Warriors from the Ashes by Johnstone William W

Author:Johnstone, William W. [Johnstone, William W.]
Language: eng
Format: azw3
Publisher: Open Road Media Sci-Fi & Fantasy
Published: 2014-04-01T04:00:00+00:00

Lieutenant Colonel Pedro Vega had his driver pull closer to the outskirts of Cardenas. He’d learned from the previous commander of Perro Loco’s troops, who’d been killed in his staff command car by a land mine while riding point, not to stray too close to the front until most of the action was over with. Vega kept his HumVee well to the back of the forward line of his troops.

The action had slowed to an occasional pop as another sniper or hidden defender of Cardenas was found and dispatched by Vega’s men. All of the sandbagged outposts and gun emplacements had been destroyed. In fact, most of the inhabitants of Cardenas had been killed along with the soldiers defending the town. The streets were littered with bodies of women, children, old folks, and even cats and dogs. No one had been spared by the invading army.

Vega stepped out of his HumVee and stood next to the scorched sandbags and melted, destroyed fifty-caliber machine gun, still red with Carlos’s coagulated blood on it.

Vega walked over and leaned his arm on the bent and twisted metal. “Miguel,” he said to his driver. “I am ready.”

Miguel Hernandez took the colonel’s digital camera from a bag hanging by a strap around his neck and quickly snapped off a couple of shots.

“Be sure to get the bodies on the street in the background,” Vega ordered, adjusting his stance a bit.

Miguel shifted to the side, sighted through the viewfinder, and snapped two more times.

Vega nodded. “Good. Now get on the radio and have the tanks level the town.”

“But, Colonel Vega,” Miguel protested mildly, “all of the soldiers have been killed or already have run away to the fields to hide.”

Vega fixed his driver with a steely stare. “Miguel, do you enjoy the privilege of driving for me?”

“Sí, mi comandante!” Miguel snapped smartly.

“Then please do not argue with my orders. I want this town leveled to the ground as a lesson to the other towns that stand between us and Mexico City. Tonight, after we bivouac for the evening, I will print up hundreds of copies of the pictures and have one of the helicopters fly ahead and drop them on the towns to the north of us.”

Miguel nodded, as if he understood what his commanding officer was saying and the advanced reasoning behind it. He did know that every night the colonel downloaded the pictures that had been taken of him in various leadership roles to a laptop computer and printed them out for his scrapbook.

Miguel thought this quite silly, but then he knew little of the thought processes of officers and their need for constant aggrandizement.

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