[T: 1 Day 9 Hours]
“There’s so many people here now…” Over the course of nearly a day and a half passing, several hundred people are now refugees, trapped on a world not of their own, possessing little more than the clothes on their backs. The young asian woman, next to the young asian man, finally says something for the first time, unable to contain herself at the tragedy and the calamity of things to come. The young asian man places his hand on her shoulder, rubbing her, but she does not respond to him attempting to comfort her as she looks at the new group of people who had been brought to the glade against their will.
“Yeah… there’s a couple hundred people here now”, Gold says, “maybe four hundred or five hundred now”.
This time a young woman in her early to mid twenties, with the body of a fitness gym girl, answers, “But we have more soldiers now don’t we? I mean…”, she trails off then continues, “that’s better than before”.
Gold answers unconvinced, “Maybe”. He looks at Red, “Things are different now I think. There’s a new hierarchy of leadership. Don’t know how they are going to handle things now. If they don’t start to do something within a few hours, then we don’t have the time to wait for them. No one has had any food or water. We’re all hungry and more importantly than that, we are thirsty. We will die within a few days. Frankly… I still don’t think the military has enough people to secure resources for us.”
Red nods, “Yeah. I’m still leaning towards the idea of us normal people going out to look for food and water. Like you said, there’s a couple hundred people here now. If there is any water or food nearby, if we spread out, we’ll find it. We’re going to die anyway. No point in the military keeping us safe if we don’t have food or water to survive. They need it too. I bet they can see that. I didn’t see them coming here with any crates of food or water. They all have their backpacks only. Hardly enough food or water to outlast one or two days more than the rest of us.”
“So you’re going with the plan tomorrow?” Gold looks at Red searchingly.
“Yeah, I’ve got loads of people willing to volunteer too. They know the danger we are in.”
“You going to let that lieutenant in, on that plan?”
“No, not anymore. It doesn’t matter anymore.This is a people’s operation now. There isn’t enough of the military to help and protect us, and there isn’t enough of them to stop us.” Red lowers his voice, with a tinge of despair, “There’s too many of us… And too little of them… It doesn’t matter anymore… We HAVE to do this. Before it’s too late.” Gold just looks at Red. He presses his lips tight.
[T: 1 Day 9 Hours]
The sun has gone down behind the wall to the west of the glade. La Fonte and the Master Sergeant make their way out from the forest south of the glade, which they had just done some reconnaissance. They meet the soldier who is stationed there, who salutes him and points him over to the 1rst Lieutenant. La Fonte and the Master Sergeant both share a concerned look with each other before walking over to the Lieutenant.
The 1rst Lieutenant is with both 2nd Lieutenants and he doesn’t notice La Fonte and the Master Sergeant until the Sergeant notices them approaching and turning his gaze onto them. The
1rst Lieutenant, following the Sergeant’s gaze see’s them and tilts his head. Both 2nd Lieutenants turn and look as well, and the 1rst Sergeant and Master Sergeant stand at attention in front of them and salute. The 1rst Lieutenant says, “At ease!”, and the two men stand at ease.
“Sergeant… Hernandez…”, the 1rst Lieutenant says as he reads the name tag of the Master Sergeant,”I’ve been told that you have been in charge for around twenty-four hours. Am I right?
“Yes, sir”.
“And during the majority of your time in charge you have been missing. Am I right?”
“Sir?”
“You’ve just done some recon, I assume?”
“Yes, sir!”
“You were the most senior NCO were you not?”
“Yes, sir!”
“Why did you abandon your post, Sergeant.”
“We needed to do something and initiating reconnaissance was the best thing I could think of, sir!”
“Why didn’t you send someone else to do that?”
“I was the best qualified, sir!”
“I see.”
The 1rst Lieutenant looks at both of his 2nd Lieutenants who show no expressions on their faces. He looks back at the Master Sergeant. “Did you find anything?”
“We found water.”
“Water you say?”
“Yes, sir. A lake, around, thirteen and a half klicks from here. Took all day to get to and come back, sir. Seems to be connected to a stream going northeast.”
The 1rst. Lieutenant continues to observe the Master Sergeant a few seconds more. Then he takes a deep breath and sighs. “Good work, Sergeant. You may move freely. Both of you.”
“Thank you, sir!” Both the Master Sergeant La Fonte free themselves from their “at ease” posture.
The 1rst Lieutenant looks at both of his officers and his non-commissioned officers. “Well gentlemen… and ladies”, as he glances at his female 2nd Lieutenant, “We are in a predicament. As far as I know, Command knows nothing of this. They don’t know “anything”. They don’t even know that they don’t know. The idea of this doesn’t even exist for them. They probably don’t even know that we’re missing. Or if they do know, they probably don’t know where we went. What’s important is that they probably DO NOT KNOW, and CANNOT HELP US.” He pauses for them to compute this, “We are alone.” Another pause. “And there is most likely going to be no help. We have to figure things out ourselves.”
The 1rst Lieutenant looks at the Sergeant and the Corporal. “ Sergeant, you mentioned that we have no food or water, correct?”
This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.
“That is correct, sir.”
“Well, Sergeant Hernandez just found us some water. Only problem is, he says it’s thirteen and a half kilometers from our current location.” He asks the Sergeant, “You said that some people have been here nearly over twenty-four hours?”
“Yes, sir.”
“We'll have to escort the whole lot over to that lake, first thing tomorrow morning. It took Hernandez the whole day to reach the lake and come back. I’d imagine it’ll take these people longer than that. And many of them have gone without water for over twenty-four hours. I’d also imagine dehydration will start around tomorrow for them. What do you think?”
The male 2nd Lieutenant says in a low voice, “Sir. We’ll lose more than half of the group. They won’t be able to walk in a straight line. They’ll get lost and we’ll never find them.”
“We have rope?”
“Sir?”
“Rope. Do we have rope?”
The 2nd Lieutenant has the look of a man who was just told an odd thing, “You want to tie them together and have someone herd them?”
“It’ll solve the issue.”
“Sir - well…”
“Any bright ideas? We have to get these people to that watering hole ASAP, Lieutenant. However odd the method, if it gets the job done, it’ll have to do.”
“Yes, sir…”
The 1rst Lieutenant looks at his watch, “It is right now…”, his face changes expressions quickly, his face scrunches up, and his lips jut out. The 1rst Sergeant, La Fonte, looks at his own watch.
“It’s 1900, sir.”
The 1rst Lieutenant continues to look at his watch, his face still very expressive. “1900…”, the 1rst Lieutenant touches his watch changing the time, “Thank you 1rst Sergeant.”
“Yes, sir.” La Fonte glances at the Sergeant and Corporal and raises one of his eyebrows. Both men immediately understand and nod furiously, letting La Fonte know that they followed his previous orders and fixed the time on their watches again, when the sun was directly overhead. The Corporal even raises his hand and points to his watch to further emphasize. La Fonte nods satisfied. The female 2nd Lieutenant stifles a laugh, which becomes a smirk.
The 1rst Lieutenant finishes fixing his watch. “He looks back up and around to his officers. “It’s 1900. We’ve got time to prepare. What type of ropes do we have and how much?”
The Sergeant perks up, turns, and yells at a distant soldier, “Marseille! Get me all the rope you can find.”
A soldier turns, looks, and yells, “Yes, Sergeant!” Soldiers who hear the order, if they have rappelling rope, pull it out of their packs and hand it over. The officers wait patiently as Marseille runs over to the other soldiers across the glade and gathers up whatever rope he can find. He then jogs over to the Sergeant, “Three, Sergeant. We have three, one hundred and fifties.”
The male 2nd Lieutenant turns to the 1rst Lieutenant, “That’s not enough…”.
The 1rst Lieutenant thinks, “ Have a single man leading each rope, with a person holding onto the rope every three or four feet. Then have smaller groups led, again by a single man. Maybe ten to fifteen. How many men do we have?”
The Sergeant answers, “ Around three dozen sir, us included.”
“Ok.” The 1rst Lieutenant nods. “ We will leave a squad here, to defend the rest of the people. We will send two squads to escort “volunteers” among the civilians. 1rst squad led by Sergeant Hernandez here, 2nd squad led by 1rst Sergeant La Fonte. Now which one of my lovely 2nd Lieutenants wants to volunteer to lead this mission? I want one of you to lead these two squads.” The 1rst Lieutenant looks at the female 2nd Lieutenant and the male 2nd Lieutenant.
The female 2nd Lieutenant offers herself for the mission, “I’ll go, sir.”
The 1rst Lieutenant nods. He then tells the male 2nd Lieutenant, “You’ll stay here with me and the 3rd squad.”
“Yes, sir.”
The 1rst Lieutenant continues to brief his officers, both commissioned and non-commissioned, “We’ll take two squads and escort the civilians. Once you arrive there you’ll leave a single team with those civilians and return with the rest. Then we’ll split up the 3rd squad into two teams and have a single team to stay here in the glade, with the other half participating in escorting civilians along with the rest. This leaves one team at… let’s call that lake… Alpha site, and this… Point Zero. So one team at Alpha site, one team here stationed at Point Zero and two squads alternating between the two to escort civilians to Alpha Site.
The Master Sergeant can’t help but ask, “We’re leaving the civilians there?”
“Well we can’t bring the water to them. That’s thirteen and a half clicks away. We have to bring them to the water. We are moving… everyone.”
“... Understood.”
The 1rst Lieutenant crosses his arms,then uncrosses them. He looks at the Master Sergeant and La Fonte. “ Get your squads together Tonight, Sergeants, I want you to leave at daylight.”
“How are we going to organize the civilians and get them to come with us? Who gets to go first?”
“Like I said, volunteers.”
“But sir… how-”
“ Have all the men assemble maybe every fifty, sixty feet. In rows and columns.”
“Sir?”
“Start in the center of the glade. Place a single man there. Then on each side of that man; front, left, right, and about, have another man placed around fifteen meters away.” The 1rst Lieutenant continues with his odd order and his officers just stare at him, able to comprehend what the 1rst Lieutenant wants, but not understanding why he wants it. “Continue with placing a single man, paced at this measurement. Understood?” His officers just stare at him. The 1rst Lieutenant stares back. “Go”, he says.
His officers just go and follow the order, rounding up every soldier in the glade and placing them in the odd formation the 1rst Lieutenant ordered them in, covering the glade with a grid-like, row by row and column by column formation. The glade soon has a single soldier every fifteen meters, and the soldiers just stand there like a stiff scarecrow, not understanding why they were placed there by their superiors. The civilians around them notice this activity by the military and just curiously eyeball the soldiers near them, whispering to each other, wondering what they are doing.
A soldier gulps nervously as he gets surrounded by curious black and hispanic gangsters. A crowd of both slim and obese men, dressed in baggy clothes, stares with eyes so intense they could burn a hole in the wall. The man wonders who he pissed off for him to be placed where he is.
Then from the radio of the stiff soldier standing near them, the voice of the Lieutenant comes out. “This is 1rst Lieutenant Halliday speaking to the people of the glade.” Each soldier has effectively become a walking speakerphone placed throughout the glade. The sound of the voice coming from the soldier’s radio rouses nearby civilians, who turn their attention to the voice of the 1rst Lieutenant. “ We know that you are all going through a heck of a lot. I ask that you remain calm a little bit more.” Those near the soldiers turn and face them. Others notice that those around the soldiers are starting to listen to the radio. They start to give attention to the soldiers and the radio they are carrying. People start to get up. The voice of the 1rst Lieutenant continues, “We know that some of you are already starting to suffer the effects of dehydration and starvation.” People who are too far away to hear the voice of the radio, yet observe that the people who can hear are showing great attention, move closer in order to hear. “At this moment of time, we have discovered a source of water. A lake. The only problem is that it is around thirteen and a half klicks away. That’s thirteen and a half kilometers.” Crowds start to form around the soldiers. “For those that don’t know their kilometers, that is essentially around a little over eight miles.” The crowds get bigger and bigger and some of the soldiers, who have become walking speakerphones become anxious as they become surrounded. “ I have made the decision to start relocating to this water source. However, our numbers are not sufficient enough to escort everyone all at once. And so, we will begin, starting from tomorrow, to escort those who arrived onto this glade first, to this lake.” The 1rst Lieutenant pauses and there is a tense moment as the crowds are literally thirsty for more of the Lieutenant's words.
“Again, however, we don’t know how safe we are within this forest. At this moment of time we have not made contact with anyone, friend or foe. It may be dangerous. We don’t know that. There might not be any danger. We don’t know that… I am telling you, specifically this, because we - I, don’t know how safe we are. And therefore I ask that those who have arrived first to this glade, as well as those amongst the first, who understand that there may be some unknown risks, prepare themselves for the journey tomorrow. Again, you are not required to make the journey. You MAY volunteer. However, I strongly urge you to make the journey, regardless of the risks. That is all. Thank you.” The radio’s across the glade all make a bleep sound as the 1rst Lieutenant finishes.
A silence fills the air as everyone looks at one another, waiting for someone to say something. The soldiers, alone and surrounded by hundreds of people and overly conscious of the attention of the crowds, shift uncomfortably.