Wasteland Rules: Born to Fight (The World After Book 2)
Read Wasteland Rules: Born to Fight (The World After Book 2) Online
Authors: J.G. Martin
Wasteland
Rules:
Born
to Fight
(The
World After #2)
April
2014
Dedication
I want to again dedicate this to my incredible wife, without whom I couldn’t
publish these books. She reads the entire book, even though it isn’t her usual
genre, and provides feedback. Then she patiently rereads and rereads the book
again looking for grammatical and spelling errors. Without her there are no
books.
Available Books
Book
1 – Wasteland Rules: Kill or Be Killed – Available via Amazon
Book
2 – Wasteland Rules: Born to Fight – Available via Amazon
Book
3 – Wasteland Rules: A New Dawn – Available via Amazon Summer 2014
Wasteland
Angel – Novella Available via Smashwords (Free), Barnes & Noble (Free),
and Amazon
Table of Contents
June 16, 2029
Outside Cape Canaveral, FL
Alarms blared and lights flashed in the cockpit of
the helicopter as the pilot struggled to maintain control. Smoke began to fill
up the helicopter and Derek gestured at Rora to open one of the side doors. She
looked at him with a panicked look on her face, so he smiled and gave her a
thumbs up. The helicopter shook and rocked as it leveled out. The cannon and
gun fire from the Reapers on the ground lessened as they turned away from the
NASA complex and headed west. The pilot finally gained control of the chopper
and stabilized their flight. Looking back Derek could see the trail left by the
smoking helicopter.
Behind them he could also see three Reaper
vehicles giving chase to the damaged chopper. He identified the lead vehicle as
a BTR-80, an old Soviet armored vehicle common in the Reaper forces. The other
two were hillbilly armored technicals, both pickups, mounting heavy weapons
scavenged from lost or destroyed armored vehicles from the initial invasion
force. All three had mounted heavy machine guns and were wrapped in barbed wire
and studded with metal spikes. While that did serve the purpose of being
intimidating, the dried blood on them indicated another purpose as well.
Cut off from Europe when the port was destroyed by
the nuke Derek had set, the Reapers had been left with limited supplies and
spare parts. When their vehicles had broken down they had removed the most
valuable parts, the heavy weapons, and mounted them on captured vehicles. Ammo
was limited, but they were still able to get or manufacture small quantities
and it allowed them to have a major tactical advantage over their enemies.
All three were covered in the signature Reaper
paint scheme. Reaper vehicles were painted in the colors of the flag of the
home country of the original founders of the tribe. In this case red with a
black double headed eagle on the hood. That meant they were originally
Albanians. The cannibal raiders had allowed locals with ethnic ties to join
them to replenish their shrinking ranks, and new births had mixed the
bloodlines somewhat; but for the most part the original ethnicities held true.
It was one of the things that had previously kept the Reaper tribes from
uniting.
As they raced away from the Reaper encampment with
the three vehicles in hot pursuit, Derek noticed something odd on the ground
below. About two miles from the cannibals’ encampment were twelve refrigerated
trailers parked neatly in a row. They were in a small gravel patch just off the
main road. They weren’t currently running since there was no smoke or steam
rising from them. So that meant they were empty, their load presumably
delivered and they were just there waiting to be picked up. The trailers were
in too good of a condition to have been left there a while and there were no
weeds or other growth in the gravel patch. That meant they had been dropped
there recently, most likely while the Reapers had been nearby. Interesting.
Derek keyed the mike and gave orders to the pilot.
“Take us back towards Tallahassee.”
“We aren’t going to make it that far. We are
losing fuel rapidly.” The pilot responded pointing to the fuel gauge. “One of
the shots must have hit the tank.”
“Get us as close as possible and send out a
distress signal. Maybe we can get an assist from the Tallahassee Militia.”
The pilot changed the chopper’s heading towards
the only city in the vicinity and started putting out a distress call on the
general bands. While he did that Derek surveyed the chopper and mentally
inventoried what they had on board to repel the Reapers chasing them. They had
an automatic grenade launcher which could damage the technicals but wouldn’t
scratch the BTR’s armor. They needed something heavier. The chopper had an M134
Minigun mounted on each side as the door gun, but again the 7.62 mm rounds
wouldn’t penetrate the heavier armor of the BTR.
When the pilot noticed Derek looking around the
chopper he called out. “Check the case in the back.”
Derek waved at Rora to catch her attention and
pointed to a flat green weapons case secured in the passenger compartment of
the helicopter. She crawled over to it and popped the fasteners. When she
opened it, a big smile came over her face and she gave him a thumbs up. Inside
was an AT-4 CS light anti-tank weapon. There was also an empty slot where there
had been a second weapon, but the commandos must have used that one in a previous
assault. It might only be one shot, but it was still a chance and he would make
sure it counted.
He felt the chopper start to sputter as the fuel
began to run out. Turning to the chopper pilot he issued orders. “Set us down
on the other side of the largest hill you can find with one of the miniguns
facing the pursuing vehicles.”
“Are you kidding? This state is pretty flat, not
many hills!” The pilot replied in disbelief.
“We need to use a reverse slope defense. I have
the best shot of taking out that armored vehicle by hitting the weaker under
armor. When it crests a hill is the only time that armor is vulnerable.” Derek
explained.
“Over there!” Rora screamed and pointed.
Just ahead of them was a sports field complex.
There were several baseball fields and soccer fields along with small buildings
for bathrooms and concessions. The ground had been terraced to allow for more
fields and to create spots for spectators to sit while watching the games. It
was only a ten or so foot drop along a shallow slope, but that should be
enough. Derek instructed the pilot to set it down there on one of the baseball
diamonds. They landed hard as the engine died, the jarring crash throwing Rora
to the floor of the chopper and rattling Derek’s teeth.
He heard the pilot mutter under his breath. “Any
landing you can walk away from.”
Derek chuckled to himself as he clambered into the
passenger section to retrieve the anti-tank weapon. He grabbed the AT-4 and
moved outside the chopper, readying the rocket to fire when the pursuing
armored vehicle crested the hill. Rora joined him carrying the grenade
launcher. The pilot abandoned the helicopter and started running. Derek let him
go. He wasn’t a threat and he had helped them, even if it was under duress.
They didn’t have to wait long for their pursuers.
You could always count on the Reapers to come at you full speed. They were
reckless and aggressive, which was a detriment as well as an advantage. In this
case it was a major flaw they would exploit. The BTR-80 cleared the top of the
hill at full speed launching into the air before starting to descend down the
hill. Derek took careful aim and fired the rocket at the exposed undercarriage
of the vehicle. It raced away in a blaze of flame and smashed into the bottom
of the armored vehicle. The resulting blast rocked the vehicle but it still
landed and came down the hill with the technicals following.
At first it seemed like the rocket hadn’t done
any damage, but then the armored vehicle slid to one side with smoke pouring
from the gun ports. It slowly rolled to a stop but the technicals kept coming.
They opened fire as they came down the hill, rounds from their heavy machine
guns peppering the chopper as they fired wildly. The bouncing from their
landing and their high rate of speed making it difficult for the gunners
standing in the truck beds to fire accurately. The ensuing explosion of their
armored escort as the fuel and ammunition inside detonated caused them to pause
as they flinched from the blast. The BTR-80 blew apart from the inside into a
giant fireball and parts of the armor went flying in every direction. The
shockwave and heat from the blast hit Derek and Rora but they held steady.
Derek quickly dropped the spent AT-4 and manned
the minigun.
The multiple barrels came to life with a roar, spitting
thousands of rounds per minute. He directed the stream of fire from the minigun
at the technical on the left since Rora was now firing at the one on the right.
The technical had slid to stop not far from them as the rattled Reapers tried
to decide if they wanted to run or fight. Derek and Rora removed that choice
for them as they shredded the two vehicles.
The grenades from Rora’s launcher blasted the
grille and cab of the pickup apart before she blew the camouflage clad gunner
to pieces with a well-aimed shot. The technical came to an abrupt stop with
both front tires blown and the engine a burning mess. Derek’s minigun
annihilated the front end of his target; the metal grating over the windshield
disintegrating as the torrent of rounds streaming from the minigun tore into
it. The relentless assault riddled the driver with bullets. It rolled to a stop
and the gunner abandoned the technical and started to run before he was cut
down by the heavy stream of lead from the minigun.
They both ceased firing and walked over to review
the battlefield. The two technicals were smoking ruins and the BTR-80 was a
burned out shell. There was going to be very little to salvage from their
wrecks besides their weapons. All of the Reapers inside were definitely dead.
The chopper was a smoking ruin as well. The hard landing had damaged it heavily
and the Reaper guns had finished it off.
The screech of brakes caused both Derek and Rora
to turn around in alarm, bringing their weapons to bear on the newest threat.
But Derek reached out and pushed the barrel of her gun down as soon as he saw
the new arrivals. Four armored technicals painted in the purple and white of
the Tallahassee Militia were arrayed around the downed chopper with their guns
pointed at Rora and Derek.