California Militias South-Eastern flank - - winners, drivers, consolidators; We smell Federal blood spilt early and often, but death's always a companion; I ignore the future. Gunny polishes a greened brass tracer; but, 'Jeeped,' damnation good lead word for an HRI headline. “Officers important to a Marine lifer …?”
Shiny tracer banged into a spare clip. “You want ghetto-bangers running the Militia too?” Gunny wipes his chin on a piss-bloody hand, like he didn't know COC in most Militia units was two Ukraine 7.62-cal assault rifles. “Damned straight, ” he grits. “Our extra half-mile walking the bad-edge tempts Blue-Belly shits to attack.” Spits a gob of REDMAN. “Attack from inferior positions.” Gunny sniperized M-1 hangs from a shoulder. “But, no attack, Scranton ...” I get lots of badeye … grunting , looking over a log toward Ms K. who is steeling-up a x128 telephoto of a Federal sniper hanging from a tree-crotch with his head shot off … Fuck!
No big fuckin' deal, I think, 40 miles south of Fresno crossing into the western Sierra foothills, a collected rabble of Militia, cowboys, Libtoons and Military left-overs … I counted 475 armed, ragged, close-ordered and walking … 20 bounced along on stretchers and of-course … of-course the black-hatted cowboy Brig-Gen who drove a 20-mm loaded armed Jeep up mud-creeks to find survivors, kludged a cracked mechanical distributor and was now driving it out. Men called him nuts, but he scouted ahead of the main troop column and infantry likes those kinda nuts! “We got an asshole?”
“Only our own,” Gunny mutters. His scavenged WW2 Bushnells scour last time the sour, rippled landscape behind along the south-run river. “Best certain no suicide squads follow us home. Safe! “Rooty-toot-booty we're safe ...” and in column-of-march 1st - - but for a 9-man Ranger scout squad. Then the shredded far-side goes lost forever. Cigars light up behind him; aroma good strip-dead Habanos shit. We start moving, edging boots down the steep-sided ravine.
Early afternoon blue sky crisps the piny upland meadow. Two weeks since our burying Frosty at Johnsdales ; two weeks of gathering Militia fragments and being gathered by Marine rifle platoons. Yep … some Marines went In'jun just before-or-after NUKO and left Camp Pendelton reservation! They talk little having killed some of their own who served the Federals. We've hiked since 5-AM. Cookie thinks we should stop, rest, reorg … and eat … “two hot meals left...” he shouts at Brig-Gen driving bye ... “and they rot if'n ya don't eat 'em!”
Ranger squad blossoms .. machetes find two rattlesnakes. Gen-Nuts drives the meadow skirts, declares it fuckable and trooping for'ard companies peal-off to form a circular defensive perimeter. Meadow center, two surgeons set a tent, IV-drips & UV cot to suture wounds, while Cookies burning year-old Mormon stew & biscuits. My view … cleared terrain weed-farm, before the troubles. We and the rangers pile straight thru center 200 yards and into a rocky swale of redwoods. Ms K. snarks, “Tomorrow BusyBee says Federals might surrender to The Mississippi Flotilla!”
BusyBee … some pal of Ms K. Scrum is banging. Ms K smacks me a mouthful of tongue, tits all over me pointing; she never points. “Berry bushes rowed, rows of rowers do you see lovrboy? Plowed by bearshit. Tall ferns, not many but … where's the water? There!”
A gurgling creek if you hear with your eyes or Ms Ks earbuds. “Christ Scranton take her into the bushes … any log will ...” We have just Charlie-jigged upended tree-trunks at the swale edge and beside me Gunny Monroe relights a burned Partagas as …..BFRAMZ.....BFARZM.... from all edges and degrees of our front whistle flights of 7.62-cal FMJs; they blossom from redwood trunks, erupt from rock-rimmed hedges to snicker at wild flowers beneath our feet and turn Monroes mustache into an oozing red jelly. French kiss - - their camoed M14 flash suppressors that close; greetings of bullet and knife and grenade end in seconds as we 39 unseemly Militia bastards crash thru the Federal for'ard picket. A trenching tool swings edge-on for my head; Ms Ks 16-mm Sony takes the smash and I drill two 357-cal through white brain-splatter and a surprised red face.
Wipe off the smart snot. We are not expected; they are not prepared. Deaths' holiday - - from programed murder. Ajax ascending, those most close unsheath knives and hatchets, splitting the space between into misty-red boudoirs of lost body parts. Bayonets clash and reel farther right. Left a brisket of Militia have blown-open a 10-gauge space and filled it with bloody Federal carcass. One-over-another – leapfrog till a Federal 30-mm sweeper round takes off the 1st head and shatters the 2nd helmet. Swinging bayonet I duck the blade catches the front sight on Ms As carbine she has now two blood-thirsty shots she straps on wildly unprepared the Kalisnikov. How does 3.0 cm of titanium and carbon crystal shatter if I have time to think beyond snatching the Belgian machine-gun from a severed arm?
Ms Ks DW barked 4-5-6 … and I spent rounds 5 & 6 dispatching the foul-mouthing monster standing above her pointing a TOW … “Get a weapon,” I scream spraying unpeaceful, splintering forebrush with a 30-rd clip. Roll-and-reach; a torso yields two more. Other screams echo mine, from behind and before, sounding voice, shot, explosion and terror. She dives behind me for ….. in this patch of dismounted tree-trunks fires a single all-sighted, all-knowing and all destructive FMJ comprising roughly 100 men-at-arms over a space of 20 by 100 yards in full ignorance and Lucifers heart-break stroking lines of blood in the universal photons smeared lines of existence; or are those Penrose twists, spaghetti gravity. Penrose thinks complex numbers come in 1s not 2s. Shock of the ranting thoughtless melee fill chaos into my core and I am swinging the precision Zeiss Optics Belgian machine like a stone-edged hatchet.
I must be freaking … Ms K. scrunches on my back jabbing needles into my neck. Have I been hit? Have I hit the-big-time … eat dirt bitch. I am. “Eat dirt bitch” … her AK-47s creases my ear and a body falls screaming. Blood spurts buys me a mouthful of redwood flavor. Feel her knuckles digging at my chest; hear the explosions and coppered patacake. But see no one. A screeching wave of Ruski 14.5-mm lead brushes the air above us snipping trees and shattering souls. Must be souls … I hear them approaching front and rear … running … charging … lacing into the folds between each side ansatz .. did I just use some German word .. HRI will be proud … then people again beside below behind and they have joined in a mighty gush of blood and flesh washing the redwood swale so newly found and so precious the soul of Godel could not buy it back.
We are firing, Ms K and I are firing into a clump of newly floated Federal helmets with their bald fucking eagle between the eyes. Our roll splits return fire and now we run away from the sound of cannon … 76-mm I believe if I believe Picket was a stupid fucking son-of-a-bitch and one man we hit together, clamping his A16 to his chest and blowing out his heart with bullets 3-4 from Ms Ks. 357-cal DW.
“I thought you were armed,” I tell her.
“Armed reporters are shot dead,” she replies.
“How many PICKETS did Gen-Nut bring?”
“Two.”
“Four,” sez a medic claiming they are filled with wounded. Three men standing full open beside a redwood are trying to kill us. From 40 yards their smoking M1s say so. Another two join them, with bayonet-heavy Springfield 30-06. I take one slug shock in my A-4 spine-belt. Then all five men go down in a tangle of blades and rifle-butts. Beneath those redwoods Christ dies again, but we live. I breath I smell I push Ms K to her feet and come up behind her firing wildly. 'Get to the tall rocks' I can think.
“The path, Will the feckin-A path follow me …!” Our air is a wild harvest of lead hornets. Half-way we grapple a bloody-arm wounded Militia picket between our shoulders; a stumbling groaning uphill struggle drains our will … and you fight on slower … dumber … Many shots come in through the west. Many from , but many through … I think have we surrounded them?' We find the three sandstone ovals and dive into a V. Two grenades follow us. Richard bound to Jane the metallic slicers deflect as they explode. A smattering of close-in gunfire tumbles a wedge of M-16 barking Federals curving into our V. Nato 7.62-rounds killed them where they stood - - brave men - - stupid men - - a short stack of Militia slither around oak-trunks and reform as a firing line into the tall grass we had fought through.
“Medic,” I shout! Stretching away south, pelts of riflefire sparks and 30-mm grenade smoke rush from our main force, meeting broken waves of long-nosed trench-rifles slashing opposite, mingling, mists of blood dance and spurt high as the wavesd wash over and through, or not …
“When yo mama fucks white men,” hectors the reply and a battle-scrubbed Navy Lieutenant breaks from a fireline and scrambles the 30 yards up and into our V.
“Always happy when battleships ford mountain passes.” Bitch looks down at the wounded trooper, wipes his face with the crusted barrel of her M14 and spits and jams between his teeth black tar hashish. “Brig-Gen said keep eyes pealed for reporters. Half are Federal moles.” She grins missing a bra and anything between her jeans zipper and cunt; shards of a ceramic A-4 belly-warmer hang from her waist. Smattering of fire continues. “You wouldn't happen on any a' those pricks …. or wounded Bluebelly?”
“A dead woman from the Cleveland Gazette, over there, just north. Federal ranger cut her throat.” I turn and puke - - makes me sick.
Ms K. “A sport-coat guy with his pants down musta been trying to fuck her; he's dead too, but he blew off the Blue-belly balls. And yes, Feds own the other side of this rock, but only the live ones.”
“Rock or cunt?”
I squeeze off a long thin grey thread of Camel Straight. “Your pick!”
“Smart-ass blo-job that's you, Scranton. Aka Crass.Lass here servicing you not. But, you + bitch hugging the firing line too close. Strain our fire-points; dead civies stain my record. ”
“We were the firing line, were, before you bastards got off the shitpot.” I motion back at the meadow. Ms K. took her chances and won just like you. Why Navy”
“Our's is not to question Y … “ Her nipples stiffen and smooth licorice voice lifts. “After helio-drop, I led two rubber speedboats down-the-Kern. But, the nuke dropped an hour early, and radio-protected narco.MEX had already started re-infiltration. Must have know shit was flying. They got our boats … we killed 45 of them and took their poly-Xylene suits. All satellite.com dead, but the neutron absorbers kept us alive for two days, while we climbed out of the river slit. Then we started meeting other Militia and re-orged.”
Ms K. had ditched remains of her digi-cam. She packs a 50-yo Leica. “Byte-dry here! No news on the Big Sur front?”
“No Big Sur front any more. Fucking Seattle faggots blasted out the bunkers and beat the counter-assault wedges .. two of three anyway. MuJad camel-fuckers and narco.MEX bangerboiz are hold-up in the tunnel system south of Jolon airport. Lots of long-distance fire-fights; if ya can't shoot-out an eyeball at 400 yards stay home.”
“Prolly 50 & 334-cal all-round. Makes casualty lists long.”
“Pins them down. Gonna flush 'em out with nitrogen mustard, soon as Nancy-boy chemists can keep their Teflon stoppers tight!”
I look at the two women. They could like each-other … on a different planet. “And PCH?”
She muses cruelly. “From Monterrey Bay I commanded a gunboat 43-mm turret. Deadly against the open hillsides. You kill much Scranton? Didn't think so … most Federals surrendered to Russian Speztnaz, after Silvercoins troopers started squeezing their flanks with PICKETS. Figured professional solders would treat them better. Each Federal lost an ear. But, a band of four-hundred Jacobs-Ladder saturated punks at PCG & Ventana fought till cyanide 20-mm cartridge rotted their rifle-barrels. Retreated to Nepenthe … last stand of the terrapin band. Blue-bellies pissed off the cliff, ate free-range chicken and drank Wild Horse Cabernet till the end … ya know Cyanide gas chews through a mans hide ...”
“Enough. After-thoughts are US! Don't we have enough here, whom-ever they are? Look! There's another.” A lead pellet tings my helmet ringing my brain. I shake it nowhere. “There there there … militia picket unraveling to re-enforcing your own line.” We crawl to the V-head and as one roll 'round the curvy sandstone shooting to melt gun-barrels, but not gonna die quiet. One down wounded and two up-rock, held to the face by climbers spikes tickle our A-4 metel side plates. We kill the wounded man, but a flock of 30-06 from behind picks off the two climbers. They tumble to the V-slit like bags of shit.
We retrieve their mini-14 carbines. “Bastards wore camo,” comes the shout from the shooters who saved our lives! Excuse my fucking asswhole. the short Militia line edging for'ard, but not too fast. “Shoot faster next time they're dead now!” Bluebelly flankers have appeared to the west, standing and aiming upside redwoods. Heavy lead patters around us. “Too fucking close,” I yell back and we side-crawl retreat to our V, to rock and our bleeding, moaning wounded.
“Take the sissy down-line,” CL waves at Ms K. Her bullet-riddled Digi-cam long tossed , she shrugs, shoulders the newly awake body.”
Takes three hits on a fresh Camel Straight and a mean look at CL tits. “CMA bitches,” she snits and staggers downhill among a weed-clipping flock of old bullets and older barrels. We stand at V-head snipping off 30-round clips and I blow a mans helmet into jaggies. Below, some place the grass separates and arms of medics pull at Ms. Ks wounded.
CL again. “We're engaged close-in for a quarter mile north and south, in and out of thorns ... see south that big barked-stripped redwood … their fighters be the western wedge, the fanatics and danger-rangers that escaped Missionary Ridge - - hard bodies and tin brains. Lots of air support promised. See any Widow-makers? Didn't think so. You wanna fuck while your bitch is playing mama-bear?”
I slap her face into the dust and take all of her mouth before she can bite off my tongue. “I'm taken.” But, bad love shakes you up. My weapon leaps skyward, plucks a sniper from a redwood branch leaving him hanging streaming guts. CL chipmucks a Federal runner slouching him over one-leg-short.
Small smile; CL does not impress easy. “I don't usually fuck like a mink, but I bet you could beat my ass hard enough to get that.”
“If I could get the jeans off your cheeks. Got 'em painted on.”
“Cut away whatever you need.”
Look twice. I'm holding a good piece of her ass, young and hard, CL … raped once and for gimmis a blo-job virgin. “But, not them,” and I point west while driving my shoulder into her tit. We go down together hard and the face-high stream of 5.56-cal tracers pelleting the rock wall behind us never ends …. a bazooka round comes up short, but frag shreds our boots. Ever had twisted manganese ripped out of your big toe? Twas the northern flank, I thought, this suck-face trio of sandstone, but Militia and Federal flankers even without support have a different idea. We're the excuse, fighters notched into the sandstone, and we are blood. Tit to ass. Hammer to shield. Darker - - can't see to hate. Muzzi-wogs and Seals can kill in-the-dark, but no human beings do. My watch says 7:07PM ; late for the show that's us.
“Don't you feckin-A die shouts Ms K. returning uphill to our cosy with a fat RPGer who gets two shots before a 50-cal buzz-saw cuts him in half. “Two harps left,” she snips throwing the RPG my way.
“Starship troopers, here come the bugs ...” and exposing one flank, where militia ought to be we make a foot-to-foot fire-wedge. Another Federal picket-line darts to our west; men shot and run and are blown to gristle. Their main attack forms behind a bullet-fog of tracers. Following close-in the drover-line of Blue-bellies comes on strong, knifing away the few Militia crawled for'ard and extending beyond the south flank of our unit. A snatchy Federal attack, men lunge ahead, squads fall behind , snipers-safe die in a fraction. The buck-tooth meth-head breaks our V and CL blows off his neck while his M-15 FMJ creeps-by-mm beneath her helmet and doesn't even let blood flow from the torched hole in her brain. Blood flows through her nose and spots the dirt. At V-head, five paces I recover my FAL and take under fire the four Federals drifting north of my rock. One goes fast crying for mama. Then I retreat to Cls body. “Take your hand off her ass,” craps Ms K. bellying down beside me. “And chrisake do anything to her, but don't fuck me dead.” She shoots a Springfield 30-cal carbine and misses everything.
I force Ms K. hand into CL crack ...”Hot like you! Still.” Sheets of artillery fire cover the triple-rock like sun was rain and flack an umbrella. “You fucking miss everything.” I drag her back from the open V - - struggling, she wants to shoot, to fight and perhaps - - to the notch joining where three sandstone pillars do not need to grope in a weird bondage. Her boot catches my mouth … a bleeding sore before I can unbuckle her belt, snatch a tit free, ripping away the A-3 knickers seems easy, and the A-4 ballbusters kissing her lips one of the HRI seals made-for-two said we'd go down together at least banging HRI wooden floor with his one leg. For shame she fights some, knuckles and thumbs and I beat her. Shameless mouth, then she takes like a soft bunny, bunny-girl you must never die and comes a breathless angel though banging her raw I cannot make her cry.
Fire-support vanishes. Darker now. Evening. Twilight. One minute later. Two. Unreleased and unrepentant. Go for'ard … retreat … negotiate … what men do after war? Below us ... our line and theirs … snipe grass-cutters into the gloom. Around us at the rock a noose tightens as fire from the light artillery shatters trees thick-air 300 meters south. “Cover our ass bitches we're coming out “, shouts the young Militia voice. A girl. Hasn't got a good swive yet.