Chapter 11- Max
The helicopter was flying south east at top speed. Draper looked like he was sleeping as the bird came in for a landing on the acres of concrete that made up a runway. The runway looked in good condition, but it was in the middle of nowhere as far as Max could tell. They had landed to the west of the small terminal and there were a few small planes parked outside on a lot to the north. Max got the lay of the land on the way down, noticing a ribbon of a highway further east. There were also a few zombies present around the building and in the parking lot on the far side of it.
As the helicopter skids touched down, Draper sprang up and removed his harness, then directed his men to get out, while holding Max in place with one, beefy hand. Once his men had offloaded their gear and were in place he allowed Max and the others to disembark, the group quickly moved aside as the helicopter took off. Heat slammed into Max as he stood in the hot sun, the humidity made sweat pour off of him before he even had a chance to remove the jacket he had needed when the aircraft was aloft only minutes before. After watching the helicopter fly off they moved back among the boxes on the tarmac to load up their gear. In a couple of minutes they were left standing in the quiet afternoon looking at the few zombies coming towards them.
'Anything yet?' came Draper's voice over their radios.
'Affirmative, on the south side of the building, I have a Jenner.' one of Draper's men responded, using the army term for a fast moving runner, 'It ducked into a doorway about thirty meters from the corner. I've seen it peeking out twice now. Permission to engage?'
'Denied, let's see what comes out of the woodwork first.'
Putting her hand over her microphone Stewart leaned over Draper and asked, 'Where are we?'
He answered in the same manner, 'Welcome to Madison Airport. It's in Kentucky, south of Richmond.'
'Wow, you said something and told me nothing.'
Max interrupted further conversation by saying, 'There is a super in the building too, in that building on the right. In addition to the one your man spotted. I see eighteen zeds altogether.'
'To the south Max.' corrected Draper, absent mindedly as he told his men about the other fast zombie, 'Use cardinal directions, not relative direction.'
Max had been told this in their briefing, and he nodded to Draper, resolving to do better.
Bill was still in their band, and where Bill went, Ruben went. Max was not sure what their relationship was these days, but the old man had adamantly refused to return to Iowa without Bill. They had spent only one night on the crowded ship before taking off on this next mission. This time they were considered a key part of the mission and Max knew where and what everyone was going to do.
Bill had volunteered when he found out Max was going on to look for Sentry and, of course Stewart vowed to be in until the end too. The surprise was that Javier had decided to come along. The young Hispanic didn't have any reason to do so, but he seemed to admire Bill. Part of it, Max thought, was that Javier didn't want to have to go home and tell his friends and family a seventy three year old man decided to go on while he came home. Machismo was still alive and well in some parts of the country.
The five of them were going to head south from here and then east to the coast, where they believed Sentry was operating. Draper's squad of men had a different plan, they were to head due east and then north, to try and find the remnants of the civilian government. Both groups were outfitted with all the weapons and ammunition they could carry. For Max that meant he was outfitted with a trusty shotgun and a large caliber pistol with dum-dum bullets, a hollow core round designed to fragment and do as much damage as possible on impact.
Like Max, Ruben had a combat shotgun, he said his eyes were bad enough to make carrying a rifle almost pointless, not that any of the others believed him. The rest of the group carried rifles. Everyone also had pistols, the same make as Max with the same ammunition to make supplying them easier. Max knew Stewart had at least one extra pistol that she hadn't let anyone know about and that Ruben had chosen a wicked looking combat knife that he wore on his belt.
Finally there was the backpack. It was a heavy pack, black and water proofed. On the back of it was a flap of material that could be flipped up to reveal a control panel. The control panel had a lever that needed to be turned after breaking off a plastic safety. After doing that a countdown timer could be set. Turn the lever, start the timer and boom, whatever you wanted blown up would be gone. It was very small nuclear device, designed in the sixties for use in the Army. Originally small nukes had been made to fire out of a 'Davy Crockett' recoilless rifle and weighed about seventy five pounds. Fortunately those rifles had never been used in warfare, they had been developed from the world war two mindset to fulfill an anti-armor and denial of territory role. The idea was to give infantry the ultimate defense against being overrun by tanks or masses of infantry. However, it would have been a bad idea, tactically, to make random areas of a battlefield radioactive and 'random' was the right word to use; the weapons were notoriously inaccurate.
Things had changed in the years since the original small nuclear weapons were created. The backpack devices now had a yield of almost half a megaton of dynamite in a package that weighed thirty two pounds. There were other drawbacks too, the first was the bombs degraded rapidly, in six months all they could be used for would be to recover a small amount of weapons grade fissionable material. Another was the fact that to keep the weight low, shielding had been minimized. How much so had not really been mentioned. The technician showing them the unassembled devices had recommended that no one carry the pack for more than six hours.
'A day?' Max had asked.
'No, total.' the man had answered, looking away. He went on to state that they should travel in vehicles and keep some heavy material between them and the pack, lead if they could find it, bags of soil or concrete if no lead was available. The portable nukes had been assembled at the last possible minute, to give them the biggest payload potential. Draper had three of them. His were heavier by six pounds and included a 'fusion booster', giving them a far more powerful explosion. The bomb Max's team would carry was meant to take out one man, Draper's were for 'contingency' situations.
'Any more activity on that Jenner?' Draper's voice asked, shaking Max back to the present.
'Still prairie dogging in and out of the doorway.'
'Anyone have a sighting on the one in the south building.'
Another soldier said, 'I got him. Let me know when we are green.'
A shot rang out and a bullet ricocheted between the four black packs sitting on the runway. Everyone seemed reluctant to grab them.
'Green, fire at will.' shots rang out from the surrounding men, they fired not only on the two super zombies, but also on the oncoming shamblers.
'There dead Draper.' Max said, as the two super zombies faded out of his view.
Draper nodded and said, 'Main threat eliminated. Red team move forward on house cleaning duty. Blue back them up. Green grab the tick tacks and act as reserve.' The man turned to Bill and said, 'Get up Lieutenant and have one of your men grab the pack, follow us in, but not too close.'
Bill had received a field promotion to second lieutenant and Ruben to 'Warrant Officer One' whatever that meant. Ruben seemed proud, even if he wryly gave the opinion that it was a pre-posthumous promotion. Max and Stewart were left in limbo, officially being drafted by special order of the acting government, but not given any rank. Draper referred to them as specialists or advisors.
'Javier, Ruben, keep Max and Stewart out of trouble. I'll get the nuke.' he reached back and took a hold of the pack by the handle on the top.
'Geez L-T, the grunts are supposed to do the grunt work.' Ruben mock complained, 'If you do it they will get soft and lazy.'
'I think we'll all have a chance to lug this thing around, the sooner I get my six hours in, the sooner
