Globall War of Terror - Bikers
May. 11th, 2018 11:32 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
drewkittyGloball War of Terror - Bikers
We weren't making much mileage over ground. Our first convoy sleep had been on the side of the road in far Northern California, relying on isolation as our only protection. Our second had been halfway down Jungo Road - protected by terrain. We were now on our third in a campground in far western Utah -- all daytime stops.
There were many reasons to run at night. Fewer people about, harder to spot us, less wear and tear on vehicle cooling systems, less wear and tear on the passengers.
But resting during the day had one huge disadvantage. It meant that we were vulnerable in daylight. Anyone who found us could see what we had - which was a crowd of refugees, mostly not white and all (provably) not US citizens. In post-Firecracker America where lifelong US citizens by birth were getting flak for _looking like_ they might have come from another country, this was a problem.
Buddy was pulling vehicle maintenance and I was going over maps while Brooke covered the turn-off to our small corner of this huge and empty campground. We had picked it for being a left turn from the entrance, secluded and having water on tap. We'd gotten lucky and been able to use the campground's dump station to empty and service the septic tank on the interstate bus.
What we didn't have was food. This area - desert and scrub forest - was not good for scrounging not that we would have found much. No stores.
That was why the campground was empty despite millions of refugees in the Bay Area - the Homeland checkpoints had kept many from getting this far, the counterculture types had met their fates in Northern Nevada, and most importantly - no food.
Also, between the mandatory military call up and the rumblings of a draft, plus the ever present fear of internment for vagrants, plus the massive increase in fuel prices I haven't mentioned because being able to pay for gas was not an issue for us, people weren't traveling much. Travel meant going to places where there weren't other people to vouch for you.
I should expound a little on the mandatory military call up. If Uncle Sam had ever put you in a uniform, you were "reactivated" - drafted in all but name. 4F or fifty or disabled veteran did not matter - you were called in, evaluated for China service, and either released with papers or sent where the War needed you. And if by now you didn't have exemption papers, you were fucked.
I had papers, courtesy of the SLE getting me "Essential Site Personnel" status. That would help on the way back but wouldn't help the convoy now. I could shield my people: guards, medics, firefighter. But I couldn't help Brooke. As a Marine rifleman who hadn't reported in and had no intention of reporting in, she would be interned upon identification. A sway back was no longer any excuse. If she were _lucky_ she'd be sent to China, most likely to Special Military Police service shepherding Shock Troops (penal infantry, mostly "volunteer" mental hospital patients), and with a similar survival rate. But she might just get shot in the neck.
Sorry Brooke. I couldn't think of any better way to get someone who like me and like Buddy, would certainly kill to protect these folks because we have no alternatives.
I heard motorcycle engines as someone broke squelch twice. That was a problem up front. So I headed down there, still wearing polo shirt and pistol and badge.
I thought about it and took off the badge, putting it in a back pocket.
Several bikes, big ones. Harleys. And were this a bad movie, I would recognize the biker as a standard "biker gang" right out of Central Casting. Seven big motorcycles, eleven people - eight male, three female.
Brooke was not yet muzzling them - pointing her rifle at them - but it was a near thing. Other guards were moving discreetly to defensive positions, and Brooke had the metal access gates to our area closed but not locked.
They were circling - showing off their skill on heavy bikes by turning and not getting off the bike.
When I joined Brooke, the leader stopped circling and pulled up alongside the closed gates. He revved his bike and said something we couldn't hear.
I shook my head and put my left hand up to my ear. "Huh?"
Behind us, the convoy was ready to execute whichever emergency action plan Buddy felt was appropriate - mount up in the vehicles and move out, mostly take cover while guards came to the front with full weapons, or scatter into the wilds while the guards died to buy them time to flee. This was starting to go in the direction of Option #2.
He turned off his bike.
"Nice day, I said," he shouted.
"It is," I replied. It was, I thought. They had the jackets and large patches of a notorious motorcycle gang, whose notoriety I will not add to by mentioning their name here.
"We'd like to come in, talk to you folks."
"We can talk right here. What's on your mind?"
Brooke broke squelch repeatedly, six times, tapping the radio mike button attached to the front of her trigger guard. That was the 'get ready for a fight' signal.
So far we were about halfway into the mugging. The part where the mugger asks for a light, or a quarter, or the time, to close the gap between a reasonable distance from a stranger and a stabbing. Their mobility needed the gate open.
I could see from here that they were openly armed. Slung rifles and shotguns. Mostly folding stock AKs. Plus the weapons any biker gang normally carried - chains, knives galore, razors, push daggers, and all sorts of exotic crap.
Such as the shotgun built into the biker's left handlebar, which he had just discreetly (he thought) turned to point directly at me.
I drew and shot the biker twice in the head, swiveled and started double tapping, working my way from left to right.
Brooke walked a full auto burst across the bikers from right to left, using up an entire magazine in four seconds.
From behind us, sharp cracks on single shot announced that another guard had joined the fight, aiming carefully to not hit us.
I reloaded and re-engaged. One of the women had been protected by being behind her rider's body. As she put her hands up I shot her twice in the face.
Sorry. In bullet time no surrenders can be accepted.
I reloaded a second time and walked rapidly backwards with Brooke as Matt and two other guards ran forward. She was halfway through her second magazine, having switched to well placed single shots. One of the guards was carrying two rifles, and immediately handed me one.
We reassessed the scene. Two were still moving. We ended that.
This is not a game, this is not a movie, no dying words. All it would have taken to kill us all would be one of them getting away. And I can't afford for misguided mercy to cause us to take a risk of getting one of my guards killed.
If the biker leader had lived, he would have complained that we hadn't given them a chance.
Well, we hadn't. And I would have shot him mid-word if he'd still been able to speak.
"Let's clean up the scene. Carefully now."
This was going to be a bloody, grisly job. So I took off my polo shirt and uniform pants. I put on gloves and drew my knife.
Matt followed my example while the other two guards and Brooke stayed on overwatch, except that Matt covered me with his silenced single shot pistol.
Matt and I approached the first biker down. He was still groaning but his hands were empty. As Matt aimed his handgun at his torso from the side, I lifted his hair by one hand and cut his throat from ear to ear, aiming the blood spray at bare asphalt.
A wounded biker lurched to his feet and Brooke took his head off with one shot.
We were not interested in prisoners, even for interrogation, because we had no means of verifying what they would say. Torture works. But torture only works if you can _verify_ the answers given under duress, and we could not.
Once all eleven bikers were slain, we stripped their effects.
Buddy came up in the middle of this and scratched his head.
"Boss, isn't this a little extreme?"
For answer I went over to the fallen leader's bike, stood it up, aimed the left handlebar into the bushes and pressed the trigger, discharging the shotgun loudly but harmlessly. I suppose I could have pulled the round, waste not want not, but I was making an important point.
"Holy shit!" Buddy exclaimed, where he had not at the killings.
He went and got the fuel kit and drained the bike tanks. I pulled their rations and gave them to the medics to evaluate. They in turn pulled out about half for the nursing mothers and left the rest on a picnic table with a firm "at your own risk" admonition. The beef jerky was still beef jerky. Things hadn't fallen that far.
The miscellaneous hide out weapons went into a backpack; they might be useful, aside from individual pieces that each of us added to our personal arsenals. We saved out a little fuel for the clothing, especially the biker jackets and IDs, and burned them in one of the campfire circles. I tossed in the hard drugs when the fire burned bright. You don't burn pot. It was cheap crap, so I put it in the pit toilet with the rest of the cheap crap.
We dragged the bodies on a tarp and tumbled them where they would be out of sight. I cleaned up and got dressed with relief. The bikes we jumbled in a mass down a nearby ravine.
The guards collected brass while half an hour with a broom and some water took care of the spilled blood. Something had happened here but it would take an evidence tech to figure out what.
Some of the monitors had seen what we were doing. Obviously they told the refugees.
This was as good a time as any to check on our two frank prisoners - the man who had freaked out on the bus on the first day, and the man who had tried to steal the recovery truck on the second day. The medic interviewed them both while I watched, and had his quiet recommendation.
"The first guy may be OK now. Seat him at the back and have people watch him."
Then he turned and spoke loudly, "The second guy ... he'll never be OK, he's just an asshole. Totally doesn't care that he would have left everyone else to die. Put a biker jacket on him and shoot him."
I shook my head.
"Even bikers have standards. That's why we had to kill them all, not just the leader. They would have died for each other. Their kill-die equation was fucked up, but they still had one. If you won't die for anything, you won't live for anything either. Just being alive is the worst punishment we can give him. Keep it that way."
If we needed to send someone ahead at gunpoint to check for mines, he was definitely my first pick.
Problem disposed of, I went back to my maps and Buddy to his maintenance.
Bikers. Them guys could fuck up a beach party.
We weren't making much mileage over ground. Our first convoy sleep had been on the side of the road in far Northern California, relying on isolation as our only protection. Our second had been halfway down Jungo Road - protected by terrain. We were now on our third in a campground in far western Utah -- all daytime stops.
There were many reasons to run at night. Fewer people about, harder to spot us, less wear and tear on vehicle cooling systems, less wear and tear on the passengers.
But resting during the day had one huge disadvantage. It meant that we were vulnerable in daylight. Anyone who found us could see what we had - which was a crowd of refugees, mostly not white and all (provably) not US citizens. In post-Firecracker America where lifelong US citizens by birth were getting flak for _looking like_ they might have come from another country, this was a problem.
Buddy was pulling vehicle maintenance and I was going over maps while Brooke covered the turn-off to our small corner of this huge and empty campground. We had picked it for being a left turn from the entrance, secluded and having water on tap. We'd gotten lucky and been able to use the campground's dump station to empty and service the septic tank on the interstate bus.
What we didn't have was food. This area - desert and scrub forest - was not good for scrounging not that we would have found much. No stores.
That was why the campground was empty despite millions of refugees in the Bay Area - the Homeland checkpoints had kept many from getting this far, the counterculture types had met their fates in Northern Nevada, and most importantly - no food.
Also, between the mandatory military call up and the rumblings of a draft, plus the ever present fear of internment for vagrants, plus the massive increase in fuel prices I haven't mentioned because being able to pay for gas was not an issue for us, people weren't traveling much. Travel meant going to places where there weren't other people to vouch for you.
I should expound a little on the mandatory military call up. If Uncle Sam had ever put you in a uniform, you were "reactivated" - drafted in all but name. 4F or fifty or disabled veteran did not matter - you were called in, evaluated for China service, and either released with papers or sent where the War needed you. And if by now you didn't have exemption papers, you were fucked.
I had papers, courtesy of the SLE getting me "Essential Site Personnel" status. That would help on the way back but wouldn't help the convoy now. I could shield my people: guards, medics, firefighter. But I couldn't help Brooke. As a Marine rifleman who hadn't reported in and had no intention of reporting in, she would be interned upon identification. A sway back was no longer any excuse. If she were _lucky_ she'd be sent to China, most likely to Special Military Police service shepherding Shock Troops (penal infantry, mostly "volunteer" mental hospital patients), and with a similar survival rate. But she might just get shot in the neck.
Sorry Brooke. I couldn't think of any better way to get someone who like me and like Buddy, would certainly kill to protect these folks because we have no alternatives.
I heard motorcycle engines as someone broke squelch twice. That was a problem up front. So I headed down there, still wearing polo shirt and pistol and badge.
I thought about it and took off the badge, putting it in a back pocket.
Several bikes, big ones. Harleys. And were this a bad movie, I would recognize the biker as a standard "biker gang" right out of Central Casting. Seven big motorcycles, eleven people - eight male, three female.
Brooke was not yet muzzling them - pointing her rifle at them - but it was a near thing. Other guards were moving discreetly to defensive positions, and Brooke had the metal access gates to our area closed but not locked.
They were circling - showing off their skill on heavy bikes by turning and not getting off the bike.
When I joined Brooke, the leader stopped circling and pulled up alongside the closed gates. He revved his bike and said something we couldn't hear.
I shook my head and put my left hand up to my ear. "Huh?"
Behind us, the convoy was ready to execute whichever emergency action plan Buddy felt was appropriate - mount up in the vehicles and move out, mostly take cover while guards came to the front with full weapons, or scatter into the wilds while the guards died to buy them time to flee. This was starting to go in the direction of Option #2.
He turned off his bike.
"Nice day, I said," he shouted.
"It is," I replied. It was, I thought. They had the jackets and large patches of a notorious motorcycle gang, whose notoriety I will not add to by mentioning their name here.
"We'd like to come in, talk to you folks."
"We can talk right here. What's on your mind?"
Brooke broke squelch repeatedly, six times, tapping the radio mike button attached to the front of her trigger guard. That was the 'get ready for a fight' signal.
So far we were about halfway into the mugging. The part where the mugger asks for a light, or a quarter, or the time, to close the gap between a reasonable distance from a stranger and a stabbing. Their mobility needed the gate open.
I could see from here that they were openly armed. Slung rifles and shotguns. Mostly folding stock AKs. Plus the weapons any biker gang normally carried - chains, knives galore, razors, push daggers, and all sorts of exotic crap.
Such as the shotgun built into the biker's left handlebar, which he had just discreetly (he thought) turned to point directly at me.
I drew and shot the biker twice in the head, swiveled and started double tapping, working my way from left to right.
Brooke walked a full auto burst across the bikers from right to left, using up an entire magazine in four seconds.
From behind us, sharp cracks on single shot announced that another guard had joined the fight, aiming carefully to not hit us.
I reloaded and re-engaged. One of the women had been protected by being behind her rider's body. As she put her hands up I shot her twice in the face.
Sorry. In bullet time no surrenders can be accepted.
I reloaded a second time and walked rapidly backwards with Brooke as Matt and two other guards ran forward. She was halfway through her second magazine, having switched to well placed single shots. One of the guards was carrying two rifles, and immediately handed me one.
We reassessed the scene. Two were still moving. We ended that.
This is not a game, this is not a movie, no dying words. All it would have taken to kill us all would be one of them getting away. And I can't afford for misguided mercy to cause us to take a risk of getting one of my guards killed.
If the biker leader had lived, he would have complained that we hadn't given them a chance.
Well, we hadn't. And I would have shot him mid-word if he'd still been able to speak.
"Let's clean up the scene. Carefully now."
This was going to be a bloody, grisly job. So I took off my polo shirt and uniform pants. I put on gloves and drew my knife.
Matt followed my example while the other two guards and Brooke stayed on overwatch, except that Matt covered me with his silenced single shot pistol.
Matt and I approached the first biker down. He was still groaning but his hands were empty. As Matt aimed his handgun at his torso from the side, I lifted his hair by one hand and cut his throat from ear to ear, aiming the blood spray at bare asphalt.
A wounded biker lurched to his feet and Brooke took his head off with one shot.
We were not interested in prisoners, even for interrogation, because we had no means of verifying what they would say. Torture works. But torture only works if you can _verify_ the answers given under duress, and we could not.
Once all eleven bikers were slain, we stripped their effects.
Buddy came up in the middle of this and scratched his head.
"Boss, isn't this a little extreme?"
For answer I went over to the fallen leader's bike, stood it up, aimed the left handlebar into the bushes and pressed the trigger, discharging the shotgun loudly but harmlessly. I suppose I could have pulled the round, waste not want not, but I was making an important point.
"Holy shit!" Buddy exclaimed, where he had not at the killings.
He went and got the fuel kit and drained the bike tanks. I pulled their rations and gave them to the medics to evaluate. They in turn pulled out about half for the nursing mothers and left the rest on a picnic table with a firm "at your own risk" admonition. The beef jerky was still beef jerky. Things hadn't fallen that far.
The miscellaneous hide out weapons went into a backpack; they might be useful, aside from individual pieces that each of us added to our personal arsenals. We saved out a little fuel for the clothing, especially the biker jackets and IDs, and burned them in one of the campfire circles. I tossed in the hard drugs when the fire burned bright. You don't burn pot. It was cheap crap, so I put it in the pit toilet with the rest of the cheap crap.
We dragged the bodies on a tarp and tumbled them where they would be out of sight. I cleaned up and got dressed with relief. The bikes we jumbled in a mass down a nearby ravine.
The guards collected brass while half an hour with a broom and some water took care of the spilled blood. Something had happened here but it would take an evidence tech to figure out what.
Some of the monitors had seen what we were doing. Obviously they told the refugees.
This was as good a time as any to check on our two frank prisoners - the man who had freaked out on the bus on the first day, and the man who had tried to steal the recovery truck on the second day. The medic interviewed them both while I watched, and had his quiet recommendation.
"The first guy may be OK now. Seat him at the back and have people watch him."
Then he turned and spoke loudly, "The second guy ... he'll never be OK, he's just an asshole. Totally doesn't care that he would have left everyone else to die. Put a biker jacket on him and shoot him."
I shook my head.
"Even bikers have standards. That's why we had to kill them all, not just the leader. They would have died for each other. Their kill-die equation was fucked up, but they still had one. If you won't die for anything, you won't live for anything either. Just being alive is the worst punishment we can give him. Keep it that way."
If we needed to send someone ahead at gunpoint to check for mines, he was definitely my first pick.
Problem disposed of, I went back to my maps and Buddy to his maintenance.
Bikers. Them guys could fuck up a beach party.
