Caitlin vs. the Moral Authority Militia

Presenting a special free sneak preview of the dystopian action adventure Caitlin Star

Caitlin Star now available at Amazon, Barnes & Noble and Kobo

Chapter 1 - Caitlin vs. the Moral Authority Militia

Caitlin sat perched up high on a tree branch clenching her sword.

She took in a slow deep breath of the fresh mountain air and allowed her mind to be still. Dusk was approaching over the landscape of Yellowstone Park as the sun began to settle behind the mountains across the valley. The majestic sights and sounds of the forest felt like a treasured childhood memory that had been brought to life. She savored it and took comfort and inspiration in the fact that this place—this beauty—this was why she was here.

She had been training over ten years for this moment, for this night, and for this revolution.

Strategically positioned throughout the mountain valley around her, there was a platoon of like-minded warriors. Like her, they were armed with swords, fight sticks, ropes, knives, and throwing spears. Like her, they were dressed in black and camouflage Kevlar enhanced uniforms that were part superhero and part covert G.I. Joe. Like her, they were disciples of the Sacred Scrolls of Tarmok and had been trained in the ways of the Bull Mongoni by a man named Gunner Star.

But most of all, like her, they wanted justice. They were here to stop the murdering cowards who had invaded Yellowstone Park. They were here to stop the Homo sapiens that came to poison and destroy everything in their path.

Caitlin peered into her night-vision binoculars and scouted the entrance road to the base camp.

She could see a parade of blinding headlights approaching from the mountain road above. The sputtering screams of gasoline and diesel engines began to drown out the soothing sounds of the nighttime forest. Dirt, filth, smoke, noise, toxins—this was what her enemies were now unleashing into what was once a pristine wilderness set aside over a century ago.

Teddy Roosevelt would be rolling over in his grave if he could see the desecration that was being thrust upon the National Parks he had created in his visionary, progressive wisdom. But alas, conservation, the environment, protecting animals—these were antiquated ideas that had no place in the world of the right-wing extremists who now ran North America. President Perkins and the Tea Party Congress created what they euphemistically called “The Freedom of Land Act” which essentially turned over all National Parks, public lands, U.S. coastal waters to the big oil companies.

Yellowstone had been turned over to Exxon, and their first project was to assemble an army of redneck mercenary half-wits backed by Perkin’s Federal Police Force known as the Moral Authority. Their number one priority mission was to hunt down and sadistically slaughter all the wildlife, especially wolves.

Not on my watch, Caitlin thought. Not as long as I am alive.

Caitlin had raised a wolf named Sheeba. She rescued the wolf as a cub after a group of hunters murdered Sheeba’s parents for a reality TV show because they thought it would be “fun.”  Well tonight was Caitlin’s turn to have some fun.

She gazed at the trail below. The caravan of trucks was moving down into the valley. The enemy would be arriving at the base camp within minutes at full force. Caitlin tapped a message into the tablet strapped to her forearm.

            “Strike first, strike fast. Good God it’s great to be a Bull Mongoni.”

*****************************************************************************

Joe Walsh stood on the platform of the lookout tower gazing upon the vast territory of what would soon be all his.

It was the least they could do, Walsh thought.

He had been a fiercely loyal right-wing warrior ever since the birth of the Tea Party movement and never shied away from saying what all the other conservatives also believed but were too cowardly to say. He had been labeled a hater, a bully, a racist, and branded as simply being crazy. But now his strength and loyalty were about to pay off. At long last, Joe Walsh was about to get what he was entitled to—what he earned—what he deserved.

Both the Exxon board of directors and President Perkins himself had promised Walsh that he would be made the official Moral Authority Magistrate. Not only did that mean he would have absolute power over all legal issues in the territory with a powerful Federal police force at his beck and call, it also meant he would own the bodies of all women reproductive age in the Western territories over which he ruled.

Ahh, the benefits of the Ryan/Aiken Personhood Act, he thought to himself. Women, power, more cash than he could spend in ten lifetimes. All he had to do was keep killing wolves and secure the area from any infestations of tree-hugging liberals.

Walsh could see the parade of headlights approaching. He signaled for the guards to open the base camp gates. Moving into the valley from the hillside above was a long caravan of trucks, recreational vehicles, vans, and military hummers with mounted machine guns. It was the most ruthless hunting party ever assembled and his own personal militia.

            Joe Walsh looked up at the three massive flagpoles that towered over the camp. One flag was the traditional United States of America’s flag. The second flag was white with a black and gray stylized logo, the letters MA. At the bottom of the shield was the text Moral Authority. The third flagpole stood the tallest. It too had an emblem on top—light brown in color with an image of a snake in the grass. Around the snake was a dark, stylized text that read Freedom Party Express.

            Joe Walsh smiled to himself. The future looked bright for him and the others who stayed to the right and embraced the new extremism of the post-Tea Party Era.

            The future looked bright indeed.

******************************************************************************

Caitlin watched in horror as the caravan of militia trucks began to pull up and unload their cargo.

            Dozens upon dozens of murdered wolves lay bloodstained and lifeless in the back of the trucks, as if they were tossed there by some cold, evil force. Beautiful, majestic creatures that had only an hour ago been going about their day—playing, hunting, drinking from one of the few non-polluted streams that remained,  frolicking about with the pack. The joy of life, the innocence of beauty, the purity of nature—all of it instantly destroyed by the cowardly pulling of trigger by a hate-filled fiend.

            Commander Joe Walsh and his murdering militia would pay for this sadistic slaughter. Caitlin would especially enjoy taking out this piece of shit Walsh. His newly dubbed “Western Territory Magistrate” appointment was going to be a short-lived term.

            Caitlin took a deep breath. She had to remember what Gunner had taught her.

            Control and precision. It is all about training, technique and focus. Once you have your enemy by the throat, then you can uncork your barbaric rage.

            Oh, and unleash it she would.

            Caitlin did a final check in on her tablet. Everyone was in place—locked and loaded—ready to spring out from the trees. They waited for her signal. All that remained for Caitlin was to find the ideal moment to strike.

            Caitlin clenched her muscles and took a deep breath as she watched the flurry of activity unfold in the base camp parking.

            Dozens of trucks with the Moral Authority shield pulled up to a base camp warehouse.

Militia men jumped out. Some of them looked to be official Moral Authority police troopers, but the bulk were mercenaries made up of gun-toting, bloodthirsty rednecks.

            More trucks poured in, and more armed men stepped out into the lot. Within minutes, there were hundreds of trucks jammed into the base camp parking lot and thousands of armed men moving about. The back of a truck opened up as a fork lift approached and Caitlin got a glimpse of the cargo, the bodies of dead animals riddled with bullet holes.  There was one truck after another containing the lifeless forms of creatures slaughtered by this group of government sanctioned murdering cowards.

            Caitlin took another deep breath and tried to focus the boiling primal rage cascading inside her hard, sculpted flesh.

            Everyone scattered about the base camp parking lot and warehouse area as they began to hurriedly assemble in the open courtyard area of the compound directly beneath the main building. It was organized chaos. They moved with urgency and almost seemed anxious. Apparently, it was time for the boss’s meeting.

            Caitlin watched. She bit down on her lip with salivating vengeful rage as a pompous figure with salt and pepper hair, dressed in a shirt and tie emerged from the main building. It was the insidious commander of this butcher shop, Joe Walsh.

            Walsh was flanked by two Moral Authority guards armed with AK-47s. A greasy-haired redneck bowed to Walsh and submissively motioned for him and his guards to follow. Caitlin tapped on the boom microphone icon on her tablet and pointed it toward Walsh and his submissive greasy-haired underling.

            “Commander Walsh, right this way. We have a podium set up in the middle of the lot where you can address the men.” Walsh nodded and followed him to a small wooden step ladder that led up to a podium. At the center of a podium, there was a microphone.

            The makeshift crowd was composed of dozens of government trained Moral Authority assassins mixed in among hundreds of psychotic gun fetishists and shit-kicking yahoos. One thing they all seemed to have in common was a fear of Joe Walsh. The men wasted no time assembling into the main lot awaiting the words of their ideological guru.

            Walsh looked out over the men he commanded, stepped up to the podium microphone, and spoke.

            “My fellow freedom fighters…up until very recently this place was held hostage as a tribute for Marxists and socialism. National Parks were created by big-government liberals trying to take your freedom away. This place stood as the ultimate insult to the American people, a beacon of Communism and beholden to the animal loving, science believing, tree-hugging liberals. But thanks to our friends at Exxon, Shell and Chevron, and the hard work and dedication of the original Tea Party Express movement that paved the way...thanks to them and most of all thanks to you, the Government no longer owns this land, and at long last it belongs to those who deserve it—you!”

            The crowd of gun-toting mercenaries roared in approval.

            Pistols were un-holstered and fired into the air.

            Caitlin waited to strike from the shadows. She was going to relish taking down these bloodthirsty goons and anyone else who wanted to use these mountains as a place to gleefully destroy life just for kicks.

            Caitlin could feel the adrenaline surging deep inside her. She began to quiet her mind and stared to focus her rage into the physical task that lay before her. From her stealth position in the tree, she began to calculate her attack. The men were bunched up and exposed on all flanks. This was perfect Caitlin thought. She alone could slash a dozen throats and split a few skulls before anyone even knew what hit them. She tugged on the bull rope secured to the branch underneath her and began to visualize her dramatic entrance.

            Meanwhile, Walsh rambled on continuing to feed his followers the hate-filled rhetoric they so desperately craved.

            “Now listen up, because there is money to be made here. They will begin tearing down these mountains for strip mining and drilling in ten days. So let’s keep the kill ratios up. I want all the wild life, anything that walks of crawls in the state gone before Exxon gets here to inspect this place next week and—,” Walsh stopped mid-sentence and was staring out across the lot towards the edge of the forest.

            Caitlin turned to see what had caught the fiend’s attention. Her heart skipped a beat, first from awe, then from fear. It was a beautiful, majestic gray wolf.

            “Well I’ll be damned. Talk about walking into the wrong part of town.” Walsh’s sarcastic quip incited a round of laughter from the crowd of loathsome scum bags.

            Walsh fed right into the atmosphere of destruction and hate. “Someone get me a rifle with a scope. Looks like we are going to have us some more fun tonight boys.”

            Enough, Caitlin thought.

            She grabbed the bull rope, swung out into the night air and planted a perfect ten landing down in the back of the lot. She whistled to shoo away the gray wolf to safety. Then, she struck a statuesque action figure pose and turned to face the mob of butchering goons and their arrogant leader.

            “Hey Walsh,” Caitlin called out. “Why don’t you try me on for size tough guy?”

Find out what happens next as the Bull Mongoni revolution begins!

Caitlin Star is the femme fatale action hero of the new generation