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It felt more like a day in mid-August than a day in early June. The heat waves gyrated and pulsated against the asphalt in an almost obscene manner, and the scene from a short distance away was as if Lake Chatuge had overflowed its banks to inundate the black asphalt of former US Highway 76. Of course, it hadn’t rained for weeks. Welcome to summer in the South.
Caleb had witnessed a lot of suffering and horrible things in the final months of his childhood life in Marietta, Georgia but the carnage in the denser urban neighborhoods of downtown Atlanta was far greater. Yet as the pandemic worsened and the supply chain faltered, food and basic supplies became scarcer, which put society in competition with itself. The results were devastating and quickly spread into the suburbs of every major city in America and beyond. Marietta was just the next place in the crosshairs.
Now 17 years old, on this day that distant chapter of Caleb’s life was not dominating his thoughts. Filling the empty orange, five-gallon Home Depot bucket with blackberries was…
Having not been bush hogged for several years, what was once the right of way along the old highway now provided the perfect sunny environment for an intense thicket of thorny blackberry groves more easily accessible via the adjoining asphalt roadbed. And the arrival of June has always ushered in the peak of blackberry picking season in the Deep South. At least there were a few things that the pandemic and unrest that followed couldn’t change.
It happened in an incredibly short amount of time. In just a few weeks after the identification of the deadly viral strain, the mortality rate soared to 50% for those unfortunate enough to get infected in the first, most potent and contagious wave. And that was in America.
The death rate worldwide was even worse. The terror wrought by the sudden onslaught of death and grief caused everyone to simply hunker down at home… and that included those serving in the medical community, law enforcement, the manufacturing industry, agricultural sector and even the military. So, it wasn’t a World War 3 scenario, nuclear holocaust or civil war that led to the fall of America and every other civilized nation on the planet. Everyone either died or just stayed home.
At first, he wasn’t sure what he was seeing because the shimmering heat waves made it difficult to discern real objects in the distance from a mirage. But as soon as Caleb realized it was a vehicle traveling toward him, he quickly crouched behind the blackberry grove to hide. And though the truck passed without noticing Caleb, he knew they’d return because the Hiawassee River Bridge was out just a couple miles further up in the direction the truck was heading. So as soon as the truck was out of sight, Caleb beat a trail back to the village to tell the others. The blackberries would have to wait.
Marietta was a fine community in its day. Cobb County boasted one of the highest per capita household incomes in America and very few homes in Caleb’s neighborhood could be purchased for less than a seven-figure sum. But soon after the collapse, famine and desperation pushed people out of urban Atlanta and the wave of civil disobedience spread as quickly as the virus did. And it was just as lethal. Eventually, some semblance of order was restored but only by opportunistic strongmen who managed to outthink or out muscle (or simply outlive) their rivals to essentially become a dictator of a city state. This saga was unfolding everywhere.
Caleb’s parents and kid sister Lea survived the pandemic, though all four family members were infected over the first year and a half, with Lea experiencing the most severe case. Caleb wouldn’t have admitted it back then, but he loved Lea more than anything on the planet and was so concerned about her illness that he never left her side while she was ailing and tended to her every need. However, he still referred to her as “The Brat”, and no matter her age at any point in their future lives, Lea would always be two years Caleb’s junior.
With resources available to the family via both parents’ successful corporate careers as well as some quick-thinking liquidation of investment accounts, crypto currency and other assets before the banking industry seized up, Caleb’s family made all the right moves before and even during the unrest. Diamonds and other precious stones, gold and silver in small pieces, jewelry, and tradable commodities, plus a stash of cash hidden in several clever places in the house (and yard) and with a room filled to the ceiling with canned food, prepper’s supplies, and bottled water, they had fared much better than many of their formerly affluent neighbors. Most neighbors in Atlanta Country Club Estates were ill prepared (including Bob Fox, the next-door neighbor who had been retired for some time but had formerly managed the Atlanta Braves to three World Series titles). (Who could ever forget the slogan: “Worst to First”)?!
Caleb was out of breath when he got back to the village his family considered its new home. Though the highway was less than a mile away, it was all uphill to get back to the village from the blackberry grove, and Caleb was humping it. It was a beautiful place, discreetly located in the depths of the dense Nantahala National Forest where a remnant had banded together and decided to settle after a shared nomadic existence and some very difficult years. His family left Marietta when it became too dangerous to stay there, and for better or worse, fate seemed to have dropped them in this forest.
While wandering north, Caleb and Lea lost their mom who succumbed to an illness unrelated to the virus. The medical community never re-emerged after the pandemic, such that formerly mundane and routine illnesses and ailments, without treatment, soon became almost as lethal to the survivors as the virus. In her final moments, Caleb’s mother hugged Lea then pulled Caleb close to whisper something to him that only he could hear. As he fought to contain the tears, Caleb replied “I will, no matter what”. She had asked him to look after Lea.
The villagers simply wanted a self-sustaining safe place to raise their children, and this spot in the lower elevations of the southern Appalachian Mountains had it all: whitewater rivers, a proximate deep-water lake, plenty of densely wooded forests that offered an almost infinite supply of wood to use for building shelters and for fire, rich fertile soil and a bonanza of wild game and fish. But most importantly, it was in the middle of nowhere, and outsiders rarely ever stumbled into the area, let alone had access to gasoline to travel through or close by in a vehicle. That’s why Caleb’s sighting was of significance and compelled him to tell the others about the vehicle he had seen as quickly as possible.
In the immediate aftermath of the collapse, a self-proclaimed “Mayor” of Atlanta rose to power and enriched himself and his team of enforcers by sending “taxation squads” door to door, initially extorting valuables, food, guns, ammunition, and durable goods. If they stumbled upon a residence they liked, they would simply “evict” the rightful owners via a tax lien delivered at gunpoint. Caleb’s family endured increasingly frequent visits themselves and their supply of commodities quickly dwindled. But it was not until the Cobb County Tax Collectors physically removed Bob Fox from his estate and shot him in his front yard (as a warning to others that even famous and well-liked celebrities were not untouchable or immune to the Mayor’s policies) that the family knew if they stayed, they died. Caleb’s dad forbade his kids to look out the window, but Caleb disobeyed and sneaked a peak over toward the front yard next door. The sight repulsed him, then angered him to the point of shaking uncontrollably. He loved the Braves.
The Village elders gathered around Caleb to hear what he was yelling. Caleb’s dad was an elder, but he was on a weeks long trek to Birmingham where Caleb’s uncle and cousins were living before the collapse. His dad wanted to learn if they were still alive, and if so, encourage them to move to the village. Despite his young age, Caleb was a natural leader and was essentially an unofficial stand-in for his father at this point.
After Caleb’s family escaped from Marietta, they drove north toward the mountains in the dead of night in the one car they had yet to lose to the Tax Collectors. It ran out of gas in Dahlonega. They then back packed on foot, still heading north until they stumbled into an early encampment of the Remnant where they were welcomed with open arms. Even though they weren’t, Caleb felt like they were already home.
The Remnant shared horrific stories and experiences of abuse at the hands of the Mayor’s enforcers. And there were plenty of stories about other “mayors” and tax collector squads from other metropolitan areas that ultimately came into conflict with one another. Bad situations continued to plummet into even worse situations, driving the Remnant together for safety in numbers.
The formerly quaint town of Hiawassee was the next interim stop and provided unmolested shelter for the Remnant for about a year. But ultimately the tax collectors followed them there. This was no surprise to Caleb’s father and the other elders who for several months had scouted the current village’s location and deemed it the perfect place to relocate to in seclusion for many reasons, not the least of which was the fact that it never existed. The council of elders took a vote and decided to call their new home “Bosor” after an ancient City of Refuge on the Jordan River. The vote was unanimous.
Caleb’s sighting of the truck was unusual as well as ominous. It meant someone had access to fuel and would therefore have mobility. Mobility allows projection of force. The elders decreed there would be no foraging for the remainder of the day and no campfires that night.
As Caleb anticipated, the blue Ford F-150 made it to the river and was forced to turn around. And on its return leg one of the occupants noticed an orange object just off the road and instructed the driver to stop so they could get a better look. It turned out to be a 5 gallon bucket from Home Depot half full of blackberries…
Life in the village was soon altered as more frequent sightings of various vehicles traversing Highway 76 occurred. They drove slower and slower, especially near the blackberry thicket, as if they were on to the existence of the villagers. And then the Remnant started hearing gunfire off in the distance, growing closer. And closer. The War of the Mayors had commenced.
Though the Remnant had a small cache of weaponry, they used it for hunting and didn’t have enough ammunition to mount any viable resistance against an organized and armed threat. But they were good at hiding and blending into the Nantahala and began a real-life game of cat and mouse.
Lea didn’t mind well but she always had the benefit of Caleb looking out for her and bailing her out of trouble when something went south. Caleb was often punished for something Lea did, or didn’t do that she was supposed to, and he would take the blame or say he was a contributor, and he would accept the resulting punishment without flinching. But with mom now gone and her father away, when Caleb gave her the “do’s and don’ts” he was just her stupid older brother and his instructions were always optional. She loved blackberries, and she really was a brat sometimes.
Caleb usually woke with the sun, but on this morning he had slept in just a little later than usual. Because of the elders’ prohibition of campfires after another recent vehicle sighting, the mosquitos harassed him much of the night and kept him from getting a decent night’s sleep. When he arose, he realized Lea was missing.
Maybe it was a premonition, or telepathic sibling communication, or a lucky hunch, but Caleb quickly started down the mountain toward US 76. As he approached the highway, he saw it. The Blue F-150 was back, they had Lea, and they were pulling her into the truck.
There were two of them. Bruisers. And both had sidearms. Caleb could also make out either a shotgun or rifle in a gun rack mounted inside the truck. Lea was crying hysterically.
He didn’t remember picking up the rock or sneaking up on the truck like a ninja. Or beating the two bruisers to death with the rock and his bare hands. Caleb was just a gangly 17-year-old kid but one who transformed into a berserker when his kid sister was being taken from him. Had there been 3 or 4 enforcers in that Ford 150 that morning it wouldn’t have mattered. The result would have been the same.
When he realized they were dead and Lea was safe, Caleb grabbed Lea and the two collapsed into each other’s arms. They held each other and cried together for nearly an hour. It was when they stopped crying that Caleb left his childhood behind and became a man. He retrieved the guns, hid the truck, and pulled the bodies inside.
Weeks earlier and a couple hundred miles to the west, Caleb and Lea’s dad found his brother barricaded in his home just south of Birmingham. His brother was a widower with two young daughters. Keeping them safe from the madness all around them was a daunting and never-ending task. They had been robbed and extorted, were running dangerously low on food and supplies, and they knew they couldn’t stay in their home much longer. But it would be a long and dangerous trek to the village, especially after their SUV sputtered to a halt some forty miles from its destination.
Caleb left the Ford 150 and threw the bloody rock into a nearby feeder creek. The siblings then made haste for the village. And even though one of Caleb’s strides made for two of Lea’s, he couldn’t keep up with The Brat as they ran. After such a harrowing experience, it would be a while before Lea would forage alone, and Caleb sensed she might actually listen the next time he set boundaries.
Once back at the village, the council of elders was hastily convened and Caleb recounted the story several times. The grim expressions on their faces said more than the words spoken. A storm was brewing.
On the final leg of the trek from Birmingham, something caught Caleb’s father’s attention. “What is that???”
Out of breath and sweating profusely, his brother replied, “What?”
Caleb’s dad responded, “Down there, by the highway. There’s an orange object I can’t make out. I’m gonna go down there and have a closer look. Here’s an idea, how about you stay right here and catch your breath while I check it out. You’ve been sucking up all our oxygen!”
Meanwhile, Caleb led the elders back down to 76 and to the F-150 to figure out how to better conceal the truck and dispose of the bodies.
“Freeze!!!!” Caleb hissed, putting his index finger to his lips in a shushing gesture. He then crouched down and motioned for the elders behind him to do the same.
Caleb’s father returned from the highway with an entirely different and serious demeaner.
“What was it?” his brother asked.
“A Home Depot bucket with some over-ripe blackberries in it. But there’s something else.”
“You look like you’ve seen a ghost!” his brother kidded.
“I have.” Caleb’s dad replied looking ashen, as if humor was now completely obsolete. “Two of them”.
“Dad!!!!!!!” a voice shouted from the tree line.
“Caleb!!!!???” his father replied. They embraced, but Caleb quickly pulled away and had a confession to make to his father.
“I killed those men, Dad.”
Caleb’s dad drove the truck to the collapsed bridge, put it in neutral, and with his brother’s help, pushed it into the Hiawassee River. The current quickly enveloped the truck in concentric circles that got smaller and smaller as it sank. And then it was gone.
If the Mayor’s henchmen found the truck, with a superficial inspection or the passage of enough time at the bottom of the river, the evidence might simply suggest that some unfortunate accident had befallen the two scouts. The villagers weighed the pros and cons of putting the guns back in the cab with the bodies and then voted unanimously to keep them. Caleb’s dad said that a storm was coming. They’d likely need all the firepower they could muster.
It was inevitable. First, more scouts and enforcers from Atlanta came time and again, apparently looking for signs of the missing bruisers or the blue 150. They usually came during daylight hours. But sometimes flashlights could be seen coming up from the valley in the dead of night. Then there was sporadic gunfire. And more gunfire. And screams of pain and anguish, and inaudible shouting that sounded like military commands or a pair of rabid dogs growling and snarling in the moments before they try to devour one another. It started to rain.
Caleb’s grandfather liked to call an intense thunderstorm a “Real Turd Floater”. Caleb didn’t know what that meant but before he could ask his grandfather to explain it, his grandmother usually had her index finger in his grandfather’s face forcefully telling him to watch his language around the grandchildren. Caleb missed them both terribly. It started raining harder.
During the intense storm, thirty soldiers from the Charlotte army were about a half mile north of the village traveling south enroute to attacking a convey from Atlanta that was encamped on 76 near the blackberry thicket. The Atlanta Army was outnumbered but more heavily armed and Charlotte wanted the weaponry, the vehicles and especially the gasoline. The immediate problem for the village was that it was slap dab in between the rival forces, and therefore in the crosshairs of both. A violent downburst coincided with the first shots fired and seemed a fitting announcement that hell was being unleashed in the Nantahala Forest.
During intense thunderstorms Caleb’s grandfather would also refer to the heavy rain as “Flat Rain” (in the context that it was ‘Flat raining out there’). But that term didn’t generate the same level of beratement and ire that using the term “Turd Floater” would from his grandmother. But on this night, Caleb finally understood what his grandfather meant. It was raining and blowing so hard it was raining horizontally, not vertically.
There were many similarities between Earth and the planet Ymir. But there were no windows in this courtroom.
“All rise!
“Please be seated” replied the Judge. He continued: “Members of the jury, you have heard the testimony concerning this case. On the count of Treason, how do you find the defendant?”
“Not Guilty Your Honor”.
On the count of Dereliction of Duty, how do you find the defendant?
The jury foreman replied “Guilty”
The defendant remained motionless and seemingly detached.
The Judge called for the bailiff, prosecutor and defense attorney to approach, and a discussion ensued out of hearing range of the jury. The defendant couldn’t hear much of the discussion either. He understood the native language but could not speak it.
The Judge instructed the bailiff “Please summon the Communicator to approach”. This Communicator had a level 5 certification, which meant he could undertake direct thought transfer with Tera Megans from close proximity without having to use an amplifier.
Thought transference was an evolving science on Ymir, the home planet claimed by the Midji. It was pioneered decades earlier by Ison The Empath who is the only Communicator on Ymir with a level 10 certification, which is the highest level awarded. But truly, with a Level 5 rating, the court’s Communicator was considered highly skilled.
The Midji were the ruling order of Ymir and were descendants of an ancient warrior race that resembled a ferocious Nordic Warrior God. As they evolved, they became some of the most intelligent beings in the universe. But over time they also developed physical atrophy and began suffering defeats on the battlefield against invaders or adversaries that their ancestors would have swatted away like pesky insects. And though these ancestors often exceeded 15’ in height, modern Midji were rarely over ten feet tall and now looked emaciated, almost ghostly in appearance compared to their burly ancestors.
As a result of their growing lack of effectiveness in combat, for a little over a century the Midji had been hiring mercenaries primarily from Tera Mega to bolster their planetary defense force. Zone Trooper 13 (or Z.T. 13), the defendant, was one such mercenary.
As formidable as the appearance of a Midji ancestor warrior once was, its form was human. With their reptilian form, the mercenary Tera Megans were infinitely more terrifying to behold, sporting a mouth full of dagger-like teeth, wings, and a tail. They resembled a Velociraptor with wings, and given their ability to fly, they were a highly maneuverable adversary that could suddenly press an attack from any direction with little warning.
The Judge continued: Mr. Communicator, please make sure the defendant realizes he has been found guilty of dereliction of duty and will remain in custody until sentencing, which will occur in one gravatron.
“Yes, Your Honor”
Time is measured differently in differing parts of the universe. Though there may be ripples that create some redundancy and interesting phenomena, no force in the universe can stop its passage.
Back on earth, at the most intense point of the storm, nearby Chatuge Lake experienced a small tsunami. It was a phenomenon that rarely occurs in inland bodies of water and usually takes a rockslide or avalanche of snow to cause it. But neither of those events had happened. It was something else.
“What was that???” Caleb asked his father, when the ground shook.
His dad replied: “This is the most powerful storm I have ever experienced. It’s thundering so loud the ground is shaking”.
Caleb wanted to ask his dad if Pa-Pa had a term for that too, but there was no time for trivia.
With the element of surprise and numerical superiority, the platoon leader for Charlotte, a lieutenant, divided his attacking force, sending 15 soldiers east-southeast to flank the convoy. The lieutenant would then lead the remaining 14 soldiers in a direct frontal assault. As they began advancing toward the parked convoy, various shapes, and outlines of the wooden structures of the village began to appear in the brief but frequent flashes of intense lightning. The order to get ready to open fire on the lieutenant’s imminent signal was quietly passed from soldier to soldier.
Though a gravatron was a four-dimensional measurement of space time, it was roughly equivalent to ten days on earth.
“All rise!” barked the bailiff. The Jury had been dismissed after the verdict. The prosecutor, defense attorney, Communicator and defendant stood up.
The Judge began his sentencing by providing an otherwise empty courtroom with a dissertation on how valuable the Tera Megan mercenary force was in the defense and protection of their beloved planet Ymir. He then asked the Communicator to determine if the defendant wished to address the court before sentencing. He did.
Z.T. 13 stood up. Standing nearly twenty-five feet tall, he would have dwarfed even the tallest of Midji ancestor warriors of the past. Through the Communicator, he proceeded to explain to the judge that he had been twice awarded Diamond Stars for heroic service under fire and had been credited with over 200 confirmed kills. He had taken part in every single battle during the enemy assault on Nubia City, and though he admitted disobeying a direct order from his superior officer and to withdrawing from a frontal assault by his advancing unit, his reason to do so was to capitalize on a weakness he had detected in the enemy’s left flank and he was simply repositioning for a decisive attack when the enemy withdrew.
The Judge seemed genuinely moved by the testimony of the defendant, who would no longer be referred to as Z.T. 13 but rather Prisoner 13, or “P-13”.
He began his sentencing “Had the defendant been found guilty of treason, by Majillian Law, execution would have been mandatory. But for a conviction of Dereliction of Duty, punishment is left to the discretion of the presiding judge.”
The Judge continued: “After consideration of P-13’s testimony and previous service record, I have decided against execution. Instead, I feel this convict can better serve the greater good of the universe by being sentenced to indefinite community service on the third planet orbiting the yellow dwarf G2V star in the Dumas Sector. There he will either labor for the rest of his life to reverse the self-destruction of the indigenous beings that rule the planet…”
The Judge paused for a full kwimite.
“Or he will die with them”.
The Judge then nodded toward the Communicator and said, “Does he understand?”
“Yes, Your Honor. He does and appreciates your leniency”.
The Judge then slammed his gavel down.
“So ruled.” exclaimed the Bailiff. “A single passenger galactic delivery drone will be prepared immediately without programming for a return vector”.
“You get a second chance but it’s a one-way ticket pal” the defense attorney told P-13.
The delivery drone was cramped as hell. But it would serve 13 well during the journey through seven different solar sectors, and then as a temporary shelter until 13 could find an adequate permanent shelter on G2V-3. Tera Megans were cave dwellers on their own planet and fortunately, his new home was honeycombed with lots of deep and defensible cave networks.
Back at the village, when the main assault began, each side assumed the villagers belonged to the opposing army so both adversaries began cutting down the villagers first, then trained their guns on each another. Caleb’s uncle was one of the first villagers to die. So much for Bosor being the new Utopia for the family that had just arrived from the Birmingham suburbs.
The raging thunderstorm prevented most of the villagers from witnessing it, but a brilliant meteor suddenly appeared out of nowhere and lit up night skies as far west as Texas and as far north as the ruins of Chicago.
The hatch to 13’s delivery drone automatically opened, and water began cascading into the vessel. 13 quickly realized it was submerged and therefore would not be providing temporary shelter after all. He needed to find a suitable cave. The 3rd planet provided a compatible atmosphere and gravitational field that he could eventually acclimate to, but to 13, the entire planet was still a shithole.
After Caleb’s uncle was killed, his father was struck in the back by a round as he threw himself over Lea, who was directly in the line of fire. Caleb’s dad would never walk normally again. In the torrent of rain and gunfire, three more elders and seven other villagers were also killed, but Caleb managed to shepherd all the children out of the village, including his cousins and Lea, to a nearby cave where he instructed them to wait until he could return. Making his way back to his injured father, he surprised two soldiers and disarmed them (permanently). He didn’t know which Army they belonged to, and it didn’t matter. The next day he didn’t even immediately remember killing them. His Berserker mode had returned.
Charlotte had numbers and gained the advantage, especially after Atlanta’s weaponry started changing hands. And Charlotte soon found the cave. Game over.
But just as guns were being raised and pointed at and into the cave, two massive water oak trees near the mouth of the cave snapped like toothpicks. They were turned into splinters by a massive, winged creature. This thing could kill you with a mere brush of its tail or one of its massive wings. Flat rain and lightning. Thunder and straight winds. Groundswells and tsunamis... and a two-pronged attack on the village from opposite directions. Destruction, death, and chaos everywhere. But still that wasn’t enough adversity. Fate decided to add the appearance of a creature that looked like a dinosaur with wings. Or maybe a dragon. Caleb expected to wake up from this nightmare at any moment, but this was not just a bad dream.
Those that witnessed the creature near the cave didn’t know or care that this creature was extraterrestrial. To them it was a dragon. And for the attacking forces, it truly was game over. Checkmate.
Soldiers from Charlotte immediately trained their weapons on it and opened fire. They were even joined by three surviving soldiers from the Atlanta Army who similarly started shooting the dragon. The previous conflict was immediately forgotten, but it was a short-lived alliance.
The gunfire seemed to be more of an annoyance than a lethal force against the dragon. It didn’t seem to do much more than enrage it. In two swift sweeping motions, the dragon’s tail and wings killed all remaining combatants from both armies. The battle was over in less than a couple minutes, or two kwimites by the creature’s time. And just like that, the dragon disappeared into the forest without harming a single villager.