GWOT VI - Coal to Newcastle

GWOT VI - Coal to Newcastle

I was almost sorry that the fire chief had caved and agreed to treat refugees. I wanted those ambulances.

With six hundred troops and six gun trucks towing various trailers, I didn't have enough mobility yet.

I'd stared at the maps and I'd picked our bastion. There was a reason we were starting in southwest Iowa and I wasn't authorized to share it with anyone who didn't need to know.

But our bastion would be in the Loess Hills, west of the river and overlooking the highway. I'd sent an advance team to take the site, a golf course and RV park. It had 'commanding views,' a term beloved of generals and of real estate agents alike.

But we still had to get there, with our tons of equipment and hundreds of troops.

I could take the UN's pathetic excuse for transport, various trucks in poor condition. That had been my original plan. But with the pointed lack of cooperation from the not-so-good Colonel, I'd probably have to shoot to take them. That would sabotage my mission almost as much as if I'd given into my first impulses and shot the bastard.

I could take Church transport. That meant immediate heavy fighting, and the very real possibility that the Church militias would mobilize and squash us like a bug. I was not well set up for a field fight, not yet.

I could confiscate civil transport. I'd probably have to shoot to take those, too.

Or would I?

I had the beginnings of a plan. It was a bad plan. But now with a bad plan is better than too late with a good one.

###

"No, absolutely not, out of the question!" the clubhouse manager raved.

"I'm sorry, but we do have a valid reservation and we have booked the exclusive use of these facilities for the next six months."

"For a sports team!"

The reservation said as much. "San Jose Sharks Spring Training Camp"

But these sharks carried battle rifles and their meat was genocidaires.

"Well, sir, since you feel that way about it, there is another option."

"Yes?"

"Under the authority of the California Republic, I confiscate these grounds and all real and personal property for the combat use of the Republic. Sir, you are trespassing on restricted military property in an active combat zone. You are hereby detained."

Suddenly the clubhouse manager became extremely cooperative.

In exchange for his cooperation, he was permitted to load a pickup truck, hitch up his family's camping trailer, and load it with all the personal effects they could carry.

The signage at the gate was up before he departed for the last time.

###

"Business is business. I have been selling cars and trucks my entire life and my father and grandfather before me. Son, it is as much as my life is worth if I were to sell you those trucks."

I nodded, as if casually.

"I respect your refusal."

I nodded again, and he was suddenly seized and gagged. The 'customers' moved swiftly to secure the grounds, keeping their pistols concealed as they took control of the few sales and parts staff.

"Under the authority of the California Republic, I am confiscating your trucks for military use in wartime operations. Under the laws of war, you are entitled to full compensation."

His eyes bugged out, but the businessman was still ascendant in his eyes.

"You will sell us your entire inventory, not at fleet prices, which is what I was prepared to pay, nor at dealer's invoice minus one percent, which is the standard for California Republic purchasing policy. You will sell them at MSRP. You will calculate the price. You will be credited, directly in factory books, for this price. Under the circumstances, we will not be paying dealer's prep, cleaning fees or transportation fees.

"In return you will claim to the local government that your trucks were taken without your consent, and you will therefore file an insurance claim. Eventually this claim will be honored - if we fail, and die, and therefore the California Republic doesn't compensate the factory. Of course, if we succeed, you can then start selling trucks again in a peacetime environment with factory credit for a hundred trucks you couldn't have moved anyway.

"Either way you stand to profit. Now, I want you to write down the alarm code and - under duress mind you! - start passing out the keys."

###

It wasn't quite true that he couldn't have sold the trucks to anyone. He was still haggling over some of them with the nearby Churches.

So this was a double whammy. We had transport, and they did not.

Now the neat trick, sneaking out and fueling a hundred stolen trucks without anyone noticing.

###

What is it with gas station owners?

I had started this stupid civil war shit with a gas station owner in San Jose who constantly gave me rations of verbal abuse, starting with "Do I look like a female dog in heat? Why are you trying to mount me like a female dog in heat?" Only with a lot more profanity.

The POL team was doing the same dance with this gas station owner, on the outskirts of town.

I drew my pistol.

Hey, it had worked in San Jose.

It worked here and now, too.

###

A weird thing happened during the fueling operation.

Two trucks pulled in, the dozen or so occupants being fresh-faced Iowa boys in their late teens and early twenties.

They'd piled up looking for sodas and chips before they'd realized that the station was under the control of hard faced California soldiers.

And they'd been joking about the 'G' they'd 'taken for a ride.'

Sometimes you start where you stand.

"You are under military arrest for banditry," I stated calmly. Their resistance was brief and easily overcome.

I convened court in front of the Fuel Desk.

The prosecutor arrayed his evidence, found in the contents of the trucks, and with UV light to confirm that three of the youths had spilled body fluids on their jeans.

The defense counsel argued that they were civilians, that they were entitled to civil protections, that their bragging was merely puffery and not confession, and that we did not have a corpse to prove murder.

TechInt had taken their phones apart, and a patrol had tracked them back to the site.

That patrol brought in a corpse. Her body was laid out on the tile floor in front of the Fuel Desk and our physician made examination.

This rather undercut the defense argument. As did the results of the autopsy.

"As field commander of California Forces in anti partisan work, I determine that you, you and you have engaged in capital rape and murder in violation of the Uniform Code of Military Justice, as well as the Iowa criminal law. You shall therefore hang by the neck until dead."

"Drag the other prisoners to witness punishment," I added.

The truck wash rack was high enough for a rope and noose.

It being convenient, we tied off the other end of the noose to a pickup truck hitch.

The executions were quick. Quicker than had been hers.

I left the three bodies dangling there. My psyop tech painted on the ground under where they would stand, if they were not dangling.

"EXECUTED FOR RAPE AND MURDER."

"Take off your shoes, prisoners."

Barefooted, they were fingerprinted with electronic scanners, photographed, DNA blood samples forcibly taken. We made a small bonfire of a metal trash can and burned their shoes.

"You are sentenced to death. I choose to hold the actual execution of this sentence at this time. In the California Republic, after a fair trial we don't have time for, you would be doing at least a decade in prison breaking rocks.

"I warn you most solemnly. You are banned from entering California Republic territory, as condemned war criminals. We make no distinction between you and the Homeland war criminals we pardoned at the end of the war. Never come to California or you will never leave it.

"If you come into contact with California Forces again in this war, you will be executed on contact. We have your fingerprints, we have your photos. You can, of course, join one of the Christian militias.

"We have a law. Before the War, it was called Megan's Law. You call other people Gs or refugees. We now call you sex offenders, or registrants.

"Your photos and crimes will be on the public Internet forever. If you someday wish to argue for your innocence, sue California in an American Federal Court and see how far you get. But I somehow don't think the militias will take sex criminals into their ranks. Or if they do, I will execute you _and anyone found with you_ if you are captured by California forces again.

"I normally say something like may God have mercy on your souls. You disgust me. Walk northeast. If you walk towards the highway, or stop walking, or try to come back here, you will be shot."

I drew my pistol.

"Now."

###

The gas station recordings caught it all. The terrified gas station staff watched.

Exactly as I intended.