Following the defeat of the hive new land had opened up and the Bunker wanted land to facilitate our return to the surface, it was the Job of the FEF to secure an old outpost in sector K10, and negotiate with the Free people for the settlement rights to this land.
It was decided that the FEF would make a night march to the new facility along the edge of the disputed land in the K axis. Quinn led an advance group of scouts to feel our way there, Maverick then had the main body of soldiers following on and I took ‘command’ of the Scientists, Engineers, Bureaucrats and Medics.
Now I am sure Quinn’s point team were just that, ‘on point’ Leading a well oiled recon group with sufficient Radios, they encountered some unknowns, shot them, realised they were bunker personnel and sent them for processing to me.
Mavericks shield group pressed on in a line abreast formation maintaining contact with the forward group.
I then proceeded with the aforementioned main body, the light fell quickly and I had to make a decision. we were all over the place and so, I called a halt and explained I couldn’t see anyone and the fact we had the shield of Mavericks group ahead of us normal march discipline was likely to get some of us lost, I determined we should form a sausage formation, a blob of sorts, I had Pinner and Tower with me and decided that a caterpillar would work better as an analogy and used these two fine soldiers to feel for the shield group and report back to me in instalments, the body of the caterpillar was the other services and their job was to catch up to my position as I issued the caterpillar command.
It worked but it was slow, Quin had found a site the bunker wanted a communication device set up and radioed back as such, it transpired that the light scouts had quickly advanced uncontested and put the shield group someway behind them, the caterpillar was further behind still. In the near pitch darkness I set my feelers pinner and tower farther forward.
Progress was slow and I radioed for an assurance the area was secure but the message back was it seemed secure but there may be a group that got passed us and it became necessary to use Ivan and soap as additional march security, while they are not military trained, I had confidence in these capable gentlemen due to their surface and fieldcraft experience.
Pinner reported contact with Mavericks group and they reported it was clear to Quinn, I took further executive action and converted my group to a lights on advance leading the way with my own lights on at the front, to ensure any hostile contact was attracted my way first, we made better progress and the engineers got to work finding the best spot at the location for the dish.
once done I stayed with 4 soldiers and 4 engineers to ensure the dish was set up safely while Quinn pressed on to the facility, Maverick then merged the main group to his and followed up. I was given a deadline for complete or abandon the setting up of the dish, I chose not to relay the details to Laker, Monument Wilf and Harry as they seemed to be having technical issues with what a windmill looked like as per the instructions from the bunker, there was also a screw shortage, but a few cable ties later, the dish was up.
It is worth noting here I have footage should it be required of field engineering where no one died It does still show details of the operation and so a judgement will need to be made around the propaganda value vs disclosing secrets….
Quinn reported some tribals near the facility but they fled at his teams approach they were the children of gaia a name we had not previously heard of.
The engineers and scientists proceeded to open the door and lift to the Ribec Research Facility, Fort Leon, and proceeded to make it habitable for the FEF, which I believe was easier said than done and involved gas masks and the like. Luckily no one drowned on the surface in the rain that had been dampening our spirits and comms in equal measure.
Once inside the scientists had discovered a testing station, and the engineers buttons, which were pressed and started the facilities power generator, a fraking station, this in turn led to a series of potentially terminal error messages where the coolant systems were knackered, I assisted laker and then Ivan assisted both of us in determining we needed to sort this out asap, certainly 12-14 hours we would have bad times and 48 hours terminal melt down. The three Silos each required a 2 man engineering team, scientist supervision and an escort as the operations at the 3 silos needed completing at the same time, due to the low threat it was determined a soldier and a medic would be needed at each station as there were reports of a similar operation inflicting serious issues on an engineer. We needed to order some cooling fluid and so would wait to the morning to attempt the fix. The scientists began to test FEF members to determine if we could unlock the door to the medical lab on level 2.
Day 2 operations,
There were 4 separate operations of which I participated in 2, The first was a mission to collect Raize from a near location and begin the matter of negotiating the land rights.
We set off fairly promptly with Quinn leading the front group again, we had some misinformation from the drone reports about the direction of the contacts and we found ourselves engaged with trained soldiers supported by the children of Gaia, one of these soldiers was questioned by Elizabeth and revealed that they were from bunker fortitude and they had designs on the facility too, we pressed on and found some wolf clan preachers who explained about their ancestors and we had suspicions they may have been having some sort of psychic interventions as their ancestor spirits seemed unlikely.
Raize was contacted and brought back for negotiation here Pip and Vlad did a sterling job in obtaining a fair split of the land available:
We knew Raize’s position as leader of the clans was weaker without a solid threat to unify the clans, and the arrival of the children of Gaia and Bunker fortitude provided this all too easily and he was keen to send warriors to Fort Leon to both guard his lands from attack and to show the clans there is a real threat. He went as far to propose that his clansmen should be marked as friends on our nanite technology and he wanted to visit the bunker, we politely refused these requests lest we give up our only advantage against a large number of clans men, he relented and suggested just his mornival guard and his wolf clan, we said we would look into it..
As the negotiations were winding up we had a radio call from the silo repair mission that they were being heavily assaulted and while Silo 2 and 3 had reported in silo 1 was having difficulty.
Vlad and I grabbed a med kit and sallied forth to assist, we immediately picked up Theo who was pinned down and then out of action Vlad and I went on a sniper hunt and after slotting the sniper I picked up vlad and then theo.
We moved along the treeline to assist Prince and his group who once recovered moved off to the silo, My mini group then moved up the hill where we intercepted a large number of insurgents headed to the silo we took turns on the med kit taking fire alternately.
We then moved to assist Wilf who was cut down at the bottom of the hill and rescued him before I too was cut down with vlad and theo, wilf bravely crawled the length of a small trench to reach us just as the remaining silo had concluded the first part of the operation and pinner made it back to us first to get us up , we then fell back in good order where the scientists prepared the coolant:
Following this I reinforced the silo team and fought offer further attacks while the engineers and scientists did their work.
I then had to take rest for the day as I had received a number of hits in the rescue, I believe Quinn then led a large group in defence of the facility truly earning it the title ‘fort’, as bunker fortitude forces attacked, surprisingly their tech seemed better then ours and they had a power armoured guy, who while slow and awkward to move did take a large amount of firepower to bring down, our LMG operatives seemed quite interested in this technology…
A local fanatic leader of the Children of Gaia was also removed from the game board later that evening.
Over night the Scientists had eventually tested enough suitable FEF members to unlock the next level of the facility, unfortunately they encountered a 500 year old still living test subject, that critically injured the majority of the team and escaped out into the night, this white witch also destroyed the drones we sent after it.
Day three, I led a mission with Fredrickson to track the witch, we had sent all our heavy weapons after an outpost held by bunker fortitude, so while we had a large number of soldiers the heaviest weapon we had was pinner’s sniper rifle.
We encountered bunker fortitude, children of Gaia and Risen clan opponents, the risen are a member of the free peoples and their minds seemed turned against us by the witch.
We made good progress and my top team of Riggs and Prince did me proud along the flank, when an order from adam valton told us to abort the mission, a quick check with the senior team present Lexi, laker and Will we determined to press on the bunker then confirmed no transmission had come from them and that adam valton was away from operations at the time.
Now I don’t know what this means but I have met Councillor Valton and it did sound like him, I can only assume it was the influence of the witch here…
Soon laker had identified the witch was 100 meters west and we regrouped, and as were we about to push on we received word a large group of enemies was approaching from the east….
We attempted to form a rear guard but with frantic comms from the bunker I had to seize the initiative and led a charge for the solitary witch… still with no clear intel on how to bring her down other than shoot her a lot.
I ran into a wall of fire, the cursed drone operatives had got their compass directions wrong again, the team to our east were very much to the west of us, Here I was thankful for the auto-stabilisation patch made by the medical team as I had run along way into the teeth of enemy fire and as I lay there contemplating a long crawl back to the main group a wild eyed tribal ran for me and as I thought I am doomed here, he was brought down by well disciplined fire from the Fef.
Next came the witch in wild fury and swept past me she did for a few members of the FEF but more damaging was Vlad who had been part of the science program the night before and had encountered the witch first hand, apparently she had entered his mind and he added toxin to his blade and went round slaying unsuspecting FEF members, while the team was able to recover the Witch did escape and while laker did activate his device to call her back it failed his pad caught fire and so did the witches collar hurting her and setting fire to some vegetation, by the time we got to that location she had disappeared but injured.
some nearby scouting suggested she had met with a camp of tribals, the risen? who had apparently waited for her, this was at odds with the theory she had turned people she met, with her followers already waiting?
We returned to Fort leon to await the outcome of Quinns team and their assault on the fortitude outpost, I am sure that will be reported else where suffice to say they achieved victory in destroying the fort and nearby comms post, but at the cost of Kaleb Hassel chief Medical officer, a fiery character that will be missed in a manner similar to the impact of Leon.
So the facility, a medical research lab a mining site (Fracking) but now our bulwark against bunker fortitude, to be garrisoned by some of the 500, some of the free people will camp nearby and show us farming and hunting but it is as Fort Leon it will be known a place that we truly begin placing roots on the surface.