by Marcus Sloss
‘Awe, you miss me so much you want me to become an alien killing badass. Sweet in its own way. See you soon.’ - wifey 2
I looked over at Nancy, who was buried in Willow’s file. Mattresses were being bound with 550 cord on top of box springs. I twisted my head, trying to understand what the plan was. Then it hit me. Drag the box spring, who cares if it got destroyed? The road was flat until we hit our dirt offshoot. Not a bad idea. I glanced at my Gpad to see our free time to loot was almost up.
“This is Six actual. Load up. Take us home five. RV 2 will be the trail.”
Soldiers exited homes to return to their vehicles. Nancy left the driver’s seat when Dedric asked for it. She was engrossed in Willow's profile. The RV shifted when Torrez loaded in with arms full of sheets. The Harvard family was the last to arrive. They were so burdened with items that Bonnet and Mclain helped them. The RV was stuffed packed again. The convoy did a ready check with Jevon’s RV taking us out the gate first.
I was impressed that dragging a box spring worked so well. I had to wonder if someone had done this before. We never went above fifty miles per hour on the route home. I watched the Xgate from my comfy seat as the setting sun cast an orange glow. The puroons completely vacated the gate area minus their dead. The puroon holding the button let go to head home. When he vanished into the translucent blue the other gates flared alive.
There was a staggering occurrence in the following minutes that caused me to gulp. Hundreds, thousands, and then tens of thousands, of buxen arrived onto the field while spreading out. The gate was locked down but within five minutes the timer ran out. Jumping down a few feet is not bad, unless you were moving too. They slowed their arrival once this happened due to tumbling buxen. This was fixed as a flat platform with ramps; it hovered in a position to allow an easy portal transition. The buxen stopped tumbling and proceeded to rapidly fill the area. I gulped at the sheer numbers. This was an army.
Their weapons were a mix of metal with an orange electrical glow. A power container under the weapon shined. There would be no ninja buxen with those weapons. Their armor was chitin. If I were to guess they were wearing the scales or exterior of some dead creature for protection. There were different formations forming. Lightly armored scouts bounded to establish a perimeter. They were not traveling further than a mile or so from the main force which gave me hope. A large antler buxen went and urinated on the dead puroons left behind. That was the signal for others to do the same. While disturbing to witness, it let me see that there was animosity here between the buxen and the puroon.
A second race arrived out of the portal. Little humanoids with scaly skin. No taller than a few feet, these beings had claws that were clutching what appeared to be dart guns. They wore robes with no hoods and seemed to defer to the buxen. Instinctively, I tried to find them in our database. No luck with these… luxen worked. Big for buxen, little for luxen. The joys of being that guy who gets to name everything.
The luxen kept their own formation. The entire buxen army shifted to make space. What slithered out next shocked me; it should not have. There were reports of superior technology, but this was my first time seeing it. Gravity sled shifted to land flat with a jarring motion from the drop. I zoomed the picture out to see the Xgate had moved very little from its arrival location. A dozen gravity sleds were added to the mixed army. A short barrel or energy director swiveled atop a mount. The orange glow was so bright the operators wore eye covers of some sort. There was a massive power pack or generator. This was an alien siege tank maybe. Our hescos would probably only stand a hit or two from these and our walls would be breached. I frowned at the sight. When the army gave a battle cry, my gut tightened.
The biggest buxen charged through the portal to the puroon planet. I gave a fist pump and a loud long exhale of a breath I had been holding. They were going raiding with their army. Just not here. A joyful grin spread across my face. I was not sure what the puroons had done to piss off the buxen, but I certainly did not want to make enemies of that army. There was something that became even more evident as the buxen army raced to war. We needed to prepare our stronghold more. It was time to raid our area for supplies and equipment.
The jostle of the RV spurred me from my thoughts. We slowed our speed by half, but the box springs were being champions. I needed to give a raise to whoever thought of this idea. We would be needing more like it as we built our base.
CHAPTER 13
I had expected to hear a litany of complaints the moment we passed through the gate. We were given space to unload the resources we obtained. A few smiling faces greeted me as I walked out of the RV. Perci waved me forward to the barn. Willow gave my cheek a kiss before clinging to Nancy. I high fived Jacky, who trailed us with Mrs. Moore. Eddy completed the procession until Jevon caught up.
The citizens of Mansion stared at us while we marched for the only meeting room I knew of. Tents were propped up around the houses to block the chilling early spring wind. The whine of distant machines told me our hesco containers were still being crammed with dirt. Only a few people stood around idle. I paused when I saw a team of fifty or so people tilling a field.
“Part of the briefing, we’re planting crops. We have a seed engineer, horticulture enthusiasts, and the means. We can’t always eat what we kill. I happen to not want to eat purple alien brains,” Perci said with a snicker, pointing at the fresh farm fields. “Come on Cap. We need to talk about a lot of things and you need to make some big decisions.”
“This is great, I am impressed,” I said, after seeing all the improvements even an hour had made. “How are people handling the no water?”
“Well, wiping your ass with a leaf after shitting in the woods is not great,” Jacky muttered behind me.
“Cool it, momma bear,” Perci said to Willow’s mom. “Remember, the leadership needs to always have things under control even when they are not.”
I shrugged. She was not wrong in a sense. We passed the barn and the inside shocked me. There were only thirty stalls inside the barn. Entire families were occupying a stall meant for a horse. Clipped, strung, and tied on curtains were used to block interior views. I even saw someone had used branches to create a cover of their stall to stack their items on top of to create more floor space. I liked that idea a lot. Building up was our only option in this structure.
Faces peeked out to watch our procession pass by. There was arguing coming from the manager's office that caused Perci to pause. I unclipped my sidearm before bursting into the room with my weapon only half ready. A husband and wife were shocked by my sudden entry.
“Explain,” I said.
“Simply fighting about our depressing situation. I wanted to go to Aspen. She wanted to come here. Decided not to yell in front -”
“Out, and if the room is unoccupied, we will designate it as a hostile conversation room. Thank you for keeping things civil,” I said. The couple twisted by me to exit the room. “And Aspen is being flooded with Denver residents. You are safe here.”
My group entered the warm room that smelt of sex. I then cued into the fact that it was the only private place in the entirety of the stronghold. I checked the seats to find a clean one. Willow’s mom stuck her hand in something squishy when she occupied the seat next to me. I stifled a laugh as she went to smell the offensive substance.
“Is this… cum?” Jacky said, giving an awe groan… She wiped the substance on her pants while giving a head shake most people did when confronted with something gross. “We need more private rooms. I fear if you leave this room as a place for people to vent, it will become a sex room. Sex is stress relief, after all.”
“Ultra-low priority right now. You have been too nice lately, Eric,” Perci said with a frown. “This room is off limits besides for meetings of the council.”
“Council?” Jevon blurted.
“I get you guys and girls…” Perci paused while looking around. She keyed up her Gpad. “If you are an officer, get to the meeting room in th
e barn. On the double.”
Perci danced her fingers on the table, causing a lot of clacking until I flattened her hand. She gave me an agitated stare that softened. I backed my chair up, raced to her, and hoisted the small woman out of her seat. She never fought me while I carried her back to my chair. We sat at the head of the table with her in my lap. A kiss to her cheek melted her into my chest. Nancy arrived with Willow, who was waved in to join us. Torrez and Dedric arrived last. Willow gave up the chair for Torrez and stood at my side. This was our current leadership. We would have to expand it as we grew, but I was proud of those who were here.
Perci banged the table twice, starting the meeting. “The mattresses will help. I need you or Jevon to designate raiding teams. Like, do so while we talk, please. Alright, high priority lists. Installing the solar systems on the barn. We are still above electrical capacity but they are sitting idle and we are growing. Anyone you can nominate for running our electrical?”
Eddy raised his hand and said, “Braxton is the local electrician. He was drooling over the hydro generators last I saw. Want me to call him in?”
“No, tell him he is the electrical officer. All offshoots of electrical lines have to go through him. We have a lot of solar panels with batteries and wiring. The plan was never to have hydropower. If we start using power tools to convert logs to boards, we might consume more than we generate. We need that fixed before we suddenly need to start blackouts for recharging.”
“I will type out a message for him right now,” Eddy said.
“Thank you. Sanitation. Nancy said you want to put the RVs up to be privacy bathrooms. I am rejecting that. As nice as it is to shit on a toilet, we need the vehicles to gather supplies. They can withstand plasma rounds, apparently, so…” Perci said with a pause to gauge my reaction. I gave a single head tilt in approval. “Good. We need more drones, plumbing supplies, plywood, tools, and the list goes on. We have to start consolidating the supplies locally available that are ripe for raiding.”
Jevon tapped the table and said, “I have the teams ready to go. We simply need targets, unless you were thinking of assigning areas. I am hesitant about this because either of those armies can spill out and cut off our teams.”
“We have to risk it,” I said with my jaw clenched. “If we do not hustle, the winner of that battle or those scorpion bat things, will get easy loot we should have acquired.”
“I know, merely giving the fact that we may lose good troops doing this, but I agree it is vital,” Jevon said curtly. “Send them out now?”
“Yes. What is next, Perci?” I asked at the short woman posed regally while sitting in my lap.
“Farming. We are dedicating the fields to planting. Carrots, turnips, and beets for now. Norm said they will handle the higher altitude. Which leads to food. We have less than a month of food with these current MREs, which is fantastic. We are the best-prepared stronghold in the entire area for food,” Perci said cheerfully. Her mood soured and with a grim tone, she said, “After that month, we are fucked. Utterly fucked. There are no farms in the expensive mountain lands. No cow barn to raid, or chicken… Cool your enthusiasm, Eric… or chickens to barter for. We poured over the entire list of homes in our area and the best we could find were backyard vegetable gardens. We must find a long term food source. Those deermen you called buxen might taste delicious. I saw the report on the pig people coming out of the Denver gate. We should send a team down there to layout metal bait and haul back some bacon. And… keep your reaction down. We have four chickens now, brought in by a late arriving crew member.”
A fist pump got a light laughter from around the table. I smiled and said, “Awesome. Hey, I know some people are freaking out. We have clean water, a roof over our heads, and food for a month. We can fix things as we build our base. Eddy, is there any mechanical equipment we can loot?”
“There are snow trucks that are staged. They are old and run on gas which -”
“Jevon, get them.”
“Wilco.”
“Why?” Willow asked.
“Simple. They are big metal contraptions. We can fill the beds with dirt and plug any holes our walls take. Or put supplies in the beds. Or convert the back beds into homes. We will find uses for them,” I said, scratching my stubbly face. “The snow plow blades can help push dirt too.”
“We found bedrock. About eight feet down, which is more than I anticipated,” Dedric said with a frown. “Those machines need to come in for a full charge here soon. So that makes sense on getting the snow plows and salting trucks. I will personally get them tonight.”
“ETA on hesco filling completion?” Perci asked.
Dedric huffed with uncertainty. “Maybe tomorrow. The dozer, spare vehicles, and chainsaw crews are already clearing the trees in front of the wall. At their current levels, even a max speed RV cannot crash through our wall. We shifted to creating the kill zone; it is taking time though. We also are collecting a lot of trees which means dragging them further. See how the chain starts to prevent the desired quick results.”
Dedric was probably right about the timeline. There was a lot of work with only three machines.
“Okay next topic. These other strongholds. They are requesting to trade for food. The problem is two-fold. We need our food, and the supplies they are trading for, they will need later,” Perci said sadly. She locked her hazel eyes to mine.
“Trade very limited amounts. Let them ration for now. A month is a long time. We ration ourselves as well. One MRE a day,” I said firmly, bouncing Perci on my knee. “They can grumble, but I want to have a hog roasting tomorrow. We can send a fast moving recon team to hunt pigs in Denver. My point is, we should start supplementing our food now. There are lots of deer, elk, and mooses, or is it meece?”
“It is moose. Same word for single and plural. Are you expecting these other strongholds to join us later?” Jevon asked, reviewing their data on his Gpad.
“Uh… Yes, that, or I expect them to die. I want their supplies without killing them.”
Nancy snickered while Willow scoffed. Jevon nodded and said, “Okay, ROE?”
“On-site commander’s discretion. No killing peaceful folk to steal from them. What else do we need to cover before we all head back to work?” I asked the group, growing impatient. I wanted to start building roofs for barn stalls or creating stone paths.
Jacky raised her hand to say, “Rankings. I was told to be here, but I am not an officer. Am I council member, and what about Eddy’s wife Maranda?”
“To be determined. Let me think about it. Military wise we would be a battalion with this many but we are a mini-city. Colonel just does not have the same ring to-”
“King!” Willow exclaimed.
Jacky rolled her eyes. “Your dreams of being a queen should not influence your reality!” The mother teased her daughter. “She has a point, though. You started off making people pirates. I do not think that is a fitting application to this reality. We are literally going back in time while still holding onto technology with the majority of the people huddled in this valley not being military.”
“No rush on that, we need to build up our defenses, improve our housing, and secure everything we can outside Stronghold Mansion. Enough sitting around comfy. Get to work,” I said with an authoritarian tone. Perci fled my lap to catch up to Torrez.
I stared at my Gpad. Xgate 232 was drifting further away without much activity. The flying scorpion creatures rushed out, grabbed the dead puroons, and then fled back home. If that was all they were going to do on our planet, then I could be happy. I did notice their displeasure from the sunlight.
I realized Harvard had been missing from our briefing. Probably settling his family into our suite. When the room emptied, it was only Jevon and I remaining. A few heads peeked in while passing by, curious why the room was open.
“Who do you want to promote?” I asked my friend. “We are missing all three of our platoon leaders.”
“How about we stick the se
rgeants ready to go into leadership roles?” Jevon said as he stared over his knuckles with his elbow on the table. “I agree with most of what was said. I will not enjoy shitting in the woods though.”
I chuckled at his comment. “Add civilians to the foraging teams.”
Jevon rolled his eyes while shifting to lean back in his chair. “Cap, I love you, but that will lead to problems.”
“Greater problems than not testing recruits?” I said with a sigh. “You are right; taking untrained troops into the field has dangers. However, we need to be inclusive. Else I fear there will be other issues later.”
“Such as?”
“Saudi Arabia went without rebellion because we had a central goal, strong leadership, and everyone was focused. Last thing we need is factions inside this place. If we do not integrate and incorporate, I will be challenged for-”
Jevon scoffed, laughed, and then burst into cackling. “Oh… That was rich. You would just ace the rebellion. Hell, even I would for you. Okay, I will tell the sergeants to integrate those civilians willing to go. If we are not doing a pirate theme this time then what were you thinking?”
“How about we pull up what vikings used. Since we…” my Gpad populated a triangle of four tiers of leadership. “Well, kings are at the top. That would please some, upset others, and -”
“And establish your iron fist. Especially if a treasonous party wanting to become the king requires a full wipeout of your nobles,” Jevon said with an ‘ah-ha’ finger wag. “Assuming your nobles are loyal.”
“I have never thought of myself as such. Even after returning home in victory I would doubt my decisive decision.”
“That is the key phrase, decisive. You are a natural leader, quick to react, and my friend. Now tell me the rest of this structure,” Jevon said with his own version pulled up.
“Earls would replace officers. I would want more titles though. Dukes for military and earls for stronghold officers. Freemen comes next. Probably replace that with the gender-neutral term ‘citizens’. Hmm… one of the things the army taught me is people need promotions. Esteemed Citizen and Apprentice Citizen ranks would help. Private, Specialist, and Sergeant respectively would become Apprentice Soldier, Citizen Soldier, and Esteemed Soldier. Thoughts on the bottom bracket of this chart? I am not wanting to get into slavery. Vikings used slaves, and it seems, so do aliens.”