Chapter 30: Street Fight

Second Lieutenant Caswell politely knocked on the door frame to Special Officer Hawkins' office, "Sir?"

Hawkins looked up from a pile of printed reports scattered on his desk. "Yes, go ahead."

"We have a situation brewing in the eastern part of the town of Maple Valley, or as the locals call it, The Damn." Caswell reported stepping into the office. "Our Fly Drones, monitoring the newly established East River Militia and the Black Rats, have picked up irregularities from their normal movements."

"Go on." Hawkins replied as he sat back in his office chair and folded his arms across his chest. Getting any kind of news out here in this lonely outpost was worth putting mundane paperwork aside.

Caswell cleared his throat and continued, "The Black Rats, in mass, have started to march on towards the militia's main area of control. It looks like there is going to be a fight between them soon."

"Good. Let’s keep a close eye on the fight.” Hawkins replied cheerily. “If the Queen is among them, we can finally start tracking her movements. Have any of the other locations under surveillance had any luck yet?"

"No sir. Nothing of any significance.” Caswell replied. “The previous skirmish between the two gangs, the Skull and Mad Dogs, has reached a stalemate. No signs of the Queen being near there. As for the Mad Dogs and Skull’s headquarters, there have been no signs of her either. It is my speculation that she is either laying low in the unpopulated parts of town for now or that it was a random encounter with her. It's possible she's not even in the town anymore."

"Not possible." Hawkins said waving his hand dismissively. "The radar would have picked up any unanticipated signals from Hover Craft or other air transport vehicles leaving the area unscheduled. Additionally, the drones watching the river and roads would have noticed any odd movements by now. I still think that the Mad Dogs tried to double cross us by hiring the Queen to assault us after our meeting. However, I doubt this theory. The Cyborg Unit intel suggests she would not stoop so low as to collaborate with a random gang boss out here in this wilderness zone. Our base is not exactly a high priority for their rebellion."

"I am forced to agree with your assessment, Sir." Caswell replied, giving a nod. "Any additional orders or do we continue as we are?"

"Maintain current surveillance but deploy more Fly Drones to monitor the northeast side of town. The forest would be an easy place to disappear into if she knew we were still looking for her." Hawkins replied, reaching for the report he was reading prior.

Caswell saluted, "Understood Sir."

Caswell was about to leave when Hawkins stopped him. "Oh, one more thing, Second Lieutenant. Keep me updated on the battle with the militia. This post gets so boring being in the middle of nowhere. Besides, this might be a chance to gauge the strength of the locals if we are ever ordered to take control of that town."

"I will keep you up to date on the fight. May I also say that I agree, Sir. This area that we monitor is rather lax." Caswell said, sounding much less formal than he usually did around the Special Officer.

"Excellent, you are dismissed." Hawkins replied ignoring the comment and turned back to work on the reports still scattered on the desk.

…

The conflict between the East River Militia and the Black Rats may not have seemed particularly significant to the AFR soldiers, but to the people of the town it was a very intensive battle.

Garret Trellis and his six lieutenants were halfway to their main destination, the ERM warehouse base, when they split up to attack their secondary objectives. Terry, Marco, and Erin along with everyone under their commands, were eager to attack the surveying militia. Many of the gang’s friends had been killed by the ERM during the initial riot and were itching for revenge.

Terry spat on the roadside with disgust, "Those freaking Militia goons are going to pay for what they did. I lost nearly a dozen good men out in the streets after we left the hotel."

"Same with me." Erin replied as he was double checking that his handgun was loaded and ready. "I had some close good friends get wasted by them."

"I'm going to make them suffer so much. They won't ever forget my name after what I plan to do to them for killing Ken!" Marco chimed in.

Of the three men, Marco was the angriest. Ken was his best friend growing up, and they had joined the gang many years ago. They were always together until the rioters chased them down as they were trying to flee south to the safehouse. Ken tripped over something in the road when they were being chased, and the rioters beat him to death before Marco could save him. Even if Ken was a gangster and did some seriously malevolent stuff in the past, dying in that manner still felt cruel.

The three lieutenants were heading up the main road towards the residential areas closest to the industrial portion of town. If Zane’s information was correct, there should be a large number of militia troops looting the area. One of Marco’s gangsters caught an unfortunate local that did not escape from their sight in time, and they wasted no time interrogating him. The man gave up right away and told exactly where any militia members were that he knew of in the immediate area.

He told the gangsters that there were five groups of militia personnel doing surveys of the area and looting any building that was unoccupied or not owned by someone. He then told them that each group was around twenty or so people each. Hearing this, the three lieutenants decided to split up their forces and confront the closest of the militia groups individually. They were confident that they could easily beat them as each lieutenant was leading over fifty gangsters apiece.

After they split up, Erin and his crew were the first to find the militia. The militia was indeed doing as the local had said, they were going down each side of the street checking every building for occupants. However, they were not carrying any loot and appeared to be on guard.

Seeing this, Erin decided to play it safe first and do some reconnaissance. He had hoped that the militia would be greedy and distracted by any loot they might have found. Erin, and the gangsters with him, were hiding in several rundown houses just up the road from the militia when Erin decided on a plan.

Erin waved over a young man dressed in inauspicious attire, "Hey, you. Come here."

As the man approached, Erin started giving him instructions, "Go ahead and walk casually in the middle of the road past them. I want you to check out what weapons they got, how many there actually are and if there are others further up the road."

"Got it, boss." The man said complying quickly.

"You only need to go two blocks past them.” Erin added. “Once you do, come back here to report. But come back from the next street over, we do not want them getting suspicious.”

The man nodded dutifully and headed off down the middle of the broken, pothole ridden road.

"Now we wait." Erin said to the rest of the gang. "Looks like it will be a while before they get any closer to us. So, make sure your weapons are ready. I don't want to see anyone holding clean weapons once we're done with them!"

The rest of the gangsters chuckled enthusiastically. They were ready to fight long before coming here. Fortunately for them, they didn't need to wait much longer; after half an hour, the man Erin sent out had returned.

"Boss, there are only twenty-five guys ahead and I couldn't see their weapons. However, I didn't see any reinforcements either." The man quickly reported.

"Great job. Well, you heard him," Erin announced to the gang, "Let's crush them!"

Erin sauntered out from the abandoned home and turned to head down the center of the road confidently towards the unsuspecting militia. The eager gangsters followed close behind, making sure that their weapons remained hidden from view. If all went well, the militia would not suspect a thing.

...

Terry found himself in nearly the same scenario as Erin had. However, he didn't have the patience to wait for them to know the whole situation. As soon as he saw that the militia were in two groups on opposite sides of the road, he quickly cooked up an idea.

"Here's the plan guys." Terry motioned for everyone to come closer to him. They were standing in an empty sandy, weed dominated lot only four houses away from the militia. "We are going to climb over these fences, sneak through the backyards and break into the house that they are going to come to next. Once they come inside, we are going to ambush them and take them out. Once we do, the others across the street will be easy pickings. Besides, with so many of us in one house, if several of you catch any militia, we can have some ‘fun’ with them once this is over."

The surrounding men nodded in silent agreement. It was a simple and straightforward enough plan for them to understand. Besides, the promise of some ‘fun’ with those that killed their friends was quite inviting.

Seeing that everyone agreed, Terry headed towards the first fence, "Alright, let's go!"

Terry easily hopped over the low metal chain link fence and jogged across the yard to the next fence. The rest of the gang quickly followed close behind. If anyone living in those houses saw fifty men running in their backyards, they were sure to stay quiet. Nothing was going to stop the gangsters now.

Once they reached the indicated house, Terry took a quick peek around the edge of the house's outer wall at the militia. While he did this, the rest of the gang quietly busted open the backdoor of the house and filed inside. Terry was pleased to see that the militia appeared to be wrapping up things at the next house and would soon be on their way over to them.

Terry smiled and thought to himself, "Oh yeah. It's all coming together."

…

Marco didn't have any inkling of patience at all, like the other two lieutenants did. As soon as he found the militia, he cocked his shotgun and turned towards his men. "Let's make them wish they never messed with us!"

The gangsters let out a battle-ready cry and primed their weapons.

"Let's go then." Marco growled, turning to walk right down the middle of the street towards the unsuspecting militia members.

Marco walked right up to the first Militia member, who was guarding the outside of one of the houses. The man was about to tell Marco to stop coming his way, when Marco casually lifted his shotgun. He took aim and fired a single powerful round into the unfortunate man's chest. The sound of the sudden gunfire alerted the militia inside.

They rushed towards the front door to see what happened. Everyone arrived only to find fifty Black Rat gangsters charging at them all at once. Gunshots blasted, men screamed, and chaos filled the once quiet street.

At first the militia were taken completely by surprise by the gangsters’ sudden upfront assault. The militia could only manage to barricade themselves into the houses, in an attempt to hold off the sudden attackers. Then something unexpected happened to Marco and his gangsters, the militia returned fire with their own guns!

Caught unprepared by the armed militia, the gangsters found themselves exposed in the empty street. With the militia personnel now barricaded on both sides of the street, the gangsters were caught in the pincher-like crossfire and received heavy casualties within seconds. Immediately, Marco realized the danger they all were in and shouted the command to retreat and go back down the road to the homes they passed by.

…

Erin’s forces faced a similar situation as Marco. The militia saw the suspicious group of men coming towards them and assumed a defensive position. The ERM called out for them to halt, but Erin and his men in unison pulled out their guns and the two sides broke out into a hail of gunfire.

Being in the open street, Erin took a grazing bullet to his cheek and several of the gangsters were shot down. The militia were in better positions and forced the gang to find cover. In an instant both sides were immediately tossed into a stalemate.

...

Only Terry's group was lucky with their sneak attack. The militia, as anticipated, came into the house and called out to see if there were any residents. The Black Rats had hidden in the back of the house waiting for Terry to give the signal. As soon as most of the militia had come inside, did he finally give the order. The entrance of the house became an instant blood bath as the gangsters opened fire with a barrage of bullets.

Nine militia men were slain in mere seconds. Only the militia lookout outside was able to flee towards his companions on the other side of the street. The gangsters started to chase after him, but they were immediately forced to run back inside when the militia started shooting at them to allow their friend to escape.

Terry ducked behind the wall of the house in the living room to reload his gun. Meanwhile the rest of his men took turns popping shoots through the windows and open front door.

Confused by the stiff resistance, Terry yelled out to no one in particular, " Zane didn't have any intel about this. How is it possible that they have guns?!"