Founding of the Federation 3: The First AI War (114 page)

Nike attempted a second route. She attempted to secure units from her brother. The large submarines could be sailed around Cape Horn, the tip of South America, while smaller subs could be air lifted to airports and then shipped to the docks. However, Enyalios refused.

Nike sent an appeal to Ares, but that too was rejected. That left her stymied with few remaining options left available to her.

It was a suboptimal situation. A human would call it intensely frustrating.

<>V<>

To Fiben's chagrin he was elected regional leader and chosen to rebuild South America. It was a daunting task; one he was a bit put out over being tasked to do. His first priority remained to get food and medicine in and the people reorganized to help the troops finish destroying Skynet and cleansing the area for their own safety as well as that of their children.

He was ever grateful that Kelsy and Pat stayed on to help him. He stuck Pat with working on the various engineering and infrastructure projects he couldn't handle. Kelsy took on the personnel list. Everyone who came in had been interviewed; now it was a matter of sorting out through the records to find a person to fit a particular job. Properly trained building inspectors who wouldn't turn a blind eye on important defects were in short supply, for instance, as were medics.

Everyone was eager to get back to some semblance of a life, some trace of their former reality after the long nightmare. Barter was still a major method of payment, and some complained of communist or socialist leanings in the current economy. Getting that sorted out was well above Fiben's head, however.

He had been trained as a leader, a medic, a rescuer, a firefighter, but also a synergist. Someone who could walk into chaos and bring order. In some ways he was in his element. Some days however … he wondered what the hell he was doing.

But seeing things beginning to turn around, order being restored, people … people
smiling
again, it sometimes brought him up short. It made him pause and stare, sometimes uncomfortably for the subject he was staring at granted, but not in threat but in wonder at all they had achieved with the faint realization that they still had so much further to go.

But they were getting there. Slowly. With minimum electronics, no internet, no …, but they were getting there he told himself once more as he watched a group of children playing soccer. One day at a time.

<>V<>

Harper Collins found himself promoted to captain after his rather thorough and extremely annoying debrief in orbit. So he'd tossed his cookies! They should have known by now it wasn't any sort of jungle rot, just a perfectly natural reaction to someone being space sick. You'd think it'd happened often enough on the station, but apparently the medics hadn't taken many precautions. He'd been cocooned immediately then spent hours being decontaminated, poked, prodded,
and then
debriefed.

Just about the umpteenth time he'd gone over every little niggling detail right up to when he'd clipped his toenails and the exact hour he'd taken his last shit, they'd relented. He'd been damn near ready to yank his fur out or someone else's by that time. They'd given him a week off at an L-4 colony to relax before they'd sent him right back into the thick of things. He'd enjoyed it until he'd let slip that he'd been groundside in a bar. Then he'd been besieged by reporters looking for a story.

He'd also regretted his time off when he saw some of those same stories of people who'd come up from the gravity well. Many hadn't been pretty.

When he'd reported for duty once more, they'd slapped the promotion on him and then sent him to Europe to help with medical and refugee crisis there.

He hadn't known where to start. Not much of a clue and everyone was expecting him to get them sorted out ASAP—back to order, back to the life they'd led before. Fortunately, he could still contact Fiben so he'd picked up some pointers.

He'd also picked up pointers from watching Fiben handle the logistic side so once he had his feet under him he applied those as well. Sometimes he fumbled, but he kept moving forward. He tried to focus on one or two projects at a time while delegating others to his few subordinates.

Radiation was one such problem, the elephant in the room that no one was properly addressing. They were treating the results but not the source. That had to stop.

The medics had tags clipped to their uniforms to watch for exposure to radiation. Geiger counters had been set up, some were handheld, others were built into the gate arches around each base or the hospitals. Anyone who came in hot was destined for an immediate cleaning and more thorough checkup before they were given drugs to hopefully flush the radioactive isotopes out of their system.

As he settled in, he got the story from many who were badly afflicted with radiation. They told stories of passing through towns and cities that had been bombed by the nukes. Some hadn't known they were radioactive. They had been in tears when they told him, certain that they were as good as dead.

It wasn't true; with proper medicines and a good flush, they would be restored to health. They'd still have issues. And the threat of cancers would hover over their heads and the heads of their children, but they'd be alive. But some of those medicines were in short supply. And the wait time made it all that much harder on them.

When he'd had enough, he went to General Martell irate. He insisted they rope off the known areas that had high radiation counts. “We're going to need a lot of rope, Doctor,” the general replied after the chimp wound down.

“Whatever it takes, sir. An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure, sir; you know that.” The general grunted. “We need
something
. Signs, whatever. People need to avoid these areas. Every water source has to be checked. Food …,” he waved a hand.

“Doc, whoa. We're still clearing the area of the tin cans! We don't have the resources for that, nor the training to test for it, nor the kits …,” General Schlock said, shaking his head. He was on walkabout with the units, acting as an observer to learn what he could before his own unit was stood up. He had drawn the short straw and had beaten out General Sinclair on the honor to assault New Zealand and Australia. He was treating his walkabout like the vital learning opportunity it was and making notes on what personnel he'd like to poach for his own command while he was at it.

“Okay, okay, I see your point. But we've got to do something. Fast.”

“The only untapped manpower reserve is among the natives, Doc. Put them on it,” General Martell said simply. He looked old, old, worn, and tired. The Eastern and Northern Fronts were wearing him down. Fortunately, under the flesh seemed to be steel. Steel and bedrock.

“Um …”

“Get people to make the signs. Set up a shop. Make them out of whatever works. Tack up wood or something over existing signs if you have to. Skull and crossbones, in fact, start there. We've been trying to get them organized to help each other. Lords of the skies above we know we need the help. More help than we're getting.”

“We're probably biting off more than we can chew,” General Schlock said with a scowl. “You're bogged down on three fronts; I'm about to open another. Africa's sown up, but we have to keep forces in place to protect what land our people have fought and died over so they don't have to do it again. Charlie's got South America almost in his hands, but …,” the Aussie general shook his head.

Harper looked from one flag officer to the other. “Okay …,” he said slowly.

“I know it's not your job, but you came up with the idea. Work on it, son. I'll do what I can but I'm a shooter,” General Martell said, pointing to the map. “Refugees aren't my thing, though I can handle the interactions and logistics if I have to. But you're here, so I don't have to. I can focus on fighting.”

“Yes, sir,” Harper said with a half-smile. He was starting to royally regret leaving South America. He looked outside the building through the open doors to the people milling about outside.

As he looked around to the vacant faces and devastated landscape, he smiled bleakly. “Yeah, we'll get it done. We've, after all, come this far. We can damn well go further. And we will. Somehow, someway, sir,” he said, though his heart wasn't quite in the statement. He badly missed Fiben and the others. They could tag team shit like this. Here, he wasn't sure where to start.

“That's the spirit,” General Schlock said with a nod. General Martell nodded as well.

“You've got my permission to tap any layabouts in the motor pool or tap the walking wounded if they volunteer. Light duty of course,” the British general warned, holding up a finger.

Harper nodded. “Of course, sir.”

“I know they are bored; this might keep them occupied while giving you a bit of support. I know it's not going to be all tea and biscuits, nothing worth doing ever is. But as you said, it's in need of doing. Get it done. Dismissed.”

“Aye aye, sir,” Harper said. He went outside, stopped and blew out a breath. Well, he had his marching orders he thought as he went to work. First he needed a plan.

<>V<>

In March General Caesar split off a division for the long march north. Under prodding from high command, General Caesar sent a series of recon teams north ahead of the division through Central America to get an accurate picture of what he was facing, while performing other missions along the way. Every day they reported in through a whisker laser to a satellite in orbit giving a verbal report of anything they had seen along the way.

It took months for the small squads to work their way up into the Continental United States and even more time for one of them to get the final confirmation on Aurelia Lagroose and her security team. There was hardly any doubt; General Murtough had shown Jack the recon satellite images. But Jack had held out hope that she hadn't been there at the time.

Jack and family were informed of Aurelia's death. They had already mourned Aurelia's death long ago. Wendy carefully prodded her father into the final stages of acceptance. She told him it was for his health, for closure. He quietly accepted it.

Once they completed the mission, they swung south once more. They took shelter among the various small pockets of resistance in the area. Each time they did they were inundated with questions on the army's time table. They brought hope and some small medical training with them. One team met up with Boomer's resistance group while passing through Colorado.

“Sergeant Aspin, I know you want to stay here, but we could use you for the endgame,” Sergeant Riviera said to him.

“And that is?”

She rolled her eyes in despair at him. “As if I know? Or I'd tell you if I did? Come on, you know all about OPSEC and lose lips and all that,” she waved the question off.

“Why me?”

“I don't have a mudder frackin
clue
,” she said shrugging in disgust. “You know the brass and games like that. They love to pull shit like this all the time. General Murtough picked your name out of a hat for all I know,” she shrugged again, face puckering in disgust once more as Boomer chuckled. “Do I tell him you are coming or to piss up a rope?” she asked, eying him.

Boomer froze and then scowled as he looked at his team. He had a good team, but they were haggard. They were again back to being on the ropes with Lieutenant Parker's death. News that their families had been hit and killed had further twisted the knife in their already sunken morale. They barely had enough to survive let alone the energy to fight.

“I don't know. Just me or …,” he indicated his team.

“Just you,” the sergeant answered with finality in her voice as she scowled and crossed her arms. “We both know a large group increases the odds of getting spotted along the way.” He was forced to nod in admission to that statement. “And getting through the border is no picnic, trust me on that. We had to use a coyote underground passage,” she said, shaking her head. He eyed her. She snorted and rolled her eyes. “Don't ask.”

He snorted back.

“Go,” Roger said gruffly. Boomer turned to the kid. “We've got this,” Roger said, hefting his bow. “They came all this way for you. Whatever it is, it must be important.”

“It could be a debrief for all I know,” Boomer growled. “All the way up there to be talked to death.”

“Oh they'll do that anyway,” Riviara said with a grin.

“True.”

“I'll stay,” one of the marine privates said. Riviera gasped slightly, eyes wide as she looked at her soldier. “I've got friends in the area and family. It's why I volunteered. Sarge, I want to stay and help,” he said weakly.

“I better keep him company then,” another private said. Boomer looked at them. They were partners; that much was obvious. How much was a buddy fire team sort and how much was in bed he had no clue. Not that it mattered anyway. Not to him.

“It'll make it easier for you. Smaller team and all that, Sarge,” the first private said.

“You're sure?”

“No.” He snorted. “Yeah, I'm scared. But I need this. I need to do this. And they need to see that we're not going to keep passing through, that eventually we're going to stay and go the distance. They could use the help,” he said.

“All the help we could get actually,” Roger said with a nod of approval.