available, currently, short of nukes. We're just not looking at this from the right direction."

Leeanne spoke up from the table.

"Guys, you're still trying to do 'sneaky'... why not try 'blatant' instead?"

Johnny and Jim looked at her, then at each other, then back at her.

"What do you mean, Lee?" Jim asked, wondering what she meant.

"Knock on the front gate."

"I don't get it." Johnny replied.

Leeanne rolled her eyes for a moment, muttering "Men---always have to be led by the hand!" loud enough for everyone at the table to hear.

Jan Archer and Sarah Jennison both grinned, nodding, though neither of them had any idea what she was talking about.

"Am I the only one here who watches those old war movies in the library?"

Jim nodded. "Probably... what do you have in mind?"

"What you need is some kind of diversion.... big enough to take all the attention away from that back fence area where the women are being held, right?"

Jim smiled, starting to see where she was going with this, and motioned for her to continue.

She got up and walked over to the map, studying it for long moments, before continuing.

"Ok... the main gate is right... here, right?"

Jim nodded.

"Ok.... can you use a bunch of those rocket launchers Gar was so happy about to knock down those gates.... and maybe those guard towers around it, too?"

Jim looked at her, then at Johnny, then at Gar, who had walked over to the map to stand by his lady.

"That's actually not a bad idea. Gar, how many RPG's could you put into the gates and the towers, here, here, here, here, and here? Well, hell, basically, all of them?"

Gar studied the map for long moments.

"Ten guard towers, multi-level, look like they've been built from pretty heavy logs... I think about four RPG's each should turn 'em into kindling. Have each shooter take along a few extra loads, just to be on the safe side. Maybe an extra guy, to fire a few loads at that generator building. As soon as those stop going off, maybe use four or five choppers to strafe the barracks, hanger, and motor pool... snipers, sitting back in the woods surrounding the place to mop up the survivors. By that point, they won't need any silencers.... the Chinese won't know what hit them. Scorched earth on this one?"

"You betcha. Total Blitzkreig. We're not looking for supplies this time... we're here to do what an Army is supposed to do-kill people and break stuff." Jim replied with a grin.

Gar nodded, studying the screen a bit closer. "Do you think we should knock out the generator building, too?"

Jim thought about it for a long moment and shook his head. "No.... those, we could use. If they're as big as I think they are, we could use them to power a few of the villages we've been freeing. I don't care about their other supplies, but if we can spare those, and their fuel tanks, we can use them in that small town to the south of us; what the hell did you call it?"

"Middleton. They've only got about a hundred people, so, yeah, one big diesel generator would be good for them... a couple of hundred lamps, a few dozen refridgerators, maybe a few dozen of those electric space heaters from warehouse five.... and I think they could do well with some of that hydroponic gear, start growing some vegetables year round."

"Agreed... though they've got enough of our dehydrated stock to last the next year or so. I had four truckloads sent to 'em yesterday."

Karl Mitchell looked around the room they called the 'Great Hall' in amazement. He and his team had come, at Jim Archer's invitation, to negotiate a mutual alliance between his own Rebels and the Militia, and he was already seeing the advantage. He'd already met a number of the villagers who had moved here, who had told him quite a bit; none of them had a bad word to say about the people they'd moved in with.

Sherice was sitting in one of the Cave's several bars when George Klein walked in. She didn't notice until he walked up and took a seat beside her, asking the bartender for a rum and orange juice.

She looked up, startled at the sound of his voice. "You're that man from the hospital!"

He nodded, extending a hand. "George Klein."

"Sherice Donaldson. I didn't expect to see you in here."

"Oh? Why not?"

"I don't know.... you just didn't strike me as the sort of man who comes to a bar. You look more like a family man."

"Now how would you know about drinking men? Did your village have a still?"

"No.... but we gathered a lot of berries and grapes in the woods. One of the village elders had kept a few little wooden barrels in his cellar, used them to make wine in good years. He hid them behind a stack of firewood when the Chinese came calling."

George nodded. He'd heard many such stories already, from other villagers he'd helped in the hospital.

She looked him over again, wondering.... 'Well, it can't hurt to ask.' she thought, as she considered how to frame the question politely.

"Doesn't, errr... your wife... object to you coming in here?"

A pained expression shadowed his face for a moment, and she regretted the question immediately.

"No... my... Martha passed on, a few years ago. The kids are both out on their own, and the grandkids, well... they all have lives of their own. They're all still pretty young."

"But... but... you're too young to have grandchildren!"

"No, not really... I'm fifty one. My oldest son, George junior, is twenty six, and the younger, Max, is twenty four. Junior has twin daughters, eight years old. Max has a son who's just turned six.... cute little nipper... takes after his dad."

She smiled. "I'll bet your place gets pretty lively when they come to visit."

He grinned, "That it does... not often enough, but, well... kids will keep your mind limber."

She smiled, sadly. "I wish I could find out.... the doctor said the soldiers did too much damage to me, inside.... I can't have any kids."

"Ouch... sorry we didn't get there sooner."

"It's alright.... my sister had two; seeing what she went through with hers, well.... that was enough for me. I'm not sure if I would have wanted them or not, to be honest."

He nodded. "So, how are you taking to life here?"

"I love it... knowing that what we're doing actually means something, the soldiers aren't going to come in and take everything we worked for. It's taking some getting used to, though.... so many new things to deal with! I never heard of an electric stove! I never heard about electricity, as far as that goes!"

He smiled at this.... he'd had a rough time of it himself, when his wife died. He was used to serving food, not cooking it. It had taken him six months to learn to cook, working in the hospital kitchens.

"Isn't someone helping you out with that?"

She nodded as she sipped at her drink. "An older lady named Missus Murray... but she isn't what you'd call the best teacher.... she seems to think that I know what some of this stuff is, but I never heard of most of it. I never saw a hand mixer, or a toaster, or a microwave oven before."

"Oh, my God.... they set you up with Debra Murray?! You poor dear... no wonder you're struggling! Listen, you tell Debra to not bother... I'll teach you. That old shrew has no patience at all. I wouldn't ask her to teach you to make toast!"

She giggled a bit at that. His assessment of Debra Murray was dead on. "I wouldn't want to put you out... I know you work a full day at the hospital."

He smiled at this before correcting her. "Hun, I volunteer at the hospital, when new people come in... I used to work at the recycling plant and at the composting piles. That's where I laid my Martha to rest."

"Oh, no! You bury your dead in a compost pile?"

"Of course! My dear, we don't have room in here for a proper cemetary; if we buried people like they used to, we'd have them stacked up fifteen or twenty deep! Cremating them would be a waste.... the way we do it, our dead go back to the land, and they help to fertilize the fields we grow our food in. It might sound a bit... I don't know, distasteful? ... But it's part of the cycle of life. Where did your village put your dead?"