****
From the lead APC, Barns ordered the attack. A hail of automatic gunfire blasted dozens of birds and other wild animals into eternity. Barns would have cut down that bastard Two Bears himself, if the shaman and Ann Goth hadn’t disappeared into the forest along with the other Tribesmen.
Skunk sat in the gun turret, gleefully firing the twin fifty caliber machine guns into the forest.
The animals kept coming. It was unnatural, for animals to ignore gunfire and attack humans this way. After the initial barrage of bullets however, the creatures were managing to dodge the bullets with uncanny skill. His men were spooked, Barns could tell. They were on their radios, jabbering and screaming about birds and bears and bugs coming out of the woods and attacking them.
“What the hell!” cursed Skunk, as several tiny birds squeezed through the gun turret viewing port and attacked the big man, pecking at eyes and ears. He closed the port before more could enter, then with great relish smashed the tiny creatures, swatting them dead one by one with a huge hand.
When the bees, wasps and other flying insects attacked, the human noise became mostly screaming. Fortunately for the men in half a dozen of the APCs, ports and vents had already been closed or stuffed with cloth to keep out the birds.
The APCs had to navigate using only infrared camera devices, but they managed. Each APC had one forward looking camera under driver control, and one that was aligned with the turret machine guns. The six remaining operable APCs drove through the boundary fence, smashing wire, posts and any animals that tried to stop them. Barns’ APC pushed the massive log gate itself aside and started up the driveway.
Animals and lightly armed Indians couldn’t possibly stop them, Barns knew. If they could get the ringleaders, opposition would crumble, and it would all be over. But Two Bears and Ann Goth had both vanished into the trees.
“Gun it, Joe,” Barns shouted to his driver, one of his inner circle of deputies that also happened to conveniently be a lieutenant in the National Guard. “We’ll head for the cabin and smash it up. That will bring out the bastards we need to take down. After we capture the Goths and that big Indian the others will throw down their weapons. Skunk, radio the other APCs to join us. Together we’ll hit the cabin with everything we have.”
Moments later something massive clanged onto the roof of their APC, jarring the vehicle violently and causing a foot-wide dent to appear over Barn’s head.
“What the hell was that?” asked Skunk. Two more objects struck the vehicle with a dull thud even as he asked.
“Huge tree branches,” said Joe, pointing at his forward looking camera monitor. Branches, each weighing hundreds of pounds, were crashing down about the APC, some dead, others decorated in green spring growth. Joe reflexively stopped the forward motion of the APC.
“The damn trees are alive and chucking limbs at us!” said Skunk. He had pointed his turret guns and camera upward. The treetops that formed a canopy more than a hundred feet over the driveway were thrashing about wildly, causing branches to snap off and rain down on them. Skunk fired up at them with the machine gun.
“Save your ammo, dunce,” shouted Barns. “Get moving, Joe; get us the hell out of here before we’re buried in this stuff!”
Joe put the APC in gear again, bringing over a thousand horsepower of power to bear on huge all-terrain wheels. The APC lurched a few feet forward and stopped, wheels spinning freely. “We’re being lifted off the fucking ground,” shouted Joe, panic in his voice.
“That’s impossible!” replied Barns. “This thing must weigh at least thirty tons.”