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The Yankees let loose another artillery volley, blasting great pile of rubble into dust somewhere across the river from our auxilery headquarters. It is a hunting game, for them. We are prey before the predators at this point. Where in the hell had it gone wrong?

Another explosion, further away. There are a dozen of us crammed into a hole the size of a storage closet somewhere in the rubble of what used to be a shopping centre in downtown Whitehorse. These eleven comrades and I had stuck out the winter together in the Yukon, harassing Alaska-bound convoys and sabotaging oil pipelines supplying Army Base Juneau with munitions and fuel. I look to each of their faces. We were just one squad, of a fairly large guerilla force. Well, one squad of what used to be a fairly large guerilla force anyway.

We wait. We check our rifles. I brush some of the dust off the fur I've covered my uniform with. It had been a harsh winter, and we had poached our way across a few hundred square kilometers of beautiful Canadian wilderness whenever the supplies from the Resistance Interim Government ran dry, which was every other week. We always had plenty of bullets though. McVicker saw to that. We starved, but were expected to keep harassing the enemy. His little idea of how to win the war, I suppose. Why did Rylde let him into his cabinet again?

A third series of explosions mark the end of their artillery maneuvers for the day. We all breathe a little easier; too often lately, entire squadrons were snuffed out by a blast of artillery. Now we'll just have to avoid the patrols and make our way back to the headquarters, after a quick reconnaissance.

Some of the boys sit down and take off their rucksack, pulling out their tube of protein paste we were issued as standard military rations. 'Crammed full of vitamins and nutrients', was the big selling soundbite. 'Perfect for a resistance fighter fighting the American interlopers!' One of McVicker's American-based companies manufactured it and sold it to the Resistance's military arm at a premium. It looks exactly like wet turds and tasted like something between grass and vomit, but at least it did a body good, like was advertised.

Me, I abstain from eating today. I know that somewhere out there is a big caribou just waiting to be dinner and maybe a nice pair of boots for when winter came 'round. I also know the president and his cabinet were dining somewhere on the east coast, at Ops Command Headquarters. I've read the paper on the sat-net. Lobster and filet mignon, apparently. It was to be cold protein paste for the rest of us though. After all, we can't all pretend to be kings. I'm going to take my chances and get myself some good, fresh meat since the good-old-boys and top brass aren't going to do it for me.

About a week ago, we took back Whitehorse and managed to confound the Americans, disrupting their supply lines and halting their convoys all the way back at the border. We call that 'the good day'. We split into a couple of companies a few weeks ahead of time and took out the yankee anti-air structures and mined a few key bridges where their reinforcements were sure to come through, either from Alaska or from BC. Either way they were driving over rivers, and we set those bridges up to explode when reinforcements were headed to the American ranks.

And then the cavalry had arrived. With nothing to shoot down the fleet of transport helos, thousands of eCanadian resistance fighters touched down in a series of clearings about forty clicks north of the city. And then we descended--

"Cap!" I look up from my reverie. Jesus, did I doze off? It's Private Michaels, gun at the ready, waving me over. There is a sense of near-panic among the others. I grab my rifle and head over, and then I see it. A yankee search light. There's a heavy patrol about three hundred metres from our position and closing.

"Aw, hell, everyone down!" Like obedient children, these men of mine hit the dirt instantly. I lower myself a little more carefully, and aim down the scope of my rifle. Yeah, they're definitely headed in our direction. Six of them on foot, escorting three heavy tanks, and each one has a rottweiler on a short chain, snarling and frothing into a fury.

"I thought we were getting tanks from Command today, cap. Are they coming?"
"We could sure use them now!"
"Of course they're coming, President McVicker wouldn't abandon us like that."
"Yeah, he said 'hold the line' and that reinforcements were on their way."
"He wouldn't lie to us, would he?"
"I heard we took back Regina last night."

I don't have the heart to tell them. I'll never have the heart to tell them. Those tanks that McVicker 'promised us' are down in Regina, or across the country in Moncton and Fredricton, and we're stuck up here by ourselves, just waiting for the order to fall back and give the Yankees the city.

"Holstein, unpack your launcher and hand it here. The rest of you, get ready to make it back to Ax-HQ. Give a sit-rep to the Major and await further orders there." Holstein does as he says and the rest of them get up and make their way toward the darkness.

"But, captain, what are you going to do? We can't just leave you."

McVicker already has, I don't tell him. "Damn right you can't. I'm going to give you cover and draw their fire, and then you'll do the same and help me get my own sorry ass out of this mess. Go on!"

Two heartbeats later, they're in position, so I fire. The rocket goes a little wide, missing the heavy tank in front and hitting a tall, free-standing concrete wall, the remnants of an apartment building. There's a shower of stone, and the eUS infantry scatter and take cover while the tank turns its heavy turret toward me.

My men are long gone into the darkness, and I hit the dirt just in time as a series of explosions tear apart the little hole we've used as a muster point. I hear the barking of the dogs. I peek carefully down the scope and see them running toward me, the dogs way out front and the men chasing after them, guns at the ready.

I love animals. But I still put them down. A steady series of six rounds, and the barking has all turned into yelping. The eUSA infantry lay down their own cover fire, forcing me back behind my pile of rubble. I hear the bullets thudding into the pile of concrete on the other side, chipping them away. I hear shouting.

I don't hear my cover fire. I'm about to just throw myself out of cover and start taking down whatever oppressor I see, but then I hear the open of gunfire. The Americans are forced into cover, and I roll out of mine just far enough to put a bullet between the eyes of one of them, focused on my men firing from the side.

"Hoot, hoot, I'm an owl," I mutter as I pull the bolt back, ready another round and fire again. "Hoot, hoot, I'm an owl."

By the time the heavy armour has turned its attention to the others I'm out of there, and my men're gone around the shells of other old, ruined buildings, and no longer the potential target of the yankee tanks. I know it won't be long before the Americans send another squadron of men this way. They seem to have reinforcements to spare up here, even if we don't.

My first instinct is to head for the river, but a few spotlights down that way cause me to change course to the beaver dam ford at the southern end of the city. Running in furs would be harder to do, but we spent all winter doing it, so I'm used to it now. When I think back to how IBB93 and the rest made fun of us for wearing pelts, calling us savages and the like, I take a moment to smile. They're going to freeze their nuts off when the weather turns again, and the yankees don't let them back into their fancy little homes.

It's a few kilometers along old rubble strewn streets and alleys, before I'm at the ford. Beavers have piled logs, systematically, along a narrow, shallow part of the river, which flooded a few of the yards of old riverside homes. It also made a pretty easy-to-scale bridge. Ever since the Yankees took the main bridge at about the middle of town, we've been using the beaver dam to cross fairly effectively. We don't have any tanks to take anywhere, after all.

(To be continued)