Alea Jacta Est: A Novel of the Fall of America (Future History of America Book 1) (71 page)

The
incoming fire had slackened considerably during the smoke screen.  It grew
almost quiet, except for the taunting and the music.  It was an eerie sensation
for Erik.  "I don't like this...come on, let's get him on.  Careful!"
Erik cautioned.  The boat rocked dangerously but not quite enough to capsize. 
The last soldier off cursed and dove for cover.

"Smoke's
fading!" he reported.  The fire from shore started up again as targets
emerged in the smoke.

"Y'all
get out of here," said the corporal.  "Thanks," he said to Ted. 
He unwound the rope from the cleat on the dock and tossed it to Erik.

"Casting
off," Erik said and gave the pier a hard shove and the little sailboat
slowly began to drift away.  "And we're away."

"Here's
the last of our meds.  Try an' keep 'em comfortable!" called out the
corporal.  He tossed Erik a bag of supplies.

"What's
your name, soldier?" asked Ted as the
Tarpon Whistler
turn about. 
A few more bullets whined past.  She made a nice slow target.  Ted was relieved
most of the scum on the shore was either too stoned, drunk, or stupid to hit
them.

"Stillman."

"Hold
out—we'll get word to Williams for you.  If your call didn't make it through,
we will."

The soldier
waved and turned back for round two of the firefight.

Ted ripped
the little outboard engine to life—-not much more than a lawnmower really—as
Erik tightened the rigging.  The bullet riddled sail snapped taut and they
began to pick up steam.  "Yo, ho ho and a bottle of rum," Ted hummed
with a smile as he watched the sail fill.

"You a
Marine?" grunted the young man in front of Ted, shot in the side and
smeared with blood and grime.  The man's skin was dark by nature but nearly jet
black on his hands and abdomen where his clothing had been cut away.  He was
bandaged and in obvious pain, leaning against the mast facing aft.

Ted grinned
down at him.  "What gave it away?" he asked and pointed at the shirt.

"'Cause
you're fuckin'
crazy
," the soldier grunted with a smile.  His white
teeth were in sharp contrast to his swarthy skin and filthy face.  He winced in
pain and closed his eyes in an attempt to rest.  "But thanks, just the
same."

With the
wind at their backs and the little outboard wide open, the sailboat seemed to
be going even slower than it had coming down the coast.  Ted frowned.  It was
all the extra weight.  He fought the wave of nausea that swept over him
suddenly when he got a glimpse of the clear water slapping the chewed up side
of the boat.  It was only a few inches below the deck line.  "She's ridin'
low, Erik!" he called out. 

Ted saw the
half wave of recognition from the big man up by the bow.  He watched Erik
gingerly moving from man to man, administering some of the supplies out of the
kit that Corporal Stillman had tossed aboard.  With every movement the boat
rocked perilously close to the tipping point.

"This
is gonna be a looooong trip," Ted said to himself through gritted teeth. 
They had maybe a mile or so to go to round the point.  That would put at least
five or six miles of land between them and the Marina thanks to the curve of
the coastline.  "Shortest distance between two points," he muttered
to himself with a mental shrug.

For Erik,
time flew.  He was able to brush all thoughts and worries of Brin out of his
mind by focusing on the pleas and moans of the wounded soldiers.  Some had
pretty serious gunshot wounds.  One poor man, was gut shot.  He could think of
nothing to do other than have them apply pressure to the wounds and wrap them
with fresh bandages.  The burn victims were for the most part unconscious, a
fact for which he was grateful.  Erik had no medical training whatsoever.  He
could hear Ted trying to hail Captain Williams over the borrowed radio.

"Florida
National Guard, this sailing vessel
Tarpon Whistler
, mayday, mayday,
mayday, do you read?"

Erik
half-listened and knelt down by the man who was furthest up by the bow.  The
soldier had been shot in the leg and had already been bandaged.  "Hang in
there."  The man nodded his thanks and watched the coastline slowly roll
past.

Erik
noticed another soldier had been grazed on the neck.  His bandage was soaked
through with blood and his skin pale.  "Hey, listen to me soldier, we're
going to get you out of this shithole, you hear me?" he asked, switching
out the filthy cloth with a clean sterile one from the bag.  He applied
antibiotic cream to the wound and applied pressure.  He watched his own hands
tremble as he tried to keep the man from bleeding out.  For the tenth time, he
reminded himself he had no idea what the hell he was doing.  "I uh...don't
know what I'm doing here, so I hope this doesn't hurt too much, but I figure
fresh bandages can't be that bad, right?" he tried a smile.

The soldier
rolled his eyes in pain and slowly focused back on Erik.  His face was pale
with blood loss or shock or fatigue, Erik couldn't tell which.  He tried to
speak but no words came out.  Erik reached down and grabbed the man's blood
covered hand and squeezed.  The wounded soldier closed his eyes and nodded. 
The hand that gripped Erik's squeezed back, fairly strong.

"Good—that's
good."  Erik looked at the soldier's cloth ID strip on his outfit. 
"Stay with me, Private Holbert.  Not much longer," he lied.  Erik
glanced back at Ted.  The Marine nodded his approval.  They were about a
quarter of the way to the point.

I hope this
works...
Erik
prayed with a glance heavenward.

As they
sailed northward from the firefight at the Marina, Ted tried again and again to
hail Captain Williams on the radio they had been given.  "I say again,
Captain Williams come in!  Florida National Guard,
any unit
, please
respond."  He let off the transmit button and was rewarded—again—with
nothing but static.  "Still nothing," he called out to Erik.

"Just
keep trying...I've got to try and help these guys stay comfortable."  Erik
moved from man to man, ever so slowly and applied pressure here, a kind word
there, checked on the unconscious and alert alike.

One of the
soldiers suffering from a nasty burn to the chest and arms from a Molotov
grinned.  "Man, you're the ugliest nurse I ever seen."

Erik paused
and looked down at the wounded soldier.  "Hey Ted, I think if we throw
this one overboard we might pick up some speed."

The man
laughed then coughed in pain and gritted his teeth.  But he smiled.  Erik
clapped him on the shoulder and moved on.

After what
seemed like hours to Ted, the radio suddenly broke squelch.  "
Roger,
Tarpon
Whistler
, this is Guard 255, over
."

"Thank
God!" Erik called out from the bow.  A few of the soldiers cheered weakly.

"Guard
255, we are loaded for bear with wounded from the firefight at the Marina,
what's your location."

"
What
firefight, over?
" the woman's voice asked.

"Damn,"
muttered Ted.  To the radio, he said, "Get on the horn to Captain Williams
and inform him the squad sent down to mop up the remnants of this morning's
action on the beach are pinned down at the Sarasota Marina.  We have seven
wounded on board, the rest are still back there.  Corporal Stillman is acting
CO."

There was a
long pause.  Ted looked along the shore for any sign of movement.  “
Where
the hell are you?”
  He grabbed the radio again.  "Guard 255 do you
copy?"

"
Standby
one,
Tarpon Whistler."  Another agonizing moment of silence, then the
radio broke squelch again.  "
Okay,
Tarpon Whistler
, Captain
Williams is advised and relief units have been dispatched.  Thanks for the
heads up on that.  What's your location, over?
"

Ted looked
at Erik.  "Whaddya think?"  They were over halfway to the point.

Erik
glanced at the shoreline.  "I think that's the Ritz Carlton, right?"
he said and gestured at the large building near the shore ahead of them.

Ted
nodded.  "Guard 255 we are rounding the point north of the Marina by the
Ritz Carlton Hotel, over."

"
Roger
,
Tarpon Whistler
, I've got you on the map.  We'll send the medics down to
meet you."

"Yeah,
but how long will
that
be?" asked Erik.  Ted relayed the message.

"Tarpon
Whistler,
our ETA in..."
there was pause in the transmission but
the speaker didn't release her transmit button.  "
Call it ten minutes. 
Repeat, we will be on scene in ten minutes, medics are Oscar Mike, over
."

"Copy
that, 255. 
Tarpon Whistler
, out," replied Ted.  "Well, that
wasn't so bad."

"We can't
leave them back there," said Erik.  "And we can't wait around for the
ambulance either.  We'll be ashore in a few minutes."

"Go
get the guys, we can hold out here.  Just gimmie my rifle and put everyone
behind me on the point," grunted a soldier who had been shot in the leg. 
"Go get the others, man.  They can't..." he gasped.  "They can't
hold out forever.  There's only six left."

"You
heard the man, Marine, take us in!" barked Erik.  He turned to the shore. 
"Looks clear, there's no trees and I don't see anything moving."

"Aye,
aye, Cap'n," replied Ted.  He pushed the tiller hard over and the little
sailboat limped towards the sandy point.

"Alright
everyone, hang on," warned Erik as they approached the beach. 

The
overloaded boat shuddered.  "Keel's up," announced Ted.

A soft
grating sound signaled they had touched bottom in about a foot of water.  Erik
was the first one out and splashed ashore.  He pulled hard on the boat but it
was stuck fast.  "Alright, she's not going anywhere until we offload some of
the soldiers.  Give me a hand here, Ted, I don't want to hurt anyone." 

The two men
spent the next few agonizing minutes carefully unloading the wounded Guardsmen
to the sound of distant gunfire from the Marina.  They gingerly carried the
soldiers up the beach clear of the surf.  Behind the gentle slope of the
ground, there was no shade, but no one seemed to mind.  They were just grateful
to be off the leaky, bullet riddled sailboat. 

Their guard
was set up at the rise of the land where the grasses met the beach and was
placed on his side, two M-4s and a half dozen magazines spread out in front of
him.  He winced until the pain in his leg dissipated, then waved off the two
good Samaritans.

"Go...I
got this.  Cavalry'll be here in a few."

Erik and
Ted got back in the battle-worn
Tarpon Whistler
and cast off again. 
When the riddled sail snapped taut and they headed south once more, Erik took a
glance and winced.  Erik took the tiller this trip, so Ted could stay in the
bow and offer a little covering fire from a few of the M-4s the Guards left in
the boat.

She's not
going to take much more of this," commented Erik.

Ted looked
over his shoulder and grinned, "You planning on going down with the
ship?"

It was a
much faster trip to the Marina with an unloaded boat.  They were within sight
of the battle still raging on the pier within about 10 minutes.  The crackle of
automatic weapons was punctuated by the blasts of shotguns and a few pops. 
Smoke from the flames that had engulfed office cast a dark pall to the sky over
the bay.

"I got
targets about a quarter of the way down the pier.  Ain't lookin' good for the
home team!" called out Ted from a prone position at the bow.  He was
looking down the sights of a borrowed M-4.

Erik took a
moment as they motor-sailed closer and decided how to approach.  Movement out
of the corner of his eye to the left drew his attention.  "Ted!  Portside,
10 o'clock on the shore, they're trying to ambush us!"

Without
comment, Ted smoothly swung his rifle to the left, found the three men
scrambling on beach to the north of the Marina and took aim.  He fired a
controlled three round burst and paused.  Erik saw one man fall into the water,
the others broke and ran.  Ted was able to get one more in the back as he
retreated into the palm trees by the road.

"Good
eye, Cap'n," Ted hollered over the noise of the battle ahead of them.  He
shifted position back towards the pier.  "Can't get a target, we're coming
in too sharp!"

"I
know," replied Erik.  A bullet slapped the water an arm's length away. 
Here
we go again...God, let us get these guys out of here without anyone getting
killed!

"What
are you doing?  Swing around to port like last time!"

"No,"
answered Erik.  "We'll be sitting ducks when we try to escape!. The only
chance is to come straight on point to the pier.  We load up the soldiers and
head straight out to sea, due west.  Then those assholes have to come down the
entire length of the pier to get a shot at us.  It still might not be enough,
but we'll have no time at all if we go in at an angle," Erik said, gauging
distances.