2035: Battle of Lakefield

Chapter One: New Recruits

July 18th, 2035,

4,008 days since invasion.

Layton sat on the edge of Taylor Hancock Road, sitting on the damaged concrete that used to lead to a bridge. Below him was a flowing lake, of which his hometown of Lakefield was unimaginatively named after. His legs kicked back and forth over the edge of the street as he fiddled with a cigarette between his fingers. He was wearing standard military camouflage ACU, fitting for the green scenery that littered his home in Washington. Every once and a while a car would drive past him on Graham Avenue. Eventually, a beaten up black Mercedes-Benz G63 pulled up on the sidewalk behind him. Out of the passenger seat came a woman in the same outfit many years his senior. She saluted to Layton.

"Captain Young, the new recruits have arrived at Fort Hamilton," the older black woman said, still saluting.

Layton looked over his soldier and recognized the 42 year old African-American woman as Sergeant First Class Mary Price. Her hair was very short, shorter than his, and anyone could tell by her stature she rigorously maintained her health despite her many injuries.

Layton himself was an Asian American in his early 30s, with slick black hair and a patchy mustache and beard. He sighed as he lifted himself up, saluting to the Sergeant before getting into the militarized civilian vehicle himself. Following him, Sergeant Price entered the truck and it promptly drove down Lynch Street.

Now in the vehicle Layton carefully placed the unused cigarette back into its pack and place it in his chest pocket, only missing four cigarettes. As they drove towards the highway, the North side of town, on Layton's left, and the South on his right, looked drastically different. The South half, while not in pristine condition, aftered rather nice even for a mostly rural community in Washington, as most buildings were undamaged. The North half however had almost every building seem to have some sort of damage that was only partially repaired. Multi-story apartments had busted open walls and broken windows that had never been fixed, and buildings closest to the street had black markings from an explosion that had fully been washed. Some collapsed building locations were occupied by tents.

"Something wrong Captain?" Sergeant Price asked, noticing Layton through the rear view mirror.

"No its nothing," Layton mumbled, looking down, "just nostalgia."

The car drove out of the city and onto Woodland Highway. After driving for a few minutes on the mostly deserted highway they reached what used to be a highway intersection onto Lake Highway and Layton Gray Highway. The intersection was turned into a massive base surrounded by 8 meter tall wall which had several gun emplacements on and surrounding it. Inside were mostly tents and only a few buildings as this was built 2 years into the invasion and most material went to constructing the fortifications. Recruits ran drills under their instructors, soldiers and engineers made sure their weapons were up to par, and helicopters flew in and out of the base. Around the base were other civilian and military vehicles, including even some tanks, anti aircraft guns and long range artillery.

Almost as soon as Layton's car reached its stop a retrofitted police helicopter with the police symbol replaced with the phrase "Rearguard" landed a hundred yards from Layton's parking spot. The door to the helicopter opened up and out came Colonel Michael Wilson.

The colonel, an African American man in his 40s who towered over Layton by nearly a foot had a clean wrinkled face and a crew cut, was in charge of every man, woman and child in the entire city, and Layton's senior officer.

Layton stepped outside of his vehicle and greeted the colonel with a sharp and quick salute, which Wilson followed suit by doing the same. As the two approached each other they shook hands.