Chapter 2

Melody woke to shouts and gunfire. She groaned and checked her watch. Three hours, more than she'd really expected. She stuffed her poncho liner into her ruck, and grabbed the rest of her gear. She was disoriented a moment, then realized the firing came from inside the arena. She walked over to the roll up doors, and peered outside. Nobody on the loading dock, but there was a gunner in each of the Hum-Vees. She went back to where she'd been sleeping, and kicked the other soldier from her company on the bottom of his boots to wake him up. He only groaned and rolled over on the stack of empty cardboard boxes. She kicked harder. "Wake up Roland, something's wrong."

He sat up and fumbled with his rifle. "Sergeant?"

"Get your gear together and outside, I got a bad feeling about this." The pre-dawn air was chilly, but that wasn't what made the hair on the back of her neck stand up. Rioters moaned and pushed at the fence. They stood three deep in places, and even from the loading dock, she heard the fence creak. "Who's in charge here?"

One of the gunners pointed to the tracked vehicle. She climbed up next to the turret, and rapped on the commander's hatch. After a moment it popped open. A sergeant she hadn't met before looked her over. "What's going on in there?"

She'd been about to ask him the same thing. "Where's the rest of your platoon?"

He jerked his thumb at the bay doors behind him. "Inside, the CO sent everyone but two per vehicle to deal with a disturbance, some of the refugees getting violent."

She pointed to the crowd straining against the fence. "I think you better do something about that before it falls down."

"I think you're right, there were only half as many there an hour ago." He picked up the handset for the vehicle radio, and winced as he hit his bandaged hand on the rim of the hatch. It squawked as he held down the push to speak button. "India-Charlie-Six, this is India-Charlie-Two over." He waited, then tried again. There was no response. "Any station this net, any station this net, this is India-Charlie-Two."

The responding voice was male, young and scared, but followed procedure. " India-Charlie-Two, this is India-Charlie-Three over."

That was the third platoon, stationed in front. "Charlie-Three, what is the situation? Over."

Gunfire came through on the radio seconds ahead of the sound from the front of the building. "We got a minor breach in the fence, then word came down from Six to thin out the crowd. Then first platoon all went to the infirmary some kind of riot there. Over."

"Rodger that, we'll thin out here too. Out." The sergeant nodded to her, "Looks like we better do something." He eyed the mob beyond the fence. "I don't think we should do it from here, don't want to weaken the fence. On the other hand last orders we got were to stay in the vehicles ready to move. Can you two take care of it?"