The Guardians, page 1
The Guardians: The New Homefront, Volume 2
By Steven C. Bird
The Guardians: The New Homefront, Volume 2
Copyright 2014 by Steven C. Bird
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, copied, or shared without expressed consent and prior authorization from the author.
Published by Steven C. Bird at Homefront Books
Kindle Edition 6-23
ISBN: 978-1-4951-1852-4
www.homefrontbooks.com
www.thelastlayover.com
scbird@homefrontbooks.com
Table of Contents
Disclaimer
Dedication
Introduction
Chapter 1: A Brother's Quest
Chapter 2: Homesteading On the Homefront
Chapter 3: Texas A&M
Chapter 4: The Confederacy
Chapter 5: Nightmares
Chapter 6: On the Move
Chapter 7: For Old Time's Sake
Chapter 8: Wilson's Run
Chapter 9: Haley's Journey
Chapter 10: A Culmination of Events
Chapter 11: Building a Community
Chapter 12: Awakening
Chapter 13: Trespassers
Chapter 14: Road to Recovery
Chapter 15: Rustlers
Chapter 16: Unbreakable Bonds
Chapter 17: Heartbreak
Chapter 18: Preparations
Chapter 19: A Community's Strength
Chapter 20: Contact
Chapter 21: Moving On
Chapter 22: The Observer
Chapter 23: The Trojan Horse
Chapter 24: Resolve
Chapter 25: Tupelo Bound
Chapter 26: The Drive
Chapter 27: The Flight
Chapter 28: Connections
Chapter 29: Mississippi
Chapter 30: Psychological Warfare
Chapter 31: Back on the Road
Chapter 32: Guerrilla Warfare
Chapter 33: Advice from a Stranger
Chapter 34: A Victorious Return
Chapter 35: Nate's Plan
Chapter 36: Recon
Chapter 37: The River
Chapter 38: The Reunion
Chapter 39: The Resolution
A Note from the Author
Disclaimer
The characters and events in this book are fictitious. Any similarities to real events or persons, past or present, living or dead, is purely coincidental and are not intended by the author. Although this book is based on real places and some real events and trends, it is a work of fiction for entertainment purposes only. None of the activities in this book are intended to replace legal activities and your own good judgment.
Some items in this series have been changed from their actual likenesses to avoid any accidental sharing of Sensitive Security Information (SSI). The replacement values serve the same narrative purpose without exposing any potential SSI.
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Dedication
To my loving wife and children:
Monica, Seth, Olivia, and Sophia
As I continue with this series, you still inspire me and drive me to accomplish all I can. It is my constant desire to protect you and provide for you that drives my imagination in ways that allowed me to create this story, and to continue it into a series. Every day that I wake up, I hope that I can use that day to somehow improve myself, so that I can be a better husband and father. Hopefully this series will contribute to the things that will lead to a new and exciting life for us. I love you all.
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Introduction
Just over one year ago, a chain of events were set in motion that would forever change the United States of America. A series of strategic, non-military attacks, were launched on our nation's key infrastructure components, in an effort to bring our once thriving country to its knees. Oil refineries, electrical power plants, power distribution components, municipal water supplies, transportation infrastructure, food production and distribution, and financial institutions all came under attack.
Over the course of several weeks as the attacks continued, enough of the nation’s critical infrastructure components were destroyed or severely damaged that a majority of Americans were left fending for themselves. They were left without the emergency response systems and governmental support that they had come to expect. A society that had become completely dependent on our complex and highly automated supply chains and financial systems, quickly found themselves in a world devoid of all types of electronic transactions, leaving them with no access to what had become nothing more than virtual money. Additionally, without the networked and automated logistical systems incorporated into nearly every supply chain, commerce came to a halt as well, leaving grocery store shelves empty with no readily available means of resupply.
As desperation set in, the dark side of humanity quickly overtook our once polite and peaceful society. Good people were forced to take desperate measures to provide for themselves and their families, while the less than desire-able elements of society quickly realized that they could now come out of the shadows. These elements found a world where they could use violence and intimidation to take and do whatever they wanted, unencumbered by of any sort of traditional civil authorities.
All levels of government also found themselves in disarray. With no specific group or organization being clearly responsible for the attacks, as well as the existence of clear evidence that those involved were assisted by elements from within our own federal government, blame and accusations of guilt were quickly pointed in all directions. Some of this blame was well supported by facts and circumstances, while some was assigned simply to usurp power and to take political advantage in the vacuum of organized civil authority. As a former White House Chief of Staff once famously said, "Never let a crisis go to waste, and by that, I mean we can now do what we could not get done before."
Over the course of the year that followed, the country continued on a course of steady decline, to what some felt was an unofficial civil war. With resistance to a Federal government that was now controlled solely by the President via the powers enacted due to the state of emergency, the country was severed into several regions of control.
The Northeastern United States, starting from coastal Virginia, going all the way up the East Coast and wrapping back around to Chicago, was strongly in the hands of the President's regime. In addition, the Federal Government controlled most of the West Coast, with the exception of the eastern areas of Washington and Oregon, which were heavily influenced by the Northwestern Defensive Coalition formed by Idaho, Montana, Wyoming, and Colorado. Most of the Midwestern states rejected the over-reaching authority of the Federal Government as well, and remained autonomous, as did the states across the Southern United States.
These political boundaries, even on a state by state level, did not mean much in most places however; as the state of things did not afford the state or the federal governments the logistics and resources necessary to adequately govern very far outside of their capitols. This meant that for most people, the only sort of authority they were likely to encounter was criminal organizations, or local citizen militias. The latter being primarily the case in the regions of the country such as the south, where civilian gun ownership was high. This made the availability of guns and ammunition an asset for self-defense. The more politically oppressed parts of the country, like New Jersey and New York, simply did not have a citizenry with prior access to arms and ammunition, and therefore easily fell in line with the ever increasing encroachment of government in their region.
With food, fuel, and medical resources becoming increasingly scarce, and electrical power still being unavailable in most of the country, the barter system had returned as the primary means of trade as the U.S. dollar was now worthless. It was backed by nothing but what had now become a failed government and was abandoned as a reserve currency throughout the rest of the world.
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Chapter 1: A Brother's Quest
It had been a year ago today when Petty Officer Second Class Nathan Hoskins left his U.S. Navy duty station in San Diego, CA. After the collapse and the ensuing struggle for power within all levels of government, the military was purged of all senior leadership, both officer and enlisted, that did not show total allegiance to the current President and his administration. The power grabs and controls that the federal government had imposed and attempted to impose on the American people, which often ended in violence against civilians, caused many to resist or refuse such orders. As patriotic service men and women resisted, and were severely punished or imprisoned for doing so, mass desertions began to take place.
Some deserters simply left in order to try to link up with and find surviving family members, while others sought out and joined underground resistance movements and states with National Guard units that were still loyal to the constitution. Petty Officer Hoskins, a Navy Master-At-Arms, fit into both camps. He was a Naval Security Force patrol officer at Naval Base San Diego when it all went down. He had seen enough government abuse of power after the collapse to realize that he may be on the wrong side. With that realization, he knew his first priority was to reunite with family, and second was to find his place in this new world where he could once again serve and protect his fellow Americans, rather than to oppress them.
His younger brother was a first year medical student at Texas A&M's College of Medicine when the collapse began. He had not had any contact with his brother or his parents since then. His new mi ssion was to reunite with his brother, and together travel to Virginia to find their parents.
As he left his post at Naval Station San Diego, Nathan, or Nate as his friends and family called him, took with him his government issued Benelli M4 shotgun and his Beretta M9 service pistol. These two items had saved his life countless times along the way, as well as helping him to barter his security services in exchange for food and a place to stay at various places along the way. Farmers had been having a serious problem trying to keep looters from devastating their crops and stealing their livestock, and they were quick to hire on armed and experienced security personnel such as Nate.
His journey had taken him across the American Southwest by way of the Interstate 10 corridor. Although he stayed clear of I-10 itself, as he knew it would be a line of drift for many people escaping the chaos of Southern California, he used it as a general guide to follow, hand-railing it by way of back roads and small towns along the way. Being an outdoorsman, Nate used wildlife refuges and national parks as a refuge for himself during the journey. Although many people had taken to this way of thinking, there was still far less of a chance to encounter trouble far off into the woods than in places where people were expected to travel and congregate. He made stops in the Kofa National Wildlife Refuge near Yuma, Arizona, the Ironwood Forest in Marana, Arizona, the Coronado National Forest in Benson, Arizona, the Gila National Forest in Glenwood, New Mexico, and the Lincoln National Forest in Alamogordo, New Mexico. He came out of the Lincoln National Forest on its southern most edge, and continued southeast until he came upon Highway 285. He followed 285 south to Carlsbad, New Mexico, intentionally staying south of Artesia, New Mexico. His goal was to remain south of Artesia to avoid the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center located there. He was not sure of the current federal presence in Artesia, but he knew as a deserter, it was best not to risk getting to close. Once near Carlsbad, Nate knew he needed a break from his cross-country backwoods travels. On the southeast edge of town on the southern bank of the Pecos River, Nate found employment as a security guard with a small family owned farm owned by the Peterson family. He made a deal with the farmer to pay him only in room and board, as well as credit towards earning a horse that he could use to continue his travels into Texas in search of his brother.
Over the course of several months Nate became quite close with the family. They taught him the basics of farming and animal husbandry, and he used those skills to help in numerous ways on their farm, in addition to his security duties.
As Nate began to get a little too comfortable with life on the Peterson Farm, he felt that he needed to get back to his mission of finding his brother before he lost the fire in his heart. Comfort can quickly turn into months and years that have gone by, and he wanted to keep his promise that he had made to himself to reunite his family. The Petersons, being a very tight knit family, understood and gave him a healthy young mare and fitted him out with a saddle and packs to carry along some food and supplies.
After saying his goodbyes, Nate rode away from the Peterson Farm and continued his journey by following the Pecos River down to Pecos, Texas. From there, he headed due east towards San Angelo. From San Angelo, he continued on to Brady, and then across Interstate 35 near Temple and then on to College Station.
After a long and dangerous journey from Southern California, through Arizona, New Mexico, and through Texas, Nate as most everyone in his family called him, had finally arrived on the outskirts of College Station. Having been hardened by a journey full of conflict and struggle, Nate approached the city with extreme caution.
Along the way, Nate had gathered as much intelligence as he could as to what to expect. Texas had been one of the constitutionally loyal states that worked against the Federal Government and its attempt at using the state of emergency as an opportunity to impose its will on the states. Before the collapse, the Texas Army and Air National Guard's already had a healthy force strength due to the state's patriotic and proud population. Currently however, with a massive flood of patriotic civilian volunteers and deserting federal service men and women, their numbers where nearly double what they were before the collapse. This made Texas a safe haven for those seeking to flee the near totalitarian rule of the Federal Government.
So far in his journey, he had found Texas to be a much more stable place than the other states that he had traversed to get there. Some smaller towns had even managed to get a partial electrical grid up and running for their hospitals and core infrastructure components, returning their citizen's lives to a certain level of pre-collapse normalcy. He was very thankful that his brother had chosen Texas A&M over The University of Massachusetts and Northwestern University in Chicago, as those regions of the country were devastated by both the terror attacks and the violence and lawlessness that followed. The population die off in those areas and others was rumored to be as high as fifty percent.
This was due not only to the devastating attacks and the violence that followed, but also the regional instability meant that there was no supply chain from the other regions of the country that they normally depended on for food and supplies. Many people died of starvation and illnesses associated with malnutrition, as well as other health problems that would have been treatable before the collapse. Those areas of the country that had populations that depended heavily on the rest of the country for constant support and supply simply could not defend or provide for themselves.
Even with the hope that his brother was still safe and sound here in Texas, Nate knew that finding him, if he had not moved on himself, would take what seemed like an act of God. He had been avoiding government authorities of all kinds during his journey, both because he was a deserter and because he did not want to get caught up in anyone else's struggles, but he felt that was the time to ask for help if he had any chance of finding his brother.
As he rode into the outskirts of town, he approached what appeared to be a Texas National Guard outpost. It had a sign with bearing the Texas flag and simply read "CS Post 19". His shotgun was in plain view in a homemade scabbard tied to his saddle, and his M9 was on his side holstered in plain view as well. The Guardsman standing watch at the entrance to the office stood up as he approached. Nate brought his horse to a stop and slowly climbed down from the saddle. As he got closer, he noticed the soldier was wearing the traditional National Guard uniform, but appeared to be in his mid-fifties and wore a short goatee beard. He had a Texas flag on his sleeve, but no U.S. Government markings could be seen anywhere on his uniform. This gave him pause as he did not fit the profile of a traditional guardsman, but he approached the man regardless, as he was desperate to begin the search for leads that may help him find his brother.
"What can I do for you Sir?" asked the obviously cautious soldier.
"What agency do you serve?" questioned Nate in reply.
"I only serve the people Sir. My name is Jeff Collins. I'm...well... we here, are with the Texas Citizen's Guard. We are working in voluntary cooperation with the Texas State Guard."
"Do you mean Texas National Guard?" asked Nate.
"Formerly the National Guard," he quickly replied. "When the State of Texas decided to take a stand against the regime's push for power, the governor dropped the word National and severed all ties with the federally controlled U.S. Army and Air Force. There was already a Texas State Guard in place, which was a volunteer group that augmented the Texas military and civil authorities during a state of emergency. The governor essentially merged the Texas Army National Guard and Texas Air National Guard with the Texas State Guard. As a result, the traditional National Guard military forces and the Texas State Guard stand as one, organized like the traditional military side of the house, with a few special considerations here and there. The Texas Citizen's Guard is basically civilian militia volunteers that work in concert with the State Guard in local areas. We are people who want to be the guardians of our own communities, on a strictly local level. Some of us can't just pack up and go wherever the governor needs us, due to family constraints or disabilities, but we can help out in our own local areas. The affiliation with the Texas State Guard gives us more of a standing and trust with the people than if we were a bunch of different unaffiliated militia groups."
