E1: Pilot

Episode 1:

Pilot

 

Five years! It’s been five years since I started active duty here in what’s left of North America. I look around me and all I see our ruins. Buildings barely standing, cars not moving, and everything seems to have a dark veil around it. The company I’m with now started out with fifty of some of the best men I’ve ever worked with, and now after five years all that’s left is fifteen men. Our leader died a few months ago and ever since then I’ve taken the lead. We move from city to city always on alert hoping that one day we will find our way back home.

 

Being out here you tend to lose your sense of direction, so that’s why all we do now is move in a straight line and never turn back. For me all I’ve known is fighting and war. I was the son of a huge military family, but now I’m all that’s left. It’s a hard life, being a soldier especially in these circumstances, but there’s really no choice. The world is at war with each other and every day I and my men pray that we don’t find any enemies. We’re tired, we’re hurt, we’re bruised, and we want it to end.

 

I’ve lost track of the day and month, but I know it’s been several days since I’ve gone without good food, a warm bed, and a nice hot shower. We’ve been walking for hours and it’s almost dark out so I stop my men and order them to take a break in a nearby building.  We got a fire going and set up a watch team while the rest of us either had some dinner they found in nearby dumpsters, or we slept on the cold concrete floor.

 

I was one of the men who decided to doze off for a while, but it didn’t last very long until I was woken up by one of my squad men.

 

“Hey captain. Captain. Wake up captain.” He said as quietly as he could.

“What? What is it?” I said yawning and stretching my arms which cracked with every motion.

“I think we have a problem.” As soon as he said problem I was wide awake and ready for action. I stood up and followed him to a nearby window which still had the glass intact. He pointed to one of the buildings across the way and in one of the darkest corners I could see the tiniest flicker of light.

 

“Shit.” I said knowing that we were going to have a fight tonight, but hopefully they haven’t spotted us yet so we would have the advantage. I turned and face the man who woke me up and ordered him to wake up the rest of the men as quietly as he could and put out the fire before they see it. He shook his head and followed my orders. As soon as everyone was up and the fire was out we all picked up our weapons and started to think of a plan. I knew we didn’t have much time before the sun would probably be up so we had to make it fast and silent. I positioned two of my men here in the place we were in to cover our backs, five men across the street so they could sneak around them, and the rest I sent with me up the road as silently as possible.

 

As soon as the five men across the street were in position I took my men and we started to head up the road. I walked quietly trying not to make the slightest sound. We managed to get five feet, ten feet, thirty feet without detection. With each step closer to the other camp I could see it clearer and clearer. There were at least ten of them over their surrounding themselves with fire; there were two guards on watch, and there were a few men chowing down on something. None of them managed to see us and then we made it to our position about twenty yards away from them. I looked back towards our camp and signaled the five men across the street, and on the count of three we were going to charge. One; two; three.

 

I gave the final signal and then we all proceeded to charge at them. The second we started to run their guards spotted us and opened fire. We took them by surprise but in a matter of seconds they had all of their men up and armed. We took cover just short of their camp and hid as gun shots started to increase. We took turns firing back and forth with no one shot yet until one of their men stepped forth and yelled out.

 

“We are soldiers of the American alliance, please surrender for we want no blood shed.” As soon as he said American Alliance I knew something was up for I and my squad was a part of the American Alliance, and I recognized the voice of the man speaking.

“Lieutenant Michaels?” I screamed from the place I was hiding.

“Wait a minute; is that you captain Turner.” He said back. With that I knew we were on the same side so I raised my hands and stood up to face him and sure enough it was good old lieutenant Leo Michaels. With that taken care of I called over all of my men so we could all join up. Leo walked over to me and we shook hands as he grinned and laughed.

 

“Where the hell have you been Turner?” He asked me still grinning.

“I and my squad have been trying to find some form of civilization around here. What have you been up to?”  I said returning the grin.

“We’ve been hunting some southerners for the past few days. Bumped into them a while ago in Boston where they killed a few of my men, so now we’ve been tracking them south and trying to catch them.”

“Same old Leo, always thinking about the war and winning, have you even seen a single civilian lately?”

“Nope we ran through Detroit about a month ago, but the place was deserted and wiped out, so my guess is they were hit pretty hard. They might have gone underground but we found no sign of that either.”

“Well isn’t that depressing, so where did you last see these southerners?”

“We saw them run into this city, but after we made it in we lost their trail, so we decided to set up camp to see if they would show themselves, but you did instead.” He was laughing hysterically now which made me start to laugh a little. It was good to laugh again but of course it didn’t last long. As soon as I heard the ringing I closed my mouth and saw a soldier standing right behind Leo fall to the ground.

“It’s an ambush!” He screamed as everyone started to run and take cover.

 

I and Leo ran into his camp for cover as we tried to see where the shot came from. We heard a few more and found that they were camped up high somewhere, and out of our sight. The sun was starting to rise which meant soon we would be able to see them, but that’s if we could make it that long. I knew we had to do something, and I knew we had to do it fast.

I thought of a plan and told Leo to run around the building and climb the fire escape, assuming there is one, while I go head first into the building while the rest of our men lay down cover fire as a diversion. He agreed with the plan and as soon as we were ready we charged full speed. As soon as I stood up our men laid down cover fire on the building and made sure that none of them could shoot back. I ran as fast as I could; sweat dropping onto the ground like shells in a gun. I finally managed to get to the building safely and saw that Leo had made it to his spot as well. I took a deep breath to collect myself and then went in without any back up. The southerners had more men in the surrounding buildings like I thought they would so I had my men ready for them if they showed themselves. I didn’t know if their numbers were greater than mine, so I knew I had to work fast. I made my way up three flights of stairs before coming across any enemy soldiers. Two tried to cut me off when I got to the fourth floor but I took them out just as fast as they saw me. Now since I had fired my gun they knew I was in here and coming for them, and soon enough I could hear footsteps running down the stairs heading right for me.

 

Before they got to me I managed to jump into a nearby room that looked like an office of some kind. I hid there for a few seconds as my enemy slowed down and became quite so they could look for me. I tried to get closer to the door to see how many there were but as soon as I did one of them came out of nowhere and grabbed me by the neck. I dropped by gun and reached for his hand as I tried to break free. He was squeezing me hard and I could feel him about to snap my neck. I finally managed to knock him off balance though making him stumble forward and throw me into the desk; it hurt but at least he let go. Now that he was confused hurt and confused I dived for my gun as the others realized what had happened. They weren’t fast enough though and once I grabbed my gun I pulled the trigger and dropped three of them like flies. I was now out of bullets so I threw my gun aside and took out my knife as they guy from before was coming to. As soon as he jumped towards me I jumped and did a back flip right over him. As soon as I landed I sliced his back and watched him bleed as he fell to the ground.

 

I poked my head out the door and saw no one else so I continued to make my way up the stairs. I made it to the sixth floor when I found their snipers camp out. I walked into the room right behind them and tried to be as still as I could. I started to creep of to them when two gun shots went off and both snipers fell through the windows. I looked to my side and saw Leo standing there with his gun smoking. He grinned as he walked closer to the windows.

 

“Nice shot.” I said walking over to him.

“Thanks, but the funs not over yet, look.” I looked down from the window and saw both sides retreating into their camps.

“What are they doing?” I asked confused as I couldn’t figure out why they were retreating.

“Shit, there’s the problem,” Leo said pointing a little down the road at a huge tank that was heading our way, “the southerners must have had reinforcements here in the city and they were regrouping, this is going to get messy.”

“You can say that again.” I said as I looked down at the massive tank heading our way. I thought about what we could possibly do, but the truth was we had no equipment to handle a tank.

 

The tank moved closer and closer and as I tried to think of what we could possible do Leo was already running back out onto the fire escape. I ran after him to see what he was planning and before I could say anything he was jumping off the building and right onto the tank. As soon as he landed he started to open fire on the tank, but his bullets just weren’t doing anything. The southerners men started to open fire again and were trying to get Leo off the tank when our men started to return fire. The tank hadn’t fired a single shot until it got right in the middle of both sides. Leo jumped off the tank as the southerners started to use it as cover.

 

The first round of the tank went off and landed right in the middle of our camp killing most of our men. By now I managed to get down the fire escape to see if Leo was okay. We managed to get behind some cover as the tank fired another round. I couldn’t help but feel helpless as our men were being killed, but there was nothing we could do. I looked over at Leo to see if he was thinking anything when I saw him pull out a grenade out of his pocket. If we could get back on the tank and place it right under the barrel we might be able to blast it off, but we would have to do it quickly and now. He handed me the grenade and as soon as he got out of cover and started firing I bolted towards the tank.

 

I managed to get to it and jump on it while throwing my knife and killing one of the southerners that was in my way. Once on I dived under the barrel of the tank, placed the grenade, and then rolled off before I could get shot. As soon as my body hit the ground the grenade blew knocking the barrel of the tank off. I laid there on the ground as my ears bleed and smoke filled my body. I could hear really muffled gun shots and I could hear Leo standing right beside me now. I rubbed my eyes and cleaned my ears and in a matter of moments I was back up and in the action. I looked around me and saw most if not all of my soldiers on the ground dead and Leo standing beside me with a gun ready to fire at anything that came to close.

 

We were still next to the tank I just blew when another tank came out of nowhere and aimed right for us. I looked over at Leo hoping for another grenade or something to get us out of this mess, but nothing. All he did was nod his head and hold u his gun ready to go down with a fight. I had no weapons and I was bleeding in several places so I wasn’t going to be much good and I knew that this was it for me.

 

I could hear the tank readying its turret for fire and I could see all the southerners surround us ready to attack. I could tell Leo was getting impatient so he decided to bring the fight to them. He ran forward and opened fire, but it was no use that tank was going to fire and kill him and me, but right when he got to the tank after killing three men sparks came off the tank and just like that the tank was destroyed. The blast knocked me onto the ground and made Leo fly through the air about twenty feet. Now my head hurt along with my body, but after the smoke cleared I could see the southerners fighting someone else and I took this opportunity to run. I managed to get myself up and stumble over to Leo to make sure he was okay. After I got him on his feet we started to move as fast as we could away from the battle field.

 

I could still hear gun shots as we moved closer and then in an instant they all stopped and it was quiet. No matter how quiet it got though we kept on moving until we could guarantee our safety. We moved ten more feet, the fifteen, then twenty, and then we could move anymore. I felt a sharp pain in my back and just like that I was down on the ground unconscious.