The Hurst Estate pool is like that all white and black marble slabs chopped into rectangles and speckled with precious if not delicate jewels. It's how California wealthy did 1890 right: part ranch part orgy part historian … and do not be so clever as to snit ' … anthropomorphic ... ' . It's also how a California yeomans militia prepares to butcher-out embedded and saturnine Federal progressives. My companion, she balloons up beside me, her tits slapping my face and face buried in my throat. She runs sound and vidcam for our HRI covers and spits at death as only a hard-born person. Ms. K I call her and fools believe that's a special-K joke. Now pulling. “Take me deep Will.” Hot flesh the bitch and I would chew through her bones …
An eagle floats above us on sunny drafts swirling upward from the hilltop. It's beak holds a twitching ground-squirrel and it flinches. Somewhere north, far beyond the estates boundaries a line of flashes remember and rumble strings of echo-blasts through the south-reaching maze of granite valleys. April, come she will towing Oregon rain-squalls in her shadow. Prickly clay basins are still green and gentle, lowering the tone of earths music. So now. From ground to rippling sky the cannon sound weeps percussions and screaming once the eagle farsighted dives west for the turquoise-band of ocean.
When is it a man cannot remove his hands from the flesh of a woman he wishes his own? Shouts jingle like a nest of rattlesnakes; a mimic tide. Like warm bottles of champaign shaken and uncorked plastic and wooden tankards bouncing and spilling spirits behind pool surfaces fizz to the dance of 50 naked swarming tangled bodies all hitting the water surface same time same unkempt angle same desperate reach for the cold quiet beneath. A black girl with her left arm cut-off above the wrist has somehow clawed her way into Sargent Ravens back and is howling for his blood. Pools marble-reflecting surface boils in a sun-tinged froth. Unless you fuck in public, because thorny shrapnel-filled volcanic craters are unfit for love during a certain, large, bloody, flesh-tearing battle rolling right at'cha you still do not screw now. The girl winds skin-suck around me sinking us peacefully to the bottom. Quiet again. I can see multiple groping, tangled bodies angling for the Black Hole and good for them. Bubbles everywhere. Clinging to Laocoons face with one leg she has made me penetrate her and fucks desperately as if we are alone.
******************************
Commands 70” LCD glows against a wicker windbreak, and if not all troopers are watching the battle -sims, then they watch the blooded, older men for signs of FUD. Those in battle before know this, so riffle-and-pass around nudie 1895 card-decks to shame the young-ones and quiet gut-churning fear. That or the Bogarted weed passing finger-to-finger. Militia ranks mix on plank benches; armed men eat pepper-laden pork-BBQ and whole-wheat biscuits and as tents go it's packed solid. A breeze has kicked-up; it's an outside thing, the making of dead bodies and it carries the forever stutter of faraway small arms fire. Stand anywhere, from the San Simon dock to a hollowed-out snipers nest 30-feet above the clay. Scattered tall pines and clumped redwoods wave green flags announcing this is a coastal hillside, ignoring the lace of dirt tracks tyeing together our main Militia position.
Ours! For while HRI reporting will tell the damn-strait goods I have come to so hate the goat-fucking progressives that pages of smashed, bled-out Federal faces could grace HRI webpages any day. The five damaged ex-Seals who work in the Spokane production center prayed mercy on enemy solders whose hearts , as their own hearts only G*d can know. I vomited before agreeing and HRI remains gore-free. Girl and I wander close to the jerry-rigged podium. No electricity yet; all public talk is shout and the General grinds away. “Forty clicks. That's the distance between us, Hurst Castle and the Federal positions at Mission Ridge.”
“An over-estimate, General. Lockwood is only 30 kilometers.” The Officer had just return from sentry duty in a concrete-mushroom and he stank of dry sweat, chocolate-drops and Deet.
The General, for Banski has taken command of this battle looked up his nose and smirked. “Lockwood … that's where the Federals keep their women, wounded, and prisoners. And Bantu civilian non-combatants waiting for 40 acres and a mule.” Not everyone laughed.
“How far East?”
“Picky lil' bastard ain'tcha”, snarked Banski. “How far east can they kill you?” A gallon crock of priceless Ventana Cabernet 2013 has made to the podium and Banski swigs a mouthful, tastes the explosion … and passes it on. “Snipers scattered up to King city with 335-cal rifles. Each paired with a 308-cal armed pilgrim who can't keep-a-quarter at 100 yards.” Hard men show strained smiles because their A3s won't reject an arm-ripping 308-cal. The generals wrinkled face knows this. “On picket or patrol watch your fuckin' ass. To the north they fear the hoplites and bunch to the ravines, but east … their 20-mm pickets and 155-mm use computer ranging and cover to Rt-101.” He laughs. “You see any fancy wired tin-cans nailed to live-oak screw concealment and just blow them apart.” Men with 375 and 420-cal weapons shred the humor. “ Best remember Federals manufacture their own 50-cal sniper rifles and the powder charge runs hot; expect another 75 yards kill-range. But, our counter-fire hurts them, cause Russians subs have slipped in Mora Bay with 3,000 20-mm bolt action bad-boys. We deployed them last week. ”
Back of the open tent. “Blue-bellies also have people at Lucia; that's 50 clicks.”
“Blue-bellies, huh.” The reference to 1st Civil War Federals erupted gasps and a few smiles.
“And at Ragged Point,: chimes another. “That's just 15 miles. Artillery range!”
Noise. Then the Generals smart-boy. “Our drones sense no engines and measure no fixed heat or sound generating scrapes or blades. All batteries die while anybody can hide a meat.land squad of riflemen in soggy redwoods. Those are their seaward picket-line positions. We expect our first wave of Rangers to take them down the first morning.”
“First and first ...” The Injuns voice filled with remorse. “That's what I told my Captain before the first attack at Goose Lake,” said the Cherokee scout with a cheek scar and Russian 7.62-cal sniper rifle. “Federal kit now includes a snake-proof heat refluxed 2-A mylar layer.”
“Refluxed?”
“Yeah, body heat reprocessed into a nitrogen cooling flow. Some Mexican officers brought the technology north. When they were wounded and factored into Las Vegas clinics by their narco-Padrons they started a manufacture. Goat-silk from Mexico and graphene from La. meth-labs. Feds can afford the product now, but not us.”
The room quieted. Then one of the Colonels with a computer database: “About Lockwood, General. The Cincinnati flotilla estimates 3000 ISIS Muzz-wogs infiltrated the Mississippi; Obama brought them in as fast as he could. Young men most, they adapted by killing and robbing Christians and filtered west into the Great Basin -- then California as they imaged a united left-coast. The La. Militia estimates another 3000 Allah-woggers escaped from the city during Russian missile-fire, when East La. got leveled and occupied by the Aryan Guard. Those Muzzis like rats filtered into the mountain badlands and marched north. Serious feckin-A throat-cutters. Both groups joined and fought briefly at Goose Lake, but sensed the loss and headed for the progressive bunkers at Mission Ridge. The Federals and SanFran lib.comz beat them to it. Who figured the SanFran fags would double-up with their Seattle brothers and beat them out of another port city? So National Guard hang-ons and Federal revanchist got to the waiting defense lines and set a perimeter, making Muzzis camp out at Lockwood. Offered them using the wounded and prisoners as body shields. Allahs dog-fuckers loved it. Bastards dig and dig and dig ….. Including the hangers on and Bantu Panthers make that 8000 heavily armed and dying-for-Allah Muzzi-wogs at Lockwood.”
“Woots that come to?”
“Fifty tanks and fifty AA. Plus home-builts, but casual welding casually breaks when stressed.”
Solders know the Federal bunkers are not casual. A hedge-ranger vomits staggering outside. “How many Molester?”
“Near 100, but our F-28s caught a train-load coming through Oakland. Bros intended racing them through the city and cap a couple-hundred 25-mm rounds across the bay; SanFran faggots used to be their popper clients. Not now. They lost about 200 units to strafing and for running shoot-outs that's gonna hurt 'em. But, they have entrenched heavy weapons. Couple-three 120 mortars and 105-mm. Two-dozen 155-mm and 15 or so 40-mm gatling guns. People will die!” General lit his Partagas.
I shouted. “Total boots on the ground!”
General shot back fast. “At the tip, 150 special forces, 300 rangers and 100 Chechens. We cracked their database, got names and deployments and most are well disciplined hard men. We'll need to kill every one.” He chewed on that fact like a stick of sour beef before continuing.
“Then figure 2000 Federals, 1000 cops, 1500 left-over Mex, 2000 locals, 4000 Bantu, 3000 Alinsky street-fighters and a couple hundred wranglers, bush-rangers and mercenary. Can't count politicians, krankheads & hobos, and don't need to count femi-nazi … they never worked a gas stove and can't build IEDs. Better at IUDs.” A wall of laughter rocked the tent.
“You'll pay 4/1 getting mine,” sniped a blue-eyed bush-ranger wearing her brothers jeans and fathers Colt-44. She thought, then: “ according my calculus that's say 22,000 progressive fighters in all.”
The universal gasp was inaudible. “Arms and supplies?”
“Lots and lots. The best that SanFran progressives and globalists could hide in 10 years. Their fighters will eat freeze-dry steak and shoot German ordinance!”
“No problem,” scoffs the General spitting out a tent-flap.
A shout from the rear. “Cut that 'column forward' shit. We get sliced like bacon!”
But, seeing his own battle-flag Banski is not counting casualties. “The Seattle/SanFran hoplites join with 11000 men, another 2000 icemen from the Sierras, Scrums cavalry from the prairie has brought 3000 men and 300 armed vehicles, another 4000 eastern militia detrained in Sac and poor bastards are walking in, willing to camp out and boil water. They will attack over the low hills south of King City, then picket-out west while the Ford dualies run ravines to the south. The La. Rangers are marching north to the tune of Beach-Boy songs with 14,000 men , 16 tanks the marines lost and 80 armour vehicles.” The General looks about. “We have three complete truck-in medivacs. Peshies and Ukraines have set up 9 training camps north of Atascadero. Anybody know when we helped them?”
“Austin sent a sniper Battalion to Aleppo and Dallas paratroops to the Lackawanna Valley.”
“Nice catch Scranton. You there?” A couple ex-paras pounded M-14 stocks into the tents clay floor. “Good for you. Two Texas brigades and a del-Norte Mex Venger battalion put up another four, complete with 88-mm drop.deads. Say the women shoot straighter than the men.” Women in the tent chanted blasphemy and some wounded men cried.
An old gravel-voice Lieutenant whispered. “Don't forget our four 203-mm and six 175-mm tracked cannon. We have 35 shots apiece for them.” Cigars are cheap here and he is smoking a bourbon-drenched cheroot. “Straight white Seattle machinists hate us, for fucking their wives while they ran away from Muzzi ISIS. Fucking-A pussy, but Boeing has promised 35 rubber-tired and aluminum-skinned 75-mm ducks for intrusions along the reservoirs. ”
General took a long draw on his black-wrap Cuban Partagas. “Mission Ridge and Lockwood progressives? We'll butcher them out.”
*****************************
Hurst Castle, Hurst Estate, Hurst Ranch, Hurst …. maze of cropland, pastures, live oak warrens, narrow gulches and broad ravines splashing up the coastal mountain to the dry plateau above. A thousand dirt trails led from salt-water flavored safe-bunkers to a full-metal-jacket death-wish.
“As kill-and-runs goes we are nine vehicles, a modest sized probe,” volunteers a Sargent while we gas up.
“Big as the Federals?” He says nothing and played chrome Zippo flame over a Cubana stub. “Faster than them? What's your name?”
“Faster? Some joke. You can call me Ray.” Bet not. We aren't allowed to see or name all our comrades, as wounded are usually not returned from a probe. Knowing a left-behind makes for bad morale. Ammo packs are light and body-armour heavy. “Be faster Ray.” He and his sidecar bud spit tobacco and raked gravel toward the nearest concrete mushroom.
Our probe leaves at 4-AM winding into the Coastal badlands along REC-V trails, headed for the Lake Nacimiento northern dry-wash. Drought left a rocky, bitter-dry wasteland and 10 miles of sandy reservoir bottom that allows easy movement of fighting machines out to the perimeter. Both sides. That dry reservoir run is both our target and our path north. Smacking straight into Federal probes and patrols. You stop enemy probes, or resting in camp some evening find an 120-mm mortar shell exploding up your asshole. Sure both sides had snipers, rangers and special forces. One of ours spotted a mortar-laden Federal Humvee at the north tip of the wash. Militia pickets and probes need to keep it there or smash it to burning ruins.
From Hurst Castle barns dirt roads vein-out to the east; vehicles run close and talk is cheap. Two miles east of the camp and three miles from Gaffers Gulch we split for obscurity, units separating before the steeps. Ms. K and I ride a silent dual-powered side-cycle besides two others, rangers drive three big-wheeled Molesters, 3 east coast reporters bounced in a HummVee and Boeing people blooded from the Columbia River campaign man two Agros with M-60s and 37-mm steel-cutters. Every vehicle carrys a machine gun and tube. Our three Harleys ghost up a sage covered spline till two dead-end into a dry-wash waterfall. We wheel past the cursing SFOs who hurl Lone Ranger warnings.
Ms Ks digicam whorls. I have followed a redwood thicket promising mulchy, damp ground till a tree-fall brings us up. Doesn't happen. Only 1-in-5 redwoods are big enough to matter, and when closure comes, edge of the 1st plateau our big Harley-1200 crunches right through it. Morning fog still clings to the pine while sun-blaze shakes chills from our skin. We clip Helmet Polaroids into place. It's rolly-polly near the western summit and we follow a REC-V trail to the top. Eyes dazzle. The entire plateau, a fractal washboard from top of the coastal ridge to Rt-101 whispers peace, a scoured 4WD playground too stiff for the n00bs while well-enough maintained in fuel and food wagons for the pretty-boy off-road warriors of last decade. War had them burned-out hulks or armoured tortoise-like creepers. A month of rain-showers has put the decades long drought to sleep, and damp clay sticks to our wheels like sugar to the Pillsbury Doughboy. Sprinkles get you a coat of damp clay. Sharp-edged scarpes of it … rolling hills of it … mountainsides … ankle-breaking clods of it covered with slippery fat-bladed grass.
We don't see or hear our probes other eight units. They will get here, of-course – casual, too casual for my tastes. “Over there, Will!” Cows at pasture; a dozen. Not ours. A glint of reservoir catches the girls eye. I follow the glint north. The girl has digicam on HI-RES: She points: “Down that meadow and behind the rocky Yew swale. That's our dry run!”
Second is last, to a webzine. Thoughtless of all, but the three reporters I gun the Harley toward the nearest tree-line reaching along the clumpy grass pasture and into the Yews. We're galloping hell-for-leather, saddle-bags flapping wild along those pines; one of the three wheels always catching air. It's a wild bouncing chemical rage.
I can't hear the FMJ 7.62-cal bullet take 1/2 inch outa MS. Ks helmet brim. Or notice grass-cutters nip the buds from wild barley. Can't hear her scream till I see flashes reach up from below. Most solders who breath both yesterday and today respond just before attacks-profiles appear. Not us now. We dart into the thin pine cover, crushing a cushy needle bed; shooting stops, but not the vidcam and the girl bites my neck. Bullets snicker into the pine tops. We both kneel beside the laid-down Harley, M-16s at ready and very much afraid of dying.
Some pine-tops are nicked-off and they fall around us. A green spring snow-storm. Ms K. eyes have gone narow and cold, discouraging any literary injection into her Klipsch micro-sound-horn. “AK-47s they gotta spray N' pray we're lucky again. We get out pronto.” I point up the hill through the thin supple pine branches.
“Not if they see us.” She clicks a 40-mm phosphor grenade under her rifle barrel. Me too. “The vidcam spotted them to the left, where the sage gets thick; her arm steadies and we both lose a 30-round clip
of 223-cal slugs. Lots of noise with no return fire. “Bet they're on our flanks!” She taps her mounted grenade and says: “When these fly down, we fly up!”
I right the cycle and crank the engine which does not take two tries. “NOW!" Sparks , smoke, fire the mini-mortars heckle.
Second-hand I know a casino owner in Charleston. He believes in dice or any gaming throw as more true than any knowledge. Hunched over and strapped in against the accelerations I play slot-machine with the wheels and tree-trunks. Chewing my way up the woodlot. Fire and smoke roar through the pine needle blanket below us, snatching firestorms at tree-tops and carrying the burning brands downhill on the last breathes of cold morning air. I think of an HRI headline:STAYING ALIVE IS SO HARD. Ms Ks nails have scratched-thru A-3 to my belly, and she is dug in like a women who will hang-on all night , but make you pay for it. Lead slugs whine around us, but we hear them all. Hissing sounds more pissed-off than vengeful. When we crash through the western tree line, running uncovered along a ravine the plateau summit of bright green grass appears playfully close and the Harley races for it like a lone bluefish races from schools of prowling King.
Almost there and I thought afterwards must have been Thorens pre-amp in the girls helmet that caught the high-pitch whistle. We are approaching a bump and I'll catch air, but she wrestles the handlebars left, to a pebble slope clipping tire-treads that puts us down on my right side and only the instant of shadow when missile-fins slip over the other side of the bump reports we will be alive and breathing rather than a mangled lump of human waste. Slide … sslide … ride a Harley you know how to recover from a slide even with 1/2 the skin on your leg torn off, but our A-3s take that scrape and we do not even bleed when the TOW explodes 50 yards beyond us and shrapnel hisses. Two long reaching sniper rounds miss us cresting the ridge; they dive over the crest beckoned by the blue Pacific swells far below and bore through and explode on exit from those Ponderosa pine.
Scoff as you will, about the willfulness of hungry bullets. Our Harley kicks out of a rut and smashing dives down along a ridge sawtooth. Rolla-coastered by the first redwoods, we bounce onto a gravel washboard ; a wood-drag grabs us, angling for a quarter mile and then dive into the next ridge-top ... twice a charm. Shit yeah. It's too steep to drive , really fear sent us down, but muddy enough from a feral spring to let our fat wheels slide, and the frame careen from boulder to tree trunk to mud-puddle all sideways while the Harley flies arrow-like straight down hill. One-hundred feet one-hundred miles you can't tell hanging on while the pounding just laughs at you. We could go anyway. Anywhere. The ridge-line throws up a pine thicket and ramps us out onto a tall-grass flat running along till stopped dead by a large rotted yew-tree, and two body-armoured men with 8-gauge Italian shotguns.
“Sargent!”
“Fecking-A Scranton.”
“We found ...”
Sargent Raven removes his helmet and spits. “Crips-on-a-Cross could'a heard the shooting. And you blasting down the mountain. Be a shit-rain of Mobsters following you. You can print that n ITALICS or TIMES ROMAN, but splintered bone's the same. Better follow us.” We ride crazy through switch-backed woods for a quarter mile meeting probe vehicles gathered along a concealed and woody ridge. Crazy to be a lone prey, soft and pulpy and running away and then sudden-like become another steel arm of a fighting unit. Men die for that I think.
*****************
Two more Harleys and a 2nd HUMM-VEE have joined the probe. “How many,” the General asked.
“Two.”
“Five.”
“You bastards count orgasms when you fuck? Some women demand 3-to-1!”
“I'm not that lucky,” sez Ms K., but my situational awareness says the enemy is all teeth and legs.
“We never saw a flanking movement, only the shots from our front.”
“Digicam picked up 270-cal sound profiles from our sides.” Ms K. gloated, while under my waist armour was giving me a jab of salvia.
"Teeth and legs yer thinking? Join the Navy pals, but ya missed a Century or so." Two of the Seal-badged cycle-troopers scoff. “And really, a 270-cal? That's danger-ranger ammo, an amateur round for meatland heros.” Then a corporal comes over to our Harley with a chrome wrench and torques it around. Do metal parts feel pain? A kick-start puts blood-whine into the 1200-cc. I miss the growl, but growls make you dead at 400 meters. Seal wipes the wrench on his 3_As. “Bastard Mexican parts.”
Banski looks at his Lieutenant, lights a feckin-A Marlboro and clicks a tweet into his cellphone. He didn't wait long for an answer. “You ready for a fight, Scranton.”
My arm; blood seeps from a rip in my A-3 forearm strap, but I don't feel it. Time had started to whistle for me and grow longer. “I do not forget the morning glory I saw.”
“Bastard reporter reads Japanese that's just fuckin great!” Banski turns to the group of us, comrades in blood. “Time to fight gentlemen. We'll not have an enemy on our flanks, even shooting a bb-gun. So we split here, join beyond that point .” His arm guides through the trees to a distant rocky outcrop some 300 feet above us. “We hit hard and fast and piecemeal if the Agros can't keep up. Our wounded wait till we kill all them sons-a-bitches.”
The Agros, Humm-Vee and the ranger truck take a Jeep trail south-east, around the cliff-dominated bushy hill while Mobsters and the cycles loop north through rutted dirt-bike and REC-V cuttings. Even by twilight spotting WAN towers dotting the highest peaks is easy and both sides use them; destruction is taboo and scoffs subject if caught by enemy to summary execution. Just 200 yards out the forest hillside transmutes to a ragged sawtooth ridge separating our dual advances.
Over-volted cellphone chatter dies away as one hidden MIM in the tangle breaches all communications. One mountainside, many rattlesnake infested ravines clotted with clumps of washed clay and even more steep sage-brush laden hillocks crusted alongside with failed dirt-bike squirts and the final cactus that ate the bikes twisted rear wheel. Teach you a fucking lesson I think. That's our hill! A driver could always get out and push, but never hard enough, and a pinnacle-hidden sniper will slice as many 308-cal tunnels in your chest as he had bullets to waste. Staying low is no joy, as the clumped clay will shear under a wheel, but never crumble so slip-slipping is a constant companion. Ms K. whines and sways to all sides, but keeps the sound and digicam rolling. Best bet I think and we have chosen one rocky wash when a militia Mobster comes blasting up our ass.
Bigger, faster, three-times our size I send a sheet of pebbles into its side window the fuckers and slide our cycles 3-wheels up sage-brush cover clay of a steepled crest. The Mobster roars by below its two 36” steel-belted wheels spewing wet dust and its for'ard curving ailerons raised nose-high to glide it over the trails top bump. Half-Segway – half hang-glider – half velociraptor its three crew would brag anytime while tearing apart a live oak at 700 yards with its spinning 37-MM beak; now their LAN spewingfuck-you reporter. Our cycle chews at the steep , rocks, roots and dry water-spills. The Harley almost summits, tops rocky knob jumping within view when the tires stop grabbing, pitch left then slide-off sideways toward the smoky bottom of the wash. In slo-mo we are laying over … except the girl throws her face into my lap and I jack the front wheel round till the frame heads straight down hill. I cannot think or feel. You start from nothing. Gravity pulls you down. A gas engine pushes you down. Rocky outcrops make tires fly and when we hit bottom the curved pebble path sling-shotted us up the other side. … sling-shotted … air-catching … yawing … rip-face thorns … till the RPG fireball explodes below us fragging metal into the frame and smashing the cycle upward into a sweep of scraggly pine. I think, I thought 'it really can't happen this way' and I am thinking about being dead when the pine trucks whip-sawed then flips me crashing helmet first into the biggest Pacific rattlesnake born in 2014. Lights out.
Devils don't shoot guns, or heaven would look like Detroit. I can hear gunfire. “Don't die on me now you asshole. What if I'm pregnant after last night … you fucked me raw!”
I can taste the cold water Ms. K is splashing over my mouth. “Wet!”
The General “Is he talking?”
I can now feel the hasty implant needles, two drip-bags feeding on my arm like vampires. “No broken bones, Will.” Her voice is kind. “The two drips are saline-opium for the sprained shoulder and anti-snake venom; when you smashed that rattlesnakes its fangs nearly penetrated your A-4 top-vest.”
“Dead?”
“No you're not dead. But, your vest is off so the fangs can't scratch skin.” PRY THEM OUT I think, but noone listen to my thoughts. Through webbing I can see blue sky, and Banskis grandma specs leaning over. “They got close, real real close to our Hurst camp using a new IR mixer. Our sensors are worth crap!”
“Dead?”
“Wish you stop saying that word, Will.” Ms K leans down to brush my cheek with her lips. “I got bounced off that hillock far side, recovered and vidcamed most of the firefight. We killed a mortar, eight legmen, two Mobsters and the Agros are chasing the other two.” It was quiet except for burning
ammo cooking off. “One of their sugarplums took out a HummVee and our three east coast reporters didn't make it.”
Sugarplum … jellied gas and phosphorous with bits of depleted uranium. Darknet had suggested. “Top drawer shit.” I try sitting up and get nowhere. “Banski … General what are you doing here?” Second time's a charm. I am butt-sore, dizzy and sit resting in Ms Ks arms.
“OTR Scranton turn off that fuckin Vidcam.” Girl clicks a button and LEDs go blank, their power now feeding a sensitive preamp in video. “We are waiting for the Agros to return captured prisoners and equipment. Council knew the Feds entrenched at Mission Ridge had new weapons. Hell, they're SanFran techies many of them. After the hoplite revolt spread from Seattle lots of kill.bads developed in Silicon Valley never left town.”
“Hoplites”, chirps a peach-cheeked east coast reporter? Her badhe has been stamped NYT, wore a Drudge-hat and couldn't keep her knees together on or off patrol. Pitiful, most Rangers thought and latter she made an HRI cartoon.
“Hoplites, Ms Seigel” sniggers a sniper lad missing two fingers. “They're faggots from Seattle , Portland and SanFran. Refused butchering by the Muzzi-wogs and narco-Mex, strapped on steel jocks and started cutting Wogish throats instead. Cleaned Sunni ISIL outa Seattle and Tijuana banger-boiz from Tacoma. Joined the Militia. Proud to have them.”
“Oh, racists you mean.”
“Ever fucked one?” The NYT bitch shut up. The General caught-up his story.
“Yes gentlemen, we sat on the new toys from psycho-dogs to inline gatling-guns. But, the proto-types and improvised weaponized versions are staring right down our throats. Sure Feds were going to use them first chance scare us shitless maybe even allow a re-enforcement column to break through. Sure our engineers can work fast, but I had to see enemy state-of-deployment of those kill.bads for myself.”
Clearer now. I'm on a litter, under a webbed tent. Plastic bags are knotted to a stripped oak branch. Ms K lights me a Camel and I blow a long stream of grey smoke toward a flapping entrance. Tastes like fuckin-A paradise. I look … find Branski pissing into a sage-bush outside the tent. I shout feebly. “Nice to know General just what risk we faced. They were testing also, the Feds I bet just waiting to chop us up!”
“Better thirty than thirty thousand. You know what bad intel did to the blundering Kurds at Raq.”
“Are we like blundering Kurds?” Ms K. dug a knuckle into my ribs bruised bone and it screamed in silence.
Banski shifts the tent flap coming in, spit out a Partagas butt and pours three cold shots from an EVERICE thermos. Good Russian vodka with a built-in squeeze of lime. “Sure, it's a temporary setback, but a big one. Kurds let ancient soil soak their blood and go on, keep fighting, lose more sons, I don't know if we do as well. The only set-piece loss we've had was the Little Tennessee RIVER Battle, when the power engineers turned on us. We fixed those bastards later, but best not happen twice. Yet, even in Syria Peshi defeat costs the Russians another year of bombing. If the enemy eats your lunch they don't supply a buffet.”
Ms Ks nails are biting into my shoulder. For HRI she edited Ukraine vidcam tapes of that battle and blood left her heart for a week. “Trapped, cut-off and annihilated! Can't happen here.” I am telling a damned lie. I do that more easily as my head clears.
“Pretty transparent how the Peshmerga attack on Raqqa got queered. The data-seam had been in place for a decade.”
“But ISIS wasn't that ...”
“You bet wrong! After US tanks reached Baghdad and diplomats rejected Republican guard help to restructure the country, Iraq military pros went dark. Reached out to Sunni wealth in SA and Turkey. ISIS rose from that wealthy dark.”
“Yeah yeah old news. But, how does that get …?”
“In America Bill and Hillary Clinton were looking for a seat at Washingtons power-table. They needed money and through Bills contacts with Anthony Weiner they found a mysterious source in Weiners wife, Hillary-babes new adviser Huma Abadein. Huma was a ISIS honey-pot trained by the Saudi, and after fucking Bill a few times he was more than pleased to see her Hillarys chief-of-staff. Humas idea early on to set up an independent messaging and data-analysis system for Hillary. Bitch can't type, because of her brain tumor, but she talked and interns pecked. All the silly churning got shipped straight to the Saudis … who damned near shot Huma for wasting their money. Set up and ruined her husband as a lesson for Huma to work harder.
“As Senator,” the girl interjects?”
“Israel got first pickings then, before Iran and Turkey drove them into caves. When Hillary became Obamas Sec. Of State the churning data all-of-a-sudden wasn't so silly. Meanwhile the Saudis setup huge paydays for the Clinton speech-making team. Everything worked smooth like a camel-fucking Imam.”
“So ISIS was listening in!”
“Yep! When Hillary got back into the Senate, and then snatched POTUS from a befuddled Ryan, the Saudis and their ISIS on-site poodles had a direct line to the deepest of American intelligence. Americans planned the battle for the Kurds and with Saudi-America tanks Obama gifted the Levintine Muzis, ISIS created a hang-mans loop for the Kurd attack. ”
“How did ...”
“That's another story for another time.”
Who, what, when, where, why … it's the way you run a webzine. But, the General is no squawk-box and my head clear as a quantum erasure. “Okey. So the Peshis get fucked. I got one thing to say … intelligence … wrong word.”
Banski bellows. “The femi-Nazis loved it! White male Seals slaughtered. And many media go-to-bitches got the butt-fucking of snickering fantasy from hip Muslim diplomats who knew their sheep
from their goats.”
Ms K is totally pissed. She jabs a stubby tester into my arm, and when the light blinks it's a quick read. “NA+, K+, Ca++ close to norm. Snake anti-bodies maxing out and snake toxins – except the Zeta~4 factor all close to zero.”
The tester vidscreen blips to life with a perfect full-tit fem-bot doc. “Lucky you Scranton. Message sez the fangs penetrated A-4. But, only scratched your hide. That snake was a prime young viper, with plenty of high quality venom and might have killed a herd of buffalo.”
“Just like you, huh, but you're a transistor short.”
The bot blanches white skin and her nipples get stiff as peach-pits. “You … you will lose some skin and for a week bleed when you shit, but no other expected issues. Fucker. No sex, no alcohol, no sugar no drugs. Got that? And a good day to you sir.”
“Fuck you too doc. ”
Cellphones squawk. A young fighter in a black A-2, bandaged and bleeding forehead and torn chest-plate rips open the tent flap. “Both Agros returning General.” He's outa breath, but carrying himself straight not outa guts. “They have a wrecked Fed Mobster and three chained prisoners.”
“Did we win?”
*******************
Sunlight. No. Flashes in the evening sky. How we wish for evening sunlight, but a dense sea-fog envelopes the Big Sur coastline as ever the wind turns. Dim denizen moonshine blots out as if the ruling goddess of long bulbous seaweed wishes longer life for her mindless, vegetable citizens. A drone has just returned from Ragged Point. One wing has been shredded , but the streaming video stayed 720p the entire mission. Seals have affected a landing, driving back in blood-gorged contest the Blue-Belly rangers hand-to-hand. Two gofasts have been sunk, by Federal 105-mm, but I talked to a Harrier pilot who claimed his Hellfires blew their ammo-dump and incinerated both cannon. People see funny things on battlefields and sometimes enemy noise-generators kill your data. HRI reported his story and gunsight vids. To the Militia camp artillery shells have swarmed in, from a dozen hobby-craft machinists and farm-supply wet-houses. There's nothing to now stop the Mission Ridge engagement.
The three prisoners captured on our probe the week before have been kept at the old Hurst Castle visitors chalet. It's a curved chrome and glass 7-story block long escape in wealth purpose-built for the shattered bodies of militia fighters. Or so it seems to me. Crippled men lounge, gorge on the chemical fantasy of California and are soaked by the Pacific Ocean light and twilight before dying. I share their space, but do not die. A concussion. Leave my room and bed dirty to report the trial. Call it a dead mans trial.
But, two Federal prisoners do already die. Bodies bleed inside to death. Blood vessels have been damaged by sonic shock-wave weapons carried on the Agros. Yes, the Militia had something new to show the Mission Ridge Federals. One prisoner still lives. He an officer named Dastardly
with knowledge , possible knowledge of the IR mixing and jamming equipment carried by the Federal Mobsters and so un-obvious we can transplant all the tecknos from their to our own equipment and produce nothing of value. Some of the Cal tek people heckle a 5-dimensional story, we still in 4-dims, but only they can follow the math and so far it has produced only burning batteries.
So we live or die more or less by the third prisoner. He has been questioned twice and we will not torture. He heckles the inquisition and sprinkles 100-yo sulfa-drug powder on his own wounds. “Not a peep,” speculates Ms K.
Third time's a charm someone says. “No” I say trying for an interview. Nothing.
“Lieutenant's part of their chemical corps. An interrogator when Feds need-for-speed.”
“Then he should go out the hardway … we have a couple grams of Jacobs Ladder ...”
"I'd cut out his teeth one-by-one, but wouldn't even give JL to Rubio-da-Cubio." The girl is close by and says what's needed. “Dastardly - - If he remains silent he will die. If he talks he will die. No men will negotiate and talk of the future talks of old bones. All mercy has gone lost.”
“No. I can do the interrogation.”
Smiling … she almost smiles at me. Ms K has the vidcam pointed straight at my face. 'How's that snake-bite doing pilgrim? Just a pinch, I know , but one pinch leads to another.”
“You think I'm going soft?” She leaves the digicam and comes over beside me. Curls her lip and smirks a wily jolt of forgiveness. 'He used to fuck me raw,' it says, 'but now he needs a hospital and to think … for HRI we will go into the battle together' . Does every practiced intuition see that fear in my face? One of the Generals aides motions and discussion ends.
The young Federal prisoner , the last alive is a peoples Lieutenant, that is a leader elected by the volunteers in his platoon. He wears the bronze badge-of-rank clipped to his ear same as he was captured and as when captured will not stop talking his rap. He's a true believer in deep ecology and would see the race of mankind removed from the flawless skin of earth-mother Gaia. And to see this he would butcher without thought or without end.
The Generals interrogator is a brevet-over Marine Major, Silvercoin by name and a high voltage wireman working interstate power-trans towers before the war. He carries face scars from an Iraqi IED, a silver star for gallantry, a 1911 45-cal Smith & Wesson and will take exactly no shit. Except for the Major, the Federal stands alone and unbound 45 yards out on a 47 yard-long dock –- huddled at nep-tide –- whose shipping tasks except for a pump-bearing cluster of 8x8”s catching the sunset no longer require a railing.
“Name and rank.”
“Lieutenant Dastardly of the Federal Alliance.”
“Last Mission.”
Nothing … then … “Long range interception, disruption and deception.”
“Was this a combat mission?”
“Always. I kill white nativist republican militia.”
“How does your Mobster IR mixer interact with ambient sunlight?”
“Hohoho you red-skinned bastard that's a 10^15 question. Some people think it's in the water! Ha haha ...”
“Are you an American citizen?”
“There is no America except for self-serving concepts or novelty, and no citizenry holds except that of the world.”
“Do you now serve the Federal States and bitch Hillary Clinton as your Commander? You fight for them!”
“Strictly a temporary state-of-affairs.”
“One or both?”
“The progressives get European aide and will beat you, even given the current … discomfort.”
“We are kicking your ass everywhere, but you will dissolve us, then dissolve them.”
“I do what I can. Now I serve media-tek and Rawlsians. Imagine. Jerks! They report each-others chatter while ignoring earths indefinable moan and echos of its people.”
“How subtle, thieving from Heraclitus.”
“Men's lives are short, while truth is long. Andy Warhol said that. Harder to see my mark with Bantus and narco.MEX . Idiots! Stupid, lazy and … you know the American native valued only violent bloodletting … Azteca, Inca, Apache, Iroquoi … pure unrestrained savagery. Excepting a ten-man tribe of Baja pedophiles , no Amerind tribe produced bronze in 13,000 years!” Prisoner leaned back on his heels and howled a laugh. “Raise the Paeon for heros to our deep-ecology ansatz.”
“Skim milk.”
“Of-course. But, the nothingness dream of deep ecology requires seeking the skim.” He takes a fag and two long draws … dreaming … “But, those are just names, flags like Hillary Clinton pants-suites … not even real words.”
“What can you do if you could?”
“I could serve bitch Gaia, the loving goddess of Ebola, rabies and ectopic pregnancy. I will serve progressively, all who through death, poverty, carenot, famine, ignorance, war and sickness plead her final values. ”
“You would blind the farsighted?”
“And cripple the swift, corrupt the holy, chem-fog the wise, rape the independent, bone-break the supple and fatigue the strong.”
“Do the quantum dots in your IR arrays each hold two or three electrons?”
“They are quantum strings , not dots.”
“You support stupid, violent and lazy Bantu, feebs, laxers, criminals and invaders.”
“You're half-smart for a redskin. The median American nigger is an entitled, stunted baboon good at raping white women and being vote-herded by Semite pranksers.”
“Your pals.”
“They project deep ecologies ideal human model; no Euclid, no Gauss no Wiles. Neither does wealth exist they cannot poach and rot; no republican culture exists they cannot twist into agony. African tribals not so much. We'll need to poison them, like the Muzzis do to each-other. ”
“Muzzis are good criminals then?”
“Well, yes, with a pig-fucking butt like MuhaMud writing their Torah what can you expect? But, more generally there's no crime without a state … it shows how unstable anti-Gaia behaviors are. The more civilized the state the more crimes are committed, thus destabilizing the civilization. Consider the current SNEEZE-laws; bitch Gaia loves it.
“Invaders?”
“Don't really need 'em with culture-haters like Hillary, Merkel, JeJeans and Reinfeldt. Allow women to pour into power; they will twist Pi into 2.9 snatching leadership from castrated men. Of-course all four bitches were shot dead by citizens –- damn their picky souls. Anyway, while most of the world retreats into lubricious, drug-flavored suicide or religious inebriation, striving America remains a wart on Gaias clit. I praise the fool, better to educate, weaken and destroy human cultural achievement.
“Killing Militia trips Federal imaginations?”
Sometimes destroying the body is insufficient for Gaias glory.”
“Have you seen the outcomes of your vendetta against human value? Eh … the suffering.”
“Yes. Isn't it a thing of wonder?”
BANZG BANYG BANXG ...
We're home with another HRI. Returning to port, Ladies and gentlemen good night. .