17. Two doors down from the Last Municipal Bank was a church. It had white clapboard siding and a steeple that reached to thirty-six feet. It had been abandoned for a few years and he had appropriated it. He’d left the stain glass in to show that he was not entirely void of artistic appreciation. The rest of the church he gutted and turned into a loft.
The TQ assembled in the basement of the battalion commander’s house. The basement still looked like a basement and some of the thirteen had to duck their heads while listening to instructions. Along the walls and in crates stacked on the floor were various weapons. It was a miniature artillery. There were guns, swords, explosives, hand grenades, knives, scimitars and even a rocket launcher (but no rocket – he was still looking for one).
He had tacked up a large version of the map he and his roommate had been working on and was using a broken radio antenna as a pointer.
"We cross the wall here. Our man on the inside has been working on compromising the walls so we won’t have to go all the way around. From there it will be a straight shot," he dragged the pointer up into Sector 8 and stabbed at a circle with a star drawn in the middle.
"We don’t know what to expect when we get there. We have to assume the enemy will be waiting for us, ready to die for its perverted cause. This is a preemptive strike. It’s either them or us because you better believe that if we just allow this cancer to fester, it will not hesitate to attempt to strike us down."
He began to hand out the guns and night vision goggles. He put the explosives and hand grenades in a pack and handed it to one of the battalion members who strapped it on over the shoulders.
He said that bit about their names and deeds going down in history and everyone cheered, lifting their guns over their heads.
"Now let’s move out."
The sound of boots marching up the stairs echoed throughout the basement and then the empty spaces of the church loft.
They marched out into the night heading in the direction of the wall.
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The TQ assembled in the basement of the battalion commander’s house. The basement still looked like a basement and some of the thirteen had to duck their heads while listening to instructions. Along the walls and in crates stacked on the floor were various weapons. It was a miniature artillery. There were guns, swords, explosives, hand grenades, knives, scimitars and even a rocket launcher (but no rocket – he was still looking for one).
He had tacked up a large version of the map he and his roommate had been working on and was using a broken radio antenna as a pointer.
"We cross the wall here. Our man on the inside has been working on compromising the walls so we won’t have to go all the way around. From there it will be a straight shot," he dragged the pointer up into Sector 8 and stabbed at a circle with a star drawn in the middle.
"We don’t know what to expect when we get there. We have to assume the enemy will be waiting for us, ready to die for its perverted cause. This is a preemptive strike. It’s either them or us because you better believe that if we just allow this cancer to fester, it will not hesitate to attempt to strike us down."
He began to hand out the guns and night vision goggles. He put the explosives and hand grenades in a pack and handed it to one of the battalion members who strapped it on over the shoulders.
He said that bit about their names and deeds going down in history and everyone cheered, lifting their guns over their heads.
"Now let’s move out."
The sound of boots marching up the stairs echoed throughout the basement and then the empty spaces of the church loft.
They marched out into the night heading in the direction of the wall.
next