Life on the Normandy Coast

Its not a bad life here, I'd dare say it might be pretty good. But it is a small life, a boring life and that - and that- and umm...hmmph.

Well, what is your measurement? Each generation tries a little better, and hopes a little greater for those that follow. From let none of our children get eaten or die horribly to own a little plot, to a big one, to be be educated, to not be hungry... there are still some beaches south of here where you see the remains of when we fought for higher ideals. We were at a time, even with all the ecological problems, when most of those were solved, at least here in Europe. Might even be able to say that with the world and Sphere at your fingertips, the struggle was against boredom and callousness.

The world has gotten both smaller and larger after The Event. You live more local, and everything else has moved farther away. For all the pride in French cuisine, sometimes tamales or a gyro sandwich just seems like a nice change of pace. Can't get those spices anymore. Five years ago we had satellites in orbit everywhere, now we have to worry about scurvy during the winter months, since vitamin C rich foods can't be imported easily.

In theory there is still trade with other towns. In theory. Two catches though. First of all, you need to have something worth trading - small villages don't have much, and cites usually don't have the resources to produce. Secondly, the way is broken up and unsafe - so you either hire free companies - which can be very expensive - or you make the run yourself, which is pretty dangerous.

We're pretty lucky actually - rich for the modern age. Fishing in the English channel, farms, sheep a lot of places are worse off. Most of us around here won't even say the capitals name, and cross ourselves if its even whispered - the stories of slaughter by the reanimates... The city of lights has survived a lot, but no true Frenchman would desecrate that grave for a long time to come.

A Little Place in Germany

Adolf Galland may have shared a name with a famous warrior, but he was no fighter. If anything, he was a little coward that compromised on just about everything to calm those fears. He didn't live in the port city proper because of the pollution, crime, and crowds - but wouldn't move to a little town because of the medical care available in the metropolis. Out of the fear of being stranded, he had his own car, despite the costs involved, and maintained his own bio-fuel reactor to make sure it would always run. He even joined a gun club and acquired a Kleiner Waffenschein. (Firearms carry permit.)

What many before the event would have defined as near mental illness - or at least a bit strange - had made him the center of a little survivors community near Emden. Even then, it was more about fearing the disapproval of his neighbors, than stepping up to save the community from the new scourge.

Even if he was the unofficial leader, he would still take turns along the river with binoculars looking for boats. What he would do if he actually spotted a KCA ship was unknown, but then again - there wasn't much to do. They couldn't very well fight back against an armed warship and actual marines, and a scorched earth policy would leave them worse off than if they just gave the stuff away. Hiring a free company would require having something to trade that couldn't just be looted from the city a few kilometers away.

Across the Pond

Yeah, I suppose you hear about the American G-zones the most. With the US have an astounding number of guns per-capita, and Mexico in the middle of a damn near civil war - you'd expect the population to be up in arms and able to resit everything from aliens to reanimates. You think tiny place, uncoordinated response, zero survivors,' cept for those thrice damned Soviet Vikings.

Well, I wouldn't approach most of the major cities of continental Europe, nor the radioactive craters of major cities in the British Isles. Look to the outskirts, the countryside - hell, even the castles - they make a damn fine fortress against the 'mates and the 'imps - and you'll find quite a bit more population than expected.

Shrimp knew to attack military bases first. But they had no idea how many bunkers there truly were scattered across Europe, many dating back to the cold war days. Weapons aren't so hard to come-by now, but trained soldiers, like chickens teeth. So valuable, that free companies can demand almost anything - a return to the reign of the mercenary army, like the pre-gunpowder and model army days. 

They aren't all cut throats, indeed, many are quite deserving of our respect. European armies were generally kept closer to home than US ones, so they put up quite the fight when then aliens landed. Fighting stopped as much because both sides ran out of fuel. Yes, you heard that correctly, even the aliens. Hasn't it occurred to you that they could have done a lot more with those spaceships in the last few years than just leave them parked near the moon? We might have blown up fiver or eight of them, but there are still around fifty.

Well, the up shot is, the aliens aren't too aggressive. Heck, there is at least one free-company of aliens doing much the same work as the other mercs to try and get on the human's good side. They don't seem to be too keen about attacking other aliens, but I've heard rumors they will for the right price. Otherwise, they stay hidden behind their big lotus laser towers.

As to the 'mates - they're all accounted for, we've got the same types as everywhere else. Well, I don't buy the stories about type fours and fives. Ants have Castes and directives but no general commanding it all, just instinct and pheromones. Why would these things need them either - any single one of them is smarter than an ant. Most of the time. Type five super soldiers? Probably just rumors spread by the free companies to either make themselves legendary, or feel needed. The Human body can only do so much and a few pin-head sized robots aren't going to change that. Most of the people I've met with cybernetics are less strong than they used to be - so yeah.

We're trying to get our act together. With less space to work with, we might get the links before the USA does. But there are still squabbles, and people who want the new Europe to be their Europe. Even I think we need less co-operation and more some new Napoleon to take the continent by storm. Just don't let it be that damned Gorgon, or Greegon, or Grigori - who ever that bastard in command of the KCA is. I've got this horrid feeling it might be. Russia probably had more of those bunkers the aliens overlooks than anyone else. You know them, got planes hidden under the Siberian permafrost in case Hitler ever returns from the grave and tries to re-stage operation Barbarossa. Who knows? We've seen enough other dead people walking...

Regimental HQ, near Saint Petersburg

"What is the status of the tanks?"
   "We have managed to get sixteen operational - Six of them T-249s, Four 230s, and three each 232A and 232MK. We have sufficient fuel a three to four hundred kilometer road march. Oddly enough, the limit is the fuel cells - the MK's multi-fuel turbine will bun just about anything, so even with far less economy, we have more biodisel, cellulose petrol, and alcohol than catalyst."
   "Good. Not great - we're a good five hundred from anywhere useful."
   'Its ammunition sir, where we have a problem. We have less than two-hundred 135mm shells, before we start splitting hairs about sabot or HEAT. Not enough to completely fill even four auto-reloader carousels. We have forty-seven 150mm shells, though plenty of liquid propellant."
   "We're not expecting heavy tank resistance. Ration them out as best you can. Nine shells a 249, fifteen or twenty for all the others."
   "Those aren't the problematic numbers sir. We simply have no liquid coolant for the hard-kill antimissile lasers - they'll melt themselves in less than fifty seconds if we face any notable missile attacks. And there will be missile attacks - without tanks of their own, the citizens use air-power to attack ours. Which leads to the even bigger problem of or lack of anit-air assets."
   "Didn't we just retrieve some?"
   "1,500 RPM revolver-cannons make for some tough logistical challenges, even if you've got trains from the arsenal factory. Long range SAM numbers - even worse."
   "So we can make the journey, we just can't survive it."
   "Not unless that Grigori guy calling the shots can spare some naval fighters to support us."
   "I don't think so. I came here after receiving one of his couriers. The short version is, if you don't think you can make it by yourself, don't make the attempt. That is up for interpretation - he doesn't want to support those who can't fight, or he's looking for things other than tanks..."
   "I think you're grasping at straws sir."
   "We have three full platoons of tanks - there has to be something we can do. Just waiting here isn't eliminating aliens, nor rebuilding Russia."
   "Don't we know it general. All I can say, is there is a time and a place for everything."

Atomic Generation Complex 5, Southern Germany

I see the dials in my sleep. Old analog "steam-gauges". Everything is under computer control, yet they chose those for user interface reasons. A digital number just shows you what its at now - not rate of change or the limits at the extremes. You see the red line, watch the needle waver far more intuitive. Not that they ever got near the red zone. They've been lying on the bottom for months now. Nothing needs my megawatts. No one has asked yet.

Any day now, someone is going to knock on the door and ask. Chance are, there hasn't been a gram of coal mined or or a milliliter of sugarcane-gas reacted. If there is another man alive besides me, who wants to switch on a light-bulb, they will come to me.

My plant sits near the confluence of rivers, just Southwest of Regensburg. I use the water for cooling purposes. Turbines, the magnets, emergency systems. Not a drop in the vessel itself. No, for that, its carbon dioxide driven by great fans no oxygen for the graphite to burn, no water to mess with the moderation. Just hundreds of football sized pencil lead colored spheres. It is pencil lead more or less really. Graphite. Holds eraser sized chunks of mixed oxide.

Like coffee beans on a cooling table, they swirl about pushed by a giant arm. Add more. They heat up. Warm the CO-2 wind, which then goes to a heat exchanger. Turns water in the secondary loop to steam... and that drives turbines, and One-thousand-five-hundred megawatts later, the process repeats.

Someday my summons will come. All across Bayern, the people will know my name, perhaps as far as Wurzburg and Stuttgart. Society needs electricity. It runs our cars, our computers, the trains. I keep watch on the electrons.

All the others left. Put the core into to shutdown, and ran off. Wanted to find their families during the national emergency. Or were worried about the government using poison gas on the abominations nearby. Cowards. The control building is hermetically sealed, over-pressurized, and under-ground. I couldn't be safer if there was an angel with a flaming sword standing at the east gate of the compound.

Course I can fill in for them now. All there is to do around here is read the technical manuals. Or go to the training center in the northwest quadrant of the complex and run simulations. I've already rigged the solar system that keeps the emergency batteries tapped to also power a few amenities for me. A warmed greenhouse to grow food all year round, lights, hot water. All to myself.

Its already been One-thousand-Eight-hundred-Sixty-two days. Day fifteen-hundred was a fun one - threw a big party to celebrate watching the plant for as many days as its electric output. Will be a while till I have another for the thermal output of course, but someone will come by then. Begging.

I'll be a hero. Perhaps even a saint. I mean, watching an entire ten square kilometer complex by yourself has to be some sort of miracle. All the documentation recommends at least four people present in each of the control rooms - one per each f the three reactors, no less than eighteen times. On page six, seven, nine, fifteen, and thirty-four of the brown book on operations, One, two, fifty, sixty three, in the blue manual, and page two, four, ninety-six, One-hundred five, and one-hundred six of the safety manual.

Wait that is only fourteen. Where are the last four? I should know this! Its vital information for running the plant! The turbines need me to know this! How else will Germany gets its electricity! Where is that orange book...?