Citadel and Fortress

I’m not saying that this one was prompted by all the warmongering going on in the world because everything around me influences what I write. Of course it does.

However, this was more a story that presented itself as a logistics question combined with watching some sci-fi on Netflix and general random shit that acknowledges that there’s always some sort of trade-off in many decisions. Also, people often react without planning too far ahead.

This one presented some challenges because it’s all talk, no action. Hang in with me. I tried to create different personalities, but linguistically it’s hard for me to capture cadences. Still, I don’t think you’ll have problems figuring out who’s talking. I believe in you!

“So who's going to move, the Citadel or the Fortress?” Dougal's question came during a lull in the conversation. His tone was idle, almost bored, but you could feel the snap of electricity slice through the air.

There it was. What we'd all been wondering, talking about in corners but until today, no one had actually voiced the question.

“We'll go to the Fortress,” Bailey sounded equally bored but there was a slight edge to her voice. She knew this was opening a can of worms. It needed to be opened, mind you. We needed to talk about it just as I suspect folks at the Fortress did as well, if they hadn't already.

“Why should we?” Jerry's southern drawl was still calm but the idleness had gone. The time to discuss this had come.

“They're better fortified,” Bailey shrugged. “We've got more food resources, sure, but if the attack by the Queoran comes this winter,”

“Which it will,” Miriam interjected.

“then we're not set up for defense. Not well enough,” Bailey continued without pause. Miriam always interrupted. No one even noticed any more. “If we had another year or so, maybe, but we don't.” She smiled at Miriam, who almost puppy wiggled.

“But we do have the resources,” Harvey pointed out. “The Fortress doesn't. They opted for space and armament. We've been supplying food to them for the last year. If we all go there, everyone starves. If they come here, sure, we'll be crowded but we can still eat.”

“We don' have th' infrastructure ta handle 'em all,” Jerry's voice was flat. “We got no place to put them, an' we can't defend this land.”

“Couldn't we defend it, though, if we took them in and slept in rotation?” Dougal leaned forward. He'd obviously given it some thought. “We don't have the walls or the weaponry the Fortress has, I know that, but what will it matter if we've all starved even before the Q's get here?” He frowned, looking around the room. “Do we even know when they plan on attacking, besides in the winter?”

Bailey shrugged. “No idea. That's just the buzz, and I don't even know if it's true. It's just something we've all come to expect.” She frowned as well. “Actually, Dougal, that's a really good question. How long has it been since we've had an attack?”

“Four hundred eighty seven days,” Roland's quiet voice still managed to be heard. Nobody questioned him. This was the sort of thing Roland nailed. He was hard to talk to and made some people nervous with his twitching but he always got the numbers right. Always. If you asked him how many minutes, he'd have the answer. He was a walking calculator with floppy hair.

“Just under a year, then,” Bailey nodded her thanks to Roland who just blinked at her. “And since they attacked last winter, it makes sense they'd come back then.”

“It does make sense,” I echoed. “Winter is when we're most vulnerable, and they are strongest when it's cold, which I still don't understand.” And I didn't. The Queoran were insect-like in a lot of ways, serpentine in others, and I had never been able to reconcile their physical structure with something that wasn't strongest in the heat, but that's alien races for you. I was never good at adjusting to the non-humanoid types. Bugs and snakes creeped me out, anyway, and the weird meld of those two along with the constant ooze of whatever it was that was their innards – and why the fuck didn't that shit freeze? I gagged a little at the thought – was just one more reason I winced away from thinking about the Q's.

“Maybe we hurt them so bad they won't come back?” Miriam was hopeful, and I know she wasn't the only one who felt that way. When the Q's attacked last year, they decimated our numbers, but we dealt a hard blow to them too. Discovering that we had components that, when combined, caused them to burn turned the tide. Granted, we lost the land they burned on, and our best scientists, Rory and Michaela, thought that the ground might not be useable in our lifetimes, although they had some small hope for future generations, but the Q's were pushed back.

“That's not a chance we can take,” Harvey sounded sad, and I got that. If we knew for a fact that the Q's weren't coming back, we could find a way to consolidate the land between the Fortress and the Citadel, and we'd be invincible. I gave a small shake of my head at my silly thought. No one was ever invincible, but we'd be a lot stronger than we are now.

“There's just over two miles of open land between us,” Dougal was the master of stating the obvious. “In this past year, we've both concentrated on rebuilding what they destroyed. We didn't think about joining forces, did we? Not until recently?”

Bailey's smile was forced. “The General and the Lord have been talking about it, but neither one is willing to cede anything to the other.” No one questioned her just like no one questioned Roland. Bailey was a part of the highest councils and she knew her shit.

“What's to talk about?” Dougal frowned.

Bailey gave him a tired look. Dougal was impulsive, rarely thinking things through but he was a solid friend. Just unpredictable. “Think about what it would take to build a truly defensible wall from here to the Fortress. Logistics, supplies, the sheer amount of time and energy. The short wall might be do-able next year, but the long one? That's going to take more than a year to build, and we probably don't have that much time. Certainly not now. So at least for this year, we're going to have to consolidate, and we need to do it before we're under attack.”

Harvey nodded. “We've spent this year rebuilding, and honestly, it was the best use of our time. We've got plenty of food for both facilities because of our location, and they've got housing and the military training to protect the Fortress even if we're there. But I still think they need to come here to Citadel.”

Jerry shrugged. “We got fighters here at Citadel too, an' while our walls aren't as high or thick as the Fortress's, we're not sittin' open to all attackers, I agree, Harvey. But they are better suited for our survival. ” He frowned. “Does th’ Fortress even have its own water source? Huh. I never thought about it.”

“They have plenty of water,” Bailey was certain. “We might starve there but we won't die of thirst.” She grinned. “And we'd be clean when we died.” She became sober again. “But they don't have arable land. We do.”

“We're about the same size, aren't we?” Miriam frowned. “We just used the space differently, right?”

Roland spoke up again. “The Citadel covers more land than the Fortress by four hectares, seven and a half if the area by the river is included. The Fortress has more walled and contained space by 1.43 square miles. Their walls are half a meter thicker than ours, and are coated in a type of shielding we do not have here.”

“Wait, they have shielding we don't?” Dougal was instantly pissed.

Bailey shot Roland a hard glance that he didn't notice. “They have created a new type of alloy that they think will repel the Queorans but it obviously hasn't been tested. There's no point in wasting time and resources on something that may not work, which is why we don't have it, and besides, it's fairly new.”

“We should have had it first,” Dougal was still outraged. “The Q's will come at us first so we should be protected first!”

Jerry patted Dougal's shoulder trying to calm him down but I could've told him that would only piss Dougal off more. He hates being patronized. Who doesn't?

“We don't know fer sure what direction they'll come from,” Jerry explained to Dougal's hunched back. “They come at us from the mountains last time, true, but since that didn' work, they might try another strategy. Hell, they might even come outta th' ocean or the river. Who the hell knows?”

I leaned forward. “Could we transport our food to the Fortress in containers? Not shipping containers,” I stopped Miriam mid-interruption, “but planters and things like that? That way they'd keep growing and we'd have food.”

Bailey sent me an approving look and I ducked my head, blushing. “We could, I guess, but we'd have to start now, and accept the fact that some of the plants would die. We've harvested the wheat and barley, so that's done for the year, and that's easy enough to transport. It's been discussed, but again, moving so many plants which cover hectares on their own is a huge logistical nightmare, and we'd have to be prepared for at least half of the crops we transport not to survive.”

“So we starve more slowly?” Harvey was contemptuous. “How's that an advantage?”

“We could probably keep enough plants alive to survive on, but rationing would be strict,” Bailey acknowledged.

“If the Q's attack, some of us will die, which leaves more food for the rest,” Dougal blurted. At our shock, he scowled at us all defensively. “What? If the Q's attack, people will die. It's a fact. Just because we're not supposed to say it doesn't make it any less true.”

Jerry sighed. “He's right, dammit. I hate it, but he's right. Objectively, realistically, the food shortage might not be 's bad in the end. An' if we lose,” he shrugged, letting the results play out in our imaginations.

Harvey's scowl was still firmly in place, but he nodded. “I don't like it. I don't like it at all. But if we moved whole sections of the crops in containers, big motherfucking ones, mind you, I guess it could work.”

“They have enough space for each of us to have our own rooms,” Miriam's voice was dreamy. “Even with the space the containers would take up, we wouldn't have to share any more. That might be nice.”

Bailey shook her head. “The Citadel's big but it's not that big, Miriam. Still, there wouldn't be more than two people to a bedroom.”

Dougal's scowl matched Harvey's. “The big bosses would have rooms to themselves, though. You know that's true.”

We all sat in silence for a long time. I glanced up and saw Bailey watching everyone with a sharp eye, and realized that the decision to move had already been made and she had been tasked with bringing us around. I knew she'd be casually dropping by all the other meeting rooms and lounges over the next few days, trusting us to do some of the heavy lifting for her, prepping the rest for the move.

“So, how much of our stuff would we be allowed to take?” Miriam asked. “If they have all that room, can we bring everything?”

“And just move in? Give them all the power?” Harvey was indignant. “They win then.”

“I hadn't realized it was a competition,” Bailey's voice was bland.

Jerry's drawl added, “If we replant th' crops in that big meadow nex' Spring, we could still farm what we leave behind, provided it don't get set on fire, an' we'd still be able ta build a wall 'round that, wouldn't we? So gradually we'd come back here anyways, an' we'd come back to tend the crops in Spring anyways, so it's not like it'd be a permanent move, Harvs.”

I sighed. “Think of it as going to the winter home, Harvey. Like we're fancy rich people with a summer and winter home.”

Dougal snorted. “We'll be guests there. You know that's true, and we'll be second rate ones at that. The relatives who come to visit and stay too long. There will be fighting amongst us, mark my words.”

“Probably,” Bailey acknowledged sadly. “They have a lot of space, true, but it's still going to be cramped.” She looked around the room. “Not as cramped as if they came here. We'd lose all the lounges to make bedrooms, and probably a lot of the meeting rooms too.”

“So we'd be confined to quarters?” Dougal was almost sputtering. “We're already four to a bedroom, but it's okay because we can rotate in and out, and we have things that need doing, but if we're locked in all winter with people we don't know,” his voice trailed off.

“It's one of the things the General and the Lord have discussed,” Bailey was quiet. “They are aware of all the issues, believe me.”

“Have they factored in space for the dogs?” Roland's voice startled us. He rarely spoke when we were all hanging out, but he loved all the livestock and he'd be thinking about them as well. “The sheep and cows and pigs and chickens all serve an obvious purpose, but the dogs cannot be left behind.” His tone brooked no argument.

Bailey looked surprised, then thoughtful. “I don't know, Roland. I truly don't.”

“If they leave the dogs, I will stay behind with them.” We all stared. Roland didn't make pronouncements like that. Ever.

“Why are the dogs so special, Ro?” Miriam's voice was soft and calm.

There was a long pause while we waited for Roland to find the words. While we waited, we remembered how the dogs had been primary targets for the Q's, about how Roland and a few others gathered up the collars of the decimated dogs and had kept them neatly organized in a chest that Roland kept in his room. We had all just figured it was one of those Roland things.

But we also remembered how intensely excited Roland had been when we found a hidden litter of puppies in one of the fields, and how he'd reacted when we found another lone dog, starving and weak but healthy enough. Roland had nursed her back to health, and we were surprised she wasn't lying on his feet with us.

“Dogs know.” Roland's voice jolted us out of our reverie. “Dogs know when the Queorans are nearby. They warn us. That is why the Queorans killed them first.”

Bailey blinked, then nodded. “I hadn't realized that, Roland. Thank you. I'll ask, but I'm sure provisions will be made for the dogs as well as the livestock.” She stood, touched Roland's floppy hair, and left the room.

“So, the decision's been made for us?” Dougal sounded resigned.

“Reckon it was made a while back,” Jerry slumped. “They're jus' now decidin' t' tell us is all.”

We sat silently for a moment. Then Harvey stood up, stretched, and said, “Well, I'm gonna go sort out what I'm keeping with me and what can stay behind. If anything.” His grin was strained but he was trying. “Don't know that I trust you guys not to loot.”

There were a few raised fingers in his direction but it was obvious we were all mentally inventorying.

“This sucks,” Miriam said softly.

“War does,” I replied.