Read Online Canyon: A Post Apocalyptic/Dystopian Adventure (The Traveler Book 2) by Tom Abrahams - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Tom Abrahams
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he’d eaten and couldn’t. It might have been that morning. Maybe it was an energy bar a few minutes before the IED detonated. He wasn’t sure. He’d not even thought about food or recognized the pangs of hunger in his gut until he opened the K rations.
The cans of meat and fish were labeled, but he didn’t know which was which. Along with the cans there were a half dozen plastic bags filled with dry goods, plastic spoons, napkins, disinfectant wipes, powdered bouillon, and some vitamins.
He carried the open package back to the pallet and spread out the bounty. Battle looked at the variety of offerings and cursed himself for having left his pack behind. He’d decided against slinging it with him in favor of carrying Buck. Now, as he looked at the amount of food he couldn’t carry with him, he recognized his mistake.
He ripped open a package of millet-flour biscuits and stuffed a couple deep into his mouth, chewing them quickly so as to pack his mouth full with another one.
They were awful, and they were also the best thing Battle’d ever tasted in his life. He licked the remnants from his gums and the roof of his mouth. He then took the vitamins, tore open the packet with his teeth, and swallowed all three of them dry.
He took a couple of plastic spoons, the antiseptic wipes, and the bouillon. He stuffed them into one of his shirt pockets and knifed open another ration.
He took duplicates of the wipes and powder for Buck. He also plucked another bag of biscuits and the package of vitamins.
If nothing else, the rations provided two things: nourishment and a much-needed burst of caloric energy, and confirmation that the Ukrainians were involved in the Syrian conflict.
They’d long denied it, despite evidence that hundreds of pro-Russian Ukrainians were training with Russian forces in the long-occupied eastern part of the country. The Syrian conflict, and the war in Iran, had essentially become a world war.
Alliances shifted and changed as rapidly as the Middle Eastern deserts. Oil, nuclear weapons, a Muslim caliphate, and the fight between the east and west to control the metaphorical bridge between Asia, Africa, and Europe combined to make the globe as unstable as it had been since the early 1940s.
The Russians, Chinese, and North Koreans had one idea about how the world should look, the Western world offered a different vision. And though none were publicly enemies in the global fight against Muslim extremism, neither side chose to make the enemy of their enemy their friend.
The Ukrainians, along with the Egyptians, Czechs, and Polish, claimed they were neutral. Ukraine’s fragile government claimed it was too busy balancing their own sovereignty with repeated Russian incursions. They were on the verge of collapse. They wouldn’t help the United States, despite the Americans’ decades-long secret funnel of cash and weapons to keep the Russians at bay. The US asked for troops and tactical support. The Ukrainians said no. Again and again. They’d also refused to accept any Syrian or Iranian refugees, further adding to the overcrowding at the burgeoning camps popping up from Dusseldorf to Donetsk.
Battle had been in mission briefings in which superiors offered intel about Ukrainian detachments working with Russian troops to ingratiate themselves with some of the less moderate factions in Aleppo. Most of the information, however, was anecdotal and not actionable or verifiable.
But here they were, clearly involved. And though it wasn’t good for long-term US strategic control, the dry biscuits and vitamins were potentially lifesaving battlefield provisions in the short term.
Battle put the politics of the newly gained intelligence out of his head. None of it mattered if he died in the train yard.
Finished pilfering what he needed from the pallet, he stepped through the door at the front end of the wagon. Standing between the ninth and tenth cars, he looked east. He was beyond the orange glow of the
The cans of meat and fish were labeled, but he didn’t know which was which. Along with the cans there were a half dozen plastic bags filled with dry goods, plastic spoons, napkins, disinfectant wipes, powdered bouillon, and some vitamins.
He carried the open package back to the pallet and spread out the bounty. Battle looked at the variety of offerings and cursed himself for having left his pack behind. He’d decided against slinging it with him in favor of carrying Buck. Now, as he looked at the amount of food he couldn’t carry with him, he recognized his mistake.
He ripped open a package of millet-flour biscuits and stuffed a couple deep into his mouth, chewing them quickly so as to pack his mouth full with another one.
They were awful, and they were also the best thing Battle’d ever tasted in his life. He licked the remnants from his gums and the roof of his mouth. He then took the vitamins, tore open the packet with his teeth, and swallowed all three of them dry.
He took a couple of plastic spoons, the antiseptic wipes, and the bouillon. He stuffed them into one of his shirt pockets and knifed open another ration.
He took duplicates of the wipes and powder for Buck. He also plucked another bag of biscuits and the package of vitamins.
If nothing else, the rations provided two things: nourishment and a much-needed burst of caloric energy, and confirmation that the Ukrainians were involved in the Syrian conflict.
They’d long denied it, despite evidence that hundreds of pro-Russian Ukrainians were training with Russian forces in the long-occupied eastern part of the country. The Syrian conflict, and the war in Iran, had essentially become a world war.
Alliances shifted and changed as rapidly as the Middle Eastern deserts. Oil, nuclear weapons, a Muslim caliphate, and the fight between the east and west to control the metaphorical bridge between Asia, Africa, and Europe combined to make the globe as unstable as it had been since the early 1940s.
The Russians, Chinese, and North Koreans had one idea about how the world should look, the Western world offered a different vision. And though none were publicly enemies in the global fight against Muslim extremism, neither side chose to make the enemy of their enemy their friend.
The Ukrainians, along with the Egyptians, Czechs, and Polish, claimed they were neutral. Ukraine’s fragile government claimed it was too busy balancing their own sovereignty with repeated Russian incursions. They were on the verge of collapse. They wouldn’t help the United States, despite the Americans’ decades-long secret funnel of cash and weapons to keep the Russians at bay. The US asked for troops and tactical support. The Ukrainians said no. Again and again. They’d also refused to accept any Syrian or Iranian refugees, further adding to the overcrowding at the burgeoning camps popping up from Dusseldorf to Donetsk.
Battle had been in mission briefings in which superiors offered intel about Ukrainian detachments working with Russian troops to ingratiate themselves with some of the less moderate factions in Aleppo. Most of the information, however, was anecdotal and not actionable or verifiable.
But here they were, clearly involved. And though it wasn’t good for long-term US strategic control, the dry biscuits and vitamins were potentially lifesaving battlefield provisions in the short term.
Battle put the politics of the newly gained intelligence out of his head. None of it mattered if he died in the train yard.
Finished pilfering what he needed from the pallet, he stepped through the door at the front end of the wagon. Standing between the ninth and tenth cars, he looked east. He was beyond the orange glow of the
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