The Rock – Chapter 1 – Far Out in Space

It wasn’t a big rock, not as rocks go. It was barely 5km across. It had existed since the
beginning of the Universe and had an orbit around the Earth’s sun that lasted 100,000
years. The scientists missed it as it entered the Solar System. There weren’t a lot of
scientists watching the sky, not really. It wasn’t a comet but rather an asteroid. Hence it
had no tail to highlight its path. It wasn’t until the object neared the sun that astronomers
noticed the object and by then, it was too late. It was traveling at a speed in excess of
84,200 miles per hour, almost 140,000kph (39kps) to be exact. It was solid iron and
nickel and was about to make its presence known on the third planet.

The distance from the Sun to the Earth is one Astronomical Unit, AU, and is about 150
million kilometers. Traveling at 140,000kph, it would take the rock 1,071 hours, about
44.6 days, to reach the earth. It was so little time to prepare. In the United States of
America, two movies had been produced, “Deep Impact” (1998) and “Armageddon”
(1998). They were stock movie fare and probably came to be as a result of some near
misses by some near earth objects.

Near-Earth Objects (NEOs) are comets and asteroids that have been nudged by the
gravitational attraction of nearby planets into orbits that allow them to enter the Earth’s
neighborhood. Composed mostly of water ice with embedded dust particles, comets
originally formed in the cold outer planetary system while most of the rocky asteroids
formed in the warmer inner solar system between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter.

The scientific interest in comets and asteroids is due largely to their status as the rela-
tively unchanged remnant debris from the solar system formation process some 4.6 bil-
lion years ago. The giant outer planets (Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune) formed
from an agglomeration of billions of comets and the left over bits and pieces from this
formation process are the comets we see today. Likewise, today’s asteroids are the bits
and pieces left over from the initial agglomeration of the inner planets that include Mer-
cury, Venus, Earth, and Mars.

As the primitive, leftover building blocks of the solar system formation process, comets
and asteroids offer clues to the chemical mixture from which the planets formed some
4.6 billion years ago. If we wish to know the composition of the primordial mixture from
which the planets formed, then we must determine the chemical constituents of the left-
over debris from this formation process – the comets and asteroids.

By the time the scientists managed to convince the government that the Earth was in
danger, the government had less than 30 days to prepare the country, indeed the world,
that an ELE (Extinction Level Event) was about to happen. They still weren’t certain ex-
actly where the Asteroid would strike the Earth. In the northern latitudes, about the lati-
tudes wherein lay the United States. But, where along that axis? The closer the object
got, the better the calculation got and finally they determined that it would be some-
where in the western Pacific. It would generate a Mega-Tsunami, which would no doubt
wipe out many of the Pacific Islands, including the Hawaiian Islands.

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Huge landslides and the mega-tsunami that they cause are extremely rare – the last
one happened 4,000 years ago on the island of Réunion. The growing concern is that
the ideal conditions for just such a landslide – and consequent mega-tsunami – now ex-
ist on the island of La Palma in the Canaries.

In 1949 the southern volcano on the island erupted. During the eruption an enormous
crack appeared across one side of the volcano, as the western half slipped a few me-
ters towards the Atlantic before stopping in its tracks. Although the volcano presents no
danger while it is quiescent, scientists believe the western flank will give way completely
during some future eruption on the summit of the volcano. In other words, any time in
the next few thousand years a huge section of southern La Palma, weighing 500 thou-
sand million tons, will fall into the Atlantic Ocean.

But, this was no mere landslide; it was a rock 5km across that would strike the ocean at
140,000kph. Can you imagine the amount of energy involved in such a collision? I could
calculate it for you, but I have no idea how much the Asteroid would weigh. I can tell you
it would be a lot of energy.

Scientists are people too and even scientists can make mistakes. It turned out that the
mistake was a rounding error with significant consequences, but it wouldn’t be discov-
ered until 48 hours before the rock hit the Earth. President George Walker Bush was
almost gladdened at the news, at least it would get everyone’s mind off the faltering war
in Iraq and the growing prisoner abuse scandal. Presidential candidate John Kerry was
immediately dismissive of the President’s announcement, asserting that it was merely a
ploy to get everyone’s mind off the faltering war in Iraq and the growing prisoner abuse
scandal.

The discovery was made on May 31, 2004. That meant that the Asteroid, now dubbed
‘The Rock’ by the news media, would strike the planet on July 14, 2004. Adjusting for
the international dateline made that July 15, 2004 in the western Pacific. After Bush
made the announcement, people began to flee the Pacific coast in the US, heading for
higher ground. They had 30 days, but a lot of people panicked. Some people just took
off with their credit cards and ATM cards, never giving a thought to things like BOB’s
and guns and food. Others ran to the grocery stores and grabbed everything they could
carry before departing. A lot of gun stores in Los Angeles and other coastal cities were
looted, too.

Up in Palmdale, Gary, Ron and Clarence took the news in stride. They didn’t panic; they
soiled their drawers, but they didn’t panic. The three men set about in a semi-orderly
fashion to prepare for the ELE. Clarence found a diesel powered 6kw generator. Ron
went to the gun store and bought a lot of ammo and all of the MBR’s he could afford. All
she had in stock was some Garand rifles, but she had a full pallet of the Korean surplus
ammo. He bought it all and she took his cash, handed him the guns and hurried to wait

2
on the next customer. Whoa, no 10-day waiting period! She said screw it, all of her rec-
ords would be underwater anyway if the ATF or the state of California checked.

Gary went for his favorites, rice and beans and flour and coffee. The only meats he
bought were ham and some bacon plus all of the Spam he could carry. He also bought
salt and pepper and dried onion plus yeast, sugar and Crisco. He didn’t forget Ron and
bought a case of Sweet and low packets. And of course, our 2-pack a day man bought
cigarettes; lots of cigarettes and a package of 50 Bic lighters. Gar-Bear paid for the
whole shooting match with a check drawn on his Iowa account. He wasn’t sure if there
was enough money there to cover the check, but the bank would either cover it or not.
Costco took the check; they didn’t have time to fool around checking. Everyone was
writing large checks and the lines were pretty long.

Clarence went from one auto parts store to another until he had purchased every 5-
gallon gas can in town. He filled some of the cans with gasoline, but most of them with
diesel for his new generator. The men rented U-Haul trailers, loaded them and set off to
the east, headed for the Continental Divide on I-40 in New Mexico. They were running
too, but at least they were somewhat prepared. Gary brought his Coleman lanterns and
oil lamps and all of the Coleman fuel and kerosene he had stored in his shed. His tent
was old and probably full of holes, but it was shelter of a sort.

I-15 was bumper-to-bumper traffic, but when they got to Barstow and turned east, they
lost about half of the traffic. It seemed that a lot of people were headed to Vegas. The
Continental Divide in New Mexico is just a ways east of Gallup and is easy to locate.
There is a town there named, strangely enough, ‘Continental Divide’. It took the men
from July 15th until July 18th to get to Gallup. That’s where the road was blocked, right
there in Gallup. Apparently a lot of other people had the same idea.

“Dang it, partner,” Ron said to Gary, “We ought to head north on 666 and go to Rob-
ert’s”

“Not on your life Ronald,” Gary said, “I don’t to want to be on no highway numbered 6-6-
6 when The Rock hits. Let’s just find some place to make camp and sit and wait it out.
After it hits, we can probably head back to what’s left of Palmdale.”

“Gary’s got a point Ron,” Clarence added, “I don’ts want to be on no highway with the
mark of the beast on it.”

The men decided go up to a little burg name of Mexican Springs, just north and west of
Gallup and camp out. They wanted to get away from the crowds of people before they
had to use those rifles to protect their food supplies. They found an out of the way loca-
tion and pitched the tent. Sharon had brought some cloth and needles and thread and
they patched the holes and rubbed the cloth with wax, it was the best they could do.

3
They had a transistor radio and 4 bricks of nine-volt batteries from Costco, none of them
were all that well prepared. Clarence had picked up some seeds and a bag of fertilizer,
but he didn’t know an heirloom seed from an heirloom quilt and he had a combination of
heirloom and hybrid seeds.

It’s time to mention the families of the three men. Gary had insisted, almost at the point
of a gun, that Amy and Lorrie and their families accompany them. Udell had declined;
saying that the Asteroid would probably miss the planet anyway and there was his fami-
ly to think about. Gary hadn’t argued any further, that was one way to get rid of Udell.
So Amy and Audrey and Junior had piled into David and Lorrie’s van and they followed
along. Kevin had been none too happy about making the trip, but decided he couldn’t
swim THAT well and had given in. John just packed up his clothes and got in the car.
The churches around the world were doing a land office business. Yeah, like you could
pray The Rock away.

The waiting was beginning to get to all of them. It was getting hard, just sitting there
waiting for The Rock to strike. Gary spent his free time trying to calculate how far the
beans and rice and other supplies would carry them. ELE was just another term for TE-
OCAWKI. And, this wasn’t some dime novel; this was the real thing. He had 10 100-
pound bags of pinto beans and a like quantity of rice. He also had 10 100-pound bags
of flour and 100-pounds of sugar. Coffee was probably going to run out and cigarettes
were so expensive that they would be the first things to go. He, Ron, Linda, Clarence
and Amy smoked. They should have stopped at the Res and picked up more smokes
but they didn’t have much money. Oh well, they had more than enough to get them
through the big event and back to Palmdale.

They heard on the radio that Bush had declared martial law. People were actually stay-
ing behind and looting. They’d better be able to swim pretty good! The government tried
to stop it but as The Rock approached, they pulled the troops out and sent them scurry-
ing to the nations interior. The folks on the east coast weren’t the least bit excited; they
figured that the tidal wave wouldn’t affect the east coast. The government kept warning
them to take cover and they kept ignoring the government. As it turned out, it would not
have done them any good to run and hide.

Two days before the impact a scientist who had made a different set of calculations fi-
nally made his voice heard. The latitude was right, but a rounding error had caused the
estimated impact point to be a bit further east than what he believed the real impact
point to be. The other scientists rechecked their calculations and they were horrified to
discover that the man was right. The Rock was not going to strike water, but further to
the west. In the general area of a city named Beijing. Bush could see no point in warn-
ing the people. This was indeed an ELE. And, they didn’t shoot off any nuclear missiles
either, trying to intercept and destroy the Asteroid. It was too big for one thing and the
missiles wouldn’t reach that far for another. The idea of sending a Space Shuttle was

4
similarly discarded as being totally impractical. That was the stuff movies were made of,
not how the world really worked.

Gary remembered another disaster movie staring Sean Connery and Natalie Wood
called ‘Meteor’ but that was also an impractical solution. In the first place, the US and
Russia would had to have actually had secret missile platforms in space. And, in the
second place, how could you get a rocket motor for run for an hour like those did in the
movie? And in the third place how could you get Bush and Putin to agree on anything?
No, there was going to be no last minute miracle; The Rock was going to hit the Pacific
and that was that.

In the past 600 million years there have been five major mass extinctions that on aver-
age extinguished half of all species. The largest mass extinction to have affected life on
Earth was the Permian-Triassic one that ended the Permian period 250 million years
ago and killed off 90% of all species. The last such mass extinction led to the demise of
the dinosaurs and has been found to have coincided with a large asteroid impact; this is
the Cretaceous-Tertiary extinction event. There is no solid evidence of impacts leading
to the four other major mass extinctions, though many scientists assume that they are at
least related to impacts.

In 1980 Luis Alvarez and his son Walter led a team from the University of California,
Berkeley that discovered unusually high concentrations of iridium, an element that is ra-
re in the Earth’s crust but relatively abundant in many meteorites. From the amount and
distribution of iridium present in the 65 million year old “iridium layer”, the Alvarez team
later estimated that an asteroid of 10-14 kilometers must have collided with the earth.
This iridium layer at the K-T boundary has been found worldwide at 100 different sites.
Multidirectionally shocked quartz (coesite), which is only known to form as the result of
large impacts or atomic bomb explosions, has also been found in the same layer at
more than 30 sites. Soot and ash at levels tens of thousands times normal levels were
found with the above.

Probably the most convincing evidence for a worldwide catastrophe was the discovery
of the crater which has since been named Chicxulub Crater. This so-called smoking gun
is centered on the Yucatan peninsula of México and was discovered by Tony Camargo
and Glen Pentfield while working as geophysicists for the Mexican oil company PEMEX.
What they reported as a circular feature later turned out to be a crater estimated to be
180 kilometers in diameter. Other researchers would later find that the end-Cretaceous
extinction event that wiped out the dinosaurs had lasted for thousands of years instead
of millions of years as had previously been thought. This would be the final piece of evi-
dence that convinced the vast majority of scientists that this extinction resulted from a
point event that is most probably an extra-terrestrial impact and not from increased vol-
canism and climate change (which would spread its main effect over a much longer time
period).

5
It was the lack of high concentrations iridium and shocked quartz which has prevented
the acceptance of the idea that the Permian extinction (so-called mother of mass extinc-
tions) was also caused by an impact. However, during the late Permian all the conti-
nents were combined into one supercontinent named Pangaea and all the oceans
formed one superocean, Panthalassa. If an impact occurred in the ocean and not on
land at all, then there would be little shocked quartz released (since oceanic crust has
relatively little silica) and much less material.

Although there is now general agreement that there was a huge impact at the end of the
Cretaceous that led to the iridium enrichment of the K-T boundary layer, remnants have
been found of other impacts of the same order of magnitude that did not result in any
mass extinctions, and in fact there is no clear linkage between an impact and any other
incident of mass extinction.

During the late morning hours of July 14, 2004, the Asteroid hit. The whole earth shook
at the impact. Millions of tons of earth were thrown skyward and the new period of ex-
tinction began. Although this piece of rock was far smaller than the rock that struck the
Yucatan peninsula of Mexico, and the destruction was on a scale several magnitudes of
order below the event 65.5 million years earlier, mankind was going to have to struggle
to survive, especially in the northern latitudes.

Those that were standing at the campsite were thrown off their feet. Ron got up and
dusted himself off.

“Jeez, you wouldn’t have thought that an impact, no matter how large, striking the water
would cause an impact like that,” he exclaimed.

“Shut up Ron,” Gary said, “It’s coming on the radio.”

They sat and listened as the announcer revealed that the Asteroid had struck not the
Pacific Ocean as everyone had expected, but China in the area of Beijing. Mankind
faced a far worse fate than anything that Carl Sagan had ever suggested in TTAPS
Study on the subject of nuclear winter. They weren’t going back to California they de-
cided right then and there, they were going south. How far south they hadn’t decided,
but they were going south. They sat for several days as the traffic turned around and
streamed back to California and points west. Then, they did the most unusual thing.
They turned thieves.

The first thing they did was hit every sporting goods store they could find and get bows
and arrows and spare bowstrings. Then, they went looking for seeds of all kinds. Finally,
they went to the Res. The cigarette store had been cleaned out but not the storeroom.
The owner or employee, they had no idea who he was, lay dead on the floor. They
cleaned out the storeroom and headed toward Albuquerque to pick up I-25 southbound.

6
They swapped out the small U-Haul trailers for larger U-Haul trailers; there wasn’t any-
one around anyway.

They continued to shop for primitive weapons and hand tools and seed and food all the
way to Albuquerque. They gathered more gas cans and diesel fuel. They would need it
for a while so they could adjust to primitive living. But they knew that eventually, they
wouldn’t have electricity any more. The diesel fuel could be burned in the kerosene
lamps, they hoped. The men were in their sixties and didn’t know if they would live to
see the sky clear, probably not. But they had to provide for their families. And they
needed some place to go where they could keep at least a little warm. Gary suggested
that they go to the Carlsbad Caverns. A cave, he said, was the temperature of the aver-
age temperature for the area. They might not want to stay there, but it wasn’t that far off
and the Caverns were only about 15 miles north of the Mexican border. It was a starting
place, he said.

Just to give you a perspective, Beijing lay at latitude of 40.47 degrees north. Seattle lay
at latitude 47.68 degrees north and Whites City, the home of Carlsbad Caverns, lay at
latitude 32.48 degrees north. Everything north of the 30 degrees north and perhaps
some distance south was going to be covered by the mass of dirt for some time to
come.

Nuclear winter is the environmental devastation that certain scientists contend would
probably result from the hundreds of nuclear explosions in a nuclear war. The damaging
effects of the light, heat, blast, and radiation caused by nuclear explosions had long
been known to scientists, but such explosions’ indirect effects on the environment re-
mained largely ignored for decades.

In the 1970s, however, several studies posited that the layer of ozone in the strato-
sphere that shields living things from much of the Sun’s harmful ultraviolet radiation
might be depleted by the large amounts of nitrogen oxides produced by nuclear explo-
sions. Further studies speculated that large amounts of dust kicked up into the atmos-
phere by nuclear explosions (or an asteroid impact) might block sunlight from reaching
the Earth’s surface, leading to a temporary cooling of the air.

Scientists then began to take into account the smoke produced by vast forests set
ablaze by nuclear fireballs, and in 1983 an ambitious study, known as the TTAPS study
(from the initials of the last names of its authors, R.P. Turco, O.B. Toon, T.P. Ackerman,
J.B. Pollack, and Carl Sagan), took into consideration the crucial factor of smoke and
soot arising from the burning petroleum fuels and plastics in nuclear-devastated cities.
(Smoke from such materials absorbs sunlight much more effectively than smoke from
burning wood.) The TTAPS study coined the term “nuclear winter,” and its ominous hy-
potheses about the environmental effects of a nuclear war came under intensive study
by both the American and Soviet scientific communities.

7
The basic cause of nuclear winter, as hypothesized by researchers, would be the nu-
merous and immense fireballs caused by exploding nuclear warheads. These fireballs
would ignite huge uncontrolled fires (firestorms) over any and all cities and forests that
were within range of them. Great plumes of smoke, soot, and dust would be sent aloft
from these fires, lifted by their own heating to high altitudes where they could drift for
weeks before dropping back or being washed out of the atmosphere onto the ground.

Several hundred million tons of this smoke and soot would be shepherded by strong
west-to-east winds until they would form a uniform belt of particles encircling the North-
ern Hemisphere from 30° to 60° latitude. These thick black clouds could block out all but
a fraction of the Sun’s light for a period as long as several weeks. Surface temperatures
would plunge for a few weeks as a consequence, perhaps by as much as 11° to 22° C
(20° to 40° F).

The conditions of semidarkness, killing frosts, and subfreezing temperatures, combined

with high doses of radiation from nuclear fallout, would interrupt plant photosynthesis
and could thus destroy much of the Earth’s vegetation and animal life. The extreme
cold, high radiation levels, and the widespread destruction of industrial, medical, and
transportation infrastructures along with food supplies and crops would trigger a mas-
sive death toll from starvation, exposure, and disease. A nuclear war could thus reduce
the Earth’s human population to a fraction of its previous numbers.

A 1980 article by Luis W. Alvarez and his associates, which reported finding a distinct
clay layer at the Cretaceous-Tertiary (C-T) boundary containing the element iridium
whose isotopic composition was characteristic of meteorites rather than terrestrial rocks.
They suggested that this was evidence of the impact of an asteroid about 10 kilometers
in diameter 65 million years ago.

They hypothesized that such an impact would darken the skies with dust, which might
reduce surface temperatures enough to cause the mass extinction of the dinosaurs and
many other species then living, the fossil record of which seems to coincide with the C-T
boundary. Further work has found such layers at many sites around the world and tend-
ed to confirm the impact hypothesis. There is still controversy concerning where the im-
pact occurred, to what extent it caused the extinctions during this era, and whether the
most important climatic and biological effects were the result of darkening, cooling,
heating, flooding, or other mechanisms.

Anyway, you have the idea. None of the men were particularly cheerful; they had way
too much on their minds. Gary was quite the watcher of educational channels on the TV
and he knew about nuclear winters and ELE’s and all manner of things. He had calcu-
lated that they had food for a couple of years. They had a lot of seed, too. If they could
just get through the first year, maybe some of the dirt would be out of the atmosphere,
especially this far south.

8
They were going to have to adapt and not depend on technology for very long. They
gathered solar chargers and rechargeable 9-volt batteries for their radios, but would
there be any radio stations to listen to? Would there be enough sunlight to recharge the
batteries? And, what were they going to do when someone else showed up at Carlsbad
Caverns? Let them in or shoot them and take their food? This was serious business,
and they had a lot more questions than answers.

One issue was resolved for them early on. When they got to Carlsbad Caverns, they
discovered that they weren’t the first people with the idea and found themselves being
driven off by gunfire. That resolved a lot of their questions right then and there. Gary
said he remembered seeing some TV program that talked about the dozens, perhaps
hundreds of caverns in the area and they set about looking for their own cave.

They finally found the ideal location. It wasn’t a huge cave as far as they could tell, but it
was very defensible. They unloaded the trailers into the cave and hauled the trailers
back to Whites City and dumped them. They picked up some odds and ends like rope
and wire and nuts and bolts and hand tools and lots of winter clothing and headed back
to their new home.

They soon discovered that the temperature of their cave was 56° F. Cool, but manage-
able. They used some of the odds and ends to rig a chimney to exhaust the smoke from
their fires and such to the outside. It wouldn’t do to suffocate them. They gathered what
firewood they could find and piled it near the cave. They needed water and eventually
found a place they would later learn was called Rattlesnake Springs.

Over the years the 1,000-meter stream and wetland system at Rattlesnake Springs has
been sustained by the remaining un-diverted spring flow. Originally a marsh, this area
has been altered by human development. Today this green oasis provides habitat for a
wide variety of species. The oasis is bounded by the gently rolling Chihuahuan Desert
plains, dotted with creosote bush, yucca, mesquite, and snakewood. These plains are
framed by the magnificent backdrop of the Guadalupe escarpment. When considered
against the backdrop of declining riparian habitat in the desert southwest, this
stream/wetland complex constitutes an extraordinary natural resource of state and re-
gional significance.

The area, however, is much more than just a water source for the park or a natural area
of note. The spring was used by prehistoric peoples and historic Indian groups, soldiers,
travelers, and settlers. When Henry Harrison homesteaded the area around the spring
in the 1880s, he developed the spring, built an irrigation system for his fields, construct-
ed an adobe home, and planted trees and orchards. Following acquisition by the Na-
tional Park Service, the area was further developed by the Civilian Conservation Corps
during 1938 to 1942. They were responsible for many area improvements including the
rock wall of the spring pond, the ranger residence, and the planting of cottonwood trees.
Rattlesnake Springs was also used by the military during World War II. During more re-
cent times, the Park Service has further developed the spring area. For its significant

9
role in our nation’s history, this area was placed on the National Register of Historic
Places in 1988.

Now, they had water and wood to go with their food. Eventually, all manner of wild and
domesticated animals would migrate south in search of warmth, but that is getting
ahead of the story.

“This didn’t turn out to be too bad of an idea Gar-Bear,” Ron said. “We have food and
water and fuel for a fire. All the luxuries of home.”

“Hogwash,” Gary replied, “We need to get back into that town and find some mattresses
to sleep on. This ground is cold and hard.”

“I agree with you Gary,” Clarence said, “These old bones of mine is getting mighty sore.
And my feets is cold. Man, when your feets is cold, you is cold all over.”

“Alright, but we’d better go prepared for trouble,” Ron agreed, “But we’re going to have
to settle with some sort of bunk beds, there isn’t that much free floor space.”

The men pulled the brush off of one of the cars and headed back to town. They hooked
up to one of the U-Hauls they’d abandoned earlier and cleaned out a furniture store.
While they were at it, they checked around the community and took anything else that
they thought they could use.

They didn’t plan to come back to town for a while. Already the dogs were turning feral
and this was not a nice place to be. They got blankets, but didn’t bother with sheets; the
sheets would be too much trouble to wash. After they unloaded the furniture and got
David’s kids to haul it to the cave, they hauled the trailer some distance off and dumped
it. They drove back to the cave area and covered the car with brush.

“This isn’t that bad of a place,” Clarence said, “I just wonder how long we’re going to
have to stay here.”

“I have no idea,” Gary said, “But one of you had better do something to make sure that
no rattlesnakes get into this cave. They give me the creeps.”

They scrounged around and found a partial roll of ¼” wire mesh and built themselves a
door for the cave. They had picked up anything they thought they might be able to use
on their way to Whites City, even a part of a roll of ¼” mesh. They might not be too well
prepared, but they were expert scroungers. Anything and everything that even hinted
that it might have some value had been taken. You never knew when it might come in
handy. They built the doorframe out of extra mattress slats one of them had picked up
at the furniture store. They didn’t need any mattress slats, but if nothing else, they would
burn. Turned out to be pretty handy.

10
 The Rock – Chapter 2 – A Little Closer to Home

Since The Rock was ½ the diameter of the asteroid that hit Yucatan, it had a lot less
energy. The volume of a sphere is (4/3) pi r³. I’ll do the math for you. The volume of the
sphere that hit Yucatan was 8.125 times larger than the volume of the sphere that hit
Beijing and the Yucatan rock left a crater of about 180 kilometers in diameter. The
crater in China was proportionally smaller at about 22-23 kilometers in diameter. That
was still one hell of a lot of dirt.

The blast wave from the strike was tremendous and billions died. Millions more would
die when the cloud of dirt filled the sky. It was already beginning to darken in the north-
ern sky and the darkness was moving steadily towards the south. At least, that was all
the three old men could tell.

No doubt it was spreading to the north as well. It was getting colder outside and it was
about the first of August, normally a hot month, especially in the desert near the Mexi-
can border. They had to come up with something to cover the door besides the ¼”
mesh. Winter was going to be pretty cold. It was getting colder by the day and they de-
cided that they were going to have to risk another trip to Whites City to get a door cover-
ing, feral dogs or not.

“Darn, it is August and it already feels like February in Palmdale,” Ron complained.

“I remember the weekend I decided to move to California,” Gary responded. “It was 35°
to 40° F below zero and the wind was blowing 50 miles an hour. Now that was cold. But
as dark as that sky is getting, we could have temperatures like that this year too. We’d
better figure out some way to come up with some parkas or something.”

“Parkas?” Ron snorted. “In the desert in southern New Mexico in August? Fat chance.”

“We could try Carlsbad or Artesia or Roswell,” Clarence suggested.

“If we get to Roswell, I want to see the flying saucer,” Gary joked.

“You’re going to be seeing stars if you don’t stop clowning around,” Ron snorted.

They didn’t find any parkas. They found pre-hung doors and insulation, but no parkas.
The drove north to Artesia but couldn’t find any parkas there either. They decided that
they might have some luck in Alamogordo because the city was nearly a mile high. The
further north they got, the colder it got and when they began to move up in elevation to
the west out of Artesia, it was even colder.

They spotted a sign for a town named Cloudcroft and a store that sold ski gear. That
was their ticket and they freely helped themselves to all kinds of cold weather gear. Not
a single member of their group skied, but they also took ski boots and skis and poles.

11
Who knew how cold it would get this winter and the elevation of their cave was nearly
the same as Palmdale, about 2,800 feet, they figured.

These 3 men were the consummate scroungers and they left nothing behind they could
use and carry. Actually they should have brought a trailer. They decided to return to the
cave and come back the next day. There were good pickings in Artesia and more they
could use in Cloudcroft. But, as the day wore on, it just kept getting colder. They did
stop in Artesia and switch the car (Gary’s) for a diesel pickup. It had a tow ball already
and 4-wheel drive and even a rifle rack in the back window. By the time they got back to
the cave they had the heater going full blast.

“I’m freezing,” Clarence complained.

“If you’re freezing now Clarence,” Gary asked, “What are you going to do when it gets
cold?”

“How cold is it going to get?” Clarence asked.

“I have no idea,” Gary said, “But it is only August so go figure.”

The men put in an inner door and an outer door and stapled insulation on the inner
door. They tried to stuff as many cracks around the door as they could and complained
because God hadn’t made the entrance square. It took most of the night to finish the
project and they decided that the trip could wait a day because they were cold and tired.

When they did take off for Artesia, it seemed to be colder. Maybe it was just the wind,
but it really did seem colder. One of the first things they scrounged in Artesia was an
outdoor thermometer. It was one of those round dial things and went from –40 to +140.
Somehow they doubted that they would need the upper limit. Boy, were they in for a
surprise. The impact had caused a lot of fires, releasing greenhouse gases into the at-
mosphere.

With the entrance sealed off to the cold as well as snakes, they were a lot more com-
fortable. They need not have worried about snakes, not at this time. The snakes had hit
their dens early when it had begun to get cold. The snakes hated the cold weather
worse than the men and their families. They were hungry too, but they could only have
beans and rice or rice and beans. It didn’t really seem to matter what order they went on
the plate; they tasted the same either way. But it was food and it was hot, and they were
thankful.

They had even brought their pets. Gary and Sharon had 5 cats ranging in age from 1
year to 16 years and Gary’s favorite, Missy, a 6-year-old Bichon Frise. Ron and Linda
had her two Shelties and three cats. They made sort of a pen for the dogs so they
wouldn’t have to step into anything in the night. That was only about ½ working, Missy

12
seemed only to want to go when she wasn’t in the pen. Clarence and Lucy had no pets
and couldn’t get over the way Ron and Linda and Gary and Sharon treated the animals.
It was almost if they were their children.

Even after they closed up the entrance to the cave, they felt a draft. They made a note
to look for some sackrete and mortar in the doors. Gary said that caves sometimes had
cracks in the rock and they’d never be able to find all of them. Water, he said, carrying
dissolved minerals percolated down through the cracks and formed stalactites and later
stalagmites.

“What’s the difference and how do you know which is which?” Ron asked.

“That’s easy,” Gary said, “Just remember that a stalactite has the extra ‘T’ in its name
and that the ‘T’ is for top.”

The next day they hooked the trailer to their ‘new’ pickup and headed out. They decided
to start away from the cave and work their way back. That way, if they had a good day
scavenging they wouldn’t have to go so far the following day to resume their task. Their
emphasis remained on more primitive bounty and anything besides beans and rice.
Sharon was about ready to revolt. In Cloudcroft, they got the additional ski equipment
they needed. They also cleaned out a convenience store of the things that had been
overlooked.

They moved next to Artesia and found a little more food to add diversity to their diet, a
lot of vitamins, some medical odds and ends at a pharmacy and the like. They had bro-
ken into the pharmacy’s locked drug room and picked up every prescription drug they
used. They needed insulin for Gary and Kevin; their supply was limited, plus a couple of
dozen different prescription drugs that they took. They ended up with quite a haul. They
didn’t have a lifetime supply, but they were far better off.

Well, that’s not exactly true, now is it? Without their prescriptions, they could die, so
maybe you could measure their lifetime by the quantity of drugs they had on hand. It
appeared that they were going to have to explore that cave of theirs to see how much
room they had to store things. Insulin, by the way, can be stored at room temperature
so long as the bottle remains sealed.

They also found several bags of sackrete and a couple of trowels. The next day would
be devoted to storing their goods and sealing up the entrance. They only unloaded the
sackrete, trowels and the food when they got home after dark. After dark? It was only
4pm, and it was pitch dark.

After supper, they got into a discussion of the Dark Ages. Gary insisted that they were
more to the Dark Ages than a decline of society. He fairly insisted that he’d seen a TV
program where they suggested that the Dark Ages were really dark. They couldn’t
agree on the Dark Ages and ended up using the other term, the Middle Ages. But, it
made for a lively conversation.

13
°

They got the teenagers to explore the cave while they put mortar around the doors the
next day. They decided to scavenge one day, rest the next and repeat the cycle until the
snows came. Snow in September? Or, was it still August? The men realized that they
weren’t sure of the date. Their watches gave them the day number and name, but what
month was it? That was a project for their wives. The women seemed to have perfect
memories, especially for every mistake they made. Oh, Sharon was grateful for the
food, but mentioned how good a beefsteak and a baked potato would taste.

The cave had a lot more room than they realized. One of the passageways opened into
a large room so they now had a storehouse. This particular cave was fairly dry, too.
They all got together and made of list of specific things to look for the next day. Diesel
fuel was on the top of their list. They had the generator, but hadn’t used it because it
would eat through their fuel far too fast. The feral dogs were getting to be more of a
problem, but they figured once the snows came that would resolve itself. They wouldn’t
be going anywhere and if it got as cold as they suspected it might, neither would the
dogs.

They took all three vehicles on this trip and got David’s boys to ride along as shotgun. In
town, they hooked up to the trailers one last time and set out to hunt for things they
could use. They found a few bags of potatoes, but no steak. They swapped out the two
cars for pickups and they found some diesel fuel. They had to use a hand pump, but
they filled the pickups’ tanks. They came across some shotguns in a sporting goods
store and loaded them with #6 shot to defend against the dogs. By the end of the day,
they were cold and tired and had pretty much cleaned out anything useful. On the way
back to the cave, they almost ran into a cow. Where had she come from? There would
be beefsteak after all!

It started to snow. The wives told them it was Labor Day. That was about right; they had
labored pretty hard that day trying to find things they could use. They worked until eve-
rything was stored in the cave, butchered the cow and had the first real meal in how
long? The cow would have been better if they could have aged the beef a little, but it
would get aged plenty well before they used it up. Jerky was pretty much out of the
question, but it was getting cold enough outside to store the meat in one of the trailers.
They broke it down the meat the best that they could. Gary had cut meat when he was
in college, but that had been so long ago. Besides, they didn’t have power saws so they
just made everything boneless and saved to bones for soup.

Our group of survivors was very lucky. The death toll was mounting in the northern
hemisphere as the winter came early in 2004. The smart ones did as the men from
Palmdale did; they went primitive and didn’t count on modern technology to save them.
And, they moved south. A lot of people had been caught off guard by the land strike.

14
The government was in chaos. And, after the strike, most people returned to their
homes, no longer fearful of the wall of water. But the smart ones, the real survivors,
picked up their things and headed south.

Bush had recalled American troops from all over the globe. Suddenly any interest he
had in a war on terrorism seemed so useless. Obviously the election was off, but if Ker-
ry really wanted the job, Bush was prepared to give it to him. There were no troops to
recall from Korea, the blast wave from Beijing had seen to that. Neither were there
many left living in the Japanese Islands.

But closer to home, in Kosovo and Iraq the troops were already streaming to ports, wait-
ing for ships to bring them home. The Navy evacuated Afghanistan, leaving the heavy
equipment sitting. This wasn’t the usual doomsday scenario that writers wrote about,
e.g. a post terrorist attack or post nuclear exchange. The only fighting going on was
over food and shelter.

By the time Bush managed to get the troops back home, it was well into September and
winter. Derek was among those who returned to the US. He knew that Mary would have
taken the kids and headed for her folks in Arkansas. He suspected, rather than knew
that they would either be in Arkansas or further south in Louisiana. He grabbed an M-4,
an M-9, a lot of ammo and MRE’s, loaded the whole lot into a Humvee and headed for
Arkansas, towing a trailer of fuel. It was a daring move, and pretty risky, but he figured
that the Army had more to worry about than a missing soldier and a Humvee. He only
stopped between Ft. Stewart and Arkansas to refill the tank and empty his. Mary and
the kids were at her folks, thank God.

The entrance to the cave was about 20’ up the face of a canyon. They positioned the
trailer holding the meat as close to the cave as possible. The snow was seemingly non-
stop and they speculated that the trailer would end up buried in snow, making a perfect
freezer. It was only about 50’ from the cave entrance to the trailer so they worked in the
snow and built sort of a canopy between the trailer and the entrance. It was a wise deci-
sion; the snow would reach the level of the door before the snows were over. They were
already snowbound and they knew it was going to be a long winter. Their last act was to
siphon most of the diesel fuel from the trucks’ tanks and store it in pails in the back of
the cave to use in their oil lamps.

The light in the cave was poor, limited as it was to the oil lamps. With the snow, they
couldn’t get to Rattlesnake Springs either; so they melted snow and let it settle before
adding a little bleach to the water. They should survive this first winter if they didn’t get
cabin fever and kill each other off.

Further exploration of the cave disclosed more rooms and each family took a room as a
bedroom and their away space. The original room would serve as a sort of communal
meeting center and dining room. They were learning to adapt. To entertain themselves,

15
they entered into long discussions, talking about anything and everything. You could
sure tell who had been a fan of the History Channel.

That cow that they happened across and had killed proved to be a real boon to the
group. They would pull a bone from the trailer and make a large pot of soup in a recov-
ered stockpot and they stretched their rations tremendously. Gary had his Rambo knock
off knives and Ron latched onto Rambo 2 with its black blade. Gary stuck with Rambo 1
and poor Clarence was left to carry the machete sized Rambo 3. The winter wore on
and they marked off the days on a drug store calendar.

They avoided controversial subjects and thus most of the disagreements that would
normally arise among a group of people holed up in a cave. They had their disagree-
ments, but they were few and far between. Mostly the men planned what they were go-
ing to do when summer came, if it ever came.

Gary suggested that the snow would remove a lot of the dirt from the lower atmosphere.
He also suggested that if there had been a lot of fires and the atmosphere was filled
with greenhouse gases that summer, however brief, would be hotter than a $3 pistol.
Although the dirt in the atmosphere was pretty much limited to the northern hemisphere,
the whole world was going to suffer because the atmosphere was indeed filled with
huge volumes of greenhouse gasses. But, they didn’t know that stuck in their cave there
in southern New Mexico.

Trapped, as they were, inside of a cave also affected their sense of time. It was forever
nighttime inside their new rock home. The women solved that problem by dimming the
lights during the real night creating an artificial day and night. During these artificial days
the men decided that David and one of the boys should be their meat gatherers.

They would try to find more fuel cans, that diesel really stunk, and food and anything
else of value. The other three boys would take the shotguns and the Garand’s and ride
with the three men. John volunteered to go with David and Kevin complained about the
cold. The more things changed, the more they stayed the same. Ron had had about
enough of Kevin and he told the young man to get off his dead butt and help, they
weren’t Kevin’s servants.

They made lists; it was one of Gary’s favorite things to do. Ron would look for pharma-
ceuticals, Clarence for food and Gary for fuel and the odds and ends. But they each had
a copy of each other’s list, so they wouldn’t have to duplicate efforts. They also talked
about moving to El Paso or to the Big Bend country, but decided against it. Where they
were was a known commodity. Who knew what they would be up against if they moved
further south? A lot of the surviving Americans were whom they would be up against,
but they didn’t know that.

David decided that he would try and find what had been domesticated livestock. Rather

16
than kill them off, they would try and herd them back to the cave and pen them up to be
slaughtered later when it got cold again. Gary told Ron to make sure he got more vita-
mins and some antibiotics. They’d been lucky so far, no one had gotten more than a
cold, but you never knew. It had been colder than anyone except Gary and Sharon
could remember during February. March had been warmer and April had been positive-
ly toasty, rising above the freezing mark.

They decided that there wouldn’t be much of a growing season this summer of 2005.
They would limit themselves to planting the quick growing crops. They sorted through
the vegetable seeds and selected those with the shortest growing seasons. They would
plant green beans of course; they took 55-70 days to mature. Most of the varieties with
really short growing seasons were hybrids and that didn’t bode well for following years.
Gary added seeds to his list.

When the snow finally decided to melt, it went quickly. The wives went to Rattlesnake
Springs to plant the garden and the men set out to scavenge. The first thing the men
noticed was more people, not all of them friendly. The second thing they noticed was
that everything had been picked over pretty well. There wasn’t any food to be found.
Clarence did find some drugs and rather than figure out what was what, just took the
entire supply. Pain pills, tranquilizers and antibiotics were in the shortest supply they
would come to learn.

After Ron and Jerome had a run in with a bunch of people, they decided to take every-
one in a single pickup. Gary had found a lot of containers ranging from gas cans to ma-
son jars. He brought them all back to the cave. He also found a pressure cooker and
some canning supplies. They tried to avoid people as much as possible, but that was
getting harder to do. The sky was noticeably lighter, sort of like a light overcast.

They gave up scrounging after they got enough drugs and canning equipment, prefer-
ring to stay closer to the cave. They had enough diesel fuel for another year and the
vegetables were sprouting so they concentrated on the more mundane tasks like gath-
ering wood, pulling weeds from the garden and the like. Most of the livestock had died
off during the long cold winter, but David came back herding two steers. Some of the
crops they planted did amazingly well when it got warm and then warmer. Others
couldn’t take the heat and they harvested what they could of the food and canned it.

They did the canning right out in the open at the base of the ledge that housed their
cave. None of them had ever tried canning with a pressure cooker over an open flame
and it was a real learning process. They finally got the hang of it and somehow man-
aged to avoid over pressurizing the canner.

“Look over there,” Clarence whispered, pointing.

17
Ron looked and saw an Elk. They couldn’t very well herd an Elk, so they stalked it and
shot it just before it spooked.

It was the 4th of July 2005 and they had a good feast on that Elk. Sharon, Linda and
Lucy canned what they didn’t eat and they gained a little more variety for their diet.
Mostly, however, they just stood around, guarding that garden. If they couldn’t grow it or
hunt it, it wasn’t going to be there to eat during the coming winter. They found a dead
Cottonwood and set at turning it to firewood. A chainsaw would have made short work
of the project, but axes, wedges and mauls plus a metal bow saw were all they had. It
was a lot of work sawing through the trunk of that tree. Still, it was a big tree and if they
used the wood wisely, it would last them quite a while. They soon learned what lousy
firewood Cottonwood made.

Towards August they noticed a group moving into one of the other caves. Well now, it
might to be nice to have neighbors and then again maybe not. One of David’s boys was
off exploring the cave further. Ron, Gary and Clarence got their wives and their rifles
and went to check on the newcomers. The approached the new people cautiously, but
with no preconceived notions. When they got near to the people Ron handed his rifle to
Linda as a signal that they were friendly and hollered to the people. One of the men mo-
tioned for Ron to come forward.

Ron introduced himself and briefly explained that they lived in a nearby cave and had
for about a year. The man introduced himself as Aaron Little and his wife Mary. They
had two teenage daughters, Rhonda and Rita. The second couple was Jacob and Ruth
Johnson and their teenage daughters were Esther and Naomi. The third couple was
Bob and Shirley Jones and their teenage children were Bobby and Judy. The people
turned out to be from the Denver area, Englewood to be precise. They had been busy
putting together survival supplies when the splash turned strike had occurred. They con-
tinued to gather supplies but found themselves cut off by snow before they could head
south.

They told of how terrible the winter had been in Denver. Had they not all had fireplaces,
they claimed, they would have frozen to death. When the snows finally cleared, the
people had headed south on I-25. When they got to Las Cruces, they had turned east
and headed for the Caverns. They said they had met a lot of unfriendly people along the
way.

“If there’s anything we can do to help,” Ron said. “Let us know. We don’t have much but
we’re willing to share.”

“Ron we’re pretty well stocked on food and equipment,” Aaron said, “What are you do-
ing for water?”

“There’s a spring over that way,” Ron said and pointed. “We have a small garden plant-
ed and have been getting our water and wood there.”

18
“Ok, any problem if we share the water?” Aaron asked.

“Help yourselves,” Ron said. “How about we get some of our kids to help your kids
move your things?”

“We’d appreciate that,” Aaron said.

About that time, David’s son, the cave explorer, came walking out of the cave the new
folks were moving into.

Ron laughed. “I guess we’re closer neighbors than we thought, Aaron,” he said, “The
boy there was exploring our cave. It appears that the caves are connected.”

Everyone pitched in and helped the new folks from Denver move in. Ron noticed a
chainsaw, but said nothing. The people had indeed been gathering survival supplies.
They must have cleaned out a camping store or two from the looks of all the freeze-
dried food. They were pretty well armed, too. They had some of the M1A’s, some AR-
15’s, some Mossberg shotguns and .22 rifles. The only thing they appeared to be short
of was gasoline. Ron made of note of that too; they had 7 5-gallon cans of gasoline that
they didn’t use.

“Those folks are a lot better prepared than we were,” Clarence said. “Did you see the
chainsaw?”

“Yes, but I only saw a 5-gallon can of gas for the saw,” Ron said, “I think we have the
basis for some bartering.”

“How much sackrete do we have left?” Gary asked. “The entrance to their cave is pretty
large.”

“I think there is some left Gary, thinking of another trade good?” Ron ventured.

“Of course. They’re going to need the sackrete to close up that entrance and gas for the
chainsaw,” Gary smiled. “I think we are going to get to be good friends with those folks.”

“We need to get to know them a lot better before we start telling them too much,” Clar-
ence cautioned.

The next day Ron ran into to Bob at the spring. They got to visiting a little and Ron
learned that the three couples were not only neighbors, but the three men had worked
for Qwest, the phone company, in Englewood. The men had been friends since grade
school and frequently hunted and fished together. They had been reasonably well pre-
pared before The Rock burst upon the scene but had taken time out to buy, beg and

19
‘borrow’ as much as they could after Bush’s announcement. Bob mentioned that Bush
had managed to get our troops home from Kosovo and Iraq. That had been the last
news they’d heard before the TV and radio went out.

Ron had just learned two valuable things: 1) the men were scavengers the same as
themselves; and, 2) the troops got home from Kosovo. He hurried back to the cave to
give Gary the good news.

“What’s the best news I could give you in the world, Gar-Bear,” Ron toyed with Gary.

“I don’t know, some Hollywood starlet was hot for my bod and I could do something
about it?” Gary laughed not realizing what Ron was getting at.

“How about Bush got the troops out of Kosovo and they all made it home?” Ron said,
“I’ll bet that beats the hell out of any bimbo,” Ron replied.

“That means that Derek made it home,” Gary said excitedly. “I sure hope that he got to
Mary and the kids.”

“I wouldn’t put it past him,” Ron said, “Probably took off for Iowa the minute he hit the
states.”

“Arkansas, Ron; that was where Mary and the kids told me they were heading,” Gary
related, “So I’d guess he’s with his family in Arkansas. And you’re right, that beats the
hell out of any other news you could have given me. I’ve got to go tell Sharon.”

Ron had also dropped a hint to Bob about cutting firewood, explaining how hard it had
been for them cutting wood with hand tools. The seed was sown, now it was time to see
if it bore fruit.

The little garden was doing pretty good. They used the eyes out of their potatoes for po-
tato ‘seed’ and the plants were doing pretty fair in the heat. Ron didn’t suppose that they
would get many big potatoes this year, but if the growing season got longer next year…

“I ran into that Ron Green at the spring, Aaron,” Bob said. “Those folks are from
Palmdale, California.”

“Did you tell them about what we heard about Palmdale?” Aaron asked.

“No, but when I mentioned that Bush had the troops home from Kosovo, that Ron sure
got excited,” Bob said, “I’ll bet one of the families had a son in Kosovo.”

Looters out of Los Angeles had fled to Palmdale in front of the supposed splash and
had ended up burning most of Palmdale to the ground. Aaron saw no good to be gained

20
in sharing the news with the folks at this time. He cautioned everyone to not mention it
to those folks.

Bob also gave him a bit of background on the people that Ron had shared with him. It
sounded to him like Ron was fishing to make a trade, and they did have 2 chainsaws,
maybe they should lend the folks one to cut wood with. They’d have to come up with
their own gas, but maybe they could work something out. Right now he had to figure out
how to close up the entrance to this cave they had just moved into.

The three old geezers were the ones who broke the ice. They hauled the remaining
bags of sackrete, trowels and 4 cans of gas over to the ‘Colorado Cave’. The folks from
Englewood were taken aback, but it only took them a minute to recover. Aaron present-
ed Ron with the spare chainsaw. The girls were already talking about those boys from
California and their mothers were already starting to worry. Aaron saw all kinds of long-
term potential in their new neighbors. Besides, they had already wintered here one year
and if those old geezers could do it, so could they.

21
 The Rock – Chapter 3 – Trying to Survive

With the chainsaw came opportunity. The three men moved all three trailers up where
they had parked the one the previous winter and started to rig a permanent roof of sorts
over the doors. Aaron saw what they were doing and came over to ask about it.

“What are you fellas doing?” Aaron asked.

“Last winter we moved our firewood into the cave,” Gary explained. “We parked a trailer
right here and used it for a freezer. Ran a canopy down to the trailer to get access to the
meat that we stored in the trailer.”

“It would go a lot better if you men had some real lumber to build that cover with,” Aaron
suggested. “If you’d let us use your trailers, we could go after some lumber. We spotted
some on the way here.”

“Well sure, if you want to,” Ron quickly answered. “You need someone to come along to
help?”

“How about your two boys, Ron? Gary, could you get your son-in-law and his boys to
help too?” Aaron asked.

The guys from Denver had customized pickups of a sort. Their pickups had extra fuel
tanks, winches, long beds and 6-passenger cabs. The three geezers stopped what they
were doing and got the younger men to go along. Aaron, Bob and Jacob took time to
explain the use of the firearms they supplied to the people they armed. Eventually they
were hooked up and ready and they took off. They returned several hours later with the
trailers and trucks full of lumber, plywood, nails and a few squares of shingles.

“Did you have any trouble?” Clarence asked.

Aaron, said, “It was awful, I tell you. The guy wouldn’t take my American Express. He
said they only took VISA.”

When his attempt at humor fell flat, he recounted the trip. They received only token at-
tention, he said, probably because of the firearms. The lumberyard had been picked
over a little, but they had 2”x4”s, some plywood, lots of nails, and shingles. Although the
men from Denver were not carpenters, you never would have known it. The next day all
of the men in both groups pitched in and erected permanent canopies from both caves
to parking areas for the trailers. Since the trailers the people from Denver had were
shorter, they swapped one trailer with the Californians.

Then the men all set about gathering firewood and filling two of each groups’ trailers.
The extra lumber was stored off the ground and covered with tarps. Man, those chain-

22
saws made fast work of cutting the firewood. When it came time to split the wood, Ron
explained that they split very little kindling, opting for larger pieces that burnt longer and
tried to never let the fire go out. It made to wood last longer, he said.

Jacob had an idea and they used the last of the sackrete and loose stones and built
fireboxes after a fashion in both caves to use as stoves. Gary produced some metal
grates that he had scrounged on one of their trips. They were rusty, but they worked as
tops for the fireboxes. This pleased the wives who had been cooking over what
amounted to a campfire for over a year.

They worked steadily, taking advantage of the dwindling daylight. The last of the garden
was harvested and the food canned or preserved. They could have used more canning
jars, but you made do with what you had. They had busted their behinds getting ready
for their second winter. The arrival of the newcomers was most fortuitous. The adults
were in their forties and not afraid of hard work. By the time the snows came in mid-
September, they were ready for the winter.

The people from Denver had those inflatable mattresses, the big ones you used to see
advertised on TV, back when there was still TV, and they also found rooms for each
family. The caves were extensive and they had all sorts of space. They began to ex-
plore the cave complex in earnest and came upon an underground water supply. That
meant that they wouldn’t have to melt snow for drinking water. It was quite a find.

They had slaughtered the two steers that David had found and shared the meat with the
group from Colorado. Their generosity had been reciprocated in kind with the meat from
mule deer; the men from Colorado had taken three in a late season hunt. The better the
two groups got to know each other, the more they began to pool their resources. The
teenagers had paired off quickly, with Bobby continuing to ‘date’ one of Aaron’s girls
and David’s four sons ‘dating’ the other girls. Some dates! They amounted to little more
than scouting trips to explore the caves and find some place to neck.

There was a new attitude among this group of people, almost primitive in some regards.
The girls’ mothers worried, as mothers do, but Clarence produced the drugs he had
gathered from the drug store and the Colorado mothers freely helped themselves to one
particular kind of pill. Clarence hadn’t seen any use to the birth control pills, but he didn’t
bother to separate out the drugs, he had just taken everything. The mothers understood
their daughter’s sense of urgency to grow up; it was a different world now. And David
admonished his sons not to start anything that they would all have to finish.

The variety that the meat and garden added to their diet was most welcome. Cut off
from the outside world, the worst ailment they seemed to get was the common cold, a
downside, it seemed to living in caves. Ruth was a RN so they had better medical care,
if they needed it. The tunnel connecting the two caves became a regular thoroughfare,
as the men and the women gathered in groups to discuss topics of common interest.

23
Life had gone full circle with early man living in caves to survive a hostile nature and
modern man having had to resort to the same caves to survive a hostile universe.

Early civilization had occurred when groups of people had come together in groups to
hunt and gather and later to grow crops. Modern civilization found itself in exactly the
same position as their ancestors. They had once again become hunters and gatherers
and grew their own crops. But, it wasn’t the same as before, they had modern medi-
cines and seeds in packets and far better weapons and tools. In a way they were start-
ing over, but in another way they had several thousand years of advances to draw up-
on. The common danger that faced early civilization and modern civilization was still the
same, though; their fellow mankind.

About one third of the world’s population of nearly six billion hadn’t survived the strike
and its immediate aftermath. A lot of the Far East had lost its populations. The Rock
could have struck anywhere, South America, Europe, anywhere. With the planet being
tilted on its axis by some 23°, one could draw an imaginary line around the globe and
plot the possible points of impact. If they were interested, that is. But, no one was inter-
ested. They were too busy trying to survive. All at once the sudden demise of the dino-
saurs 65.5 million years earlier went from a history lesson/supposition to a fact of life.

A second third of the world’s population died in winter that followed the strike. Much of
the population on the planet lived in the northern hemisphere and only the hearty sur-
vived. Countries like Switzerland, with its advanced civil defense preparations did better
than most, while countries like France with its more casual approach to life lost large
segments of its population.

Africa became a frequent destination for aircraft when they still flew and millions moved
to the continent to try and eke out a life. South America was popular among Americans,
as was Mexico and Central America. But, the infrastructures in those places were ill
prepared for the onslaught of people and massive fighting broke out as far too many
people tried to share insufficient resources.

Massive migrations occurred as the world tried to redistribute its population. Not every-
one made it and some who did died in the fighting that followed. Of those who didn’t
make it, there were those who were prepared and hadn’t tried and those who were left
behind. Most of those left behind perished in that first winter. A few of the prepared died
too when they found that their preparations were insufficient.

In the US alone, the population had dwindled from 280 million in 2004 to merely 30 mil-
lion in the beginning of the summer of 2005. What use were all the modern convenienc-
es when the electricity stopped and the natural gas ceased to flow? Water systems
froze and the pipes broke and water no longer came from a pipe in the ground. And,
without water, most toilets couldn’t function.

Those who God had favored and those that were prepared migrated south to the south-
ern US and to Mexico after that first winter. This accounted for the massive upswing in

24
population that our survivors had noticed. But, there were too few resources for the 30
million and fighting over what remained claimed another 10 million lives. Our friends had
been wise to limit their travels and the trip to the lumberyard had come just at the mo-
ment when many in the area were off somewhere fighting over the scarce resources.
Talk about luck. It took more than preparedness to survive; there was always that ele-
ment of luck.

Luck came in many forms. Like when they’d heard voices deep within the earth and had
gone to investigate only to be fired upon. They’d closed off that tunnel, but how many
more tunnels were there connecting them to others who had taken to the caves to sur-
vive? Forewarned by the incident, the Coloradoans and the Californians posted guards
at the choke point where their caves joined into the massive underground labyrinth. Fir-
ing firearms underground was a dangerous endeavor; what with bullets ricocheting off
of the rock surfaces and they armed the guards with shotguns to reduce the danger.

Thanksgiving was a joint affair for the two groups and they had a lot to be thankful for.
The people from Colorado were thankful to be out of Colorado and safely housed in a
new home. They were thankful too that they had come across this particular group of
people from California who was willing to share what they had and what they had
learned.

Clarence and Ron and Gary were thankful that the people from Colorado had come.
These seemed to be God fearing Christians who were well prepared and not afraid of
work. They had equipment and skills that the men lacked. And, as luck would have it,
the two groups of people had just the right mix of males and females of the same ages,
especially the younger people.

Ron had dug deeply into their supplies and had come up with a couple of bottles of
wine. While the three old geezers didn’t drink, he passed out the wine to those that did
and proposed a toast.

“To our new found friends and a successful summer,” Ron said, raising a glass of iced
tea.

“Hear, hear,” were the responses. (The full expression is: Hear Him, Hear Him.)

“This is quite a cave complex,” Aaron opined, “You’d never know it to look at it from the
outside.”

“I don’t know if that’s good or bad,” Clarence responded, “I don’t like the idea of having
to post guards with shotguns.”

“Well hell Clarence,” Ron said, “We’re out of the cold and we have enough food, and a
water supply, so I guess we’ll just have to take the bad with the good.”

25
“I miss the internet,” Gary said out of the blue.

“I’m sure that we all miss a lot of things,” one of the wives said, “But it doesn’t do any
good to think about what could have been. I agree with Ron, we have food and water
and shelter. We have tools and weapons and seed to grow food. What more could you
ask for?”

“The History Channel,” Gary quipped. “And the Sci-Fi Channel. I miss all of those 100’
foot pythons trying to kill people and all of the aliens who look just like us. And Ron, I
never did get to Roswell to see the flying saucer.”

They ate a magnificent feast of beef and venison and vegetables from the garden.
There wasn’t any turkey and dressing, but that had only become a tradition as a result
of some Madison-Avenue types anyway. John was doing well in the group. He was very
quiet and just blended in and was pulling his weight.

Kevin, on the other hand, was continuing to be a real pain in the rear. He and Ron had
squared off against one another more than once. Ron was all in favor of banishing Kev-
in from the group and Linda and he had argued about it more than once. The thing
about banishing Kevin was that it was so permanent. Even armed and with a backpack
full of food, he probably wouldn’t last more than a few weeks away from the group. And
they certainly couldn’t boot him out near the end of November.

The snow didn’t seem to be as deep this year when they peeked out to check and the
sky seemed to be marginally brighter. That was good; maybe the snowfall was slowly
cleaning the atmosphere. But, someone remembered, the explosion of the Krakatau
Volcano in Indonesia back in 1883 and suggested that they would probably have to con-
tend with dirt in the atmosphere for several years.

Other eruptions must have been as big or bigger than that, but no one lived nearby to
be threatened (for example the Valley of 10,000 Smokes eruption in Alaska in 1912).
The Mt. St. Helens eruption in 1980 in Washington State was a far less dangerous erup-
tion than these, only 61 humans died, although thousands of deer and other animals
perished.

The ancient eruption at Santorini Island in the Mediterranean Sea in about 1650 BC cer-
tainly killed thousands of people (and was the source of the Atlantis legend), but there
are no real estimates of the number of deaths.

Before the spectacular August 27 1883 eruption, which destroyed two thirds of the vol-
cano above sea level, Krakatau measured 9 by 5 kilometers. The last huge eruption,
one of the biggest explosions on earth in recorded time, killed over 35,000 people living
on the Java and Sumatra shores of the Sunda Strait. Blocks of coral weighting as much

26
as 600 tons were hurled ashore and the tsunami of 40 meters high still measured 2 me-
ters when it reached Indonesia’s capital Jakarta.

About 20 cubic km of material was expelled with ash falling in Singapore, 840 km to the
northwest, and on ships over 6000 km away. Fine ash in higher latitudes caused unu-
sually red sunsets for three years and acted as a solar filter, resulting in a 5-year global
temperature drop of 1.2° Celsius.

No one knew how the scale of the impact compared to the explosion of Krakatau; cer-
tainly it was far more significant considering the temperature drops. And, no one was
trying to figure it out either. There would be lots of time in the future for the next genera-
tions of geologists and anthropologists and all manner of scientists to figure that out. All
the people of this generation were interested in was when the sky would clear and when
the winters would warm up and the summers cool off.

The men spent the time between Thanksgiving and the end of the year exploring the
cavern. They realized that their humble caves were part of a far larger cavern complex,
probably tied into the main Carlsbad Cavern. They explored and located tunnels with
footprints and blocked them off. Anyone who wanted to talk to them could come via the
front door, not some tunnel. The folks from Colorado had started at the main cavern and
had been driven off with gunfire too. Not everyone making their homes in these
caves/caverns was hospitable if their two experiences were any measure.

After Christmas, which was basically devoid of gifts, the men and women set about
planning what they would do during the coming summer. They decided to use some
seeds with slightly longer growing seasons; hopefully the clearing sky was an indication
of a longer summer. They also decided that they should irrigate a portion of the land
around the spring to give them more ground to plant. The men from Colorado had
snares and they decided to try and snare rabbits. Might work, might not, but if it did, it
would expand their meat supply.

Then there was the matter of preserving meat taken during the summer. They didn’t
have freezers so they decided to try and jerk the meat. One of the men, Jacob perhaps,
suggested that they build some frames and fill them with water just before the next win-
ter came on. They could form huge blocks of ice and use one of the cavern rooms as an
icehouse. Lord knows they had plenty of sawdust from the chainsaws. They could fash-
ion some sort of door out of 2x4’s and plywood to seal off the icehouse. That should
solve their meat storage problem.

They thought that Jacob had a good idea, but why wait until next year? They cleared a
path to the stacked lumber and built boxes and lined them with plastic bags. They filled
the boxes with water taken from deep within the cavern and in a few days had blocks of
ice. The expansion of the ice had bulged the boxes so they dismantled them and took
the ice to the cavern. The blocks were large and heavy and they had a terrible time, but

27
they got it done. This became a routine of sorts and although the sawdust wasn’t
enough to insulate all the blocks of ice, they filled first one and then another chamber
with ice. Not bad, they decided and moved the meat in from the trailers that served as
freezers. Next year, they could fill them with wood, too.

The plywood was taking a terrible beating from being expanded so many times and they
made a note to consider risking a trip back to the lumberyard the following summer.
They also decided that with the icehouse, they could kill the animals’ right on the spot
and butcher them and store the meat. There would be no more herding of animals and
having to feed them until the butchering time just before winter.

And, maybe they could build a smoke house and smoke some meat using the mesquite
or some other suitable wood. It was a strictly play it by ear thing for most of them. The
women said if they were going to risk leaving the area of the caves that they should look
for more canning jars and lids and pressure cookers. And, they wanted salt to use as a
preservative in addition to its being a ‘spice’.

They muddled through the winter of 2005-2006 and spring came earlier than the year
before. The women set about planting the garden and the teenage girls acted as their
guards. The men took two pickups and two trailers and the moment they could move
over the roads set out to scavenge. They tried to avoid people as much as humanly
possible, but they had their close calls and a firefight or two. A couple of them had minor
wounds, but Ruth tended to them and fed them antibiotics.

They got the plywood, why someone hadn’t taken it they had no idea, and found a large
quantity of sidewalk salt. They hoped that they could get by with it for a preservative. It
probably wasn’t the most pure salt, but they could dissolve it in water and decant it and
try to use it. The label on the bags said ‘pure sodium chloride’, so they decided to risk it.

Just when much of the population was coming out of their lairs or whatever one would
call them, our people were done traveling. The canning jars and lids? Found a whole
pile of them overlooked in the storeroom of a grocery store. A second and third pressure
cooker came from abandoned homes along with additional jars and lids. Whoever had
lived in those out-of-the-way homes had stocked up a little too and they came away with
a trailer load of staples to add to their dwindling supplies. They had to admit that luck
was playing a big part in their survival.

They had come out around the middle of May and had planted around the first of June.
Their crops this year included dry beans and some wheat. They were speculating that
their growing season would be similar to that of North Dakota before The Rock. They
figured that their potatoes would be substantially larger in size, too. Using the plant seed
packages as their guide, they planted all manner of vegetables, including ½ of their heir-
loom seeds.

28
Noticeably absent from their diet was poultry and seafood/fish. That also meant that
they had no eggs and the supply of dried eggs the Colorado people had was being used
up. Maybe they could risk one more outing, just after the snows began to fall. Poultry
was high on their list. They had some of the ¼” screen left and in the evenings used
some lumber and the mesh to build some chicken cages, just in case.

They were doing a lot of the just in case things, these survivalists. God favored the pre-
pared, or so they told themselves. (The actual expression comes from Louis Pasteur,
‘Chance favors the prepared mind.’ Travis Dane borrowed it for Under Siege-Dark Terri-
tory.)

Well think about it. If you had chicken cages and no chickens, you weren’t out much. On
the other hand if you found some chickens, and had no cages, it might be pretty trou-
blesome to get those chickens back to the cave alive.

And, if they got lucky and found some chickens, they had to get chicken feed. You sure
couldn’t expect chickens to live off the table scraps like the pets were managing to do.
Speaking of which, they’d better look for some pet food. It wasn’t likely that people had
resorted to eating pet food yet. Or, was it? One thing was certain, they all agreed, they’d
have to wait until after the snows to risk another outing. There were no ifs ands or buts
about that.

“I wonder how Derek and Mary are making out.” Gary thought aloud.

“Hell’s bells Gar-Bear,” Ron replied, “If I’m any judge of character and you have given
me the straight scoop on Derek, they’re probably making out like bandits.”

“What is Derek like, Gary,” Clarence asked.

“What do I say?” Gary answered. “In many ways he’s more of a survivalist than I ever
thought of being. Plus he has the advantage of all that Army training. If they’re ok,
wherever they are, he’s doing about what we’re doing. Except I wouldn’t want to be an-
yone who threatened that family of his; he take them out before they even knew what hit
them. Otherwise, he’d be lying low, just like we are.”

“How do you suppose Kevin is doing Ron?” Clarence asked. “I never expected him to
take off just like that.”

“I don’t know Clarence and I’m tired of worrying about him,” Ron replied. “At least he
had the good sense to take his insulin with him, but how far can you get on a knapsack
of MRE’s? That .22 rifle he took isn’t much firepower either. Probably took it because
the ammo is so light.”

“So, when are we going out scavenging again?” Gary asked.

29
“Aaron says we’ll go after the snow starts to fall,” Ron reported. “He figures a lot of the
people will be holed up by then.”

In the Colorado cave, at the same time…

“What did you expect Mary?” Aaron asked. “The twins are 18 and I figured it was just a
matter of time.”

“I figured that you would be pretty upset and angry,” Mary replied. “It’s almost like ‘mon-
key see-monkey do’ with those two.”

“I am a little angry, but that doesn’t really change the fact that they’re both pregnant,
does it?” Aaron shrugged. “I’ll talk to Bob and David and we’ll figure out something
about making the relationships more permanent. We don’t have a preacher or a judge,
so I guess we’ll have to just make them promise to love and honor each other and let it
go at that.”

Both girls were very pregnant, almost 5 months along. They had made a sort of a sister-
ly pact and challenged each other about who could get pregnant first, of all things. Bob-
by and Jesse were most obliging, thinking the girls were on birth control. The girls had
already told the boys and that had probably explained why the boys seemed to look
away whenever Aaron had come in contact with them.

There wouldn’t be any shotgun wedding; just a word to the father of the boys should
suffice. At least he was spared the expense of a big wedding. It was a good thing too
because Aaron had spent all of the money Mary and he had set aside for the weddings
on survival supplies back in 2004.

Bob wasn’t the least bit surprised. Bobby and Rhonda had been an item for quite a
while and he too figured it was just a matter of time. Aaron explained that the girls had
tricked the boys but Bob said it didn’t make any difference to him what the circumstanc-
es were; Bobby was going to do the right thing. Besides, Bobby was so in love with
Rhonda that the only thing he was concerned about was complications with the preg-
nancy.

Aaron didn’t really know David all that well, but when he presented the same infor-
mation to David about Rita and Jesse, David immediately called Jesse to task. Jesse
was going to be a father, David announced, and just what did Jesse intend to do about
it? David, of all people, was sort of eyeing his shotgun.

Jesse didn’t have any reservations at all. He had been raised to be responsible for his
actions and he really liked Rita. He didn’t know if that qualified as love or not, he’d never

30
been in love before, but he REALLY like Rita. Aaron added two double beds and two
cribs to their shopping list.

Mary talked to Ruth and Ruth switched the girls to pre-natal vitamins. She could deliver
the babies if they didn’t both come at the same time, she said. Other than that, they
were just going to have to trust to luck. She had no idea where there was a doctor and
did they really want to risk going looking for one? Ruth examined the girls the best that
she could and the babies seemed to have strong healthy heartbeats. More than that,
she couldn’t say.

They looked around the caves and found chambers for the new couples to use as their
family rooms/away space. The held a double wedding of sorts before the first snow. It
was a pretty simple affair with the kids promising to honor and cherish each other and
that was that. Well, they did have a big party afterward and Ron managed to come up
with two more bottles of wine to toast the new couples. They moved the twin beds to the
new chambers and left the couples alone. Two more items went on the shopping lists,
rings and baby formula.

Neither was an absolutely must have item, but you never knew. You could always come
up with a formula with a little karo syrup and instant milk, but it was better to be pre-
pared. (The complex formulas recommended that parents mix cow’s milk, water, cream,
and sugar or honey in specific ratios to achieve the nutritional balance believed to ap-
proximate human milk reformulated in such a way as to accommodate the believed di-
gestive capability of the infant.)

They had a pretty good snowfall a few days after the wedding and the men set out to
shop. Their suspicions that most people would hole up proved to be correct and they
didn’t run into many people. The rings came from a souvenir shop and while they
weren’t wedding bands, they’d have to do. The beds and cribs proved harder to find, but
they went to those two out-of-the-way homes and found what they needed. Where one
finds cribs, someone sometimes finds formula and they did. There wasn’t much of it, but
they took what they could find. The chickens proved to be easier. Well, sort of.

They found a hen house and a bunch of chickens, but it took them quite a while to corral
the chickens that had gone a little wild. They brought the hens and roosters and the
nests of eggs. Maybe those eggs were fertile so they might have made out pretty good,
only time would tell.

They also found chicken feed and pet food at a feed and grain. And, glory be, a bull and
two cows. Well, they guessed they could give the bull and two cows the run of the great
room, as they called it, this year and see about a barn the following summer. In the
meantime, that meant real milk for a change and a chance of building a herd of cattle.
That bull was a mean SOB, or were all bulls that way?

31
They’d have to come up with some kind of a corral for him and feed for the cattle. That
meant a second trip out into the accumulating snow, but they took the trailers and
looked for hay or cattle feed. They took what feed there was from the feed and grain on
their second trip, they’d found the cattle after they’d stopped there, and located a bunch
of hay. They’d piled their straw from the wheat crop in the cavern so they had some
bedding for the cattle. All in all it had been a very good year. The boys from Denver had
one of those hand cranked grain mills so they have a way to convert the wheat into
flour.

There are several types of wheat, but they all fall into two main categories. These two
categories are spring wheat and winter wheat. Wheat is grouped by its growing season.
There are about thirty species of wheat, but only three are common in the United
States. These three are:

Durum Wheat - Durum wheat, the hardest wheat, is used in many pasta products be-
cause the wheat holds together when made into a paste. It is a spring wheat and grows
in Minnesota, North and South Dakota, and southern Canada.

Common Wheat - This is also called “bread wheat” and is the most widely grown type of
wheat. It can be either red or white and a spring or winter wheat. In the United States, it
is grown on the prairies.

Club Wheat - It can be either a spring or winter wheat and it is closely related to the
common wheat. In the United States, it is grown in the Pacific Northwest.

They had planted spring wheat, durum and common, during their spring and had har-
vested it the old fashioned way, by hand. It was probably sheer dumb luck that they had
only spring wheat to plant. Anyway, their climate seemed to mirror North Dakota and
they had a fine crop of wheat. They really wouldn’t have known the difference had not
Gary gathered a bunch of agricultural handouts from various extensions services on the
internet way back when, just in case. Regular enriched flour like Gold Metal is a blend of
soft (pastry) wheat and hard (bread) wheat.

32
 The Rock – Chapter 4 – Better Weather

Here they were all safely tucked away for another winter. There was snow on the
ground but it didn’t amount to a lot if compared to their first winter. How much snow
there was didn’t mean much this early in the season. The men all got together and de-
cided to explore their cavern even further. They had been charging the NiCad batteries
all summer long and had hundreds of hours of charge built up. They had penned that
mean old bull and found a larger area to corral the two cows, so they were free to roam
without dodging livestock. They had a 100’ foot tape measure and compass so they de-
cided to try and map the cavern.

The process of mapping a cave involves running a straight line and getting a compass
bearing on the line. Then at intervals, perhaps 10’ you measured perpendicular to the
line from the line to the wall of the cave. The closer the interval the more accurate the
map. It wasn’t exact because it was so difficult to see the exact compass bearing, but it
was close enough for their purposes. Gary explained it as well as he could remember
from his high school days.

They mapped each of the family caves first and then the connecting tunnel. From there,
they spread out, mapping as much as they could each day. The best they could do with
the overhead was guess, but the map didn’t show the overhead except as a notation
anyway.

Maybe making the map wasn’t so important, but it gave them something to do and they
began to learn how extensive their underground home was. They marked the blocked
off tunnels where they had found footprints on the map and drew a skull and cross
bones by the locations. It was melodramatic, but a pattern began to develop. Obviously
there was another large cavern to the north of them and it could contain the people that
shot at them before. It was good to know, come spring, they would have to look to the
north to see if they could find the entrance.

The girls were due in February, they weren’t exactly sure of the dates, but that was
close enough. Bobby and Jesse had acted very responsibly and hadn’t needed any
coaching to ‘do the right thing’. Bob and David were reasonably proud of their boys, giv-
en the circumstances.

When the three Californians got to talking about returning to Palmdale, Aaron broke
down and told them that there might not be any Palmdale to return to, explaining about
the looters and the fire. What the hell the three men said, there were probably plenty of
empty houses sitting around for the taking. They said they probably would never find an
insurance agent to file a claim with anyway, if the insurance company was still in busi-
ness, which they doubted.

This new process of making ice was working so well that they didn’t have to harvest the
ice nearly as often. The boxes had been changed to a sloped design wider at the top.
The natural coolness of the cave slowed the rate at which the ice melted anyway. They

33
had gathered up the sawdust and insulated the ice anyway, further slowing the rate at
which it melted. That had been a back breaker, moving all of the ice, but it was a pleas-
ant task that they had accomplished during the very hot summer. Let’s face it; it got
them out of the heat for a while.

Some had suggested they get books to read but their primary source of light in the
caves was the oil lamps and the flash lights and the oil lamps didn’t really give off
enough light and, well, did you ever try to read a book by flashlight?

The books were a good idea, however and they made a note to check out any libraries
they could find for books on primitive living. They mapped until the babies came and
then lost interest. It was amazing how big this cavern complex was. They talked it over
and decided to stay where they were and just use the larger area for things like the live-
stock and such.

Of course that got them to discussing how much longer they were going to have to live
in the caves because they would much prefer to live on the surface and just use the
caves as a fall back. They could build homes from rock and mortar or try to find wood to
build homes. The rock and mortar seemed like the more practical idea, so from Febru-
ary to late April when spring came, everyone did their best to design a home to their lik-
ing.

Rhonda and Robert (He wasn’t Bobby any more) had a baby boy with the right number
of fingers and toes and no apparent problems. Rita and Jesse had a girl about 10 days
later. The new baby boy, Bobby of course, was born on Valentine’s Day so that made it
very easy for everyone to remember the birthdays. There hadn’t been any difficulties
with the deliveries and Ruth found the chemical she needed to treat the babies’ eyes
and such among the medical supplies.

None of them talked much about their relatives and the children, like Damon and Bren-
da and Jennifer and Scott and Ron’s brother Robert or Linda’s sister. The whole thing
was depressing and painful enough without dragging up painful memories. Their loved
ones had either made it or not and there wasn’t much they could do about it.

Aside from his boys, now absent, Gary had his whole family with him. Sharon had a sis-
ter and brother in law in California City and another sister in Des Moines. Her younger
brother was somewhere in Colorado and she’d heard from him exactly one time in the
10 years leading up to the strike. Clarence had a sister in Palmdale who had taken off
for Alabama before the strike. The folks from Colorado had never mentioned their rela-
tives. Amy was pretty certain Udell was ok, wherever he was; he was one tough cookie
and a survivor.

A lot of things would change the next summer when they got their hands on a Ham ra-
dio and a huge supply of diesel fuel for their generator, but that’s getting a little ahead of

34
the story. Back to the subject of homes; everyone had an idea what they wanted for a
home. Gary had a design for home construction that permitted you to have any floor
plan you wanted. He was more interested in the structure of the home than the actual
floor plan.

He called it the Farnsworth system and said he’d gotten the idea from how they had
constructed the home in Mesa, Arizona where his father and stepmother had lived be-
fore they had died in 2001. The basic idea was to construct a rock shell of some sort
and build a frame home inside of it. You could pitch the roof to whatever pitch was ap-
propriate for the snowfall. The steeper the pitch, the more storage space there would be
in the attic.

Basically, he said, you poured a foundation and slab, laid up a stone shell and then built
the frame house inside of the shell. Farnsworth shot in an inch of foam insulation and
then put R-11 fiberglass in between the studs. Gary suggested that if they could get
enough 2”x6” lumber, they should make the frames thicker and use R-19 insulation.
And, if they could find equipment to shoot in the foam it would be even better. Sharon
and he liked the floor plan that Aaron had come up with so he only concentrated of the
construction details.

Anyway, they were getting quite a list, libraries for books, building materials, maybe a
few hogs, to vary their diet even more. And they needed baby clothes and diapers and
maybe some composting toilets. Maybe one of those books would tell them how to turn
their growing pile of manure into methane; there was dozens of ideas and hundreds of
possibilities. Someone suggested that they would do well to look for the Foxfire series of
books at the library. The books came out during the 1970’s, she thought, and they cov-
ered a lot of aspects of rural living. If she remembered right, one of the books even told
how to butcher a hog.

To a person, they all considered the caves to be a temporary home. They had never
made many improvements beyond putting in the doors, building the makeshift fireboxes
and penning off some chambers. Most of them were anxious to move out of the caves
as soon as they could manage. They still had some lumber, but not enough to build 8
homes. They had used up the last of the sackrete on the Colorado cave and fireboxes.
Their clothes were showing wear from so many hand washings, too. Their list of needs
grew as they approached spring.

They folks were out of the caves in late April and on the road looking for literally dozens
of items. The first thing that they noticed was that the people didn’t seem to be as hos-
tile as previous years. Many had waved to them as they passed and one fella flagged
them down. They took a chance and stopped to visit with the man. He told quite the tale
of what it had been like living above ground since the strike. The first winter had been
the hardest and a lot of people had frozen or starved to death.

35
In fact, though he had no figures, he was guessing that almost 90% of the US popula-
tion had died off, he wasn’t sure. And, the man glossed over a lot of details about how
he and his family had managed to make it through that first winter. The first summer af-
ter the strike had been short, he said, but filled with fighting over supplies and places to
live. He expected that everyone who had survived the first winter had headed south.

Anyway, during the first summer maybe as many as one third of those who had man-
aged to make it through the first winter had perished. The man sort of rambled as he
told his tale. The second winter had been a little shorter, he said and the second sum-
mer a little longer, but hotter than blue blazes. This past winter had been even shorter
and would you look at the sky; you could even see an occasional patch of blue.

Aaron and Ron asked the man about scavenging for supplies and he told them if it
wasn’t nailed down, someone had put it to good use. So much for that, they thought.
Then he mentioned a survival community that had started up in Albuquerque. The
community had failed, killed off by infighting and marauders, or so he’d heard.

Hmm. They hadn’t planned to travel as far as Albuquerque, but if that was what it was
going to take, it was worth a shot. Was the man sure that there were no people living in
Albuquerque? He was pretty certain, but not positive, he said. They turned around and
headed back to the caves without having gathered a single thing except information.

“So, what do you want to do?” Ron asked.

“It’s a long way to Albuquerque,” Clarence suggested.

“That’s right Clarence,” Bob offered, “But if there was a survival community there for a
while, maybe they consolidated the supplies. I say it’s worth a shot.”

“We are running out of staples,” Aaron said. “I don’t know that any canned goods would
still be safe to eat anymore, but if we could get staples, lumber, books, and building ma-
terials, we’d be a lot better off.”

“We only have about 3 quarts of lamp oil left, too,” Gary pointed out.

“I guess we’re going to Albuquerque,” Ron concluded. “Do we have enough diesel in the
pickups?”

“We can get there, anyway,” someone said.

They decided to leave the womenfolk there to get in the gardens; the girls could provide
their security. The thirteen of them would take three pickups and the three large trailers
and see what they could find in Albuquerque. The wives were fearful that they wouldn’t
ever see their husbands again, but they had to agree that there wasn’t much choice.
They really needed a lot of supplies. And, don’t forget canning supplies, they said.

36
°

They drove to Roswell; Gary didn’t get to see the flying saucer, and picked up US 380
to I-25. Their first big discovery was a double-bottomed fuel transport in a rest area. Ron
was against taking the tanker, assuming they could get it started; the fuel was obviously
old and degraded.

Aaron told Ron that a product called PRI-D could restore even old diesel fuel if it was
properly blended and that it could keep the fuel for several years with additions of the
additive. He had a bottle of the stuff in his glove box.

They worked on the tractor most of the day, getting it to run. Its saddle tanks were full,
or nearly so, and there wasn’t much condensation. With the PRI-D in the saddle tanks
and a jump from one of the pickups, they finally got the tractor started. John and Bobby
were assigned the task of getting the 16,000-gallons of diesel fuel back to the cave.

The find of the double-bottom rig was most fortuitous and the men took it as a good
sign. They made their way to Albuquerque and spent the night in an abandoned motel.
The next morning, they ate their MRE’s and set out to see what they could see. Albu-
querque was like a ghost town. It gave them an eerie feeling.

And, they were like kids in a candy store. It was going to take them all summer just to
haul the booty back to the caves. They found the survivalist group’s encampment. It
was just as they thought; the group had been busy scrounging the area and the men
began to load their trailers. A lot of the things that they had on their list were found all in
that one spot. But, that gave them a big problem. How were they going to get all of this
loot back to Carlsbad? It would take them a year or two to haul it all in the trailers.

Necessity is the mother of invention, or so it is said. For one thing, there was more than
they could use in a lifetime here in Albuquerque for the taking. For another, they had
seen the advantage of sharing. So, they made the assumption that this would be their
only trip to Albuquerque and prioritized their take. They located all of the PRI-D they
could find to convert the fuel on its way back to the cave. They went to a Kenworth
dealer and found several new tractors. A couple of days work gave them a dozen or
more new tractors that they got to run.

There were lots of trailers, some empty, some full. They took the empty trailers and
filled them with staples and diapers and drugs of all kinds. A library provided the Foxfire
books and hundreds of books on primitive living, construction and the like. They took
their first load and headed back to the caves.

When they were loading the trailers, they distributed the various goods equally among
the trailers in case they had to abandon one along the way home (block combat load-
ing). They dropped off a trailer of goods to the folks in Roswell, a second for the folks in
Artesia and a third for the folks in Whites City. It was sort of a ‘good neighbor’ plan that

37
they hoped would reap rewards. Besides, if they didn’t share, someone might just de-
cide to take the treasures from them.

They spent several days unloading the trailers and then set off once again to bring more
goods from Albuquerque. On the return trip, there was no shortage of volunteers to help
them on their quest. The men and all of the volunteers spent a four-month long summer
stripping as much as they could from Albuquerque.

Ron suggested that they give up unloading the trailers because they made perfectly
good storage. There seemed to be no particular shortage of trailers in the northern city
anyway. They ended up towing doublewide mobile homes back to Rattlesnake Springs
and solving their housing problem. Discussions of building their own homes were forgot-
ten. Everyone pitched in as summer waned and helped them set up the homes. The
‘good neighbor’ policy was reaping them huge rewards, indeed. For the first time in a
long time, they had real homes to live in. Maybe they wouldn’t need all of those books
on primitive living after all!

They put up a pole barn, with a lot of help, and got the livestock out of the cave. The
gardens had produced an abundance of food this year and they had lots of canning
supplies. Among their treasures was a large diesel fueled generator and tanks of pro-
pane for their stoves and water heaters.

They hauled in a water tank and assembled it and used an electric pump to fill the tank.
During this third summer, our survivalists had gone from cave dwellers to living once
again in real homes with electricity and running hot and cold water and all of the modern
conveniences. They had communications with the outside world in the form of a Ham
radio. And they could take a real bath or shower! It was a miracle.

All in all, the people had about half stripped Albuquerque of easy to find goods. Another,
longer summer should see them through stripping the remainder of the city of more of
the same. Of course, along with the good came the bad. They were the inseparable
twins. The snakes had been really bad this summer and more than once someone had
come close to being bitten.

The wives complained bitterly that the men would have to take time out next year and
fence in the garden to keep out the rattlesnakes. In most ways, however, life was be-
ginning to return to normal. There weren’t any grocery stores or drug stores or any other
kind of stores, but people had gathered together in farmers’ markets to sell their excess
food production.

And like the snakes that had slithered out of their dens, the lowest parts of humanity al-
so slithered out of their dens. The people from southern New Mexico weren’t the only
people to discover the treasures that Albuquerque held. After a summer filled with pil-
laging, a group of men and women, numbering in the hundreds, had moved into Albu-
querque. So much for the treasure trove. But, the people of southern New Mexico

38
wouldn’t learn of this turn of events until the following spring when they returned to finish
cleaning out Albuquerque.

“Man, it feels good to be clean,” Ron said. The three men from Palmdale were seated at
Ron and Linda’s kitchen table drinking coffee for the first time in a long time.

“I took three showers yesterday,” Gary said, “It still feels like I’m grimy to the core.”

“I’m shedding skin like a snake,” Ron said, “All of that cave living must have had an ef-
fect on my skin.”

“Speaking of snakes,” Clarence injected, “What are we going to do about those rattle-
snakes?”

“Fence the garden to keep the rabbits out and then just be careful as hell,” Ron re-
sponded. “The snakes are after the bunnies. If we can keep them out, it will help, I
think.”

“This is quite a turn of events,” Clarence continued. “Out of the caves and into the light.”

“More like out of security and into the breach,” Gary suggested.

“What are you getting at Gar-Bear?” Ron asked.

“Aaron killed a mountain lion and Bob killed a bear,” Gary reminded them. “It seems to
me that all kinds of critters survived the strike and moved south. And there are the
snakes, of course.”

“I wonder what’s going on in the rest of the world.” Clarence ventured.

“Well, if I can get a little good weather, I can put up those radio antennas and use my
shortwave to find out,” Gary replied. “We just plain ran out of time and I didn’t get them
up.”

“What kind of radios did you pick up?” Ron asked.

“A little of everything,” Gary replied, “That includes UHF and VHF transceivers, a HF
transceiver and a scanning receiver. I have antennas for all of them and all kinds of pre-
made coaxial cables, too.”

“I’ll go talk to Aaron, Bob and Jacob and see if they’re willing to brave the cold to put
them up for you,” Ron offered.

“Good idea Ronald, go for it,” Gary grinned.

39
By evening, according to the clock, the antennas were up and connected. Gary mostly
just listened, hoping to get word of Derek. His patience was rewarded in a few days and
he eventually heard his call sign, KD6GDQ coming over the air. He tuned his HF trans-
mitter to the frequency and replied.

“This is KD6GDQ replying. KD6GDQ replying,” he said, “Who is looking for me?”

Maybe it wasn’t proper radio protocol, but although Gary had had a technician’s license
since 1992, he’d never been on the air. Besides, he doubted there was any FCC to get
on his back about it. FCC hell, there probably wasn’t even a government!

“This is KD6GDQ, KD6GDQ,” he repeated, “Come back.”

“KD6GDQ, KD6GDQ,” the voice came, “This is W0UDO, W0UDO. Is that you Gary?”
[Name and call sign used with permission.]

What the hell, W0UDO was his friend Lee who had gotten him started into Ham radio
(this time) in the first place.

“Lee, this is Gary, over,” Gary replied.

“I’ve been trying off and on to get a hold of you ever since the first summer after the im-
pact,” Lee said.

“Are you still in Des Moines?” Gary asked.

“Moved to Arkansas Gary, that’s why I’ve been trying to reach you,” Lee said. “Do you
have a son named Derek?”

“That’s a big 10-4 Lee,” Gary responded excitedly, “You know anything about him? I ha-
ven’t heard from him since before the strike.”

“He lives down the road Gary,” Lee said. “He wants to join you. Where are you living?”

“Tell him to come to Whites City, New Mexico,” Gary replied, “And I’ll put the word out
come spring for people to tell him where we live.”

“How about I have him talk to you himself on this same frequency at 5pm Arkansas time
tomorrow night?” Lee suggested.

“Man alive, that would be wonderful,” Gary replied. “How are you? What are you now,
80?”

“I was 80 in 2004, Gary,” Lee said, “You figure it out. Talk to you tomorrow. This is
W0UDO clear.”

40
“KD6GDQ, clear,” Gary said.

To say that Gary was excited would to be to grossly understate the situation. He told
Sharon, he told Missy, well, he told everyone. The next day 10 minutes before the
agreed time, he was standing by on the radio. The call came in and Derek and he visit-
ed for a half hour. Atmospheric conditions weren’t the best on that day and they had to
cut the call short. Gary gave Derek the names of some friends they’d made in Whites
City and told him to contact them when they got there. Lee came on and told Gary that
they could talk again every Friday at the same time.

Gary was berating himself for having not had a radio in the beginning. All this time had
passed and he had been so worried about his boys. He mentioned that to Ron, which
was the wrong thing to do. Ron had been beating himself up over Kevin’s departure and
his missing kids and family. Gary dropped that like a hot rock, he hadn’t realized…

This winter was much different from the winters they spent in the caves. In the first
place they actually had a fair amount of daylight compared to what they’d had in the
preceding years when they’d looked out. The sky was continuing to get lighter, but the
sunsets were more colorful than they’d ever seen in their lives. They began to talk about
all the plans they’d had before the strike but soon gave that up because it became so
depressing. They switched over to talking about the future and their plans. Thanksgiving
came and went. They took extra time to thank God for freeing them from those caves.

Speaking of which, they had stocked the caves very well and if forced to return to the
caves could exist inside for a very long time, just in case. On one of the many trips to
Albuquerque they had collected a wide assortment of firearms. They now had all kinds
of handguns, .357 and .44 Magnum, .45 ACP and .45 Colt. They also had a lot of the
AR-15’s, several more Garand rifles and a few M1A’s.

The survivalists, or whatever they’d been, had a lot of the high capacity magazines and
ammo for just about every caliber of firearm one could imagine. They took it all… waste
not, want not; they figured they could always use it as trade goods. The married kids
had real wedding rings now. This was a good thing because another one of David’s
boys had announced that he and Judy wanted to get married, and NO, she wasn’t
pregnant.

Well, why not? They had hauled in 15 doublewides and had erected 10 of them before
they ran out of summer. They didn’t have any more of a ceremony for this couple than
for the other two, just a simple exchange of vows and rings and a huge party afterward.
During the party, someone pounded on the front door of the trailer where they were
gathered, celebrating. The prodigal son had returned. Kevin stood there disheveled and
dirty, but alive. Linda was ecstatic. Ron grumbled something about, “Here we go again,”
but everyone could see he was pretty happy too. Kevin no longer had the rifle or back-

41
pack and barely had clothes on his back, but he was there. Ron sent him to the shower
immediately and left the door open for a bit, despite the cold.

Christmas came early this year, or so it seemed. The jury was still out on that one. The
folks still used the icehouse in the cave. They hadn’t seen the necessity nor had the
time to build one outside. They were looking forward to the trip to Albuquerque come
spring because they had mostly concentrated on necessities and looked forward to
some non-necessities like some impractical clothing and candy and all the things you
could get along without but would be nice to have.

Everything they had taken had been very practical like food and work clothes and seeds
and generators and all of those necessities. Jacob had brought back a Hoover vacuum
cleaner for Ruth but the other men had decided it wasn’t a necessity and used the
space for other things. Oops. Ruth shared the cleaner, but the men soon realized that
what was a non-necessity to them was a necessity to their wives.

Kevin, it seemed, had run out of insulin and had been unable to come up with more.
Ron said that if that was his only reason for coming home, he could take some insulin
and get out. From the looks of Kevin, he hadn’t exactly been eating regularly either, but
Ron was adamant. It was the old ‘shape-up or ship-out’ routine.

Kevin had been slow to come around, but he wasn’t exactly stupid. He decided it was
time to emulate his brother John. John was quiet and unobtrusive to the point that you
barely knew he was around. John was helpful; Kevin just disappeared into the wood-
work and only appeared at mealtimes. At least he wasn’t picking fights with Ron!

Gary kept up an ongoing dialogue with Derek through Lee. They’d had their share of
trouble in northern Arkansas, some with people, but mostly with the weather. They had
decided against moving to Louisiana because in Arkansas they knew the enemy they
faced and they had plenty of firepower to fight that enemy.

People were crazy, Derek claimed, fighting over scraps of food and pieces of firewood.
The lakes had frozen to the bottom and there weren’t any fish left in Arkansas, he told
his Dad. On the other hand, he was getting pretty partial to squirrel and rabbit when
they could get it. Gary told Derek to bring everyone; they had 6 unused homes and a
lifetime’s worth of food. Gary was exaggerating on the food, but they had a garden and
livestock and chickens. They still didn’t have a hog, though, he mentioned it to Derek.

Gary also told Derek that he might be in Albuquerque when they arrived, but it was just
a supply run, all rather routine. They could take the one house that was set up and
when they got back from Albuquerque, they’d set up the other five homes. It was all
agreed and they were looking forward to getting together.

42
Winter passed into spring just like it always did and the men prepared to head to Albu-
querque. The runs had become so routine that they weren’t expecting any trouble.
When the large convoy set out from Roswell they had no idea that they were heading
into trouble. Their first clue came when a bullet pierced Aaron’s window. The convoy
pulled to a near instant stop and they returned fire. It appeared that they were outnum-
bered and Aaron shouted for everyone to make a U-turn and headed back south. They
stopped near Los Chavez and got out to discuss the situation.

43
 The Rock – Chapter 5 – Not for a Vacuum Cleaner

“Hell, fellas,” Aaron cussed most uncharacteristically, “I can’t see getting my butt shot
off over a vacuum cleaner. We got all of the drugs and all of the staples. There really
isn’t anything we have to have from Albuquerque that’s worth dying over. Why don’t we
go on down to Alamogordo and see what we can get there?”

“That’s fine with me,” Ron replied, “Anyone disagree?”

A few did, but they probably just had a sweet tooth. Most of the food they’d left behind
was the canned goods anyway. There was a big difference between want and need.
Odds favored finding vacuum cleaners in Alamogordo anyway, who’d want a vacuum
cleaner? So, they saddled up and headed to Alamogordo.

They didn’t find a soul in the town, which seemed strange until someone mentioned that
Holloman AFB and White Sands were just down the road. They filled the semis, making
sure to get those vacuum cleaners. They also cleaned out the clothing stores and tried
to anticipate anything the wives might think they ‘needed’. Satisfied that they hadn’t
overlooked anything in Alamogordo, needed or unneeded, they headed back to Roswell
and points south.

They shared what they could with the residents of Roswell, Artesia and Carlsbad. When
they got to Whites City and unloaded some more goods, Gary learned that Derek had
arrived and had been directed to Rattlesnake Springs. Gary was chomping at the bit,
telling the men to hurry up and unload, he wanted to see Derek and Mary and his
grandchildren. They finally moved out and arrived at their homes to sounds of gunfire.
What the hell?

They were behind the attackers and when the attackers turned to fire on them, they let
loose. In the firefight that ensued, two of David’s boys were wounded, but none of their
people we killed. One of the attackers had survived, but was more dead than alive. Ron
got to question him and he didn’t expect that was any press around to tattle on him to
the American public that he’d abused a prisoner. It’s amazing what a boot pressed to a
wound can do. It can elicit screams and it can elicit a loose tongue. Ron got plenty of
both. The man was a member of a group that had been living in a cavern to the north of
theirs.

That explained a lot. These were probably the people that had shot at them and forced
them to block off tunnels. When he had the information he wanted, Ron shot the guy
before anyone could react. Derek hadn’t been there 5 minutes before they had attacked
the women. They were doing a pretty good job of holding them off when the men drove
up.

Gary and Derek exchanged a hug and the men all set off to check out the other cavern.
No wonder they hadn’t seen it before, the entrance was carefully camouflaged. When
they got inside, the place was a hovel. They people must have had a lot of food, they

44
decided, based on the empty boxes strewn about. They assumed that the people had
not come out until they had run out of food. The smell would gag a maggot. They gath-
ered up the guns and ammo, nothing else was worth taking and returned to their
homes.

They set about unloading the haul from Alamogordo. For the first time they had cleaned
out a National Guard Armory. They hadn’t ventured to Holloman; something just told
them that it wasn’t a good idea. What was left of the government, Bush, and a few oth-
ers, were holed up there, not at Cheyenne Mountain, and the base was locked down.
Anyone who ventured near the base became a long-term guest or died.

Anyway, they got Derek to check out the haul from the Armory. They rest of them
looked over the haul from the town. It was apparent that they weren’t the first people to
scavenge Alamogordo. But whoever had been there before them had only taken a little.
Why there was anything left in the town was a bit of a mystery, and they counted their
blessings.

The younger people had the task of piling and burning the bodies of those other cave
dwellers. That was mean, but someone had to do it. They made sure of the way the
wind was blowing before they lit the pyre. Derek inspected and cleaned the M16’s and
the weapons from the Armory. He passed out 2 rifles per person and they got someone
to take the surplus weapons and extra ammo back to Whites City. They now had a front
gate guard.

Over the course of the next couple of weeks, townspeople came and helped them as-
semble the 5 remaining mobile homes. Mary’s folks moved into the first that went up.
The men put up a mesh fence around the garden to keep out the rabbits and snakes
and began to trap the rabbits. Not for food, but to feed their new pets. Someone had the
brilliant idea of digging a pit to hold captured snakes and they needed the rabbits, espe-
cially the younger ones, to feed the snakes.

It wasn’t an original idea about the snakes; the person making the suggestion said he’d
read it in a story on Frugal Squirrel’s website. The pit was a lot of work, but it stretched
for a long ways and became sort of a natural minefield, covered over as it was. Every
time they saw a snake, they caught it and added it to the pit. They even took to growing
rabbits, just to feed the snakes.

Derek was a welcome addition to the group in more ways than one. First, there was the
fact that he was alive and safe and with them. Second was the fact that Mary’s Dad had
pulled in a trailer with some hogs on board. Third was the fact that Derek had some mili-
tary expertise and he set about organizing their defenses. He spent long hours putting
in fighting positions and training them how to use the M16’s properly.

45
The women were very happy about those vacuum cleaners and the clothes and the
fence around the garden. The growing season was marginally longer and they were do-
ing very well in the garden not having to dodge snakes. They still ‘beat the bushes’, just
in case, but the growing population of reptiles in the pit was comforting in more ways
than one. Ruth had read one of the books and had figured out which seeds were hy-
brids and which were heirlooms and they were planning on harvesting fresh seed for the
first time this fall.

That group up in Albuquerque had run out of edible food, lots of the cans were bulged,
and they decided to head south to see if they could find the bunch who had tried to en-
ter the city a few weeks before. Along the way, they cleaned out the smaller towns and
ended up in Alamogordo. Someone had cleaned out that town practically to the walls.
They ventured to Holloman and got into a firefight that took half their number before
they could retreat. ‘Take a note Velda, stay away from Holloman AFB.’ Those that sur-
vived the encounter decided to head east to Roswell. They were down to about 400
people, but they were the meanest of the bunch.

The community of Roswell, NM had grown considerably. The extra supplies those peo-
ple down at Whites City had shared with them had been a Godsend. They were more
than beholding to those folks, where were they from? Colorado and California? It didn’t
really matter, the people decided, but they had freely shared the takings from Albuquer-
que. The people in Roswell had joined in the scavenger hunt and they had been the
ones who had cleaned out an Armory in Albuquerque. They had an armed guard posted
to the north and to the west of Roswell. They put up a fierce fight when that bunch came
in from the west, but maybe ¾ of them had bypassed Roswell by retreating and skirting
the town, and heading down towards Artesia.

Artesia, NM had also been the recipient of the shared goods and had joined in the trips
to Albuquerque. These folks hadn’t come away with any weapons, mostly just food.
Consequently, they took up positions to guard their city but only from a direct attack on
the people themselves. They left a clear corridor for those pillagers and killers to pass
their town by. US 285 was on the east side of the community and they concentrated
their people to keep the people moving right on past the community. Their strategy
worked and they warned Carlsbad by radio that about 300 bad guys were headed their
way.

The people of Carlsbad, namesake of the Caverns, put up a fearsome defense. They
were well entrenched and were able to kill about half of the marauders. Unfortunately,
one of the townspeople was taken prisoner and before she died, she revealed the name
Whites City and then ‘at the caverns’. The bad guys had started out just shy of a thou-
sand and were now down to between 150 and 200 people. They moved on from Carls-
bad toward Whites City on US 62/180. They had paid a terrible price to get where they
were and weren’t about to give up now. They lost about half of their number when they
went through Whites City and the remaining 100 some headed to the Visitors Center at
the National Park.

46
The bad guys figured that wherever the group was in the park it had to be near water. A
map of the area revealed a place called Rattlesnake Springs southeast of the park. It
was south of Whites City on US 62/180 and on a small road, state route 418. They re-
turned to Whites City, losing another 40 or so people in the process and headed south
on US 62/180. When they got to state route 418, they turned to the west into the park.

By the good graces of Gary’s friend Lee, Ron had been able to contact some people in
Ft. Smith, Arkansas. He was tracking down Jennifer and Brenda and their families. The
kids had headed south, and had ended up somewhere in Texas. They spent most of the
summer tracking them, via radio and finally came across them in the Lubbock, TX area.
Ron told them where they were and told the kids to shake a leg and get to the park. His
two daughters, if the truth were known, hadn’t needed much of an incentive and they
had shown up in mid-August. He never was able to track down Paula or his brother
Robert nor Linda’s sister.

The kids had taken US 62 out of Lubbock and picked up US 180. They had followed US
62/180 to Carlsbad and on down to Whites City. They had arrived about two weeks be-
fore the bad guys. They occupied two of the mobile homes and had barely gotten their
feet on the ground when all hell broke loose.

Derek had placed a sentry on state route 418 just after it split off from US 62/180. He
reported hearing gunfire in Whites City earlier and the people went on alert. With the
second report of gunfire from the Whites City area, they took up their positions to de-
fend their homes. The sentry saw the bad guys moving their way, and beat a hasty re-
treat. Although outnumbered about 3 to 1, the group of survivors from California and
Colorado figured they had the advantage of position and knowledge of the area. Plus,
they had their makeshift ‘minefield’.

The bad guys from Albuquerque came charging in like they were facing little resistance.
When a number of them fell into the ‘minefield’ and were bitten by the few hundred
snakes, they backed off and took a new approach. But they didn’t have a lot of cover
and over the course of the day the survivors whittled them down until there were none
of them left to fight. Some of them were wounded and Ron was put in charge of the in-
terrogation. Ron had such a way of getting information out of people. While Ruth tended
to their wounded, luckily none of them had been killed, Ron persuaded the dozen or so
living bad guys to reveal everything they knew. I think they called Ron’s method of inter-
rogation the ‘boot method’.

Ron learned, in bits and pieces, that these were the people from Albuquerque. Although
they had started out almost 1,000 strong, their number had been whittled down along

47
the way to the park. Sharing those goods with the folks in Roswell, Artesia, Carlsbad
and Whites City had paid big dividends.

Through his ‘gentle’ interrogations, Ron was able to piece together the story of the
group’s travels. They didn’t know what was at Holloman, trouble, they said, but the sur-
vivors each gave him information they could use. The survivors, by the way, got to ex-
perience the minefield first hand. As a matter of fact, they dumped all of the bodies into
the minefield and covered it over, the snakes having served their purpose.

The folks there at Rattlesnake Springs campground/housing development got in their

semis and picked up people along the way. There were still plenty of goods to gather
from Albuquerque. They didn’t figure this was the last of the trouble, far from it, but
they’d better finish cleaning out Albuquerque before some other gang took over the city.
They worked non-stop and by the time the first snowfall came, had most of the goods
worth taking moved from Albuquerque to the towns and cities along US 285. They
pulled the empty diesel trailers back to Albuquerque to a depot and refilled them. An
appropriate application of PRI-D restored the fuel to useable condition.

They scoured Albuquerque with a fine-tooth comb and found more medical supplies in
neighborhood pharmacies and additional diesel generators, the big ones. They located
more tankers and hauled more of the diesel fuel, sharing it with the other communities.
They found a warehouse filled with various products manufactured by the Houston, TX
firm Products Research, Inc. that manufactured the PRI product line and hauled every
bit of it to Whites City. They were in tall cotton, as the expression goes.

Reflections

What year was it? They guessed it didn’t matter anymore. They reflected on all that had
happened since the strike. It had been a series of miracles. They’d found the cave and
had survived the first winter. Aaron and the folks from Colorado had moved into an ad-
joining cave and greatly improved their lot. They had been able to scavenge, scrounge
and salvage what they had needed and had gotten by.

Although they had moved out of the caves and had homes and electricity and the like,
many of their living conditions were still primitive. They had to grow their own food and
hunt their own meat. They didn’t have a doctor, only a RN. There was a doctor availa-
ble, but it meant a long trip to Roswell and he was a general practitioner, not a special-
ist.

From what they could gather on the Ham radio, the world had lost a lot of its population.
There weren’t many governments as far as they could tell. Governments, if they existed
at all, were more of a local nature. If the US still had a federal government, it must be a
secret. In fact, if any of the states had governments that must be a secret, too. To the
best of their knowledge, the only governments were the local town councils and they

48
were as much appointed as elected. There were no doles from the government any
more, you made it on your own or died, and it was as simple as that.

The families were all together, mostly at least. It was anyone’s guess what had become
of Damon and Paula and Robert and Shelia and Sharon’s family. But rather than mourn
the missing, they gave thanks for those who had survived and had made it to Rattle-
snake Springs. This past summer had proved that among the living there were the
good, the bad and the ugly, a cliché and a parody on the title of the old spaghetti west-
ern. At least there were about 1,000 fewer of the ugly.

They had 20 homes now, including the five more that awaited assembly during the next
summer. There was electricity in abundance, courtesy of the additional commercial
generators from Albuquerque. There was plenty of fuel in the tankers and in the depot
up in Albuquerque and probably more at other depots around the country. If they were
to venture forth in the coming summers, it would be to the north rather to the east and
west, they wanted to avoid civilization such as it existed along the southern tier of
states. What was the use of fighting over the limited resources when there were so
many more to the north?

“We are going to have to be a lot more careful,” Aaron suggested. “I think that we
brought that bunch from Albuquerque down on ourselves.”

“How would you do it different, Aaron?” Ron asked.

“Well, for one thing, we need a fighting force separate from our drivers,” Aaron said.
“I’ve been talking to Gary’s son Derek and he thinks that we should scout out the cities
before we just go driving in like we own the place.”

“Where would we get the people for an army?” Clarence complained.

“There are a lot of people in the communities we helped out,” Aaron offered. “And
weapons are no problem; we have plenty of rifles and ammo.”

“I’d prefer something a little heavier than rifles,” Ron objected.

“Like what?” Bob asked.

“Oh, some grenade launchers and rockets, you know the usual military hardware,” Ron
responded.

“No one came up with any of that from either Albuquerque or Alamogordo,” Aaron said,
“Are we looking in the wrong places or what?”

49
“Those were National Guard Armories,” Ron countered, “We need to look on some reg-
ular military bases.”

“I think we should go to Denver this next summer,” Bob suggested, “We could stop at
Ft. Carson in Colorado Springs and pick up some of that heavy duty weaponry you
seem to think we need Ron.”

“I’m all for it,” Ron said.

Ron immediately began to make a list of all the things he wanted. Most of it he’d only
seen on TV, but if it was good enough for the military, it was good enough for him. He
wrote down things like grenade launchers, grenades, rocket launchers, mines, body ar-
mor and every other thing he had seen on TV and could remember.

Aaron continued the subject at hand, their trip to Denver this coming summer. They
could take the semis to Denver, hook onto trailers they found there, load them and haul
them back. He suggested that they limit themselves to 2 trips per month with a rest pe-
riod in between. They could see what they could get at Ft. Carson, but he didn’t intend
to spend much time there hunting around for play pretties for Ron.

The snowfall was nothing this year compared to the previous winters and they were
able to get into the towns. Derek set up a program in each of the communities to get
everyone trained in the use of the AR-15/M-16’s. He used the M-16’s from the Armory in
Alamogordo as training tools and by the end of the winter had a trained cadre of men
and women familiar in their use.

He located veterans among the population of each community and put them in charge
of the training. There was very little resistance to the training, given the attack by that
bunch from Albuquerque. The people were loosely organized in military fashion into fire
teams and squads and each community had its own company. That was how Derek
spent his first winter at the Springs.

They had another wedding, of course, and it was another double wedding, marrying off
the last of the teenagers. Ron must have had a case of that wine because he produced
three more bottles for the celebration. They sort of combined Thanksgiving and the
weddings and the last two of the assembled homes had new occupants.

They had a lot to be thankful for this year, having survived the attacks from the other
cavern and the people of Albuquerque. Their lot in life had improved considerably, too.
They had gathered a lot of food, weapons and other things they would need for the
long-term. They didn’t really view the trip to Denver as a ‘must’ in terms of supplies, but
the guys from Denver wanted to make the trip and strip their homes to recover the pos-

50
sessions they had been forced to leave behind. And, of course, Ron wanted all of those
military goodies.

They spent a month or more planning the trips for the coming summer. They were stop-
ping at Ft. Carson first, then getting the household goods and finally, begin to salvage
Denver. They didn’t figure that they would really run into any resistance in Denver, but if
they did, their experiences of the past summer made their course of action clear. Share
if they could, kill if they couldn’t. And, because they were out of the caves, the winter
seemed to pass more quickly again this year as it had the previous. The sky was so
much clearer now!

In the first weeks of April, with their plans laid out and Derek’s training as complete as
he could make it, they set off in a convoy to Albuquerque and points north. They by-
passed Santa Fe and Trinidad and Pueblo and made for Colorado Springs. They ended
up spending three days at Ft. Carson, so great was their haul of armaments.

They loaded several military 5-ton trucks with weapons and several semi-trailers they
found in the Colorado Springs area and dispatched the vehicles back to the 5 communi-
ties. They were armed to the teeth, even though they didn’t expect any trouble in Den-
ver. There was such an abundance of everything that Ron had everything on his list,
and more. Derek took time to arm everyone with a M16A2/M203 and even spent some
time using practice grenades getting his ‘Commands’ experienced using the weapons.

Bob supervised the emptying and loading of their personal possessions from their
homes and Aaron and the others started to hit the warehouses. Derek had the four
companies of guards organized more or less into a battalion and they picked up various
military insignia at Ft. Carson and they passed out the rank insignia according to the
lines of authority they had established.

The four company commanders insisted that Derek take on the role of Battalion com-
mander so he made himself a one-star General. Battalion commanders are usually
Lieutenant Colonels, so to compensate, he made the Company commanders Lt. Col’s,
the Platoon commanders Captains and the Squad Leaders First Lieutenants. It wasn’t
important, but that was how they did it.

They had plenty of firepower from Ft. Carson on the way back to New Mexico so they
concentrated on foodstuffs and repair parts for the things they already had. They didn’t
have to face the share or kill decision on this first trip and the convoy of repaired semi
tractors and loaded trailers was very long when they finally set out for New Mexico
about 10 days later.

Several of the trailers carried all of the component parts of a steel building they intended
to erect at their Rattlesnake Springs community. So great was their haul this first trip,
they brought along some new computers and software so that they could inventory all

51
that they had. And, although they had planned a trip to Denver every other week, they
decided to make just four, or five, trips to Denver; one per month, depending upon the
weather.

Gary was to stay behind on future trips; he was in charge of the warehouse and all of
their goods. The folks from the other four communities helped and they had the ware-
house erected in nothing flat. They got so busy, in fact, that the May trip to Denver was
postponed until late June. They talked about making a run over to Holloman AFB, but
Ron squashed that idea when he related that one of the bad guys he had questioned
had said Holloman was trouble.

Derek took advantage of the downtime and postponed trip to begin to install defenses in
all of the communities. They had quite an assortment of defensive weapons and had
opted to leave offensive systems behind, including the LAV’s and things of that nature.
He had taken a lot of Humvees, however and some of them were equipped with TOW
missile launchers.

He would have preferred a good old-fashioned Abrams tank, but they hadn’t found any.
The community defenses were in the care of the Company commanders and each var-
ied their defenses in accordance with the characteristics of the individual community. All
of the communities were equipped with TOW equipped Humvees, Mk-19 equipped
Humvees, and the old standby, the M-2 .50 caliber machine guns. They had them both
in the Humvee mounted version and the crew served tripod-mounted version. They also
had a large quantity of the M240 7.62 caliber medium machine guns. Their munitions
could be measured in the truckloads.

Towards the end of June, they finally made the second trip to Denver. They noticed
along the way that people were beginning to move back into the communities of Albu-
querque, Trinidad, Pueblo and Colorado Springs. They stopped in each community and
invited people to join them on their trip to Denver. Each community came up with a few
people to make the trip because most of them were short on some supplies, Albuquer-
que, especially. (I wonder why?) The Company commanders had left half of their forces
behind to guard their communities, but they still had 2 plus companies of troops and no
one gave them any trouble.

They stopped again at Ft. Carson and armed the people from Albuquerque, Trinidad
and Pueblo. The people from Colorado Springs had already been to the Fort, or so it
seemed. They proceeded to Denver and when they encountered people, worked out a
sharing arrangement. Among the things they took on this trip were another dozen dou-
blewide mobile homes for the Rattlesnake Springs community and additional large ca-
pacity generators.

They didn’t strip Denver completely, leaving behind lots of everything for the residents
and for the people from the other communities that had joined them on this second trip.

52
They did, however, take a fair amount of industrial equipment so that they could
reestablish bakeries, and other commercial businesses.

Gary had a lot of help and by the time they returned, he and his work force, which con-
sisted primarily of the younger women, had used the folk lifts to move everything inside
of the new warehouse and input everything into the computerized inventory system.

They had several thousand different items to enter into the system and it had taken a
24/7 effort to complete the task. The old man seemed to be in the height of his glory
managing that inventory system and he had put in 18-hour days seeing that everything
was just so, and the inventory was correct. It fit with his anal-retentive personality.

“Howdy, partner,” Ron said sneaking up behind the totally engrossed Gary.

“So, how did the trip to Denver go?” Gary asked.

“Good Gar-Bear,” Ron answered. “We have another large steel building to erect, a doz-
en more homes, all kinds of industrial equipment, etc. I think that this may have been
our last trip away from the Springs this year.”

“Lots more for me to sort out and inventory, huh?” Gary responded.

“Hell, you love it and you know it,” Ron laughed. “Linda says you have been spending
18-hour days getting everything just so. Have you ever thought about seeing a Psychia-
trist about your problem?”

“What problem is that?” Gary snapped.

“Your perfectionism,” Ron answered.

“Been there, done that,” Gary said. “He told me that it wasn’t a personality disorder, just
a behavior disorder and that I should take advantage of it and use it to improve myself.”

“Yeah, right,” Ron shook his head. “So tell me, how do we stand?”

“Well, we have enough of everything to last us for several years, not counting what you
guys brought back on this trip,” Gary summarized. “There’re 103 of those double-
bottomed tankers of diesel fuel, so we have over 1.6 million gallons of diesel. We don’t
have a lot of propane, probably 20,000 gallons or so, but we need bigger tanks to store
it in.”

“I picked up some 30,000-gallon propane tanks for the community,” Ron said, “Did you
forget that I was in propane for years?”

“Not really, but what good are empty tanks going to do us?” Gary said. “How many
tanks?”

53
“Ten,” Ron replied.

“See what I mean,” Gary said, “We have capacity for 300,000-gallons of propane and
only 20,000-gallons of propane.”

“Relax partner,” Ron laughed, “I wouldn’t get tanks without the propane to fill them. So,
you get all of the stuff stored and inventoried and we’ll see to getting those new homes
and buildings erected.”

The haul from Denver included not only the propane and industrial equipment, but
round Butler style granaries and grain. They had industrial meat cutting equipment and
absolutely everything a community could use. Gary had fortunately set up the inventory
system to account for fixed assets and consumables and he spent the rest of the sum-
mer working 18-hour days getting everything sorted, categorized and input into the sys-
tem. That kept him occupied and out of trouble.

With the additional equipment from Ft. Carson, Derek and his Company commanders
were busy refining the defensive postures of the communities. Derek had it in his head
that summer was the ‘safe season’ as he called it and that come winter, survivors who
hadn’t done so well with their summer excursions to salvage supplies would be seeking
out the communities that had had successful summers. Pretty smart for a man of his
age, even his father had to admit. They put John in charge of the local security because
he had a background in security back before the strike. They gave Kevin a figurehead
position of John’s assistant and gave him an office to hide out in.

54
 The Rock – Chapter 6 – Just Your Average Survival Situation

In many ways, the situation had changed from the just-trying-to-stay-alive situation of
the early days after the strike to the routine TEOCAWKI scenarios described by so
many authors in survival fiction. The early years had been rough and more than once
they wondered if they would be alive come spring. The caverns had been their refuge
and would be again if they were faced by an overwhelming force. They spent the re-
mainder of the summer setting up the buildings, inventorying their goods and dividing
the goods between the caverns and the warehouse. They held an election of sorts and
Aaron was elected as the community leader. The old guys from California were sort of
an advisory council for lack of a better name.

Curiosity was getting the better of them and they wondered what was at Holloman AFB
that made the place so dangerous. So, once they had all settled in for the winter, Derek
and a small force set off to Holloman to find out. He didn’t take a large force, figuring
that a large force would get them fired upon by whoever was taking the defense of the
base so seriously.

The force that he did take was outfitted in new BDU’s and he made sure that every per-
son was a veteran of a previous military conflict. Had one not known that the group was
actually made up of civilians, one would surely have mistaken them for a well-
disciplined military unit. Derek made certain that the group was properly outfitted, down
to the small flag on his Humvee with the star of a Brigadier General.

The ruse worked, after a fashion, and they didn’t get shot at when they approached Hol-
loman AFB. The sentries even saluted him, before they disarmed him and his two
squads and led them off to meet the person in charge of the base.

George W. Bush was born in 1946 and was just a little more than 3 years younger than
his father. He was more or less in charge of Holloman, but Derek barely recognized the
man, he looked older than dirt. His troops were detained by military police and the Se-
cret Service and Derek was shown in to see President Bush.

“I don’t seem to remember a Brigadier General by the name of Olsen,” Bush said, “What
outfit were you in command of?”

“I wasn’t in charge of anything Mr. President, I was a Sergeant in the Army when the
strike came, stationed in Kosovo,” Derek replied.

“So you made it back ok?” Bush replied, “I hadn’t heard how that all came out.”

“We all made it back ok, Mr. President,” Derek explained, “And when I got to Ft. Stew-
art, I grabbed a Hummer, a weapon, some food and fuel and bugged out to take care of
my family.”

“Then you’re a deserter?” Bush responded.

55
“Technically, yes, Mr. President,” Derek answered defensively, “But there doesn’t seem
to be an Army, so I don’t think that means much. Anyway, my enlistment was up a few
weeks later.”

“Probably not,” Bush agreed. “Tell me what it’s like out there. We’ve never been off the
base since we holed up here back in 2004 and the radio reports don’t give me much in-
formation.”

“I assume that you know that you’re the President of a nation of about 20 million peo-
ple,” Derek said. “Maybe 30 million survived the first winter, but about a third of them
died the following summer, fighting over supplies. Most of the population spread out
along the southern states, but since the sky has been clearing, people are beginning to
move back north. We found people as far north as Denver, this summer.”

“That’s pretty much what we’d figured out,” Bush said, “So what’s with the General
getup?”

“We formed a defensive force of sorts with the residents of Roswell, Artesia, Carlsbad,
Whites City and our new community, Rattlesnake Springs,” Derek explained. “We have
a defense force of about company size in each of the communities and I got elected as
the Battalion commander. I didn’t see that it made much difference if I were a Lt. Col. or
a General, so I pinned on a star. Does that bother you, Mr. President?”

“I’m only President because there’s never been an election to replace me,” Bush said.
“Kerry would never step forward and take the job. Hell, I don’t even know if he’s alive. I
do have a problem with the star. However, I wouldn’t have a problem with you being a
Lt. Col.; since you deserted, you still have a military obligation to serve, so it might as
well be as a Lt. Col. as a Sergeant.”

“I don’t know as I want to be a Lt. Col. in the Army,” Derek objected.

“Your choice Sergeant Olsen,” Bush chuckled, “You can either be a live Lt. Col., or a
dead Sergeant, shot for deserting his post.”

“Being you put it that way,” Derek said, “Sir, yes sir.”

“Now Colonel, how about you figure some way to get me out of this damned place, I’ve
got a country to save.”

“The country has been doing pretty well without you, Mr. President,” Derek said.

“I figured that Colonel, but I am getting awfully sick of this shelter,” Bush replied. “You
wouldn’t want to be President would you?”

“No sir,” Derek laughed. “I’ve got to get used to being a Lt. Col. first.”

56
°

Bush had the military police and the Secret Service (SS) return the weapons to his new
‘Army’ and Bush and the SS followed the people back to Rattlesnake Springs. When
they got to the Springs, Derek immediately introduced Bush to Aaron and the council.
On the way back, they were forced to stop in every community so Bush could press the
flesh. The most common question asked of him was, “Where in the hell have you been
hiding out for the past 5 years?” Once safely tucked away at Rattlesnake Springs, and
having met all of the people, the three old geezers from Palmdale started to ask Bush
all manner of questions.

“So tell me George,” Gary asked irreverently, “Did we win the war on terror?”

“Everyone is allowed one little mistake,” Bush replied. “I see that you folks have been
out helping yourselves to whatever the country could provide.”

“If not us, then who?” Aaron responded. “This isn’t 2004 Mr. President. It’s 2009 and we
aren’t that far removed from the conditions that the founding fathers found themselves
in back in the late 18th century. We have some of the benefits of modern technology,
like electricity and such; I expect that most people do by now, but the infrastructure of
this country was pretty much abandoned until this past summer. How are you going to
start to rebuild the nation?”

“From the ground up I guess,” Bush replied. “There seem to be local governments and
we need to reestablish the state governments.”

“What about a federal government?” Aaron continued.

“The original concept of the founding fathers was a weak central government,” Bush an-
swered, “I think that that is what we have now, a weak or non-existent central govern-
ment. I see no reason to change that. Besides, the primary purpose of a central gov-
ernment was to provide for the common defense and if what we hear on the radios is
true, there is no one in the world that poses a real threat to this country at the moment.”

“What about promoting the general welfare and all that other crap?” Gary asked.

“The states can do that far more efficiently than a federal government,” Bush replied.
“I’ve had five years to think about this, you know.”

“Still pushing that conservative crap about women not having freedom of choice?” Linda
asked.

“Personally, I believe in that ‘crap’ as you call it, but no, the government doesn’t need to
meddle in personal affairs. I’ve often wondered if that rock hitting the planet wasn’t God
giving humanity a wakeup call of sorts,” Bush replied.

57
“Well Mr. President, I don’t envy you the task that lies ahead of you,” Ron said. “Only
the strong survived and there probably isn’t such a thing as liberal anymore among the
20 million or so Americans. We’ve all been mugged, as it were.”

“Good,” Bush replied, “If that’s really the case, there won’t be much interest in a federal
government and we can find a replacement for me and I can retire back to my ranch in
Crawford, assuming it’s still there.”

With Bush out of hiding, the people there in the area decided to butcher some beef and
throw a Texas style barbeque. During the barbeque, Bush took his new Lt. Col. aside.

“What did you do in the Army?” Bush asked.

“I was a gunner on an Abrams tank with the Iowa National Guard until we got sent to
Kosovo,” Derek replied, “Over there, I was an MP.”

“If you could rebuild the Army from the bottom up, how would you change it?” Bush
asked apparently genuinely interested.

“I would eliminate a lot of ranks,” Derek said, “There would be one General rank, one
Colonel rank, a Captain rank and a Lieutenant rank. There would be 4 enlisted ranks,
Recruit, Soldier, Sergeant and Sergeant Major. Then, I’d give the troops a living wage
and decent benefits.”

“How big of an Army would you have?” Bush continued.

“Just enough to do the job,” Derek replied, “And, I tell you something else I’d do differ-
ent. If any country threatened this country, I’d wipe them off the map.”

“What about diplomacy?” Bush asked.

“May I be blunt?” Derek asked.

“I asked, so answer,” Bush said.

“Diplomacy is the tool of those who don’t want to fight,” Derek said, “So is a nuclear
weapon. If someone wants to fight that badly, wipe them out; it is strictly survival of the
fittest.”

“Pretty extreme Colonel,” Bush responded.

“So tell them to be good boys Mr. President. They won’t believe you, but go ahead,”

58
Derek replied. “On the other hand, if you wipe out one country, the rest will fall in line.
Just be sure of your facts before you start the war next time.”

Bush had to admit that the boy had a point. The only trouble was getting reliable intelli-
gence in the first place. That was what had gotten him into trouble in Iraq.

After the barbeque, Bush sent for a large contingent of troops from Holloman and made
his way to Texas. He issued an Executive Order from Crawford, after they’d recaptured
the ranch, formalizing Derek’s commission and classifying the volunteer unit as a Re-
serve Army unit serving on active duty.

He sent out his minions trying to reorganize the country. It was the line like in the movie
Big Jake, more often than not, “I thought you was dead.” They announced federal elec-
tions for November of 2010, but first they had to get there. Bush refused to run for office
and there was some question whether he could do so legally. But, there was no Su-
preme Court to resolve the issue. He had only been elected to a single term in office
and never mind the intervening 5 years, he claimed he could run but didn’t want to.

The residents of Rattlesnake Springs wanted no part of politics and declined numerous
attempts to get them to participate in the 2010 elections. Besides, they said, November
2010 was a long way off. Derek was allowed to go to Ft. Hood Texas and return to the
Springs with a tank company. He didn’t need anything else to protect the people. Those
120mm cannons beat the crap out of those puny little 25mm guns others had urged him
to get.

Besides, he was an Army man, not some Marine and anything that went over 45mph
gave him a nosebleed. He did make one concession to his hero, General George S.
Patton, and found a nickel-plated .45 Colt revolver with those politically incorrect Ivory
grips.

The weather was actually warm enough that winter that they could work outside. It no
longer snowed much in their area. They took advantage of the situation and upgraded
their security 10-fold. They were still working on their wall when trouble blew in from El
Paso, TX.

That trouble came in the form of a small group of bad guys who took one look at the
tanks and backed down route 418 and turned back north on US 62/180 looking for easi-
er pickings. A sentry radioed Whites City and they took out after the people with their
tanks. They were only 5 minutes behind the thugs, but by the time they caught up, all
there was left for them to do was bury the bodies of the thugs.

Derek repositioned his tanks right on US 62/180, covering their south flank. He took 2
more to Carlsbad and likewise blocked the southbound lanes of US 62/180. Four went

59
to Artesia to block east and west US 82 and 3 went to Roswell to block east and west
US 380 and US 285. The folks were secure behind an Iron Curtain of their own making.

They went ahead and finished the wall enclosing the Rattlesnake Springs
campground/development, making sure to leave room for another 50 homes. They used
slip form construction and made the wall 10’ thick. There wasn’t exactly a shortage of
rock for the wall and concrete was easy enough to get. They didn’t really have to impro-
vise much; Derek had but to ask and sooner or later a convoy of trucks would show up
with whatever he wanted.

Gary told Derek being that he was so creative; he should find Al Gore and get the Inter-
net reinvented. Derek said he’d work on it, but he was worried about his Dad. Dad
seemed to be getting senile. For instance, he positively insisted that there was a flying
saucer at Roswell. Ron told Derek not to worry about Gary, he was just putting Derek
on, but down deep inside, he wasn’t all that sure anymore.

Gar-Bear was just clowning around. That long, tiring summer had practically worn him
out. They had everything sorted, categorized, stored and input into the inventory system
and he was too tired to do more than make jokes. The printout of their inventory ran
over 10,000 items and was 200 pages thick. It had been a task worthy of a corporate
MIS department, yet had been accomplished by a tired old computer hack from Califor-
nia and a group of young women. And, not a single item went into or out of inventory
without a paper trail being generated.

Ronald was content to play with his new guns. At Ft. Carson, they’d come up with some
sniper equipment and Ronald had himself a M-24 rifle with the M3A riflescope, a
AN/PVS-10 Sniper scope and thousands of rounds of the special M-118LR ball ammu-
nition.

What’s more, Ron had a M82A1A Barrett rifle with a Unertl 10-power scope manufac-
tured by Unertl, too, with a BDC to match the trajectory of .50 caliber Raufoss Grade A
(DODIC A606), which was the standard operational round, of which Ron had several
cans. Ron hadn’t fired either gun. You see, he also had a Barrett M82A1M/M107. That
rifle also came with a Unertl sight and an armorer modification and an AN/PVS-10 Snip-
er scope. Man, what an arsenal and all in the hands of a blind-in-one-eye, 67-year old
man who didn’t want to shoot the guns and wear out the rifling.

Clarence was content to sit at home and ‘read’ novels taken from a library. He was 69
and had wanted to read the classics before he died. He had never before had either the
time or the books. Now he had both and was intent on making up for lost time. His prob-
lem was that the two years of living in a dimly lit cave had taken a toll on his eyesight
and he had to contend with Lucy reading the books to him.

60
The three of them got together to commiserate.

“I’m too pooped to pop,” Gary admitted. “I’m too old to be playing computer whiz.”

“Well, I finally got all of those books and my eyes are bad,” Clarence announced.

“Let’s go shooting,” Ron suggested.

“What, and get all of your pretty new sniper rifles dirty?” Gary teased.

“Let’s face it fellas,” Ron responded, “The three of us are just sitting around waiting to
die. We didn’t go through all we’ve gone through in the last 5 years just to do that, so
come on, what do you say let’s get those rifles sighted in.”

It was a good thing all of those rifles had high power scopes and they were only shoot-
ing at 100-yards, they managed to hit the targets with most every shot. They had used
the filters off of cigarette butts as ear protectors and they should have known better. The
sharp crack from the unsuppressed Barrett’s did a real number on their hearing. While
they were shooting, they noticed that it was fairly warm for this time of year and they
were only wearing long sleeve shirts. What on earth was going on with the weather?

The men wouldn’t have liked the answer had they known it. The accumulation of green-
house gases in the atmosphere had been 100 times what man had poured into the at-
mosphere during the previous 100 years. In the southern hemisphere, the heat had
been stifling, drying out the vegetation. Lightning strikes had started fires and the rain-
forests that man had failed to burn off had burnt off as an indirect result of the strike.
The smoke had just further fueled the greenhouse gas accumulation and the planet was
now getting very hot. Where just 5 years earlier, most of the northern hemisphere was
covered in snow, the sun was now beating the soil and drying everything out.

Nature has a way of remedying cycles such as these. If there were still an internet, you
could search on the term ice age cycle and find out all sorts of interesting theories.
Those theories range from an 11,500-year cycle (it was 11,500 years since the last ice
age) to a 100,000-year cycles caused by shifts in the earth’s magnetic fields. Consider
this:

Fluctuations in the amount of insolation (incoming solar radiation) are the most likely
cause of large-scale changes in Earth’s climate during the Quaternary. In other words,
variations in the intensity and timing of heat from the sun are the most likely cause of
the glacial/interglacial cycles. This solar variable was neatly described by the Serbian
scientist, Milutin Milankovitch, in 1938.

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There are three major components of the Earth’s orbit about the sun that contribute to
changes in our climate. First, the Earth’s spin on its axis is wobbly, much like a spinning
top that starts to wobble after it slows down. This wobble amounts to a variation of up to
0.5° to either side of the axis.

The amount of tilt in the Earth’s rotation affects the amount of sunlight striking the differ-
ent parts of the globe. The greater the tilt, the stronger the difference in seasons (i.e.,
more tilt equals sharper differences between summer and winter temperatures). The
range of motion in the tilt (from left-of-center to right-of-center and back again) takes
place over a period of 41,000 years. As a result of a wobble in the Earth’s spin, the posi-
tion of the Earth on its elliptical path changes, relative to the time of year. This phenom-
enon is called the precession of equinoxes. The cycle of equinox precession takes
23,000 years to complete. In the growth of continental ice sheets, summer temperatures
are probably more important than winter.

And, consider this:

NASA has estimated that the Earth has a 1 in 10,000 chance of being hit by a large
comet or meteor which would conceivably throw enough gas and dust into the strato-
sphere to begin another Ice Age. This can be compared to a 1 in 9,100 chance of being
struck by lightning, a 1 in 12,000 chance of being murdered within a year, and a 1 in
4,600,000 possibility of dying in a plane crash. As outrageous as the idea may seem,
the only element remaining that could possibly set off a new Ice Age could be a singular
event such as the ones previously mentioned. All of which the human race could not re-
alistically prevent or control, but only delay the final conclusion for a short amount of
time.

At least 10,000 years have passed since the last great Ice Age, roughly the amount of
time between the average inter-glacial periods of which the longest lasted at most
12,000 years. Therefore, it is feasible that within the next 5,000 years an Ice Age will
occur that can only be hastened by the effects of humanity, which will reach a popula-
tion of 20 billion in 2030 causing only further upheaval in the environment.

Simply put, we’re overdue on this particular loan on time and it can only be extended for
an increasingly short interval. Perhaps the only question that remains is, ‘what will get
us first?’ Whether it will be war and nuclear weapons, over population, disease and vi-
ruses, Armageddon, or another Ice Age, the outcome does not look good even for the
brightest of optimists.

What was the name of that movie that came out back in 2004? Was it called The Day
After Tomorrow? It seems that at least the filmmakers found something to make a mov-
ie about, an Ice Age with a rapid onset. Yeah, but that was just a movie, wasn’t it?

Consider the guest column by Doug Fretty in the Brown Daily Herald of March 2, 2004.
“PARIS – Peter Schwartz and Doug Randall may have watched the trailer for The Day
After Tomorrow one too many times. This upcoming film by sci−fi whiz Roland Em-

62
merich depicts nations submerged by oceans and cities overtaken by glaciers. If only it
were just the stuff of science fiction.

“In a report commissioned by the Pentagon, Schwartz and Randall claim that such me-
teorological catastrophes may be less than a decade away. Melting glaciers in the North
Atlantic, they say, could release enough fresh water in the coming years to halt the flow
of the Gulf Stream and other carriers of warm salt water. The result would resemble
Armageddon: Great Britain plunged into an arctic freeze, vast parts of Florida and
Southern California flooded, mass starvation in China, 400 million people driven from
their homelands by famine and drought.

“Coupled with the escalating nuclear arms race, the Pentagon warns, such conditions
would inevitably engender aggression. ‘Disruption and conflict will be endemic features
of life,’ write Schwartz and Randall, predicting bloody disputes over land and water in
Southeast Asia and the former Soviet bloc. ‘Once again warfare would define human
life.’

“These findings, published in Fortune magazine by Pentagon defense adviser Andrew

Marshall, is a blistering embarrassment for the Bush administration. The document re-
jects Bush’s position that the greenhouse effect is ‘a theory’ and calls for the immediate
reduction of carbon dioxide emissions. Marshall, known to his peers as ‘Yoda,’ is not the
kind of man our cabinet typically ignores. Yet many defense chiefs struggled to keep his
report classified.

“Marshall’s troubling announcement coincides with the Union of Concerned Scientists’

charge that the Bush administration distorts scientific facts for its political convenience.
The Union’s open letter to the president is signed by 20 Nobel laureates. The scientific
community seems to be raising the volume on its plea: Time to get serious about cli-
mate change!

“Doomsday scenarios as described by Schwartz and Randall will not come gradually;
an ocean current does not shift in small, linear increments. Rather, there is a ‘tipping
point’ for fresh water saturation, a bright line separating order and chaos. The environ-
mental policies of our nation and others will decide whether that threshold is crossed.

“It’s unlikely that Bush, notoriously beholden to the fossil fuel industry, will overhaul his
environmental plan any time soon. Shutting down the Kyoto Agreement was merely the
beginning; the White House routinely shuns carbon dioxide regulation and fails to pun-
ish companies who violate the already lax emission codes of the United States.

“Powerful Democrats, however, are being courted for reform by a diverse watchdog
group called the Apollo Alliance. Uniting such unlikely bedfellows as the UAW and the
Sierra Club, the Alliance has drawn up a plan to phase renewable energy into the Amer-
ican economy. Expect this plan, which diverts $70 million in corporate welfare breaks
toward ‘clean energy’ infrastructure, to wield some force at the party’s Boston conven-
tion.

63
“Frontrunner John Kerry has endorsed the Apollo Project, and all Democrats would be
smart to embrace the Alliance with open arms. The Project is a job−creating, emis-
sions−dousing machine that could hold our planet on this side of the tipping point.
And besides, nothing says ‘swing vote’ like a pro−labor, tree−hugging millionaire. Right,
John?”

“Douglas Fretty ‘05 dislikes the Paris bureaucracy.”

I guess you get the picture, right? There is a theory that a global warming caused by
excess greenhouse gasses in the atmosphere could cause an Ice Age. The strange
thing about that theory was that Gary had seen a presentation on one of the Discovery
family of channels about that very theory. He saw the program years before Schwartz
and Randall wrote their paper or the movie was made.

Gary tried to convince everyone that the heat wave was deceptive and that it could ac-
tually indicate the beginning of a new Ice Age. Some of the folks thought he was still
clowning around and others were convinced that he was just senile. So, Gary shut up
about it. He could be wrong, he admitted to himself, but he didn’t think so; and he fig-
ured he might not live to see it anyway.

Gary did know one thing, for sure. If a new Ice Age were coming, it wouldn’t be like they
showed it in that movie. There would be a sharp reversal in the warming trend followed
by years of cooling and a gradual buildup of ice. Gary was wrong; not as wrong as the
movie, but wrong, nonetheless.

The folks hadn’t seen as much game, it had probably returned north when the sky
cleared, but because they had beef, pork and chicken, they paid no particular notice to
the absence of the game animals. To the extent that anyone even gave it a second
thought, they attributed the change to hunting pressures. Life was taking on a normalcy
during the winter of 2009-2010. The three old men got into shooting big time and by the
time spring rolled around could hit a target consistently at 300-yards. It surely had been
a warm winter, but when spring came it didn’t warm up nearly as much as they ex-
pected.

Aaron suggested that except for transporting diesel fuel and propane, and locating addi-
tional doublewide mobile homes, they didn’t need to scavenge much this summer. The
folks from Denver had spent a lot of their winter analyzing the inventory and had high-
lighted problems they perceived were in need of fixing. They had a list of the shortages
and said they could fit it all in one semi-trailer.

So, they hooked up to an empty trailer, the empty tankers and gathered the group of
scavengers from the communities and set off for Albuquerque and Denver. They filled
the tankers with diesel and propane in Albuquerque and sent them back to southern

64
New Mexico. They continued the trip to Denver to get the few things they needed and
more mobile homes.

Filling in their shortages wasn’t at all difficult and the semi was soon heading south with
more goods for the logistics people to sort, categorize, store and record. Finding new
mobile homes proved to be a harder task and they even had to disassemble some
erected models to find another dozen homes for the development. Derek went along on
the trip and although he couldn’t find any more of the sniper rifles like Ron had, he did
find 2 Super Match M1A rifles for his Dad and Clarence. He did notice that Denver was
cooler than the previous year, but didn’t give it much thought.

The development at Rattlesnake Springs had a goodly number of empty homes and
was getting more. They had been very selective about whom they allowed to move into
their fledgling community. Most everyone was a survivor, but they only wanted survival-
ists with skills they could incorporate into the community with diverse skills. They
couldn’t have cared less about ethnicity, religion (no Muslims, though) or things of that
nature.

They were sort of looking for the butcher, the baker, mechanics and the like. They
wanted a real carpenter or two and a doctor if they could find one. Aaron had hooked on
to two of those portable classrooms in the Denver area and had towed them back. They
used one for a medical clinic and the other as a security/business office. The only build-
ing they wanted, but didn’t have was a Community Center.

“If you really want a building for a community center,” Aaron pointed out, “We could go
back to Albuquerque and/or Denver and see about another prefabricated steel building.
We could probably use some medical equipment for that clinic, too. Why doesn’t some-
one go up to Roswell and talk to the doctor up there? Maybe he can give us a list of
what we need for our clinic.”

“Sounds good to me Aaron,” Ron concurred, “But we need a doctor as much as we

need medical equipment. The building for the community center doesn’t have to be as
big as the warehouse either, if that would help. If there are any more of those portable
classrooms, you might want to drag a couple more of those back too.”

“There are a few things I would like to see you get, too,” Gary suggested. “You’re the
telephone guys, how about you get some phones to connect all of the homes and some
more computer equipment?”

“The phones should be easy enough,” Bob said, “But what did you have in mind for
computer equipment?”

“Nothing special,” Gary said, “We should put in a server and a network connecting all of
the homes. You’re going to have to put in wire for the phones, so we might just as well
string some category 5e cable and put in some repeaters and build a network. Take
Derek along, he will know what to get.”

65
After they’d gotten a list of equipment from the doctor in Roswell, they set off for a sec-
ond trip to Denver. Gary wasn’t looking to build a domain/client network, he was thinking
more peer-to-peer. The server he had in mind would just be a file server for the invento-
ry records and for people to back up their hard disk drives onto. It would be a totally
closed system within the community. Laptops would do just fine he had told Derek, and
be sure to get plenty of software. He also warned Derek that since they didn’t have any-
one who qualified as a computer specialist to keep it simple.

The trip back to Denver really bore fruit. They found a 60’x100’ foot steel building to use
as a community center. They picked up a business telephone system, complete, and
capable of handling up to 100 stations. They gutted a bar and had a bar and back bar
and tables and chairs and a jukebox. They cleaned out a couple of liquor stores. They
also gutted a dentist’s office and took a chair and all of his equipment. A hospital pro-
vided them with a portable X-ray machine, 8 hospital beds, examination tables, a surgi-
cal suite and everything the doctor had suggested and more. They hooked on to 4 of
the portable classrooms and towed them back.

Derek didn’t have all that much trouble coming up with regular computers, laptops and
software, but he couldn’t figure out what his Dad had in mind for a server. Bob took
Derek to his company’s offices in Englewood and they scrounged around in the MIS
department. Derek found a computer in a full tower case and read the bill of lading. The
unit was a dual-processor (Xeon) unit with six HDD’s set up in a type 10 RAID array. He
took that and all of the new software he could find. It would be up to his Dad to figure
this one out. Category 5 cable was easy to find, but Gary had been very specific about
category 5e cable. It took them a day before they came up with some spools of the bulk
cable and the appropriate connectors and tools to install the connectors.

They stopped in every community on the way back looking for a doctor or dentist. It just
wasn’t their day, however, and they came home empty handed with respect to medical
professionals. They did get the doctor to Roswell to come down to the development and
help them set everything up, however. They set up an 8-bed hospital ward in one class-
room. In a second trailer they set up the operating suite, the dentist’s office, examination
rooms and an X-Ray room. And, they began to ‘advertise’ on the Ham network for a
doctor and dentist.

66
 The Rock – Chapter 7 – Doctor, Doctor

Eventually they began to get responses to their requests for a doctor and dentist. The
responses came from the Los Angeles area. An MD, who had been in his 3rd year of
residency when the strike came, had been looking for a new place to live. ‘As far from
California has he could get’ or so he said. Having not finished his 3rd year, he had been
forced to work as a Physician’s Assistant, but he wanted his own practice. They offered
him and his RN wife a home, a hospital and a practice. He was on the way. A retired
Dentist who was also a Ham was intrigued by their offer and he, too was offered a home
and an exclusive practice. He said he’d think it over, but showed up a month later.

Rattlesnake Springs was a lot closer than Roswell for some of the people in the area
and the doctor and dentist soon found themselves with more patients than they could
imagine. Everyone at the Springs was given a complete physical for the first time in 5-6
years and all of those bad teeth were repaired. Apparently the rugged living agreed with
everyone, aside from making minor adjustments to their medications, the doctor pro-
nounced them all fit. Unfortunately, the dentist couldn’t come up with crowns for their
teeth and teeth in need of crowns had to be pulled.

Rattlesnake Springs, as a community, was coming together. They had a doctor, a den-
tist, 2 nurses, had found themselves a baker and a butcher an even a computer special-
ist who undid the mess that Gary had made of the computer network and set up a prop-
er network. Nothing fancy, but it worked a lot better than his client/server network
worked much better than Gary’s peer-to-peer network.

The telephone system had been installed for the development and even had 3 outside
lines to Whites City. They had several applications from preachers looking for a new
congregation, but invariably when they got to asking, few of the candidates were non-
denominational and those that were tended to be far too fundamentalist for their liking.
A couple of foremen for construction contractors joined the community and they had
their building tradesmen.

It was strangely cold that summer of 2010, too. Only Gary gave that much thought,
however. He suggested that they were in for one hell of a winter, but they didn’t believe
him.

True to his word, the President moved from state to state, helping the people to restore
some form of state government. It was up to the people to establish their own govern-
ments, he told them, but he would offer advice, if they wanted it. The 20 million or so
survivors were a hard lot and aside from putting together state assemblies or similar or-
ganizations, wanted no part of a new federal government. That was fine with Bush; he
resigned and returned to Crawford.

They had quite a crop of children at the Springs, too. All of those teenagers had grown
and married and were fruitful and multiplied. Ruth, more than anyone else, was happy
that they finally had a doctor even though she turned out to be a pretty good

67
nurse/midwife.

The summer of 2010 proved to be the last summer that people moved back up north.
The Gulf Stream was already submerged although no one had the slightest idea. It was
nature healing itself. The excessive greenhouse gases opened the hole in the ozone
layer over the South Pole to the point where it extended to 60 degrees south latitude.

The ice cap over Antarctica was beginning to melt. It wouldn’t quite flood the coasts as
badly as predicted, but the fresh water did halt the flow of the Gulf Stream. The predict-
ed deaths in China never happened, there was no one alive to die, but they would have.
In fact, the effect was far less dramatic than the movie showed. The world simply began
to cool off.

The cooling had an interesting effect. All of that water that evaporated started to fall as
rain and it just didn’t rain in the southern hemisphere, but everywhere. That further
cooled the atmosphere. And, in the northern hemisphere, as fall became winter, the rain
became snow. It was a sharp departure from just a year before when it had been a
warm winter. It wasn’t cold enough yet for a lot of snow and most of the moisture fell in
the southern hemisphere rather than in the north, but…

“I tried to tell you it was going to snow again,” Gary protested.

“It’s not even deep enough that you need a shovel Gar-Bear,” Ron laughed. “Five years
ago it got 20’ deep.”

“And maybe five years from now it might get 40’ deep,” Gary snorted. “Look, we have
enough equipment that we could completely wire the caverns so we wouldn’t be in the
dark. All I’m suggesting is that we get prepared, just in case.”

There were those awful 3 words again, ‘just in case’. Every time someone uttered them
it was like an omen of bad things to come. Ron had to admit that Gary did have a point.
They already had a substantial amount of food in the caverns, just in case, so why not
make them ready just on the off chance that Gary was right. The beds and such were
still in the cavern; they had started out with new furniture in the mobile homes and then
ended up with extra because the folks from Denver had brought their household goods
back. Before he was done thinking about it, Ron had talked himself into implementing
Gary’s suggestion, and now was as good a time as any to begin.

First Ron figured he had to talk Clarence into the idea. Clarence was resistant, saying
he’d had enough of living in a cold, dark, and damp cave to last him a lifetime. Ron
didn’t press because Clarence usually came around. Instead, he got out the map of
caverns they had made and the inventory printout. He spent weeks figuring just where
to put everything. The caverns were immense and there was more than enough room
for everything except the diesel and propane storage. But, he had an idea or two how to

68
solve that problem. He even went so far as to get one of David’s boys to help him map
the northern cavern.

Ron found a branch cavern in the northern cavern that was 135’ long, 60’ wide and 35’
high as near as he could estimate. The cavern was very near the tunnel that they had
blocked off in the early days. He calculated that the cavern had a gross volume of about
283,500 cubic feet. He multiplied by 7.5 convert the space to gallons and came up with
over 2.1 million gallons storage capacity. What he had in mind was to line the cavern
with concrete and turn it into a storage facility for their diesel fuel. The entrance to this
cavern was big enough, once the camouflage was stripped away, to almost drive a truck
through.

“Clarence, can I talk to you for a while?” Ron asked, “I want to bounce some ideas off
you.”

“I always have time for you Ron,” Clarence smiled, “What’s up?”

“I got some help and mapped that northern cavern,” Ron explained. “There’s a cavern
room there large enough to store all of our diesel fuel.”

“Why would you want to do that? And how?” Clarence asked.

“Look, I’ve been working on Gary’s idea…” Ron started.

“I told you I ain’t moving back into those caves,” Clarence cut him off.

“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” Ron retorted, “I wasn’t thinking about us as much as our supplies.
We have diesel tankers strung out all over the place. I figured we could line that cavern
with concrete to seal it off and store our diesel in there.”

“Did you ever spill oil on your driveway Ron?” Clarence asked.

“Yeah, so what?” Ron replied.

“Soaked right in didn’t it?” Clarence was making a point.

“Yeah, so?” Ron became defensive.

“Your idea is good as far as it goes, Ron,” Clarence responded, “But we ought to line
that room with plate steel. It wouldn’t take much; the concrete and the walls of the cav-
ern would support the weight of the fuel. I remember seeing some ¼” or ⅜” plate up in
Albuquerque. It would be a lot of work, but we could line the storage with steel.”

With that, Ron realized that Clarence was aboard. They could bring back propane tanks

69
from Denver, there were plenty, could convert the branch cavern to a 2 million gallon
fuel storage. Ron also had it in mind to move all of the supplies to the north cavern
complex and put the generators and everything there. That would limit their exposure to
any more bad guys. After a daylong session debating with the Denver fellas, he had
everyone aboard and the contractors started immediately on converting the chamber to
a fuel bunker.

They got a fair amount of snow that year, but it was nothing like back after the strike,
maybe a foot, more or less. By the time spring came, the contractors had managed to
complete the concrete work and the bunker was ready for its lining. They had moved
the extra generators into the northern cavern, too and they were just waiting to be wired
up and fueled. They had discovered a crack that ran all the way to the surface from the
cavern and enlarged it, planning to use it for fuel lines and generator exhaust. Things
were coming along.

It was a large convoy that set off for Albuquerque and Denver in the spring of 2011. A
man from Artesia and another from Roswell were welders so they had the means to
complete the lining. A few semis returned from Albuquerque with the plate steel, it was
⅜”, and the welders got busy welding the lining. In Denver, they picked up 5 more of the
30,000-gallon propane tanks, massive amounts of electrical wiring and lighting. Sharon
used to grow violets and they had fashioned grow lamps using 2-bulb, 4’ florescent fix-
tures. They used one cool white bulb and one warm white bulb to duplicate natural sun-
light. It must have worked; Sharon had won awards at more than one violet show.

No sooner than the welders had finished than they began to fill the fuel bunker. The
work went on non-stop and they eventually got all of the fuel transferred, the lighting in
and the generators online. The propane tanks had been very difficult to get into the cav-
ern, but they had managed. They transferred the propane to the new tanks and relocat-
ed 5 of the old tanks, transferred propane a second time and moved the last 5 tanks. It
had been a long summer, in terms of the amount of work they’d done, but their fuel and
food supplies and generation capacity was all safely tucked away in the northern cav-
erns. If they hadn’t had a lot of help from the communities, they wouldn’t have gotten
the job done.

Derek continued to work with the security force. The commanders of the Roswell Com-
pany and the Carlsbad Company were retired Gunnery Sergeants and they weren’t par-
ticularly comfortable being officers. But they had whipped their companies into superb
fighting units. They hadn’t had anyone to fight, but if they ever did, they were ready. The
commanders of the Artesia Company and Whites City Companies were ex-Army. One
had been a commander of a tank unit at one time. Derek gave the extra Abrams tanks
to the ex-armor commander, the fella from Whites City, and everyone trained and
trained.

70
They had so many light fixtures and so many bulbs that they decided to try an experi-
ment. They created a vast area of lighting with the improvised grow lights and added a
little heat from propane heaters. They put the lights on timers to duplicate day and night
and planted crops in soil they had dragged in and enriched with manure. Voila! They
could produce vegetables year round. And they wouldn’t have to dodge rattlesnakes
anymore.

Ron didn’t say anything to Clarence, but they converted the makeshift quarters in their
original caves to nice, habitable living quarters, just in case. When all of the supplies
had been transferred to the northern cavern, the warehouse had been dismantled and
moved outside of the walled in area and reassembled, making room for lots of additional
houses. A second medical facility was created in extra space in the cavern originally oc-
cupied by the Colorado people. The convoys had been continuous, hauling in extra
equipment, supplies and fuel. Their inventory of supplies grew as Aaron and the guys
brought in spare parts for everything.

The snow came a little earlier in the fall of 2011 and it was a little heavier. They all
charged it up to seasonal fluctuations and Gary just kept his mouth shut. It didn’t matter
anyway, they could live above ground or underground and with the lighting scheme, it
didn’t make one hell of a lot of difference. Ham radio reports indicated that people
hadn’t moved much farther north than mid-America, finding that the winters further north
were getting to be troublesome.

One of the things that Aaron and the others involved in the supply operations had dis-
covered was that absent the government to maintain and repair the roads, travel was
becoming difficult. The roads were falling into a serious state of disrepair. Consequently,
they opted to bring in supplies primarily from Colorado. Later, if the roads shelled out,
they could still try and get fuel from Albuquerque. It wasn’t that the roads were so heavi-
ly traveled, but the simple fact that 7 years of no maintenance of the roads that were
subject to freeze and thaw was taking its toll.

Gary had a map of the US that he marked all of the Ham radio contacts on. He had not-
ed the steady progression northward of the radio contacts in the time immediately fol-
lowing when he established contact with Lee up in Arkansas. The contacts had, in iso-
lated cases, been as far north as Iowa, Illinois, Indiana and Ohio. More recently, how-
ever, those contacts had dropped off the map in their northern locations and had resur-
faced further south in places like South Carolina, Georgia and Arkansas. He wondered
if that signified that he was right about the coming ice age.

Normally an ice age lasted over 10,000-years. However, this series of events was not
the norm, having been triggered by the asteroid strike and subsequent events. And in
any event, the previous ice age had only gotten about as far south as Iowa. At least

71
that’s what Gary had been taught in the geology class he’d taken back in 1965 at Iowa
State University.

Besides, they were in southern New Mexico, not all that far from the Mexican border,
and they didn’t have much to fear. Gary wouldn’t have admitted to anyone else, but he
figured the 20’ snowfall of 2004 was an extreme anomaly and that even if they got to an
ice age, they wouldn’t get nearly that much snow.

If Gary had told Ron that we’re going to get 8’ of snow in 5-years, Ron probably wouldn’t
have reacted as he had. However, the results of Ron’s 9-month long project had been
dramatic. It was almost as if the caverns were islands where they had all of the essen-
tials carefully protected and stored away. With the experiment with growing food, they
were no longer subservient to a fickle Nature and could grow food the year round. Some
of the foods, like the tomatoes, had that ‘hot-house’ flavor, but they had been eating
‘hot-house’ tomatoes for years before the strike.

During the fall of 2011, a biker had shown up in Roswell and he had mentioned that he
was looking for a Gary Olsen. He had a beard that went almost to his waist and hair just
as long. He was riding a Harley Davidson motorcycle that probably dated back to 2000.
People stayed upwind of him, but they directed him to Rattlesnake Springs. The guy
didn’t appear to be much of a problem, he wasn’t threatening in any way, so they fig-
ured it was none of their business. They did contact Derek and tell him that a biker was
looking for Derek’s Dad.

Derek met the biker when he pulled in to the Rattlesnake Springs development. At first
there was disbelief and then a lot of hugging with Derek holding his breath. Derek took
the man to his home and made him take a shower. Then, he took him to the beautician
and had his beard cut off and his hair shortened by a foot or more. Underneath all of the
hair and grime was Derek’s brother, Damon. When he finally got Damon semi present-
able, he and Damon went over to Gary and Sharon’s.

“Hi Dad,” Damon said.

“It’s been 7 years and all I get is a ‘Hi Dad’,” Gary snorted.

“You’re too ugly to kiss,” Damon laughed.

“Where the hell have you been for 7 years?” Gary asked after they’d hugged. “And what
became of the kids?”

“Carrie took off with the kids before I could get there,” Damon said. “I’ve spent the last 7
years trying to find them.”

72
“Yes, and…” Gary asked.

“They are in Louisiana Dad,” Damon said. “You wouldn’t know them. Hell, I barely did.”

“Ok, so they’re alive?” Gary asked.

“All three of them,” Damon confirmed. “I tried to get them to come with me, but since I
didn’t know if you were alive, they didn’t come.”

“How did you find me?” Gary asked.

“Pretty much by accident,” Damon admitted. “I mentioned your name in Roswell and
they sent me here.”

“What were you doing in Roswell?” Gary asked.

“Cruising, Dad,” Damon said, “Just cruising.”

“Not looking for me, huh?” Gary asked.

“I thought you were dead, and Derek, too,” Damon explained.

“You got the cruising out of your system yet?” Gary asked.

“Well, yeah,” Damon replied, “But it would sure be nice if we could get the kids here
from Louisiana.”

“Don’t worry about it Damon,” Derek replied, “We’ll go after the kids. But, they must al-
most be adults by now.”

“Britney is 20, as a matter of fact,” Damon replied, “But they’re still kids to me.”

“Can we just drive over to wherever they are, or do we need to go in force?” Derek
asked.

“Carrie is somewhat of a Queen Bee down there and she was violently opposed to the
kids coming with me,” Damon said, “Is that any help?”

“What do the kids want?” Gary asked.

“They wanted to come with me Dad, but Carrie wouldn’t let them even if I could have
taken them,” Damon answered.

“Derek, could you see to the rescue of you niece and nephews?” Gary asked.

73
“Come with me Damon,” Derek said, “I need to get you checked out on an M16.”

Derek preferred to use the Humvees and he got the two Companies led by the Marines.
There must have been something awfully intimidating about 400-armed soldiers driving
Humvees equipped with TOW Launchers, Mk-19’s and Ma Deuces. They were back in
3 weeks with the ‘kids’ in tow. Gary was so glad to have his family together that he was
walking on clouds. Ron was still looking on the Ham bands for Paula and his brother
Robert. He’d learned earlier that Sheila and her husband hadn’t made it.

“Ron, why don’t we just go to Robert’s and see if he made it?” Gary suggested.

“Gar-Bear, it has been 7 years,” Ron said, “They’re probably dead.”

“But you won’t have any peace until you know for sure,” Gary said. “Besides, it not that
far away. I don’t know why you didn’t go there years ago looking for Bob.”

“I guess I was afraid of what I would find,” Ron said.

“Come on, we’ll get Derek and some of those soldiers of his and go up Farmington
way,” Gary insisted.

Robert actually lived in a community called Cedar Hill, just south of the Colorado border
on US 550. At the end of their journey, they had mixed news. Robert and his wife had
died during the summer of 2005 due to natural causes, but Paula and Mark were living
in Robert’s home and they had 3 children. Ron felt bad about Robert, but he had had a
really bad heart, so the news wasn’t unexpected.

On the other hand, he now had all of his kids accounted for except Scott, Paula’s broth-
er. Ron hadn’t heard from Scott since 2003 when he got out of prison for bank robbery
and neither had Paula. Scott had gotten off lighter than Ron had expected. He had all of
the money from the robberies buried in his back yard and they recovered all but few
thousand dollars of the money he had stolen. Ron didn’t know if they had given Scott a
shorter sentence because they’d recovered the money or because Scott was just plain
stupid.

Aaron, Bob and Jacob had brought in every decent doublewide they could find and had
even managed to assemble a few before the snow came in 2011. Britney and her hus-
band took one and Paula and Mark a second. Damon, Aaron and Eric took a third. With
their families mostly accounted for, the three old geezers were pretty content. Clarence
had tracked down his sister in Alabama and she was doing fine.

74
This wasn’t the end of their story, by any means; it was just the end of round one.
Round one had consisted of surviving the strike, dealing with a few bad guys and pre-
paring for round two. Round two would prove to be far more difficult than round one, but
they were superbly prepared.

Many of the original residents sensed, rather than knew, that they had missed some-
thing. It was like it was right there in front of their face staring at them, daring them to
see it, but they were caught up in not remembering the past and thinking only of the fu-
ture. All they would have had done is remember when they first came to Carlsbad Cav-
erns…

“You know Ronald McDonald that we’ve been here at these caverns for 7 years and
we’ve never seen the main Cavern,” Gary said, “I always wanted to see it, so why don’t
we find someone in Whites City who used to work in the Cavern and get him or her to
give us the guided tour?”

“You’ve seen one cave, you’ve them all,” Ron objected.

“You’re no fun,” Gary said, “There’s supposed to be some really pretty rock formations
in the Cavern.”

“Oh all right. You find a guide and we’ll get everyone together who wants to see the
rocks and do the tour,” Ron gave in.

The men never gave a thought to the fact that 7 years earlier they had been fired on
when they tried to enter the Cavern. Besides, no one would be there anymore; the last
bunch had been the group in the northern caverns, right? And, 7 years, I mean really,
who could live in a cave for 7 years without coming out? No one, but if Gary hadn’t cre-
ated such a paperwork nightmare accounting for their inventory, they might have no-
ticed that they were short a lot of supplies, mostly food and a little diesel fuel.

The shortages had been noticed by some, when they transferred to supplies to the cav-
ern, but they just adjusted the inventory records to match the actual inventory and had
never brought it up. Inventory shrinkage was a common problem and had been since
inventory records had been kept. Someone would get in a hurry and help himself or
herself and then forget to generate the paperwork that went with the withdrawal. And,
given Gary’s penchant for perfectionism, it wasn’t any wonder that the inventory records
were off.

About half of the residents at Rattlesnake Springs wanted to do the tour and they gath-
ered 2 days before Christmas of 2011 to see the sights. A tour guide had been located;
a ranger from before the strike, and they were assembled at the Visitors Center pre-
pared to make the tour. Ron led off, bold as you please, he wanted to get this over with.
Kablam! The report of the rifle sent them all scurrying. Ron was down with a round in
the shoulder.

75
 The Rock – Chapter 8 – Bad, Bad, LeRoy Brown

Whoa!

Well ‘ole south side of Chicago

Is the baddest part of town
And if you go down there
You better just beware
Of a man name of Leroy Brown

Now Leroy more than trouble

You see he stand about six foot four
All those downtown ladies call him “Treetop Lover”
All the mens just call him “Sir”
And he’s bad, bad Leroy Brown
The baddest man in the whole damn town
Badder than a-old King Kong
And meaner than a junkyard dog

Ron Green was shot in the left shoulder. The shoulder wound would heal. But, Ron
could have taught Leroy a thing or two about being bad. Over the course of his life, Ron
had been shot, stabbed and had the crap kicked out of him. Ron wasn’t 6’4” tall; but he
was the meanest 5’5” package on the planet. And he was po’d. He hadn’t wanted to go
into that cave in the first place, either.

John set off the security alarms and Derek came running with a Mk-19 equipped Hum-
mer and a tank. National monument or not, they filled the entrance of the main Cavern
with a steady stream of Mk-19 fire and .50 caliber fire. When they figured that there
couldn’t be a soul alive inside of the Cavern, they entered cautiously. Everything was
shot up and some of the rock formations were in a sorry state; but they didn’t find a sin-
gle body. In fact, the only thing they found was a single .308 cartridge casing.

One of the things they brought a lot of back from Ft. Carson was Claymore mines. They
set up a heavily interlaced field of 12 Claymores and backed out of the cavern. This was
going to require some careful planning before they checked it out further. Obviously,
whoever was in the main cavern knew the place like the back his/her/their hand(s).

They had taken Ron to the Clinic and the doctor had taken him to surgery, cleaned and
dressed his wound. The shot had been through and through, probably a FMJ round.
Although it had missed bone, Ron had a couple of blood vessels torn up and would be
out of action for a while. The doctor had used a local anesthetic but given Ron’s state of
agitation, he also gave him a strong sedative. If he hadn’t, Ron would have surely gone
hunting for whoever shot him.

76
They weren’t in any particular rush to clean out that cavern; it seemed to spell trouble.
After Christmas dinner, Aaron and Gary filled Derek in on the fact that 6 and 7 years
earlier they had been shot at when they tried to approach the main cavern. Derek got
over being angry that they hadn’t bothered to fill him in on that piece of information. As
far as Ron was concerned, he was chomping at the bit to kick some butt. That wasn’t
going to happen anytime soon. When you’re 70 years old, your body doesn’t heal like it
did when you were a teenager.

After the first of the year, Derek got his company commanders to hand pick their very
best men and women to run a sweep of the cavern. Altogether the force was about the
size of a platoon. They started out by laying some suppressing fire from a machine gun
and then they carefully entered the cavern. Derek had a detailed map of the cavern
courtesy of a filing cabinet in the Visitor Center. Their first task was to disarm the Clay-
mores to allow them freedom of movement.

“Oh crap!” Derek exclaimed.

“What?” one of his people asked.

“Where are the Claymores?” Derek asked no one in particular.

“Ain’t no Claymores here boss,” someone else said.

“There were a week ago,” Derek explained, “We planted 12 of them with the trip wire
triggers. Everyone back on out of here and we’ll rethink this one more time.”

The missing Claymores told them something about the people in the cavern. In order to
disarm a Claymore, you had to replace the safety pins and follow a specific set of pro-
cedures. That suggested to them that whoever was in the cavern were familiar with
Claymore mines and that probably meant military.

And, according to the map, there were a lot of places for them to set up ambushes.
Worse; now, they had a dozen Claymore mines! If they used lights in the cavern, they
would be announcing their position to whoever was inside. If they used night vision
equipment, they might miss the trip wires. Talk about a lose-lose situation.

Derek wasn’t about to put his people in that situation. He put the tank to good use and
its 120mm cannon closed the entrance to the main cavern. National monument or not,
Derek had responsibilities and he wasn’t about to risk the lives of anyone digging out
the people in that cavern. Then, he went back to the filing cabinet and got the complete
set of carefully surveyed maps of the entire Carlsbad Cavern complex. It appeared to
him and others that there were several interconnecting passageways between the main
cavern and their north cavern complex.

One of those old Gunnery Sergeants told him that there might be unmapped tunnels
connecting the main cavern and their cavern. He had suggested that they leave a sin-

77
gle, somewhat obscure tunnel open and block the others. They could count on the peo-
ple in the main cavern trying to get into their cavern, he suggested, and if they left one
passageway open, odds might favor the people in the other cavern using it to get out of
the main cavern. So, they blocked all but one of those tunnels and set a guard on the
remaining tunnel, 24/7.

It’s time to introduce the people in the other cavern. They were six Army soldiers tempo-
rarily housed at the stockade at Peterson AFB. In the confusion surrounding the an-
nouncement of the pending strike back in 2004, they had somehow managed to escape
from the stockade.

Some of them were well-trained soldiers and some of them just your average grunt. But,
they had one thing in common, they were mean. They had managed to steal arms and
ammunition and in the confusion leading up to the strike had made it to the main cav-
ern. They had a fair amount of food and the like, but over the past 7 years had been
foraging at night, stealing a little here and a little there. The new settlement at Rattle-
snake Springs had proved to be a Godsend for them and they had taken a little here
and a little there, but never enough to attract attention.

In was during this period of time that the gals finally brought Gary a list of the adjust-
ments they had made to the inventory. Some of the adjustments made sense, like a
missing part to a vehicle, but some did not. Gary couldn’t believe that they could be off
that much in their inventory of food. Their food was their lifeblood and every pound of
flour; every container of vegetables and the like was accounted for very carefully. So, he
took the information to Derek.

“What else are we missing besides food?” Derek asked.

“I can’t be sure Derek, “Gary replied. “The parts and such are probably just poor record-
keeping, but we’re off a little on the diesel fuel. It’s not enough to be sure if were missing
any or not, though.”

“Hmm, this looks like enough food for 6 people for a year or 12 people for 6 months,”
Derek said.

“Better figure 6 people for a year son,” Gary suggested, “The shrinkages have been go-
ing on for a long time.”

Ok, we’ll assume 6 people then,” Derek said.

“How is the work going sealing off the main cavern from our north cavern?” Gary asked
out of curiosity.

78
“We’re over halfway done, Dad,” Derek responded, “And I have guards stationed 24/7 at
the tunnels we haven’t closed yet.”

“Are you sure you have identified all of the tunnels?” Gary asked.

“You can never be totally sure about something like that Dad,” Derek answered, “So
we’re closing off all of the tunnels going north out of the northern cavern.”

“I’d feel better if we had a guard on the food, too,” Gary proposed.

“Ok, Dad, and do you want guards on anything else?” Derek inquired, a bit irked.

“No, that ought to do it,” Gary replied, not realizing he’d upset Derek.

“Here you go Dad,” Derek said handing Gary an M16.

“What’s that for?” Gary asked.

“You have the first shift of guard duty on the food,” Derek replied evenly.

“I’m too old for this crap,” Gary responded.

“It was your idea, so get to it,” Derek laughed.

Gary reluctantly took the M16 and headed for the north cavern. When he got there, he
discovered that Derek already had guards on the food. Derek had made his point; from
now on Gary intended to leave security up to Derek and John. He trudged back to the
security office and gave Derek back the M16. His only comment was, “Butthead.”

Ron was feeling a lot better. His shoulder was slowly healing, but the better his shoulder
got, the worse his disposition became. He wanted to take a Ma Deuce and guard the
one tunnel they planned to leave open. Gary was able to dissuade him by squeezing
Ron’s shoulder and Ron reeled from the pain. Well, maybe in a couple of weeks, he
could go. Gary told Ron about Derek sending him to guard the food and Ron seemed to
get the message. Better leave the security to the younger folks.

In the main cavern, the men had retreated to the farthest reaches of the cave, setting up
the Claymores as they went. It was well into February before they ventured out of their
hiding places. When they got to the entrance of the cavern, they discovered what all of
the cannon fire had been about. The entrance was completely sealed. That was okay
with them, they could always get out of the main cavern going to the cavern to the south
where all that food was stored or out a tunnel to the north. Two of them went on a little
recon and they discovered that the people had increased security significantly. They

79
were running low on food; however, they normally made a foraging trip about once a
month. They began to check the tunnels to the south cavern and found all but one
blocked.

“That’s obviously a trap,” the leader said. “I guess we’d better get our food from town.”

“Won’t they have higher security, too?” one of the men asked.

“Maybe or maybe not,” the leader said, “But it’s a hell of a lot less risky than walking into
that trap.”

Derek’s maps of the main cavern were very detailed and they showed the tunnel exiting
to the north. He could have blocked the tunnel off, but it was no immediate threat to
them. They had the one tunnel to the northern cavern covered and he figured this was
his opportunity to get to know his enemy. They would no doubt come out of the tunnel
eventually.

When his guards reported that two men had come out and reconnoitered a little, he did
nothing. There had to be more than two people in that cave. His patience was finally
rewarded when around the first of March six men exited the cavern and headed towards
Whites City. His people followed the men at a distance and the men went into Whites
City, gathered up some food and returned to the cave.

Was that all of them, Derek wondered? He would have only sent half of his force on a
scavenging trip, so were these six men the entire group or half of the force? All of that
was beside the point, he decided. He had 6 sure targets. And, he couldn’t just leave
them in the main cavern because what if there was an unmapped tunnel?

He didn’t want any of his people injured getting those bad guys either, so he set up two
.50 caliber machine guns across from the north exit out of the main cavern and had the
final connecting tunnel blocked off. As added insurance, they set up a motion detector
about 50 yards down the trail and connected it to a bank of floodlights. It would be like
shooting fish in a barrel. All they had to do now was wait.

About midnight 5 weeks later the floodlights lighting up startled the guards. The guards’
let loose with a volley of fire that no one could have lived through. They inspected the
bodies and found that a man with a .308 rifle though wounded, was alive. They dragged
him back to the clinic, but the doctor said he wouldn’t last long. Derek got Ron and
asked him to question the man. Ron was pretty well healed up and he took to the task
with relish. Before the SOB died on him, Ron had the whole story. There were only six
of them, and everything beyond that was just a bonus. They next day, they sealed off
the final exit from the main cavern and resumed a ‘normal’ life.

Into 2012, it was something of a repeat of the spring of 2005, with people once more

80
moving to the south. However, for the most part the people who relocated didn’t have to
fight for supplies. Invariably they had a truck and a trailer filled to the brim. They had
been busy once they got back up north and had carefully selected what they would
need. Remember, these people had already survived the strike and the summer long
fighting in 2005. And, they had made friends before they returned north, so they had
some place to go.

Occasionally someone would come along and apply for a home at Rattlesnake Springs.
Since these people had already had to talk their way past one or more tank units, they
were given every consideration. Questions ranged from ‘Are you a veteran?’ to ‘What
skills can you add to the community?’ The folks were very selective and maybe 20% of
the applicants were accepted. No one was made to feel unwanted and the residents
found them places to live in the other four communities.

“We need to make another trip to Denver,” Aaron said, “We need to get whatever diesel
and propane we can haul back. Plus, some of those generators are showing some wear
and we need spare parts.”

“Anything else we need?” Ron asked.

“Florescent light bulbs,” Aaron added. “But the main emphasis has to be on propane.
Those space heaters are eating it up at a phenomenal rate.”

“How many more of those 30,000 gallon tanks are there in Denver?” Ron asked.

“Not enough Ron, but we can hit every city between here and Denver,” Aaron replied.

“Just be sure you bring back cradles for those tanks,” Gary said. They ignored him.

The furnaces and hot water heaters consumed propane and there were 50 homes plus
the community center. However, the space heaters ran from the small 22,000 BTU units
up to the 300,000+ BTU units. They probably could have calculated their consumption,
but it would have taken a month of Sundays. Besides the space heaters all had thermo-
static controls and they only ran when they needed to. They still had a fair amount of
propane, but the tanks wouldn’t fill themselves. This would be another summer long pro-
ject. It was a mean feat moving those 30,000-gallon tanks, too, but they wanted enough
of everything to last them for a very, very long time. Food wasn’t a problem anymore as
long as they had diesel for the generators and propane for the heaters.

“I’m all for a trip or two to Denver, Aaron,” Ron pointed out, “But how do you propose to
get that diesel fuel to be useable? We have almost no PRI-D left and that fuel is old.”

“We could go to Texas to the manufacturer,” Aaron suggested. “We would use two box
trailers and semis. Surely we could come up with PRI-D by the drum in Houston.”

“What makes you think they are still in business?” Ron asked.

81
“I have no idea whether they’re in business or not, but if you have a better idea, let’s
hear it,” Aaron countered.

For those who don’t know, the ratio of PRI-D to diesel is one gallon of stabilizer to
2,000-gallons of fuel. There also several different PRI products, running the gambit from
fuel oil stabilization to gasoline stabilization. When Ron had selected the cavern that
they converted to a fuel bunker, he had passed on a larger chamber. They all talked
about it and decided to convert the larger chamber to fuel storage also. They would
need more steel plate to line the chamber, concrete and welders. The plan of action
they decided on was to try and get the PRI-D while the rest of them hauled diesel fuel
and propane tanks back to Rattlesnake Springs.

Assuming that one day they might need a medium of exchange, to actually purchase
something, as opposed to scavenging it, the folks had been pretty through about recov-
ering precious metals from Albuquerque and Denver. If they could, they would buy the
PRI-D, if not, and they could find it, they would take it. They sent one company to ac-
company the folks going to Houston and began their many tasks.

While the contractors busied themselves converting the second chamber to fuel storage
they began to bring the propane tanks and diesel fuel home. Many things were easy to
come by like steel plate, welding rods and the like. As quick as the concrete dried, they
had a half dozen welders working in 3 shifts to line the tank. By mid-July there were
ready to begin transferring fuel.

They had 18 more 30,000-gallon propane tanks and a crane to help set them in the
cavern on an improvised trailer that they could use to move them into place. Their big-
gest problem was transferring the propane from Denver and later Albuquerque. All they
could come up with was a dozen or so 3,000-gallon propane delivery vehicles and they
had to move the propane and tanks in stages.

First, they emptied the tank into the transports; and then they moved the tank and set it
into place; and finally, they had to refill the tank. They first topped off their existing tanks
and kept the transports running 24/7. A round trip took about 6 days and by the time the
first snow came, they only had 15 tanks moved from Denver. But, they just kept going
and almost got caught in a blizzard on the last trip back from Denver.

They were short several thousands of gallons of propane, but Albuquerque made up for
the shortage. They ran as long as the weather permitted and had not only the 33
30,000-gallon tanks filled, but had distributed the 12 transports among the 4 communi-
ties for their needs. They ran the diesel transports 24/7 once the tank was completed
and now had close to a lifetime supply of diesel fuel. They also distributed the tankers
among the four communities and they had more than enough diesel to use.

82
They got the light bulbs, too and the trip to Houston was a great success. The company
was still in business, there was a huge demand for their product given that fuel produc-
tion was so limited and most everyone was restoring old fuel. They had to wait for their
turn, but eventually their gold and silver got them a trailer of PRI-D and a second trailer
PRI-D and PRI-G, all in 55-gallon drums. Maybe, they figured, they had a 15-year sup-
ply of stabilized diesel and about 100,000 gallons of stabilized gasoline.

The Ham radio reports were indicating that severe weather came as far south as Kan-
sas. They had gotten out of Denver just in time. And, if the radio reports were to be be-
lieved, some people must have gotten tired of the years of back breaking work it took to
stay alive and were resorting to violence to keep themselves going. There weren’t many
reports, just one here and one there. The closest was in El Paso and that was a little too
close for comfort.

“So, Derek,” Gary asked, “What do you make of that report out of El Paso?”

“I’m not sure what to think about that Dad,” Derek said, “I moved some more Abrams to
south 62/180 and I doubled the tanks on west 82 and 70. But you know, we have some
tanks down too. It’s like I always told you, those turbine engines aren’t worth a crap.”

“I thought you said they had a replacement engine?” Gary asked.

“You mean the LV100-5, for the Crusader howitzer and a future M1 upgrade?” Derek
said, “Fewer than a dozen LV100-5 prototypes were built before the Crusader program
was cancelled, taking the LV100-5s with it. Testing of these engines was not completed
but the program expected to reduce the number of parts in the engine by 43 percent
versus the AGT-1500 and improve the efficiency by 30 percent. So we stuck with these
engines.”

“Can you rebuild them?” Gary asked.

“Some of them have been rebuilt a dozen times or more already Dad,” Derek explained.

“That’s not what I asked. Can you rebuild them?” Gary persisted.

“Not really, they’d have to go back to the depot,” Derek said.

“So, take them back to the depot. All of them and get some of those M1A2SEPs,” Gary
said. “Who knows, maybe you can get some of M1A3s.” Gary suggested.

“They were only a rumor,” Derek said, “There aren’t any of them.”

“Bull, Derek, I read an article on the Internet back in 2004 that said that the M1A3 had

83
the LV100-5 engine. If I remember right, it was basically a M1A2SEP with the new en-
gine and better cannon (L-55),” Gary insisted.

“If we pull out all of tanks and take them to Ft. Hood, that will leave you defenseless,”
Derek insisted.

“So, load up half the tanks and trade them in,” Gary persisted. “If I’m right, you won’t
have any more engine problems.”

“That will leave you short on tanks,” Derek said, “We have 6 platoons of four tanks plus
two headquarters company tanks. I have most of them deployed. If I only leave you with
13 tanks, you could be in for trouble.”

“Kid, if I wanted to debate with someone, I’d join a debating society,” Gary cut off the
discussion.

Off they went, Derek totally convinced he would be returning with the same 13 tanks.
But, when they got to Ft. Hood, the place was like a ghost town. There were 32 of the
new M1A3 tanks, too, some still partially wrapped up with shipping materials. He didn’t
realize that they were the A3 models until he checked the engine compartment. Inside,
the tank looked just like the M1A2SEP.

There wasn’t any shortage of the M1000 HET transports for the M-1 Abrams tanks, so
Derek loaded up all 32 tanks, all the 120mm rounds they could carry and headed back
to Rattlesnake Springs. Now he just had to figure out how to deal with the new engines,
and that meant reading the Field Manual.

And, they needed more of the JP8 for the engines. The fuel tanks hold about 500 gal-
lons each and Derek had only brought 32,000-gallons of fuel, just enough to fuel the
units twice. He kept the M1000 HET transports and used semi tractors and lowboys to
return the rest of his used equipment. When he returned a week later, he had just shy of
800 thousand gallons of JP8. Not only did he have new tanks, he had munitions, fuel
and transports. Now he just needed a battle.

It was strange about that promotion to Lt. Col. too. Once Bush had issued the Executive
Order, they’d never heard another word. No paychecks, no communications, nothing.
Then Bush had up and resigned and had gone to Crawford. They tried numerous times
to contact the ranch in Crawford, but after they’d had received delivery of the Executive
Order, it was as if Dubya had dropped off the planet. That was ok; Derek figured the 32
new tanks would about cover their back wages, with interest. Come to think of it there
never had been an election to elect a new President, and Derek wondered if there was
even a US Government anymore.

“I told you they brought out the M1A3,” Gary said, “Was I right or what?”

84
“Are you ever wrong?” Derek kidded. “You three old farts have never admitted to a mis-
take as long as I’ve known you.”

“We forgot to tell about getting shot at from the main cavern, does that count?” Gary
asked.

“Barely,” Derek grinned.

“Well, before you accuse me of not telling you everything,” Gary said, “You should know
that all hell has broken loose in El Paso. I don’t know anything specific, mind you, but
from the radio traffic, it appears that some paramilitary group is trying to take over the
town.”

“And I suppose knowing that, you let me go after the new tanks, huh?” Derek retorted.

“Of course I did and now you have 32 brand new tanks instead of 26 pieces of junk,”
Gary said. “Besides, I don’t figure that we have much to worry about until spring.”

“Good,” Derek responded, “Then I’m going to send a company of people over to Ft.
Hood and pick up as much matériel as we can carry. Meanwhile, I’ll get the other three
companies busy training everyone in the use of the M16’s.”

“That,” Gary admitted, “Might not be a bad idea.”

“What the hell’s the hubbub?” Ron asked Gary. “New tanks, 50 tankers of fuel, and
people are training like we have a fight coming.”

“We just might fellas,” Gary responded to Ron and Clarence, “There’s been a lot of ra-
dio traffic out of El Paso the past couple of months and it doesn’t sound good.”

“It’s been 8 years since the strike,” Ron groused, “You’d have thought we’d have had a
lot more trouble than we’ve had. What have there been, 4 incidents in 8 years?”

“Let’s see,” Clarence said, “We had that bunch out of El Paso, the bunch from Albu-
querque, those folks in the northern cavern and the 6 guys in the main cavern. You’re
right Ron, 4 incidents.”

“And none of those incidents involved more than 100 people,” Ron continued, “If a big
group hits us we could be in a world of hurts. I’m too old for this crap.”

“What we really need is some artillery with those new beehive rounds, the M546, I think
they’re called,” Gary said.

85
“Don’t they make a round like that for the tanks?” Ron asked.

“I have no idea Ron,” Gary said, “I’ll have to ask Derek.”

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 The Rock – Chapter 9 – Sushi

“So, what kind of rounds do you have for those tanks of yours?” Gary asked Derek.

“We have the normal load out of M829A3 and M830A1,” Derek said.

“Speak English would you?” Gary chided Derek.

“Dad the M829 is the discarding sabot ammo and the M830 is the HEAT round,” Derek
explained.

“Anti-armor ammunition?” Gary confirmed.

“Yes,” Derek agreed.

“That won’t do much good against people, Derek,” Gary observed, “Now the guys were
saying that we needed to get some 105mm howitzers and a bunch of those beehive
rounds. Ought to have some airburst projectiles, too.”

“I’ll get some of the people with artillery backgrounds to make a trip back to Hood and
get you your artillery,” Derek responded. “I think we’ll look for some of the M1028A1
rounds, too for the tank cannons.”

“What kind of round is that?” Gary asked.

“Canister, Dad,” Derek explained, “They developed it during the 1990’s. Each shell has
1,100 tungsten balls and the maximum range is 5,000 meters, although it is definitely
better close in.”

“Sort of like a beehive round, huh?” Gary summarized.

“Yes and no,” Derek said, “It has a lot fewer projectiles, those 105mm beehive rounds
have 8,000 flechettes, but the crew of the gun is exposed. I think we should deploy our
force with the tanks in front, backed up by the arty. Using those beehive rounds would
be a last ditch thing.”

“You think you can make this all happen in a month or less?” Gary asked.

“What’s the hurry?” Derek asked.

“I don’t like the sound of the news out of El Paso,” Gary said.

Talk about a haul. The company came back from Hood with 3-dozen M119A2 105mm
cannons, enough shells to fight WW III plus close to 1,200 rounds of the Canister ammo

87
for the 120mm cannons. It also appeared that there were other areas of unrest around
the country, but they concentrating on that bunch in El Paso. As the weather began to
warm, the radio traffic out of El Paso seemed to fall off and stop altogether. The folks
there in southern New Mexico took this as an ominous sign.

Derek was worried what would happen if the bad guys got to Ft. Bliss and cleaned the
place out of weapons. While Ft. Bliss was primarily an Air Defense headquarters, the
base wasn’t without resources and who knew what equipment had been there around
the time of the strike? For sure, if they got their hands on some TOW missiles, he was
up the Creek.

And now all they needed was an Air Force. Yeah, right and maybe a space shuttle
equipped with a Mark 1 Mod 0 Ray Gun, too! Derek had what he had and would have to
make do with it. He knew that most of the units at Bliss were Patriot batteries, but he
also knew that a Marine Corp unit was stationed there as part of some Task Group or
something.

He decided that they had better employ forward observers so they would know if they
were up against TOW’s. The other problem was where would the people come from?
They actually had 2 choices, across and up on US 62/180 or up 54 to the US 82 junc-
tion, then across to Artesia. “Decisions, decisions,” he thought, “Must be why real offic-
ers get the big bucks.”

Of course Derek could always talk to Gary, but Gary hadn’t been feeling well the last
three days and that usually meant he was off his feed and lacking a sense of humor and
the social graces. He could just imagine how Gary would react if he said, “Now all we
need is an Air Force!” No, he would handle this one on his own. It would mean splitting
his command, half to US 82 and half on south US 62, but if they had enough notice,
they could bring up the other unit to back the one under attack. He needed intelligence,
and hit upon using Damon and that Harley of his.

“Damon, how about you take your bike and head over to Ft. Bliss and check out the bad
guys?” Derek suggested.

“How about you kiss my butt,” Damon retorted.

“I’m serious, bro, we need someone to get us some intelligence, I’m operating blind
here,” Derek protested.

“I was too, but I’ll meet you half way,” Damon said handing Derek the keys to the Har-
ley. “Use the bike, but if you get one scratch on it…”

Derek wasn’t one to look a gift horse in the eye. So far as he knew, Damon never let
anyone near his bike. He took the keys and got his company commanders on the horn

88
looking for a good rider willing to volunteer for a dangerous mission. He got his volun-
teer, a young woman in her thirties, Dawn, who was cute enough, but who seemed to
have a hard edge. Derek gave her instructions and sent her on her way using the north-
ern route. He didn’t have to wait long for an answer.

Dawn was back within 10 days. She estimated the force at between 4 and 5 thousand.
They had Hummers, which were equipped with both Mk-19’s and Ma Deuces. They also
had two Hummers equipped with dual missiles, TOW’s, she assumed. They had buses
to haul their troops, trucks to haul their munitions and looked as if they were getting
ready to move out. She said that unless she misinterpreted something, they appeared
to be splitting their force. A large contingent had head out south towards El Paso and
vehicles were lined up along US 54 pointed north.

Derek decided they really did need an Air Force. Something like 4 Apache Longbows
equipped with 16 Hellfire missiles each would have been just the ticket. But he didn’t
have any and didn’t have any prospects of getting any. And out of the communities that
now had a combined population of over 40,000, they had only a small defense force of
1,200 or so. They had armed and trained the population, so they had maybe 25,000 or
more capable of bearing arms and they were all equipped with M16’s and ammo. The
more dangerous munitions like the grenades, AT-4s and the like were reserved to the
security forces.

Dawn returned Damon’s bike and keys to him. They struck up a friendship and visited
late into the night. Well, we assume that they were visiting, anyway. Derek was burning
the midnight oil, too. Other than knowing that he would be forced to divide his forces, he
still could have used more information. But, you make do with what you have, don’t
you?

It was decided to place 9 artillery pieces on each side of 82 west and 9 pieces on each
side of 62/180 south. The tanks would be in front of the artillery, to cover any forced
withdrawal. His primary concern was those TOW equipped Hummers. The ammunition
he had for the tanks had a maximum effective range of 4 km. The TOW’s had a maxi-
mum effective range of 3.75km. His artillery had a maximum effective range of 11.5km.
Clearly the artillery would have the primary responsibility in taking out the TOW
equipped vehicles.

They didn’t have one hell of a lot of time to get ready for the battle, but took the time to
camouflage the positions. Until the tanks fired their guns, they should escape notice by
the bad guys. He put out forward observers to direct the fire of the artillery and settled in
to wait for the enemy. If he’d overlooked anything, it was a little late now to worry about
it. The tanks were equipped with 12 HEAT rounds and 30 canister rounds. Positioned
as they were, they could essentially back straight up to the artillery positions and the
combined force could lay down a barrage of canister and beehive that would decimate
the enemy. But first, they had to take out the enemy’s vehicles.

89
Dawn had failed to identify the LAV-25’s fielded by the enemy force. They only had a
dozen, 6 for each attacking element, but the LAV-25 was a pretty good fighting vehicle.
Equipped with a 25mm M242 Dual-feed Bushmaster Automatic gun. If the LAV’s had a
shortcoming, it was in the range of their ammunition, about 2km, and the thinness of its
armor compared to the Abrams. But, as a fighting vehicle, it beat the hell out of an ar-
mored Hummer.

The first contact with the enemy came from the south. When the forward observers re-
ported the LAV’s, Derek issued immediate orders to ignore the vehicles; the Abrams
would take care of them. Artillery fire was to be concentrated on those TOW equipped
Hummers. They began to lay down fire at about 6 miles range, and though it took the
inexperienced gunners a lot of M1 rounds, they eventually did enough damage to the
TOW equipped Hummers to render them ineffective. The enemy halted their advance
and dismounted their infantry force. The observers reported, before they pulled back,
that they were a motley crew, but well-armed and had what appeared to be AT-4’s,
among other things.

At about this same time, the northern defense had their first contact with the enemy.
This group of gunners were a little more skilled than the gunners to the south and they
blew the TOW equipped Hummers to piles of charred debris. The northern enemy con-
tingent halted their advance and dismounted their troops. This slight delay allowed
Derek’s forces to switch from the contact fuses to ammo with proximity fuses.

There is something awfully unsettling about artillery barrages, especially for the uniniti-
ated. However, it probably doesn’t get much better with experience, either. The enemy
finally got their troops moving forward in the ongoing artillery barrage. It seemed to be
getting lighter as the opposing force expended its rounds.

Derek advised his people to lighten up the barrage and let the enemy advance. Now
that they were facing infantry forces, direct fire seemed to be the better option. Eliminate
the enemy vehicles at about 3km, he told them and if the enemy was still foolish enough
to come on, back the tanks up to the artillery and prepare for the assault with the anti-
personnel munitions. Derek had no intention of exposing his fighting forces. If they got
down to an infantry duel, they just could lose.

The tanks opened up with their HEAT rounds at about 3,000-meters and all of the ene-
my vehicles went down amazingly quick. All of the defenders backed their tanks up to
the artillery positions and made ready for the final assault. The 120mm cannons and the
M119A2’s were reloaded with the antipersonnel rounds and they waited.

The enemy force had never before run into such resistance. They figured they were bul-
letproof, as it were. They hunkered down when the last of their vehicles had been taken
out to decide, among other things, whether to continue the advance or call it quits and

90
find a softer target. “He chose poorly,” the Grail Knight had said in The Raiders of the
Lost Ark. These people chose poorly, too. Most of them weren’t old enough to remem-
ber Vietnam and the beehive rounds. If the US military had used them in any subse-
quent conflicts before the strike, they hadn’t heard of them. They assumed that the en-
emy they faced had only artillery and infantry and the artillery had seemed to run out of
ammo. So, after much discussion, they decided to move forward.

They didn’t just stand up and march forward like a herd of animals either, they moved in
twos and threes and fours, slowly making their way toward the defenders. It was almost
2 miles to the defenders positions and the day passed as they moved forward. Slowly,
steadily they advanced and they were meeting with no further resistance from the de-
fending force. With the passage of time, they became confident and then over confident
and the last half-mile they were marching along erect, engaged in conversation.

Derek had given orders for his people to let the enemy get within 300 meters before at-
tacking with the canister and beehive rounds. The tanks had been refitted and now only
had 42 canister rounds and a large pile of the beehive rounds lay by each of the
M119A2’s. The Hummers with the Ma Deuces and Mk-19’s were interspersed among
the cannons. Everything lay behind a curtain of camouflage netting and when the tanks
had pulled back, they had dragged their netting with them. The enemy infantry was with-
in 300 meters of the defenders and didn’t have a clue. That was the trouble with most
civilians who got their military experience from Hollywood films. Real life was never
quite like the movies.

“Fire.” The tanks, artillery and infantrymen and women opened up on the advancing
force. The fire continued for about 8 minutes until all of the tanks had exhausted their
canister rounds. The story was the same on both fronts; varying only by minutes in the
time they opened fire. The tanks just about met their maximum rate of fire of 6 rounds
per minute and the M119’s nearly matched them. In those 8 minutes, about 1,320 canis-
ter and beehive rounds had been fired and the infantry had all but exhausted their mag-
azines of 5.56mm ammo. All there was on the ground in front of the defenders was a
pile of human flesh, sushi, some called it.

The defender infantry hastily reloaded their magazines and walked among the fallen
enemy, dispatching the very few who had survived the fusillade. It had taken them a
matter of hours to defeat the enemy. It would take them weeks to scrape up the remains
and bury them. Injuries among the defenders? Nothing worthy of a Purple Heart and
few that that required more than a Band-Aid. It was a highly successful campaign.

Although the bodies were buried in mass graves, someone had a ‘cute’ idea. They took
some 1”x12” planks and fashioned them into round topped grave markers. They wasted
a lot of lumber constructing those 6,000 markers, but what the hell. Each marker was
painted white and numbered from 1 to 6,000. Fake graveyards were built on west US 82
and on south US 62/180. Each bore a sign topped with the words, “Butthead Hill” and
carried the message, “Here lie the remains of the 3,000 Buttheads who tried to take us
on.” They salvaged what little they could from the attackers, mostly M16’s and ammo

91
plus the contents of the trucks and piled the rusting equipment into a tall mound near
each graveyard.

“Well, there’s nothing like advertising,” Ron said as he viewed the completed graveyard
on south US 62/180.

“It seems like a waste of good materials to me,” Gary opined.

“You know that we got pretty lucky Gar-Bear,” Ron said “What if those SOBs had tanks
like ours?”

“Ain’t any tanks like ours,” Gary protested.

“An M1A2SEP is exactly the same tank as those M1A3s, except for the engine and
gun,” Ron said, “At least that’s what Derek told me. What if they’d had some of those?”

“What I don’t understand is why they attacked us in the first place,” Clarence said, “I
mean it’s not like we advertise in a newspaper about this community.”

“I’ve been thinking about that Clarence,” Gary responded. “We’ve had a salvage opera-
tion running for years and there’re a lot of people around the area that know where
we’re from; that plus the fact that we actually paid gold and silver for those PRI prod-
ucts. Maybe someone got the idea that we had something worth risking dying for to get
at.”

“We don’t do we?” Clarence asked.

“It all depends upon how you look at it pal,” Gary continued. “We don’t have much gold
or silver left; we didn’t have all that much to begin with. On the other hand, we have
over 3 million gallons of stabilized diesel, just shy of a million gallons of propane and
enough food to feed everyone in the area for 5 years.”

“I thought we were good scroungers,” Ron said, “But that Aaron and his pals from Den-
ver make us look like a bunch of amateurs. Hell, even though stuff is wearing out, they
have repair parts and even replacement units to last us for years.”

“How much longer do you think this cold is going to last?” Clarence asked.

“If it were a real Ice Age, about 10,500 years Clarence,” Gary said, “A lot longer than
we’d care that’s for sure. But I don’t think this is a regular Ice Age. I have no reason to
believe anything, really, but in my humble opinion, this is a freak event that relates back
to the strike in 2004. There isn’t an Internet to go out on and find out what scientists
think, you know. Hell, I don’t even know if there are any scientists left.”

92
“That’s encouraging,” Clarence frowned.

“You remember the Carl Sagan guy?” Gary said. “He predicted a Nuclear Winter after a
major nuclear exchange back during the cold war. We didn’t have a nuclear war, but the
amount of dirt thrown into the atmosphere must have imitated one pretty well. I’d specu-
late that a lot of greenhouse gasses were thrown up too. I saw some program about Na-
ture healing itself a long time ago. I’m guessing when the healing is done; things will go
back to normal.”

“Well, when will that be?” Clarence pressed.

“It will either be in our lifetime or it won’t,” Gary laughed. “If it’s during our lifetime good
and if it’s not, who cares?”

Clarence walked off mumbling to himself. Gary was a wealth of non-information. There
was still a little summer left and the folks ventured forth to replenish their supplies. Four
trips to Albuquerque with the LP delivery vehicles topped them off and left the other 4
communities with a winter supply. They didn’t need a whole lot of diesel and they simply
topped off their storage bunkers and left the communities with the fleet of filled tankers.
One company made a trip back to Ft. Hood and brought the last of the munitions for the
tanks and cannons. Some seemed to be missing, they said.

Derek and his commanders sat down and did an after action analysis of the battle
they’d fought. They done everything just about perfect, all things being considered, but
what if they hadn’t had forewarning? The thought of having some Apache Longbows
nagged at Derek. Or, even some Kiowa’s to use for forward observation. Hell, he’d even
take a Huey if they could find one and someone who knew how to fly it. He wasn’t ex-
pecting any more trouble, but the better prepared they were, they better off they would
be if TSHTF.

How do you get a squadron or two of helicopters in a TEOCAWKI situation? It was

2013; just a few months passed was the 9th anniversary of the strike. To the best of
their knowledge there weren’t any newspapers to advertise in, so Derek put out a call
on the Ham radio channels seeking pilots and mechanics for Apache helicopters. He
didn’t have any Apaches, but he had to have pilots and mechanics before he worried
about the helicopters. There were all of the Apache AH-64D’s at Ft. Hood that he could
ever use. As far as that went, there were also a lot of the OH-58D Kiowa’s. The D model
could use the Hellfire modular missile system, too.

Derek was counting on the phenomena that people of like interests tended to congre-
gate. He figured that if he could find one pilot, he would have a whole group of them and
if he could find one mechanic, he would similarly have a whole group of them. They
might not all be in one place, but he was willing to bet they would be in touch with each

93
other. Derek should have spent time in Las Vegas, back when there was a Las Vegas,
he would have made a fortune.

This winter was the same as the previous, so Gary went to Clarence and suggested to
him that they may have turned the corner. Just as soon as the winters abated, he said,
they could consider moving on to ‘greener pastures’. Although, as far as Gary was per-
sonally concerned, the pasture right here in Rattlesnake Springs was green enough for
him. It was just an expression; there sure as hell weren’t any green pastures here in
southeastern New Mexico. Snakes, lizards, and cactus, but no green pastures.

Derek took a company of his finest over to Ft. Hood to meet with the pilots and mechan-
ics he’d made contact with. He’d ended up with enough men that they could field 8
Apaches and 4 Kiowa’s. Munitions weren’t a problem, provided that they were still good
after sitting around for God knows how long and given the maintenance problems with
the Apaches, there seemed to be plenty of spare parts. They kept back full combat
loads for the helicopters and trucked the remaining munitions back to Rattlesnake
Springs. That storage building that they had moved from inside the compound some
years back was filled to overflowing with tank, cannon and helicopter munitions. Some-
one decided that that wasn’t the brightest idea they’d ever had and the folks back at the
Springs reopened the main cavern to be used as a munitions bunker.

Along about the 4th of July, the helicopters arrived and did a flyby over Rattlesnake
Springs. They had decided to base the air unit at the airport in Artesia. People from the
Springs drove up to the airport and greeted the airmen and hauled them back to the
Springs to enjoy the picnic.

Derek and the last of his troops didn’t arrive back until the next day, having awaited the
departure of the last chopper and then driving straight through. The three old geezers
went around and met the pilots and gunners from the Apaches and the two crewmem-
bers from each of the four Kiowa’s. Ron had walked up to one of the men and said,
“Mister, my name is Ron Green.”

Imagine his surprise when the man said, “You don’t have to call me Mister, mister, my
friends just call me Hank.” Ron never did get the guys last name. You don’t suppose it
was Williams, do you? (song by David Allan Coe)

This summer was marginally longer than the summer of 2013. El Paso Ham operators
were back on the air wondering what had become of the bad guys. Gary and his crew of
radio operators were quick to pass on the information about the battle of 2013, hoping
that any other would be bad guys would be listening to that communication. It paid to
advertise, you know.

Derek had a whole new set of concerns. Between their previous trip to Ft. Hood and this
last trip, about 40 of the M1A2SEPs had gone missing. He didn’t give a red rat’s hind

94
end about the missing tanks, except that it nagged at him. A detour to an airport got him
plenty of JP8, so there wasn’t any fuel problem. But, if those bad guys from 2013 had
had tanks, the battle might have been different. He figured he still had one leg up
though, now that he finally had an Air Force with 12 helicopters.

The downside to advertising is that one sometimes provides information to one’s com-
petitors. Back in the 1950’s Ford Motor Company brought out the NAA series of trac-
tors. Gary’s father had been a Ford tractor dealer there in Charles City, Iowa and the
town was also home of the Oliver Manufacturing Company, a competitor.

A representative from Oliver had gone to Gary’s father and paid full retail price for one
of the new NAA Ford tractors. Gary had never quite accepted his Dad’s explanation that
if he didn’t sell them one, someone else would have and he might as well have the profit
on the sale as the next guy.

Ford had almost taken away his father’s dealership rights over that one but a fast talking
lawyer using terms like restraint of trade had ended the dispute with Ford. It was kind of
funny, too because 5 years later Ford named his father one of several dealers of the
year.

That was the year that Gary got to meet Irving Wallace, when Wallace came to inter-
view his father. At the time, Wallace was living in Clear Lake, Iowa and working on a
book titled “The Prize,” having just finished his previous book which was well received.
Somewhere in all of his junk, Gary had an autographed picture of Wallace, supposedly
taken in the Amazon, with Wallace holding a shrunken head and surrounded by ‘na-
tives’. To tell the truth, Gary had seen the movie “The Prize” but had never read a single
one of Wallace’s books. He sometimes wondered if Wallace had based a character on
him. Gary didn’t know that when they moved to LA, Wallace lived there too.

Anyway, back to the downside of advertising. By extension, in this case the advertising
told the bad guys where you were. Of course you never show your whole hand when
you advertise, so no one knew about the 32 tanks and the 36 artillery pieces. Neither
did they know about Derek’s Air Force. Which seems like a good point to mention that
they test fired some Hellfire missiles and they worked just fine. Anyway, the bad guys
with their 40 M1A2SEP tanks knew just where to look for trouble, right there in southern
New Mexico.

They figured that there must be something there in the Carlsbad area worth protecting
and they were, after all, very well equipped. So, along about mid-September 2014, they
decided to pay a little visit to the folks in the Carlsbad Caverns area. There were only
about 400 of them, give or take, but they had the tanks and armored Ma Deuce
equipped Humvees. They were going to kick butt and to hell with the names!

Those missing tanks bothered Derek a lot more than he let on. Consequently, he kept

95
two Kiowa’s flying during daylight hours and two Apaches during the nighttime. The
wear and tear on the equipment had it compensations. It minimized the amount of train-
ing flights and gave them a security blanket. They had pulled the tanks back, but had
just covered the artillery pieces with tarps to protect them from the elements. The arty
was registered and moving it would mean more work. The camouflage they had used
had remained in place and had been kept up to a degree. Which turned out to be all
well and good, because one night during mid-September, Derek was awakened at zero
dark thirty to the news that one of the Apaches had spotted ‘about 40’ of the M1000
HET transports loaded with Abrams on US 285, just south of the state line.

Derek put everyone of full alert and got the Kiowa’s and other Apaches airborne. He
had the two that had been flying RTB and refuel. Then, he ordered all 32 tanks to their
southern exposure on US 285. They either went down US 285 (Northern units) or
across on state route 396. They were ordered to form up in Malaga. As he got more in-
formation, Derek ordered the helicopters to assault the M1000’s and get the tanks be-
fore they hit the transports. They caught the bunch on US 285 just after it crossed the
Texas border. It wasn’t much of a fight, to tell the truth. The missiles were the latest ver-
sion, the AGM-114K Hellfire II. And they had none of the afflictions of the earlier ver-
sions that damaged the launch platforms. Forty missiles took out 40 tanks and the
30mm cannons took care of the M1000’s and Humvees.

The Abrams kept on rolling and came upon the carnage. They dismounted from the
tanks and used their M-9’s to ‘clean up the garbage’. While all of the tanks were dam-
aged and unusable, they called for the 32 M1000 transports they had so they could
transport the tanks back and scavenge for usable parts and munitions. They spent the
rest of the month constructing Butthead Hill number 3 and erecting 400 fake head-
stones. They decided not to mention this latest conflict on the Ham radio network; may-
be advertising wasn’t such a good thing after all.

When the winter came later, Gary had another talk with Clarence.

“I think we’re beginning to see the end of it, my friend,” Gary told Clarence.

“The end of what?” Clarence asked.

“I’m trying to tell you that the summer was longer and winter came later, that’s all,” Gary
explained.

“I knew that,” Clarence grinned, “But does that mean the Ice Age is over? It barely got
started.”

“It will probably trail off over the same period of time it took to come on Clarence, but
yes, I’d say it’s over,” Gary smiled back, “So where are you going to move to?”

“Nowhere,” Clarence answered.

96
“I thought you were chomping at the bit to get out of here?” Gary retorted.

“No, if you remember all I ever asked you was how much longer you thought the cold
was going to last. And you went off on some kick talking about Carl somebody and Nu-
clear Winter,” Clarence shook his head. “You know sometimes you’re a real ‘expert’.”

“Huh?” Gary responded.

“Ex spurt,” Clarence said, “You know; an old drip under pressure!”

“I didn’t have to come over here to be insulted,” Gary laughed, “Ron does enough of
that. I’m leaving before you come up with more old jokes.”

97
 The Rock – Chapter 10 – Spare Parts and More

The Abrams is a rugged tank and the Hellfire is a powerful missile. They were never in-
tended to come together in this manner. However the pilots had the good sense or bad
luck not to destroy all of the tanks. A tank with a broken tread is just as disabled, in
many respects, as a tank with a dead crew. And, the pilots doubted that the tanks were
crewed up anyway. The people hauled all 40 tanks back to Whites City and began to
rebuild and/or repair those they could salvage. They were able to restore 18 units to 100
percent operating condition. This gave Derek 50 tanks in his command. The remaining
22 units were short one thing or another, sometimes important, like a turret and some-
times as insignificant as not having a complete set of radios for what would have been
tank 19.

Twelve of the turrets were destroyed, but that meant that if Derek could get sufficient
spare parts, he could build his fleet to 60 tanks. It was worth a trip to Ft. Hood for parts
and to the airport for more JP8. The trip was, not surprisingly, successful. But when all
the tanks were rebuilt, Derek had a bit of an organization problem. Since a Platoon has
4 tanks and Derek had 60 tanks, it followed that he had 15 Platoons of tanks. Now was
that 5 Companies of 3 Platoons or 3 Companies of 5 Platoons? And, with the Head-
quarters Company at Rattlesnake Springs plus the 4 Infantry Companies, a Company of
Artillery and an Air Detachment, any way you sliced it he had 8 or 9 Companies, which
was 2 Battalions and 2 Battalions made a Regiment. “Screw it,” he thought and pinned
the Star back on.

“I thought Bush made you a Lt. Col.,” Gary said when he saw the star.

“He did, but I figured out that we have 8 Companies, not 4 and decided to reorganize
the forces in 2 Battalions. Since that gave me a Regiment, I decided to be a General
again. Anyway Dad, it’s not like we’re getting paid or Bush is around anymore.”

“Who is the President?” Gary asked.

“I’m not so sure we have one anymore,” Derek said. “Bush went around trying to get
everything organized and just up and resigned. He even asked me if I wanted to be
President, remember?”

“Yeah, you should have taken him up on it,” Gary laughed. “Then you’d be the Com-
mander in Chief.”

“I’m not so sure I’m not anyway Dad.” Derek joined in the laughter.

“So are you going to have a spring campaign and fight the forces of evil?” Gary kidded.

“Actually, I thought I’d have a bottle of that home brew and kick back for a while,” Derek
sighed.

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°

With the winter coming later and looking like it might not be as bad as the previous year,
Ron, Gary and Clarence decided to get out and try a little hunting. A nice piece of veni-
son would taste awfully good at Thanksgiving. They dug around and found the 10 round
mags for the M1A’s and loaded them with soft points. Of course they never went any-
where far from the Springs without their little BOB’s and a couple of 20-round mags of
FMJ.

The game had been picking up, perhaps because of the weather, and they had the idea
that a big old mule deer would walk right out in front of them and make their life easy.
Right. Ron was dragging a sled to haul the deer home on, they knew that they would
have one any minute. Maybe if they’d gotten off the road and into the boonies, they
might have seen a deer, but it was hard enough walking on the road and it only had a
light coating of snow, maybe 3”.

You’d think that 3 old men, the youngest of whom was 71, would have had better sense
than to try and walk very far. About an hour into the hunt, Gary’s neuropathic feet were
killing him and his back wasn’t fairing much better. He called a halt to the hunt so he
could rest his back and feet for a minute or two. He saw a stump about 10 yards off the
road and started to tread the deep snow to get him a seat. With realizing it, he stepped
into a hole and began to fall. As he went down, his trigger finger slipped into the trigger
guard and pushed forward on the safety, releasing it. When he hit the ground, he invol-
untarily squeezed the trigger. Kaboom, came the sharp report from his rifle. Ron and
Clarence had been looking away and hadn’t seen him fall.

“What the f…” Ron started to say, turning toward Gary.

“Gary, are you all right?” Clarence called out.

“Didn’t shoot myself, if that’s what you mean,” Gary replied thought clenched teeth. “But
I think I broke my leg.”

“What the hell were you shooting at?” Ron asked.

“That was an accident,” Gary said, “I explain later. Help me up you guys.”

“Give me the radio and I’ll call for help,” Ron said.

“I don’t have the flippen’ radio, you do,” Gary managed to get out.

“I don’t have any radio, quit clowning around and give me the radio,” Ron insisted.

“I don’t have the radio,” Gary groaned.

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“I think that we have established that we don’t have a radio,” Clarence said, “Shut up
Ron and help me get Gary to the sled.”

Although it wasn’t more than 15 feet to the sled, it was a very noisy journey with Gary
hollering all the way. Had Gary made it to the log and rested, he had intended to talk
them into turning back because it had started to snow and his back was killing him.

When they finally got Gary on the sled and tied down with a hank of paracord, they
checked his leg. He had a single fracture of the right shinbone and it was compound,
with the lower stump poking through the skin. Clarence wrapped Gary’s leg in a GI sur-
plus field dressing and gave him 2 pain pills from the BOB’s drug bottle. They set off
back to the housing tract with Ron pulling the sled.

“How far have we come?” Ron panted.

“150 or 200 yards,” Clarence said, “You tired already?”

“You pull for a while,” Ron said, breathlessly.

“This was a stupid idea, going hunting,” Clarence said, “It’s starting to snow real heavy
like, too. Whose idea was this hunt anyway?”

“Gary’s,” Ron answered, “You know, the guy who forgot the radio.”

“I heard that,” Gary groaned. “I didn’t forget the radio, I told you last night to bring it. And
some venison would have tasted good for Thanksgiving.”

“Is THAT what you were mumbling about last night?” Ron asked. “Shake a leg Clar-
ence; it’s starting to really come down.”

The men hadn’t come more than a quarter of mile. It was as if the heavens had opened
up and was dumping snow by the truckload. Then the wind started to pick up. Just a lit-
tle at first, but by the time they had towed that heavy sled over the slippery road that
short distance, Clarence was winded too. It was more a problem of footing than any-
thing else. No sweat, they were only about a mile, more or less, from the housing tract.
Except, for every 50 or so yards they covered the wind speed seemed to increase by
another 5mph. Visibility was down to about 50 yards and dropping.

“Man, I can’t see anything,” Clarence complained.

“Just stay on the road, pal,” Ron said, “And we’ll be there in no time.”

“What’s taking so long?” Gary yelled.

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“Shut up butthead,” Ron said, “We’re doing the best that we can. The road is slippery,
the snow is coming down a foot a minute and the wind is blowing 50mph.”

The pain pills weren’t working and Gary’s leg was killing him. He knew a fast way to in-
crease the effect of the painkillers 10 fold. Each BOB had a single 100-millileter bottle of
brandy. Alcohol and Hydrocodone are synergistic, e.g., 1 + 1 = 10. Gary knew that and
was counting on the fact to relieve his pain. So he downed the shot of brandy and wait-
ed for it to kick in. Meanwhile, Ron and Clarence were having one hell of a time. The
footing was getting worse, they couldn’t see 50 feet, the wind was blowing almost strong
enough to knock them off their feet and they were getting tired.

Back at the housing tract, Derek was getting worried. The blizzard struck so suddenly
and with such fury that it took everyone by surprise. He tried to contact the three old
geezers by radio, but they didn’t answer. They hadn’t told anyone which way they were
going either and they could have gone 2 different ways. By the time that Derek was
ready to send out people to search for the men, visibility was all but zero. He had to
hope that they had the good sense to go to ground and ride out the storm.

Ron and Clarence were taking turns pulling the sled with Clarence doing most of the
pulling. By this time, they were completely disoriented and had no idea where they
were. They had actually come about ¾ of a mile and were very near the housing tract. It
wouldn’t be exactly correct to say that Gary was no longer in pain, but it would be cor-
rect to say that he no longer cared. The dangerous combination of the opiate and the
sedative hypnotic drug (alcohol) had the desired effect; he was in lala-land. [Author’s
note: Don’t try the combination, it can kill you.]

Ron and Clarence stopped for a moment to catch their collective breath. They certainly
had gotten more than they had bargained for on this hunt. They were using the road to
guide them and the deeper snow on the sides of the road kept them from getting off
track. The two men conferred briefly and decided that they would have to find a place to
hole up, medical emergency or not. They hadn’t heard a peep out of Gary in the past
hour although unless he screamed, they probably couldn’t have heard him over the
wind. Slightly rested, they resumed the journey, now on the lookout for a place to hole
up.

The housing tract with its 10’ thick wall surrounding it gave off very little light. What light
it did give off was reflected by the snow and rapidly diffused. By this time, everyone in
the tract was aware of the plight of the old men and some of the old timers were com-
paring the blizzard to the snow of 2004. They insisted that they take 4 Humvees out to
search for the men, a pair along each of the two different ways. However, by the time
they got the search organized, the fickle finger of fate had dealt them a serious blow.

Old and tired as they were, Ron and Clarence had managed to pull the heavy sled back

101
to the housing tract and beyond. Finally, they could go no further and called a halt at a
large snow bank. They cut into the snow bank to form a shelter of sorts. It wasn’t much,
but it would have to do. They had no idea where they were, either. To top matters off,
they weren’t dressed for the weather and were getting very, very cold. They pulled out
their ‘space blankets’ and wrapped up with the shiny side facing inward to trap their
body heat and waited for help.

Despite the howling wind and blowing snow, the Humvees crept along the roads looking
for signs of the men. There were no tracks, the wind had seen to that and about 2½
hours later the two convoys of vehicles met each other on the backside of the loop.
They had a brief radio conversation and decided to continue on their respective jour-
neys, in effect each backtracking the other. About 2½ hours later, both pairs of vehicles
were back at Rattlesnake Springs, having failed to find any sign of the three old men.
Had they but known, the men were barely a ¼ mile away, holed up in a snow bank
freezing their collective butts off.

The pain medication began to wear off and Gary nudged Ron. The two uninjured men
wrapped Gary in his space blanket and gave him 2 Keflex 500mg antibiotic capsules
and two more Vicodin ES. Gary pressed Clarence until Clarence gave up his 100-
millileter bottle of brandy. Candidly, the three of them thought they were not going to
make it out of this misadventure alive and Clarence reluctantly gave Gary his bottle of
brandy. Ron and Clarence each ate one of their 3,600-calorie lifeboat rations and drank
two of the foil packets of water to generate body heat as much as anything else.

The men also carried a 3-day supply of their medications in their BOB’s. Everything,
that is except Gary’s insulin. Gary was an insulin dependent Type II diabetic and had
found over the years that he could get by without the insulin for several days. He had
developed rapid cycling hypoglycemia as a result of not following doctor’s orders pre-
cisely and could manage without the insulin for a time as long as he avoided fast burn-
ing carbohydrates.

Whenever he consumed the fast burning carbohydrates, Coke, is a perfect example, his
blood sugar would peak and then fall off rapidly. When his blood sugar dropped below
50, Gary would get the shakes, warning him that he was beginning to go into a diabetic
coma. A simple solution was to eat a food rich in fat, like peanut butter, to stabilize his
blood sugar.

The brandy was one of those fast burning carbohydrates. Consequently before the Vi-
codin and brandy had a chance to work their magic and send Gary back to lala-land, he
started to get the shakes and it wasn’t from the cold. Gary had 3 MRE peanut butter
packs in his BOB and ate one of the packages to stabilize his blood sugar. If there is
any upside to the alcohol/Hydrocodone combination, it is that the effect is longer acting;
at least, it was for Gary. He was off in lala-land by the time that the peanut butter had its
life saving effect.

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As quickly as the blizzard blew in, it abated. A little more than 24-hours after Gary’s ac-
cident, the wind began to die downing and the snowfall lessen. Ron and Clarence
struggled to get free of the blanket of snow that covered them and finally stood to see if
they could tell where they were.

“Jeezus H.,” Ron muttered, “Would you look at that?”

“What?” Clarence asked, turning to look the same direction as Ron.

“We went right past the tract in the storm,” Ron said. “We’d better get Gar-Bear some
medical treatment pronto.”

The snow was butt deep on a 9’ Indian, but they managed to pull the sled back to the
tract. Ron and Clarence ended up in the Clinic, wrapped in warm blankets and being
given the once over by Ruth. The doctor took Gary into surgery to repair the compound
fracture. All three of the men had avoided severe frostbite by the narrowest of margins.
In the recovery room, Gary came out of the general anesthetic slowly; no doubt the ef-
fect of the anesthetic compromised by the effects of his efforts to contain his pain.

“I guess this means we aren’t going to have venison for Thanksgiving, huh?” Gary
croaked.

“I’ve got your venison right here,” Ron said shaking a fist in Gary’s face.

“Fried chicken sounds good,” Gary muttered and dropped off to sleep.

Relieved at the three old geezer’s safe return, Derek resumed his analysis of their mili-
tary situation. Should they remain there in southern New Mexico and wait for the bad
guys to come to them, assuming there were more bad guys out there, or should they
seek them out and destroy them? He wasn’t certain and he had all winter to consult with
his commanders.

His gut told him that they would be better off in the long run if they took the fight to the
bad guys rather than wait for them to attack. On the other hand, Derek had built his Ar-
my more as a defensive organization than as an offensive organization. Going on the
offensive would mean that he needed to get more of the M1000 transports and should
consider adding some of those LAV’s or Bradley’s to his equipment.

Derek put the word out to his company commanders to consider the issue and get back
to him after the first of the year. He scheduled a staff meeting for January 15, 2015. Un-
til then, he wanted to assess their needs. If they were going to have to fight, at least, he
felt, it should serve a dual purpose. About the only supplies left in Albuquerque and
Denver were fuel supplies, so if they needed anything else, they must pick another city

103
to raid and then hope like hell that there was something left to take. After nearly eleven
years, he wasn’t so sure that would be the case. It was probably either go further north
or forget it.

As he considered his options, Derek made the assumption that any city south of Denver
had probably been picked through pretty good. That limited his options and pretty much
eliminated all of the cities in California, Nevada, Colorado, Kansas, Missouri, southern
Illinois, Indiana and Ohio, West Virginia, Virginia and probably Maryland, Delaware and
New Jersey. Major cities north of those states might still have food while anything south
had probably been picked over or was occupied.

The closest large cities to their location were Salt Lake City, Cheyenne, Omaha, Des
Moines, Minneapolis, Madison and Chicago. Of those, the first 4 were the closest and
perhaps the best bet. Salt Lake City was iffy, in his opinion, because he’d heard, rather
than knew, that the Mormons were quite the survivalists as a group. Of the remaining
three, Cheyenne, Omaha and Des Moines seemed to be the best bet.

At least, if they went to Omaha and Des Moines, he would be on familiar ground and
better able to wage a battle, if it came to that. But Cheyenne was the closest, so he de-
cided to propose those three cities in the order of closeness, as potential scavenging
targets.

He also knew that there was a major military base, F.E. Warren AFB, near Cheyenne,
so perhaps he could pick up military stores. All three cities were also on I-80 and they
could check other cities along the way. One final consideration was that none of the
three cities would necessarily be the base of operations for any bad guys because in his
experience, they tended to prefer the warmer climates.

All of this was, of course, supposition and it depended as much on what they needed as
anything. To that end, he got with Aaron and asked him to evaluate their supply situa-
tion and prepare a list of what they needed, also for the January 15th meeting.

Gary was still in a cast at Thanksgiving and not in the best humor. It seemed that the
good doctor had run some blood tests and Gary’s Hemoglobin A1c was elevated, indi-
cating that he had been running high blood sugar for an extended time. The solution
was simple enough, a rigidly controlled diabetic diet, but Gary wasn’t enjoying it one bit.

While the shelf life of some of Gary’s favorite things, like Coke for example, was virtually
indefinite given proper storage conditions, other things that Gary could substitute, like
diet Coke, had a limited shelf life and had gone bad years before. Gary had taken ad-
vantage of most people not knowing of his diabetes to get the things he liked from the
supply center. However, the doctor had given strict orders to everyone, especially Sha-
ron, not to let Gary have his little vices. The doctor might be right, but that put him high
on Gary’s list and it wasn’t Gary’s list of his friends.

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One item that always made the lists was cigarettes. Maybe the people in the east had
them and maybe not, but there wasn’t much commerce among the states. And, alt-
hough they grew their own wheat in the caverns, it never met the demand for flour so
wheat and other grains were always on the list. The same could be said for sugar and
certain spices.

Thus, before he even had a list from Aaron, Derek had made a general list of things
they probably needed. Another common item was florescent tubes, both the warm and
cool white varieties. Although the tubes usually last even after the ends began to dark-
en, their efficiency dropped as soon as the ends darkened and the plant growth fell off.
While they could grow hay for the cattle, the hogs needed feed and agricultural grain
elevators were also frequently on the list.

Aaron and some of the others were talking about moving the entire settlement further
north to eastern Colorado, Kansas, Nebraska or even Iowa so they could get into agri-
cultural production. As far as that discussion went, the three old men seemed to favor
eastern Colorado because it was the closest, with Kansas coming in a popular second
place.

One of the advantages to the possibility of moving was the fact that everyone lived in a
doublewide mobile home and with a little work, they could move their homes by merely
splitting them into their two sections, reattaching the running gear and hauling them.
One of the first things Aaron had put on his list was to locate a new area for their com-
munity.

Christmas came and went and at the January 15th meeting, the group of military com-
manders and the civilians decided to head for Cheyenne and scout eastern Colorado.
They wanted about 5 sections of good farming land to settle. They decided to take ½ of
their small Army and leave the second half behind to guard the communities.

Aaron’s list included everything that Derek had anticipated and a few he hadn’t, like re-
chargeable flashlight batteries, for example. The decision was also made at that meet-
ing that if a suitable farming location could be found, they would enlist the assistance of
the area residents to help the Rattlesnake Springs community move.

Since it was impractical to move the 3 million gallons of diesel fuel, the fuel would be left
behind for the communities to compensate them for their assistance in making the
move. They would also leave behind much of the equipment housed in the caverns for
the benefit of the New Mexico residents and replace that equipment with new equip-
ment they hoped to scavenge.

On April 1st, the party set off, accompanied by 2 infantry companies, 30 tanks on
M1000 transports, and half the air detachment. They stopped in Albuquerque long

105
enough to fill a tanker with diesel and two others with Jet A from the Albuquerque air-
port. They scrounged an HF Ham radio rig and a high quality base station antenna that
they could mount on an extendable mast. Properly outfitted to maintain communications
with the Springs, they continued to Denver.

In Denver, a small group of men split off with a platoon accompanying them for security.
The remainder of the party continued to Cheyenne. Cheyenne hadn’t been picked over
too badly and they managed to pick up everything they needed, including 24 dou-
blewide homes. They turned back to the south and were met by the agricultural scouting
party when they arrived back in Denver.

The Battalion of military people hadn’t been needed to this point, perhaps because they
were along and any would be attackers simply left them alone. During the two-week trip
from Denver to Cheyenne, a few families had already moved into Denver.

The scouting party had good news, too. They had traveled east from Denver on I-70 to
US 36 and had located a suitable area of farmland east and south of Last Chance
where US 36 and state 71 junction. A company of infantry was sent to the area to se-
cure the land and they returned to Rattlesnake Springs. The mobile homes picked up in
Cheyenne were sent along with the infantry company and they said that they would set
them up wherever the scouting party wanted them. Some of the supplies were also di-
verted to the new home site.

Most everyone in the area was willing to pitch in and help the people move. In fact sev-
eral of the families wanted to accompany the people when they went. The community
center contents were loaded aboard semi-trailers and crews began to dismantle the
community center building and the warehouse building. More folks pitched in and
helped load the supplies while still others began to dismantle the homes. The residents
took temporary refuge in the cavern while the homes were split and hauled.

There were so many things that had to be done. A well digger was sent to Colorado ac-
companied by Bob to put in a pair of new 6” wells for their new community. A concrete
contractor and a portable plant were sent to put in foundations for the homes. The list of
people sent ahead was large.

During June, the group of fifty homes was pulled to Colorado accompanied by the group
which had seen to their disassembly. Shortly thereafter, semis left with the community
center and warehouse buildings. The work went on from sunrise to sunset and by mid-
July; everything they were taking had been hauled to Colorado. The empty propane
tanks had not been filled and they were moved early on to the new community which
they had come to call ‘The Farm”. In the end, they only moved 20 of the propane tanks
and the 12 propane delivery trucks were kept busy transferring the propane.

In Colorado, foundations and slabs were installed for the doublewides using the con-

106
tractor’s equipment from New Mexico and ready-mix trucks recovered from Denver. The
two wells were put in, the warehouse erected and the food stored in the warehouse.
The Community Center and Warehouse were located in the center of the new communi-
ty and space was left to erect two additional warehouse sized buildings. The homes
were reassembled around the buildings and the housing tract well had been dug at the
site of one of the new buildings yet to be erected. By Labor Day, the move was com-
plete. Before he returned to New Mexico, the contractor poured the slabs for the new
buildings.

They hadn’t allowed their livestock herds to grow much, confined as they were to the
cavern. Since they were going to be farmers now, they planned for a substantial herd
expansion and built a large chicken house, hog house and a barn ½ mile to the east of
the new housing tract. The well digger had put in a second well for the livestock elimi-
nating the need to run water pipes. They set a generator and one propane tank to ser-
vice the farm buildings.

Division of the military equipment proved to be difficult. Derek insisted on keeping the
32 M1A3 Abrams and left the other 28 tanks and the 12 damaged tank chassis in New
Mexico. The air detachment was divided into two units and one stayed in New Mexico
and the other went to Colorado, to be based, initially, at the Denver airport. The two
communities established radio communications and a mutual defense pact.

The distance between the two communities was about 455 air miles and about 550 road
miles. The aircraft could manage the trip only by stopping in Albuquerque to refuel and
the remainder of the military would require about 12-13 hours of non-stop road travel to
make the trip. Consequently, both groups agreed to maintain recon patrols in their areas
to keep them advised on any possible trouble that might require assistance from the
other.

While the arrangement was less than perfect, at least each group had someone to call
upon, just in case. Altogether, the New Mexico group had accumulated 120 fuel tankers.
These were evenly divided among the communities, as were the 12 propane delivery
trucks. There was still some propane in the Denver area, but Aaron and the residents of
The Farm decided to secure their future fuel from Cheyenne. Two massive standby
generator sets, capable of producing a total of two megawatts of power were located in
Denver, but unfortunately both units ran on diesel. Still, The Farm had some diesel,
gasoline and 600,000-gallons of propane.

Since they lacked a fence around the new community, the 32 Abrams were spaced
around the new community, 8 to a side, to provide security. While Aaron, Bob and Ja-
cob scrounged additional buildings from Denver, Derek sent his people back to Ft. Car-
son to pick up 32 M2 Bradley’s, additional Hummers and any remaining munitions, es-
pecially 25mm ammo. They were lucky in that regard, having not previously taken any

107
of the Bradley’s or 25mm ammo. If their Army at The Farm had any deficiencies it was a
lack of people.

The original cattle had grown old and had been replaced through their breeding pro-
gram. They had a single bull and a dozen cows. Likewise, they had limited themselves
to a single boar and a dozen sows. When it came to the chickens, they hadn’t limited
the flock nearly as much and were producing large quantities of eggs.

There seemed to be ample supplies of grain in nearby elevators so feed for the live-
stock wouldn’t be much of a problem. Farms in the area provided old hay and straw. It
might not have a lot of nutritional value left, but it gave the animals the bulk they needed
in their diet and they figured out how to operate the milling equipment at a nearby eleva-
tor and grind fresh feed for the livestock.

While the winters came earlier up here in Colorado, they were able to complete the final
two building shells before the first snowfall. Intended as additional storage and commer-
cial buildings, they could work on the insides during the winter. The bakery was tempo-
rarily housed in the main warehouse. They had a lot of loose ends, but in general terms
their community was habitable and it had so much more potential than southern New
Mexico. They had five sections of flat, rich earth to grow crops on. They could get new
farm equipment from abandoned dealerships in the Denver area and needed but one
small thing for the coming year. Farmers!

The folks held their first community meeting in the community center and it was uniform-
ly agreed to advertise on the Ham net for people with an agricultural background to join
their community, military veterans would be given preference. They might as well kill
two birds with one stone. At that same meeting they decided to make locating additional
doublewides a high priority for the coming year. Although the community was small, less
than 80 homes, they wanted to grow much larger.

108
 The Rock – Chapter 11 – A Growing Community

The problem The Farm faced was, simply put, a people problem. While they had all of
the space they could use for the foreseeable future, their population was only 201. The
call for new residents on the Ham net was productive, however, and they had nearly 50
additional families willing to relocate to The Farm. That gave them a real housing
crunch!

As weather permitted, Aaron and the others ranged far and wide locating new or nearly
new doublewides. They much preferred the new homes because it eliminated one step,
the dismantling of the homes. Over the course of the winter, having traveled well into
Nebraska, Wyoming and Kansas, they managed to locate and haul back 76 additional
homes.

The farm implement dealerships in the area had proven to be a veritable storehouses of
new farm equipment. A swap of the diesel fuel and lubricants together with a new bat-
tery was all it took to get the new tractors running. Since some of the people had been
raised on farms, they at least had a good idea of equipment they needed.

Tractors, plows, discs and drags were hauled in and rototillers, balers, planters, com-
bines and wagons were added to the mix. Derek sent a unit back to Iowa to raid Pioneer
and Garst to get non-hybrid corn seed stock. They had ample stocks of wheat, but
needed alfalfa seed and oats.

Arrangements were made over the radio for the concrete contractor to return to Colora-
do early on and put in foundations for the new doublewides. To compensate the people
from New Mexico, The Farm agreed to share their agricultural output. Since that meant
that the New Mexicans wouldn’t need to work so hard to secure food supplies, an
agreement was easily reached.

One other issue came up, the diesel fuel stored in the bunkers and the remaining pro-
pane. They agreed The Farm could empty the larger bunker of diesel and take a major
share of diesel. Gasoline was omitted from the agreement but PRI-D and PRI-G were
divided among the two groups.

Much of the work building the infrastructure of The Farm had been done with an eye to
the future. One example was the septic field. Although they had only 74 homes the first
year, they put in a septic system that could easily handle the effluent from 500 homes.
Although that had produced a sharp debate, Aaron and Bob persuaded most of the
people that going large in the beginning meant less work in the future. Aside from erect-
ing the new doublewides, the community had other issues to address. They needed wa-
ter storage and tanks for their diesel. Some thought was given to locating and installing
alternative energy sources for electricity and to heat the water. It was going to be a long
summer.

109
Although they had just shy of one million gallons of diesel fuel, they considered it im-
practical to try and put in enough tanks to store the entire supply of fuel underground.
They opted to install the largest tanks they could find in two locations, one near the
housing area and a second by the farm buildings. They ended up with most of the tanks
located near the generators. The propane delivery trucks were kept busy all summer
hauling propane from Cheyenne. Thirty-six families decided to relocate from New Mexi-
co to Colorado and they had 52 farm families who had applied and been accepted into
the community. This left them a bit short on housing and the scramble was on to find
more of the doublewides.

‘God helps him who helps himself’. The residents of The Farm took that both ways.
They worked hard, meeting the spirit of the message and they freely helped themselves
to whatever they could find. The 238 new residents of The Farm were fully housed and
hard at work as spring turned into summer in 2016.

Derek had the bodies he needed to fill in the ranks of his military units and the commu-
nity was beginning to take on the look of any other community. Rather than erect grain
storage and other facilities, they took advantage of the grain elevators and such in the
area. It meant locating extra generators and relocating fuel tankers, but that was one
hell of a lot easier than building new buildings.

Although most of their personal vehicles were old, they were relatively low mileage.
They had agreed eons ago to limit themselves to diesel pickups, eliminating the need
for gasoline. About the only things they needed to keep their vehicles running were
tires, motor oil, various filters, belts, brakes and new batteries. Warehouses in the Den-
ver area met those needs.

Other warehouses became the source of alternative energy. They found PV panels by
the pallet load. They also determined that the panels were manufactured in New Mexi-
co. Connected to a charge controller and a HUGE battery bank consisting of 60 batter-
ies each home could provide its own power. The batteries proved more difficult to find,
however and they resorted to all manner of deep cycle batteries with golf cart batteries
being the easiest to find. The solar water-heating project proved to be more difficult and
they decided to put that off to the following year.

The homes at The Farm all faced south intentionally. While they weren’t widely spaced,
there was room for a front yard, if you wanted one, and room in the back for a deck or
whatever. When the utilities were put in, lines were run for water, sewer, electricity and
communications. Each home was wired into the computer network, now housed in one
of the extra community buildings and Aaron, Bob and Jacob had seen to a telephone
system connecting all of the homes. The streets were two lanes wide, but offered no
space for parking. They surfaced them with an asphalt-like mix of pea gravel and road
tar.

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At one of the community meetings, someone suggested putting a front porch on each of
the homes; specifically roofed decks. The roof could support the solar water heating
panels and would provide shade for the front of the homes. They considered that idea a
winner and voted to do it the following summer. The people were learning to adapt to
their new circumstances and the electricity generating roofs allowed them to take one of
the two large generators off line. And they were able to further economize by changing
out all of the incandescent light bulbs to florescent bulbs in their homes using the screw-
in florescent bulbs.

Improvise. Adapt. Overcome. Gunny Highway’s motto became the motto of The Farm.
Someone also suggested wind turbines and they added those to the list. Maybe, the
three old geezers suggested, they could get some from either Palm Springs or Teha-
chapi out in California. If they could limit their consumption of hydrocarbon based fuels,
they should be good scavenging until the petroleum industry was back up and running.

They hadn’t bothered with a 10’ thick wall, the area to enclose was simply too large. The
New Mexican contractor had brought a second crew and while one crew put in the
slabs, the second crew put up a 1’ thick wall. The wall was erected using slip form con-
struction and continuously poured 24/7 until it was completed.

The new compound area had room for 500 homes; a number arrived at based on the
capacity of the septic system. As the contractor completed his work a fleet of trucks ar-
rived and were filled with grain from the elevators, keeping the slate even. The folks at
the farm butchered all but thirteen of the gilts, increasing their pork herd to 24 sows and
2 boars. They kept the heifers and butchered the steers, but weren’t in a position to
market beef for another year or two. The chickens were another matter entirely. By forc-
ing a reduction of egg consumption, they managed to grow hundreds of extra chickens.

A trip to a warehouse in Denver solved the problem they had with storing the extra meat
they produced during 2016. Every building generated its own electricity, or most of it,
and the large community buildings had such big roofs, they were generating most of the
electricity consumed by the equipment inside. Jacob took advantage of the nearness of
Denver and a crew scoured the city looking for diesel generators to replace the two pro-
pane guzzlers. Denver had both a Cummins and a Koehler in the form of Rocky Moun-
tain Power Generation and the wholesalers records revealed three dealers in the Den-
ver area: Standby Power Service, Wagner Equipment and Stewart and Stevenson.

Between the wholesaler and the three dealers, Aaron, Bob and Jacob were able to as-
semble a 3-megawatt, five diesel generator modular system before spring of 2017. The
real beauty of the new system was the interface that allowed it to be connected to the
computer network and controlled from any computer terminal in the tract, if you knew
the password. And, most of the time, they could get by with a single 600kw generator.

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Maybe it was the cold winter or maybe it was being in wide-open spaces or maybe it
was just the whatever; but most of the younger women and all of the livestock of breed-
ing age were expecting in the spring. The Farm was looking forward to a population ex-
plosion of another kind.

The New Mexican contractor was back in Colorado with both crews and since there was
no wall to build this year began to put in foundations and slabs at an amazing rate. A
building contractor also came up this year and after locating the lumber he needed in
Denver, began to put up those porch roofs at a rapid rate, sometimes as many as 4 or 5
in a single day.

Even more surprisingly, 17 families who had relocated to New Mexico after the strike
showed up wanting to join the community. These folks had an interesting assortment of
skills, including a mechanic, two carpenters, two plumbers, three farmers, a baker, a
butcher, four retired 20 plus year veterans, and three former cops. They didn’t find a
candlestick maker. Better still, they had located and dragged along their own dou-
blewide mobile homes.

They were moved in and pitching in to help even before Aaron and the scroungers re-
turned with additional doublewides. The farmers had a jump on spring, having plowed
their fields in the fall, and things were simply sailing along. The Farm seemed to be
seized by a new energy. Even Ron, Gary and Clarence were out and about, Gary finally
having been able to give up the cane. Aaron, Bob and Jacob had presented them with
golf carts and they had the run of the place, ‘supervising’ as it were. The three old gee-
zers were acting 10 years younger than their actual age.

The Farm was becoming a small town, and a restaurant counter had been added to the
community center over the winter using equipment also scrounged from Denver. The
three of them fell into sort of a routine of their own, meeting for breakfast, ‘supervising’
throughout the morning, taking lunch at the café and supervising throughout the after-
noon. Their wives were happy to see them reenergized and out from under foot.

Derek and his fulltime military types made the rounds of the military installations in the
Denver area collecting additional munitions and equipment. The air detachment made a
trip back to Ft. Hood for more Longbows and Kiowa’s. They were met by their opposites
from New Mexico who had continued the search for Apache and Kiowa air crews. In the
end, 4 more Apaches and 2 additional Kiowa’s flew back to New Mexico and 12 Apach-
es and 6 more Kiowa’s made the trip to Denver. Six 10-ton military vehicles hauled re-
pair parts, four to Denver and two to New Mexico. While the primary purpose of both
military units remained defensive in nature, they presumed that they would only need to
implement the mutual aid pact in the direst of circumstances.

Unbeknown to Derek, the New Mexicans had returned to Ft. Hood and picked up addi-
tional M1A2SEPs. They had the larger, better-equipped Army of the two communities.
They had to scrounge some on their own to get additional munitions for the tanks, since
Ft. Hood had been cleaned out, but they had excellent teachers and they managed very

112
well. The New Mexicans had implemented other changes and now had a regiment of
their own. Their artillery was back up to 18 M119A2 cannons, too.

In many respects, the two communities had adopted the posture the Swiss and Israelis
had been famous for. Every member of both communities of fighting age (15-45) was a
reserve member of the armed force. Vast stores of munitions, equipment and military
garb had been recovered and everyone had a full set of everything. Helmets, Intercep-
tor Vests with plates, magazines, and so forth were issued and kept at home in both
communities. The more dangerous items, like grenades and things that little hands
could play with were only maintained at the community level, but the New Mexicans and
the Coloradoans had the ultimate ‘rapid response’ forces. Derek had even been up to
Cheyenne to F.E. Warren AFB and had cleaned out anything of use there.

The scroungers from Colorado had done well on locating more doublewides and to-
gether with the 17 homes dragged in by the people from New Mexico, by mid-summer
over 60 new homes were assembled or being assembled. Mid-summer meant the 4th of
July. This was still the United States of America, even if the federal government was
strangely missing in action. Besides, everyone needed a rest, so a massive barbeque
picnic was planned at The Farm.

“This place is really coming together,” Gary observed. “Has anyone been to California to
see about wind turbines yet?”

“Nah, partner,” Ron replied, “Aaron said they had to do what they could about homes
this year and try to get a few ahead. If they could accomplish that, he claimed they
would go looking for wind turbines next year.”

“I don’t see that they’re going to get enough homes anytime soon,” Clarence observed,
“We have space for 500 homes. What are we up to now?”

“Let’s see,” Ron figured out loud. “There were 162 homes at the beginning of spring.
Then we got in those 17 families from New Mexico and Aaron and his bunch have
pulled in 46 additional homes. If my math is right, that’s 225 homes.”

“A couple of more years and were going to have to think about a second compound,”
Gary speculated. “And, if we put in a wind farm for electricity, we’re going to have to ex-
pand the size of The Farm by a few sections of farm ground.”

“You must have been asleep at the switch, Gar-Bear,” Ron laughed. “They added a
sixth section last year and have three more under cultivation this year. The Farm now
covers nine sections.”

“Well, who would have thought that it would take the better part of 18 months just to get
over a broken bone?” Gary asked.

113
“We aren’t exactly spring chickens, Gary,” Clarence observed, “You’re lucky you healed
at all.”

“I’d better hurry up and get my bottle of homebrew before that doctor comes along and
tells me it isn’t on my diet,” Gary laughed.

“How are you doing on that diet?” Clarence asked.

“It’s almost funny Clarence,” Gary explained. “I followed it religiously for about 9 months;
lost weight down to 152 pounds. Then the doctor started to worry because I was so
skinny. So I said to hell with the diet and went back to my normal eating, more or less.
Got my weight back up to 170 and he was real happy. But then he started raising hell
about my Hemoglobin A1c again. There’s no pleasing the man. How are the two of you
making out with those heart conditions?”

“Same as always,” Ron said, “Angioplasty every three years to unplug me and then pre-
tend to follow the doctor’s orders for a while.”

“I just take my pills and follow the diet,” Clarence said. “I haven’t been clogged up since
back before the strike and I have my diabetes controlled with pills. How are your feet
doing?”

“They been numb so long that I’ve gotten used to it,” Gary laughed. “But I take care of
them so I don’t end up getting one cut off.”

“Not to change the subject, but are they going to have enough of those PV panels to
cover 500 homes?” Ron inquired.

“I was talking to Jacob about that,” Gary replied. “The panels don’t seem to be the prob-
lem. They have enough in Denver for a lot of homes. The problem seems to be getting
60 batteries for each home.”

“I suppose there is a limit to everything, even scrounging,” Ron admitted.

“The word on the Ham net is that a lot of factories have started back up it the southern
states and petroleum production is coming back online,” Gary announced. “Of course
with so much heavy industry in the north and so few people left in the country, who
knows how long it will be before the country is producing everything it needs.”

“What else do you hear on the Ham net?” Clarence asked, curious.

“You mean like the roving band of bad guys who would rather steal from people than
scrounge for themselves?” Gary asked. “The country hasn’t changed all that much
Clarence, that’s why we need our own standing Army.”

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“How big a band?” Clarence asked.

“Estimates range from 1,000 to 3,000. I guess that nobody knows for sure,” Gary an-
swered. “Doesn’t much matter though, we have them outnumbered.”

“How do you figure that?” Ron snapped. “There are barely 600 of us.”

“Plus 32 Abram M1A3s, 32 Bradley M2s, artillery and about 450 highly trained troops,”
Gary replied. “And we have 16 Apaches’ and 8 Kiowa Warriors now. I sure as hell
wouldn’t want to be a bad guy attacking this community. Derek has one unit down at Ft.
Hood right now picking up another 15 artillery pieces.”

“We’re still awfully light on people,” Ron observed. “I mean a tank crew is four people
and a Bradley takes three. That uses up half of our fighting force right there. Then
there’s the artillery.”

“It’s not as bad as you think, partner,” Gary said. “Used as static defensive equipment
the Abrams and Bradley’s can get by with two people per vehicle.”

“Still…” Ron began.

“Let’s get a beer before that doctor shows up,” Gary cut him off.

The north wall set back from the road about ¼ mile. All around the compound, Derek
had been setting a layered defense. Furthest away was a clearly marked minefield
about 200 yards wide. Behind the minefield, were staggered banks of Claymores, wired
to be set off individually or every fifth mine in banks. Behind the minefield were the
Bradley’s, 15 to a side and behind them the Abrams, 8 to a side.

The intentions were to yank down the minefield warning signs and button up in the
event of an attack. The artillery was positioned inside of the compound near the park
that made up the very center of the compound. Given the arrangement, 24 artillery
pieces could begin to repel invaders at a range of 11 kilometers with the Abrams picking
up the slack at 4 kilometers. Depending upon the direction the attack came from, as
many as 16 of the Abrams could be brought to bear on intruders from any given direc-
tion.

The minefield was sown with the M-16APM, the so-called Bouncing Betty. When acti-
vated, the mines rose to a height of about 1.5 meters and exploded. With a blast radius
of about 30’, the mines were designed to kill more than one person at a time. Although
they had made an exact map of the mine placement, the grass had been allowed to
grow in the ¼ mile ring around the compound and no one could be certain exactly
where those three little prongs were sticking up for each mine. All the better for a defen-

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sive installation. The compound had gates that were closed, more to keep the children
in than intruders out. A second gate, made of 2 layers of ¾” steel plate could be swung
into position in a defensive situation. An observation tower rose from the center of the
park nearly 60’ into the air and was manned by a single individual 24/7.

The only clear path through the minefields was the road. On the wall overlooking the
road, Derek had mounted a Mk-19 and a pair of Ma Deuces. Since the road went
straight through the tract and exited on the south, a similar arrangement existed above
the south gate. If ever there was a killing zone, it was those roads leading into the tract
from the north and the south. The Hummers, by the way, were parked in a row between
the Bradley’s and the Abrams and ringed the compound with the Mk-19’s, Ma Deuces
and TOW missiles. It would take an armored Regiment to get into the compound, and
they would have to be pretty lucky.

Over the course of the afternoon, the 4th of July picnic was a romping success. Aaron
had managed to get some fireworks from a Denver manufacture’s warehouse and after
sunset, they ended the very enjoyable day with the first fireworks display in years. In
many ways, Gary felt the celebration was reminiscent of 4th of July celebrations he re-
membered from the 1950’s. Well, maybe. There was no boat on the river to watch the
fireworks display up close, but still, the fried chicken, potato salad and watermelon
brought back memories of a simpler time. There probably weren’t many among them
who were old enough to remember the 1950’s, Gary realized. It was a far simpler time
for a young boy growing up in rural Iowa.

In the days after the Second World War, America had been far less complicated. Crime
was primarily a function of big cities. Gary could remember the awe he’d had when they
had moved to the farm north of Greene and had electric lights for the first time (1948)
and indoor plumbing, hot running water, and even a basement where his mother did the
wash and rendered the fat from the hog they butchered every year. Those were the
days before government became big government. In a way, 2017 was a little like the
1950’s since apparently there was no federal government. Derek noticed the faraway
look in his Dad’s eyes. “Probably ‘Lost in the ‘50’s Tonight (Ronnie Milsap),” he mused.

The next day was Lorrie’s 50th birthday. Man, did that make Sharon feel old. Well, she
should, she was 70 herself back on February 12th. Hell, they were all getting old. Gary
was 74, Ron 76 and Clarence 79. But, for a bunch of old farts, they seemed to be in
reasonably good health, especially considering all of their medical problems. Although
the men were exempt from military duty because they were such crusty old curmudg-
eons, they nevertheless showed up for weekly rifle practice. They couldn’t hit much be-
yond 100-yards, but they said they could keep the bad guys heads down blasting away
with their M1A’s and FAL’s.

Aaron, Bob and Jacob set out to pull another group of doublewides back to The Farm.
The squads had returned with the M119A2s on July 3rd and Derek saw to getting them

116
inspected and squared away. The crops and gardens were doing nicely and new pota-
toes and peas plus sweet corn and fresh tomatoes adorned nearly every table in the
community. The scavengers had gone to Omaha on this trip; they found several unas-
sembled doublewides in Omaha, and Council Bluffs. Between those homes and the
ones they’d located in Lincoln, they were planning on pulling back 45 more homes,
bringing the community total to 270 homes. The rule of thumb seemed to be that there
were about 2.7 residents per home and this meant that the population was due for a
surge up to about 730 residents. More of the folks from down New Mexico way were
ready to move, just as soon as the home became available.

In fact, several of the families had already moved and their household goods were still
on trailers. They were living with friends until their houses became ready. Bob called in
on 40-meters to report that rumor had it that the bad guys were in the Des Moines area
and headed west. They were pulling out with the 45 homes and planned to drive straight
through to get back to The Farm.

Derek hooked up with the People in New Mexico and told them that if anyone was plan-
ning to move, come now or hold up for a while until this bunch of bad guys was dealt
with. Not surprisingly, the people said they’d finish loading and drive straight through to
lend assistance in the fight. The New Mexican commanders offered mutual aid, but
Derek said that with the defensive posture they had adopted in Colorado, he didn’t think
it was necessary for them to come up to help.

Most everyone arrived in a 12-hour period, including Aaron, Bob and Jacob with the
new homes and the final families from New Mexico. Derek put out forward observers in
Ma Deuce equipped Hummers at the I-80, I-76 junction and The Farm went to Yellow
Alert. In this posture, the farmer’s kept cultivating and farming, but carried their weapons
and equipment. The observation tower was now staffed with four people 24/7. All of the
vehicles were fueled up and turned over so that they could be moved, if necessary. All
of the children were moved to the basement of the Community Center as much to keep
them out of the way as to protect them. Everyone in the 15 to 45 age group was suited
up and packing, but continued with their normal activities as best they could.

Aaron had Damon along and left him in the North Platte, Nebraska area with his Harley.
Damon didn’t have a radio, but he could make that Harley move, especially since he’d
spend hours working on the motor. The plan was for Damon to head west at full throttle
the minute he laid eyes on the bad guys. When he came roaring through picking up I-
76, the forward observers would give The Farm the heads up and they, in turn, would
notify the Kiowa’s to begin air operations.

The Kiowa Warrior’s had an operating range of about 300 miles at sea level and a ceil-
ing around 19,000 feet. Stores of fuel and replacement munitions were maintained at
The Farm eliminating the necessity of the observation helicopters returning to Denver to

117
refit and/or refuel. A flight of two of the OH58D’s would stop at The Farm to refuel on the
way to the I-80, I-76 junction.

It was close to 18 hours after everyone had arrived at The Farm that Damon came blaz-
ing through the I-76, I-80 junction. He barely slowed, but risked a wave at the Hummer
to let them know it was him. Four of the 8 Kiowa’s departed Denver with two refueling at
The Farm and continuing. The other two refueled and stood by to relieve the first pair.
They planned to fly the choppers near their operational ceilings to avoid detection by the
bad guys. The Apaches and remaining Kiowa’s would be scrambled when the bad guys
got within 75 miles of The Farm or Denver. Damon beat the Hummer back to The Farm
by a wide time margin. He went to the bar to get a beer and wash the bugs out of his
teeth. When the bad guys turned down I-76, Derek moved their alert status to Orange
and the farmer’s and others returned to the compound.

When the second flight of Kiowa’s reported the bad guys at the 75 mile mark, the
Apaches and other Kiowa’s flew to the farm and refueled. They immediately departed,
hoping to stop them in their tracks at 50 miles away. In this instance, the Apaches were
armed with 8 Hellfire’s, 38 Hydra 70 Folding Fin Aerial Rockets (2.75”), 4 Sidewinders
and the 30mm cannon with 1,200 rounds of ammo. The Kiowa’s were armed with a Hy-
dra pod and a Hellfire pod.

All they could do at the farm was listen to the radio broadcasts as the 20 helicopters at-
tacked the long convoy of bad guy vehicles. Half of the Apaches took them head on and
the other half flew to the junction to bottle up the vehicles there. The Kiowa’s flew on to
the east to block the tail of the column. While the six Apache’s moved down the column
the six at the junction would split into two groups of three and work their way toward the
other Apache’s and Kiowa’s. The general idea was to bottle the vehicles up and trap the
entire column. If they could accomplish that mission, they could return to The Farm, re-
fuel, rearm and return to make a second pass at the bad guys.

The bad guys might not have been rocket scientists, but they watched TV too back in
the days when there was still a TV to watch. Along their journeys, they had picked up a
dozen Stinger missiles and figured out how to make them work. These missiles were
distributed evenly through the column of about 650 vehicles. Before they had a chance
to use the Stingers in the first few vehicles, the vehicles were burning hulks, but further
back in the column, some of the men managed to get the Stingers up and locked on to
the choppers. Two Apache’s and a Kiowa succumbed to Stinger hits. Other than that,
the plan worked as planned.

Three of the Apaches stayed behind to provide cover for the downed helicopters with
their 30mm guns and all of the others returned to The Farm to refuel and rearm. The
second time out, the Hellfire modules were replaced with the 2.75” rocket pods. Two
hours later, most of the column lay in ruins. Three of the crewmen aboard the downed

118
helicopters were dead and three seriously wounded. How any of them would survive
was an answer known only to God.

Derek stood the helicopters down and had them RTB in Denver. He dispatched the
Hummers to ‘clean up’ the mess. Radio reports came back a while later that about ¾ of
the bad guys were dead or dying. Give the folks a couple of hours, they said, and the
fatality rate would be 100%. Derek told them to push the vehicles off I-76 and I-80 into
the ditches. Maybe the next bunch of bad guys would get the idea and bypass Denver
altogether. The doctor reported that all three surviving aircrew members would probably
survive but their flying days were over; their injuries were just too severe.

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 The Rock – Chapter 12 – Picking up the Pieces

The loss of the three aircrews hit Derek hard. The families of the dead and injured were
moved from Denver to The Farm and given all the support and compassion the folks
could manage. Derek consulted with his opposite number in New Mexico and inquired
about additional aircrew members. The people down in New Mexico had 6 extra Apache
crews and two extra Kiowa crews. If the folks wanted to move to Colorado, they’d let
Derek know. Derek concluded that they needed a fleet of 16 Apaches and 8 Kiowa’s
with a 25% backup. That translated into 10 more Apaches and 3 more Kiowa’s. He
loaded all 10 remaining Apache crews and three of the Kiowa crews aboard a business
jet parked at Denver airport and sent them to Ft. Hood to bring back the additional heli-
copters. He also dispatched the 4 5-ton trucks to Ft. Hood with an armed escort to pick
up more spare parts.

Derek got a call back from New Mexico four days later. The aviators were all willing to
relocate to Colorado. Derek asked where the folks from New Mexico had found addi-
tional munitions for the Apaches and Kiowa’s and the General down in New Mexico just
laughed. They had cleaned the place out to bare walls he said; how many of what did
Derek need? The aircrews would bring the extra munitions with them, he said. He also
asked where Derek was basing his helicopters.

Derek told him Denver and he suggested that he run the contractor back up to Colorado
and get him to put an airfield right there at The Farm. It sounded good to Derek, so they
told the General to go for it. Those aircrew members couldn’t perhaps bring along a few
doublewides, Derek asked. No problem, he was told, there were plenty of doublewides
in Gallup.

That poor contractor hadn’t been back in New Mexico for more than a week. If they’d
just known, he could have stayed in Colorado and put in the airfield and saved some
travel. It had been a bear, but he had managed to get the remaining foundations and
slabs in and The Farm only needed homes to fill the slabs.

Maybe, he thought, he should just move to Colorado himself. Most of his wife’s friends
had already moved to Colorado and it sure would cut down on the driving. They talked it
over and he sent a substantial portion of his crew to Gallup to get homes for those
among them who wanted to move to Colorado. His foreman wanted to stay in New Mex-
ico, so the two of them worked out a deal for the foreman to take over that operation.
The men remaining behind also went to Gallup to help their friends pull the second half
of their homes. The General saw to it that everyone’s household goods were loaded
and moved.

There were 8 new homes coming up from New Mexico for the aircrews and 15 more for
the concrete folks. 270 plus 23 makes 293. Then, Aaron, Bob and Jacob returned from
Des Moines and central Iowa with 57 more homes. They ended the summer with 350

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homes and 50 of them were empty. Then the aircrews moved in from Denver, occupy-
ing the 19 of those 50 homes. A quick count showed the population of The Farm to be
852 on Labor Day, 2017. Aaron, Bob and Jacob were all for taking a short vacation and
then heading to California to see what they could do about getting the wind turbines
over the winter. The Farm would just have to make do with the 38 empty homes until
the following summer.

The continuing population growth presented a problem for The Farm. They couldn’t
grow their beef herd fast enough to keep up with the population growth. Aaron suggest-
ed that he head up to the Coalinga area, and see if there were any cattle there. Along I-
5 about halfway between Los Angeles and San Francisco, there was a dry lot back in
2004 that typically held over 100,000 animals.

Gary had mentioned it to Aaron at one time or another and Aaron thought it was worth
the fuel to see if there were still any cattle there. They talked it over and since it was
less than 3 hours’ drive north of Tehachapi, they decided to risk the fuel. The next prob-
lem became what they might have that they could exchange for the cattle since they
had almost no gold or silver. They decided that there were plenty of military vehicles at
Ft. Carson, so they hauled out vehicles and munitions and would try and barter them for
the cattle, if there were any.

While Aaron and the others took their vacation, Derek sent people down to Ft. Carson
to bring back some Mk-19 and Ma Deuce equipped Hummers. Then they started to hunt
around the Denver area for cattle trucks; they found 4. They also found a 1½-ton
straight truck that they could haul a bull back in if they found one.

They didn’t really have any idea what to expect with respect to the wind turbines. The
three old geezers told them there was thousands in Tehachapi, but they had no idea of
the size or anything else. Make them all the same brand, it was suggested, for conven-
ience of parts. Derek would send an extra Hummer along with the concrete contractor
so he could get an idea about what they needed for bases for the towers. They weren’t
sure how many it would take to generate 3 megawatts, (60) but get enough so that The
Farm could go completely to alternative energy sources for electricity.

Aaron, Bob, Jacob and a large crew left for California during late September. The crews
drove the vehicles they planned to use for trade. They sent along a single 16,000- gal-
lon tanker of diesel fuel for the fleet of vehicles. As it turned out, that was the smartest
move they’d made in a long time. Out in California, fuel of any kind had become the new
medium of exchange, but they didn’t know that. They did, however take that second
Ham radio along, their second best move.

They arrived in Tehachapi about 4 days after they left. Several of the towers were down,
but after reading the equipment manuals, Aaron decided to go with the AOC-15/50 tur-
bines. There were 75 of the turbines of that model at Tehachapi, giving them the 60

121
they needed and a 25% reserve for parts. Before they started dismantling the towers,
they wanted to see about that beef.

The next morning they left for the Coalinga area, taking all of their vehicles with them
except for the transports for the turbines. When they arrived at the interchange on I-5,
there were hundreds, perhaps thousands of cattle on the dry lot. They started asking
around and found that a company named Harris owned the lot. They were getting some
weird looks from these Californians, especially their military vehicles, but Bob noticed
that most of the stares were directed at the fuel tanker.

They followed the directions they were given and eventually came to what appeared to
be the headquarters for the cattle company. It got very interesting very quickly. No
sooner had they pulled to a stop than they found dozens of rifles pointed in their direc-
tion. Aaron got down, made a bit of a production of taking off his sidearm and headed to
what appeared to be the office. As he walked up, he noticed the mini-blind part briefly
and snap shut. “Well, they know I’m here and unarmed,” Aaron thought, “I wonder how
this is going to all work out.”

Aaron knocked on the door. A voce from within said “Come in.” He entered to find a half
dozen or so well armed men sitting around the room.

“Can I help you?” a voice asked.

“My name is Aaron Little,” he said, “We’re here from Colorado looking to barter for some
cattle.”

“From the looks of that Army you brought,” the man said, “I wager you’re planning on
taking them. Am I right?”

If you’re referring to the Hummers with the Ma Deuces and Mk-19’s,” Aaron said,
“That’s what we brought to trade.”

“They might be worth something to us,” the man said. “My name is John Harris and I’m
the foreman here. We’d be interested in the Hummer’s, but I can tell you right now that
the fuel in that tanker of yours is worth one hell of a lot more to us. Would you be willing
to part with some or all of it?”

“It’s diesel fuel John,” Aaron said, “And I think we could work something out, what do
you have in mind?”

“I can let you have a steer for 500 gallons and a heifer for 750,” John answered. “That
looks to be a 16,000-gallon tanker, so you can figure out what you want to trade for.”

“How many gallons to fill my four trucks with heifers and put a bull on the 1½-ton truck?”
Aaron asked.

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“You have that much fuel available?” John asked.

“That would depend on how much fuel ‘that much fuel’ is,” Aaron answered.

“Figure 160 head of heifers plus a bull,” John said, “I’d make that 150,000-gallons.”

“Figure 160 heifers, 10 steers and a bull,” Aaron answered, “And I’ll get 10 transports of
16,000-gallons each on the road within an hour.”

“You’re serious!” John responded.

“As a heart attack John,” Aaron replied.

“Hell for 160,000-gallons of stabilized diesel, I’ll go 15 not 10 steers,” John said.

“You’ve got yourself a deal,” Aaron said. “Don’t suppose I could hire some labor to help
us remove some of those wind turbines down in Tehachapi could I?”

“Maybe,” John said, “How much fuel is that worth to you?”

“Make me an offer,” Aaron said.

“Well sir, I expect we could get a couple of hundred people to help for another two
transports of fuel,” John said.

“You’ve got yourself a deal John,” Aaron replied, “Let’s go make the radio call now.”

“Boys break out some beers for our guests,” John said, “It looks like we’ve cornered the
market on diesel fuel.”

It’s funny how things worked out. Aaron conservatively estimated that they had upwards
of 10 million gallons of diesel fuel between Cheyenne, Lincoln, Omaha and Des Moines.
And, there was still diesel fuel in Denver and Albuquerque. They had some in the one
bunker in the cavern.

The Hummer’s on the other hand were getting to be in short supply in Colorado. They
set up the antenna and called back to The Farm. They needed 12 tankers of diesel fuel
ASAP to trade for all the cattle they could use. Derek said he would have the tankers on
the road in an hour. How many of the Hummer’s had Aaron had to give up? None, Aa-
ron advised, but the diesel fuel was practically worth its weight in gold. And, by the way,
they were bringing back 75 wind turbines and needed bases for 60. Hang on a minute
and he’d get Bill to give them the dimension of the foundations.

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Before he got off the radio, Aaron suggested that Derek send the convoy of tankers
across on I-80 to Sacramento and down I-5 to the junction with state route 145. He also
recommended that Derek send all the protection for the convoy he could spare, that fuel
was liquid gold. Bill got on the radio and started to give specific dimensions for the tower
foundations. Although Aaron rarely drank, he thought maybe the moment justified a
beer, maybe two.

They actually ended up spending several nights until the transports arrived with the die-
sel fuel. Derek had not only sent along every Hummer he had, he had sent an extra
tanker of diesel fuel for the Hummer’s and a tanker of JP8 for the 4 Apaches he had fly-
ing air cover. That sparked another round of negotiations. John figured he could come
up with a tractor and trailer and another 40 steers for the extra 16,000-gallons of diesel.
Aaron checked with the tanker driver, and found that the tanker only held 12,000 gallons
of fuel, the Hummer’s ate diesel like crazy. When he told John, John said he’d trust him
for the other 4,000-gallons. Hell, he would give them 40 heifers instead of steers if they
would bring in one more tanker of fuel. Aaron readily agreed, but said that they had to
transport the beef, Apaches and Hummer’s back to Colorado before they could send
another tanker. Close enough John said. The next day, the Apaches, the five semis, the
1½-ton truck and most of the Hummers set off to Colorado with their precious cargo of
beef.

A radio call to Derek arranged for the extra tanker of diesel fuel to depart as soon as the
beef and Hummers arrived in Colorado. Meanwhile, there were 75 wind turbines just
waiting to be disassembled in Tehachapi. They later learned that there are a couple of
wind farms in Colorado.

One was east of Colorado Springs about 50 miles and the other one was on the west
slope north of I-70 somewhere. That was ok, better to keep them in Colorado and bring
in additional equipment from California. In the meantime, they were in the beef business
big time. With two hundred pairs of hands, more or less, to help, the wind turbines were
down and aboard the trailers by the time the last transport of diesel arrived at the ranch.

Fortunately for them, the Californians had had ample storage for the diesel fuel and the
empty tankers were able to return to Colorado with the beef convoy. The final fuel
transport returned with them to Colorado with their treasure of turbines.

The elapsed time? They were back in Colorado with the turbines in time for Thanksgiv-
ing; and what a Thanksgiving it would be. Those 200 heifers and the bull made them
cattle barons of a sort. By next summer, they would have beef to export to New Mexico
and in a few short years, the country. They had a total of 227 cows and two bulls. In four
short years, their herd should run about 1,150 cows. That translated into a lot of beef to
export and tons of cheese. Maybe John out in California would know where they could
find a cheese maker. (Yeah… Wisconsin.)

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Fortunately Bill’s men used a trencher to run power lines at the same time they put in
the 60 foundations for the wind turbines. There were lots of willing hands at The Farm
and everything was wired, waiting for the installation of the control panels and turbines.

Aaron had brought back a complete control system from Tehachapi and it, too, could be
controlled from any computer in the tract, if you knew the password. The shopping list
for the coming year would include cheese making equipment, a cheese maker, more
doublewides and more computers. However, if they were going to expand beyond the
500 homes in the tract, they would have to come up with more of those PV panels and
deep cycle batteries. They had done very well on the batteries in Des Moines and had
enough to equip the last 150 homes (9,000 batteries from a manufacturer’s warehouse.)
Future homes might have to rely solely on the wind turbines and generators for their
electricity unless they got very, very lucky.

They spent the four weeks between Thanksgiving and Christmas installing the control
panel for the wind turbines and working when the weather permitted had the last of the
turbines up and operating by the first of April. As it was, someone calculated and real-
ized that five hundred homes would need 3.75 megawatts of power. That put them be-
hind the power curve in terms of replacing the homes’ electricity with wind-generated
electricity and/or their generators.

The spare 15 turbines could be installed to bring them up to 3.75 megawatts of wind-
generated electricity, but they would have to add a couple of more generators. They
presumed that it was better to have too much electricity than not enough. This, after all,
was not the 1950’s; it was 2018.

Here they were on the first of April 2018 and they needed 150 doublewides, spare parts
for the wind turbines, cheese making equipment, a cheese maker, 2 more generators
and God knew what else. Aaron got an idea and ran it by the decision makers.

Fleetwood homes used to have a manufacturing plant in Hemet, California, what did
they think of the idea of going to Hemet and looking for homes? Bill suggested that they
could probably get John to check it out for them for a lot less fuel than they would spend
on a hunch. Plus, he reminded them California was the ideal place to look for a cheese
maker. John allowed himself to be persuaded to check on the mobile homes for 500-
gallons of diesel. He’d throw in finding them a cheese maker.

John called back 5 days later to report that there were 75 new homes in Hemet and that
he had a line on the cheese maker. That large a number of homes called for an assist
from the folks in New Mexico. They were available to help, but asked for some beef and
pork in compensation for their time and fuel. Fair deal and besides, The Farm had so
many hogs they needed to find a couple of more steel buildings to use as hog houses.
They agreed to meet in Hemet on April 15th to get the homes. Aaron called John and
asked him to meet him in Tehachapi to pick up his diesel fuel.

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The convoy from The Farm left the next day, they had much more to do than haul back
homes. They wanted more of the PV panels, batteries, and whatever else they could
get in the greater Los Angeles area.

Exide Technologies had several branches and a manufacturing facility in the greater
Los Angeles area. Maybe this was their best shot at getting batteries. Perhaps the busi-
ness-to-business Yellow Pages for Los Angeles could direct them to a source for more
of the PV panels.

Then, there were the steel buildings and the spare parts for the wind turbines. Aaron
and a few men headed for Tehachapi while others looked for the shingles, batteries and
other things. John had the foresight to bring five extra men with him and the 12 men had
all the spare parts available loaded up in a matter of hours. Aaron gave him the 1,000-
gallon military trailer of diesel fuel and told him to keep the trailer.

John had located 3 people who were familiar with cheese making and willing to locate in
Colorado. Rather than choose, Aaron told John that all three were welcome in Colora-
do; they planned on having a large cheese making operation. The scroungers did very
well on the PV panels, and located a warehouse with enough for another 500 homes
plus 4 new community buildings.

Unfortunately, they didn’t do so well on batteries. They had found 5 semi-trailers loaded
with batteries waiting to be delivered, but only two of the trailers held deep cycle batter-
ies. They’d brought all five trailers; the automotive batteries gave them something to
trade, but they were way short on deep cycle batteries. They did, however, have a list of
Exide’s US plants and locations.

They all assembled in Hemet on the 15th of April. Aaron had 5 trailers of batteries, one
trailer of spare parts and controllers for the wind turbines and 19 trailers of PV panels.
He had run out of tractors, trailers and drivers for more. They hooked up to the 75 mo-
bile homes and the entire entourage headed for Colorado.

The folks from New Mexico agreed to take one trailer load of the automotive batteries in
exchange for part of the meat they were promised. Everything seemed to be working
out well. In their absence, the 15 remaining wind turbines had been erected and were
waiting connection and the equipment aboard the truck. The crops were all in and the
gardens were being planted.

They unloaded the three trailers of automotive batteries so they could provide an as-
sortment to the folks from New Mexico. It was only then that they discovered that two of
the trailers held a new Exide product, a deep-cycle automotive battery. That made it a
whole lot easier and they reloaded the regular automotive batteries back on the one
trailer, gave the folks from New Mexico 30 steers and sent them on their way. (Exide
submarine batteries are manufactured in Germany.) The best estimate was that they
had taken just over half of the PV panels from the LA warehouse, so they dispatched 20

126
semis and a military guard unit back to LA to clean out the warehouse. Aaron suggested
that they try eastern Iowa for more doublewides. Exide had a plant in eastern Iowa
somewhere in a town named Manchester. Gary told them it was on US 20 somewhere
east of Waterloo, but he didn’t know exactly where.

Aaron figured on a trip to Iowa and a trip to Kansas. Exide had another plant in Salina,
Kansas. As it was, they could really only haul 45 homes in a single trip, due to limita-
tions on the number of transports. Several of them were down for maintenance of one
sort or another. While there probably were enough new empty doublewides sitting
around the US to meet their needs, they were getting harder and harder to find. More
recently, they had been towing in as many near-new homes from Iowa and Nebraska as
new homes. It was all the same to them, but it meant more work.

On the other hand, it alleviated the need to search for furniture, so perhaps it was a
tradeoff. The Manchester, Iowa facility turned out to be a plastic manufacturing opera-
tion, but the Salina, Kansas operation looked good on paper. They had both a battery
manufacturing plant and a distribution center. They did manage to locate 45 new and
near-new doublewides by going all of the way to the Quad Cities.

The trucks had returned from California with the remaining contents of the warehouse. It
appeared as if they had more than enough PV panels for a complete second tract. By
joining the two tracts, the concrete contractor could eliminate one wall. After a brief de-
lay, he set about pouring the new wall while others began trenching for additional utili-
ties. Of course, this meant a second septic field was required so one group headed to
Denver to find the components they needed. The wall went up faster than any of the
other projects. But, it meant working around to clock to maintain the continuous pour.

Maybe the folks were getting the cart in front of the horse, but there were so many infra-
structures to put in place before they could begin erecting homes. Properly done, the
slabs would be poured, the utilities and streets in and the community buildings erected
and equipped before the first home went into the second tract. At least, that was the
way they saw it.

They still didn’t have the hog houses, but they had found the warehouse in LA where
they could get all of the steel building components they could haul. To minimize fuel ex-
pended on security, they decided to take 40 trucks to LA and empty out that warehouse
in one fell swoop. Besides, LA purely made all of them very nervous. It was as if they
were being watched all of the time.

Derek figured his air force was more than adequate. However, with a larger area to
guard, he wanted another 16 tanks and more Bradley’s. Plus, there wasn’t a Hummer of
any description to be found in the Denver area. So, off they went to Fort Bliss with 16 of
the M1000’s to pick up 16 of the M1A3 tanks and all the Ma Deuce, Mk-19 and TOW
equipped Hummers he could find. They needed one hell of a lot of those Bouncing Bet-

127
ties, too. Anyway, rather than make another trip back to Ft. Hood, they cleaned out all of
the mines of every description.

They had to precede the people working in the second tract area and locate and disarm
the M-16APM’s. It had been one of the most chilling experiences of Derek’s life. He
hadn’t actually disarmed the mines himself, but he must have held his breath the entire
time.

About all that grass; the good side was that the enemy couldn’t see the mines but the
bad side was that his people had a pretty tough time themselves and they had a map of
the mines. But, they’d managed somehow and after the concrete contractor had com-
pleted the wall, they’d re-laid the minefields exactly as before. The Claymores had been
one hell of a lot easier to move, it merely meant extending the electrical wires. He
prayed to God they never had to move those M-16APM’s again.

Down at Ft. Bliss, they loaded M1A3 Abrams tanks on the M1000’s. Then they headed
to the bunkers looking for more of the mines. After the experience of moving the mine-
fields the things made Derek nervous even in their containers, but they were a surefire
cure for what ailed an enemy. Had he to do it over, Derek would have set the mines up
for command detonation, but he wasn’t about to change in midstream. They did pretty
well on locating the Hummer’s he wanted and they headed back to The Farm.

The Exide Distribution center proved to be a gold mine for Aaron. He had no idea if the
batteries were manufactured right there in Salinas or somewhere else, but he got what
he was looking for. He also got the last 30 homes they needed to finish the first tract
and 15 to start the new tract. It was still early in the fall, but that was enough for one
year. They had more homes than people to occupy them. Besides, it had occurred to
him that they should be worrying about a wall around the airfield rather than a wall
around the new tract. He had an idea he wanted to run by Derek to see if it flew.

The airfield lay directly across the road from the first tract. Aaron reasoned that in the
interim, they could park the helicopters in the second tract, but for the long haul, he
wanted to take out the road and replace it with a concrete tunnel connecting the airfield
and the first compound. At least the contractor had the good sense to set the airfield a
¼ mile back from the road; that would allow them to ring the airfield with a minefield or
fields to protect the choppers. They probably had enough tanks; Derek had said he was
picking up 16 more, so maybe some Mk-19’s and Ma Deuces plus a few Bradley’s with
their 25mm cannons would be sufficient. They really only needed to defend the airfield
long enough for the choppers to depart. After that, what was there to protect beyond the
spare parts and munitions?

Derek and his people got back to The Farm ahead of Aaron’s group. He got his people
busy installing the mine fields to the east and west and placed the Abrams and Hum-
mer’s. They made a trip back to Ft. Carson, and when they realized that they were only

128
leaving behind 24 Bradley’s decided to take the entire complement of vehicles. He
wasn’t sure what to do with the extra 24, but better he should have them than the oppo-
sition, whoever that might be. Having no better place to park the Bradley’s, he parked
them between the airfield and the road.

Aaron and his people pulled in the following day and within minutes Aaron was sitting in
front of Derek.

“When did you start to read minds?” Aaron asked.

“Huh?” was the best that Derek could manage.

“Derek, I, was going to make several recommendations to you, but it looks like you’re
way ahead of me,” Aaron replied.

“Aaron, make the recommendations, I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Derek
laughed.

“I was going to recommend that we wall in the airfield Derek and surround it with Brad-
ley’s,” Aaron began. “I was also going to recommend that you put in the minefield or
fields like you have around the two tracts. We could take out the road and replace it with
a concrete tunnel, connecting the two facilities. Then, if we got hit by a surprise attack,
the pilots would be able to get to the choppers without getting their butts shot off.”

“We’re short some equipment if you want to do that Aaron,” Derek said. “I probably have
enough mines because we cleaned out Ft. Bliss. But, we’ll need some more Ma Deuces
and some Mk-19’s.”

I was thinking the same thing,” Aaron said, “Are you sure you don’t read minds? Any-
way, can you get those from Ft. Carson?”

“I’m not sure, we’ve pretty much picked the place clean,” Derek replied. “But we might
have missed something, so I’ll send someone down tomorrow to look. I’ll tell you one
thing; there probably isn’t a vehicle or a round of ammo to be found down there. But,
who knows, maybe there is a bunker full of infantry equipment.”

The long and short of it was that there wasn’t a bunker full of infantry equipment, but
does a ½ full bunker count? There were 20 Ma Deuces but only 4 Mk-19’s. It wasn’t
worth another trip all the way back to Ft. Hood or Ft. Bliss just to get a few more Mk-
19’s. With a sustained rate of fire of 40rpm, they could sweep each side of the airfield
pretty good. The Mk-19’s at the main compound would also help. With an effective
range of 1,400-meters, they could reach the half-mile to the airfield without difficulty.
The contractor stopped pouring slabs and got busy on the smaller fence around the air-
field. The tunnel would have to wait until spring.

129
Speaking of the tunnel, Derek was all in favor of putting one in but was concerned about
the tunnel serving as the road. He discussed the problem with his Dad. The tanks went
around 70 tons and it would take a pretty heavy duty tunnel to be able to support that
kind of weight, Derek advised Gary.

“No biggie kid, the runway at Van Nuys airport goes right over a street, Sherman Way,
maybe, I can’t remember,” Gary said. “The airport in Dallas has a tunnel under the run-
way, if I remember right. Can’t be sure, it’s been about 25 years since I was in that air-
port. The thing you have to remember is that the sphere is the strongest shape there is.
The next best thing to a sphere is a cylinder. So, to make a tunnel to support a lot of
weight, you have to make a half cylinder or put a cylinder on top of uprights. If it were up
to me, I’d go for a pure half cylinder. Pack the dirt in around it real tight like and it will be
strong as hell. Pour a slab over the top and you have yourself a pretty good road.”

“I’ll have to talk to Bill about pouring a cylinder, I guess,” Derek replied.

“That man can pour anything Derek,” Gary said. “Tell him what you need now and he’ll
probably have a slip form fabricated before spring.”

130
 The Rock – Chapter 13 – Unexpected Challenges

Derek took Gary’s advice and had a talk with Bill about the tunnel.

“They only problem I see, Derek, is that we’d have to put rebar in that tunnel and it was
hard enough putting rebar in the walls with a continuous pour,” Bill explained. “You’re
talking about something entirely different with a tunnel. But, let me work on it and I’ll fig-
ure something out.”

“Get back to me when you can, Bill,” Derek said and headed back to his office. When he
got there, Aaron was waiting to talk to him.

“What’s up Aaron?” Derek asked.

“We need more bulls,” Aaron said, “We have 227 cows, but only two bulls. We should
have 20 bulls, not two.”

“Did you contact John out in California?” Derek inquired.

“Yes, but he wants 30,000-gallons of diesel fuel per bull,” Aaron said.

“Isn’t that what you gave for the bull you got from him?” Derek said.

“Yeah, but we’re talking 600,000-gallons of diesel fuel. I can’t see giving the guy 7-8%
of our available fuel for only 20 bulls,” Aaron objected.

“Offer him a tanker a bull Aaron and tell him that is all the diesel we can spare,” Derek
suggested.

“I sort of let it slip that we had about 10-million gallons of diesel available,” Aaron said,
so he has us over a barrel.”

“I don’t care if he knows how much fuel we have Aaron,” Derek replied calmly, “Tell him
the decision is out of your hands. He can run his vehicles on cow dung for all I care.”

“I’ll work something out with him. By the way, the people tell me that on that last trip to
LA they had the feeling they were being watched the entire time,” Aaron changed the
subject.

“Was it anything specific, or just a feeling?” Derek perked up.

“Just a feeling, but they were pretty spooked, I can tell you that,” Aaron allowed.

“It sounds like we need to get that tunnel in the minute the ground thaws,” Derek con-
cluded. “As for the bulls, just make the best deal you can. We haven’t hit the fuel sup-

131
plies in Minneapolis or several other large cities, so we should be okay on diesel. The
word is that Texas is producing new diesel fuel at a pretty good clip anyway.”

Derek had a lot to think about. There was the tunnel and the bulls, but the possible se-
curity threat really got his attention. They had joked at one time that he was the Com-
mander-in-Chief of the entire military, but that simply wasn’t true. The New Mexican Ar-
my was bigger than his and they had a militia to back them up that probably ran to al-
most 30,000.

Maybe he should make a trip back to New Mexico and consolidate the two Armies into a
single Division. And, maybe he should make another trip back to Ft. Hood and improve
his air forces. He might be able to pick up some more Mk-19’s while he was at it.

Bill was back to Derek in a week. He proposed to put in a tunnel with an 8’ diameter and
18” thick walls. He’d figured out how to do a continuous pour of a horizontal tunnel and
all he needed was warm weather so he could begin. He claimed that the tunnel would
support 100-tons with no problem, maybe more. The issue then became how long it
would take Bill to construct the tunnel. Bill said he could pour from both ends and meet
in the middle. His best estimate was 45 days; start to finish, if he didn’t run into trouble.

Aaron was back too. The best he could manage was 24,000-gallons per bull. That
would take half of their tankers plus another with fuel for the tankers themselves. The
extra tanker could pull ½ diesel in the truck and ½ JP8 in the trailer for the Apaches.
Derek said he thought maybe he’d send the Kiowa Warriors instead of the Apaches. If
Aaron’s people were nervous in LA, they’d better keep the Apaches close to home.

Derek told Aaron to get everything lined up and go immediately, California wasn’t all
that bad in the winter. He also suggested that they take I-70 to I-15 and go south to
Barstow. They could pick up state route 58 there and take it to Bakersfield and then pick
up I-5 to the Coalinga area. Donner Pass was a bear in the winter, even when they had
snowplows.

Now, if the weather permitted them to start on the tunnel by the first of April, they’d have
the tunnel in and sealed up around May 15th. Derek figured that if they were going to go
to New Mexico and Texas, he’d better do it now while there was snow on the ground.

He assigned 6 of the Kiowa’s to Aaron’s party and decided that they would just truck the
aircraft from Ft. Hood to Colorado. He didn’t want to leave The Farm without defenses,
even in the winter. He was also thinking that if he got 32 more M1A2SEPs, he could
free up his M1A3s and use the A2s for stationary defense. The turbine engines wouldn’t
be an issue in that instance.

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Derek’s plate was pretty full as he set out in early February for New Mexico with all 40
M1000’s and 40 flatbed semi tractor-trailers. The General in charge of the New Mexican
Army was a retired Gunnery Sergeant. Gunny had no illusions about his rank; in fact, he
felt downright uncomfortable wearing the star, but he was the most qualified of the sol-
diers in New Mexico and hadn’t really been given a choice. He had rebuilt his forces af-
ter the folks went to Colorado and had two full Regiments. The only thing he was short
of was a few tanks.

“Hey Gunny,” Derek said, “How are you folks doing?”

“It’s been pretty quiet Derek and to tell you the truth, that sort of bothers me,” Gunny re-
plied. “What brings you down this way?”

“Two things, Gunny,” Derek got right to the point. “First, I was thinking maybe we should
consolidate our Regiments into a Division. Secondly, I needed to go to Ft. Hood and Ft.
Bliss and pick up some more Abrams and choppers.”

“Look, I could use 8 more Abrams myself, how about I tag along with you and bring
them back here?” Gunny asked.

“We have all 40 of the M1000’s, so we can bring back 8 for you,” Derek said. “The thing
is, I’m not sure where to get munitions for 32 more Abrams.”

“Hell, kid, I’ve got enough munitions to fight WW III and half of WW IV,” Gunny laughed.
“Bring me the tanks and I’ll fill those 8 empty M1000’s with munitions.”

“What about Hellfire’s and rocket pods for the Apaches and Kiowa’s?” Derek asked.

“Same story,” Gunny said, “But you’re going to have to pay for those.”

“Pay?” Derek exclaimed. “How? We don’t have anything to pay with and it will be at
least a year before we have beef to export.”

“Actually, I was thinking more in terms of this Division thing,” Gunny said. “I’m all for the
idea, but I’ll be danged if I want to be a Division commander. Besides. President Bush
himself made you a light bird, so you’re the closest thing we have to a real officer
around here.”

“Gunny, the former President made me a Lt. Col. by Executive Order. I was a deserter
Sgt. before that,” Derek protested.

“As far as the deserter part goes, kid, I’d have done the same thing myself in the cir-
cumstances,” Gunny said seriously. “But, by God, you have what it takes to run a Divi-
sion, whether you know it or not. So, if you want those munitions, you’re the new Divi-
sion commander.”

133
“Any recommendations on who I make the new Regimental commander?” Derek asked.

“I’ve got just the woman for you,” Gunny said. “Have any problem with a woman being
in charge of your Regiment?”

“Not if she’s good,” Derek replied.

“Retired Gunnery Sergeant,” Gunny said, “And she’s hell on wheels.”

“How are you doing on fuel?” Derek asked.

“We could use some,” Gunny admitted.

“Swap you all you can haul for a couple of trailers of PRI-D,” Derek said.

“You have yourself a deal,” Gunny said. “Where do you plan to put the Division HQ?”

“Probably at that airfield we put in,” Derek said.

They made their trip to Ft. Hood and loaded 32 more Apaches and 8 Kiowa Warrior’s.
At Ft. Bliss, they got 32 M1A3s and 8 M1A2SEPs. When they got back to Artesia, they
unloaded the 8 M1A2SEPs and the Gunny’s folks filled the M1000’s with munitions. He
followed them back to Colorado, with two trailers of 55 gallon drums of PRI-D and all
sixty tankers. When they arrived at The Farm, Gunny was completely amazed at what
they had accomplished in so short of a time. Aaron was back with the 20 bulls and an-
other semi load of spare parts for their wind turbines. California was getting very
strange, he said.

“Gunny, I’ve got 40 more choppers, but no air crews,” Derek said, “Can you help me out
here?”

“There are 32 crews on the way Derek, they’re just waiting to get homes to tow up
here,” Gunny said.

“You sure you don’t want to be Division commander?” Derek asked, “You’re way ahead
of me.”

“Kid, NCO’s are always about 3 steps ahead of their officers,” Gunny laughed. “Here, I
brought you a set of Major General Stars. Now show me where you’re going to put this
tunnel you mentioned.”

Derek took Gunny to his office and showed him on a map where the tunnel was going

134
in. The map was marked up with all of the defensive layers they had built around the
compounds and airfield.

Gunny said that as soon as Derek got the extra Ma Deuces and Mk-19’s installed, the
compounds should be nearly impenetrable. Derek shared their earlier conflict with the
bad guys up on I-76 and what it had cost them. Gunny reminded Derek that people died
in wars and no one was bulletproof. Three choppers to stop upwards of 3,000 bad guys
was a pretty cheap trade off. Yeah to everyone but the families of those dead and disa-
bled aircrews maybe, but Gunny hadn’t had to tell the wives.

Bill was actually able to start on the tunnel in late March. It was a precarious proposition
at best with all of those Bouncing Betty’s sown around the area. But, they were very
careful and although the tunnel took a week longer than he’d planned, it was in and
covered over by May 15th. He went to the second tract and began to pour the slabs for
the three community buildings without basements. They went in quickly and he then
turned to pouring the remaining foundations and slabs for the homes.

The 32 aircrews raised the population of The Farm to 1,023. There had been several
babies born and a few additional families had moved in. Although they still had a few
empty homes in the first tract, the second tract was beginning to be occupied. Age had
taken a few people, but the three old geezers seemed to have a 99-year lease on life.

Aaron and his people were off looking for more doublewides, the farmers were planting
and the women were getting ready to put in the gardens. What kind of year would 2019
prove to be? The weather was finally back to normal, the Ice Age seeming to have
passed as quickly as it had come on. Things were looking pretty good, as a matter of
fact.

The last week of June, a contingent pulled in from New Mexico. They had 6 Patriot Mis-
sile batteries from Ft. Bliss and trained crews to operate the batteries. In this case, each
battery consisted of six launchers with each launcher holding 4 missiles. Each battery
had its own radar and was a standalone unit.

Even better, they had brought their own doublewide mobile homes. Surface to Air mis-
siles? Derek figured Gunny had gone off the deep end, but what the hell, he put 2 of the
batteries at the airfield and one at each corner of the two tracts.

John had come through with those 3 cheese makers, too and they were busy assem-
bling a cheese operation in one of the community buildings in the second tract. Nobody
had any idea what they were doing and aside from providing labor to assist them, they
were left to their own devices.

One thing was certain, with about 230 cows, there were going to have to erect a mas-
sive milking facility and find milking equipment. Once the planting was done, a group of

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farmers was sent out with a military escort to find milking equipment. It was also evident
that their electrical needs had changed dramatically with the addition of the second
tract.

They had cleaned Tehachapi out of the AOC-15/50 units, so they’d have to turn to Palm
Springs to get the next 75. As far as the modular generator units went, there were no
more of the 600kw generators, but there were plenty of the 500kw diesel powered units.
A second set of 8 generators was added in the basement of the second tract’s Commu-
nity Center to back up that tract. A 250kw unit had been added to the first tract bringing
its capacity to 4mw.

The Farm had grown in population to the point that 9 sections of land were no longer
enough to keep all of the residents busy. So, they expanded to the east and the south,
adding 7 additional sections of ground. The Farm was now 16 sections, in a square,
with the compounds in the northwest corner of the northwest section and the farm build-
ings in the northeast corner of the same section. The wind farm was south of the two
compounds along the western edge of the remainder of the same section. A second
section, the one to the east of the farm buildings was used for grazing. That left them 14
sections of ground to cultivate. So far, the garden area was limited to the southeastern
corner of the northwest section.

Bill had interrupted pouring home slabs one more time to put in a slab for the new barn
and hog houses. It looked like they would try to milk about 75 cows at a time in three
shifts. They would need a large stainless steel tank to hold the milk until it could be
transferred by a milk transport to the stainless steel tank at the cheese building. The
farmers came back with 100 milking machines. Fortunately Bill had started on the hog
houses first, so he just expanded the size of the barn to accommodate 100 milking
stalls.

Everything was on a roll in June of 2019. As soon as the slabs were in for the hog
houses, they began to erect the steel buildings. By the time the slab was in for the barn,
they were working on the second hog house. Whoever had come up with the idea for
steel buildings had been their savior.

With the slabs all in, Bill tried one more time to finish the foundations and slabs for the
500 homes in tract two. Aaron and his bunch had not only repaired the haulers, but had
added additional vehicles along the way. They now could pull in 75 homes at once. The
problem was finding the homes. They still preferred new homes over used and had ven-
tured as far as Wisconsin in search of more units. They hit another gold mine in Wis-
consin and Minnesota. It would take them 3 trips just to haul back the new homes and
there were a whole lot of near-new homes sitting empty. Apparently, people were tend-
ing to stay in the southern climes, or was it just the loss of 260 million people that ac-
counted for all of the empty homes? It didn’t matter; they would have the second tract
half filled by the end of the year.

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°

People kept applying for membership to the community. Anyone with a skill to offer who
could understand and could accept that the community was democratic but not a de-
mocracy was admitted.

The problem with a pure democracy is that no one is in charge. The old saying best de-
scribed the problem with pure democracies. “In all the towns and all the cities, there are
no statues to committees.” The Farm was essentially governed by the people in Aaron,
Bob and Jacob’s age group and the military under Derek and his Regimental com-
manders. The three old geezers were an advisory panel, probably because they were
so old that they could usually remember what life was like in simpler times.

The governing council, if that is the proper name, was made up from one representative
from each of the disciplines at The Farm. Logistics, Utilities, Farming, Security, Military
(2 representatives) and Salvaging made up the primary group. Aaron acted as the head
of the council, however, when it came right down to life or death decisions affecting their
security, the military representatives had the final say.

With TV having become a thing of a nearly forgotten time, people had found new forms
of entertainment and the population had slowly crept from an average household of 2.7
persons to 3 and then to 3.3. The council expected that the trend would probably con-
tinue. Had not so many of the population been past the child bearing years, the average
would probably have already reached 4 persons per household.

One might think that in a community of over 1,000 persons there would be a little hanky
panky going on. Let’s face it, people will be people. Not at The Farm. Fooling around
was the easiest way there was to garner an invitation to leave.

And, the invitation wasn’t limited to the guilty. It was extended to the entire family of both
of the accused people. That had occurred one time and one time only, during the sec-
ond year. Both families were sent packing by the council with not much more than the
clothes on their backs. That ended the fooling around that year and the word soon
spread. That’s not to say that no one was fooling around, but if they were, they gave a
whole new meaning to the term discreet.

When there was a single community building, church services were held on Sunday
mornings. They had finally managed to find a non-denominational preacher who wasn’t
particularly fundamentalist. He borrowed a little from the doctrines of a half dozen or
more denominations and everyone was reasonably comfortable with what they had.
With the construction of the community buildings in the second tract, some discussion
had been raised about having a dedicated church building. However, when the council
booted that one up to the three old geezers for consideration, they reply was immediate.
A church is the people, not a building. Besides, the three old men didn’t see any sense
in letting a building stand idle for most of the time.

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°

Gunny called up to advise Derek that they’d had a little trouble. He had no idea why, but
a bunch from California, or so it seemed, had attacked them. The attackers quickly
withdrew in the face of the immediate and volatile reaction of the New Mexicans, but
Gunny just wanted Derek to have a heads up.

General Barbara Childs was Derek’s new Regimental commander. When she got word
of the problem, she immediately dispatched 4 Apaches to cover Aaron and the group up
in Minnesota. Over the intervening time, Aaron had spotted various airports with sup-
plies of JP8 (Jet A) and the Apaches zigzagged their way to Minnesota. They located 4
lowboys and tractors in Minneapolis and loaded a tanker with JP8 to accompany them
back to The Farm. From now on, a flight of 4 Apaches and 1 Kiowa Warrior would be
trucked everywhere the scavengers went beyond a 100-mile radius of The Farm. Be-
tween the 5 choppers and the 8 Hummer’s the convoys would be fairly well protected.

They found that the diesel generators in the second tract were being run more often
than they wanted. As soon as Aaron had those homes back from Minnesota, they had
to consider making that trip to Palm Springs. That drew a lot of discussion among the
council members. The majority opinion, and that opinion was supported by Derek and
Barbara, was that it was simply too risky to go to California during the summer.

However, they could get the foundations in for the turbines and put the wiring in. Bill
was almost done with the foundations and slabs and he refused to stop until they were
done. He insisted he had plenty of time to get them in before they were needed. So,
they got busy running the wiring from the staked out foundations to the basement of the
community center.

Bill had a good point. Every time they interrupted him with another of their higher priority
projects, he lost efficiency. Besides, not only did he intend to put in foundations for 75
new wind turbines, he intended to get that slip wall unit up and running and wall in the
turbines. After that, he intended to do the same for the farm buildings. Hell, he might
even run a tunnel from the first tract to the farm buildings when he had time. But first, he
intended to finish those 500 foundations and slabs.

The scavengers had been busy in the Denver area collecting more farm machinery. The
increase to 16 sections put a heavy strain on the amount of equipment they had and
they simply needed more equipment. They wanted to erect a steel building to use as a
machine shed, but when they approached Bill about pouring a slab, they quickly decid-
ed that an insulated pole building would do just fine.

Then they got to talking it over and decided that it didn’t take a PhD to pour a concrete
slab, so they poured their own. Bill sent his foreman over to advise, apparently feeling a
little guilty about the whole affair. He also sent his crew to start putting in the forms for
the turbine foundations as soon as they had the last of the slabs framed up.

138
°

Bill brought up the matter of the walls to Derek and they decided that it was far more
important to protect the livestock than the wind turbines. The homes mostly generated
their own electricity and there were the backup generators. Conversely, they didn’t real-
ly have any backups when it came to the livestock. Bill left the people putting in the
forms and pouring the foundations for the turbines and got his other crew pouring the
wall around the farm buildings.

The machine shed was almost as big as a warehouse and since they had taken the
time to pour a floor, the men had gone ahead and erected a steel building. That used up
the last of the steel building components from LA, too.

Derek figured that the new wall needed protecting and they inventoried their weapons.
They could spare 6 Mk-19’s, 6 Ma Deuces and 4 replacement mini-guns that went with
the Kiowa’s. It made more sense to him and Barbara to replace 4 of the Ma Deuces
over the gates to the compounds with the mini-guns so they ended up with 6 grenade
launchers and 10 .50 caliber machine guns protecting the farm buildings. That raised a
whole new question for them. How would the livestock react to all of that gunfire? No so
well they concluded and sent the scavengers out looking for railroad ties and 4x6s to
build much stronger fences in the barn area.

Bill was getting pretty efficient at erecting the slip form walls. When he had put the tun-
nel in between the airfield and the main compound, he had changed the concrete mix
ever so slightly and when used in a vertical wall, he could slip the forms about 1.5 times
faster.

And, they really only needed a single gate for the enclosure, so the wall went up quickly.
The military had won out on the decision concerning when to go to Palm Springs, so
Aaron made the third trip to Minnesota and Wisconsin to get the last 75 new homes.

Everything was pretty much in balance, construction wise, on Labor Day. The founda-
tions for the 75 wind turbines were done, the 500 foundations and slabs were done, the
wall around the farm buildings was done and waiting for a gate and the trench for the
tunnel between the main compound and the farm buildings reached halfway to the main
compound.

The tunnel itself was a simple rectangle because it didn’t need to support 100-tons. The
gardening operation was proving to be outstanding with the addition of all that manure
from the cattle.

The building that some had wanted to turn into a church had been turned into a cannery
of sorts. It was almost going to be a year-round operation; all of the canning was done
in pint and quart jars, they had thousands now, and during the ‘off season’ they were
canning stews and meat dishes.

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The bakery building not only housed the bakery, but the mill where they ground the
wheat and a small area where they produced pastas. The third community building in
tract 2 held the cheese operation. In the original tract, the electrical equipment had been
moved to the basement of the community building and the other three buildings were
warehouses of one sort or another. Gary’s inventory system had been streamlined over
the years to eliminate the paper tail entirely. The only paper generated now was the
weekly inventory list and it was limited to 4 copies: three for the warehouses and one for
the scavengers.

Barbara had started scout flights back when they’d gotten the warning from Gunny.
However, to date they’d seen no sign of the troublemakers from California. She never-
theless maintained the scout flights, even on Labor Day. Derek used the corporate jet
they found at the Denver airport to shuttle between Colorado and New Mexico, spend-
ing about ⅓ of his time down south. The flight from Denver to Roswell didn’t really take
all that long. That old guy, Derek’s father, was always pestering Derek to ride along; it
seemed that he was convinced there was a flying saucer somewhere in Roswell that he
couldn’t find. Derek was in New Mexico this weekend and the three old geezers were
along.

After 15 years of harping, Gary had finally succeeded in getting someone to humor him
and take Clarence, Ron and him out to the ranch that was the site of the famous 1947
crash of the ‘flying saucer’. Some of the older Roswell residents actually believed the
story, but most of the younger people didn’t. Anyone who had been an adult back in
1947 was long dead and buried, so the truth would probably never be known.

What had started out as a joke for Gary had changed over the years as senility began to
set in. He’d been quite the boozer in his younger days and then came up with the diabe-
tes in 1991. The diabetes had done a number on his brain over the years, 28 to be ex-
act, and he was about as sharp as an eraser. Anyway, Gary was convinced that the
whole flying saucer story was real. It had been 72 years since the event and if there was
a single shred of evidence of the crash, it had disappeared years ago. Ron and Clar-
ence decided to humor Gar-Bear for old time’s sake and off to the ranch they went.

The actual crash site was on the Foster ranch about 75 miles north of Roswell near Co-
rona. About 1½ hours later their guide drove them to the gate on the ranch. It was
locked, but Gary had a key; it was called a Colt M1911. Once inside the gate, the guide
showed them the supposed crash site, complete with sign. Gary nosed around for a
while and then picked up a piece of shiny foil.

“Ah hah!” Gary said, “I have a piece of the flying saucer.”

“Can I see that Gar-Bear?” Ron asked.

140
Gary handed Ron the piece of foil. Ron looked at both sides, showed it to Clarence and
then handed it back to Gary.

“I’d hang on to that if I were you partner, it might be real valuable someday,” Ron said
winking at Clarence.

Later that night, Ron and Clarence were in a restaurant drinking coffee.

“Are you going to tell him?” Clarence asked.

“Tell him what?” Ron said, “That he has a piece of foil from a cigarette wrapper? No
partner, its harmless enough and old Gar-Bear is just crazy enough to shoot anyone
who bursts his bubble.”

Derek had heard that his Dad had found something up at Corona. He went to visit with
him to see what he’d found.

“Hey Dad, I heard that you found a piece of a flying saucer,” Derek said.

“Yeah right,” Gary laughed, “Look at it, it’s just the top flap out of a pack of cigarettes.”

“Then what’s all the crap with you shining on Ron and Clarence?” Derek asked.

“They sometimes think I’m crazy, so I figured to give them a reason,” Gary was still
laughing.

“But Ron’s your best friend,” Derek protested.

“You should have seen him trying to keep a straight face, Derek,” Gary said, “It was all
he could do to keep from bursting out laughing. It’s an interesting piece of foil, though.
Wad it up.”

Derek wadded up the piece of cigarette foil. It immediately un-wadded itself and lay flat.

141
 The Rock – Chapter 14 – Firestorm

Derek looked at the piece of foil, then at Gary. Gary winked at him and put the foil in his
pocket. It was now a closed subject. Gary decided to find Ron and Clarence and chew
the fat. He wasn’t about to bring up his piece of foil if they didn’t. He found them in the
restaurant drinking coffee.

“Hey guys. I appreciate you letting me see the saucer crash site; it’s something I’ve
wanted to do for years,” Gary said testing the waters.

“No sweat partner, what are friends for?” Ron replied.

“Did you hear about the problems they had down here with the bad guys out of LA?”
Gary asked.

“They’re not talking about much else,” Clarence responded.

“You know that the new General Derek appointed has been running recon flights don’t
you?” Gary asked.

“What the hell was he thinking appointing a female General?” Ron went off.

“I heard she was a highly recommend Gunny,” Clarence said, “So why not?”

“No reason,” Ron said, “I just hope it doesn’t bother anyone else.”

“Ronald, you are a sexist pig,” Gary laughed.

“Better that than a nut who believes in flying saucers,” Ron laughed.

Gary reached into his pocket and took out the piece of foil.

“Here you go partner, wad up that piece of cigarette foil I found,” Gary smirked.

Ron wadded up the foil and tossed it on the table. The foil immediately un-wadded itself
and lay flat. Clarence picked up the piece of foil and repeated Ron’s action. Again, the
foil immediately un-wadded itself and lay flat. Gary picked up the foil and put it in his
pocket. Both Ron and Clarence got strange looks on their faces.

“You were saying?” Gary taunted.

“I was saying that I hope that bunch from California doesn’t show up in Colorado,” Ron
sputtered.

“Yeah, me neither,” Gary replied.

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°

During their absence, Bill had the trench all of the way to the main compound and was
running the tunnel in both directions. It was nearing completion and most of it had been
covered over with dirt and the sod re-laid. Aaron was on the way back with the last 75
homes. He had advised that they found it necessary to ‘fly the birds’ as he put it.

They hadn’t had a specific threat, he said, but it felt as if they were being watched up in
Minnesota, too. Anyway, he had the choppers flying cover and they were going to try
and drive straight through to The Farm. His ETA was 24 hours. Derek and Barbara
talked it over briefly and she started running recon flights to the northeast. Were they
just getting hinky or was something brewing? With the Kiowa’s up, it really didn’t make
much difference.

Derek had long since adopted the five levels of security initiated by Homeland Security
many years before. With recon flights up in two directions and a scavenging party con-
sidering it necessary to fly air cover, he decided to raise their security level to the Blue
or ‘Guarded’ level.

This condition was declared when there is a general risk of attack. In addition to the pro-
tective measures taken in the previous Threat Condition, departments and agencies
should consider the following general measures in addition to the agency-specific Pro-
tective Measures that they will develop and implement: checking communications with
designated emergency response or command locations; reviewing and updating emer-
gency response procedures; and, providing the residents with any information that
would strengthen their ability to act appropriately. In plain English it meant keep your
eyes and ears open.

Aaron and his people dropped the new homes on their slabs for later assembly and
went to bed. The recon flights were not reporting anyone following the group and Barba-
ra was beginning to wonder if Aaron weren’t just gun shy. Bill had finished the tunnel
and all that remained was to cover over the latest portion and re-lay the sod. Everyone
was at home on The Farm for the first time in months. The next morning, Barbara went
to Derek with a question.

“How come we have everything walled in except our vehicles and the diesel fuel?” She
asked.

“I guess because I’ve had my head stuck up my butt,” Derek said. “With all that’s been
going on, I never gave it a thought Barbara, but you’re right, we should have those
tankers and our fleet of vehicles protected. It’s awfully late in the year to be pouring
concrete, but I don’t see that we have any choice. Where do you think we should put the
truck park?”

“Well, if we extend it from the wall around the farm buildings, we’ll only have to put in 3

143
walls,” Barbara said. “By the way, I’ve been meaning to tell you that I moved those Pa-
triot batteries out to the far corners of the new sections.”

“Good. I’ll go see Bill and find out how fast he can slip form a wall around the tankers
and trucks,” Derek said. “Is there anything else that I’ve overlooked or forgotten?”

“We need a gate for the farm building compound and the new truck park, but I’ll take
care of that,” Barbara said. “Is it just me or is there an air of unrest going around?”

Derek was sure it wasn’t just Barbara. Aaron had been spooked for some time now. He
knew that something was up, but he couldn’t put his finger on it. Gunny had as much as
said the same thing the previous week when they were down in New Mexico. Gunny
was running their threat level at Blue and had been since the skirmish with those people
for LA.

Maybe he had better switch from Kiowa’s for recon to the Apaches. The Apaches had
one hell of a lot more armament and 4 sidewinder air-to-air missiles. Derek supposed
he should call the air group a Wing. They had 52 Apaches and 18 Kiowa Warriors.
There were the original 16 Apaches and 8 Kiowa’s plus the 4 backup Apaches and 2
backup Kiowa’s. That was 20 plus 10. Adding in the 32 new Apaches and 8 new Kio-
wa’s gave him 52 and 18.

He guessed that 70 planes were enough to call a Wing and a Wing was the same thing
in his mind as a Regiment, so that must mean he had an Infantry Battalion, an Air Wing
and an Armored Regiment. No wait; make that an Infantry Regiment because they had
close to a fourth Company of Infantry. Well, part-time, but still…

They were still short aircrews. Derek contacted Gunny and asked if he had 14 aircrews
he could spare. Gunny did, but what skills did Derek need? Derek told him 12 Apache
crews and 8 Kiowa crews. That would put a crew in every cockpit and give them a fully
operational Air Wing in Colorado. Derek also wanted to know how many infantry types
might be interested in moving to Colorado. Close to three hundred families had the itch,
Gunny said, but did Derek have enough housing for that many people? Derek told him
they had brought in 225 homes over the summer and there were 35 still empty in the
first tract.

“So you have 260 empty homes, right?” Gunny asked.

“Near as I know, yes,” Derek said.

“Do you have room for up to 60 more homes?” Gunny asked.

“I have room for over 200 more Gunny,” Derek said, “Why? Do you have more folks
wanting to move?”

144
“No, but I didn’t want them to get there and not have a place to set a home,” Gunny
laughed.

The discussion got Derek to thinking. They had 15 homes in tract 2. Then they got the
32 homes for the new aircrews plus 36 homes for the Patriot crews. That made 83
homes. Add to that the 225 Aaron had dragged back the past summer and it meant that
they had 308 homes in tract 2 and 500 in tract 1. If Gunny were actually sending up 60
more homes, that would put tract 2 up to 368 homes. One more good summer of locat-
ing homes and tract 2 would be full too. They needed to get those last 75 homes set up
quickly; he had an idea that Gunny already had the people loading their household
goods.

Bill had two slip forms putting up the truck park wall. He was busting his butt trying to
beat the snow. The scroungers had been out and come back with enough 1” plate for
both gates and the military folks were mounting the Mk-19’s and Ma Deuces as fast as
the wall was going up. They were out of Mk-19’s and Ma Deuces, if Bill remembered
right, where had these come from?

Bill hadn’t considered the advantages that a Major General with a 20 passenger corpo-
rate jet had. Gunny had plenty down in New Mexico he could have given Derek, but it
was nearly as easy to fly the jet down to Ft. Hood and load it up with more weapons.
The problem was that they had done a pretty good job between the two of them of strip-
ping Ft. Hood by this time. About all that remained were some artillery pieces. But, there
were plenty more military installations in the northern parts of the country, so to this
point in time, they weren’t particularly worried.

Barbara had the gates hung and most of the weapons installed even before Bill was fin-
ished with the truck park wall. Bill was working as fast as he could because he was be-
ginning to get spooked himself. He didn’t know if it was just everyone else’s paranoia
rubbing off on him or there was genuinely something to be concerned over. He pushed
the slip forms as fast as he dared getting the wall finished. It began to snow just as he
was storing his equipment in the truck park. The only walls to be constructed the follow-
ing summer were the walls around the wind farm. These walls would be shorter, too at
five foot rather than the usual 8’.

The council was meeting to assess their needs and the current security threat. They
considered the 60 tankers of diesel and JP8 too vulnerable and were in the middle of a
discussion concerning putting in underground fuel bunkers.

“Look folks,” Aaron said, “We can put in underground bunkers next summer. There are
plenty of tanks in the Denver area we can dig up and move. But, the ground is frozen
and we’ve been putting off that trip to Palm Springs for months now. As much as I hate
to go to California, we need those 75 wind turbines.”

145
“Those people Gunny sent up have been arriving steadily,” Derek said. “We can’t put on
any more of those PV panels until spring so it has us running 3 of the generators. We
have enough people and equipment to provide security for the California party and The
Farm. If we’re going to get those turbines, we’d better do it now.”

“What are you planning to take to provide cover for my people?” Aaron asked.

“I was thinking maybe 22 Apaches and 2 Kiowa Warriors,” Derek said. “Do you think a
dozen Hummer’s, half with Ma Deuces and half with Mk-19’s will be enough?”

“I don’t suppose I could get you to haul a half dozen of the Abrams, could I?” Aaron
asked.

“That’s no problem, but if you want armor, you must be expecting trouble,” Derek re-
plied.

“I can’t put my finger on it Derek,” Aaron said, “But the hair is standing up on the back of
my neck.”

“If that’s the case, we’ll make it 18 of the Ma Deuce equipped Hummer’s plus the 6 with
the Mk-19’s,” Derek grimaced. “My saintly old father (that brought on a few snickers) al-
ways told me more is better.”

“If we could take enough people, we could be in and out of there before anyone knew
we were there,” Aaron suggested.

“You’ll have the 24 ground crews to help, unless there is trouble,” Derek reminded Aa-
ron. “That’s 96 people right there and they’re all mechanics.”

“With my people and the ground crews, we’ll need about 48 of the farm hands,” Aaron
replied. “Figure 4 days onsite plus another 4 days travel time. If we work at it, we can
have the turbines up in running in a little over 2 weeks’ time.”

“Assuming you don’t run into trouble,” Derek said.

“That’s right Derek, assuming we don’t run into trouble,” Aaron replied gravely.

“We’ll load the aircraft tonight and be ready to leave at 8am,” Derek said. “I’m going to
call Gunny and ask him to send over 2 companies of infantry,” Derek concluded. “If you
don’t have any trouble, you’ll just get done that much quicker. If you do, they may come
in handy.”

Gunny would send the two companies, he said, but only for a few days. They had been

146
picking up some suspicious radio traffic and were already at Threat Level Yellow, Ele-
vated. Derek didn’t spend much time thinking about that; they had taken out about
3,000 of the bad guys back when they had a small air group.

He raised the Threat Level to Yellow and got the Apaches and Kiowa’s loaded. All they
needed was two long weeks for energy independence. And, if anyone bothered either
The Farm or the California expedition, they were in for one hell of a surprise. He sent
along several reloads for the choppers, just in case.

Aaron and the people from Colorado arrived in Indio within minutes of the New Mexi-
cans. They stopped long enough to launch the two Kiowa’s and proceeded to the wind
farm in the Palm Springs area. They found the towers they wanted and the control room
within an hour. The Kiowa’s maintained an eye on the area during the daylight hours
and they put up two of the Apaches after dark. The work was proceeding smoothly and
they were getting ahead of schedule. About mid-morning of the second day, the Kiowa’s
reported smoke off in the distance to the west. The ground crews stopped long enough
to pre-flight the remaining Apaches and returned to the task. By evening they had 50 of
the 75 towers aboard the semi-trailers and the control room aboard another.

They stopped and had dinner after dark. The glow was evident in the western sky. Aa-
ron decided to send the 50 towers and control panel back to Colorado first thing in the
morning. Meanwhile he put up 4 of the Apaches to provide security. The next morning,
they dispatched the 50 towers and control panel together with the 2 Kiowa’s and 4
Apaches back to Colorado. The 6 ground crews accompanied the aircraft and they took
but a single reload for the choppers. A single Ma Deuce equipped Hummer led the con-
voy and a single Mk-19 equipped Hummer brought up the rear. After they left, everyone
except the pilots of the airborne choppers pitched in to get the other 25 towers down. By
dark, they had them down and strapped down on the trailers. Aaron was prepared to
spend the night and leave the next morning, but the Apaches reported a long column of
headlights on I-10 west of Banning.

The 16 Apaches on the ground were quickly pre-flighted and sent aloft. The other two
landed, refueled and joined them. The trailers left immediately for Colorado accompa-
nied by 2 Apaches and 2 Hummer’s. The New Mexican Infantry companies and the
ground crews plus the Hummer’s remained behind to provide a rear guard if it were
needed.

Everyone was taking I-10 eastbound to I-25 this trip and presumably going their sepa-
rate ways. The rear guard departed 1 hour after the trailers, having never had contact
with whoever was coming in from the west. All of that changed as they approached
Blythe. The 16 Apaches had just refueled and taken off when they discovered a long
caravan of vehicles speeding in from the west. They assumed the people were the bad
guys, but to be sure one of the Apaches buzzed the caravan. The steams of gunfire told
them all they needed to know. The 4 Mk-19 equipped Hummer’s rushed to the west,
opening up as soon as they were in range. The Apaches regrouped and stood off,
launching their Hellfire missiles.

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The caravan ground to a flaming halt. The Apache pilots included those who had been a
party to the action up on I-76 years back. They raked the column of vehicles from a
standoff distance, just in case the Californians had any more of the Stinger missiles.

The Hummer’s maintained a rear guard while the choppers rearmed and refueled. The
trailers were rolling along I-10, pedal to the metal, unaccompanied by their defense
forces. In truth, there was no way the Hummer’s could keep up with the Kenworths and
Peterbilts anyway and the Apaches stayed with the Hummers. The Abrams didn’t even
unload; they just fired their guns into the caravan after the Hummer’s pulled back. They
figured that would slow down the Californians for a while and resumed their drive to the
east, pedal to the metal, at 55mph.

Most of the survivors were of the opinion that the best defense was a good offense.
They certainly had that caravan of vehicles outgunned and had stopped them dead in
their tracks. The only problem was that the bad guys had an air force of their own in the
form of a Bell 206 Jet Ranger or two. The aircraft was essentially the same airframe as
the Kiowa.

This particular chopper had a camo paint job and extra fuel tanks. Its maximum range
wasn’t 299 miles; it was more on the order of 600 miles. It carried a single pilot and he
was very, very good. He kept his chopper down in the weeds, and he layback prevent-
ing the Apache pilots from noticing him on their fire control radars. Extra fuel was avail-
able for the pilot in Las Vegas, Phoenix and Albuquerque. Given the slow forward pro-
gress of the Apaches, Hummer’s and M1000’s, he had no difficulty maintaining his dis-
tance. It took him barely 15 minutes to refuel in Phoenix and he continued to follow
them to the east on I-10.

The vehicles turned north on I-25 at Las Cruces and some of them split off on US 70 to
the east. But the Apaches continued north on I-25, following the military vehicles. The
pilot had enough fuel to make it to Albuquerque, but he jigged when he should have
jagged and an Apache picked him up. He had been radioing each position change back
to a similarly equipped 206 that was about 200 miles behind him. The Apache pilot
dropped down in the weeds himself and when the 206 passed him, pulled up behind
him and fired 2 sidewinders.

The pilot of the 206 never knew what hit him but his companion chopper immediately
changed course for Albuquerque. The second pilot assumed, correctly, that he could
intercept the Apache flight in the Albuquerque area. He arrived in Albuquerque, refueled
and was waiting on the ground when the convoy and Apaches passed through Albu-
querque on their way to Colorado.

The second pilot could only assume that the first chopper had been caught and shot
down. The convoy stopped just north of the I-40 junction and refueled the Apaches. He

148
sat there patiently until he saw the Apaches airborne once more. Only then did he fire
up his engine and begin to follow.

The distance from Albuquerque to Denver is about 440 miles. Actually the road atlas
says 437 miles, but from where in Albuquerque to where in Denver? The second pilot
was much more cautious than his late companion. He managed to follow the convoy all
of the way to Colorado, setting down when the Apaches stopped to refuel again. He
continued to follow and eventually they cut off on US 24 at Colorado Springs.

This was pretty open country and he decided to lay back a bit more, barely keeping the
Apaches in sight. He managed to make it all the way to state route 71 before he ran into
trouble. Minutes after his last radio report, he came within range of those Patriot missile
batteries phased array radar. As it happened, one of the Apache pilots was communi-
cating with the southwest Patriot battery when they picked up the 206. The pilot joined
his companion, succumbing to a pair of sidewinders, but it was way too late.

Some of the Patriot missile batteries deployed at The Farm used the latest, PAC-3, mis-
siles. Each unit consisted of 6 launchers each with 16 missiles, the phased radar array
unit and a control center. The PAC-2 batteries had 6 launchers each with 4 missiles.
The difference in the two types of systems was miniaturization and use of a hit to kill
vehicle. In addition, each unit had its own power source in the form of a trailer-mounted
generator. The total crew for each battery was 6 people. Gunny had not only sent the
six units, but several reloads for each unit. The PAC-3 missiles had an operational
range on the order of 30km and the PAC-2 an operational range of 160km so The Farm
had an extensive air umbrella.

True to his word, Aaron had the wind turbines up and connected in 4 days. The control
panel was slightly different from the panel removed from Tehachapi, however, and it
took a full week to figure it out and complete its installation. That actually worked out
well because a few of the generators needed an overhaul before the complete system
could be brought online.

When the word spread about shooting down the two helicopters, everyone at The Farm
was on edge. Barbara deployed 1 Abrams plus 3 hummer’s to each of the outlying Pa-
triot batteries to provide them cover, just in case. With nothing more specific to act up-
on, the Threat Level remained at Yellow, but most of the residents acted as if they were
already at Orange. Thanksgiving was a most interesting holiday in November of 2019
and they almost ran out of places to stack the weapons at the Thanksgiving dinner.

One other item of interest wasn’t discussed at the dinner at all. Old Gar-Bear had been
examining his little piece of foil under a magnifying glass for some time. Under just the
right light, a holographic image could be seen. It said, D-u-P-o-n-t. Gary had no idea
what the piece of foil/plastic was and saw no reason to dispel any misconceptions that
Ron, Clarence or Derek might have.

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°

During the 15 years since the strike, none of the folks from New Mexico, Colorado nor
any of the transplants had presumed that they were the only group of scroungers.
Scrounging had become a way of life for many until factories began to slowly reappear
in the southern states. And despite the factories, most of the trade was still regional by
its very nature.

The US was no longer a nation bound together by a series of well-maintained interstate

highways and rail transportation arteries. Fifteen years of seasons and lack of mainte-
nance had taken their toll, especially in the northern parts of the country. Perhaps that
explained, in part, why the folks in New Mexico and more especially Colorado had not
come under attack from roving bands more often.

The folks from The Farm and New Mexico had every reason to be leery of the people in
California. There were the rural communities, like up in the Coalinga area and Bakers-
field and the like where the people were just your regular folks.

On the other hand, Los Angeles had been an area of constant strife. In all of their trav-
els to the Los Angeles area, the Coloradoans had never really gotten into LA proper.
They went to outlying areas like the City of Industry and the like, but never got near to
LA itself. Had they done so, they would have found a far different Los Angeles than any
of them ever imagined.

People that returned to Los Angeles after the strike back in 2004 were met with vio-
lence. The bad guys had formed, at first, a loose collation to resist the LEO’s and mili-
tary. After a few successful encounters with both, the bad guys were well equipped with
military hardware.

The lawless element had one distinct advantage over the military people brought in to
restore order; this was their home turf. Greater Los Angeles is a huge city covering
thousands of square miles and provisioned to meet the daily needs of millions of peo-
ple, there was no end to the stores available to the few thousand bad guys. The actual
city is almost 500 square miles, not counting the urban areas.

Eventually the LEO’s and military were overcome and later the Marine Corp detachment
at Camp Pendleton fell apart due to a lack of pay, dwindling supplies and no leadership
from on high. Slowly, inexorably, the troops took their weapons and belongings and
looked for greener pastures, leaving behind a wide array of heavy military equipment,
heavy weapons and munitions.

One has to remember that Camp Pendleton was a Marine Corp training facility. As
such, it had a lot of weapons and more than just practice ammo. And, just as eventually,
the bad guys moved on Pendleton and began to equip themselves with real military
hardware.

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Some of the equipment at Pendleton was beyond the mental capabilities of the Los An-
geles crowd to manage, but they had a few veterans in their midst and except for some
of the truly sophisticated equipment and aircraft, they came to be able to use the majori-
ty of the equipment.

In a desperate move the few remaining good people in the greater Los Angeles area
had, late in 2019, put up one final struggle against the criminal element. The bad guys
had long since adopted what we would call a scorched earth policy and they burned and
destroyed as they moved against the resistance.

The smoke from their fires could be seen from as far away as Palm Springs. Finally, the
surviving good guys had bugged out to the east. The bad guys had followed in a pair of
Bell 206 Jet Rangers, just to keep tabs on the fleeing citizens.

West of Blythe, the fleeing good guys had been buzzed by an Apache helicopter and
assuming the worst had opened fire on the Apache. I believe the ensuing battle was re-
counted earlier in this account. What can one say? Stuff Happens! Or, as James T, Kirk
had said in the old TV series or a subsequent movie, ‘One little mistake!’ (Startrek IV
The Voyage Home) The two helicopters belonging to the bad guys picked up on the
convoy of military vehicles and…

The tension was high in New Mexico and in Colorado. Gunny had pushed his Threat
Level to Orange, but Derek and Barbara kept The Farm at Yellow. Life went on; the
cows didn’t know anything about any alert levels and they still had to be milked twice a
day. The milk had to be converted to cheese or allowed to spoil and it was far too pre-
cious to be allowed to spoil. Livestock had to be butchered and the meat distributed or
canned. And, of course, the equipment needed to be maintained.

With Christmas coming on, the residents went in groups to Denver to see if there was
anything left that they could use as Christmas presents. Barbara maintained the recon
flights, but with nothing more than a feeling and the experience with the two helicopters
to press her, began to consider lowering the Threat level back to Blue, or Guarded.

The weather was typical for Colorado for the month of December and it permitted some
of the folks an opportunity to get to the range to hone their skills. The range had been
relocated several times, usually because of the building program. They finally put in
what they hoped was a permanent 1000-meter range west of the airfield on the other
side of the road. Gary, Ron and Clarence went to watch, they really weren’t into shoot-
ing much these days. Besides, the population of The Farm had grown to almost 3,200
and the range only accommodated about 100 shooters at a time.

The council had decided, at the meeting held after the new wind turbines were online, to
not allow further growth of the community from without. An exception could be made for

151
a critical skill, like a doctor or something, but otherwise, the inherent population growth
of the 3,200 people would fill the remaining 132 mobile homes when they were ac-
quired.

The summer of 2020 would be devoted to finding those 132 homes, replenishing their
fuel supplies and some low-level scrounging to maintain the inventories of things they
still couldn’t produce. Then, there was the issue of the underground fuel bunkers to ad-
dress. They also had the PV panels to install and the porches to build for a goodly num-
ber of homes. Finally, there was the wall that Bill was going to install around the wind
farm.

The only pieces of military hardware Derek and Barbara wanted to acquire were anoth-
er 24 of the M119A2 artillery pieces to place in the park of tract 2. Derek had started out
with 18 pieces and then left half of them in New Mexico. The subsequent trip to Ft.
Hood had brought back 15 pieces, making their battery 24 of the M119A2s. Although
neither of them considered it a particularly high priority, come summer, they intended to
go to Ft. Hood one last time.

Out in California, the bad guys were planning on a spring offensive. Most of them rarely
had seen snow except for the period after the strike and none of them were particularly
good drivers when it came to moving around in the ice and snow. They were ‘typical
California drivers’ from the southern portion of the state. They were starting to become a
bit desperate, too.

They had done a pretty through job of depleting the fuel supplies of southern California.
They knew about stuff like PRI-D and the like, but no one knew how to run a refinery
and though there was a reasonable quantity of unrefined fuel at the refinery in Long
Beach, it was useless to them. Neither did they grow gardens and no one had seen
fresh produce beyond that which grew naturally on the millions of citrus, nut and fruit
trees. Fifteen years of taking without replacing had made southern California pretty
much a wasteland.

Based on the last reports of the helicopters that had been following the fleeing good
guys and later a military convoy of some kind, the leaders of the group figured their best
shot was in going to Colorado. Colorado was farm country, right? Even if the farmers
did have a couple of helicopters and a tank or two they wouldn’t be a match for the well-
equipped group from Los Angeles. The snow should be all gone in May, so they started
making preparations for the attack.

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 The Rock – Chapter 15 – Final Moments

Derek contacted Gunny to see if he needed any of the M119A2 cannons. Gunny in-
formed Derek that he’d had his folks over to Ft. Hood and cleaned out the cannons, but
he could send some to Colorado, how many did Derek want? Derek told him 2-dozen
and any ammo he could spare. Around mid-February, the convoy from New Mexico
showed up with the 24 guns and two trailer loads of M-1 ammo. It was less ammo than
Derek and Barbara had hoped for, they’d never be able to fight WW IV they joked, but it
was probably more than they could use in any likely firefight. They did have a quantity of
M546 APERS-T 105-mm rounds (Beehive).

Gunny had been busy gathering more doublewides and he not only sent the trailers, he
sent occupants for the trailers. While the 68 doublewides were more than welcome, the
council had voted to not accept any more outsiders into the community. Derek promptly
drafted the new residents and announced that they were military transfers and exempt
from the limitation. The addition put them at 436 homes in tract 2, meaning that a single
trip should complete the housing unit. And, the new families raised the population of the
development from 3,196 to 3,427.

During the first months of 2020, the tension at the farm was so thick you could almost
cut it with a knife. They did a hasty inventory of their fuel and discovered that running
those generators had eaten into their supplies more than they liked. A third of their
tankers were empty so they filled 5 of them with JP8 from the Denver airport and sent
the other 15 up to Cheyenne for more diesel. They weren’t going to be able to get fuel
from Cheyenne much longer either, so the need for those underground fuel bunkers
was becoming even more urgent. Back in the caverns, they had a 3 million gallon stor-
age capacity, but here in Colorado they still only had the 4 18,000-gallon underground
tanks.

None of the building at The Farm had been the subject of any overall planning. With the
influx of those 68 families that Gunny had sent up from New Mexico, the council decid-
ed to re-think some of their decisions. They had a map of the northwest section of that
showed all of the facilities drawn in to scale. If the map was accurate, there was just
enough room between the original tract and the truck park to fit in a third tract. Moreo-
ver, if that were indeed the case and they eliminated the wall between a possible third
tract and a fourth tract, they could conceivably put in walls for a third and fourth tract
over the course of one summer. And, so far as the fuel bunker or bunkers were con-
cerned, why not put them in the truck park and under the airfield?

Bill allowed as how he could get the wall in for the two tracts during a single summer
and perhaps they could get his now partner down in New Mexico to come north and
work on the fuel bunkers. He went further and suggested that if they scrounged around
Denver and came up with enough steel forms, he could draft a group of the newer resi-
dents to form up slabs in the two tracts. He pointed out, however that they had used up

153
the last of the steel building components so in addition of scrounging the steel forms,
someone was going to have to come up with more of the building components. The
three old geezers were sitting in on the meeting and Gary told Aaron there was a large
steel building company in Des Moines, he thought the name of the company was Abuild
or something like that.

Aaron wasn’t particularly worried about the steel buildings, but the idea of locating and
hauling in 1,000 additional doublewides was certainly frightening. To do that over the
course of 2, 3 or even 4 years was going to be a terrible job. There just weren’t that
many new doublewides out there anymore. The third and fourth tracts, if they got built at
all, were going to have to settle for used doublewides. And, used homes meant disman-
tling the homes, hauling them and reassembly. The only salvation he saw in the whole
thing was that it didn’t take one hell of a lot of agricultural people to cultivate the land, so
maybe this suggestion had possibilities.

The man in charge of utilities pointed out that if they added 1,000 homes, they were go-
ing to need more generators, wind turbines and a lot of those PV panels. And then he
brought up the subject of all of the plumbing, additional septic fields and the miles of
wire they would need. His thought was that they should try and scrounge all of the infra-
structure components the first year and worry about the homes later on. Given the fact
that they already had the cart in front of the horse in tract 2, his argument made sense.
They voted to add the two tracts during the summer and other than bringing in the 64
homes they needed to complete tract 2, to devote their scrounging efforts to pipe and
wire, generators and wind turbines and the septic systems.

And, not to burst anyone’s bubble, but strictly in the practical sense, other concerns
were raised. They still didn’t have a water tower and there was simply no way that the
wells in the first tract could supply water for another 1,000 homes. As it was, the small
5,000-gallon tank they had installed and the pump system was overburdened. If they
were going to do the utilities correctly, it was suggested they’d better get in a water tow-
er and put in a new, larger well.

Bill butted in with a concern over the wall around the wind farm. Should he just wall in
twice as large an area? Could he do that and still wall in two tracts, he was asked. Yes,
but they were going to have need of a second portable concrete plant, he explained.
And, someone had better figure out how to get those railcars of cement out to The
Farm, he was wasting a lot of time hauling in the cement. He also pointed out that all of
their plans were subject to the weather and the absence of trouble from any bad guys.

There were other concerns raised at the meeting, too. Their dentist had come out of re-
tirement to practice again and he said he couldn’t keep going any longer. They were go-
ing to have to shop for a replacement. Their doctor pointed out that they needed a larg-
er medical facility for so many residents and he could use some help. He went on to
point out that they had already pushed the age of their pharmaceuticals to 1½ times any

154
reasonable shelf life and that they were going to have to do something to try and find
fresher medicines.

Now, this was a tall order. They asked him to prepare a list of drugs with ‘indefinite’
shelf lives and a list of products they would have to find new replacements for. They
didn’t see any reason why one of the new community buildings couldn’t be turned into a
full time hospital/clinic and there was more than enough medical equipment in the Den-
ver area hospitals.

One of the things Derek had learned on his last trip to New Mexico was that the New
Mexicans were replacing their drugs from South American sources. He just hoped that
whatever the doctor needed was available through Gunny’s sources South America.

Aaron and his people had been slowly accumulating more gold and silver over the years
since the move to Colorado and if the drugs didn’t come at too high a price, they might
be able to get by. But, was gold and silver the medium of exchange that the New Mexi-
cans had used to acquire the drugs? In California, fuel was the medium of exchange, so
one never knew about these things; he’d have to ask. Maybe diamonds, he thought.
You couldn’t eat them and they literally had boxes full of the little paper envelopes
scrounged from jewelry stores all the way from Kansas to Wisconsin.

The council meeting lasted an entire day and well into the evening. There were many
concerns, some more pressing than others. There hadn’t been many medical issues
come up since the move to Colorado. The hard work and clean living seemed to agree
with everyone’s health. Isolated as they were, they hadn’t had a single case of the flu in
the entire time they had been in Colorado. Medical emergencies were limited to the
mundane and routine, like broken bones and the occasional cold. The people worked
hard and lived healthy. Junk foods and all of those sugar products that had been the
bane of American existence 16 years before had disappeared. The only ‘fast foods’
were leftovers served up cold from the refrigerator.

Derek and Barbara flew down to Roswell to meet with Gunny. They wanted to address
the issue of the drugs and get a feel for his assessment of their overall security situa-
tion. The medium of exchange Gunny had been using to acquire drugs had been mili-
tary armaments. He said that they should have enough leftover military hardware lying
around in the northern states to keep them in drugs for a lifetime; it was amazing what
you could get for 2 Abrams tanks and 200 rounds of 120mm cannon shells. So far as
security was concerned, he was picking up a lot more radio traffic from California and
he, by God, was staying at Orange. He recommended that Derek and Barbara consider
doing the same.

Derek, the Gunny said, didn’t remember his history. Go talk to his Dad if he wanted to
know what increased radio traffic meant. But, the long and short of it was that as an Ar-
my or Navy got ready to attack, their invariably increased their radio traffic trying to get

155
everything arranged. It had been like that ever since the radio had come into wide-
spread use by the military. It just seemed to Gunny that the group out in California was
pretty well equipped with military radios and if they had radios, they probably had every-
thing else one typically found on a military base. If they’d cleaned out Camp Pendleton
or someplace like that, someone was in a world of hurts if they were attacked.

That was food for thought. They flew back to Denver and left the Threat Level at Yellow
rather than reducing it to Blue. Derek gave the doctor the list of drugs Gunny said were
available from South America, Gunny never said from which country, and asked the
doctor to put together a list of what he needed based on what was available.

Down in New Mexico they had 4 dentists and 2 doctors in each of the communities. It
was just a matter of persuading some of them to move to Colorado. Gunny had said
that the Medical School at Baylor was back in operation so perhaps the medical situa-
tion wasn’t as bad as they thought.

Derek took Gunny’s advice and cornered his Dad to talk about radio communications
and the like. Gary was off and running, talking about things like the increased radio traf-
fic that had led the Americans to discover the impending attack at Midway Island during
WW II and so forth.

Gary wanted to know what had led Derek to ask about a subject like that. Derek ex-
plained that Gunny had been picking up a sharp increase in radio traffic on the military
frequencies from California. Gary wanted to know what Derek had in mind to deal with a
situation like that. If the bad guys got the equipment at Camp Pendleton, The Farm
could be in a world of hurts.

By this time, Derek was getting just a little tired of hearing about how much trouble
Camp Pendleton could pose for them. The Marine Corps relied more on mobility than
on heavy firepower. Maybe the bad guys had some 155mm cannons, but he had an air
force that could wipe out those cannons in a New York minute.

The key, he felt, was getting sufficient notice of a pending attack. Maybe they should put
those Kiowa Warriors to better use and expand the perimeter to the Colorado state line.
With enough warning, they could ambush any would be attacker. That would be espe-
cially necessary if the attacker had anti-aircraft missiles and heavy artillery. They would
have to cut the enemy down to size before they ever got to The Farm if it were in fact a
large, well-equipped enemy.

Barbara agreed completely with Derek’s assessment. She suggested that they send the
Kiowa’s out in pairs with a couple of Hummer’s and a tanker of fuel. Derek was quick to
point out that they only had 9 tankers of JP8, including the 5 extra tankers they’d filled
recently, and they really didn’t have time to go shopping for tankers. The lack of prepar-
edness with respect to the fuel bunkers was starting to pinch!

156
Barbara excused herself and went to talk to Aaron. Were there any refueling vehicles at
the Denver airport, she wanted to know? A few, she was told, but like a lot of airports,
Denver refueled aircraft mainly from an underground system. She said she only needed
9 for the moment, and asked Aaron to see what he could get and bring them back full of
JP8.

Barbara told Derek she was working on the fuel problem and they began to examine the
map to see where they should station the Kiowa’s. The odds favored people coming
their way from California one of three ways, via I-80, I-70 or I-25. If they stationed units
in Cheyenne, Loveland Pass and Trinidad, they would have a big jump on any bad guys
and plenty of time to set up an ambush.

That meant that they would only need to send out six of the Kiowa’s. Maybe they could
get Gunny, she suggested, keeping an eye on the Albuquerque area. And, she said,
why not put the corporate jet to good use and fly a wide circle intersecting I-80 and I-70
further to the west? Barbara suggested that they probably had until late April or early
May before they had to worry, she doubted that those people from California would be
likely to want to drive on snow and ice.

Aaron was back in a few hours with 10 of the 12,000-gallon refueling trucks and Barba-
ra and Derek got someone to check out the ground crews on the use of the Ma Deuce
equipped Hummer’s they intended to send along, just in case. The Hummer’s were all
M1025 and M1026’s; the only difference being whether or not the vehicles had a winch.

Although the bad guys numbered nearly 30,000, not everyone was in favor of traveling
halfway across the country on a maybe. About ⅔ of their number decided they would
just head east and see how they could do in that direction. They divided the spoils from
Camp Pendleton more or less proportionally and headed to San Bernardino to pick up I-
15 to Barstow and I-40. It was the last week of April 2020. Short on fuel as they were,
they crammed 25 men to a truck.

They had opted to take only the self-propelled M109, 155mm howitzers. The self-
propelled artillery units had a range of over 200 miles, but could only travel at 35mph.
And, the tracked vehicles were never intended to be driven for long distances over hard
surfaced roads. Early on they realized their mistake, but they were committed. They
crawled along; stopping periodically to refuel the M109’s and/or repair a track.

Gunny hadn’t needed to be asked to station an advance force in Albuquerque; he was

way ahead of Derek and Barbara. In fact, he had moved half of his Abrams to Albu-
querque and had them strung out along west I-40 ready to ambush anyone who came
along. He had two Kiowa’s stationed in Gallup to give them advance warning. Gunny
had another contingent of tanks in Las Cruces together with two more of the Kiowa’s

157
operating out of Lordsburg. They had all of the obvious and less obvious approaches to
their areas of operation covered.

The distance from Los Angeles to Albuquerque is a little over 800 miles. It took the bad
guys 4 days to cover the distance and they were traveling 12 hours a day. The M109’s
were proving to be almost more trouble than they were worth. Gunny’s Kiowa’s were
operating nearly to Holbrook and he had plenty of advance notice of the approaching
bad guys.

He got on the radio and gave Barbara a heads up and pulled his tanks back from Las
Cruces to defend his home turf. The Kiowa’s reported that the bad guys had ‘several’ of
the M1097 Stinger equipped Hummer’s and one or more of the variants of the TOW
equipped Hummer’s. They also reported a large contingent of the M109’s bringing up
the rear of the formation.

Derek and Barbara decided to leave the Kiowa’s placed as they were, but moved The
Farm to Threat Level Orange. Half of the Apaches, the 9 tankers of JP8 and the 32
Abrams were dispatched to Trinidad to ambush the bad guys. Derek suggested that
Gunny try and concentrate on taking out the missile equipped Hummer’s and the
M109’s and they would do the same. Until they could eliminate the Stinger equipped
Hummer’s, their Apaches wouldn’t be of much use.

As usual, Gunny was way ahead of Derek on the battle plan and he had placed explo-
sive charges on several of the bridges and overpasses on the western approaches to
Albuquerque. The only concession he made to Derek was to blow the bridges and
overpasses immediately, well before the bad guys made an appearance.

The Kiowa’s reported that the bad guys had 13 of the Stinger equipped Hummer’s and
19 of the TOW equipped variants. Gunny made the 13 Hummer’s his number 1 priority.
With them gone, his Apaches had a chance to take on the TOW units. He figured that
there were probably a few shoulder-launched Stingers among the convoy, but the pilots
would just have to deal with those when they were launched.

The 25mm Bushmaster cannons on his Bradley’s ought to be able to take care of those
Stinger equipped Hummer’s and his Abrams should be able to eliminate the M109’s. It
really didn’t make much difference how carefully he planned anyway, he figured, a bat-
tle plan never survived the first shot being fired.

Six hours later, around 9pm, the first bad guy units began to arrive in Albuquerque.
Gunny held his fire, wanting to take advantage of the night and allowing the bad guys to
congest their forces. He assumed that the bad guys would dismount until they figured a
way around the downed overpasses and bridges. That should give his sniper teams a
chance to take out anyone equipped with shoulder-launched Stinger missiles. Once his
Bradley’s and snipers eliminated the Stinger’s, his Apaches with their FLIR systems

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could take on the TOW’s. And with the TOW’s eliminated, his Abrams would have free
rein.

Although Gunny had dropped the bridges and overpasses, it only slowed the bad guys,
but didn’t stop them. Within a half hour, they had their vehicles bypassing the bridges
and overpasses using the off ramps. That half hour was all that Gunny needed. His
snipers targeted people who dismounted with Stingers and the Bradleys’ took out all 13
of the Stinger equipped Hummer’s. The bad guys reciprocated and used their TOW
equipped Hummer’s to take out several of the Bradley’s. Gunny put up his Apache’s to
eliminate as many of the TOW’s equipped vehicles as they could manage, reserving his
Abrams until the threat was lessened. The choppers struck the TOW equipped Hum-
mer’s, but more people appeared with the shoulder-launched Stinger’s. The snipers
took out as many as they could, but they were outnumbered and a few of the Stinger’s
were launched.

Gunny lost 2 of his Apaches in the exchange, but they managed to eliminate 12 of the
TOW equipped Hummer’s. He gave his Abrams commander’s a weapons free status
and they began to attack the M109’s, which were now bunched up just west of Albu-
querque. With the bad guy’s vehicles congested as they were, the Abrams were unop-
posed and they destroyed or damaged most of the M109’s. Around 3am, Gunny decid-
ed that he’d inflicted about as much damage as he could afford and began to withdraw
his forces to the south. He had spotters on east I-40 and north and south I-25 and could
report the bad guys’ next move to Derek.

While Gunny was withdrawing, the bad guys regrouped and reassessed their situation.
All of their Stinger equipped and all but 7 of their TOW equipped Hummer’s were out of
action. They still had about 20 shoulder-launched Stinger’s, and could repair 10 of the
M109’s. They had lost about 8,000 of their number and were down but not out. They
sure as hell hadn’t expected the level of opposition they had encountered in Albuquer-
que.

They had 7,000 of the 10,000 people left out of the force they intended to send to Colo-
rado. The remaining 15,000 men and women would be sent in pursuit of their attackers
to the south on I-25. The 10 repaired M109’s would go to Colorado, they decided, the
country was more open and afforded the artillery a better area from which to operate.
They’d lost some of their trucks, however and would have to cram 30 people in each of
the remaining trucks. The TOW equipped Hummer’s would join the southbound forces
and half of the Stinger’s would go with each unit.

Despite their careful preparations Derek realized that they had some serious holes in
their defense. Basically those holes came in the form of their defenses against infantry.
With the Abrams, Bradley’s and helicopters, they were good to go against any vehicular
mounted attack, but if an enemy came against them on foot and armed with weapons

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like the AT-4, the Javelin (FGM-148) , Predator (FGM-172 SRAW) or Stinger (FIM-92)
missiles, they were in trouble.

The AT-4’s were effective against the armored Hummer’s and Bradley’s and the Preda-
tor and Javelin would take out any main battle tank, including the Abrams with its over-
the-top method of attack. They had already experienced what a Stinger missile could do
in the hands of an experienced opponent. And, they only had 4 companies of infantry in
Colorado including the reserves. Of course, there was the militia…

A direct assault on The Farm would put the attacker up against about 2,000 people be-
hind the foot thick walls and the minefields. When they got Gunny’s report that several
thousand bad guys were headed their way with 10 of the M109’s, they were already in
place in Trinidad with the 32 Abram A3s.

Gunny also told them that it appeared to his observers that all of the TOW’s were
southbound on I-25, but he wasn’t sure if they’d taken out all of the individual Stingers
or not. Gunny told Derek to assume that the bad guys had ‘at least a few’ AT-4’s, Jave-
lins and/or Predators. The New Mexicans planned to draw the southbound bad guys to
Alamogordo and make their stand in that area. He said that he figured the terrain in the
area gave him a bit of an advantage.

Derek advised his tank force commander to eliminate the remaining M109’s and as
many of the Stinger’s and Hummer’s as they saw. The on-scene commander should
then bring in the Apaches, as he saw fit, and eliminate as many of the enemy vehicles
as possible. He should then withdraw to The Farm, using the Apaches as cover. Most of
the Stingers, Derek later learned, were in the hands of inexperienced operators and
they weren’t nearly the threat they would have been had not Gunny’s snipers taken out
so many of the experienced Stinger operators.

It was near evening on the following day when the Californians put in an appearance in
the Trinidad area. The Abrams commanders allowed the trucks to pass and concentrat-
ed on the M109’s, eliminating them for good. The contingent of Bradleys’ waited until
the M109’s had been eliminated and opened fire, along with the Hummers, on the truck-
loads of people and enemy Hummers. The Apaches held back out of fear of the Stinger
missiles, but were nevertheless able to destroy many of the vehicles proceeding north
on I-25.

This victory was small; the enemy had expended all 10 of its remaining Stingers but had
not managed to shoot down any of the Apaches. By final count, Derek’s forces had de-
stroyed 73 trucks and the 10 M109’s. Half of those trucks were Hummer’s equipped with
Ma Deuces or Mk-19’s, but 37 of them held troops, cutting the enemy’s infantry by near-
ly 1,000.

The Abrams, Bradley’s, Hummers and tankers headed up US 350, hoping to get ahead

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of the intruders. While the enemy force was still within range of the Apaches, they con-
tinued to attack, eliminating an additional 81 vehicles. The attacks slowed the bad guys
and Derek’s forces cleared the junction with US 24 several hours ahead of the invaders.
When the forward observers reported that the bad guys had reached the US 24/state
route 71 junction, The Farm went on Red Alert. They ordered the Patriot missile batter-
ies to withdraw back to the compound and manned the walls.

Several of the residents were former Marines and Army troops who had given up on the
military and departed years earlier to become civilians. All of them had brought their is-
sue weapons and more than a few had brought an M240B, 7.62×51 caliber machine
gun or two and all of the ammo they could carry. The two compounds and the other
walled in sections were well defended. Unfortunately, not every compound was protect-
ed by minefields, but they had done the best they could. They still had nearly a day to
wait for the attack. The Kiowa’s were equipped with their mini-guns and they kept up a
steady barrage of harassing fire on the approaching enemy, slowing, but not stopping
them.

Had the bad guys had a brain among them, they would have given up long before and
sought greener pastures. Out of the 10,000 men and women who had left California for
Colorado, barely 3,000 remained. They were down to a couple of Hummer’s, out of
Stingers, had no artillery and were bone tired. But, their hunger drove them onward.

Down in New Mexico, the enemy wasn’t much better off. Only 4,000 or so of the 15,000
who had departed Albuquerque to the south were still able to fight. They weren’t faring
nearly as well as the Colorado force because the New Mexico militia was out in force.
With only 4,000 left out of 20,000 who had left California to head east past Albuquerque;
their future looked very bleak indeed. Some of them had enough and attempted to with-
draw, but the Kiowa’s with their mini-guns stopped them in their tracks.

Had the intruders in New Mexico had more discipline, it might have been a different sto-
ry, but they were totally undisciplined and most preferred to fire their weapons in the full
auto or 3-round burst mode. While their fire accounted for some of the casualties, the
40mm grenades launched from the M203’s were far more destructive. Even so, the ratio
of casualties was running nearly 30 bad guys to every New Mexican.

The New Mexicans had the advantage of cover, and more importantly, organization.
Gunny might have a star on his collar, but he was still a Gunnery Sergeant at heart and
both his regular troops and the militia were well schooled. They knew not to use the 3-
round burst on their A2s, rather to select their shots and make them count. The battle
wore on but eventually the bad guys fell to the steady, aimed fire. Gunny told the people
to clean up the bodies and something in his tone suggested that there had better not be
anything but bodies.

Waiting was getting to Derek more than Barbara, maybe that was the difference be-

161
tween a soldier and a Marine. More likely, though, it was the difference in their level of
responsibility.

“I’d give my eyeteeth for a couple of those AC-130 Spectre gunships right about now,”
Derek commented.

“Well, if we get through this, I have an idea where we might come up with one or two,
assuming we can find someone to fly them,” Barbara replied, “But in the meantime we
ought to get those Kiowa’s fitted out with mini-guns and in the air.”

The Armed OH-58D’s universal weapons pylons offer quick-change selection of the hel-
icopter’s diverse weapons systems. Flexible firepower enabled the Kiowa Warrior to ef-
fectively engage both hard and soft targets, static or stationary, on the ground or in the
air.

In addition to its scout/attack role, the OH-58D could be optionally equipped to perform
other important missions. The equipment kits that accommodate these missions are
easily installed on existing hard points. The mini-guns were leftovers from the original
OH-58A’s. However, it hadn’t taken much work to modify an existing equipment kit to
accept the Dillon Aero 134D-H mini-guns and 4,400 rounds of the 7.62x51mm ammo. It
was downright surprising what a crew chief could do when he or she saw a need.

Typically, the D model could choose between a Hellfire module, a Hydra 70 Folding Fin
Aerial Rocket module, Air-to-Air Stinger missiles or a .50 caliber machinegun module,
an addition for the D model. All of Gunny’s Kiowa’s and all of Derek’s Kiowa’s had the
same modification, though Gunny preferred to use the mini-guns most of the time.

Barbara issued a recall order to the Kiowa’s still stationed on I-80 and I-70 to RTB. The
units on I-25 were already back. Derek called the airfield and instructed them to switch
both modules on all of the Kiowa’s to the mini-gun modules and to preflight 14 of the
Apaches to accompany the Kiowa’s, just in case. Derek headed to the airfield via the
tunnel to give the Kiowa pilots their instructions. When he got there he explained that
they were going to be his Spectre gunships and take on the bad guy infantry. The
Apaches would go along to provide cover and attempt to take any remaining bad guy
vehicles.

Admittedly, they were grabbing at straws, using the Kiowa’s as gunships, but it had
been done before and the Warrior model was well equipped to serve in that capacity
temporarily. When he could more of the mini-guns, Derek intended to manufacture more
of the mini-gun modules to equip the Apaches. But for now, he had to make do, again.

They had enough daylight left for a single flight and the 14 Kiowa’s and their accompa-
nying Apaches raked the advancing infantry units. Before they finished, all of the enemy
vehicles were destroyed and almost half of the troops were shot to hell. One of the pi-

162
lots estimated that there were still somewhere between 1,500 and 2,000 of the enemy
who had made it to cover. By this time the pilots were exhausted and rather than mount
another attack, Derek decreed that they should call it a night.

The last action had taken place about 6 miles south of the compound, barely 2 miles
south of The Farm’s southern border. They were bundled up tight and most of the peo-
ple not on guard duty curled up in a sleeping bag or blanket next to the wall, ready to
respond immediately when the attack came. It was no long a matter of if the attack
came, only when. But the prospects looked good; the defenders were behind a foot of
concrete and outnumbered the attackers. Some of the residents were offering 2 to 1
odds that the attackers would turn tail and run.

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 The Rock – Chapter 16 – Going Bold

The smart people took the bet, calling it easy money. Based on radio reports from the
General, Gunny, down in New Mexico, a rumor was spreading that something on the
order of 20,000 or more of the bad guys had the chance to cut and run after the first
strike against them in Albuquerque. The fools had kept coming despite being ambushed
in Trinidad, too. Over the past 5 years, they had built an impressive defensive system,
but it had never been tested. The choppers had truly been a Godsend. And the range of
the heavy weapons defending the compound was impressive. The M119A2 Howitzers
were 105mm and the range varied from 11,500 m w/Chg 7 to 14,000 m w/Chg 8 to
19,500 m w/M913 RAP. The M119A1/A2 fires all standard NATO 105mm artillery am-
munition, including the M1 High Explosive, M314 Illuminating, M60/M60A2 White Phos-
phorous (smoke). It fires the M913 HERA (19.5km) and M760 HE (14.5km) ammuni-
tions.

The guards spotted movement around 3:30am and gave the alarm. Within moments the
walls were manned and weapons pointed outward. The guards had the advantage of
night vision equipment that most of the residents lacked. The night was chilly and many
of the defenders began to shake from the cold as they stood on the platforms peering
off into the darkness. It was nearly 45 minutes before someone switched on the flood
lamps to illuminate the scene. The bad guys missed their last chance to hang it up and
they began to fire from their positions about 600 yards out. The residents began to re-
turn fire sporadically, but even with the floodlights, it was difficult to make out targets.
The Mk-19’s, Ma Deuces, M240’s and the mini-guns over the gate didn’t really need
specific targets however, and they opened up with a murderous level of fire. The vehi-
cles parked along the wall opened up too although the intruders were too close to effec-
tively employ the canister rounds from the Abrams.

Those 48 artillery pieces had proved to be worthless in this particular fight, too and had
never fired a round. The residents began calling out to the attackers, taunting them and
calling them names. The calls of ‘cowards’, ‘chickens’ and ‘yellow-bellies’ together with
and lot more politically incorrect and profane names couldn’t be heard above the con-
stant fire of the heavy weapons.

But in time, the remaining bad guys buried themselves a little deeper in the tall, dead
grass and the gunners could no longer see anyone to shoot at. In fact, it became almost
deathly quiet. There were still a pretty fair number of bad guys hunkered down in the
grass about 600-800 yards out, but no one could see them. The bad guys weren’t about
to stand up and rush that wall either. They were finally reduced to the few hundred peo-
ple who would rather switch than fight.

The situation remained fairly static until first light when the Kiowa’s were fired up and
sent forth with their mini-guns to eliminate the remaining attackers. The howling of mini-
guns shattered the silence and the remaining attackers threw down their guns and ran
toward the wall, seeking mercy or refuge or whatever. Waving their arms, in apparent
surrender, they walked, or ran, right into the minefield. The residents got to see, for the

164
very first time, what those ‘Bouncing Betties’ were all about. They would later use words
they hadn’t used in a long time like ‘gruesome’. The gunners with the .30 caliber ma-
chine guns finally opened up and ended the killing, taking out the last of the bad guys in
minutes.

It took them a several days to retrieve and bury all of the bodies. No one was particular-
ly eager to enter the minefield and pull out those corpses. But they did it because they
couldn’t have all of those bodies stinking up the place. Derek didn’t use the last of his
mines to replace those that the intruders had set off; he wanted to rethink the whole
question of using mines. A few errant rounds had struck some of the wind turbines and
they found they lacked the parts to make proper repairs. They needed to reprioritize the
planned summer’s activities.

Bill’s partner brought up his portable plant from New Mexico and he set about digging
the hole for the fuel bunker in the airfield. Gunny came along and the military com-
manders sat down to discuss what had worked and what hadn’t worked in their defense.

While the overall defense had been a total success, nobody wanted the bad guys in
their backyards again. Indeed, there was a lot to discuss. In a way, Derek was relieved
that they were tied up in the after action discussion and he didn’t have to watch the
people removing those mines, one more time.

Meanwhile, people were busy dismantling a water tower to move and install next to the
new 9” well that was going in. Bill was standing by waiting for the mines to come out so
he could begin to pour the wall. Aaron had people out salvaging those arms that were
serviceable and storing the junk to be dismantled for parts. The farmers were rushing to
catch up on their planting and had plowed a new, larger garden area in the section
south of the northwest section.

Derek reminded Barbara that she had suggested that she might know where to get an
AC-130 Spectre. Her response was that the Twentynine Palms Marine Corps Base
northeast of Palm Springs ought to be a veritable gold mine. There was the 1st Tank
Battalion, must be over 50 but less than 100 of the M1A2s. Retrievers too.

More tanks than a normal battalion because they used to loan them to units that went
there to practice for Iraq and other sandy places. Then the guest units didn’t have to
transport their heavy gear out there. The Corps had lots of LAV’s. If she recalled cor-
rectly, there was a Remotely Piloted Vehicle Squadron; row upon row of M-198 155
howitzers, more Humvees than you could shake a stick at and electronic gadgets ga-
lore. This was where the Comm-Elect school was located. There were everything from
telephones to radars and generators for all of them.

Usually, she said, there were aircraft of all kinds hanging out there but not permanently
stuck out there. They would find Stingers; shoulder fired and vehicular mounts, too.

165
Sometimes there were a few Harriers, C-130’s, F/A-18’s, Cobras, the venerable UH-1
Iroquois (Huey), and CH-46’s and 53’s.

Also, Air Force planes lay over there so, if they got lucky, they might find an AC-130
Spectre or even a C-17. Gunny jumped into the discussion and pointed out that they
could make an expeditionary airfield of Marston matting that could be taken up and
moved to The Farm or elsewhere, really quickly. Hell, he wouldn’t be completely sur-
prised to find a few hundred die-hard devil dogs still there keeping things secure. After
all, one of the general orders was, “To quit my post only when properly relieved”.

If they could go to Twentynine Palms, why not to Fort Irwin Military Reservation, Derek
suggested. He had been there twice to train and between the two places, they ought to
come away with everything they could use. The two facilities have a common boundary
separating them.

If they changed their plans and went to Palm Springs after the additional 150 turbines
and the replacements, first, they wouldn’t be all that far from the Marine Corps Base.
Aaron got into the tail end of the discussion and he suggested that if they were going to
bring back people from California he’d better get Bob and Jacob out hunting for hous-
ing. With so many residents as they now had, about the only limitation on scrounging
was the number of vehicles they had. Why not use the 40 M-1000’s for the trip to Palm
Springs, Derek suggested, they were nothing more than a heavy-duty semi tractor-
trailer rig.

By the way, Barbara announced there had been an addition to the base’s landscape in
the form of 9 megawatts worth of solar panels. With the additional turbines AND the so-
lar panels, the electrical needs of The Farm ought to be met for years to come. It all
sounded too good to be true to Derek, but what the hell, he knew there was lots of use-
ful things at Fort Irwin, so why not Twentynine Palms? Besides, they needed some
heavy military hardware to trade for those drugs. They were just about ready to break
and begin their preparations for the trip to California when Aaron reminded the three of
them that he’d had that watched feeling on the last trip to Minnesota and Wisconsin.

They allowed as how Aaron’s feelings of being watched had certainly proven true con-
cerning California so they would keep the Kiowa’s up providing continuous recon. In
fact, maybe Bob and Jacob ought to take a couple dozen Apaches with them when they
went back to the Midwest to look for houses, just in case. Maybe they should only lower
the Threat Level to Guarded (Blue) throughout the summer.

“Gunny, maybe you’d better come with Barbara and me to Twentynine Palms,” Derek
suggested. “You’ve been around the Corps the longest and if we do run into a bunch of
you jarheads there, you might know some of them.”

“Just watch who the hell you’re calling names, Colonel,” Gunny said, reminding Derek
that he wasn’t really a Major General and only a Lt. Col. by Executive Order.

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Derek knew that Marines were fairly accustomed to all of the name-calling. They were
almost terms of respect. Inter service rivalry had been around for as long as there had
been different branches of the military and that would probably never change. His Dad
had been in the Air Force, although a friend of his had almost talked him into enlisting in
the Marines back in 1961. Gary admitted to Derek that not going into the Corps was
probably one of the best decisions he’d ever made. Air Force boot camp was hard
enough for him and they didn’t even do calisthenics because it had been too hot that
summer.

They were in Palm Springs dismantling the turbines before the end of May and Derek,
Gunny and Barbara headed for Twentynine Palms. They weren’t about to run any risks
and all three of them were in ‘proper’ uniform. The two retired Marines were decked out
in their dress blues and Derek had on an Army officer’s uniform with the silver leaves of
a Lt. Col. pinned on.

They could deal with explaining the stars at a later time, if necessary. When they arrived
at the Main Gate on the south side of the installation, there stood a sentry, just as if the
past 15 years had never happened. They did notice that he was carrying an M-14 rather
than a M16.

“Let me handle this,” Gunny said. He dismounted and faced the sentry down, doing his
best imitation of a DI. The sentry snapped to attention and Gunny, who was enjoying
the experience immensely, motioned for Derek to dismount.

Derek got out of the Hummer and walked over to the sentry.

Gunny said, “The Colonel would like to know who’s in charge here, Marine!”

The guard wasn’t a wet behind the ears kid who was intimidated by Gunnery Sergeants
or officers, but he was willing to play along just for chits and giggles. There were over
300 families still on the installation, but they almost never had visitors.

Unwilling to abandon their posts until properly relieved, the cadre of Noncoms and a few
officers had hung in there the past 15 years. When they’d run out of food, they’d done a
bit of scavenging in the Palm Springs area themselves. Hell, they had to live some-
where and the base provided them with more security than they could have found any-
where else. There had been a similar group at Pendleton but they’d lost contact with
them years before.

Had not that Army Lt. Col. been standing there, the Lance Corporal probably would
have really gotten into the Gunny’s face. But, why take the chance?

“The man in charge is Sergeant Major Robinson, Gunny,” the corporal replied.

167
“No officers here Corporal?” Gunny inquired.

“There are several officers, Gunny,” the corporal said, “But they aren’t in charge of any-
thing. They’re mostly Aviators.”

“Well, get Robby on the horn and tell him that Gunnery Sergeant William Brazos is at
the main gate,” Gunny said. “And, tell him his old sweetheart Gunnery Sergeant Barba-
ra Childs is in the Hummer.”

Gunny intended to have the last laugh now that he knew that Robby was in charge.
Barbara and Robby had crossed swords years before when Robby was still a Staff Ser-
geant. This ought to be interesting. Gunny pulled out one of his treasured cigars and
stuck it in his mouth, but didn’t light it. He never lit the cigars; he just chewed them to
death. A few minutes later, a Hummer pulled up to the gate. An un-amused Sergeant
Major piled out of the vehicle and approached Gunny.

“What the hell you doing in uniform, butthead?” Robinson asked, “You retired in 2003.”

“That’s a long story, Robby,” Gunny grinned, “Say hello to Lt. Col. Derek Olsen. He
used to be a Sergeant in the Army until Old George Bush himself signed an Executive
Order making him a Lt. Col.”

Robby snapped to and saluted Derek. Derek returned the salute and said, “As you were
Sgt. Major.”

“What brings you people to Twentynine Palms?” Robby asked, “and what’s this crap
about Barbara Childs?”

Barbara climbed out of the Hummer and squared off on Robby.

“Before you ask, I’m retired, too,” she said, “But, it was my idea to come to Twentynine
Palms. We need a lot of matériel for our farm in Colorado and I figured this would be
just the place to come. I never figured on running into you.”

“So, is the Col. retired, too?” Robby asked.

Nah” Gunny said, “But he hasn’t been promoted since we dug Bush out of that shelter
at Holloman.”

“I thought he was dead,” Robby said.

“Resigned a few months after we dug him out,” Gunny said. “Went around the country
trying to get a federal government reestablished and when he couldn’t get it done, he
resigned and retired to Crawford. Haven’t heard a peep out of him in years.”

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“Then who is running the federal government?” Robby asked.

“There isn’t a federal government anymore, Robby,” Gunny said, “But I suppose that
Derek is about the closest thing we have. I don’t suppose you’d have a cold beer for a
man dying of thirst would you?”

“So, Gunny, get back to my original question, what are you people doing here?” Robby
asked.

“We came to clean the base out of anything usable Robby,” Gunny candidly admitted.
“We have a long shopping list.”

Robby took them to the Officers Club and introduced Derek, Gunny and Barbara to the
officers who were there. There were more, he said, on the flight line checking on their
planes. Although there were dozens of officers who outranked him, the Sgt. Major was
in charge of the base.

The total compliment of military personnel on the base was 361 plus their dependents.
Most of the officer’s had been young single men on TDY to the installation when the
strike came, but over the intervening years had married survivors from the Palm Springs
and Banning areas and had started families. With the explanation made, Robby re-
turned to his original question. What did they want from the base?

“I understand you have tanks, Hummer’s, LAV’s, some aircraft, a 9 megawatt solar ar-
ray and lots of munitions,” Derek explained.

“We do have that,” Robby said, “Are you planning on trying to take them from us?”

“Not at all Sergeant Major,” Derek replied. “We lived in New Mexico at Carlsbad caverns
until about 6 years ago. Then, when the weather permitted, we moved to Colorado and
started a community east of Denver. We have 16 square miles of land with 12 under
cultivation. Earlier this year we were attacked in Colorado and Gunny was attacked
down in New Mexico by a huge group of bad guys out of California. Anyway, we ana-
lyzed our needs and concluded we needed to expand our military equipment. Barbara
suggested Twentynine Palms.”

“How big a military do you have?” Robby asked.

“A Division,” Derek replied, “Gunny has two Regiments and an air Detachment and I
have an infantry Battalion, an armored Battalion and an air Wing in Colorado.”

“How are you equipped?” Robby asked.

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“I have 52 Apaches and 18 Kiowa Warriors in my Air Wing,” Derek began. “Barbara has
an infantry Regiment and I suppose that you’d have to say we have more than a Regi-
ment of Armor. We have around 80 M1A3s, maybe 60 Bradleys, give or take and about
100 Mk-19 and Ma Deuce equipped Hummer’s. I also have 48 M119A2, 105mm How-
itzers.”

“You do have a Division,” Robby said. “But what do you need from us?”

“We want you to move this entire installation to Colorado,” Derek said.

“What do you mean by ‘the entire installation’?” Robby asked.

“People, equipment, materials to put in a portable runway,” Derek said, “Did I miss any-
thing?”

“Do you have any idea how large of a project that would be?” Robby asked. “Hell, we
have 60 plus tanks, that many or more LAV’s, as many Hummer’s as you do, 2 AC-
130’s, 8 F/A-18’s, a C-17, 3 C-130’s, 2 KC-130’s, all the ground equipment plus over
200 M198 155mm Howitzers, half a dozen Hueys, a dozen Cobra gunships, 6 million
gallons of JP8, a million gallons of diesel and enough munitions to fight a small war.”

“I’ll admit it will take a while,” Derek replied almost choking, “We can only move about a
million gallons of fuel at a time. It would probably take us 6 weeks just to move the JP8.”

“What about housing for our people?” Robby asked.

“We’re putting in space for 1,000 doublewides,” Derek answered. “And, if you’re worried
about quitting your post Sergeant, consider yourself relieved.”

“I think we’d better all talk this over and get back to you,” Robby said, “Where are you
staying?”

“You’ll find us down in Palm Springs at the wind farm for the next week Robby,” Derek
replied.

“I’ll get back to you in a day or two,” Robby said.

Back at the wind farm Derek broached the subject with Gunny.

“Do you think they will come?” Derek asked.

“They’ll come,” Gunny said, “But you did right letting him think he has a choice.”

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“I’d better call back to Colorado and tell them to make that JP8 tank an 8-million gallon
tank rather than a 2-million tank,” Derek said. “I just hope they aren’t too far along with
it.”

As fortune would have it, the New Mexican contractor who was going to put in the fuel
bunkers had decided to excavate both bunkers before beginning to pour concrete and
weld in the linings. Derek, he said, had caught him just in time, the project was moving
along faster than anticipated.

The mines were out, by the way, and Bill was pouring the walls for the two new com-
pounds. Everything in Colorado was running well ahead of schedule and Bob and Jacob
had dropped 150 used homes and were after another 75. Bill’s second crew had al-
ready poured over 300 foundations and slabs and would have the other 200 plus the
community building basement and slabs for both tracts in within 2 weeks.

Two control panels were already aboard an M1000 and the towers were coming down a
lot faster, probably due to their experience. Aaron was suggesting that they would be
ready to head to Colorado in four more days. Derek just hoped that Sergeant Major
Robinson would come aboard. With the amount of equipment they had here at 29
Palms, The Farm would be secure from everything, maybe even a foreign invader.

Two days later, Robby was back with several officers in tow. They had dozens of ques-
tions ranging from medical facilities to food supplies to the military organization. Appar-
ently, they were satisfied with the answers they received, because they were willing to
move. When should they begin, they wanted to know?

Derek explained the exact progress of the construction projects in Colorado and sug-
gested that Robby and the pilots move the aircraft to Denver airport until they could put
in an airport at The Farm using the Marston matting. It would probably be a month be-
fore their fuel bunker for the JP8 was done, but they would have lots of time before win-
ter to move the fuel. In the meantime, they had homes for 150 families now and were
expecting about 75 every two weeks (he hoped he wasn’t lying about that one).

Did they have enough transports for the Abrams or did The Farm need to send down
their M1000’s as soon as they were unloaded? Robby assured Derek that he could
handle everything on his end except for moving the fuel supplies and solar array. He’d
get the matting loaded and send half of the planes to Denver. The remaining aircraft
would stay at 29 Palms until the runway was in.

By the way, what did Derek envision Robby’s role to be in Colorado? Training of course,
Derek told him, they needed everyone to be fully combat-trained; that meant all of the
men and women ages 15 to 45. Just remember, Derek said, you’ll be training civilians,
not a bunch of eager 18-year old kids.

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A week later Derek, Barbara and Aaron were back in Colorado and Gunny was in New
Mexico. The damaged turbines had been repaired or replaced and the ‘new’ turbines
were going in quickly. The three old geezers were having a great time running around in
their golf carts ‘supervising’.

The floor and walls of the 8-million gallon fuel bunker were in and welders were working
around the clock trying to get the bunker liner completed so that the concrete top could
be poured and the choppers returned to the airfield. The bunker was 200’ square and
28’ deep. The round steel support columns used enough space that the capacity was
almost exactly 8 million gallons.

There must have been some sort of miscommunication however, the bunker for the
truck park was 500’ by 200’ by 16’ and was capable of holding almost 12 million gallons
of diesel fuel, more than their proven reserves. Oh well. Maybe they should add a wall
dividing the bunker into two compartments of approximately 6 million gallons each and
fuel the generators with one compartment and the vehicles with the other.

The second tract’s homes were all assembled and the front porches installed. There
were fewer than a dozen homes left to add PV panels to. The scavengers had cleaned
out Abuild in Des Moines and had enough steel building components for the 8 new
community buildings. They had finally located those PV panels but hadn’t been able to
bring them back yet.

Bill was almost done with the wall by the time the first contingent arrived from Twentyn-
ine Palms. The F/A-18F’s had flown to Denver, and the E’s had remained at 29 Palms.
These were the super Hornets with the more powerful 44,000 ft. pound trust engines, at
least that was what Derek was told.

The only thing that Derek really knew about airplanes was something his father always
said, ‘What goes up must come down’. There were more models of helicopters at the
Denver airport than Derek knew what to do with. There were Cobras and Hueys and
CH-46’s and CH-53’s. Six models of helicopters mean six different sets of parts. He
hoped that Gary’s inventory system was up to the task.

The only solution to the fuel problem seemed to be to go ahead and divide the large
bunker under the truck park. The concrete for the divider was barely dry when they got
a second crew of welders putting in the lining.

At least some things were going better than expected. Bob and Jacob were pulling in
the used homes just about on the schedule Derek had predicted, due no doubt, to the
large crew of people they employed in the effort. The turbines went up quickly and were
waiting for the panels to be completed before they could be brought online. They
weren’t finding the batteries they needed, however. Inverters were easy to come by, but
those golf cart batteries eluded them.

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All 1,000 homes in the first and second tracts had 60 batteries each. The batteries were
the 6-volt, 400-amp golf cart batteries. The batteries had to be wired in series in pairs to
produce the 12-volts required by the inverters, producing a bank of 30 pairs in each
home. Desperate to find a solution, they moved 15 pairs of the batteries from each of
several of the homes to a few of the homes erected in the third tract. They found that
the 15 pairs were more than adequate for a home, especially since they had wind tur-
bines and generators. A crew was assigned to begin moving the batteries when the PV
panels were on and the front porches installed.

Robby figured that he’d move half of everything at first and then, when the 361 families
were settled into their new homes, the remainder. The fuel transfer was up to the people
from Colorado, as was moving that large, 9-megawatt solar array. Although he had
some reservations about moving to Colorado, it was a relief to finally leave Twentynine
Palms.

He was wondering, too, if the Colorado bunch were really just defending their property
or building up to something. Time would tell, but he hoped that this democratic but not a
democracy, policy of theirs wasn’t just some form of dictatorship. He remained at Twen-
tynine Palms with a defense force waiting for the folks from this place they called The
Farm to show up for the fuel.

When finally they had the first half of the diesel tank lined, it was approaching the end of
June. Compounds 3 and 4 were walled in, the community buildings erected and the tur-
bine panels installed. Bill’s partner pointed out that by the time they had put a wall
around all 300 turbines, they would have most of the section walled in.

It made more sense, he claimed, just to put up an 8’ wall around the entire section. If Bill
were willing, he’d stay and help. Bill was getting pretty tired of the piecemeal approach
they’d been using anyway, so the two of them informed, didn’t ask, the council that they
would going to wall in the entire section.

Given the new circumstances, Barbara and Derek decided to pull the remaining mines.
They also decided to move the M119A2 artillery pieces to the southeast area of the sec-
tion. There was just enough room left in that area to store their 48 artillery pieces and all
of the M198’s coming in from 29 Palms. The Claymores would be reinstalled outside the
new wall, but those Bouncing Betties were being retired. They emptied the tankers and
headed for 29 Palms. They forgot to switch back to their ‘proper’ uniforms and showed
up wearing those stars.

“What’s this Major General crap?” Robby challenged.

173
“Our division is essentially a private army, Robby,” Derek said, “And I’m the Division
commander. Gunny and Barbara are Regimental commanders and you will be too as
soon as you are at The Farm.”

“I am a US Marine Sergeant Major and nothing more,” Robby disputed Derek.

“You’re half right Robby, you are a Marine Sergeant Major. But at the moment there is
no US government,” Derek pointed out. I don’t know how isolated you’ve been here at
Twentynine Palms, but the country isn’t the same place it was before the asteroid hit
Beijing.”

“With all of this hardware we’re providing,” Robby asserted, “You’re going to have a
pretty fancy army. You planning on conquering the country?”

“The country?” Derek laughed, “Man you are out of touch. From Texas eastward, all of
the states have reformed as autonomous governments. I don’t suppose it would sur-
prise you to know that Texas reverted to a Republic, would it?”

“What about New Mexico and Colorado?” Robby wanted to know.

“There are no state governments in Colorado and New Mexico, Robby,” Barbara
chimed in. “And no one has moved back any further north than Colorado.”

“How do you know so much about what is going on around the country?” Robby asked.

“We’ve been salvaging ever since the strike Robby,” Derek said, “That’s what brought
us here, salvaging.”

“It sounds more like looting to me,” Robby responded sharply.

“The only difference between salvaging and looting is that looting is taking things from
people who will be returning, Robby,” Derek said. “But the population is down to a little
over 20 million people, so how likely do you believe it is that anyone really gives a
crap?”

“Twenty million?” Robby replied shocked, “Where did everyone go?”

“Simply put, only about 30 million survived the strike,” Derek explained, “Then, the fol-
lowing summer about a third of the survivors managed to kill themselves off fighting
over the remaining resources.”

“Well I’ll be flipped,” Robby muttered.

“Probably,” Barbara replied under her breath.

174
 The Rock – Chapter 17 – Summer of 2021

Derek had no intention of getting into a debate with Robby. Debates were for politicians
and Derek thought even less of politicians than his father did, if that were possible. By
the time Robby got everyone trained and they had the two new tracts fully occupied,
The Farm would be approaching a population of 8,000. Even if they added another 9
sections of ground to The Farm, and therefore needed more farmers, butchers, bakers
and so on, they were going to have a lot of people to employ.

Although Aaron, Bob and Jacob were technically past the military age now, they had
never really been involved in the military in a big way at any time in the past 15 years.
Still, almost 5,000 of those 8,000 people would be in the military age group and had to
be fully trained combat soldiers.

They loaded the sixty tankers with JP8 and put as many of the M198’s on transports as
they could carry. This was to be a scene repeated over and over until Twentynine
Palms was stripped bare. Derek hadn’t forgotten about Fort Irwin, but at the moment, he
had more equipment than he had trained users. Some of it would be converted into cap-
ital and used to replenish their aged drug supply, but even so, he expected to have over
100 tanks, 250 pieces of artillery, just under 100 each of the LAV’s and Bradley’s and a
couple of hundred weapons equipped armored Hummer’s.

Add to that an air unit with fighters, tankers, fixed wing and helicopter cargo aircraft, and
the growing fleet of attack helicopters and you had a pretty impressive air force. Derek
was in over his head and he knew it. The key to managing an army of this size lay in
whom he selected to command the various units. Thank God some of those Marines
from 29 Palms were Force Recon, they were going to come in handy.

The Farm continued through the summer of 2020 without further incident. They appro-
priated the additional 9 sections of ground and when the farmers had the time, they
plowed and disked the new fields. By late August, everything but the solar array had
been moved to Colorado.

They now had four crews working on the wall around the section and except for needing
to scout out additional cement, things were progressing smoothly. Several hundred fam-
ilies had moved north from New Mexico and they only had 93 empty homes in the 4th
tract. They were accepting no more new families and the council was worried they
would have to build a 5th tract to house the youngsters as they grew up and married.

They now had two additional doctors and two new dentists, all housed in a new 25 bed
hospital in tract 4. The three extra buildings in tract three ultimately ended up being
warehouses. And yes, Gary’s inventory system was functioning very well. The only
problem seemed to be that the printout now included over 75,000 different items. To
keep things straight, they had begun to put different types of stores in different ware-
houses and the printouts were divided into categories of items.

175
Robby had an immediate impact on how they had been doing things right after he ar-
rived with the last shipment from Twentynine Palms. The two warehouses of munitions
were immediately moved to bunkers constructed near the center of the section. North of
the airfield, at his suggestion, large Quonset type buildings were erected to house the
fixed wing aircraft. Bill’s partner had returned to New Mexico after the section wall was
completed in September and Bill was pressed into service constructing a wall around
the hangars.

Bill told Derek to ‘get those mines moved’ and agreed to extend the wall around the air-
field to enclose the hangars. He also announced that he had probably built 6 or 7 miles
of walls and he was tired. He was going to retire when this final wall was completed.

Derek was all in favor of removing all of the Bouncing Betties, but Robby, upon learning
of their presence, insisted that they bring the retired mines out of retirement and employ
them as a passive defense of the airfields. The Farm, he said, was simply too big to de-
fend all of the walls with only 5,000 people.

After transferring the 6 million gallons of JP8 and the million gallons of diesel fuel to The
Farm, the tankers headed to Nebraska and continued to haul fuel until the fuel bunkers
were full.

The canning operation had been running 24/7 for several weeks, preserving the pro-
duce from the greatly expanded garden. There was so much to do that the normal La-
bor Day celebration was essentially overlooked.

One of the warehouses that had formerly held munitions was converted into a new Divi-
sional headquarters. It had a large communications center, thanks to the folks from
Twentynine Palms. The other warehouse was converted to food storage. By the time
the first snow came, the exhausted residents of The Farm were more than willing to
hang it up. It had been a very long and tiring summer.

Though the major projects for the year 2020 were completed, there was still a lot of
planning to do. There was, for example the solar array still at 29 Palms to dismantle,
transport and re-erect. There was also the question of where to erect the array the fol-
lowing summer.

If the inventory was correct, they had several spot outages in their stores, too. Con-
sumed, as they had been, with expanding their security, moving the people and equip-
ment from 29 Palms, erecting the two new tracts and so forth, they hadn’t had time to
scrounge. The supply people had generated a several page long list of the outages, and
were pressing for an expedition to fill in the shortages.

Although the artillery pieces hadn’t been worth nearly as much on the market as the

176
Abrams tanks, they had negotiated through Gunny for their medical supplies from the
South Americans.

Realizing how busy they were in Colorado, Gunny had delivered the equipment and had
transported the drugs to Colorado for them. The people in New Mexico hadn’t had all
that much to do after the battle with the Californians and were beginning to communi-
cate statewide in hopes of forming a new state government.

One thing was certain; the state capital would be moved from Santa Fe to Albuquerque.
Albuquerque was more central and a more logical location for the new capitol. In fact,
many of the residents from the Roswell-Artesia-Carlsbad and Whites City area were
contemplating moving to Albuquerque.

Aaron, Bob and Jacob suggested that after the first of the year, they’d look to the Kan-
sas City area to secure the needed supplies. Radio reports indicated that though occu-
pied, Kansas City was experiencing shortages of food and they had plenty of food to
trade.

Also, after the first of the year, they would send a contingent back to Twentynine Palms
and begin the massive project of dismantling the solar array. Robby volunteered some
of his people who, he said, were pretty familiar with the workings of the array.

It was also decided to move the generators from the basements of the 4 Community
Centers and collocate them, the turbine control panels and the control equipment for the
solar array in a separate utilities building. They could build the new building between
tract 4 and the wind turbines and house the generators in its basement.

Because they hadn’t had time to put in fuel lines from the 6 million gallon fuel bunker for
the generators under the truck park, there would be no duplication of effort and the
amount of piping would be nearly the same.

Derek, Barbara and Robby were busy reorganizing the military units. The armor was
reorganized into a 3 Battalion Regiment, the artillery into a 2 Battalion Regiment, and
the infantry into a nine company, 3 Battalion Regiment.

The air forces were divided into Air Squadrons consisting of both fixed wing and rotary
aircraft, a Recognizance Squadron consisting of the Kiowa Warriors, three Attack
Squadrons consisting of the Apaches and Cobras, and a single Fighter Squadron con-
sisting of the 4 F/A 18E’s and the 4 F/A-18F’s. A new control tower was at the top of the
list for the Air Wing.

With essentially 4 Regiments, counting the Air Wing as a Regiment, they could have
probably formed two Divisions and thus a Corps, but everyone agreed that a single,
oversized Division was enough bureaucracy. And, as it was, the unit headquarters per-
sonnel were severely limited, consisting, in most instances to 6 or fewer people. And,

177
this was just in Colorado, never mind New Mexico. Gunny had essentially formed his
own enlarged Division in New Mexico.

Derek was not a worrier, but once idea was planted in his mind, it chewed at him until it
could be implemented or discarded completely. Robby’s crack about conquering the
country was one such thought.

Rather than wait for the next group of bad guys to attack them, why not seek out and
destroy the enemy? Perhaps, along the way, they could make new friends and find new
trading partners. Derek didn’t doubt for a moment that their scavenging days were near-
ing an end; more and more people seemed to be moving back north. If the radio com-
munications were to be believed, there were several quasi-military Divisions around the
country, usually under the control of a former active duty serviceman or a veteran.

Communications revealed that one such Division existed in New York state; another in
southern Michigan, a third in Georgia, a fourth in Mississippi, a fifth and sixth in Texas
and a seventh in Oregon. That made nine Divisions, probably mostly citizen soldiers like
them, spread around the country.

The communications also indicated that many of the Divisions were proactive, seeking
out and eliminating those citizens who would rather take than work for what they need-
ed. The commanders of the two Divisions in Texas were calling for a Summit meeting of
sorts to coordinate the activities of the various Divisions. The meeting was to be held
over a weeklong period early in February at the Dallas-Ft. Worth airport. Gunny told
Derek he was in so Derek told him he’d pick him up in Albuquerque in the jet and they’d
both attend.

Derek and Gunny, who was now wearing the Major General stars of a Division com-
mander, arrived at the Dallas-Ft. Worth airport the afternoon before the meeting was
scheduled to begin. Both men had brought their Regimental Commanders along and
the entire contingent was decked out in military dress uniforms as befitted their ranks.
Much to their surprise, the Texans greeted them with much pomp and circumstance and
they almost immediately became uncomfortable.

It was hardest on Gunny and Robby; they were Noncoms at heart, regardless of their
rank insignia. However, at the barbeque the Texans had prepared for the pre-meeting
festivities, it soon became apparent that most of the Divisional commanders were non-
commissioned officers thrust into the role of Divisional and Regimental commanders,
much as they had been. The biggest surprise of the evening came after dinner when a
very old looking George W. Bush put in an appearance. A greeting line was formed and
the Divisional commanders lined up to meet the former President.

178
When Derek’s turn came to greet Bush, Bush looked at him strangely and asked, “Don’t
I know you?”

“Yes Sir,” Derek replied, “I was in charge of the group that dug you out of hiding at Hol-
loman.”

“That’s right,” Bush replied, “And I issued an Executive Order making you a Lt. Col.,
didn’t I? How are your father and those other old guys from California doing?”

“They’re still alive and kicking, if that’s what you’re asking,” Derek replied.

“If I remember right, your father was a bit of a smart aleck,” Bush said, “Wanted to know
if we won the war on terror.”

“That’s him, Mr. President,” Derek laughed, “He doesn’t think much of politicians.”

“Are you ready to be President yet?” Bush asked.

“And become a politician?” Derek asked sharply, “Not on your life.”

The line moved on and when Derek returned to the table, everyone wanted to know
what he and Bush had talked about for so long. Not much, Derek told them, just re-
counting memories from years before. “Once a politician, always a politician,” Derek
reminded them.

Although Bush had retired and apparently disappeared from the scene years before, he
had in fact been instrumental in organizing the two Texas Divisions and the Divisions in
Mississippi and Georgia. As such, he had a lot of influence in the proceedings that oc-
curred in Dallas-Ft. Worth that week.

It turned out that the Divisions around the country were generally more specialized than
the New Mexican and Colorado Divisions. Two of the Divisions were primarily Air Force
units with large forces of F-15’s, F-16’s, and F/A-18’s. They had even resurrected some
of the dinosaur B-52’s. The Georgia Division was widely dispersed and included two
Naval Task Groups built around two Nimitz class carriers and their escorts up at Nor-
folk. The fleets were kept on standby and could sail with about a week’s notice.

The first part of the week was spent hammering out a loose structure forming the nine
Divisions into a national Army of sorts. On Wednesday evening, Bush indicated that he
wanted to meet with the Divisional Commanders from New Mexico and Colorado and
their Regimental commanders.

179
“I’d like to see your forces consolidated into a Corps,” Bush said, “Which one of you
wants to be the Corps commander?”

“What makes you think we want to be formed into a Corps?” Gunny asked, “We’re doing
pretty good operating as two Divisions.”

“You go by Gunny, right?” Bush asked. “Well, I’ll tell you Gunny, we have additional re-
sources we can throw your way if you are formed into a Corps. Most of these Divisions
are like you folks and really just oversized Divisions. I’ve already had the same discus-
sion with the folks from several of the Divisions and they’ve agreed to the reorganiza-
tion.”

“What kind of resources?” Derek asked.

“Rail transportation for one thing,” Bush said, “And repair of some of the road system.
Neither of you are probably old enough to remember, but the Interstate Highway Sys-
tem was originally intended by Eisenhower to be a military system during time of war.”

“We have quite an agricultural project up there in Colorado,” Derek said, “Would use of
the rail system include distribution of our produce?”

“That and more,” Bush replied, “However, I don’t know if I’d call a 16,000 acre farm a
large operation.”

“Maybe not, but we’re producing over 50 times the amount of food we need Mr. Presi-
dent and we have the capacity to expand that even further,” Derek exclaimed.

“And all you need is a distribution system, I’d guess,” Bush commented. “Well, fellas,
what about it?”

“Who do you want in charge of the Corps?” Gunny asked.

“Like I said,” Dubya replied, “That’s up to you.”

“Well Derek, my collar is too small for 3 stars,” Gunny laughed, “So I guess you’re it.”

“If we’re agreed,” Dubya said, “We’ll start rebuilding the rail lines down south immediate-
ly and have them up and running to Albuquerque and Denver by late spring.”

A presidential aide was waiting for them when they exited Bush’s room. He had a box of
assorted rank Insignia for them. Derek moved Barbara up to Major General and put her
in charge of the Colorado Division. Robby took over her Regiment of infantry.

The remainder of the week was spent discussing logistics, primarily the distribution of
the goods being produced in the various areas of the country. However, the new Corps

180
commander of the Michigan forces pigeonholed Derek for a conversation. His troops
had ranged as far west as Chicago and had run into stiff resistance in the area. Would
Derek be interested in joining elements of their two Corps together in an effort to clean
out Chicago, he wanted to know?

Although Derek was reluctant, it made sense to him to keep the fighting as far away
from The Farm as possible. When did they want to move he asked? The last week of
April seemed like a good time to the Michigan Corps commander, so he’d put his Divi-
sion commander in touch with Barbara and they’d work out the arrangements.

At least Derek was out of the direct fray. But, all he’d ever wanted was to command his
own tank! Somewhere, along the way, he’d been cheated out of the opportunity and it
irked him. He still had the nickel-plated .45 with the Ivory grips and by God he was the
Corps commander.

He appropriated one of the M3’s for his command vehicle. Even George S. Patton had
known better than to do that, but Derek wasn’t George S. Patton, despite the actual re-
semblance and the adopted style. In the end, one of the Texans had been selected to
command the Army and Navy, which, considering Bush’s influence in the whole scenar-
io wasn’t difficult to believe.

Rather than move the solar array, they bargained if off to those Texans in exchange for
16 F-15E Strike Eagles. He radioed back and left a message for Aaron who was in
Kansas City, not to bother with the array. They really didn’t need the array anyway be-
cause when they collocated the equipment, they intended to wire the whole thing to-
gether, essentially combining the 4 control panels for the wind turbines and the comput-
erized equipment that controlled the modular generator setup.

When all 300 turbines were running at full capacity, they generated something on the
order of 15-megawatts. The generators produced 16-megawatts and the PV panels
produced 15-megawatts, not counting the PV panels on the various community struc-
tures. The backup batteries in the homes effectively stored 6,000 amps in each home
and they could nominally operate the homes for anywhere from 54 to 60 hours before
the batteries gave out and they had to resort to the electricity produced by the turbines.
So, Derek eagerly traded off the solar array for the 16 aircraft.

The Strike Eagle could be equipped with the following: 1 - M-61A1 20mm multi-barrel
internal gun, 940 rounds of ammunition; 4 - AIM-9L/M Sidewinder and 4 - AIM-7F/M
Sparrow missiles, or combination of AIM-9L/M, AIM-7-F/M and AIM-120 missiles; 12
CBU-52 (6 with wing tanks); 12 CBU-59 (6 with wing tanks); 12 CBU-71 (6 with wing
tanks); 12 CBU-87 (6 with wing tanks); 12 CBU-89 (6 with wing tanks); and/or, 20 MK-
20 (6 with wing tanks).

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Conversely, the F/A 18’s could carry: 1 - M-61A1 20mm multi-barrel internal gun, 520
rounds of ammunition 4 - AIM-7F/M Sparrow missiles, or combination of AIM-9L/M,
AIM-7-F/M and AIM-120 missiles; 6 - MK-82; 4 - CBU-87; 4 - CBU-89; 2 - GBU-10; 6 -
GBU-12; 2 - GBU-24; and/or 2 - JDAM. As happy as he was to have the Super Hornets,
he was even happier to expand his fighters with the Strike Eagles. The down side was
that the planes came with Pilots, Weapons System Operators and ground crews, seri-
ously eating into their housing reserve. Delivery of the aircraft was to be delayed until
The Farm could provide hangars for the aircraft.

It was also at this juncture that they decided to divide the inventory system into separate
lists for the military and the residential population. For some strange reason the other
Divisions’, now Corps’, inventory systems only showed their military hardware. Although
the logic of the separate system escaped him, Derek felt that ‘when in Rome…’ and
asked the council to separate the system. Had he considered the matter, Derek would
have realized that the explanation was simple. No one wanted anyone else to know how
much ‘salvaging’ they had done. Like Robby, many felt that the salvaging operations
bordered on looting.

Since they were about to come into an outlet for their agricultural production, the council
voted to expand The Farm even further, from the 25 sections of ground to 36 sections of
ground (excluding the property north of the highway). Increasing the land under cultiva-
tion from 14,720 acres to 21,760 acres would allow them to increase their production by
almost 50% and hopefully provide a trade surplus.

Apparently, the three old men, and especially Gary, had been talking to the council, ex-
plaining economic theory to anyone who would listen. All the council knew was they
were going to have to put in another tract to house the population growth.

On the residential supply side, Aaron managed to trade two trailers of hanging beef and
two trailers of canned goods to the folks in Kansas City to cover their shortages, which
included such mundane things as spices, shortening, coffee, toilet paper and cigarettes.

The three old geezers didn’t think there was anything mundane about either of the last
two items. The trip revealed a need no one had previously considered. When they were
only producing food for themselves, canning the food in the recyclable pint and quart
jars made sense. However, now that they would be exporting, it appeared that they
would soon run out of jars. Lids were already a problem, but losing the jars meant losing
their ability to can.

Pleased that Aaron had actually gotten him Kool super longs, Gary admitted that he
once knew where there was a canning plant that packed corn, green beans and the like.
It was located, either on state route 3 east of Hampton or on US 20 east of Iowa Falls.
They could just drive around until they found the place he said. On the other hand, Ne-
braska canned a lot more food than Iowa, but he had no idea where any of the plants

182
were located. The same went for Minnesota, he claimed. Minnesota was the home of
the Jolly Green Giant and Paul Bunyan.

Aaron, Bob and Jacob decided to trail along behind Barbara and her troops and look for
a canning plant. They needed more doublewides for the 5th tract anyway and the prima-
ry things they hadn’t gotten in Kansas City were replacement deep cycle batteries.
Some of the batteries were beginning to show their age and if they didn’t replace the
batteries, it might force them to run the generators, considered a poor alternative in the
best of times. Besides, none of the community buildings had battery backups and they
wanted to add batteries to the community buildings.

The three men from Colorado dropped off in Nebraska to search for a canning factory.
They were quickly rewarded for their efforts and the plant they discovered must have
been just getting ready for the canning season back in 2004 because there were hun-
dreds of pallets of empty cans stacked in a warehouse. It looked like a pretty complicat-
ed setup until Jacob found the manuals for all of the machinery in the plant manager’s
office library. They got a crew to begin the disassembly operation and moved to Omaha
to find more steel building components for the 5th tract. They needed not only the 6
buildings for the 5th tract but also a building to house the consolidated electrical control
systems.

When they finally located a warehouse of steel building components they found that the
forklifts were all electric, apparently powered by huge deep cycle batteries. They used
their own forklifts to load the building components, but put a portable generator to re-
charging one of those electric forklifts. By the time they had the warehouse cleaned out;
the battery on the forklift was fully charged. It was a monster of a battery, weighing sev-
eral hundred pounds, but obviously capable of holding a huge charge. They spent 2
days scavenging more of those huge batteries. It appeared that their battery backup
problem for the community buildings was finally solved.

They were fairly loaded down, but still needed the doublewides and had 150 trucks to
pull back the halves of 75 homes. They began to scour Omaha and Council Bluffs, one
more time, for good used doublewides. They met with limited success, only finding 45
suitable homes in the area. They began the 500 plus mile journey back to The Farm.
Along the way, they dropped off most of their security forces at the canning plant and
added the truckloads of machinery and cans to their convoy.

The 5th tract was larger than the other four, extending from the truck park to the south-
ern wall of tracts 2 and 4. Some of the extra space was allotted to two additional com-
munity buildings, and there was room for about 650 homes. Their trip had been a com-
bination of successes and failures. While they had the huge batteries for the community
buildings, more steel building components and a canning factory, they only had 45 dou-
blewides and no replacement deep cycle batteries for the homes.

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°

Barbara had joined up with the Regiment from Michigan and they were in Gary, finaliz-
ing their plans to rout the bad guys when scouts reported that the bad guys were on the
move to the west. They could hardly believe their good fortune.

They had been preparing for an urban campaign, one of those house to house affairs
that were so dangerous. The bad guys were reported on I-55 and they were on I-80. I-
55 crossed I-80 out near Joliet and they could bottle the bad guys up at that intersection
with their choppers until the ground forces could catch up. They got the choppers air-
borne and dispatched the tankers and ground crews immediately. Being a Marine, Bar-
bara favored the LAV’s over the Abrams and had only brought 24 tanks.

Back at The Farm, Bill’s foreman was now in charge of the concrete work and he had
opted to put in the foundations and slabs for the homes and the basements and/or slabs
for the community buildings before working on the wall.

By the time Aaron and the others got back from Nebraska, the 5th tract was in, utilities
installed and two crews were working on the wall. Under the direction of the utilities
manager, another septic field was nearing completion, this one would service 1,000
homes, and the generators had been moved to the basement of the new power plant.
They unloaded the trailers and headed back to Nebraska to get the remainder of the
canning plant.

Aaron asked Derek to contact the folks in Texas and find out just where they could get
more of the deep cycle batteries for the homes and to contact Gunny and find out just
where in the hell he kept getting doublewides from, his supply seemed to be inexhausti-
ble.

Derek learned that there were literally thousands of deep cycle batteries available from
Texas, and they were more than willing to trade them for food, especially canned goods.
Gunny just laughed when Derek contacted him, Mesa, Arizona was a retirement com-
munity and there were enough doublewides in Mesa to ‘supply half the world’.

If Derek wanted to send down their haulers, Gunny would donate his haulers to the
cause and they could pull 150 or more homes at a crack back to Colorado. The homes
were mostly used, but older people had occupied them and the majority of them were
just like new.

The choppers caught the bad guys flat footed and by the time Barbara and the Michigan
commander had moved their forces to Joliet, the dreaded battle had resolved itself into
more of a mopping up operation than anything else. The Michigan commander offered
to stay and help, but Barbara told him that her LAV crews need the gunnery practice
and if he wanted to return to Michigan, that was just fine with her.

184
There were, these days, the good guys and the bad guys and the latter soon became
the dead guys as soon as the good guys worked their magic. Barbara hadn’t really giv-
en it any thought, but it occurred to her that the bad guys, at least in her limited experi-
ence, seemed to suffer from some kind of internal disorganization. While they were fre-
quently well equipped, they didn’t know when to quit while they were ahead and they
rarely withdrew when they were getting their butts kicked.

Within a month, the crews were back from Nebraska with the remainder of the canning
plant and the cans. Someone had actually taken the time to count the number of cans
on a pallet and there were 144 cans per layer and 12 layers per pallet. Whoa, that
meant that they were just shy of 2 million cans! They even had rolls and rolls of labels
for the cans. All they needed to do was get that canning plant assembled and operating
in one of the new buildings and in a hurry. They were already canning in jars and it was
going to be close because they were running low on jars and lids.

Derek still wanted to make the trip to Fort Irwin, but until Barbara returned, he didn’t
want to cut his forces too thin. Nevertheless, he flew down to Albuquerque, picked up
Gunny and they flew to California to survey the situation at Fort Irwin. Fort Irwin was the
Army’s equivalent to the Marine Corps Twentynine Palms installation and was the de-
sert warfare-training center.

Having been there twice for training, Derek had a pretty good idea of the layout of the
Fort and they quickly realized that they had another goldmine on their hands. Even di-
viding the munitions and equipment between the 2 Divisions, they were going to have
more equipment than they could use. On the other hand, a bird in hand was worth 2 in
the bush, so they resolved to move the equipment and munitions to Albuquerque and
Denver, when they could.

They returned home in time for the 4th of July celebrations. At The Farm, the first 195
homes were setup, the front porches built and the homes were waiting on more of the
PV panels and batteries for their electrical supplies. The canning plant would be online
in another week of 24/7 assembly and most of the community buildings were nearing
completion. There was much to celebrate.

185
 The Rock – Chapter 18 – Fall of 2021

The rail lines had been repaired and the roads were receiving attention, just as Bush
had promised, by the 4th of July. The spring had been reasonably dry, allowing the farm
workers to plant the entire 34 sections of ground. Then, just when they needed the rain,
God had watered their crops. From all appearances, they were going to have a bumper
crop in 2021.

They had emptied the elevators and transported the grains south, via rail, to make room
for the anticipated harvest. While the Texans wanted canned goods more than the
grain, food was food and they had begun to ship back deep cycle batteries in exchange.

“We’re looking pretty good here Ronald,” Gary commented.

“Yeah right,” Ron complained, “They still need homes for the 5th tract, they don’t have
any more of those fancy PV panels and I’m out of Camels.”

“Is he always like this?” Clarence laughed.

“Only since he turned 50, 30 years ago,” Gary shook his head, “I didn’t know him before
then, so I can’t say.”

“You seem to be holding up pretty well for a 78 year old man,” Clarence observed,
“What’s your secret?”

“Well, I smoke 2 packs a day, eat everything not on my diet and try to be as cantanker-
ous as possible,” Gary replied.

“He’s just acting normal, Clarence,” Ron dryly observed.

“They’ve got so much construction going on that I’m having trouble deciding which pro-
ject to supervise,” Clarence said.

“I had no idea that moving to Colorado would turn into this,” Ron said, “I almost miss liv-
ing in the cavern and the peace and quiet.”

“It is pretty amazing, isn’t it,” Gary said. “The thing I can’t figure out is how Aaron, Bob
and Jacob keep going. They’re all in they’re seventies. Hell, even Bill retired.”

“You know,” Clarence observed, “We’re coming up on the 17th anniversary of the strike.
I think that we ought to make that a holiday.”

“Holiday?” Gary and Ron chorused.

“Yeah, you know to celebrate our having survived,” Clarence explained.

186
“Clarence, these have been the hardest 17 years of my life,” Gary countered, “Why on
earth would I want to celebrate all of the hard work it took just to survive?”

“It was just a thought,” Clarence replied.

Maybe Clarence had something there, the population of the world had been severely
cut, down from nearly 6 billion to just over 600 million. There hadn’t been a major war in
17 years either. Everyone was simply too busy surviving. However, they had no way of
knowing that all of that was about to change.

Having spent the better part of those 17 years trying to repel the Europeans who had
rushed to their continent seeking refuge from the strike’s cloud and subsequent brief Ice
Age, the Africans had finally prevailed and driven the Europeans back across the Medi-
terranean.

However, as throughout modern history, the Africans were once again hungry, starving
in fact. The AIDS epidemic had burned out and the population had surged, straining the
resources of the continent. They were considering moving to North America where the
soil was rich and water plentiful and they could grow enough food to feed their people.

They soon realized that adding 650 homes to The Farm would require another 100 wind
turbines and more generators, about 10, give or take. They were beginning to run out of
room for the wind turbines and installing another 100 would just about fill the section.
Derek offered to make more room by moving the artillery from the southeast corner of
the section to a new area across the highway. But, he said, they’d have to put in anoth-
er wall to protect the equipment. Putting in the new wall offered Derek an advantage he
didn’t mention to anyone. They could make it a large area and consolidate their tanks,
Bradley’s, LAV’s, Hummer’s and artillery. It should also give them room to move the
equipment from Fort Irwin. By relocating the munitions bunkers from the section, they
could also free up land for expansion.

Aaron, Bob and Jacob saw opportunity in Derek’s decision. With the additional land
freed up in the housing section, they could clean out the AOC-15/50 turbines from Palm
Springs and be a step up on further growth of the community. There were about 180 of
that model of turbine left in Palm Springs and once installed, would reach from the west
wall of the section to the east wall and slightly to the north.

And assuming that there were no more bad guys in Los Angeles, they were free to look
for more of the PV panels. A few days after the 4th of July celebration, all of their vehi-
cles set out for California, some to haul the turbines and control panels, others to strip
Fort Irwin and a third group to begin stripping Los Angeles. Barbara sent her forces
along to provide security and Derek rode in his M3, atop its M1000 transport.

187
For her part, Barbara was intent on making a trip to Luke AFB. Although the primary
fighters at Luke were the F-16’s, the training command there had several of the F-15E’s.
In addition, Edwards AFB up in the high desert had a detachment of the F-15E’s. She
brought every fixed wing qualified pilot she had available to ferry the aircraft back to
Colorado.

She also intended on retrieving all of the available munitions and parts available. Alt-
hough she and Derek were at odds about the aircraft, even Derek had to admit that they
needed the aircraft and their munitions more than they needed the equipment at Fort
Irwin. The logistics people would just have to do double duty, cleaning out Luke first and
then traveling to California to transport the matériel and equipment from Fort Irwin.

By the time the first snow fell in Colorado in early October 2021, The Farm had moved
and installed the 180 wind turbines, located and assembled all 650 doublewides, added
PV panels plus batteries, plumbed the new doublewides and had expanded their air
force to include a total of 32 Strike Eagles and 32 F-16’s. A trip to San Diego had yield-
ed enough F/A-18E/F Super Hornets’ to round out their fighter fleet to 124 aircraft.
2,376 of the homes were occupied and the population of The Farm was just shy of
10,000. Gary marveled that they had so many people in so small a space. His
hometown, Charles City, Iowa had a population of 12,000 back in the 1950’s, but the
town had covered 4 square miles.

Perhaps what Gary had overlooked was the fact that The Farm had turned into a
planned community after all. There wasn’t a wasted inch of space in the section and the
wind turbines and everything else was as closely bunched as possible. Although the
homes had a front and back yard, the front yard was taken up by the patio and roof and
the backyards weren’t really all that large, barely room for a deck. And the streets were
barely 2 lanes wide, forcing most folks to walk everywhere due to the inadequate park-
ing.

They had far more planes than pilots, a situation soon remedied by the folks in Georgia
who had more pilots than planes. The shipment of several railcars loaded with canned
goods to Texas and points east resulted in what amounted to a surplus of batteries and
carloads of clothing. In fact, they received so many goods in return for their canned
goods that they lacked sufficient storage space at The Farm. It had truly become a lo-
gistics nightmare of unimaginable portions.

During its first meeting during November, the council addressed the problems facing the
community. Obviously the community was going to have to move several of their opera-
tions to new locations. The farm buildings could be moved to the east and the two sec-
tions to the east of that used as pasture. It only made sense to move the machine shed
with the farm buildings and their only real dilemma was the truck park with its 12 million
gallon fuel bunker. That had been a lot of work to install.

188
The military was occupying the entire section across the road and looking to expand
even further because they needed longer runways. The debate lasted until Thanksgiv-
ing and was suspended for the holiday. There seemed to be two groups of thought, one
group proposed to build a second walled in section of nothing but homes and the other
camp wanted to move everything and use the existing section for housing only.

The debate resumed after Thanksgiving and those who wanted to build a new housing
section prevailed. They were going to reserve an area on the north side of the section to
the south for more wind turbines and use the entire remainder of the section for hous-
ing. The homes in the 5th tract would be the only thing moved and the space would be
converted to an industrial park. Aaron, Bob and Jacob announced their retirements go-
ing into the debate and declined to vote on the matter. It was going to be up to the next
generation to find more of the wind turbines, generators, homes, PV panels and every-
thing it would take to build a new housing section. Their days in the trenches were over
and they wanted to get golf carts and help the three old geezers and Bill ‘supervise’.

Derek dutifully reported the expansion of their forces to the people in charge in Texas.
The commanders in Texas wanted Derek, Barbara and Gunny to report directly on their
activities over the past summer, apparently Colorado and New Mexico were expanding
their forces far more quickly than the other Corps had done. Only the Georgia Corps
had expanded, adding a third reserve carrier group.

Barbara and Derek picked up Gunny and they flew to Dallas-Fort Worth. Aside from the
single infantry Regiment, most of the people in the active and reserve military units in
Colorado were armor, artillery or part of the Air Forces. Essentially, Colorado could field
a whole Division of armor, 2 wings of air forces, a Division of artillery and their infantry
Regiment. By contrast, Gunny had single divisions of armor and artillery, 2 Divisions of
infantry and a single air wing. Like the folks in Colorado, most of Gunny’s forces were
active reserves. But, between the two units, they now had what amounted to almost four
Corps.

And, Dubya had his nose stuck right in the middle of the whole discussion. It just
seemed to him that 4 Corps should be divided into 2 Armies. Derek, Gunny and Barbara
were quick to point out that while they did indeed have a sizeable force, there was no
way they could be considered to be 2 Armies. Dubya wasn’t convinced, but neither was
he insistent.

He suggested that they check out Mountain Home ABF in Idaho for more of the Strike
Eagles. There ought to be another 20-21 of the aircraft in Idaho, he told them. But, any-
way you sliced it, their forces constituted an Army and Barbara and Gunny were to be
the Corps commanders and Derek the Army commander. He, Dubya, would transfer
more infantry forces to Colorado and more armor to New Mexico. What did they need to
get everything up and running?

189
Derek had been afraid of something like this and he came well prepared. He started
right at the top and worked his way down with Bush’s aides taking notes. They needed
3,000 homes, 400 50kw wind turbines, two-dozen steel buildings, enough cement to
pour two runways and 3,650 slabs for homes. You could add to that a long list of items
that Derek carefully enumerated.

Bush wasn’t intimidated by Derek’s list, but neither was he an easy touch. Why didn’t
they simply move to Denver and leave the farmers on the farm, he suggested. Denver
had a perfectly good airport, he said, and if they needed space for their Army, they were
welcome to take over Ft. Carson down in Colorado Springs. If they would agree to the
move, he’d ship enough diesel fuel and propane to Denver to refill all of the empty stor-
age facilities and he would see to it personally that electrical service was restored to the
Denver area. The same went for Albuquerque, he told Gunny, he could take over Kirk-
land ABF and Dubya would provide the utilities. Gunny didn’t have the heart to tell
George that he had taken over Kirkland a year before.

Derek wanted no part of moving into Denver. However, Ft. Carson with the nearby Pe-
terson AFB made perfect sense to him. They would even gain a shelter in the form of
the nearby Cheyenne Mountain Complex. The President had a deal and he had gotten
off lucky.

Colorado Springs had one of the few local municipal utility companies in Colorado. The
Colorado and New Mexico units were renamed the 1st Army and the 7th and 8th Corps.
Derek had forgotten for a moment that Dubya was a politician and he’d just been talked
into exactly what Bush had in mind all along.

Oh well. Bush was relatively certain that the communications specialists from Twentyn-
ine Palms would be able to get up to speed on whatever systems survived in Cheyenne
Mountain. And, If Derek got those aircraft from Mountain Home AFB and the remaining
F-16’s from Luke; he would have a force to be reckoned with. Besides, Bush sort of
liked Derek, even though it seemed apparent that Derek didn’t think much of him.

Back at The Farm, the news met with a mixed reaction. That their scrounging days were
over was good news; conversely the division of The Farm into two communities located
about 90 miles apart wasn’t at all popular. At least they wouldn’t have to move much.

The Ft. Carson and Colorado Springs area had ample housing for everyone who was
going to move. The real question was who would that be? Certainly all of the full time
military forces and hopefully a large portion of the active reserves; but, what about peo-
ple like Gary, Ron and Clarence and the original group from Colorado, Aaron, Bob and
Jacob and their families?

Without waiting for anyone to decide for them the six men and their wives got into two

190
cars and headed to Colorado Springs. They looked around until they found a neighbor-
hood that suited them and laid claim to six of the homes.

They had selected homes at Ute Hill, an area normally reserved for senior officers. The
homes were nicely furnished too; apparently whoever had lived in them had departed
rather quickly, because some of the closets still held clothing. To make certain that no
one would take ‘their homes’ the seniors put signs on the front doors indicating the
homes were ‘reserved’.

Derek wasn’t particularly thrilled to learn that the six couples had gone to Colorado
Springs and Ft. Carson without an escort. He was even less thrilled to learn that they
had helped themselves to the senior officers housing. But, at least it meant that they
were going and their decision proved to be the catalyst that he needed to get everyone
but the farmers to move.

Since Bush had promised him fuel, and to restore electricity, Derek suggested that Bar-
bara leave an appropriate force to guard The Farm and they would move the equip-
ment, parts and most of the supplies to Ft. Carson and leave the infrastructure in place
on The Farm. In the event of an emergency, The Farm would serve as a forward base
of operations for eastern Colorado.

Aaron, Bob and Jacob were willing to come out of retirement to help with this move;
provided they said, that Derek wasn’t going to turn around and move them again in a
few years. Derek told them he couldn’t promise anything, but now that he was sporting
4 stars, he might have some say in the matter.

Since they had little of any sentimental value, the three old geezer’s belongings fit into a
single truck. Aside from their clothes and a few kitchen items, the only things the men
wanted to move were their guns. They didn’t shoot anymore, but they wanted those
guns, just in case…

It had taken a full summer to move to Colorado when they were a small group, but the
fleet of semis permitted the residents to move in less than two months. The munitions
were returned to the bunkers at Ft. Carson and Bush made good on his promises about
the diesel fuel, propane, JP-8 and electricity.

They flew the pilots to Mountain Home ABF and they returned with 21 F-15E’s. Next,
they flew the C-17 down to Luke and ferried back the F-16’s. Because Barbara had al-
ready cleaned all of the munitions and parts out on her earlier visit, a flight of F-16’s was
sent to escort the planes back.

Derek couldn’t explain that decision, but the little hairs were beginning to stand up on
the back of his neck. A call to Texas failed to reveal anything that would give Derek
cause for alarm, but something was up, he could feel it in his bones.

191
As he surveyed his Army, Derek became even more convinced that something was
afoot and he began to discount the denials coming from Texas. Why would the former
President willingly ship them a full Regiment of infantry if something weren’t brewing?

With the addition of the additional Regiment of infantry, his forces now had a full Divi-
sion of infantry to complement his other forces. The additional 21 F-15E’s and the 29 F-
16’s and 9 more F/A-18’s gave him a total of 174 fighter aircraft and 3 instead of 2 Air
Wings.

The communications specialists from Twentynine Palms tried their best to reactivate
NORAD, but although the equipment in the Mountain worked, the equipment upon
which it depended was almost totally out of commission. The computer system listed all
of the satellites and their expected life. The dates merely confirmed what they already
knew; the GPS System was down, probably permanently.

Surprisingly, two spy satellites answered when they finally figured out how to communi-
cate with them. One of the satellites was in a polar orbit circling the Earth at approxi-
mately 116 degrees east longitude by 64 degrees west longitude on the reverse side.
The second was in a polar orbit of 0 degrees longitude and 180 degrees longitude on
the reverse side.

For the first time they were able to see the destruction caused by the strike back in
2004. It appeared to them as if the geography of the Pacific Rim had been completely
altered. There was a large bite out of China extending to the ocean and beyond. Korea
was gone as was the southern half of the Japanese Islands.

They finally switched to the other satellite and watched as it circled the globe. As the
satellite passed over the African coast in the area that they later determined was Alge-
ria, they noticed what appeared to be an anomaly. They zoomed in with the satellite and
discovered a large fleet of ships gathered on the coast. Before they could make any fur-
ther determination, the satellite passed beyond the coast.

“Anyway, we spotted what we believe is a large force of ships on the North African
coast,” the Marine was explaining.

What is the longitude of the satellite?” Derek asked.

“As nearly as we can determine, it’s on the prime meridian,” the technician replied.
“Look at this map, General and you can see that that would be the coast of western Al-
geria.”

“Did you get photographs of the fleet?” Derek asked.

192
“No sir, we really haven’t figured out all of the equipment yet,” the Marine answered.
“We did get a pretty good look at the far east, though. It wouldn’t appear that we have
much to fear from the Chinese, Koreans or Japanese.”

“Why’s that?” Derek asked.

“They gone, General,” the Marine answered. “China looks a lot like a cookie with a bite
out of it and Korea is completely gone. The southern half of the Japanese Islands are
gone, too.”

“See if you can figure out those cameras,” Derek directed, “We need to get pictures of
this fleet of ships you found in Africa.”

Derek sent out word for Gunny to ‘haul his butt to Ft. Carson’ and for Barbara to meet
with him immediately. Maybe those ships explained why the hair was standing up on the
back of his neck. Conversely maybe it was nothing more than ships the Europeans had
used to get to Africa after the strike. Either way, he wanted to discuss the matter with
Gunny and Barbara. There would be plenty of time to notify Texas after they talked and
after the next satellite pass. The date was August 1, 2022, the 18th anniversary of the
strike.

The seven seniors had found a pizza parlor and with the utilities fully restored in the ar-
ea had managed to make the ovens work. The beer and soda in the machines had seen
better days, but they simply got the people who were making the home brew to put
some up in a keg.

Of course, they had to bring their own ingredients, but Gary had always been partial to
American sausage pizza so he was the easiest to please. They requested that the
butchering operation at The Farm make them some Italian sausage and take a stab at
Pepperoni; meanwhile they experimented with the pizzas, trying to come up with any-
thing besides that American sausage pizza. Ron seemed happiest with a green pepper
and jalapeño pepper pizza.

“Man, I’ve died and gone to heaven,” Gary said between mouthfuls.

“Humph,” Ron groused, “Leave it to an Iowa farm boy to like American sausage pizza.”

“Naturally, partner,” Gary laughed, “And next week, I’m going to introduce you to bread-
ed pork tenderloin sandwiches.”

“Did any of you notice all the activity on the post?” Clarence asked. “If I didn’t know bet-
ter, I’d say that they raised the Threat Level.”

“But you know better, right?” Ron queried.

193
“It’s just an expression you old coot,” Clarence said, “Let me rephrase it so an idiot like
you can understand. I think that they’ve raised the Threat Level on the post.”

“What makes you think so Clarence?” Bob asked.

“Well for one thing, they closed the gates and for another I saw a lot of the active re-
serve people in uniform.”

“Maybe it’s just a drill,” Jacob suggested.

“It might be,” Clarence said, “But they put guards on the Mountain. I’ve never known
them to do that since we moved here.”

“Well hell, Clarence,” Ron sputtered, “We’ve only been here two weeks, so maybe
Derek just implemented a new security policy.”

“Could be Ron,” Clarence said, “But it surely does make me uneasy.”

The technicians worked quickly to figure out how to take photographs with the satellite’s
cameras. By the next pass over the African coast, they were able to take pictures.
When the Marine technician showed the photos to the three Generals, he insisted that
some of the ships had moved. He didn’t have any photos with which to compare, but it
appeared to him as if some of the ships were leaving port.

“If he’s right, where do you suppose those ships are headed?” Derek asked.

“We probably won’t be able to tell that for several days,” Gunny observed, “But I do be-
lieve we’d better inform Texas that there is a possibility that they’re moving. I seem to
recall that it takes them about a week to get those carrier task groups up and running.”

“He’s right Derek,” Barbara said, “I think you should notify Texas and deliver those pho-
tos to Bush in person.”

“I suppose you’re right,” Derek agreed, “You know, the hairs been standing up on the
back of my neck for a while now. I sure hope that no one is planning on invading this
country, we don’t really have much of an Army.”

“The hell you say,” Gunny exploded. “Darn near every man woman and child in this
country is armed to the teeth and doesn’t have any reason not to use them. Things have
changed a whole lot since those liberals died off.”

“I hope you’re right Gunny,” Derek said. “I’ll let the two of you know what Bush has to
say.”

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°

When the satellite made the next pass, the technicians printed off copies of both sets of
photos. It didn’t even take a magnifying glass to see that the ships were beginning to
string out and were heading to the Straits of Gibraltar. Barbara immediately notified
Derek and Gunny headed back to New Mexico to get his Corps ready to move. It would
take them several days to get to the Atlantic coast if the ships were indeed headed their
way.

Bush had put the carrier task groups on alert and recalled the crews the minute he’d
heard that there were ships off the North African coast. He could always cancel the re-
call if the information didn’t pan out and treat it as a practice alert. As soon as he saw
the photos, he called an alert for all of the Corps. Then, when the news came from Col-
orado that the ships were moving to the west, he ordered all of the American forces to
the east coast. Bush was acting like he was still Commander in Chief of the armed forc-
es. No one objected, it felt good to have someone in charge again.

As Barbara began to load her forces aboard a train that had arrived to transport the
equipment and supplies to the east coast, Ft. Carson really began to buzz with rumors.
Then, the Threat Level was raised to Yellow and an announcement had to be made.

Based on information-developed right here at the Mountain, they were told, American
forces were being assembled and moved to the east coast to repel a possible invasion.
Invasion? Who would want to invade the US people began to ask? And why?

Barbara was so pressed for time that rather than answer the questions, she instructed
the technicians in the Mountain to feed the rumor mill with accurate information. Histori-
cally, the rumor mill was a more efficient form of communication anyway.

By the time they had finished loading they had to divide the train into two segments. The
latest set of satellite photos showed not 1 but 3 task forces departing the African coast
from various locations. And though they still couldn’t tell if the Algerian task force was
headed towards North America, it was rather clear that the other two were.

Noticeably absent from the African fleets were any Naval vessels larger than what they
took to be destroyers. On the other hand, the US didn’t have any submarines to inter-
cept the enemy forces. Then, word filtered back to Ft. Carson that their 69 F/A-18’s
were being reassigned to the 3 carrier groups to round out their compliment of aircraft.

“I told you guys something was up,” Clarence said.

“Well, obviously, you were right partner,” Ron admitted. “I’d like to be there and see
those pilots trying to land those F/A-18’s on the carriers. That’s supposed to be pretty
hard to do and none of those pilots have landed a plane on a carrier in 18 years.”

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“What I’d like to know is how come with 3 carriers we don’t have any submarines,” Gary
said.

“Are you volunteering?” Ron joked.

“Yeah, right,” Gary laughed, “Just as soon as they install elevators.”

“How many planes you figure they got on those carriers?” Clarence asked.

“Who knows?” Ron replied. “They used to have 7 or 8 kinds of planes and a total of over
80 aircraft, but these days it’s anybody’s guess.”

“Sure doesn’t seem like very many airplanes to stop an invasion,” Clarence continued.

“Maybe not,” Ron conceded, “But it’s all we’ve got.”

In fact, the carriers didn’t have all of the usual types of aircraft. EA-6B Prowlers, E-2C
Hawkeyes, CH-53E Super Stallions, S-3B Viking tankers and F/A-18’s constituted the
entire air complement of the 3 carrier groups; absent were the F-14 Tomcats and other
aircraft normally found aboard the carriers. However, the absence of the other aircraft
increased the fleet of Hornets.

Surprisingly, the 3 carriers groups were able to sail in 6 days, beating estimates by 3
days. And as the intelligence photos flowed from the Mountain, and more was learned
of the hostile force, the tensions eased. Each of the 3 carrier task groups was assigned
to one of the 3 enemy fleets.

As the carriers moved to meet the enemy ships, the ground forces arrived on the east
coast and were deployed from Washington southward to Georgia. The word was
passed that they probably wouldn’t have to engage the enemy, because the US Navy,
small though it was, appeared to still be the most powerful Navy in the world. It sure
would have been nice to have some of those submarines, though.

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 The Rock – Chapter 19 – That’s Not A Destroyer

When someone with some photo analytical skills finally had an opportunity to examine
the photos taken by the Mountain, they realized that something was amiss. The ships
that the Marines had classified as Destroyers were in fact Frigates. And, there weren’t
all that many of them either. The Navies of most African nations consisted primarily of
patrol boats and they were not in the photos. However, several African nations were
known to have submarines.

Each carrier task group consisted of the Nimitz class Carrier, 2 Ticonderoga class
Cruisers, 2 Arleigh Burke class Destroyers, 3 Spruance class Destroyers, 2 Oliver Haz-
ard Perry class Frigates and either a Sacramento class or Supply class support ship.
Noticeably absent were the Los Angeles class submarines. The S-3B Vikings, normal
used for ASW, were being used solely for air wing tanking.

When the African fleets were in range, the Hawkeyes and Prowlers were sent aloof to
survey the enemy. The SH-60 Sea Hawk LAMPS III ASW helicopters, 2 were aboard
each Cruiser, Destroyer, Guided Missiles Destroyer and one aboard each of the Frig-
ates, were launched. From all outward appearances, this was a most unusual invasion
fleet. The enemy Frigates held their fire and there was no evidence of the diesel subma-
rines owned by several of the African nations.

This was nothing more than a large fleet of boat people, they decided, looking for a new
home. The Admiral in overall charge of the fleet said he wasn’t about to be party to sink-
ing ships full of refugees, but the Frigates were a different matter. Those, he said could
be taken out by a single flight of Hornets from each ship. When the 3 enemy fleets
came into range, he ordered the Hornets launched, equipped with the Harpoon missiles.

Sink only the Frigates, he said, we’re not mass murderers. Equipped with the AGM-
84D’s 6 fighters were launched from each of the carriers. As a precaution, an additional
6 fighters were launched as a BARCAP. The moment the first Harpoon struck the first
enemy Frigate, the other enemy Frigates, in all 3 enemy task forces, struck their colors.
Taken aback by the move, the Admiral ordered the remaining F/A-18’s to hold their
launches until the intentions of the enemy became apparent.

He didn’t have long to wait. The Africans were very hungry and very tired of fighting.
They hadn’t thought that the Americans even had a Navy anymore because they hadn’t
seen an American ship in years. It took the African commander all of 20 minutes to turn
his fleet towards Europe. World War III ended after a single shot had been fired. The
carrier task groups remained on station until the last of the African ships disappeared
over the horizon. The enemy Frigate sank, but not before most of the crew had been
rescued by other ships in the African fleet.

The Admiral wasn’t looking forward to reporting to Bush that they had managed to turn
the Africans with a single shot. He was, in fact, totally unaware that Bush had a political
agenda that had nothing to do with a war.

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Early on, Bush’s people had suggested that this would never come to a war. Bush had
pointed out that he didn’t care one way or another; the whole point of the exercise was
to unify the country. He had, after all, only been elected to a single term and under the
25th Amendment to the Constitution, he was entitled to run for a second term.

Bush further pointed out that he had been unable to unify the country when he had final-
ly come out of hiding because the country was still struggling to overcome the effects of
the strike. This piddly invasion had the effect of unifying the country and by God he was
going to take advantage of it and reestablish the federal government.

Had any of the Corps or Army commanders known of Bush’s political agenda, they
probably would have reacted very strongly and in a very negative way. But, politicians
are past masters at keeping secrets and most everyone knew that too. When the 3 car-
rier task groups returned to Norfolk, Bush ordered the Armies and Corps to stand down.

He announced, however, that given the ‘world climate’ it would be necessary to main-
tain at least one Army on duty at all times. This would be accomplished by rotating ei-
ther an Army or two Corps on a one-year rotation cycle. Moreover, one carrier task
group would remain on active duty in a similar one-year rotation.

The 3 Seawolf class submarines, Seawolf, Connecticut and Jimmy Carter, which had
been christened just weeks before the strike, would be reactivated as would 3 of the Los
Angeles class submarines, Hampton, Hartford and Toledo. None of the newer Virginia
class submarines: Virginia, Texas, Hawaii and North Carolina had been completed.
They, together with the George H. W. Bush Nimitz class carrier, would be completed
and added to the fleet as soon as possible. In addition, the 3 Nimitz class carriers based
in San Diego, the Nimitz, John C. Stennis and Ronald Reagan would be brought up to
active reserve status together with their support ships. It was a power play of massive
proportions.

Bush reclassified Barbara’s two Corps as an Army and they were to remain on active
duty for the first year. Bush also reclassified Gunny’s two Corps as an Army and they
were scheduled to pull the second year’s duty. Bush also promoted Barbara and Gunny
to commanders of their two Armies.

In an attempt to placate Derek’s objections, Bush tried to name him Chief of Staff of the
Army. Derek realized Bush had outflanked him at every turn, but what could he do? He
tried to point out that these were only quasi-military units, but Bush wasn’t listening.

However, when Derek informed Bush that he was returning to Ft. Carson and would
operate HIS command out of the Mountain, Bush became more attentive. There was
only one other civilian military unit on the west coast, the unit in Oregon. If he, Bush,
could persuade the folks in Oregon to become part of a western army group, would

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Derek agree to become the group commander? Derek would be free to operate his
command from wherever he chose.

Bush also pointed out that since they had 3 Wings of aircraft in Colorado and a Wing in
New Mexico, he would prefer that the air forces be formed into the 2nd and 3rd Air
Forces, also under the control of the new western army group. Derek sensed he was
losing the debate with the former President so he capitulated after Bush agreed to sup-
ply this new army group with whatever they needed.

Since the grandiose move by the former President had essentially left Ft. Carson unde-
fended, Derek did the only thing he could do; he suggested that Gunny reassign one of
his Corps to Ft. Carson for the first year and that one of Barbara’s two corps cover New
Mexico the following year when Gunny’s Army was on active duty.

Derek and Gunny returned to their AOR’s and Barbara stayed on the east coast. At
least Bush hadn’t tried to strip them of the F/A-18’s, yet. All of their aircraft and crews
were permitted to return to Colorado and New Mexico. It had all been so simple before
Bush had come out of retirement and began acting as if he were still President!

On the flight back from Dallas-Ft. Worth, Derek told Gunny that he wouldn’t be a bit sur-
prised if Bush tried to reorganize the federal government, again, and run for President a
second time.

Gunny didn’t agree with Derek; Bush, he said, was too old to be President. Bush, he
pointed out, was almost as old, perhaps older than Reagan had been when he’d left of-
fice and Reagan had been the oldest President in the history of the country.

Back at Ft. Carson, the Committee of Seven, as the retired men called themselves, had
gathered to discuss recent events. When they had moved into the Colorado Springs ar-
ea, it had taken less than two days to reestablish the phone system, and it had been a
joint effort by the three former phone company men and the network staff.

Bob was promoting a program of reestablishing telephone communications. Although

the communication satellites were all down, there were thousands of miles of fiber optic
communications lines they could use. All of that competition between MCI, Verizon,
Qwest, and SBC had resulted in a needless duplication of lines. Give them a couple of
months, he suggested, and they could connect to New Mexico and perhaps even Tex-
as.

“We’re too old to be out rebuilding the phone system,” Clarence said.

“Maybe,” Bob countered, “But there are not many people around who know how the
system works. If we don’t do it, who else can?”

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“I’ll come along and supervise,” Gary volunteered.

“There’s all those communication specialists from Twentynine Palms,” Ron reminded
them, “I’ll bet that if we get them involved, we can do it.”

“How are you going to power this system?” Clarence asked. “Phones use electricity.”

“Well, we used those deep cycle forklift batteries out on The Farm for the community
buildings,” Aaron pointed out, “If we can salvage some of those from up in the Denver
area and locate some solar panels, we ought to be able to put up a system that is fully
automatic.”

“Besides,” Jacob jumped in, “Maybe some of the other military folks would help. They’re
going to benefit the most from having the phone system back on line.”

When Derek arrived at Ft. Carson the Committee greeted him. They explained their
idea to him and asked for his help. Derek realized that this was to perfect opportunity to
test Bush’s promise to supply his new army group with whatever they needed. Derek
asked the old men to make a survey of that they needed and he would try and get it
from Bush.

It was almost as if they’d been given a new lease on life. Accustomed as they were to
working, Aaron, Bob, Jacob and Bill had grown tired of retirement quickly. They assem-
bled a staff of network specialists, Marine communications people and the scroungers
went to work on the phone system.

They allowed Ron, Clarence and Gary to tag along to ‘provide security’ and ‘supervise’.
Within a month, they had most of the systems between Colorado Springs and Albu-
querque back online. There was a bottleneck in Pueblo, but Derek contacted Texas and
within days, the equipment they needed arrived by C-130. Meanwhile, The Texans
worked to extend their system westward to connect with the system in Albuquerque.

By October of 2022, the only part of the inhabited country that wasn’t hooked in to the
telephone system was the group in Oregon and they were close.

Back on The Farm, they had expanded even further, adding an additional 13 sections of
farmland. The folks running the canning operation, the butchers and a group of
scroungers had stayed behind. The sole mission of the scroungers there on the farm
was to provide more cans and lids. Much of the farming operation had been mecha-
nized and they were nearing the capacity of their canning operation.

They put out a call for help for more canning equipment and back at Ft. Carson their on-
ly problem was how to get the second and third canning lines from the Nebraska opera-

200
tion to The Farm. Most everyone with experience in dismantling and reassembling the
previous line was with Barbara on the east coast, playing soldier.

It ultimately fell to Derek to try and resolve the problem. He called Texas and requested
that Barbara’s command be rotated back to Colorado early, so that he could move the
canning lines from Nebraska to Colorado. Inevitably, what had been a small issue made
its way up the chain of command until it landed on Bush’s desk. Bush was unwilling to
consider releasing Barbara’s Army, but he was more than willing to supply people to
move the lines.

That was all well and good, Derek told Bush, but with the two new lines up and operat-
ing, they would be short on cans and lids. No problem, Bush told Derek, they’d simply
move an aluminum can plant to The Farm and they could make their own cans and lids.

“What about aluminum to make the cans from?” Derek asked.

“Anything you need,” Bush replied.

“What are you getting out of all this generosity?” Derek pressed.

“Nothing,” Bush answered. “By the way, you know that I’m planning on running for a
second term as President, don’t you?”

“I had no idea,” Derek replied. “When is this all going to take place?”

“Next spring,” Bush replied. Derek could feel the smile on Bush’s face. You could never
trust a politician who smiled all the time. “Anyway, I was hoping you’d put in a good
word with everyone in your command.”

“I’ll speak to them about it,” Derek promised.

“Anything else I can do for you folks up in Colorado?” Bush asked.

“No Sir,” Derek replied, “I think you’ve done quite enough.”

“So anyway Dad,” Derek said to Gary, “I think the SOB was trying to get me to order our
people to vote for him.”

“But he didn’t say that, right?” Gary asked.

“Right,” Derek replied, “But why else would he be giving us everything we need?”

“You ought to do what he wants, Derek.” Gary responded.

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“Huh? You mean tell everyone to vote for him?” Derek was getting upset.

“No, tell everyone that he implied you should order them to vote for him,” Gary ex-
plained.

“If I did that, no one would vote for him,” Derek retorted.

“Exactly,” Gary grinned, “He never did say whether we won the war on terror, did he?”

Eventually, Derek reported to Bush that he’d had a word with his people. He was calling
to report that the two canning lines had been installed together with the aluminum can
plant. He told Bush how much he appreciated the aluminum sheeting, too.

Two could play at this game; Derek had done exactly as his father had suggested and
from the reactions to his announcement, Bush wouldn’t be getting a single vote from
Colorado, New Mexico or Oregon.

As the spring of 2023 merged into summer, Barbara returned with her command. Gunny
had decided that his militia could handle any security issues that came up and told
Derek that it wasn’t necessary for Barbara to send forces to New Mexico.

Derek explained to Barbara about Bush’s ploy to get him to intimidate their forces to
vote for him in the upcoming election. Barbara just laughed, she’d already gotten the
word and had repeated Derek’s announcement. None of her people, she said, were in-
terested in that has been being President again.

The world was a different place. People had survived an asteroid strike and the Ice Age
it had triggered. Yet, in the end, people were just the same. They key to survival had
turned out to be preparedness and a willingness to do what it took to survive.

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 The Rock – Chapter 20 – Epilogue

It looked like Bush was a shoo-in; he’d been busy trying to buy everyone’s vote. He had
made, ‘one little mistake’. In trying to buy the votes from the newly formed western army
group, he’d made an enemy.

Derek now knew exactly why his father detested politicians so much. He wanted no part
of politics, but neither did he relish the idea of Bush regaining the Presidency. He had
the perfect candidate; a military veteran with 30 years’ service.

The minute Derek raised the name everyone in the western army group was immediate-
ly in favor of supporting his candidate. It turned out that many approved of the new can-
didate; no one liked to feel like they had been bought. In the election held on June 4,
2023, Barbara Childs was elected the 44th President of the United States, having cam-
paigned for less than a month.

© 2011, Gary D. Ott

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