Ester cast a glance at Hadrian, the two of them having privately discussed the matter already. “Yes, I’ve heard. At some point, Admiral, these settlers are going to have to learn to defend themselves to a certain extent. We can’t keep a ship lying off the coast of every settlement. It spreads your fleet too thinly and burns too much fuel. Perhaps we could garrison a Marine detachment in each of the settlements. That would give your troops something to do, would it not?”
Longbottom stood thinking it over. “We might try it. I’ll speak with the Marine commandant, General Flohr, and see what he thinks.”
“Please do,” she said. “With no more real wars left to fight, Admiral, it’s going to be difficult to keep them busy. And we don’t need a bunch of bored young men with weapons just sitting around.”
“No, ma’am,” the admiral said dryly, noting the veiled smile on Hadrian’s face.
Forty-Nine
With two and a half months to go before hitting the one-year mark, the silo’s food and fuel stores stood at just over half of what they had started with—not counting the truckloads of MREs—so Forrest was pleased with their planning. There were hydroponic tomato plants growing in virtually every available space, and the twenty rats they had bred were all healthy and living in separate cages in order to keep them from reproducing before it was time.
Since agreeing to look the other way concerning Vasquez’s midnight trysts with his three girlfriends, the women seemed to be getting along even better than before. Nonetheless, Forrest didn’t believe for a moment that Maria Vasquez was the fool everyone else seemed to believe she was.
It was seven in the morning and he was in the middle of getting a shave when every alarm in the installation began to wail. He wiped his face with a towel and ducked quickly out of the shower room, running through the halls to Launch Control. “Whatta we got?”
“Serious fucking trouble,” Ulrich said, all the monitors cycling through the many camera feeds. “Multiple targets.”
Forrest took one look at the monitors and killed the claxon, grabbing the mike for the P.A. system. “All combat personnel to the LC,” he announced. “All combat personnel to the LC. This is not a drill, repeat this is not a drill. Civilian population will move to secure quarters in an orderly fashion… Keep calm, people. I don’t want anyone hurt.”
Emory was the first one to enter the LC, zipping her ACU jacket over her belly.
“What the fuck are you doing?”
“I’m com—”
“No way,” Forrest said. “You could have that kid at any minute.”
“Don’t shoulder me aside, Jack.”
“Then… take a seat and help Wayne,” he said, unlocking the weapons cabinet and strapping on his .45. “Wayne, I want all extra ammo transferred from the cargo bay to blast tunnel number two. Make it happen.”
“I’m already on it, Captain!” Vasquez said, crossing through the LC.
Ulrich tapped one of the screens, getting Emory’s attention. “This monitor is yours. I want you watching everything that goes on inside the house. Keep moving from room to room. I’ll be watching these other two to keep up with what’s going on outside.”
“Oh, shit!” she said, seeing three slovenly soldiers entering the house through the front door. “It’s the Air Force.”
Forrest exchanged glances with Ulrich. “What about ’em, Shannon?”
“We’ve already butted heads with these guys,” she said. “They were real bad news back in September. God knows what they’re like now. I wonder how they found this place.”
Sullivan and Marty arrived dressed in their combat gear, ready to perform whatever task was asked of them. Michael and the other doctors had come too. All of them were understandably disturbed by what they saw on the monitors.
“It’s that asshole, Moriarty,” Ulrich grated. “He’s back for his fucking MREs, Jack. See what getting greedy got us?”
“We don’t know it’s him, and if it is, we’ll deal with him.”
“Oh, it’s him all right,” said Marty. “I’d bet on it.”
“What do you know about him?”
“I heard that name when I had my run-in with them,” Marty said. “And it sounded like he was some kind of hard-ass. These people are rapists, Jack.”
“They can’t get in here, can they?” Michael asked.
“That depends,” Forrest said, concentrating on the monitors as he watched the motley outfit deploying around the grounds and into the house. He was trying to get a head count.
“Depends on what?” Michael said. “You said nobody could get down here.”
“These assholes are military,” Ulrich said. “If they’ve got the right shit, they can blow their way in.”
“Oh, great!”
“Mike, if you’re going to start, you’ll have to leave,” Forrest said. “Looks like about a hundred men. I count ten transports, five trailers… couple Humvees. Three fuel trucks.”
“If that’s all they’ve got left,” Emory said, “they’ve lost a hell of a lot of people.”
“Yeah, well, eating your own can have that effect.”
“Is it time we started thinking about the Broken Arrow?” Ulrich said.
“No,” Forrest said, still studying the monitors. “We can only dance that dance once. I’d rather give up the number one blast door first. But keep an eye on those assholes by the trucks. Tell me if they unload any ordnance.”
“What’s a Broken Arrow?” Michael wanted to know.
“Sean, Price,” Forrest said, ignoring the question. “Would you see to the women and children? I’ll keep you appraised.”
“Let us know if you need us to pick up a rifle,” West said.
“We’re a long way from having to arm the medical staff, Sean. Sullivan, you and Marty help Oscar and Linus in the loading bay. They’ll need help prepping the vehicles for emergency evac.”
“Sir!” Sullivan said, turning on his heel and taking Marty with him.
“Before you go, gentlemen… what you see in the bay is to remain top secret, is that understood?”
“Sir!”
“Okay, Major Moriarty,” Forrest said, turning back to the monitors. “What’s on your mind?”
“See these cases here?” Ulrich said, tapping the monitor where a pair of airmen were unloading some large green cases from the back of a deuce-and-a-half. “Those are M-92s, shaped demolition charges. They can use them to blow the blast doors out of their casements.”
“I wasn’t counting on us going up against professional demolitions people.”
“Well, you invited their asses, Jack. Makes it tough to avoid.”
“Hey, Wayne, do me a favor and pop the top on an ice-cold bottle of shut-the-fuck-up, will ya?”
Emory snickered.
“Okay, pregnant warrior,” Forrest said, moving around behind her chair and putting his hands on her shoulders as he watched the screens. “How were these assholes disposed when you went up against them before?”
“They had an attack chopper, but we shot that down,” she said, drawing a look from Ulrich. “Seriously… and they had at least one tank and plenty of small arms. That’s all we really saw in terms of armament, and this is only a fraction of the transport they had.”
“Discipline?”
She shrugged. “Lax at best.”
“All right. Then we can assume it hasn’t gotten any better.”
“Maybe if we offer them some soap and razor blades they’ll go away,” Michael remarked.
“Wouldn’t count on that,” chuckled Emory.
“What’s this here?” Forrest said, touching the monitor. “Looks like a cage built over the back of this deuce-and-a-half? Are those men locked inside?”