MuTerra-kindle by R. K. Sidler Read Free Book Online Page B

happened. I’m also sure that we will be much better served if we remain together, and support one another. We don’t know what we are going to find out there. But, if we stick together, I’m sure we can handle it.
    “What I want to do now is divide everyone up into manageable teams under each of our officers. We will be in mixed company to learn to communicate with each other better. You will obey the orders of your appointed officer regardless of uniform. We will spend the rest of this day getting ready for the move.
    “We’ll need to go into the town and secure any wheels, or wheeled vehicles, which we can use to transport our equipment and supplies as well as any viable supplies we can find. I’ll want all of the specialists to look for materials of their trades to include medical supplies. If you think we need it, and we can transport it, bring it.
    “Any questions?” There were none. The gravity of the situation maintained control of the general attitude for the time being. What was incumbent upon their officers was to prolong that control.
    “Very well; Chief Stewart has the list and he’ll break you down into your respective groupings. We have a lot to get done today, so let’s be serious about it,” he finished with a tone of authority, but without an acknowledgement of his rank, which is customarily followed with an ‘aye aye sir,’ or a ‘yes sir.’
    Two-hundred fifty-seven naval personnel, which included ten enlisted women from the Texas, set out to find the answers to what had caused such devastation in such a short period of time, and to find anything resembling the life they left behind.
     

THREE
    After several weeks of reconstruction projects, the people in the mountain complex turned their attention to daily routines. It was a grim time where activity of any kind provided needed distraction from the tragedy they had survived. Emotions ran high and tempers were short. The best therapy was work and time. Everyone lost loved ones, and while it was human nature to want to survive, that survival provided little comfort as time passed. Not only did the loss of family and friends weigh upon them, the loss of a life they had envisioned was now gone. Uncertainty and the unknown prevailed.
    Several of their number, however, were not plagued by such thinking. They were the ones preparing for an event such as this, knowing long beforehand that it was a certainty. The preparations they made went far beyond their initial survival. They planned for all contingencies involved for an indefinite stay underground, and what would follow. They knew people needed structure, routine, and satisfaction in accomplishment. But most importantly, they needed hope. Hope of a return to what had been, hope of a future not living underground. Hope for themselves. Hope for their children. They gathered many of the best and brightest into the complex under the guise of an exercise. These were the ones who would shape that hope. The scientific advancements known to the government and military establishment were much farther along than those whose progress was hindered by the many bureaucratic layers that existed in private industry. Geneticists, biologists, pathologists, and engineers of all sciences were recruited without their knowing their actual roles. They were assigned to labs with technology and equipment with which even they were not familiar. This served to both placate them, and make them useful for the promotion of the goal to inhabit the surface once again.
    Without the ability to grow food underground, geneticists built upon the already available science to engineer designer foods. These foods resembled protein bars. They could be made to taste like any known food, and shaped into different forms. It was one more thing to which people needed to adjust. It was more nutritious than food grown naturally, and it tasted great, it was just unusual.
    A fresh water supply was no problem. They had tapped into separate