Chapter 9

We gradually built up our level of action against the government, but we concentrated our attacks whenever we could against ONI installations. We had gotten to be such a nuisance that ONI had actually started hiding from us. However, the tips we got from around the country as a result of what we called "the tampon crusade" soon found the ONI operations for us. We never attacked a building until we knew for certain that said building actually was an ONI installation.

Okay, so we were marking time. We were waiting to hear from Mark Adams who had traveled to the Wyoming Undesirables Reservation to see what kind of help they could offer. Until we heard from Mark, we were cautious about expending too much effort against the government.

Then, one day it happened. Somehow, the Army of God's Chosen Ones, probably through some sharp ONI analyst, found one of our exits to the surface world. We had kept observers at every one of the larger portals, and there was a sudden near scream over the telephone, "WE'VE BEEN DISCOVERED!" Well, of course Cheyenne Mountain knew that we were here, but they had been fooled into thinking that we had been sealed in.

Once the observer calmed down a bit, she reported that there was an "indeterminate" number of troops converging on our portal. This was one of the portals that we used fairly often, so I was not surprised that it had been discovered. What did surprise me was the size of the attacking force.

These were only ground troops, so it was apparent that they planned to come in through the portal and attack us inside the caverns. That was not as bad as it might seem, since we had prepared for that kind of attack almost from Day 1. We had automatic weapons covering the only tunnel from the portal, and we had infantry of our own who had spent a lot of time learning the most deadly ways to defend their homes.

What we had not expected was that these would be the elite of the elite, the King David Brigade! These were all suicide warriors who fervently believed that they would get a special place in Heaven if they were martyred in battle against the unbelievers, and we were most certainly unbelievers! These fools did not carry gas masks, but they all carried a canister of poison gas to use if they were cornered. Fortunately, we were somewhat prepared for a gas attack, but we would lose people if we were attacked that way.

We activated our defense plan immediately, and all noncombatants were moved to the deepest explored region of our cavern and the air-tight doors were sealed. There were several escape portals from this area which we never used except to test that they were still functional. We hoped that our children could escape to Mexico if that ever became necessary. A few very pissed off people were assigned to guard them rather than fight the invaders. The guards were needed, if for no other reason, because the refugees would be carrying all of our gold reserves, and that had to be protected from bandits.

The observer was called back from her post, and we waited for the attack. A platoon of fighters was stationed at prepared positions inside the tunnel to pick off any of the attackers who made it past the automatic weapons. What we wanted to do was to draw as many of the attackers as we could into several prepared tunnels so that we could drop the roof on them when they were all in place. This was not a very sophisticated defense, but it did maximize our advantages. Any attackers who were not immediately killed by the falling roof would surely die of thirst or starvation because the government would not make any effort to rescue them. Thus, their martyrdom was assured. That should make them happy.

There was more than a day's delay before we heard the automatic weapons begin to fire. These were robots aimed by radar so they rarely missed. We figured that, for practical purposes, the automatic weapons would continue to pick off attackers until they ran out of ammunition. The guns were firing .60 caliber bullets made of solid slugs. We did not want any small explosions to bring down the roof prematurely. Later on, we would fire our explosive bullets when they were more appropriate.

At first, the firing by the automatic weapons was sporadic as an attacker foolishly stuck his head up to observe what was around the bend or over the next rock. We kept watch with TV cameras located appropriately, and we saw virtually all of the action. Some of the backup troops waiting for people to get past the automatic weapons were getting pretty bored, but they were ordered to keep their positions and not to try to reinforce the forward weapons as long as they did not need the help. That would come eventually.

After most of a day of fooling around, the officers of the King David Brigade got bored, too, and ordered an all-out attack. The soldiers rushed the machine guns and were cut down as expeditiously as had been their predecessors, but on a much more grand scale. There was the first of a series of "choke points" about 100 feet from the portal which was only wide enough for one of our electric trains to get through. That meant that only three or four attackers could be abreast as they attacked, and that was an easy number for us to stop.

We saved automatic fire at this point and allowed the individual to shoot here at the enemy as they tried to charge through that small doorway. Usually, about every 30 minutes or so, the shooting would stop while the King David Brigade pulled their dead out of the choke hole so that more of them could charge to their deaths.

The King David Brigade even tried bringing up their own automatic weapons, but that did not work very well because the tunnel they were shooting down was not completely straight. Their bullets could only travel about 200 feet before they hit a wall and ricocheted around at worst.

We even had some flame throwers pointing down the tunnel, and those were used if the pressure got too great against us. Finally, some fool, out of desperation, ordered that the tunnel be closed by explosives. That did not hurt us, but it did stop the attack until they could find another portal. We wondered just how long the fool who ordered the collapse of the tunnel with explosives lived after the higher echelons found out what he had done.

Unfortunately, the army did not go away, but went on an extensive search for other portals. Dammit, they found one of our ventilation tunnels. Those were small, but they were not well defended simply because we did not have the resources to cover every opening. The attackers tried pumping poison gas down that tunnel, but it was an exhaust vent for us, so we were able to seal it with air-tight doors before the gas did any harm.

Our greatest problem was a lack of intelligence on what the enemy was doing. We had not thought to put surveillance cameras outside the cave to keep an eye on the territory around a portal. It occurred to us that the enemy could do anything they damned well pleased and we would not know about it if it was done outside the cave. Thus, we could not know which portals were safe and which portals might be attacked because we had no way to keep track of the enemy's troop distribution. Dammit, we had to solve that problem!

We had plenty of extra cameras, but they were all in storage so they were not doing us any good. Our problem was solved when one of the older teenaged boys volunteered to take a camera outside and to do his best to get a picture of what the enemy was doing. Wonderful! That was the perfect answer to our surveillance problem. The only real problem being what would happen to the boy if he were caught. The only thing that we could be sure of was that he would die under torture if the enemy found him with the camera.

That was the only thing that made me reluctant to grab this opportunity with maximum enthusiasm, but the boys who volunteered insisted that they wanted to take the chance. I had to say "boys" because the word got around fast about the scouting idea, and a number of boys wanted to be included in the adventure. Dammit, I couldn't stall any longer and gave in to their enthusiasm. Our technicians set up a special room for the monitors and locked in one camera to a specific monitor. That way, there was less chance of a technical screw-up.

The first boy went out with a camera through one of the well-hidden escape portals, and he made his way toward the portal under attack. One sweep with the camera showed that the enemy had already brought in reinforcements. There now had to be at least double the number of government troops on hand than had been there to start the battle. Apparently, these guys were serious.

The scout spent about two hours going from place to place trying to gather as much information as possible. Everything he captured with the camera was recorded so that we would have a permanent record for study. The scout returned without being detected, and he was the toast of the town. His reward was that he was inundated with proposals for sex from virtually every female that he saw, and even he lost count of the number that he accepted. That did nothing but increase the number of volunteers that we received for the scout program.