Our asteroid survival: A fictitional history of the ten year survival of a large ELE asteroid impact by a small, pre advised, group

by Lionel Woodhead

  We took the two uninjured soldiers that they might converse with their compatriots. This was done in the hope that we could get their support thus preventing further damage to either group. As a form of insurance we proceeded well armed. These arms now included our opponent’s cannons and mortars.

  We went with ten men, plus myself, in two vehicles. Each of the vehicles was ostentatiously towing a cannon. We then, like our earlier opponents, put out no observable scouts but two of our group had arrived two days before and were communicating, with us, by radio when we were about ten kilometres from the politicos’ shelter. We desired to present a show confidence and did not expect any opposition. We were further advised that our scouts had observed none being planned.

  We were not complacent and for our security the two vehicles were separated by two hundred meters. Even then we maintained a continual alert and had our weapons held ready for instant action; in my case a lightweight pistol. About two kilometres from our objective we sent the two soldiers, with Pablo, to negotiate the surrender of their forces. We waited two days for their return and when they returned we were advised that the military part of the group had agreed but the politicos, their families with some servant hostages had shut themselves in their shelter.

  The politicos had left little food for the servants and military personnel though water was not, fortunately, a problem. We were in a dilemma as to how to feed our new subjects when we had, at most, a day’s supply for us all on much reduced rations. On unloading a vehicle this was sent to the Martinez village for some additional supplies in case our negotiations took longer than expected.

  We then placed the two cannons about one hundred meters from of the shelter door. The politicos were advised that we would remove the door by force if necessary and pressed the point by loading the weapons. We hoped this would convince them of their hopeless position. This proved unsuccessful and we knew we would have to proceed with the threat.

  The politicos were then advised that if they did not immediately capitulate, unconditionally, we would remove the doors and if any hostage was injured by this action the politicos and their secretaries would be held responsible. They would then be punished according to those injuries. We then sat back to wait for an unspecified period but, at the same time, sent another vehicle to obtain food for our new recruits.

  The politicos tried to negotiate but we gave them two options. Firstly they could leave and never return; as things stood this was probably a death sentence as, like their entire breed, they would be unable to fend for themselves; especially in the current conditions. Secondly they could come out immediately and surrender unconditionally. We would then consider their individual cases and based on this we would decide their fate.

  We initially received no reply so having ascertained that our small cannons would not, in the short term, penetrate the doors we began bombarding the doors at two minute intervals. If that did not work we planned to use a high explosive shell, from the one fifty millimetre weapons, placed against the doors and shuttering the blast into the doors. Fortunately after our sixth little shell had exploded against the door the politicos surrendered. This was beneficial as we had only slightly more than one hundred little shells of different types that we were loathed to waste.

  The politicos and secretaries were brought out with their families and housed in the servant’s quarters while the servants entered their shelter to admire the luxury of that edifice. We would allow the servants to consider the fate of the military and politicos; the latter being of little use to us either in qualifications or experience except to perform as labourers. We then followed the servants into the shelter to see what we had obtained for our empire.

  Our politicos had had a palace. The area near the door was a comfortable accommodation area for the military element but behind this was the politico’s accommodation being, by any current standard, palatial. They had a cinema, a small swimming pool, pool tables, games machines, a gym, mainly individual family suites, operating theatre, hospital, meeting rooms and a very comfortable eating area. In this area the politicos had been served by the servants who were granted access, via the military area, to serve their masters.

  In addition we found a large amount of stored diesel fuel. The masters had, in the last few weeks, demanded the servants build them suitable accommodation for when their fuel was exhausted thus demonstrating their attitude to reality. The servants ensured their beds were made, cleaned the area and made the food. The politicos, for their part, had become parasites appearing to perform no useful function. Perhaps they considered Plato’s republic as a potential future for the people. The politicos delegated as the glorious leaders over a military in charge of the lower orders.

  Unfortunately for them the future we perceived for ourselves was somewhat different. We believed everyone would have a task to perform; unless they were incapable, by means of an infirmity, of performing any tasks. Only in this latter case would they be supported by their compatriots though they would be worked to their abilities if they were able.

  The shelter storeroom was incredible. We estimated that they could have supported at least five hundred persons for more than a further six years. The food had been professionally prepared for long term storage and organized in order of use. Their medical store made our excellent store look very meagre. They had items we had been unable to store, due to environmental factors, arranged in a pair of large freezers. They had excellent wines and alcoholic drinks in profusion stored in a natural cave well below ground level.

  One of the many beautiful things that they had was a large store of real coffee and sugar, all perfectly preserved in long term vacuum packs, which would, if used with moderation, last us all for a considerable period past the ten years post impact we had arranged for ourselves. We had, in our stores, a supply of coffee but had had to be very fugal in its use. With this magnificent supply, originally for about fifty persons, we would once again enjoy that material in reasonable quantity.

  In truth they had taken all the stores they considered they would need for their long term survival together with some additional material for the slaves they had obviously intended to obtain. What should have been available to their people they had taken for themselves. They had not even attempted to optimize the stores to distribution centres for the people so that a lot of valuable food had been wasted by not being carefully harvested; this had been of considerable benefit to some of us survivors who had taken the trouble to harvest what we could. This harvesting even extended to old fashioned gleaning to optimize the quantity of our available food; if not, in some cases, the quality.

  Our group had benefited from this lack of political organization but we, due to our lack of numbers, had been unable to collect and store all that remained available by the politico’s ineptitude. When I considered their lack of consideration, excesses and waste it made me, and several others, very angry. We had saved ourselves by harvesting and storing what we could but had, from the initial period, the intention of helping others when practical. In essence we would not overload our lifeboat and to protect against this we had had to wait out the initial period post impact before searching for survivors we could assist. This we had done and we were now preserving as many lives as possible.

  These people, mainly the politicos but also the military, had thought only of themselves. Some time after the impact they had enslaving those few local survivors they had found. These were those they should have been supporting and representing. In essence those that were supposed to be the people’s servants had become their parasites. We would do our best to ensure that no future representative of the people could obtain similar positions.

  On the day after our final victory we paraded the politicos, the secretaries and their families, with the remaining uninjured soldiers, in front of their ex servants. We requested the opinion of the servants as to what should be done with them. Some of the ideas were a bit extreme but we excluded the harshest punishments even though, when conside
ring some of the justification, we tended to agree with the servants. Those considered the worst offenders were considered first.

  The president and his wife had been by far the worst. This arrogant pair had authorized the death penalty of two escapees and one whom his wife had accused of insulting her. He had had several flogged as, in his opinion, they did not work hard enough.

  He was asked why he had considered this necessary to so assault those people but he refused to accept the authority of the court as, he said, he had been the democratically elected representative and was, therefore, our leader and could not be tried by us. As he was unable to accept the current position and had caused so many problems for the servants and potentially for us he was expelled from the area and advised that a return would result in the ultimate punishment.

  Their son was considered next and the servants strangely considered him a reasonable and just organizer. He was given a choice of staying as a worker or leaving with his parents. Personally I did not like giving him this choice as I thought it might cause some friction or problems in the future. However, it is what had been decided by the majority of the servants so that was the decision. As he was married with children he decided to stay within the group where his family’s medium term survival would be considerably enhanced.

  In the end, in spite of some objections, four of the politicos, with two wives, and a politico secretary were expelled and they were taken seventy kilometres from the camp. This being an extravagant use of fuel we unsuccessfully used our equipment to perform further electromagnetic surveys as we travelled on the road towards Zaragosa. This was an area at a much lower level than our shelter so original survival would have been more problematic.

  Those expelled from our company were released with the stores they could carry which included two revolvers and some ammunition; we did not wish to commit further deaths sentences. However, when I think back that was the probable result of their excommunication from our group. The rest of the politico’s were advised that they would be required to learn and assist with the ploughing of the land; this being the task they had proposed for the servants. This demand was not accepted without complaint but as the alternative was, probably, a lingering death some distance from the shelter they had little choice and complied. This converted the otherwise useless politicos into potential beneficial members of our society. Some of these gentlemen would even learn to enjoy their new vocations.

  The soldiers were also put before the people but it appeared that, except for four who were all dead, the others would be accepted; though two would be punished, one when he recovered, by working in the fields alongside the politicos. The remainder would be retrained as soldiers for twenty five percent of their work allocation and would perform further tasks within a different allocation, not voluntary, of benefit to the community.

  We now had a considerable greater number of human assets and would have to allocate them where they would do the most good. A priority requirement at that time, however, was the production of as much fresh food as possible. To allocate the work efficiently required that we, this being a small group who would interrogate the new personnel, would have to discover their experience and qualifications, both practical and paper, and allocate their work based on this information. Later when the new personnel had been integrated into our society they would be able to present other proposals for their work allocation but at that time volunteering, for the servants, was unfortunately not a practical option.

  One of the new recruits was an accountant and he was put to work analyzing our assets and suggesting potential optimization of their usage. We had two farriers and six farmers who would be very useful as something we would always require would be food. Two of our new friends had been part time beekeepers and these were immediately put in charge of our 3 beehives. We had several builders and labourers and in this group we found two persons who said they had worked on the manufacture of cement. If these gentlemen could really produce cement and if we could find some chalk we should be able to build some quality accommodation to make our personnel more comfortable. In addition the dam project might become realistic.

  We now had four doctors, of which two were surgeons, two specialist nurses, two dentists and two medical technicians. Some of this medical staff had been and would continue to man the hospital in our new shelter complex. If necessary, as they would not normally be required to work full time, other suitable, but related, tasks would be given them. One of these tasks would obviously be the education of future medical or technical personnel required by the hospital.

  We were very pleased to find two more who described themselves as archaeologists with some experience of experimental archaeology. These had been working in the local area on a university project. These were happy to join with the team we had set up in our original shelter. They were tasked with recovering small scale manufacturing that had, in our pre impact civilization, been performed by large manufacturers. We were very pleased to find an expert in metal extrusion techniques who expressed a capability of designing the equipment required. We found two glass blowers, one an amateur. They assured us that they could produce our specialist glass requirements if we could provide them with the required material and basic equipment that they could design. There were engineers and technicians and even two policemen. Our technology level could now be improved far beyond what we had previously considered possible at that time.

  We had now to seriously consider the possibility of attacks by other groups who might wish to conquer our group for a dictator or other unacceptable system of control. It was obvious that such events could not be accepted within our philosophy. Such persons would inevitably prevent the expansion of our technology plans and this would be intolerable to us. The possibility of such an invasion had now been demonstrated so we decided to build up our defensive; if not our offensive capability. It is, however, difficult to differentiate between the two.

  We had inherited four small military tanks from the previous rulers perhaps we could do something with them. We asked the, inherited, military personnel and they expressed the opinion that we might be able to remove the high technology non functioning elements and by cannibalizing we might be able to produce a, or possibly two, mobile low tech functioning vehicles.

  A team was put together and within a month one tank was working with an operational gun that could be sighted via a periscope through the entrance port in the roof of the turret. The machine gun had been automatically controlled within the turret but was returned to the control of the driver. This person was the nearest to the mounting position. The auto-sighting multi targeting system was transferred to storage as were the high tech radios and equipment; there being no satellites for them to operate with. The engine and automatic gear functioned as had been intended. The turret was now turned by a simple electric motor being a modified car starter motor. Initially signals, when these units were mobile, would be passed either by flag or, later perhaps, via the crude AM or even later the FM radios we were developing.

  A second tank was ready soon afterwards and these two units would be maintained with the intention of having one at each of our shelters. We did not intend to use them as mobile units but would maintain that possibility as an option. A third tank, after the engine and gearbox with all related electronics removed and stored as spares, was towed into a hull down position on the new shelter’s roof to act as a pillbox for all round defence. In this unit the turret was rotated manually and the gun aimed using the mark one eyeball through the barrel. Electrical energy was provided by the shelter battery. The fourth tank was technically setup similarly to the third and remained close to where it had been though tactically better positioned so that visible contact between the two immobile units was maintained that they could provide mutual support. The communication between the two static vehicles was arranged via a simple wired analogue communication system.

  The two one-fifty millimetre howitzers remained where they were, they were too big to move, but
they were restored to unsophisticated operation being protected by the fourth tank. It was obvious to Fabio that these weapons were old fashioned but missile systems would probably have been useless to untrained personnel; though we did find a few examples of man portable fire and forget missiles in our new shelter. We were limited in the amount of anti personnel munitions for the tanks but had sufficient for defence and we would be able to fall back on the anti tank munitions, if necessary, to frighten any enemy.

  As a final element of our defence we built a short airfield for our microlight aircraft near our original shelter. With this prepared and a hanger built to protect the aircraft we hoped to use this vehicle for reconnaissance and, more beneficially, to find further survivors. We were now large enough and strong enough to defend ourselves against any enemy we considered we might encounter.

  We hoped to join with more friends but in the present conditions this was not possible as, from our recent experience, we had to initially prepare a strong defence. We included, in our constitution, that we would never attack unless we were being attacked; we would, as far as possible, be reactive not proactive. Under this rule we could fight attacking columns but would, in all cases, attempt to negotiate first. We would conversely not wait passively for any proven dangerous column to arrive, at one of our outposts, without being as sure as possible of our personnel’s safety.

  We who only wanted, or more correctly needed, peace so that we could recover a better world for the people were then finding that we had to be prepared to defend our planned way of life. We would try for peace by insuring that we would have no political parties where egotistical, power hungry people, such as our recently met political group, would ever regain control. A dream perhaps, similar to the ancient Greeks, but we would do our best to make a reality of true democracy for the sake of our children and our children’s children.

  Chapter 15. Peace But Not Plenty.