Sorry for the messed up schedule this week! There has been a wedding in the family and I'm doing most of the driving, so I had it difficult to publish recently.
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The fight against the Gobzkin felt like it took hours, but it was all done in less than a single hour. Realizing that, Adam watched the sky, still barely afternoon, and then stood over the side of the mass grave he had finished digging.
For all those who were taken by the Gobzkin, he had gathered them into the hollowed golem and brought them to a clear location beside the factory. He then let the golem descend into the mass grave he had dug, then canceled the summon and let it crumble to earth.
Behind him, every survivor from the shelter simply stood watch and paid their respect to the victims, before getting ready to bury those who died defending the attack, numbering twenty, three of whom were students and seventeen were civilians.
For every one of those, Adam dug a grave inside the boundaries of the factory, simply by flipping six feet of earth outside to create an adequate grave. It took him no more than a single hand motion, letting the Bending rune do its magic.
After it, the comrades and friends of each of the fallen would come and etch the name over a gravestone, which he also provided and wrote on for them.
Adam serviced all the dead, interacted with almost every person in the shelter, held hands, consoled them, and repeated nothing more than, "It's okay!"
An hour after the burial, Adam was approached by Lord Kaimu, who patiently waited until it was all over.
"You repeated nothing but that phrase." He spoke to Adam, who was resting his back against the wall.
Adam looked at him, no longer the cheerful negotiator from a couple of hours ago, with blank expressions and dark circles surrounding his eyes.
"It's… not okay." He finally spoke something different than what he had kept muttering for the past hour, "None of this is."
"Of course. It was a tragedy." The Elden Lord nodded, "Despite my age, I haven't seen many tragedies, but every time, it takes something away. My greatest fear is that one day, I get used to tragedies like my seniors, stand hollow as the blood of my kin gets spilled."
He paused for a while and let out a sigh: "My condolences. I feel for you." Before turning around and gazing across the many humans gathered not too far from them, "But I must finish the purpose of my visit, and it seems complications are rising around Sage Hendrick's leadership."
"Complications?" Adam asked, eyes narrowed.
"From what I hear… Oh!" Lord Kaimu replied before pausing, then turning to the side, hands behind his back, "I think they are finally coming your way."
Just as he said, a group of survivors did move towards Adam indeed. They weren't the students, but rather the elderly men who were supposed to stay within the factory and join the fight if the defenders were pushed back. They joined from the factory's rooftop, and some even joined the melee, so they weren't as organized as the students, but it seemed that was no longer the case.
A man, almost the same age as Professor Hendrick, stepped ahead of them, even ahead of the Professor, and there were both Raj and Ivan as well, yet they took the Professor's side, and their faces looked sour.
Elena, Kave, Megan, and Stone all joined Adam's side immediately, as they were standing twenty feet away from him. Megan even had Adam's coat that she retrieved from Samara, and she put it on Adam's shoulders, making sure his authority was visible.
She whispered something to him, and Adam's eyes darted towards the man leading the survivors, scanning him carefully. He wore jeans, a blue rugged jacket with a rifle slung over it, and a red and white baseball cap, which secured his white hair. His beard was overgrown and messy, but it didn't take one bit of the authority he had in his eyes.
"Justiciar Adam Clay." The old man spoke with a strong voice, making his tone audible to everyone in the place, right as he offered a hand to shake, "Ned Carter."
Adam narrowed his eyes but still shook the man's hand firmly, assessing one another by hands alone.
"Ned Carter? Same name as the Senator of Massachusetts?" Adam asked.
"Same face too." Ned Carter pointed with his other hand, smiling brightly, "The beard is just a new addition."
Adam nodded, not knowing what to say, but he skipped pleasantries to get to business.
"How can I help?"
Ned Carter opened his mouth to talk, but then smiled and let go of Adam's hand.
"Actually, that was my intent." He said and looked between Adam and the others, "You're a goddamn Hero, Adam Clay. A man who took the hardest call there is to make, and fought on the front line himself. Your actions show great promise."
"Hero? Promise?" Adam's face twisted, his tone grew more aggressive, "I massacred people. I killed more humans than I killed monsters today."
"Not true!" Ned Carter shook his head, not flinching one bit against Adam, "I know it's eating you from inside, but, Son, you saved more lives than any man I saw. You took a hard call no one dares to take. And let me tell you this, what you did is Heroic, but it will haunt you for the rest of your days, as it should, but it will straighten you if you don't let it break you."
"No." Adam shook his head, anger swelling in his chest, but with nothing to let it out on.
"I've seen, son. How you struggled. Everyone knows how much pain you were in, and by Lord Almighty, we share it all with you." The Senator still insisted, "You made the right call, you made us all proud. You made your state and your country proud. Even though others may not see it, most of us do."
The last words Ned Carter said were visibly directed at Professor Hendrick, whose face grew with frustration upon hearing them.
"Senator, don't put words in my mouth." The Professor spoke angrily.
"Well, you've made it clear, didn't you, Professor?" Ned Carter turned to face the Professor with a stern gaze, "Didn't you say you can't fathom following a man you deemed a murderer?"
"I didn't…" The Professor wanted to protest, but the Senator interrupted.
"Word for word." The Senator added.
"That's not it, dammit." The Professor barked, "I made clear that it would be a mistake to follow Justiciar Clay this way. We need assurances that more lives wouldn't be…"
"You libtards never get it." Senator Carter cut Professor Hendrick again, "If it's war, if it's survival, you can't argue about every little thing. It is kill or be killed."
"I see." Adam spoke and looked between the Senator and the Professor, "Whatever it is, solve it among yourselves."
"We saved you the negotiations, Justiciar." The Senator said and looked at Adam, "A decision has been made. Most of the survivors have related their intentions through me." He said and turned to the Professor, "Even half of the remaining BIT students are now on our side, rather than the Professor's."
Adam scanned the people around him with his high senses before finding that, other than Raj, Ivan, and their units, few people were on Professor Hendrick's side.
Senator Carter, the new face of the shelter's survivors, had impeached him.
It was very obvious.
Professor Hendrick had his students to thank for being the leaders up to this point, since they still followed him, and the other survivors were mostly indebted to them and followed them.
A politician like Senator Ned Carter wasn't in the leadership position simply because most of the students were very liberal, whereas the Senator was a famous man for his conservative opinions long before D-Day.
His voice may have been suppressed by the crowd, but once he found a weakness, he jumped on it like a true politician and changed the shelter's dynamics.
"What's your game then?" Adam asked, no longer hiding his annoyance.
He wasn't pleased that he had to deal with a politician now, and he was also upset—despite agreeing—with Professor Hendrick.
"As I said, Justiciar Clay, we are not making demands, nor are we in a position to." The Senator said, choosing his next words carefully, "I'm a patriot, and I fought for this country. But… I'm not sure how much of it is left. Yet everybody here is willing, Christ as our witness, to fight for it."
"So you want to join up with the Venuxian military?" Adam asked.
"We want to join up with you." Ned Carter replied.
"Two problems: I'm not an independent leader, and I don't have enough supplies to support everyone."
"But you need numbers." Ned Carter insisted, "Without all of us joining up, we wouldn't be here."
Seeing how the Senator was pushing, Elena spoke up from Adam's side.
"Numbers win battles, citizen. This is war, and it can only be won by logistics."
"I agree with Sergeant Skarn." Adam said, "Our logistics are barely enough. Another 200 is a big number."
"But…" Senator Carter gritted his teeth, "… the monsters will come again, tonight, tomorrow, or any other day. We can't fight them without you. They know this place now, and when they come, they'll be in larger numbers."
Adam listened to that and couldn't argue; neither could Elena.
"The Elder is right." Lord Kaimu spoke, "While I am concerned about the trade deal I struck with the Professor, I know for a fact how resentful that Ogni we fought was. Personally, I wouldn't want to fight it alone without my unit of a hundred."
This presented another issue.
Adam fought for those people, and even though he didn't want to take responsibility for them, he wouldn't want them to die to the Gobzkin, not after what he saw those twisted monsters do to humans.
"Adam." Then it was Megan who spoke, "How about we do neither?"
"Meaning?" Adam turned to Megan, who looked exhausted yet bright.
"We can't leave the survivors here, but we can just relocate them near the base. We stay uphill, holding our ground, and help build a Survivor community downhill. We have the technology, the blueprints, and we can make Portable Refiners to scale up construction."
"But winter is coming." Adam argued, "We'll lose power."
"All hands will be on deck then. Build a power grid and expand food production, but when we can make the Survivor camp strong enough to produce energy and food, we wouldn't need to produce them ourselves. They would provide energy and resources; we provide security and rules."
Megan's reply made everyone around start murmuring, but it was fair and beneficial.
If the Survivor Camp can provide resources on its own, the Military Camp will be free to expand its strategic operation without worry. It will turn from Resource Production to Requisition Tithes.
Adam even understood how Megan imagined the system. While the Military Camp will be a fully Wartopia RTS operation, the Survivor Camp will be a Wartopia Survival Craft Base-Builder operation.
It will make things much smoother.
"After some conditions." Elena, on the other hand, seemed to have something to say.
"Sergeant." Senator Ned and Adam turned to her both at the same time.
"A survivor camp this close to a military camp is a risk to all operations without proper oversight. This means that the camp is under military control both politically and administratively, and the Commander will be the leader of the survivor camp, no questions asked. It also means that no matter what happens, the operations of the military camp will take precedence over the survivor camp. The Men-at-Arms will be fed first, housed first, clothed first, and treated first. Military laws take precedence, drilling will be mandatory, and desertion will be punished with death."
Rather than murmurs, it was all silence that followed Elena's demands. Senator Carter pondered for a bit, looking at the people around him, who seemed close to him in age.
They exchanged nothing but looks, and Adam couldn't understand what was going on in their minds.
Probably they can't take these conditions! Maybe I should… Adam thought to himself, but he understood that he couldn't undermine the demands made by Elena, since she had more experience in military life than he could ever hope to have.
Senator Ned Carter looked back at the survivors gathered behind him and asked:
"All in favor?"
As he questioned the people, he raised his hand first; behind him, almost everyone started raising their hands as well.
A majority vote, even those who didn't raise their hands first, started joining the herd. The few who didn't vote were a minority composed of Professor Hendrick and some others. Still, even with the vote going against them, they would have little choice but to join the majority in the new camp.
"Well, Justiciar." Ned Carter then turned to Adam and put on a big grin, "Take us home!"