Part 13: Aftermath

Jericho - Part 11

20th of February 2078 - Evening, Jericho:

Once the group returned home, Kaidan had Heather, Jake, Eric and the former con-soldier, Maggie Mullen, to the medical centre in the settlement, to make sure they didn’t have any lasting damage. He also had Jake ask Doctor Kandel to come and see him at once, as he needed to see her. Whilst that was happening, he informed Alice, the Lau sisters and Benitez what was going on, he also told them that with Roberts, minus Heather Lau, he wanted them to set up with the Spectres defences around the dome, the mine and the entrance of the settlement. Seeing how they were their key areas. He also had Benitez inform those at the guards at the towers that Kaidan set up at the bridge as lookouts, to be ready to blow it up should they even see a hint of New Bern. As if those from New Barn were going to take that road, Kaidan wanted them to take as long as possible to get there.

As for Heather Lau, Kaidan had to create a small group that would be a go-between for the groups, sending out any help they might need. But those at the mine should be left alone, and only be asked for help if they had no other option, as their job was to keep the animals there calm when the fighting started. As if the animals won’t calm, in the small space, they could end up killing each other. And they needed to keep as many animals alive as possible so that they would have what they needed in the future.

As they left the new mayor’s office, Doctor Kandel entered the office looking worried, seeing how Jake informed her what was going on. Which made things easier, as Kaidan quickly informed her that he wanted her to create a small group of medics who were not only good at their job but fast on their feet, as they’ll be field medics for the foreseeable future until they know the battle that was coming has ended.

Now Kaidan was sitting in his office, with Anna May, Jake, Robert, Johnston, and a few others, talking about what to expect and when. Seeing how they had no idea when Phil Constantino was going to make his move. All they knew was thanks to him, everyone was worried about what was going to happen. So, all they could do was sit and wait and talk.

As they were talking about the possible actions that Constantino could take, Stanley Richmond, one of many volunteers to agree to help in the fight, came in with a young rough-looking teen no older than fifteen.

“Who’s this?” asked Kaidan, wondering if he was a refugee.

“Says that he’s from New Bern.” Stanley informed them, “Wanted to talk to you.”

“So, kid, what do you want?” asked Kaidan, wondering if he came here for refuge, or if this was something that Constantino cooked up.

Instead of answering, he took a radio out of the hold that he was carrying and turned it on before putting it onto the table. Everyone was looking at it suspiciously, wondering what was going to happen next. They didn’t need to wait for long, as Constantino came over the static, “Henry, can you hear me?”

“Yes, sir, I’m here.” the boy now known Henry informed the man as he picked up the radio and answered.

“Good, you can come home now, son, be careful.” Constantino told the boy.

And without another word, Henry was about to leave when Kaidan stopped him. “Wait a moment Henry, I would like you to take your townspeople with you. I’m a man of my word. Now that I have my people back, I want you to have your people back too.” then turning to Stanley he said, “Take him to his people and then lead them out, then give them a car so that they can return home as soon as possible.”

Stanley and the others were going to ask was this wise, but one look from Kaidan they knew that he was, he also said, “I told them that I would send them home once we have our people back, I want to show them that at least I do keep my word and don’t break them.” That was when they realized that this action had a hidden meaning to this, to show them that he wasn’t a bad person. He hoped that by doing this, they could stop whatever Constantino had planned, and fewer lives would be lost. So, Stanley did as he was told.

“Henry has left Constantino, and he is bringing home your people, just like I promised I would once I got my people home.” Kaidan said he picked up the radio and talked to the mad man.

“Good to see that you’re a man of your word Commander Kaidan.” replied Constantino.

“Unlike some.” Kaidan muttered without pushing the button on the radio, so Constantino didn’t hear him. But as he pushed the button, he asked, “So tell me, Constantino, what’s this all about? I don’t think you would do all this so that we can talk.”

“I want to let you know that we’re cleaning up the blood of the deputies off the streets that you and your men killed today,” Constantino informed them all, “but I wanted you to understand our position. When we are done with that, for payment for their deaths, we want...”

“Oh, I fully know what you want Constantino,” Kaidan interrupted the man, not wanting to hear his so-called speech, “you want some of our land, settlement, food and at least half if not all of the salt mine, right?”

“It’s good to know that you understand this, now...” Constantino said happily, more than likely believing that Kaidan was going to give it up, but he was wrong, Kaidan once again interrupted him, “I can tell you this now, fuck off, you’re not getting anything from us. Those deaths were down to you, I warned you that if you didn’t give back our people when we asked for them, what happens next would be down to you and not us.”

“Is that how you’re condoning the deaths of our people because we won’t give your people back when you demand it?” Constantino asked angrily.

“No, I’m condoning our actions because of what you really were up to,” Kaidan sneered, “we knew that you were torturing our people for information about our town. We knew that you were making motors and planning to use them. But I had hoped that if I tried to do things nicely, we wouldn’t have to force our hands. So, once again, what happened was down to you. If you let our people go when asked, none of this would have happened.”

“Not like you can talk, you’re making weapons.” Constantino blurted out angrily, not liking how Kaidan was talking to him.

“That’s true, but you forget two important things Constantino,” Kaidan said smugly, “one, we never hid the fact that we’re making weapons, in fact, we were selling them in the Black Jack Trading Post, where you and others were buying them. The second thing is this, we were never planning to use our weapons to start a war with others. That’s right, we knew that you were planning to start a war between our towns, but you had to find a way to justify your actions to the rest of your town. Unfortunately for our people, they give you that reason when they learned of your plans and tried to prevent it, but failed. You’re using this for your own agenda, to take what you want, even if it means others are hurt because of it. So, if you really want to do this, want to invade our town, and force your way in, please, try as you might. But know this, we have our own weapons, some of your mortals and skilled Spectres on our head. So, if you think you can defeat us, please try, I can tell you now, we won’t back down.”

“Oh, you think you’re so big because you have a few Spectres on your side,” Constantino said in disbelief, “let me tell you, my town too has Spectres helping us too. In fact, from what I hear, we have more than you do. So, for the sake of your people, I’m asking you to surrender.” then with that, the radio went dead. It would seem that Constantino cut the radio off.

“Damn that man,” sneered Faye, “who does he think he is to think we would give up without a fight.”

“Hasn’t the man heard the saying, quality over quantity?” asked Alice, “He might say he has more Spectres, but are they all that skilled?”

“This isn’t the Phil that I knew of, this one has become delusional to even think this would work.” Johnston said sadly, disappointed and saddened at how far his old friend had fallen.

“As they say, desperate men do desperate things.” Kaidan said with a sigh, he went on to say, “Listen, we have until sunrise at the least before Constantino makes his move. So, I want you all ready for what is to come. Heather, I want you and your sister to work on getting ammo and or support items to the people who need them. Kandel, are the Healers ready to hit the field when the time comes?”

“They are scared as suspected, but they are ready.” Doctor Kandel informed them.

“Good,” Kaidan sighed with relief, “Listen, I don’t care if the injured are ours or them, I want all of them brought back here.” Then seeing the doctor about to raise a concern about this, he went on to say, “I’m not telling you to bring the New Bern people here if they are going to fight you, but if they surrender to you then bring them in. Then once they are healed, send them to a cell with a Healer to make sure they stay that way. Once this is over, we can decide what to do with them.”

Kandel nodded at this.

“Anna May, you’ll be my runner,” explained Kaidan, “like normal, I’ll be sending you out to the different groups here with messages or orders that I might have.”

“Understood, Master.” Anna May said with a bow.

“Robert, Jake, I want you two with a small group of men at the entrance of the settlement.” Kaidan told them as he gave them their orders, “Whilst Benitez’s men are going to be outside, I want some people inside just in case Constantino’s men somehow find a way in.”

“Understood!” the two men said at once.

“Benitez, you know what to do, kill them if you need to, but if possible, capture them alive.” Kaidan informed the man, “The only person I really want dead is Constantino.”

“Wouldn’t it be better if we capture him and put him on trial, so we can show people we’re the better people?” asked Alice.

“You know better than anyone else here, that in cases like this, it’s better to cut off the head of the snake as soon as possible. With him gone, we should lose fewer lives this way.” Kaidan pointed out his reasoning, which Alice could understand, but she also didn’t want to make things harder for them later on when things are dealt with. “Would I like it to put the bastard on trial? Yes. But I don’t think he’ll go down without a fight, a fight to the death. So to save lives, it’s better to kill the one man who is the most dangerous.”

“Understood, Commander.” said Alice.

“Now, unless there’s nothing else. Get things ready as fast as possible and get some rest. By sunrise, we might be at war.” Kaidan informed them all. With none of them having anything to say, they all left to let Kaidan think and rest up for the battle to come.

o0OoO0o

It was early morning, and people were getting ready for the battle to come. They had decided to go to the town hall on the surface. Sure, it was very cold, but Kaidan wanted them to get used to this so that their bodies would be ready for when the fighting starts. Kaidan had border patrol on duty going around the key points outside the wall around the town, to check if Constantino’s men were about. But with the group being small, it was taking time and might miss something. So far Kaidan had heard no news, making him worried as to when and when Constantino was going to attack.

With no news, Kaidan decided to give his people one last talk before sending them out in the cold to their posts. Sure, the heating crystals that they have will help, but they could do so much with this type of cold.

Once he finished his speech, Kaidan watched his people leave the town hall to get to their posts. Some were talking to each other and wishing each other good luck. He saw Jake talking to Emily Sullivan about her friend Heather Lisinski, seeing how they hadn’t had the chance to talk the day before. Emily was happy that her friend was safe and sound.

But before anything else could be said between the two, there was a strange whistling sound coming closer. It was only Jake, Kaidan and Johnston who realized what the sound was, and so at once they called out, “Everybody, take cover!”

It wasn’t much time, but those who heard them were able to take cover seconds before the window exploded open. Running outside, Kaidan saw the carnage that happened, a lot of bodies all over the place. The only bright side was that they were fighters, not the innocent bystanders, they were in the settlement. But it was bad enough.

As he was calling out orders to help the injured, one of his deputies came out of the town hall and informed him, “Constantino. He’s on the radio.”

Hearing this, Kaidan ran to his office and as he picked up his radio, he yelled, “Constantino, you son of a bitch. What the hell are you doing?”

“I’m sorry for your troubles.” was all Constantino said as if it was nothing too big.

“Is this how you handle negotiations?” Kaidan asked darkly, “We’ve got a dozen or so injured people on the street here. One might not last for the next hour or so.”

“You can count that to one of the deaths that you owe us.” Constantino informed them, “I warned you what would happen if you didn’t meet our demands.”

“Warned!? Demands?!” Kaidan asked in anger, “You didn’t contact us to see what our answer was going to be. If you did, you would learn that I was willing to try and negotiate a decent deal for both sides, so that there would be no more bloodshed than necessary. But instead, you just bombed us out of nowhere.”

“I’m not calling you to negotiate as you want, but I’m calling to inform you that I want half of everything that you half.” Constantino explained to Kaidan. To Kaidan, it sounded as if this man knew things he shouldn’t. He didn’t understand it, but his gut was telling him that someone was informing Constantino about things they shouldn’t. “I know you think you’re smart and clever, but you’re not. I’m giving you an hour to surrender half of everything, the mine, the settlement and the dome and anything else you might have.

“So you know, we just used two mortars to attack you, but next time, it’ll be three.” Constantino informed Kaidan, “Try to retaliate or refuse our demands, we’ll send more. We’ll do this day and night, for however long it takes to get what we want.”

“Listen, Constantino, don’t do this.” Kaidan begged, “Let’s talk this out. We don’t want any more bloodshed over this. There’s been too much death already in the last few months, we have to keep those who’re still alive, alive. Do this, and there’s no going back.”

“Then give us what we want and there won’t be any more.” said Constantino, not backing down on this. “You have one hour, give us what we want, or we attack.” And with that, the radio went dead.

“Damn that bastard.” Kaidan said as he slimed the radio onto the table. “Okay, from what I’ve been told, it would seem that they fired those mortars from the west. So, Jake, I want you to get a small group of the Rangers and head out and look for those bastards.”

“What about me and my people?” asked Jonah Prowse, he and his people have been acting as scavengers, looting and finding whatever they can for their town. “I think we should go and help them.”

“Not right now, right now this is a scouting mission,” explained Kaidan, “having too many people will tip our hand. We need to know how many we’re dealing with before we act. This is more than like the first wave, should we have too many people out and we’re attacked by a surprise attack, we need as many people as possible here to defend the town.”

“Understood.” said Jonah, who understood this was the only option they had right now.

“Go Jake!” Kaidan yelled at the man. Once he was gone, he looked at Jonah and Robert and said, “Listen, Jonah, Robert, I know both of your backgrounds and I know you have weapons and ammunition hidden away for a rainy day. Well, today is that rainy day, so I want you to get them here as fast as possible. I’m giving you two as many trucks as you need to get them here within the next hour. If things go as bad as I fear it might, we’ll be needing as many weapons as we need.”

“Jonah, do you think this is wise?” asked one of Jonah’s men, “Those weapons are there should we decide to leave this place and set up on our own.”

“Sure, you could do that, but think about it for a minute.” Kaidan acknowledged the man’s thoughts, “Here, whilst the food and water are rationed, you still have more than others here because you’re our fighting force and so need to stay strong. But if you go and set up for yourself, with things as they are right now, your resources will only last a few months if you’re lucky. If you help us, we could have years living in peace, no need to worry about food and drink.”

“Which is why I’m happy to help where we can.” said Jonah, “There’s too much unknown danger out there, something I’m unwilling to put my people in. Other than keeping guard of the settlement, you have asked little from us. So lending you some weapons to fight isn’t a big deal. It’s the least I can offer.”

“Thanks.” said Kaidan, with Robert just nodding in agreement, not wanting to talk about his past or how he got the guns. Without another word, everyone got ready for what was to come in an hour, hoping that Jake would be able to prevent the next round of mortar attacks.

o0OoO0o

Things didn’t go as planned though, a few minutes before the next attack, Jake and his team were able to find the mortars, but they stood to watch to see how many people there were. Kaidan was worried that if they attacked without knowing the right numbers or at least an estimate, they could get hurt. If they did set off another round of mortars, it’s not like they would kill anyone. As until the mortars were dealt with, Kaidan had the attack force in the mine, the dome or in the basements.

The problem was that before they could do anything, they were attacked, it would seem that someone had warned these people. As Jake and his group made no sound or movement to alert the attackers, they were attacked and two of them were killed. It was only because of his L’Cie ability that Jake wasn’t hurt all that much. That meant that they had a snake in their town, someone who was giving the bastard Constantino information about their movement. But the problem is not having any suspects or very few people in the fighting force, there was very little he could do about this other than keeping an eye out on people when he could and relying on those, he trusted to do the same.

But with the attack on his people and after another round of mortars hitting the town, Kaidan ordered a full attack on them. He had Jake, who wanted to return and pay them back for what happened, and Jonah and his people, with a few Spectres to destroy this mortar and those with it. But he also gave them orders that should they surrender, they should capture them and bring them back, with luck, they could find out who New Bern is working with.

Thankfully, this time around, they were able to capture a truck from New Bern that was going to the next area that the mortar was meant to go. It had food and drinks for the people. Unfortunately for Kaidan, none of them were willing to surrender and so were killed.

When Constantino learned of them destroying his mortar cannon and killing his people, he wasn’t a happy puppy, no indeed. He said what was to come would be down to them, that there would be no deals, no mercy. Kaidan couldn’t believe the man said that and reminded Constantino that what happened was down to him and not him, Kaidan, or those of Jericho. All they wanted was a peaceful relationship, but he, Constantino, wanted nothing about this and had planned to take everything from Jericho by force from the beginning and lied about his plans to his people and those at Jericho.

Constantino was either delusional or he was with someone, as Constantino called him and those at Jericho liars. The last thing that Constantino said before he cut the radio off, was that they were coming and there would be no mercy. So that night, Kaidan had scouts searching the areas around the town looking for Constantino’s forces. During this time, he and Johnston Green give the people of Jericho hope. Not only that but ask for those who are over the age of sixteen and able to fight to join the battle ahead, as they needed every able body to help as they had no idea how many people Constantino had and they needed all the help that they could get.

During this time, Stanley Richmond returned with news of Constantino’s forces, it would seem as of right now, from the latest news that they were able to gather, Constantino had over three hundred people or so - no idea how many Spectres Constantino had on his side. And that’s at the camp alone, who knows how many more would be coming to their aid. They alone had only two hundred, about twenty of them were Spectres. But more were slowly coming in, but it was feared it wouldn’t be enough. The only thing that they had going for them was that they had power armour and weapons. But then again, they had no idea what Constantino was able to get his slimy hands on.

It was decided that they would make a stand at Stanley Richmond’s farm. As it was the last place before the road divides, and they would be able to take up ground faster than they could keep up with. Plus, it was the highest point in the whole area, so they would have the high ground.

So, in preparation for the war, Kaidan had a few of his men work through the freezing cold night, building defence towers, trench and other defensive structures in key areas around Stanley’s farm. He even had them build settlers too, for healing. sleep, food and weapons. As they had no idea how long this war would last for and so, Kaidan wanted things ready should it last for a long time.

Kaidan also had the dwarfs create heating crystals so that they wouldn’t have to worry about the cold too much. Sure it would be there, but Kaidan wanted to limit the cold as much as possible. He hoped that this would give them the edge in the upcoming battle, as he didn’t think that Constantino forces would have many on their side.

Now, other than these defences, Kaidan decided to use the tanks that they got with the power armour. They had the mortar rounds and seeing that they might need some extra kicking power, Kaidan believed that the tanks would help. It helped that Robert informed him that he was able to lock into a C.I.A satellite, that he could use to help them. But the only conduction he had was that no one was to find out about it, as he feared what might happen if the wrong people got their hands on the satellite. Kaidan was all too happy to keep it to himself, only those close and trusted would know about this.

So with everything sorted, all Kaidan could do was to sleep and hope for a better day when he gets up.

Unfortunately, that day never came. A few hours after the sun rose, they were ready to fight at the Richmond’s farm. At the time, people were slowly getting there, and they had a problem getting the tanks up and running. Kaidan was worried about what would happen, should Constantino’s forces come with his full forces. Would they be able to hold them off and push them back? Or would Constantino’s forces overrun them, and they would lose everything? Some wanted him far from the battle at all costs, as he was the leader of the Spectres and the Settlement, but Kaidan wasn’t one to run from a battle.