"Thank you. I will keep your request in mind. If I find other wildlife that might be of interest I will send pictures of those as well. I wish your people life and peace, and will keep in contact. You've been very gracious hosts."
(The ego trumps the id today.)
Cassandra nods appreciatively at your words. "And I wish you peace as well, Jefferson. I am truly sorry that it is such a precious commodity right now. At least let me offer you the hospitality of a meal and a place to stay the night while the storm rages above."
Cassandra leaves you at "the mall", basically a mountain people version of a mess hall.
You have none of the food people's ration coupons or money but amazingly you need neither of them. You are allowed to just go to any of the different food counters and ask for food. And they just give it to you. As much as you want. For free. The food all seems to be vegan but there are many strange dishes that you have never had before like "slurpees" and "oreos". Between the strange customs and food you are bewildered a bit and your outlandish garb doesn't exactly make you blend in. However the curiousity you attract is friendly at least. Some of the young mountain women invite you to dine with them and eagerly listen to your tales of the outside world.
You never do find your way to the guest quarters that Casandra told you about that night. You spend the night bridging the cultural gap with a young woman named Tara instead...
...
Pretty sure it was something like thisThe mountain people have incredible archives. They have digitized centuries of history and created virtual reality simulations. Your host takes you on a brief tour of the world as it was two hundred years ago. It's nice to know that in some small way the old world is still preserved.
You have a mission so you can't stay and play video games with the mountain people forever. You are blindfolded and taken to the surface and left many kilometers from the cave the mountain people took you from. You were dropped off to the south, which is convenient. You trace your way south, find the trade route between Boulder and Provo and find a merchant caravan willing to share the trip. Soon you have returned to Cavern Forge.
The 17th gives you a warm reception. Captain Hawkins and the rest of your patrol arrived with the payment from the first successful merchant escort trip. The payment is food, real food. The monotony of k-concentrate and yeast is finally broken with some honest to god bread and eggs. Your brothers and sisters in arms are impressed in your role in securing the work and the food it brings.
Carter and Bose are keenly interested to hear your reports of the mountain people, especially when you explain their role in the west Kansas reclamation zone. Carter isn't terribly surprised however,
"I always knew Mendoza was up to something. The man was a godawful general and lacked common sense yet he kept managing to bungle though. So this is how he afforded buying off Landry so long. Losing West Kansas was an even bigger deal then we thought. But it might not be so bad if these mountain men are as powerful as it sounds like. If we only had something to trade with them we could have everything we need."
Then it's your turn to be brought up to speed. The deals you brokered are requiring the 17th to leap back into action. Patrols need to be exfiltrated from Cavern Forge without drawing attention and meet up with the merchants without attracting Federal attention. Your skills are going to be needed again to head into Colorado Springs and smooth things over with the merchants, making sure the meetups go smoothly and low profile and making sure the merchants and soldiers dont clash with each other. Between the patrols and the ongoing yeast effort, the caves are bustling with activity. Several months go by as you move from one deal to the next, travelling back and forth between Colorado and Utah several times. The patrols seem to be going smoothly so far but there seems to be trouble brewing again. At least this time you are only stuck in the middle and not a part of it.
Although rebellious generals and governors (often one and the same) are nothing new, there are rumblings of rebellion coming out from Utah that dont look like a traditional coup attempt. The black market for weapons in Provo is booming as the people there buy all the smugglers can deliver. They're stockpiling weapons for an outright revolt against the military, against the president, against everything. It's foolhardy of course, nobody actually rebels against the army and lives very long. And yet, and yet... President Norris doesn't have any troops to spare for Utah with the war in India dragging out so long. And with the 17th turned rebel and the National Guard units in Colorado shattered, the Provo government can't expect any help from it's closest neighbors. When you evesdrop on the conversations of the people of Provo, listen to their anger everytime a food riot turns ugly, it sounds like rebellion cant be too far off. It wouldn't hurt to start contingency planning and with the right preparations there are a lot of ways you could play this...
A) A rebellion in Utah will ruin our trade routes. Way too much Federal attention to operate in these mountains. We need to look east to find a new venture.
B) A rebellion in Utah is going to be bad for Boulder. We still have friends in the Guard there and if Provo revolts, Boulder is going to be in the path. We should be ready to offer our services to the Boulder National Guard, nearly 1000 veteran soldiers wont get turned away in a time of desperate rebellion.
C) A rebellion in Utah is going to be bad for Norris. We could offer our services to the rebels and wage guerilla warfare in the mountains. Veteran soldiers attacking supply lines in the mountains will play havoc with the efforts to suppress the rebels. If Utah actually did succeed in their dreams of independence, Norris would look weak.
D) A rebellion in Utah is going to be bad to be nearby. The only thing good about the mountains is that there isn't Federal attention. If the Feds are coming back, we want to be gone before they do.
Of course as you plan it's worth keeping in mind the limited resources that Carter's Renegades have left at their disposal. Given your leadership role in the past few months you've gotten an image of the less then ample resources the 17th still has:
984 soldiers. Every one of them is a capable fighter but many of them have additional skills. The trained construction engineers, scouts, electricians, medics and the like that were the expert core of the group were most likely to follow Carter into exile.
309 fully repaired combat armor suits. These are vital to having soldiers fight at their full potential. Without them, casualties would skyrocket. They allow soldiers to brave the surface elements.
254 significantly damaged combat armor suits. These are all not fit for service but might be repaired if you ever get access to military grade supplies again.
45 salvaged or bartered ad hoc combat suits. Taken from bandits or merchants these are much worse then your standard combat armor but do let you brave the surface elements.
945 HAZMAT suits. Not providing protection or visibility in\r combat and too cumbersome for agile movement, they will let you brave the elements.
Small arms for about 1500 soldiers.
About 12,000 rounds of small arms ammunition
Four man portable rocket systems
14 rockets
About 200 kilograms of explosives.
About 300 kits left of first aid supplies
24 small electric vehicles (mostly two metric ton cargo)
Various small radioisotope thermoelectric generator producing about 200 kWh of electricity a day in total
Yeast and K-concentrate stockpiles to last about six weeks
About 12 million calories of yeast harvested each week. If this was the only supply of nutrition for the soldiers, there would be a deficit of a couple million calories a week given the strenuous work the soldiers perform requires more then 2000 calories a day.
About 14,000 food vouchers coming in from merchant escort duties a week. When you were living in the cities, you needed about 5 of these a day to keep from going hungry. It's key to troop morale to provide them with at least some real food to go along with the yeast and K-concentrate. Right now the soldiers on the patrols are turning all of the revenues over to the division, this might be a potential source of discontent or even embezzlement in the future but right now morale is still high.
Right now the Division has "banked" about 20,000 food vouchers and the soldiers themselves own quite a few vouchers from before the exile, maybe 10 each on average.
About 200 soldiers at any given time are actively on merchant escort duties and are getting fed by the merchants. The better quality of food and interesting duties means everyone wants these assignments even though the soldiers dont keep the payments.
Author
Topic: 23rd century botony! (A wild sequel appears!) (Read 21911 times)