“Moccasin 6 here, over.”
“Okay LT, so what do you think we should do? Without the Cuban air raids on Homestead and Key West, the Feds probably know we’re coming. I’m surprised the sky isn’t already crawling with jets.”
“Damn sir, why you asking me? I’m just a brevet lieutenant. The colonel bumped me up from buck sergeant before he disappeared into the underground. You were the one that went to ROTC (Reserve Officer Training School)!”
“Cut the crap. You’re the ‘war hero,’ LT. You’re the golden boy with the halo. Tell me you’ve got some little scheme up your sleeve.”
Donaldson banged the radio mike against his helmet in frustration. Ever since a series of lucky breaks during the First Battle of North Florida these people had been demanding miracles. The type of shit people always expect from heroes. His stomach churned harder as the desperation in his officer’s voice scared the hell out of him. It didn’t help when his boat captain screamed and rushed the ship the last couple of kilometers to shore. All much faster than those ancient diesel engines were designed for. Full cowboy mode. Donaldson wiped seawater from his face and shouted into the radio, “Jesus Christ! Ok, I think we should….”
A chain of flashes in the distance cut him off. The concussions from several explosions took a few seconds longer to wash over him. Donaldson tore off his night vision goggles. Didn’t need them for this. Nearly a mile behind them flames engulfed the sixth and largest ship in their little flotilla. Donaldson could see muzzle flashes coming from their killer near the mouth of Biscayne Bay.
Squinting, he could just barely make out the white outline of a large Coast Guard cutter. He didn’t have the foggiest idea what type of armaments the enemy boasted, but it didn’t matter. With most of their heavy weapons and explosives onboard that unlucky ship, the leaky freighter made a great floating bomb.
Sure enough, as Donaldson mumbled prayers to a God he hadn’t spoken to in years, a series of massive secondary explosions ripped the ship apart. “Broke its back,” as sailors say. She sank with all hands, all of their mortars and nearly 300 fighters in less than two minutes.
Lieutenant Donaldson licked his lips and turned back to his detachment. Some were clearly scared. Most seemed grimly resigned, but all looked for direction. The first rays of dawn broke over his shoulder, silhouetting him in enough glare so that no one could see his green face and bloodshot eyes. “Well guys, nothing has changed. Stay focused and we’ll run these federal occupation troops back to Washington!”
Donaldson felt full of shit, but his troops were buying this nonsense. So he gave his audience more of what they wanted. With luck, what they needed to hear. “Washington wants to turn our homeland into fucking Afghanistan. Well I say let’s give it to them. Let’s show the regime who they’re fucking with when they try to destroy our homes! We’re going to hit that beach and set an example for the rest of the country!”
In cinema-perfect timing, the 154’ boat rammed into the upscale marina’s dock with only the slightest reverse thrust. They might have impacted at only 10 knots, but an unearthly tearing sound from the hull scraping the pier or vice versa made it clear this rust bucket was here to stay. A half dozen expensive crushed sailboats and mini-yachts served as a fair anchor.
Crawling to his feet, Donaldson found his Kevlar not too far away. Wincing at the pain when he shoved it back on over his swelling forehead, he hollered at his men. No Braveheart-style speeches or Pattonesque macho quips. All he gave was that old, magic infantry motto: “Follow me!”
Emulating their skinny young leader, the rest of the 200 men ignored the ladders they brought along and dived over the railing onto the dock, charging the rising sun in grim determination. Even the sloshed ship’s captain gave a Spanish war whoop and trailed along, waving a bright yellow flare gun.
Despite his fear, Donaldson grinned as they reached the parking lot and split up by platoons. Some type of jamming kept Donaldson from communicating with the other five landing parties, but it didn’t matter. Whatever the federal forces were planning, they already screwed up when they let his men reach the shore. Fancy strategy and blind luck aside, wars are most often decided by who screws up last.
“Sir, they’ve made landfall!”
Major Gorgas, former major in the Florida National Guard at least, snatched up his field glasses and scanned the beach below. “About time! They’re 30 minutes late. Wait….” He swiped the glasses back and forth along the empty beach. “What the hell are you talking about?” He cut his eyes at the young Guardsmen in civilian clothes.
“No sir, not here. Despite what Sacramento told us. The strike is over in Miami. No preparatory bombardment or nothing; they just landed in force right before dawn.” The kid sounded impressed.
“Are you positive? That’s the other flippin’ side of the state from here. Maybe Salazar’s people are just launching a diversion.”
The worried young man shouldered his M4 and shoved a smartphone in his leader’s face. He didn’t know the boss’s name. That, like nearly everything in The Underground, was strictly need-to-know. “It’s all over the news, sir. Well more than a 1,000 freedom fighters. There’s a huge battle along the beachfront in Miami, but it doesn’t appear to be going well for our brothers.”
Gorgas weighed the odds that this was all another ruse by Fed intelligence to draw his fighters into a trap. In order to support the liberation force, he had violated the first rule of guerilla warfare by clustering hundreds of his insurgents in this one town. Out in the open, such a concentration of force was a dangerous gamble. If the federal occupation authorities caught wind of their scheme…
Gorgas chewed on his radio’s antennae before finally clicking it on. He believed the news told the truth for a change. “All elements stand by for new orders.”
Sad thing was, this nonsense sounded exactly like the type of stunt those egotistical pricks in California would pull. Convince him to expose and risk his valuable fighters in direct action in one big, final battle. Then just decide they don’t trust him and change the target at the last minute. All without informing the people that were supposed to create the “people’s uprising” that the excited URA spies kept going on about. Yeah, he should have seen this coming. He chewed on the antennae again, hesitant to give the bug-out order he knew he should.
The civilian-clothed National Guardsman beside him wasn’t used to such indecisiveness from his commanding officer. Hell, the whole resistance was the brainchild of this balding officer, after the invasion and occupation of Florida. While the relentless federal air campaign slaughtered the Guard’s senior military leadership and their political leaders fled like rats from a sinking ship, this supposed desk jockey was burning personnel records, hiding troops, burying weapons and making plans. The man was a hero; a living legend even. Legends don’t have doubts, right?
“Um, so…what are we going to do, sir?”
Gorgas ground his teeth even harder. “Us? Nothing. Abort the mission. All teams disperse to their normal areas of operation.” Major Gorgas chewed his lip as he watched a live, streaming news video of the ferocious firefight along Miami Beach. Just an hour away, hundreds of poorly armed ex-Guardsmen were dropping like flies under all that federal firepower.
“Actually, don’t send everyone home. Spin off two recon cells; let’s say Ghost 3 and 5, since they’re closest. I want to save anyone we can from that disaster, at least. We’ll rally in Miami at, hmm….” He had his own computer out now. “Here, that should be outside any beach area cordon. We’ll infiltrate federal lines in civilian clothes. I’ll lead the recon teams personally and we’ll see how many of our cousins we can extract. Get them out of danger and into the underground.”