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[center][h1][b][color=tan]Free Workers of La Parranda[/color][/b][/h1][/center]
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[center][i]Low Road, construction site - 11:18[/i][/center]

"What the Hell are you jackasses doing with that crane?!" shouted the construction manager at her workers. "To your left! No, your actual left!" As the crane finally settled it was supposed to, the manager slumped against the cave wall and sighed. "[i]Ai, mi cabeza.[/i]"

"This deadline's impossible to fulfill," grumbled her associate next to her, staring at the site with cybernetic eyes. The order to build a [i]lot[/i] more underground farms, both of the normal lit-by-solar-lamps variety and of the much cheaper but less enjoyable fungus farm variety, came from high up. Nobody on the crew liked receiving work orders with so little warning, even though they understood why: there was Hell going down in Elysium now, worse than anything anyone in La Parranda had imagined.

"If it weren't for those Skyguard [i]pendejos[/i] we wouldn't be so swamped," grumbled his friend again.

"Excuse me," interrupted a voice from behind them. They each looked back and saw a trio with a camera, a microphone, and other such equipment, as well as obvious MAN attire. The reporter asked with a wide smile on his face, "Would you mind repeating what you just said for the camera?"

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[center][i]Fort Solido - 11:20 a.m.[/i][/center]

Construction was happening at Fort Solido as well, and fast. The small town's walls were just about finished, but the real work was happening inside and outside of them. A large fort was being constructed from around the tower in the center of town; less observable, digging was happening under the ground to complete the tunnels linking Fort Solido to La Parranda. It seemed like a castle out of medieval times, except with clearly colonial Martian architecture and better metals. Meanwhile, housing was being built both inside and outside the city walls, and potato plants well adapted to Mars were being planted in the ground outside.

MAN's news reporters were coming to Fort Solido, too. Their vehicles rolled on past a series of Red Tiger light tanks rolling out into the desert, escorting similarly red trucks and APCs. All throughout the town there was a lot of rushing, talking, and congregating wherever someone wasn't working.

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[center][i]La Parranda, president's office - 11:20 a.m.[/i][/center]

"...training camp won't be finished for another week, not with all the workers being diverted like they are," Marshal Asturias finished, "but I think you made the right decision, Mr. President."

"People need help, Adelina," Martin replied, rising from his seat and stepping slowly over to the window. He opened the shutters, staring out at the carts of materials being pushed this way and that. "The miners are on double shifts and triple pay for the moment. The trains are running non-stop. By the time the first refugees make it here, we'll be ready for them."

"It is going to be a large delay on other operations," Asturias admitted, adjusting the sleeve of her shirt. She smirked. "Santiago is pissed."

"Is she, now?"

"You reassigned several of her crew from working on death machines to working on construction work. [i]Of course she's pissed.[/i]"

"Mm." President Martin frowned and gave the Marshal a stern look. "You are too harsh on her. She means well, if you'd take the time to listen."

"I'll be sure to write that down in her biography, probably after the part where she sets fires a micronuke at someone's house," the Marshal replied snarkily. Ignoring the President's look, she stepped across the room to seat herself in the President's chair. It was then she noticed something on the President's desk.

"We're going to be building by Lake Argyre, too?"

"A new settlement, yes, and get the Hell off my chair," the President interrupted, shooing the Marshal off. He reclaimed it with a huff. "Where Fort Solido will be our trading outpost, we'll need a proper farming town built [i]inmediatamente.[/i] Our food stores won't last the whole year once we get the refugees pouring in, so we need to think of the long term and get some farms going."

"At least the area's already terraformed," mused Asturias, stroking her chin as she paced back to the other side of the room. "This is going to spread our troops thin, though. I sure fucking hope someone among those refugees can hold a gun properly."

"You're always thinking of war, Adelina."

"That's because war is coming, Martin."

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[hider=MAN News Report - La Parranda: "Give Us Your Unwanted"]The news report on MAN is pretty straightforward. Footage of the construction work going on around Fort Solido and La Parranda is shown, as is footage of the vehicles rolling out of Fort Solido. Apparently, La Parranda is opening its doors wide to any and all refugees of the Elysium crisis. 

"Give us your unwanted, your forgotten and your lost," says a passionate President Martin de La Parranda. "Give us those souls with no homes, no goods, nothing but the clothes on their back. You are our kin. You [i]are[/i] wanted, you [i]are not[/i] forgotten, and you need not be lost any longer. Come to La Parranda, to Fort Solido. We, too, were once the unwanted and the forgotten. We know your suffering. You are welcome here."

La Parranda is sending out APCs and vans escorted by light tanks to pick up refugees at meeting points in Cimmeria and Sirenum plains. MAN also reports that delegates from La Parranda are in this caravan and are off on some sort of diplomatic mission. They ask that anyone equipped to fight off bandits in the area protect the refugees until they arrive.

MAN also manages to get some footage of different La Parranda citizens - but not the government itself - condemning Skyguard and the Elysium government for their actions and their inability to take care of the people of that ravaged city. MAN actually catches one woman going so far as to say "It's no wonder people are trying to free Mars when this shit happens! Tell me who the real terrorists are, I ask you that!"[/hider]