"I agree, but what did you have in mind?" Adam asked as he turned to look at the field in front of them.
"Something to slow down the advance of the ferals would be ideal, those bastards move a lot faster than you think once they see you." Colonel Harrision said with an analytical tone.
"I agree." Salvatore said as he walked over smoking a cigarette he had gotten from one of his ghoul merc friends nearby. "Ferals don't jump, so it should be pretty easy to lay down some knee high traps for them to trip or fall over." Adam looked at the battlefield too now and examined it for the best way to lay out a sort of defense.
"Here to here." Adam said pointing to where they were from one giant pile of rubble to another in a wide V shape. "We should set up the defensive line here, that's where we will fire from." He then looked back out at the parking lot. "Everything ahead will be the kill box."
"The man from Midway said they had brought with them explosives. I think we should lay them out near the mouth of the east entrance and blow them up when the bulk of the wave begins to hit." The Colonel added. Adam nodded.
"Though if I'm driving my APC through that entrance we need to leave a path for me to go through, otherwise I might blow myself up on the way in."
"That depends on the type of ordinance." The Colonel continued.
"True."
"I think you too are over thinking it. Trenches." Salvatore said as he looked at the parking lot now. "Those bastards will fall into a hole easily if we can dig even just one trench right here." he said gesturing to where they were standing and to where Adam said the firing line he suggested would be. "They would fall into a pit before even reaching our fighters."
"The Talon Company mercs brought sandbags." The Colonel added looking over at Jericho who was instructing his men to set up their tents and get cozy. "If we line the sandbag wall on the western edge facing the trench it will create a wall high enough that the ferals can't climb over, from there it's just about cleaning them up."
"That is until they fill up the trench and climb over each other to get at us." Salvatore added with a pessimistic tone.
"Then I guess we will just have to kill them faster." The Colonel shot back.
"Do we have barbed wire?" Adam added.
"Barbed wire wouldn't help, kid." Salvatore said back. "The advantage of barbed wire is to catch on clothing or cut into the skin and make it painful or difficult to pull through. I don't know if you noticed but a lot of ferals are naked and they don't feel much pain, if at all. It wouldn't be much help." Adam nodded slowly.
"Then we simply need to dig more trenches." Adam said after accepting the advice from Salvatore.
"Trench digging is time consuming and we are on a clock." The Colonel said as he examined the soon to be battlefield.
"We have nearly 140 people here, I'm sure we can get this done if we work together." Adam said hopefully.
"That's assuming we can work together." The Colonel said again, this time shooting a quick glance at the Demon Klan. "But I agree it's worth a try." He nodded.
"We need to set a deadline, we don't know when the ferals will hit this area en masse and when we should head out to drive them here." Adam thought aloud.
"Leave that to me, kid." Salvatore said as he snuffed out his cigarette. "Me and the other mercs will head out east and watch the movement of the ferals, see how fast they are moving, and come back with intel as soon as we can." Adam nodded to him. He would love to simply use the Vertibird for scouting, after all it would be faster and easier, but the Vertibird was not the quietest and flew through the sky, the same reason it would work to draw the attention of the ferals is the reason it wouldn't work as well as a scout. They didn't want to trigger the horde early, after all. It would have to remain grounded until the time was right.
"Alright we have a plan, now we just need to get this done." Adam said more resolved now.
"I'll tell my men to unload their entrenching tools, the sooner we get to work the better." The Colonel said as he started to turn to leave to head back to the rest of the Gunners. "It'll be up to you to convey this to the others." Adam nodded to him.
"I will do my best."
Adam gathered all the leaders again, this time including the Demon Klan leader and told them of the plan, and gave general instructions on how to lay down the traps and defensive lines. Surprisingly Jericho seemed perfectly okay with digging defensive lines and almost everyone was on board. The exceptions were the three Guild members and the leader of the Demon Klan.
"I have neither dug a hole nor built defenses, those are not my strengths." The Guild member who walked over said trying to weasel out of the work.
"Everyone can dig." Adam shot him an unamused look. "Even if you need to dirty your suits, it's better than dying. Everyone else will be digging or planting traps, so unless you have a better idea how to use your time, I'd suggest you find a shovel and get to work." The Guild member stared at Adam for an uncomfortably long time before he walked off and then did as Adam said, grabbing a shovel and telling the others too as well.
"I… do not think my people would appreciate such… grunt work." The Demon Klan head said with a menacing and uncomfortable smile. "Thats what the lessers are for, but we left our slaves at home." Adam frowned, both at the fact that he was saying no and the fact they mentioned slaves. His mind immediately shot back to Deccanus, who also once used slaves as a member of the Legion. He wanted to tell him off but decided a more constructive and fine tuned approach was better.
"Well since you didn't bring your… extra manpower you will need to convince your Klan to do the work. There are a lot of caps on the line, doing this will require a lot more than just killing. Besides since your Klan will be the only ones collecting on the bounty…" The Demon Klan head frowned.
"I did not think we would need our slaves for this fight." He said, no longer sporting an uncomfortable smile and instead wearing a frown that matched the daggers his eyes were shooting at Adam.
"We all make mistakes. Today, with or without slaves, we all must do some backbreaking labor." Adam said, standing his ground. It was now time for the head of the Demon Klan to stare Adam down for a moment before he suddenly dropped his frown and turned it back into a smile.
"Well, if you say so!" He said with an uncomfortably chipper tone. "I suppose we will just have to get to work then!" He smiled brightly before turning around to inform his Klan of the plan.
"I had an idea, if I may." Milla, the head hunter said after the Demon Klan head left.
"I'm open to all suggestions." Adam said, turning to her now.
"With the 2 shells Madam Aquamarine has requisitioned for us, I think the best targets would be those." She said, pointing to the tall buildings by the east entrance. "If we time the shells right we can use the rubble of the collapse to flatten a huge number of the advancing ferals."
"Yeah, and kick up a fuck tone of dirt and dust that will obscure our visibility." Devon, the head of the Midway Guards shot back.
"Then we make preparations so that doesn't happen." Milla said to him, now with a defensive tone. "Our gunners are well trained, with your explosives we could make this painless."
"That is a large structure on its last legs. Do you think your gunners can handle that kind of precise targeting?" Devon said again, getting hostile now.
"I'm sure, certainly better than your people who sit behind tall walls all day sucking your thumbs." It was immediately becoming clear to Adam that there was some sort of predisposed hostility between the hunters from The Pier and the guards from Midway. However he could not afford this right now so he needed to step in.
"Alright." Adam said loudly, shutting the conversation down. "Milla, you have a few days in all likelihood. I like your plan but Devon is right if we can't ensure it won't cause us issues then we can't go through with it. If you are confident it will work, handle your preparations and make sure it's all set. If you are positive everything is all set up right we will do it, if not we will use the shells elsewhere." Adam said with a commanding tone.
The two looked at each other and then looked away, both nodding.
"Alright, good." Adam said again. "We have a lot of work to do and no telling how long we have to do it, so let's get going now."