Dark Grid (15 page)

Mallory stopped and shook her head for a second, then smiled.

“I promise I’ll get some sleep, how’s that?”

“Better than no promise at all, and a promise from you is golden so I know you’ll get
some
sleep.  See you in the morning.”

On the way back into the conference room, Mallory brought in three battery-powered lanterns, as the squad room circuits weren’t live yet.  “I suggest we break for the evening and get up at 5:30.  Breakfast is 5:45 and I’ll have squads packing through the night so you can get on the road by 6:30.  Any questions before we turn in?”

“Outside of petroleum products, is there anything here for plans for alternative electrical power generation?” Joel asked.  Getting more Diesel might get difficult after an undetermined amount of time.

“Frankly, I’m not sure, but if anyone knows it’ll be Sparky.  I’ll drop that on him right before I send him to bed, too.  I’m going to need him fresh in the morning.  Anything else let’s discuss in the morning.”

They said goodnights and headed to the squad bays, unlocked their doors, made minimal preparations for bed and were asleep within minutes; all but Joel, who was thinking up disaster after disaster..  He was still asleep rather quickly; he just didn’t recognize the transition from thinking disasters to dreaming disasters.

Chapter Sixteen

Although the alarm that woke Joel up at 5:30 wasn’t his own, and the horizon was only just beginning to turn pink, it was comforting to hear after the previous day of little to no technology but cars.  He was initially surprised at how well he’d slept in the strange bunk bed, but after some quick math based on getting up entirely too early two days in a row, it made more sense.

“Rise and shine kids--you too, hon,” Joel turned on the battery-powered lantern they’d used last night.  “Breakfast in fifteen minutes and on the road by 6:30.”

Just then there was a knock on the door.  “Mr. Taylor, Mrs. Taylor, 5:30.”

“Thank you, we’re up.  We’ll be out in a few minutes,” Joel said to the still closed door.

“Josh, they dump people out of bunks if they don’t get up on time.  I’d wager that’s going to hurt from way up there.”  Rachael and Maya were already rolling out of bed, but Josh was exhibiting his typical morning back trouble; he couldn’t get it off the mattress.  “Let’s go son.”

“I’m coming.  Remind me I never want to be in the Army.  The toys are cool, but the hours stink.”

They had all slept in their clothes, so it was a simple matter of putting on clean socks, pulling on shoes, and heading over to brush their teeth and splash some water on their faces.  The girls ran brushes through their hair and pulled it back into pony tails in an effort to save time, and Joel cursed his dad under his breath for his sparse beard.  He’d had to shave every day since he’d turned sixteen to keep from looking like a hipster poser.

On the way to the mess hall they met up with Eric, Karen, Chuck and Sheri--who were running just a few minutes ahead of them with no kids to chivvy out of bed.  “I don’t even remember my head hitting the pillow,” Sheri said as they caught up.  “I’ve heard that phrase before, over and over, but I’ve never actually said it and meant it.  I turned out the lantern and I don’t remember leaning back into bed.”

“I hear ya,” Chuck agreed.  “I woke up in the middle of the night on top of the blankets and realized I’d just laid down on the bed and fallen asleep.  Thank goodness it’s June and there’s no A/C.  I caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror.  I feel better than I look, though, believe me.  A couple cups of coffee and I’ll be good--at least until we get to the park.”

“Well, I, for one, am looking forward to these green eggs I heard about my entire childhood.”  Rachael’s dad was in the Army before he’d met her mom and had continually tried to disgust the kids with stories of field rations consisting of powdered eggs, undercooked bacon, burnt biscuits and the like.

“Sorry to disappoint you, ma’am,” the Guardsman at the beginning of the breakfast line chimed in.  “The eggs haven’t been in the pan long enough to turn green and since we’re using freshly frozen eggs, as opposed to powdered, they don’t actually turn green on the edges like they used to.”

“Oh well, I guess I’ll live.  I suppose the bacon’s completely cooked too.”

“I’m afraid so,” he smiled.  “An army moves on its stomach, and it’s awful hard to do that if we’re all confined to the latrine, ma’am.”

“As much as I’d like to argue with that, I just can’t,” Rachael replied.

“Staff Sergeant Ramirez said he’d be at the same table you were at last night.”

Joel thanked him as they moved down the line and had their plates filled.  Once they had food, coffee, juice and the obligatory Diet Coke for Rachael, they made their way to ‘their table’ to meet Kyle.

“Sleep well, folks?”  Kyle was about half way through breakfast already.

“Like a rock.  How many more people are you expecting to bring in?” Chuck asked.

“When we’ve got everyone who mustered in with their families, we figured that we should have between six-hundred-and-seventy and seven-hundred-and-thirty people.  That doesn’t include the dogs, cats, birds, gerbils, rats, hamsters, guinea pigs, snakes, ferrets, two horses, three cows, twenty-seven chickens, two emu and a pot-bellied pig; all of which are classified as pets by their owners.

“Come November, if we’re still ‘camping’, I’m thinking most of those rodents will have disappeared down the snakes, who will either end up in a stew pot or be fed to the ferrets.  Emu is supposed to be pretty good eating too.  I can’t say I’ve ever had pot-bellied pig before but I can’t think it’s much different than any other kind of pig.  At least the chickens lay eggs and the cows are the dairy variety.

“I know you brought in your dog too, and I don’t begrudge you.  She’s been fine so far, and dogs and cats are at least fairly low maintenance, it’s just that they’re one more thing to keep track of and take care of, that’s all.  Frankly, I wish I had a dog of my own.”

“How long have you been up Kyle?” Eric asked.

“’Bout an hour; couldn’t sleep with all the noise.  They’ve been loading trucks all night and with the families coming in it’s been kinda noisy.  I deliberately put you guys at the far end so you could get some sleep.  I was fairly sure Top was going to make the decision to move out quick, like this morning, and I didn’t want to have you folks interrupted all night.”

“What’s on the plate for today?” Coffee hit Chuck fairly quickly and he wanted to get back up to speed as quickly as he could.  He felt bad for going to bed before everyone else.

“Aside from being out of here by 6:30, we’re going be setting up an advance area which is just an assembly area which we will then transition into our main base of operations.  I’m assuming that the plans are to make it fully operational within thirty days, but functional in seven to ten, and usable in two to five.  We’re un-assing the Armory Chuck--and we’re doing it yesterday.”

Kyle shook his head.  “It’s not official yet, and the only word we’ve had from higher up is the military equivalent of ‘Your call is very important to us and will be taken in the order in which it was received’.”  He shifted in his chair.

“Sorry, folks.  The official story is that the situation is
completely under control
and that there is no need to panic.”  He ruined it with the raised left eyebrow.

“Right, and aren’t you supposed to say, ‘I’m with the Government, and I’m here to help,’ so we can say, ‘We’re glad you’re here.’  That way the lie can be complete.  Who’s panicking?  Who said anything about panic?  I distinctly recall the first, last, and only mention of panic right up until you said it was…you!”  Karen was doing her best to cheer Kyle up.

“Right.  Ok, so we’re going to set up an advance area, we’re going to prepare to egress the Armory--and yes, that’s the military word for ‘run away’--and then we’re going to either wait for additional direction from higher authority or we’re going to act on our own.  That last part is still a bit fuzzy.”

“Will it just be us as far as civilians going with you, or did anyone else in your squad bring in family last night that’s coming with us?”  Rachael was already taking her new assignment to heart and thinking of logistics concerning additional civilians.

“No to the first question, and a combination no and yes to the second question.  I took the First Sergeant’s order to get my boys in bed last night seriously.  All told, we’re bringing an additional forty-five civilians…I won’t get into pets.”

Kyle shook his head again.  The pet situation was killing him.  “It took until almost 3:30 this morning to get them all here but one thing about the Guard in general, and this group specifically, is the level of readiness of everyone involved.  The husbands and wives of our unit took it in stride and when they showed up throughout the night, they didn’t show up with the kids in tow and nothing to show for it--neither did you folks, so please don’t think that’s where I’m headed.”

“Headed?” Joel asked, looking from Kyle to Eric and back again.

Eric shook his head and looked to Kyle for clarification.

Kyle shrugged, “We’ve got a little over a half an hour before we need leave,” he said.  “We can outfit everybody in a couple sets of BDUs, including you guys,” he nodded to Josh and Maya, “including boots and dog tags from ready stores before we take off.”

The group looked around the table for a few seconds until Kyle broke the silence.  “We need to use them one way or another,” he said.

…

“Sergeant Ramirez, front and center.” First Sergeant Jensen called out.

“Sergeant Ramirez reporting, First Sergeant”

“Have you any questions about your mission or the parameters surrounding that mission, Sergeant?”

“No, First Sergeant.  2
^nd
Platoon, 1
^st
Squad is to secure and establish a forward advance area capable of transitioning into a fully operational forward command base within thirty days.  We expect to be functional in seven to ten and usable in two to five.  With no direct operable communications coming from higher, and a situation that we have every reason to believe will be unmaintainable within two weeks, we are planning and preparing for our own egress from the Armory, including all hardware, electronics, armor, weaponry, and systems.”

“I would still like to register my formal protest to the operation’s name.  I think that operation ‘Walkabout’ would have been less depressing that operation ‘Exodus’.”

“Thank you, Sergeant, duly noted.  If that is all, mount up and move out.  I will expect radio contact from the TOC in no more than 180 minutes from now, by 09:30.  Let’s move it, people.”  At that three dozen diesel and gasoline engines roared to life and headed out of the Armory towards Highway 40.

…

The area where they had decided to set up was about three miles into the park off of I-40, and just on the other side of the road from Maples Lake, which would be their initial primary source of water--there had also been some rather detailed satellite information on file at the Armory.  They were on a slight rise, which pleased the Guardsmen and would help a little with ventilation for the generators they had brought along.

Prior to leaving the Armory, they had determined they would forego any of the cabins that the park already had in place and go straight to camping.  The same thinking that drove the decision to limit the size of the group that left the neighborhood had driven the decision here.  They were already of one mind and a fairly single purpose so far, why muddy the water.

The M577 and 5-ton led the way and did any additional ground breaking necessary for the smaller vehicles simply due to weight and size.  They would be enhancing the roadway so they could drive as necessary without getting stuck, but it had been nice at first to have the larger vehicles to crush the more reluctant vegetation into submission.

From the civilians’ point of view, it was a good thing they’d decided to spend the night at the Armory as there was going to be far more work to prepare the area for use than they had realized.  The forward party had stopped a couple of times and scouted ahead for a while and this was the best site they’d found, and they would still need to cut down a number of trees and do some pretty heavy duty “landscaping” to level out the ground.  Since they had no idea how long they would be there, and no idea how many people would eventually be a part of the group, they were trying to compromise between immediate usability and future growth.  If and when things got back to normal, the Tennessee Department of Parks and Recreation was gonna be so pissed.

From the Guard’s point of view, having the civilians along was both a blessing and a curse.  This unit had done this specific exercise twice in the last three years--and in this same type of environment--so they knew what they were doing.  The guardsmen appreciated having the extra help since they were used to doing it all themselves; what they weren’t used to was watching out for kids and animals at the same time.

They had done it once with and once without any heavy equipment, other than the vehicles they rode in on.  In this case they had been able to tow in a Bobcat tractor.  That was going to make some of the landscaping easier but there was still plenty of back-breaking manual labor that needed to be done.  The general layout would put the communications and what would eventually be the civilian population at the center of the encampment, along with a portion of the military headquarters.  The overall layout would be in a circle, as that minimized the amount of exposed surface and time to get from one side to the other.

They had communications established with the Armory by 8:45, which was actually a little earlier than Mallory had expected.

“The roads were almost completely deserted once we got out of the city proper, Top.  We were able to make top speed for the 577 right up until we got off of I-40.”  Sergeant Ramirez was handling the reporting back to the Armory for the time being.

“That could be good or bad, Ramirez.  How are the civvies at this point?”  Mallory was still not entirely sure she’d made the right call when it came to sending the families along with the guardsmen.