Tales of a Renegade

[JonasHudson]

Part IV:
Digging In

June 17th 826 A.S.

Hudson stood outside of a rusted, beat up, half junked prefab shelter that was an overhead cover to an old mine shaft. They were way out in the remote desert region between the larger cities. The surface of Leeds had been littered with mine shafts from centuries of mining. Once BMM was usually done with them, they simply pulled out and moved on to the next area. It had left the desert zone pocked full of hundreds of old mine sites. Many of them were in good shape. Mining technology had been pretty advanced by the time the colonies were established, let alone after centures more of settlement.

So he'd found one in good shape, relatively. Many ships had gone down in this zone too, and each one made an impact that knocks some life off an old mine. They'd had their own close call with one recently in the form of a Risk of Revelations. Nevertheless, they'd found one that was as out of the way and inconspicous as possible. There were many such sites, and they'd been relatively ignored by the Royal Navy and Marines.

He was reading over a pad intentivly when Bulldog came up from his left side. Below them was another valley, and the Stratocaster was pulling in for a landing in the low lying area, and had made an extremely low approach using the valley to avoid detection.

"That will be the last of them, once those vehicles are inside, they're all accounted for. But, uh, " he purposely hesitated.

"But we're running out of room and fast, yeah I know. But once we have the last of the personnel and vehicles inside, we can move on to Stage 2. Don't worry Bulldog, we'll keep you all busy watching mining machinery shipments for a while" Hudson retorted with a half chuckle.

Bulldog tipped his ballhat and set off down to the freighter, which was bringing in the last of the Military Vehicles they'd imported. Military Vehicles, Marines, Arms, Munitions, Salvage, Propaganda, and Envoys. All loaded into the old mining shaft.

The soldiers were preparing to go to work enhancing the mine, and they'd formed a 'Corps of Engineers' to do the work. Basic air exhange systems were put in place, some lighting, space heaters. All they needed now was the hardware to begin more excavations and armored bunkers. It wasn't going to be easy. Not only did they have to freighter it all through the BAF ground HQ, but get it to the mine and work on it without detection.

The location was sound enough for that though, it was remote, and they had more than enough maps from years past to make use of the territory to its full advantage. Hopeully, once they manage to upgrade the mine and add professional grade facilities to house troops and service vehicles, they'd be able to contribute to keeping the enemy off guard.

He watched as the last of the vehicles were driven up the hill and down into the mine. He looked down at Bulldog just in time to see his hand signal, pointing his finger up and twirling it around to signify they were wrapping things up, and the ship was about ready to go. The last of some marines hit the ground and double timed it up the hill past them.

"Very good, keep the ship on standby, I'll be back in a few minutes" he keyed in over the radio, and he saw Bulldog acknowledge, and head back up the ship's ramp into the hold.

He made his way into the mine. Things were crude, but war often is. Having overhead protection of any kind was imperative at this point. He walked about as marines were busy offloading gear, stowing the vehicles and surplus Military Salvage they'd imported. They should be able to help keep their small force maintained for some time. They'd brought in more vehicles than men by far, but if they only used a small portion of those forces at a time, for guerrilla attacks, they'd have plenty for replacements as they go. All they'd need to do is keep bringing in more men if things go bad.

He signalled to his Marine commander, and the trooper gathered his section leaders for a huddle:

"Alright folks, here's the deal. I'm out to oversee the next stages of the operation. Your standard orders will be to lay low, stay quiet, monitor the aea, and make all the preparations you can begin recieving more equipment and supplies within the week. "

"Secondly, Seargent" he said as he turned to another trooper," You job will be to begin inserting the Envoys to the civilian population. Distribute the Propaganda to them. Your job will be to organize an operation to get them into a city. I suggest finding some old civilian transport, steal one if you have to, use it to get them to a smaller town, have them melt into the population using the public transport systems. Trains, subways, hyerploops, drone taxis, etc." He turned to a group of the civis that were also setting up cots along a rock wall that broke off from the main shaft, "You have your orders as well people. Get in, find the right places, drop the propaganda, feel around for sympathizers. Stay quiet otherwise. Try to find locals that will take you in, shack up with them. We need to keep you in place spewing propaganda for some time. Once we've established firm connections to the civlian population, the workers, we can pull you out."

"Any questions?" Hudson asked. There were none. They all knew what they got into. It was pretty cut and dry about what they were attempting to do. With any luck though, this would be what keeps the Gauls off balanace enough on Leeds to slow down their settling in. This was the planting of a seed for a long term struggle.

"Good, you can reach me via long range as always, I'll try to make contact as soon as I can. We all have our jobs to do, so worry about your end, and we'll all make it through this just fine. Everyone does their job, everybody pulls through." He finished, "Dismissed".

He turned to the troop leaders one last time as the rest broke up and spoke with a lower voice, "Make sure you get sentries out asap, deploy scanning equipment, and keep everyone who doesn't need to be on the move inside and secure. I'll be back within the week with the first shipments, you'll hear from me before then. Until then, you're in charge Commander". The armored trooper nodded and saluted "Yes sir", and turned and went to work giving orders.

He turned and walked out to the main opening, and the marines pulled shut a hatchway that covered back over the main entry behind him, still concealed within the prefab shelter. He checked himself over and descended down the pathway to the bottom of the hill, stirring up a bit of dust as he went.

Bulldog was on guard still at the bottom of the ramp, "All good cap? All the kiddies tucked away?" he said while chewing on something, a big grin on his face.

"You know it Bulldog. I think they'll be alright. Too bad we didn't have some former BAF officers to run things down here. Anyways, status?"

"All checked in and good to go. Ship's right as rain. Where we headed?" he replied.

"Back to the smog Outposts for now, then I suppose we'll see. I gotta put out the word we need stuff, a lot of stuff. Alright, lets get out of here" he finished as the walked up the ramp. As he did so the ramp started to close and Bulldog put his finger to his earpiece, queitly sending word up to the bridge to move out. The engines started to rev up, as Hudson began setting down some of his gear. He sat down on a pull down bench on a wall off to the side, and suddenly remembered to key in on the comm panel, having already taken out his headset,

"Butterly, how about makin' sure you kick in the intertial dampeners before we ascend darling," he drly retorted over the comm.

"Roger that captain, sorry about the last run" Butterfly replied half giggling. Hudson shook his head and sat back down, but slid off for a moment, as she upped the throttle. Could be worse he thought.

The ship hovered its way down the valley floor to the next opening, and skimmed along the surface for about 100k before finally beginning its ascent into the sky.

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