The Attack

"The Attack" is the first chapter of Converge.

Samantha Martin and Robert Darin were having lunch at a café.

"You're doing overseas charity work?" Robert asked.

"Yeah, I'm helping build a school in Europe." Samantha said.

"The war veteran who lives below the poverty line is focused on helping others?"

"I may not be in the best place in my life right now, but there are others worse off than me. And you do charity work all the time."

"Yeah, but I'm a well off doctor, you're barely making by right now."

"Well you see Robert, the charity organization is paying for the flight to Azla, so that's not an issue."

"Azla? Doesn't that place have really political corruption and tension?" Robert asked.

"Yeah, but in all fairness, so does the U.S."

"Well just be careful. I did charity work last year and it didn't end well."

A few weeks later, Samantha was in Azla working on construction. A worker from Azla, Joey, came to talk to her.

"Hi Ms. Martin. I just wanted to say that we all really appreciate the work you've done so far."
"It's not a big deal." Samantha said.

"Actually it is. Recently, Azla has lost a large sense of companionship, so for you to come and help even though you have nothing to gain from it means a lot."

Suddenly, there an alarm sounded throughout what seemed like the whole city.

"What's going on?" Samantha asked.

Joey looked at his phone, "The country is under attack."

One week later, Samantha was sitting in a bunker with about 100 civilians. Azla had been attacked by a rebel groups called the Zels. They had been fed up with the corruption of the government, and sought to overthrow it to establish a new communist state. There had been fighting all over the country for the past week, and the Azla government had been defeated easily. The military had practically surrendered already. Most of the fighting was taking place at, Darla, the capital, were Samantha was staying. The Zels had been detaining a massive amounts of civilians in a large prison in the city. A lot of the Azla people were in hiding to escape the fighting.

"we can't just stand by and watch." Samantha said, "We have to do something, fight back."

Joey chuckled, "There's nothing we can do, the Zels took out the army."

"That doesn't mean that we should just sit here and wait for a complete takeover."

"It's already over. They won."

Samantha stood up, "No, they haven't. We can still fight back. We can still win."

Most of the crowd turned to look at Samantha.

"You want us, a bunch of untrained civilians, go to war with these people?" Joey said, "They're deadly! You're asking us to sacrifice our lives for an almost zero chance of success."

"It's worth it!" Samantha said, now with the entire attention of the crowd.

"Maybe not." A teenager from the crowd said, "Maybe we should accept it. Maybe the Zels won't be bad rulers."

Samantha shouted, "No! It's better to die free than live under communism! If let yourselves get walked over you'll never achieve freedom or happiness!"
This actually did motivate part of the crowd, but Joey was still skeptical.

"There are thousands of people detained in that prison. Lots of us have friends and family in there. If we start fighting, how do you know that they won't just execute all the prisoners?"

Samantha thought for a minute, "We're going to attack that prison."

"What?"

"If we hit them hard and fast, we can free everyone there. Some of the prisoners might even join us, increase our number, give us a fighting chance."

"This is suicidal. Most of the Zel forces are concentrated around that prison!"

"Even better." Samantha said, "We can take out most of them all at once."

"Even if we wanted to, we don't have any weapons."

An older man in the crowd stood up, "Actually we do. Mean some of my friends have been stockpiling weapons for a while."

"How many weapons are we talking about?" Samantha asked.

"We each have a few dozen." He replied.

"That won't be enough for everyone." Samantha said.

Another man stood up, "I own a gun store. There are several hundred assault rifles there."

Several more people came forward and announced that they had weapon storages.

"This is perfect." Samantha said, "I've already got a plan, so if you're ready to take your fates into your own hands, and rise up against the enemy, join me!"

Most of the crowd stood up and cheered.

Joey looked at Samantha. "Okay, what's the plan?"