bSabre dancing with the dead Ch 24

Tokonosu, April 21 20xx

Day 10.

2100

Kat and Wolf walked over to the table where Saburo and Shinji had watched his speech from a distance.

Saburo looked at them both and spoke. "Wolf… I gather you have worked out most of the details to your plan. Care to fill us in on what you need for us to do? I expect we'll be mounting a large scale mission to the University to collect information. That much is plain to see. How do you plan on organizing this?"

He was mildly surprised when Wolf deferred to Kat and she answered him. "Pretty much got it all down now. We have the mission roughed out, determined most of the million and one things we need to find out about, and considered the manpower for both the research and the security aspect. We also figured a basic weapons requirement and thought it time to present it to you two. We`ll get the final details from the people who went there tomorrow but it`s about as ready as we can make it."

Saburo looked at Shinji and then at Wolf. He just shrugged and said "She picked up a lot of stuff way back when. Seems she held onto a lot of it too." Then he grinned. "We used to be what they call "doomers" when we were together. Anyway, she filled in some of the blanks I hadn`t thought of. So here we are… Kat, you want to lay it out for them?"

Kat nodded and handed the two soldiers a written plan, then began a briefing that fair impressed both of the military men. "The basic mission is to take a team to the university and secure the library. We anticipate as much as a week on site, the list of things we need to research is pretty long. The library crew will consist of Wolf, myself and Shizuka plus the students from Fujimi. On top of that we think a security detail of 30 people, 10 per shift, with rifles for everyone would do it. The APCs we have will carry most of us. I figure we need to get two more. If not APCs, then trucks will do. We will also need to pick up a few trailers that can be towed by either. We expect to bring back a fair amount of stuff." She paused to take a sip of water.

"We are going to hit the medical school as well but details for that are still being collected. An addition to the basic plan will deal with that if you two think it is feasible. It may be that we have to do that as a second mission. We'll know more when we see where it is located relative to the library. But from what Shizuka said, it is a top priority mission for sure."

"In addition to rifles for everyone, we will also take some of the claymores, both of the flame throwers, as well as grenades, both frag and phosphor for our GOTH perimeter defense. We will take a few crossbows for silent takedown of lone deaders. We'll need to take one of the water tankers, and food for 40 people for a week. Add in personal gear, and that pretty much guarantees we'll need at least two more APCs or trucks. The food requirements means a trip to the whole sale warehouse. We should fit at least two of the APCs with noisemakers to drag deaders away if they get to be too large a group. A way to remotely activate a set on the ground would be even better. Battery, car horn, cable and a switch will do it nicely."

Pause for another sip of water and she continued.

"The library building itself only has 4 doors. We can leave 3 of them sealed after clearing the building. Once we have cleared the library, we set up the perimeter and watches and the library crew gets to it. Silent operation will be the name of the game, as little noise as possible."

At this point Wolf stepped in and asked the two of them what they thought of the chances to get an assist from the JSDF crowd by the shipyards. Saburo thought about it, and said he`d contact their commander by radio tomorrow.

Kat continued. "OK, Phase One, prep for departure. Getting the vehicles, food and gear together.

Phase Two will be the transport to the site. If you can get the JSDF people to lend a hand it will make life easier.

Phase Three, arrival and clearing the library. Drop a noise maker, get close to the building and go silent. Turn on the noise maker. Sit for a while 'til most of them are off a ways. Entry, and clearing, securing the doors and setting up a perimeter. From what we have learned, the building is 4 floors, open concept. Supposedly the roof can be accessed from inside, so high sentries should be easy to place and have a clear field of fire.

Phase four. The library people do their thing and gather the intel. This includes packing it into the APCs or trucks.

Phase Five. Departure and return to base.

Saburo questioned her about the GOTH plan. "What is that, I don't think I've ever heard that one."

She grinned at him and explained. "I got the term from one of Wolf's Scifi novels. Your GOTH plan is for when it all goes to hell. Go.T.H. Our plan is to park the vehicles with their back ends close to the west wall. There is a small patio that runs around 3 sides of the building accessible from the 2nd floor. Tables, chairs etc, for studying in the sun. Anyway, if it all goes to hell, we fire the pre-set claymores outside the main doors by command detonation and secure the main doors as best we can, put some claymores a bit farther back in the hall and then move up to the second floor and board the vehicles by climbing down ladders or just dropping down if its not too high… so what do you think?"

Shinji grinned at Kat. ``You picked up all this from dating Wolf?"

She blushed a bit, and nodded her head. "Wolf got into survivalism a couple of years before he and I started going to out together. I sort of followed him into it. There wasn't anything paramilitary or political, no frothing at the mouth militia types, or any of that stuff you heard about once in a while in the news. It was just a dozen or so people who looked around and figured the world was in deep crap and about to fall apart. Being somewhere else and knowing how to survive in the bush seemed a good idea. We learned a lot about edible wild plants, medicinal plants, all the stuff you would need to know to homestead and lots of other things. We learned shooting, small unit tactics and operations because we figured if it did go to hell, there would be a lot of nasty people out trying to survive by stealing and killing. What was it that Neil called them?"

Wolf chuckled as he thought about it. "Neil had just finished reading the Survivalist series by a guy named Jerry Ahern. Ahern came up with a term for them. Neil picked it up from there. Mutant zombie bikers."

Kat smiled at the memory. "Yeah that was it, Mutant Zombie Bikers. Naturally we spent a fair amount of time on the range with rifles and pistols, and even did some long distance shooting. We both used to be able to hit man sized targets at up to 800 meters with that Swedish rifle. I doubt we could do it now, but 400-500 meters? No problemo. Learning about the heavy stuff like claymores, improvised explosives and the rest of it was a matter of reading and studying the US army manuals. Used to really drive my friends nuts when I sat in the cafeteria and read about setting up a mortar or how to plan defenses. Hell, I could probably lay in and fire a 60mm mortar from memory, we were that into it. We kept it all low key so the police never payed any attention to us. When we did run across them, they just figured we were into extreme camping and hunting."

Wolf added a comment about that. `` We had a couple of older guys in the group. We were pretty sure they were cops, sent to check us out. I guess they figured we were just learning for survival, not a revolution. None of us was into politics."

Kat paused and took another sip. "So now comes the part I'm not sure about. Two of my kids are willing to help with the library, but only after they see if they can rescue their parents. I'd like one mission set up to deal with that. Go to the last known locations, try to find them and bring them back if possible. The kids are ready to crew that APC themselves, it's their parents after all, but we need a driver and your OK. Or you can teach a couple of them how to drive. Either way they are gung ho to go."

Saburo looked at Shinji. "What do you think?"

Shinji thought a moment and then asked where they thought the parents were.

Kat explained "According to Takashi and Rei, those places are the East Police Station, and an elementary school near by."

Shinji thought a bit more. Finally he said that they could do it but would take 2 of the APCs instead of one, and man that one with other volunteers. He understood the need the kids had to save their parents, and figured it was worth doing. Saburo agreed as well and the mission was on. They would set it up for the following day.

He spoke to the other three. "The mission to the University is vital. Wolf and Wally have made that clear enough. We will have to move at some point and none of us have the skill sets we need to make a go of what will amount to pioneering. If your kids need to do this before they help out at the library, so be it. I'll get together with them tomorrow and see about setting it up. If all goes well we should be back before dark."