John O'Brien - Dissension

“What about if something goes wrong or when the fuel rods need replaced?” I ask, interrupting the silence.

“Yeah, I was thinking the same thing,” Bannerman says. “Never mind, I was just thinking. So, where were we?”

“Taking five teams up,” Greg says.

“Alright, which teams?” I say.

“Black, Blue, Red, Charlie, and Echo,” Lynn answers. “We can head up in the buses and pick up troop transports on base on the way up.”

“Okay. It will take us over an hour to get up there so we should leave around 0700,” I say.

“We’ll form up in that order when we arrive. Do we know exactly where we are going?” Lynn asks.

“I’m guessing it won’t be too hard to find. I know where the base is and we’ll just drive toward the inlet once we arrive,” I answer. “What else do we have?”

“The mines have been laid around the perimeter out to a distance of twenty meters and claymores positioned outside of the entrances,” Drescoll says. “We’ve marked the mines and everyone knows not to step within that distance of the walls. The entrance into the compound has been left free.”

“In addition to the skylights, the walls around the maintenance areas were finished around noon and the vehicles were moved in to the buildings. We also moved vehicles into the hangars at both McChord and Lewis. The hangars have windows around the upper levels and are fairly bright during the day so we should be good there. We have progress on the inner compound wall. If we use the wall crews from up north, we can complete that in a couple of days. We also won’t need the escorts as we’re working inside so we’ll only need an escort team for the trucks driving supplies back from the distribution center. We’re slowly getting the water tower up. That will take the most time but I think we have a way to link the wind turbine to the water pump. We’ll be testing that soon,” Bannerman says.

“What about the guard towers?” Greg asks.

“I think we have a design that will work with an overhang and using fire escape ladders. The night runners made it up the ones in Kuwait so we’ll have to increase the height off the ground and lengthen the ladders. I still don’t have a design for the base but am thinking something along the lines of a control tower. That means we’ll have to pour concrete,” Bannerman answers.

“What about tilting storage containers up on end and filling them with concrete for the base? I know we built temporary control towers that way,” I say.

“Hmmmm…. Yeah, that will work. We’ll need to get more storage containers which will mean another escort team,” Bannerman says.

“That will only leave us one on standby and that means we’ll have no one for the night shift,” Lynn says.

“Then we either do a distribution center run or a storage container run. How are we on supplies?” I ask.

“We’re okay for now,” Bannerman says.

“Then let’s go for the storage containers. I’d feel better shoring up our defenses here,” I say.

“I second that,” Drescoll says.

“We’re also shoring up the animal shelters and locking the storage containers at night,” Bannerman says.

“I’d like to add that we need to look at quarters for everyone soon. Bannerman mentioned this and I think it’s important before winter sets in with the shorter days. That will mean more time spent indoors. We’ve already seen some tempers flare. There was one argument this afternoon. Apparently one guy was caught with someone else’s supposed girlfriend. This will only get more frequent if we don’t do something soon,” Frank says. “People are getting more comfortable and feeling safe so they’ll start focusing on other things once their basic needs are being met.”

“Ugh! Okay, let’s get our inner compound complete and work on the design when we get a chance. I’m thinking it should be along the lines of apartments built off the ground with retractable stairs. Maybe built on top of storage containers high enough so that night runners can’t scale or leap to them. And all interconnected with retractable ramps to each other and this building. We should also think about building each with hoists so we can haul equipment, food, furniture, and the like up,” I say.

“When things simmer down here, Bannerman and I will look into getting with others with the right expertise and come up with a design,” Franks says.

“What about our continued search for survivors in the area?” Drescoll asks.

“As much as I hate to say this, we’re going to have to do that on an ‘as we find time’ basis. We also have the search for the families of the soldiers that we’ll have to take care of in short order,” I answer.

“If you taught others how to fly the helicopter, we could do both and not have to wait for you to be available. Or when we have teams available, we could conduct the search on the ground, or a combination of the two,” Drescoll says.

I feel a weight descend on me. There’s just too much to do. I thought the burden would vanish or at least dissipate when finished our little sanctuary but that’s just not the case. If anything, it seems to have grown. There is always more to do and not enough people or time to do it. And then there are the night runners prowling the streets at night just on the other side of the wall. The smallest mistake or the moment we are not one step ahead of them could quickly bring about our downfall. It’s this heaviness that is settling in. I wonder if the others feel it as well. I don’t know if we can keep up with this frantic pace. We’ll have to keep it up but on the other hand, we won’t be able to much longer. If we wear ourselves out, we’re going to start making mistakes or miss something.

“When we have the teams available, let’s send them out for searches without stretching ourselves thin. Coordinate with Frank for the locations and I’ll take others to teach them when I get back from the search for families. I’d like to take the AC-130 up tomorrow to clear more of the area. We’ll have to coordinate for clearing the rubble from the buildings we’ve taken down and cutting the trees back from around the compound,” I say.

“We have some available for that now if we don’t have to provide an escort. We can use the standby team as both parties will be relatively close,” Bannerman says.

“I think that’s secondary right now. The meeting tomorrow and setting up our inner defenses come first. We’ll start ground searches for additional survivors when time and resources permit. Tomorrow, I’ll start planning for the trip for the soldier’s families and head up in the Spooky at night. When we finish the inner defenses and have a plan for the quarters, we’ll start on those. We keep the other projects moving along as planned but I want us to start thinking about a Bio-fuel option,” I say.

“We’re saving the oil we use in the kitchen and I’ll start my research on that soon,” Bannerman replies.

“Okay, is there anything else?” I ask.

“You know, I was thinking of when we talked about the sub supplying power and the problems with that. Do all of the subs run on nuclear power?” Robert asks.

“I think so,” Frank answers.

“Well, are there other subs and do they replace those rods up at the sub base?” Robert asks. “What I mean is, won’t there be the same problems if those subs lose their fuel rods or if they refuel there. Won’t those go bad?”

Stunned silence takes the group. I had thought about the Hanford storage facility in Eastern Washington but I totally didn’t take the sub base into account. The rods, if they are there, will evaporate their cooling water source and contaminate the area. They could possibly taint the waters of the Puget Sound if the tides and currents are right. If the radiation leaks into the air, we are near enough for it to affect us and contaminate our own water supplies. That is something I’ll definitely have to ask Captain Leonard when we meet in the morning.