“This is just what we’re after,” Michael said in a pleased voice. He knew that some of the computers would be used as they were, while many of the others would be torn apart for the valuable parts they contained. Most would be going to Luna City.
“I will leave one of my marines here, and the rest of us will begin searching the mall,” Corporal Burns informed Michael after reporting in one more time to Sergeant Andrews. “Why don’t you gather all the computer supplies and set them just outside the entrance. After we’re finished with the search we’ll help move them to the Humvees.”
“Be careful, Corporal,” Michael cautioned, not sure that he approved of the corporal and two of the army rangers going off on their own, leaving only one behind. “We don’t know how many survivors could be hiding in here.”
“I’ll be careful,” Burns promised as he turned to leave followed by two of his rangers. “More than likely there’s no one here at all.”
Michael watched them leave until their lights vanished around a corner. With a heavy sigh, he turned and led his two crewmembers back inside the store to begin carrying the heavy computer boxes out.
For the next hour, Michael and his two people hauled box after box of computers and computer parts to the front of the store, setting them just outside the entrance. Michael was bringing out one of the last boxes when he stepped outside the store, sat the box down, and then turned to speak with the soldier that was standing guard duty. With surprise, Michael saw that the soldier was gone.
“What the hell?” Michael said, walking quickly over to where the soldier had been standing and examining the floor.
From the marks in the ash, it was evident that something had happened. He could see scuff marks where the soldier had been dragged off. Michael followed the marks for a short distance and then stopped upon seeing that they vanished into the darkness. He was just about to use his radio to contact Sergeant Andrews when he sensed a presence behind him. Spinning around Michael realized that he had screwed up. A figure was standing there and then Michael felt something strike him in the head. Blackness instantly followed as he crumpled to the floor.
-
Michael opened his eyes and felt a sharp pain on the back of his head. Reaching up, he gingerly rubbed it. He noticed it was pitch black and putting his hand up to eyes, realized that he was blindfolded.
“Don’t remove the blindfold,” an older male voice said in a threatening tone. “Just who the hell are you and what are you doing stealing from our mall?”
“I’m Michael Kirby from Holbrook Station,” replied Michael, wondering just what he had gotten himself into. “We’re here to pick up some computer supplies for the new habitats were building on the Moon.”
“Yeah, right,” another male voice spoke derisively. “You’re just common thieves trying to take what’s ours.”
“My ship’s outside in the parking lot,” Michael said defensively. “Go and look if you don’t believe me.”
“You’re trying to tell me that you landed a spaceship in the mall’s parking lot?” the first voice spoke in disbelief. “Just how big a fool do you think we are?”
“Take my blindfold off and I’ll show it to you,” Michael responded, not knowing what else to do.
“Take his blindfold off,” a woman’s voice spoke. “His story will be easy enough to check out. Derrick, go up on the roof and see if anything is out there.”
Michael felt the thick blindfold jerked off his head and he blinked at the sudden light. Looking around, he saw about twenty people watching him with suspicion. They were in a large room with several lanterns furnishing light. Several gas stoves were being used to furnish heat.
“Who are you people?” Michael asked as he struggled to sit up and then leaned back against the wall. “We didn’t think there were any survivors still in this area.” An older man with slightly graying hair was standing in front of him.
“I’m Jacob Kindler and this is my wife, Anita,” the man said, gesturing to a woman just behind him.
“Where are we?”
“In the basement of the mall,” replied Anita, stepping closer. “We’ve been here for months. We have a radio, but we haven’t heard anything on it since shortly after the ash started falling. We didn’t think there were any other survivors until we saw your people up in the mall.”
“There are a lot of survivors,” responded Michael, knowing he needed to put these people at ease. He noticed that several of the men that were hanging back listening were heavily armed. Michael began telling them about Jornada, Luna City, and Vesta.
“You say there are millions of survivors?” one of the men with the rifles said in disbelief when Michael stopped talking. “I don’t believe you.”
Another man came in through an open doorway and stood looking at Michael. “We may have made a mistake,” he said in a soft voice. “There is a spaceship in the parking lot. I also saw more soldiers in the mall as well as outside by the ship.”
“Are you telling the truth about more survivors?” a young woman with several small children asked with hope in her voice.
“Yes, there is an ongoing effort to rescue survivors all over the world,” answered Michael, knowing he was close to winning them over. “How many of you are down here in this basement?”
“There are forty-two of us,” Anita responded, her eyes focusing on Michael as if she were trying to judge him. “Can you take us away from here? We have food and water for only a few more months, and some of the children are sick.”
“Yes, please,” the young woman with the two children said in a pleading voice. “At least take the children!”
“Let me go and I will contact my brother on Holbrook Station and see if I can’t get another ship down here. He’s in charge of the station. I can’t take all of you on the Raven, but with another ship we can take everyone up to the station where I promise you will receive medical care and be safe.”
“You can give our children medical care?” the young woman spoke, stepping forward holding the hands of her two children.
“Yes,” Michael replied in his best voice, trying to put her at ease. “We have plenty of medical supplies as well as doctors.”
Jacob eyed Michael for a long moment, then reached down with his hand and helped him up. “I don’t think we have any other choice but to trust you,” he said in an even voice. “As my wife said, we can’t stay here much longer, so we’re going to have to take a chance that you have been telling us the truth. The soldier we took earlier is in the next room. I’ll go with you to meet with the rest of your people.”
Michael nodded, feeling relieved. Not only were they going to get the supplies, they had found more survivors. It made him wonder just how many others were in hiding like this group. He wished there were some way they could search for other survivors like these. The weather outside was now so bad that communication with most of the surface of the planet was impossible. Michael knew they were finding fewer and fewer people every day now. Shortly the only survivors would be those at the camps waiting for rescue. The Earth was rapidly becoming a world of the dead.
-
Lawrence, Marsha, General Wainright, and General Pittman were all standing on the second level of the main Operations Center at Jornada looking out at the heavy gray snow falling. Visibility was down to only a few hundred feet.
“It’s nearly two feet deep now,” Marsha commented as she pulled her jacket tighter around her. It wasn’t cold inside the Operations Center, but just looking outside made her shiver.
“We’re having to clear the runways just before every shuttle launch now,” Lawrence informed the others. “Luckily the cargo ships can come straight down and don’t need the runways to land or take off.”
“What’s our power situation?” asked General Pittman, glancing over at Lawrence and Marsha.
Lawrence shook his head. “Not good. The wind generators are still functioning, but we need so much power for heat that it’s starting to tax our ability to prod
uce electricity. We’ve been using our standby diesel generators more and more as of late.”
“We have people in the camp and tent city dying daily from the cold,” Marsha said worriedly. “I don’t know what we’re going to do if the weather gets any worse.” She was glad that her husband and teenage son had been evacuated a few weeks back. Both were now at Vesta and out of harm’s way.
“We have some additional large diesel generators we can bring in from the bases,” said General Wainright, knowing that heat was the biggest problem. “They should get us by for a while. Fortunately we have a large supply of diesel fuel, so that won’t be an issue.”
“We’ll have to build a large structure to put them in,” added General Pittman, knowing the snow and ash would make short work of the generators if they were used out in the open.
“I’ll put some of our engineers on it,” General Wainright responded. “We’ll also see if we can scrounge up more heaters for tent city.”
“What about your helicopters; are they still flying rescue missions?” Marsha asked. She knew that the large rescue helicopters had been flying almost daily from the two military bases and White Sands.
“Not right now,” answered General Pittman, shaking his head. “The weather is just too bad. Once it calms down some we will get them back up in the air.”
Lawrence nodded; each day the situation was getting worse. They had seen heavy rain, snow, and even ice in the last four weeks, all of it laced with the dirty volcanic ash that was now everywhere. There were nearly one and a half million survivors huddled in the barracks, the large tents around Jornada, and in tent city. Each day nearly two thousand survivors were hauled up into orbit to Holbrook Station, and from there they were sent to either the Moon or Vesta. There were millions of other survivors holding on at other survival camps around the world. Lawrence knew that if something didn’t change soon, many of them were going to die.
-
Captain Stevens stepped outside of his bunker and instantly felt the icy cold. The temperature was close to zero with a strong northerly wind. A snowplow had come through recently, clearing the road that ran in front of the fence. Looking over at tent city, Mark shook his head in concern. People were dying every day from exposure. The military had brought in better tents and even built some barrack-like buildings where people could huddle for warmth, but it still wasn’t enough.
“It’s cold out,” Lieutenant Griffith muttered as he buttoned up his parka as far as he could. “I checked tent city this morning, and we lost another one hundred and twelve yesterday to the cold.”
“Damn!” uttered Mark, knowing he was powerless to stop the deaths. He looked out at tent city and the heavily falling snow. It was the middle of the day and it was pitch black other than a few scattered lights that were barely visible.
In the distance, they could hear a muffled roar as one of the modified cargo ships took off, loaded down with survivors. At least they were large enough to still take off and maneuver in this infernal weather.
Mark gestured at Griffith and the two went back inside the bunker where it was warm and well lighted. There was no point in going over to tent city in this weather. No one would be outside; everyone would be staying inside trying to keep warm. Mark knew as soon as the snow let up, troops would go into tent city and search the thousands of tents for any that had died during the storm. It was a gruesome task, but it had to be done.
-
Mason was making an inspection of one of the habitation tunnels crammed with survivors from Earth. It was full of bunk beds and small lockers for personal items. There was very little privacy other than a few blankets and thin sheets that had been hastily strung up. Nearly ten thousand people lived in the tunnel, and the living conditions were barely tolerable.
The people inside were given food twice per day and allowed to take a shower every other day. Also, once every other week they were given a pass that allowed them to go into Smithfield for a full day. The tunnels were patrolled heavily by military troops making sure everyone stayed safe and there were no problems.
“I don’t like this at all,” mumbled Mason, watching a mother and two children sitting on a bottom bunk playing a board game.
“We have five tunnels like this now, and ten with apartments,” Keith Davis responded. “That’s ninety thousand people, plus we’ve stuffed another twenty thousand in and around Smithfield.”
“The new habitat?” asked Mason, wishing it could be finished quicker. He had made a tour of it a few weeks back and been impressed by the progress being made.
“Another year at least before it’s fully ready,” answered Davis. “We almost have the interior section hollowed out, but putting in the ecological systems, as well as the infrastructure, is going to be a big job.”
“Keep working on it,” replied Mason, knowing that was all they could do. He was surprised that the people living in the tunnels were not doing more complaining. Then again, living on Earth was so much worse. “Use whatever people you need, even some of these. We have a number of well qualified people in the tunnels.”
“I know,” replied Davis, nodding his head in agreement.
Just the day before he had found several structural engineers living in this very tunnel. He had already transferred them to the work detail in the large habitat. It also allowed them to live in the small living area that had set up inside. While not very comfortable, it was much better than the crowded habitation tunnels.
-
An hour later, Mason was in the Control Center talking to Pamela Cairns and Drake Thomason about the current operations in progress. The Control Center was now monitoring the movement of all spacecraft in the solar system with the help of Luna City and Holbrook Station.
“I just finished speaking to Professor Scott at Mars Central,” Pamela reported as she turned away from her main control panel. “He’s finished the initial expansion of the base and says they can now take six thousand survivors.”
“That’s good,” Mason responded, pleased to hear the news. “Inform Professor Scott that we will start sending him eight hundred refugees a week as well as additional food supplies.”
“He says in another two months the new hydroponic domes will be completed and they should be able to grow their own food, though he says that meat will be in short supply.”
“That’s going to be true everywhere,” commented Drake, dolefully.
Fortunately, Smithfield had a large cattle herd as well as other domestic animals, but even those wouldn’t be enough for the large population they envisioned. Meat was going to have to be severely rationed for the foreseeable future until they could find a way to greatly expand the current food animal herds.
“We’re losing a lot of animal species,” Pamela said with sadness in her eyes. She was just thankful that Smithfield had such a large diversity of animals within the habitat. It was strange to think of all the animals that they would never see in the wild again; different species of colorful birds, butterflies, and thousands of other species that were now extinct or nearly so.
“At least we rescued a lot of animals from the zoos,” spoke Mason, knowing they had done everything they could.
It had been a hard decision to divert several cargo ships to pick up animals instead of people, but it had been decided that they needed to do everything they could to try to save as many different species as possible. Unfortunately, some of the larger animals such as whales and elephants could not be put on the lists as they were just too large to transport. Many of the more predatory species such as wolves and coyotes had also been banned.
“The population of Vesta has just passed the one hundred and eighty thousand mark,” added Drake, recalling the latest census numbers. “We have converted a lot of the outlying areas of the Smithfield habitat to farming, primarily vegetables. We are also trying to increase the size of our food animal herds. Lori has her hands full trying to keep all the new farms operating at peak efficiency. She’s requested that we bring some f
armers and ranchers up from the survival camps to help. They might not be completely familiar with the techniques she is using to grow food, but they would be easier to train than some of those she’s been attempting to use. She said she caught one of them trying to milk a bull the other day.”
“I bet that was interesting,” said Mason, letting a smile spread across his face. “Contact Cheryl Robinson and have her find the people that Lori needs. Those farms right now have the utmost priority. We have a lot of food to raise if we want to feed all the survivors.”
“Luna City is also building agricultural domes,” Pamela informed them. “I spoke with Mayor Silas early this morning, and he is ordering ten new domes to be built just for the purpose of raising food. He is already having a hard time dealing with all the refugees and reports that some of the living conditions in the tunnels on the Moon are extremely bad.”
Mason nodded. They had so much to do, and every day more survivors on Earth were dying. They just didn’t have the engineering capacity to get everything done as quickly as needed. He knew they had to be careful or the fragile systems on the Moon and even here on Vesta could be overloaded and come crashing down. They had already been forced to reduce the number of survivors going up daily to Holbrook Station due to the limited space at Luna City and Vesta.
“If we need to, order Lawrence to suspend refugee flights until Luna City has their food domes finished,” he said with regret in his voice. “That might also give him the time he needs to get Luna City better organized. I don’t want to put the people we have already rescued at risk.”
Pamela nodded; it seemed that every day they were trying to solve another type of crisis. She turned back to her command console to begin sending messages. She would be glad when her shift was over and she could return home to her husband and son. At least being with her family allowed her to get away briefly from the tragedy still occurring on Earth.
“How’s Susan doing with Michael gone?” asked Drake, looking over at Mason.
Galactic Empire Wars: Destruction (The Galactic Empire Wars) Page 20