Copyright 2011 – No Reproduction Without My Express Consent


Vengeance



It was dark and gloomy as the low overcast skies, in an ever changing hue of gray and white, blanketed the landscape.

“Damn,” he thought to himself. “How many more days of this garbage are we going to get?” Back in his homeland the weather, in fact the mood of his entire country, was not unlike the depressing sky above, but he had expected a much sunnier and warm reception in the United States.

Or at least that's what his superior officers had told him.

“Yuri,” hissed the team leader. “Stay focused.” He'd been in command long enough to know when his troops had begun drifting off.

Hours upon hours of patrolling through burnt out homes and the debris of what once had been the suburban sprawl of a major US city had a tendency to cause soldiers to drift off. Coupled with the depressing winter lack of sun and gray days, patrols became more about berating the troops to stay awake then finding enemy soldiers.

Stepping over a pile of concrete and assorted junk he felt the weariness deep in his bones as he willed himself to place one foot in front of another. The city, a moderately sized industrial city, had been flattened during a battle a year and a half ago. The streets looked like a scene out of Berlin 1945.

“Blue element,” the team leader announced sternly, “make your way towards the third house on the left. Red will take the right side of the street.”

Chuckling to himself, he remembered that sometimes team leaders liked to give out orders, even if they didn't change what the soldiers had originally been doing, simply to remind the troops who was in charge. Some guys got angry about it, he just laughed it off as the natural order of things.

Even as he and his fellow soldiers slogged past burnt out homes and abandoned belongings he tired to picture the way the street once have must looked. Tree lined. Children playing in nicely manicured lawns. Music gently drifting across the wind as people grilled in their back yards. It was probably an idyllic time. Far more enjoyable and enforced uniformity and waiting in line.

But that time was before a traitorous former president decided to lead a rebellion to regain the power stripped from him when the American public rejected his polices under the pretext of a sex scandal. It created a rage in him that drove him to destroy those who weren't smart enough to understand his advanced ideas about society.

Now the streets of the town were quiet. Occasionally a stray dog would dart past, or a piece of rubble would tumble down from a broken building, but mostly the sound of nothingness hung in the air.

“It's almost a shame,” he thought. “Then again, capitalism and the pursuit of bigger televisions was destined to lead to the country ruin. At least, that is what he had always been told.”

His element had drifted ahead of the team leaders element by ten yards. Glancing back over his shoulder he watched in amusement as the team leader tripped over a discarded plastic container.

He wondered why officers always seemed to promote the incompetents.

Adjusting the AK74 that was slung over his shoulder he carefully stepped over what appeared to be a child's tricycle. With one hand on the grip of the carbine, he reached down with the other to playfully slap at the handlebars.

Looking back up, he straightened his torso just long enough to regain his balance. It was then that the team heard the loud crack followed by the distinct sound of a rifle round impacting debris and ricocheting off in an unknown direction.

The round had been close, very close. He could almost feel the turbulence created by the passage of the bullet.

Dropping to a crouch he instinctively clutched his AK74 and scanned the horizon for the sniper. The ruins of the city provided a never ending supply of hides for them to ply their deadly craft and the chances of seeing him were slim unless the shooter made a mistake.

Today there would be no mistake.

He never heard the second crack nor was their a ricochet. Instead a large portion of the side of his neck simply exploded under the sledgehammer force of the bullet traveling through flesh, cartilage, muscle and bone.

Never again would he have to worry about the depressing Midwestern winters or the evils of capitalism.



****

“Boy, you've got to be trying to kid a poor old country boy,” said Dink Roberts as he stared in disbelief at the weather forecast. Sure enough, his old friend Webb wasn't trying to pull a fast one. The predicted snowfall was twenty seven inches. Over two feet of snow in one eight hour period.

“That's flat crazy!” he exclaimed as he popped open a can of beer and sank into the overstuffed couch.

Smiling as he continued to surf the internet Webb took delight in poking fun at his old friend. “You know, you think after nearly two years up here you'd have stopped complaining about snow.”

Taking a long drink of from beer Dink contemplated which of many retorts he would unleash on Webb. In the end he chose to give him the middle finger.

Webb had a point, but the Mississippi boy just hadn't gotten used to the cold weather in the Wyoming retreat since a group of Dink's family and friends had fled the state. For the past two years the country had been tearing itself apart in the midst of a second civil war. In this case, instead of states rights, the central issues was purely political: liberal ideology versus the conservative view point. Some people still wanted to give away other people's money for good causes. Others wanted what they earned left in their pocket. It was along these general issues that the battle lines formed.

The former president, impeached and disgraced, Crutchfield, led his strange coalition of social groups and those not able to flee the Northeastern portions of the country. While initially successful, he had faced a series of major military disasters in Kentucky that had cost him irreplaceable men and material.

Things looked bleak for the traitor and his forces before a string of political victories had changed his fortunes and reinvigorated his desire to punish those who didn't accept the wisdom of his social polices and engineering.

First, the states of Minnesota, Wisconsin, Illinois, and Iowa threw their lot in with his movement and in the process pledged thousands of National Guard troops, and whatever regular army soldiers wanted to join in the cause. Like much of his presidency, Crutchfield used promises of money and financial payoffs to entice the leaders of the states, and the individual groups of soldiers, to lure them into the confederation. Those smart enough to see though the ruse fled southward to areas of the country still loyal to President Alan.

But ultimately, the men and material offset, albeit in piecemeal fashion, his previous losses in terms of numbers, if not experience. As one would expect, entire units were not in tact, however, combining the contributions of all the states resulted in a surprisingly balanced fighting force.

The other change to Crutchfield's fortunes came when foreign forces, who's interests did not include a united and strong America, were loaned to him under the auspices of “peace keeping” and to assist those rebelling against the country. It was a cruel twist of fate that foreigners interjected themselves into America's internal struggles.

Karma affected nations too.

Most of the troops arriving though ports in the North East and Great Lakes were sponsored by the Russian Federation of States. Russian politicos, seeing an opportunity to turn the tables on America and weaken their traditional enemy, was more than accommodating in loaning ground troops, vehicles and supplies to the beleaguered former President.

The infusion of men, and more importantly, combat hardened troops, reversed Crutchfield's fortunes and again gave him the upper hand.

****



“You know, this is the first boys weekend we've had in a coons age,” declared Dink as he inspected the contents of a nearly empty bag of potato chips.

“I don't think Miller knows what to do without his family here,” suggested Webb.

Their friend, Miller had sent his family off with Webb's brother and his new bride, Patsy. She had escaped Mississippi along with Miller's wife and daughter and found love in the strangest of places, a compound in Wyoming. They had flown over to Idaho to visit some of Webb's distant family who lived in a rustic cabin in the hills. Miller's wife Christy jumped at the chance to get to a part of the country she had never visited. Dink's adopted daughter, Maggie decided to tag along at the last minute which cleared the way for three men to enjoy a weekend of male bonding.

“I tell you one thing boy,” drawled Dink. “For all his talents, he seems lost picking up pizza and beer.”

Webb smiled as he pecked away at the computer keyboard, “Not everybody is as skilled at those pursuits as you.”