“That’s a big ten four, good buddy,” the RTO replied. “We don’t want any nukes, clear?”
“Got that. Do you have a count on the Posleen?”
“Negative, we’re taking some heavy fire and having to keep our head down. But it doesn’t look like many. A few railguns and some plasma cannons sure did for the tracks, though. They’re all gone.”
“Understood. I’m sending you back to the commo officer, she’ll put you in touch with the artillery. Write when you get work.”
“Roger, out here.”
He waited until Kitteket turned over the frequency to the distant RTO and then gestured for everyone to turn to the center.
“Okay, Kitteket, we’ve got contact with one or two infantry in the Gap, the artillery and a few of the militia. Anyone else?”
“Not so far, sir,” she answered. “I don’t have frequencies for the units on the far side of the Gap and everyone else is out of range. I…” She stopped and shook her head. “I’ve got an idea, but I’m not sure it will work.”
“What is it?”
“The nuclear control system,” she said. “It’s a two way system that…”
“Bounces off of the ionization tracks of meteors,” Mitchell said. “But it’s only for sending code groups.”
“Yes, sir,” the specialist replied. “And you can only send three text characters at a time. But it can send any set of text characters; you could type out the dictionary, slowly.”
“Do it,” Mitchell said. “Get us the frequencies for the unit on the far side; we need them to clear the pass. Either that or we’ll have to leave it up to the militia.”
“Somehow, I don’t think assaulting passes is their forte,” Kitteket said.
CHAPTER 40
Near Balsam Gap, NC, United States, Sol III
2017 EDT Sunday September 27, 2009 ad
Thomas Redman was one pissed Injun.
It wasn’t bad enough that the war had forced the shut-down of the casino that had been his place of employment for over fourteen years. It wasn’t bad enough that his younger brother had been killed on fucking Barwhon by these Posleen sons-of-bitches. Now they’d went and overrun Dillsboro where his “certified Indian Made Posleen Scalpers” store had been.
Well, admittedly, that damn SheVa gun had run it over first, but it wasn’t like they had much of a choice.
Whoever had wiped out his store, it was the fault of them Posleen and they was, by God, gonna pay. His family had been in continuous residence in these mountains since they’d run the Creeks out about the time when Columbus was conniving Isabella out of her jewels. And he wasn’t going to be the last Redman to screw the white man out of money in them.
Up to this moment his resistance to the Posleen had consisted of telling the babe in the SheVa gun where they were. When they’d first gotten word the Posleen were coming up the pass he’d sent the wife — he only called her “squaw” when he wanted to get her really mad — up the road towards Knoxville. Then he’d gotten out his militia radio, his four wheeler and his rifle and headed up onto the ridges.
Now, though, it was looking touch and go. He hadn’t been able to see much of what was happening in the Gap, but the columns of smoke made most of it pretty obvious. He knew a spot where he could get a bead on the Posleen. But that was going to involve a technical violation of the laws of man.
In the rush to enact legislation at the beginning of the crisis, one of the big debates was over formation of militias. Finally the Congress had passed laws that effectively repealed most of the anti-weapons regulations that had grown up, substituting a series of laws to “regulate the several militias.” One of the laws had to do with militia boundaries, in that no member of a militia “formed in one territorial area should pass for militia purposes into another territorial area without the clear wishes of the government of the second territorial area.” What they meant was that if a group of, say, Virginia militiamen were practicing, they shouldn’t go into Maryland.
Unfortunately, the bureaucrats of the Bureau of Indian Affairs correctly interpreted that to mean that there would have to be a “Reservation” militia and the militia of the rest of North Carolina. And, technically, the only area that one Thomas Redman, sergeant in good standing of the North Carolina Cherokee Tribal Milita, could make war on the Posleen in was reservation territory. And he was just about to clear the reservation line.
A series of not particularly funny John Wayne movie jokes went through his head as the four wheeler crested the last bit of rock and rumbled onto the Blue Ridge Parkway headed to cut the Posleen off at the pass.
“Y’all better WATCH out!” he yelled to the night. “This Redman is off the reservation!”
“Sir, I’m in contact with Eastern Command,” Kitteket said, tapping rapidly for a moment then stopping.
“And what’s the word?” the colonel asked.
“I’m still giving them our situation, sir,” she continued, tapping again. “I have to set up the words three letters at a time, then wait for them to transmit then set up the next set of three letters. It’s a real pain.”
“We’ll get that fixed in the next upgrade,” Pruitt said, scrolling his tactical map around. “Assuming we’re here for the next upgrade.” Things were not looking so hot.
“Okay, what about the Posleen around Dillsboro?” Mitchell asked.
“That’s looking pretty bad. They’re having some trouble with the torn up road and about half of them headed up 441, but the rest are headed this way. There’s also a huge buildup across the river. The scouts can’t get a good estimate on the numbers in there, or they don’t want to believe their math. Either way, it’s a lot.”
“ETA?” Pruitt asked.
“About an hour, the way Posleen travel,” Kitteket said. “I’m telling Eastern that, too.”
“Oh, the hell with this,” Mitchell cursed. “No more Mister Nice-Bunny. There is no reason we should have to worry about getting overrun with Posleen. Pruitt, we’ve got three more rounds of area denial, right?”
“Yes, sir,” the gunner said. He tapped a control and the turret began to track smoothly to the rear. “And there ain’t no humans to worry about back there. Up on three one-hundred kiloton nukes, at your command… Sir!”
“Kitteket, find out where the main concentrations are and an estimate of where the leading forces will be in… oh, ten minutes,” Mitchell said. “And find out why it seems we’re the only ones fighting for this pass!”
The Blue Ridge Parkway is one of those American icons, like Route 66 or the Appalachian Trail. It runs along the crest of the Blue Ridge, which is really a series of smaller mountain ranges, from the Great Smoky Mountains in North Carolina to the Shenandoah Valley in Virginia. Along the way it passes through some of the prettiest, and most rugged, country in Eastern North America. Running, as it does, along the spine of various ridges, it is not easily accessed. Nor is it usually the quickest way to get from Point A to Point B.
But it was as good as it got for Thomas.
He’d gotten up on the parkway near Woodfin Creek, using a little known track that connected to the old parkway, and then up the hill onto the new one, and now was closing in on the Gap. But his target wasn’t actually in the Gap. From what the babe in the SheVa was saying, half the overpass was up. While it sounded sort of fun to climb out on it and fire down on the horses, it made more sense for him to get where he could fire under the overpass. There was a ridge running out from the parkway, the one that made the last bend in 23 necessary, that could be accessed from the road. From the end of it, if he could find a good hide, he thought he would be able to fire right under the bridge and take some of the pressure off the troops caught in the Gap.