“A town like that,” said Sevin, “there has to be a handful of ex-military from somewhere, wasting their lives on sex and drugs. Never underestimate your opponent.”
Seven slowed and stopped next to the crane at the top of the crater’s rim. He dismounted and talked to the crane operator, then stood off at a distance and used his personal communicator before getting back in the skimmer. Galen didn’t ask what all that was about, he knew he was better off not knowing. Sevin drove the skimmer back into the cage, the crane lowered them back to the floor of the crater, and Sevin dropped them off at the Brigade conference room.
“See you later Smaj, I’m going back up top,” said Sevin, who slid over to the passenger seat. His assigned driver and laser gunner mounted the skimmer and the vehicle skimmed away.
Galen, Tad, Karen and Koa sat at the conference table. Spike sat at the far end. “So how’d it go?”
Tad looked down, Koa shrugged and Karen looked toward Galen.
Galen said, “Well, good and bad, depending on how you look at it.”
Karen said, “We’ll not be getting real food for a couple of months at least. Also, the organic fuel pipeline might not ever get done. We may have to truck that stuff in from the next town, the one almost five hundred klicks away.”
Koa said, “It’s been interesting. We whacked a hornet’s nest today.”
Spike looked at Galen. “What did you do?”
“We met with the most pre-eminent enclave leader in City Seven, and asked for a chance to bid a contract for them to provide us with real food and organic fuel. She was unreceptive, but offered to sell us narcotics and offered the services of slave prostitutes.”
Spike blinked and leaned his elbows on the table. “Then what happened?”
“Well, I had to arrest her. She resisted, assaulted my logistics officer, I was shot in the back of my combat vest, Koa took a round to the helmet, so we had to shoot our way out of there and flee for our lives.”
Spike leaned forcefully back in his chair, looked at the ceiling and yelled, “Damn you Sevin!”
Koa broke in to the conversation. “We killed Queen Zora and three guards.”
Spike stood.
Galen said, “Sit down, we have it all recorded. We’re clean; we have nothing to worry about. Nice and legal.”
Spike sat. “Okay. Now what?”
Galen said, “Tad, continue on with ops. Train the trainers, run all our troops through the lanes before the EugeneX recruits get here. Logistics, work things out with the next town; five hundred klicks is not too far to run a tap line. I understand we have enough shelf rations to feed our people for six months, if necessary. Intel, you got your hands full but you also have enough time and resources to get a handle on the new threat. XO, we need to change our plan for morale support.”
Spike said, “What does that mean?”
“We can’t depend on the indigs for a party ville. I’ll contact my mom and see if she has any suggestions about how we can set up something legitimate here in the crater.”
“All right,” said Spike.
Galen stood. “If there’s nothing else, dismissed.”
Chapter Seven
Galen was half way through his get-out-of bed stretch when his wrist chronometer buzzed on the plastic container/night stand next to his bunk. He picked it up. A text message from Spike: Check your personal communicator.
He shuffled around the stuff laying on the night stand: an eBook reader, a couple of loaded pistol magazines, a disposable nose-wipe container, a cup with coins in it, a clean t-shirt, and underneath it all, his personal communicator. He wiped the dust from its screen and turned it on.
The screen showed connectivity and the announcement that the local comms net was operational. He tapped the screen and saw that a new packet of data had just been added, meaning a jumpship had arrived and had sent a burst to the local comms net receiver. Galen checked; there were nine new movies he hadn’t seen, and he planned to watch them at the theater in full-D instead of on his flat screen. Next was a message from his mother. It had detailed plans for the bases’ ‘downtown’ district and a list of nearly two hundred entertainers, cooks, barmaids, drinky women and an all-women administrative staff to run the whole thing. Galen double-checked to make sure his mother’s name was not on the list.
A knock at his door.
“Are you awake?” Karen’s voice.
“Come on in.”
Karen entered and placed a plastic container on his desk. “I brought you breakfast.”
“Thanks.” Galen sat at his desk and pulled the tab that would heat the ration. Then he removed the lid and pushed out the spork that had been part of the lid, held in by perforations that weakened when the meal was heated.
Karen sat on his bunk. “Any good news?”
“Our ship came in, and our comms net is up. My mom’s plan for downtown looks easy enough to implement and maintain. We’ll make a ton of money from it, from the EugeneX troops and police. More than enough to offset the costs of getting support from farther away.”
“Well eat fast, I want to take you with me to attend the grand opening of the tunnel. It’s a pretty big deal, since it’s the first major project handled by the Myung Jin builders. They got it done on time despite the fact we chose to have it dug on the opposite side of the crater from Factory Seven.”
“No problem,” said Galen. He inserted food, chewed once, swallowed, and repeated until his food container was empty.
As she left Karen said, “My skimmer is out front, you can ride with me. I’ll wait.”
Galen put on his coveralls and boots, ran an electric razor across his face, put on his war gear and went outside and sat in the seat behind Karen. The skimmer drove around the lake and then turned outward and traveled eighteen more klicks to the tunnel along a path that had been well-worn by wheeled construction vehicle traffic and then paved. The tunnel was a full twenty meters wide, a semi-circle bored with a circular digging machine that left a flat surface on the lower half and a concrete lining around the sides and top. Excavated material made a berm ten meters high along either side of the entrance lane. The tunnel began well away from the cliff face and descended gradually for a distance of five kilometers, then leveled off. Three klicks later, the tunnel angled upward at a 15% slope for another eight kilometers and then rose out of the ground at a point eight kilometers outside the crater rim. The tunnel was still rough, the center divider and the lane markings and the lighting yet to be completed. Using the skimmer’s service drive lights and night vision goggles, the driver was able to maintain a speed of eighty kilometers per hour.
The skimmer emerged from the tunnel. The area was surrounded by a defensive compound, the strongest fortification a concrete structure surrounding the tunnel exit. Solid ten meter high walls on the sides and back, the wall in front with a twenty meter gap to allow traffic to pass through. The skimmer went through that opening and turned right and came to rest behind an assembled formation of troops standing at rest. Off to the right side of the formation was a set of bleachers, civilian construction workers seated on them. In front of the two groups was a lectern on a raised platform, four chairs behind it. Tad sat in one chair, Chief Polar in the next. Galen and Karen strode forward through the gap between the bleachers and the troop formation and took the two remaining seats on the platform.
Polar stood and said, “The ceremony will begin in two minutes.”
Sevin stood in front of the assembled troops. He executed an about-face and said, “Company, Attention. At ease,” then faced back toward the platform.
Galen looked around. Much of the material excavated from the tunnel had been used to construct berms around the area, defensive breastworks that included hull-down firing positions. A company of Hellcat tanks were already parked in many of them, with smaller ones still empty, about the right size for Hornet light tanks or infantry fighting vehicles. Four ground-mobile rail guns were already in position and Galen could tell that the three concrete foundations nearby were for point defense laser cannons that would be installed later.