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“Icarus flew too close to the sun, but at least he flew.”
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2268
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The day the General came in from the west, Colonel Bose called your company into the mess hall tent. You looked around and saw that your company is down to about a platoons worth of soldiers, demoralized and hungry.
The Colonel was blunt, times were hard and they wouldn't get easy soon. There food wouldn't last long split among everyone who was left. Those who wanted to could take two weeks of food and head east. The General stepped forward to speak and you could still see the injuries from that morning with some nasty looking corrosion from the atmosphere exposure she took. She thanked the troops in few words and said she didn't think anyone could have done more. After that she had nothing left to say. There was an awkward silence as soldiers started slipping on their helmets, getting their rations and leaving. There were a lot of faces you never saw again. After a while, just a handful of you were left lingering around with the General and Colonel. Feeling like someone needed to say something you spoke loud enough for everyone to hear.
"What time do we break camp heading west?"
The pair of them stared for a second, as if amazed you knew how to speak. The general bit her lip before she answered "2200 sharp, got to get a good night's march in before the eyes in the sky realize we're gone."
It was a hard trip through the mountains but the old hands of the 17th knew this land. They pointed out the familiar sights to one another while the new inductees from the National Guard like you just tried to keep up. They didn't mind taking their times to help the Guardsmen keep up though. You'd stopped being packmules a long time ago in Wichita. Now you were men and women who'd been through hell together. After a couple nights marching you arrive at a box canyon just before dawn. You hunker down for the day but one of the old 17th hands tells you to take a good look at the sun; you wont be seeing it for a while. You and a few other guardsmen check the satellite tables to make sure it's in the clear then head back to the summit.
You take one last long look towards the east and the morning sun. You stare at the land that might have given you plenty but now is nothing but poison. You see the sun for one last time and then it's time to make the last march and head underground.
There are mining tunnels in the Rocky Mountains. You had known that, but you'd never realized just how damn many there were. The caves ran for more kilometers then you could count.
You lost track of time as you walked single file along endless mining tunnels with old broken rails. You realized that this tunnel was longer then even the corridors that looped around the city limits of Boulder. You used to think that the cities were the greatest structures ever built by mankind. As you walked along the century old passageways you were amazed by what the world must have been like before, that people would make something as large as these tunnels and then not even remember them. Finally you arrived at a space that isn't man made.
For someone who spent most of their life in the city, the wide open caverns felt like being back outdoors. And the old hands from the 17th said it wasn't even the biggest cavern.
Despite the amazing size of the cavern, there wasn't much time to explore. There would be months of hard work ahead of you to stay alive. Staying alive meant growing a yeast crop before the K-concentrate ran out. That meant heading back into the old mining tunnels and finding coal for the yeast then extracting that coal with improvised tools. There were long hours of back breaking work stirring the plastic barrels that were all you had for yeast vats. Artillery rounds needed to be disassembled with crude tools to get at the life giving phosphorus they contained. Communications had to be run through kilometers of corridor so that scouts on the outside could talk with base camp and listen in to broadcasts from the outside world. But it was work with a purpose and that purpose kept you going and maybe kept you sane.
Finally after months, optimism started to return to the camp. The yeast had warded away the spectre of starvation. You'd be alright until you ran out of phosphorus. There were just under a thousand of Carter's Renegades so you should be able to last a few years. And the communications team finally got you patched in to a fiber optic cable. You went from being completely in the dark about the outside world to suddenly having the entire internet at your disposal.
It's a metaphorLooking through the old news it became apparent that Norris had given half hearted chase to your rebels for a couple days but had soon pulled back. He wasn't really even interested in Boulder, he was already looking towards the next fight. The President had belatedly questioned General Norris' attack on Carter and Mendoza but didn't rescind the arrest warrant on Carter. The entire four state region of Colorado, Kansas, Oklahoma and Texas was declared under martial law by Presidential decree. But the President didn't have troops on the ground to actually enforce the decree. Norris was openly defying the presidential order. Another civil war was brewing, this one nationwide.
A few of the troops talked about helping in the fight against General Norris but there wasn't much you could do and as Carter put it "Fuck the president, he can rot in hell." There was nothing to do but watch from the sidelines. Norris called for President White to negotiate and resolve the crisis peacefully but while he said that on the airwaves, the rebellions in Louisiana and Missouri suddenly had a surge of manpower in the form of "volunteers" from the Norris camp. With his administration looking weak, President White flew out to the border states to try and resolve the crisis. In news that might have shocked you a couple years ago, President White was kidnapped by his own generals while visiting the Baton Rogue state house. White was impeached in absentia and lacking a quorum in the electoral college, Congress declared a new president by acclimation...
Cordell Norris, 127th President of the United StatesIt was not the happiest night in the world when you got news of General Norris' inaugeration. It was probably a good thing no one at Cavern Forge (as you called your new home) had any alcohol or things might have gotten really ugly.
The next day, you got summoned to a briefing with the General. You were surprised, Generals dont usually brief Corporals.
The general didn't have anything to say about the election but she said that it was time to send an expedition back to topside. Cavern Forge wasn't going to starve anytime soon but to do anything more then survive the 17th needed supplies. Norris was distracted so now was the perfect time to start sending teams back to the surface. When it came to rusting up supplies, you were the officer for the job. By the way, congratulations on your promotion, Lieutenant. Take a couple days to come up with your mission plan and tell me who you need for the job.
You return to your quarters with your head spinning from the promotion from lowly Corporal to officer. What's the plan going to be... Lieutenant?
A) No plan at all, you've noticed that every major decision in your life so far has been you going with your first option so now you are reduced to literally living in a cave, eating goddamn fungus so you need to STOP PICKING A EVERYTIME
B) The fighting in the east means that Norris' troops aren't expecting an attack from the west. Organize a strike team to go scout the surface and find a military target that has what we need. Then make a commando raid and take what we want by force
C) There are people who have been living in these mountains a lot longer then we have. We have abundant manpower and could offer them protection from Bandits and Federal troops in exchange for their assistance
D) Norris isn't paying any attention at all to Colorado. We could send teams in to Boulder and Grand Junction and make contact with the gangs there. They need mercenaries and we can deliver cans of whoop ass by the truckload.
E) There's no point in exposing ourselves to Norris' troops. We need supplies and we need to undermine his regime. The way to do both of those is to take the food that is owed us from the civilian population in west Kansas. Norris will look weak and we get what we need without a fight.
F) Other suggestions
G) Other other suggestions, sky is the limit
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Topic: 23rd century botony! (A wild sequel appears!) (Read 22006 times)