Chapter 50 - A Six

I glanced at the uniformed party, and I had to admit, I was impressed. Their top guy was tier five, a man who was maybe in his early forties and looked to be in charge. His rank had a whole pile of chevrons on it, and while I didn’t know enough to recognize what rank that was, I knew enough to know he was enlisted, not an officer, and pretty high up.

The rest of the group was a mixed bag, but none of them were under tier two. They had two tier four people, four tier threes, and three tier two. It was a powerhouse, compared to what I’d seen so far.

The leader picked me out of the crowd immediately and strode toward me. He was wary, but didn’t seem unfriendly. He reached out a hand, and I shook it.

“Master Sergeant Farnsworth. Not every day I see another five crystal wonder showing up on our doorstep,” he said. “You must have had quite the adventure.”

Of course he knew—like me, he was tier five, so he was able to see our precise ranks. I grinned at him. “You have no idea. Well, I mean, you probably have some idea, having hit it yourself. But you know what I mean.”

He laughed at that. “I do indeed.”

“I’m Selena Serrano. Before everything went to hell, I was a med student over at UVM. Now, I just try to stay alive.”

“And keep others alive too, from the looks of it. Our lookouts saw you fighting your way past those avians.”

“You could have come sooner.”

He shook his head, lips pursed. “They’ve been doing that to draw us out. Attack small bands, and then once we commit to assisting them, the avians send in a larger force. Next thing we know, we’re in a pitched battle. If our rifles still worked, that’d be easy…”

“But as things stand, holy shit is flight a serious superpower,” I agreed.

He nodded. “You’re the first rank five person we’ve seen come through, though. Colonel Turner will want to meet you for sure. And of course we’ll be glad to give shelter to the people with you. There’s plenty of space inside the walls for more people. We’ve taken in a few hundred civilians so far, but we have supplies to last for a while yet.”

“Hundreds?” I asked, shocked.

“Yeah, we’ve been working hard at it since we realized things weren’t likely going back to normal anytime soon. Getting the base locked down and fortified was the first step. Thankfully, a lot of our reservists started coming in to help. We’ve been putting the refugees to work as they arrive, too, at least those who are capable of it.”

All of this was good news. But we still needed to get help for Alfred and his people. “There’s a group, Kara here is a member, run by a classmate of mine. He’s got dozens of people with him, but a lot of them are helpless. No crystals. Scared, not really handling the Event well. We came out to see if you guys were creating a safe haven, and thank god you are, but we really need to get back to them to bring them in. Unless you can send troops to collect them?”

“Where are they at?” Farnsworth asked.

“Southern end of the UVM campus. They took over Jeffords Hall.”

“I don’t know exactly where that is, but if it’s UVM, that means getting past the avians, which won’t be simple. The larger the group, the more likely they are to see it as an incursion into their turf and attack,” Farnsworth said. “Listen, the Colonel will for sure want to meet you, so why don’t we do that first, and then he can help us figure out how to get your friends in, all right?”

“Sounds more than reasonable,” I replied. “Can we pick up our gear? I don’t want to leave good weapons out here in the open.”

“Of course! All right, I should go over the rules for everyone, just so you all know,” Farnsworth said, turning to address the entire group. “Basically, the laws here work the same as the ones you’re used to before things went sideways. Don’t take things that aren’t yours, don’t hurt someone else. That sort of thing.

“We have some new rules, too. Don’t cast spells on anyone without their consent. No more than one pet per person inside the walls. Weapons need to be peace-bonded—tied down, so you can’t whip them out if you get mad at someone—for everyone except the actual Guard members.”

“Why do uniforms make you an exception?” one man asked from the group we saved.

“Because if we screw up, it’s a lot more obvious, and frankly, we know each other well enough to know that’s not likely to happen. Lastly, because we’re the ones defending this base against attacks, so having our weapons tied up doesn’t help anyone. Any other questions?” Farnsworth asked.

I had one. “I’ve got a lot more than one minion here. What do I do with the other undead?”

“Yeah, you have quite the collection. We’ve got a sectioned off area just inside the walls where you can leave them. Think of it as cold storage. You’ll see a few other odd critters in there, but they’re all under orders to leave each other alone, so your undead will be okay. You can keep one with you, same as everyone else.”

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I turned to Hope. “I think we’ll keep you with me.”

With that, we got underway. The rest of the trip across the open area went quickly, the Master Sergeant and his people hurrying everyone along. I glanced back at the other side of the airfield, where the civilian airport terminal was. It was badly beat up, but it was definitely occupied. Scores of those bird creatures flew around the tower, and darted in and out of various buildings. There were a lot of the things!

We reached the gate, and it actually swung open for us as we approached. As we went inside, I saw they’d rigged a winch system to open and close the gate, and a Guardsman who looked like he could bench press a car picked up an enormous steel bar to lay across the braces on the inside of the gate. Getting through there wouldn’t be easy for an attacker.

I had to admit, the security made me feel good. Between the walls, the Guards in towers along the wall tops, the gate, and the obvious way these folks had gone after crystals to gain power, this was probably the safest place I’d been since everything went to hell.

Farnsworth showed me where they’d set up their pet care center. It was a fenced off section just inside the gate. Inside, I saw a trio of big dogs, more like wolves, a whole pile of regular house cats, and a solitary skeleton, resting in the corner. I led my undead inside, ordering them into one corner, and told them to basically power down unless they were attacked.

I turned back to Farnsworth. “What’s with all the cats?”

He laughed. “You won’t believe it. I barely do, and I was here. This old lady came in on day two, must have been ninety. She had a whole pile of cats in tow behind her.”

“Regular cats? I don’t know if feeding cats makes sense when we’re worried about starving people.”

“We thought so too. But then she told us they weren’t just normal cats. They each had powers,” Farnsworth said. He shrugged. “We asked for a demo, and she had one of them vanish and a second one breathe fire. Turns out she was right on the money. The fact that she’s tier three didn’t hurt, either. More rank generally comes with a little extra leeway, as you’ll find yourself.”

That was good to know. I wondered if he could see that I was essentially a double tier five, or whether it just told him I had the one tier five stone. My suspicion was that the only information we got about each other was the highest tier stone we have socketed. If so, would it be more advantageous to tell them I had two tier fives? Or should I keep that information to myself?

For the time being I opted for the latter choice. I could always tell them later. I kept Hope with me, and we exited the pet lounge, rejoining the others.

Farnsworth took charge quickly, ordering a few of his reaction force to take the new refugees we’d saved over to a medical building.

“You’ll get looked at for any injuries or illnesses there,” he told them. “We have people with healing stones, and good experience with modern medicine as well. They’ll make sure you’re looked after, and then they’ll direct you from there to the Community Center, where you’ll be given food and a place to sleep. You’ll hear more about duties tomorrow, after you’ve had some food and sleep.”

The refugees all looked thrilled to hear that. I’d half expected some of them to balk, but no one did. They were all so happy to be somewhere things weren’t trying to kill them that they all followed the Guardsman Farnsworth assigned to lead them over to medical.

Kara stayed with me, and Farnsworth cocked his head at her. “You should go with them.”

“With respect, Master Sergeant, I really need to make sure my people back where I came from get taken care of. Now that we know this is a safe place, I have to get back there soonest to bring them in,” Kara replied. “There’s a major goblin nest nearby. They already attacked and overran our first base. If they hit again while I’m gone, my people will be in serious danger.”

I nodded. “The building they’ve holed up in is defensible, but the enemy has a spell caster. A goblin who can drop fireballs on folks’ heads. If they come at that building, they’ll burn it to the ground, and maybe anyone inside as well.”

“That’s grim,” Farnsworth replied. “But my orders are still clear. Everyone has to go through the regular processing routine. Only exceptions are anyone rank five or higher, and we haven’t had any of those until you, Selena. Don’t worry. We’ll get your friends taken care of, but first we need to ensure you’re not bringing influenza or something worse into the base, okay?”

Kara looked like she wanted to object, but she glanced at me, then at the Master Sergeant, and sighed instead. “All right. I was a ROTC cadet, Master Sergeant. I understand orders. I’ll go. Selena, make sure you tell their leader what’s going on?”

“I will, no worries,” I told her.

Kara set off after the rest of the group, and I was left alone with Farnsworth. “What’s next?”

“Colonel Turner will want to see you right away,” he replied. “He has standing orders about any high rank arrivals. You’re being treated differently because you could be a major asset, or a major threat, and he’s taking it on himself to find out which personally.”

“Awesome. I’m pretty sure I’m not a threat to this place. Holy shit, do you have a lot of people here!” I said. It was true. There were a lot of people wandering around the base, moving from building to building. Less than half were in Air Force uniforms. Most were in civilian clothes, but even the civilians were taking shifts watching from guard towers and handling other tasks.

“You might be surprised,” Farnsworth replied. “One rank five is worth a great many regular people, in terms of combat effectiveness.”

“I’ve seen that, for sure.”

“Then you know how much damage you could do here, if you wanted to. Come on, I’ll take you in to see the Colonel.”

We went straight toward a large building in the center of the base. From the looks of it, the place used to be an administrative building. It was brick, with lots of windows. Most of those had been boarded up from the inside, which made sense. They had an aerial enemy across the way, so windows were a dangerous hole in their defenses.

From there we hit a flight of stairs, but went down instead of up, as I’d expected. The building had a few sub-levels, and we went to the bottom one. Once we’d reached the final floor, Farnsworth opened the door and held it for me. We passed from there through two more security check points before we reached the offices of the base leader.

His door read ‘Colonel James Turner.’ Farnsworth rapped hard on the wood frame, and the door popped open a moment later, showing me a middle-aged man who still looked more fit than I was on my best day. That had to be Colonel Turner.

I froze as soon as I saw him. Not because of the rank, or how buff he was for an old guy, but because he had something I’d never seen before. Turner was close enough for me to get a read of his tier level.

He was a six.