Hoffecker was a middle-aged woman who might have been pretty in her youth. To his aura sight, she glowed with a mix of yellows and oranges underscored in green. She exuded an aura of confidence and competence, despite her rather frayed appearance. Both officers had been among those first captured by the trolls and were rather worse for wear. Snyder was in his late forties with salt and pepper hair, a strong jaw, and piercing eyes. His aura was blue and yellow with some sickly looking indigo and violet highlights.
“How many Numb do we have?” Captain Snyder asked, breaking Drew out of his reverie. The numb were the third group of kids he’d noticed. The ones that had mostly given up. They would follow along with someone if supervised but tended to stare off into space and do nothing if left to their own devices.
“The adults fared better, only one in ten of them succumbed to Numbness, the kids, well, it’s more like one in five. The exact numbers are nine adults and twenty-six kids. We’ve split the groups into two different types: caretaker groups and work groups. The caretaker groups have a person with minimally effective combat skills assigned to each numb member. All our people with more effective combat skills are spread between the workgroups. Most of them aren’t anywhere…combat ready, but they should be able to hold long enough for our big guns to show up.” Hoffecker said inclining her head towards Drew’s group.
“Good, what’s our food and water status?” Snyder asked, and this time Sarah spoke up.
“We’ve sent a few of the work groups out scavenging. We’re not sure what the trolls were feeding everyone, but we haven’t been able to find any large stores. We have enough for one more meal and then we’re going to be out.” Drew’s group had come in with backpacks half full of food, but that wasn’t anywhere near enough to feed more than 200 people. “The only reason we have that much is because we have a couple people with food-related blues. Otherwise, we’d all be hungry already.”
“Alright, well, we’ll need to rendezvous with your group topside as soon as we can and hope the stadium can solve that particular problem when we get there,” Snyder said, scratching at his stubble.
“We should be able to, Captain. When I left we had more production capabilities than we would need for twice this number.” Robbi offered, as the only one that had been to the stadium. Snyder just nodded his head then glanced over at Sarah.
“Alright Ensign, I’d like to split your team up a little bit, spread our experienced people out among the groups. I’m going to keep you in charge of all the combatant teams though, so figure out distribution and skills so we can be as effective as we can.” The captain announced, “Major, I’d like you to start getting everyone ready to move out at first light. Sergeants Montgomery and Stirling,” He said, indicating Robbi and Trista by using their last names, “grab the combatants when Ensign Rothschild is done with them and get them practicing what drills you can, we’ll need them as ready as we can get them. Petty Officer Michalik, help with the combatants, but I also want you going between the groups and casting your rain spell. We need everyone sharp for the morning. Get your teams ready and we’ll reconvene in two hours.”
“Excuse me captain, but there are still a couple of things we need to do here. We need to take care of the dead and get into that structure the trolls were excavating.” Drew said. He felt that itchy sensation between his shoulders that he was coming to associate with doing some incredibly stupid things that were bound to get him in trouble.
“I understand your concerns, petty officer. You said your friend didn’t turn into one of these…wereghouls until a few hours after he died, we should have plenty of time before they start turning, and quite frankly, we don’t have the manpower to deal with all those bodies.” Captain Snyder said with a shake of his head. “As for the structure, we’ll just have to come back for it.”
Drew frowned, from what he had been told by Ares he knew that there was bound to be some sort of mechanism for him to be able to take control of the node in the building. But he didn’t want to tell the captain about his time with the Protectorate admiral. “I don’t think that’s a good idea, captain. It was obviously important to the trolls, and there could be something in there that gives us an edge.”
“While I appreciate the rescue and all the hard work you’ve done, I disagree with your tactical assessment, petty officer.”
“But captain…”
“That will be all petty officer; you have your orders.”
Drew really hated being called petty officer. It was common slang in the Navy, but the Coast Guard tended to call each other by their rate. Petty officer was the equivalent of his mother calling him his full name. It grated on his nerves. He had never been great at respecting the chain of command, and luckily enough his command had been pretty good about listening to him. But it was clear that the O-6 thought a mere E-5 was too far down on the command chain to take seriously. He gritted his teeth, especially when Sarah shot him a look that told him to shut up.
With a grunt, Drew turned away from the group and headed down the tunnel back towards the structure. Sarah caught up to him almost immediately.
“Drew, are you alright?” She asked, touching his arm.
“Yes, I’m fine. Just…pissed.” Drew answered, not slowing down.
“Drew, stop and look at me. We need to talk about this.” Sarah said pulling his arm. Drew let himself be stopped and turned to look at her.
“Drew, he’s a captain. I know we’ve been on the edge of survival for the last bit here, but there are too many of us to keep doing things the way we’ve been doing it. Heck, you don’t even know half the people in our old group’s name. You know as well as I do that you don’t want to manage the logistics.”
“That’s not the point, Sarah.” Drew said, stepping closer and lowering his voice, “The node is in that…thing. Ares said I needed to take control of the nodes. If I did, I would be able to shape this world into a better place. But I can’t do that if I’m stuck being a glorified water boy for some captain that got captured two days into the advent.”
“I know, I understand. Look, I’m in charge of the combat groups. Take some people with you, and head down there. We’ll call it a training exercise. Daryl’s already down there, and you need to pull him away from his wife…help him bury her at least.”
The reminder of his failure to protect Daryl’s wife was sobering. Drew took a deep breath and let go of the anger that dealing with the captain had filled him with. “Fine. I’ll try to deal with as many of the dead as we can while I’m down there. Just because it took Juan a few hours to turn doesn’t mean that it’s always going to take that long.”
“Yeah, I don’t think he realizes how…terrifying they are. Honestly, I’m not sure he even really believes it’s going to happen.” Sarah said shaking her head. “Look, we’re still in this together, right? You’re not going to go do something stupid?”
Drew snorted, “Right, nothing stupid here. I’m not going to abandon you.” He glanced back at the room. “I just, I can’t go back in there. Sarah, I feel like they’re all blaming me for not being fast enough. Like it’s my fault that all those people are dead. And maybe there is something in there that can prevent that from happening again.”
“Drew, you didn’t kill those people. The trolls did, and without you, all these people would be dead. You’re the linchpin that is keeping us afloat. The captain will figure that out soon. I think he’s just scared and relying on his previous experiences.”