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 the Bunker safely. Sandra greeted him excitedly, look what I
have for you darling, she led him out the new barn an corral, she had a team of
two horses hooked to a wagon, but these were no ordinary wagons, they were
built from some sort of material he suspected to be carbon fiber based and four
foot sides 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's 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.
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 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. Michael then gave each one a rifle and had them dress in normal uniforms
for outside assignments, first he had them all disassembled and reassemble the
rifles numerous times. He then took them
out to an open area for target practice, noting which people actively engaged
in helping others.
Eachxsquad fired at eight different targets at fifty yards, the result was dismal,
some even completely missed the target, but a few had hit dead center, he drew
a sight picture in the dirt and explained why, he also went over how to pull
the trigger. Then he assigned team leaders for each squad, promising rewards
for the best shot and for the squad with the best accuracy.
One young lady really stood out, pounding bullet after bullet into the center of
the target. 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. 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.
Leading his beginning of an army back to the Great Hall, Michael addressed them, you
are the first army of Heaven, all of you will be taught some basic military discipline,
making mistakes is expected, but not following orders is not acceptable, you Squad
leaders have to 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 all were 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 as soon as possible.