Stand Tall

[Post by Kincaid]

Josh is down. This morning a surprise push by a big group of UAS soldiers hit the camp he was staying in. Jess made it out okay. There were several deaths, people I don't know by name. Josh was hit several times. Rifle fire. He's in surgery now, but Phil says it doesn't look promising.

Truth is, we'd have taken a lot worse but for one thing. Something I never expected I'd see. It was the defectors from the UAS, all the ones we've allowed to live close by since they gave up the fighting. They walked onto the battlefield from the side, hands all raised up. Not a weapon to be seen. I was there, out in the distance. I watched them move toward the UAS forces.

They talked. It was only after the UAS was pushed back that I found out what they said. Those men and women left the war because they didn't want to kill people who'd done them no wrong. A few came here afterward to explain. They approached our enemy to tell them how we'd treated them. Fair. With reasonable trust if wary of tricks. How we punished anyone who tried to give them trouble for prior loyalties.

So far no one knows if it has had any real effect. The UAS for sure didn't pull back early. We had to make them retreat. But the thing is, they hit us hard. Another push a few hours after the retreat could have done serious damage. They didn't. And nearly a day later they still haven't. They aren't even forming up for another attack. I know a good number of the defectors are still in the UAS camp.

If they're managing to get through to the enemy, well fucking hooray. I doubt it'll amount to more than a delay for us, but we'll take it. Reports are in from all over. The rest of the UAS forces in the region are coming here. Guess the local boys need help from big brother now they've realized we're not going down without ripping off something vital.

I don't have many friends, but Josh is one of them. Even he doesn't fully trust me, I don't think, but I can't blame the guy. I am who I am. He respects that if nothing else.

They hurt my friend. He might have died while I'm typing this. I saw him as he was being hauled off the field. I'm shocked he even lived to get medical attention. You might have noticed, but I'm not like Josh. I don't forgive easily. I sure as hell never forget. I'll follow orders, but until Will himself comes down to tell me otherwise, I'm taking every UAS fucker out when the chance comes up. That's just how it is.

The defectors managed to take a stand. I'm thankful for that even if it ends up an empty gesture. At least they have some decency in them. That's why they aren't the enemy any longer.

Impulse Control

It's a wonder the UAS didn't question why we weren't fighting them last night as their soldiers moved into the massive clearing around Haven. Our scouts and watchers spied them from a distance, angry men and women marching toward our home, emerging from the trees like ghosts in the dying light. You'd think the first question they would have asked themselves was why, if there were so many of us out there, would we not be firing at them?

The answer to that unasked question came in the form of land mines. I suppose a better question might have been "Why did the Union forces attack us the other from all directions except from Haven itself? Because explosives in the ground, that's why.

Didn't manage to kill a lot of them, but as a method of discouragement it's top-notch. Whatever sneaky assault the enemy might have been planning fell through when several dozen soldiers splattered across the face of the people following behind them. I'm glad for that, and that bothers me. The deeply logical part of my brain tells me those deaths prevented or at least postponed even more carnage. The deeply emotional Josh is weary of the violence, more so than ever.

I feel the anger, the hate for the stupidity and waste around me. I see my home damaged and evacuated, the heart of the Union injured, and I the animal instinct in me is to lash out and kill. And it's true there is a good argument for defending yourself and others, protecting what you have. Doesn't mean I have to like what we do to accomplish that.

They're out there right now, readying themselves again despite knowing the cost to their forces. The UAS will come for us again, striking at us and losing soldiers. Our own will die with them, a waste beyond calculation in a world bereft of almost our entire species. Later today, maybe even by dinner, the weakened but furious UAS will move as one.

We will respond, because we have no other choice. I'll do my part no matter how I feel about it, because that's what you do. You defend. You die if you have to.

You regret and you hope things can change, but at the end of the day you move forward.

Dance With Death

They came. Oh, they came. The UAS moved in, firing every big gun they had. Soldiers with portable mortars, mounted machine guns, even one or two pieces of artillery our people couldn't quite stop. The enemy crossed the line of no return.

That first opening salvo took chunks from our walls, heavy bullets gouging out fist-sized divots in the stone. Mortars made craters big enough for a man to curl up in comfortably. The artillery shots that came with that mad rush toward us demolished two blocks of Haven Central. Houses turned to splinters between heartbeats, carefully tended gardens a mass of tangled earth and dying crop. Homes, full of struggle and love and life, gone. Just gone.

But not the people in them.

Every non-combatant withdrew to a secure location two days ago. The rest of us, with the exception of a small detail to protect our pregnant women, young children, sick, and the few too young to fight, were out there in the world. We spread out in the fading light, Haven left behind as an all-too-tempting target. A place we love, to be certain, but no matter what I've said on here recently, only a place in the end. Not worth our lives or the future of our people.

What did I say when all this began? Do you remember? I told the UAS they should stop this insanity before they learned what we're truly capable of. I said the worst situation they could be in is the one they walked into yesterday. We fielded a few thousand friendly soldiers from other communities, and another fifteen hundred of our own. And you know what? Nearly every one of us had a rifle and pockets full of rounds. We've been hoarding them for months now, using them only for hunting when needed.

Yesterday we hunted men. Our army broke up into discreet groups of twelve and flooded the area. Our land, which we know like the face of our own child. We flowed in and out, taking positions long enough to pick off soldiers and melting back when they tracked our fire. The entire area surrounding Haven has long been prepared for this; shields of thick metal decked with greenery to make them harder to see. Stands that allow shooters to swing around the bole of a tree, aim and kill only to slide back behind the protection of the tree's thickness in an instant.

We've drilled and drilled and drilled. We've practiced. Yeah, we took losses yesterday. Our home was severely damaged and several hundred of our soldiers gave their lives. But we killed five for every one we lost. When the first artillery shots rang out we signaled our backup, kept a tight secret until now. We wanted the UAS to think they were safe to move forward. Surely we would have used any secret weapons before allowing our home to be so badly hurt...

Three heavily modified helicopters swooped in from three directions, laying down fire on the massed enemies and attacking the remaining heavy weapons. One of them dropped hundreds of pounds of thermite, melting men and vehicles--and giant cannons--to slag in less time than you can hold your breath. Our own heavy vehicles swarmed onto the field shortly after to brutalize the forward elements, cutting down soldiers by the dozen.

At our best estimate we killed between two thousand and twenty-five hundred UAS soldiers while losing a bit less than five hundred of our own. Their army has been cut in half, and in the chaos they called a retreat. To their credit I don't think they'd have pulled back just because of the assault, but it probably helped immensely that we fought out there among the undead, untouched by them. Even the New Breed. Our people have been taking advantage of the constant pressure of zombie attacks, gathering pieces of the undead, gore and limbs and the like, to mask our smell. We were an army of men and women slathered in the stink of undeath, invisible to the eyes of the old school zombies. The New Breed began to figure it out when the attack started but left us alone when the sight and smell of UAS blood hit them. Easy meals, you see, and we made sure not to get in their way.

Use every weapon you have.

Today the UAS lick their wounds. I'm typing this on my phone, slow and laborious, from our temporary camp behind our own lines. Scouts indicate the enemy are marshaling their strength, likely to attack again within the next day. Certainly more of us will die. I saw one of the helicopters crash, riddled with bullets, from my perch far back in the woods. Good men and women rushed to the fore, distracting with their attacks as me and mine took careful aim from hiding. I watched them die to save us all. I can only imagine tomorrow will be worse, but today?

Today we're alive.

Scarlet Blush

In the opening moments of most wars, there is a battle that acts as a test. A probe to feel the texture of the defenses. That happened yesterday. The UAS certainly didn't want to commit fully without knowing how far we would go in our desperation, but neither would they send enough troops at us that their loss would cripple their army. Instead they opted to move deeper and deeper into our land, coming relatively close to Haven. Just outside of artillery range. Thankfully they don't have the heavier missile weapons that could hit us from too far away to do a damn thing about it.

Sitting at the edge of the true danger zone was enough to provoke a response from us. Our people have been chipping away at them over the last few days, but that's all. Just flakes that add up to no real loss of operational capability. They waited all day for some large response from us, but other than the small attacks they didn't get one. I wonder if it came as a surprise when several hundred of our people raided all down their line of vehicles last night? The point of the assault wasn't to take lives.

It was to disable that artillery. It's an old trick and one we've used before. Stealth and surprise are something our soldiers are good at. Years in the woods give them strong abilities in that area. We might not have disabled all of them, but no one is going to fire a huge gun when a blazing gob of steel-melting thermite has been down its barrel or across its controls. Kind of amazing how much damage a baseball-sized wad of the stuff can do.

Every person who went on that raid was a volunteer. More than half of them didn't come back. We're actually pretty stunned any of them did. It was considered a suicide mission.

But that's what you get when you conscript soldiers from survivors who've lived mostly underground or, in the case of the vast numbers from Mexico, have no real experience in this kind of terrain. Word is the UAS soldiers from south and central America are by and large more efficient soldiers than those from the bunkers. Which makes sense. The southerners had to survive just like we did.

The language barriers probably helped our raid succeed. No matter how effective your people are in combat, it's nearly impossible to keep disciplined groups when half of them speak several different languages. Confusion, misunderstandings, and just plain bad information clutters up the whole thing. Basically it created good conditions to buy our people time to get the job done.

And they did. The UAS is moving in on us now, heedless of the traps and danger ahead, because their leadership realizes if they wait any longer the morale and urge to fight is going to drain out of their soldiers. Facing a guerrilla force on their home turf with unknown armaments, numbers, and capabilities who sometimes appear from the dark like ghosts is enough to make anyone walk away.

At least by mobilizing and coming right at us they know where we'll be. They know we won't run. In an hour or two the fight will be in our front yard. Then in our streets. If things go very badly, at our front door. We've got a trick or two left. We'll see.

Today is the day, everyone.

There Will Come Soft Rains

Hey guys, it’s Beckley.  Word to your mother.

I’ve been giving a lot of thought to the upcoming action with the UAS, as has just about every sane person in Haven and the Union.  Josh has already talked at length about this, but I wanted to put my thoughts out there too.  I know that I tend to just parrot and remix some of what Josh says.  Kind of like I’m a Puff Daddy.  Or did he just insist on being called just Diddy before The Fall?  For the life of me I can’t remember or muster up the fortitude to care.  Regardless, Josh has a theme and occasionally I’ll just remix it and insist that the song about a stalker is actually a touching tribute to Biggie Smalls with a well placed, “Yeah” or two.  That metaphor may have gotten away from me slightly.  And now I’m thinking of a zombie Biggie Smalls.  Regardless, this is my thing.  Love it.

Specifically my thoughts have gone to a poem I read back when I was a kid.  Before that, though, let me explain something.  I have principles.  But I’ve also always been a pragmatist.  Prior to The Fall I was a conservative because I believed in small government.  But I was ready to admit that big government programs like the postal service, public libraries, and health care were necessary.  I was religious before all this happened and life became so confused.  But I wasn’t one to shove those tenants into anyone’s face and I always believed that people had the right to believe what they wanted.  Don’t get me wrong, I wasn’t a pluralist, and it always drove me crazy when people would say that all religions were the same.  I always found that lazy, factually incorrect in regards to dogma, and culturally insensitive.  Regardless, I like to think that this pragmatism helped me as a therapist.  You really can’t go around challenging every ignorant thing that people say in therapy because then the bigger functionality issues never get addressed.  What good is me correcting some poor guy saying that “the Jews” are plotting against him when he’s also actively hearing voices telling him that he’s Jesus Christ?  You need proportion and you need pragmatism in life.

All that to say that while I do fear the war coming to Haven’s doorstep, I also don’t fear the results.  The Union wins, it’s all good.  The UAS wins, that’s rough and we will all die.  Not just us.  Everyone.  The UAS can’t hold this territory and they have no idea how to grow and adapt.  They will crumble like the rest of Humanity already has.  And then there will be nothing here.  But what does that really mean?  Really?  I’m not being fatalistic or morose and I certainly don’t want to die, but seriously ask yourself the question.  We all die, but how is that any different than what life has already thrown at us in the form of rising dead?  And we’re not talking about total extinction.  There will still be other survivors.  And other countries have their own pockets of Humanity, some of them probably doing much better than we are here.  Maybe an isolated island.  I bet New Zealand is doing incredibly well, for example.  Humanity will survive even if the UAS lays waste and then crumbles under their own weighty shortsightedness.  And then Nature will continue without us.  The dead will run short on easily obtainable food and they will starve.  The planted fields of Haven will grow wild.  Clover will cover the streets.  Vines and trees will spring up and everything, the walls, the Box, the compound, the hospital, the cheeseburger emporium, the fortified walls that Josh built around his house in the first days of The Fall, they will all crumble away.  We succeed and life will flourish here.  We fail and life will still flourish and one day people will rise again.  Survivors from other countries will branch out as the dead finally lay down.  People will come and rebuild on the ruins of Haven, rebuild Josh’s house, the hospital, the cheeseburgers, rebuild it all.  The streets will return and life will continue.

And that is why I’m a pragmatist.  Again, this isn’t self-pity or depression.  Someone I cared for very much before these days used to tell me when my self-pity was getting out of control.  She’s…I don’t know where now.  Probably shuffling around with everyone else I ever knew.  But what I do know is that these new people in my life, they are going to live.  Whether it’s over the broken remains of the UAS or as clover pollen in the wind, we will live.  That’s the pragmatism I’m talking about.  And it’s very comforting to me to think about as I strain my ears during the night, listening to the moans outside the wall and trying to catch the first sign of an approaching UAS vanguard.  We will survive and life will continue.

That poem, in case you were wondering, was by Sara Teasdale.  It’s called There Will Come Soft Rains and it was used to great effect by the always immortal (in the best possible way, such words not being what they used to) Ray Bradbury in a short story about a fully automated house continuing its blissful daily existence even after its family was incinerated to a nuclear shadow on the front lawn and even as it burns to death.  It was included in The Martian Chronicles.  If you haven’t, go read it.  To the point here’s the poem:

There will come soft rains and the smell of the ground

And swallows circling with their shimmering sound

And frogs in the pools singing at night

And wild plum trees in tremulous white

Robins will wear their feathery fire

Whistling their whims on a low fence-wire

And not one will know of the war, not one

Will care at last when it is done

Not one would mind, neither bird nor tree

If mankind perished utterly

And Spring herself, when she woke at dawn

Would scarcely know that we were gone.

It’s very sad, very inspirational, and very true.  And more applicable here than I’m comfortable admitting.  The UAS is coming.  But they can’t kill us.  Not what was created here.  Only Nature can do that.  And really, that’s as it should be and how it always was.  No zombies, no delusional politicians, no incoming army, no vigilante action, no Dragoon, and no blog will stop it.  We march towards dust always and I do it with a glad heart because in the end, we are all part of something bigger.  Dawn is coming whether we’re here for it or not.  And it always will be.

Tidal

Been a while since I got philosophical with you, but since this might be my last chance ever I figure it's as good a time as any.

I've been thinking a lot about how we all change each other. It's all connected together, you see. The universe is a big, crazy place full of vast forces tugging on away and it's not crazy at all to say that something happening hundreds of millions of miles away affects my life in a very personal way. I know, sounds out there and pointless, but stay with me.

The sun is a ball of burning plasma, hydrogen fusing into helium and from there into heavier elements. The process creates heat and light as waste, and the very concentration of those elements creates a gravitational field that eventually draws together clumps of rock and metal to create a planetary system. The goldilocks zone is where Earth resides, that stellar sweet spot just far enough away for our home not to burn, but close enough to stay warm and support liquid water. The heat of our star creates the conditions for life, the power of its gravity a stable orbit.

Now, today, I'm sitting out under overcast skies, a weather pattern created by variations in atmospheric temperatures. It may rain, which will give life to our crops. Crops the enemy is sure to reap over our corpses, should their efforts succeed.

That's just how my brain works, you see. I think of the tidal forces of the moon, churning the sea, and I see a corollary in people to match it. I think of the sun, the life-giver, and there too I can't help but laugh at how the larger pattern is mirrored on a small scale with us. All of us. It's organized chaos.

Haven exists today because enough of us came together to shed some light on the world around it. The random accumulation of people gathered as if by gravity, organizing into distinct groups with a purpose. Like a star the individual atoms crashed into each other to create something new. With the denser, stronger new material came more gravity, a self-sustaining process that ends with a stable new nation of similar systems.

The Union. It's sort of a small galaxy when you think about it. But much like Andromeda, which will collide with our own Milky Way in a few billion years, the UAS became attracted to us. Gravity kills after all.

Which puts us where we are today. Similes and metaphors aside, the amazing progress and growth we've seen comes at a cost. Human nature is difficult to stick into a mathematical model and predict. People have been shitty to each other as long as there have been people, and today is no different. One side wants, the other side has, and violence is all too often the bridge over the divide between them.

No matter what momentary bursts of emotion took me, I've never been able to sustain true hate for the undead. Zombies do what they do because the organism in charge has very basic needs to meet. It's all sort of automated, animal. I don't hate wolves or bears for acting in accordance to their wild nature. The UAS, like the marauders before them, are different. They know better. They have choice. They can still choose to back off and give peace a chance. The likelihood rapidly approaches zero, but it isn't impossible.

Tidal forces, pressure changes, the flow of matter pushed on by other matter. I see these concepts all the time, both in physics and in real life. My hobbies tend to bleed over into the everyday that way. The UAS comes in and displaces the undead, driving them toward us. We respond by calculated movements designed to return the favor. When all the turbulence begins to fade toward equilibrium, there's more pressure. Two opposing masses facing one another over a space, the matter in between compressed.

Just my observations and musings. The situation in real terms is exactly that; the UAS is trundling here slowly but surely. They'll be here tonight if they keep on as they are. The zombies between are being pushed this way yet again, and this time no amount of clever work with ammonia sprayers will ward them off. By this time tomorrow, barring a miracle, Haven will be in a state of total war.

Cross your fingers, make your prayers, and remember always that from the madness of a broken world we built amazing things together.

Valor

I want to say the UAS is playing smart against us, but that would be a super lie. A large forward element came at us yesterday but didn't get within decent firing range even with their mortars. It's like they never learn  any sort of lessons. Did they think the heart of the Union wouldn't be protected? This part of the country is a death trap.

Granted, I might have made it look like we're in worse shape than we actually are. I might have neglected to mention the thousands of soldiers who came back with our people, stocked with provisions and resupplied from other communities. Camping out there in the dark, living in small clusters, just waiting for the enemy to get close enough. Laying traps, planning ambushes, and generally doing all the things defenders do when enemies are at the proverbial gates.

It's a hard life for those men and women. Living in the wild with minimal protection from the undead isn't the ideal situation for anyone, and I salute their bravery. Moments like this make it plain the Union has become greater than the sum of its parts. We grouped together to create trade in the beginning, but when an enemy powerful enough to steamroll all of us reared its head, we chose to become something more. We acted as one people, defending each other with the same dedication each of us show our local communities.

If this is Haven's last stand, it's a good one.

And make no mistake, it might be our final hour. There is no fault to be found in our soldiers or people where our defenses are concerned, but the UAS is now mobilizing as one. Not just a forward unit or scouts--the entire local force. Thousands of people, hundreds of pieces of equipment. The army can only move as fast as the slowest among them, and they're a hundred miles away through land trapped and ready for them. If they make it here today I'd be amazed, but I can't see it taking much longer than a day.

Our brave defenders showed the forward elements what the army in general is going to be dealing with. Not a rousing defeat, but it showed them what they're dealing with. You can only see your friends get shot in the head from what appears to be empty woods for so long before it saps your will. That's ignoring the explosions, pit traps, and general chaos.

This next bit is going to be the hard part. Maybe the last hard days we'll see. I don't think it will go that way, but I've been wrong before. We could still run if it came down to that, but I don't see it happening. We've built too much to leave Haven behind. Practicality is a wonderful way to survive.

But fighting for our home? That's the best way to live. Even if it means dying.