Bullets slammed into the hood of the truck and all Diane could think of was MY BABY! Angry, she waited for the next barrage of bullets to hit, then poked her head around the side and got one of the bastards in her sights.
Bang!
The raider clutched at his chest as he fell, but the others were scrambling over the rocks and getting closer. Inwardly, Diane cursed.
Twelve of them, she counted in her head, affixing her bayonet to her gun. Eight of us with an absent Franky. I hate these odds.
"Captain!" shouted one of the militiamen beside her, apparently having gotten the same idea as her and gotten out an old red axe. "Orders?"
"Wait for the God-damned cavalry!" Keyoni shouted to him. She got on up and fired her hunting rifle again, this time barely missing one of the surging raiders. The odds were not looking good. A few more bullets flew at the raiders from other militiamen, and the raiders fired back. Someone to her right grunted in pain, and then someone else cried out. Not good at all.
She hadn't expected the raiders to be so well equipped. They were clad head to toe in some sort of armor, and the handful of guns they had were deadly as sin. Those were old world military guns, that much she knew, the sort of guns that soldiers used. Her militia had hunting rifles and pistols and axes to bring to bear against that. They were outnumbered and outgunned, and where the Hell was the Frankentank?!
"Leslie's down!" Max called over to her. Diane wanted to leap out and give the raiders some retribution so badly, then, but she knew better than that. But... damn it!
"Keep her from bleeding out," Diane snapped, "and everyone else stay low! Stay low and brace you-"
Just then the roar of an engine came from the left, and Diane felt relief wash over her. The Frankentank was back, a big, roofless red truck with giant wheels and a United Pueblos flag. A man stood at the top with a hose in his hand, as as the bulky vehicle came hurdling through, he started firing huge jets of water at the raiders.
It was glorious. Raiders flew and fell about like bottles being swept off a bar by a pissed off drunk, so powerful was that hose. Any sense of organization they had was broken: some tried shooting blindly at the truck, others darted off and away, and others still tried to charge at the group of militia huddled behind the wreckage of their transports.
"Now!" shouted Diane. "Fire! Fire!"
Emboldened, the militia got themselves up to their feet and gunned down those bandits that tried to get too close. Those they didn't their bayonets, axes, and machetes made short work of. And as the red truck hurtled on by, the militia encircled those raiders who'd been unfortunate enough to get knocked senseless by the high pressure water. Guns and axes were pointed at them.
Still, one of the raiders decided to try and fight back. He started grabbing his gun, and Diane immediately shot the scumbag in the head.
"Parley?" asked one of the other raiders meekly.
There wasn't much information to be gleaned from the raiders, and in the end they were shoved into the back of one of the last operable vehicles, their gear removed and their hands and feet bound in rope. There were six captives, three dead and three that had escaped the fight.
What information they did have was troubling, though, and Diane couldn't get it out of her head.
"What do you make of it, Max?" she asked the bartender as they prepared her white truck for towing. It certainly wasn't operable in its current state.
"Personally," he mused, "I think they're from some sort of military tribe. See, my old man used to tell me that soldiers before the war sometimes lived separate from other folk in their own soldier towns. Pass the chain."
Diane did that, yanking the links and handing it to Max. The dark-skinned fellow hooked the chain on, connecting the little white truck to the massive red one.
"Guess that makes sense," mumbled Diane. "They keep talking about 'The General.' Sounds like any old warlord to me."
"Probably a warlord who actually knows how to wage war," grumbled Max. "Which is why I'm scared."
"Yeah." Diane peered at the battlefield and the bodies of her dead companions spread about it. She thought about the crazies loaded in the back of the red truck, how many more of them could be out there, and how many militiamen each one was worth in a fight. These weren't ordinary raiders.
"Yeah," she repeated. "Me too."
Then she went to go retrieve the bodies. There'd be another ten names spoken on the radio tomorrow.
Bill stared intently into his half-empty cup. Or was it half-full? He furrowed his brow and decided the question wasn't important, not as important as the report he had on his desk. Taking another small sip from his rice milk, he re-read the handwritten missive for the third time.
Really, the Free People of New Mexico were asking for quite a lot in return for membership in the League, and it wasn't what Bigishie would call a fair deal. Besides asking for an immediate payment in foodstuffs (which weren't in great supply in the League), New Mexico's tribal nation wanted a law to be instituted that would give them special privileges, like not having to adhere to certain rules for member states in the League. And they wanted one of their generals to be given an equal rank in the Council Guard. And...
Well, there were several other things the Free People wanted, but their demands would be hard to meet. Bill wondered if this was a disguised "No."
Still, that situation seemed salvageable. What seemed less salvageable was the lack of response from the diplomat who'd been sent to Arizona. Weeks had gone by, and he'd gone out in one of the fastest vehicles available with a number of guards, and somehow he'd not gotten back yet. It was troubling to say the least.
Still, it was better to focus on what problems could be solved, so Bill did just that. He started drafting up a letter, a very different sort of letter than he was used to. It wasn't often that he mentioned the word "trade" in a letter to foreign nations, let alone write to a nation based in Canada. Truthfully, he wasn't even sure if the nation he was writing to still existed, or if it would be possible to do what he wanted. But...
It was done. Bill signed his name before setting down his feather quill. The Secretary General blew gently on the ink to help it dry, then looked back at the map.
"I hope you're the land of milk and honey the stories make you out to be, Gottesland," he said to the map. Then, he grabbed the letter and started on out his office.