Martialla and Lucien and his guys (they are all guys so I can say that) that are still alive and some of the less dumb people from this time talk in circles a lot asking each other whether the Invincible never figured out that there was a facility under Wyo or if they just didn’t have time to bring in the machinery needed to dig it up. I don’t know why it matters but it gives them something to talk about.
If they didn’t know before they know now. Maybe one of their planes spotted us digging. Maybe someone up in the hills saw it from a distance. Maybe someone just told them. I have no doubt that they have spies and sympathizers walking in and out of our camps all the time. We have zero idea what the fuck is going on or who anyone is in our own army. What I want to know is why we don’t have anyone spying on them. Maybe they’re a tad more disciplined than we are.
We know that they know because they’ve dispatched a massive force to attack us. Or maybe they don’t know and they’re just doing that because there’s a war on and attacking the enemy is what you do in war. Maybe we don’t know anything about what they know. Our scouts aren’t sure of their numbers other than “a bunch” but they do know that they’re coming around the mountains from the north. Which means that as soon as Lucien had his defenses in place they must have sent them around to disintermediate them. Or maybe they came from the north to begin with and they didn’t do that. We have no clue.
That’s another hot topic of debate amongst the brain trust. Why is this valley so important to the Invincible when they can send their forces across north of the hill mountains? Is it just because of the distance involved? Is there some hazard in that area they want to avoid as a general rule? Is there some other group of people there that remain unconquered that cause them trouble when they try to move through to get at us? Potentially a group that we could ally with against the Invincible? I say once again, we have no idea.
We should know more things if we want to win this war.
Lucien has no defenses outside of the valley because he says we don’t have the people or materiel to do it. Like the little Dutch boy we have only one finger to put in the dike. My suggestion that we ride out to meet them in the open was soundly rejected on the grounds that they could evade us and attack Wyo anyway since they have the advantage in vehicles and we’re leaning heavily on the mountains to protect us from being flanked. I pointed out that they could have done that in many engagements and fought us anyway but I was shouted down. Too risky.
Whatever.
The 127s brought out three of their funky insectile excavating machines and we got down the facility in the first few hours but so much of it is wrecked that now we’re reduced to people with hand tools and buckets to clear it out. I don’t know what an archaeological dig looks like, but I imagine that it’s something like this, long lines of dusty people passing clay pots filled with gravel to each other and wishing they were doing anything else.
We dug into Stase Biologique Huit but everything was crushed and everyone was dead as far as we can tell. On the plus side we found what might have been an elevator shaft before it was spun around like cotton candy that Lucien thinks may take us to the Armored Vehicle Garage if we can get through. I want to be mad at him for not knowing the layout better but since he was apparently drugged and stuck in there against his will and since the earth has shifted in the meantime I can’t blame him too much. But I still want to.
It doesn’t look like we’re going to find anything before the Invincible arrive so the good news is that if it turns out that all we’ll have done is opened it all up for the them to get the finest military equipment that the US-Canadian military had to offer in the early eighties it won’t matter because we’ll all be dead already anyway.
Rocket Cat 