Chapter 22

The fiasco at Sarah's home had shaken up the troops a little bit. This time, they resolved to be sure of where they were going before they went. It occurred to Spartacus that she could be a good source of information on which houses would be good ones to hit. Also, he wondered if she could help with the problem of so many slaves at the construction site.

This time, the attack on a house produced four slaves who were willing to be trained as soldiers and to help with the fight. They had not picked up any women, since the slave owner had used her slaves as domestic servants as well as for sex.

This time, they cut the slave owner's belly open and dumped in some pepper extract, but they also started a fire under her chair. She had been so cruel to her slaves that three of the four were already marked for life with whip marks. All of the slaves were delighted to be able to help with the fire.

These slaves were taken back to base, and now they had five men without companions. Spartacus figured that was going to cause trouble if it ran too long, so a recruiting run was scheduled on a restaurant that Juno was familiar with. There were six cooks and waitresses there, and she knew three of them, all of whom she expected to want to join the rebellion. The other three were unknown quantities, so there was a question about just how many women recruits they would collect on this raid.

Helen drove the Olympia Cleaners truck and Spartacus, Juno, Atlas, and Joe went along as muscle and negotiators. They pulled up behind the restaurant at a little after 9:00 PM, toward the end of rush hour since the institution of the curfew. Juno and Spartacus went into the kitchen while Atlas and Joe provided cover just outside the back door.

Juno told the women about the rebellion and what they could expect if they joined. They were all promised husbands, not slaves, and five of the women were enthusiastic about joining the rebels. The sixth woman was not sure, since she had a child, and she was not sure how the rebellion would affect her 9 year old daughter. Juno did a little more selling and the woman decided to join and bring her daughter with her.

They were talking about when to walk out of the kitchen. None of them really liked the owner/manager, and they didn't feel like they owed her anything. That's when Spartacus found out that all of the patrons that night were in upper and middle management of the state government. Dammit, this was too good an opportunity to miss! As usual, Atlas had brought along some of his beloved Molotov Cocktails, so here was an opportunity to use them in a different way.

Atlas was called in to the kitchen and the women were all sent out to board the truck. Helen came in with her Mark 29 and Joe was left to guard the truck against unwelcome surprises. He helped the women load their Segways into the truck and generally made himself useful out there.

Spartacus suggested to Atlas that he pitch some of his lit bombs into the dining room and they all could fire a few bursts on full automatic. The combination of bullets and flames should do some good toward thinning the population in state government management. Atlas was delighted at the opportunity, so he got ready. He had three of the Molotov Cocktails with him, and he quickly figured out the best way to use them.

By this time, the food service was over and nobody would miss the restaurant staff who were all out in the truck. The speeches of self-congratulation were going on, so this was the prefect time to strike. They burst through the connecting door, and Atlas tossed one of the bottles toward the podium. He quickly lit and tossed the other two bottles at the side walls. All three bottles broke, and the room quickly filled with flames and smoke. Naturally, there was a lot of frightened screaming, and that was not helped when four Mark 29s were fired on full automatic at the crowd.

The fire was spreading so fast that there was no time for more than one burst from each gun. The rebels had to get out while they could still beat the flames. There was a lot of paper bunting and other decorations spread about the room, and that caught and spread the flames faster than anyone could have expected. Atlas resolved to bring more Molotov Cocktails with him on his next mission.

They got out and hurried home. The women were anxious to meet the people, and, especially the prospective husbands. The husbands were trotted out and the people started talking to each other right away. Neither sex wanted to miss the opportunity of acquiring a mate.

Just before they retired for the night, John asked if there was any chance for his men to have a chance at women. He explained that he and his men had all had the "chemical vasectomy" shot when they joined the military, so there was no danger that they would leave children behind when they left. Spartacus asked about what would happen if the men and women wanted to form permanent bonds; he was pretty sure that the women would feel that way. John said that there would be no reason why the women couldn't accompany the men back to Canada when the time came if they wanted to. That removed Spartacus' only objection, so he gave his blessing to the men and the coupling, providing that they could find willing mates.

Well, things looked well for the ex-slaves to pick up a wife and vice versa, so they really needed more women to cover the still unclaimed men that they had. Strangely, the woman with the daughter had no trouble finding a mate, so that was another non-problem that Spartacus was happy for.

Spartacus and Juno discussed the situation that night and decided that another run for women recruits was worth while tomorrow night. Meanwhile, the Canadians, led by Bob could start the shooting classes tomorrow. John had passed the word to them, so they were much happier as they went to bed that night.

This was Saturday, so Spartacus had two days to arrange his initial meeting with Sarah. He still had not talked much to John about how much they should tell Sarah, and he was very interested in hearing the Canadian's opinion.

Meanwhile, another problem, or was that opportunity, had come up. The Canadians had started paying more attention to the Phoenix area with their satellite surveillance, and Henry reported that the NG artillery pieces would arrive on Monday. They were coming in by train, and should be in the railroad yard by early afternoon. The question was, what could they do about it?

There were eight batteries of six howitzers, so they could be facing 48 guns of 105mm size before the end of next week. Spartacus found this very disturbing, and asked John what could be done about it. John thought for a few minutes and went to call Henry on the radio. When he came back, he reported that they could expect another drone flight on Sunday night. This time, the cargo would be explosives, hand grenades, and thermite grenades. The thermite grenades were specifically intended for destroying the howitzers.

They would either drop a thermite grenade down the barrel or else put it into the firing chamber and close the breech. In either case, the thermite grenade would get hot enough to melt steel and render the howitzers useless. The problem was going to be getting the grenades into the howitzers, but they would worry about that when the explosives arrived. John suggested that they wait to attack the howitzers until after they were unloaded from the freight cars. They would probably need the train later in their campaign, so they should avoid messing it up if they could help it.

The howitzers were finally moved, but the NG was doing such a sloppy job of it that several work gangs of slaves were brought in to unload the train cars. Once the howitzers were off the freight cars, the NG took over and used a tractor-like device to pull all of the howitzers into place. There was only one of the tractors per battery, so the rebels and the Canadians wondered if they wanted to waste the effort to destroy the guns. Certainly, if that was an example of how efficiently the NG moved the howitzers into place, then any battle would be over before the howitzers were ever brought into battle!

They decided that they had ordered the stuff, so they might as well go through with the exercise. The experience could come in handy at some later date. Spartacus wondered if this was going to amount to more than a training exercise.

Sunday night, the drone showed up and they hauled their new goodies back to their base. They unloaded the explosives, but nobody was happy with storing them in the same building where they lived, so they moved the explosives dump to a building two doors away. Anybody, including cops, was afraid to come into this area, so they figured that no guard was necessary over their dump.