A/N: Short but wrapping up several threads of the story. I'll finish this sometime this weekend.
Chapter 36 The Plague
Wyatt grinned as he listened to the 'police patrols' chatter on the CB radio. He lost his grin when he remembered being on the receiving end of the same tactics so long ago in Vietnam. It had been terrifying and humbling. He wanted emphasis on 'terrifying' since they were vastly outnumbered and outgunned. That's why he'd insisted on stripping the 'police' bodies of weapons and ammo.
'We're the Viet Cong surviving on the leavings of our enemy. Jesus, I've come full-circle.'
Somewhere on Lake Michigan
Sheldon had spelled Penny at the wheel while she rested and maybe took a nap in the comfortable captain's chair. He kept his eyes focused on the many gauges and dials that Howard had carefully marked with green bands for 'good' and red bands for 'bad'. One of the gauges was slowly inching through the green band and heading for the red – the one labeled 'boiler pressure'.
His mind wandered, more from boredom than anything else, and he thought back to the massive chemistry project that Bomber had launched after a simple demonstration and lesson from Sheldon and Penny.
'Things are certainly different from the way they were in Pasadena. Everything's different – and not always a 'bad' different'.
Bomber and Leslie had been scrounging through towns and villages and had come upon a general aviation airfield with several small planes lined up, abandoned by their owners. The germ of an idea formed and by the time the two had returned to Manitowoc High School, they were practically bubbling with excitement and it got worse as Leslie started discussing the manufacture of the 'Sheldon Cooper Kitchen Bombs'.
The boiler pressure gauge was still inching towards the red band and Sheldon knew that something had to be done or all their plans and preparations would become 'turds in the punchbowl' spread all over the surface of a cold Lake Michigan.
"Penny, I know you're tired but I must ask you to take the wheel while I go downstairs and see about something."
She giggled and said, "Sheldon, it's 'below' as in 'I'm going below to check on something'."
He hated being corrected but had no time to discuss his vocabulary. "Penny, the wheel, now!" and he rushed from the bridge and took the ladder down to the main floor even as Penny's voice giggled 'main deck' in his subconscious.
He stepped into the engine room and saw the problem instantly: the 'black gang' was shoveling coal into the firebox of the boiler with abandon, ignoring the gauges and common sense.
Heated words were exchanged and Sheldon grabbed the shovel from one of the men and close the firebox door with it, not wanting to burn the crap out of his hand. He was angry and it showed when he turned on the 'merry shovelers'.
"You idiots will blow us to New York if you don't follow the simple instructions Howard Wolowitz gave you. You don't shovel until the firebox is full. You tend it and keep it at a certain level as indicated by these gauges. Besides wasting my time, you've endangered the mission and this ferry. Go upstairs and sit on your dumb asses until I come for you."
Chippewa Township General Aviation Center
"Ready?" Bomber watched as the last boxes of bottles and jars of Cooper's 'Kitchen IEDs' were carefully loaded into the Cessna.
Leslie nodded, not wanting her voice to betray her fear. Talking about it was one thing but actually doing it was fucking insanity in her mind.
"I'll bet you never thought you'd be flying a bombing mission instead of messing with lasers, right?" Bomber had been more excited about getting into the air again than Leslie. Truth be told, she was afraid of heights and her role as 'bombardier' scared the shit out of her.
"Are you sure they had to take the door off, Bomber? Couldn't we just cut a hole in the floor and I could drop them through it?"
"Just keep your seatbelt tight and nothing will happen, Les. This will be a piece of cake and a big surprise for the bad guys. 'Death from Above!'," he crowed.
Winkle just tugged her seatbelts tighter and closed her eyes and chanted 'He's a pilot, he can fly. He's a pilot, he can fly,' to herself as Bomber completed the pre-flight and started the engine of the Cessna 150. It was older than he was and had fabric as it's fuselage but it flew and Bomber was back in the air where he belonged.
Upper Door Peninsula
Wyatt listened to the panicky voice of one of the police patrol leaders as he called for reinforcements. They'd been ambushed by 'at least a hundred invaders' and they were being slaughtered.
He laughed and turned off the CB radio and gestured for the rest of his patrol to move out.
'A hundred men, huh? Well, eight for certain and most of them didn't hit what they were aiming for but there was no time to train them.'
He piled into the pickup truck and the other followed it as they drove down the road to the next ambush site. This was almost fun. Almost.
He heard his teams report three more successful ambushes with no casualties (this time around) and ordered them to rendezvous at the pick-up point, meaning the piers on the beach where they'd tied up their remaining boats. He looked at his watch and smiled. If things were on schedule by this time tomorrow they'd be on board the Badger heading north for the Straits.
On board the CGC Lake Huron
'Captain' Howard Kaminski was in his glory. The last time he'd conned a ship had been in the Navy and it had been a trash hauler supplying the fleet but now – he was 'Captain' Kaminski and he was the one giving the orders.
He checked the radar repeater and saw the blip that was the ferry and smiled. Right on course and right where it was expected to be. If things went as planned, the Badger would pull up to the pier and take on the Colonials and those they'd rescued. He grinned at 'Colonials' – he was a diehard Battle Star Galactica fan.
Upper Door Peninsula
Enrique Salazar fancied himself a revolutionary and conveniently ignored his status as an unlicensed distributor of street pharmaceuticals. In his mind the only way to deal with these invaders was to find them and pin them down and then use massive force to destroy them.
The only problem was that the invading force seemed to be everywhere at the same time and he was losing more people than he could afford. Already there was grumbling about the need for a new leader – one with a plan, not just a loud voice and heavy hand.
His force was down and so he called all his patrols in and they assembled in what used to be the parking lot of a Food King grocery store. He stood on the bed of his personal pickup truck, all blinged out and painted in gaudy colors, and harangued his people and laid out his plan.
He was just getting to the details when a small plane appeared in the distance, flying low and relatively slow. Everyone turned to gape. No one had seen an aircraft of any kind in months and so it was sort of an historic moment for them.
"I see them, Les. When I give you the word, push out two full boxes and gravity will do the rest. We'll swing around and then come back at them but from a higher altitude. No sense offering them a target after they get over their shock."
Salazar shielded his eyes with his hand and looked at the small plane that was waggling its wings while a passenger leaned out and waved. A thousand thoughts went through his mind. Foremost was that if a group had airpower they could control a lot of territory – he could control a lot more territory…
"Wave, Les! Make the nice men think we're happy to have found them. Get ready to dump the first box and then the second and then hold on – I'm going to go vertical…"
The men and women started cheering when the small plane waggled its wings and turned in their direction. When they saw the passenger lean out to wave, they waved back.
"Hold on," Bomber shouted and then held up and hand, counting down with his fingers and said, "Okay, push 'em out!" He pulled back on the wheel and turned away from the target just in case they failed to properly appreciate Leslie's kitchen treats.
The two cardboard boxes fell end over end, spilling mason jars and liquor and wine bottles in a random pattern with almost no overlap. The effects on the people below were immediate and deadly. The various containers had been wrapped in fabric that contained primarily coins and nails.
Enrique Salazar watched, transfixed, as the explosions ripped through his 'police', rending flesh from bone, limbs from limbs.
Forty-three cents killed him. A quarter, three nickels and three pennies ripped through his chest and he bled out in minutes.
Wyatt watched from the tree line as the kitchen bombs tore up the opposition. He gave a few terse instructions to his teams and then pulled himself up into the pickup truck they'd 'borrowed' and drove back to the beachhead. His people would know what to do and they'd follow instructions but the ad hoc platoon that had assembled itself from the prisoners were another deal entirely. They wanted vengeance.
Eight hours later the Badger steered into it's berth in Manitowoc followed by the Lake Huron and offloaded their 'passengers'. The interdiction had not been without casualties: eleven dead out of the forty people that Wyatt had led north.
It would be a joyous time for some and a crushing loss for others.
Penny and Sheldon stayed on the Badger for a bit before showing up and reuniting with their family and friends.
Sheldon took Howard Kaminski aside and asked him about the tradition of the Captain of a vessel marrying passengers.
"Dr. Cooper, I'm not a commissioned officer and – "
"You are the Captain of the Coast Guard Cutter Lake Huron. Will you marry Penny and I here and now or must we be aboard your vessel to make it legal?"