Beep beep*
"Uhh, five more minutes."
*Beep beep*
…
*Beep beep bee-*
"Okay okay! I'm getting up!" I mumbled as I turned off the annoying alarm clock, getting out of the old hospital bed that I had claimed as my own. After sitting on the bed for a couple of minutes, I looked around the room briefly before locating my dresser and making my way to it. After getting dressed in a plain shirt and some camo pants, I left my room and went down to the meeting room.
As I entered, I saw that almost everyone who was attending was there. On one side of the table sat John, Beth, Lisa, Richard and George. On the other side was U-12, Sheila, George, and Trent, who was the leader of the freed slaves. I soon went to the seat at the head of the table, and a few moments later Max came into the room. The meeting was started immediately as I addressed everyone.
"Alright everyone, let's get this meeting started. First though, I want the reports we got." At that, several people handed me reports on various things that they've been monitoring or working on. This was to keep a current documentation of what we had, what we were doing, and other important things.
Our food supplies would last us about four years at this current rate, although it was expected to drop as more people arrived. It helped that most of the farmers who were with us had started planting their crops, which were mostly potatoes, corn, wheat, carrots, beans, and assorted fruits. The water supply was good considering the complex water purification system set up in the bunker, along with a few spare smaller water purification devices. We were already getting water from the water table and the nearby granite creek. There were also plans to build pumps at the Sanpoil river to the east and the Curlew lake to the north. Medical and ammo supplies were also in good condition.
Building supplies were fluctuating as scavenging teams tried to keep up with the supplies needed for the wall. The plan was to basically surround the town in a nine foot high concrete wall with barbed wire at the top and front with gun turrets a little farther out. At 60 yard intervals would be watchtowers, each having one or two sentries, along with either a missile/grenade launcher, a high power sniper rifle, or a machine gun. There would also be a spotlight turret on the top of each one too. On each of the main roads would be a double gate system, with metal gates and more guards. So far, about 78% of the wall was complete, along with most of the watchtowers and two of the three gates. It was expected that it would all be complete within another week.
The population of Republic had now reached 238 people, among them 92 former slaves. After the battle of Malo had happened, we had questioned the slavers we captured and learned that their base in the region was in Kettle falls, a town about 32 miles to the east of Republic. It was also one of the towns we passed through after we left the vault. The next day, Richard had led an assault on Kettle falls, releasing about 81 slaves and killing about 24 slavers, capturing most of their vehicles and equipment intact. A decent amount chose to join us, while the remainder either stayed to rebuild Kettle falls, left to find their home settlement, or went to New Coulee or the Tri-cities.
Over the past couple of weeks, Max and Richard had led various assaults on nearby raider hideouts and bases, cleaning them out so that both the town and other people could be safer. In doing so, we gained allies all around us. Besides Kettle falls and Fort Republic, which is what the follower's have decided to call their school base, we've made allies with four major settlements. 'The ferry', which is located at Ferry County airfield, 'New Curlew' at the northern edge of Curlew lake, 'Junction' located to the west at pre-war Tonasket, and 'Long road' to the south. There was also a couple of dozen or so smaller settlements or farms that we've met with. Due to our increasing fame from both the radio broadcasts and wandering merchants and travellers, most of them are at least on friendly terms with us. Those who aren't just remained indifferent.
Seeing that all of the reports were in and out of the way, I decided to continue on with the meeting. "Alright, so let's first talk about organizing our government and forces, Trent, Richard, and U-12, take the lead."
After nodding to me, Trent sat up and started proposing his idea. "Alright, so my idea is that for now we use this council here as a sort of temporary government. Once we expand even more though, that's when we'll change. My idea is something similar to the old U.S government, except a bit different. Here, we'll have a high council and low council of representatives. The low council will be comprised of representatives from all settlements. Each one will get one person to represent their settlement, with that person being voted by the settlement's population. The high council will also be representatives, except this will be comprised of representatives from provinces of sorts. Each province will have several settlements, with a select one being its capital. Each province will also have one person to represent itself. That person will be voted in by the province's government, whose organization we'll discuss at a later date.
I think that the low council should be involved with matters that affect local regions or less important areas or matters. Meanwhile, the high council will deal with more crucial matters and ones that affect the entire nation I suppose. The country's leader will also have a personal advisor group who will advise the president on matters involving their own speciality, such as economy or environment. I also think that like the old government, there should be three branches: Judicial, Legislative, and Executive. Well, that's all I got for now, I'll let the others tell you there ideas."
Then Richard and U-12 stood up, with Richard doing the talking. "What me and U-12 think is that we should create three different groups: a military, a scavenging/scout group, and a guard. The guard's job will be both defenders of their settlement as well as a police for it and the surrounding area. The scavenging group's job will be to go into different areas and scavenge what there is, from food and water to building supplies and scraps. They'll also serve as a scouting unit both for general information and for military purposes.
Now the last group I want to create is the military, which will be divided into an army, air force, and rangers. The army for now will be divided into companies of 100 soldiers each, with two platoons per company and five squads per platoon. Once we gain more soldiers, we'll organize battalions of 500 soldiers, brigades of 2,500, and divisions of around 10,000. Since the air force is very small, we'll organize that at a latter date. Now for the rangers. I think that they should be a sort of small and mobile force, acting largely independent and capable of hit and run attacks, sort of like the desert rangers down in the Mojave and to an extent the NCR. We'll keep it small, but well equipped and trained, with their only rivals in our ranks being the other military special forces groups. As it is, we currently have 41 people in our military or training, including a couple of newly trained pilots from Ferry, with another 20 in the scavenging corps and 62 in the town guard. Well, that is all."
At this I sat back up. "Alright, unless someone has something else to say, I'll continue with the next item on our agenda. No one? Ok, so next we have foreign relations to talk about, which I'll lead."
I got up and pulled out a map, showing the different settlements and groups as I talked. "So we're already enemies with the Spokanian slavers, as well as other slavers and raiders in general. We're also allied with the followers and most nearby settlements. We'll just go over the major factions for now. So, I think that groups we should try to ally with is New Coulee and Royal, along with whoever is fighting against the slavers in the Spokane area. I don't have anyone who we should be hostile with, but I believe we should generally avoid the Enclave and NCR for now, but that's it for that, any questions?"
As soon as I finish, I see Richard's hand shoot up, a determined and curious expression on his face. "I understand why most of that should be done, but why avoid the NCR? We have some of the same beliefs and goals as them, and they could prove to be a valuable trading partner."
"Thank you for your opinion Richard. The reason why I want to avoid them for now is that they might see us as a threat to expansion and might try to annex or destroy us. If they specifically found out about the bunker and our abilities, they'll want to deal with us before we ever get the chance of becoming a large threat. Any more opinions?"
After a few no's and shakes of their heads, we move on to the other items on our list. While the rest of them weren't as big or concerning as the previous, they still needed to be dealt with. One of them was a couple of people who recently moved in suggesting that they start a local radio station, broadcasting news from Republic and welcoming people to join. After bit of debate, we decided that they would get the station within one month, so we made plans as to where to put it. In the end, we decided to put it on a hill just outside of town, which would also serve as a small army outpost.
The next issue was building usage. We already knew that the Robco compound would be used as the military HQ, and the old police office would serve as the town guard headquarters. After a bit of discussion and a lot of planning, we set aside different areas of the town for different purposes. The north, east, and south sides of town would serve as residential, while the center and western sides would be government and business. While the north area was currently being used by farmers, plans were put in place to eventually rebuild the farms outside of the town once the area is safer and more secure, leaving the space in the town left behind to build up the residential area there.
So far, while the center of town wasn't actively busy, some people had set up shop in the small stores surrounding the town center, making the place a sort of makeshift market. Meanwhile, it was decided that the hospital would serve two purposes. One was it's original purpose, dealing with patients and the medical needs of the local population. The other was the temporary housing of Republic's government, since there wasn't really any secure or good place to put it besides the city hall.
Finally, there was the punishment for the slavers. We had nine in captivity, including their commander at the battle of Malo. While they resisted at first, they soon cracked and told us all they knew. While we had dealt a serious blow to them, they still had the advantage. We estimated that they had around a couple thousand fighters, along with about a hundred motorcycles, a couple dozen more pickup trucks, and a few of those armored buses, along with some transport trucks as well. They even had some sort of makeshift tank available. This wasn't even including all of their slaver allies, which added up another thousand or so. So that was three thousand slavers against our 100 or so fighters. Even with all of our equipment, we were still greatly outnumbered. We'd have to wait a while longer before being able to fight them head on.
Going back to our captive slavers, many had wanted to just kill them outright, which we luckily stopped. Exile was not an option either since they could just walk back to their friends. So that left two options, execution or prison. While we were currently keeping them locked up at the guard HQ, it isn't set up for long term imprisonment, and keeping them as prisoners would just be a risk for us and a drain on our resources. So with doubt and some regret, we decided that they would have to be executed.
As we finished up with the meeting, I heard a *beep* come from a radio. As soon as that happened, Alice paused for a moment before excusing herself from the room to talk with whoever called her. After asking if anyone had anything else to discuss, I decided it would be a good time to end the meeting.
"Well people, this has been a productive meeting, thanks for joining us and saying your opi-"
I was interrupted when Lisa came back into the room, opening the door a little forcefully. "We've got a situation down at West Fork."
After dismissing everyone except for U-12, Richard, Max, and Trent, I asked Lisa what was going on.
"A patrol from Long road saw a large firefight at West Fork just a few minutes ago. The battle's still raging, but what's concerning is who's in the battle. We know that one side is slavers, but on the other side are power armored people, about a dozen in total."
As soon as she mentioned power armor, by heart froze as I contemplated who it could be. There wouldn't be any reason for the Enclave or Tri-cities to come this far north, and as far as we were aware, and New Coulee only had a couple of suits available. So there was only one option as to who it could be.
"Lisa, I want you to send a UAV up and to the battle. Once it's up, I want you to hand the controls to Chris and contact Long road to prepare a militia to help. Richard and Max, I want you guys to get the military up and ready. I want every single available soldier ready to go on this. U-12, I want you to get the robots needed for this ready and make sure to scramble the vertibirds we got, they'll be needed. Once you do that, I want you to establish contact with the power armored people, we'll need heavy coordination in this fight. Let's go!"
As we rush back out to leave, Max turns to me and asks "Who do you think it is?"
"Well, they got ample power armor and they're likely not the Enclave, so it must be the brotherhood."