Shiftless

Deafening silence makes way to war roars and the visceral screams of wounded. Galt had said grinder be damned. Yet here we are, about to go toe to toe with the EU. Galt hadn't told us a plan and plan be damned. We'd run if not for the courage provided by a wall of shotguns. Can see now. Mortar shell was all bang and no boom. They're coming, a wave of meats with rifles. The young meats are scared, no druggers to make them feral and compliant to the fatmen. Galt's plan. Sweat blinds the eyes, his plan burns bright, a screaming funeral pyre. Deaf again, machine guns to sweep away the chargers. Where'd he get planes? Those beautiful steel birds, men’s minds fly to boyhood sentiments distracted for a murmur from this patch of hell scorched Indiana. The meats shrink in fear, they've never seen these things before. I looked back and saw him standing there, the ash blowing past his bullet and windtorn duster. John Galt, the god of slaughter himself, watching the fruits of his labors of blood ripen. The man who had always led men now stood before a million meats, the wild empty eyed masses that were bred to charge walls of lead in the grinder. Grinder be damned, Galt had said but now it had a different meaning. If he were to do it, it would be done his way. This was truly unexpected, where in hell did Galt get planes? An entire wave of meats eaten alive by Galt's fury, torn apart by his conclusion spoken in hollow lead and brass. A few charred stragglers stumble towards the line, screaming for mercy. The meats laugh and howl, answering in 7.62. Thumping hums. Helicopters. So used to them bearing down on their heads, the meats take aim at the black forms running low over the horizon. The few men that Galt had thrown forward to tame the meats started shouting and swinging shotgun butts to settle them. Galt had gotten federals involved without letting the fatmen run the show. They were probably howling their heads off, their grinder being usurped by the guerillas who refused to be meat. The meats hadn't even moved from their trenches and Galt had made more head way in a minute than they could of in a month. This was the last time we would ever see the grinder. No one would dare, not even after this.... I have to stop myself from thinking the word atrocity. Atrocity was the very nature of the grinder; it rendered the word meaningless. Throwing meats toe to toe in an open field with assault rifles, an anachronistic whisper from 1770. It boggles the mind that such a thing could ever exist in our world, but we had watched this happen from cover a thousand times with Galt standing behind us shaking his head. The sound of miniguns tore me from my rumbling ruminations. The meats were hooting wildly, disappointed that a wall of napalm was blocking them from their after battle delights. Galt had planned well today. It usually would seem foolish to sling in helicopters to a fully stocked EU base, but Galt used the shock to his advantage brilliantly. The planes alone were hard to believe, I watched their jet trails stream back west. The federals were so rarely seen out of Nebraska, I wonder what favor John could of done to merit this sort of aid. I looked at Galt once again, there was no malice or cruelty in his eyes, nor was there sorrow or regret. It was that same cold, dead stare that was eternally etched into his eyes. If there was to be anyone left to write history after this, they would denounce him as a monster. Even the fatmen, who reduced human beings to mindless machines would never dare do something of this magnitude. Galt did it because it had to be done. His will was perfect and pure. The grinder was no more, and this time the retreat would fall back to another pile of meats ready to charge into a wave of bullets. The only thing left to worry about was what the defeated would do when pushed into a corner. John would have to fast before desperation led to utter annihilating catastrophe. I could only hope that Galt hadn't rang the first bell of our death knell. For now I must concentrate, before the meats go blood crazy.