Over the next week, the Oakland Clan hit two more overseer pods, rescuing ten people. They recovered stacks of canned fruit from one, and fresh pears from the other. The clan lost three members during the first raid and a slave on the second raid. A female was missing in the second pod as well, probably sent away on “vacation.”

As far as the rescued people went, the clan had decided to lock them in some cages for thirty total days. Daniel had advised his people that it was necessary, because when the former slaves detoxed off the overseers’ drink, they would become violent and dangerous. Once he let them know about his horrible experience with the crimes of rape and murder, his people understood.

Olivia had quickly improved upon Daniel’s attack strategy, proving that she was as smart as he had expected her to be. During the raids she had their forces carry as many ladders as they could, and now had everyone carrying a large pack so anyone could grab food, no matter where they were during the attack.

The Oakland Clan had taken out six overseers at the fruit cannery and had moved fast enough at the pear orchard that they had only killed the initial two guards. It had helped that the pears happened to be in baskets already. Daniel’s clan was eating good.

Daniel learned from one of his scouts that over a hundred seekers had arrived in Haywood, a large city to the south, and were dismantling the town. It was an eleven-mile hike, which he sent thirty of his people on to deal with the seekers. Olivia and Stiffy ran the operation and they obliterated the overseers’ army of gatherers.

While all of that action was taking place, Daniel also started sending out small four person squads to eliminate the random seekers in the greater Oakland area. He didn’t have to wonder if they were getting the enemy’s attention. Two days after the Haywood raid, a long column of enemy hover cars rode into Oakland from the west. They set up at the Merritt College campus. Enemy forces were now less than three miles away.

“What’re we going to do, Dat?” Olivia asked at a meeting that Daniel had called to discuss the situation.

“Lay low. That’s what we ought to do,” Stiffy answered for him.

“We can use the tunnels to move away from them,” Sterns offered.

“What’d the scouts report about the enemy?” Daniel asked, not agreeable to any of those options.

“Ten cars, each with one of those big auto blasters on the back. Forty overseers in total, Hambone informed him. “What are you thinkin’ boss?”

“Let’s hit ‘em,” their leader said.

Sterns scratched his whitening head and whistled, “Hit ‘em? This ain’t no pod. There’re forty of them alien bastards.”

“I told you all from the beginning that we were going to take the fight to them. I expected this. Why’d you think that they drive around in those hover cars of theirs, when they can transport anywhere that they want with their power circles? It is a show of force. They’re gauging how serious the threat is and are expecting us to back down,” Daniel explained while rubbing his now casted left hand. Hambone had done a good job plastering it up, although it itched, mostly in places that he couldn’t reach.

“So, you want to smash ‘em right in the mouth and show ‘em that this is our town?” Olivia Reyes asked. “I like it.”

“No safe haven for them in Oakland,” Daniel affirmed.

“Okay. No safe haven,” Stiffy agreed.

“It’s aggressive. Let’s do it. How many men are you thinkin’ we’ll need?” Sterns joined in on the building excitement in the planning room.

“Let’s take a hundred. All heavily armed. We’ll put as many sniper rifles as we have on the nearby rooftops, to take out their auto blasters. We’ll arm ten men with grenades to toss in the vehicles. Let’s teach these aliens that this war was never over,” Daniel pounded his fist on the wooden table in front of him for effect.

“We are certainly going to lose people,” Olivia advised.

“We are fighting a war. Casualties are to be expected. Let’s just do everything in our power to mitigate the number.” Daniel words concluded the meeting.

The large attack party assembled at midnight. The only key command member that stayed behind was the obese Tiny, because the group expected to do a lot of running. Daniel was on the sniper crew, which numbered four. Each had assigned targets. Daniel broke the rest of the attack team down into nine and ten man squads, one to attack each hover car. Olivia had operational control over the ground forces, while Hambone, Stiffy, and Sterns each ran a squad.

By midnight, the four snipers were in place, while the ten ground squads had set up in various buildings along campus drive. Daniel himself was on the rooftop of the two-story Covah College High School, that was located on the campus. He rested his M40 on his casted arm, which worked quite well to steady the weapon.

Once the sun began to rise, the clan leader was able to observe the overseers’ vehicles parked in a semi-circle at the end of the street. It struck him as odd that with the rising sun, he could see that all four occupants of each vehicle were in their positions and looked to be ready to go. He couldn’t help but wonder why the enemy hadn’t been sleeping and if they were aware of the impending attack.

Daniel was about to call off the raid by walkie-talkie, when an explosion broke the early morning silence. One of his men had lit several gas cans and tires on fire at the end of the block, to attract the overseers. The enemy immediately began to drive out, hovering towards the billowing black smoke. Too late now. It looked like the fight was on.

When the hovering column approached, Daniel sighted in on one of the three auto blaster operators that he was supposed to take out. His shot would be the signal for the ambush to begin. He took a deep breath, and as he released it, fired. The round from the M40 flew true, blowing out the overseer’s little round red light. It was an incredible shot at that range.

Within seconds, gunfire sounded from all sides, followed by grenade explosions. Both the front and back cars were blown to pieces and were on fire. Red blaster beams responded to their initial assault, showing that the enemy was playing for keeps. Two of Daniel’s men were hit and turned into black dust.

He couldn’t worry about that while he reloaded the M40 and aimed in on his second gunner and fired. Direct hit! The overseer toppled from the hover car and lay motionless on the pavement. Daniel tensed up when of some of the remaining auto blasters opened up on his advancing troops, while more hover cars exploded. The overseer in the second to last hovercar, his third target, was firing long strings of red blasts.

Daniel rapidly reloaded his bolt action M40 and quickly aimed in again, and fired. His round struck low, failing to eliminate the gunner. Calm down and relax. While Daniel reloaded, the overseer swung about, and launched a long burst on a squad of ten fighters who were advancing towards one of the middle cars. A moment later, all ten were black ash piles.

Daniel stared through the scope, only seeing the enemy gunner’s back. He knew that the overseer was already unleashing on another squad, that it had pinned down behind a concrete wall. Daniel took his best guess as to where the red circle was on the other side, and fired. Down went the overseer, now unmoving!

Then a loud whistle-type alarm sounded, startling the clan leader. Daniel wasn’t sure what it meant, but knew that it wasn’t theirs. Then he saw them. Seekers. A couple hundred of them pouring out of the science center and heading straight for his people. The enemy had set an ambush of their own!

Daniel rushed to the corner of the roof that was closest to the charging seekers and began firing rounds as quickly as he could reload the bolt action rifle. When the other snipers joined in, the seekers started to go down in groups. Still, a large number of the raging bald men reached his forces.

Daniel saw the squad nearest the seekers, led by a young blond woman with a buzz cut, go down in a sea of the rampaging enemy. Several of the seekers bashed the female squad leader over and over with their bars, while even more advanced forward towards more targets.

Olivia and Stiffy lined up their people on each side of the ten burning hover cars and unleashed a blistering wall of fire at the approaching headbanded men. With the help of the snipers, the enemy numbers rapidly shrank. Daniel aimed in on one of the last remaining seekers and gasped in horror!

He recognized the man! It was Number Two from his old apple orchard pod. The big black man looked exactly the same, from his muscular body to his tall stature. Well, not quite exactly the same. He now wore the headband of a seeker and had their milky white eyes. The black man was nearly on top of Stiffy, yet Daniel hesitated to pull the trigger.

Crack! A distant rifle sounded off, dropping the man formerly known as Number Two. One of the other snipers had taken him out. Finally, all of the seekers were down and finished. Stiffy, who was close to Daniel’s building, looked up towards him and gave a thumbs up. Then a red power circle surrounded the black man and with a fizz, he was no more than black dust.

Drones! Nearly thirty of them were swooping in from all directions, firing their red blaster beams at anything that moved. Daniel saw six people turned to ash in as many seconds. Olivia blew a loud airhorn, sounding the retreat. His remaining people began to flee in various directions, with the fast-moving drones giving chase. Many of his fighters didn’t make it.

The snipers tried to cover the disorderly withdraw. Daniel took out a drone that had zeroed in on Olivia, although it took three shots to hit the moving target. A second drone was hesitating over the smoking hover cars as it seemed to be searching for a new target. Daniel dropped it with a single shot. Then the drones targeted the snipers.

One bald Hispanic male held his ground, dropping two of the three drones that came for him. The third blasted him. A second sniper was killed when he ran smack into a drone after he exited the building that he had been positioned on. Daniel didn’t know what happened to the third sniper, he was too busy running.

Red power circles blasted the ground around the clan leader while he fled for the roof access door, diving into the darkened stairwell. A drone followed him in, which immediately lit up with blue and green lights. That was followed by six rapid successive shots from Daniels .357 Taurus. All six bullets tore into the drone at close range, sending it to the ground in a pile of sparks and smoke.

Daniel quickly reloaded his revolver, then made his way down to the bottom floor of the school. He knew that most of the windows on the building had been broken out, so the drones could be anywhere. A quick peek into the room at the bottom of the stairs revealed that it was empty. He made his way to the hallway on the opposite side of the room, just as a drone passed by.

It flew right in front of Daniel’s face, causing him to instinctively swing at it, knocking it to the floor with his arm cast. He followed up by stomping on the flying machine, breaking it into several pieces. When Daniel turned around, he was facing another drone. It could have blasted him, but instead seemed to be filming him. He unloaded his six-shooter into that drone, sending it clattering across the room.

Daniel took a moment to reload his M40 and the Taurus. A quick study, by looking out of the many windows, revealed that he was surrounded. At least six drones remained outside his building, and appeared to be covering the entire high school. He made his way back up to the second floor, where he found a window that gave him a good view of three of the drones. It was in a small bathroom, maybe ten feet by ten feet

“Dat, where are you?” cracked over his walkie-talkie. It was Olivia.

“Still in the school,” he answered.

“Why? Get the hell out of there. The rest of us made it back to the tunnel entrance,” she advised.

“I’m not done here,” he relayed. “Seems they still want to play.”

“Dat, I am going to gather the survivors. We will come for you,” the walkie-talkie sounded.

“No. Hold your position. We have lost too many people already. I’ve got this,” he ordered.

Daniel took aim with the M40 and dropped the closest of the flying menaces. While he reloaded, he watched the other two visible drones approaching. Two shots later, he had another one down, then a red power circle blasted the wall right beside his head. The third drone, and now a fourth were coming straight for his window.

Daniel scurried out of the small room and slammed the door shut behind him. He counted to five, then opened the door a crack and tossed his last grenade into the room. After the loud explosion shook the small bathroom, he went back inside and was surprised to see three smoking and sparking drones scattered about the floor. That left one.

After waiting for over an hour, Daniel quietly made his way back down to the first floor. The building was clear. He let his people know that he was safe and would wait until dark to exit the high school and return to the tunnels. Once the sun fell, he could see no blue and green lights anywhere. Thinking that the last drone had left, Daniel made his move and exited the high school through the front doors.

Immediately he could see the green and blue lights coming from above him. The tricky bastard had been lying in wait above the door. Daniel went for his Taurus, knowing all too well that he would be blasted before he got a shot off.

Crack! The drone slammed against the building wall, and bounced off, falling to ground. A bullet had torn it to pieces, fired from the building across the street. A minute later, his unaccounted-for sniper came out and met up with him. She was a short muscular black woman named Tiana.

“That thing had ya,” she said, grinning.

“Would’ve if it weren’t for you.” He gave her a fist bump.

“I saw our other two snipers go down. Noticed that you never came out. I decided to hold my position and see if I could back you up. After you spoke on the radio, I knew that you might need me,” she explained.

“You sound like ex-military,” he guessed.

“US Army sniper,” she stated proudly.

“I owe you one. You saved my life,” he thanked her.

“Well, you can’t save the world if you’re dead.” Tiana smiled, happy to have helped.

The two of them collected up as many of their fallen comrades’ weapons that they could find, and headed back to the tunnels. Once they were there, Olivia ran up to Daniel and gave him a tight embrace, glad that he had survived. The thirty-two surviving members of the attack force made their way back to the underground camp.

Daniel went to his small room and sat on his bed, without speaking to anyone. He wearily placed his head in his hands. The attack had been a dismal failure. They had lost sixty-eight people. At this rate, he would have the Oakland Clan destroyed in a month.

How hadn’t he seen the trap? The enemy rolled in a squad of overseers right into the middle of the area where they had been hitting pods. Then they just sat there and waited as obvious bait. He had bit, hook line and sinker. He had rushed his forces right in and attacked. Damnit!

He would need to be much smarter in the future if they stood any chance of beating these invaders. Daniel laid back on the bed, not looking forward to the meeting that he had called for, first thing in the morning. He had a very restless sleep.

“My apologies. We got hammered out there yesterday,” he started, then letting out a long sigh added, “Losing Stiffy and all those people are on me.”

“Look, we did lose a lot of good people yesterday, but you yourself said that there will be casualties in war.” Sterns surprisingly came to his defense.

 “I hate to lose anybody, but you guys are drowning in a glass half empty,” Olivia spoke. “We took out forty overseers. Forty!”

“Not to mention about two hundred seekers,” Hambone added, lucky to have survived the mayhem himself.

“Yes, and thirty drones, ten of which you yourself took out Dat,” his cute Hispanic Second-In-Command praised, picking up where Hambone had left off. “So yes, we did lose, but they lost bigger. Let’s just move on from here and continue the fight.”

“I do have some good news,” Tiny interjected. “I got the morse code unit back up and running. You know, the system they set up in the beginning, when we thought that the clans were going to fight.”

“Are we communicating with anyone?” Daniel inquired.

“I sent a test message to several clans to see if anyone answers,” Tiny advised.

“Well?” Daniel was anxious to know who was out there.

“Sacramento Clan responded. Seems someone there is smitten with you. Several questions about how you were and when you were returning.” Tiny smiled, knowing full well who it was. “They also said that word is spreading about the rising resistance activities that occurred over here last week.”

“Dang, word spreads fast, even during the end of the world.” Sterns chuckled.

“Anything from Alcatraz?” Daniel questioned, remembering the resistance propaganda.

“Nothing,” Tiny answered.

“Alcatraz?” Sterns looked surprised, then said, “Wait a minute.”

The man dug through his pack and pulled out a small grey solar AM/FM radio. He turned it to AM and scrolled through the channels, until finally they all heard a voice. “The resistance lives . . . if you want to fight . . . come to Alcatraz . . . the resistance lives . . . if you want to fight…….come to Alcatraz,” the voice crackled over and over again, in a repeating loop.

Seeing that Daniel looked confused, Sterns explained, “That has been playing since the invasion. Over and over. Even in the beginning, and I have been with the Oakland Clan from the start. Alcatraz has never sent so much as a peep over the morse code messenger. Three times a clan leader has tried to send groups over there to check it out. Not one person has ever returned.”

“Alcatraz is a dead end my friend,” Olivia affirmed.

Tiana surprised them by rushing into the room, saying, “Bounty hunters. A complete crew just rolled into Mills College. They have white flags tied to their bikes. Looks like they want to talk.”

“Did you recognize them?” Daniel asked.

“Never seen them before, Dat. Their jackets say Dog Pack and they are wearing rockers showing that they are out of Denver,” she answered.

“Okay Tiana, this is what I need you to do,” Daniel began.

Thirty minutes later, Daniel, Olivia, and Hambone walked out of the main viaduct tunnel and headed towards the six men lounging in front of the El Campanil Tower. When the bounty hunters saw the Oakland Clan members approaching, the bikers all got to their feet. There were six beat up Harleys behind the group, two of which had sidecars.

“What brings you to our city?” Daniel spoke first.

“Business,” an older scraggly looking fellow spoke up, apparently their leader.

Daniel took a quick assessment of the group. Besides the old guy, there was a medium built black man with a long scar down the side of his face, a chubby white guy, and a Hispanic fellow that looked to be more boy than man. The last two Dog Pack members were worn-out looking middle-aged females, one with red hair and one with black. None of the crew had any visible weapons.

“We don’t make those kinds of trades anymore, now that I am in charge,” Daniel answered the man.

“You misunderstand us,” the man replied, reaching into his pocket.

Thirty members of Dat’s clan rose up on the walls of the Campanil Tower, racking shotguns and chambering rounds, while they took aim at the bikers. Tiana stood on the first floor, aiming in with a .44 Magnum pistol in each hand. It was an impressive show of force.

“If a weapon comes out of that pocket, you will all die where you stand,” the tough black woman warned.

“Whoa, whoa . . . you misunderstand. Just smokes. Cigarettes.” The old man smiled, pulling out a pack of Virginia Slims. “We’re looking for the one that they call Dat.”

Daniel was taken aback, because he didn’t know this man. “Why?”

“Word is, Dat is the man who is leading the counterattack against the overseers. I am certain that is you. My name is Petey and this is my crew, the Dog Pack. We want to join up and help you fight,” he said.

“Where did you hear this word?” Daniel inquired, surprised by what he was hearing.

“The ham operator in Sacramento still talks to the one in Denver. Solar powered radio systems are still up and running. We’re on good terms with the Denver Clan, since we agreed not to bounty from them.” Petey hesitated for a minute, as if he wanted to say more, but didn’t.

“What else? What’re you hiding?” Daniel questioned, guessing that there was more to the story.

“Look man, we bountied two days ago. Yesterday, when I went into the command module to collect, the overseers came up on the screen. They showed me a picture of you. Said that you were in Oakland. Offered a triple reward if we bountied you. We put two and two together and assumed that the man in the overseers’ screen was the Dat from the ham radio,” Petey explained.

“So, you’ve come to collect, have you?” Daniel guessed.

“They ain’t collecting nothing, boss.” Tiana smirked, while both Olivia and Hambone stepped in front of Daniel, expecting trouble.

“Stop. Stop.” It was the red-haired woman pushing through her fellow bikers with a burlap sack in her hands, which she dumped onto the ground.

Six overseer batons spilled out onto the grass. A couple of the other bikers cautiously brought over handguns, their chambers locked back to show that they were empty, and laid them next to the batons.

“I have a .22 pistol,” Petey said, slowly pulling it from his back, and holding it with two fingers, laid it on the ground next to the other weapons. “Now we’re unarmed. We surrender.”

“Surrender?” Daniel echoed his word, realizing that this had taken an unexpected turn.

“Look, we’ve had enough. We all discussed it, and we don’t want to live on the clock anymore. Please let us join up with you guys. We’re good. Very good. We’ll fight hard for you,” the redhead spoke for a second time, with the others nodding in agreement.

“I don’t like it. Maybe they’re tricking us, to bounty you later. Those sons of bitch aliens are smart enough to try something like that,” Hambone whispered back to Daniel.

“Please Dat. I knew when the overseers tried to send us after you, that they were scared.  You’re the real deal, and we just want to be part of that. You’re becoming a legend man. Let us join up,” the old man begged.

“What makes you think that we’d want to take you in?” Daniel questioned, knowing full well that he had every intention of taking them in.

“The Sacramento ham operator said that you were a jarhead. I was a marine too,” the stringy-haired old man answered.

“Really? What was the 1st General Order?” Dat tested him with a question that all marines would know.

“To walk my post from flank to flank and take no shit from any rank.” The old man smiled.

“Yep, he’s a marine.” Lance Corporal Reyes chuckled.

‘Take charge of this post and all government property in view’ was the actual correct answer to Daniel’s question. The old man’s answer was a joke that salty marines would often say to each other. The old man had definitely been a marine.

“I wasn’t a glorious one, got busted back down to private several times for conduct unbecoming, but I did get an honorable discharge. Come on man, that’s got to count for somethin’ Dat,” Petey stated. “Don’t leave us out.”

“You said that you didn’t want to live on the clock anymore?” Daniel asked, a plan rapidly forming in his mind.

“No. we’re done man,” the Dog Pack leader answered.

“Well, if you want in, I need you back on that clock one more time.” Daniel smiled wryly at Petey.

“What do you mean?” The old man frowned.

Daniel pulled out a piece of paper from his pocket and handed it to the gang leader. It had the name of fourteen towns on it. It was a list of all of the places that the Dirty Down and Dead had storage sheds. Hambone and Tiny had helped him make it a few days ago, during a supply meeting. Daniel had been trying to figure out how to retrieve the supplies from the sheds. Now he knew.

“You have twenty-eight days of freedom left. No more bounties allowed. I want you to ride to each of the towns on that paper and bust into the sheds there. They’re easy to find. They’re all by a command module and have a concrete pad next to them. Load whatever weapons and supplies you find into your side cars and bring it all back here. Then, and only then, are you in.”       

“Are they guarded? Who owns them?” Petey asked.

“We used to,” Daniel answered, then said, “You better get moving. You are now back on the clock.”

In the evening, Olivia came to his room and sat on Daniel’s bed, “Sterns got a message from the Frisco Clan. They want to meet with you in a couple of days.”

“Where? How?” he questioned, handing her a half-drunk bottle of rum that he had been sipping from.

“The overseers brought down both the Golden Gate Bridge and the

Richmond San Rafael Bridge during the initial invasion,” she revealed, taking a long swallow. “There’s a beach on Almeda Island where we used to meet to trade with them in the past. It’s been a couple of years, but the High Street Bridge is still passable, so we can get across. That’s where they want to meet.”

“Any idea what they want?” Daniel wondered, taking the bottle back for another swig.

“No clue, but I doubt that it’s to surrender.” Olivia laughed, the cute feminine way that he liked so much, while they took turns drinking.

“Well, what do you think?” he questioned.

She liked that he respected, and actually wanted her opinion. “Doubt that it’s to trade since they didn’t message that. Might be important. I think that you should meet with them. Don’t worry, we’ll have your back. You know that you can always count on me.”

“I trust you, Olivia. Completely.” He smiled, staring into her big brown eyes. He liked that she had a strong personality, yet her eyes were always tender.

Olivia finished the bottle, then leaned in and kissed him hard on the mouth, before reluctantly pulling away, saying, “I shouldn’t. You’re the boss.”

Olivia kissed him again, this time longer and more intense, her actions not matching her words. She managed to break away and rise from his bed, the booze making her feel all tingly inside. At least that’s what she told herself. “Besides . . . I . . . like girls.” She seemed a lot less confident about that statement than she had been the first time that she had told him.

“As you wish, Lance Corporal Reyes.” Daniel smiled, enjoying how cute her expressions were when she was confused.

“Ah what the hell,” she gave in with a sigh, “One more time won’t hurt anything.” The cute young woman climbed into his bed and proceeded to give him a much-needed workout for the next couple of hours.