“I appreciate that Jack, but actually you need to give yourself more credit. I started this thing, but now I’m the network guy. You have fought and bled with this Company, it is yours. I want to see the families safe, and I think we could hit back at the Regime more effectively with the support of the Federation military. Anyway, they are likely to send you back in to conduct operations once the families are safe in Texas.”
Jack mulled it over.
“Ok Bill,” he finally said, “Let’s get some of the main players together and see what they think, and if they agree then we can run it past the group.”
It was not just a military decision. They got the commanders together along with the leaders from the civilian side, including Caitlin and some of the other key women such as Gayle who ran the place.
It was unanimous. They wanted to get to Texas. It would keep the families and kids safe, and then the Company could join the fight again secure in the knowledge that their loved ones were out of harm’s way. From a military point of view, they would no longer have to allocate combat power to protecting the families.
The next question was how?
Bill wanted to keep some OPSEC around this one so he pulled Jack aside and told him: C-130 Hercules aircraft. STOL operations, which stood for ‘short takeoff and landing’.
Texas was prepared to send in Texas Air Guard aircraft to extract the Company along with the families in return for the agreement that they would fight for the Southern Federation.
Bill outlined the plan: he would hang around until they could find a suitable landing field. Once that was established, he would return to his farm, allowing suitable travel and planning time, and pass the message to Texas. On a specified day, the aircraft would come in and lift them out.
They needed a suitable dirt field three thousand feet long. They did a map recon and located some potential locations, following up with recon patrols. They found a suitable location on some upland pasture land dotted with occasional trees and low shrub. It was located in a small valley. It was perfect for two thousand feet and had three thousand feet of clearance available at a pinch.
It would need a little work but it was only a mile from Yankee. Jack had some work parties set to work clearing the few trees and the bushes, creating a dirt landing strip.
Meanwhile, allowing for time to get the landing strip ready, Bill took the coordinates, set a date with Jack, and headed back to his farm. They set an initial date for a daylight pickup, with further dates if they first one was missed for any reason.
They had agreed, in accordance with information that Bill had brought with him from his coded radio exchanges with his agent in Texas, to go for a dawn pickup time. This would allow the Texas Air Guard aircraft to fly in by night, but give them the advantage of daylight to conduct the STOL landing on an unknown and less than ideal landing strip.
Ten days later the Company was waiting in a defensive position in the trees at the end of the makeshift landing strip. It was just a flattish grassy field which they had cleared of trees and bushes. The fighters had a perimeter around the families, who were organized into four ‘chalks’, one for each aircraft.
They only had their basic gear with them, weapons, tactical vests and rucksacks. The larger support weapons, ammunition, food and equipment had been placed into the dug outs at Yankee and camouflaged, making it into a huge cache, while the vehicles were hidden under netting deep in the woods, including the military vehicles liberated by the defectors.
If they ever came back out this way, for whatever reason, they would be able to break out the gear from Yankee.
Under Jim’s supervision, day-glow panels had been placed out to mark the landing strip.
They waited in the pre-dawn light.
Shortly after the sky lightened, the first C-130 Hercules came roaring over the treetops above them, the first of four. It came over and buzzed them low after flying ‘nap of the earth’ up from Texas, hugging the terrain contours at two hundred feet to stay below Regime radar.
There was a separation between aircraft and the first circled the landing strip, getting eyes on the terrain, followed by the others. They came around in a loop and lined up for the approach.
The first aircraft came in and lined up on the airstrip. As it came in its nose dropped towards the strip and then it went to ‘full flaps’ as it swooped in to land, taxiing down towards the end of the strip. As each aircraft landed, it taxied down to the end of the runway and made space for the ones landing behind.
Once the fourth had landed, they put their engines in reverse and rapidly backed down the airstrip in a single file to where the fighters waited with their families.
As the aircraft sat there with the engines ‘turning and burning’ the rear ramps lowered and a small security detachment ran off the back of each to secure the immediate area. The loadmasters walked down the ramp and gestured to the waiting chalks.
The four lines of families and fighters walked out towards the waiting aircraft carrying their gear, some of the wounded carried on stretchers. As they reached the ramps at the back of the aircraft they felt the heat coming off the roaring engines, seemingly threatening to burn their faces as they waited for those ahead to get up the ramp.
Some of the kids and those who had never experienced it were shielding their faces and turning away from the heat as the engine noise roared around them. Some of the younger kids were crying, scared by the noise, held by their moms.
The flight crew was directing them to fill into the red webbing seats that lined the outer skin of the aircraft and also a central island down the center. The rucksacks and wounded on stretchers were secured in the open space by the back ramp, between the two side jump doors.
As soon as everyone was loaded, the ramps went up and the aircraft raced forwards one at a time, taking off over two thousand feet in the same direction that they had landed.
The C-130s lurched into the air and took off; banking sharply to the south and going straight back into nap of the earth flying at two hundred feet.
The constant low level flying over the hilly terrain, along the valleys and lurching over the ridges was rough. The passengers could feel the aircraft pulling G’s as they roared south. The aircrew went amongst them handing out sick bags to those who succumbed to airsickness and little boxes of juice drinks with straws to the kids.
Several hours later, they landed at Dallas Fort Worth. It was a definite culture shock. They emerged off the rear ramp straight from the Virginia woods, where they had been surviving at a basic level. They were met by air-conditioned coaches on the pan and driven to a large aircraft hangar, where there was power. Inside, they were met by a reception committee of Texas Guard dressed in the old style green BDU uniforms.
There was food and drink laid out, and a medical team waiting to help with the wounded. Jack was amazed at the forethought: they had it all set up in the large hangar, the medical tents off to the side, so that they did not have to separate anyone from the group, which may not have gone down so well with the close knit Virginians.
The senior officer present was a Colonel Bridges. Jack shook his hand and felt good about it. He seemed like a genuine stand-up guy. Colonel Bridges explained that they had set it up so that they would keep them in the hangar for OPSEC purposes, and to allow them to recover, clean up and decompress.
After that, they would make plans to integrate the Company with the Southern Federation forces, arranging for a place for the families to stay longer term.
Colonel Bridges did not bat an eyelid at the heavily armed and geared up Resistance fighters. He simply mentioned to Jack that they had built a weapons unloading bay at the entrance to the hangar and for safety reasons it would be best to clear the weapons for their stay. Jack agreed and passed the message.