Episode 204: Meridian Encounters, Part 2
When the dust settles, Rina tries hacking the locks on the storage units. They’re built into the slopes, kept cool and secured by the earth. The clinic nurses are a mite nervous about this whole business, because they’ve had frequent burglary attempts on their supplies already.
Head Nurse: Will we be able to lock it when you leave?
Rina: I’ll be gentle.
The alternative is to leave the meds as they are and have the nurses carry on as they already have, on reduced meds and equipment such as they are actually able and trained to use, until Dr. Fong’s return. Then again, the head nurse suggests, if Dr. Arden was willing to stay, it wouldn’t matter all that much because he’s a better doctor than Fong. We balk at that idea and offer the compromise of having Arden stay only as long until help can arrive from elsewhere.
Or we can hack the locks. And if the hack fails… The head nurse is still not sure about this whole business and needs more persuading.
Rina: They’ve only taken the shuttle. If I have to, I have a whole machine shop aboard the Gift and I can make up an entire brand new set of shiny locks if I somehow screw the ones we’ve got.
After all, we really don’t know when the doctor’s coming back. If the nurses needed something that’s been locked up, shouldn’t they be able to get to it? If we hacked the locks, we could work it so they could lock and unlock them without the doctor at will. Also, if we hacked the locks we could offload the cargo we’ve brought them. Or we could wait to see if the police from Perth could help with the locks. The Head Nurse quips wryly that yes, they’ve been a great help to Brisbane so far.
Rina hacks the locks.
Once opened, we realize that it’s going to be tight for the 50 tons or so of supplies we’ve brought and looking around to see how best to make it fit, we notice that Dr. Fong had squirreled away supplies from many different disciplines: herbalism, holistic medicine, acupuncture—the gamut.
On the shuttle, Nika and Christian speculate as to what’s going to happen.
Christian: This should be fun.
Nika: Your description of fun leaves much to be desired.
Christian: Oh, no, I have better descriptions of fun. It’s just…I haven’t worked in months.
Nika: (sincerely) I’m sorry.
Christian: It’s not your fault. I’d just like…..more work and less running for my life.
Nika: Maybe you should have taken a place on the Decatur.
Christian: Ahh, no. The kind of work they’ve got is not the kind of work I’d want.
Nika: That’s okay.
They speculate on the occurrence of the disease. Why do the people in the mountains have it but not the folk in the town down below?
Christian: How do they get it? If they have it, how do they get it? And why doesn’t anyone in the town have it?
Nika: We don’t know they don’t.
Christian: True.
Nika: The logging company may have gotten a shipment of protein paste that nobody else got.
Christian: But our aboriginal friend also suggested that the settlers were also exhibiting signs of unusual behavior.
Nika: They could have gotten some supplies from the logging camp.
Christian: They could have traded, true. They could have, getting what little with what they have.
Nika: Trading goat milk for protein paste…trading this for that…. And it’s still all conjecture that it’s the protein paste. There’s no way to know.
Christian: (agreeing) We really don’t. All that I know is from what I know from history is a small armed camp, when they’re diseased, is poised for disaster in the end. Poised for a lot of people dead.
Nika: Yeah. I know.
Christian: And there’s the question of whether they’ve bothered to contact the police about this, too. There’s also the possibility that they may decide to just firebomb the camp.
Nika: (sighing) Christian, it’s not our problem. We’ve only got so many problems we can take on our own plates. Are we going to take on an armed camp as one of ours?
Christian: We can’t. We don’t have the manpower.
Nika: Or the firepower.
Christian: Or the skill.
Nika: We have the police force.
Christian: Or more to the point—I don’t think we can do it and guarantee the doctor’s safety.
Nika: Not so sure anyone else can, either.
They fly on in silence for a moment.
Christian: I bet Mike could do it. Go in and get the doctor out without anybody noticing. But I don’t think any of us could.
Nika: You have quite a bit of faith in his skill.
Christian: I’ve seen what he can do. When he’s not getting captured and held hostage. I’m relatively certain Harry could do it. Get in through a whole bunch of people, before she got taken down. Rick might be able to do it, to a certain degree. Getting in and getting the doctor out is…..Problematic.
Isn’t it always?
Nika and Christian fly to Perth. It’s a city of 60 thousand people, not huge, but slightly more advanced than Brisbane with better port facilities. And they have Cortex. We could fly Johannes out here and have him withdraw what he owes us.
Shiny.
The police in Perth are your standard police force with a standard police station. Nika walks right up to the front desk and the Desk Sergeant on duty looks up from his paperwork.
Desk Sergeant: What can I do for you?
Nika: We need to report a problem. A possible TSE outbreak in Brisbane.
Desk Sergeant: Really?
Nika: Yes. It’s a logging camp up in the hills above the city and they have basically armed themselves and barricaded themselves in and killed some of the surrounding settlers.
Christian: What we’ve been able to determine is they were convinced the settlers had it.
Desk Sergeant: Did they have it?
Christian: Doesn’t matter whether they did or not because they were burned enough that no one’s going to be able to do tests on their bodies.
Nika: No, he was asking about whether the loggers have it. We don’t know that.
Christian: Honestly, we don’t know for sure.
Nika: We do know that they’ve kidnapped the town’s doctor and possibly the town sheriff as well.
Christian: And they’re paranoid enough that they’re setting up explosive traps on the road.
The Desk Sergeant takes it all in.
Desk Sergeant: Okay, but we don’t have any authority down in…where did you say this was? What did you call it? Brisbane?
Nika: Yes. The PDF sent us your way.
Desk Sergeant: Oh….right. If you think it’s TSE, we should call the ACDC. Is there anything else you can tell us about why you think it’s TSE? Just because people are being paranoid? There are a lot of crazy hill people living there.
Christian: We’ve had some… um….we have a doctor with us who has been reading up on the literature and from the symptoms that were described, the paranoia, the odd random violence…suggests it might be. Even if it’s not, you have people heavily armed with explosives kidnapping people.
Nika: Including law enforcement officials.
That’s the second time Nika’s mentioned a brother in blue in danger. You’d think that would warrant something more enthusiastic in response than what we’ve received so far.
Desk Sergeant: If this were happening in Perth, I definitely can say we’d do something, but—
Christian: I understand that you’ve got your own hands full with your own city and limited resources.
Desk Sergeant: We do. And honestly, sending in a bunch of troops to be shot at by a bunch of hill people is not high in priority. If they’re barricaded in, it seems the problem will solve itself.
So much for solidarity between the brothers in blue.
Desk Sergeant: You’re not from these parts, right? You’re just travelers?
Christian: No, we’re just travelers. Concerned ones.
Desk Sergeant: Well, then. You don’t have too much to worry about. From what I understand, you can’t get this unless you’re eating brains or have brains spattered on you from someone who’s been eating them, right? You should be fine. I’ll put in a call to the ACDC and see if they can send in a team to check it out. We appreciate you filing this report. We’ll need to get your ID and such…
We give it to him, we watch as he types it in, we thank him and leave. Nika pauses on the sidewalk in front of the station and cuts a look at Christian.
Nika: Why is it ‘not our problem’ always becomes our problem?
Christian: Because…..we’re stupid. So. Should we go to the Alliance Center for Disease Control and have them tell us they’ll look into it? Or should we just go back?
Nika: You know what? We’ll just go back.
Christian: Okay.
Nika starts walking. Christian follows.
Christian: Shall we fly over on our way back?
Nika: Sure.
And that’s what they do. Nika flies the shuttle over the canopy where the logging camp should be, hoping to do a little air recon.
Back in Brisbane, Rina and Rick do a little snooping on the cargo while stowing it in the clinic’s storage lockers. There’s little doubt what’s really going on. There is a camp in the hills reputed to be Browncoat-y and there are more supplies here than a town of 30 thousand people could possibly need. It’s obvious to Rina, based on what David said, that these supplies are going to support a Browncoat movement up in the hills. Certainly there’s no mistaking the fact that the bulk of the supplies are ex-military supplies. Which only lends support to Rina’s speculations. During the numerous trips back and forth, Rina also notices Johannes whispering something to Arden. Arden’s expression takes on a concerned cast and he goes to a patient who’s being treated and starts examining her more thoroughly, doing more tests. Rina can’t spare the time to investigate, but plows on with the cargo transfer. With a little creativity and a lot of hard work, she and Rick shoehorn the supplies into the storage lockers.
Christian comms ahead, telling everyone that he and Nika are airborne and on the way back they’re going to try to check out the armed logging camp from above. Also, that the police aren’t coming from Perth. Nika cuts in, saying if we don’t hear from them in a couple of hours we’re to send in the cavalry. Just land the ship on them. Rina acknowledges, saying she thinks she’s got enough pilot skill to do that.
Flying over the general location of the camp, Nika spots an area of felled trees and inside it, a large building that looks to be the processing area. The camp is fairly large. A Cortex signal hails the shuttle.
Camp: We’ve got no landings here. Return to where you’ve come from. This is your only warning.
Christian: Logging Camp, this is Summer’s Gift One.
Silence.
Christian: We would like to talk to the doctor, please.
More silence. Then we hear the warble of our radar, telling us we’re being painted—someone is locking weapons on our shuttle. Surface-to-air missiles, anyone? It looks like the twitchy engineer was right after all.
Nika buzzes the camp, flies low, takes her one look at it. She sees that there are crossed-post barriers, of the sort that would normally support barbed wire and there is the flash of arms fire. No missiles come snaking for them, however. A mercy. Nika weighs the factors, takes a calculated risk.
Nika: Ask them if they need supplies.
Christian: Logging camp, this is Summer’s Gift One. Do you require any supplies? Medicine? This is your last chance to ask for the medicine we delivered that was probably supposed to go to the doctor. Who was probably going to bring it to you.
As fishing expeditions go, it went. Nothing bites. We hear nothing but silence on the comm. Nika flies the shuttle out of there and Christian makes one last cast.
Christian: I do want to point out that we do have ex-Browncoat military aboard.
No response.
Christian: Okay. Well. Bye. (cradles handset) Yeah. They’re unreasonably paranoid.
Nika: The fact that they could lock onto us indicates that they have something out there.
Great.
Nika flies the shuttle back to Brisbane without further incident.
Christian: So, hey. How’re you doin’?
Rina: (sourly) Well enough. We moved 50 tons of shit.
Christian: They’re set up for an assault.
Rina: I could’ve told you that. Of course, they’re set up for an assault. You doubted David?
Christian: And they’ve got the ability to lock on to a ship.
Rina: With what?
Christian: We don’t know. They didn’t fire. They did give us a warning that we shouldn’t attempt to land there.
Nika: They pinged us with radar. Could be a SAM, but they used hand weapons.
Christian: They shot at us a couple of times. Could you hit us with one of those shoulder rocket thingies?
Nika: Yes you could.
Rina: And you wouldn’t need anything in it to use the range finder.
Nika: They could have shoulder-mounted, they could have Surface-to-Air and didn’t want to waste them on something like a shuttle…
There’s a quick flurry of info exchange between Rick and Rina’s observations on the ground and Nika and Christian’s aerial reconnaissance.
Christian: Actually that makes a lot of sense, her insane theory about them being a terrorist group—
Rina: (annoyed) I didn’t say they were a terrorist group. I said Browncoat group.
Rick: If they were that much of a Browncoat group, don’t you think the Sailfish would have said, “Oh, we know those guys…”?
Christian: Not necessarily.
Rina: A splinter faction.
Nika: My concern is we found out when we first came back here that the PDF is not really a horribly unified front. And so for all we know, the Sailfish has nothing to do with Decatur and what she’s running.
Christian: Remember what they said: they said there were factions. Some factions may not be aware of other factions. This may have been a logging camp that was acting as a logging camp but also stockpiling medical supplies.
Nika: For….whoever.
Rina: It could be a listening post for the Resistance.
Christian: True. It could be a way to keep an eye on the capitol.
Rina: And of course, you know, people start going nuts with this Reaver disease…
Christian: SO. Anyway, we have a choice. We can try to rescue the doctor, who for all we know doesn’t want to be rescued—
Rina: (interrupting) What doctor do you know worth his lab coat is going to leave a whole town he’s supposed to be responsible for to go play weekend warrior up in the woods?
Nika: (quietly) It depends on whether or not they have people sick up there with prion.
Christian: It also depends on what kind of doctor he is.
Rick: It was already sorta hinted that he may not be a real doctor in the sense of schooling.
Christian: More importantly, do we take on a logging camp with four-to-one odds—
Rina: (interrupting again) Not without more firepower.
Jake: Or give them a chance to get more reinforcements.
Christian: Or do we leave now and go on our way? We’ve already done all we can.
Rick: Why don’t we just fly over the camp with Summer’s Gift and drop some cargo containers?
Why not, indeed? Several half-tons of steel raining down would make anyone duck for cover.
Nika: Seriously?
Rick: Actually, it was a joke.
Nika: We could, but we also don’t know how many civilians they may have in there.
Rina: Could we parachute drop medical supplies to them?
Christian: We offered them supplies and they didn’t reply.
Nika: And they may not need them.
Rick: Maybe they didn’t want to talk to you because they thought you were the police.
Nika: We got paid in medicine. We could always drop our share on them.
Rick: But why would you do that for people who are murdering and burning bodies of other people that may or may not have the prion disease?
Rina: That’s the only thing in my theory that doesn’t fit.
Rick: The other thing too is why would you give medical supplies to potentially an entire group of people that could be infected with the prion disease? That would be squandering the medicine.
Nika: That’s the downside, yes. We have actually no idea what’s going on up there.
Christian: Here’s the thing. If game is scarce like David said, they’re going to eventually run out of food. At some point or another, it’s going to get ugly because they’re going to come in for the town.
Nika: Not with just two dozen guys. Not unless they’re actually sick in the head.
Which we’ve just established we cannot be sure of.
Christian: They’re probably better armed than the town is.
Rina: And there are women and children in town.
Nika: You’re still talking 30 thousand to 20.
Christian: Do you remember the raiders, back when we first met? All they had to do was raid a town and they caved. Honestly, I think we should get in touch with Shyla and let her deal with it.
Nika: We don’t know if we can.
Rina: We could go back to Highgate and pick up the rest of the cache we left behind.
Nika: Yeah, we could.
But it’s a stretch.
Rina: Okay, look. We’ve got a moral dilemma here. We could leave these possibly so-to-be-crazy people up in the hills to prey on the defenseless people down the hill—.
Christian: If it gets that far. If they get paranoid enough, they’re going to turn on each other.
Jake: Then it’s a win-win.
Nika: Right. They’re just gonna shred one another.
Christian: And it’s current thinking that it’s going to take Pax or Chempliance to turn them into full-on Reavers. So, I don’t like it, but us going in will mean we’re going to die. It’s just us killing ourselves.
Rina backs down, unable to refute the argument.
Rina: (sighing) We’ve done our duty. The authorities know, anyway. Sucks.
Christian: As they are. Such as they are. Wait. You mean to tell me that for thirty thousand people they’ve got just one sheriff?
Rina: Please tell me that they’ve got more than just one gun.
Christian: Anyway, I say we go on to Muir.
Nika: Yeah. It’s time to go.
Rina: Okay. It’s time to go. Major suckage.
Christian: Arden. You ready?
Arden: Not until we set these people up. You can go on to Muir and then come back for me. I’m staying here until they get another doctor.
Christian: They’re not going to get another doctor.
Rick: Let’s go free the current doctor and let’s go do it.
Nika: Seriously?
Christian: Seriously?
Rina: Seriously?
Rick: Yeah. Why not?
Nika starts to laugh. And just like that, the ball is back in play once more.
Rick: I mean, we’re runnin’ blockades with medical items. Tryin’ to help crazy people that may or may not be Reavers.
Really, how much crazier can we be ourselves? This rescue op can’t be any less sane than what we’ve already done.
Nika: Fine. All right.
The possible plans start coming fast and furious. Nix that idea. We could bomb the place—but that would endanger our objective. We could try to drug the camp with spiked food or booze—but there’s no telling if the campers would be trusting enough to eat or drink anything we dropped on them. We have some Chempliance left and a trank gun to deliver it—but that would turn the campers into full-blown Reavers.
Christian: We are not shooting them with Chempliance.
Rina: I’m suggesting we use bullets. They’re cheaper.
Christian: Because the current working theory is that Chempliance plus Prion disease equals Grharhhhahghgh!
Rina: (sarcastically) That’s very amusing, Christian. Do that again.
Nika: And there’s twenty four of them and four of us. We have rifles and scopes.
Rina: That’s six-to-one odds.
Nika: That’s not too bad.
Rick: Okay. Are we talking about if we turn them into Reavers there’s only going to be twenty four of them? Cuz then we’re screwed. We all saw what just one could do, and that’s in ship corridors when we had to use grenades on them. To escape.
Nika: So we make head-shots.
Rina: Yeah, I have to agree with Rick. My shoulder’s telling me ‘Oookay, fine.’
We all have to laugh, because it’s just too grim and gory. Christian sobers first.
Christian: Seriously, though. No Chempliance.
And Arden’s serious about staying until we get Fong back. It goes against his principles to just jet out of here and leave Brisbane to the tender mercies of Thompson’s camp.
Arden: I mean, what are we doing here? Are we just making money? Is that what we’re planning?
Christian: But we’re not making money.
Arden: Then why are we here? Why are we here, Christian? Why are we on Meridian?
Nika: (askance) This is a philosophical answer?
Because, after all, we’re already agreeing with him.
Arden: It’s a practical question.
Rick: Yeah, because I thought we were supposed to be tryin’ to do good on the Rim.
Nika: (hands up) All right….
Christian: We can’t do good if we’re dead.
Rina: What’s Jake got to say about all this?
True. He’s along for the ride and filming it all. He can be killed just as easily as the rest of us.
Jake: Hmmm.
Rick: Imagine the good we can do by restoring a town of thirty thousand’s lone doctor, to whom we’ve just delivered 45 tons of medical supplies. That’s the kind of good that warms your heart.
Rina: (flexing her shoulder) Or warms your muscles.
Christian: If my heart’s still beating at the end of it, it’ll be very warm.
No one says anything, but Arden’s still waiting for Christian’s answer.
Christian: Okay, we can go over with the Gift, say they have to surrender the doctor or…. we’ll start dropping bombs on them.
Rick: What if they really do have surface-to-air missiles?
Christian: Then it’s better to be in the Gift than in the shuttle.
Nika: Let’s just walk in. If you make a threat, you have to be prepared to follow through with it. If you tell them you’re gonna drop a bomb on them, how exactly are you gonna accomplish that?
Christian: We’re going to drop the cargo containers on them.
Nika: Number one—that’s not a bomb. Number two—No.
Christian: It won’t matter. If you hit them with a couple tons of metal, it will be as good as a bomb.
Rina: Skunk our cargo?
Nika: Basically.
Christian: But that’s not my point. I don’t have a great deal of hope for us walking through the woods—with you? Yes. (points to Rick). With the rest of us? Going through the woods for several days, or at least a day? Where they are going to have sentries and know the territory? No. We’re going to be killed.
Nika: I’m not convinced that they’re gonna have sentries out there.
Christian: They’re gonna have sentries out there.
Rick: What if I go through the woods and you go via the shuttle? So drop me off at the fire pit and either wait or come back to the town. Will our radios transmit that far? Do we have a radio where I could just transmit static on a particular channel to let you know that I am in sight of the camp?
Rina: I can definitely rig that up.
Rick: That would give us time to see if they actually do have a surface to air missile and maybe I can shoot whoever’s using it. And then you guys can land in the shuttle.
Rina: Or disable it.
Nika: I’m not entirely convinced that they have the weapons.
Rick: Neither am I but it’s better to be safe than sorry.
Nika: Remember, David said they were armed but they only used hand-held weapons to plink at the shuttle.
Rick: In this case better safe than sorry. And I agree, I could probably survive going through the woods and I probably won’t get caught. But I’m sure the group of the four of us, even if we were all relatively good at land survival skills, that’s just more noise from the bigger group.
Christian: No, Rina will step on something.
Rina: If there’s a stick within ten miles that should not be stepped on, Little Miss SNAFU Magnet here will step on it, I’m sure.
Rina’s not joking. She’s serious.
Jake: Of course, they’re expecting the Alliance or someone to come down on them.
Nika: They really are. They’re barricaded for a force.
Jake: Give them what they’re expecting.
Christian: The Alliance?
Jake: Well…they don’t have to know that it’s not the Alliance.
Christian: Do you want to send them running?
Jake: Well, no.
Nika: We don’t have the heavy weapons to back up our assault in that fashion.
Jake: If Rick can get in with a distraction, and just get Fong out, we can probably make them think that they’re being attacked by the Alliance.
Rick: Yep. We do have two shuttles and a ship.
Rina: So you’re going to run in there screaming “The Russians are coming!” ?
Christian: Nope. He doesn’t have to. We’re going to create the distraction, he’s going to go in and extract the doctor.
Rick: Yeah. You could just drop crap from the shuttles or just buzz them in the shuttles or have the ship fly over us or something like that.
Jake: Have one shuttle flying, have the Gator out on the perimeter movin’ around so they have to monitor a whole big area. Two dozen men is pretty thin once you spread out a couple hundred meters.
We consider that for a moment as Jake’s scenario sinks in.
Nika: The Gator’s not gonna make it up there. Not with that track.
Jake: (not buying it) Are you sayin’ you can’t drive the Gator?
Nika: I’m saying I can’t drive the Gator and fly the shuttle.
Jake: You’re not the only one who can fly a shuttle.
Nika: Can you fly well enough to evade a SAM?
Rick: If you fly low enough, you don’t have to worry about that.
Jake: You just run if they get a lock on you. Just fly around. Just keep them busy.
Christian agrees with Nika. There’s no telling how many mines the loggers have planted on the road to their camp. And unless we’ve got Rick on foot, walking in front of the Gator the entire time, we lose him as a stealth asset. Jake counters we can take it off the road, since it’s not likely the loggers would have planted mines there. And if we take the Gator off the road at the point we’d found the IED, we’re talking a lot of underbrush to plow through. However, the Gator is built for that kind of action. And if Thompson and his men are holed up and paranoid about the Marshals descending on them at any minute, it might not take a whole squadron of Gators to convince them the law has arrived….maybe it would take only one.
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