Dan and the Bottle Ch. 13

Sharpe grinned at him. "Can you identify any of these, Corporal?"

"Yes Sir... a few of 'em, anyway... I know that line is all F-35 Joint Strike fighters.... those over there are F-22 Raptors. These funny looking black ones are F-117 Nighthawks... stealth fighters. Over there are Hawker Harriers... I think I read something about those usually being a US Marine Corps plane. Those choppers over there were called Apaches, and the ones further down with the two big rotors on top are Chinook troop carriers. Oh, my God! Have you got a count on these yet?"

"No, Pete.... you're seeing these five minutes after we saw 'em for the first time. Look over there... there's more. Looks like planes and choppers aren't the only thing stored down here."

Off to their left, and going off into the distance, were rows upon rows of tanks, armored personnel carriers, hummers, and other rolling stock.

"How long.... oh, geez, I'll bet those engines are about shot."

"They've been in a Nitrogen atmosphere all this time."

"WHAT! Holy shit, you're kiddin' me!"

Jamison turned to him, partially in shock. "Does that make a difference?"

Colson turned to him, disbelief clear on his features.

"You bet it does, Sir! You could fly any of these planes right now!"

"You're kidding!"

"No Sir.... nitrogen preserves the seals in the engines, Y'see. They don't dry rot, like they would in regular air. Hang on, Sirs.... let me check something."

He ran over to one of the planes, a Hawker Harrier, jumped in the cockpit, flipped several switches, and the engine began to start. He flipped several more, and the engine caught and roared to life. He shut it down quickly, and once everything had settled back down, he jumped out of the cockpit, scrambled down to the ground, and ran back over to the two men.

"Just as I thought, gentlemen.... a full fuel tank, fully armed.... that plane could go to war right now, and if it can, I'll bet every other plane down here can. You, Sir, have a fully functional airbase here... and from the looks of things, you've got armor and artillery support, as well."

"Artillery!?"

"Yes, Sir! Didn't you notice? Behind that block of Hummers, you've got a shitload of Howitzers. Look like 105s and 155s. Serious whoop-ass, Sir."

Mickey and Doris were sitting back in 'their' cove, watching the ducks swim in the shallows, occasionally diving for bits of the underwater vegetation or whatever it was ducks went for. Mickey had brought along his fishing rods, and had a small bucket of worms at his side, along with a cooler full of water which currently held a bluegill and three perch.

"When is Cassie getting here, hun?"

He looked at his watch. "Should be about another forty five minutes. She said she was doing a shift in the main kitchen today, canning those blueberries they picked in the last few days."

"Oh, cool! I hope she brings back a couple of jars."

He nodded, grinning. "I told her to snag a few jars on her way out of there. She said she'd go off the clock a few hours early and take a couple in place of those credit hours."

His attention was caught by his bobber, which dove below the surface, come back up, and was now pulling away from the shoreline, making a run for deeper water. He grabbed the rod, gave it a hard tug to set the hook, and started reeling.

After a brief struggle, he pulled in a decent sized Smallmouth Bass. He added it to the cooler, re-baited his hook, and cast it back out, a bit deeper than it had been.

"I wish you'd pay as much attention to me as you're paying to those fish!"

He turned to her and grinned.

"Honey, you won't be saying that when I take these off the grill."

She smiled back at him. "Ok, you've got me there." Doris had a weakness for the way he grilled fish, and they didn't do that too often.

He set the rod back in the impromptu holder, fed a few more sticks into the fire, and looked over at her as she lay back in her bikini on the blanket.

"Are Billie Jean and Jeff joining us?"

She nodded.

"In a little while... I think Jeff wanted to stop by the general store, pick up a fishing rod and some tackle of his own. About time he started spending some of the credits he's built up. BJ says he's a bit of a tightwad."

By the time Cassie, Billie Jean, and Jeff showed up, the fire was burning it's way through a number of small cut-offs from the woodshops-small blocks of well-dried pine and oak they had no use for- and Mickey was fileting several of the perch he'd already caught, getting them ready for grilling.

Doris sat off to one side, slicing up several lemons, and had a small bottle of powdered garlic next to her. Mickey pulled a small folding grill top from the gym bag at his side, folding out the legs and setting it over the coals.

Within another twenty minutes, the five of them were sitting back, plates from Doris's small gym tote in hand, chewing their way through the grilled fish and the corn muffins she'd brought along to go with it, chattering away about anything and everything.

Cassie noted that Jeff and Billie Jean were sitting quite close together; she shot a look at Doris, averting her eyes toward the young couple and smiling.

Mickey sat back next to Doris and pulled a slim silver case from his pocket; extracting a fat doobie from it, he grabbed a burning twig from the fire and lit it up, passing it to Doris.

Jeff spoke up, as Billie Jean was passing him the burning number.

"I hear Colonel Archer is looking for volunteers to move to that village south of here... the one by the Rebel's base."

Mickey nodded. "I don't think he'll accept any of us, though... he wants people who've completed the combat training, people who've already had experience in the fighting."

Doris, who occaisionally worked with Jan Archer, shook her head.

"No, that's wrong.... he wants to send out some villagers, too... people with farming experience. I think he wants people who can train with the Rebels, and back them up if they need it. I know he's planning to send along a ton of weapons and that sort of thing."

Jeff nodded. "He already did. I helped load most of it... two truckloads of it. Enough to outfit a small army, according to Mr. Phillips.... he was glad to be rid of it... said the warehouse it was in was packed to the rafters, and they needed the extra room. About half of one of the trucks was loaded with food, too."

Cassie shot a look at Jeff. "Are you planning on going with them?"

Jeff shook his head. "No... I still need a lot of training, and I want to stay in school a bit longer, too. I'm set to start driver's training next month, too. I think that would be a handy skill to have."

His face reflected a mild worry, at that statement; Mickey caught it and replied "Relax... nothin' to it. Driving is easy, once you get the hang of it. Not so different from driving a golf cart."

Bob Sharpe and Pete Coswell sat back in Colonel Jamison's office, sipping coffee and discussing the new discovery.

"Colonel, do you have any flight simulators here?"

"Actually, yes, we do... never had much reason to use them, though. We didn't have much in the way of fuel for our planes, so we didn't really need any pilots, and we needed the electrical power elsewhere, you see. Those solar panels and windmills can only generate so much, and we need most of it to cook our food and run essential systems, like lights and our bank of phones."

Sharpe nodded. "Well, Sir, you're going to need pilots now.... if I might make a suggestion, how about we swap some people, between our base and yours? We've got more pilots than we have planes for, currently. I could have fifty or a hundred of them down here in a few hours, and we can send a bunch of your people to our base to use our own simulators, under supervision. The people we bring down here can serve as flight instructors here, on your simulators, and we can train twice as many people at the same time. How many of your people, do you think, would like to learn to fly?"

Jamison grinned. "All of 'em."

Bob smiled at this. "OK... well, how many, in round numbers?"

"To be honest, Captain, I'm not sure. We haven't done a head count in the past few years. If I had to guess, I'd say about three hundred or so."

"Ok, that's perfect. We can send half of those to our base, teach them to fly.... and to drive, for that matter; and the people I bring down here can teach the other half. Matter of fact, if you'd like, I can have a group of our tank drivers down here, too, teach your folks how to use some of that armor and artillery while we're at it."

Then it hit him; the Colonel had called him 'Captain'.

"Sir, I'm a Lieutenant."

"Not anymore... I talked to your Commander a little while ago. He told me I could break it to you."

"Ok.... well, Sir, you still outrank me. Anyway, do you want me to get those instructors down here? We can send back a load of your people in the same buses."

Jamison grinned at this. "You want to build a full scale military here, huh?"

Sharpe grinned and nodded. "You betcha, Sir... what's the point of having all of that equipment if you never use it? Besides, if you want to start attacking the Chinese with us, you're going to need it all... air power, armor, and ground troops. We use guerilla tactics that have been passed down for generations, and our ancestors included every kind of Spec Ops troops the old US military had to offer... Army Rangers and Green Berets, Navy SEALs, and Marine Force Recon. We use snipers extensively, and we refuse to play fair. We Are going to drive those bastards out of our country... and we can't do it alone, Sir. I'll tell you the same thing my commander would say, if he were here, right now... we need every allie we can get, and we all need to be recruiting, and training, every day of the year."

Doris gave the plates a quick rinse in the lake and set them off to the side to dry, then settled beside Mickey, accepting the fresh joint he'd lit up. and gave a contented sigh as Cassie pulled a big plastic jug from her cooler. They all looked curiously at it; the liquid in it was a dark blue, almost purple.

Jeff was the first to speak.

"Ok, what the hell is that?"

She smiled at this; "It's a kind of punch... a new experiment from the kitchens. It's got blueberries, white and Concord grapes, pomegranate juice, and apple juice in it, plus just a bit of powdered sugar to sweeten it a bit. I grabbed a jug on my way out."

She filled their cups, one by one, and passed around the whiskey bottle; only Jeff and Mickey added any alcohol to theirs, though. All agreed, however, that it made a smooth drink.

Billie Jean was the first... she leaned over to Jeff, kissing him on the neck and whispering in his ear. He turned and kissed her slowly, tentatively, and she responded with a bit more vigor.

Doris, meanwhile, looked over at Cassie, winked, and reached for Mickey's shorts, unbuttoning the three buttons of his fly and fishing out his hardening cock, stroking him lightly as Cassie moved around next to her and reached out for her full breasts, kneading them lightly as Doris dove face first into Mickey's lap.

Jeff looked over at the other three and grinned, then turned his head back to Billie Jean and kissed her hard, his tongue entering her willing mouth even as he tugged at the hem of the light tank top she was wearing, taking her ample tits in both hands and kneading them softly.

She reciprocated, breaking the kiss to pull his shirt out of his cargo shorts, then kissing her way down his neck to his chest, intent on finding out if something Mrs. Davidson had told her was true; that men's nipples were almost as sensitive as her own.

Mickey lay back, enjoying Doris' intense blowjob as Cassie lowered her freshly shaved pussy to his waiting mouth. Doris, meanwhile, scooted around so that her own furry bush was within range of Cassie, who quickly took her up on the invitation and buried her head between her friend's thighs, tasting her sweet flesh and fluttering her tongue across the little nubbin of her clit, and the three of them made a perfect triangle.

Billie Jean worked over Jeff's nipples for a few minutes, but decided it wasn't as much fun as something else she had in mind, and moved lower, unbuttoning the fly of his shorts and fishing out his hardness, diving mouth first over it, feeling the head hit the back of her throat before bobbing back up, tongue swirling over the head as she drilled the tip of her tongue into the tiny hole. She bobbed back down, licking all the way, and it wasn't long before he was pulsing his cum into her mouth, as she desperately tried to swallow fast enough to keep up. She continued to suck at him, but he was spent for the moment, and she sat up, grabbing for her cup and washing his seed down with a few swallows of the blueberry punch.

He sat back, tugging at her jeans and pulling her to him, smirking at her as he said "My turn, sweety.... I want a taste too."

She shed her jeans and lay down beside him on the blanket, throwing an arm and a leg over him possessively, and said "Give me a minute, Honey... I just want to lay here with you for a few minutes."

He wrapped his arms around her, feeling her snuggle up to him, laying her head on his shoulder, and leaned his head towards her, kissing her forehead and whispering "I love you, babe" as he fondled her full breast with one hand, while his other was busy between her thighs, rubbing at her hardening clit.

She turned her face upwards towards his and replied "I love you too, hun... now will you quit teasin' and eat my pussy?"

He pushed her over onto her back and kissed her, long and slow, before nibbling his way lightly down her neck, pausing to nibble and suck at her pinkish red nipples, taking his time and making love to the little points for long moments before continuing further down, swirling his tongue in her belly button, then crawling backwards and repositioning himself between her now-spread thighs and kissing her squarely on her unfurled nether lips, his tongue insinuating itself into her juicy hole. For long moments, he licked all around her lips before moving back up to her clit, fluttering his tongue over it again and again, as her thighs clamped down on his head until he was sure it was going to pop like a pimple.

She was cumming almost nonstop now, orgasms coming in waves, as he took her little nubbin between his lips and sucked it hard, and she finally couldn't take it any longer; reaching for his shoulders, she pulled him forward, his cock naturally sliding into her waiting pussy as if it had eyes of it's own. He kissed her, hard, as he began to pump into her, idly thinking that she hadn't told him to put a rubber on this time.

Bob Sharpe called his Commander on the satellite phone, telling him about the discovery at Juniper Base, which, quite naturally, got the wheels turning in Archer's mind. Within two weeks, teams had been sent out, and the same sort of hooks were located at three more bombed out military bases around their area... He'd been afraid the bases had been nuked, but the Chinese had apparently thought these bases were too small to bother with; rather than radioactive holes in the ground, the scouts had found bases that, while they had sustained substantial damage, several were still, in fact, quite rebuildable.

It appeared the bombs, at least some of them, had either fallen short or had gone past their targets. The suburban areas surrounding the small army and air force bases were peppered with areas that were semi-destroyed.

A lot of the small houses were more or less intact, though, and that gave him an idea.

Assembling a team, made up of a few of his veteran training cadre and a handful of the villagers, he sent them to the least damaged of the bases, to assess the damage and determine how much work would be required to get them back up and running.

Within two weeks, he had answers to several questions; one small US Army base, to the east of the Cave, had recieved minimal damage. The civilian suburbs surrounding it were semi-intact, and there were, in fact, small survivor populations in some of the homes. His scouting teams had been met with some suspicion; some of the survivors asking if they were from the government. Once the civilians were assured that they were not, in fact, from any official government source, the scouts were cautiously welcomed by the communities.

Particularly when several of the scouts went out and returned with several freshly killed deer.

Most of these villagers considered themselves lucky if they managed to trap a few rabbits; they mostly survived on rats and squirrels.

The village elders, led by a man named Bill Hendricks, were ready to flatly refuse anymore people moving into the area, until Phil Huett explained that the people moving in would be bringing along hunting rifles, enough seeds to start at least a hundred gardens, and several year's supply of preserved food, along with tools, vehicles, farming equipment, and generators to power the many homes, giving them electricity to run ovens, refridgerators, lights, and other conveniences the villagers had only heard of in old stories. They would also send along enough technicians to set all of these things up, and a small contingent of instructors to teach them how to use these things. When he added the promise of drilling a new well, and adding a purifier to deliver clean water, they were sold.

Within a month, several dozen trucks arrived, many of them towing trailers, and the techs and mechanics and others went to work. By the end of the spring, the small suburban community was breaking ground in numerous small plots, planting thousands of seeds for close to a hundred varieties of vegetables and fruit, and several large garages had been converted to barns for cattle, chicken coops, and one was filled up with small hutches for rabbits and other small game. Two of the vacant lots were planted with saplings of apple, plum, and pear trees.

During the same time, the old military base was opened back up, and extensive repairs were made. The barracks and supply depots, of course, had long since been looted by the Chinese, but, again, they had missed what was just under their feet; Frank Bergen was again kept busy for most of a day. In the warehouse they found under the base were several huge chambers, again flooded with nitrogen, this time concealing tons of infantry supplies, everything from rifles and uniforms to Humvees, helicopters, and tanks.

There was also a large underground bunker here, unoccupied, that included extensive written records.

In a month, the base was set up for training, instructors had moved in, and new recruits were pouring in from half a dozen surrounding villages. The Wyoming State Constitutional Militia began to grow exponentially.

Kathy Dupree wasn't a farmer, a scout, or a mechanic; she was completely inept with a rifle, and even worse with a pistol, and nobody in their right mind would have trusted her in the medical field.

She was, however, a computer geek first class. It had been said of her that she could make a computer do anything short of shining her shoes and cooking her dinner... and she was probably working on those.

At the moment, though, she was programming a new search pattern into the satellite dish outside; she wanted to know just how many communications satellites were still functioning, up in orbit.

She had just finished scanning all of the documents from the latest military base they had re-opened, and had set up a program to analyze the small mountain of data. She was still working on the search program when her data analysis program beeped from the other console; she scooted the rolling office chair over and looked at the screen, which was flashing an address.

She punched in a series of commands and was rewarded with more details; upon reading these, she reached for the phone on the desktop.