The next day he headed home packing as much of the cured
meat that he could carry, again, it took one stop, but he made it back to Heaven
safely. Sandra greeted him excitedly. look what I have for you darling; she led him
out the new barn and corral. She had a
team of two horses hooked to a wagon, but these were no ordinary wagons, built
from some sort of material he suspected to be carbon fiber. With four-foot
sides that had a yellow tint he thought might be Kevlar. Sandra giggled and said
watch this, she then picked up the wagons rear end lifting the wheels of the
ground. Sandra declared this will be nothing for my mares to pull. Michael said
that is wonderful, but the wagons will carry thousands of pounds of material to
the new settlement, she frowned thoughtfully, how many wagons are we taking?
Who said anything about we, Michael questioned. Well, you can stay here if you
like but where these horses go so do I, she stated determinedly, and led the
horses back to the barn. Not really displeased with her decision he chuckled;
hell I wanted her to go anyway.
Michael returned to the great hall and asked Jeff to
assemble all the bunker personnel. He then explained, "I need five squads
of eight people each, we will train with rifles, you should have completed and
practiced by now your hand-to-hand training required by all citizens of Heaven.
If you have not, do not volunteer. Hands shot in the air, with Jeff's help they
selected the forty best people for this mission, they had ten men and thirty
women, since most of men had been killed when they joined the Vestige group's
attack. Michael then issued each one a rifle and had them dressed in normal
uniforms, tunics for outside assignments. First he had them all disassemble and
reassemble the rifles numerous times. He then took them out to an open field
for target practice. After noting which people actively engaged in helping
others, he assigned Squad Leaders.
Each squad fired at eight different targets at fifty yards,
the result was dismal, some even completely missed the targets, but a few had
hit dead center, he drew a sight picture in the dirt and explained why it was
important. He also went over how to pull the trigger, and how easy it was to
pull off target when using the wrong technique. After promising rewards for the
best shot and for the squad with the best accuracy, they went back to work.
After two weeks of training in formation drills, archery, endurance
and close combat, Michael felt they were ready to make the trip. Although they
were far from being polished soldiers, it would have to do for now.
One young lady really stood out, pounding bullet after
bullet into the center of the target, during target practice. He pulled her to
the side and asked that she shoot at a rock about a hundred and fifty yards
out, she put one in the dirt about a foot in front of it then adjusted and
split the rock into pieces. Micheal took her weapon and handed her a sniper rifle;
you practice with this from now on, congratulations. Helen looked down at sniper
rifle; a smile of pride crossed her face. Helen had not only won the prize for
first place, but her squad had received badges of gold pins for best performance.
Leading his beginning of an army back to the Great Hall,
after finishing the day's training, Michael addressed them, you are the first
army of Heaven. All of you soldiers will continue to be trained in basic
military discipline, making mistakes is expected, but not following orders is
not acceptable. You, Squad Leaders, must
make sure your soldiers are ready for tomorrow's journey. He then removed the
cover from a pile of smoked meat and had them all file by and try a piece. They
were all excited by this treasure, meat was getting very scarce, they readily
consumed the 20 pounds of meat Michael had returned with. This is our goal to
fill the wagons with meat and return to Heaven as soon as possible.