Free Workers of La Parranda
The Low Road, excavation outpost - 12:00 p.m.
"...and refugees arriving at Fort Solido by the day. Indeed, Sam, if you look behind me you'll notice a New Horizon United air transport dropping off another handful of..."Jon switched to a different channel, sighing. MAN just confirmed his concerns. He ran his hand through his now greasy hair, from front to back, and slouched back into his seat. "Can we support that many refugees?"
There was nobody there to answer him. The rest of the crew was here as well, taking their lunch break and chatting away about work and other things. Jonathan was taking a rare break from his research, but it wasn't doing much to calm him.
Firstly, there was the refugee situation. While it was certainly moral to take in all the refugees that needed solace, it wasn't going to be easy to supply them with food and shelter. Secondly, while he was getting solid quantities of ore, Jon still had found no trace of Martian artifacts. Thirdly... He heard from a rumor from a friend working in the administration that his crew was probably going to have to gather a lot more ore a lot more quickly.
It was stressful, for sure. The next tunnel he was going to work in wasn't going to have any scientific value to it; it just had a crapton of valuable rocks.
Listen to yourself think, he chided.
You're a geologist! They're more than just rocks. But he just didn't care about the wealth of minerals around him anymore.
12:20 came and went. Sighing, Chief Excavator Brown started tugging his protective headgear, finishing with his hardcap.
"Alright, team!" he called as he opened the door. "It's back to work for us!"
An unknown tunnel beneath the Martian desert - 10:17 a.m.
Holy shit holy shit holy shit holy shit!Private Isabela Hierro gripped onto her gun for dear life as something -
someone - outside the Tunnel Worm screamed. She couldn't see anything from where she was - she was with the other Guerreros in the transport section of the Worm - and she couldn't do much of anything, either. The worm went from boring through earth to boring through empty air, and that twisted her guts up, and then it pounded right back into the earth. Then, everything came to a complete stop. Isabela was ready to fucking puke.
"HQ, we've just hit some sort of underground facility!" called out the Lieutenant from the head of the worm. "I repeat, we just hit someone else's underground facility. I'm looking down some tunnels that don't look like corporate holes. Please advise. Over."
"This is HQ Actual," came a strong, feminine voice Isabela couldn't quite place. Isabela was only able to hear it because she was seated so close to the front of the Worm. She wasn't familiar with voice procedure either, so that didn't help.
"Reading you loud and clear; orders are to search the area and sweep for hostiles. Do not shoot unless you have strong indicators of hostility.""Acknowledged, HQ," the Lieutenant replied, glancing back as his crew. "Wilco." With that, the officer stepped down from his seat in the head of the Worm and turned to face the crew. Isabela's stomach wretched.
"Alright,
mijos!" the Lieutenant snapped. "Let's get this show on the road. Visuals and scanners show there's at least some basic cover we can make use of down here, so treat this like urban warfare. Keep your head low, keep your wits about you, and with God's grace we won't have any trouble down here.
Do not shoot unless you're pretty fuckin' sure someone wants to shoot at you. That means watch your trigger finger,
Bernardo."
A brief laugh passed over the group, but it was replaced by a stiff calm.
This could be my first fight, Isabela thought.
This is the first real action most of us here have had. Oh, shit."Now let's move out!" finished the head honcho. Everyone got up from their seats and rushed out as the doors lifted along the sides of the worm. Isabela followed procedure, taking her position along the right flank...
...and then noticed something from the corner of her eye. She looked down. It was a skeleton with obvious knife and bullet wounds, clearly looted of all its valuables. And someone else was right beside it, very bloody and very dead, freshly dead.
"Lieutenant," she called out, "I think they're gonna be hostile, sir."
