Dancing with the Wild Geese
By
UCSBdad
Disclaimer: By now you should know I don't own any of this. Rating: Maybe K Time: Long, long ago in a galaxy…Er, no. I mean a couple of centuries from now in an alternate universe.
They fired as fast as they could and still the enemy kept coming.
The two oldest Hill children came into the bunker carrying a large basket between them.
"Each take four assault rifle clips." Yelled the oldest over the sound of gunshots.
"What are you two doing here?" T'Pol demanded. "You could get hurt."
"Dad and mom said we should help."
"This is no place for children. Go back in the house where it's safe."
"They won't be safe there." Prebo said. "After all the killing we've done, if they break in, we're all dead: Men; Women; and Children. Keep shooting, T'Pol."
No matter how many they shot more kept coming and the Second Comers got closer and closer.
Trip saw T'Pol's head snap back and green Vulcan blood spray.
"Medic! T'Pol's hurt. Medic."
"Do not worry." She said. "It's only a flesh wound."
"Only a flesh wound? You're hit. You've been watching too many old Earth movies."
"And whose fault is that?" She replied calmly. "The bullet hit the metal brace of the firing slit. A small piece was sheared off and struck me on the forehead. I'll be fine. There won't even be a scar." She opened up her Starfleet issue medical kit and began treating her wound.
"She's right." Prebo said, slamming a new clip into his rifle. "A whole bullet would have gone right through her head, unless she has a thicker skull than most."
"You have no idea how thick her skull is." Trip muttered.
"I heard that." T'Pol said.
In the bunker atop the house Fa'an watched as the mass of Second Comers came closer and closer. Finally, they reached the barbed wire. They began chopping at the wire with knives and battering it with their rifle butts. Fa'an began arming a quarter of the directional mines. When enough of the enemy were packed against the wire, he set off the mines. There was a huge blast and through the smoke and dust, he could see body parts go flying.
Now the nearest living enemy was a good twenty meters from the wire. They just stood in shock at what had happened.
Fa'an noticed his own people had ceased fire, also shocked by the blast and the carnage.
"Keep firing! Keep firing, dammit." He roared.
The enemy pressed forward, even with the weapons fire tearing into them. Once again, they reached the wire and began tearing at it. Fa'an armed another quarter of the mines and fired them. This time his troops kept firing. The Second Comers stood their ground for a moment and then fled.
"Keep firing." Yelled Fa'an. They did so until the last of the Second Comers was out of sight.
"Think they'll be back?" Trip asked.
"Not today, but they'll be back. We killed a lot of 'em, but not enough. They'll try something different next time." Prebo said, beginning to clean his weapon.
"You okay?" Trip asked T'Pol.
"I am fine. I apologize for being critical of you." Vulcans were very private people, and she knew that Tarkai had excellent hearing and didn't want to express her emotions openly. "I appreciate your feelings for me, and I reciprocate them."
"I love you too, darlin'."
So much for that idea. She thought.
Within an hour the various carrion eaters and predators were back. This time Fa'an made no attempt to send his medic out to try to help the enemy wounded. They soon heard screams as the wounded were attacked, but by sunset the screams had stopped.
The enemy made no more attacks that day and at nightfall everyone was fed and the wounded looked after.
"How many wounded do we have?" Jim asked Fa'an.
"Five that have something more than cuts and bruises. Lee Wells got shot in his left arm, but he says he can still shoot. Rifleman Dort got hit on the helmet and has a concussion but says he'll be able to shoot tomorrow. Rifleman Dwart somehow managed to break his ankle. He'll be able to shoot tomorrow but he can't move much. Lance Corporal Tunno got sand sprayed in his eyes. He may or may not be able to see well enough to shoot tomorrow. Last is Corporal Thannat. He got hit in the neck. An inch to the right and it would have caught his flak jacket, but… He's out of the fight."
"Let's hope they don't come back tonight."
Trip wrapped himself and T'Pol in their sleeping bags.
"You've been with the kids a lot, I've noticed."
"Dr. Phlox says we should be able to have children with the proper medical intervention. I need to learn about human children."
"Our kids will be half Vulcan, you know. Don't you want them to grow up at least part of the time on Vulcan?"
"Trip, we will never be able to live on Vulcan. Even the most liberal Vulcans, the most pro-human, will regard our marriage as…obscene. Our children will never be accepted. While Earth has its share of human supremacists, as long as we're in Starfleet, we'll have friends and allies. My future is on Earth. Our future is on Earth."
"Then I'm going to make you the best damned home on Earth that any Vulcan has ever had."
She kissed him.
"I already have the best home any Vulcan has ever had."
The sun had been down for several hours when four shots came out of the night. They didn't even hit the house, let alone any of the defenders.
"Did anyone see where that came from?" Fa'an demanded over the radio.
Rifleman Phu'un replied.
"Central this is bunker seven. I saw a muzzle flash by some scrub trees. They're about twelve hundred meters out. There's nothing there now. Over."
"This is Central to everyone. When you're on sentry, be alert. Out."
Twenty minutes later there was another sort burst of fire. No one was hurt. No one had seen muzzle flashes or any movement.
"Damn it. They're sending out jitter parties." Fa'an said angrily.
"Jitter parties?" Jim asked.
"They send out small parties to take potshots at us and then run. We have to pay attention, or they might start a real attack. Otherwise, they just keep us up all night. Up and jittery."
Sergeant Fa'an with his .50 caliber sniper rifle, the two Wells brothers and the squad's designated marksman, Lance Corporal Vicka, tried to anticipate where the jitter parties would strike next. Between them they got off three rounds and hit nothing. The shooting did keep everyone in the barricaded house awake for most of the night.
Before dawn they could hear chanting and then a hymn.
"Looks like they're planning on getting an early start." Rifleman Prebo said to no one in particular.
"I can see people sticking their heads up to take a look at us and then getting back down." T'Pol said.
"We'll have another target rich environment today." Prebo said with a grin.
Trip didn't like the sound of that at all.
"Here they come." Someone yelled.
A long line of Second Comers stepped off from the rise and began walking towards them. After fifteen or twenty seconds another line followed them. And then another. And another.
"They're well spread out." Fa'an muttered. "But their line isn't long enough to overlap our flanks."
Rifleman Tubo was the best grenadier in the company. He was pretty sure he was the best grenadier in the whole brigade. He spotted a group of older men, greybeards, standing just at the lip of the rise. He thought they might be the commander of the Second Comers and his staff. Whoever they were, they were a target. However, they were a bit over a kilometer away. The sights for his grenade launcher wouldn't accurately allow him to hit a target that far away.
Lucky I'm such a good grenadier. He thought. I'll just have to do this by guess and by God.
He put the butt of his weapon on the ground, aimed as best he could and put the weapon at the best angle to hit his targets. Then he quickly fired four 30mm grenades. They soared into the air and came down behind the greybeards that had been Tubo's target. What they hit was the decaying remains of the so-called Son of God, blasting the remains into tiny pieces of rotting flesh and decaying bones.
The last line was just about to go over the lip of the rise when they saw the explosion. They were shocked and appalled. This was sacrilege. Word quickly spread to the Second Comers in front of them. They stopped and milled around, trying to find out if what they had heard was true. It was.
They lost all discipline and cohesion and ran towards their enemies in a compact mass. Many didn't fire their weapons and those few who did were running too fast to be accurate.
Machine guns, grenades and rifles tore into the oncoming wave of fanatics. They were packed so close together that bullets were almost guaranteed to hit someone.
Even though many fell, many reached the barbed wire and began to try to tear it down. Some even tore at the wire with their hands, doing damage to themselves, but not to the wire. One person threw himself onto the wire and yelled for his comrades to step on his body to get across the wire.
Sergeant Fa'an sat in the bunker atop the house. He armed half of the remaining directional mines and fired them. Again, there was a great blast of smoke and dirt with human body parts flying through the air. Everyone withing twenty meters of the wire was dead or wounded. This time there were gaps in the line of Second Comers. There were now three distinct groups attacking.
The wire held the Second Comers up as bullets tore into them. Fa'an waited until the three groups of the enemy had moved together to make one group. Then he fired the last of the directional mines, tearing the group apart.
"Keep firing!" Fa'an yelled. "We've got them."
And they did. In minutes, the last of the Second Comers were down. The firing stopped, but they could still hear the crying and the screaming of the wounded. And the occasional gunshot from the last of the hardcore Second Comers.
"This time I'm not sending anyone out to try to save their wounded." Fa'an said.
"Look." Jim replied. "There are already carrion eaters coming." He pointed to birds in the sky headed towards them. Soon greenhoppers and three packs of prairie wolves showed up, followed by a new predator. These looked like a long-legged caterpillars about a foot long.
The screaming of the wounded didn't last long, but the stench was overpowering.
Sergeant Fa'an brought all of the people under his command together.
"We have a tradition in Captain Castle's Company. When we get a new recruit right out of training, he's given the rank of private. Once he's seen combat, he's called a rifleman. None of you were exactly recruited into the company, but you're now riflemen. I'm presenting all of you with the steel grey beret we wear in garrison. It has the badge of Castle's Company, a stylized castle with crossed Tarkai combat knives behind it."
He began handing out the berets.
"Welcome to the company, Rifleman T'Pol Tucker."
She raised an eyebrow.
"Rifleman?"
"That's the rank, ma'am."
Four days after the battle ended, Lucky Vaughn and his people arrived. They stopped well away from the carnage in front of the house and Vaughn got out of his truck.
"Looks like you had a hell of a battle here, Jim."
"We did."
"We need to talk."
Jim sighed.
"I'll have Sergeant Fa'an open a path through the wire for you, but just you, Lucky."
Lucky met with Jim, Kathy, the Wells brothers, the Hill family, Trip and T'Pol, and Sergeant Fa'an.
TBC