GWOT IV - Nothing New Under The Sun
Dec. 14th, 2019 10:33 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
drewkittyGWOT IV - Nothing New Under The Sun
The convoy of new draftees to the French Foreign Legion had left via charter bus for Oakland airport.
The new enlistees in the California Republic were awaiting movement orders. They would travel, like any other enlistees, to their first duty stations. If they ran away, better that we find it out now ... and that they start their ten years of breaking rocks as soon as possible.
I completed my list of errands. Release the best 90% of the guards to North Ops for reassignment. Close out all POW and UC services, releasing the support staff as applicable. Keep the administrative side of the house running, because of the three week backlog between the banging of the gavel and the approval of the trial transcript. Prepare for decommissioning inventory and transfer to San Jose State.
Then a truck I hadn't been expecting arrived with several shrinkwrapped pallets of packages in the back of a large 18 wheeler truck.
"Sir," the CA Post official stated.
When you declare your independence from the US in a tearing hurry, a lot of stuff falls between the cracks. The mail service was a great example. The CA Post was our answer to the US Post Office.
Apparently we'd traded a lot of mail in Vegas. And this was the result.
I froze, stone cold frightened.
"Get back. From. The truck. Now. Guard draw your sidearm. Master alarm tactical immediate, hush mode. Weapons emergency, loading dock. Do it now and quickly."
I motioned the CA Post official to come with me after seeing by eyeball that his clipboard did not contain anything big enough to be a large explosive.
The guard kept his sidearm out in one hand while making a phone call with the other. He then left the phone off the hook and slowly retreated out of the room. We followed.
We reconvened several hundred feet away from the logistics building. The duty supervisor and my bomb technician started working on an action plan.
Somehow, someone had signed for TWO FUCKING TONS of Untied Snakes cargo and not had a thought about whether any of it might be tempted to go 'splody on arrival.
###
No bomb robots. No bomb dogs. Only two bomb techs.
We had to unload the truck the bad ugly old hard way. By hand.
Four volunteer California Republic soldiers, who had been inmates yesterday, earned a sudden four year sentence reduction by hand unloading the truck and running the packages through a simple series of tests under the remote supervision of Sergeant-Commander Mohammed. Magnetic screening, radiation screening, X-ray, infrared, simple weighing and mass calculation. Then for those that deserved it, fiber optic camera intrusion.
Fourteen suspicious packages were identified. Six of them were addressed to me.
Of those six, three of them were inert biologicals, which is the polite term for dead cats and bags of shit. One was a hoax device, roadway flares wired to an old style mechanical alarm clock not set. Two were actual live devices, one of which had already attempted to function and failed. That's called a 'dud' except that duds can kill you, too. The other live device was on a pressure trigger. Mo detonated it on the parade ground instead of risking opening it.
Five of the other eight also contained explosives. One, addressed to "Head Doctor Alviso Prison" contained an easily disarmed bursting charge and a yellowish gray powder in a glass jar. Said powder was immediately triple bagged and given to the California Public Health Department. Anthrax.
The CA Post official looked like he wanted to stroke out by the time the process was well underway. We got him a chair, sat him down, talked him down, and someone from Collections took him in hand. The process problem would be corrected.
Most of the other care packages were addressed to dead people. Executed war criminals. Care packages from home, mostly. Documents and photos were processed as evidence and placed in archive. Edible food and cash was donated to Red Lion. The rest was slowly gone over by the Security group. A subset of the items found ended up at the Collections training academy - poison gas pens, lipstick knives, steel files concealed in the spines of books, etc.
We gave the packages addressed to Legionnaires to the French Embassy, and the packages addressed to California Republic soldiers to the addressees. A few POW packages were forwarded to where the POWs had been sent.
I still had quite a bit of mail. Angry letters from Americans, mostly, who had learned of my existence through that letter to the New York Times. I read it all and turned it over for evidence processing and archive.
In one lonely box there was a little mail internal to the California Republic. One was interdepartmental military, little more than a sealed postcard.
"Captain Echo 18. This is to inform you that a soldier who has designated you next of kin has been killed in action. Lieutenant Rebecca Rize, serving with Bear Force in an undisclosed location at an unknown date. Due to difficulties in our processing system and due to priority given to families without means of support, the standard life insurance payout cannot be processed at this time. For further information on this issue your point of contact is North Ops, Decedent Affairs, Compartmentalized, CA-2312 Mail Stop 4. Our condolences on your loss."
Well, shit.
###
Of course, this was the moment when the New York Times reporter showed up to take me up on the offer of a tour.
A little late. Everyone you wanted to talk to is dead.
So I had him sent on the typical tour and during it, sent a message to the California Republic Press Affairs office requesting permission to meet with him.
The horrified answer arrived in minutes, endorsed by the Provisional Governor's Office. Verbatim, "HELL NO!"
Oh well. We sent him on his way.
###
California's KIlling SIte - An Exclusive Tour Of Alviso 'Prison'
Reclusive warden unavailable for comment.
###
Out of all that hate mail I received, one question sticks with me.
An old man, clearly grieving for the loss of his son on the battle lines, asks me why California turned communist and why so many lives had to be lost to do it.
I can correct an error of fact.
The California Republic is, as it says on the tin, a rather aggressive republic with a popular mandate to do a handful of things: 1) stop the murders, 2) stop the dying and 3) restore ordinary life to approximately normal as soon as possible, including representative elections.
We didn't become Communist. We gave food to starving people, a trick that Communists have never been good at. We required California industries to produce to quota and paid them in an eye catching toilet paper called California War Bucks. I note that less than a year later, CA Warbucks outperformed US Bluebacks on the international currency exchanges. We put a lot of people in houses they didn't own, put them to work they weren't qualified for, and paid them mostly in promises that things would get better, plus enough food to keep belly and backbone apart. None of this was Communist. It was just desperate. And we kept good records so we can go back and fix it all later.
I have no idea what politics will look like in post American California. I also don't care.
I do know this. We had a plebescite, a popular vote with no actual power just to guide our leadership on what to do next. It asked about a hundred questions. One of them:
"Do you think the Republic of California should rejoin the United States in one year? Five years? Ten years? A hundred years?"
Forty two percent of those answering said "No, no, no, no."
"In the War, defined as the period from the destruction of San Francisco to the present, and including crime, civil disorder, Homeland and Resistance operations, and the war with America. Have you lost a loved one to the War? Have you lost a close friend? A co worker? An acquaintance?"
34%, 44%, 81%, 86%.
There's been enough death.
I can't imagine anyone willing to kill over a question as silly as the ownership of the means of production.
###
I sat on a bench in the flower garden, as I now tried to do each evening when my duties permitted. I had an implied promise to keep to Agent Knight. If I could regain the strength.
I tried to remember two faces.
The VP of HR, whom I still won't name because of distant family who live behind American lines.
And Betty's.
I couldn't.
I could only see flowers.
The convoy of new draftees to the French Foreign Legion had left via charter bus for Oakland airport.
The new enlistees in the California Republic were awaiting movement orders. They would travel, like any other enlistees, to their first duty stations. If they ran away, better that we find it out now ... and that they start their ten years of breaking rocks as soon as possible.
I completed my list of errands. Release the best 90% of the guards to North Ops for reassignment. Close out all POW and UC services, releasing the support staff as applicable. Keep the administrative side of the house running, because of the three week backlog between the banging of the gavel and the approval of the trial transcript. Prepare for decommissioning inventory and transfer to San Jose State.
Then a truck I hadn't been expecting arrived with several shrinkwrapped pallets of packages in the back of a large 18 wheeler truck.
"Sir," the CA Post official stated.
When you declare your independence from the US in a tearing hurry, a lot of stuff falls between the cracks. The mail service was a great example. The CA Post was our answer to the US Post Office.
Apparently we'd traded a lot of mail in Vegas. And this was the result.
I froze, stone cold frightened.
"Get back. From. The truck. Now. Guard draw your sidearm. Master alarm tactical immediate, hush mode. Weapons emergency, loading dock. Do it now and quickly."
I motioned the CA Post official to come with me after seeing by eyeball that his clipboard did not contain anything big enough to be a large explosive.
The guard kept his sidearm out in one hand while making a phone call with the other. He then left the phone off the hook and slowly retreated out of the room. We followed.
We reconvened several hundred feet away from the logistics building. The duty supervisor and my bomb technician started working on an action plan.
Somehow, someone had signed for TWO FUCKING TONS of Untied Snakes cargo and not had a thought about whether any of it might be tempted to go 'splody on arrival.
###
No bomb robots. No bomb dogs. Only two bomb techs.
We had to unload the truck the bad ugly old hard way. By hand.
Four volunteer California Republic soldiers, who had been inmates yesterday, earned a sudden four year sentence reduction by hand unloading the truck and running the packages through a simple series of tests under the remote supervision of Sergeant-Commander Mohammed. Magnetic screening, radiation screening, X-ray, infrared, simple weighing and mass calculation. Then for those that deserved it, fiber optic camera intrusion.
Fourteen suspicious packages were identified. Six of them were addressed to me.
Of those six, three of them were inert biologicals, which is the polite term for dead cats and bags of shit. One was a hoax device, roadway flares wired to an old style mechanical alarm clock not set. Two were actual live devices, one of which had already attempted to function and failed. That's called a 'dud' except that duds can kill you, too. The other live device was on a pressure trigger. Mo detonated it on the parade ground instead of risking opening it.
Five of the other eight also contained explosives. One, addressed to "Head Doctor Alviso Prison" contained an easily disarmed bursting charge and a yellowish gray powder in a glass jar. Said powder was immediately triple bagged and given to the California Public Health Department. Anthrax.
The CA Post official looked like he wanted to stroke out by the time the process was well underway. We got him a chair, sat him down, talked him down, and someone from Collections took him in hand. The process problem would be corrected.
Most of the other care packages were addressed to dead people. Executed war criminals. Care packages from home, mostly. Documents and photos were processed as evidence and placed in archive. Edible food and cash was donated to Red Lion. The rest was slowly gone over by the Security group. A subset of the items found ended up at the Collections training academy - poison gas pens, lipstick knives, steel files concealed in the spines of books, etc.
We gave the packages addressed to Legionnaires to the French Embassy, and the packages addressed to California Republic soldiers to the addressees. A few POW packages were forwarded to where the POWs had been sent.
I still had quite a bit of mail. Angry letters from Americans, mostly, who had learned of my existence through that letter to the New York Times. I read it all and turned it over for evidence processing and archive.
In one lonely box there was a little mail internal to the California Republic. One was interdepartmental military, little more than a sealed postcard.
"Captain Echo 18. This is to inform you that a soldier who has designated you next of kin has been killed in action. Lieutenant Rebecca Rize, serving with Bear Force in an undisclosed location at an unknown date. Due to difficulties in our processing system and due to priority given to families without means of support, the standard life insurance payout cannot be processed at this time. For further information on this issue your point of contact is North Ops, Decedent Affairs, Compartmentalized, CA-2312 Mail Stop 4. Our condolences on your loss."
Well, shit.
###
Of course, this was the moment when the New York Times reporter showed up to take me up on the offer of a tour.
A little late. Everyone you wanted to talk to is dead.
So I had him sent on the typical tour and during it, sent a message to the California Republic Press Affairs office requesting permission to meet with him.
The horrified answer arrived in minutes, endorsed by the Provisional Governor's Office. Verbatim, "HELL NO!"
Oh well. We sent him on his way.
###
California's KIlling SIte - An Exclusive Tour Of Alviso 'Prison'
Reclusive warden unavailable for comment.
###
Out of all that hate mail I received, one question sticks with me.
An old man, clearly grieving for the loss of his son on the battle lines, asks me why California turned communist and why so many lives had to be lost to do it.
I can correct an error of fact.
The California Republic is, as it says on the tin, a rather aggressive republic with a popular mandate to do a handful of things: 1) stop the murders, 2) stop the dying and 3) restore ordinary life to approximately normal as soon as possible, including representative elections.
We didn't become Communist. We gave food to starving people, a trick that Communists have never been good at. We required California industries to produce to quota and paid them in an eye catching toilet paper called California War Bucks. I note that less than a year later, CA Warbucks outperformed US Bluebacks on the international currency exchanges. We put a lot of people in houses they didn't own, put them to work they weren't qualified for, and paid them mostly in promises that things would get better, plus enough food to keep belly and backbone apart. None of this was Communist. It was just desperate. And we kept good records so we can go back and fix it all later.
I have no idea what politics will look like in post American California. I also don't care.
I do know this. We had a plebescite, a popular vote with no actual power just to guide our leadership on what to do next. It asked about a hundred questions. One of them:
"Do you think the Republic of California should rejoin the United States in one year? Five years? Ten years? A hundred years?"
Forty two percent of those answering said "No, no, no, no."
"In the War, defined as the period from the destruction of San Francisco to the present, and including crime, civil disorder, Homeland and Resistance operations, and the war with America. Have you lost a loved one to the War? Have you lost a close friend? A co worker? An acquaintance?"
34%, 44%, 81%, 86%.
There's been enough death.
I can't imagine anyone willing to kill over a question as silly as the ownership of the means of production.
###
I sat on a bench in the flower garden, as I now tried to do each evening when my duties permitted. I had an implied promise to keep to Agent Knight. If I could regain the strength.
I tried to remember two faces.
The VP of HR, whom I still won't name because of distant family who live behind American lines.
And Betty's.
I couldn't.
I could only see flowers.
