Burning Nation Read online

  This book is dedicated to the memory and honor of Staff Sergeant Joshua William Pratt (1980–2013).

  CONTENTS

  TITLE PAGE

  DEDICATION

  CONSTITUTION EXTRACT

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  COPYRIGHT

  “All able-bodied male persons, residents of this state, between the ages of eighteen and forty-five years, shall be enrolled in the militia, and perform such military duty as may be required by law, but no person having conscientious scruples against bearing arms, shall be compelled to perform such duty in time of peace.”

  Constitution of the State of Idaho

  Article XIV, Section 1

  A tracer round sliced a bright red streak through the black night in front of me. I grabbed Sweeney and Cal by their coats, pulling them down behind our bunker. Machine guns and rifles opened fire from both sides of the Washington-Idaho border. Given that I had just two months of basic training, a handful of National Guard drills, and a few weeks of sentry duty, I hadn’t really practiced fighting a battle to stop the US Army from invading my state.

  “Aw yeah, dude!” Cal shouted near my ear. “This is the real deal!”

  Sweeney hit me in the shoulder. “Danny, you’re the soldier. Just tell us what to do. We’ll follow your orders.”

  I was packing my .45. Cal had Schmidty’s AR15. Sweeney still needed a weapon. “Stick with me! Stay low!” I yelled over the roar of gunfire.

  The screech of a jet fighter shot past overhead. Cracks like thunder exploded close by. We pushed forward into my squad’s bunker.

  Inside, PFC Luchen fired his SAW, while Specialist Sparrow sent heavier rounds downrange with her .50-cal. Sergeant Kemp was helping them reload as they burned through their ammo belts. They were both holding down the trigger so long that I worried they’d melt their barrels.

  Kemp spotted me. “Wright! What are you doing here!?”

  “Here for the fight!” I shouted back. “Got my boys with me.”

  Kemp handed me and Sweeney M4s, probably Luchen and Sparrow’s regular weapons. “Come on!” He led the way to the firing window. “One shot! One kill! Pick your targets to save ammo.”

  “Seriously? Just like that? Just jump in?” Cal took aim.

  “Yeah!” Kemp said. “But you have to aim carefully so —”

  “I can shoot.” Cal aimed and pulled the trigger.

  At least a whole company of Federal infantry had crossed into Idaho, shooting as they moved through the valley below our firing position. They were supported by machine guns on the Washington side, which opened up to offer suppressive fire. I’d shot an Army staff sergeant back in Spokane to save my friends. Was that the right thing to do? Who knew? To win this fight now, to protect my state, I would have to do it again and shoot as many of the enemy as I could. I’d have to use my best skills to kill American soldiers.

  “Let’s go, Wright!” Luchen said. He held down the trigger and mowed down a whole charging fire team. “Get in the fight!”

  I’d wanted in the war. I hated the damned Fed. A bunch of rounds shattered against the rocks next to me. I lined my sights up on the shadowy form of an advancing Fed and pulled the trigger. Clipped his leg. I found another target. Fired. Pegged his chest. Knocked him down. I fired again and again.

  “Aw shit!” Luchen yelled, and pointed way down the hill to our company’s base. “They got a mick-lick!” An MCLC was a Mine Clearing Line Charge, a little trailer with a small rocket that pulled a line of C4 charges out over a minefield or wire barrier. The rocket would explode the obstacles and clear a path for the advancing army. With the mick-lick, they could take out our wire obstacles and open the road to our bunker.

  Three of our guys ran out, ready to fire an AT4 rocket launcher. One of them was hit twice and fell. A few steps later, another took a round through the throat. The last soldier aimed and fired a rocket. The mick-lick burst into white-hot flame. The crack of the explosion slammed us a second later.

  “Yeah!” Luchen shouted. He high-fived Cal. “Awesome!”

  An Apache helicopter gunship swept through the sky, and another rose up from behind some trees. They dodged around firing at each other until one of them went down with its engine burning. The surviving bird dipped down and turned its thirty-millimeter chain gun and Hellfire missiles against the Fed lines. Hundreds of soldiers exploded all over the field.

  “We got ’em!” Cal said. “They ain’t got a chance!”

  But our Apache exploded into fiery pieces seconds later, and five M4B Schwarzkopf main battle tanks pushed through the woods from Washington. The tanks fired, and our side of the border erupted. Down the hill, our TOC tent went up in flames. The farmhouse by the road collapsed as well. A second mick-lick moved into position, firing its rocket. Seconds later, its C4 rope exploded and Fed soldiers poured through the gap.

  “There’s more Feds than we got bullets!” I shouted.

  One of the Schwarzkopfs turned its turret and raised the huge barrel of its main gun toward our bunker.

  “Fall back!” Sergeant Kemp slung a full rucksack over his shoulder, an AT4 strapped to the top. “Grab your stuff! We’re bugging out!”

  “Bullshit! We can take ’em!” Cal fired six more rounds.

  No we couldn’t. I pulled Cal away from the firing post. Sparrow started to take the .50-cal off its tripod.

  “Leave it!” Kemp yelled. He pushed her out of the bunker through the crevice in back. I followed Sweeney and Cal. Luchen was right behind me, carrying his SAW. Kemp covered our six. “Go, go, go!” he shouted.

  Behind us, the hill where we’d built our firing position exploded and we were all thrown to the ground. The little radio clipped to Kemp’s chest squawked, “All 476 elements, all 476 elements, this is 476 actual! Fall back! I say again, fall back! Evac truck charlie mike in five. 476 actual, out.”

  “That’s the go code!” Kemp yelled. “The whole force is evacuating. We don’t make that truck, we’re screwed!”

  We all bolted through the woods as fast as we could. I fell once, and my M4 hit a log, bouncing up and smacking me in the face. I scrambled to my feet in seconds and ran after my group.

  We reached the road only to find our Army five-ton truck speeding away, its tarp in the back on fire. Soldiers inside used fire extinguishers, trying to put out flames that only flared up more in the wind. The truck sped off and disappeared around a bend.

  “Shit! That was our last ride!” Luchen yelled. “What do we do now?”

  “I parked my truck a ways back there,” I said. “We can get out in that.”

  Kemp nodded. “Let’s go.”

  I turned and led the way back through the woods toward the Beast. I slipped in something as I ran, and then I saw what I’d slipped
in.

  It wasn’t snow. It was some guy’s guts. Even worse, the guy was the other team leader in my squad, Sergeant Ribbon. He had a wide-eyed, openmouthed look of shock on his face. Dead.

  There wasn’t time to mourn him in the right way. Sparrow grabbed his rifle. I took a couple extra thirty-round magazines out of his ammo pouches. Then I closed his eyes.

  “I’m sorry,” I whispered. “I’ll hit ’em back for you. For all of us.”

  “Hey, over here,” said Cal. A moment later, another flash revealed PFC Nelson from my squad, soaked in blood and clutching a chest wound.

  “Wright?” said Nelson. “You gotta help me.”

  Another low groan came up from the ground nearby.

  “Wright, come on!” Luchen called from up ahead.

  “Wait! We got wounded back here!” I went toward the groan and stopped when my feet hit something soft. In the darkness, I bent down. “Hey, you okay?”

  “Wright? Private Wright?”

  “Yeah.”

  “It’s Danning. Been shot. Leg. Stomach.” His words and breaths were tight, like someone was pressing on his chest. He held his giant prized .50-caliber rifle. “I bandaged … myself. I think.”

  “Okay. Okay,” I said. What was I supposed to do? The Feds were right behind us, but I couldn’t leave the guy like this. “Hey, if you’re well enough to bandage yourself, you’re fine. You’re gonna be fine. You got a radio?”

  “Naw, man. I —” Danning’s voice seized up like he was in pain. “Drone hit us. Sergeant Ribbon. Nelson, Jamison …”

  “Sergeant Donshel, where are we going?” came the gravelly old voice of First Sergeant Herbokowitz from behind a nearby stand of trees.

  “I don’t know, First Sergeant. Silver Mountain, maybe. We might hide there.”

  Donshel was my squad leader. These were my guys. “First Sergeant, this is PF —” I remembered I’d been busted in rank the last time I was with the Guard. “Private Wright,” I called out.

  The first sergeant came out of the tree line with Staff Sergeant Donshel. Three other guys followed them. “Private Wright, what the hell are you doing here?” He turned behind him. “Anything on the radio, Specialist?”

  “Negative, First Sergeant,” said Crocker. “We were getting a ton of chatter on the radio in the TOC, but since we’ve been on the move, I’m hearing nothing.” That was Crocker. The jackwad never had a clue what the hell he was doing.

  “Come on,” said Sergeant Donshel. “We got to go.”

  “Yeah, let’s go, guys,” said an unarmed man I didn’t know. “They’ll be here any second.”

  “Who are you?” I asked.

  “Martin Bagley,” said the man.

  “Civilian Corps guy,” said Luchen.

  “Come on!” said Donshel.

  “Danning and Nelson are wounded,” I said.

  “We’ll have to carry them,” said Sparrow.

  “Okay,” said First Sergeant Herbokowitz. “We’ll move out and double-time in a squad wedge formation. Private Luchen, you take point. Staff Sergeant Donshel, Specialist Smith, you fan out to the left.”

  Specialist Smith from second squad was here? Where were the rest of his guys?

  “Our evac trucks have rolled out already, but Wright’s got his own ride,” said Kemp.

  The first sergeant continued, “Sergeant Kemp, Specialist Sparrow—”

  Weapons fire opened up from the tree line my guys had just come out of. Herbokowitz screamed and fell. A parachute flare went up above us, a burning ball floating in the sky, lighting the whole field. A round sliced through Donshel’s throat. I whirled with my M4 and shot back. Sparrow and Luchen fired too, Luchen unleashing quick bursts with his SAW.

  Cal let it rip with Schmidty’s AR15. “Come on!” Two more shots.

  Sparrow had Nelson hoisted up over her shoulders in a fireman’s carry. Kemp had done the same with Danning. “Donshel’s dead,” he shouted. “We’re moving. First Sergeant?”

  First Sergeant Herbokowitz stood up, his leg bleeding. “I’m fine!” He started hobbling away.

  Luchen pulled the pin on a grenade. “I was first team all-conference in baseball.” He smiled and whipped the grenade toward the trees. Without even waiting for the thing to explode, he grabbed another, pulled the pin, and threw it. Sparrow, Cal, me, and Sweeney kept firing for a few more seconds. At least one Fed got off another shot because Specialist Smith screamed and fell, grabbing at his groin area.

  “Come on!” Sparrow ran with her weapon in tow and Nelson on her back. Cal picked up Smith and we all followed her. A few shots rang out from behind us.

  “Ow! Mother-frraaah!” Luchen staggered as he took a bullet. His SAW swung from his shoulder and he clutched his ass, but he was a tough, wiry little bastard and stayed standing. Me and Sweeney turned around and shot back while Crocker ducked under Luchen’s arm and half carried him away.

  “Let’s go,” Cal said.

  “Sergeant!” I called out. “My truck’s up here!” I led my guys to the Beast. I hadn’t had the chance to switch out the bloodstained upholstery after our border run, so a few more wounded guys wouldn’t mess it up too much.

  Cal laid Specialist Smith down on the cold ground next to the Beast. “Guys, he ain’t breathin’.” He felt around his neck. “I can’t find no pulse or nothing.”

  Specialist Sparrow set Nelson down next to Smith and pushed Cal out of the way, crouching down to place her fingers at Smith’s throat. “He’s dead. Bled out.”

  “Shit.” Cal was soaked in blood. He stared at Smith.

  “Come on! Get in the damned truck!” Herbokowitz yelled.

  “We can’t leave Smith behind like this!” Sparrow said.

  The first sergeant shoved her toward the Beast. “We just left our whole damned company behind. Move it, Specialist.”

  Herbokowitz and Sparrow somehow fit in the back with Luchen’s SAW and Danning’s .50-cal rifle. Kemp rode shotgun with his M4 out the window and his rucksack on the floor in front of him. Cal, Sweeney, Bagley, and Crocker wedged into the backseat, with Luchen lying on the floor under their feet and Danning draped across their laps. Nelson lay with his legs over the center console and his head and shoulders over Danning. My fingers were sticky on the steering wheel with someone’s blood. When I brought the Beast out here, I never dreamed I’d be turning around so soon, driving back in a bloody-clown-car-from-hell type situation.

  “Hold on, boys.” I fired up the Beast and threw her in drive, guiding her around some trees until I reached the highway. Then I hit the gas. “The Fed’ll be right behind us, and this ride could be all jacked up.”

  “Lucky for us, Wright’s a champion bull rider,” said Sweeney.

  “I still say we should go back there and fight those bastards!” Cal shouted.

  I felt a little weird with Cal yelling around my first sergeant and team leader. I would never dream of telling those guys what to do. Since the Battle of Boise, my military life had kept creeping into my civilian world. Now my civilian friends were mixing with my Idaho Guard circle. All the lines were blurring.

  We sped down the highway, piled in my truck, people on top of gear on top of people, racing along at a hundred miles an hour. When the highway went up around Silver Mountain, it would be too curvy to go this fast.

  What had I gotten us all into? What had I started? How many people were dead because I had accidentally pulled the trigger at that protest in Boise? And now — how had I been stupid enough to believe that the Idaho National Guard could possibly hold back the entire United States military?

  We rode quietly for a while, the only sounds the wind and the groans from our four wounded. As we rolled along, people did their best to bandage those who were hurt, but we needed to get them to a doctor.

  “Where do we go?” I asked everyone. “I mean … If the Fed wins this battle and takes over Idaho, we’re really criminals now. Me especially, I guess.”

  “We can’t just give up!” Cal said. “We coul
d set up an ambush somewhere. We could —”

  “We don’t need tactical advice from untrained civilians,” Sparrow said. Cal was about to say something back, but she didn’t give him the chance. “Some of us do need medical attention. We should go to a hospital. Surrender there.”

  “I’m not —” Luchen said, but his statement ended in a gasp. “No way. I’m not surrendering. The Fed can go to hell.”

  “Luchen,” said Sparrow. “I’ve got most of the bleeding stopped for now, but you need more than a bandage.”

  “Rather … die than give in to the Fed,” Luchen groaned.

  “Me too,” said Cal.

  “If we surrender, we might be treated better than if they catch us,” said Sergeant Herbokowitz. “But if we’re charged with treason, we could be looking at life in prison or worse.”

  A half-dozen well-armed guys on motorcycles roared toward us, heading to the fight. They were all wearing black bands on their upper right arms. I swerved so I wouldn’t hit them. “Idiots,” I mumbled. “Whoever they are.” I gripped the steering wheel tightly. I didn’t know what the hell I was going to do, but one thing was clear. “The Fed blockade has been starving us out for months now,” I said aloud. “They cut off our food supply. Same with our gas. With everything. They came after my friends, after my girl. They killed my mother. You guys can do what you want. I’m not surrendering.”

  “Then we need a place to hide,” said Sergeant Kemp.

  I remembered the bunker under Schmidty’s shop. “I got a place,” I said. “It’s got food, water, ammo, everything we need. They’ll never find us there.”

  Sweeney cleared his throat. “I know I’m only a civilian, but it looks like the Idaho Guard is gone and you’re all civilians now. Technically felons … and fugitives too. If Danny’s hiding place is where I think it is, anyone who is not committed to hiding with us needs to say so now. We’ll drop you off someplace on the way, but we’re not going to let you know where this place is, so you can just surrender or be captured by the Fed and give up our location.”

  That was a good point. Smart. I had to start thinking that way if we were going to survive this.

  “With you all the way, buddy,” said Cal.