Juniper’s Daughter: The Final War

Juniper’s Daughter: The Final War           extract                   

A novel by Nick Armbrister

Rescue!

   Three-dozen signal rockets whooshed into the sky creating a storm at the base. Cocksucker shouted in a venomous rage, ranting and raving at her escape and killing of several soldiers along with the wrecking of the base power supply. The base had no rockets left to warn other army bases that it was under attack; the random trajectories would likely miss any other base in range. Back up power was only enough to power up the emergency short-range radio, the Radio Operator sent out repeated signals but nothing came back. Were any other bases even listening on the obsolete short wave frequency?

   The power room was on fire, this spread to the vehicle park room full of trucks, armoured cars and APCs, explosions concussed the base as two vehicles burned and blew up. Most of the heavier tanks and howitzers were parked underground.

   Sarah saw smoke from the roof and smiled, she recognised the building where English army soldiers had repeatedly raped her. That’ll give the cunts something to worry about! She hid under the empty bank of rocket launchers and watched the scene below her. Chaos reigned still but the fire was being put out, her plan had created a small amount of confusion. This was a base full of professional soldiers, soon they would get her. Three approached her with guns aimed in her direction; she looked behind thinking how to escape. There was nothing to fight back with, she had no gun. She saw the roof slope down to an air vent that led back into the building. Acting quickly, Sarah bent double and ran for it; bullets zoomed over her head as the men fired wildly. Sparks flew when rounds pinged from the rocket supports, Sarah jumped through the wire mesh air vent cover expecting to be hit and miraculously she made it, barging through the springy cover down a dark vertical shaft. She stopped next to a large fan, jamming her feet either side so not to be cut to pieces by the three-foot blades. It threatened to suck her into its midst with the strong airflow and slice her to death. She fought the pull feeling so tired, actually wondering, is it worth it? Death would hurt but then no more shit. Mesmerised by the spinning fan, whop, whop, whop, she had to get a grip; the soldiers would soon be on the roof and would fire down to kill her. Desperately she looked around; there must be a way out? There! A small access door.

   She rubbed her watery eyes and grabbed the single handle with her left hand, steadying herself with her right on the vertical shaft sides. Turning the handle ever so slowly, using all her strength, her old shoulder wound started to ache. More tension and it moved, bit-by-bit until the door opened inwards and she fell through into bright light from blackness. Just in time! Gunfire shot down the shaft peppering the walls and spinning off the fan in a banshee of noise.

   She was safe for now but this game of cat and mouse was fucking her, she was drugged up, tired, hungry, thirsty and not thinking straight. Lying on her back, she saw the open door and flinched when bullets bounced round the shaft and kicked the door closed with her right foot. It shut with a bang. Bright light blinded her she squinted and wondered where she was; she was unfamiliar with the base and had no previous Intel on the layout. No one had ever escaped alive from one of these places. Would she be the first?

   Her vision became accustomed to the light she saw something. Motherfucker! Guns, body armour, bullets and uniforms. She was in the guards’ armoury near the entrance of the base; beyond this room was the guardroom, past that freedom and the outside.

   She quickly checked herself over as she stood up, she ached but adrenaline filled her body now, a chance was provided now for either escape or payback, she took it and kept one eye on the door. Sarah took off her prison overalls. Selecting a medium size urban camouflage uniform she got dressed, then boots which were surprisingly snug – not hard leather, a Kevlar helmet, body armour for her upper body, webbing to hold ammo and finally guns. She picked a pistol, checked it over, loaded it and got four full ammo clips, grabbed an English made machine pistol that had two barrels fed by a single fat mag of two hundred rounds, slung a CAR-15 5.56mm carbine onto her shoulder along with six mags onto her webbing and finally got hold of a box of grenades. Using a bayonet Sarah prized the lid off and took out twelve round green hand grenades, each wrapped in greasy paper. Just like unwrapping a present! Or twelve of them, she laughed, putting the grenades into two side pockets of her webbing. Now she was ready, grabbing the bayonet just in case.

   Picking up four grenades from the box, Sarah walked over to the door, opened it and pulled the pin. She threw the grenade through, shut the door and braced herself for the blast, crouching down by the wall. It shook the walls and flung the door from its hinges. She put the machine pistol into the doorway and fired twenty rounds blind, emergency lighting flickered low on battery power and the muzzle flashes illuminated the area. In a hiss the lights went out. This didn’t matter. Screams echoed forth. Popping her head round she saw a scene from a horror film – three soldiers were in a pile on the floor, all alive but missing arms and legs, these were around them but she didn’t know who’s belonged to whom. She burst out laughing, tears streamed down her face in happiness and revenge was hers. She walked up to the dying men, kicked them hard and spat on them, she didn’t kill them, wounded soldiers were more of a burden than dead ones, not that these would live much longer.

   Sarah covered the room and edged past the crippled men; she looked out of the cracked windows and saw soldiers were taking up position outside, ready for a standoff. She was ready for them. Crouching down behind the table she selected three round burst on her gun and held the machine pistol above her head. Firing blind, she felt the agile weapon buck in her hand. Hot brass shell cases clattered around her as she emptied the magazine, firing three rounds from each barrel in turn, keeping the enemy soldiers heads down and hopefully winging some of them. She had to be fast or they would bring in some artillery. As her mag emptied she got ready to sprint through the front door to freedom, now!

   Throwing the empty gun down she ran bent double, withdrew a grenade so she again had four and pulled the pins, tossing the grenades left and right, running like hell to escape the devastation. Bullets from a dozen guns hit the wall, kicked up concrete dust, smashed the remaining windows in the guard house and whizzed past her head as she dashed ten yards to a parked armoured car. She needed a diversion, this was it, pistol in one hand she grabbed two more grenades and pulled the pins with her teeth. Rolling them under the car, she ran to the outer wall that ran from the guard house to the main gate and hit the dirt while the car exploded when the grenades went off. Bits of metal and armour plate careened everywhere, ammo started going off as more aimed bullets sought Sarah out. She returned fire with the pistol, emptying the clip, reloaded and fired as she ran to the main gate. Tossing two more grenades at a group of soldiers coming to capture her, she again fired, reloaded and changed to her carbine. On single shot, she shot her way through the entrance to escape the base of hell, the only ever person to do so. She tossed the rest of her grenades over the walls to put off any pursuit and then she ran like fuck, through the trees to gain time and distance. On the roads she would be dead within minutes.

   She needed to rest, her body was tired now, adrenaline wearing off, her limbs felt leaden, mercilessly she pushed herself on. For three miles she ran till she had to rest, she looked for a place to go to ground, where, where, where? Another half mile of stumbling on and she found it, an old abandoned Skoda car in the undergrowth. Perfect. She opened the door and climbed into the back seat, lying down using her carbine as a pillow. She was asleep in seconds.

   A strange woman appeared in her dreams, she was trying to say something but her words were all blurry. Dream images peppered her head in a rain of imagery of varying contrasts, light and dark all moving and convulsing together, at once in unseen unison. None of it made sense in her sleeping mind, the last vestiges of pentathol hung in synapses and cells deep within Sarah’s brain, a reminder of the truth serum torture used to invade her mind for all of her secrets. She would have taken a bullet to stop them taking her secrets but she had been so vulnerable. Later she would have her revenge.

   Eighteen long hours later Sarah woke up. She heard gunfire and wondered what was going on. Her hands reached for her gun…

   The Rochdale war veterans were aware of the destruction of Oldham. They saw the bright flash and nuclear explosion that destroyed the town. At first they weren’t sure if the bomb was set off by the army or someone else like the freedom fighters. Going to have a look was out of the question due to the radiation and fallout. To them it looked like John, Lee and Sarah was dead. When John and Red turned up on The Bitch with the story of events, the vets knew it was time to act and hit the Manchester army base. 

   Red drove the trike at a steady sixty mph over the dilapidated road, watching for potholes and danger. John manned the left Browning machine gun, the right seat was taken up by two special gifts for the cunts in the English army – two medium range all use rocket launchers fixed in place and angled to fire up and arc down, with the target seekers on fragmentation mode for max damage. The rear seat was unmanned; no one would dare chase them after what they had planned.

   Following up behind was the armoured car driven by the Rochdale vet in a mission to rescue Sarah and hit the army. He wasn’t alone. Varg, a Polish mercenary who fought in the Scottish civil war and in many other evil actions, also complemented his crew. His single eye stared out of a scarred socket; in the other he fitted a red glass eye which gave him an evil eye and a devil look. Crammed into the hull were four other men, all homosexual and cosy in this war express on the road to hell, armed to the teeth with four more rocket launchers welded to the turret – two either side. Nothing that took them on stood a chance.

   It was a freak chance, which led them down this path to the base, and to Sarah. Gizzy was watching the sky (his favourite hobby) and he saw one of the blue coloured signal rockets zoom down, out of the blue. He tracked the trajectory and drove the armoured car the mile or so to where it fell, in an open field in the middle of nowhere. With great difficulty he retrieved the rocket by hand until he twigged and took a small trench spade from the car. Buried four feet down and all squashed except the small cargo bit, the rocket wasn’t much to look at. He took it to their base and showed John and Red.

   John voiced, “Sarah,” and they set off to the base in the car and on the trike. They knew the way, the English army base was known to everyone all over the north of England, from people being taken for questioning to the deadly assault on the towns.

   On the trip, Oldham had to be bypassed due to the nuke damage. Roads were blocked and radiation levels were through the roof, an extra hour and half were added to the journey time but there was no choice. Nothing happened out of the ordinary but the site of Oldham destroyed brought home the danger now facing them all, as had the deaths of Lee and Gun Barrel, both were sorely missed.

   Army patrols in Rochdale found nothing relating to the war vets or John and Red; they were too well hidden in their secret base and the vets kept a low profile. Two hundred civilians were killed in the attack there and not one talked or gave anything away. A huge booby trap of two tons of explosive were primed ready to go off, once the English army found the secret war veteran base. A little final surprise for their enemy. The war vets had a different attitude than the Oldham freedom fighters; they kept out of the limelight till they carried out an operation. They were planning an attack on the big army base and with Sarah being a prisoner there; it brought forward their attack plan. The Rochdale vets couldn’t help in the defence of Oldham due to the speed and ferocity of the attack. Cocksucker’s army achieved surprise when they hit Oldham. It was debated whether to defend Rochdale against the soldiers who killed civilians while looking for the war vets, to deplete army numbers. This option was rejected due to the risk of giving away the position the war vets base. Secrecy was needed for the mission to wipe out the main English army base in the area and this would be a far greater gain in the long term. With this base gone, the nearest English army base was on the Isle of Man, where they used helicopters for patrols. Choppers were easy to shoot down.

   John knew Sarah must have been alive to launch the rocket(s) even if she was dead now; revenge burned strong in lawless hearts, a toll had to be exacted from the English army. Only she would think of something like that. He considered it a ploy; a trick by Captain Cocksucker to lure them to the area to attack them but that dick wasn’t that good. Yes battle experienced and a criminal with ruthless intent, not a lateral thinker like Sarah. In past conversations, if the worst happened, it was agreed a signal of some sort would be sent by anyone captured, if at all possible. This was it, Sarah’s signal.

   Down empty roads, past four battle scenes with dead civilians, empty shell cases, destroyed gun positions with dead freedom fighters, half a dozen dead soldiers and one burnt out Armoured Personnel Carrier and other detritus of war. Coming close to the base they ran into the first defences, soldiers hiding in a ditch with assault rifles who fired on the trike sending shots overhead due to the low profile.

   John fired the Browning in short bursts and Red opened the throttle, accelerating from forty to sixty mph, bearing down on the squad of four men. John saw his bullets kick up dirt around them, cut twigs and leaves from nearby trees and lessen the enemy firing as he hit one of them. Trying to take careful aim, he found it not possible so he held the trigger down sending fifty bullets at them. He hose piped them as the distance closed, the trike bouncing over the uneven meadow coming to within ten yards of the English army men.

   One of them tried to stand with a pistol in his hand, he fired two shots, one went wild but the other hit the handlebars and whined off into space. It was a brave last stand.

   John sent a dozen rounds into the man’s upper body and face as Red powered over their position at sixty five mph, jumping the ditch and catching the still standing wounded man on the head with the right back wheel. Blood and brains spattered everywhere as the dead trooper fell to the damp grass, joining his comrades in arms. Red and John were thrown about like rag dolls when the trike landed, skidding as the wheels locked doing a one eighty, before Red controlled the demon machine whose engine protested in thousands of revs. Out of control he almost lost it, twenty mph seemed like 200 and the trike twitched like a dervish, finally stopping. Strapped in with five point harnesses the crew were shaken but not stirred, Red unstrapped to check the trike while John covered him, moving the gun around with well-trained eyes.

   Undamaged, Red smiled and nodded, “I built her good, I sure did. My Bitch.” He slowly walked over to the dead soldiers, his pistol in hand. He heard the armoured car pull up as he stepped into the hastily prepared position, searching for anything of use. Through each pocket he looked, curiously eying the dog tags around the necks, one had a bullet hole right through the middle – talk about a lucky shot! One carried a photo of his sweetheart, a nice brunette with big breasts and a wicked smile. Red pocketed this. He took spare pistol magazines for his own weapon and found just four grenades on the dead men, wondering at why only one per soldier? A shortage? He spat on each corpse, got his cock out and pissed on them, fuck them! Part revenge for Gunny’s death. He picked up their assault rifles examining them with a careful eye, good weapons but a little outdated yet effective. He rammed each gun into the soil barrel first to make it unusable. And then he found it, a map case. Opening it he saw the base location (they knew this already), positions of defences around the base (such as this one), other stuff he didn’t understand in code and a cross marked with an “S,” what did this mean? Was it Sarah or a storeroom or something? Spitting again on the dead men Red swore, a wounded one would be good to get info from, he’d crush his testicles with his own fuckin’ hands. Walking over to John he showed him the map, then to the vets buttoned up in the car. Now it was straight to the base, by the front door commando style.